All the angles of Tag’s face were flattened in the near absence of light. She wondered what he wanted. Who he really was. It felt like one of them should clarify this, the unspoken question.
He broke the silence. “It’s the great dark set alight.” He gestured toward the sky. “It was in the Le Guin book I read today. The great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars.”
He handed over a can of soda and then his pocketknife when the tab broke. Passed his flask, noted with raised brows that she didn’t wince at the slow burn of the Scotch.
“Smoky,” she said. He made a low sound of approval.
“The sky’s like the future all laid out before us.” She thought of traveling to a time when she had come to herself in some new potency, an ascent that lifted her above entanglements, up to the high plains of the spirit, where she might look down. A magnificent spectator. She thought she’d read that someplace.
Tag shifted and the nylon fabric of his sleeping bag squeaked. “Funny you say that. When I look at the stars I see the past. The light that’s already been. I see history when I look up there.”
What he said was true. She’d just never thought of it that way.
In the morning he woke her before sunrise. “We’ll catch K in Socorro. Let’s ride.”
VLA was a Stonehenge of towering white dishes set in a wide expanse of flat land. The hiss of steam, the low grind of the motors as the dishes turned. What did they listen for, those gigantic ears? Answers to unspoken questions, the things they all wanted to know but didn’t have words to ask.
He led her along the path between the dishes. It had rained and a black snake sidled through the rippling silver puddle ahead. There was nothing but the rush of wind past her ears. A constant whir of air, white noise.
Beneath the furthest dish, he stopped.
They kissed while the wind pushed past, a solid stream of air that split apart to let them touch. It was nothing that would last, nothing that would change the course of history or make headlines or garner any notice whatsoever in the big wide world. But in their little piece of it, for a minute, they heard everything.
Inside the main building, they watched the movie about the Very Large Array in a tiny auditorium with wide carpeted benches for seats. In the lobby after, she pushed a five-dollar bill through a plexiglass slot and picked out three post cards showing the dishes in different seasons. Arrayed differently in each shot, listening for different things.
Tag’s friend took him aside for a moment and then gave them a tour. Lots of computers, the whir of hard drives and data being stored. He explained his research, what he was hoping to find via the dishes.
“You’re welcome to take a room for the night,” he offered, but Tag said no.
“Would it be okay if we pitched a tent out of the way someplace?”
“Sure. Take a shower here if you like, in the morning.”
They walked what felt like every inch of the property looking for a spot for the tent. By dinnertime both their stomachs were growling.
“We could drive on to Socorro and eat there.”
“No, I want to stay.”
He handed her an apple and a power bar. They had bottles of water from his friend. They read until dark. She listened for the sound of his pages turning and waited for the moments when his leg gently pushed against hers. They put their books down at the same time, listened together to the dishes shift to their next setting.
“Who are you?” She couldn’t wait any longer. She needed to know.
“The man who found the woman with green eyes,” he said. “The one who stirred my quiescent desire.”
She felt again like the ground had fallen away, the odd lurch of one’s stomach on a roller coaster ride. He had been in Austin that whole time. “So you followed me and Grayson to the campground?”
“No.” He touched her left cheek in the exact spot where it was tingling. “I knew that’s where you were going so I got there first and waited.”
In the morning he climbed on the bike and lifted his arms so she could thread hers through. They passed rolling grassy hills dotted with dark green trees. Cattle guards and ant mounds like miniature volcanoes placed equidistant along the roadside.
On the horizon, tweed-colored mountains stretched and bent, fabric folding in on itself. She let something go as they passed, nothing she would miss or regret, some small burden she’d carried for a long time. As if in answer, he revved the engine, increased speed. Their bodies tilted together in one incredible forward motion.
They drove through Socorro and kept going, unwilling to let go of wind and speed and light. The mountains leading into Magdalena were soft and wrinkled like giant Shar-Pei puppies. The white clouds overhead cast huge shadows across the earth. There was no one else, just her and Tag and the bike, hurtling toward an unknown destination.
All along the side of the road yellow squash lay like huge lemons dropped by giants. She thought of lemons, yellow, the lemon yellow bedroom she’d had in junior high, when Aunt Jessie tried to counter her adolescent angst with a new coat of paint. It didn’t work. Well, perhaps it did, she didn’t know. Either that or she grew out of it.
Out on the road, free of old constraints, it felt like she could see some things with a bolus of truth. But she didn’t know if it would persist, the newfound insight. Some things were tied to the moment in which they were revealed.
Back toward Socorro, the landscape changed. Red rock rose from the hills, pink in the distance. Nothing was what it seemed to be. What she saw from afar was different up close. Things that looked soft could have sharp edges.
Stateside, Scott made the decision to find Wendell. He sensed she was traveling again, and was able to track her by the emails she’d sent. Charlottesville through North Carolina, down to Mobile and New Orleans. He drove into Texas and crossed the Sabine River. Stopped for a night outside Houston and had a mechanic go over the truck, change the oil, check the transmission.
In Austin he found her little rental house. Wendell’s car was there but not Wendell. Through the windows he saw the plain furnishings. The colorful touches left by his daughter. There was a photo of him and Wendell on the table in the living room. He walked down the front steps and then around back. He sensed nothing amiss but the house was definitely isolated.
He wondered if something bad had happened. He hadn’t seen anything coming, but maybe he’d missed it. Or it could be a simpler explanation. Maybe he hadn’t done enough to make up for Lynnie being gone. For his own absence over the years.
It was his biggest fear. It rubbed him almost constantly, to the point he had to ignore it or he’d have gone crazy. All the things he had done wrong. The flat out selfishness.
Wendell would be furious if he didn’t respect her privacy. He drove back into town to a restaurant the hotel clerk recommended and had TexMex and a margarita. His mind kept ruminating the possibilities. He didn’t trust the remote viewing with this. The stakes suddenly felt too high.
He drove back out to the house and let himself in. All it took was a simple strip of metal easily kept in a pocket. Anyone could have done it. He dreaded the walk from the front door down the hallway to a bedroom he had never seen. The worst crimes were always committed in bedrooms.
There was nothing to indicate any problem. All the lights were off, no food had been left out, the trash cans were empty. Bathroom devoid of toothbrushes and other basic necessities. It appeared she had simply gone on a trip with someone. There were tire tracks outside that didn’t match her Toyota. He was relieved they weren’t motorcycle tracks.
A map lay folded on the arm of the sofa. When he opened it up, there was a big red line. Austin to Pine Springs to Roswell to Albuquerque.
Bingo. He drove back to town, checked out of his hotel, and filled the rental car’s tank with gas. He drove west.
He imagined himself an animal tracking its young. Rolled down the windows in the car and let the air in, smelled the dust of west Texas, foll
owed the trail of his daughter, her scent. He let his visions lead the way.
The park ranger in Pine Springs remembered a redhead.
“She came with some older guy in a Jag. They stayed, oh, two nights or so and then she left with a guy on a bike. Motorcycle. There were two guys, cowboys blowing time before some training gig at Whizmer.”
The muscle in his chest tightened at the words motorcycle and training and Whizmer.
He had an ID for times just like this. He opened his wallet and slid it out so the park ranger could see.
“She checked in with the older guy, name of Grayson Ward, from Austin. The biker checked in as Tag – can’t read the last name. Bike plate was North Carolina.”
“Thanks. Appreciate the info.”
Outside he made a call from the pay phone. Tech gal with the right clearance. Time to find out who this motorcycle man was.
The wait was hell. He felt like he might explode.
He headed to Roswell and the first Mexican joint he saw he stopped, looking for some green chiles and beer with Tequila shots. A big-haired woman across the room had her eye on him, and once he made solid eye contact it took her less than thirty seconds to get to his table.
Three shots of Tequila later she was looking better and he was thinking she might be just the thing to clear his head. He watched the little piece of silver fabric masquerading as her shirt. It was a few sizes too small and her breasts bulged out the top. He ran his hand through his hair. Wiped his mouth with the back of that same hand.
He excused himself to the bathroom. Through a fake stone archway, left, men’s room. She followed.
He stood on the Mexican-tiled floor and watched her lock the door. She kneeled in front of him, hands hooked around the backs of his thighs. The rings she wore on every finger sparkled, fool’s gold. Not in any sense the real thing.
When she finished he pulled his pants up and washed his hands at the grimy sink. She smiled from behind him. Her face reflected in the mirror. “You’re coming home with me, right?”
He’d sobered up. “Sorry, babe. I have to go cruise some parking lots.”
He asked at motels -- someone named Tag, bike with North Carolina plates, traveling with a redhead and possibly another biker. They’d been there a few days earlier, a woman told him. She didn’t know more.
He drove out of town and parked on the side of the road. An hour of sleep then he’d drive on. He got out for a minute and looked at the sky. Where light and darkness met. He’d spent most of his life in the shadows. More at ease under cover. Seeking light from outside sources.
There were two times he’d felt the glow of his own light, that two women saw him the way he saw the sky. Lynnie had, and the Afghan woman, whose name he had never known. It seemed now that any light he found came from women. It belonged to them.
He had fooled himself that any light had ever emanated from him. Reflected light was what it was. Had always been.
He remembered the gypsum sand at Whizmer, the x-shaped tracks of roadrunners marking it. It had been a test target during his remote viewing training. RV in the desert. He remembered his excitement when he’d nailed the target. Like an alcoholic taking that first drink, the rush had been too good, too fast. It had mattered far too much.
In the beginning they loved that about him. He had a gift, they said, and sung his praises up the ladder. But anything that burned that hot had the capacity to melt down, and when he got too far out they shut him down. Quick.
Plenty of people would think him paranoid at the thought that his own government, his own employer, would kill him. And most days he didn’t think it true himself. But he knew too much. There had been times when operators had simply disappeared.
The job was high risk. Always had been. He knew it, they all knew it. So for the most part he accepted that. But he watched his back. Always had.
He was sure they watched too, but that didn’t bother him so much. He went on and did his job. Kept the skills he’d learned under wraps. He couldn’t stop the perceptions that came. Sometimes he wanted to.
He looked out at the dry and lovely landscape of New Mexico and thought of other lands. The sere and foreboding places he’d walked and lain and hidden. Words spoken in other languages, secrets bought and sold. He had known excitement but more often had spent long hours waiting. The tedious ferreting out of information. The bought and paid for sylphs who made him forget where he was and then later made him remember what he’d left behind.
Life was simpler now. Or had been until Wendell left the safety net he’d created in Virginia.
Jess was the center of that net. He thought of her, the tremble in her voice after they made love. The way she had bloomed beneath him, different than when she bloomed from above.
He did not want to miss her this much.
He envied her the cleanness of her conscience. The ease with which she lay sleeping after sex, no need to scan for unseen enemies. No fear. He had misremembered his childhood most of his adult life. Thought to himself, I used to trust, but it wasn’t true. He’d been wakened more nights than not by the angry voice of his father and the smack of his father’s hand against his mother’s face. Her muted pain only made apparent in the light of day. There was nothing he could do. In some twisted way she had held him accountable for his father’s anger.
The bruises all formed in the same places, one on top of the other, so that to press on one triggered the pain in all.
He heard helicopters some nights. The drone of engines, the blur of rotors. Smelled the turbine fuel washing out of a helicopter engine. The big birds and little birds he’d trained in. Transport, delivery, rescue. Safety, danger, mixed messages.
He smelled the odor of blood rotting in the sun. Gun oil.
One day all that would fade. He would wake up and find himself immune to the whim of a floor creaking or a twig snapping beneath the hoof of a deer. Wouldn’t have to favor the bad old places or pull back from the ministrations of the ones who loved him.
He wanted to sleep in peace.
For now he lay with eyes pasted open to the heavens, one ear cocked while he massaged his creaky knee.
He thought of Wendell and the other one.
I love you, little girls.
Outside Carrizozo he pulled into a dusty parking lot and heaved his sweating body out of the car. He grunted when his knee creaked and stopped alongside the car to stretch out the locked joint.
A shower would have been good. But it wouldn’t have lasted in the heat.
He walked to the door of the restaurant and gave it an extra shove to let a man behind him pass through. He chose a table and ordered coffee and whatever pie was most recently baked. The waitress smiled.
“For breakfast?”
“Can’t help myself. I need the sugar and the caffeine.”
“Hon, you find yourself in need of extra sugar, just let me know.” The waitress winked.
He found himself staring at her breasts, wondering where she’d take him if he asked for a hookup. Looking for Wendell had become his mission and the women were part of that routine. He shook it off.
He’d read something about the differences between women and men, biologically. Men making seed by the millions and spending them just that carelessly. Women only got one at a time and their body centered itself around the process of protecting that single egg.
He had seen Lynnie cry over the loss of one egg when she was trying to get pregnant with Wendell. Couldn’t see this chick crying over that though.
She put the coffee down and he got a whiff of her perfume.
“Here’s the pie. Cherry, just for you.”
He nodded but didn’t look up.
When she walked away, he tried to trace it back. The first one he’d fucked after marrying Lynnie. He couldn’t remember. The first year he’d sworn not to do it again but it had kept on, a spiral of betrayals. He wondered how far back it went. What it might lead back to if he knew how to do that.
He left the r
estaurant satisfied with the meal. Time to navigate. His head full of spirals and sex. The sour taste of cherry pie.
He pulled off at the Valley of Fires because it made him think of Wendell. Her red hair cast against this soft and muted landscape. The brilliant blue sky. It would have been a place she’d want to stop.
There were no bikers and no Wendell. He checked out the lava flow that had formed over a thousand years ago. It had grown over with grass and small bushes and the black roped lava formations rose up out of a green landscape.
The flow stretched several miles wide and some twenty miles in length. He told a woman he met on the path that she shouldn’t let her children walk out across the formation itself. It didn’t look it but there were sharp edges. Not his business but he hated to see them cut up if they fell.
In the truck he checked the map and noted that he was coming to a tiny town called Bingham, which made him smile. There was a buddy of his by the same name. He had done a little bit of everything in his time, high speed, under cover, in your face. They had spent time together one summer after Lynnie died, in the name of training, the kind that wasn’t much more than hanging out with the fellas.
He was raw and Bingham saw through his bluster.
“I’m sorry about your wife, man. Must be rough.”
“Yeah.”
That was the way they talked, sitting out in the woods around a fire, two of their cadre talking ammo, two more walking off dinner. He and Bingham sipped whiskey and talked women.
Bingham tossed a wad of paper in the fire. “How’s your little girl?”
“With her aunt. She’s fine. Screams her head off if you don’t change her diaper fast enough. Redhead.”
Bingham smiled. “I know a redhead. I can imagine.”
“Someone special?”
“She’s special all right. Just not mine to have.”
They all pretended to be big bad men, but around the fire, late in the evenings, bone tired and wishing for something they didn’t exactly know how to put to words, they were nothing more than boys nursing broken hearts via scraped knuckles, banged-up knees, cracked feet. Nothing was said outright. They edged up to it and slipped it in quiet-like, bits of vulnerability sandwiched between tough things.
The Meaning of Isolated Objects Page 15
