I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them (28 page)

Although he's attempted the emotional exorcism before, Wintric tries again; he decides he isn't looking for Derek Nelson. He reinvents the past twenty minutes. He closes his eyes, calls up the vision, comfort, the story he'll tell Kristen.
I met Nelson. He was there at the door.
I saw him and I asked him and he looked at me like I was crazy and he invited me in, but no, just passing through, Go Army, Go Army, best of luck, brother.
It's not sticking.
Go Army. Brother.
The vision isn't sticking.
Nelson at the door.
He's not there. Wintric can't see it. He sees the door, only the door.
The white door. Fist knocking. The door. No doorbell.

“Come home,” Kristen says. “We're here.”

“Don't put him on. I can't handle it right now,” Wintric says.

“Come home.” Aside, in a whisper, “To Daddy, honey.”

“Don't put him on.”

“Where are you?”

“Through Elko.”

“We miss you. Things are going to be better now. You know that. You faced him.”

“Yeah.”

“You never have to tell me what he said. It's for you.”

Midday and fighting sleep thirty miles outside of Winnemucca, Wintric single-lane drives behind a diesel doing forty-five on an eight-mile stretch of construction in the middle of nowhere I-80. The diesel has a pair of old mud flaps with a busty, long-haired, reclining woman relaxing in chrome. Every now and then the sun strikes it right and she throws a bright flash. Desert hot, and the AC pushes out cool air and the car's temperature gauge flirts with the yellow zone. A Circus Circus Casino billboard arrives and races by to his right, followed by a billboard for reverse vasectomies. Wintric takes in the miles and miles of beige rock intersected by a slit of blacktop.

Already halfway through Nevada, he fights himself about his decision to leave Green River, not to wait it out. This mental manipulation along this same strip of land is nothing new. He's called Torres on the way home after each of his failed attempts and lied about where he was and his reason for phoning, and each time Torres has listened to the made-up stories and offered advice that Wintric can't use. Even so, Torres's soothing voice has helped get him home. Wintric looks at his cell phone, at the default blue background, but there's no service.

Coming into Imlay he spots a bizarre, bony structure south of the interstate that he's never noticed. He pulls off into the almost ghost town to stretch in the post office parking lot. He's never stopped here; normally he presses on to Fernley or Reno. A new American flag flies over the double-wide tan building. His sweaty shirt smells like his chicken sandwich lunch, and the early afternoon sun hits hard. He wipes at his eyes, then pops four pills and gulps a swig of warm water. A woman and her daughter exit the post office and squint. Wintric walks over to the building, to a map of the local area. He runs his finger to the
X
that marks the spot where he stands. Surprised, he studies what appears to be a large lake nearby. Rye Patch Reservoir. He scans the distance, but all he sees is desert scrub, fences, and the hazy outline of cracking mountains. He thinks,
Water somewhere.

Later, he stands on a rocky peninsula and the blue water appears to be a misplaced fantasy, a geological mistake. No trees with all this water. Far west, two small boats. Overhead, blue sky and crisscrossing contrails. A darting white bird descends to the water and lands near him. A subtle crosswind blows across the great, shallow bowl of land.

The cool water offers some reprieve from the hot day and Wintric lowers himself to the shore. He presses his middle fingers to his temples, then inhales and holds the air until his body forces him to take another breath. He inhales and holds the air again, feeling his neck and eyes pressurize before his forced exhalation.

A gust of wind races across Wintric's face, and he digs up a white rock that catches his eye and tosses it out near the bird. He yawns and follows the bird's ascent into the air and his eyes stop on an unusual gray balloon in the far distance. The scene takes him a minute to process. Deep in the landscape, the large, slender balloon floats high in the air. He guesses that the ruler-shaped object is three or four stories tall, but gaining any perspective is impossible. Wintric watches it for a minute, peering for a tether or movement, but the balloon appears to float, motionless.

He reclines on a smooth spot of shore and brings his hands to his face. An orangey light filters through his joined fingers. Fanning his fingers open, he sees the balloon through the gap between his left hand pinkie and ring finger. Closed, orangey light. Open, balloon. Closed. Open. Closed.

Wintric wakes, dreamless. The wind brushes his face and something crawls across his hand. Above him a large black bird circles in the heat. He peers west, but the boats are gone. In the distance the gray balloon hovers. He stands and brushes himself off. He finds and crushes two ants crawling up his forearm.

In the car, he turns the key in the ignition and the engine turns over. His foot on the brake, he shifts the car into drive, feels the slight lurch, and glances at the horizon, the balloon.
Three miles away? Ten?
He shifts the car back to park and reaches for his gun, grabs it and some ammunition, and gets out.

Back at the shoreline, Wintric digs his big toe inside his boot and he thumbs the hammer back, then raises the revolver.
Hundred to one? A thousand?
He keeps both eyes open and places the balloon in the sights, then raises the gun higher and aims there. Blue sky in the sights, and he visualizes the bullet's trajectory all the way to the balloon, the gigantic drop of the bullet over the miles. A gentle exhalation and trigger pull. The blast sound echoes out and he lowers the revolver. He studies the remaining bullets' brass backings. He raises the revolver and smells the gunpowder in the air. A trigger-pull blast sound. Another. Then quiet, except for the ringing in his ears, sirens circling his head. He stands listening to the sirens circle and circle and circle before slowly leaving him. He stands staring at the balloon, stands for minutes, searching for movement, but the balloon floats in the air, miles away.

In Lovelock, Wintric stops at a convenience store and buys a Coke, a bag of jerky, a package of Lightning McQueen stickers, a postcard with a picture of the Pershing County Courthouse, and a stamp. In the parking lot he finds a pen in his glove box among the unused bullets and owner's manual. He addresses the card to Nelson without a return address. He writes, “I was there,” then scribbles over it. He thinks for a minute, then writes “AFG” and “my revenge.” Below that, “your house” and “no doorbell.” He stops and looks up and wonders if that's enough.
If it's him, will he know? If it's not, does it matter?
He places the card on his lap and picks up his phone. He wonders if he and Torres are in the same time zone. His phone has service, but he puts it back down in the cup holder.

Wintric looks at his postcard. He places the tip of the pen on the card to write his full name, but in the time that it takes him to begin the first letter he decides to write just “Wintric.” He sees the pen's tip on the white surface. He starts the
W,
but stops at a
V.
He lifts the pen and holds it in the air.

13

L
ATER FAHRAN'S FATHER
will meet Fahran at the door with a scratch lottery ticket worth five hundred dollars. He'll thank the stars and embrace his boy before he notices Fahran's defeated face and slumped body and hears that his son has watched a man die. But right now Fahran is a skinny thirteen-year-old at the packed Farmington, New Mexico, community swimming pool on July 3, 2013. The day is sunny, and it's the part of the hour when everyone has to take a five-minute break. Whistles blow, and two lifeguards jump in the water from their elevated chairs, relief spilling over their faces when they crest the surface and slick back their hair.

Fahran's diabetic mother wears her dry red swimsuit with her insulin pump hanging off her left hip. She reclines in her green-and-yellow plastic folding lounge chair near the three-foot end, sunning herself. Fahran has been swimming for an hour. He rests on the slatted wood bench near the shaded fence within reach of his mother, his fingers feeling at his waterlogged palms. She works at the hardware store, and Fahran figures she's about as happy as she can be on one of her few days off, gently falling asleep amid the laughter, chlorine smell, and frequent shouts to walk, not run. She rarely accompanies him the four blocks to the pool, but earlier in the day she appeared in the hallway with her long towel and cheap sunglasses. She wrapped her gray insulin pump in a plastic bag but still reminds him that she has to keep it dry.

Now, she rests her head on her forearm, the straps on her bathing suit crisscrossing her brown back, which is scattered with tiny moles. Fahran sees the same skin on his belly, and already a few moles of his own. One, just south of his belly button, bothers him enough that he's tried to pinch it off with nail clippers, but it bled all over. He peels back his shorts and glimpses the lighter brown skin beneath them. It's enough of a contrast to the bronzed upper and lower halves of his exposed body that his mother calls him Oreo, but only at home. Fahran takes in his midsection and he checks on the gangly dark hairs that protrude around his genitals and up toward his belly button. He's proud he won't be the last one to show.

Fahran is mostly scared of his body. He has started to wake up with damp circles on his shorts and the bed sheets. His dad has told him about wet dreams; in fact he's pretty open about all the sex stuff. It's just that Fahran doesn't know the right questions to ask when his father says, “Ask anything.”

All around the edge of the pool kids begin to line up for the lifeguards, who climb up their perches. One lifeguard, Kylie, a thin brunette with brown eyes, places the whistle in her lips and blows. A dozen kids leave the ground simultaneously. Her one-piece suit dips just low enough, presses just close enough to her breasts, for Fahran to fantasize about the lower, covered two thirds. She's a couple years older and sits with her knees a few inches apart. Normally Fahran would be one of the first back in the water, but he's decided to let all his sliding droplets dry on the bench while his body calms down. He leans forward, placing his elbows on his knees. His mother shifts to rest on her back.

Fahran swats at a yellow jacket that sniffs around his feet and ankles. To his left a large man talks through the fence to a woman. They smile and their fingers meet through the Cyclone diamonds. Fahran attempts to hear what they say over the collective splashing. The man appears to be his dad's age, but this guy's belly hangs over the top part of his swimming trunks, and little dots of scarred skin speckle his forearms. On his back a peculiar snakelike tattoo winds up his spinal column. The woman has dyed pink into her blond hair and wears a sleeveless purple dress like the ones he's seen on women in the bank. They stand close to each other and kiss. Fahran tilts his head so he can spy on their joined faces. They press their bodies against the fence, and after a few seconds Fahran glances around to see if anyone else notices, but no one looks their way, so he turns back to see.

The woman goes up on her toes, and still they kiss, all through one narrow gap. Finally they pull away, just their faces, and stare at each other. The woman says, “I'll pick Emma up at four,” and turns away. The man shakes the fence before spinning around, his eyes catching Fahran's on their swing toward the water. He strides six steps, past Fahran and his sunbathing mother, before launching his body into the air.

Fahran's world stops. He doesn't know what awaits, but something is already off: the angle the man's legs form with his diving torso, the listing ash trees in the background, the wind, the smell of urine and sunscreen—everything mysteriously shifts and blurs. The water absorbs the man's body up to his waist, but a halting, spastic jolt snaps his lower legs, calves, and feet concave. The tension squeezes Fahran's face, and he waits for ten seconds for the man to emerge, until a woman in jeans and a white button-up shirt across the pool leaps into the water. In the hazy moments that follow, kids jump off the diving board and more carefree laughs enter the air. The dressed woman struggles through the three feet of water, and her labored stride grinds to slow motion.

In an eerie crescendo the screams arrive as a red blood-cloud blossoms out into the blue water. Fahran stands at the edge, gazing down into the gathering maroon. Help is still ten feet away, pulsing out waves in her mad, sluggish dash. One of the waves spreads the flowing blood enough for him to see the man's submerged back. Fahran's mother kneels beside him, leaning over the edge, her arms elbow-deep in the murk.

Whistles join the shrieking, and the lifeguards scramble. The clothed woman arrives and lifts the huge man up in a heap of water and blood and skin.

Fahran's mother grabs his shoulder and spins him around, pushes him to the bench, but before he sits, he turns and sees the woman in the purple dress. She stands motionless in the middle of the sidewalk, then turns back toward the pool as if someone called her name, eyebrows up, curious. Her tangible happiness careens into alarm the moment her eyes focus. She stares right at Fahran, and yet somehow she knows everything. She pivots in her high heels, and her right arm flies up like a dagger into the air, starting her sprint. Her eyes and mouth open wide, and she covers the distance quickly, crashing into the fence, bellowing vowel sounds.

The lifeguards reach them and one boy bends down to start CPR, but when he takes the man's chin in his hands the neck moves like jelly, and the lifeguard lets go. Kylie says, “Listen for breathing,” but the other lifeguard just kneels, eyeing his own hands. Fahran stands across the rattling fence from the woman, and for a minute no one touches the man. An amazed space settles around his body, a force field of nerves and fear and oddity. Already the body has lost its vitality, is now wet, unmoving muscle. Kylie bends down and edges her ear to the man's mouth. She shakes her head, then clasps her hands, places them on the man's chest, and pumps up and down.