Mira Corpora (15 page)

I wake up staring at the floorboards. The air is scented with stale sweat and sour alcohol. There's a dull plaque of vomit on my tongue. I'm slow to notice the cold evening light that leaks through the windows. The front door is open and the wind escorts a party of leaves across the carpet. A circus of white moths circle the lamps. I try to decipher the faint noises that seem to be calling from the forest. It's probably just the insistent whine of the wind. But it also sounds similar to the baying of a distant pack of dogs.

Lying here, I'm overcome by a surpassing sense of peace. In a rare moment of clarity, I know what I have to do.

First: I flush my mother's ashes down the toilet.

Second: I tear up the letter of residency and toss it in the trash can.

Third: I rip the pages of the eulogy from the notebook, add them to the trash, and incinerate the whole lot.

I watch my mother's last wishes curl in the fire until I'm positive there's nothing left to salvage. Until they're nothing more than a fistful of cinders. My attention turns to the half-empty notebook. I stare intently at the remaining blank pages. They seem to beckon. Slowly I screw up my courage. I want to write some version of what's happened to me, but I have no idea what sort of story might spill out. I place the notebook on a flat surface and fold it open to the third page. I tap my pen against the paper. One, two, three. It's time to begin.

(My first fiction)

 

 

“Passing off what might be true as fiction seems a better vocation to me than passing off what is quite possibly fiction as truth.”

–Robert Frank

IT BEGINS WITH A TREE IN A FIELD. A LONE orange tree in the middle of a grassy field. Observe how the moon shines exactly three-quarters bright. A warm scentless breeze tickles the undersides of the shiny leaves and orbs of fruit can be seen glistening on the branches. Plenty of ripe oranges for the taking. This scene resembles something out of a painting, the ethereal daubs of blue moonlight, the robust sinews of shadow, the perspective so flat as to be unreal—and then it is a painting, tacked in a gilt frame, perfectly centered on a white wall, hanging inside a gallery. It is still night, the building is dark, and nobody is there to watch it.

A guard enters the room. His flashlight beam frisks the walls and corners of the back gallery. He could've sworn he sensed the hum of another presence. Someone staring at this painting. He checks the locks on the windows, inspects the pipes crisscrossing the ceiling, opens the recessed janitorial closet to study the assortment of frayed mops. His eyes rove the opposite wall and inevitably stall on the canvas of the orange tree. A mundane image, but if you look long enough the still-life starts to pulse with a sense of longing. The mysterious combination of pigments casually suggests not an idealized vista in this world but an imperfect pane into another. Of course maybe he's just been on the job too long. That's what happens when the only company is the ringing thump of your own footsteps.

The shift is almost over. Ralton arrives to replace him and they
bullshit for several minutes about the college baseball playoffs. Then the guard gets in his car and drives through the few white-washed blocks that constitute downtown, past the flickering gas lamps and sleeping boutiques, toward the old highway. The usual routine. But he can't shake the feeling that something is slightly off. His forearm lolls out the window while the truck bounces along the two-lane asphalt strip. The oil derricks loom out there in the darkness, a hot salty breeze carrying the creak of their repeating gyrations. The secret theme song of this vast nowhere. Tonight a watery red glow emanates from the scrub fields. Some kind of repair job, probably. Men with acetylene torches laboring under klieg lights. The guard thinks about his cousin who occasionally works on those massive steel structures and wonders what sort of life it might be. But enough of that. The truck turns into a half-vacant parking lot. The cantina calls.

The smoky room is lit solely with strands of blinking red and green lights, but it's easy to spot Malcolm and Blundell at the bar. They're the only gringos here. The guard strolls past a table of brooding Mexicans in cowboy hats and takes his customary stool next to Blundell. He orders a shot of whiskey as a doleful ranchero blares from the jukebox. Malcolm fills him in on the baseball game, the local kid who struck out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh then botched a double play the next inning. The guard lets out a bitter laugh, relieved not to have money riding on the outcome. They both wait for Blundell to chime in, but he seems strangely preoccupied. He ruts his fingers through his tight blond curls and keeps his eyes offhandedly pinned to the entrance.

When the skinny shadows of the skaters materialize at the back door, Blundell hops off his bar stool and breaks into a sloppy grin. He tries to play it cool as the boys greet him with a series of
rhythmic palm slaps and finger snaps. These surly brats have been hanging round Blundell for weeks now. They're probably just his errand boys in a small-time empire of pastel pills and powder-filled packets, but something about their interaction makes him uneasy. It's the way Blundell continually taps their elbows like a third base coach, the earnestly disinterested tone he adopts when talking to them, the conspiratorial smiles he flashes when he assumes nobody's watching. There's a feeling here the guard isn't ready to name.

The skaters sidle up to the bar. They jackknife their boards into the brass foot rail and strike low-wattage poses meant to signify a contempt not worth fully embodying. Several wear old Halloween masks perched atop their heads. Sometimes the guard forgets the skaters are so much younger than him. The little monsters act like they inhabit an alternate universe. Malcolm tries to make small talk about the ball game but the skaters just snigger, none of them having any fucking idea what he's gibbering about. Blundell attempts to smooth things over by ordering them a round of drinks, but they only cackle harder. The blue-haired skater sneers that the thrill of underage alcohol consumption faded years ago and besides they've got a better buzz stashed behind the dumpsters. An awkward silence as the jukebox drops a needle on a sorrowful salsa number. For the first time, the guard notices a fresh face among the usual gallery of sullen stares: A pale boy with stringy black hair and sunken spaniel eyes who holds himself a few paces from the others.

Blundell announces there is business to transact and squeezes into an empty booth with the skaters. The boy stands behind them without joining the conversation, executing an awkward pose that flits between involvement and invisibility. The guard thinks the boy must be younger than the other skaters, his ripped jeans and ratty
green sweater more genuinely haphazard than their expertly studied ragtag fashions. A runaway, maybe. Malcolm has seen enough and stomps out the exit without so much as a wave. The guard remains at the bar for several minutes, counting the colorful rows of liquor labels and humming along to the listless static of the television set. He's contemplating leaving when the boy eases onto the stool beside him and asks him to order him a beer.

Hard to tell if this is some brand of provocation. The boy downs several swallows of alcohol before meeting the guard's gaze. Hints of rough experience are etched in the margins of his smooth features but there's also an unripe quality. The look of someone on a long trek who hasn't traveled very far. The boy finishes his beer and peers over his shoulder. “Can I tell you a secret?” he asks. He arches his eyeballs meaning fully in the direction of the booth of skaters. “Your friend is in love with the blue-haired one,” he says. This is a dizzying thought and the guard doesn't know how to respond. “That isn't like him at all,” the guard murmurs. Before he can say anything else, Blundell and the gang of skaters walk toward the bathroom and disappear inside together. “But that wasn't the secret,” the boy says. “The secret is they're going to kill him.”

The guard orders another round. He's not sure what else to do. It's as if he's been living inside a two-dimensional set whose walls have toppled, allowing him to survey the sprawling landscape for the first time. He feels lost. Maybe the boy is experiencing something similar. Maybe that's why this peculiar child chose to confide in him so suddenly. There's something simpatico about the way the boy's hair shyly obscures his large eyes and the nervous way his fingers adjust the necklace of shells that encircles his delicate throat. The guard starts to ask about the skaters' motives and timetable, but instead he says: “Why are you hanging with those assholes?”

The boy contemplates his beer, as if trying to divine an answer in the bottom of the glass. He says: “Everyone needs a place to crash.” The guard says: “My cousin has a spare room.” The boy looks surprised by the invitation and suddenly the guard isn't sure why he made it. But then the boy says: “That could be okay.” They both let their sentences trail into the air, the better part of the conversation remaining unspoken and partially obscured, like crossword blanks waiting to be filled in.

The skaters reappear from the bathroom. They scope the cantina to see if they're collecting suspicious looks, but the Mexicans remain indifferent. Blundell announces he's departing with the teens. He barely manages to suppress the self-satisfied smirk that twitches across his lips. The guard stares at his friend, surprised to realize that he isn't the least concerned about his safety. The threat is almost definitely overblown and besides the night's revelations have suggested a new realm where everything is permitted, or possible, or something. The blue-haired skater locks eyes with the boy and jerks his head in the direction of the exit. “We're going to check out this band at the Roxy,” he says. But the boy remains slouched on the bar stool in a way that indicates precisely nothing. He twirls his thumb at the guard. “I'm crashing with his cousin tonight,” he says.

The guard and the boy stand in the parking lot, under the trebly shadow of the flickering cantina sign, and watch the others depart. A warm breeze blows across the grease-stained expanse of gravel, inflating the skaters' loose shirts and whipping their long hair. They crouch behind the overflowing dumpsters and return cradling a rumpled paper-bag package so obviously illegal it resembles a decoy or prop. Several skaters pull on their birdlike masks with feathers and sequins. Blundell rolls down the window of his sedan and winks at his friend. Whatever that means. As the guard
watches the taillights seep into the darkness, he feels unaccountably giddy. The stars overhead seem scrambled into new constellations, suggesting a fresh zodiac. Casper Major, Galactica Minor, Vulcan Borealis. He idly wonders if he has just witnessed the last annoyingly cryptic gesture Blundell will ever make.

“So,” the boy asks, “where are we going?”

The guard remembers the red haze in the fields behind them. It's the answer that's been awaiting him. They set off together into the scrub brush, stepping gingerly across the uneven terrain, navigating a makeshift path through the skeletal bushes, the midget cacti, the thorns and burrs that tug at their pant legs. “We'll get the key from my cousin,” the guard says. “He's repairing one of the derricks tonight.” It might even be true. The itchy rhythm of cicadas sharpening their forelegs meshes with the propulsive whine of the oil rigs. It beckons them forward like a siren's song. “This isn't like me,” the guard says, as much to hear the words aloud as for the boy's benefit. “I mean, I don't usually help strangers.” The boy nods. He nervously plucks the pilings off his green sweater. Neither of them mentions Blundell or the skaters.

They step over a collapsed chain-link fence that marks some forgotten border. The flotsam of abandoned industrial equipment blankets the ground. Lengths of cast-off pipe, rusted lug bolts, tangled wires. The moon has been abducted behind a bank of grubby clouds and the entire landscape feels like it's been stripped to its shadows, chewed clean by the darkness. The boy scuffs his shoes against a shard of crushed boulder and struggles to keep his balance. The guard grabs hold of his hand—to steady him on his feet, of course—but then becomes self-conscious and drops it. The boy stares back at him with red eyes. The bleary crimson glare has hijacked the blackness of his pupils, giving him the endearing look
of a creature not quite human. “I've never been anywhere like this,” he says. The unmissable undercurrent of naiveté strikes the guard as almost heartbreaking.

They are getting closer. The guard can't help feeling like he's traversing some extraterrestrial terrain. The red sun lies ahead and tiny figures scurry beneath the silhouetted steel structures. The night has been something of a puzzle but its overall contours are starting to materialize in the guard's mind. He's picking up pieces on the fly, amazed at how easily seemingly random events slot into their proper places, suggesting a previously unknown pattern he simply has to follow to its logical conclusion. Ahead of them a stand of tall bushes rises from the otherwise arid landscape. Nobody can see them here. The guard squats at the mouth of the grove and waits for the next move to solidify in his mind. He sifts chunks of crystallized sand through his fingers.

The boy clubs him in the head with a rusted pipe. The guard flops to the ground clutching the back of his skull. His bloody lips contort but no cries come out. He spasms like a piece of film caught in the frame, an out-of-focus image that finally dissolves into stillness. The boy stares at the unconscious body. Smeared face-down in the dirt, it no longer seems so menacing. The boy's cheeks are tear-scorched and his entire being vibrates on some previously unknown frequency. He seems unsure what business comes next. Eventually he bends over the guard's softly panting form and removes his leather wallet. He sweeps his index finger along the inner rim of the billfold but doesn't bother to note the denominations or count the credit cards.

The boy shambles into the grove of bushes with the stunted steps of a sleepwalker. Short breaths wheeze in his chest. He realizes his hand still clutches the lead pipe and he lets it drop. A dark sticky
substance coats his palms and he decides to assume it's the residue of rust. He wipes the salty sting from his eyes and pushes through the brambles. He stumbles upon a startling sight: A small stretch of oasis in the midst of all this desolation. He stands frozen on the edge of a patchy field. There is something tantalizingly unreal about this serene vista. Maybe it's a trick of the three-quarters moonlight, but the world around him appears unnaturally shallow, no more than a stretched piece of canvas. A reassuring thought, mostly. A lone orange tree stands framed in the middle of the field. A breeze tickles the undersides of the leaves and orbs of fruit can be seen glistening on the branches. They are ripe for the taking. But the boy has the uneasy sensation that if he reaches out to grab one, his hand will stab straight through the page.