*
The lights of the town spread across the horizon before him, and car headlights moved back and forth on the highway. He checked the GPS again, even though he knew where he was. It found Denny, found his destination. Zero-point-eight miles to go. Then it died. He tossed it to the ground.
*
'Missing businessman found' floated in a blue and red square with white letters over the anchorwoman's right shoulder as she read the breaking news report.
*
Denny heard the helicopter before he saw it. Next thing he knew, he stood on a stage in front of a giant spotlight. A voice from heaven told him to lie face down on the ground, spread eagle. Two pickup trucks flew across the desert hardpan and bathed him in their high beams. Gun drawn, the lead Border Patrol agent asked him in Spanish first, then English, if he had any weapons. No, he didn't have any weapons. Wait, he said, he had a hunting knife in his backpack. He peeled off the pack and tossed it as far away as he could while lying face down, following the agent's step-by-step instructions.
The agent sifted through his belongings, then called the area DEA office to let them know to stand down. No drugs, little cash, no weapons other than the knife. No identification, but it didn't appear to be an immigration issue.
*
Suzanne stopped at the Quik-Mart to fill up the Mini with gas, then drove the one hundred and three miles to the Hope Emergency Clinic.
*
"Your toe is broken, but it will heal. No, we don't have to amputate anything."
Good, Denny thought to himself but didn't say out loud.
"We want to keep you a few more hours for observation, get some more fluids in you and make sure all of your systems are in working order. You know, kidneys, bladder, heart, lungs, that sort of thing. You'll need to take it easy for a few days, but you should be back to normal within a week."
"Normal?" Denny asked himself out loud.
*
"Okay, forget about why you walked. Of all the God-forsaken places on this earth you could visit, why did you decide to come here? You don't know anyone here, there's nothing here worth seeing." Suzanne wanted to understand, but she didn't.
"I'd never been here before."
"So you just got up one morning and said, 'Hey, I'm going to walk there.'"
"Yeah, pretty much. Looked at a map to find a small town I could walk to with no mountains to cross. Just to see if I could do it. I liked the sound of this one."
*
"Doc says you're ready to go home now."
"Where's home? What home?"
"Your apartment, I guess. I could come stay with you for a couple days, ya know, just to help out. Doc says you shouldn't be left alone, someone should keep an eye on you."
"You'd do that? You'd keep an eye on me?"
"I've had my eye on you since our junior year at State. I'm not sure why I ever looked away. But I see you again."
*
Suzanne drove while Denny reclined in the passenger seat for the drive back to Phoenix. Neither spoke. Denny turned off the radio. They rode in silence except for the tires buzzing against the rough asphalt of the desert highway. As the sun dropped behind them, the saguaro pointed the way home.
Denny spoke when Suzanne pulled onto the interstate for the final leg.
"What do you see when you look at me?"
Suzanne glanced sideways for a moment before shifting her eyes back to the road.
"I see the man I fell in love with, the man I married. The man who's willing to take risks."
"My risk with the business didn't pan out so well."
"If success is guaranteed, it's not a risk, is it?"
*
Denny lay on the couch with his foot elevated. Suzanne brought him another bottle of water.
"You're right," Denny said as if the conversation hadn't paused for the past hour. "Some things are worth the risk. We were successful before. We can be again. And if things go right, we should consider expanding."
"Expanding is a good idea. Just get through this down cycle, and it will grow again, stronger than before."
"I'm not talking about the company," Denny said.
Suzanne curled up on the couch next to him, careful not to bump his toe. "Neither was I."
He pressed his face into her hair and inhaled the watermelon scent.
"What's today?" he whispered in her ear.
"Wednesday."
"Remind me to take the trash out to the street tonight."
"I already did that," Suzanne said. "You rest. You're going to need your strength."
Desert Nights
Desert Nights
We were out of high school. Most of us, anyway. A few little sisters or brothers tagged along, but it wasn't like we carded anyone. A few of us planned to attend university come fall, a few would attend a community college or vo-tech. Some of us had jobs, things like busboy at Pizza Hut or part-time retail at the mall or anything we could get that paid minimum wage and worked inside during the blistering Phoenix summers.
Andy worked construction clean-up for a roofing contractor. Poor guy. Had to get up at four a.m. to start work before the sun came up, but wrapped up his workday by noon when the temps soared to a hundred and ten in the shade. And there's no shade on a roof. He'd drink gallons of water during the job, sleep all afternoon, and knock off a twelve-pack of PBR before falling asleep by nine o'clock.
Andy was nineteen, so he bought the beer for us. He paid for the beer too. His take-home was three times what any of the rest of us made.
Saturday nights he'd buy the beer and stay out with us all night long. Out in the desert.
Our usual spot was the power lines just past Estrella Mountain. Or the flumes. We didn't float the flumes at night anymore, not since Oaker bit it our sophomore year. Took the authorities two hours to find his body. But we'd stand beneath the monstrous, rushing aqueduct and raise a can to toast our friend. We'd toast Darwin too. Oaker never was the brightest one in the bunch, but he was funny and we missed him. Little redheaded kid with a disturbing sense of humor. Which is why, for the hour we searched for him before going for help, we just knew he would pop up and say, "Gotcha, mofos! You shoulda seen your faces." Then he'd laugh hysterically while we all wanted to beat his ass.
Only we didn't find him. Despite knowing the amount of shit we would be in, underage, drinking, trespassing, doing dangerous, stupid shit, we had to send Tory for help. She had her license and didn't drink back then. She had to drive three miles to the nearest pay phone. Then the dimwit couldn't even tell the cops where we were exactly.
"I don't know the name of the road," she cried.
Finally a sheriff's deputy came to the gas station and followed her back to our party spot.
But Oaker wasn't kidding. He'd raised his head to get his bearings and bashed his skull on one of the metal crossbeams, which may have killed him outright, or might just have knocked him unconscious and he drowned. His parents never shared the autopsy results with the rest of us. They never spoke to us again. We were officially disinvited to the funeral.
Tory was still with us. She and I went steady for a bit after Oaker cracked up, but she dumped me for greener pastures. We still got together occasionally, at least when she had too much to drink. Lucky for me she eventually took up alcohol when they invented Bartles and Jaymes. Definitely the prettiest girl in our crowd. Also the most neurotic, what with Oaker's death, and her stepdad stabbing her mother during our junior year. Her mom survived with a nasty scar and half a liver, her stepdad went to Florence, and Tory started drinking and finding better boyfriends than me.
Tonight at the power lines, the heat didn't relent when the sun went down. Andy cracked open two PBRs and handed me one.
"Thanks, man."
We both raised our cans. "Here's to Oaker," Andy said. "Dickhead."
"Here's to Oaker."
Tory sidled up against me, sipped her strawberry wine cooler, and laced one arm through mine.
"Miss you,
Oaker," she whispered.
"Who's bringing tunes?" Andy asked.
"My speakers are busted," I said, "but Roxie's on her way. We'll crank some Zeppelin and see if we can blow her tweeters again."
Tory pulled away in a huff, apparently thinking I said something sexual about Roxie. She went to my truck and sat on the tailgate, where she dangled her legs and swung her cowboy boots back and forth above the dirt. She wouldn't look at me, just stared down the car tracks and waited for the rest of the crew. I considered explaining what a tweeter was, but decided to let her sulk.
Roxie didn't get off work until nine, and she was picking up Sarah on her way, so there'd be no tunes for at least another hour. Only the silent darkness, the dusty heat, and the intermittent buzz from the power lines kept the party going.
Tommy and Hawks showed next. The cousins from hell. Tommy's Datsun 240Z whipped off the blacktop and onto the hardpack beside the power lines, kicking up a cloud behind them that spun into a half dozen dust devils.
"Assholes!" Tory screamed as Tommy whipped a doughnut around our camping spot.
Tommy laughed and flipped Tory the bird as he slid the Z sideways to a stop worthy of Baretta.
By the time Andy passed a second beer to me, ten more had joined us. By beer three, there were at least thirty in the crowd. Mostly guys, some with girlfriends, and a few unattached girls who had their choice of losers. James brought his fifteen-year-old sister to drive him home because he planned on getting hammered and was the only one smart enough to bring a sober driver. She didn't have a license, but he didn't care. He assumed his little sister didn't drink, so he wasn't all that smart.
Roxie and Sarah pulled in and popped the trunk on her Firebird so the sub-woofer could project "Kashmir" over the ever-rising decibel level of conversations.
Tory worked her way through the group, saying hello to all her ex-boyfriends and old high school clique. I sat on the tailgate by myself, sipped on a beer, and waited for her to come back. She always came back.
The crowd morphed into clusters of two, three, four people in deep dialogue. Then a guy would go for a beer, another guy would go for a piss, and two more would slither up to the single girls left behind. The clusters shimmered and shook in a dance, partners changed, unfinished conversations started anew.
Tory stopped to chat with James and his sister, Annabelle. When James went to take a leak, Tory flicked her head at Annabelle to follow her to my truck.
"This here girl needs a beer, quick," Tory told me.
"She ain't old enough to drink," I said.
"Neither are you."
I tossed Annabelle a beer.
She cracked it open and slugged down twelve ounces in a single breath. The empty can clanged into the bed of my Ford. I'd never heard a pretty girl belch that loud.
"Thanks," she said after catching her breath.
"Just come back anytime your bro is busy," Tory told her, "and my boy here will give you a beer. If he ain't here, just help yourself to the ice chest."
"Appreciate it," Annabelle said. She headed back to join the cluster with Tommy and Hawks.
"You keep an eye on her with those two," I said.
"She's not my sister," Tory said.
"Somebody needs to watch out for her. You gave her beer. You own her."
"Shit too." She hopped onto the tailgate beside me, and we watched Annabelle for the next few minutes in silence until Tory said, "Let's go somewhere else."
"Too many people here to move the party."
"I don't mean move the party. I mean leave the party."
"All my friends are here."
"Shit."
Tory pulled at her hair and twisted a blonde strand around a finger until her head leaned all the way to her shoulder. Then she unwound it as her head floated back to vertical.
"What's the matter?" I cracked open another beer and offered it to her. She shook her head and curled another lock into a coil.
"Nothing," she said. "I just don't want to be here." She hopped off the tailgate and headed toward some girls who cackled insanely about something.
I sipped my beer and watched her ass wiggle through the circle of headlights.
By two a.m., there had to be a hundred people under the power lines. We'd listened to all of "Physical Graffiti" and "Dark Side of the Moon" twice, plus some crap of Roxie's. The temp had finally dropped below ninety. I hadn't seen Tory in an hour or more.
Annabelle made her presence known. She sneaked over for a beer a couple of times when James wasn't looking. Then, once James had succumbed to barley blindness, she no longer played stealthy. She parked her butt on my tailgate and helped herself to the cooler.
"My brother's a dork," she said in the three seconds of silence between "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse."
"Yes, he is." I fished a hand around in the cold water, the remains of three bags of ice, and landed the last PBR. "Score."
"Isn't he your friend? Shouldn't you defend him?"
"Of course, he's my friend. All my friends are dorks."
"True that."
She nursed her can, not rushing anymore to inhale them before her brother caught her, and stared at the crowd. She had to be on her fourth or fifth beer, but she held it better than her dork of a brother. We could hear him arguing with someone about something from thirty yards away, even over Roger Waters on Roxie's stereo.
"Maybe I ought to go check on him before he gets in a fight. Not only is your brother a dork, he hits like a girl. No offense."
"None taken. Can I have one of your cigarettes first?"
I looked at Annabelle and gave her my best impression of a disapproving big brother look. "These things are bad for you. You're not old enough either."
She raised her beer can and one eyebrow at me.
I handed her a Lucky and lit it for her. She had pretty lips. If she was older, I wouldn't mind blowing her tweeters.
Despite being the youngest one at the party, she managed to look older, or at least more mature, than the rest of us. She scanned the crowd without bothering to hide the disdain on her face, like we were all a bunch of children who didn't know how to behave properly. James let out a whoop that echoed across the desert and pierced through the music. Thank God for that, since Roxie had put on some ABBA.
I didn't care though. It was about time to pack it in. Andy was out of beer. Annabelle drank most of his share while he had been in his van with Sarah for the past two hours, smoking dope and doing who knows what else. Well, I knew what else they were doing. That thing Tory and I never did. She wanted to save it for marriage or at least until college. It wasn't a religious or moral thing for her. She thought the idea of sex was gross, but she held out hope that at some point along the journey to adulthood, it would suddenly become appealing. Like coffee or Barry Manilow.
But I couldn't leave until Tory won the debate with Tommy, Hawks, and James—when he was semiconscious—about who was the greatest rock band of all time. James came to and screamed, "Grand Funk Railroad!" Then his chin drooped to his chest again. He still stood somehow, swaying back and forth, his eyes closed.
"Shall we?" I said to Annabelle.
"If we must." She slammed the last of her beer and hopped off the tailgate. "So who's your favorite band?" she asked as we walked across the dirt to join the discussion.
"Not ABBA," I said, and she snorted and burped in agreement. "I'm a Stones guy, myself."
"You like that 'Brown Sugar,' do ya? Why don't you go hit on that Rodriguez chick then?"
"Jessi? She's about as brown as my ass, and believe me, that's not very brown. Besides, what does liking the Stones have to do with the color of girls I find attractive?"
"Nothin'. Just sayin'. You could do better than Tory if you actually tried."
I didn't defend Tory either. I didn't feel much like defending anyone tonight.
A thin line of drool slipped from James' slack lips and stretched nearly to the ground.
"Wake up, you gross bag of smegma," Annab
elle said.
He didn't wake up, so she pushed his shoulder. He fell straight back, like a board, and hit the ground with a thwump.
"Good God," Tory squealed. "Is he okay? Is he hurt?"
A snore trembled from James' throat. He shifted to his side and curled up.
"He's fine," Annabelle said.
"Can we put some different music on?" Tommy whined. "This sucks."
"My stereo, my turn to play what I want." And Roxie wanted crap.
Most of the crowd had either left already or were packing up their coolers and weed. The back of Andy's van opened up and something wet slapped the dirt right beside James' face. Cackles echoed from the van as Andy and Sarah piled out.
"Ew," Tory squealed again. "What is that?"
Annabelle laughed first. It took a moment for it to sink in for the rest of us. About the time Annabelle snorted and started laughing uncontrollably, we all joined in. All except Tory.
Andy and Sarah walked up, glassy-eyed and giggling.
"That's a million little Andy-babies," Sarah said.
Tory's face twisted into part disgust, part confusion.
"It's a condom," Annabelle explained and resumed her convulsions.
Tory leaned down for a closer look then bolted behind Roxie's car.
"That's the most vile …" Tory gagged, "… disgusting …" she retched, followed by a splash on the dirt, "… gross …" Tommy leaned into Roxie's passenger side window and turned up the volume to cover Tory's sick narration.
Sarah reached down and picked up the vile disgusting gross thing and gently set it on James' cheek. Annabelle howled, grabbed her crotch and ran behind the car to join Tory, unbuckling her jeans shorts as she ran. Tommy reached into the car again and turned the volume all the way down so we could all hear the spatter.
"Turn that back up, you sick pervert! You like hearing me pee?"
James never moved.
Tory, her stomach emptied, and Annabelle, bladder dry, rejoined us at the front of the car. The ABBA eight-track clicked back to the beginning.
"Would you put on some Nugent now?" Tommy pleaded. "Enough of this garbage."
"No Nugent, please," Hawks said. "Zeppelin."
"I'm sick of Zeppelin," Annabelle said.
Tory grabbed a wine cooler from Roxie's ice chest to clear the taste of vomit and calm her nerves. She stood beside me, but kept a few feet of distance between us. Far enough I couldn't smell her puke-breath. Far enough I couldn't reach over to hold her hand. Fine.