Caregiver

He swiped the towel over her mouth a little too abruptly, lines appearing briefly between her eyebrows, then gone, her eyes dull as buttons.

"Sorry, Honey," moving the towel more gently now, efficient as a nurse, as a professional caregiver. One who gives care, as opposed to one who simply cares.

She was an Amazon, once. A head taller than any other woman, and most of the men. Queen of the campus, students lining up outside her office like acolytes, her smile calming them, opening up pathways into their brains the way she'd opened him, until he felt the sun shining straight into his cerebral cortex, like a piece of skull missing, his brain vulnerable to any passing breeze.

Her hands lay empty on the bedspread, eyes closing, already sinking back into sleep.

She was rounded and full once, her hips rising under his hand, heat coming off her like a promise. The way she laughed with her whole face, those rich lips open, eyes screwed tight as flowers.

Her wrists are skinny now, light as matches. He traces her outline with two fingers, not touching, then straightens up. She needs her sleep, the laundry needs doing, the dishes washed, her next dose ready.

She said she was a real Amazon after surgery, the two of them touching the flattened space, the scar after it healed. She laughed and pushed her belly against his hand, kissing him hard and laughing.

He's almost to the door and feels a tickle at the back of his neck. He turns to see her looking at him, her mouth almost smiling. It's been days since she's spoken. He drops the laundry, and crouches down beside the bed, his head level with hers.

Her eyes seem fully conscious, looking at him. He hasn't been lover for a long time now. Not partner, either. He can stand up and walk away, play basketball, eat pizza. Make plans for the summer.

No, he's something else, something they share only with each other, more intimate than love. A connection runs between them, deep and wide as their bodies and the souls that hover near, and he wonders if he will see the moment when hers pulls loose, trailing its silver thread, its umbilical cord, pulling free of the womb of this world.

With apologies and love to John and Lynn; to Geo and her Gram.

Monkey hats

A dear friend knitted monkey hats for the Billy family.


Blanche the cat models Mr. Billy's. Mr. Billy is camera shy, so Blanche is filling in.

What could be better than monkey hats?

Butterfly

I share the bus with him most mornings. Had him pegged as a post-hippie: skinny, jeans-wearing ponytailed sort.

But on Friday, he climbed onto the bus, head ducking shyly. His hair was loose, brushed softly to his shoulders. His jeans, I noticed, were designer, fitting just so to his hips. A scarf ran through the belt loops. Hand lifting delicately to his sunglasses (glamorous Jackie O), I saw his fingernails shone, freshly manicured.

He pulled off his sunglasses, his eyes flicking from person to person around the bus. I smiled at him; he returned the smile, looking demurely down, mascaraed lashes casting shadows on his pinking cheeks.

I love the #22

Reasonably, my colleagues view the #22 bus with suspicion. It is noisy, crowded, smelly. Its route is through some of the worst sections of town.

But I love the #22.

I've ridden it in the middle of the workday when I'm leaving the office early, sick. When the riders are the gray-faced strung out; the bemused elderly; the leftover hippies, eyes following invisible spirits, hallucinatory bubbles as they rise toward the ceiling.

Early afternoon, and I'm elbowed by school kids shouting lusty from one end to the other, teeth sparking white in their greed to bite off chunks of life whole, to show us old folks their strength, their primacy. Weary-eyed teachers quiet near the front, an authoritative look from one momentarily lulls the kids.

But in the evening, oh, what a grand parade. In just a few blocks, on just one evening, I am treated to:

One cop near the front of the bus, bald as a lightbulb, talking with an elderly woman. I think she is Eastern European, possibly Baltic.

Two emaciated women, holding each other up. One white, one black. I cannot tell how old they are. They could be in their twenties or their forties, but the years have worked on them like the jaws of an animal. The white woman wears skinny jeans that nonetheless sag, fuscia thong showing above; the black woman a red leather skirt that outlines her curveless ass. Their eyes roll vaguely; I don't think they even see the cop as they sit directly across from him.

One Asian man in glasses, tall and slender as an alien, neatly dressed in buttery tweed. Matching vest buttoned top to bottom, soft gray tie like a pigeon's breast, pearl tie pin dimpling the perfect center.

At the third stop, a giant black man, head brushing the ceiling. Barbie-doll pink silk suit. Pink wingtips. Pink fedora. Pink cane. Full-length fur coat. He smiles, boarding the bus, the bald cop watching him pass, gold teeth winking.

Two lushly built black women sit together. The larger woman's jeans are laced up the side with ribbon; flawless brown flesh shining out between the laces. Over one bubbling breast is tattooed "PRINCESS". I can't read her other tattoos. The two of them are trying to offer a seat to an elderly Filipina, who shakes her bobbed hair merrily, "No, no, I'm okay." A passenger gets off, leaving the seat beside Princess empty, and the Filipina sits at last. Her eyes widen as she takes in Princess' body art.

"Oh," she says, delicately touching one tiny finger to Princess' shoulder, "You have pictures?"

"Tattoos."

"Oooooh," says Filipina, her eyes worried as she looks up at Princess, "It not hurt?"

Princess laughs. "Yeah, it hurt - but it's okay now."

I love the #22.

Back in the saddle

So to speak. I have a loaner laptop glowing reassuringly at me now. More bloggy goodness to come.

No words

I don't have any words today. I see lovely, glowing comments on my posts, and no words bubble up to equal those shining things.

I don't have any words this week. Strange things have been afoot around my workplace: lurching stomachs, family tragedies, a full leg cast. The sound of clashing metal brought a few of us to the windows that face the street. A semi had cut a corner too close, smashing into one parked car that shoved into another. Cars and crooked semi lounging uselessly below our office windows. With resigned looks at each other we shrug, only to be expected this week.

I don't have any words tonight. Mr. Billy gallantly giving up his chair before the computer so I could work on the book, and nothing. I look at the page and want to vomit. Not words. Dinner maybe, then lunch, then old cans and boots and dust bunnies and a disheveled cat. But no words, no words.

It could be Tom Waits

Blogger apologies: my old laptop went tits-up again, so I am far behind in my posting and in reading yours. It's not because I don't love you, whatever those other bloggers might say.

Mr. Billy and I are snug into bed; it's already well past my bedtime, and I'm reeling from a beer and two glasses of wine downed at a friend's book party at City Lights (yes, I'm a cheap date).

My head settles in to sleep, street sounds drifting in through the window. There's a party going down in the neighborhood, but I'm working it into my dreams, people laughing and talking, cars passing by, it's all good, already looping dreamishly, but then someone brings out a guitar.

I groan. "Someone out there with a guitar and a mouth," I say to Mr. Billy. He's still awake, I can tell from the quiet breaths, controlled shifting under the covers.

We turn over, in opposite directions, burrowing into the pillows. The song follows, stealing into my consciousness.

"Hey," I lift my head, "I know that song. It's the Heart of Saturday Night."

"Hunh?" Maybe Mr. Billy wasn't as wakeful as I'd thought.

"Tom Waits song." It was that Waitsian couplet that tipped me off, Tell me is the crack of the poolballs, neon buzzin?/Telephone's ringin'; it's your second cousin, I'm listening now for the next stanza.

"Maybe it is Tom Waits."

I start to laugh, but stop right away. It's plausible. Tom Waits used to live in this neighborhood. His favorite café is just down the street.

I'm sitting up in bed now, straining to hear. It doesn't really sound like him, but sound distorts traveling across a street, through window glass. It could be Tom Waits. I get up and put on my glasses, moving from window to window. The party's in the house that's obscured by a blossoming tree. I can't tell.

Mr. Billy's up now, too. He's opening the kitchen window and putting his head out. I'm out on the back lanai.

"It's a woman singing now."

We get back into bed.

"It could have been him."

We turn over, in opposite directions, punching at the pillows. We're quiet for a moment.

"What if it is him?" I say, then close my mouth. We should go to sleep.

They're singing up a storm at that party.

Mr. Billy gets up, and starts getting dressed.

"I'll call you if it's him," he says, heading out the door. I love Mr. Billy.

He's back in ten minutes.

"Nothing?"

"A bunch of hippies. And a cellist."

Maybe it's the Kronos Quartet, I think. They live in this neighborhood.

I don't say anything.

Not a fire this time

I'm sautéeing vegetables for dinner, standing in the kitchen, Mr. Billy & I talking - about what is lost now, but Mr. Billy was mid-sentence - when a heavy metal scrape and crunch break in from outside. It's just a step to the window, and I see a black SUV. The driver's standing so hard on the gas it leans forward on its shocks, the wheels' friction holding it back a fraction of a second before letting go with a long screech, and it disappears down the street.

I don't see the other vehicle at first; it's a white mini-van up on the curb, less than four feet from the corner of our building. Mr. Billy slides open the window.

"Are you okay?" he calls.

Already neighbors are gathering. I'm ready to call the cops, but I see a cell phone flip open down there on the street.

"My cousin was killed by a hit and run," I say. It's the first thing that pops into my head.

Mr. Billy's already on his way down the stairs. I stay long enough to make sure the stove is off, and follow him out into the spitting rain.

The driver of the white mini-van is hysterical, her mouth wide open, wailing behind the steering wheel. Her door is open, and she has one foot out on the runner board. She doesn't appear to be hurt.

Several people are standing around, leaning into the car to talk to her, lighting up cigarettes, talking. One of them is talking to Mr. Billy, looking familiar.

"Hey, look who lives here," says Mr. Billy.

It's N., an old acquaintance of ours; he moved into the house across the street six months ago and we didn't know until just now. He hugs me and we laugh. I look over at the hysterical woman and my laughter tails off. She isn't slowing down, waves and waves of loud sobs, mouth stretched wide like a jack o'lantern.

"You got the license?" Mr. Billy is saying, and I'm impressed, someone managed to get the plate number that fast, but that isn't it. One of the neighbors is holding something in his hand.

Not the number, the actual license plate.

"Yeah," he says, laughing, "it broke off when he hit her. I saw it land in the street."

"Fuck YEAH," says someone else.

I imagine the driver's sick feeling when he realizes his plate's gone. It feels good. I have revenge in mind right now, crowing at his stupidity, oh, he'll get his tonight.

The hysterical woman is still howling. I lean in, ask her if she wants to come inside where it's warm, but she shakes her head, still sobbing, thrashing at the tears with her fists. She doesn't seem to speak much English.

"I tried to speak Chinese with her," says N., "but I think she only speaks Cantonese."

The hysterical woman's phone starts to chime. She opens it, holds it to her head, howls into it. Finally the howls turn into words, but she hasn't calmed down. She closes the phone and settles back into her sobs, rocking slightly in her seat.

"She lives right up the street," says a woman. She and the man with her live a few blocks away; they were driving home when they saw the accident, and they tried to chase the black SUV, but it pulled away too quickly.

Everyone goes quiet, and we look at the driver of the white mini-van.

"She's hysterical."

"Maybe we should call back, get an ambulance here."

"An ambulance will come anyway, won't it?"

"No, she said she didn't want an ambulance."

"I'm calling."

I introduce myself to the couple who tried to chase the SUV. We shake hands. We look at the mini-van driver. I crouch down next to her. I'm trying to figure out how to ask her if she needs anything, a blanket, a drink of water. She shakes her head, rocking, crying.

"How long before the cops get here, do you think?"

"Man, is she okay?"

"She's, it's the shock, you know? It's a shock."

"Yeah, I guess so."

Finally, a police cruiser rolls quietly toward us.

"Police," I say to the woman, pointing.

"Thank you," she says, then opens her mouth to howl some more.

The cop speaks Cantonese. Another car pulls up. We tell what we saw, what we heard. They run the plate. None of us saw the driver of the other car, none of us can describe him. Or her. I tell one of the cops where to find us if they need anything else, and we go inside where it's warm and dry.

I'm finishing dinner, and Mr. Billy looks out the window.

"Her husband's there," he says, "they're hugging."

Billy at the beach

Don't. Just don't.

Kid in motion

Volleyball

In loving memory

Audience participation - story circle

(Updated below; updated again)

I used to play a game when I was growing up, but I never knew the name of it. The game went like this: the players sit in a circle, and one player begins a story. They can talk for as long as they like, and stop wherever they like. The person beside them in the circle then has to pick up the story where the previous player left off. Anybody can finish the story anytime they like.

Yeah, I know, not a lot of rules. But some interesting stories grew out of it. I still don't know what it's called, so I'm calling it (with my talent for the obvious) Story Circle.

Today I'm proposing a blog version of the game. I'm going to begin a story. You, my dear and kind readers, are invited to continue it on your own blogs. There are a few rules for this one:

• Leave a comment letting me know that you have continued the story, and I'll post a link to your continuation.
  
• You may either pick up where I leave off, or pick up after another blogger's continuation. This means that the story could have several branches.
  
• Your piece of the story must pick up exactly where someone else's left off. Ideally, the first line of your story will repeat the last line of the previous piece.
  
• You can change the style, voice, mood, whatever you like, and you can end the story if you like, or leave it hanging for the next blogger to pick up.
  
• You can invite your own readers to participate. The more players, the more interesting it will be.
  

Am I being a shameless whore for comments and readers? Yes, yes I am. Am I being lazy because I have the beginning of a story but not an end? Guilty. But you know you want to play, so sharpen your pencils, class, and see what you can do with this:

Ballerino
The ballet dancer who lives in the flat above mine is home. I know he's a ballet dancer 'cause he told me so the day I moved in. He said it in an offhand kinda way, like he was just letting me know so I wouldn't wonder about his weird schedule, but I think really he was showing off, like he was still new at it and wanted the whole neighborhood to know.

I know he's home because he's the noisiest neighbor I've ever had. I don't really have any reason to doubt he's a ballet dancer - he's built like one, with all those finely developed muscles, and I guess he's gay - but I kinda thought ballet dancers were supposed to be light on their feet. This guy's not very big, but he sounds like a freakin' gorilla up there.

Usually I ignore it, but tonight I can tell I'm gonna have to do something about it. The girl sitting on my couch keeps looking up at the ceiling, all annoyed. Not like I can blame her. He's outdoing himself tonight. Like he's throwing steamer trunks full of hammers at the wall, over and over.

I'll have to go up there if I want to get anywhere with this chick. Mara. She's ready, too, if Twinkletoes up there will just take a breather. A glass of wine in her hand and that skirt inching up her thigh. I've been dreaming about Mara for weeks now. Okay, months. So I'm not gonna let the drum circle upstairs screw things up for me.

I tell her I'll be right back, and kiss her real lightly on the cheek. I take another look at her as I back out the door. I can't believe she's sitting on my couch. I head up the stairs, the rhythm party in full swing up there. On the third step, the stair creaks, and all the noise stops. Sorry to harsh your buzz, man, but I got Mara waiting for me. I get up to the door and knock.

Suzanne picks up the story: stompin' trompin' drum-circle frenzy

King Mongo circles in: the discomforting touch of nothing

LynnP goes deep: A freight-train rush of desire

A different branch, courtesy of monkey0: off the road and into the Salt Flats

I'm not blogging today

I'm not blogging today, even though I've said I'd blog more regularly now, and I didn't blog this weekend or last night, even so. I'm not blogging today.

I'm not blogging today because last night an eighteen-year-old kid strolled through a mall I used to work in, shooting ten people who could have been people I know, but weren't. Because the news showed a picture of a woman's body on the floor, a picture that could have been shot from where I stood every day at work. Because when I tried to call my old boss, nobody answered the phone, of course nobody answered, the mall was closed today, but all day I was obsessively checking the news, ashamed at the relief breathing out of me when I read the names of the dead. They weren't anybody I knew.

I'm not blogging today because I spent too much time on the phone at work, talking to people who seemed to be talking about something happening just to one side of me, not what I was talking about at all.

I'm not blogging today because my stomach hurts, and what an incredible bore that is.

Maybe I'll blog tomorrow, but I'm sure as hell not blogging today.

Anosomia

A flu took my sense of smell. Not in the usual way - my nose wasn't stuffed up, I could breathe through it just fine - I just couldn't smell. Not anything. I pushed my nose right up to the pan as I sauteéd garlic. No dice.

Of course food didn't taste right. And I couldn't tell whether the litter box needed changing, or if that shirt was good for another wearing or should go in the laundry.

But, something else changed.

On the morning bus, I see a passenger I often share the evening ride with, the man with the tribal jewelry, black ear plugs an inch wide. We are nodding acquaintances. I smile; his eyebrows raise in surprise to see me in the morning. He flashes an almost-smile, looking quickly away. But his mouth hangs wrong on his face, and I wonder, as I step into the street, if some malicious thought had slipped out.

Perfecto, the security guard with the unchained smile, waves as I pass, his grin as big as any other morning. But he's wrong, too. Like another expression moves underneath that smile.

As I walk through the day, I am suspicious of everyone. My colleagues have occult motives, communicating in code. The placement of a cup, the roll of a pen along a desk, a laugh. I believe none of it. They're playacting, every one of them. The man at the cafeteria, the pharmacist, the FedEx guy. Once I look away, they relax into their true, hideous faces. When I look again, I see the trail of effort, that last furtive movement after replacing the mask.

I am sad, numb on the bus home. The boy with his stand-up bass is at the front. He's a favorite of mine, cradling the bass' neck on his shoulder, long arms wrapped around, a book propped open on the body of the instrument. But tonight he's an impostor, not the kid I feel tender toward, wanting to smooth the cowlick at the back of his head.

The kid wrestles the bass onto the street, and a girl with red lips climbs on and sits beside me. Slowly, a scent seeps in to my consciousness. Her perfume, cheap and sharp. I open my eyes and nostrils wide and breathe in.

The girl beside me is colored in as I roll the scent around my brain. She is plump as a peach, her lips opening deliciously over a smile - a real, beautiful smile - as she talks to her boyfriend on the phone.

Was that all it was?

A tall man climbs onto the bus, face like a bad road. He's holding his coat closed, glancing around nervously. A suspicious character, but he holds my attention. He looks softly into his coat. The oversized nose of a puppy blunders out from inside, bumping up against the man's face.

I'm falling in love again. With him, with the girl beside me. With the kid in the stocking hat, a studied nonchalance on his fourteen-year-old face, feeling big and brave in the city. With the woman holding herself like deposed royalty, like Anastasia incognito on the city bus.

I can smell them all. The sweat and the puppy breath and the Altoids in the pocket, the candy wrappers rolling lazy along the aisles.

Relics

My father and his bride stopped by the Billy pad on an extended road trip. They carried with them boxes of Things. Things, like my dad's Depression-era toy collection. Like my mother's hats, shoes, purses. I was encouraged to paw through the boxes and choose what Things I want to keep.

Dad and the bride are starting a new life together, one that involves years of travel, so they are shedding excess weight. I picture them moving from offspring to offspring, sloughing off heavy layers of memory, leaving the glistening shells in our hands.

They don't need any of it anymore. Lightened, nearly naked, they will lift up and out of our world.

I dug through the box of my mother's things. I chose one hat, one evening bag. As I plunged deeper, stranger things emerged. This is what I kept:

- Her wallet, from when we lived in London. It contains her Tube pass, other ID. A tiny notebook full of her wobbly handwriting. Notes for stories or poems. Ragged narratives of her brain's increasingly convoluted journeys.
- Her eyeglass case.
- The screws from when she broke her ankle. She had them framed after they were removed. Mom had an odd sense of humor.
- A tiny pair of moccasins. When my mother was born, her feet were too small for shoes, so the neighboring tribe -- or as Dad puts it, "the Indians" -- made these for her.
- Wrapped in tissue in two boxes: Her bridal veil, the bride and groom from the wedding cake, the marzipan roses from the wedding cake. This last astonishes me. I never knew she kept any of these things, and I have no idea how, in the chaos of our house, she was able to preserve them so perfectly.

The last thing I pulled out of the depths of the box was a bundle wrapped in plastic. Inside, a hairbrush, a mouth guard, and several vials labeled with my mother's name.

I held up one of the vials. There was a substance in it. It had separated. Dark red, nearly black, at the bottom. Whitish and almost solid - like fat - in the middle. Yellowish and liquid at the top.

"Dad," I said, hesitating, not sure I wanted to know the answer, "Is this...blood?"

"Oh, yeah," said Dad, "For a DNA test. Turned out they couldn't use the blood, though. The hair from the hairbrush did the trick."

Dad is interested in genealogy, so I understood the impulse.

But I can't forget about the blood. About my Dad and his bride driving across the country with vials of my mother's blood rolling around in the car.

I wonder, if I sprinkle three drops on a handkerchief, will they protect me, like the goose girl?

Or would she haunt me, instead?

Burnout

Those few of you who still visit this cobweb-strewn corner of the Internets will not be surprised to learn I've been suffering from blog burnout.

This is my attempt at repentance. I gain a great deal from this dialogue with you, so if you will give me another chance, I will pay you back with new content.

Deal?

Not just another holiday

Martin Luther King

It wasn't even New Year's Eve, and I wasn't the one smashed

There are three separate, distinct sounds. One, a sliding, like something rubbing against the wall. Two, a dull impact. Three, shattering glass. Just like that: one, two, three. Mr. Billy sits up in time to see the cat streaking out of the room at light speed. I'm still working it out, my eyes closed. Shattering glass. Shit. It was the mirror, the full-length mirror leaning against the wall. Or, not leaning anymore. In pieces on the bedroom floor. I haven't opened my eyes yet, but I can picture exactly where it landed, I could hear it spreading out across the floor.



Mr. Billy turns on the light, hops out of bed. "Don't do that," I say.

"No, no, my shoes are right here," Mr. Billy says, slipping them on. "I'll be okay."

I'm holding onto the footboard, looking down at the broken glass. I put my hands over my face. It creeps me out, a broken mirror. I know it's ridiculous, but I can't help it. Seven years' bad luck.

"What is it?" asks Mr. Billy.

I laugh through my fingers, nervously. "I'm trying not to be superstitious," I say.

The last time I broke a mirror was during a move nearly fifteen years ago. It was a big, old wooden framed thing that sat in my bedroom since I was a little girl. A curved top. It was gorgeous.

This mirror was just a cheap Ikea jobbie, nothing to get upset about.

I take my hands away from my face and look down. It's lovely, the pieces of mirror sparkling in the light, reflecting back shards of the room.

"While you're getting the broom," I say to Mr. Billy, "bring me the camera."

We'll be closed for Christmas

It's Christmas Eve and pretty quiet in the city. People are away seeing relatives or hiding from it all in Tahoe or Mexico or tucked deep inside their houses. At the grocery store a middle-aged Asian man is wearing a propeller beanie striped in candy colors, gravely reading a label as the propeller slowly turns. It may be his wife in another part of the store, in full elf regalia, green stockings to tall, peaked hat.

We've had three small earthquakes in two days here. The first one rolls slowly under us as Mr. Billy & I sit on the couch, talking. We stop and look at each other, both of us thinking Earthquake earthquake, is this only the beginning, the leading edge of a bigger one, of The Big One? But it tails off, leaving us dizzy for ten minutes after. Another the next evening, and we watch our bookcases creak and rattle. The third on Saturday morning, as we come slowly awake, Mr. Billy eyeing the glass block that sits on top of the bookshelf beside the bed, tracing a trajectory from bookshelf to bed, while I wonder What does it mean, three earthquakes in a row? and for the first time, I'm afraid. Were we dreaming, we wonder, wandering into the living room in stocking feet, checking ourselves on Did you feel it.

Finding ourselves still alive on Christmas eve, we amble down to Howard's Café for breakfast. The waitress waves at us while we find our seat; a smaller than usual weekend crowd. It suits us just fine. An old man walks through the door, and half a dozen voices say, "Sheldon!" Without even pausing, he turns around and goes out, only to come in again. The waitress in the reindeer horns sits to talk with him, her skirt riding up just a bit to show red tights. I ask our waitress if I can take her picture, and she runs to the back to get her own camera. The three waitresses pose for me. They're beautiful, smiling and laughing, their arms around each other, and I wonder, for just a second, if the ground is shifting beneath my feet.

Pink coat

(It's been far too long since I've exercised my scratch fiction muscles.)

Her face was delicate; small nose, fine lines around her eyes. Filigree earrings dropped from dainty earlobes, a tiny pearl suspended, quivering. Her body seemed to belong to someone else, grossly overweight beneath her petal-pink coat, tiny feet planted wide to balance all those pounds tossed back and forth with the lurching of the bus.

Rom couldn't look away. There was something morbidly fascinating about her, as though her body had swelled suddenly, while she was looking the other way; her face, lips pink and soft, was plainly used to admiration.

When she moved toward the door at her stop, Rom felt himself pulled after. If someone had asked him why, he wouldn't have been able to say. It was dinnertime, he should be on his way home, just three more stops on this line, but even as he thought it, following this woman around the corner, her weight shifting ponderously from foot to foot in the cow-like shuffle of the obese, even as he thought of his wife glancing at the clock while she dialled their favorite Chinese takeout, he knew it was too late. He wouldn't be home in time for dinner.

The woman turned her head, her strawberry blond hair swept gracefully back, and tossed him a flirtatious glance before disappearing behind a new townhouse, into an empty lot.

Rom followed, the clash of traffic in the street behind dipping into silence, he could still make out the glimmer of pink in the dark ahead, this lot larger than it seemed from the street, stretching deep between blind, windowless buildings on either side, the sky boxed in as they seemed to grow taller, Rom stumbling now on gravel, the ground cold, even through the soles of his Timberlands.

A voice whispered, almost inaudible, pushing out from the dark at his shoulder, "What is it you want?"

Her voice as meltingly sweet as her face.

"Do you know?" she asked, Rom turning now to face her.

"Is it this?" she asked, unbuttoning her pink coat, Rom feeling a sudden shame, a sickness at the thought of her body, while, like a separate being, his cock stirred.

Rom stood, dumbly, his hands at his sides, while she pulled open her coat, light pouring out from inside, blinding him, the last thing he remembered the distant sound of ocean waves, the call of seagulls.

Yuma

At the gas station, we're behind a black SUV with Arizona plates. Gothic lettering across the back window reads "So Cal." Much smaller, tucked into a corner of the window it says, "One love."

The driver gets out, a shave-headed kid with tattoos creeping down his calves. His wife dismounts from the passenger side. She's blond, taller than him, her hair in a ponytail. As she unfolds, I see she is pregnant. They don't speak, pointedly looking anywhere but into each other's faces.

We go to IHOP for lunch, the International House of Pancakes. Behind us sits a cowboy, hat shadowing his eyes, talking on a cell phone. The place is crowded. Near the wall sit three people and a baby. The young man reminds me of one of my brothers, thin and buzzing with energy. Across the table is the young mother, her mouth in a voluptuous pout, leftover pregnancy fat still pushing her belly out. She looks fourteen. She's eating like she hasn't seen food in months, jiggling her foot beneath the table. Beside her is her mother, no older than forty-two. She and the young man are talking earnestly in Spanish. The young mother looks bored. She puts the baby into a carrier on the floor, rocking it with her foot. She pulls the young man's plate over and tucks in.

To my right is a freckled girl with her family. She cinches her hood down around her face, hiding from her family, from everyone. In front of her is a dark-eyed girl who looks like she is just now beginning to realize how beautiful she is. Her smile is brilliant, blinding.

"Those aren't clouds..."

Driving home through the Arizona desert, long stretches of hard empty. Disintegrating garages and drive-ins eaten away by sun and wind; ruins, like ancient Roman roads in odd corners of Britain. Cockeyed trailers with stripped or rusted cars out front, half-shielded from the highway by palm trees.

I point out clouds lying low over the distant mountains before Yuma. We watch giant saguaros roll by, dancing in couples, arms reaching for the wide blue sky.

Further down the road, Mr. Billy squints through the windshield. "Those aren't clouds," he says.


It looks more like smoke.

Before long, traffic comes to a stop. A firetruck passes on the shoulder.

Finally, we can see the lights flashing ahead, orange cones marking off the scene.


I'm clicking away, furiously.



I'm thrilled. I can see the wreck is just beyond the firetruck. Traffic speeds up.


No, no, no, we're going too fast.


I didn't have time to zoom out; I've fucked the money shot.

"Shit," I say, twisting around in my seat as we leave the burning skeleton behind, winding up to speed. "Shit, fuck, fuck!"

I'm scrolling back through the photos, foaming with frustration. Dammit, I need more practice with this thing, I could've had a great shot.

Then I stop at this photo.


There was no ambulance. Was anyone in there? We couldn't even tell what kind of vehicle it was, before. Was it an RV? Were they on their way home after Thanksgiving, like us? I shield my eyes, looking closely at the picture. I can't read their faces.

I'm quiet for a long while after.