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Authors: Steven Heighton
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seemed to be kneeling close to Justin’s mouth. The man was an orderly, he said, on the way to the hospital to start his shift on the maternity ward. It was almost five a.m. He would flag down the first car he saw, he said, and get somebody tophone the police, or he would find a payphone, or call from the hospital if all else failed. That would be ten minutes from now. He would run. The odd, adenoidal voice trailed off, and soft steps—rubber-soled, Justin guessed—jogged away into the night.
Justin left his head against the cool of the metal, his mouth as near as possible to the crack from which that one clean breath of air had seemed to seep. As another draft reached him, tears surged into his eyes with a wide-angle shot of great vapourless skies and fenceless emerald meadows … like a tourist still of the prairies, although he could smell the fields. There would be air enough, at least. The police would come soon.
Surely, whatever happened, they would live differently now.
A car was nearing slowly. It cruised past. Perhaps the police, searching for the Volvo they had been told to look for. But the car didn’t double back. Another passed, then another. The sparse traffic of early dawn. It was 5:12. In the eerie light of his watch, her sleeping face was peaceful except for the abiding crease between her eyes. Now she was nestled hard against him in the cold, his arm tight around her, his hand splayed wide on her back to cover as much of her as he could. Were old married couples ever buried in the same coffin? he wondered. He had never heard of it, but surely it happened. Or was there some law against it? Another half-hour passed and the little pre-dawn rush hour seemed to end. Why was he not mystified, or at least puzzled, by thislatest lack of help, or by its slowness? He felt just numb. There was never any telling. Now and then other cars came from the west or from the east, but none slowed or stopped. Real help would come eventually, of course—the sidewalks would soon be thronged. Another hour or two. Three at most. What was another hour or two in a lifetime together?
——
A curious thing he noticed in the years after: in company, he and Janna would often discuss that night, either collaborating to broach the story on some apt conversational cue (which they would both recognize without having to exchange a glance), or readily indulging a request from guests, or hosts, to hear it for the first time, or yet again. And even when passing through a troubled spell in their marriage, they would speak of each other’s actions that night only in proud, approving ways. Janna with her granite will, he would say, had faced a claustrophobic’s worst nightmare and remained the more rational of them throughout. She’d probably have got us out of there hours earlier if I’d just listened . Justin, she would insist, had been competent and forceful the way she had always wanted him to be and had kept her from totally “losing it.” Justin would then profess chagrin at how he himself had lost it, screaming at their potential saviour, though in fact he was partial to the memory of that recklessly manly tantrum—and on Janna’s face, as she watched him replay the scene, asuspended half-smile would appear, a look of fond exasperation. But when the story was done and they left to drive home, or their guests did, a silence would settle between them—not a cold or embarrassed silence, but a pensive, accepting one—and they would say nothing more of that night or its latest rendition. When they were alone together, in fact, they never spoke a word of it.
[ OUTTRIP ]
Late afternoon, your third day in the desert, the Fisher catches up with you. You’re not sure why he’s called the Fisher and you’ve never had the balls to ask him. According to one story, he got the alias a few years ago, back home, after the period when a number of cats and small dogs turned up dead and mutilated, and for a while people in the Heights
Justin left his head against the cool of the metal, his mouth as near as possible to the crack from which that one clean breath of air had seemed to seep. As another draft reached him, tears surged into his eyes with a wide-angle shot of great vapourless skies and fenceless emerald meadows … like a tourist still of the prairies, although he could smell the fields. There would be air enough, at least. The police would come soon.
Surely, whatever happened, they would live differently now.
A car was nearing slowly. It cruised past. Perhaps the police, searching for the Volvo they had been told to look for. But the car didn’t double back. Another passed, then another. The sparse traffic of early dawn. It was 5:12. In the eerie light of his watch, her sleeping face was peaceful except for the abiding crease between her eyes. Now she was nestled hard against him in the cold, his arm tight around her, his hand splayed wide on her back to cover as much of her as he could. Were old married couples ever buried in the same coffin? he wondered. He had never heard of it, but surely it happened. Or was there some law against it? Another half-hour passed and the little pre-dawn rush hour seemed to end. Why was he not mystified, or at least puzzled, by thislatest lack of help, or by its slowness? He felt just numb. There was never any telling. Now and then other cars came from the west or from the east, but none slowed or stopped. Real help would come eventually, of course—the sidewalks would soon be thronged. Another hour or two. Three at most. What was another hour or two in a lifetime together?
——
A curious thing he noticed in the years after: in company, he and Janna would often discuss that night, either collaborating to broach the story on some apt conversational cue (which they would both recognize without having to exchange a glance), or readily indulging a request from guests, or hosts, to hear it for the first time, or yet again. And even when passing through a troubled spell in their marriage, they would speak of each other’s actions that night only in proud, approving ways. Janna with her granite will, he would say, had faced a claustrophobic’s worst nightmare and remained the more rational of them throughout. She’d probably have got us out of there hours earlier if I’d just listened . Justin, she would insist, had been competent and forceful the way she had always wanted him to be and had kept her from totally “losing it.” Justin would then profess chagrin at how he himself had lost it, screaming at their potential saviour, though in fact he was partial to the memory of that recklessly manly tantrum—and on Janna’s face, as she watched him replay the scene, asuspended half-smile would appear, a look of fond exasperation. But when the story was done and they left to drive home, or their guests did, a silence would settle between them—not a cold or embarrassed silence, but a pensive, accepting one—and they would say nothing more of that night or its latest rendition. When they were alone together, in fact, they never spoke a word of it.
[ OUTTRIP ]
Late afternoon, your third day in the desert, the Fisher catches up with you. You’re not sure why he’s called the Fisher and you’ve never had the balls to ask him. According to one story, he got the alias a few years ago, back home, after the period when a number of cats and small dogs turned up dead and mutilated, and for a while people in the Heights
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