A Million Heavens

by John Brandon

  “What makes it a confit, anyway?”

  “They cook it in its own fat,” said Gee. “The French will do anything to an animal. A lot worse things than confit.”

  The main plates came forth, trout that had been cooked on a wood plank and a salad of beets and cactus flowers and different puckery cheeses. Gee ordered wine but Soren’s father stuck with more beer. The food was ridiculously better than the lunch truck food or the clinic food. No denying it. He had the vague feeling of being in someone else’s life. His wife had been good at living, but he could already tell she had nothing on Gee when it came to enjoying things. Soren’s father watched Gee cut her fish into too-large bites and then savor each one. Maybe she would enjoy him that way. Maybe she could force herself into a space in his mind. He could think of her while he sat the hours away at the clinic.

  “Since I started writing my memoir,” Gee said, “everything I do feels like a scene from a book.”

  “You’re going to write about us having dinner? You’re going to write about us eating trout with the head on it?”

  “I don’t know. I have to wait and see if it seems important after some time passes.”

  “What made you decide to write a memoir?”

  “I noticed a lot of boring people were doing it, and crybabies.”

  “You’re not a crybaby, are you?” Soren’s father asked.

  Gee smiled. Soren’s father was out of beer again.

  “Last Christmas I was in Mexico,” Gee said. “I went hiking.”

  Soren’s father had quickly finished his food and he couldn’t tell if he was still hungry. He pushed his plate away.

  “This year it kind of slipped by,” he said.

  “It’s pointless without children,” Gee said. “Most holidays are.”

  “I could’ve put up a little tree in his room and put a gift under it. I got him a bike. It’s at home in the garage.”

  “When he wakes up, it’ll be waiting on him. He won’t care he didn’t get it on Christmas.”

  “It has training wheels.”

  “Sounds like my speed. I never learned how to ride a bike.”

  “Why not?”

  “I never learned. People always say you never forget how to ride a bike, but I never learned. And I never learned how to whistle.”

  “Never learned to whistle?” Soren’s father said. “What do you do when you see a pretty girl?”

  “I am a pretty girl,” Gee said.

  Soren’s father drew in a breath like he was going to whistle but then didn’t.

  “I think I’m getting my wish,” Gee said.

  “You are?” “You’re relaxing, just a little.”

  Soren’s father saw the girls coming around with dessert and coffee. Gee was swirling the last bit of her wine. He saw her trick. Soren’s father had never once considered that she might not like him. He wasn’t sure how she’d done that. She’d banished all doubt from him without his knowing about it.

  “Better finish that,” Soren’s father said. “Coffee’s on the way.”

  “I never finish the last sip of wine,” Gee said. “It’s too sad.”

  MAYOR CABRERA

  Two nights in a row without one guest. There’d been a band of three couples on Christmas night, each couple getting their own room, and they’d stayed on for the night of the twenty-sixth, but nothing the night of the twenty-seventh and nothing tonight. No laundry. No questions to answer. No coffee to brew in the lobby. Mayor Cabrera, out of spite, flicked on the “no” in the sign. NO VACANCY. When things got too slow at the motel, Mayor Cabrera would think of the old days, when he ran a small roofing company. Roofing was something you could do until you stopped, and then you couldn’t do it anymore. It was too hot and too hard on the back. In the roofing business you worked some punishing hours but then when you were off you were really off. You felt the work in your hands when you held a beer. In the motel business, Mayor Cabrera was always bored and never felt off-duty. He wished he was still roofing, and that he was doing it for Dana, his professional lady. Being in a higher, hotter spot than everyone else all day helped a man, but you had to do it for someone. It was nice to think of Dana when he had a little downtime, but he had nothing but downtime and was thinking about her all the time. He was thinking about her more and harder than he’d ever thought about his wife, back when she was alive. Mayor Cabrera had once had a devoted woman and manual labor, and now he sat in a motel in a dying town, pining for a prostitute.

  He went downstairs into the basement. It was a refuge, the basement, but also made him feel closed in. There were a couple high slats of window and now and then the wind would lash sand against the glass. Mayor Cabrera stopped and looked at his calendar, tacked to the wall with a pencil hanging next to it. He used to fill the boxes up with scrunched writing—meetings concerning the town, meetings concerning the motel, his paydays and days off. Lately he left the calendar clean. If he forgot something, he forgot something. Mayor Cabrera cleared some clutter off the old metal desk, scraping a pile of old papers into the trashcan. There were some old granola bars in the pencil drawer and he threw those out too. He paused before pulling open the deep bottom drawer. He knew what was in there. All the potholders his sister-in-law had knitted. There must’ve been a couple hundred. He’d never attempted to sell them. Who would want potholders while they were drifting through the desert? The old rotary phone rang and Mayor Cabrera plucked it off the desktop.

  “What’s the word, mayor?”

  It was the owner of the motel, Mayor Cabrera’s boss. Mayor Cabrera hoped he wasn’t calling because he was on his way. He was due for a visit.

  “How’s shelter renting tonight?”

  “Shelter is hardly renting at all,” said Mayor Cabrera.

  “That bad?”

  Mayor Cabrera knew the motel owner didn’t care if the Javelina made money. He had other businesses that made money. Mayor Cabrera could probably stay at the Javelina until the owner died, and maybe even after, if the owner’s kids decided not to sell the place. Or the owner could die tomorrow and the place could be on the market next week. Both were deflating thoughts, being out of a job or staying at the motel for years to come.

  “Is it snowing there?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed,” said Mayor Cabrera.

  “I heard something about it snowing in New Mexico. One time I was in Old Mexico and it snowed. Did you know it snowed down there?”

  The motel owner sounded drunk. Arizona had likely played a basketball game. The motel owner donated small fortunes to University of Arizona, and he judged the quality of each year he spent on earth by how the basketball team performed.

  “Oh, wait,” said Mayor Cabrera. It took a lot of effort for him to be dishonest, but he wasn’t going to have a drawn-out conversation with his drunken boss. “I think I hear somebody. Better get up to the office.”

  “Okay,” said the motel owner. “Rent that shelter.”

  Mayor Cabrera hung up the phone. He stared down at the potholders in their drawer, then picked one up and handled it. It was the ochre color of mountains at noon. Mayor Cabrera always brought stew to his sister-in-law’s place when he cooked up a batch. He’d always brought her stew, from way back when her sister was alive, and though he’d quit speaking to his sister-in-law, though he diligently avoided her company because he didn’t want to be reminded of his losses, he’d never quit delivering the stew. It was a way to not feel guilty. For all he knew, she dumped it all out. He always left it on her front porch and rang the bell and drove off like a teenager pulling a prank. One day he’d found a mess of potholders in a plastic bag on the step, with a note that read SELL THESE IN THE LOBBY, WE’LL SPLIT THE PROFITS. He’d picked up bag after bag of the stiff, rectangular cloths. She had no way to know when he was coming, so sometimes the potholders must’ve sat out there for many nights, collecting dew and then drying out and then collecting dew. His sister-in-law had never seemed like a woman to crochet or knit or whatever. She wasn�
�t that old. Mayor Cabrera wasn’t old. He could clearly recall the days before Cecelia had come along, before his sister-in-law was even his sister-in-law, when she was the spunky sister of his future wife. He thought of a trip the three of them had taken to Taos. They’d gone up in early spring to hike, when the trees would be budding and the streams filling and the birds amorous, and no sooner did they get into town and find a place for breakfast then the sky turned gray and the playful breeze turned into a stiff wind full of icy intent. Mayor Cabrera could remember, like it had happened last weekend, asking the waitress for hot sauce for his hash browns and then becoming aware of the first tiny snowflakes flitting against the windows of the restaurant like confused insects. They couldn’t go hiking and weren’t about to race the storm back to the basin, so they located the cheapest bar in Taos, which didn’t seem all that cheap, and drank the sunless day away. Mayor Cabrera’s wife who wasn’t yet his wife became easier and easier to convince that another round would be a good idea, and Mayor Cabrera, though he couldn’t afford it, kept buying drinks for the locals. At some point what little light had been in the sky was gone and the snow was falling in a perfect endless sheet. The three of them piled into Mayor Cabrera’s old El Camino and pulled away from the bar not knowing where they were headed, using the weather as an excuse to drive slowly. Just outside town they turned down a quiet road lined with identical rental villas, snug-looking, cozy rather than cramped. Mayor Cabrera pulled into an empty driveway and they sat there. The place was unoccupied. Nowadays a villa like that would have as many cameras and alarms as a bank. No one had protested. He could hear it now, his sister-in-law giggling and giggling, nervous and excited, the unspoken and obvious fact of what they were going to do becoming clear in the cab of the El Camino. They were hidden by the storm. The villa wasn’t big but had three or four chimneys. Mayor Cabrera had gotten out and clomped around the back and found a bathroom window he could force open. The three of them had kept the lights off in the villa and the fireplaces cold but they did prepare hot cocoa in the kitchen and click on the space heaters. The cocoa was from Europe or something, in a fancy canister, and his sister-in-law packed it in her bag. They played a few hands of Castle, but once they were warm, the alcohol wearing off, the girls were all yawns. When they heard the banging on the front door the next morning it roused them from a dry-mouthed slumber. They’d fled out the back of the place, coats half on, and tripped out into the white-gowned Ponderosa pines. They circled around and found themselves on a vista from which they could see the restaurant from the day before, and the bar. What was wrong with Mayor Cabrera’s memory? It was too good. He could painfully recall how satisfied he’d felt driving back to the basin, barreling through the bright cold with two women sleeping beside him and a fresh adventure under his belt and the desert opening and opening before him.

  Mayor Cabrera reached up and removed the calendar from the basement wall. He folded it in half and put it in the trash. He remembered what was in his back pocket and pulled out a Christmas card from Ran. More garbage. It was a holiday card, no reference to Jesus, a photo of a farmhouse on the front. Ran had signed the card but hadn’t written anything personal. Mayor Cabrera couldn’t figure Ran out. He was some kind of well-meaning con man, but most people meant well and everyone was conning someone. Mayor Cabrera didn’t feel he could be conned, at this point. Or maybe he wanted to be conned, which made you immune.

  There was a door at the back of the basement that led outside and Mayor Cabrera opened it and stepped out and folded his arms against the wind. It was a low wind, sweeping the desert floor, bothering Mayor Cabrera’s pant cuffs. It was coming from the Northwest, like the wind always seemed to this time of year. Mayor Cabrera’s stomach felt light and he could feel that he was grinding his teeth. It was his niece. Mayor Cabrera didn’t have a child of his own but he had a niece. His absence in her life was a great adult shortfall. Mayor Cabrera never thought this way, and his mind was in a quiet terror. There were the trappings of adulthood, which everyone wound up with, and then there was being an adult. Mayor Cabrera felt dizzy and widened his stance. He’d been managing the regret of neglecting his sister-in-law all these years, but he’d neglected his niece too. He’d held her when she was a baby, taken her for ice cream when she was a toddler, dropped her off at pee-wee soccer practice. And then he’d stopped. He’d bowed out. He’d resigned from unclehood. He closed his eyes for a time until his balance returned. He felt the opposite of how he’d felt after that trip to Taos. The desert didn’t seem like an answer but like a hostile maze. Mayor Cabrera hadn’t looked after anyone, and there was no other accomplishment worth a damn. And now Cecelia was a young woman and she was a stranger to Mayor Cabrera. He’d allowed himself to indulge in motel troubles and town troubles. He was a few years from fifty. Cecelia deserved a competent uncle, but at this point she wasn’t expecting one. Mayor Cabrera had busied himself with the town so he could ignore the shambles of his private life. He’d passed Christmas in the basement of the hotel, staring at action movies. The TV station had arranged a sprig of holly in the corner of the screen and they left it there all day. Mayor Cabrera had eaten leftover pasta salad. He’d drunk a couple beers and then lost interest and switched to ginger ale.

  Mayor Cabrera stood facing a multitude of spiny plants and eroding rocks and forced himself to remember when Cecelia was a baby, when his sister-in-law was herself, when Mayor Cabrera’s wife was alive. They’d been sure Cecelia would have a better life, though their own lives were far from bad. Nothing had seemed more important than Cecelia growing up happy. Mayor Cabrera didn’t know much about his niece at this point, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t happy.

  THE WOLF

  It was a concert of religious guitar music. The wolf had settled under an RV on the edge of the fairgrounds to listen to the reverberating licks and preening voices. At the end of each song a roar rose up from the humans attending the concert that was louder than the music and full of fervor and made the wolf nervous. It was a chilly night, the smells thin. The underside of the Rv stank but the wind that buffeted under and rippled the wolf’s fur was vacant of worthwhile scents—smoke, birth, another predator.

  The musicians kept asking questions of the crowd and the crowd kept combining their voices with certainty. The wolf was afraid of these humans and he also pitied them. They had little soul left and that’s why they aggrandized what sliver remained. And what of the wolf’s soul? Lately he found himself panting with no cause, while resting on a cool morning under an outcropping. He’d caught himself clamping his jaws down on his own foreleg.

  The wolf hastened away from the concert straight toward Sandia Mountain, exhilarated because he’d completely broken off his rounds. They were unrecognizable tonight, his rounds. He didn’t feel worried about them. He felt a blessing of strength that needed to be used, so instead of skirting Sandia he began to climb it, the most inefficient and unpleasant route to Lofte, beating up his paws, thirsty, hoping to ensure he’d be able to sleep in the morning, straight up the mountain and then he’d go straight down the other side and he would not avoid anything the remainder of the night nor give way nor hold himself still, meaning that whatever creature fate put in his way before dawn would be subtracted from the living world without any knowledge of what had happened to it.

  THE GAS STATION OWNER

  As soon as the offices opened back up he called the free paper that covered the basin and ordered a want ad. The next issue wasn’t going to press for over a week.

  NEEDED: gas station/store managers, lofte, no nights, two positions open, 505-386-2387

  The idea of leaving the station put the gas station owner in mind of a young boy shedding a shabby blanket that had always comforted him. The mirror in the back room he peered into when he trimmed his hair. The bills he got to sit and write out, the amounts of which changed by mere pennies from month to month. The short aisles of canned goods he could straighten and straighten—condensed milk, chili, potted sausage, peppers
. His radio stations that came and went. His whisky in the evenings. The big window behind the register.

  Taking even this small step of placing the ad in the paper agreeably loosened something behind his eyes. Cleared his head. He was going to shed his blanket and face whatever gales the desert could offer. He was going to confront the desert, finally. He wanted to find the middle of it, the still dry heart of the land. He could see himself walking into the wild and could hear that quiet moment already, the rhythmic crunch of his boots and the lisping of the desert wind against his body, the quiet simple sounds of what would be the first brave thing he’d ever done.

  DANNIE

  The numbers at the vigils had peaked and then in the last couple weeks had declined, but this Wednesday evening it was raining—a musty drizzle that refused to rally into an earnest storm, that kept dampening everyone and then losing steam—and more significantly, the holidays had arrived. This Wednesday they’d lost fully half the group from last week. The fat had been trimmed; Dannie tried to think of it that way. Anyone sitting vigil tonight was staunch. She appreciated these people for being lost like she was and for not wanting to talk about it just like her and for never missing a Wednesday. Maybe this was the perfect size for the group, about thirty.

  Arn had been sitting back to back with Dannie and he scooched around and rested his hand on her boot. He was wearing a garbage bag over his clothes like everyone else. The muscular guy with beady eyes had handed them out to everyone off an enormous roll. Arn was soaked anyway. He looked like he was about to grin, but he could look that way for hours. He was a comfort to Dannie because she knew nothing could make him quit. He always kept a reserve, an empty part of him, a reserve of nothing, and it gave him an advantage. He was attending the vigils because Dannie wanted him to and because he wasn’t picky about what he did with his time. He was picky about what he ate, but not about his pastimes. He would not grow overwhelmed or lose heart.