The Roswell Swatch

by Scott Powers

  "Fuckin' A!" Lea shouted after him.

  Max didn’t bother going to the stairs. With a heft, he was on the stage. He walked quickly to the middle and lifted the bass guitar from its stand. He dropped the strap over his neck, and facing away from the audience, he went to the amp. He adjusted the knobs there, plucked a note, and adjusted the knobs on the guitar.

  Then he fingered a throbbing, fast, funky bass line that blew through the walls into the street.

  A guy with a beard and a Cleveland Indians hat rushed back onto the stage from the left wing.

  “What the fuck do you think you are doing?”he demanded.

  "Rock and roll!" Lea screamed.

  "Ayiee!" agreed Amy.

  Rob and Tre sat in shocked silence. Eve smiled.

  Max continued the bass line, a bit of improvisation, a bit of what he had done a hundred times on stage before. The Cleveland guy couldn’t deny the contagious rhythm Max was laying down, with just a hint of a melodic hook creeping into some bars. The guy froze in indecision, in complete, utter confusion about the scene before him and how to handle it. At first, the audience, except for Eve and the girls, responded with confused silence, but the rebellious act of Max jumping to the stage, then arguing with the manager, or whoever this was, was getting everyone’s attention. Nothing stirs rock 'n roll souls like a rebel. Like a wave building toward the beach, the crowd came to life. People screamed, whistled, and clapped to the tempo Max laid down. Even Rob and Tre cheered. The four members of the band appeared behind the first guy, looking as if they were ready to back him up in jumping Max, or by running away, whatever their leader decided they should do.

  “Who the fuck areyou?”the bass player asked. It was, after all, his bass.

  “Max Baker,”he said, giving his stage name.

  They knew the name. They knew him. They stood in silence trying to decide if they believed him. Max’s base line provided ample evidence. It was crisp and soulful. And the cheering audience was telling them what to do. He pushed his groove through another cycle of what he had just half-improvised, only this time added more growling funk on the downbeats. The crowd cheered.

  “You need my help,”Max shouted at the lead guitar player.“Do you know Drive, Drive, Drive?” He got a couple of shy nods. "Come on! In G. I’ll bring it around in a minute. Just play along until then.”

  The crowd was now fully alive, roaring, becoming a beast, hungry for rock. The band had no choice. The drummer sat down and found a spot to join in, adding competent splash and crackle to Max’s sensual, groaning line.

  Max walked over to the lead singer and guitarist and shouted,“Just do me a favor. Don’t tell anyone who I am. Just take it and go.”

  The lead guitarist strapped on, tuned in, and then tentatively began his own jazzy improvisation of staccato notes, light and hot. It worked. He stopped and Max nodded at him, as if to say, “Yeah, that’s it.” The guitarist picked it up again, going up when Max went down, and then waiting for the wave every few bars to cross back to what Max was doing. The lead singer and bass player, reduced now to support roles, stepped up to the mikes, throwing in "Hmms" and“Yeahs."

  The fourth timeMax went through, the guitar player launched right on time into the opening power chords of Mango Bone’s biggest hit, while the drummer and Max turned the corner into the opening bars of Drive, Drive, Drive’s beat.

  Some in the audience, no doubt, had sensed something of the song through the melodic hints Max had dropped earlier. Now the whole crowd recognized it at last, and their cheers almost drowned the song.

  As their intro reached the pivot, Max leaned into the mike nearest him and growled.

  “You’ve got too much on your mind, babe

  “You’ve got too much goin’on

  “Your one-way life done drove you blind, babe

  “Your one-way life done broke you down

  “I’ve got something for your strife, babe

  “I’ve got drivin’plans for you

  “My ride’s got speed and power for life, babe

  “My ride’s got open roads for two

  “So grab your dreams, grab your shoes, grab my keys, my hand too

  “And let’s climb on board and drive, drive, drive.”

  The band’s singer and bass player leaned into their mikes and added good, harsh, harmony on the chorus, starting with“drive, drive, drive.”

  “Yeah, baby, let’s drive, drive, drive

  “Let’s climb on board and drive, drive, drive

  “Drive away yerblues.”

  The guitar screamed on mark. They rocked through sixteen bars, pretty much following the Jeep commercial version, which was okay with Max because the crowd loved it. He approached the mike again.

  “You’ve left behind your hopes, babe

  “You’ve abandoned all your dreams

  “Your slow-lane life done broke you down, babe

  “Your fast-lane life is gone it seems

  “I’ve got something for your strife, babe

  “I’ve got drivin’plans for you

  “My ride’s got speed and power for life, babe

  “My ride’s got open roads for two

  “So grab your dreams, grab your shoes, grab my keys, my hand too

  “And let’s climb on board and drive, drive, drive.

  “Yeah, baby, let’s drive, drive, drive

  “Let’s climb on board and drive, drive, drive

  “Drive away yerblues.”

  This time, the lead guitarist launched into a solo. Pretty good. Max lifted the bass from his shoulders and handed it to the band’s bass guitarist. He strapped on and picked up the rhythm, not adding much but getting the band through the third stanza, a repeat of the first and a nice bluesy wrap.

  Max made his way back to the table with Eve and the others. He accepted their high fives.

  The crowd went crazy. Eve was grinning. While the applause was still at a crescendo, the band launched into another song. The house was rocking on its own now. Max was watching them with some pride, but Eve was looking past Max.

  "Max! she called out. "Max!"

  Two men were pushing past the bouncer. They were stopped briefly by a manager and flashed some sort of ID. Behind them, uniformed police appeared.

  “Go! Now!”Eve yelled.

  Max looked up and immediately recognized the situation.

  "Cover us," he said to Lea.

  She looked toward the door and saw the commotion. She nodded, stood, and screamed at the band.

  Max and Eve scrambled away, low, through a throng, toward the restrooms.

  “In here!”Eve said. She pushed past a line and opened the women’s room door. Max didn’t hesitate to follow. The room was crowded.

  “Hey, you’re that singer,”said one woman.

  “Shit, get out of here!”screamed another.

  Eve shoved them aside. One woman shoved back and Eve put her on the floor. She climbed onto the sink counter and pushed open a window. It was easy. The building was old and the casement windows probably never closed properly. Small and nimble as a cat, she was through it and gone in seconds, leaving Max alone, surrounded by women. Some were pawing him.

  “I guess I gottago too, ladies,”he said.

  He climbed onto the counter but had trouble getting through the window. Max was too tall with too many long limbs to maneuver through. Head, shoulders, arms, and chest out, he couldn’t figure out how to get his butt and legs through. For a moment, he dangled, arms flailing on one side and his legs on the other, and the casement cutting into his belly. Then the women of the loo came to his rescue. Two jumped on the counter and grabbed his legs. One woman grabbed the butt of his pants and lifted, while Eve pulled his arms. The bathroom women shoved and he tumbled through.

  Max fell hard into mud and gravel. Everything that hit the ground hurt. He looked up and saw the women of the loo pulling the window closed from the other side. Eve doubled over laughing. She tried to grab his arm, but he pulled away.<
br />
  He stood. His face was smeared with mud and blood. He held his arms out and examined smears of mud and blood under a security light above the bathroom window.

  Eve grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

  They ducked and ran behind the cars in the parking lot. Eve was still laughing. They continued to duck and run, making their way to a thick crop of trees in the back of the parking lot and then to the railroad tracks.

  A train was on its way, slow enough to give them clearance. That also meant it was long enough to give them plenty of cover. They bounded across the tracks just ahead of the locomotive. The train headed their way, and they ran with it, though it was a little faster. They actually had no idea how far down the road the motel was, so they guessed. They hid behind trees waiting for the train to finally pass. When it did, they saw they had guessed just about right.

  Eve climbed the chain-link parking lot fence in about three motions, clearing it with ease. Max, far less athletic, struggled up one side and then fell down the other, landing on toes, knees, palms, and elbows and bringing more laughter from Eve. She hadn't laughed so hard in years. They ducked and ran to the back of the motel. They were still ducking and laughing all the way to Eve’s room, which was closest. When they got there, Eve realized Max was holding her hand.

  CHAPTER 16

  DREAMS

  Eve led Max to the bathroom where she warmed the water and soaked two washcloths. She started with his face, gently stroking away mud and grit, revealing road burn from his chin to his jawline.

  "Ow!" Max complained as she wiped it.

  "Shush."

  She turned to his left arm and hand and then to his right. Both his palms were cut with abrasions. She wiped mud and blood from both palms, his left elbow, and his right forearm. She rinsed the bloody cloth and added soap. She returned to his face and then his arms, with gentle, caressing strokes that brought a mixture of pleasurable moans and flinches from Max.

  She softly sang,“Drive, drive, drive, drive away yerblues.”

  "Now take off your jeans," she said.

  Both his pants legs were ripped at the knees and bloody.

  "About time you asked," Max said.

  "Be careful, cowboy."

  He complied, kicking off his boots and dropping his drawers, kicking them off.

  She rinsed the mud cloth and set it on his left knee.

  “Higher," he said.

  She pushed hard, rubbing dirt into the wound.

  "Ow! Fuck," he said.

  She smoothed out her stroke and cleaned the wound.

  This was going somewhere, and Eve knew it. It wasn't just what they'd been through so far was enough adventure to bond anyone. Co-survival, after all, was probably the most bonding of all human experiences. No. Right now, what she felt was the need to enter another world, even for one night. His world. She needed passion, attention, something some people called love. She wanted Max's love. And she wanted to give him love. Right now, he wanted her, and that seemed right.

  Then she’d get the hell out in the morning. Back to her world.

  She rinsed the bloody cloth again, added a little soap, and soaked it with warm water. She stroked it along his left cheek and onto his forehead as he closed his eyes. She slid it gently to his ear and then along his neck. He tilted his head back and Eve cleansed beneath his chin.

  Max pulled away and pulled off his shirt.

  "I—" he started.

  She put the cloth to his lips.

  "Shut up.”

  She rubbed his bare chest with the cloth, pausing briefly to soak it again. His chest and torso were thin but well defined with hardened pecs. He lifted his arms, accentuating his figure, and she washed his sides and arms. Eve turned him with a touch to his ribs, and the same V displayed itself on the other side, with a hollow forming under his shoulder blades. She cleansed his shoulders and back with long, slow, sliding strokes. On the small of his back, the cloth swished back and forth with a gentle rhythm.

  "I—" he said again.

  "Shut up, I said!”

  Now the cloth was soaking his buttocks and thighs. Max turned displaying his hungry erection, and she didn't miss a beat, sliding the cloth and cleansing it too, and then the rest of his groin, and the front and inside of his thighs.

  At last she stood. They stared into each other's eyes a moment and she kissed him. He kissed back and with his left hand took the washcloth from her. He turned and rinsed it with hot water and then caressed her cheek with it. He followed the cloth with kisses from her right temple to her cheek to her jawline to the nape of her neck and then to the hollow of her cleavage. She put her hand on the back of his head, guiding it, and kissed his forehead.

  He took her hand from the back of his head and kissed her palm.

  “You’re a cheap drunk,”he said as he pulled her from the bathroom.

  “Don’t get the wrong idea,”she said.“You’re not my first rock star.”

  "I bet I am."

  “Then not my first psycho."

  This whole week had been a fantasy Eve believed might go away if she merely wished it to. All she had to do was click her heels together three times. But for now, this was her world, and Max was the center of it. He was at this moment what he always was, self-assured, completely unselfconscious of his absurdity, and completely right. She accepted him as this, and he performed as he had on stage, with his own funky rhythm that supported what his mate wanted to do. The night enveloped them both. And Eve slept, something she hadn’t done well in several nights.

  But late in the night, the dream came again.

  Eve drifted through Ranra's front door into the Afghan sunlight, and there was the scene again, as always. Faheema lay in the street as the elder commanded her son to stone her. The other men stood blocking her way. Eve could hear Lieutenant Hunt shouting orders for her to return, but she pushed through the men and ran forward.

  She watched the boy, thin and pale and crying, throw a rock the size of a baseball that glanced off his mother's defensive hand and struck her in the cheek. She howled and cried and the hand she put against that cheek quickly turned red.

  "Stop!" Eve shouted in Pashto, and she strode forward through the men.

  When she got to the street, it was not Faheema lying there.

  It was Eve.

  No, it wasn't she. Now it was Fay, the grandmother Eve never knew.

  She covered her already bloodied face with both hands, wailing. She was so beautiful and so doomed.

  Eve watched in fury and desperation. She must do something. She must save this beautiful angel of a woman who deserved none of the fate heading her way. For a moment, the same paralysis that had made it so hard for Eve to come this far bound her like chains. And as she stood powerless, the rest of the scene took unexpected shape.

  It was not a boy standing over her. Old Joe was casting the stones, only Joe was younger, wearing his airman’s uniform, terrified, crying, sobbing, and quaking.

  And some unknown old man in black commanded him to his duty. Gathered around him were the other airmen.

  Eve drew her pistol and shouted for the old man to stop Joe.

  "You stay out of this! This does not concern Americans!" he replied. "Now punish her! Allah's will be done!"

  Grimacing and shaking his head hard, Joe pulled a large rock, the size of a frying pan, from the dirt beside the street. It must have weighed twenty pounds. Eve took a bead on the old man's head.

  "Tell him to put that down! Tell him to stop!" Eve shouted.

  "Specialist Mirada! Stand down, now!" Lieutenant Hunt shouted from somewhere behind Eve. Eve could hear Alice's and Janae's running footsteps, with that distinct "tharump, tharump" sound of their heavy boots on the sand.

  "Do it! It is Allah's will!" the old man commanded.

  Eve tunneled her aim at the man in black.

  Joe raised the stone high over Fay's head. She waved her arms frantically above her head, but they would not stop this stone. Her skull would not st
op this stone either.

  "Stop now! Stop him now!" Eve demanded in Pashto.

  "Specialist Mirada! Lower your weapon! That's an order!"

  Eve fired.

  And then she bolted upright in bed. The motel room was dark. In a moment, the digital clock's glow turned everything into silhouettes, and she realized where she was. She realized it was Max’s room, and it was Max sleeping peacefully, joyfully, beside her.

  Damn him.

  She curled away from him, knowing she would not sleep. Her mind played games, replaying the scene with Old Joe and a grandmother she never met, with different scenarios and outcomes. The daydreams eased into a semi-conscious flow over which Eve had no control.

  The knock on the door came shortly after 6:00 a.m.

  “Max! Eve? Are you in there?”Jen shouted.

  Max bolted upright, without so much as an acknowledgement of the woman lying beside him he strode to the door and opened it. Jen looked in as Eve sat up in bed.

  “Well,”Jen said.

  “What?”Eve snapped.

  “Melnis gone!”Jen said.“Val’s gone too."

  CHAPTER 17

  PHOTOGRAPH

  There was no sign of nor word from Meln or Val in the morning. Ted was angry at everyone for letting them get away and made calls, using various disguised voices, trying to find Meln at his lab and office, to no avail. As he stewed, Eve made other plans.

  She couldn’t stick around for the afternoon. She had a rendezvous with the reporter from the Dayton newspaper, and from there, a surprise visit to the old lieutenant.

  The reporter wanted to meet with Eve first to get her story. He offered it as a deal, for him to share the lieutenant’s address. No interview, no visit. She had leverage too. Without her help, he’d never get in the front door. She agreed to share her grandpa’s story, and only some of it.

  Max insisted on coming. She had no objections.

  It was an hour drive and they took his car.

  The morning, beginning with the news that Meln had somehow snuck out, and Val had gone with him, was full enough with worry and urgency that their night together never came up. But it was bound to, and she readied herself. Steeled herself. Eventually, Max turned to her with a smile.