She froze and he smiled.
“That’s okay,” he said. “I need you, not your name.”
“You don’t need me.”
“Oh yes I do. If I didn’t know you were out here I’d have gone crazy two years ago. You are the glue that holds me together.”
“I’m just a whore.”
“That word doesn’t mean a thing to me. You are Senta, no last name, and I come here because I need something only you can give.”
“What’s that?”
“Intimacy.”
They didn’t speak again until Senta was finished with her cigarette.
“Why don’t you ever ask me on a date?” she said stubbing out the butt in a pink tin ashtray that she brought to their assignations.
“Isn’t this a date?”
“You know what I mean,” she complained. “A real date with dinner reservations and flowers... and clothes.”
“Could you pour me a drink?” he asked, sitting up. “Do your other clients ask you out?”
“Most of my regulars do at one time or other,” she replied, delivering the whiskey glass into his hand. “They want me to go to the movies or company barbecues. This one guy asked me if I’d go with him on vacation to Hawaii.”
“And what do you say to them?”
“No.”
“So,” John said with a grin, “you want me to ask you but you don’t want to go.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “Maybe I’d say yes.”
John frowned and Senta put a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t, baby, don’t,” she said.
“What?”
“I’m just tryin’ to let you know that I like you. It’s not marriage or some kinda boyfriend-girlfriend thing.”
“What is it then?”
“Why do you come all the way out here to spend the night with me?”
John almost said something and then didn’t. He took a sip, then another, got up and went to the turquoise-and-white toilet. When he returned she’d refilled his glass.
“For this,” he said.
“What?”
“So we can talk.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s why it’s a date... because you want to tell me what you’re thinkin’ and, and you listen to what I got to say too. It’s the listenin’ part that makes it a real date.”
The young professor put his hand on Senta’s thigh and sighed, understanding that what he said was true.
“What do you want to talk about tonight, baby?” Senta asked.
“It’s about my job.”
The conversation took them to the bottom of the whiskey bottle. Sitting cross-legged on opposite sides of the bed they were both tipsy and serious.
“Why can’t you just write that paper?” Senta asked. “I mean all you do is read and write about history, right? You should be able to do somethin’ like that, no problem.”
“I guess.”
“What’s so hard?”
“I, um... it’s like...” he said.
“You don’t know?”
“It’s like a pismire steeped in sap.”
“A what in what?”
“You ever see a piece of amber with bugs in it?”
“Sure.”
“Like that.”
“Oooooh,” Senta said, gazing somewhere past John’s left shoulder. “You’re stuck like when I wanted to go to college but never filled out the application form.”
“What did you want to study?”
“Bookkeeping and literature classes.”
“Did you ever go?”
“Something... something happened and I just couldn’t think about it anymore, like with your paper.”
“It daunts me,” John said.
“Haunts you like a ghost?”
John giggled and said, “I’d kiss you but I’m too drunk to crawl over there.”
“I like being kissed.”
This reminded CC of his mother explaining why the name Napoli was superior to Tartarelli.
At seven minutes past two John got out of bed. He pulled on his soft gray cotton trousers and lurched toward the door, kicking the night table along the way.
“Where you goin’, baby?” Senta said reaching out.
“Out on the walkway.”
A half-moon hovered above the stony landscape. Spark City Bar was closed. John breathed in Senta’s jasmine scent, rising from his skin.
“What’s wrong, John?” she asked from the doorway.
“I had a dream.”
“‘Bout what?” She put her arms around him pressing her nose against his shoulder.
“My father.”
“What’d he say?”
“That...” John saw a falling star, then he became aware of the sky full of stars.
“What?”
“He told me that I wasn’t writing my paper because I resented having to prove myself. He’s always saying things like that.”
“I thought he died.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh... Was he right?”
John turned to kiss her. Gazing into his eyes she returned the kiss.
“Yes,” he said, “dad’s right. He’s always right. I’ve never had one decent thought that didn’t come from him. He created me.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Write the paper.”
“You can do it now?”
“Because of you,” John said. “You and the goddess of history.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Greeks thought that it was Clio, one of the Muses, but I prefer to call her Posterity.”
“You wanna come fuck again to work off some’a that whiskey?”
At 3:56 a.m. John was fully dressed. Senta walked him across the highway to the bar parking lot. He climbed over the side of his topless T-bird.
“You want a ride?” he asked.
“My car’s right across the street.”
“I’ll wait for you to get in and drive off.”
“Ray,” she said.
“What?”
“My last name, it’s Ray, Senta Ray.”
5
The speedometer hovered around ninety. John didn’t feel the cold — only speed and wind. Ten miles from faculty-housing a shiny-eyed coyote darted into the road. It lowered itself on its haunches, yellow eyes glaring at the sports car’s headlights.
Without thinking John jerked the steering wheel to the left. The car skidded out into the desert, spinning uncontrollably as it went, knocking down several ocotillo trees. Finally the car raised up on its right side, almost rolled over, crashed down on its wheels, then juddered for long seconds while the metallic frame strained and creaked.
The radio came on. James Brown was singing, say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud, on an oldies station.
The right headlight winked out.
The stars, John thought, must be laughing at the crazy dance of the classic car. He also wondered about the meaning of the song. Though he’d learned his profession from Herman, his mother’s superstitions still held sway over his heart in much the same way that the hovering half-moon controlled faraway tides.
Twenty or so feet from the car the topaz-bright eyes of the coyote blinked. The creature, John imagined, had run away but then returned thinking that maybe there was some spilled food or, better, blood to lap up at the scene of the accident.
Gazing at each other over the desert span, both man and canine were motionless. John considered honking the horn to frighten away the sometimes deadly desert jester. But instead he climbed out over the side and stood there.
Illuminated by the single headlight the black-and-brown streaked beast sniffed the air. Maybe John had been wounded, the scent of his blood in the air.
The coyote yipped; hopped; and then, in the middle of a turn, disappeared.
John leaned back against the warm hood. There was a chill in the air. His mother would have said that this was all a single sign; he should see either a priest or a fortune-teller to decipher the meaning.