Logorrhea

by John Klima

  After my replacement came—I forget his name, after all of these years, like I’ve forgotten a lot of things—I took her to my car. A filthy Civic. It was embarrassing, but she didn’t seem to mind the birdcages and miniature pinball games strewn on the floor of the shotgun seat. I also had a gun behind my shotgun seat—just a pistol, a nonangelic gun. The birdcages were from a man who pawned about a dozen parakeets on us. I’d bought them and set them free. I felt pretty bad for them, and no one was going to buy them.

  Oh, just move that stuff out of the way, I said, starting the car. I was more ashamed about my vehicle than my erection. The erection was a private matter, while the car was definitely public space.

  She smiled, not at me really, and rolled down the window. She was serene, undisturbed.

  I love the breeze, she said, sticking her arm out as I pulled out. The mist, too.

  The mist is pretty nice, I said. I hadn’t gotten bored of the mist yet. It was fine and soft enough that you would realize, with the right wind, that your face was wet and cool. The mist made the heat bearable.

  I drove closer to the waterfall. The land was a wasteland: no hills, no vegetation, all dust and sand and sandstone. After about a minute, she said, Turn down that road there.

  I tried and tried but couldn’t place her accent at all. I usually had an ear for those kinds of things. My father, right as I left his house to seek my fortune, had told me that I would always be wandering around the bottom of the world. Actually he shouted it as I was walking away. I think he had meant it as a curse, but I never saw him again anyway. I didn’t want to ask her about the accent, where she came from.

  But I wondered if I would find out anyway. I’d stupidly hoped that she’d abandon her brother and come with me back to my trailer for a few whiskey sours and she’d clench herself against me on my sofa, and I’d say, no, the sofa folds out, it’s a hide-a-bed. Or something along those lines. This was breaking my vow of nonintervention that I made when I met her. I know that. But I didn’t know what to expect. I figured there was a chance she wanted me, and that I could help her along the process of wanting me. I was, however, afraid of my own mouth, the bombshells that would pirouette from it.

  Her arm hanging out the window did a little dance, a little hand puppetry, and she closed her eyes.

  After she closed her eyes, I put away my seduction plan, folded it up like a map. It was a dumb plan anyway.

  The road running parallel to the border was a kind of service alley at first, filled with speed bumps, behind fast-food restaurants and hotels you’d pay for by the hour. “Hotel” was probably too kind a word. But then the sprawl stopped and the road turned dirt. Soon we were in the bona fide desert, and the border was a half mile east of us. I heard the waterfall roar, and peering into the mist, saw the silhouette of angels—or at least their bright ponchos—here and there.

  I hadn’t known about this road at all. (It has since disappeared altogether. The main road fades into pure desert now. The beginning of the service alley that I remember is now an abandoned waterpark. Once a year I go looking for the road she took, but no luck.) It was bumpy, and the Civic’s shocks were horrible. I apologized about the smoothness, or the lack of it, of the ride.

  She must have been sleeping, or meditating, or something. She opened her eyes. What did you say?

  The road is bumpy, I managed to say.

  She shrugged. I told you I had a brother, right?

  I think so, I said. A sudden spray turned the windshield to a fine mud and I turned on the wipers.

  He has a birth defect, she said. I think I failed to mention this. Just to warn you, so you don’t become alarmed or anything.

  I nodded and smiled, as if to say, No problem. Whatever. I was secretly troubled. I wished that the brother wasn’t in the picture at all, that I could take care of her car trouble with no familial witnesses. Perhaps, I reasoned, like I imagined a snake would reason, his birth defect meant that he was only a shell of a person, and could not interfere in any relationship that might develop between me and the stranded woman.

  The sun was beginning to set. We hit a pothole and, startled, she grabbed my hand. Hers was warm but mine was warmer. She pulled away and didn’t meet my gaze, even though I was offering it to her.

  At last we reached her car, which was actually a Hummer. Maybe they were drug dealers, I thought, or smugglers, although that would have been impossible, on account of the waterfall border and the angels. I pulled up next to the Hummer and we got out.

  Thank you so much, she said, sounding like she really meant it. She stretched her arms up.

  No problem, I said. Happy to help. Let me look at the engine. Can you pop the hood?

  I glanced at the interior of the car, looking for her brother. The windows of the Hummer didn’t have tinting, and I could see her brother laying across one of the backseats. I forget which backseat, as there were three in the SUV. He seemed to be made out of water. He wore dark glasses that didn’t seem to be made of water, but that was it. Water. I could see right through his body. He looked a few years younger than her. But for crying out loud—gauging such a thing was totally without value. Talk about a birth defect. I wasn’t scared of him though.

  She didn’t pop the hood like I’d asked. She just kept stretching. At first her arms, and then her legs, as if she was getting ready to sprint. I almost wanted to cry. Instead I said, Is this some kind of joke? A prank? Is your car perfectly fine or is it not?

  She then told me that I was to drive the Hummer into the waterfall.

  But I’ll die, I said. You’d die, too. If the angels don’t kill you—and they will—well, you can’t get through the waterfall. It can’t be penetrated. It just can’t.

  She then explained to me how she wouldn’t die, because she wouldn’t be in the Hummer. She would just be watching, watching out for angels who might start to get ideas and try to stop them. And then she would stop them.

  Even though she didn’t threaten me, per se, I guess I should have been a little afraid of her threatlike statements.

  But instead I laughed. I was getting angry, realizing now that she only wanted to use me. Not to fix a car, which was perfectly legitimate. But rather to drive, in suicidal fashion, in reach of the angels. I had worked myself into a lather over this? I wanted to please her, but not at such a ridiculous price.

  Stop angels, I said. Huh.

  Absolutely, she said. She stopped her stretching and walked towards me. Do you know what’s on the other side? Do you know what’s in the other country?

  No, what? I said. I was ready, at that point, to drive away, good riddance.

  People like me, she said.

  She then revealed her true face, which I really don’t want to talk about any more than I absolutely have to.

  At any rate, after her revelation, I saw her point rather clearly, and I asked what I could do to help. Anything to help. I was desperate to, and there wasn’t really any question about any previous, skeptical thought processes that I might have had regarding her and her needs.

  She hid her true face again—one glance was enough for me to become her sycophant, no need to overdo it—and then explained the rest of her plan, which I considered extremely cunning.

  My brother is the safecracker, she said, in her honeyed voice. He can turn off the waterfall, at least for a few instants. Your purpose—and it is a very noble purpose—is to collide into the waterfall and kill yourself. There’s a good chance there’ll be a spectacular explosion, which would be a nice touch. This will distract the angels just long enough for my brother and I to pass through.

  Got it, I said. And so you’ll be in the mist near the car, waiting for your brother to open up the waterfall.

  Exactly! I knew you’d understand.

  I was pleased by her words. I wanted to befriend her, now even more so, and this seemed to be the only way. I wished, naturally, that I wouldn’t have to die to curry her favor. Barring mental disorder, or some kind of severe, unbearable de
pression, who wouldn’t? But I searched the catacombs of my brain over and over, and came across only dead ends where any objections should have been. So that decided things.

  Okay, I said, I’m ready! Let’s do this.

  She threw me the keys. The wind blew her wooly shirt up a little. I could see for a second some kind of armor above her knees. At this point my desire for her wasn’t sexual at all. It was pure and altruistic. This point should be clear.

  Okay, she said. Why don’t you drive a little closer. Into the mist. I’ll walk alongside the car, so drive slowly at first.

  Great! I said. I’d never been happier. I opened the car door, stepped inside, and started the Hummer up. I began to buckle my seat belt, but that seemed absurd, considering that the point was to kill myself. Safety wasn’t coming first. Her brother—although I wasn’t sure whether it was her brother at all—was still laying behind me, totally still. He didn’t say anything, but then I saw he had an orange handkerchief covering his mouth. It was almost like the handkerchief was gagging him.

  Hey, I said behind me, taking the Hummer out of park and letting it crawl forward on Lydia’s signal. I knew her name was Lydia all of a sudden. I didn’t know the water-guy’s name; otherwise I would have used it.

  He still didn’t say anything. I wondered briefly if the handkerchief in his mouth was impeding his speech. But I was preoccupied with the driving, really.

  You’ll be able to do your thing soon enough, I told him. And then you’ll be home free. Scot free.

  The man tried to say something, but it was muffled.

  Did you say anything? Lydia asked me.

  The man’s eyes widened and he shook his head. I didn’t know why it was important to him, but I called out to her, No, you must be hearing things.

  I loved her! But the guy relaxed. He must have loved her, too, and wanted to please her; otherwise, he wouldn’t be in this position.

  I want to say, at this point, that in no way did I believe I was a sycophant. I was merely doing what I thought was in my best interest, which happened to be in her best interest. Others might consider alignment of desire some kind of flattery. But it’s not the same. Even now, I’m not sure what to think about that time in the desert with Lydia and her brother. I had a customer come in about a week ago who was an angel. I didn’t think this was at all strange. Why was that? He wanted chaw and ethanol for his truck, but he didn’t seem to have a truck. He did, however, have a sword strapped to his belt. He wasn’t wearing his poncho and seemed even taller up close. And there was no winged gun in sight. The sign on my door said BANS GUNNED ON PREMISES, but the antlered man seemed to be in the clear, since the sign didn’t say anything about edged weapons. And what was a PREMISES, anyway? A group of more than one premise? Every word, in the presence of the angel, seemed to be utterly beautiful and yet completely inadequate as a means to communicate. He blinked at me, and he paid for the chaw, and I told him that we didn’t have any ethanol-substitute fuel, we weren’t really positioned in a progressive part of the country. He appeared mildly upset. It’s for my truck, it’s broken down just outside of town, he said. I pretended he wasn’t there. Finally, he gave up on me. Have a good day! I called out to him as he left. Then I noticed that there was moss in the ice cream sandwiches case, and that I should probably clean it out after I close.

  To call the moment dreamlike would have been inaccurate. My life was normal and real—and yet I did things for reasons I didn’t understand, all the time. Especially when I was younger.

  None of this was on my mind in the desert with Lydia, though.

  After a minute she tapped my window and I stopped. The mist from the waterfall was really bad for driving, or good for hiding, depending on how you looked at it. I turned on the windshield wipers, because I wanted to see as clearly as possible when I slammed into the waterfall and killed myself.

  Look there, she said, pointing to the eastern edge of the border, in the direction of the checkpoint.

  I don’t see anything, I said. I wished I had my binoculars—for no other reason than to give them to Lydia.

  An angel is walking towards us, she said. Giving us a once-over. This is perfect. When you drive, maybe it’s better if you aim for the angel.

  It certainly seemed perfect, at that moment, and I didn’t want to delve too deeply into the workings of her well-reasoned plan, so I nodded.

  She opened the back door. Get out, she said to her brother. I went back and forth in my mind on whether the two of them had a blood relation. He held up his bound wrists, which I hadn’t seen before.

  Well, untie him, she told me. And remove the gag.

  I got out of the car and went to untie him, as I was instructed. The water-man looked at me through his glasses, and I could tell he was trying to make a decision, size me up. I tried to be as inscrutable as possible, for Lydia’s sake, as I loosened the handkerchief gagging him, and then the bands around his wrists. My hands sank into his wrists just a little bit. I recoiled. The man stood up, sliding out of the car. I stepped back. Lydia’s brother seemed almost to blend into the mist around us, so that he had a kind of halo. I noticed the angel then, and I relished the thought of driving into him, even though he had noticed our little congress.

  Ready? she asked.

  Am I? I said. That was a joke, I wanted to add. She was silent, waiting for me to begin. I wanted, I guess, a little more gratitude from her, some recognition of my sacrifice. But then I figured I was just being selfish. I was about to step back into the Hummer when I saw Lydia and the water-man turn away and start walking west toward the wall. And then the water-man jumped on Lydia’s back. It was stupid, I realized, to let his arms free. I should have known better, and felt horribly guilty. Even though Lydia gave the orders, I was to blame. I’m sure she felt utterly confident about her strength and his compliance.

  But as he was trying to strangle her, I stood there beside the car in deep thought—just what was it about her that made me so attendant to her every whim? I thought about helping her right away, I really did. She was, however, handling him rather easily. She was, after all, Lydia.

  When I was small and inchoate, a mere child, I wandered the annexed, grim factories of my youth, looking for work. I always kept my head down and sought out gross, thoughtless errands. Kind of like cleaning the grease trap. I worked in quite a few automobile factories, actually—delivering sandwiches and juices on catwalks twenty stories above the assembly lines for the snipers. Those grimy mercenaries joked about pushing me off—my bones being smelted into the workings of an Impala chassis—but I took their coins and continued on my way. In spite of the ruthless teasing, I didn’t feel powerless.

  Maybe I should have.

  Then I snapped out of my state—Lydia was in trouble! Forget my lousy childhood! I stepped out of the car and pulled out my gun. Neither of them knew I had it. I’d forgotten that I had it, that I’d slipped it into my pocket as we were leaving my car. I really had forgotten. It was from my backseat, a snub-nosed pistol, but it could still kill. I didn’t even give a warning. I aimed at the water-man’s head and fired.

  The bullet passed through him and into Lydia’s head.

  After she slumped to the ground, I realized that my life was a rabbit hole looking for a rabbit. The man made out of water looked at Lydia’s body, looked at me, and then started walking.

  Hey! I called out behind him, thinking there’d be some kind of camaraderie or bonding moment between us. I had, after all, freed him, albeit at her orders. But he kept walking.

  I looked at Lydia’s body, then the Hummer, then the man who I swore was sweating away and diminishing in the hot twilight. I didn’t want to stare at Lydia too much, just in case I accidentally uncovered her true face again. But I did see, through her soaked shirt, that her armor was mangled and shrunken. She must not have anticipated its failure. Was it the heat? Or the water? Her brother might have been concocting a scheme to free himself through their entire journey. Or, who knew, maybe it was a de
sperate, blind chance that he took—to prove, once and for all, that he wasn’t her sycophant, as I was.

  He started sprinting toward the border. The angel moving towards us had drawn his gun, and the gun’s wings unfurled.

  I kept following the water-man. Soon the mist completely enveloped us. I lost his trail, but I assumed the angel and gun following us had as well. Unable to see far, I stumbled around for quite a while, directionless. I thought about Lydia’s face—both of her faces actually—and wondered what I’d seen in them, what I’d hoped to accomplish by helping her out of a jam. I heard hissing gunshots here and there and I was afraid. The roar of the waterfall was deafening. I was afraid of getting caught in the waterfall, getting sucked down into whatever wet hell was below the earth’s barren surface.

  At some point when it was starting to get dark in earnest, I must have reached the border itself. Close enough to touch. I actually bumped into it, and quickly stepped back. I didn’t die! The waterfall was cold and squishy and felt, I don’t know, like I was touching an idea. I was pretty sure I was going to die there, that there was zero chance of home, or even my stupid pawn shop job.

  Then I felt someone stroking my hair. No one was behind me that I could see. Then it stopped. For a second—a second—the waters parted in a sliver of a crevice. There was a humming sound. On the other side, I could see strange beings, with imprecise, blurry features, sitting on a hill, intently listening to music I could not hear on account of the humming, coming from instruments I couldn’t see. The hills were shot with green so bright that my eyes were slain. But I couldn’t stop looking. It was like looking into Lydia’s actual face again, except it didn’t bother me at all. There were tall grasses and thickets, and paradise’s blackbirds soaring above them, between silver clouds—

  Then the crevice closed. It was stupid not to jump through.

  But, you know, I’m not sure that I didn’t. I mean, I walked back to my Civic. I did. The Civic was there. The angel and gun were poring over the Hummer, but paid me no mind. I was minuscule compared to the other entities at work. The watery man was nowhere to be found. I was soaked and also scared. I drove back to my trailer and drank for a few days, thinking that would fix things. No whiskey sours, though.