A Million Heavens

by John Brandon

  Arn worked nights, at a place where they monitored outer space for sonic anomalies. It was a rip-off of a government site in another part of the state called Very Large Array. All Arn did was sit in a chair all night and watch meters. Arn felt this job suited him because he didn’t care whether aliens existed. He didn’t mind solitude. Arn went to work with a gallon jug of water every night and drank the whole thing before morning. He had a taut bulbous belly, like a toddler. He had two nights a week off, and Wednesday nights he went with Dannie to the vigils. In a way, those were their most intimate times, right next to each other in a drawn-out silence—no sex or suspicion or anything else. The vigils were a sanctuary, where no one had a past or a plan. It seemed like bad form to show affection at the vigils, but sometimes Arn would take Dannie’s hand and hide it in his jacket pocket so he could hold it, like something valuable he’d found on the street, a good luck charm, and this reminded Dannie of misbehaving in high school. Dannie hadn’t noticed many other couples. There was a pair who looked like grad students, the guy in a flannel shirt and studded belt and the girl always wearing tights and scarves that didn’t match. Then there was a lesbian couple who sat with their knees touching. At first Dannie had dragged Arn down to the clinic, but now he didn’t seem to mind going. He wasn’t a vigiler in his own right, not yet anyway, but if you went to the vigils you went to the vigils. No vigiler was above any other. No one was on probation, no one received gold stars. No one had to give explanations or listen to them. It was enough to simply want the vigils to continue, and Dannie wanted them to continue forever, wanted to keep meeting these same strangers smack in the middle of each week until the weeks ran out. She knew for that to happen, Soren had to stay in his coma. She wanted the vigils to continue and she wanted Soren to wake up healthy. The vigils were good news in Dannie’s life and they could only be stopped by other good news.

  Dannie stood and positioned herself behind the telescope. She aimed it down the street, whisked past the Javelina, past all four stoplights, until she found the market. The old couple was out front, eating their lunch. They were talking, and then the old woman noticed something at her feet. Her shoelace was untied. The old man unhurriedly set his plate beside him on the bench and went down to one knee. The woman smiled faintly. He was tying her shoe. He was tying her goddamn shoe. There was no way Dannie was going to return the avocados. She couldn’t. She knew what she’d do instead. She’d break them open and get the pits out and plant them down below her balcony. She could water them from up here. She could root for them. Root for them to root. They’d be something to wait for, to invest herself in. This was another way she could convince her body she was settled.

  THE GAS STATION OWNER

  He turned off the radio, which always went to static this time of day. He had the disassembled parts of an old pricing gun on the counter, and he finally gave up on the thing and scraped the parts into a cardboard box with his forearm. From his stool behind the register he saw a slick sedan with California plates roll up to the nearside pump. It was that gal who was renting out Terrence’s place. She had on a cream-colored coat with a city look to it that she buttoned up as she stood by and watched a kid about young enough to be her son select low-octane and get the pump chugging. It wasn’t her son. The gas station owner already knew it wasn’t her son but after the kid got the nozzle set up the gal leaned him against the car and planted one on him. The gas station owner had seen the gal around but had never laid eyes on the kid. If he had his own car, he got gas for it elsewhere. The pair of them were still smooching, so the gas station owner averted his eyes. He idly tapped the keys of his adding machine, thumping out a nonsense sum. The truth was, it was nice to have a new couple in Lofte. The town didn’t get new couples. It didn’t get new anything. When the gas station owner had moved here, all those decades ago, it had been as lively and hopeful as any place. The turquoise trade had still been humming. Families couldn’t wait to take car trips across the desert in their station wagons. The gas station owner had thought he was making a bold change, making his own way in life, moving from predictable, peopled Albuquerque to this spirited basin outpost. The spirit was gone now. The money was gone. If the gas station owner tried to sell his house now he’d get about enough for a steak dinner and a beer. And he hadn’t even escaped anything. He was in the same old desert, living by the desert’s rules—still, in his heart, afraid of the desert. He’d never challenged it. He’d only taken an elk or two from the desert when an elk was offered.

  When the Audi was full up, the couple came into the store. The gal asked for the restrooms and the gas station owner pointed the way. He got a jolt of pride about once a week when a lady asked to use his restroom because he kept it spotless. The gal disappeared into the back hall and the kid stepped to the counter with cash wadded in his hand. He stood there without saying anything, squinting against the light of the big window behind the gas station owner.

  “What brings you all from California?”

  The kid glanced out toward the car. “She’s the one from California,” he said.

  “Oh,” said the gas station owner. “What about you then? What lucky burg has the pleasure of claiming you?”

  “I’m from all over,” the kid said. “I guess I was born in Ohio or something.”

  “Ohio. Never been. Is it nice?”

  “Every place is the same,” the kid said. He wasn’t squinting anymore. “Some places it rains a lot and some places it doesn’t rain at all. Other than that, every place is exactly the same.”

  “How are they the same?”

  “Bunch of people acting like they know what they’re doing when really they don’t know shit.”

  “I never heard it put like that before.” The gas station owner stood up off the stool. His knees weren’t what they used to be. He wanted to ask the kid more questions because the kid obviously didn’t want to answer them. “Did you all move out here for work?”

  “I work at that observatory,” the kid said.

  The kid counted out the money owed for the gas and put coins with it. He set it on the counter and the gas station owner left it sitting there.

  “That place where they listen to the stars?” he asked the kid.

  The kid nodded.

  “Aliens were trying to get hold of me, I don’t believe I’d take that call.”

  “I want this too.” The kid picked up a bulky chocolate bar off a rack and put another dollar with the money.

  “I’m Mr. Fair,” the gas station owner said. He offered his hand and the kid set his jaw and reluctantly shook.

  The kid didn’t give a name, so the gas station owner asked him for it.

  “Why do you want my name? What’s the point?”

  “I’m a curious old codger. I’m a curious old codger and you’re a respectful young man. When we run into each other on the street, we’ll know what to say.”

  “I could give you a fake name,” the kid said. “Give me a minute to think.”

  “Everybody’s got a name and everybody’s from somewhere. And I don’t believe you’re from Ohio.”

  The kid started unwrapping the chocolate. Without looking up, he said, “If I had a cozy spot in the world like this I’d never leave it, either. I’d stay nested in all day and wait for people with things to do to stop by so I could talk their ears off.”

  The gas station owner chuckled. “Nobody gave me this station, you know. It wasn’t a gift.”

  “I’m just saying, you’re really good at sitting inside it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You got a talent.”

  “And how about you? What’s your talent?”

  “I’m a people person,” the kid said.

  “Yeah, I was picking up on that.”

  “Everyone’s got to make a cozy place, don’t they? Whatever way they can. You got your ways, I got mine.”

  The gas station owner was impressed. The kid was like a plucky raccoon poking back at an old bear. The gas station owne
r tried to think of something else to say, something to confuse the kid, but then the gal came back out from the restroom, a placid look on her face. The kid broke the chocolate bar and gave the gal half, and she nuzzled his cheek. She said goodbye to the gas station owner and then the kid held the door open for her. The gas station owner watched the pair all the way to their car, leaning into each other and gnawing on their candy, but neither looked back at him. He lowered himself back down onto his stool and then sat still, his back straight, nothing moving inside the station except settling dust.

  MAYOR CABRERA

  He sat in the basement of the motel he ran, the Javelina, watching a movie about a mayor who slaughtered all the new people who moved to his town. The psychotic mayor looked like Colonel Sanders, and this was making Mayor Cabrera hungry for fried chicken. Fried chicken wasn’t something he cooked himself, and Lofte’s lone restaurant didn’t offer it.

  The motel had two guests, two single men, and they were probably settling in for the night. They wouldn’t bother Mayor Cabrera. He wanted fried chicken but his nose was full of the scent of elk stew. He was sick of elk stew. The mayor on TV was holding a big cookout in the town square. Whenever he spoke loudly, addressing the crowd, his accent got Southern. The whole premise of the movie, to Mayor Cabrera, rang false. As mayor of a small town, you needed every new citizen you could get. You would never murder your own tax base, your own economy. If there dwelled within you homicidal urges that could not be suppressed, you would drive a couple towns over to do your killing.

  Mayor Cabrera’s town, Lofte, was in trouble. Two guests? The business at the Javelina told volumes about the health of the town, and two guests in a night was not enough to break even. Mayor Cabrera didn’t want to be mayor anymore. Being the mayor of a healthy town was one thing, but being in charge of a doomed town, going down with the ship and barely being compensated for it, was another. Usually being mayor didn’t mean much more than sitting at the head of the table during town council meetings. The other members kept the budget, brought items up for votes. Soon enough, though, Mayor Cabrera would be called upon to lead. He would be looked to.

  Mayor Cabrera stood and stirred the elk stew. He took his shirt off and sat back down in his undershirt. Mayor Cabrera wore button-front shirts adorned with Western scenes because out-of-towners seemed to like it. For town meetings or when the occasional Turquoise Trail bus tour came through, he even donned a cowboy hat. No one could pin down Mayor Cabrera’s ethnic background, not even him. He had some United States Indian in him and some Mexican Indian and some regular Mexican and probably some regular American. Lofte, which was mostly poor white, had elected him, he believed, because they considered his murky blend of heritage to be perfectly New Mexican.

  The psychotic mayor in the movie was spying on a young couple playing tennis, licking his lips. Maybe the mayor was a cannibal. Maybe he was going to have another cookout and feed the townspeople their neighbors. The phone rang and Mayor Cabrera picked it up and said, “Javelina.”

  “I’m in nineteen. I was wondering what the story was on room service.”

  “That’s a very short story. Your best bet is the diner down the street.

  They’re usually open till midnight. Or maybe eleven.”

  “I’m watching this movie. I’m kind of in for the night. You don’t have anything down there? Any food I could buy off you?”

  “I have some stew I could bring up.”

  “Is it good? I got cash.”

  “It tastes like stew.”

  “I don’t want to miss what happens here. The guy who was Freddie in Nightmare on Elm Street is this crazy mayor. You ever seen this thing?”

  “I think I have.”

  “He’s wearing some kind of sash.”

  “Why don’t I bring you by a bowl in a few minutes? There’s no charge.”

  “I appreciate that. I got plenty of cash, but I sure like to hang on to it. I like to keep it right here with me.”

  Mayor Cabrera saw the commercials ending and then the man told him as much. They got off the phone. Mayor Cabrera opened a cabinet and began hunting for some plastic bowls, wishing he hadn’t mentioned the stew, feeling suddenly uncharitable, feeling that every little thing he did every day of his life he did out of some pathetic idea of professionalism. He did what people asked because it was easier than thinking about what he really ought to be doing. He served and served.

  CECELIA

  For days the sky had looked like rain, but only this morning had it begun grumbling. Cecelia and her mother were in the living room, the windows open, the TV on.

  “Driving the birds crazy,” Cecelia’s mother said. Her wheelchair was positioned in a way that allowed her to look through the kitchen and out the back screen door, toward her chickens. She didn’t need the wheelchair. It had once been her sister’s, Cecelia’s Aunt Tam’s, in the months before she’d died. Cecelia’s mother had taken it out of the hall closet where it had been folded quietly for ages and had opened it up and polished the hardware and buffed the leather. That was all fine, but when she was done she hadn’t put the chair back in the closet. She’d started sitting in it now and then, to watch TV, and in time it became the only chair she’d use. The husband Cecelia’s Aunt Tam had left behind still lived in Lofte. He was the mayor, in fact. He and Cecelia’s mother had once been thick as thieves, but now they rarely spoke.

  “You ever think of getting a dog?” Cecelia said. She didn’t say, Like a normal person.

  Her mother made a face. “They kill little critters and leave the carcasses on your porch.”

  “Because they want to impress you and show gratitude.”

  “With a dead chipmunk?”

  Cecelia knew why her mother couldn’t get a dog. A dog was an actual personality to engage; the chickens were merely a presence, something other than nothing. They generated a busy, low warbling that sounded like far-off weather.

  “Can I make you breakfast?” Cecelia asked.

  Her mother again made a face.

  “How about oatmeal?” Cecelia started to get up.

  “Not yet,” Cecelia’s mother said. “I’ll have something at lunchtime.”

  “I’ll make you a bowl and if you don’t like it we’ll throw it out.”

  Lately Cecelia’s mother barely ate. Cecelia saw her pick at dry cereal, but no real food. Her mother’s loss of appetite seemed planned. It was too abrupt, like she was making a statement.

  A woman on TV laughed. The Home Shopping Network. The woman was brushing a cat. She had a big wad of fur in her hand, and was proud of it.

  “What class you got today?” Cecelia’s mother asked.

  “Poetry.”

  Cecelia’s mother raised an eyebrow. “Did they tell you the secret yet?”

  “What secret?”

  “Of how to write poetry. There’s a secret to everything, you know. They don’t want you to think so, but there is. There’s a trick.” Cecelia’s mother held still, looking upward. Cecelia thought she was thinking about artists and their esoteric know-how until she clicked her cheek and said, “They’re not making a peep.” The chickens.

  “I took the class so I could write good song lyrics,” Cecelia offered. She would’ve dropped the class when she’d dropped music history, because writing song lyrics was no longer in her plans, but she needed nine credits in order to keep her scholarship.

  “I don’t care for lyrics,” Cecelia’s mother said. “Or people banging on drums. I like it when you play your guitar.”

  “I know you do.”

  “Why don’t you play something sugary sweet for me? Play it loud so the birds can hear it.”

  “I’ll play for you,” Cecelia said. “I don’t perform for pets.”

  Cecelia made herself get up and go to her room. She opened her closet and grasped the guitar by the neck. She would turn her brain off and let her fingers strum as she’d trained them to. Playing a song or two on her guitar was a small chore compared to explaining to her mo
ther why she didn’t want to play, explaining about Reggie, explaining about the band being over and the class she’d dropped and the stunt Nate had pulled at the diner, making a pass at her, and the vigils she’d been going to where she would sit for hours with cold hands and a stiff neck thinking about fairness and fate, and that her piece of shit car, since Cecelia could now hear the rain finally falling, was going to leak and Cecelia would have to take towels out with her the next time she drove somewhere.

  REGGIE

  An oversized belt buckle showed up, sitting on the piano, and he recognized it immediately. It had been a gift from his uncle when he was seven years old. Reggie had worn the buckle for months and then finally his uncle had come to visit from Phoenix. Reggie’s uncle didn’t have kids. He was laid-back, unlike Reggie’s father with all his rules and his chart that kept track of chores and the little bank he’d given Reggie for the paltry pay he was awarded for the chores. Reggie’s uncle drank beer like he was in a commercial. He had a tan. Reggie’s uncle had cruised into town in a Corvette and parked it prominently in Reggie’s family’s driveway for the neighbors to gawk at. And Reggie gawked at it too, later, when everyone was inside, his uncle telling a long story about getting lost on a hike. Reggie went outside and looked in the open driver-side window of the low black car, and never had he seen or even imagined such a dashboard. The inside of the Corvette was a cockpit, like something out of Star Wars. There were a hundred controls. The driver’s seat was sunk down among the buttons and levers and displays. Reggie reached in and stroked the leather of the seat and then gripped the steering wheel. An air-freshener in the shape of a nude woman dangled from the rearview and Reggie leaned in the car trying to smell it. He didn’t dare open the door. His uncle came out of the house then to get something from the car and Reggie straightened up and took a step back. His uncle approached with that grin and rested his hand on Reggie’s shoulder, but as he went to pull the door open he stiffened. He stepped away from Reggie and pressed his eyes closed and then pointed to the door so Reggie would look. His grin was long gone. On the door were four or five neat scratches. It took a moment before Reggie realized the scratches were at the height of his belt buckle and understood what had happened. Reggie’s uncle was cursing under his breath. It occurred to Reggie to say he was sorry but he couldn’t because he’d never seen his uncle angry before. His uncle thumbed the scratches and shook his head, seeming to forget Reggie was there, and Reggie escaped around the house and sulked in the backyard.