Halibut on the Moon

by David Vann

  Goodness, the most dangerous idea. That he should have been good, that’s what will make him pull the trigger.

  He wonders if she’s not coming. Too long a delay. He can’t bear the drifting. He needs her to come now. He stands because maybe that will help. “You’d better fucking come,” he says. “You owe me that.”

  The floor is wood, actual wood planks. Not some nasty carpet or plywood or concrete. He’s grateful for this at least. Uneven and painted dark blue but the real thing. Far too depressing if the end were on carpet.

  “It will be real pretty,” he says, and he likes the sound of his voice, a bit of a twang. “Real pretty.” Her blood sprayed on the walls and his on the ceiling. Bits of bone and flesh. The blood running the planks and seeping down through gaps, darkening with time. The magnum so loud, though, it won’t be much time. That door will be open again in minutes.

  He stood in her parents’ living room so many times, such a large space, carpeted, multilevel with glass sliders leading out to the pool. He imagines the glass was blasted by stray pellets. She would have been coming from the hallway, such a long and wide hallway it was kind of crazy, leading to four bedrooms and the large office that held a hundred guns in glass cases. The hallways dimly lit and the gun room with so many small lights to showcase antique pistols and hex-barreled rifles. Classic shotguns with the most beautiful carvings in their wooden stocks and even etched designs along the steel barrels. Each worth thousands, a few perhaps even more than that. A fortune in that room. Red velvet lining the glass cases, plush. And mostly a sense of weight. All guns so heavy before, the castings so thick. His .44 magnum about the heaviest pistol you can buy now, but slim and light by comparison to the dragoons. He thinks that’s what they were called. Fancy French names for some of the guns. Like old ships, so many names we no longer use.

  He wants to know which pistol she picked, and why. Rhoda has never told him. Picked carefully or without any thought at all? No one will ever know that. And what about the shotgun? Something beautiful? One particularly meaningful to him? She must have had to listen to him talk endlessly about each of those guns. You don’t put together that kind of collection without obsession.

  Rhoda’s old Datsun B210, dark green, pulls onto the gravel near the office. She’ll be asking which room. Wearing a yellow sweater and jeans, and he remembers that sweater from a photo of the two of them in Oregon, when the boat was being built, standing in front of the apartment complex. He had a beard then and hair getting longer, becoming a fisherman, dreaming of this perfect aluminum boat cutting through Alaskan waves and a life entirely free. Saying fuck you to land and cars and people, an early sign of the euphoria. A dream of escape, not understanding yet that there’s never escape while we still breathe.

  No sound of her walking. Only tennis shoes, not heels. She should have dressed differently for this. Perhaps didn’t understand the importance.

  He opens the door for her. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for coming.”

  “You don’t look too bad,” she says, stepping inside. “I thought you’d look worse. But what happened to your face?” “A few scuffles with Gary and the woods.”

  She gives him a hug, the shock of it almost too much, the feeling of warmth and her body pressed close to his, the overwhelming fullness. But her hand touches the pistol. “What’s this?”

  He reaches back to pull it free. Solid in his grip. Loaded. He could just press it now to her neck and shoot down through her and she’d be done, unstrung and collapsed instantly. “I’ll put it away.” He sets it on the chair by the window. It can keep guard by itself. Anything might happen now. She might take it and shoot him, all reversed.

  “You shouldn’t have that,” she says, and her arms are around him again. He wonders what this means.

  “I know. But I’m not willing to leave it with anyone. It’s my insurance policy. Sometimes the only way I can get through the night is knowing there’s a quick way out. Just having it available. I need that. Having no way out would be unbearable.”

  “Jim,” she says, her head pressed against his chest now. He closes his eyes. She’s holding him so tightly and this feels so perfect, he doesn’t know how he could have failed to recognize it before.

  “This is perfect,” he says.

  “Jim.”

  “Really. Just feel this. We can go back. Forget everything. Just feel this now and you know it’s true.”

  She lets go of him then and he regrets saying too much, losing her.

  “Sorry,” he says, and pulls her to him again, but she pushes away.

  “We should talk, Jim. We need to find a way for you to know that it’s over and that’s okay. Talk about how you move on from here.”

  “That’s not the talk I want.”

  “I know.”

  He feels lost standing there separate, so he sits down on the bed and then lies back, closes his eyes.

  She sits beside him. “I know you loved me,” she says. “But you didn’t really love me. And that’s why you’re going to be okay now. Remember what it felt like when we were married, when you had me completely, all to yourself, and that wasn’t what you wanted, not really. Remember the weight of that and how you felt trapped, how the months ahead were things to get through. Remember us on the boat, all those hours day and night, and Gary there, only the three of us, and how small that felt sometimes, how lonely. I know you want to believe in a dream of us, something to reach for when you’re feeling so bad, but it will help you more to remember there was nothing there. You will find love again, something that surprises you, but it won’t be with me.”

  “No,” he says, but he doesn’t know what he’s saying no to. That there will be another woman, or that it was lonely with Rhoda, or just the enormity of having to find some way through. He’s been fighting for so long he’s exhausted. He can’t keep going. “I need to be done.”

  “That never happens. You know that. We’re never done, even in the most stable life.”

  “Lie down with me.”

  She does that, to his surprise, and even puts an arm over him, which feels so much better. He tries to remember what it felt like on the boat, how it could have been empty or not enough. Narrow bed, barely holding the two of them, just behind the pilothouse. Everything below decks reserved for the fish holds and engine room. Gary’s bunk and an extra in that same room, no privacy, so they had to wait until Gary, and the deckhand if they had one, were on watch, and then they locked the door and he remembers the best sex of his life then. Something about being bucked in the waves, the constant movement, and the short, stolen time they had. He remembers her legs, so thin, and wanting her in his mouth, and remembers having to hold the bunk above to not be thrown.

  When they slept, also, he felt so close to her. She was always right on top of him then. Like sleepwalkers having to rise every couple hours for the next watch, falling again so quickly, four or five times a day. An odd existence.

  “I don’t remember that it wasn’t enough. On the boat. I don’t remember small or lonely.”

  “You had times at the helm you just wanted to be alone. Didn’t want to talk with me.”

  He tries to remember that, hundreds of hours staring at the high bow pitching through seas, remembers being concentrated and often grim and worrying about the boat, always some fear of hitting a log or the engine breaking down or the longline getting snagged, as it finally did, crumpling the drum and ending their chances, but he doesn’t remember not wanting to talk with her.

  “Did that really happen?” he asks.

  “Yes. It really did.”

  “I guess I wasn’t there. I missed it somehow. It’s not in my memories.”

  She puts a leg over him and scoots closer, her head on his shoulder. He has both arms around her now, and this is all he wants. How could it ever not have been enough?

  Shitty little motel room and yet here’s where he could be happy. Just freeze this moment and keep it.

  Damp smell of her hair, l
ike the smell of a horse. Her forehead with the adult version of acne, just a bumpiness. She’s not really beautiful, and he’s always known that, but he’s drawn to her anyway. Kisses her forehead now and pulls her closer in his arms.

  She seems responsive. He kisses lower, straining to reach her cheek, and she tilts her face up and offers her mouth, exactly as he would have hoped. This moment of willingness is what every man wants. Thin lips but he doesn’t care, feels only grateful.

  Love. As close as he’s ever been, so it must be what love is. A tenderness, one hand cradling the back of her head, and he’s moaning, and instantly hard. And he can’t pull her close enough to his chest. But what if it has never been love at all? What if he has missed something basic? How would he ever know? If he’s never loved, he won’t know that.

  What makes it seem not like love is the fact that he’s watching, still thinking about what’s happening. He’s still aware, also, that he would not give everything for her, no feeling of full sacrifice, no perfect selflessness. He loves her only because he wants. If she doesn’t give him sex right now, he will be unhappy, disappointed, angry, and will not feel love at all. And if some more beautiful woman came along, or even just someone available at the right moment, he would not be faithful.

  There was a time with her early on, in the first year or two, when other women disappeared and he would not have wanted anyone else. That did happen. And why couldn’t that remain? It would have made things so much simpler.

  They’re pulling at each other. Sex a kind of wrestling match with an imagined urgency, though no clock is running. He has a hand on her ass, and she reaches down for his dick. All the mechanics of it working and happening. He didn’t think she would be willing. He feels confused and lost, then he worries that will kill his boner, but her hand is keeping it up anyway, and then her mouth, and he doesn’t know why she’s doing so much, why she’s decided to give to him. None of it makes sense. She’s with a new man and wants to marry him.

  Jim can feel his dick going soft in her mouth. He’s losing it. “Fucking thoughts,” he says. “Why can’t I get my head to shut up?”

  She stops and comes back up to kiss him on the cheek. “I’m sorry, Jim.”

  “I want it so bad,” he says. “I’ve wanted to be with you. But I can’t stop my head. It just always goes.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Jim has this long exhale, a kind of sigh and shaking, and then he’s crying. Eyes turned to soup suddenly and chest heaving, and he feels like he’s drowning, has to get up and go to the bathroom to blow his nose and hawk up all the phlegm in his throat. What a fucking mess.

  She wraps her arms around him from behind, pressed all along his back, and he closes his eyes and stands there like that, arms hanging and held by her, and everything feels impossible. Sobbing out of control now, and no idea why, or which reason. Pick one of the dozen. Who cares.

  “I’m not going to make it,” he says, and that makes him cry harder, the self-pity, and when he tries to hold it back he makes some kind of sound too high-pitched, embarrassing. “Squealing like a fucking pig,” he says.

  “No, Jim,” she says. “You’re okay. I’m here now, and you’re going to be okay.”

  “Here now but not tomorrow. With Rich tomorrow.”

  “Shh.”

  To be held by her again, after so long. Her thin arms around him, and all the rest blocked from view. Only his own body to look at in the mirror, the way he finishes this life, splotchy red but generally so white from Alaska, no sun, no regular exercise, slumped at the middle and his chest dripping into boobs and his arms too thin. Hair receding and Adam’s apple sticking out and lines around his eyes, almost forty but looking like fifty. Despair and depression aging more quickly. He always looked young for his age but not now. An old man at thirty-nine.

  His dick small and thin and sad, refusing, receding also. Lost in light brown hair. Curly everywhere, all over his body, so much hair on his forearms and chest, everything about his body so disgusting. He shouldn’t have to look at it. No one should ever have to. And to be fair, she wouldn’t look good in this mirror either. Harsh florescent light. Difficult to believe we can ever feel desire. Blindest impulse possible.

  What’s strange is that he’s still crying but he’s also thinking and watching at the same time and feeling nothing. Someone else’s body crying, far away. There are two Jims, and the one not crying, the one feeling nothing, is the one to watch out for, but there’s no way to reach him. He’s never there. He just controls everything and makes everything seem fake.

  19

  He doesn’t want her to leave, but she does. He stands naked at the window and watches her go, the pistol beside him unused. He was so certain he would use it.

  Shooting her in the left tit while she knelt on the bed. Something like that. And then either putting the barrel to his own head or walking quickly to the pickup to go home to his family, to take them with him, and maybe not only Gary and his parents but maybe also Elizabeth and the kids. That was the decision he was facing. But now there is no beginning. He’s left by himself and will never see her again. An end and no beginning.

  And he didn’t fuck her either. Limp-dick Jim, his new name in this western. Come to town to change nothing and fuck no one and never fire a shot.

  He picks up the pistol, feels the cold weight, then tosses it on the bed, where it bounces and lands again. A bit of comedy, the bouncing gun. Here to play.

  The heater’s not on, and he’s naked, so he gets under the covers to warm up. The possibility of shooting her on this bed still exists. Something in him can’t catch up to the fact that the opportunity has already passed. This is true generally of his mind. It has lagged, and this is the clearest sign that he doesn’t believe the world is real. According to his mind, what happens is only one version.

  He still has this feeling that if he could say no in the right way the world would stop. Birds stuck in the sky, water no longer falling. Some refusal of our utter lack of control over our lives.

  He would walk out naked and be the only movement. He would climb into the air if he felt like it, step by step, or sit on the lake or sink into solid ground. He would reshape mountains with one finger and knock stars out of the sky at night just by breathing. He would refuse to go back to Fairbanks and his small round brown folding card table. Because that is where he’s headed now. If there’s no shooting of Rhoda, and because of that no shooting of anyone else, then he’s going back to Alaska and there’s only one place to sit. Didn’t get around to shopping for more furniture, and look at the effect that will have now.

  He smiles at the thought of it. Such a stupid joke, his life.

  So exhausted. Rough feel of the cheap sheets, mildew smell of the old motel, pillow too firm, but somehow he sleeps, mercifully, wakes and it is dark outside. The disorientation of any afternoon nap, waking into an end, the feeling of having lost something. But calmer now with the rest, not feeling as desperate.

  He has a boner and has to pee. Tries jacking off, but he can’t think of anything in particular and doesn’t have any porn and gives up. He wonders whether he will have sex again before he dies. Most likely not. Taken out of the game.

  He flicks on the overhead light, which is harsh. Pees and then still feels so groggy from the nap he lies down and falls asleep. Wakes cold, not under the covers, and goes for a hot shower, which is not hot and has almost no pressure, towels off with something about as soft as razor wire, and lies down again.

  “Time to go,” he says, but he feels comatose and cannot motivate, so he sleeps yet again, and now it must be well and truly the middle of the night. There’s no clock in here, but he grabs his watch from his bag and sees almost 1:00 a.m. “Nice one,” he says. He won’t be able to sleep now. He’ll be awake all through the night, and what will he do?

  He’s starving, so he pulls on Gary’s oversized shirt and jeans, like a child playing grown-up. Gary’s boots too big also. He steps outside and wishes he had a j
acket. Cold now. No one around, no lights on except at the motel office, where he drops his room key in the slot.

  The pickup starts reluctantly, shivers to life, and Jim pulls onto the road its only traveler. Slow curves along the lake, the water black, a deeper black than the sky. Patches of tules grown larger in headlights, straining upward and falling to the side, dull green. A car passes, going the other way, leaving town so late. Must be some story there. No one’s awake at night in a small place without a story.

  Throaty sound of the pickup at low revs, just easing along. Houses along the water all single story and old. More chain-link fences, new. Catalog of a place he should know well, but it comes together into nothing. Only the lake itself might be something.

  He wonders whether the diner might be open. Wouldn’t be Donna or Jim on the night shift. Must be a McDonald’s, also, somewhere in town. In the past it was A&W they always went to, the drive-in, but that wasn’t twenty-four hours. Nothing was open in the middle of the night, not even a gas station. If you didn’t sleep at the same time as everyone else you were out of luck.

  The darkness is impressive. Moon setting early these days, no stars, overcast black night and the lake refusing to reflect anything, only absorbing what little light there is from thinly spaced street lamps. Dead zones between the lamps, places you could stand invisible. And so little from any houses, only an occasional porch light, and no businesses along here.

  He rolls down his window to listen, but it’s only his tires and a different tone from the engine. The tires a particularly lonely sound, and he wonders why that is. How does our mind make things like that happen?

  What if he could start his mind over right now, just reenter the world and forget he has any problems and just have a normal night and day? Why is that so hard? Everyone else seems fine.