“Close that goddamn window.”
I open it wider.
“I said close that goddamn window.”
“Why don’t you just drop me off and then you can close the window to your heart’s delight.”
“What was that?”
“I said, why don’t you just drop me off.”
“Why? So you can go back to your rich friends?”
“it’s better than being with a drunk cripple.”
Eddie slams on the brake, nearly taking off my head. I don’t know why I said that. I should not have said that. Not after drink number nine. Before I know it, he is on my side of the truck, opening the door and dragging me out. I am mustering all my courage, plotting my getaway and how far it is to the next town and if I can walk it. He grabs me by the hair and finally I don’t care anymore if I die of starvation on the red rocks of Mars. I am done with this date.
I kick him hard in the shin and start to run into the darkness, away from the headlights. He buckles over and then gives chase, limping and running, taller than me, faster. it’s black out and craggy and next thing I know, he’s coming up behind me. He grabs me by the hair and slams me to the ground.
By this point I am just kicking and clawing and scratching and kicking again, wishing I had just kept quiet, wishing I had just stayed back in Jackson, wishing Glenda would show up in a bubble, wave her magic wand and make all of this, all of this, go away.
Eddie pushes me down and pins me to the ground. I struggle and wrestle and try to squirm free, flailing my arms against him, anything. He grabs one wrist and then the other, pinning my arms above my head with one hand. I keep bucking, trying to get out from underneath him, anything, anything. I see him go for his belt buckle and start bucking harder, anything, please, anything.
He’s not even making noises now. And neither am I. Not like they do in the movies. Not like screaming and calling names. I’m just breathing hard and bucking and breathing harder. He’s straddling me but before I know it he’s got his knees between my knees. I thrash my body from side to side. He looks down at me, amused, like he’s getting off at my last-ditch effort to save myself from seeing him every night before dreaming. He shoves my legs apart with his knees.
But I’m not here anymore. I am long gone. I am back in the Motel 6 outside Devil’s Slide playing the category game with Clement. Things you can find in a hardware store. A. Ajax. B. Buzzsaw. C. Crate. D. Dustmop.
I feel a sharp pain beneath my stomach.
E. Electrical tape. F. Flooring. G. Grout.
I feel his breath on my cheek, cigarettes and whiskey, sweat.
H. Hardware. I. Insulation. J. Jack-knife.
He’s breathing hard now. His shoulder moving up and down against the night sky.
J. Jack-knife. K. Krazy Glue. L. Lumber.
He’s breathing harder.
M. Metal. N. Nails. O. Oil can.
The corner of his shoulder darting up and down. The stars swirling above.
P. Paint. Q. Q. Q.
Now’s the worst part. Q.
The worst. Skip.
Skip Q.
R.
R. Rope.
Razor.
He’s done now.
Razor.
Ratchet.
Done.
He rolls off me and onto his back. He lays beside me breathing hard, staring up at the moon, waning.
S.
Soap.
THREE
TWENTY–EIGHT
Did you know that God lives in Utah?
God made Utah and the Mormons came and snatched it up and called it their own. And now no one knows that God lives in Utah because no one wants to be around a bunch of Mormons.
And I’m not talking about the kind of God who’s got dimples and a white beard, like Santa Claus dressed up in a robe. I’m talking about the kind of God who makes rain and moves mountains and lives in the mist. I’m talking about the kind of God who wakes you up at daybreak and says, Looky here what I made three-hundred-sixty-five days out the year.
They got buttes here with horizontal stripes on them going red, pink, beige, amber and then red again. They got rocks shaped like robot giants, with the same stripes, red, pink, beige, amber, standing off in the distance, watching you down the road. They got a blue-sky backdrop with no clouds for miles and a cactus thrown out in front.
They got mist hanging off the top of the buttes, mysterious and eternal, telling you it doesn’t matter what happened to you last night, or the night before that or forever back and forever forward, because God exists in red rocks and he lives in Utah.
TWENTY–NINE
I wake up later in a four-poster bed, in a wooden cabin, in a place called Beaumont Kluck’s Cabin Retreat. There’s nobody in the room with me and I figure out my whereabouts by three pamphlets on the bedside table. The first is a comprehensive guide called “Beaumont Kluck’s Cabin Retreat: Don’t Tell the Government.” The second is a pamphlet called “How to Kill Your Own Chickens.” The third is a pamphlet with a flag on it called “Libertarianism: Keep Your Hands off My Freedom.”
I leaf through the chicken-killing pamphlet, wondering if people give names to their poultry before they get the ax, but then see somebody staring at me from the other side of the room. It ain’t till I clock that this person is imitating me exactly that I recognize that I am this person, staring back at me from the mirror on the wall across.
My appearance is altered, that’s for sure. My hair’s shorn off to next to nothing and dyed deep black, almost blue. My skin looks porcelain pale and there’s some bruises here and there from whatever night it was by the side of the road, all coming back now. I look like some species of alien monkey that alit in the wrong place at the wrong time and got tumbled beneath the wheels of an eighteen-wheeler before a proper greeting.
Well, I set out to make Eddie’s eyes swirl, now, didn’t I?
I start to get up to make my way to the mirror for further inspection but now there’s a new problem. Looks like I got a set of makeshift ropes going up and down the length of my legs and over my body. The whole apparatus is fixed just so my arms can flail around and wave and grab, but getting up is not an option. I go to work trying to wriggle myself out of the knots but then realize that the whole contraption is fastened with a padlock and that the key to that padlock is the one thing separating me from the rest of humanity.
I guess I made his eyes swirl good.
I’m gonna trap this day like a firefly in a jam jar, keep it shut and wait to unscrew the golden lid until all that’s left outside is laughter and can-you-believe-its and I’ll-be-darned. Otherwise, I’ll just be bumping my head into the glass, over and over, useless. I take the day and screw the lid on. Better screw it on tight.
Looking around the room, there’s not a trace of Eddie. I wonder if he’s gone for good. From my little piece of rodeo heaven, looks like he pulled a disappearing act. My heart skips a beat cause I realize there’s nothing in this room to suggest that I’ll ever be leaving it. There’s no sign of outside life, only the birds chirping and the distant sound of a barking dog.
And now something weird happens in my head where, despite the fact that I got dried blood between my legs and I wish Eddie would fall off the top of Chimney Rock, I’m scared he’s over with. I got this feeling like I need him to come back and make sure I don’t shrivel up and die silent somewhere in the woods of Beaumont Kluck’s Cabin Retreat. I got this feeling like I can’t be the star of this show all by myself. This is a two person cast, and without him, well, might as well just close down the set. And when I have that feeling, that feeling like I need a handout, desperate, I want to pull my skin off and turn into dust. I want to throw myself back to the angels and tell them to start over, start over without me cause you put the screws in loose, you put the hinges in all wrong. But then I remember that I put this day into the jam jar and know better than to just open it up reckless.
I pull the covers to my neck and start reading up on Liber
tarianism.
THIRTY
I wake up with Eddie standing over me, carrying a bouquet of wildflowers and smiling like a preacher’s son. He leans over, kisses me on the cheek and lays the wildflowers across my lap, careful. He’s looking into my eyes, gentle, like Jesus Christ himself come down to forgive the Romans for nailing him to the cross. I stare back at him, blank, trying to figure out this new angle.
He strokes my hair. “You like your new haircut?”
“No.”
“What about the color, you like the color?”
“No. I look like Elvis.”
“Well, I think you look real pretty. I fixed you up nice now and I think you look real pretty.”
He continues stroking my hair. I sit, frozen.
“That why you got these ropes on me?”
He stops stroking my hair and sits down on the side of the bed, facing me.
“Nope. I got these ropes on you because if you leave I’ll die.”
He reaches out for my hand, holding it tight and talking into my eyes, trying to make good. “Now, I know what you must be thinking.”
He’s got that wrong.
“What happened there, what happened back there was, wull, it wasn’t right.”
I am too amazed to do the screaming I had planned.
“It wasn’t right. And I know it.”
I wriggle my body in the other direction, just enough to look at the wall.
“Luli? Luli, listen to me.” He grabs my chin and tries to turn me towards him. “I promise. I promise, as God or Satan or the president is my witness, I promise that will never, ever happen again. Okay?”
He grabs my head, gentle, with both his hands and lays a kiss on my forehead.
“And besides, I think you were an angel sent to me to be mine and make things better. I think you were put on this earth to save me, Luli.”
I look up at him, smiling down at me like a goofy milkman, lost in love. I muster a smile, trying to figure out where he put the key to that padlock.
“And just to show you that I mean business, I’m gonna untie these things right now. And just so you know, for future reference, you never have to wear them again. Never. Except when I’m gone.”
He reaches round his neck and pulls out a tiny key, strung on a piece of twine. He smiles back at me, pulling off the covers and fumbling with the padlock. I notice my legs are bruised where the ropes are too tight, digging in, leaving red marks. If I hadn’t put this day in a jam jar, that might just be the kind of thing that would turn me into a blubbering milksop. But, lucky for me, I took precautions.
Eddie unhitches the lock and begins unraveling the ropes, delicate, looking up at me now and then with an embarrassed smile, like he got caught with his hands in the cookie jar. He unties the last of the ropes and puts them under the bed. When he comes up, he’s got a little red velvet box in his hands. He tucks the blanket up to my neck like he’s wrapping me up for Christmas and hands me the box, sticking his chin in, bashful. What the fuck have we got here?
I open it and, get this, it’s a gold chain with tiny gold cursive swoop letters that spell out, “Hot Stuff.”
“See, it says ‘Hot Stuff,’ like you, you’re hot stuff.”
At this point, I can’t even look at Eddie. I can’t even begin to start to fathom what the hell has gone on between that night in the dirt by the side of the road, and now, where all the sudden I’m the love of his life, his angel, hot stuff. Seems to me this is either some kinda set-up or he is certifiable out of his tree.
“Like it?”
“Um, I guess so.”
“Good.”
He snatches it out of my hand and before I know it, it’s round my neck.
Hot Stuff.
“I got it outside the Pincus Ranch, while you were snoozing away.”
He looks so proud and is acting so stupid I almost feel sorry for him.
“They got wild horses there, you know, maybe sometime we could go there. I could show you around.”
He winks now and I swear to God I woke up in a parallel universe. I’m starting to feel like maybe I died out there by the side of the road and this is some sorta stop-off before heaven, some netherworld precursor where you go to get all your ducks in a row before floating off to the great beyond.
There’s a knock at the door.
Eddie and I both look, caught. The fear in his eyes is that I’m gonna open my mouth and the fear in mine is that someone meaner and crazier is gonna walk through that door.
Eddie opens the door like a 1950’s housewife, all smiles and gesturing. Outside, the setting sun throws an orange light at the room.
“Well, hey there, Beau!” he says. “Didn’t think you got up to this neck of the trail much. Thought you’d be down in Reno.”
“Headed there.”
“How’s Karl?”
“Karl’s fine,” he says, shaking his head. “Well, he’s getting a little long in the tooth, so, it’s only a matter of time till—”
The man stops abruptly when he sees me, as shocked as I am shell-shocked.
This guy makes you want to run for cover. He must be six-foot-six, and his head shaved smooth, all around. He wears old-timey glasses, with black around the rim, like a science teacher, and he’s the tallest man I’ve ever seen close up, not counting television. Don’t be fooled by his big black boots and shaved head, cause he looks more like an overgrown baby or a big retard. There’s something about him that looks like a little kid that just got oversized in a nuclear accident.
He stares at me, sizing up the situation from outside the door, his silhouette framed by the amber dusk, behind. Before Eddie can get in his way, he pushes through to the foot of the bed.
“My name’s Beau,” he says. “This is my place.”
No one told him he’s in the wrong-size room. He makes the whole place look like a dollhouse.
“Um. My name’s Luli.”
“Hm. that’s an interesting name. So . . . you okay, Luli?”
Eddie steps in close behind him, staring me down. Beau sees me look past him and turns around, catching Eddie stew. There’s a second of just the two of them till Eddie breaks, stepping back, shirking. Beau strides across the room, purpose casual, and takes a seat in the green plaid chair, sitting back big.
“So, Eddie, how’re things back in Jackson?”
Eddie sits next to me on the bed. I can see his reflection in the mirror, trying to look kind-hearted, sensitive, but making sure to block the line of vision between me and Beau.
“Oh, well, Jackson’s Jackson, you know.”
Beau nods politely from his chair, stealing a glance at me every few seconds, trying to make eye contact. Eddie keeps adjusting and readjusting his place, blocking us off from each other.
“Don’t get me wrong. I love Wyoming. Love it. But every once in a while you just gotta get out there and—”
“These your pamphlets, mister?”
Eddie stops short, pissed that I’d have the gall, the gumption, in present circumstances, to interrupt. He forgot that I got sassy in my blood.
Beau smiles. “Yes, I believe they are.”
“You kill your own chickens?”
“Affirmative.”
“Don’t you feel sorry for them?”
“Negative.”
“Do you name them before you kill them?”
“Nope. I name them after.”
“Yeah. Lunch and Dinner,” I say, trying him out.
Beau smiles. it’s been a long time since I seen a smile like that, with nothing pushing on it to make it sneer or fade or squiggle. it’s been God knows how long since I’ve seen something pure without all the bells and whistles covering up something mean. And I know this because it seems just plain foreign to me, like speaking Dutch. Hell, he might as well be speaking Japanese, even, cause this straightforward act is new to me.
Then Beau stands up and Eddie moves fast to get him out the door. But Beau’s not quite ready. He takes his time on the steps
, looking back. Eddie keeps making small talk but Beau’s not listening. Finally he looks back though the doorway and says, “You take care of yourself, Luli.”
Eddie closes the door quick, before I can think what to say to get Beau back.
“Shit. Fuck. Shit.”
I yawn, leaning down into the covers and making pretend I’m just too tired, too tired for any of it. I fake close my eyes and peek out at Eddie fumbling around, up to something. He’s getting up, sitting down, getting up again. He’s talking to himself, busy, busy. He locks the door, goes to the table and starts cutting up something white. He’s got that bag out on the table and he’s gonna make a dent. He likes that white bag cause he keeps getting back to it and getting back to it again. I bury my head in the pillow and start thinking of ways to get to Las Vegas.
“Eddie, where are we?” I say it sweet and sleepy, pretend drifting off.
“Nevada.”
“Yeah, but where?” Say it drifty, say it halfway to dreamland.
“I dunno. Somewhere between Elko and Jackpot.”
I nod soft, faking, trying to make a map in my head, tacking it up, putting in the pins, straightening up the paper. You-are-here and this is where you want to be, put a pin there and a pin there, too. Plot it out step-by-step.
Two hours later I open my eyes. Eddie is sitting right beside the bed in the green plaid chair, staring me down. He’s got the ropes back on. He’s got the ropes back on, and now he’s getting up, sniffing back, walking round the room. He’s got the ropes back on, but now he’s got an idea and he’s moving them. He’s moving them out the way cause he’s got other stuff to do. He’s got other stuff to do now. He’s got other stuff to do, close your eyes. He’s got plans for you. Big plans.
THIRTY–ONE
You can count the days by watching the sun make triangles slimmer and slimmer across the ceiling. You can memorize the spider web all the way up top to the left, from the ceiling to the rafters. You can raise your eyebrows when you make the discovery, early morning, that that there spider has caught itself a fly. You can fix your eye on that trapped little speck of black and then, when Eddie comes in and starts waxing poetic about my little angel and sweetheart and darlin and spreads your legs open and gets on top of you and starts making the bed go squeak squeak squeak, you can keep your eyes fixed on that stuck little fly and then throw yourself across the room and next thing you know you’re that trapped little thing, looking down at some roped-up little China doll going squeak squeak squeak and getting moved up and down, up and down, and you don’t have to stay down there. You don’t.
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