Fiction: The Chainthrower

By Todd Donovan Whitley

 

The sun fired the saddle of low hills where it sat like blown glass and the drilling mud from the Kelly rig made them look like clay effigies. Rowland blinked, ran a gloved hand across his face. There were no two clean parts of him with which to clear the mud from his eyes. Three months ago, a young boy out of Oklahoma had been killed, and they were still yet discovering pieces of him (or merely speculating such) in odd places about the rig floor. Rowland, while working with a drilling outfit in west Texas, had been called by in by his uncle for replacement. This was better pay, he’d decided, and closer to home anyway, to the wife who was soon to quit him.

            Rowland released the hook, sent it swinging up the elevator. He turned to Gummy who was catching a quick drink of water. So tell me what happened with that roughneck.                   

            Gummy moved into position. We was swabbing a well near Hobbs, and I heard this awful sound on the derrick, knew that wasn’t no good. The derrickman clamped the hook to the next thirty-foot section of pipe. Gummy squinted an eye heavenward, watching the derrickman. So I booked it over the side rail, he said. And when I was some good distance away, I looked back and seen this poor kid all mangled up in the wench drum.

            The traveling block lowered the section of pipe. Jesus Christ, Rowland said, kicking in the slips to grip the pipe. 

            Yessir. Gummy unlatched the hook, sent it up again while Rowland clamped the tong to the pipe and then dallied a length of chain around the joint. In one hand, he hauled back on the chain, and in his off hand, spooned dope onto the threads as Gummy guided the next section of pipe to fit into the joint. They made the connection and Rowland slapped chain against the new section of pipe and the cathead from the drawworks rapidly spun the chain around the pipe, drawing it fiercely taut, torquing the threads tight into the joint. He carefully fed the slack, for he did not want to lose another finger.     

            Eat, Came from the doorway of the doghouse. As Rowland removed his crash-hat to wipe sweat and decades old drilling mud from his face, he saw his uncle Les return through the door and into the doghouse.

            You bring anything? Gummy wanted to know.

            Awe, just a sandwich.

            My old lady packed me some tamales and some damn good pinto beans.

            Pinto beans in this heat? You’re a brave man.

            They sat about the rig and lunched. Rowland wasn’t hungry but forced a few bites down fitfully. 

            What are we drilling through here, shale? Jesus. Rowland could hear the derrickman, Glenn, above in the deck. We ain’t hardly making no progress through this shit. Drill tip’s dulling out. People dying. Hell.

            We ain’t supposed to discuss the particulars of workplace fatalities on the job, the operator said.

            I ain’t on the clock. Lunch time is my time. Plain and simple.

            From the door of the doghouse at the end of the catwalk swept up a belly laugh among a small group making their way to the rig floor. It made Rowland’s muscles seize.

            I’m fixing to knock that Porter’s head in with a rock one of these days, said Rowland, looking out toward the advancing group, chewing woodenly.

            Gummy spooned beans into his mouth. Was it what he’d told about Mia?

            Rowland flung the rest of his sandwich spinning out into the desert. He spat between his boots. Something like that, he said. 

            Pulling on his gloves and lifting his crash-hat to his head, he heard the small group laugh again, and now on the rig floor with the rest of the crew, he heard Porter’s voice say, Ask Billy, he’ll tell you all about it.

            Rowland felt fire in his limbs. I’ll tell you what?

            Is your Mia gal sure enough turning tricks behind the Flying J?

           Fuck you, Porter.

           Whoah now, Sam’s the one asked. Porter had a look on his face with something of mischievous malevolence. She tell you how big I am, though?

            Rowland pulled off his crash-hat. But before he could fetch a fist Porter-ward, Gummy launched up from where he was sitting and jerked Rowland back by the elbow. Don’t be stupid, man, he said.

            Come on down to Cal’s Shade tonight, Porter said. I’ll stomp your ass.

            Come on, boy’s, Les hollered, waddling up the catwalk. Let’s us act like grown men here. He whistled at the operator. Fire her up, let’s get going. Falling behind here and we don't need two kids fighting over pussy to hold us up none.

            The men were milling about now, assuming their respective positions. Porter made an obscene gesture to Rowland with his groin and turned and went down the stairs to the sub-level of the rig. 

            I’m going to beat the breaks off of that son of a bitch, Rowland warned his uncle.

            Why don’t you beat the breaks off this pipe, Les said. Gummy, quit that. You know what I meant.

#

            The floodlights flashed among the rig, and the last chink of chain sounded, the last break of tong, and the pipe lowered into the well. That’s it for tonight, Glenn called down to them. This is next shift’s burden. Let’s make like a turd and head out of this shit hole.

            I’m gonna get soused tonight, sure as shit, said Gummy.

            Rowland made no reply. They walked.

            Listen, cousin, Gummy said. He stopped Rowland. We see Porter tonight at Cal’s Shade, and we’ll get the prick together, okay? I ain’t against a good old-fashioned ass-kicking. In fact it’s been too long, I need some excitement in my life again. We just cant have none of that here. I’d hate to see you get let go out of this place again.

            Rowland watched his boot tips capraced with mud. He nodded. Gummy patted his back and they were moving again. Gummy hung an arm around Rowland’s shoulders. Let’s just get good and drunk first, hear?

            They walked along the catwalk, their shadows on the ground below moving like drunken seneschals. Rowland thought about the poor soul before he again. What caused that guy to get all ate up in the winch drum?

            Gummy hocked a string of dark flem over the rail. Sandline snap. Cable come undone in wild wire, got the operator too in the back of the thigh. Liked to have took his leg off. He’s mending up in the hospital still, the operator. The old one.

            Damn. Rowland shook his head.

            You should have seen all the commotion that done took place. OSHA investigated the matter for the better part of three months. Hell of a thing, it was. Been doing this for eight years and never have I ever seen a thing like that.

            Inside the doghouse, Rowland punched out his timecard and sat at the little formica table, propped his feet up. Smoke? Rowland held out his pack of camels, Gummy slid one out, put it to his lips. Rowland flicked open and proffered a zippo. Gummy lit his cigarette and snapped shut the zippo and handed it back. They sat smoking without speaking. A deep violet dusk was filling the room. Rowland felt the pain in his side, promised himself it’d leave, but he knew it would always be back. 

            Les, Gummy grunted. When was the first well drilled here in the Permian?

            I don’t know, shit. Eighty some odd years ago? Les said, looking out at the lights of the rig through the silted window and globbing thick copper colored tobacco juice into his Pepsi bottle.

            Was you old as dirt then, too? Rowland winked at gummy.

            Les waved a hand at Rowland and grunted something.

            You’re in a good mood, Rowland said, one bright eye asquint against the blue cigarette smoke curling ceilingward. 

            Yeah. Why ain’t you buggered off yet? You’ve known how to pitch a stick in my gears since before you could even crawl.

            Why ain’t you gone on home yourself? Rowland drew on his cigarette, turned his wrist and observed the smoldering cherry.

            Waiting on the other jackass toolpusher to get here. See his guys working? Where in the contumacious hell is he? He spat in the bottle. I’d like to know exactly that. The son of a bitch.

            Your crotchety ass needs to retire, Gummy said, working crescents of dark stuff from his nails with a pocketknife.

            I’ll retire when I’m good and dead. No sooner.

#

            They sought to their ablutions in the communal showers. Standing in the cheap plastic tube Rowland felt one of those spells come on again, felt his stomach turn on its axis. Nausea rocked through his gut like the surf of some awful sea. The lunules of his jaw tingled and he braced himself and vomited blood all down the side of the tube. His stomach contracting violently, his fists hammering the walls for to regain his breath. 

            Billy. Pardner. You doing all right? Gummy’s muted voice said from outside.

            Rowland breathed deeply in his chest, his brisket very sore. Yeah, bud, he said. He filled his palms with the falling water and splashed the blood off the sides of the tube, worked it down the drain with his feet. 

            The floodlights from the drilling rig cast tattered flags through the crazed workings of mesquite, black and iron-red vermiculated across the reticulate desert floor. While waiting for Gummy at his car, Rowland shucked out another cigarette and smoked, thinking about things. He thought about Mia. He remembered a dimly lit beer tavern. He was at the long mahogany bar drinking a bottle of beer. She’d been eyeing him the whole night. He remembered tilting the bottle back, her standing behind the bar, stretching over it to whisper something in his ear. The sweet speaking’s from a soft palate. And watching while she did so the slip of red velvet garter in the bar back mirror and the immensity of pale white flesh cupped delicately under the hem of her little skirt. And then catching her watching him in the mirror, delicately biting her lower lip. They were the only occupants. They were like the last two survivors of Armageddon.

            By now vehicles were filing out of the lot. He heard Porter’s laugh sweep across the dusty dark, hanging among the sounds of industry and motor like the treble note of a bell tending off into a ghost chorus among other laughs like ancient ruins. And then he heard Porter’s truck fire up, the rock steady cams growling in the earth. He remembered the time when he was only a boy, hunting the family hound pup that’d escaped the run when he’d come upon Porter and his father unloading bales of hay off the back of a flatbed truck on their own property. Rowland called for the pup, loping hind to fore in the sort of drunken dexterity young quadruped animals are known. He’d gone up the gravel path to the barn where the pup was and watched as Porter’s father whistled the pup over to him. When the pup stopped, one hear slightly perked, its head cocked in a curious gesture, Porter’s father climbed off the vehicle and took up his shotgun from the gun rack in the back seat and racked the slide and took aim and against Rowland’s cries of protest, thumped a load of duckshot into the pup. He remembered it squalling horrifically, dragging itself, its jaws popping crazily at the air. But what he’d gotten in return to his curses hurled at them in nonsensical prolificness, were only laughs, mock tears. Then he heard another concussion and the pup’s head broke open in the dust.

            The progeny is always molded to the likeness of the sculptor. An old man told him that. And he thought him correct.

            Ready, cousin? Said Gummy, trudging among the shadows up to his car. Rowland answered and spun the cigarette falling in a long red arc and got in the passenger seat. 

            Their faces were stanched in green phosphorescence by the dash light. Still keep that bottle hid under your seat? Rowland asked.

            Gummy did not answer, he just bent forward slightly, eyes fixed on the road, feeling the way a blind man might under the seat for it. His hand finally came up with a fifth of Early Times. Here. But don't you go drinking it down and leave me with the dregs. He tossed it into Rowland’s lap. 

            Rowland lifted it and unscrewed the cap and drank. Shew, he said, coughing. Stuff cuts your throat every time.

            Don’t drink it all, shit, Gummy said. I reserve that for the real rough days.

           Rowland took another pull from the bottle and handed it back to Gummy. Gummy rested a wrist on the wheel and worked the cap off and took a drink. When you going to get that truck fixed up? He asked through clenched teeth. 

            Rowland was watching the night race past the window. When I’ve got the money, he said.

            What is wrong with it?

            Got a crack in the block.

            Hairline?

            Yeah. Transmission leak too. Among other things.

            We’ll get her nice and right one of these days. Now that I think of it, we could just cannibalize a motor from one of my Chevy’s—V-8 is what you got, right?

            Yeah. V-8.

            There we go. Next weekend work?

           Maybe.

            Just let me know. I’m always good for a beer or eight. And mechanicing, of course.

            Glenn says his brother drives with an outfit that hauls slaughter cows. Said it pays pretty well. Just need to get around to talking to him about it some more.

            Gummy laughed. Well that didn't take no time at all.

            What do you mean?

            Meaning you’ve only been back but a few weeks. Last time it was two, and the umpteen times before that … Les ain’t going to hire you again, I hope you know that. You need to know that.

            Rowland got out a cigarette and lit it and pressed the little button to retract the window down the channel. That’s fine, he said. I don’t want to work drilling rigs all my life.

            Neither do I, cousin, but I suppose people in hell would like to have them a pair of ice skates. At some point you got to stop all this running and settle with something. No matter where you go, you leave when things is getting too tough. Every time. Every single time. It will be like that with that trucking gig, too. Just you watch.

            Gummy swung the car to the right and they rumbled over a cattle guard and slowed to a crawl in the caravan park. Rowland dropped the smoldering cigarette out the window, watching the trailer homes as they idled by. Gummy held the brake in front of Rowland’s trailer house. Rowland noticed her car was missing. He thought about what Porter said and felt hot in his face. He thanked Gummy for the ride, and when he was climbing out, Gummy said, I’ll be back to get you in a hour tops. Gotta get the old lady fed fore she sets about a fit. Rowland nodded and lifted a palm in farewell and watched Gummy pull away into the night. He heard a clink of collar and a pit-bull climbed out from the bent and twisted skirting of the vacated trailer next door to greet him. Its tail nub moving excitedly, the dog squirming through his legs. Hey dog, he said, squatting on his heals, petting its neck.

            Inside, he went to the refrigerator and got a can of Miller light and walked into the small front room and reclined in an EZ chair and turned on the television and sipped the beer. He thought of Porter laid up with Mia, their flesh touching. He hoped he would run into him at Cal’s Shade.

            After he’d come back from the refrigerator with a second beer, he saw the headlights of her car sweep between the slats of Venetian blinds. He sat back down and pried the aluminum tab up with a thumb nail. Mia came in through the front door in heels bearing her cheap plastic purse. He noticed her standing, watching him from the door, but he did not say anything. He guessed he would wait for her to say something first. She did. She crossed into the front room and stood between him and the television. Her face all gaudy with makeup. He couldn’t understand why he loved her anymore.

            Hospital bill come in, she said. 

            He thought she smelled of a whore.

            Not a hello, nothin’? He drank.

            Hello. We owe the hospital five grand.

            Let it go into collections, he said, leaning to one side so he could see the television. She sidled over to obstruct his view. 

            Just let it go into collections? So it can affect our credit? How are we ever gonna get us a house? We won’t never for that five grand, Billy.

            Guy from work is going to get me into trucking. I start in two weeks. Lot better pay, plus, I get to set my own hours.

            Great. So you’ll be gone even more. Wonderful.

            Well, what do you want me to do? I see you’re making an awful lot with that whore money. Maybe I should slut myself out—

            She knocked his head askance. He ran a tongue between his teeth and lower lip, taste of metallic, like a canker. She stood over him, her bottom lip quivering. 

            Get the fuck out of here, Rowland said. 

            She broke into a mute cry and spun away down the hall and into the bedroom. He heard the door slam. There was another slur of headlights through the blinds and then he heard Gummy’s horn. Rowland got up and opened the front door, stuck an arm out with his index finger indicating a measure of time. Be there in a minute, Rowland mouthed. He left the door ajar and ambled on down the hall to the bedroom. He tried the handle. Can you unlock the door?

            Footsteps, handle click, the door opened. She stood with her hair all down her face like spilled ink. He could smell the caustic aroma of cocaine.

            I’m sorry, said Rowland.

            She sniffled, ran a forefinger under her nose. We just can’t keep on this way. We can’t.

            Rowland propped his elbow against the jamb. Is he still fucking you?

            Who.

            You know who.

            Porter?

Yes. Porter.

No.

            Are you lying to me?

            Yes.

            Rowland dropped his arm at his side. All right, he said.

            Outside, the hot air pressed upon him a sensation of being cold, like an interminable fever, but it was not hot. The pit bull loped up to him, tongue flapping uselessly from the corner of its mouth. We’ll see you, dog, he said, gently nudging it by with his boot. He opened the door, but before he could climb in, he was wrenched in his side with pain, pressed a palm hard into his flesh. He blew air through his lips, attempted to lose his thoughts with the sound of Creedence Clearwater blaring from the car’s speakers. 

           Between the two of us guys, you know I love you more, Gummy sang as Rowland slid into the seat. The pitbull and other dogs down the street began barking.

            You are an asshole, Rowland said, pulling the door to. 

            You’re starting to sound like my wife. Gummy made a shuddering motion with his shoulders and put the car into gear and commenced to singing along with the tune again, cranking the volume knob up.

#

            Inside Cal’s Shade, Rowland nodded and shook hands with his coworkers through the smokey den of ball clack and beer clink and whoops of laughter. A local act was rehashing an Alan Jackson number in the corner. Guitars. Drums. Rowland could feel the music in his chest. The bar smelled like stale beer and drilling mud. It was a Friday night, a busy night. Some whores making their appointed rounds, holding cigarettes like little wands. But he had not seen Porter. He asked Glenn, and Glenn gave him a confused look. Hey, he said, a hand on Rowland’s shoulder. I talked to my brother.

            Okay.

            He said he would hire you but thought the better of it on account of you being … being a chicken shit. Glenn wheezed out a drunken laugh.

            I’m right here, Rowland said, brushing Glenn’s hand off his shoulder. So who’s the real chicken shit?

            I don’t know, buddy. I like you, he paused to burp. But you are sort of a big puss, excuse my french—a bitch, sorry.

            Rowland patted Glenn’s shoulder and left him tottering and went up to the bar. He ordered two Miller’s in a bottle and found Gummy, who was speaking with a slattern looking country whore. Hold on, darling babe, Gummy said to the woman. I’ll be with you right shortly. The woman smiled and clicked away on her heels. He turned to Rowland and nodded his head good-naturedly. Then he took the beer Rowland was proffering, and thanked him and said, I guess Porter’s lying out his ass.

            I figured, Rowland said. Glenn was giving me ten kinds of hell about being a bitch. I guess I’m a bitch tonight. I wondered why the guys were giving me funny looks.

            Apparently Porter told it to everybody that you was supposed to meet him in the parking lot. And apparently you did, and then left when he bowed up on you.

            Rowland shrugged. Fuck it, he said, and tilted a drink down his throat.

            Whatever which way, cousin, let’s get good and drunk. The hell with everyone. We’re here to have a good time, goddammit. So a good time is what we’re by God gonna have.

            Rowland lost five dollars between two games of eight-ball and then excused himself for the men’s room. He braced himself against the sink and huffed through the pain in his side. Stop drinking, you dumb son of a bitch. Stop. He watched himself in the mirror, his face assumed a rictus of agony major. He couldn’t even recognize himself these latter days. His face was hard in recollection; a face you try to build from dreams. When the pain went away, his attention had returned to Porter. He was probably at home with Mia. He was probably fucking her right now. 

            Stepping out of the men’s room, there was a commotion among the crowd. He heard Glenn spouting invectives at Gummy at the bar. There was a sudden shift to the atmosphere of the room. The threat of violence was electrically charged, like the standing of hair before the strike of lightning. At the bar, a melee had erupted—stools and tables upturned in a crescendo, spreading toward Rowland like the concussive wave of an enormous detonation. Bottles went sailing like mortar fire, exploding on skulls, on walls. It was all out pandemonium. Gummy came pedaling backward out of the phalanx of brawlers and crashed up against the wall by the men’s room. He turned to Rowland with a bloody, splay-toothed smile, assuming a classic pugilist’s guard, and said, I’m just getting warmed up, before getting sucked back into the fight. The guitarist for the band brought his guitar up over his head by the fretboard, and with a deft axman’s grace, brought the instrument down over the head of someone grappling with someone else. Glenn was sweeping people off their feet with the backs of his fists like a movie monster while a small man dangled from his neck. He let the door to and started for the main entrance. Halfway there, someone hit him on the point of the chin and his head snapped like a band and he went down. He went the rest of the way on hands and knees along a floor murrhined with beer glass and legs of chairs with people tripping over him. 

            Just outside the door, a torpid redneck sat against the wall with his legs spread out before him like a child, a cigarette hanging from his lips. Rowland looked down. The man’s eyes were dangling from their stems like a lobster and his head was all broken and the blood that pumped down his face looked like pine tar in that midnight hour. When he got to Gummy’s car, Gummy was already behind it fighting someone. He had his fist wrenched in the collar of a man’s shirt, and the man his, and they were punching each other in the face in a small-stepped carousel. Cars along the highway were honking here and there. Rowland walked up and fetched an overhand right at the man’s forehead, and the man did a funny little pirouette, pitched, toppled over, and lay unconscious with his back on the hood of a neighboring car. 

            He’s a natural, ladies and gentlemen, cried Gummy.

            Rowland held his bleeding hand and flexed it open and shut. Let’s get the hell out of here.

            And then someone cracked him over the head with a pool cue, splintering it in two. He heard Gummy’s voice slurring down a hallway. And turning to see his assailant, one knee buckled, and he doubled over. He heard everything in dreamy reiteration; the two of them, Gummy and the other man, scuffling in the gravel and cursing each other simultaneously. And then a curtain dropped over his eyes—his becoming world a dark beyond dark. 

#

            Rowland woke on cold concrete with his head swimming in a clabbered delirium. He eased himself onto his elbows and looked about. There was someone else sleeping on the floor and someone rocking and moaning into his arms on a concrete plinth that ran the length of one wall. Rowland turned onto his side, mashing his face into the crook of his arm.

            Later they turned him into a cell with a leptosome man who was awaiting trial for murdering his family. I really liked this gal, he said. I think I truly loved this gal. I loved my little girl, I loved our little cats. I loved our house—our lovely, little house. And of course, I loved my wife. I would never deny that. There’s just certain expectations a man should have, and sometimes you never realize how low you are, how sick you are, until something happens that’s not rectifiable, that’s all. Had I not been ordered to do so, I certainly wouldn’t have murdered my entire family. And the cats.

            Christ, Rowland said and got up from the cot and walked out into the dayroom. He found an officer at a little station by a steel door. Can I use one of the phones?

            The officer looked up at him. Yeah, he said. Are you calling a lawyer?

            No.

            Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

            He went over to the wall of phones and called Mia. When she answered, he could hear her breath exploding into the receiver, gasps, moans. Oh, oh, she went. 

            Mia?

            Hold on, she told someone. What? Who is this?

            Billy.

            She was moaning again. Oof. It was quiet a minute. Go fuck yourself Billy, she whispered, and the line went dead. Rowland scratched his eyebrow with a thumb. He couldn’t help but laugh at the utter absurdity of the nature of that call. 

            There were a few numbers for bail bondsman plastered on the metal partitions along the wall of phones and he wanted to call one of them. But he was out of quarters. There was an inmate beside him talking on one of the phones. Rowland waited for the inmate to hang up and then rose and walked over to him.

            Hey, buddy, Rowland said. My daughter is sick and I really need to speak with her, but I’m all out of quarters. Could I borrow one from you?

            Shit man, what I look like to you? A fuckin charity?

            Come on.

            Fine man, but don’t ask me for no more shit.

            The bondsman answered the phone. Rowland could tell he was a fat man by the way he breathed.

            I need to make bail, but I don’t have any money, Rowland said into the phone.

            Okay. Name?

            Billy.

            Last?

            No, that’s the first.

            No. Your last name. What is it?

            Rowland.

            All right. Give me about a half hour and I’ll be down to talk to you.

            Forty-five minutes later the bondsman arrived and brought Rowland into a room. He was a big man indeed. Rosy cheeks, enormous gut looping over his belt. His slacks rolled up twice at the cuffs. Here’s the scoop, mister Rowland, the bondsman said. If you ain’t money for to make bail, then you’re going to have to call someone who does.

            Okay, Rowland said, and gave him a number.

            The bondsman was back in a few minutes. When he lumbered into the room, Rowland sat erect, attentive.

           Well, the bondsman began, slapping idly a clipboard against his enormous thigh. That boy ain’t posting bond his own self. He’s in the next pod over for killing a man last night.

            Rowland slunk defeatedly down the chair. So that’s it for you, Gummy, huh? He thought.

#

            His uncle Les was waiting for him in front of the jail in his maroon-colored Chevrolet Dually.

           Thanks, Rowland said, buckling his seatbelt. Sorry you had to come get me.

            Les rolled his jaw like a camel and spat into a bottle between his legs. He was clad in pinstriped night-ware. You didn’t make me do squat. He shifted the lever into drive and they took off. 

            It was quiet going for a while. Rowland watched his knees, listened to the drone of the diesel motor. He was nodding into dreams, but his uncle’s voice woke him. Heard about your pal Gummy? He called me right before you did.

            Yeah.

            His uncle spat. You guys give me hell about being a teetotaler, but at least I ain’t killed nobody. At least I had the nerve to quit. And you of all people, Billy, you’ve no right to be drinking with what all you got going on, but who am I. Just your crotchety ass uncle. You’ll see it one day, maybe. I hope.

            They jolted over the cattle guard. Rowland was thinking of nothing at all. Les halted the truck in front of Rowland’s trailer. Before you get out, I want you to take a guess at how many of you wound up in jail tonight.

            Rowland guessed.

            His uncle held up five fingers. Five, he said. That’s how many. That’s five too goddamn many. Now get to bed. You’ve got to be at work in— he glanced at the radio clock. In four hours. Dont say anything. Just get your ass out. I’ll be by to get you.

            Rowland nodded slightly, like a disciplined pupil, and opened the door and got out. 

            The pit bull was standing under the light of the small porch waiting for him. You’ve never waited for me up here, dog, he told it. It licked his fingers. He opened the door. Come on in. It stood watching him with a cocked head. Come in, idjit. The dog trotted in cautiously. 

            She had apparently moved out, Mia. The closet in the bedroom stood open and bare, some wire hangers strewn about the scurfed carpet. Her bedside lamp was still burning. As long as you didn't fuck him here, he told her pillow. He put something to cook on the stove—some slimy canned meat and fried it. Then he opened a cupboard and got two cans of green beans. He opened a pocketknife and punctured the tin lid and rocked the blade until he had space enough to pry the lid open with his fingers. He spilled one can into the pan with the crackling meatstuff and looked at the dog. You hungry? The dog looked at him, its tongue stropping its muzzle. Can dogs eat green beans? He fished a dirty bowl from the cairn of crockery in the sink basin and opened and upended the other can of green beans into it and set the bowl down on the linoleum and watched as the dog lapped it all up in about eight seconds flat. Let’s get you some more to eat. You like spam?

            He showered and lay sprawled under the sheets with the dog beside him on the floor. He twisted with agony, the tinge of copper riding his tongue, the cankerous taste of carrion. When the pain abated, he just lay listening to the dog breathing in the dark. He thought that perhaps he should feel something about Mia. He always thought if she left him, that he would be beside himself. But he guessed that in truth he hadn’t loved her after all. He guessed he had simply grown comfortable and that the love he may have had for her died many years ago. But now, without her being here, everything was quite clear to him. It was dying. That’s what he feared the most about her leaving. How many more months until your death? Four maybe? Five if the all powerful is generous? 

            Tomorrow after work he was going. He didn’t know where to, but he guessed Florida was nice. But then again he’d always wanted to go to the commonwealth. 

            But he didn’t wait. He was sitting on a duffel bag in the predawn dark at a gas station with his arms hooked around his knees and the dog curled asleep at his feet in the spits of rain when a car pulled up for him. He didn’t even raise a hand.

            Get in, said the driver.

            Thank you, Rowland said, crawling in, the dog after. He closed the door, his duffel bag on his shoes. The dog sat panting, licked his hand. Then they were off. He watched out the glass, the liquid shapes of the town beading and trailing away from the window as they went. The world he was headed toward seemed infinite, uncharted. Out across the benevolent desertlands, the rain had slacked, the telephone poles were going, the distant wind turbines stood like sentinels under the gibbous moon. And over there run a parcel of deer. In their lunar castings their shadows keep another quadrant and these animals, loping, seemed imbued with a purpose antecedent to their origins. Both imperious and remote. Something divorced from their bosoms that was yet a blood constituent that transcends even you and I. 

 

 

 

 

 

Todd Donovan Whitley was raised in Wichita, Kansas. His work has appeared in BULL, Down in the Dirt, and is forthcoming in Revolution John. He is at present working on two novels, and lives and writes in New Mexico.