by Joseph Fink
Jackie nodded. Catharine shuddered and walked out, upright and smiling, a different woman than had entered the shop.
Jackie took the hoe and, with her good arm, awkwardly leaned it on the trash can next to her. She opened the box. Inside was the mangled body of a tarantula. It had been hacked over and over until most of its body had detached from itself, a jigsaw puzzle way past solving. She looked out the door and watched the lights of Catharine’s car diminish into the highway distance. Jackie tossed the box in the trash, wincing as she did.
The lights and voices out in the desert were gone. She sat alone in the dark pawnshop, looking at nothing in particular, thinking about nothing in particular. Somewhere, Catharine felt better. Nowhere, the tarantula felt nothing at all.
36
Diane bought a bus ticket to King City. It was as easy at that.
The bus left at 7:00 A.M. She brought a small suitcase and a little bit of cash. She boarded the bus, which was a standard bus, flint gray, with a long, rectangular body, two flat front windows, seven wheels, and several narrow viewing slots along the sides, so that the passengers could have a heavily obstructed view of the outside world.
The bus pulled out of the station and onto the highway. Diane tried texting and calling Josh again. It was painful, emotionally and physically, to do so, but she kept doing it anyway. She wished Jackie were with her. It would be easier with another person on her side, someone so steady and fearless, as young as she was, but Jackie was on her own painful journey, and Diane would have to do this alone.
The man sitting across the aisle from her was asleep moments into the ride. He was wearing overalls and a wooden hat. He had only one arm, which he kept folded behind his head. There was a tattoo along his tricep of a head of Boston lettuce crawling with ants. From between the broad leaves came two bare human legs, and below it all was a banner that read, CORAZÓN.
She listened to him breathe. His inhale was long and pinched, a thread of breath pulled taut into his sinuses. His exhale began with a muffled pop, like the sound of a freezer door opening, and spiraled out to a wheeze.
Diane closed her eyes. She tried to breathe synchronously with the man across the aisle. She put one arm behind her head, and breathed intentionally.
Yesterday, she had called the Sheriff’s Secret Police and reported her car and her son missing. When asked for a description of the car, she described colors and shapes. This matched the police’s understanding of what a missing burgundy Ford hatchback looked like. When asked for a description of Josh, she cried. This matched their understanding of what a missing teenage son looked like.
The Secret Police—who were standing in Diane’s doorway only seconds after she had said “Secret Police” into the poorly hidden microphone mounted above her refrigerator—had said they would look for him.
“We’re looking for him now,” they had said, standing completely still. A helicopter had flown over the house, but this had been unrelated. Helicopters were almost always flying over the house.
Helicopters keep us free, the house had thought.
HELICOPTERS KEEP US FREE, the billboards all over town said.
Helicopters keep us free, the Sheriff’s Secret Police had said to Diane then, in her kitchen, and also during all routine traffic stops and at community events and through bullhorns mounted atop cruisers cruising through quiet neighborhoods on Sunday mornings.
She had shown the police the paper with “KING CITY” written all over it.
One of the officers had held the paper to his face and then showed it to another officer, who had smelled it and then dropped it to the floor, where another officer had belly-crawled by quickly with a clear plastic bag and thick rubber gloves. The crawling officer had grabbed the paper with the gloved hand, put it in the plastic bag, sealed it, and written “nope!” on the bag in black marker. The officer had belly-crawled away, leaving the bag behind.
It didn’t look like they were going to help her at all. The next day she had gotten up early and taken a taxi to the bus station.
As the bus drove on, she tried to sleep but could not. She urged herself to hold still, but would eventually feel an itch on her side and would have to start over. The bus kept its lateral trajectory, which felt flat and straight. Every time she squinted out her viewing slot, she saw desert sameness.
Her phone’s battery was almost dead, even though she had charged it before leaving the house. Anyway, it had no signal to call out or in. She wished she had brought a municipally approved book to read, like Vacation by Deb Olin Unferth or The Complete Plays and Verse of Kurt Russell.
The man across the aisle never moved. His legato breaths stayed constant, a windy metronome.
The bus had been in motion, nonstop, for several hours, and she had not been able to sleep or read or use her phone. There was no visual complexity to the passing scenery or visceral texture to the drive. She was thankful for the man with the lettuce tattoo. She loved him, this man. He was, aesthetically and aurally, perfect. She loved him the way one loves an old bridge or a wool sweater or the sound of a growing tulip.
As she stared at him, the bus slowed and veered right. King City at last. She had only a vague plan for when she arrived. She would first try to find their Secret Police department, wherever it was hidden. Perhaps there was a radio host, some version of a Cecil Palmer for King City, California. She could contact that person and ask for them to put out a call for Josh, the way Cecil generously announced over the radio the location and personal details of Night Vale citizens without even being asked at all.
The bus came to a stop at a traffic light. They were clearly out on the edge of town. There was a used car lot. The bus turned, and her viewing slot showed her an old house that looked similar to Josie’s. Diane leaned into the aisle and looked out the front of the bus, at a familiar low skyline: the library, the Rec Center, the Pinkberry, the distant Brown Stone Spire.
She walked to the front of the bus and leaned over the white line, careful to keep her feet behind it.
“Is this Night Vale?” Diane asked.
“It is,” said the driver. Her name tag said MAB.
“But this was the King City bus.”
“Right.” Mab’s sunglasses hid any feelings she might be having about the questions.
“But we never stopped or turned.”
“Not many turns on that road.”
They passed the Antiques Mall. Today the antiques in the window were playful, jumping over each other and wrestling.
Diane stumbled over the white line as the bus turned onto Somerset.
“Feet behind the line please.”
She obeyed.
“I don’t understand. Why did we never stop in King City?”
Mab eased the bus to a stop at the downtown bus/train/paddleboat terminal. She turned and pulled off her sunglasses. Her feelings about Diane’s questions still weren’t clear because she had no eyes.
“My bus started in King City. Why would I stop in King City?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You got on the bus in King City. It is a nonstop bus from King City to Night Vale. No turns, like you said.”
“Okay, I’m sorry.”
Diane turned toward the other passengers, hoping someone would join her confusion or plead her case. The bus had started in Night Vale. It had, right? But all of the seats were empty. No one on board but her and the driver. Not even the driver now. Mab was standing outside, sunglasses back on, smoking a clove cigarette.
Diane walked back to her seat and grabbed her suitcase. Before leaving, she knelt down and put her hand to the seat directly across the aisle from hers, where the man had been. It was cold.
She got off the bus.
She called Steve Carlsberg, who had a car. Steve was happy to take Diane to King City. He was excited to go. He complained about not having received anything from a man in a tan jacket and agreed to skip work. He would pick her up from the bus station and they would leave this very morning.
“Morning?” she said. “What time is it?”
“Eight o’clock. Good and early start. Oh, this will be fun!” Steve said. She could hear the dinging of his car. He was already on his way.
She hung up and checked the time. Her bus had left at 7:00 and had been on the road for at least six hours. It was 8:03 A.M.
Mab pinched out her cigarette and swallowed it. She climbed back into her bus, pulled the doors shut, and drove away.
Diane waited. She bought a coffee and a banana in the station and waited. She bought another coffee and waited. She stared at the arrival and departure screens and waited. She checked the time and waited. It was 9:34.
She called Steve.
“Where are you? Is everything okay?”
“What do you mean, Diane?”
“I thought you were coming to pick me up and we were going to drive to King City.”
“Drive to King City? Gosh, I’d love to. That sounds so exciting. When did you want to go?”
“As soon as you can.”
“Listen, I’ll take the rest of the day off. Where are you?”
“I’m at the bus station downtown.”
“Okie doke!”
Diane waited. 11:15 A.M.
“Steve! Where are you?”
“Work. Why? What’s up?”
Diane called a cab and asked the driver to take her to the airport.
Yesterday, she had called her insurance company. She was hoping she could get a replacement car to drive to King City.
The insurance company had asked her where her car was.
“I don’t know.”
“If you do not know where your current car is, how can we replace it?”
“It was stolen.”
“So you don’t see your car right now?”
“No.”
“If you cannot see a thing, how can you be sure it exists at all? Are you familiar with Schrödinger’s c—”
Diane had hung up and called back, hoping for a different agent.
“You did not answer our question.” There had been only one ring, and the voice had immediately started in. “We cannot replace a vehicle that does not exist.”
“You have my VIN number and all of the pertinent information in your system.”
“This? This is just ones and zeros. This is just lights flashing various colors and shapes. There is nothing physical or real about data. Here. I just changed your middle name to five f’s in a row. ‘Diane Fffff Crayton.’ It says right here on my screen: ‘Diane Fffff Crayton.’ Do you accept that is your name because it is in our quote system?”
“No.”
“No, you do not. Just as we would not accept that a vehicle exists simply because there is a number here in my quote sys——”
“Shut up and listen!” She had shouted this. She wasn’t sure she had ever shouted on the phone before. “My son is missing. My car is missing. I need to find him, and I need a car to do that. I have no time for your absurd logic.”
“Absurd logic is an oxymoron.”
“Absurd logic!” she had screamed into the phone.
“Hissssssssssssssss!” the representative had replied.
“You are an insurance company. I pay you to replace or repair my vehicle, or compensate me in the event that something happens to my vehicle. Something has happened to my vehicle.”
No response.
“I need a car because I need my son. Can you understand me? Can you sympathize here? Just a small amount of compassion to get this done?”
Another long silence.
“Are you—” she had said.
“Yes. We’re still here.”
“Have you—”
“Quiet, Diane. We heard you. We are sorry. Give us a moment. This is difficult for us. Hearing that a customer has a missing child hurts us deeply. Please give us some space.”
Diane had held back another eruption. Of the stages of grief, Diane had already gone through denial, sadness, and despair. Now she had been on the verge of the final step, vengeance.
The voice on the other end, clearly crying, had said: “We’ll see what we can do. It will take no more than two weeks.”
“Two weeks.”
“This is hard on us, too,” the representative had sobbed. Diane had hung up.
The cab pulled up to the airport. Night Vale Airport is not big. Most of the planes are propeller planes, private planes, secret military drones, and government planes that are used to make chemtrails, but she found a commuter airline to fly her from Night Vale to King City. She was one of four people on board the twenty-seat plane.
She had never flown before, having never left Night Vale. She wasn’t sure whether she was a nervous flier or not, but the plane certainly felt small and fragile. It took off with a whirring shudder, and she felt dizzy as it rose through the clouds. She leaned her head against the window, but the rough ride caused her to bump her head against the hard plastic, making it impossible to sleep, so she watched the red flatness of the desert pass slowly below them. She looked out to the horizon, wondering if she could ever believe in mountains again having seen this flatness from above, and whether anyone would ever learn what clouds were made of. It was probably best we never know.
She glanced about at her fellow travelers, finding it interesting that they were all wearing blue earphones and horn-rimmed glasses. They were most likely part of a vague, yet menacing government agency. Diane wasn’t sure if they were following her or the pilot or what, but they looked bored and tired.
After a two-hour flight, the plane touched down. It had been a long and expensive day, and she had only enough money for a few more cab rides in King City.
As the plane taxied to the gate, which was simply a wood stepladder on the tarmac near the terminal, Diane watched the world scroll from right to left across her window. Behind the airport, she could see a small city watched over by a distant Brown Stone Spire.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our final destination of Night Vale. Please remain seated until we come to a complete stop and the captain turns on the Free Will sign.”
Diane punched the window, crying, “No. No!” her voice cracking and eyes watering. She couldn’t help it. She turned to look around the cabin, conscious of the scene she was causing. There were twelve other passengers on the plane. They all wore baseball caps and knit shirts. They were sitting together in the back rows, not showing any awareness at all of her outburst.
“Thank you for flying with us,” said the pilot, as Diane dragged her suitcase off the plane. She put down the suitcase and sat on it, right there on the tarmac, having no idea at all what she should do next.
THE VOICE OF NIGHT VALE
CECIL: . . . at a loss for words, at a profit for hand gestures, and more or less break even on eyebrow movements.
Night Vale Auto Insurance Co. announced today that because of rising costs, they will no longer offer replacements, repairs, or compensation for any accidents involving automobiles. “It’s really expensive to fix or replace a car,” said Bob Sturm, vice president of finance. “I mean, think about how many accidents there are. Those add up. How are we supposed to pay for all of that?”
When asked if they will lower premiums since they are no longer covering any form of repair, Sturm said no, but they will send customers kindly worded sympathy cards, and customers who have been in an accident can come by any one of their ten area locations for a hug and an it’ll-be-okay pat on the shoulder.
Sturm concluded the announcement by coughing up a little bit of blood and laughing.
And now an update on Sheila, down at the Moonlite All-Nite, with her clipboard and pen, living her life over and over in a sad, empty reenactment of what was once an organic experience. She said that the loop finally seems to be broken, and that things are looking up.
I asked her if it wasn’t then maybe time to leave the studio and return to her life, but she said she couldn’t imagine doing that. Not anymore. So I offered to let her become
a station intern instead. Isn’t that just the best? I gave her the intern tunic and told her about the usual duties (mimeographs, making coffee, editing my slash fiction). I think she’ll do just a great job, and she’ll learn a lot while working here.
I’m pretty sure that all of our interns have gone on to do great things with their lives. I haven’t followed up with any of them or even thought about it for very long, but I’m sure they are all better off for having done their internship here.
Sheila is so happy, she took the clipboard she had once used to mark down people at the Moonlite All-Nite and broke it over her knee. Which is a waste, Sheila. Do you think community radio stations have the kinds of budgets that allow us to just waste clipboards like that? Don’t do that again, Sheila.
Moving on, many of you have written to the station asking for more information about our annual fund drive, which was held two months back. It seems that the tote bags and mugs and DVD sets of Mad About You, Seasons 2 and 5 have still not arrived for many donors.
We here at Night Vale Community Radio apologize for the delay. Please know that all donor rewards have been mailed out—were mailed out weeks ago—but, as we all know, time is weird here in our beautiful community. As a result, those weeks may have been experienced by you as mere seconds and the delivery would seem instantaneous, or those weeks may be experienced by you as millennia, and you will be a terrible, vacant, ancient form of yourself by the time you receive your reward. These possibilities and all other possibilities remain . . . possible.
Please know that our station exists because of donors like you. It also exists because a long and terribly improbable series of galactic events over the course of billions of years conspired to bring us to this very moment in our station’s existence. And we thank you for your support. Again, we apologize for the delay in receiving your items, and also for the absurdity of time.
Next on our program, I will describe a boring photo in a thousand slow, interminable words.
