The Heart is Deceitful above All Things (21 page)

She took off her blouse like he ordered, covering with her arms her newly formed breasts. He towered over her, grabbed her by her hair, and dragged her to the squat, cast-iron stove.

No one came when she screamed as he pressed her back to the door of the stove.

No one ever said a thing about the raised, welted lines like jail bars or thick red teeth that still line her back.

‘We can outsmart it,' she says, staring out at the shoppers rushing past. ‘If we become as black and as devious as the coal, we won't ever burn.' She points to the people entering in the automatic sliding doors. ‘They all will.'

Her face pulls back in angry disgust. ‘We'll survive because we know the power and the evil of the coal.'

She gets out and I follow behind her.

A
LONG THE DESERTED
topaz-colored mountains, under the crowding of trees, our car cruises in its separate world. No lights from bars or clubs penetrate or distract, there's just thick, unbroken wilderness. So, life changes to adapt. She survives, and I treasure it.

I sit next to her in the front seat. My power surges as if I were a liquid constellation. I am the keeper of the maps. I measure the veinlike lines against my thumb. I remember the names of upcoming towns, villages, and stations, like a relative searching a crash survivors list.

‘You sure this is right?' she gnaws on her fleshy lips.

‘Trust me.' I clear my throat and sit taller in my seat. I can't help but feel she's a caterpillar squirming on my arm. I like the way that feels.

‘Watch for Tawnawachee!' I order. She leans forward and squints. Her yellow hair is breathing back the three o'clock October sun. She's so pure looking, I ache.

‘Help me here!' She bounces on the seat, glancing at me. I laugh.

‘You ain't passed it.'

‘I'm sick of goddamned trees and fuckin' mountains!' She slaps the wheel. I'm not. I like to pretend we're runaways together, like Hansel and Gretel abandoned in the deep growth of ancient woods.

‘Tawnawachee . . . left, here!'

She turns sharply, tires squealing.

‘You almost made me miss it!' she whines.

‘Did not.' I blink at her.

‘Did too! Damn, I need a drink, smoke, Valium, anything!'

My stomach tightens. ‘OK, keep goin' straight for a whiles.' I look out the window. The trees are thinning out.

‘Vegas is so great, gonna refill on cash . . .' She pats her jeans pocket.

‘Are kids allowed?' I look at her.

‘Oh, I have my ID.'

‘I mean . . .' My throat starts to clamp. She interrupts.

‘I can't hardly wait! How far?'

‘Far, go faster.'

‘Men just dying for hot young blondes . . .' A deer scampers out of the way. She doesn't notice.

‘I have the luck of Satan on the dollars slots, I swear, too, the men are so easy . . .' I roll down the window, and the cool air blowing through my hair makes me squint and fills me with a strange excitement. I imagine birds flying in to steal my maps, like bread crumbs, losing us forever.

‘Now what?' She turns to me with such an open, trusting expression, her eyes a wide translucent pale green, that I can almost see the world through them.

‘OK, now you turn left . . . yeah.' My confidence is reflected in her full moving lips, silently and absentmindedly repeating my directions.

‘Here? Here?!'

‘Yeah, now after the creek you turn left.' The complexity of all possible outcomes of each turn, each direction, are stored inside me, filling me with strength.

‘Faster,' I grunt. I imagine the Dart on a runway, sprouting wings and taking off.

‘You can win cars, too, I'll try to do that.' She flutters her hands as she talks, almost forgetting the wheel. ‘And get rid of this piece of shit.' A stomachache is making me lean forward.

‘Faster,' I order, my heart racing.

‘What?' She looks at me.

‘Olive juice,' I mouth to her, and close my eyes.

‘What did you say?'

‘Faster, faster!' I almost yell, the wind howling in my ears.

‘Don't you order me.' She speeds up anyway.

‘Let's never ever stop!' I laugh hysterically.

‘What?' She laughs. I rub my hands over my face and hair like I'm scrubbing myself.

‘Oh, you'll love Vegas . . .' She thumps the wheel.

‘Faster,' I whisper.

‘I can't wait, I swear!' She wets her lips.

‘Don't stop.' I pump my knees up and down.

‘Hey!' She starts to slow down. ‘Hey, we miss it?'

‘No!' I shout. Her hand flies out quickly and, like a magic trick, transforms into a fist and pounds once, hard, on my thigh. I become very still. She slows down some more. The trees are giving way to rocks and shrubs.

‘Now where are we?' Her voice is controlled, not like Gretel anymore. Despite myself I unfold the map.

‘The turn is still a whiles up,' I mumble.

‘Don't you fucking try it!' She shakes her fist at me.

I carefully fold my map into its neat rectangular shape. ‘Try what?' I smooth it against my jeans leg.

‘Don't you'––she glares at me––‘ever try to lose me! You fuckin' hear me!'

I turn my face to her, smile slightly, and inhale.

I won't ever lose you . . . I promise.

‘The turn is still a whiles up,' I mumble. I roll up my window.

Now it's passing us by too fast; there is nothing solid to grab on to or hide inside of, even if there were more than just sagebrush, tumbleweeds, and flat sand blazing by.

I've slid down behind her seat where it's curved as a cradle. But I can't get small enough 'cause the sky's too smooth and open, without a cloud's shadow to move into. This is God's magnifying glass.

‘See the lights? Way off there . . . oh, some high roller's gonna get lucky, so lucky . . .' She drums on the dash.

I curl up smaller, clutching my neatly folded maps no longer needed.

‘Oh, not some drunk cowboy, like Duane, 'member him?' She laughs. ‘No, I'm gettin' me a married professional!' She smacks her lips. I wrap a fist around the metal bolting her seat down.

‘Gonna get another daddy! Time for some pampering,' she mutters. ‘'Bout that time, I think.'

I lean my skull into the fake leather seat back, and I can feel the press of her spine.

‘Bet you're hungry!' I push my head into the nauseating smell of Naugahyde.

‘Did you gobble up your doughnuts?' I smile to myself and reach under her seat. I hold up a greasy smooshed jelly roll as if for target practice. My stomach growls at the sticky scent of it.

‘Why didn't you eat it? You must be hungry.' I hear her adjusting her mirror to find me. I keep the doughnut raised.

‘You hungry?' I shake the doughnut, no.

‘Bet ya gotta go.' I shake again, no, and feel my gut cramped and aching.

‘Well, I'm starvin'! Big juicy burger is what I need, fries, lotsa ketchup . . . how's that sound?'

I close my eyes and savor the attention like a soldier standing on a land mine before his battalion, and just as quickly, it's over.

‘Sit up, c'mon, get up!'

She's not asking permission any longer.

I climb up onto the seat and stare out at the too bright sand sea like an overexposed photo. And there is nothing to anchor on to, to stop what's happening.

‘Mile up's a diner,' she says, detached. I stare at her eyes in the mirror, looking straight ahead, filled with Vegas. I part my legs. She switches on the cassette play.

‘Oh, I love this song,' she says. ‘Dead Kennedy's, yeah!'

She starts singing. ‘Bright lights city . . .'

I raise my hips up off the seat.

‘Gonna set my soul . . .'

I watch her in the mirror, rocking her head, looking like a child lost in a dream.

‘Gonna set my soul . . .'

I loosen my bowels.

‘On fire . . .'

I wait, unblinking into the mirror.

‘Viva Las Vegas, Viva Las . . .'

She sniffs the air. ‘You fart? . . .'

She glances at me through the mirror. I smile. ‘What the . . . ?'

She snorts loudly. ‘You fuckin' didn't!'

I remember a scene from a movie where a man places his bare palm over a flame to prove he will endure whatever necessary out of loyalty.

‘You motherfuckin' evil fucker!'

I slide my hands under my thighs as she half turns toward me, still driving, her free arm reaching over the seat.

‘Try to ruin everything, everything!' she sobs as her fist bounces off my legs, chest, stomach. ‘You always have, always!'

I keep grinning as I feel something solid dropping, capturing us both, holding her to me.

‘I've sacrificed so much for you.' Tears stream down her face. I lean forward so she can reach me better. I bite my lip through my grin.

‘You shitty bastard!' She keeps driving, snot and tears flying as she swirls her head back and forth, from me to the road, her hand flailing at me.

‘I've tried so hard, I've lost so much.' A giggle escapes me, and suddenly the white neon of Dolly's Diner is flashing through the windshield, filling the car and catching her fist, midstroke, like a projector burning through a film frame.

Silently she turns back in her seat. She wipes her nose on her sleeve and pulls into the parking lot. The crunch of the driveway sounds too loud in the silence. I'm still grinning. She parks in the shadows.

‘I bet you're hungry.' Her voice is sweet but cold, ironed of any previous wrinkles.

She gets out, opens the trunk, digs around, comes over to my side, and opens my door.

‘Honey, you go clean up.' Her hand pats my head, each touch too swift, too brief, to be caught. She hands me my bag.

‘Here's ten dollars, get us burgers, sweetie?' She sniffles, wipes her nose again, and reaches her hand out
to me. She looks away. I put my hand around hers, she leaves hers open. I step onto the gray gravel and look up quick to her eyes, staring toward the lights of Vegas.

‘I'll just go get gas down at that Chevron.' She motions with her head. Her hand is gone from mine, and she pats my back with little pushes forward.

‘Go eat.'

Robotically I walk away. She's humming as she gets in the car. I keep moving forward, still grinning. The ignition turns. I see people talking, laughing, eating through the yellow-lit windows. The smoosh in my pants travels down my leg as I walk forward.

Tires turning, gravel popping. A kid stuffing in a big forkful of cake. The bump of wheels hitting tar.

I spin around, a frozen grin plastered to my face, and watch the car pull out with a screech.

I wrap my hands around my ribs like I'm gripping a cliff ledge as the orange tail lights pull away. And suddenly I'm running to the road edge and I don't breathe as the glowing lights approach the Chevron and quickly float, like a disembodied spirit, past it.

I watch the red orange glow grow smaller and smaller until it's all gone.

‘
A
RE YOU TRYING
to get hit by a meteor?' I nod yes and take a few steps to regain my balance, because my face is turned up parallel to the planetarium-looking desert sky.

‘I said, are you trying? I don't think you're trying.'

I hear her shift resentfully against the car. I keep myself from looking for her solid black silhouette against the shifting darkness around us.

‘Sarah, I'm trying. I swear.'

‘He won't marry me if you can't just do this.' She adjusts her body with a bounce.

‘Will you wear a white dress, Sarah?'

‘Hmm?'

‘Last few weddings you wore regular clothes. I think he'd fancy you in a white gown, don't you think?' I hear the familiar dull scrape of car keys digging into her flesh.

‘A gown? What, like a wedding dress?'

‘He strikes me as the type.' I kick at the dusty sand around me.

‘He'll carry me over the threshold, too. I know just the suite at the Mirage.'

As the keys scrape faster, I imagine I can see her arm skin curling up like shaved chocolate.

‘Oh, I saw something streak in the sky!' I point up with my whole arm.

‘Try and get it to hit you. You should lay down,' she says. ‘Then there's more of you to hit.'

I take big showy steps around, my body tilted upward to expose more of me to the sky.

‘See it?' I can tell she's looking up. ‘It's coming, I think. Maybe I should get in the car so it don't hit me by mistake. It's gotta hit you.'

I hear her open the car door, slide into the back, and slam the door. She leans out the window. ‘If I'm unconscious, how'll he fall in love?'

We'd pulled into the tourist station in the middle of Death Valley to get water and use the facilities. We were heading back to Vegas. She was going to be a showgirl with her own dressing room, and cherry tomatoes and ranch dressing laid out after every show.

He was in beige shorts––the longer, more dignified ones. His back was to us. The golden fuzz on his legs shimmered when he moved, as if someone had colored outside the lines. His shoulders were broad and worked as he talked warmly about meteors. Sarah jerked nervously and joined the tourists hearing his lecture. Her eyes went round and dark when she saw his face, and I knew she'd
chosen another one. I watched his hands as they flew out while he spoke––tan, blunt fingers, no rings. Her lips parted in awe.

‘Just like snowflakes, you won't find any two meteorites that'll be completely alike, even if you're dealing with the most common L6 class.'

His head bobbed rapidly as he spoke. ‘We gather clues and more information from every new meteorite, about the beginnings of our solar system.' He drew a broad rainbow in the air. ‘I never tire of seeing new meteorites.'