“Let me wash my mouth out,” Nomad said.
He took Mike’s cup and approached the girl.
She dipped the ladle anew and held it out for him. He could not make out her face in the shadow of her straw hat, only the shape of a face. As he got nearer, he took off his sunglasses so he could see what she looked like, but even then he only caught the shine of her eyes.
And then within reach of her he abruptly stopped, because something that was not fear but was very close to fear had shot through him and he was stunned by the intensity of it. He could go no further.
She was staring at him, from the shadow pool beneath the ragged straw hat.
The ladle was still offered, and from it a few drops of water fell to the dirt.
It seemed to Nomad that, yes, he was thirsty, and he wanted to get the taste of that cheeseburger out of his mouth but—as crazy as he felt it to be—he thought there was a price to be paid for accepting, and he feared knowing what that price might be. He was focused entirely on her, still trying to distinguish the hidden details of her face, but he could not. He felt also that she was focused entirely upon him too, and it terrified him even more. Her attention seemed to be almost a physical thing; he imagined he could feel it probing around in the innermost parts of himself, mind and soul, as if he were a puzzle to be figured out, or a walking Rubik’s Cube to be assembled. But it was more than that, too; it was like a stranger rummaging through your dirty laundry, or getting too close to the box of porn DVDs up on the closet’s shelf behind the folded-up hoodies.
She didn’t speak. She only waited, and it seemed she had plenty of time.
He felt the sweat oozing from his pores. Well, who wouldn’t be sweating in hundred-degree heat? He said to himself No, I am not going out into those thorns. Because that’s what he thought she was asking him to do. There’s a trick to it, he thought. Always a fucking trick to everything, because nothing is free. If he took that water from her, he would have to go out into that field and labor like a zombie, and maybe he hadn’t looked hard enough, maybe those people he’d imagined were needful of her strength and grateful of her kindness were only stupid fucking zombies, and at one time or another all of them had simply been passing by on the road of their own lives until she’d lured them here and given them drugged-up water that blasted their brains and put them to work in the brambles. Made them want to go back, even when they were out. Made them happy with their misery. It was crazy what he was thinking, because she was just a kid, she was nobody to him, he could swat her down with one hand if he had to. And her sacrifice was false too, because she probably was the type who always had to be the center of attention, like Madonna of the junkyard or something, and so all this deal of standing at the well and giving to the others was a self-serving sham. He hated falsehood, even more than he hated bad waitresses. Nothing is free in this world, he thought. Not even a cup of water. And now all sounds were becoming muffled, as if from a great distance, and everything around them—the church, the well itself, the other structures, the trucks and cars, the dogs and children, the people underneath the oak tree—shimmered in the heatwaves and began to blur and melt together like the chunks of multicolored glass that made up the windows of the tarpaper shacks.
Oh no, he thought. Not me.
He took a backward step.
Everything came into sharp focus again, and all the sounds—dogs barking, the kids yelling at each other as they played, the voices of the workers talking under the tree—returned in a jarring crash. The girl was still staring at him, and as he stepped back another pace he crumpled the paper cup in his fist and let it drop to the dirt.
“What’s wrong with you?” Berke asked as she passed him. She went to the girl, offered her the nearly-empty bottle of water and asked in Spanish, “Would you fill that for me?” When it was done, Berke came back with the cool bottle pressed against her forehead and she went past Nomad as if he were invisible.
George was standing between Ariel and Mike, bright beads of perspiration on his face. “Hi, how are you?” he said to the girl. “Guys, we shouldn’t be bothering these people. Let’s go, man!” This last entreaty was directed at Nomad.
“Did you see that?” Nomad asked them. His voice, upon which he depended so much, sounded like a cat being strangled.
“See what?” George frowned. He looked over Nomad’s shoulder at the girl, who had turned away to refill someone else’s cup.
“What happened just then.”
“Um…” George gave Mike a brief glance. “Listen, you ready to hit it?” Berke and Terry were already walking back to the van.
“I saw what happened,” Ariel said, giving him her patented look of disapproval. “You left your trash on the ground.” She walked to the crumpled cup, picked it up and took it to the girl at the well, who held her hand out and accepted it in her palm. “¡Perdón,” Ariel said. Even if she hadn’t taken Spanish in both high school and college, life in Texas had a way of teaching you the language. “El tiene maneras muy malas.” An apology for Nomad’s bad manners.
The girl angled her head to one side, and Ariel caught a glint of ebony eyes in a dark face with a flat, broad nose. It was a face that might have been carved on ancient stone in a Mayan jungle, except for the outbursts of teenaged acne on both cheeks.
“Gracias, senorita,” said the girl, and then she added in English with a heavy accent, “You are very kind.”
“I just try to clean up the mess,” Ariel answered, which she realized she had been doing, one way or another, for most of her life. She saw the girl look past her. Ariel followed her line of sight to track the others who were returning to the Scumbucket. Nomad was backing up as if he feared being jumped from behind.
“You have a long journey,” the girl said, a statement instead of a question.
“Yes.” The U-Haul trailer spoke for itself. Ariel felt the need to add, “We’re musicians, on tour.”
Her eyes were on Ariel again, and she gave a broad, warm smile that made Ariel want to move in closer, to bask in it. Her teeth were white, but she needed braces. “Oh!” she said. “What is your…” She paused, seeking the correct word. “Place?”
“I play guitar and I sing.”
“I also like music,” the girl said. “Very happy.”
Behind Ariel, George tapped the Scumbucket’s horn twice. Come on, come on!
Ariel thought that this life she’d chosen—or that had chosen her—was like what they said about the military: hurry up and wait. But everyone else was in the van now, she was the one holding things up, and she ought to go.
A movement caught Ariel’s attention, and when she looked toward the blackberry field she saw the dark shapes of crows circling, circling, and then darting in to steal the fruit. They were coming in faster and faster, from all directions of the compass. Some of the other workers were already standing up, putting their workshirts back on. The labor had to be finished, or the crows would take the rest.
Ariel returned her gaze to the girl. She said, “Adiós.”
“I wish you safe travel,” said the girl, and she frowned in search of translation for her next remark but settled on “y a valor cuando usted lo necesita.”
“Gracias.” Ariel figured the expression of care probably went back in the girl’s family for generations. She turned around and walked away from the girl and the well, away from the tarpaper-covered church and the hopeful houses, away from the shade of the oak tree and the sun-scorched field of blackberry brambles, away from the past into the future.
But first there was the Scumbucket and the rest of the crew. Ariel got into her seat, George backed up being careful not to plow the trailer into a tree, and in another couple of minutes they were pulling away from the road in a plume of dust and onto the pavement of East Lake Shore again.
“Some life they’ve got,” Terry said. “Not much of a place, was it?”
“Maybe they came from a worse one,” Berke said. “You never know.”
/> Nomad hit the dashboard with the flat of his hand, to try to silence the troubling hum.
“You’re going to break it,” George warned.
“Thing needs to be killed,” Mike said. “Put out of its misery. Didn’t you get it checked last week?”
“It’s putting out cool air, man, that’s all I know.”
“Barely cool,” said Berke. “We can hardly feel it back here.”
Nomad swivelled around to face Ariel. “What did she say to you?” When Ariel paused, taken aback, Nomad continued in an aggravated tone: “She was talking to you. What did she say?”
“Just…stuff. She said she liked music.” Ariel shrugged. “I told her we were musicians.”
“Were musicians.” Berke’s voice was hollow, an intonation of doom. “I like that.”
“She was weird,” Nomad said. “Anybody else feel it?”
Nobody spoke for a few seconds, and then George asked, “Weird how?”
“I don’t know.” Obviously, no one else had shared his jolt of vertigo or the first stage of heat stroke or whatever it had been. He wondered if he ought to have a physical when they got back to Austin. Check his brain for a tumor, maybe. He’d read about shit like this.
“You’re on the ball today, bro,” Mike told him. “Anybody’s actin’ weird around here, it’s you.”
“Oh,” Ariel remembered. “It’s not weird, really, but she did say something kind of interesting. Right when I was leaving.”
“What was it?” Nomad asked.
“She said, ‘I wish you safe travel, and courage when you need it’.”
“Nice,” said George. “Could be a song in that.”
“Hm.” Ariel considered it. “Could be.”
Nomad turned around, facing the road again. He slid down in his seat. Jesus, he thought, I hope I don’t have a fucking brain tumor. That had been a way-freaky minute right there. Shake it off, he told himself. Get the focus back, and jack yourself up.
One thing about what he’d seen back there, he thought, was that he ought to cast aside his pissy self-pity and concentrate on where he was and what he had. Things might be bad, things were not as he wanted them to be, but at least he was moving, he was on the road, he was going somewhere. The apartment he shared in Austin with two other working musicians had cable TV and good air-conditioning, and though he slept on a futon on the floor it was his own space, which suited him just fine. He was doing something he loved, something he felt had worth. He wasn’t trudging out under the burning sun and tearing himself up in a bramble patch. Hell, no. There were lots of things to be thankful for. And they had the tour going on and the video, and Felix Gogo might have been a shit but it was okay, it was the plug for the Dallas gig that counted.
Things could be worse, Nomad thought. And who knows? Either George or Terry could change their minds. Both of them could. Nothing was written in stone. So it was wait and see, but in the meantime just try to put everything else aside but what was really important: the music.
In about two hours, they’d be going through their sound check at Common Grounds. It was a long, somewhat tedious process that was absolutely vital to run a show, because it ironed out potential problems. During the actual gig, there would be different problems from those ironed out by the sound check. It was worse than Murphy’s Law, it was Finagle’s corollary to Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong in the worst possible way at the worst possible time.
Hi, guys. Thanks for coming out tonight, and we hope you enjoy the BZZZZZZPPPP.
This life made Spinal Tap look like a Bergman film.
Behind Nomad, Ariel leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She had a mild headache, from the heat. In her mind she saw the crows circling over the blackberry field, and the workers standing up to go in again, and the sun beating down from the pale sky and the shadow of the girl at the well lying across the ground at Ariel’s feet.
You have a long journey, she heard the girl say.
Yes, Ariel answered. And then she was aware of the shadows of the crows on the ground as well, circling above them, and more and more, gathering together into a darkness, more and more, from all directions of the compass, and thickening the sky in their whirling eager hunger.
Courage when you need it, Ariel thought, and she opened her eyes because she imagined she could hear the vibration of black wings around her, about to fall upon her like an ebony cloak.
But it was just the Scumbucket’s rumble and hum.
Just that, and nothing else.
TWO
Are you my pet
FIVE.
The night has taken Jeremy Pett. If there really is a Beast, he is in its belly, and he is already half-digested.
He lies naked in warm water, stretched out as much as he can in the stark white bathtub. The soles of his feet are pressed against the tiles, which are the color of wet sand. The water holds him around the torso, across the stomach, and up under his chin. He has gone days without a shave, and his face feels heavy. How many days? He’s not sure, because time has turned on itself. It has become spasmodic, at times sluggish and then frenzied. Sometimes it seems as if hours crawl, and sometimes they whirl away like ashes in a hot wind. He believes it to be Friday night, because the movie Gladiator with Russell Crowe was on cable like the schedule said. He watched it, for maybe the fourth or fifth time, because he could relate to it; he used to have the dvd, but he gave it away to somebody, he can’t remember who. Somebody borrowed it and never brought it back. But he can relate to it, to the man in the arena, the bloodied man, the man forsaken and cast aside, betrayed, yet the warrior spirit never broken. Never broken, because of his sheer willpower. The TV is still on in the other room, and shadows dance in its cold blue light.
Jeremy Pett takes another two Tylenol tablets into his mouth, and washes them down with another drink from the bottle of Nyquil. Those would be tablets number five and six. The extra strength kind, 500 milligrams each. He has read on the Internet that 7000 milligrams might put him over, but he’s a big guy, fleshy. Weighs about two-thirty, stands a little over six feet. He’s not sure exactly how many tablets and swigs of Nyquil he would need to do the job, but he’s not going that way. He just wants to feel sleepy, wants the warm blanket to start to cover him over, and when that happens he’s going to pick up the box-cutter that lies on the edge of the tub, near his right hand. He will start with the left wrist. He wants to watch himself bleed out, wants to test that willpower of which he’s so proud. It seems to him like a good way for a warrior to go out, quietly, under the blade.
He is making the choice to go. It’s done. The fork has been stuck in it. Tonight he is travelling to the Elysian Fields. Through the walls he can hear noises in the other apartments around him: the gurgle of a toilet being flushed, the hollow bass beat of music. They seem to be sounds from a different world, one that he no longer is connected to. His apartment is on the second floor. Number Eight, the Vanguard Apartments, southeast Temple, Texas. It is an area of abandonment, both of houses and people, where angry young men cruise in thugged-out rides looking for a reason to defend their territory. There always seems to be a pall of gray smoke in the air, and gunfire at night brings the shrieks of police cars. The one-bedroom apartment with its small kitchen has been cheap, and it’s been comfortable enough though the carpet has smelled funky, especially in winter when the damp mist curls up against the bricks outside. But even so, the time has come to leave. He takes two more Tylenol and another drink of the Nyquil, and he waits. He’s getting sleepy now, starting to feel the warmth creeping in, numbing his brain. That’s what he wants most of all: an end to the echoes of the haunted house inside his head.
His stomach growls. I’m hungry, he thinks. But when did he last eat? A few hours ago? I ought to get up and get me some potato chips, he thinks. He believes there is still most of half a bag in the pantry. What would a few potato chips hurt?
But no, no…just lie still. You’ve had your last meal, boy. Chicken pot p
ie from the freezer. Microwaved as pretty as you please, but not much taste. He sure would like a few potato chips, just for the salt. But the warmth is creeping in, everything is getting dull and hazy around the edges, and he decides he is fine just where he lies.
He wonders who will find him, and when. It will most likely be Mr. Salazar, the manager, and Jeremy regrets that because Mr. Salazar has always been nice to him. Cut him some slack, went to bat for him with the realty company the last two months. Brought him a sack of tamales on the fifth of January, the day Jeremy turned thirty. Mr. Salazar has a crown of white hair and a heavily-lined face and a cigarette cough, and he says it’s one hell of a world, amigo, when a hero like you has to live here like a dog in a cage.
But Jeremy has smiled at Mr. Salazar’s kindness and answered, Well sir, I’m really no hero, and I’m just passing through.
Jeremy knows where the heroes are. He knows where the dead ones are buried, and where the ones who still breathe sit watching the sun rise and the sun go down. He knows all about the heroes, yes sir, and he knows he is not one of them. But thank you, sir, for thinking of me in that way.
He went to the hospital to see Chris Montalvo this week. He has gone every week since he moved to Temple from Houston, early last year. He always goes on Wednesdays. He recalls the day he went this week, because it was the day he put the unpaid bills and the Cancellation Of Service notices in a stack and decided he had gone far enough, he was not going any farther, and he ought to start making his plans. So then after he visited Chris he went to the pharmacy and got his pills and his Nyquil, and he went to the Wal-Mart Supercenter on 31st Street and bought the box-cutter. Then it was just a matter of when.
As he lies in the tub getting sleepy, drifting away from the world, Jeremy thinks of Chris at the hospital. The building with all the flags out front, on Veterans Memorial Drive. He thinks of the attendant wheeling Chris in, into the room with the wide windows where the morning sun streams through the blinds, and as always Jeremy leans down to his buddy and he sings in a soft whisper to the side of Chris’s head that is not crushed inward, “Nice day for a white wedding.”