by Leyna Krow
I am trying to do better, is my point.
I am trying to keep a clean household, picking up everything that falls out of my kitchen shelves and onto my kitchen floor in a timely manner. I am trying to be a pleasant and cooperative citizen, telling Detective Wallitsch what he wants to hear. I am trying to be a conscientious consumer, buying lots of meat from my local farmers’ market.
One thing I’m not trying to do is find Barrett. I never search for him online or call Directory Assistance in cities that aren’t Detroit, Michigan or Mexico City to ask for him. I don’t even read the newspaper articles about him.
But if he were to come back of his own will and volition, well, that’s another story. I admitted this to one of the ladies from the church and she said, “No, not after what he did to those people,” like she was making the decision for me.
Sometimes, I drive east out of town toward the hills and mountains to the Kern River. Barrett used to like to go there with me. We’d park by the river and walk through the woods or just sit in the car and look at the water. When we’d do this, I’d bully him into admitting he thought something about Tulare was nice, that he thought the river was beautiful. “Okay, okay, you win,” he’d say.
Sometimes I’d bully him into admitting I was beautiful, too. “You don’t have to bully me,” he’d say. “You know I think you’re lovely.”
I don’t go to the river because I think Barrett might be hiding there. Nobody thinks that. Just because Barrett likes the river doesn’t make him a competent woodsman. Detective Wallitsch says that isn’t even one of the places his men are looking anymore.
Sometimes, Liz calls me. Our conversations start just as they would if I called her, with her saying “Hi, Irene, how are you?” and me lying and saying I’m all right. Then we talk about the man who pushes the button, and the Detroit Tigers, and songs about Detroit, and what it’s like to live in Tulare. It’s comforting to catch up on our favorite topics. That Liz calls me makes me think she takes comfort in our talks, too, and I wonder what other similarities there are between us. It has occurred to me she might have misplaced someone in her life as well. Once, to broach the subject, I asked her, “Do women from the church ever bring you lunch?” She said, “No, not anymore.”
Another time, Liz asked me if I might like a job working in a factory that makes cars. She said if I’d be willing to move to Detroit, she could help me get a job like that. The economy is improving, she said, and she knows of companies who would be hiring soon. She said if I moved to Detroit, I could stay with her for a little while until I found my own place. She assured me everything never falls out of her kitchen shelves and onto her kitchen floor. She said this last part like she meant it to be a joke, and although I didn’t find it all that funny, given the circumstances, I appreciated the sentiment.
When I told the women from the church about Liz, they said I should accept her offer. “A change of scenery will do you good,” they said. “A fresh start will do you good.”
When I first told Detective Wallitsch about Liz, he said I should not accept her offer because he didn’t want me to leave. Using me as bait is part of his strategy for catching Barrett. But then later he called and said, “You should go. We can always bring you in for the trial. If there’s ever a trial.” This made me think he doesn’t actually believe Barrett is coming back after all.
I can’t ask Barrett what he thinks about Liz, but I guess I know what he would say.
I think about Liz’s offer while I drive, while I sit by the river and look at the hills and mountains, and while I browse the butcher stalls at the farmers’ market. It’s a big decision, just to pick up and go. Sometimes I envy Barrett and his success in that capacity.
Sometimes, I think about all the buttons I push during the course of a normal day. There are buttons on my keyboard, buttons on my phone, buttons on my dashboard. A button turns on my desk lamp. I wonder if, when I push these buttons, in addition to doing the things I intend them to do (search for phone numbers, call Detroit, etc.), they also do other things. I wonder if somewhere, maybe Mexico City, some woman’s kitchen falls apart every time I turn on my lamp.
Then I wonder if maybe everything that happens to us is just the result of someone we don’t know, in some city we’ve never been to, pushing buttons. A button for the women from the church to make lunch. A button for Detective Wallitsch to visit with more questions. A button for me to call Liz and ask about people pushing buttons. A button for Barrett to become a monster.
A button for Barrett to come back. A button for everything to return to the way it was, or even better than it was. A magical, time-travel, fairy-tale, wish-upon-a-star button.
The women from the church want to know what I’m waiting for. “You’ve got a place to stay. You’ve got a chance for a good job,” they say.
I’m waiting because I’m worried about whatever it is that makes Detroit, Michigan worse than Tulare, California. I’m worried if I go, there’ll be no hills and mountains. I’m worried there’ll be no river.
I’m worried Barrett will come back while I’m gone and find a big mess. Everything from the kitchen shelves on the kitchen floor. Everything from the freezer on the kitchen floor. All of it, everything, spoiled.
May 22, 2077, Outer Space
Lieutenant Colonel Parker Timothy Olstead
It’s been eighteen hours since the space shuttle lost central power. And the backup backup fuel cell has also since cashed out. Of course it did. In hindsight, he thinks he knew it would. Maybe part of him even hoped for it. The chance to be valiant on the high seas. To go down with the ship.
No, that’s a lie. He couldn’t have wanted such a thing. He’s not the sort of man who would want such a thing. Never has been.
What he wants is love and safety and comfort. Just like every other person on Earth or beyond who is not a historical sea captain. He wants familiarity and family. To feel known. To be alive and home.
In the past, when he imagined a full system failure, he’d pictured the space shuttle getting colder and colder in the dark. He imagined his eyelashes freezing, and his fellow astronauts huddling together for warmth. But of course, when he thought about it rationally, he always knew this was not the case. Instead, the Krona Ark III has become a sauna—a tiny airtight canister filled with three moving, breathing, sweating humans. Together they create a terrible heat.
He was right about his colleagues huddling together though. In the dark, he can hear the Swedes fucking. He can’t tell if they are in their bunk or simply at the other end of the main cabin. In the dark and stagnant air, all sounds push together. He tries to remember if he noticed anything romantic between Edvard and Annika before the launch. He would like to know if they were already lovers or if the approach of death has made them so.
He grasps on to the console that contains his squid tanks and listens to the creatures moving, though he cannot see them. He considers masturbating. The Swedes are on to something here, he thinks, though it isn’t a final sexual release he wants. It’s a connection. An understanding, even brief and fleeting. He considers pulling his prized Nordic squid from its tank and holding it to his chest. But he doesn’t want to frighten the squid—doesn’t want it to know it should be frightened. So instead he stays perfectly still, breathes slow, and thinks of his own body taking shape a second time in the lab in Michigan.
Mr. Stills’
Squid
Days
Dahlia’s dream is also a memory. In the dream, Dahlia is a child, and she is at the beach. She is sitting with legs thrust out to the side, half buried in the warm sand. All around her, other kids laugh and scream, running in and out of the waves, circling and zig-zagging, all trying to get close, but not too close, to the objects of their fascination. But Dahlia stays put. Then all of a sudden—as is often the case in dreams, and in reality for children too small to determine their own fates—Dahlia is up in the air. She has been scooped up by strong arms. She is being held and carried.
&n
bsp; “You looked like you could use a ride, missy,” the man with the arms says.
In the dream, Dahlia has been waiting for this. This is the best part. This is Mr. Stills.
“Let’s get closer so you can see,” Mr. Stills says.
He is a tall man and in his arms, Dahlia feels she is very high up. It is such a different perspective than she normally has on the world. Some children would be scared by this sudden change in altitude, but not Dahlia. She looks at Mr. Stills’ curly knots of brown hair and his big smile, and feels confident that she is safe in his grasp. She breathes him in and he smells like the ocean.
Dahlia is perched up on Mr. Stills’ shoulders now—so broad, they are like bench seats for tiny Dahlia—and what she sees are men in rubber boots all up and down the shore. Some are bent over, some upright, arms outstretched. Below the men are the squid. The squid lie in wet sand, helpless. These men reach for the squid, then throw them as far as they can into the cold blue water. Their movements are smooth—like the men, all working together, are a machine. In this way, they are clearing the sand of the poor, displaced creatures. Mr. Stills explains that he and his crew will stay here as long as it takes, until all the squid are back in the bay where they belong. Dahlia looks behind her and sees the children, still running and laughing, daring each other to touch the squid. Beyond that, music, magicians, vendors selling food—fried squid bites and ink pops. It is a festival, a party, this special day once a year when the men come to throw the squid. Dahlia’s family is up there on the beach, somewhere, and she strains to see them, but can’t pick them out so she turns her attention back to the men and their work, the way they hold each squid so gently, swinging it down toward their waists then up, then letting go at just the right moment, sending it flying. A dozen squid at a time, sailing in beautiful arcs back to their home in Monterey Bay.
When Dahlia wakes, it’s the feeling of being held that lingers. Dahlia has not been held in a very long time, not since her husband, Terry, passed away more than a decade ago. Even then, Terry never held her like that. Terry was also a big man, a strong man, but he was always so cautious when picking Dahlia up. Even when he was being playful, he was cautious. Her father was the same way, and her younger brother Isaac, once he got big enough to pick her up, clumsy about it. That was always the way with any others who had ever held her: cautious or clumsy. No one was ever as cavalier, or as graceful, as Mr. Stills.
Dahlia remains in bed for a long time, replaying the dream-memory in her mind, willing her body to feel the firmness of Mr. Stills’ grip around her waist, the warmth of the sun on her face, the irritating pricks of the sand pressed into her palms. It’s only when she hears Madison rustling around in other parts of the house that Dahlia pulls on her robe and maneuvers herself out of bed and into her wheelchair.
In the kitchen, Madison sits hunched over a bowl of cereal, reading the newspaper. Her stringy, black bangs shag over her eyes. There’s a bowl and spoon set out for Dahlia too, though Madison does not bother to greet her.
“Have I ever told you about Squid Days?” Dahlia asks as she pours milk into her bowl.
Madison shakes her head without looking up from her newspaper.
“When I was a little girl, there was this wonderful festival each year on Cowell Beach. My family went every time. There was food and music and all sorts of entertainment. It’s too bad they don’t have anything like it anymore. You probably would have enjoyed it.”
“Probably not,” Madison mumbles and Dahlia is reminded how few things Madison allows herself to really enjoy.
“Regardless, it was quite the spectacle,” Dahlia says.
They eat in silence after that. The shades in the kitchen are drawn, but light still shines through and Dahlia can tell it will be a nice day. She listens for the ocean, just two blocks away, but can make out only the noise of passing traffic—a motorcycle, a city bus, the high-pitched voices of children in a pack walking past the house on their way to school. Their chattering sounds just like the children playing on the beach in her dream-memory, though those children would all be as old as Dahlia now. Dahlia thinks it would be nice to find one of those grown children and reminisce about the oddity and wonder of Squid Days. It’s been so long since she’s even thought of the event, much less spoken to someone about it. She can’t remember how long. But it would be nice to do that today, she thinks, with the images from the dream still fresh and glorious in her mind.
“I’d like to come with you to campus this morning,” Dahlia says when she’s finished her breakfast. “I want to send an e-mail to Isaac.”
Madison shakes her head. “I’ve got English then econ then I’m meeting with some people to work on a group project.”
Dahlia stares back at the younger woman. She doesn’t know what this has to do with her e-mailing Isaac.
“So you’ll be stuck in the library all day,” Madison says. “Do you want to be stuck in the library all day?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Fine. Can you be ready to leave in fifteen minutes? I don’t want to be late.”
Madison is Dahlia’s grandniece. She is nineteen years old and lives with Dahlia rent-free in exchange for helping Dahlia with tasks she can’t do herself, like driving, grocery shopping, the lifting of heavy objects, the cleaning of awkward spaces, etc. Helping Dahlia used to be Madison’s grandmother, Joanie’s, chore, but Joanie was diagnosed with type II diabetes the previous winter and is now unwell herself much of the time. When Madison is not at school, or at home with Dahlia, she is often with Joanie. And so Dahlia does not begrudge Madison her surly disposition, her near-constant bad mood. It is unfair for a young woman to have to spend so much of her free time with old women, particularly in this day and age when there are so many more exciting options for recreation.
But then, Dahlia sometimes wonders if Madison might still be angry even if she had no family obligations at all. Dahlia sometimes wonders if Madison is simply an angry person. There’s a degree to which angst is fashionable among the young. To accentuate this image, Madison dyes her hair black and wears dark make-up and dark clothes most of the time, baggy black pants cascading over black boots. When Madison was in high school, her friends looked this way, too, but now Dahlia has noticed that the handful of other girls Madison associates with have cast off their black wear for jean shorts and college t-shirts or even sundresses. Short hair seems all the rage this season, red or blond. Dahlia wonders why Madison has not made this transition with her peers.
In the car, Madison listens to a grating, guttural kind of rock music, too harsh and turned up too loud for Dahlia’s liking. Soon though Dahlia stops noticing the music. She looks out the window of the car and is swept up by the sunny beauty of the city she’s lived in all her life. The freeway and the shopping centers and the tangle of cars, buses, bicycles on seemingly every street are new, but the sky and the water and the trees are just the same. The beaches and the boardwalk and the big wooden roller coaster. Dahlia thinks again about the excitement of Squid Days and smiles to herself.
At the community college, Madison parks in the handicapped spot in front of the library and helps Dahlia up the ramp to the front door. “I’m done at three,” she says, then turns and walks quickly back down the ramp. Dahlia watches for a moment as Madison slouches across campus, head down, shoulders rounded, and wishes she could be the one to lighten the burden for her grandniece, rather than just another obligation, weighing her down, pushing her in to herself.
Dahlia likes the college library and doesn’t mind the prospect of spending her day there. The facility isn’t particularly impressive, but it is pleasant. There are windows on all sides and there’s a coffee shop at one end of the building where she can get a sandwich or a pastry without too much fuss. Also, she is not the oldest or the most disabled person to use the library. There is often a quadriplegic woman sitting near the front entrance who Dahlia nods to when she passes. And once she saw a man who had to be at least ninety hunched over a stack
of books at a study table. Dahlia doesn’t know if these people are students themselves, or, like her, relatives of students who have simply stowed them in the library for a while. Either way, she feels she’s in good company.
As she makes her way to an empty computer station, a work-study student rushes over to move the swivel chair out of the way for her. Dahlia thanks the young man, settles herself in front of the machine, and logs in to her Hotmail account. It’s just in the last few months she has learned how to use the Internet. She’s a quick typist from her days as a secretary, but she’s never been one for keeping up with technology. It was Madison who set her up with e-mail and showed her how to use Web browsers, saying, “Jesus, Dahlia, it’s 2003. You need to catch up,” and now Dahlia feels fairly comfortable with the whole arrangement, which she knows is better than a lot of people of her generation. She takes pride in that.
There isn’t much e-mail waiting for her. Just a couple of forwarded jokes from Joanie—dumb things Dahlia usually doesn’t read. She asked Madison about these joke e-mails once and Madison told her to just reply “LOL” to each one. “It means ‘laughing out loud.’ Then you don’t have to read them, but she thinks you did.” But today Dahlia doesn’t even bother with the LOLs. Instead, she writes to Isaac.
Dear Isaac,
This morning I had a dream about Squid Days and it was so vivid and beautiful, I had to tell you about it. Do you remember Squid Days? It stands out as one of the few events you, me, Mommy, and Daddy could all enjoy. Were we really so different, the four of us, that it took thousands of squid washing up on Cowell Beach to bring us together? I suppose we were. In the dream, Mr. Stills made a special trip to our beach blanket to pick me up and take me down to the water so I could see the men throwing the squid. Do you remember Mr. Stills? He was always such a kind man. You were not in the dream, but I thought you might appreciate it none-the-less.