After hanging up he lay back down on the bed in the cab, picturing her sitting at the vanity in her bedroom as stars glittered above the meadow. Maybe someday when she was a celebrity she would hire him as a bodyguard. Maybe that was what he would do when the computers took over the roads.
* * *
The Master arrived in town at midnight, during a rainstorm, emerging from the dark backseat of a limousine with tinted windows, holding a shopping bag that appeared to be full of pomegranates. She was renting the historic hotel downtown for the week. Not just a room, but the entire building. Her bodyguards walked her to the door with a black umbrella and then jogged back to the limousine to carry her luggage, a pair of antique leather suitcases with gleaming brass latches, from the trunk into the lobby.
Kaveh was at the bar later that week as a crowd gathered in the multicolored light to gossip about sightings. Cash Taylor, who owned the hotel, had met her in the lobby that night that she had arrived to hand over a set of keys. As always, he said, she had been wearing the hooded cloak. The scars on her hands were pink and terrible and had frightened him badly. Although the cloak had hid her feet, he swore that he had heard the unmistakable sound of flip-flops flapping as she had crossed the lobby to the stairs.
“I can tell you this much, she never talks,” said Bart, who had a business working as a tour guide for local attractions and had been hired to take her sightseeing the morning after she had arrived in town. Bald and beefy with a jawline of rugged stubble, Bart corroborated that she wore flip-flops, and moreover was able to add that based on the size of the footprints that she left in the dirt, her feet were large, same as her hands. Bart had spent a day with her, from sunrise to sunset, and hadn’t heard her speak even once. He had taken her to the town museum, the truss bridge, the buffalo jump, and the windswept cluster of tents at the archaeological dig, where a blushing graduate student had begged her to autograph a dusty handkerchief. She had specifically requested to see Devils Tower, which of course he would have taken her to even if she hadn’t asked, being the first national monument in the country. Standing there in the hooded cloak, The Master had gazed at the butte for nearly an hour, as if the site held some personal significance to her, and from there he had taken her even further into the mountains, to see the sights that only a native could have shown her, the local secrets that weren’t on any map. Tiered waterfalls that cascaded down cliffs before scattering to mist in midair, smoking fumaroles that had stained the surrounding dirt the color of ash, and the secret thermal spring in the grove of ponderosas, where steam rose from the shimmering emerald water in the pool, which legend said was great for the complexion. Presumably she had removed the hooded cloak to bathe in the pool, but her bodyguards had kept watch while she soaked, telling him to wait further on down the trail.
After the tour was finished he had gone back to the pool alone, hoping that she might have forgotten something, maybe some hair bands, maybe some lip balm, some authentic celebrity belonging that he could auction off online. Instead she had left behind only an eerie silence.
“I’ve never heard those woods like that. The birds, the insects, everything out there had gone totally quiet. You could practically hear the heat rising from the water,” Bart said.
Janice, who was gray-haired and stocky and worked as a librarian, had seen her on the side of the highway that next day. The Master had apparently gotten out of the limousine to examine a skunk that had been hit by a car. Janice had driven past her as she was standing over the carcass. Although her face had been hidden by the cloak, her shoulders had appeared to be shaking.
“What was she doing?” Kaveh said.
“Laughing? Crying?” Janice guessed.
“Shivering,” Bart said, and the others around the bar agreed that the wind had been fierce that day, and that being from down south she just must not be used to the weather.
Sawyer had seen her carrying a tub of detergent into the hotel, Quint had seen her carrying a bouquet of tulips into the hotel, and Emilio, who worked as a prostitute out at the brothel at the old ranch, had not only seen her eat at the taqueria—she’d had chips and guac with the famous horchata—but afterward had managed to grab a napkin that she had used to wipe her mouth. Emilio had gotten the napkin framed just that morning, and had the napkin with him at the bar. Petite and effeminate, with elfin charms, Emilio was reputed to have the sweetest-tasting semen in the West. Kaveh had once seen him naked at the brothel, scampering down the hallway with a giggle, chasing a patron with a wooden paddle, and could attest firsthand that the prostitute had chiseled abs, sculpted buttocks, and a purplish cock of startling beauty and girth, which swung back and forth in the air with a profound gravity when he ran. Janice had recently announced to a crowd at the bar that he had once brought her to climax a dozen times in a single night, after which she’d had to sit on an airplane pillow at work for a week. Bart, who’d recently celebrated a silver anniversary with Janice, and whose sex drive was somewhat sluggish, often made emotional toasts in gratitude to Emilio, who he claimed had saved their marriage. Janice saw Emilio at the brothel about once a month. Bart and Emilio played checkers together sometimes on the weekends.
“Just think how much you could get for that online,” Bart exclaimed.
Emilio clutched the frame with a rapturous smile.
“I’ll carry this treasure with me for all my life,” Emilio cried.
The napkin was smudged with a thick blotchy smear of bright scarlet, maybe from lipstick or salsa. Kaveh squinted, searching for some insight into the shape of the mouth that had made the mark. The mark was as inscrutable as an inkblot.
“I heard that cloak she wears is magic or enchanted or something,” Maisie said.
“I heard she doesn’t even take the cloak off while she’s fucking,” Tessa said.
“There’s no way that’s true,” Kaveh said with a snort.
“That it’s magic or that she doesn’t even take it off during intercourse?” said Cash Taylor.
“I just still can’t believe that one of us won,” said Jezebel, plump and curvy with wild strawberry blond hair, who also worked as a prostitute at the brothel on the old ranch. Her specialties were anal, fisting, pegging, tribbing, and virgins of any gender. She’d taken his virginity in the meadow behind the brothel, the summer after he’d graduated, the week before he’d deployed, when he was still just a kid. Kaveh hadn’t even dared to make an appointment. His father had thought he was riding trails. Kaveh had sat outside of the brothel on his muddy dirt bike, wavering, too scared to go inside, foot poised on the pedal, on the verge of kick-starting the engine to drive away again, and then a figure in a light blue petticoat had stepped out onto the porch, wrapped in a billowing linen shawl. When she’d seen that he was too nervous to go into the ranch, she’d offered to take him into the meadow behind the brothel, laying the shawl down under a fir tree as startled pronghorns had galloped off toward the hills. She was the oldest prostitute who worked there, long past fifty now, and liked to roleplay. He hadn’t slept with her since coming back from overseas, and still, whenever she looked at him she looked at him like she owned him, with this coy smile.
“Rachel should play the stock market, that’s how lucky she is,” Owen said.
“Lucky to have such a generous sponsor,” Harper said, glancing at him.
“Kaveh, do you have a crush?” Emilio cooed.
“It’s not like that.”
“Where is she tonight anyway?” Jezebel frowned.
“I think working.”
Kaveh took a swig of lager, embarrassed that everybody knew he had financed the ticket for Rachel. When he thought about her going to the gig though, about her getting to meet her hero, about her getting to pursue her dream, the embarrassed feeling was trumped by a sense of pride. He had done that. He’d made that possible. To have been part of a moment that important was worth a hundred grand. The buzz from the beer made the lights in the bar seem to shimmer like nuggets of gold.
“I swear to god, The Master coming here is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to Crook County, and that includes the Sundance Kid,” declared Cash Taylor.
A group of rednecks walking past the crowd toward the door of the bar called out some unsolicited opinions.
“That bitch should be run out of town.”
“The same as the rest of you whores.”
“Man, fuck you,” Kaveh spat, slipping off of the stool to take a swing at the fuckers, but then he felt hands grabbing at him from behind.
“Hey there, kiddo,” said Cash Taylor, holding him back as the fuckers filed out through the door, tipping the brims of camouflage ballcaps at the crowd in farewell.
Kaveh had a sighting that night after leaving the bar. Not of her, but her bodyguards. As he shuffled past the convenience store across from the hotel, he saw her bodyguards flipping through magazines at the rack by the doors. The sight stunned him. He’d seen hundreds of photos of her bodyguards before online, but her bodyguards were even more formidable in real life. One had light skin. He was rumored to be trained in jujitsu. One had dark skin. He was rumored to be a former boxer. Nobody knew what her bodyguards were named. There was a contingent of fans who desperately longed for her bodyguards to be lovers, maybe even to be secretly married to each other, but at the very least to be secretly dating, and having lots of sex, preferably in very steamy showers, while tenderly whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears. Fans who belonged to this contingent were referred to as “sbs,” or “steamy bodyguard sex” fans. Whether her bodyguards were actually a couple wasn’t known. What was known, what was verifiable, thanks to a somewhat blurry video filmed by a bystander, was that when a pair of obsessed lunatics had once rushed her with a couple of butcher knives, her bodyguards had leapt without hesitating between her and the attackers, ducking swipes of the blades, delivering swift blows to throats, dodging jabs of the blades, delivering quick kicks to chins, and afterward, panting over the broken bodies of the assailants, when her bodyguards had glanced over and had each realized that the other hadn’t been harmed, her bodyguards had shared a poignant, arguably even romantic, look. Her bodyguards had also broken the wrists and fingers of countless fraternity brothers who had attempted to dehood her on dares. Videos that belonged to this genre were referred to as “bgo,” or “bros getting owned” videos. For some reason sbs fans seemed to take particular pleasure in bgo videos.
The bell hanging from the doors jingled as he stuck his head into the convenience store.
“Describe her in one word,” Kaveh slurred.
Her bodyguards stared at him, then responded to him simultaneously.
“Innocent.”
“Immortal.”
He took out his phone as he shuffled across the parking lot of the convenience store.
“Hello?” Rachel said.
“I just saw her mercenaries in the flesh,” Kaveh said.
Rachel laughed. “You’re so drunk.”
“I believe in you.”
“I appreciate that sweetheart.”
“You’re going to be better than she is.”
“I think you might be biased.”
“The greatest artist of all time.”
When she spoke her voice held a barely contained joy. “You really think so?”
She had to go. Her gig for the night was coming back from the bathroom. She quick whispered goodbye.
As he was putting away his phone he saw the group of rednecks from the bar strolling down the sidewalk across the road.
“Fucking puritans,” Kaveh shouted, and when the rednecks saw him the group rushed him, throwing a wild punch at him, wrestling him down onto the pavement, landing a kick to his ribs, knocking the wind from his lungs, and then he managed to scramble across the pavement to where his truck was parked, grabbing the tire iron stored under the cab, gripping the tire iron like a baseball bat, crouching next to the truck, threatening to knock the next person who touched him out of the ballpark, and then after the rednecks had taken the opportunity to call him a pussy, a dick, an asshole, and a socialist, the rednecks strolled back off down the sidewalk, flipping him off.
Panting, he dropped the tire iron onto the pavement, glanced at the convenience store, and then froze.
The Master was watching him.
Seeing her in person sent a tingle down the skin on the back of his neck. She was standing with her bodyguards by the doors to the convenience store. He hadn’t even realized that she had been in the convenience store too. The brilliant fluorescent lights streaming through the doors behind her made her appear to have a dazzling aura. The hood of the cloak hid her completely, but from the direction she was facing, she was clearly staring straight at him. He was paralyzed by her gaze. He didn’t move a muscle until she finally turned away.
He wiped some blood from his lip, and she crossed the road toward the hotel with her bodyguards both in tow, carrying a shopping bag full of toiletries.
Kaveh had been driving for almost a decade. By now he had seen the entire country. He had seen a solar eclipse darken the sky above downtown Des Moines. He had seen a rainbow shimmer in the sky above downtown Santa Fe. He had seen a sudden hailstorm in the parking lot of a diner in Baton Rouge, massive lumps of hail smashing windshields and denting roofs as the owners of the vehicles cried out in protest. The salt flats in Utah, both in summer, when the bright white salt cracked apart in patterns like honeycomb, glowing in the sunlight, and in winter, when the shallow layer of water covering the salt glistened like glass, reflecting the clouds. A sunrise burning over the rugged hills beyond the pink and green waters of Great Salt Lake. A sunset casting a gold and pink glow across the rolling slopes of the Great Sand Dunes. Moonlight shining across the striped pinnacles of the Badlands. New-moon stars glimmering over the towering mesas at Zion. The primitive colonial structures at Strawbery Banke. The ancient cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. Elk grazing in a prairie in Colorado, pheasants with iridescent feathers bursting from a grassy thicket in Ohio, vibrant starfish clinging to crags in kelpy tide pools in Maine. Moose breathing steam in a snowfield in Wisconsin. Pelicans with bright crimson bills diving for fish in a rocky cove in Louisiana. Beavers with massive tails chewing bark from a beech tree in a forest in Virginia. He had seen a dust storm engulf the telephone poles and the streets and the traffic lights and the houses on the outskirts of Albuquerque. He had seen an ice storm crystallize the fire hydrants and the sidewalks and the power lines and the homes on the outskirts of Montpelier. Teenagers in tutus tossing batons during a parade in Cut And Shoot. Children in jackets waving sparklers as fireworks glittered above Truth Or Consequences. Surfers in dripping wetsuits carving the waves in Montauk. Crouching skateboarders zigzagging down the palmy boulevards in Hollywood. People dressed in alien costumes withdrawing money from a teller machine in Roswell. Celebrity impersonators waiting in line for a bathroom at a beach resort in the Keys. Burlesque performers in feathered hats taking a smoking break behind a casino on the Strip. Halloween in Oakland, Austin, Charlotte, Minneapolis, Topeka, Savannah, Jackson, Plymouth, and Hell. Conspiracy theorists standing with binoculars on the desert highway along Area 51. Internet influencers posing for photos at abandoned repair shops on Route 66. He had contemplated the glory of Old Faithful, inspected the candle-smoke signatures in the depths of Mammoth Cave, and regarded the majesty of Niagara Falls. Seen all of the inexplicable human spectacles, the mysterious sights that weren’t in any guidebook, that were only possible to see once. A gangster in a bigfoot mask hopping into a getaway car after robbing a bodega in New Jersey. Somebody in a colorful aloha shirt throwing a pair of hightops with the laces knotted together onto a telephone wire in Mississippi. Somebody with a scuffed briefcase running off into an alley after lighting a garbage bin on fire behind a motel in Indiana. A family in mismatched pajamas fleeing from the doorway of a blazing duplex in Oklahoma. A rabble of distraught tenants huddling together as flames consumed an apartment complex in Delaware. Firefighters attempt
ing to restrain a shopkeeper with a tousled combover who was fighting to enter a burning toy store in Washington. Kids watching from a window as a couple in bathrobes struggled to extinguish a cross burning in a lawn in Memphis. A couple with a stroller trying to use a cane umbrella to remove a noose hanging from a streetlight in Columbus. A sunburned man in tattered clothing perched on a milk crate on a sidewalk in Boise, shouting doomsday prophecies in a shrill voice. A blind woman with foggy eyes kneeling at the base of a drive-thru speaker in Providence, muttering an incoherent prayer to dead presidents. The shadow of a hand making obscene gestures in the light of the projector at a drive-in theater in Kentucky. A handful of pennies tossed from a roller coaster pelting down onto the crowd milling around a carnival in Missouri. Protestors in bandannas ducking behind parked cars as police in riot gear fired canisters of tear gas in Chicago. Pedestrians diving for the sidewalk as the windows of a strip mall shattered during a drive-by shooting in Orlando. A hit-and-run in San Diego, somebody in a roadster with neon sunglasses and windswept hair cruising off through a stoplight after sideswiping a cyclist. Rubberneckers gawking at the hole that a jackknifed semi had punched through the guardrail on a mountain pass in West Virginia. Somebody with an iced mocha keying the paint on an ambulance in the parking lot of a coffee shop in Oregon. Somebody in moccasins and a sundress screaming at a vending machine full of potato chips in Maryland, beating on the glass. Somebody in scrubs yelling at a clerk at a post office in Iowa, swearing to take revenge over a lost package. Somebody in coveralls shouting at a loan officer in a bank in Alabama, threatening to sue after being denied a mortgage. A holiday display toppling as a couple of shoppers grappled with each other in the aisle of an electronics store in Lincoln, fighting over a box of limited-edition headphones. Somebody throwing trash from the windows of a motor home on a turnpike in the Tetons, ignoring the horns of the veering traffic. Somebody drifting drunkenly between the lanes of a freeway in the Dakotas. Somebody speeding in the wrong direction down an expressway in the Carolinas. Somebody behind the wheel of a rusted minivan swerving to hit a rabbit on a highway in Window Rock. Somebody firing a semiautomatic at a flock of ducks from a bridge over the Rio Grande.
Why Visit America Page 28
