Heroes of the Frontier

by Dave Eggers

  “You got it?” Jim yelled from some invisible place in the woods.

  “I’m good,” she said, and decided she needed to prove she was good, so rode across the parking lot, adjusting her sense of direction and equilibrium to the handlebars, which were tilted down, too.

  She looked up at the path, wanting to move forward, believing she could move forward, but the machine under her was mangled and had other plans. It defied logic that she could make this work after a potent mojito, but after a hundred yards she was riding more or less straight. Then again, she passed an older woman who stared at her, aghast, as she passed. To see oneself in another’s eyes is no gift. It’s always a shock, always a disappointment to see their own shock and disappointment. You look so old. You look so tired. What are you doing to your children? Why are you riding a crooked bike drunkenly on this lovely path? How is this the right use of your time, your humanity? Have we wasted precious space dust on you?

  But soon the riding was comfortable enough and the landscape was drifting by, and because the sun was setting, setting so late, it occurred to her all at once that she’d never been more connected to the land, and nothing around her had ever seemed more alive and glowing and beautiful. The purple wildflowers, the grey dirt, the smell of the pine needles cooling. The tall tree halved by lightning. The waning sun on the hills in the distance, bright blue and white. Whose bike was she riding, anyway? A log-hewn fence. The wail of a faraway truck slowing. The monotony of an unburned forest on the sun-drenched hillside. Why did she have to be tipsy before she could notice anything? A rabbit! A rabbit was just down the slope from the path, small, tawny, and staying longer than expected, looking at her with absolute recognition of her humanity, of her equal right to this land so long as she remained humble. After it evaporated loudly into the thicket, there was the metallic hum of crickets. The butterlight of some cabin in the nearby woods. The heat of the pavement below her, the faint smell of tar where someone had sutured its tendril cracks. The click of her gears, the awed hush of the highway beyond the trees, the pointless drama of all of its rushing travelers. “You know what time it is?” asked a voice.

  Josie looked around, the landscape spinning in green and ocher, and saw a man on a parallel road. He was on a bike, too, standing, straddling his, outfitted in an explosion of colorful gear. After he asked the question, he took a sip of water from a tidy black water bottle. All of this, he believed, made him both virile and monumental: the bike, the gear, the straddling of the bike, the sipping of water right after asking a stupid question.

  “Eight thirty,” Josie said, because she knew it was probably true.

  “Thanks,” the man said, but in a way that implied he was a paying guest and she was some kind of bike-path clock keeper—that she worked on the path and was in charge of time. She thought of the bicycle man in her town, the one responsible for the maiming, the furious and florid sense of themselves these men felt. I am wearing these clothes and have gone fast. Move from my path. Fix my teeth. Tell me the time.

  “Fuck you, you motherfucking asshole,” she said, not loud enough for him to hear, loathing all of humanity, and then continued on, in seconds happy again, again connected to the land, feeling everything gorgeous around her, hoping the lightning tree would fall on that man and improve the world by the subtraction of one.

  She turned around a bend in the path and saw a stream, and then a pond, an empty bench facing the water, and she thought of old people, and dead people, and dirty pigeons, and then dirty landscapers, dirty housepainters. A fox! Was it a fox there, ahead of her, near the pond, staring at her? It could be a coyote. Christ, she thought, it was beautiful, with its rich coat, its luxurious grey coat, its eyes like Paul’s, Paul’s eyes always looking old, as if seeing her from a different wiser, sadder epoch.

  Like the rabbit, the fox lingered far longer than she thought plausible before jogging away, into the high grass. This was dusk, when all the animals appeared. Dusk was all that mattered. Midday was nothing, nothing. Midday was for humans, for the drones of mankind, who bustle about in the heat of day like imbeciles, while the animals always waited till the cooling of the earth, waited till the light was low and the air cooling, till they appeared to do their business.

  The sun wouldn’t set for another half-hour and now, as she passed between two hills, one in violet shadow and the other dirty blond with sunset light, she realized this was the time when she and everyone should be out, should see these things, share the world with the foxes and voles and moles and rabbits. The light as it passed through the cotton of the willows! The light as it haloed the trees and grass and weeds! But she was usually not out at this time. Usually she was feeding her children, putting them to bed, all of these prosaic activities that kept her from the beauty of the world. Our children keep us from beauty, she thought, then corrected herself. Our children are beautiful, too, but we must find a way to combine these things, so we’re not missing one for the other. Could it be so hard?

  Ahead she saw a gentle decline from the path to the riverside and decided she would sit there and put her feet in the water. She found a large stone that resembled a pillow and she set her head on it, extending her feet to the river and found that her toes touched the cold water. She closed her eyes to the sun and yawned a happy yawn and woke up when? The light was the same. She’d only dozed. She looked around her, expecting cobwebs to tell her she’d slept a hundred years, her children were now grandparents, all was different, but instead she saw a small snake appear from between the rocks at the water’s edge, a water snake of some kind, and without taking any notice of her, come out and inspect a snail making its wet way across the slick rock. With a snap of its head the snake swallowed it, and then retreated back into the dark water.

  Josie stood and felt the uncertain earth beneath her feet. She steadied the land and thought again about staying, at least until she sobered. No, she thought, it will be good this way, to bike home this way—she had the powerful thought that this was the way it was meant to be, that it was all so beautiful she could hardly bear it. She took a long last look at the river, moving like a thousand silver knives. The rocks on the far shore, cooling in the shadows. She turned and climbed up to the bridge.

  Getting on the bike was a kind of seven-dimensional chess. Was she drunker now than before? The river and the sun had inebriated her. The bike seemed a foot taller now than when she’d ridden it hours ago. She hoisted herself onto the seat, pushed off, and immediately careened into the shrubbery to her left. Okay, she thought. Okay. She squinted into the sun and mounted the bike again and this time shoved herself forward with enough velocity that she was propelled more or less straight.

  The air was cooler now, and she hoped it would sober her. Her eyes watered as she rode, sideways, her mouth open. But she regained her balance, and said these words to herself: Great night. Good evening. The greatest night. The beauty of this nowhere world. I love this. Where are my children? Can I love this without them? I can and I do. This is my best life. Among this beauty, on my way to them.

  Soon she saw the rooftops of the RV park. Now she saw the first trailers and trucks, and passed a child on a scooter. Now the path connected with the dirt road that connected to the gravel road that connected to the paved road and now she saw the underpass, and it felt so good to follow in the Mennonites’ footsteps, grinning while careening under it, knowing she would see her children now, would reclaim them from Jim, and she would kiss Jim in some way. Innocent, simple, maybe a long and tight embrace and later she could pleasure herself in the passenger seat. But what about Jim? Here she was, able to be at liberty at dusk, on this wayward bike, to enjoy the beauty of the world, alone, because of Jim. This was the boon of a second parent—he could provide these moments alone, the temporary clarity of vision to see this golden light and see these gorgeous mammals, to see the play of shadows on the hills. She had the thought that she could stay. Her children loved it here, and Jim was so calm, and they could live in his log cabin, and
she could become an innkeeper’s wife. She had never had a partner, never a real partner, in her parenting, Carl being a child himself. What if she had an actual man nearby, who could catch and gut and grill fish, and could draw well-endowed elephants but could be dissuaded from that in the future? But that would mean living here, and with Jim, who she did not think she could love, who had an Urgent Fury tattoo on his arm and who knew what else on his chest and shoulders—he could have some kind of battleship, a squadron of bombers. What to do with a life? One second she believed fervently that it was enough to be with her children, the next moment they bored her to tears and were an impediment to all her dreams. Goddamn them, her terrible robber children, robbing her of so much, giving her everything and robbing her of everything else, her gorgeous perfect thieving children damn them, bless them, she couldn’t wait to lie down with them, holding her old cold hands against their hot smooth faces.

  —

  She dropped the bike messily in the shed and walked to the office, where she found a unnamed clerk but not Jim, and no sign of her children. “He took them back to your RV,” the clerk said. At the Chateau she expected them to be outside, watching him draw or whatever other outdoor activity he might conjure, but no one was outside, and the door was closed, and rushing to the Chateau Josie paused. Had this man put her children to bed or was he doing something terrible in there? She listened and heard a man’s booming voice talking about giant poos.

  She stepped up and found Paul and Ana up in their bed over the cab, and Jim sitting in the dinette, reading from a paperback Captain Underpants book. He had brought it himself.

  “Again,” Ana said to Jim, and then to Josie: “Jim’s gonna do it again.”

  Jim then read a passage about a villain accidentally turning himself into a forty-foot-tall walking and talking feces log. After this passage Jim turned the book to show Josie the picture, revealing that the giant feces-man was wearing a cowboy hat. The kids were giggling wildly, delighted that this older man had validated and honored this story with his theatrical reading. Finally he closed the book with slow gravitas, as if he’d just wrapped up some long and distinguished volume, and placed it on the kitchen counter.

  “Night, guys,” Jim said to the children, and stepped down from the RV.

  Josie climbed up and kissed her children’s foreheads as they dangled over the ledge, and then stepped down from the Chateau and returned to Jim.

  XVI.

  IN THE RELENTLESS MORNING SUN Josie drove, exhausted and angry and tired of watching the bottle break across her face, but knowing she deserved it. What kind of person takes it from behind in a trailer park, with her children sleeping mere feet away? From a retired man named Jim, veteran of Operation Urgent Fury? In her visions, the bottle sometimes broke against her head, but today, first, it just bounced off with a loud low ring, like a gong. Four, five times it would strike her head, making the sound of the gong before finally breaking and spraying her face with glass.

  What had she done?

  After kissing her children good night she had stepped outside and all was right, all was appropriate. This older man who had babysat her children masterfully, who had allowed her the glorious ride through the forest at dusk, was sitting in one of Stan’s chairs, and she took the other, and she told him what she’d seen. She told him about the fox, and the rabbit, and the light on the hills, and Jim took pleasure in this, and feeling her mojito glow fading, Josie told Jim she’d fix them up, and stepped up into the Chateau, happy to find her children already asleep. She could only see Ana’s face but could hear Paul’s steady breathing.

  She found a bottle of chardonnay, three-quarters full, and went to the bathroom to retrieve two glasses from the shower floor. The wine was warm, so she found ice in the freezer and was pouring generously for herself and Jim when she felt his presence behind her. The sound of the ice rattling in the glasses had allowed him to sneak up behind her unnoticed and now his breath was hot on her neck, his hands on her hips, and then, very much like an animal would do, he began to rub his hardness against Josie’s waist.

  “Let’s take this off,” he said, and removed Josie’s STRAIGHT ARROW visor and began kissing her neck. Had he seen the bald square on her head yet? Whatever was happening here, whatever wholly wrong physical nonsense, would end when he saw the stitches’ crooked smile on her skull.

  “Hm,” he murmured, touching it briefly, then sweeping his hand back through her hair and down to her chest. That was all the interest he had in the wound. He didn’t care. He returned to his grinding and the systematic kissing of every exposed part of her neck.

  There are appropriate people, she thought, as she drove away from Jim. So many appropriate people, who know how to act with dignity. Think of the wedding party! she thought. Think of the father of the groom, with his generous, forgiving eyes and outstretched hands. Think of the groom carrying Ana around. The red-haired groomsman who brought Paul to bed. These were decent people who knew how to behave. There were no people at that wedding allowing an older man to rub his hard penis against their waists inside the Chateau. They knew the limits of propriety. They knew what separated humans from beasts.

  But not Josie. Josie, at that moment, thought it was wonderful. Wonderful that this strange man, in his late fifties, was rubbing his hard penis against her, in the Chateau, in Bumblefuck, Alaska. She found it wonderfully spontaneous and alluring, and even had a momentary conflation, imagining it was burly Smokey the Bear, not Jim, behind her. His stove-pipe arms, his barrel chest. She thought of an elephant, too, an elephant with a man-sized penis. No, this is Jim, she noted. Grenada Jim, who you don’t know. Meanwhile her children were sleeping sweatily above. Ana’s sleeping face was visible! Paul’s was not. Then Jim, the retired man who ran the RV park, was kissing Josie’s neck, and Josie was wet, and he did some masterful things, maneuvers that showed he had learned things in his many years, had retained some knowledge and could act on it. His arm had come around her, and was resting against her chest, like a bolt laid across a door. Her pants dropped silently to the floor, far quicker than she might have been able to get them off herself. His hand was on her stomach, then two long fingers plunged in and up. She had certain thoughts: that she wanted him inside her, and also—this was important—that she believed, given his roaring arousal and heavy breathing, that whatever was about to happen would not take long.

  This was Carl’s fault. If that were Carl roaring in from behind, so aroused and breathing heavily, it would be over in seconds, while they were there standing up. Josie had come to expect this kind of blitzkrieg from Carl, and it was frankly perfectly fine, to stand up at the kitchen sink, Carl in heat, Josie knowing he would be finished before she turned around.

  But Jim was more practiced, more controlled. Ninety seconds passed, then a few minutes, everything slow, steady, thickly filling, and she knew they needed a plan. She pulled up her pants and led him outside, and came up with an idea—at the time thought it a fantastic idea—to sit him down on the picnic bench, an arm’s length from the Chateau and her sleeping children, and then to sit on him. With the last minutes of sun pouring through the woods, her mind was lost utterly, she was a being of pure light and radiating warmth, and somewhere in the sun Paul asked what they were doing.

  “What are you doing?” he said in his even wolf-boy voice. He was outside. He was standing at the door of the Chateau, with a clear view of his mother, who was naked from the waist down, sitting on Jim.

  Paul knew what they were doing. From a young age, he had sought out anatomical and reproductive knowledge, asking about Josie’s parts, and his parts, and asking Carl about his parts, about the purpose of each, why Carl’s were bigger than his, why all the hair. So he knew the mechanics just as much as he knew the basics of flight and the internal combustion engine, and when Paul asked what they were doing, he meant not “Mommy, were you exercising on top of that man?” but “Why is my mother screwing this man six feet away from her sleeping children?” He knew what he wa
s seeing.

  But she couldn’t get up, not like that—Paul would have really gotten an eyeful. So she said, “Go inside for a second,” and he obeyed, and when she could see his back turned inside the Chateau she jumped off Jim, hustled to the woods and dressed herself. When she returned to Jim, he was clothed, too, and was smiling, holding out another mojito. Again he was so unlike a younger man, a man like Carl. What had happened with Paul didn’t seem to matter much; he conveyed that it would pass, that the best thing to do would be to continue outside, more or less in their same positions, sit and talk, close but not on top of each other now. Perhaps Paul’s memory of what he saw could be muddled, replaced.

  Josie’s nerves were shot, so she drank her mojito, Jim repoured, and soon she was sloppy again, far less coherent than she’d been when swerving the crooked bicycle through the forest, and she found herself telling Jim about Jeremy, because in the heat of her loins and mess of her mind she thought Jim would be the very best person to share Jeremy with—there’d never been a better person, her addled brain told her. “I thought it was the right thing,” she said, “I wanted him to honor our country,” she said, sounding unlike herself but thinking it would endear her to Jim and his tattoo.

  “He died last year?” he asked.

  She nodded, sipping her drink, feeling very dramatic.

  “In Afghanistan?” he asked.

  Again she pumped her head up and down, yes.

  “We ended combat operations in Afghanistan on January 9, 2013,” Jim said, and followed up with a litany of numbers and dates, using words like “draw down” and “post-occupation” but mostly using the word “exit” until Josie doubted herself. It was likely the mojito, but could it be that Jeremy hadn’t died in combat? Her image was of him shot, bleeding on a hillside, but now Jim, a veteran, was saying this was impossible. Had Jeremy actually been in Iraq, not Afghanistan? (Jim was insisting this was probably the case, that Josie was mistaken, and couldn’t it have been more like 2009, he wanted to know.) But then she remembered where Jeremy had been killed, Herat province, and the date, February 20, 2013. Jesus fucking Christ of course he’d died in Afghanistan. “I’m right,” she said, she slurred.