by Mike Roberts
The older man seized up, refusing to answer. He was imagining the worst now, you could see it. He was desperately looking for a way out of this situation.
“You’re some sort of fucking tough guy, huh? Is that it?” The soldier was becoming increasingly frantic. Puffing himself up for a fight. “C’mon. Touch me again. I fucking dare you.”
But the older man was gone. Keeping his eyes on the floor as he hurried away. This was the guy that Lane’s camera followed. Tracking him down the aisle, before the phone jostled and cut to black. The whole thing was less than a minute long and it made me sick to my stomach.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah.” Lane nodded. “I have tons of these. It happens all the time.”
* * *
I had started getting tired of coming home to an empty house, though. The dog didn’t count. There was something pathetic and demoralizing about having to hurry home to take Shawn’s dog around the block and pick up his shit. I complained about this one time and the dog disappeared. Shawn was just as happy to take him with her, I learned. Letting him sit in on classes. Bringing him along to lectures and workshops.
And so I got what I wanted, and I was left all alone again. But I couldn’t tell if I was better off or not. Shawn and the dog would disappear for days at a time now; coming home late at night, and sneaking in, long after I’d gone to bed. The whole thing took on the framework of an affair.
But Shawn and I had bigger problems. We found it impossible to live together. I wanted a space where I could spread out and work, but she could not seem to grant me that. Shawn, I learned, was sneaky. She was nosy. From the moment we moved in, I would find her rifling my desk or opening files on my computer. She had no compunction about leafing through the notebooks on my nightstand, demanding to know what it all meant. Shawn was convinced that I was writing about her.
“I’m writing about cows,” I said mildly.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. It’s a bad joke. It doesn’t mean anything anymore.”
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”
“Nothing. Don’t even worry about it. You wouldn’t like the book anyway.”
“How do you know? I wanna read it,” she demanded.
“It’s not fucking done!” I said, losing my patience.
These fights were always meant to escalate. Shawn and I didn’t know what to make of each other now. It felt strange to find ourselves occupying the same house, the same bed. There was a fixed feeling of claustrophobia that pervaded our apartment. We were almost never fighting about the things that we were fighting about. There was something else below the surface, always. Something curdling. Something that made us pity and resent the other person. And then one day Shawn admitted that she was feeling insecure about Danielle.
“Danielle?” I asked. “You don’t even know Danielle. What is there to possibly feel insecure about?”
“You tell me,” she said, laying it down in front of me like a devastating playing card. I couldn’t help but feel exposed.
“What are you talking about? Are you reading my texts?”
“Can you blame me?” she asked, without shame.
“Are you insane? You’re fucking spying on me!”
Shawn got teary-eyed then. “How am I supposed to feel? You won’t even let me read your book, but you send it to her a dozen fucking times!”
“Jesus Christ! Are you reading my emails, too?”
“You’re the one who leaves it open,” she said pityingly.
I could barely process what was happening here. I didn’t even know what she had on me. Shawn could’ve gone through ten years’ worth of emails, for all I knew.
“I just want to know what’s going on. I just want to understand what I’ve gotten myself into. I mean, I’m not even sure that I can trust you.”
“You can’t trust me?” I laughed.
“I never lied!” she screamed.
“I’m not having this fucking conversation,” I said, desperately trying to walk away. I was furious. But Shawn kept following me from room to room.
“You’re in love with another girl.”
“Fuck you.”
“Admit it!” Shawn seemed determined to corner me in this lie. If only I would admit that I was still in love with Danielle we could end this whole charade and walk away. But I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t even know if it was true.
“Do you know what your problem is, Shawn?” I asked, turning on her now. “It’s that you secretly want to fuck your dog.”
Well, that pretty much did it. She practically shoved me through the door. Out onto the front porch, and into the heavy insect-heat of night.
* * *
I was pretty sure that I was done with Austin then. I had tried and failed, and the world had cut me loose one more time. Except that I didn’t know where I was supposed to go instead. Danielle, for her part, seemed strangely underwhelmed, and almost disappointed, by the fact that I could not hold things together with Shawn.
“You’re not coming back here, are you?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. And I didn’t.
“Okay,” she said warily.
Danielle only liked me in a box, I thought. Miserable and alone. With a terrible girlfriend. Two thousand miles away. This was the only way she was prepared to deal with me. And so we stopped texting once again.
The only person who took any of this in stride, at all, was Lane. He couldn’t care less if I got back together with Shawn. He didn’t even remember who Danielle was. He just wanted me to stay in Texas. And the truth was, I was scared to death of rushing back into something stupid. Besides, I sort of lived here now. Austin was a place I knew. I had stopped fighting the heat and made my peace with it. My body had adjusted.
Maritza, in particular, was insistent that I stay. “Lane likes you, you know.”
“I know,” I said. “I like Lane, too.”
“No, but he really likes you. And Lane doesn’t like anybody,” she said with a smile.
“Good,” I said. “That makes me happy.”
* * *
I had come to appreciate these afternoons spent swimming with Lane and the baby. The water had a kind of spiritual effect, I thought. It was an answer, even briefly, to the incessant question of leaving. Sitting there on the scorched lawn, watching the girls pass by in their motley bikinis. Watching Bruno, the Amazing Swimming Baby, as he picked out the pretty ones and smiled at them. Freezing them, just long enough to stop, and laugh, and talk with us.
“Is there anyone else we know who has a kid?” I asked.
“Just Lauren,” Lane said, tossing it off.
“Lauren who?”
“Lauren who-do-you-think?”
“Lauren Pinkerton?”
“Not anymore. She changed her name.”
“Changed her name to what?”
“Whatever her husband’s name is,” Lane said, shrugging.
“Oh,” I said, trying to process all of this. “Right. And they have a baby now?”
“More or less. I mean, she’s definitely pregnant.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, nodding slowly. It never even occurred to me that Lane and Lauren would be in contact. But why wouldn’t they be, of course? They had a lot in common, really. “You still talk to Lauren, then?”
“Yes and no. We’re friends on Facebook,” Lane offered blithely. “Do you wanna see a picture of her?” He was already bringing it up on his phone.
“No. Not really,” I said, looking away. And I didn’t.
* * *
I had actually received an email from Lauren Pinkerton the previous Christmas. I didn’t know what to make of it, honestly. She was reaching out to me in a state of distress. I’m writing this with tears in my eyes, the first line read.
But this wasn’t really Lauren Pinkerton. This was just a piece of spam. I recognized the template immediately. The tortured syntax. The dormant Hotmail account. Even the
subject line, announcing “Very Sad News,” tipped me off to its fraudulence. I knew all of these tropes by heart. But none of that stopped me from reading it eagerly just the same.
My family and I have come here to London, United Kingdom for a short vacation. But unfortunately we have been mugged at the park near our hotel. All of our cash, credit cards, and cellular phones have been stolen from us. Luckily we have retained our passports.
We have visited the embassy and the police station, but they are not helping matters. Our return flight is leaving soon, and we are still facing many difficulties. The hotel manager says he will not allow us to check out until we can settle these bills. We are stranded here in London, UK without our finances. I am freaked out at the moment, as you can see. Please help me. Love, Lauren.
I laughed out loud the first time I read this. Speaking purely as a connoisseur of the form, this email was a thing of beauty. But reading it again left me feeling strange. And, if I’m being honest, it was this last line that gutted me. This declaration of love that made me feel something real. And, all of a sudden, I was tumbling, on the verge of tears with this image of Lauren Pinkerton reaching out to me. To me. Now. After all of it.
I was ready to drop everything and put this flight on my credit card. Part of me wanted nothing more than to simply go. We could be together now; I could save her. I had not felt this kind of tenderness toward Lauren in a very long time, and it made me feel unhinged. Where did she get off reaching out to me now, after so long, anyway? Who the fuck did she think she was? It made that other part of me want to leave her there in raining, rotting London, UK. I would write back immediately to say, swiftly and firmly, no. To say that I couldn’t. To tell her that I wouldn’t now. Enough was enough already. I wanted to tell her we were done with all of that.
But I didn’t write back anything, obviously. I didn’t have anything to say. I didn’t know a single thing about Lauren’s real life. I didn’t know where she was or who she was with. All I knew was that I couldn’t help her now. We didn’t need each other anymore. And for all I know, Lauren Pinkerton is still stuck there, somewhere in London, stranded without her finances.
CHRISTIANS IN A RAINSTORM
I had had three nondescript rides since Texas, but the last one ended badly. Something this man said or did that made me get out of his car. I wasn’t scared, exactly; I just knew that going on with him would be a bad idea. I looked around the Okie gas station parking lot where I left him, and I decided I would walk for a bit. That was hours ago.
I was stuck walking through Kansas now, unable to find another ride. I walked through counties named for cowboys into counties named for Indians, and back again. The landscape could be remarkable and endlessly repetitive, by equal turns. I had seen incredible wild animals like snakes and armadillos and foxes. And I knew the putrid smells they made when they cooked on the blacktop as roadkill. I saw a wake of vultures at work on a meal, and I crossed the road with the powerful feeling that they could overtake me if they wanted to. I had been stared at by goats, and lowed at by cows, and chased a quarter mile by a three-legged dog, laughing my head off as I ran. And though I wasn’t ready to admit it yet, I knew I wasn’t looking for a ride anymore. I was happy just to be walking, happy to have control of that.
Everything in this place seemed to slow down to meet me. Kansas was flat and featureless, and the buildings were low and spread apart so that the eye drew up to the massive sky. I began to feel this landscape wrapping itself around me as I walked. Losing track of myself in the act of purposeful movement. I felt a quiet and a calm in my brain, and I forgot that I was walking at all. Snapping to, on my feet, several miles down the road. Almost laughing. I kept walking, walking through Kansas, walking.
But as the swirling sky began to darken, I thought of night and where I might sleep. There were blisters on my heels, and prickers in my muscles. I was thinking about my back and my neck. I was painfully aware of my hips and my knees. I had been following the name of a town, blindly, for hours. Hollywood, Kansas: written on the road signs; numbers punctuated with arrows. I had already passed three different high schools whose mascot was a funnel cloud with boxing gloves. What would the dark sky look like in the moments before it started to twister? What exactly should I be waiting for, and when would my last warning come?
All at once the sky opened up. Little rocks of ice were pinging off the road like marbles. I hustled into downtown Hollywood with the crashing rain all around me. People were scattering into buildings, into cars, whatever they had. I saw a woman and child standing under the awning of a general store, and I crossed the street to join them. Smiling crazily at God’s great destruction.
“I wonder if there’s a motel around here?” I asked, after a minute. I was tired from walking and wanted a shower and a bed. “Do you know?”
“Hmm,” the Woman said, considering the whole of downtown Hollywood in a glance. “You’re on foot?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, careful not to let my voice fall into a mimic.
“Well. Nothing real close, I don’t suppose. We’re waiting on my husband with the minivan, though. Why don’t you let us give you a ride.”
“Okay,” I said. “That would be great. Thank you.”
“Where you walking from?” she asked without suspicion.
“Texas.”
“On foot from Texas,” she said, seeming to accept the idea easily. “And where to?”
“Minneapolis,” I told her. “I have a brother up there. He runs marathons.” This wasn’t strictly the truth, but I liked the way it sounded.
The Woman smiled. And when the Man came around with the minivan, he smiled, too. He shook my hand as the Woman folded up her stroller.
“Michael’s on a no-kidding pilgrimage,” she said. “Traveling on foot to see his brother.”
“No kidding,” the Man said, and we all smiled.
This repurposing of my walk as a spiritual act felt important. I liked the encouragement of these Christians. I liked their easy excitement, and we fell into a friendly chatter as they drove me to the motel.
“They’ll take care of you here, son,” the Man said. “Good rates. Clean beds. Cable TV, too, I think.”
“Good, good,” I said. “That all sounds great.”
I liked being a walker then. I didn’t want the Man and the Woman to know that I’d been hitchhiking. That sounded dangerous and unsteady, and I was afraid they wouldn’t approve. There was no reason to worry them unnecessarily. It was better just to stick to the truth of the day. I had walked more than fifteen miles, from the tip-top of Oklahoma into Kansas. I was dirty and aching and red from the sun, and that was real.
They were kind to me, too, never questioning the idea that I had been on the road for weeks. I explained away the fact of carrying next to nothing. I told them about motels and friends-along-the-way, whatever. I told them I was on my second pair of sneakers and third different ball cap. They could see I had a backpack and a sleeping bag. What more could there be?
“It’s a kind of experiment in traveling light,” I said, and they seemed to recognize the virtue in this. “It’s surprising how little you really need.”
“Jesus used to travel tremendous distances on foot,” the Woman said. “Probably when he was about your age, too.” She laughed and said that I was in good company that way. It made me think of all the great figures in the Bible making pilgrimages. Traveling hundreds and hundreds of miles on foot.
“It’s faith’s great loss, I think. The fact that these kinds of pilgrimages have been taken out of worship, I mean.”
I nodded with her, smiling. The Woman had a way of making my life suddenly sound meaningful and richly plotted. I felt compelled to offer something of my own.
“By chanting the names of the Lord / And you’ll be free,” I said, grinning like a moron. “George Harrison wrote that.”
“Well, I think that’s just wonderful,” the Woman said, turning around from the passenger seat. “A Beatle sang that,
huh? I thought they played for the other side.”
She smiled and it froze me.
“No, hon, that’s the Rolling Stones,” the Man said.
“Oh, right,” she said, and they both laughed happily. I smiled, thinking they were making fun of me now. But what did I care? I liked them both enormously. I felt safe in the back of their minivan, with their mute, happy Child. I looked at him again and couldn’t decide if he was a boy or a girl. Whenever he smiled it reminded me of both.
We pulled into the driveway of the motel, and I could practically feel the hot shower and the cold air-conditioning inside. I thanked the Man and the Woman effusively, and I tried to say goodbye. But the Woman wouldn’t hear of it.
“No, no, no, we won’t leave you yet. Just go inside and make sure they’re giving a fair rate.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s fine,” I said, not understanding this.
“No, no … Just go see,” she said. “We can always take you somewhere else.”
This was confusing, but I didn’t want to argue with her. I went inside the little glass lobby, where the manager told me that a single room for the night would cost $39.99, just like the sign out front said. I nodded and came back outside to say thank you, one last time. But the Man stopped me.
“Say, Michael. We’d like to invite you to stay at our house for the night. We could get you some dinner and it’d save you a little money for your traveling.”
“Oh, wow. Really?” I said. I never even saw it coming. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, of course, of course. C’mon. Hop back in.”
I got back into the minivan and smiled at the Child, who smiled back. These good people who wanted so badly just to help me. They wanted to make themselves of use, of service. I could almost see the appeal of a simple Christian life then. Living in a fixed place with a God, and a Mayor, and a nice red set of stop signs. Why not?
* * *
The Woman ran a bath for me, apologizing for the broken showerhead. But I didn’t care. It was the first time I’d taken a bath since I was the Child’s size, and it felt good to soak my body, so raw from walking in the weather. I lay back in the warm tub and thought about a level of trust that existed in these Christians, so off-putting and refreshing, both.