Ellis began working for him. ‘You’ve got a lot of people hurling themselves around in machines weighing two tons plus, under the regulation of laws that the people driving these machines understand only poorly. And they’re going to be making mistakes anyway because of limited attention spans, flawed perceptions, psychopharmaceutical use, poor decisions, haste and et cetera. So you really have to expect that from time to time someone will crash into someone else, and someone will be hurt. Which doesn’t stop anyone from suing anyone else for their errors.’
Ellis bought a map at a gas station, and with the map and his phone lying on the passenger seat he drove to the interstate and joined the westward flow. The broken white line flickered beside him, the odometer wheels rolled, the sun moved down.
Boggs had claimed that the accidents didn’t shock him. What shocked him was that there weren’t more. He said, ‘The ability to drive on a road with thousands of others and probably survive the experience gives me a little faith in the humanity of humanity.’
Ellis phoned Heather. He’d begun to doubt himself, he told her. Even if he found Boggs, what could he say?
‘Tell him that he’s –’ She stopped. ‘A friend. Tell him that he’s loved.’
‘He’ll laugh. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t kill me.’
‘You’ll know what to say. You’ll think of it.’ But her voice was uncertain.
He passed a series of middle-size cities with big box stores by the interstate exits, then ramped off the interstate and passed white-clad homes and the dark vertical lines of telephone poles and reaching trees, the lowering sun flickering yellow in the leaves. He travelled north, slowing in the limits of little towns with a block or two of storefronts. Pizzeria. Barbershop. Bar. Pharmacy. Bank. Auto body shop. Between towns, small ranch houses squatted over flat, aggressively green lawns. He passed a bar with a painted sign, ‘The Cloverleaf Lounge’ – a vinyl-sided structure with a couple of high, small windows and a sagging banner: ‘Bud Light $1.50’. He came down a gradual hill to an intersection where, off to the side, a swathe of raw earth lay levelled and heaped beside two enormous yellow machines. Ellis waited under a green light for a semi to clear the opposite lane, then turned left toward the lake.
He travelled a couple more miles before it struck him that he had been in that intersection before. With Boggs. They had done an accident-scene inspection there – an old motel had stood on the ground now scraped down by the yellow machines. The neon had been gone from the motel sign, its lawn had been untended and overgrown, but a handful of cars had stood in front of the rooms and a shirtless man had been loitering in the parking lot, scratching his thighs while Ellis and Boggs dodged in and out of the intersection with measuring tapes and cameras. Three years ago? More or less.
A sign pointed at the park entrance.
Narrow, high-crowned roads led to three different camping areas, and Ellis drove through the loops of each, past RVs, SUVs, pop-up campers, pup tents, fire pits, tiki torches, lawn chairs, and a few couples, children, solitary men. None were Boggs, and none of the vehicles were Boggs’s convertible. He phoned Heather to be sure that he had come to the right place, to see if she had any ideas, and she directed him back to the most remote of the camping areas. He circled through it twice more. Then he drove by the others again, then turned at the sign for the boat ramp, followed a short road to the water, and found the area empty. He parked and walked down to the wavelets lapping and rattling small round stones. Above him, forest loomed and reached toward the water and the spectacle of the setting sun. Haphazard on the beach lay pale rounded driftwood, beer bottles, a tyre. Seagulls rose and fell. To the south a man and a couple of children were prancing at the water’s edge. In the other
Ellis bought a map at a gas station, and with the map and his phone lying on the passenger seat he drove to the interstate and joined the westward flow. The broken white line flickered beside him, the odometer wheels rolled, the sun moved down.
Boggs had claimed that the accidents didn’t shock him. What shocked him was that there weren’t more. He said, ‘The ability to drive on a road with thousands of others and probably survive the experience gives me a little faith in the humanity of humanity.’
Ellis phoned Heather. He’d begun to doubt himself, he told her. Even if he found Boggs, what could he say?
‘Tell him that he’s –’ She stopped. ‘A friend. Tell him that he’s loved.’
‘He’ll laugh. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t kill me.’
‘You’ll know what to say. You’ll think of it.’ But her voice was uncertain.
He passed a series of middle-size cities with big box stores by the interstate exits, then ramped off the interstate and passed white-clad homes and the dark vertical lines of telephone poles and reaching trees, the lowering sun flickering yellow in the leaves. He travelled north, slowing in the limits of little towns with a block or two of storefronts. Pizzeria. Barbershop. Bar. Pharmacy. Bank. Auto body shop. Between towns, small ranch houses squatted over flat, aggressively green lawns. He passed a bar with a painted sign, ‘The Cloverleaf Lounge’ – a vinyl-sided structure with a couple of high, small windows and a sagging banner: ‘Bud Light $1.50’. He came down a gradual hill to an intersection where, off to the side, a swathe of raw earth lay levelled and heaped beside two enormous yellow machines. Ellis waited under a green light for a semi to clear the opposite lane, then turned left toward the lake.
He travelled a couple more miles before it struck him that he had been in that intersection before. With Boggs. They had done an accident-scene inspection there – an old motel had stood on the ground now scraped down by the yellow machines. The neon had been gone from the motel sign, its lawn had been untended and overgrown, but a handful of cars had stood in front of the rooms and a shirtless man had been loitering in the parking lot, scratching his thighs while Ellis and Boggs dodged in and out of the intersection with measuring tapes and cameras. Three years ago? More or less.
A sign pointed at the park entrance.
Narrow, high-crowned roads led to three different camping areas, and Ellis drove through the loops of each, past RVs, SUVs, pop-up campers, pup tents, fire pits, tiki torches, lawn chairs, and a few couples, children, solitary men. None were Boggs, and none of the vehicles were Boggs’s convertible. He phoned Heather to be sure that he had come to the right place, to see if she had any ideas, and she directed him back to the most remote of the camping areas. He circled through it twice more. Then he drove by the others again, then turned at the sign for the boat ramp, followed a short road to the water, and found the area empty. He parked and walked down to the wavelets lapping and rattling small round stones. Above him, forest loomed and reached toward the water and the spectacle of the setting sun. Haphazard on the beach lay pale rounded driftwood, beer bottles, a tyre. Seagulls rose and fell. To the south a man and a couple of children were prancing at the water’s edge. In the other
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