Hollow

by Owen Egerton

The bed is bare. The rug is gone.

  “He couldn’t breathe. He was turning blue.” She walks into the room with me, staring at the bare bed. “I cleaned everything before anyone came. Cleaned it all up.”

  “Where is he, Laika?”

  “I told you, that’s not my name.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “The ambulance came hours ago. He was alive then.”

  I push past her and out.

  “I didn’t lie about him stealing from Martin and beating me,” she says as I reach the door. “I’m happy he’s dead. I’ve never been so happy.”

  The east sky grows pale with the first light of day as I step into the hospital. I have no idea which room I’ll find him in. It’s long before visiting hours, I know. I maneuver past the not-yet-opened gift shop and the just-waking cafeteria, past halls of plastic plants and pastel landscapes, and I find the one-room multifaith chapel. I steal a Bible.

  The nurse behind the information counter looks tired. She scribbles too hard into her metal clipboard. I pull down the sleeves of my black sweater and smile.

  “Morning, sister,” I say.

  She looks up at me with the weary eyes of a toll collector.

  “I’m looking for Martin Dale.”

  “Are you immediate family?” she says.

  “Spiritual family.” I raise the Bible. “I’m his pastor.”

  She nods, bored, then gives me a room number.

  He lies beneath a white sheet in a cotton slip looking like a stain housecleaning missed. No window, no dawn sky, just florescent clean. I move to his side. Tubes in his nose. Tubes in his arms. Even a tube in his penis. Martin would hate this. As if he needs all this to die. He’s dying just fine all on his own.

  I place a hand on his chest.

  I know this. I know this yellowing gray. His body is closing down, room by room, floor by floor, switching off the lights.

  I am his pastor, after all. A poor, broken clergy with a congregation of one and not a single sermon worth delivering. But I am his pastor. I will take on the responsibility of his last rites.

  I remove the tube from the nose first, slowly sliding it out. Then the needle in his arm. Finally the catheter, like removing a vein, done with all the awkward solemnity of a sacrament. Martin sleeps through it all.

  I find an unattended wheelchair in the hall.

  I slide my arms under Martin and lift him. He’s light, like an armful of hanging suits, I lower him down into the chair and we roll from the room. I roll him past nurses’ stations and waiting rooms and more plastic plants, onto an elevator with a grim-faced doctor who avoids looking at either of us, past the now-open gift store and the front desk and out into the new dawn sky.

  No one even asks my name.

  The sky moves from orange into eggshell as we speed through the hills. The windows are down and the air, clean from the rain, pours in pure.

  The Cadillac has an old tape deck. I root around in the glove box and find a worn Willie Nelson tape. Willie is singing about Pancho and Lefty, about federales and betrayal, about dying in Mexico.

  Martin wakes. His turns his head without lifting it.

  “Ollie,” he says, his voice dry as sand.

  “Good morning, Martin.”

  “Doesn’t she run pretty?”

  “Like a dream, Martin.”

  He smiles at me, his eyelids heavy. “Where we going?”

  “West,” I say.

  “Good, good.” He watches the road as we crest another hill. Then looks back to me. “I’m dying,” he says. It’s half a statement, half a question.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He nods and rolls his head back to the open window. The scent of cedar fills the car. He closes his eyes.

  “West is always beautiful,” he says.

  The day warms to blue, the road is dry and clear, and Martin has the wind in his face. I’ll drive until his breathing stops, then I’ll drive some more. I’ll drive until the road meets the ocean and the world reflects the sky.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Miles of admiration and thanks go to my wonderful agent, Elizabeth Parker, at Inkwell Management for her guidance, support, humor, and friendship. A continent of gratitude to my excellent editor, Dan Smetanka, for pushing me to take the novel to where it wanted to be. And thanks to Kelli Trapnell, Wah-Ming Chang, Shannon Price, and the entire Soft Skull Press team for their skills, smiles, and style.

  Much love to my friends and fellow writers for reading and rereading (and rereading once again) this book, and for encouraging me as well as kindly letting me know when I was screwing up. Thanks, Eric Billig, Susan Alexander-Wilson, Manuel Gonzales, Stacey Swann, Stephanie and Michael Noll, Mike Yang, Angie Beshara, Matthew Stuart, John Greenman, Zahie El Kouri, Doug Dorst, Amanda Eyre Ward, and Sarah Hepola. Thanks, Mark Barr, for lending a loving ear to my ramblings.

  Love and thanks to my parents, John and Judith, whose words and wit never fail to inspire me. And also to my rambunctious and creative siblings of both blood and bond for love and laughter.

  Much thanks for the support and direction from United Talent Agency and Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson LLP. Thanks, Allard Cantor, Jarrod Murray, and Sarah Batista-Pereira at Epicenter for wisdom and friendship.

  Countless books influenced this novel, whispering secrets and poetry. I love Mark Larrimore’s The Book of Job: A Biography and Richard Rohr’s Job and the Mystery of Suffering. I adore Stephen Mitchell’s translation of The Book of Job and his accompanying notes and introduction. David Standish’s Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth’s Surface inspired an obsession that inspired a novel.

  Deep thanks goes to Willis George Emerson, for his 1909 novel, The Smoky God. Framed as the deathbed confessions of Olaf Jansen, it has often been mistaken for nonfiction by Hollow Earthers and is touted as the most extensive first-hand account of the world within our own.

  Thank you to the dear community, volunteers, and staff of both the Trinity Center in downtown Austin and Hospice Austin. My life is so much richer because of you.

  To my children, Oscar and Arden (author of the soon-to-be-completed Pluto Boy), whom I love more than all the books in all the worlds. And to Jodi, my first and best reader and my heart’s sweetest joy.