by Owen Egerton
“Hello!” Rica called out every few minutes. “Anyone?”
They crawled for what seemed an hour, pushing stone and sheetrock behind them, inching along. Occasionally a creak emanated from somewhere in the rubble and twice a snap and crash froze Rica’s blood. The cell phone lit only a few feet ahead, going dark every few minutes until Rica pressed the screen and it lit green once again.
“Hello?” she called out.
No answer but the close echo of her own voice and Bethany’s breathing. Maybe they’re all gone? Maybe Milton left? Maybe they think I’m dead? Maybe I am?
The movement was slow. A foot of crawling for minutes of clearing. The debris seemed to be repeating itself, the same tile, the same broken cinder block. Rica shoveled them back. In the green darkness her mind wandered. She remembered high school loves, Dante, Hayden, a dozen letters she never wrote. What if she had sent one? What if she had reached out to him? Laughed at the silly moment in the closet. Tried to meet him again. This baby could have been his. She could be with him now, safe, happy. That life, that parallel path of what could have been shone like a distant lit city. If she stared, she could just make out details. The feel of Sunday mornings, the joy of waking up and knowing you are safe. Her hands were still clearing a path, inching forward. But her mind was drifting far away, living a life of different choices. Another life, finer and fuller. She was happier there. Blessed.
But she was here in the cramped ruins, surrounded by wet rubble and the sick green light of the cell phone.
Regret, like a phantom raven beside her, clawed at her head and heart. Regret pointed to the distant lights of that city that could’ve been and mocked what was. It was feeding off her. Growing fat off of her doubts, her self-hate. Every detail of her life was a morsel it devoured. It called itself hope or hindsight or wisdom, but it was regret.
“I want to go back,” Bethany whimpered, her voice childlike and frightened.
“No. No. You’re not going back.”
“I should stay with him.”
“Bethany, he’s dead. We’re not.”
“I want to go back,” she whimpered.
“No. No going back.” Rica wished she could turn and face the other woman, but there was no room. “Bethany, can you see my ass?”
“Yes?”
“Have you seen the size of it? I mean, it’s gotten big.”
“Yes. It’s big.” The woman coughed a small laugh.
“It wasn’t always that big. But it is now. Here’s what you do, Bethany. Follow it. Don’t think, just follow my ass. As long as you see it, you’re okay.”
Rica crawled on, listening for Bethany’s movement. For a moment there was nothing, then Rica heard a shuffling. She was following. She was still there.
They moved slowly. Piece by piece. Stone by stone. Some bricks could be shoved only an inch to the side. Others wouldn’t budge. More than once it seemed they could move no farther, and Rica would pause.
“Why are you stopping? What’s wrong?”
“It’s okay, Bethany. Eyes on the ass.”
Eventually a brick would budge or a tile shift and Rica could clear some more space. She wasn’t at all sure they weren’t moving in circles. But stopping wasn’t an option. There was too much fear in Bethany’s breathing to stop. Rica muzzled her own panic. She had to. Her heart punched against her chest, but she refused to let fear win any ground. If Rica faltered, Bethany would tip into hysteria. She was too exhausted to fight for herself; Rica now survived for Bethany and her baby. The baby. The treasure in the box, jewel in the cushion. After an hour Rica discovered they were crawling upward. More and more they were on top of the debris, feeling pieces shift below them.
“Hello!” she yelled. This time she heard a reply. A faint voice behind feet of stone and wood. The voice came from ahead, so faint that Rica wasn’t sure if it was only her imagination. But even if the voice was an illusion, she knew she needed it, at least for now. “Did you hear that, Bethany? We’re close.”
The passage ahead narrowed into a hole less than two feet wide. Rica stopped and caught her breath. In the faint light of the cell phone she couldn’t make out if there was enough room to crawl with her belly. She would be stuck. Squeezed in. The rubble strained around her, sprinkling dust down. The baby would be stuck. Crushed inside of her. God, she thought, I can’t do this. Please don’t ask me to do this.
“You’re stopping again. What’s wrong?” Bethany said from behind, her voice high and brittle.
“Nothing. We’re almost there.” Rica bent low, her belly pressing against debris. She shimmied forward, doing her best to slow her breathing. She maneuvered from side to side, keeping the pressure on her hips. Bethany was close behind, both of them squeezed into a passage the size of a coffin. The phone went dark. Rica pressed the screen but nothing. She pressed all the buttons, but the phone was dead.
“Why’s it dark? It’s too dark.”
“Bethany, we are so close. A little farther.”
Rica tried to swallow the scream in her throat. She wanted to move, to shift forward, but she felt like stone. In the darkness the fear clenched each muscle, each bone. She felt the scream coming; she felt her legs trembling to kick. Hysteria like rising water filled the passage. Rica held her breath, but it was too much. She was breaking.
Then the light returned. A blue glow. Rica gasped in relief. She let her heart slow again and kissed the phone. But the phone was still blank. The light was coming from somewhere else.
“I see light!” Rica yelled. “Bethany, I can see light!”
The two crawled on, wriggling through a two-foot gap, upward and forward. The blue light grew brighter. It filled the passage. Rica used her feet to push forward, finding new footholds as she progressed.
“Hello? Hello?” she yelled out. More muffled voices called back, she couldn’t tell from where. Ahead of her the passage stopped. The blues shone around the cracks of rock.
Rica pounded on the boards, pulling bits and pieces back, hearing the shifting of rubble on the other side. Tiny streams of new air touched her face and teased her lungs. She was close. Very close. A large cinder block with iron barbs refused to budge. Rica pushed, grunted, her whole body shoving against the cement. It moved. Rica froze. It moved again.
At first it seemed the iron barbs were moving, bending. But that wasn’t it. Reaching around the block on either side were two pale hands. They gripped on the block and lifted it away. For a moment all Rica saw was blue. Then she saw a face filling the space where the block had been. A soft, wide face, ghostly blank like the expression of a drowned man still in the water. It stared for an instant and was gone. The blue was gone as well. Taking its place were the oranges and yellows of a Texas sunset. Rica pushed her head through the opening and sucked in the air.
“Bethany,” Rica yelled. “We’re here.”
It was a tight squeeze. Rica moved onto her side, dipping her shoulder to fit through. She pushed with her feet and slid out onto the gravel and rock. She rolled over and gulped breaths, her last sip of energy swallowed and gone.
She could hear footsteps approaching, voices calling out. “Over on this side. I see someone.” She could feel Bethany emerging. Rica watched the sky, watched the warm hues. A face appeared above her, old with a dirty gray beard and hair, but with eyes clear and blue. And real. Undeniably real. The sun was only minutes below the horizon, the sky like warm coals, the wind moving. All real. Regret, that phantom, could never promise anything as wonderful as real. The city of lights it pointed to could never be reached. It would always remain a lie shining in the distance. But Milton was a truth, a truth now touching her face.
“Oh, Rica, oh my sweet God,” Milton said. He reached his arms around her. Rica wept.
If you’re going to go bear, go grizzly
MILTON AND ROY had raced from the sanctuary after the first rumble and saw the crowd pushing out of the basement door. Then the collapse. Two of the walls of the one-story building buckled and the roo
f sank in like a deflating soufflé.
Milton searched the crowd for Rica, screaming her name. He found Blade, the one he called War, and grabbed him by the collar.
“Is she in there?”
“Man, I don’t know.”
“She went back,” said Pestilence. “She went back for some lady and then it all fell in. I tried to get her out.”
The digging was frantic. Milton, Roy, and a handful of the strongest volunteers started immediately. They dug on the far side of the building, estimating the spot Rica was last seen. Three of the Horsemen joined in. The other, the one Milton called Death, sat in the back of War’s pickup truck, watching them all with dark, hollow eyes. The group worked fast, removing bricks and sheetrock, careful not to step on the debris and cause another cave-in.
Most had helped, but no one had dug and searched like Milton. Roy, working slowly at his side, saw the sweat expand over his back. Milton’s palms ripped against the cinder blocks and he bled on all that he lifted, his fingernails, old from his new age, split and chipped as he worked. No matter how much they moved, more rubble was there.
After an hour of digging, they had developed a system, a passing of the heavier rocks, a careful discussion of what to move next. They were below ground level now, reaching and pulling out rubble.
Roy stepped away as Milton and the others argued over what to move. The wound on his neck pulsed against the bandage and his strength was tapped. He sat on one of the children’s swings facing the ruins and popped another Vicodin, swallowing it with spit.
Pestilence came and sat by him, wiping sweat from his brow.
“I don’t know why we keep digging,” he said, his toothless gums smacking.
“These basements were built as bomb shelters. She could still be fine.”
“Your friend, the old guy, he thinks the world is ending. You believe that?”
“It’s got to end sometime.” The Vicodin was coating his throat, easing everything.
“Yeah, sure. I’ve read the Bible.” The man nodded. “You believe in hell?”
Roy looked at him, his pocked face and half beard. “Why do you ask?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Just asking.” He spit on the sand. “I shot a man down there, before everything fell down. It was an accident, but I was aiming the gun at him. You know what I mean?”
Roy was quiet for a moment. “I shot a man yesterday.”
“The guy who shot you? That doesn’t seem unreasonable.”
“I didn’t have to shoot him in the head.”
“Well, if you’re going to go bear, go grizzly.” He rose to his feet and rubbed his hands down his filthy jeans. “I sure hope there’s no hell.”
“You said it, brother.”
Someone yelled and everyone ran to find Rica crawling from her hole.
Pestilence and Roy scrambled, too. They watched as Milton ran to Rica and she sobbed with an intensity that made onlookers blush or cry themselves. Milton held her, his arms so tight it seemed he was afraid she’d float away or fall back under the rubble. Milton looked out to Roy.
“Car,” he said. And Roy understood.
He turned for the parking lot as another woman was pulled from the hole, her body shaking.
“Is he here? Did he get away?” she was asking through her sobs.
“Who?” people were asking, wrapping a blanket around her.
She cried herself into chest-shaking coughs.
“Can I take one of these?” Roy asked one of the volunteers stuffing grocery bags. She was watching nothing but the scene in the rubble. “Thank you,” Roy said as he grabbed a bag.
Roy found a late-model green Volvo wagon parked on the far side of the lot in a spot reserved for the pastor. He picked up a fist-size rock. For a moment he hesitated, but then caught sight of the bumper sticker reading IN CASE OF RAPTURE THIS CAR WILL BE VACATED. Roy shrugged and smashed in the driver’s side window. He reached in and unlocked the door. He tossed the grocery bag onto the passenger seat, cleared the driver’s seat of glass with a sweep of his arm, and ducked a head under the steering column. His shoulder ached in protest, but he had no time for complaints. With a few pulls of wire, a click or two and a spark, the engine came to life. The radio was on, too.
“So make an unbeliever your designated driver tonight, all right!”
“Hey!” someone yelled.
Roy shot up, smacking his head against the steering wheel.
Pestilence stood by the door. “You leavin’?” he asked, rubbing his jeans with nervous hands.
Roy nodded.
Pestilence glanced around and then back at Roy. “So, let me ask you. If the world is ending and everything, what do I do? Like, you know, to get saved.”
Roy shook his head.
“Come on, man. You must have something.”
Behind him Roy could see Milton helping a nearly limp Rica toward the car.
“Milton,” Roy called out. “He wants to know what to do now.”
Milton kept moving toward the car. “Some will have no idea something like freedom exists. They will die inside an open cell. Some will leave and bring their cruelty with them. Insane souls begging through the stars.” He reached the Volvo. “And some will pop and become who they are already. Alive and kind. Free souls.”
“Stop fucking around and tell me what to do,” Pestilence said, helping to lift Rica into the backseat of the car.
Milton paused by the back door with a confused look. “Be kind.”
Pestilence nodded. He looked at Roy. “Okay.”
“Broncos!” War called out. “Let’s go.” The truck’s engine roared twenty feet away. Pestilence gave a childish wave and a toothless grin, then ran to join his friends. He leaped into the cab with War behind the wheel. Famine sat in the truck’s bed beside his pale friend. The truck spit grass and soil as it growled off of the lawn and back onto the road. Roy watched the red taillights, a burning pair like the holes in his neck. And the sick friend sat high, unmoving and unmoved by the frantic escape. He stared back, he stared at Roy, dark unblinking eyes quickly disappearing in the dusk, passing sentence without judgment. The eyes said nothing of guilt or innocence, but they most certainly spoke of death.
Milton climbed in the back with Rica and slammed the door.
“Where to, Captain?” Roy asked as they pulled away from the church.
“Take us there,” Milton said, pointing at a billboard hovering just ahead. It read
88.6 krst marfa, texas
west texas’s #1 christian rock station
all christian all the time!
Wrinkle in the soul
EACH PERSON CARRIES the scar of their birth, the button on their belly, the souvenir from a time of utter reliance. Our navels were the parting gift as we were thrust from a safe haven, marking the moment when the pipes were cut, food and blood flowed no more, and we cried and crawled for a nipple. When after ten lunar months of simply receiving, we had to seek and suck.
We also carry the scar of our next birth, the death birth. You’d never know it. Of course you’d never know what a belly button was if no one had told you. But if you examine your soul carefully you’ll find a bump. A sweet wrinkle in the soul. This is the soul-navel. The scar of a birth into death that is yet to happen. How can one have a scar for something that hasn’t happened yet? Silly question. As if the soul wears a watch.
Worlds have belly buttons. We often call ours Eden. There was no prayer in Eden. Only conversation. But those fruit-filled bites severed our cord and we learned to seek, to suck, and to pray.
Worlds also have soul-navels. A future death scar. Marfa, Texas, is the soul-navel of this world.
Don’t look so surprised.
Marfa, jewel of the West Texas desert. The air is no cooler, the soil no more fertile, there is no water. But Marfa lives. An eruption of life in the middle of quiet desert. Marfa. Sweet Marfa. Brilliant Marfa. Named for one of Dostoevsky’s loves, refuge to homeless hipsters, haven to desert readers,
host to music and art and film. The population is less than three thousand. The elevation is less than three hundred. The average rainfall is less than three inches. Yet Marfa is the most important spot on our planet. The desert Eden. She is the scar commemorating our world’s transition from womb to open existence.
Giggle giggle
“ALL THE WAY to the city?” asked the bald man who was no longer bored.
“ . . . ”
“It’s crowded there.”
“ . . . ”
“Okay. We can take my truck.”
The two of them drove to the city. The bald man driving, the crab sitting beside him. They parked downtown near a fountain and left the keys in the ignition. Click walked in front. The bald man followed.
Next came a lawyer about to race into a mid-morning meeting. The world might be going nuts, but he was sure as hell going to save his firm. He was jumping from a cab toward the glass doors of his office building. And he saw Click on the sidewalk.
He paused.
He saw the arrow.
He saw his next step.
And the next, and the next.
Just to the end of the block, he told himself.
Then came another block, and another. He found he was pressing for the crosswalk so that the crab might pass unscathed. The tall bald man caught his eye. They shared a smile.
Just ten more feet, then I must be on my way. Ten hours later and the lawyer still believed that at any moment he would scurry back to his mid-morning meeting.
The next follower was a movie rental store clerk, then an ER doctor, then an auto mechanic, then a teenage girl who saw Click the moment before her first kiss. The boy’s lips were approaching and it meant everything. She would kiss this boy. She would love this boy. She would marry this boy and bear his children. She would . . . Crab. Follow.
All day, one by one, people caught sight of Click and stepped into his entourage. Poor, rich, old, young, black, white. As someone new joined, all the followers smiled at one another, as if to agree how silly it was to be walking (and walking slowly) behind a blue-green hermit crab. And how it was sillier still that they had spent so much time doing anything else. They followed Click down city streets, through open parks, onto a bus, down a highway, off a bus, through a parking lot, down a trail, onto another road.