Joe closed the door as quietly as he could but left it unlocked. There was no sound anywhere. He went back to bed and lay awake. He felt the cold from the blackened window over the bed. He had begun to suspect that by coming here at all, he had taken back his name. He remembered the sense of paralysis having a particular name had given him in the first place. He had loved moving into a world of other people’s names. He had even tried other names and had felt a thrill like that of unfamiliar air terminals and railway stations, places where he could abandon himself to discreet crowd control. Finally, this took such vigilance it was wearying. He wanted his own name. And yet, the ride home through spring storms, through unfamiliar districts, had a quality that was independent of where he was coming from and where he was going. He had a brief thrill in thinking that all of life was about two things: either move or resume the full use of your name. But the idea slipped away when he tried to grasp it.
It was still dark when he got in the truck and filled it up at the fuel tank next to the barn. Then he began to drive. He drove to White Sulphur Springs, Checkerboard, Twodot, Judith Gap, Moccasin, Grassrange, Roundup, and home, four hundred miles without stopping.
By the time Joe pulled up in front of the house, he was exhausted. The lights shone domestically in the dark, illuminating parts of trees and the white stones of the driveway. It seemed that a placid, sunshot existence must be passing within.
Joe opened the door and Ivan Slater rose inelegantly from the deep, slumped couch while Astrid, standing a certain distance from one undecorated wall, tried to hang the moon with a smile that was both radiant and realistic.
“What are you doing here?” Joe demanded. “Where did you come from?” He smelled a rat. Ivan had been called in as Astrid’s chief adviser before.
“Joe.” She may have said something before that but Joe didn’t hear it. Then she said, “I need to talk to you.”
“I know,” Joe said, noticing that whatever was in the air suspended Ivan’s promotional bearing so that he stood exactly where he had arisen, taking up room. It was exactly the moment one would ordinarily say, “Stay out of this.”
“Joe, let me run this by you,” said Ivan. “Astrid isn’t suited for this, somehow. She has asked me to help her get resituated. I’m Astrid’s friend and this is what friends are for. P.S. We’re not fucking.”
“That’s fine, I hate her,” said Joe experimentally.
“Now Joe,” Ivan said, “you’ve had a long drive.”
“You knew I wouldn’t stay,” Astrid said. “What’s this about, anyway? I don’t know. But I do know I’m getting out of here. And it’s a joke to claim you hate me.”
“The fucking Cuban geek,” Joe offered.
“Punch him in the nose, Ivan,” said Astrid.
“That will do,” Ivan said to Joe without emphasis.
“Take the dog with you,” said Joe to Astrid. “That’s the worst dog I ever saw. It’ll be perfect for your new home.”
“Okay, but don’t generalize about me. And what is this about a new home?”
“I used to like dogs,” Joe explained maladroitly.
“I had a lot to offer. I still do. Not for you, obviously. But who does? All I need to know is that it’s not me. And I loved you. So, good luck. Good luck with the place. All the luck in the world with the cows. Enjoy yourself with the land. Happy horses, Joe.”
“I used to like women!”
“I’m not like that dog, Joe,” Astrid said.
“Don’t jump to conclusions. I want you both out of here right away. I need a quiet place to sleep.”
“Joe, it’s late,” Ivan said. “You’re not in your right mind. As if you ever were, in fact.”
“This advisory role you cultivate, Ivan, is unwelcome just now. I dislike having my time wasted.”
“You’re not that busy,” sang Ivan. Joe sighed and looked at the floor. He wanted to collect his thoughts and he feared a false tone entering the proceedings. He wanted to leave off on a burnishing fury and empty out the house. It was hard to see that he’d had the intended effect; Ivan was scratching his back against the doorjamb. Astrid was smiling at a spot in midair. She was a fine girl. They had feared all along that they couldn’t survive a real test. It had been lovely, anyway. It was a provisional life.
While they packed Astrid’s things, Joe watched TV. As luck would have it, it was a feature on farm and ranch failures with music by Willie Nelson and John “Cougar” Mellencamp. He remembered leaving the deed in the truck. He might have left the windows open. Pack rats could get in and eat the deed. The wind could get the deed.
They came into the living room with their suitcases.
“This is pretty interesting. It’s about farm and ranch failure,” Joe said. “Can you go during the commercial?”
“No,” said Astrid, “we’re going now. Were you serious about that dog?”
“What next!” said Joe without taking his eyes off the screen.
“May I see you a moment, Joe?” Astrid stood in the doorway to their bedroom. Ivan studied the backs of his fingernails in the open front door, buffing them occasionally on his left coat-sleeve. Joe met Astrid in the bedroom and she shoved the door shut. She gave him a long look and took a deep breath.
“Let me tell you something, sport,” she began, “you don’t fool me with this tasteless display we’ve just witnessed.”
“I don’t.”
“No, you don’t.”
“What sort of display would have struck you as less tasteless?”
“A sincere remark or two about your plight. A word of hope that you’ll come to life soon. Your life.”
“All whoppers!”
“I’m just gonna step back, and let you choose.”
She went out the door. Joe followed her. Ivan was still in the same spot. When Joe went over, Ivan deployed his hand as a kind of handshake option, Joe’s choice. Joe shook.
Ivan and Astrid went into the night. He heard them call the dog and when he saw the lights wheel and go out, and he knew the dog was gone, he at last realized how blithely things were being taken away from him. He went to bed and contained himself as well as he could, but the pillowcase grew wet around his face.
His sleep produced the need for sleep, for rest, for deep restoration from this masquerade of sleep in which all the tainted follies had opportunity for festivity and parade. He had Astrid in his arms and his inability to distinguish love and hate no longer mattered because she wasn’t there in the light of day.
33
The cool spell passed and it was hot again. Joe was going to take a good long look at the white hills. He was going to start at the beginning. He got in the truck and drove toward the drought-ravaged expanses east of town where the road looked like a long rippled strip of gray taffy; on the farthest reaches of the road, looking as small as occasional flies, were the very few vehicles out today. Dust followed a tractor as an unsuccessful crop was plowed into the ground. Joe could picture the cavalry crossing here, following the Indians and their ghost dogs. Sheep were drifted off into the corners of pastures waiting for the cool of evening to feed. Ribbed cattle circled the tractor tires that held the salt. Old stock ponds looked like meteor craters and the weeds that came in with the highway gravel had blossomed to devour the pastures. It was neither summer nor fall. The sky was blue and the mountains lay on the horizon like a black saw. A white cloud stood off to one end of the mountains. In a small pasture, a solitary bull threw dust up under himself beneath the crooked arm of a defunct sprinkler. The thin green belt beneath the irrigation ditches contrasted immediately with the prickly pear desert that began inches above. The radio played “Black roses, white rhythm and blues.” Astrid used to say, “I thought Montana was so unlucky for you. I can’t understand why you want to go back.” And he had said with what seemed like prescience and laudable mental health, “Yes, but I’m not superstitious!” And she’d said, “Wait a minute. You were pretty clear on this. You said it was unlucky for you and it was unlucky for everybody else.”