Telephone

by Percival Everett

  I came to sit with Sarah and found May in the room, holding her good hand, smiling. She remained for a while after my arrival, her little belly pushing into her lap.

  “She had a good night,” May said.

  I wondered what that meant. It was clear that May was moved by the fact that Sarah was a child. There were no other children in the facility as far as I could see.

  “My daughter died when she was seven,” May said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “That was thirty-one years ago. Cancer.”

  “Does it get easier?”

  She looked down at her knees for a second, then at my eyes. “No.”

  I nodded.

  “She’s in there,” May said.

  I could see the Jesus on her sleeve. It didn’t offend me or even put me off. It was, in its way, sweet. “Thank you, May. I’m sure your daughter is still with you.”

  “No, she’s not,” she said, flatly. With that she got up, smiled, and walked out.

  When May was gone from the room, I looked at my daughter and realized that she had disappeared during my brief conversation, that, in fact, she, Sarah, was not in the room and not in that small body, had not been there, would not be there. While I watched her, she experienced a seizure; it hardly mattered. I wiped her lips and chin clean with a white cotton towel.

  Meg blamed herself for Sarah’s wound and, I believe, somehow worked that into blame for her condition. It was irrational, fairly obvious to anyone outside her head, but real and effective enough. We might have survived our daughter’s death, but the process of her dying was killing us, certainly driving us apart. We took turns sitting with Sarah and were almost never there together. Weeks passed.

  Months passed. Sarah faded more. Even May’s smile faded. The sun remained bright every day. The moon moved around the sky. And I continued to sit in that room, now in a recliner beside my daughter’s bed or wheelchair.

  One Wednesday I glanced out the window and saw a shadow. It was high noon and sunny. A young bear had come down from the mountain. He had found the red sugar water of a hummingbird feeder and was sitting on his fat ass, lapping it up. The sight was a joyous one for me; it was the bear that Sarah had been looking for her entire life. I pushed her chair to the window. I looked at my daughter’s empty eyes. I looked at the bear. It was so big, so real, so alive. I put my arms around my child and cried. “Please, see the bear, baby. Please.”

  I weighed close to two hundred pounds. I had large hands. The thread count of the bedding in Sarah’s room could not have been better than 180. It felt a little scratchy against my palms. The fabric of the pillow slip was not slippery at all. Sarah didn’t move much. She never moved much. She would never again move much, move at all. I told my daughter I loved her. She knew that I loved her.

  As I left the building, May gave me a long look, offered a gentle smile.

  “There was a bear outside,” I said.

  “I saw him,” she said. “Is she sleeping?”

  “She is.”

  “I’ll just let her rest then.”

  “Thank you, May.”

  ursa

  the bird flies out;

  the bird flies back again

  It was hotter in New Mexico.

  The names Jeff and Roger somehow didn’t fit them. Conway and Chet seemed too over the top. Braden and Don sounded about right. But, alas, they were Jeff and Roger, an understated Mutt and Jeff. Jeff brightened on finding me in the diner. A worried DeLois gave us space.

  “I thought you went and ran out on us,” he said as they both sat across from me in the booth. I replayed his utterance in my head. Conway was not over the top.

  “No, I just had to run some numbers, check in at the office, visit my girlfriend.” DeLois delivered my coffee.

  “Bring me a coffee,” Jeff said without looking at her.

  “Dr. Pepper for me, please,” Roger said. The please sounded like a foreign language in his mouth. He might as well have said bitte.

  “So, what’s the word?” Jeff asked.

  “Don’t know yet,” I said.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, I don’t.” I paused for dramatic effect. “It’s looking good.”

  Jeff slapped Mutt with the back of his hand. “So, you need to come back out for more tests?”

  “Maybe. I’m still waiting for some test results. Other people need to interpret the readings I’ve already taken.” I hoped he wouldn’t ask for details.

  “And we’re getting the news first, right?”

  “As first as I can manage.”

  “So, what do I do?”

  I shrugged.

  They stood. “We’re good, right?” Jeff said.

  “We’re good,” I said.

  When they were gone, DeLois came to my table with a free piece of pie, slid it in front of me.

  “What’s this?”

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  I stared at her.

  “Are you a cop or something?”

  “No, DeLois, I’m no cop. I’m just a geologist.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’d better be careful. Those good old boys will kill you in a second.”

  I nodded. “Thanks for the concern.” I looked across at the post office. “Have you ever seen the school bus they drive?”

  “Yes.” Her tone changed, became quieter.

  “You’ve seen the women?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me ask you this: How often do the cops drive by here?” I asked.

  “Every now and again. Just one comes around. He likes to talk to Jeff and the stupid one when he’s here.”

  “Is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Thanks for the pie,” I said.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “So do I.”

  I ate my pie and got up to leave.

  “Thursdays,” DeLois said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s when the bus comes by. I don’t know where they’re going.”

  “Thank you, DeLois.”

  As I was getting into my Jeep, DeLois came trotting after me.

  “Did I forget something?” I asked.

  “I get off at six,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I get off at six. I’ll make you dinner.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I looked at her face. She had a kind face. “Okay. I’ll be back here at six.”

  It was hotter in New Mexico.

  DeLois’s last name was McIntosh. I learned this because it was written on a notebook on the floor of her older, nondescript Japanese sedan. Below her name, in the same loopy cursive, was the word poetry. She caught me looking down at it.

  “I take a class once a week up in Albuquerque.”

  “That’s good.”

  She insisted on driving instead of having me follow. Because of the many turns to her place, she claimed I’d never find my way back. She would bring me back to my car.

  “Taking classes is a good thing,” I said.

  “You haven’t read my poetry,” she said. “And you’re not going to. It ain’t fit for human consumption.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “Anyway, I like the class. Do you teach at a college? You just seem like a teacher at a college.”

  “I do.”

  “What?”

  “Geology.”

  “Professor,” she said. “So, where did you disappear to? I didn’t think you were coming back. And you didn’t say good-bye.”

  “I had to go to a funeral.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I looked out the window. The landscape was still fully lit. “This is actually a pretty place,” I said.

  She laughed. “You’re either taking too many of those pills or not enough.” She turned off the highway onto a gravel road. “Are you married?”

  “Yes.”

&nb
sp; “What does your wife do?”

  “She’s a college teacher too. She’s a poet.”

  “No shit. Do you like her poetry?”

  No one had ever asked me that before, and I was caught a little off guard. “I can’t honestly say I understand it.”

  “So no.”

  “I don’t understand it, anyway. I’ll leave it at that. I’m just a scientist.”

  What seemed like a half dozen more turns convinced me that she had been right about driving. We ended up in a high-walled canyon on a dirt road that looked like it had been made for flooding. I recalled DeLois telling me that her husband or boyfriend had left on a run to the store and had never come back. I considered that maybe he was just lost.

  The cabin was nestled against an outcropping of rocks that seemed geologically out of place. There was a wraparound porch and a garden and the only tree for miles, a small desert willow that she had obviously planted.

  “Nice tree,” I said.

  “It struggles,” she said.

  “You have power out here?”

  “Generator.”

  I had always envied people who lived off the grid. I was impressed by DeLois.

  “I inherited this little getaway from my father. He was a rough old son of a bitch. The real deal.”

  “I guess so.”

  “There is a well,” she said. “So I don’t have to go traipsing out in my altogether to do my whatever.”

  “You’re a natural poet,” I said.

  The interior of the house was clean and modest, colorful. She asked that I remove my shoes at the door.

  “I really like your house,” I told her. “It reminds me of you.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “I know a little,” I said.

  “We’re having salad,” she said. “And corn.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “You can look at the house while I chop. That will take you all of thirty seconds.”

  To be polite I made a sweep through the house. It was a home. A neat, clean home. I returned to the kitchen and was put to work chopping carrots and fennel.

  “So, who died?” DeLois asked.

  “A family member.”

  DeLois dropped the corn into the boiling water and looked at me for a second. “Why are you here?”

  “You invited me.”

  “In New Mexico?”

  “Looking for oil.”

  She leaned back against the sink and stared at me.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  She continued to stare.

  “I’m here because of the women on the bus.”

  She was listening.

  I knew that my retelling would be nothing but confusing, so I went for concision. “Those poor women are being held as slaves.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I know it. They told me. How I know is complicated. I have to do something, but I don’t know what.”

  “I told you not to fuck with those guys. They scare the shit out of me.”

  “Me too.”

  “Call the cops.”

  “The story of how I know about the women is complicated and sounds crazy. And I’m not sure I can trust the police. I actually went to Ciudad Juárez and talked to the police. One of the women is from there. Her name is Rosalita Gonzalez.”

  “You’re certain about all of this?” she said.

  “I am.”

  “So, what are you going to do?” I could hear the fear in her voice.

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing,” I said.

  We ate our meal sitting on her maroon velour sofa. There was little relief from the heat until the sun was gone. The windows were all open. I was surprised to see bats in the darkening sky. I said as much.

  “They get in here sometimes,” she said. “I just shoo them out. What’s a little rabies between friends?”

  If I hadn’t liked DeLois before, I liked her now. Truth was, I had liked her from the beginning. At that moment, her smile reminded me of May’s smile. I recalled the slight nod and acknowledgment or approval or understanding that she had given me as I left the facility that night. DeLois’s smile, like May’s, didn’t so much offer optimism as it simply, merely offered. So we ate, the bats outside with the calls of chat-littles.

  I heard stories about DeLois’s parents, especially her father. About her job, a necessity. About her classes. Ceramics, the evidence of which surrounded us. Macramé. Refrigerator repair.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I’ve fixed the unit in the diner twice already. I can work on my car too. You have to be self-sufficient out here.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “I want to help,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “With the women. Let me help.”

  “Help me with what? Why?”

  “It’s easy enough to become alone in the world. Even without living way out here like I do.” She touched my hand.

  “You should drive me back,” I said.

  “You don’t have to leave.”

  “You should drive me back.”

  And so she did.

  I called Meg and we struggled through a tense silence.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I just have to be alone. Are you all right?” It was a stupid question.

  “Are you coming home?”

  “Yes. I love you, Meg.”

  She said nothing.

  “I’ll be home soon.”

  She hung up.

  To say that I felt bad was an understatement. I rationalized my indulgence by thinking that everyone has to process grief in her or his own way. The rationalization was yet another indulgence. I tried to sleep. I’m quite certain I did. And I probably dreamed. And I was probably disturbed by those dreams. Probably.

  Once again in my dingy little Motel 6 room, I stared at the ceiling while listening to the loop of CNN, hearing but not acknowledging that the world was happening someplace else. I consumed a lot of the foods I would never let my daughter eat. Stress eating, boredom eating, whatever, it was the kind of mindless eating that would make me fat and eventually dead. The doctor said it’ll kill me, but he didn’t say when.

  I set the thermostat on the noisy unit below the window cold enough that I could pull the blanket and sheet over me, as if I needed some kind of layer between me and whatever else there was. It was Monday night. In three days it would be Thursday.

  It was hotter in New Mexico.

  I found the Quebradas backcountry road just north of Socorro off the interstate. It was early morning. I crossed the Rio Grande and imagined crossing it at another point south soon enough. I passed through the collection of modest buildings that was the still-sleeping village of Pueblito. It felt good to have the Jeep off the highway and on a trail. It gave me a sense of solitude, though I was anything but alone. I drove slowly, wondering just what I was going to do. It would have been easy enough to pack up and drive home to Los Angeles, but I knew I wouldn’t do that, couldn’t do that. As I drove deeper into a temporary nowhere, I was more relaxed, my breathing found a familiar rhythm, and I saw the landscape more clearly. The colors out there were deep browns, reds, ochre; “a desert rainbow” I had once heard it called. The cactuses were past blooming, but beautiful nonetheless. I imagined seeing it all with Sarah. And then with Meg. I realized that I still loved my wife, and yet here I was, having left her all alone. All alone. So that I might do something good? So that I might in some way redeem myself? I hated the notion of redemption. But here I was in the world, in this world. I would do something.

  I stopped and walked out through the cholla and ocotillos. It was already extremely hot. I was certain that to someone flying overhead or driving by I looked like the ridiculous cliché of a scientist or ranger, clad all in khaki, long pants and sleeves to protect me from the harsh sun. Perhaps to protect me from the bright light of God. If there was a God, he or she was no g
ood at its job. Apparently there was just too much to do, listening to the prayers of all those who actually mattered, the faithful, the pious, the deluded, the stupid. My clumsy, unmeasured strides brought me too close to a rattlesnake. I saw him before he needed to warn me, but still we eyed each other warily as I steered wide of him. I wondered if maybe he was God, out for a walk (or a slither) just like me, through the peace and solitude of the desert. I took a knee and examined the tracks of what I thought was a kit fox. Maybe she was God. God had to be somewhere, why not lost in that desert? That would explain a lot.

  I returned to my Jeep and drove to the end of the trail. It was only midday. I drove north on what I believed was an old dirt mining road. It was arrow straight for five miles, then turned east for a mile, where the road hit a primitive trail that looked more like a rocky wash than anything. I was reminded of a time when I followed directions to a high mountain lake farther north in New Mexico. I was told it was good I had four-wheel drive and that turned out to be true, as I climbed over boulders and straddled deep ruts. I didn’t see another car during the thirty minutes it took me to drive five miles. When I arrived, however, I found the lakeshore peppered with cars, regular cars, Pintos and Datsuns and Chevy Vegas. The sight was so astonishing that I asked a woman who sat fishing if there was another road up to the place. She gave me a look, a mildly interested look, and said, “No, only the one.”

  I followed the primitive trail south and hoped that it would not rain. Rain would have been a disaster. The road never got better and actually petered out completely as the hillside flattened, just when a highway came into sight. When I got to the road, I realized it was, in fact, 380, the road that had taken me so many times now from San Antonio to Bingham and on to the Nazis’ compound. I had come full circle; it seemed I could not escape.

  I drove past the diner, hoping that DeLois would not see me pass, on to the turn left to the compound. I drove past it up the hill far enough that I could park behind a bluff and remain unnoticed. I watched the Nazis through my field glasses. I thought of my friend who had died in that helicopter crash in the Canyon.

  I watched for a long hour under that sun, consumed the last of my water, and finally gave up. Nothing happened down there. I at least could have found some interesting Nazis, some industrious ones, but aside from the keeping of slaves, they bored me to death. Why weren’t they building an armored personnel vehicle or a ballistic missile? Instead they were inside their little house eating bologna sandwiches or having a circle jerk. Still, my Nazis scared me.