They\u2019d been happy a good, short while now, Jack and Mira, cruising I-90 West in a ragged-out nineties Jeep Cherokee. Blue tarp over the busted back windshield smacking and rippling incredibly so they had to keep the stereo blasting. Deep Purple\u2019s \u201cHighway Star.\u201d Soaring past eternal prairie. Nearing middle age and never seen such distances.<\/p>\n
Old, hand-painted billboards shuffled past, offering pretty lavish promises: dinosaur gardens, ghost towns, gemstones, the world\u2019s largest bison, the world\u2019s largest everything. Another one suggested they choose life<\/em>. But that\u2019s just what they were doing.<\/p>\n They\u2019d gotten clean together and wanted to see the country. Lighted out of Tellico Plains, Tennessee, towards something flatter, plain and enormous.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s cute,\u201d Mira said. \u201cLot of guys? They\u2019d at least like pretend and watch. Kurt? God. Football kind of made him crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n She took a long drag, exhaled a blue stream through the cold cracked window.<\/p>\n \u201cTook it too far,\u201d she told him. \u201cLike, fucked me up a couple times.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGuys in there yelling,\u201d Jack said. \u201cBut the ladies just sat around talking about this very, very real stuff, you know, like all this mental illness all over the family, all over the place, just a lot of craziness. Really got my brain turned on.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cExplains why you watch all that gory shit. Monster movies,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t see how you stand it. Look at the road. Listen.\u201d<\/p>\n Jack barely looked at the road, barely looked at Mira.<\/p>\n \u201cHe, like, for real whipped my ass one time,\u201d Mira told him. \u201cJust because his goddamn team lost.\u201d<\/p>\n Jack jerked his head about wildly at all that lost-looking country, this country without any trees. Then he spoke again in a high register, hurled down fully into his history, and farther away from her.<\/p>\n He told her all about the ladies sitting around the kitchen table at his boyhood home in Cleveland, Tennessee, spinning tales on Great Aunt Francis, the craziest of the crazies. Queen Crazy. He recalled his mom talking about electroshock therapy. Jack\u2019s imagination went berserk: he envisioned men wearing long white coats cupping her head with chrome earmuffs hooked to snarls of curled black wire. Some man hauling a lever, streaming blue electricity into her face, after which she\u2019d ignited. The doctor unbound her, peeled the mummy-suit away, and dressed her in a white gown dragging like a waterfall, hair shocked back in a long beehive with Bride of Frankenstein<\/em> lightning stripes.<\/p>\n \u201cI think you\u2019re just one of them,\u201d Mira said. \u201cYou watch Frankenstein<\/em> like fifty goddamn times because you are Frankenstein<\/em>. That\u2019s your boy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverything got real intense,\u201d Jack said. \u201cIt\u2019s like Mom gave me mushrooms, but without the mushrooms. Let me get a drag off that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou think you\u2019re a special boy, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Dad brought the bowl of Buffalo wings to the table,\u201d he said, and took the drag, \u201cI heard this orchestral blast\u2014trumpets, gongs, you know. After we\u2019d filled our plates up, Dad went back into the living room with my brothers and everybody and just jumped up and down and screamed, literally screamed, at whatever game was on the TV.<\/p>\n \u201cI stuck with the ladies, man. Tell me more about electroshock therapy. Not while we\u2019re eating. That was Aunt Paula. But you could hear my dad the whole goddamn time, screaming: No! No! Oh, God! God damn it! Get him! Get him! Get him!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was just playing, you know,\u201d Mira told him. \u201cI do think you\u2019re special. Give me that hand.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But she\u2019d heard this all before. She hoped, really, that Jack might finally tell her something new, maybe even reveal some forthcoming thing, like a portent. A vision as terrifyingly clear as the western sun. But neither of them possessed a knack for seeing the future.<\/p>\n Maybe they wouldn\u2019t go back to Tennessee, is what Jack told her. A true clean break. They could be homesteaders. This is what Jack said. But Mira doubted he\u2019d done his research. Quit drinking, too. Smoking. Eat right. Their teeth would whiten. Their teeth would whiten so much they\u2019d glow in the dark.<\/p>\n Early evening. A massive copper sun cocked westward like they might just drive straight into it. Something lavender colored the air. A scent of lavender.<\/p>\n Mira leaned her head against the warm window, searching the passing country for signs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHere it is,\u201d Jack said, cranking the window down. Badlands. Cathedral spires of painted rock. Miles of it. Certainly more magnificent than the Atlanta skyline, or pictures of New York City.<\/p>\n They paid a fee\u2014got into the park just before closing time\u2014and switch-backed down a furrowed gorge threaded with crimson strata.<\/p>\n \u201cHow about this here?\u201d Mira said.<\/p>\n A sign read Sage Creek Campground, 8 MI.<\/p>\n \u201cJust want a motel room,\u201d Jack said. \u201cBut imagine getting high out here. Almighty god.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re doing this,\u201d she said, \u201cto stay alive. Remember that\u201d<\/p>\n She flung her arm out the window. Sunlight clung to her face but dissolved in soft, dark purple places around her eyes. She lifted an index finger, as though she might tell Jack what\u2019s what about something or another, but then she dipped the finger into silvering temple hair and rode it along her nape, rattling a shark\u2019s tooth earring.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t start looking at me like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s going to happen,\u201d she said, \u201cwhen we get back home?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf<\/em> we go back,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll take some of this here with us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCute,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s a cute thing to say.\u201d<\/p>\n Just beyond the rock towers and buttes, the horizon absorbed the sun. Absorbed its light and power. A thin line of blazing amber ignited the space between land and sky. The road rapidly darkened.<\/p>\n Jack and Mira rounded a hairpin curve, and a thunderous RV roared past and blasted its horn.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. Death Wish,\u201d Mira said. \u201cLook at the goddamn road.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to die,\u201d Jack said.<\/p>\n He needed to show her that, too. He pulled over, undid her belt buckle, and walked his fingers into her blue jeans.<\/p>\n \u201cNow,\u201d she said. \u201cYes. Now.\u201d<\/p>\n She closed her eyes. Jack closed his. Reached and turned the stereo up as loud as he could get it. Keith Richards sang, \u201cI\u2019m waiting on a call from you.\u201d Charlie Watts banged the tom drum once, and it echoed across the Badlands. Jack opened his eyes. A bison crossed the road. He\u2019d never seen one. He\u2019d never see one like it again.<\/p>\n They left the park and drove into the Black Hills and stopped in Deadwood.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cFucking tourist trap,\u201d Mira said.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t ruin this.\u201d<\/p>\n The sky went full dark and motorcycles parked along the main drag changed colors beneath the neons.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAll these little casinos give me the creeps.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou just need to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI need to get drunk.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNever gambled?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTold you, gives me the creeps. Look here. Gemstone Museum.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you\u2019re the one complaining about money. They\u2019ll charge twenty dollars apiece to get in there. Come out better here. These are kiddie casinos. Bet against some old-ass computer that looks like a little Ms. Pac-Man.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWant to do your own thing, works for me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThought you wanted to get drunk,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s something we could both get down with.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen park the car already.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They discovered a bar called Rattlesnake Knights.<\/p>\n The place was ablaze with tourists, miserable-looking elderly lushes in worthless patriotic garb, crushed-faced locals, and road-weary couples just like them. Not talking. Just drinking. Dark eyes and faces lit blue by cell phone screens.<\/p>\n But there were other people, too, holding each other, fully alive. Dancing to some ZZ Top.<\/p>\n Jack and Mira sat by this kid at the bar. He looked to be about sixteen, seventeen, but the bartender didn\u2019t care. He wore a long black coat, a feather-banded Bailey hat, pale face painted with cracked foundation, the circles around his eyes deep set and violet-dark.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s the costume about, little man?\u201d Jack said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just trying to live,\u201d the kid said. \u201cFuck-stain.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid you run off from someplace?\u201d Mira said.<\/p>\n \u201cBad time for talking,\u201d the kid said, and ordered straight warm vodka.<\/p>\n He continued cursing under his breath. The vileness of his phrasing soared while his voice dipped into a whisper.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there\u2019s something we can help you with,\u201d Jack said, \u201cjust tell us. Right, babe?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou got a Mom and Dad someplace?\u201d Mira said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all people like you,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s you.\u201d<\/p>\n What he\u2019d meant by that, Jack couldn\u2019t tell. But it became an awful chant. It\u2019s you. It\u2019s you. This chant rose up to the ceiling amid the rafters and smoke.<\/p>\n A man wearing a phony leisure suit and handlebar mustache careened behind the bar and cried out, \u201cNo, no, damn it. Wesley, you idiot.\u201d<\/p>\n Wesley was the bartender.<\/p>\n \u201cThis town\u2019s like Disneyland,\u201d Mira said, \u201cbut for even sorrier people.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s him<\/em>.\u201d The owner pointed at the kid. \u201cOut of here, now.\u201d He told Wesley, \u201cGreat. You\u2019re fired. Bye-bye.\u201d<\/p>\n The kid in the long black coat shot his last vodka and fled. Jack couldn\u2019t figure out whether or not the whole thing was staged.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what I came here to see,\u201d Mira said.<\/p>\n \u201cPleasure at the expense of others,\u201d Jack said.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t stand it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought you just said you liked it. Fuck it. Go do your goddamn gemstone museum. Did you know I\u2019m a diamond?\u201d<\/p>\n The bartender, Wesley, flung his apron at the owner, and ascended a rickety spiral staircase in back of the place.<\/p>\n Transfixed, Jack didn\u2019t catch Mira slipping off, shouldering her way through the crowd, and bounding out the door and onto the street, where a massive pistol report cracked, hushing everybody in the bar.<\/p>\n Jack drained his whiskey, ate the ice, and walked out of there.<\/p>\n The kid in the long black coat lay face down upon a storm drain, where the neon lights shone. A pistol lay by his little hand. Moments ago, this kid had not been in Rattlesnake Knights with Jack and Mira, but rather existed inside some very particular moment right before you shoot your own face.<\/p>\n Jack and Mira, they\u2019d only been shapes amid that thick, alluring darkness. Swimming along the margins. Just fuck-stains. Worth sneering at but not worth a damn.<\/p>\n Two policemen ran from across the street with guns drawn. Big men mounted motorcycles that sputtered and roared away. Jack watched them. Let me taste some of that thrill<\/em>. Filled head to toe with a liquid envy igniting a quick rage somewhere at his center, at the source of feeling, but blooming now into something brighter, manic, and un-evil.<\/p>\n Amid the gathering crowd, Jack found Mira and gripped her shoulders and kissed her eyes and ears, and she said, \u201cThis isn\u2019t what I\u2019d wanted to see.\u201d<\/p>\n Jack had wanted it though. He\u2019d wanted something. This was the thing, now.<\/p>\n But he wanted to lean down and touch the boy, but couldn\u2019t. Touch his cheek, search his eyes, maybe even steal his hat.<\/p>\n You couldn\u2019t see his face. That was the horrible thing. You couldn\u2019t discover the appropriate expression worn by the freshly self-murdered. Jack yanked a handkerchief out of his back pocket, hacked a wad of bile into it, and vanished into the crowd. Behind him, Mira shouldered her way through these roiling bodies, surrounded by their huge, rabid white eyes.<\/p>\n She caught Jack by the arm and he turned and she asked if he was all right and he said, \u201cThere\u2019s something bad in that vodka.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Years later, Mira recalled the story in alternative historical terms: the boy was kind to them, and thanked them for their concern.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m an orphan,\u201d he said. \u201cSeems like you\u2019d be real good folks but I think it\u2019s too late for me, really.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWould you like to ride along with us, then?\u201d Jack said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been through hard times ourselves, Mira and me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe save lives,\u201d Mira said. \u201cWe practically make a living out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSome little boy,\u201d the kid said, \u201cis going to be lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n He touched Mira, touched her right where the hospitable womb might be.<\/p>\n This is exactly how Mira would recall it, years later.<\/p>\n Years and years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the motel room outside Rapid City, they couldn\u2019t shake it. Jack felt guilty to be so thrilled. He\u2019d never seen anything like it. He pulled out his phone and played some AC\/DC. Mira\u2019s face went bone-pale and she tucked it between her knees, sitting on the edge of the bed, and she said, \u201cI\u2019d seen a cat caught on fire by some neighborhood boys. Seen Mom get whipped to an inch of her life. But this is bad. We\u2019re not coming back from this.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis doesn\u2019t have anything to do with us,\u201d Jack said. \u201cI mean us<\/em>-us. They still let you smoke in motels here. I love that shit. The roads are empty. There\u2019s no Wal-Mart, Target, or Mickey D\u2019s. It\u2019s like we\u2019re back in some better time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou can smoke in motels anywhere<\/em>,\u201d she said. \u201cThat other shit\u2019s here too. Got your vacation goggles on.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLike I was saying. I think I\u2019ve got that rotten gene.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou think?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI must\u2019ve been dulling it out for years,\u201d he said. \u201cWhich side of the family you think it comes from?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s not,\u201d Mira said. She wore cowboy boots, jeans, and a teal bikini top. \u201cLet\u2019s hit the pool.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat could do us some good. I bet it\u2019s closed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t sneak in with me? Or, what, we don\u2019t do things like that anymore?\u201d<\/p>\n She laughed, and Jack didn\u2019t like the sound of it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an indoor pool,\u201d he said. \u201cNo fence to jump. Got to have a key.\u201d<\/p>\n He poured her a Dixie cup of Seagram\u2019s. He kissed her neck. He bit her ear.<\/p>\n He said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry. You\u2019d asked me about it. I don\u2019t care. You\u2019re always wanting to know everything and I don\u2019t even like talking about it. Nothing\u2019s happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cExcept tonight,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat didn\u2019t happen to me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt happened to us. But you don\u2019t ask how I feel. Like, ever. Even when I bring up Kurt you just change the subject.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKurt the football lover.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey all watch football. I mean, this one time\u2014I\u2019ll tell you, okay?\u2014I\u2019d cheered when Kurt\u2019s team lost, you know, just to fuck with him?\u00a0 Bad idea. Crimson Tide, man. \u2018Bama fans are all a bunch of fucking psychopaths. He\u2019d been drinking all day. He just looked at me and said, \u2018Here\u2019s what happens. Here\u2019s what happens.\u2019 And, like, had me on the floor, quicker than that. \u2018I used to have to pick a switch,\u2019 he told me. Like his Mom made him get a switch off a tree so she could whip his ass? Whatever. Kurt just fucking hated me. It wasn\u2019t the football. But yeah, he made me do that. He made me pick a switch off a tree. Well I think that was another time. But it\u2019s all blurred together. Took me out there like you would a little kid. Pretty tree in the front yard. I loved that tree. Fucking god. Imagine being somebody\u2019s neighbor and looking out the window, and this couple\u2019s standing under a tree and she\u2019s all pointing at it like, \u2018How about this one? This one looks pretty good.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cJust like I was his kid or something,\u201d she said. \u201cI hope people don\u2019t do that shit to their kids anymore. Sometimes I\u2019ve got to wonder, though, if I had kids. If I could. You don\u2019t ever think you\u2019d hit your kids. But at the same time, I don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to have them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou really let him do that?\u201d Jack said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t be serious,\u201d she said. \u201cYou really can\u2019t. That\u2019s how you respond? Wow.\u201d<\/p>\n She cloaked herself in a tie-dyed beach towel, opened the door, and disappeared.<\/p>\n Alone now, Jack parted the curtain and peered at the sky. Stars so close and sparkling everywhere like he\u2019d never seen before, and like he\u2019d never see again, a billion little white fires.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He might read about the boy\u2019s death in the next day\u2019s local paper. Might feel famous, for he\u2019d played a role in a young man\u2019s last gasp at a place called Rattlesnake Knights.<\/p>\n He went outside, looked through the frosted indoor pool window and watched her blurred and colorful shape swim. Her cowboy boots stood atop the diving board. She swam the butterfly across electric blue water. She\u2019d kicked in the pool house door. Torn the Master Lock bracket off some busted, splintered wood. Mira still possessed that fire. Jack now had lost it altogether.<\/p>\n He opened the door, and the chlorine burned his eyes before he even got in. Then he waded into this very warm, very blue water.<\/p>\n \u201cButterfly your way on over to me,\u201d he told her, but she swam farther away. The deep end. She closed her eyes and let herself sink.<\/p>\n He called her name. Again and again. All over the dark, wood-paneled walls and ceiling the water\u2019s light reflected little bright, rapidly wriggling turquoise snakes. He felt it again. Filled again with a hot liquid, fear mingled with mute rage, a wild writhing under suffocation. She\u2019d been down there testing her lungs for, well, he didn\u2019t know how long.<\/p>\n Mira bent her knees, lifted her arms, and propelled to the surface.<\/p>\n \u201cYou scared me to death.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou love being scared,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n He swam over, reached for the diving board, and held onto its edge, resting there. Better now. He plucked its corner. It rattled and sprung and popped her cowboy boots.<\/p>\n \u201cYou get those wet,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ll kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n He did it again. A boot dropped, but he caught it, tossed it, and it smacked the tile pool-house wall. He threw the other one.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can trust me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cKill you,\u201d she said, and she moved into him and wrung his body and kissed him hard.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we fucked right now,\u201d he said, \u201cwhat difference would it make, like, in the long run?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it makes a difference now.\u201d<\/p>\n This, here it is, the body of water, Mira shedding down to bare skin. For Jack, this confluence of joy, pain, release, and finally comfort beyond heaven, would be everything\u2014a very brief everything that just wouldn\u2019t be enough. He wanted his whole body to taste a needle.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They finished and sat at the edge of the pool until the windows changed to bright, dewy gray with morning light. They hadn\u2019t stayed up all night like this, not since in the beginning. Those all-night conversations in the early days before you start wearing each other out. Mira fell asleep, finally, her feet still dipped in the bright blue water, and then suddenly Jack knew he\u2019d been wrong about everything. He couldn\u2019t see the future. It was so likely, he thought now, that amid their time, past and present, they\u2019d regarded each other as mere absurdities, necessary for a while but inessential, and that this might be one of the great tragedies of their lives. Maybe he ought to just leave, cut ties and break clean. Or he could dive into the shallow end, grasping at some colossally human sensation. Three feet of water and bang<\/em>. See if she\u2019d wake up, dive in and pull him out, cradle his wounded head and whisper something: something about the road westward where some good change had occurred, words of truth rolling off her tongue like rubies he could pocket. But he would simply wait. Wait for Mira to awaken. Through the morning. Against the pain of fresh light streaming in. Early risers arriving for a swim. Parents and children.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" She hoped that Jack might finally tell her something new, maybe even reveal some forthcoming thing, like a portent. A vision as terrifyingly clear as the western sun. But neither of them possessed a knack for seeing the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":22574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-brett-puryear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22002"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22575,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22002\/revisions\/22575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}