Michael crawled across the floor to the tub and climbed into it. He pushed his back up against the cool enamel and waited, trying to think and not think at the same time. What was it with these windowless bathrooms? He froze at the sound of the door opening and closed his eyes, anticipating the light being turned on, but no switch was thrown and the room remained dark. A mere twelve inches and the shower curtain separated him from whom he was sure was Sumiko sitting on the toilet urinating; the sound was just like Gail’s. She even pulled paper off the roll before she was done like Gail. Michael’s heart was racing, but strangely his headache was letting up — yet another bit of evidence against the theory that his symptoms were stress-related. Sumiko finished, yawned, flushed, and left the room with the door open.
Several minutes dragged by and Michael thought he could hear Harley’s snoring. He pulled himself out of the tub and crawled across the icy tiles to the door, where he paused and satisfied himself that, indeed, Harley was snoring. He stayed on his hands and knees as he moved across the carpet of the bedroom and bumped into someone.
“I’ve been searching all over for you,” Eddie said.
Michael felt faint.
A light came on and the very first thing Michael saw was Eddie’s gangly and naked body on hands and knees right in front of him.
“What in the hell is going on?” yelled Harley who was sitting up in bed.
Michael stood up quickly, looking in horror at Eddie and then at Harley and finally Sumiko. Sumiko had the covers pulled up to her neck, but Harley was now standing, butt-naked beside the bed. Michael saw the man’s little penis and looked away, but what he confronted were naked Eddie’s enormous feet. Michael wanted to scream, but nothing rose from his throat, although a scream would have served as an appropriate and suitable accompaniment to the way he tore out of there.
Michael ran to the den, grabbed his shoes, jacket, and bag and bumped into Simon, who was coming out of the guest room into the hallway. Again, Michael wanted to let out some unintelligible shrill bellow and again his lungs failed him. He ran away from Simon, who stood confused and uncharacteristically silent in his red flannel pajamas. He reached the front door, turned the lock, and set off the loudest alarm he’d ever heard, a screeching horn that penetrated his head. In the background he could hear Harley say, “What in hell is going on here?!” and Simon say, “Edwina!” Michael ran to his truck, fumbled with his keys, got the engine started, and drove off as the lights of neighbors’ houses began to snap on. He looked over to find the head of the Dicotyles tajacu still on the seat beside him, still neatly wrapped.
Michael drove north out of Laramie into stiff and increasingly frigid wind. He thought of the fire that had consumed his recent work, recalled the odor of the burning oil-covered canvases. The Virginian Hotel in Medicine Bow was dark, lonely, and most significantly, closed when he arrived there at three in the morning. He bundled up in his new sleeping bag and huddled up against the wall out of the wind. In the morning when the doors opened, he would sit down and order the mediocre breakfast fare for which the hotel was regionally famous and then continue north for the Big Horns where he would camp, fish, and probably freeze. He thought about the head of the Dicotyles tajacu on the passenger seat of his truck and wished it were alive; alive, so that he could let it go, watch it trot off on short, sturdy legs across the prairie. But it had no legs, it was just the severed head with a hole where an eye had been, and a fake eye at that, seeing nothing even in its newest, most firmly inserted condition. The head was only a head.
Pissing on Snakes
Laney decided to walk the remaining miles to the shitty little desert town where the shitty little police had her shitty little brother locked in a cell for drinking too much and generally being himself. She was walking because the belt on the water pump of her truck’s engine had broken. Mitch walked alongside her and his mouth was, as usual, open:
“I told you not to buy a piece of shit Japanese truck.”
Laney was a couple of yards ahead of him and she muttered, “Fuck you, you lame-ass rodeo has-been.”
“What was that?”
“I said, ‘fuck you.’” She stopped and turned to him, looking at his narrow face.
“And what else?”
“I think ‘fuck you’ about says it all.”
“You know, I didn’t have to come with you.”
She laughed and again with her back to him said, “I didn’t ask you to come. I told you to stay. I didn’t ask you to walk to town with me either. You can go back now if you want.” In her pocket she fumbled with the string she had used to measure the pump belt.
Mitch caught up with her, matched stride with her.
She looked over at him. He wasn’t a bad-looking idiot, but an idiot nonetheless and it was laughable that he considered himself to be tagging along as protection. She wasn’t sure why she had first gone out with him, much less why she had agreed to let him come along now while she bailed out her good-for-nothing brother.
“Laney, I’m sorry. Okay?”
“Sorry for what?”
Mitch looked down at his sneakers hitting the highway. “I don’t know, but I am. I don’t want to fight, that’s all. I’m really tired of the fighting.”
“Then take your stupid ass back to the truck and wait there.”
“Why do you talk like that?”
“I’m not talking like anything. Why do you hear like that?”
“Like a damn sailor.”
“Fuck you.”
“See,” Mitch said.
She glanced at him quickly, then looked back at the highway. He was too tall and too skinny and his hair was retreating, showing more of his face, a face not aging well. His mustache at least worked as cover. She took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said, “no more fighting.”
Mitch nodded. He looked behind them. “You’d think one car would go by.” He kicked his heels as he walked. “Your brother has a drinking problem.”
“He’s a low-life scum. Of course he has a drinking problem. But he’s my brother.” She sighed and rolled her head to loosen her neck. “Whatever the hell that means.”
“Can’t choose your family,” Mitch said.
“That’s true up to a point,” she said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Figure it out.”
The sun was on full and Laney was sweating. The dry air was stealing away the moisture and any possibility of coolness. She was thirsty. “I wish I’d brought a canteen.”
“Yeah, me too,” Mitch said, then, “I mean, I wish I’d brought one, too.”
“Christ, Mitch, calm down.” Laney couldn’t believe she had ever let this guy touch her. It wouldn’t happen again, she assured herself.
The service station was one of those no-name kind with a gravel yard. The pumps were old and dusty. It was still several miles to the town, so Laney hoped it would have the belt she needed.
No one came out as they approached the station and there was no one in the office. Laney parked her face over the water fountain and let the stream wash her forehead. The water was barely cool, but it felt good. She drank slowly, then stepped away to allow Mitch a turn. She called out, “Hello!”
Mitch stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nobody home?”
Laney observed the belts on the far wall, narrow loops of black wrapped midlength with paper and hung on hooks. She pulled the circle of string from her pocket. “At least I can find out if they have what I need.”
Mitch stepped through the open door into the garage.