Five Miles Per Hour

It was almost a relief when the car died. Five minutes after I left it on the shoulder, I couldn't have listed its contents, what was on the floorboards, what was in the very back, what was on the little shelf under the glove compartment. I couldn't have named the tapes on the passenger seat.

I walked the faded centerline, daring the unseen traffic to come, oblivious like a swami to the pain searing the soles of my feet. Then my feet did start to hurt, and I darted to the shade of a large nopales cactus and pulled off my shoes and socks to cool them. I caught myself an inch's lean from the spines, and smiled. This was the desert, unapologetically inhospitable, uncaring of others' needs, impervious to exploitation. Desolate, yet full of life—the carrion birds circling opportunistically, the lizards spying motionless, the almost invisibly small flowers blooming amidst the sand. I regretted my lack of paper and pen, then laughed. Who carries notes to oblivion?

When my feet had recovered, I resumed along the two-lane highway, toward the treeless foothills that ringed the mesa, then stopped again. Surely it made no sense to abandon my car, yet hew nonetheless to the road. There was only one way to do this. I took a deep breath and struck out perpendicular toward the far horizon. I couldn't know what lay ahead, only all that I left behind. Including an almost-full bottle of spring water in the passenger door pouch. My throat painfully dry already, I thought to fetch it, but no—there could be no turning back, not even the twenty feet to the car, not for a moment.

The rocks were plentiful, varying from fine gravel to ankle-twisters the size of bread loaves, and nothing resemling a path could be seen. Good—the better to foil pursuit, as if the ills and persecution I'd suffered in the City could mount a posse and ride me to ground. Here, amid the creosote bushes, I would be absorbed into the wilderness, made part of it, draw from its desolation a new strength. Snakes—there might be snakes in the shade of the rocks, I realized. Better to stay well clear, and—what was that technique? Never let a snake hear you coming—that was it. Clap hands, sing, whistle, and cry "Snakes! Snakes!" in passing. Again my thoughts went to the water in the car. But no—no.

Those who questioned me, those who judged, let them rot undead in the City—the desert heat would cauterize my wounds, the rays of the sun begin the healing.

My pants began to stick to my legs, slick with sweat. Pants! What had I been thinking? Did the scorpion wear pants, or the vulture? Aside from that one in the cartoon? Quickly I peeled off my trousers, then wrapped the legs around my head turban-style to shield my thinning pate from the sun. I pushed my socks down around my ankles, then absent-mindedly pulled them up a short distance later, a process I would repeat in cycles of varying length for many hours to come. Though the air was dry, it was also very still, enveloping me in its stifling embrace like the womb—no, not the womb, but its very opposite. I tried to determine what this might be until I'd forgotten the metaphor's intent, then returned to it periodically between choruses of the snake-warning song.

Freedom tasted as sweet as a hot plastic bottle of water on a hot, desperately hot, dusty day. I was off the grid, off the clock, my wristwatch somewhere on the ground behind me along with my wallet, its identity cards now meaningless, referring to a man who no longer existed, a ghost now reborn, born into a new womb, an arid, merciless womb of freedom.

The sun spoke softly to me as it lowered ever so slowly in the distance, telling me the secrets of its eternity. It said, "Down I go, down down down, down go I the sun to the set, set, sunset, the down, set, sunset, down, set, sunset," over and over again. I whispered along, pausing every three or so words for a snake warning. I wondered when they would emerge from the lengthening shadows of the rocks to commence their evening activities, the dances and banquets for which they were famous. Snakes!

My thoughts turned to nightfall. In no bed would I sleep tonight—no memory would haunt the pillow that I fashioned from piled sand and creosote branches, no delicate fingers would desecrate by their absence my coverlet of, well, of nothing, given the absence of suitable materials for such a thing. The sun had finally reached the horizon, the rascal, and winked before disappearing from sight. Immediately I began to shiver, realized that I had been cold for some time. My hand went to my pantaloon turban, but it was not the way of the desert, this I knew instinctively—by lizard brain, ha!—not our way, not our way. On I walked while arose the moon, my queen.

There—in the twilight, in the distance, a plume silhouetted against the deepening blue-white sky. A fellow traveler? A creature of the night? No light did he carry—but there, yes, a light, a beam, as from a lantern. Then two, a pair, perhaps twin companions, a welcoming committee from the new life I'd joined. They would carry tents, silken cushions, samovars of delicate aromas. Around the fire we would weave tales of days long past and divine the days to come. The lights in unison drew nearer.

A sound separated itself from the ring of my ears and the roaring desert voices, a rumbling hum, a growl ever larger. Was this the sound of the very darkness that gathered behind me to sweep the plain? I returned my eyes to the front, and here, here was the distant caravan arriving, a Grand Cherokee if I wasn't mistaken, dust rising through its yellow-faced headlights.

"Jack, it's so good to see you! I can hardly make you out in the light—step closer."

"Hello, Julia," I said. "You're looking well. Hello, Bill."

"Good to see you, Jack," he said, leaning over Julia. He turned on the dome light so I could better see them.

"We've had the most fascinating time," said Julia. "We took a picnic out to a spring over that way—Bill used to live here, he knows just everything about it. Then we hiked up in those hills over there, and watched the sun set."

"Brought a bottle of Caymus Charnonnay. Just the thing."

"That sounds pretty nice, Bill, Julia."

"Indeed. Listen, we're going to head back to the house and turn on the lights on the court—see if we can't get a set in before bed."

"You should drop by later, really—"

"Ah, Jules—certainly, Jack, do, why not? It's so seldom we get to see you."

"We should talk some time," said Julia. "Really." She smiled as she shifted out of Park. The large red tail lights wobbled and grew smaller and closer together. The crossing moon cleared the stars from its path and they returned in its wake.

Another set of lights appeared. They approached ever so slowly. They arrived in front of a well-preserved Ford wagon. At the wheel was Joe Bananas, my former business associate. Bouncing slightly with the engine's rough idle, both hands at high noon on the wheel, he bared his teeth and gums at me. He tilted back his straw hat, pulled a blade of grass from between his teeth and with it gestures brusquely to the rear. He turned his eyes to the road, now steering with opposable-toed feet, hands clasped behind his head. I swung myself stiffly aboard.

I lay on my back in the straw of the truckbed, the night air growing cold, the stars jerking past at five miles per hour.