Everything Matters!

  Amy

  It takes three weeks of nagging to convince Junior to make the trip with me to Sedona. Lately he doesn’t want to hear anything about anything. There’s no work left for him to do, so he just sits around Rodney’s house all day cursing at people on the news channels: the Ostrich Society, of course. But also the old, the childless, the depressed. Agoraphobes. Conspiracy theorists. Pathological homebodies. Holy rollers whose money is still on God. Those with an abiding attachment to the mother ship that they are unable or unwilling to break.

  “Idiots,” he’ll say, spilling his beer a little as he waves a dismissive hand at the TV. “Dangle salvation right in front of them, and they won’t take it.”

  The thing is, I’m not sure I want to take it, either.

  Of course I want to live. Though by default I fall into the “mother ship” category, I also have a deep abiding attachment to being alive. So you’d think the decision to go would be easy. But somehow it isn’t.

  I can’t explain why. Not in a way that makes sense when weighed against certain annihilation. But I’m not alone. Because it’s not like the others, the hundreds of thousands who have given up their lottery spots, explain themselves any better than I can. They’re on TV all the time with microphones jammed in their faces. Why, the reporters want to know, but these people just stand there looking bewildered. They stammer a few abortive words of explanation and then walk away, receding into their own doom.

  The Ostrich Society wackos are different, goes without saying. They’re more than happy to explain why they kidnap people and blow up Emigration registries. They like any opportunity to break out their ski masks and assault rifles for the news cameras. The thing with them, of course, is that not only do they want to stay, but they want to make sure everyone else does, too.

  Like the reporters, Junior will want to know why. He’ll expect a salient explanation, but this is all I’ve got: this planet is my home, and I’m quite attached to it and remain unconvinced, despite the government’s multibillion dollar advertising efforts, that Gliese 689 d (which they’ve started calling “Elysia” to sex it up a bit) has anything to offer that can compare to Glacier Bay, or the Sinai, or Sedona. All they really know, according to Junior, is it’s about the same diameter as the Earth but doesn’t rotate, so half the place is always daytime and the other always night. The half that’s always daytime is really hot and the other half is really cold. Neither sounds all that great to me.

  It’s a quality of life issue. Like a person in a vegetative state, kept going by machines. I’m afraid that’s what Gliese 689 d will be: the planetary equivalent of an eggshell-white room with bad fluorescent lighting and basic cable and a faint puke/shit stink all over everything. You know, pull the fucking plug already.

  My mother is going. My brother and father. Junior, his family. But I’m not sure it’s for me. And I’m hoping that this trip to Sedona will help me figure that out. Or else help me figure out how I’m going to tell him.

  We leave on Monday. Junior sits in the passenger seat with a pewter flask full of SoCo. The trips I took cross-country while I was in school have taught me to love the road, so I don’t mind being the only driver. On the first day we don’t talk much, which is unusual, but then I realize why: we’re both watching the world pass by outside the window as if it’s the last time we’ll see it, and for most of what we see that may well be the case. Here, for the last time, is Iowa’s eastern border, better known as the Mississippi River, stilled by dams and rimmed by wooded hills. Here for the last time are the emerald acres of soybeans, the phantom stink of hog farms, the golden dome. Then Nebraska, and it is flat and dead but even the brown scrub fields and broken fences are heartbreaking when you know they’ll soon be gone. We stop at roadside stands and greasy diners and eat small meals in silence. The waitresses all have bad teeth and faces seamed by a lifetime of hard work and poverty. We tip well and leave half the food behind on our plates and set out again. Our hearts may have broken in Nebraska but in Colorado they split open along the fractures, crumble to pieces, blow away. The peaks and green valleys, the lakes set at the foot of mountains like offerings. Beautiful and doomed and thus terrible.

  Junior tops off his flask on a bumpy road, spills a little, takes a drink directly from the bottle before capping it again. He wipes absently at the spots on his lap. Such a waste.

  “Too bad,” I tell him, “you couldn’t figure out a way to save all this.”

  He says nothing.

  We hang a big left in Utah and head due south. It starts to look more and more like Arizona well before we actually cross the state line: eroded rock pillars, cliff faces scarred with the ancient story of Earth’s geology. The time lessness of the landscape makes it even harder to believe that all this is soon at an end. I think about this for a while, and then when we pass into Arizona I say it out loud.

  “None of this is going anywhere,” Junior says. “The strata in those rocks contain evidence of at least one Earth impact, and they survived to tell the story. The problem isn’t that this won’t be here; it’s that no one will be around to appreciate it.”

  “That doesn’t really make me feel better,” I say.

  “I’m sorry,” he says after a pause.

  We’re quiet some more after that, staring out the windows at cacti and sandstone plateaus and the narrow strip of shimmering pavement that bisects it all. Flagstaff materializes out of nothing and even though it’s only twenty miles or so from here to Sedona we’re cramped and hungry and so we stop to stretch listlessly and eat lunch. Junior surprises me: instead of ordering half a Coke and making up the difference with SoCo, he orders a regular, full glass of soda, like a normal person. I take this as a small, good sign.

  In no time we roll into Sedona proper and find a Circle K. The place is full of men with silver ponytails and ratty sandals, old hippie women in loose flowing pants grinning vacantly as they molest the produce, and I am reminded of my old neighborhood in San Francisco. We buy enough fruit and bread and jerked meat for three days, as well as a couple spare handlers of SoCo and a big bottle of cheap Chianti for me. As I’m paying I wonder at how we cling so relentlessly to the little conventions like commerce, as though they can save us. What’s the point of tallying up the total expense of my avocados and twelve-grain bread, with the end just over a year away? The point, please, of this dutiful exchange of goods and currency? People all over the world are still giving their homes a fresh coat of paint and making weekly deposits into retirement accounts. Having babies at a record pace. God help us.

  We load the food into the car and get back on 179, then take a right at the southern edge of town and head toward Red Rock State Park. We’ve got camping gear—tent, ground mats, and such—but those are strictly contingency. I’ve got directions, courtesy of an old college friend, to an abandoned ranch deep in the canyon. It’s well beyond the range of the average day hiker—people who come to take a quick peek at the Grand Canyon before booking it back to the motel room in time to catch The Sopranos—so there’s a good chance we’ll find it unoccupied.

  That’s what my friend told me, anyway. So imagine my surprise and dismay when we get there and find an old man sitting outside the cabin, in the shade of the half-collapsed awning that shelters the front door.

  “Hi,” the old man says, very casual, as if he’s not at all surprised to see us. He resembles the popular cliché of an old-time prospector: tan, grizzled face, salt-and-pepper beard, questionable oral hygiene for which he has clearly paid a steep price. He’s shirtless and shriveled and his chest and belly are covered with a snowy pelt. He’s sitting in one of those folding canvas camp chairs, but this one’s some sort of deluxe model, complete with a hassock and a cup holder in the left armrest.

  Junior shrugs off the heavy pack he’s been struggling with in the heat. “Perfect,” he says, digging for the flask in the side pocket of the pack.

  “Mind giving me a shwag of that?” the old man asks him.

  Junior lo
oks at him a minute, then shrugs. “Guess not,” he says, handing it over.

  I’m not sure how to proceed. We could act like we’re just moving through, but after five hours we’re both exhausted and dehydrated and in no shape for setting up a camp.

  “Is this your place?” I finally ask the man.

  “It’s no one’s place,” he says. He hands the flask back to Junior. “I can’t claim any right to it, though I’ve been staying here awhile. You can see for yourself it’s not a palace. Not really worth fighting over, I guess.”

  “So you won’t mind if we spend a couple of nights then?” Junior asks.

  The old man smiles. “That depends.” He points to the flask. “How much of that stuff are you carrying?”

  Junior smiles back. The instant camaraderie of fellow boozers, stronger than just about any other fraternity, squashes the initial awkwardness of the situation. “That stuff,” Junior says, “constitutes by far the majority of the weight of this backpack.”

  “Well then I guess we’re all set.” The old man stands and offers his hand. “I’ve got the beer, and you’ve got the booze.”

  Normally I don’t like sharing space with people—I hated the dorms in college and have never in my life split a hotel room with anyone—but there’s something about this old guy that puts me at ease. It’s a mystery of human chemistry that everyone is familiar with: liking someone instantly, well before they’ve given any real indication of whether or not they’re lik able. That’s how it is with the old man.

  “Amy,” I tell him as he shakes my hand.

  “Hi sweetheart,” he says, sounding just like the grandfather he probably is. “I’m Ralph.”

  Ralph leads us inside the cabin and I see there won’t be much privacy. Most of the interior walls are gone altogether, leaving behind only the support beams to mark where the walls once stood. Several holes in the roof are patched with a stopgap of mud and grass. Ralph’s few belongings—sleeping bag, rucksack, some neatly folded clothing, a few books, a kerosene lantern—sit in the northwest corner of what serves as the kitchen. He points to the opposite end of the building and says, “Take a load off, you two.”

  I’m suddenly very tired. I drop my bag on the floor and sit on it. Junior opens the big backpack and starts to remove and sort its contents: spare clothes, the liquor and wine, a couple gallons of water.

  “We’ve got a well out back,” Ralph says when he sees the water. “Could have spared yourself lugging those in here.”

  “Naturally,” Junior says. He pops the cap off one of the jugs. “It’s here now, so we might as well drink it.”

  “Wait,” Ralph says. “The well’s nice and cool, though, and I bet that stuff’s piss warm. Come with me. We’ll sink those jugs and pull up some cold water.”

  Ralph leads Junior out the back door. I follow them outside into a large corral with broken, rotted fencing. The two of them walk through a gap in the fence on the far end, disappearing into the agave and banana yucca. I sit down on the splintered stoop and gaze out at a lumpy orange butte lording over the valley.

  After a while I go back in, pour some wine into a tin cup from the mess kit, and sit in the shade of a desert willow with my back against the crumbling building. A breeze has come up off the hills, stirring the straw grass. I spot a shape moving near the base of the butte a quarter mile away. It’s grayish and low to the ground, four-legged, and as it trots closer I begin to make out the long, tapered snout, the bushy black-tipped tail: a fox. He stops every few yards to investigate a patch of dirt or creosote bush, drawing ever nearer, until he’s so close that I catch my breath. I’ve never been so still. I must be blending in with the shadows, because the fox doesn’t see me, but he’s in a ready stance, and he gives the air an investigative sniff, aware of the presence of something unseen. He’s more doglike than the red foxes back home—longer, with a deep chest, big paws, and small tawny patches on his legs and the backs of his ears. He’s beautiful.

  Suddenly the fox bolts. At first I have no idea why, and then I hear voices approaching. With an odd sense of heaviness I watch the fox retreat, casting quick glances over his shoulder. Ralph and Junior coming back through the hole in the fence, laughing and carrying the jugs of water at their sides. The two of them stop and stand over me. The jugs aren’t sealed very tight and water is dripping off them regular as a metronome: drip-drip-drip, making little indentations in the dirt. I squint up at Junior and he is smiling, gazing around as if he’s just now noticed how beautiful everything is. I don’t know what to think of this, but it makes me glad we came.

  “Hey,” I say, trying to get his attention.

  He looks at me like he’s just been gently awakened from a pleasant dream. “We’re dropping these off,” he says. “And then we’re going hunting. For dinner. If you want to come.”

  “Hunting?” I stand and dust off the ass of my pants. “Hunting what?”

  “Rattlesnakes,” Ralph says.

  “What?”

  Junior gives this little shrug.

  “Well, uh, okay, but aren’t there enough rabbits and other less-deadly prey running around out here? Why rattlesnakes?”

  “Well, because they’re dangerous,” Ralph says.

  I look from one to the other. “I don’t understand,” I say flatly.

  “Delicious, too, I can tell you,” Ralph says. “People say they taste like chicken, but the flavor is more delicate than that. Similar to quail. You’ll love it.”

  Suddenly I’m not so sure about the instantly-liking-Ralph thing. “Can I talk to you a minute?” I say to Junior.

  We walk around to the other side of the building. “What’s this about?” I ask him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you think I mean, Junior.”

  “What? Apparently Ralph does it a lot. Sounds fun.”

  “Sounds stupid and risky,” I say. “Besides, I’m not sure you’re in any condition to be hunting anything.”

  “I haven’t had a drink for an hour. I’m fine.”

  “You’re going to get hurt. You’ve never handled a gun in your life, for one thing.”

  “No guns.”

  “No guns?”

  “We find the snakes and sneak up on them and use a pinner.”

  “Which is what?”

  “A stick, basically. Is my understanding.”

  “Good Christ. You’re going to get killed.”

  “What difference does it make?” Junior asks. “Die today, die a year from now.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I know you’re not going to Gliese 689 d with me. And if you’re not going, I’m not going. In a year we’ll both be dead. So it doesn’t matter if I get zapped by a rattler and die out here.”

  Sometimes I still forget that he knows things. My face flashes hot, and I look away.

  “Of course it matters,” I say quietly. “Everything matters, Junior. Why don’t you get that?”

  He continues to stare at me.

  “Besides,” I tell him, “your sources aren’t entirely correct. I haven’t made a decision yet about going.”

  “I didn’t need ‘my sources’ to figure this out. It’s written all over you.”

  “So you just assumed—”

  “That you had come down off the fence by now,” he says. “Yes.”

  “Well I haven’t.”

  He seems buoyed by this. “Then come on,” he says. “Let’s go hunting.”

  “What is this sudden obsession, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Other than that it feels like I want to do everything all at once.”

  “Why don’t we just go find a nice shaded washout and get cozy?”

  “We’ll have plenty of chances for that,” Junior says, his smile returning.

  “That’s what you think.”

  “Come on,” he says. I let him lead me by the arm.

  “Ralph, we’re going to pass this time,” Junior says as we come around the c
orner. I start to protest no, it’s okay, but Ralph cuts me off.

  “She’s the boss,” he says. “Listen, it’s best to hunt alone anyway; more than one person and the snakes hear you coming and take off. At least that’s what I’ve read.”

  “What you’ve read?” Junior says. “How much experience do you have with this?”

  “Until three months ago I was a grandfather and semiretired lobbyist for the Federation of Payday Loan Companies in New Jersey. Which is to say, not much.”

  I give Junior a poke in the ribs.

  “I can see you’re surprised,” Ralph says. “But listen: it doesn’t take long in this place before you start looking like you’ve been here forever. A tan, a little dirt. Leave your dentures out. Presto: backcountry snake wrangler.”

  “Well, shit,” Junior says. He looks at me with eyebrows raised, amused and bemused.

  “Exactly.” Ralph smiles. “So you guys go ahead and settle in, relax, whatever, and I’ll go find a mess of snakes for dinner.”

  “We brought food, you know,” I say.

  Ralph lifts a pronged stick that’s leaning against the side of the building. “Quit worrying,” he says, walking back in the direction of the well.