The Great Offshore Grounds

by Vanessa Veselka

  On Friday Essex pulled a C from the coffee can and drove the full twelve. The first part didn’t go so well. He got locked in rush-hour traffic coming back from a short fare and watched, helpless, as requests for rides stacked up. By the time he was free it was dusk and he was in the doldrums. Everyone had gotten home from work, but no one was going out yet. Then around 9:00 p.m. bartenders, strippers, dealers, and bouncers started coming in to work and that was a wave worth money because they tipped at 50 percent, so you give them your number and hope they call you for a ride home. But then you were into the night. It would move fast and you had to be sharp. Ultimately Essex did all right.

  Saturday night he pulled an A, his first and only ever. He got some grocery runs right away, cranky old people who didn’t tip and were half crazed from loneliness and social-services paperwork. Next he got a group of girls from the suburbs going into town to drink. Better to get them on the way in. On the way out they’d throw up in your cab. There was a fine for that but it wasn’t easy to get money out of someone in a blackout who was about to throw up again.

  Around 11:00 p.m. Essex hit that elusive stream of pure fortune. His cab was never empty, his fares were cash, his tips were generous, and no one was on meth or talking about their gun collection. His timing was symphonic and it became possible for a few hours to imagine handing Cheyenne the money and basking in her gratitude. But just before the bars closed the fuel pump went and his night ended. There was no extra cab for him to switch into. He’d lost the richest cut of the night and had to walk home.

  Sunday had to be his day. The dispatchers gave him a five-to-five cab but it was available by 3:00 p.m. so he had fourteen hours to work with. The shift started smoothly. He got a couple of medical runs taking boxes of blood from one hospital to another. No tips but the mileage rate was higher, and on a slow afternoon it was okay as long as you didn’t get lost in the basement maze of some hospital under construction trying to find someone to sign for a delivery. After that he swung south and worked the semirural areas before picking up a couple of pot dealers heading back into town. The night was taking on an even tempo, no big money, no long waits, just steady.

  As it got dark, work began to taper off and the gaps between rides lengthened. Essex pulled over in a movie theater parking lot, booked into the zone, then turned off the car to save gas. When it was this slow, moving made no sense. Around 10:00 p.m. he walked to the corner to get a falafel from a stand. When he came back, he saw that he had missed two rides. An idea, which would take root later, planted itself in his mind. Around midnight he picked up some bartenders going home early. At 2:00 a.m. he made the mistake of counting his money. After gas and falafel, he’d made only $150 total over what he owed for the three nights’ leases, just enough to keep the landlord off his back, nothing else.

  Now it may be possible that Essex was the least effective cabdriver who ever worked, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love it. Every night he joined the antiauthoritarians of all nations in an anthem of freedom, a kind of American work song that marked where servitude ended and possibility began. Some of his best moments were spent chatting with the Russian drivers at the taxi stands, learning to cuss in Persian, gliding over the highways at dawn doing ninety miles an hour in an ex–cop car with 350,000 miles on it while the sunlight pierced the clouds and struck the city gold.

  “It’s the greatest job in the world,” said one driver. “I quit every night and get hired again the next day.”

  Essex pulled into the garage just before 5:00 a.m. but didn’t fill his gas tank like he should have. That was $40. He parked the car without cleaning it. That was another $5. He hung his keys on the hook. Day drivers were trying to switch out fast to catch the last of the early-morning airport runs as the sky turned into a softer blue.

  “Look at them,” said the Egyptian, gesturing at the lease drivers waiting in the tunnel, “with their Scrabble tiles and their silly plans to make money tonight. What a mess. Pathetic. But,” he jabbed his finger at one driver after another, “look at them. Humans. Every one.”

  Essex thought of Cheyenne. She was the most human person he knew. The things she wanted changed so often that it seemed to others she wanted nothing at all. In this moment in time, though, her wants were simple: $500 to find Ann Radar.

  That night, Essex turned in the car but did not fill the tank. He did not drop the three nights of lease money into the slot by the office either but walked out with $443 in his pocket.

  He was going to miss driving cab.

  8 The Great American Desert

  CHEYENNE AND LIVY left in the evening, heading east through the pass. The late-spring rains had fallen as snow in the mountains, which, plowed to the shoulder, turned the road into a gray gully as they climbed. Slush froze, giving grip to the wheels. Slopes flashed white. Livy had flat-out refused to buy chains for a rental so the car skated on glassier sections of ice. She remained hyperalert. Because it only takes one trucker jacked up on crank. She reached for her thermos of coffee. It wasn’t dread but another thing entirely that had her. This was what she wanted, this trip. A way to get Cheyenne moving and see if the momentum would inspire her to go somewhere else. Not a plan so much as an instinct about how her sister worked, but now that they were in motion, all she felt was the loss of control.

  Dropping in elevation they drove through the lowland pines as the highway ran straight. It was so bright in the full moon they could have driven without headlights. Livy pulled over on the side of the road to pee; mud starred with ice crystals glinted in the moonlight beneath her, the sky was a giant bowl above. When she got back in the car, Cheyenne was eating a bag of corn nuts Livy’d stashed in the door well on her side. Livy gunned the engine as she pulled out, but it only buzzed. Watching the road over the dash, they came into high desert. Gold haze light, towns that turned out not to be towns but a gas station with an outbuilding or a closed rest area lit by state funding.

  Soon the highway rose in a steady incline as they approached the Columbia, which cut down through basalt cliffs to a man-made lake above a dam, a new body of water born under the pressure of great plans, azure in daylight and easily seen from space, spanned by a bridge, the lake’s surface rippling in wind that whistled through canyons etched with petroglyphs. Wordless in the moonlight, they crossed flooded lands, the sedge houses of the Wanapum under the current, a shelter for fish.

  Cheyenne dozed. She tried to get one leg tucked under her but kept hitting the stick shift. At least they weren’t fighting. She felt sixty. Maybe it was already too late for anything real to change.

  Thinking that, Cheyenne felt her lower back ache. Too many aspirations. She was getting her period soon so she hoped it wasn’t that. The added hormonal stress in a small car on a long drive could blow everything apart.

  * * *

  —

  When Cheyenne got her period for the first time, Kirsten had called her into her bedroom, lit candles, handed her a cup of raspberry tea, and talked about the Goddess. Cheyenne barely listened. She wanted to look like Kirsten, who she found beautiful. Cheyenne had been watching her own body and bone structure to see if it was heading that way. Though she wasn’t paying attention to Kirsten’s speech, she did remember being super proud of herself for getting her period before Livy. Then Kirsten told her about the other mother and the North Star. When Cheyenne realized she wasn’t joking, her eyes went from her mother’s face to the wall. She felt the way she had when Kirsten gave her too much cough syrup because she had misread the dosage. Kirsten reached over to touch her hand but Cheyenne yanked it back.

  “So you might not be my mom?”

  “There’s more than biology.”

  Cheyenne jumped off the bed. Confused, ashamed that she thought she might look like Kirsten when there might be nothing connecting them at all, she ran to tell Livy. And that’s when she found out Livy had been having her period for months, knew all about the
other mother and hadn’t said a thing.

  * * *

  —

  Cheyenne watched her sister in the driver’s seat. She saw that Livy’s braids had loosened, freeing the short fine black hairs around her face. She could see Livy’s breath. Her eyes wandered to the shoulder of the road. She tried to daydream to pass time, but to orchestrate a triumph you need a certain kind of story. I am an underdog. I am coming-of-age. It wasn’t the kind of story she could tell herself anymore.

  Livy unscrewed the thermos cap and took a sip of lukewarm coffee. “You can’t keep staying at my place. I can’t take the rent increase and you can’t cover it. You need to find a place of your own.”

  “Can you get me a job where you work?”

  Livy laughed. “You’d be crying by lunch.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Then you’d quit and I’d hear about it forever.”

  Livy screwed the cap back on and checked the mirror.

  Something moved outside the car window and Cheyenne bolted upright.

  “Deer!”

  Livy saw it but they were going too fast. The deer leapt. Livy glanced in the rearview and saw it standing on the center line of the highway, its mirror eyes reflecting in the taillights. Adrenaline raced in their bodies. Cheyenne started laughing. It took several minutes for Livy to realize she was going more than ninety miles an hour and slow down.

  “Do you want me to drive?” asked Cheyenne.

  “I’m good.”

  “Mom would call that an omen.”

  “Mom calls everything an omen,” said Livy. “Burnt toast. A utility bill.”

  Cheyenne turned in her seat and adopted her best imitation of Cyril. “You know, Livy, the Indians say—”

  “Oh god stop it,” said Livy. “You know, to be fair, Mom’s not any better.”

  Cheyenne shifted her bearing to match Kirsten’s, adopting the matter-of-fact tone she used for all mythological nagging. “Livy, the Indians say that the deer is a gentle guiding spirit and when it appears it’s trying to tell you something. Can you hear what it’s trying to tell you?” Cheyenne leaned into Livy’s space. “Conform to female gender norms,” she whispered. “Cover yourself in blood and strap-on antlers because you’re going to face death.”

  Livy cracked up.

  “You’ll come to understand in the fullness of time,” said Cheyenne.

  “It’s not like you aren’t just as superstitious as she is,” said Livy.

  “I’m not superstitious at all.”

  Livy pulled out the ashtray. In it was a dull half-dollar coin. Cheyenne pushed the ashtray closed.

  “You put that there. I didn’t even have to look,” said Livy.

  Cheyenne didn’t deny it. “You’ll never go to jail when you’re riding with a Kennedy,” she said. Cheyenne’s eye line shifted to the shoulder. “I think I’m getting my period,” said Cheyenne. “Remember when I ran to tell you I got my period first and found out you’d been having yours for two months.”

  “You sucker-punched me when I was brushing my teeth,” said Livy.

  “I forgot about that.”

  Cheyenne flashed on the memory, the foam of bloody toothpaste sprayed on the shower curtain, the chocolate shag rug Livy tackled her on. The elbow that would have come down on her face if Kirsten hadn’t pulled them apart.

  “You deserved to get punched in the face,” said Cheyenne.

  “You always make such a big deal out of me not telling you something personal.”

  Livy rolled the window down to air out the car. The wind blew and they couldn’t hear. Cheyenne’s hair, which was unbraided and shorter than Livy’s, became itching, stinging little snakes whipping her face.

  They were below empty on gas when they hit Spokane so Livy pulled over at a truck stop. After seeing the prices, she refused to fill the tank but decided to hit the next station up the road to see if it was cheaper. Cheyenne groaned.

  “Six cents a gallon—or whatever it is—is not going to make a difference.”

  “It does,” said Livy, “it adds up.”

  “And when you’re fifty you’ll be able to take a vacation,” said Cheyenne. “Come on. Tell me. What is it you want? I mean for real. Not what you used to want, but what you want now.”

  Livy pumped $5 of gas into the tank and said nothing. When she was done she put the nozzle back and got in the passenger seat. Cheyenne gave up and came around to get behind the wheel.

  “Drive,” said Livy.

  Cheyenne put the car in gear and accelerated. Lurching slightly, she turned onto the frontage road and was soon doing eighty.

  “I want a fishing boat,” said Livy.

  Cheyenne laughed. “That’s it? That’s what you want out of your whole life?”

  “Pretty much,” said Livy.

  “Well that’s fucking attainable. Take out a loan.”

  “Hi. I make one dollar over minimum wage. It took five years to get these skills. Invest in my future.”

  “Get someone to lie for you,” said Cheyenne.

  “I don’t want anybody to lie for me. I don’t want to owe anybody anything. It took me three years to pay off the loan I took out to get to Alaska that first time. This is the first debt-free year I’ve had since. Do you even know how much you owe me? Almost a month of rent, nearly every meal you’ve eaten, pocket change, and bus fare—you’re going to need two jobs to pay me back.”

  “There’s no way I’m working two jobs,” said Cheyenne.

  Livy’s skin tingled. “You’re the reason you’re in this stupid situation,” she said.

  “We’re all in stupid situations,” said Cheyenne.

  They came up on the exit where there was supposed to be another gas station but there wasn’t so Cheyenne continued on. Ten miles later, she saw a turnoff with a sign for Chevron and took it. She drove three miles but still no station. The car began to slow as it ran out of gas. Cheyenne coasted onto the shoulder, too tired to be enraged. There wasn’t an electric light to be seen for miles.

  “We’re going to have to hitch to the next gas station,” she said.

  “I’m not leaving the rental with our stuff in it.”

  “I’m not hitchhiking back to the interstate alone in the dark.”

  Cheyenne crawled between the seats into the back and positioned herself so the moon wasn’t on her face. “It’s freezing,” she said.

  “Our body heat will warm it up.”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “I’ll kill you if you get out,” said Livy.

  Livy took the rubber bands off her braids, letting the bands roll onto her wrists. Shaking her hair out, she finger-combed it and twisted it out of the way. She was asleep in minutes.

  Cheyenne could see her sister’s breath. She couldn’t sleep. A strong wind rattled the car. She twisted and stared at the unlit dome light. Minutes passed. If a thirty-three-year-old learns to play the violin in the forest, does it make a sound? How late is too late to throw everything at the wall? Does a desperate attempt at greatness crack open some kind of universal magic? Maybe this is what it looks like to flunk adulthood. Maybe there are no points for boldness. Maybe at this age you only get points for grace.

  She rolled onto her side and pulled her shirt up over her nose so her breath would warm her face, but it just made her skin damp so that when wind came through the invisible spaces in the car door her cheeks stung with cold. The seat belt dug into her temple. She sat up.

  She saw Livy’s eyelids flutter and knew her sister was awake. The moon was down lower and the starlight that turned the highway from jet to indigo did not penetrate the car. She and her sister were in a cave of their own. Like they were as children, sharing a bed under electric blankets. Cheyenne tugged the drawstrings of her hoodie tight, leaving only an oval around her eyes.


  “I slept with Jackson’s students,” said Cheyenne. “Like, a lot of them.”

  Livy opened her eyes. “You’re kidding,” she said.

  “Nope.”

  “Oh fuck, that’s bad, Cheyenne. What is wrong with you?”

  “I honestly don’t know. It was like I had this golden ticket out of here and into the banquet and I just tore it up.”

  “I thought you were in love with him.”

  “I was. Totally,” said Cheyenne. “That’s what made it so golden.”

  Livy sat up. “You know, I always thought you would go back to school.”

  Cheyenne scoffed. “I love how people tell you to go to college when they don’t know what else to tell you.” She looked lost for a second then grinned. “Son, I can see in your eyes you have the makings of a phlebotomist or a drug and alcohol counselor.” Her voice frayed along the midrange edge. She blew a cloud of hot breath into her hands. “The place where Jackson taught was incredible. All carved stone and spires. The library had books from the eighteenth century. The seasons were like the seasons in movies. And the weirdest part was that everyone was physically stunning too,” she said. “East Coast royalty.”

  “What do they do with the fat and ugly people?” asked Livy.

  “I don’t think they let them in. Maybe that’s the real point of the admissions interview. Sir, I can see from your application that you have terrible acne scars.”

  “Why didn’t you enroll?”

  Cheyenne laughed. “Do you know who goes to schools like that? Future prime ministers. Senators.”

  “So what? You’re smart. You have your associate degree.”

  “An associate only makes it worse. Those places want to think they’ve discovered people like us.”

  “That makes no sense,” said Livy. “The whole thing sounds gross.”