by Minick, Jim;
Usually this settled me, but whatever had whumped me in that dream wouldn’t let go. So I followed that ribbon of road, and I searched for something I couldn’t name.
39
Same Day
For a few minutes, Will sat in his Plymouth at the entrance gate fingering his key. The westbound tractor-trailers had the mountain behind them, so they rolled past gaining speed, rocking Will’s car before they disappeared into the morning fog. But eastbound, the trucks downshifted to make it up the grade. Then the road narrowed at the tunnel.
The day he’d first gotten this key, he’d had to sit in Dickson’s tiny office in the back of the garage, tire irons clanging on the other side of the door.
Dickson shuffled papers, licking his fingers. “So,” he said, looking over the top of his reading glasses, “Can you work nightshifts?”
“Yes, sir.” Will kept his hands on his knees. Several people had put in a good word for him, including Aunt Amanda.
“Good.” Dickson pulled the pencil from behind his ear. “What shirt size do you wear?”
“Excuse me?”
“I need to know the size of your shirt, pants, and hat to order your uniforms. What shirt size do you wear?”
Will told him and waited as he wrote.
“Here, fill out these forms while I make a call.” Dickson talked to the uniform company.
Is this it? Nothing about working at Ernie’s, nothing about fixing engines, nothing about anything?
When he hung up, Dickson handed Will a brass key. Will took it, but Dickson didn’t let go. “This ain’t a key for this office. And this ain’t a key for this garage.”
Will tried not to shift under his gaze.
“This is the key for the whole darn turnpike. It’ll get you on at the gate down in Amberson. You know the one, right?”
Will nodded.
Dickson held on. “You abuse this, you lose your job. You lose this, you cause me a heck of a mess, ’cause everyone who works here and at the restaurant will have to get new keys. You understand?”
Again, Will nodded.
Finally, Dickson released the key, sat back, and told him he started in two days.
It had seemed so easy. Walk into the manager’s office and walk out with a job and a key—nothing to it. Easy as cake, easy as sweeping, easy as a kiss.
The key slipped into the padlock, and with a turn, the spindle clicked open. Will drove through and closed the gate. As he snapped the lock, a wood thrush sang its haunting flute call from deep in the woods. The trees dripped with water, their leaves haloed by fog and dawn light. He pressed his face close to the cold metal, searching. But the thrush stopped singing.
Will rested against the fence. The year before his dad died, Will had helped him string a mile of barbwire around the meadow, a mile of blisters and cussing. And here, this damn turnpike was all fenced, both sides, over one thousand miles. Will whistled at the idea of getting on and off for free. All these poor idiots had to pay, and he didn’t have to hand over a nickel. Just open the gate and drive.
He thought about the letter. This road could take him away into the fog like all the other traffic. He imagined merging onto the westbound lane, driving away from the station, away from his home, past the exit, and on and on, trying not to think of Aunt Amanda, Ada, and Cicero. Just turn west and disappear to Colorado or Canada, maybe. Anywhere but here.
And then he bumped against that last tollbooth. What would he say to that attendant who reached out, expectant? His key only worked on this gate, and his exit pass only at Willow Hill and Blue Mountain. He could say he was a new employee at the last gas station, but it was forty miles back, too far to believe. He might say his toll ticket had blown out the window, but Dino told him any traveler who lost the ticket paid the toll for the whole length of the pike, all four hundred miles.
Will rubbed the key. Anyone in a vehicle could enter. If you had money, you got off. If you didn’t, you waited for the police. And if you didn’t have a car, forget trying. Like those hitchhikers waiting at the exit. How long did they wait? Wild haired, whiskered, and grimy, they stood under the sign that read No Hitchhiking. If you were poor without a car, the fence kept you out. And if you were poor with a car, the damn fence kept you in.
Just yesterday, Dino had told Will the tunnels were built by Andrew Carnegie for his railroad. “Carnegie didn’t do the digging. All his micks and chinks and niggers dug and dynamited and hauled out rock for six tunnels before Carnegie decided his railroad wouldn’t make enough money. So he abandoned the whole damn project in the 1880s, and there they sat, rich man’s tunnels becoming caves for bats.”
Will checked his watch and saw that his shift was about to start. He drove the Plymouth east, toward the station, toward the sun trying to burn through the fog. When he entered the dark tunnels, the oncoming headlights blinded him. He shielded his eyes and wondered about those bats. What had happened to them when the next batch of rich men came through and decided to build this road?
Cicero
I used to love flying through fog—how it felt on my feathers, soft and moist, how it muffled sounds, how it reduced the world so you saw nothing and everything. On my wings, the fog beaded and rolled, the wind wicking it off. It made the earth smell new, like on the third or fourth day of creation, when god still called everything good.
But that morning, I cawed, and it was like sticking my beak into a creek, the words washing away, no sound really, and no echo. It was like the fog shoved my voice back down my throat.
Flying blind through that fog, I wondered what it was like to drown, what the lungs feel when they inhale water. For those moments before death, does the water rush down your throat to torch and scald? Do cells flare up like tiny fireworks before the black night snuffs them out?
I was flying through water. I was finning the sky. And I wondered what a fish feels when it’s pulled ashore. Does it say, This air is a sumbitch. Somebody dowse these flames. When you no longer can breathe water, do you then breathe fire?
40
Same Day
At the crossover, Will waited on the shoulder. The fog was as thick as milk, so he couldn’t see any of the traffic in any of the lanes. He wound down his window and listened before gunning it through the median guardrails and all the way to the other shoulder. A trucker had to brake hard to miss the Plymouth’s tail end. Will exhaled as the driver ground back up through his gears and disappeared.
When he pulled into the station, the first ray of sunlight pierced the fog. Will walked across the lot and heard Cicero, but he caught himself from chortling back. Let him wonder. Let him come to me.
Cicero swooped in from behind and landed on his shoulder.
“Whoa.” Will jumped, startled. “Well, hello to you too, Mr. Cicero.” He wanted to be mad, to shrug him off his shoulder for what he’d done to Ada. But instead he rubbed the raven’s beak. “You know you are a very bad boy?”
Cicero pecked at one of Will’s buttons.
“You got me into a whole heap of trouble that might last forever.”
Cicero pecked and murmured.
“So, where did you hide that earring?”
The raven rattled in a low voice.
“What’s got you riled, Big Man?” Will reached for a peanut, but his pocket was empty—he’d forgotten the treats. “Sorry, buddy. I’ll get you something from the vending machine.”
Cicero cawed right into Will’s ear. He flapped and jumped on top of Will’s head, where he scrambled and clutched at Will’s hat, unable to get a good purchase. He hadn’t tried this in a long time, and he flapped for balance, agitated and full of noise.
“I said sorry, Cicero.” Will moved one hand under the bird’s claws, and Cicero gripped his fingers. The raven pecked Will’s palm and squeaked a sound Will had never heard before. Then Cicero swooped away to a pine at the back of the lot. From his perch, he cawed and cawed. Will tried to ignore him as he began his shift.
BY 11:00, the fog had burned of
f. Ada thanked James for the ride as they pulled into the lot, and to herself, she thanked him for being quiet. He hadn’t said anything about her ear, even though he took a second glance when she got in. Instead, he sang along with Little Jimmy Dickens and tried to make her laugh.
Ada stepped onto the scorching blacktop, the heat making her feel about to boil. If she remembered right, Will was working, his shirt probably already soaked. She kept the restaurant between her and the station. She didn’t want to see Will or deal with all the anger and questions. Yet that was all she thought about.
The mad rush of lunch helped. Ada dipped cone after cone of ice cream, checked drinks, and for a spell, helped James clean off tables.
The tourists moved like cows—slow and plodding. They herded into the restrooms, clomped through the gift shop, and plodded into the dining room, where they grazed their plates. She expected to hear a four-bellied belch. Seldom did they recognize the waitresses. They might say thanks, but it was a word of habit, empty. Calling them cows insulted her ladies back home.
The human herd thinned by 2:30, and Ada took her break. At the restroom, the Temporarily Out of Order sign hung on the door. Inside—lemon-scented air, a shimmering wax floor, and Aunt Amanda by the window. Ada rested her arm on the windowsill, the breeze off the mountain cool. She squinted to take in the long, green slope, to keep staring into the forest, but she couldn’t stop herself. There he was, back soaked, scuttling from car to car. A raven called. She touched her ear.
“What happened to your ear?” Aunt Amanda asked.
Ada dropped her hand, and her face flushed. She had hoped no one would notice, yet her mother had asked this morning, and Ada had fumbled through a story about getting caught on a briar in the woods. Her mother hadn’t believed her.
And now, this simple question from Aunt Amanda, who knew Will and Cicero better than anyone else, Aunt Amanda with her gentle eyes.
“Cicero did it.” She focused on her hands and fumbled with her apron as she told her story. “I should’ve said no. I didn’t really want him on my shoulder, but Will insisted.” Her voice trailed off. Then she blurted, “And then he gave me some other woman’s hankie.” The tears finally came.
Aunt Amanda held her and whispered, “It’s all right. It’s all right. Surely there’s some explanation.”
Ada’s breathing slowed. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. The two of them sat for a long while looking out the window.
“That just isn’t like Will,” Aunt Amanda said. “I can’t imagine him doing something like that.” They followed Will as he hiked out to a rental truck, his body seeming to fade through the shimmering heat.
IV
God will need something to burn
if the fire is to be unquenchable.
—Jane Kenyon
41
Same Day
Will soaked a rag at the spigot and draped it across his neck. He didn’t wring it out.
Johnny Hilton, the manager and only other person on duty, leaned against the building and smoked a cigarette. “Dino swears that keeps him cool, but I never liked the mess.” Sweat dripped from his crew cut, and his voice squeaked, as if caught in the back of his throat.
Will leaned against the wall, but the stones held only heat, no coolness, and the haze held nothing but the fat sun. Already he had emptied his thermos of water, refilled it to empty it again. And even as he talked with Johnny and watched the traffic, he thought about Ada—Ada and Cicero, Ada and the handkerchief, Ada and ice cream. Ada with that birdlike voice on the other side of this wall. Maybe if he went in on break, she’d serve him a double scoop of pistachio, and they could talk. Maybe she’d listen, let him explain. And maybe not.
A rental truck inched up to the island. Last month, a truck like this one had pulled in too close and scraped the roof above the pumps. Teacup was filling the oil rack and didn’t see him coming. When he heard the screech, Teacup almost jumped the wrong way, into the path of the truck, but Scoop grabbed his collar and pulled him back.
So now Will and Hilton waited for this one to stop. When the engine died, Will started toward the driver. Johnny smirked and said, “Be careful,” as he went to pump another car.
Halfway across the lot, Will heard Cicero give his alarm call, long, loud guttural squawks. The bird swooped right at Will’s face. Cicero flared his wings, raised his talons as if to harm him. “Whoa, boy. What’s going on?” The bird flew in arcs, up and back, each time getting closer. Then he knocked Will’s hat off and flew high to circle and watch.
“That’s enough, Cicero,” Will yelled. “I have to work. We can play later.” He dusted off his cap and kept walking. The raven swooped once more, and Will ducked and waved his arms, making Cicero falter and fly away. He circled above. He didn’t stop cawing.
The rental driver witnessed none of this as he almost fell out of the cab. He hadn’t shaved in days and acted as if he hadn’t pissed in that long either.
“Fill it up, buddy,” he said to Will as he jogged by. “Check the oil too. I’ll be right back.”
“Sure,” Will mumbled. The truck would sit blocking traffic for at least an hour. The man had already disappeared into HoJo’s.
Just two more hours of this shit, Will thought as he slipped in between the pumps. Heat radiated off the tires, and a whiff of French fries seeped from the cab. Two more hours.
The gas cap was heavy steel, black, and took two hands to loosen. It unscrewed slowly before clinking against the tank neck from a chain. Fumes poured out of the hole and flushed Will’s face. Damn. He stepped back to catch his breath. How’d he make it this far?
Will lifted the nozzle and flicked the switch. The numbers clicked to zeros as the pump motor whirred to ready. He stuck the silver nozzle in and squeezed the trigger, but it popped and clicked off in his hand. Double damn.
Will peered into the hole. Too much back pressure. The pump registered two cents of gas. He swore out loud.
From somewhere close, Cicero squawked.
Will reinserted the nozzle, and as he squeezed the trigger, he saw the metal tip tap a spark inside the tank neck.
Then a whoosh and flames.
Fire poured out of the tank, out of the nozzle, up his arm, his face, into the sky. The blast threw him. He landed hard, his back on asphalt, his breath jolted away. He heard nothing, but he remembered to roll. Gravel stuck to his cheek and elbow, the blacktop hard against his thigh. He wished the dark surface was a lake he could fall into.
Flames on his clothes, on his skin, so he kept rolling, looking as he rolled, thinking only—Stop this. Stop. Burnt flesh, singed hair in his nose, and he tasted blood. Blisters swelled his tongue. And this arm, was it his?
He stopped rolling and stood in the middle of the lot. No more flames, on him, at least, but his face and neck still burned. And he couldn’t feel his arm. He waved it up and down, but no feeling. This scared him the most. His scream wailed across the lot.
One of the tires exploded, the boom reverberating off the mountain. Black smoke plumed into a cloud, and the flames shot high above the truck. Will stumbled away. Johnny didn’t move. He was closer to the garage, yet he yelled at Will, “Hit the switch! Hit the switch!” Will blundered past, holding his arm out, away from the rest of his body. At the garage, he reached with his good hand to throw the emergency switch. Then he collapsed into a swivel chair just inside the bay. His screams turned to moans.
Johnny ran in frantic, yelling, “It’s gonna blow! It’s gonna blow!” He grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran back out.
One woman stepped close, yelling in Will’s face that she was calling an ambulance. She disappeared. A man said he was going for ice. Another stranger knelt beside him, but after a moment, she had to step around the corner, and Will heard her dry heaves and coughs. Other faces peered at him before turning away.
Smoke drifted into the garage, and for a while, Will was alone, moaning and swiveling back and forth, back and forth, the chair creaking. He wondered how much pa
in he could bear, how much flame he’d inhaled, how much time he had. Somebody help. The loneliness scared him as much as the pain. Back and forth, as if the swiveling might take him somewhere else. Back and forth, the chair’s squeak as constant as his bicycle pedals when he was a kid riding on the paved road in front of the house, the sun so hot it raised bubbles of tar on the blacktop. He rode as slowly as he could, popping bubbles, back and forth, the pedals squeaking, the sun bronzing his skin.
Outside, another tire exploded. Will could make out the forms of men as they ran through the thick smoke, close to the flames, but he couldn’t focus, couldn’t help. And was this his arm? A charred piece of meat, black and raw like a half-cooked steak. He had to look away.
Then Ada crouched beside him, quietly, urgently calling his name. The sobs welled up and racked him. When they subsided, he saw fear in her eyes but also something else. “Hold my hand, Will,” she repeated. “We’ll get through this.” Her calmness washed over him, and he clenched her hands in his one good one. She leaned close to his arm and whispered, stringing together long phrases he couldn’t hear. They sounded like prayer, jumbled and far away. Will closed his eyes. A low moan filled his throat.
Another hand rested on the back of his head, and he heard Aunt Amanda close to his ear. “Easy, Will. We’re going to get through this. Easy now.” He stopped swiveling, but the fire wouldn’t go out.
“Talk to me, Will,” Aunt Amanda said. “Tell us what happened.” Her hands were gentle, as if afraid to touch.
He mumbled, and his eyes looked far away. “Talk, Will,” Ada echoed. “What do you remember?”
“Back pressure,” he got out, his lips hot with each syllable. “And a spark.” Ada’s mouth moved, whispering over his arm. “I clicked the trigger and the whole thing blew.” He thumped his head against Aunt Amanda, moaned, and closed his eyes.
“Look at me,” Ada said. “Come on, Will, keep those eyes open and look at me.”