Luxagraf

The desert is a hot wind at the gas station, something passing through and to be passed through, or a sunny retreat from cold wind billowing off northern lakes or an endless playground of sunshine, golf and hotel pools. Some are just born into it and forget to leave.

Claire did not think she looked nervous or worried. She felt she had composed herself rather well throughout the evening, dealt admirably with the blistering afternoon heat and then amicably with the barely known relative and extended family that stopped by to wish her well. It alarmed her that she could so completely separate the words coming out of her mouth from the ones forming in her mind. When will they slip over, some sort of dam breaks loose and everything comes tumbling out? She thought of the sea gulls leaping into the air, they hunched slightly coiling up to spring of the ground and then their wings lifted them into the wind.

She glanced back at the patio to see if anyone was watching her and, satisfied that they were all busy, she wandered through wrought iron gate down to the sand. There was a trail leading down in the general direction of the river and Claire followed it, walking slowly and keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes and scorpions.

A breeze began almost as soon as the sun sunk behind the Catalina Mountains. Not strong enough to bend the stiff twiggy branches of desert trees, it moved though in whispers, puffs of air brushing against her cheek. She thought of airports, hospitals, departure points, the shuffling of human feet moving in and out of rooms like last quiet sighs of breath.

The noise of the river grew louder as she drew near it. She stopped and sat down on a large rock nestled half under the branches of a Mesquite Tree. After making sure no one had followed her. She took a cigarette from the crumpled pack hidden in the back pocket of her jeans. She didn’t immediately light it, but held it under her nose inhaling the sweet faintly chemical smell of unlit nicotine.

Daniel did not see the simple joys of smoking, he was capable only of the bad things, the death, the cancer, the disease, things Claire recognized, but did not allow to write the whole story. She had tried to tell him one afternoon on the beach. Don’t you love the smell of nicotine? Don’t you love that you can feel the smoke slipping between your fingers? I love that feeling; it makes me want to slide off a silk robe at the edge of a warm bathtub. Don’t you love when your hands get that smell of oily blacktop after a thunderstorm? He had stared at her in disbelief. Claire was going to quit; she already knew that, she just wanted an admission that there was some beauty, some tangible good in a cigarette, that the end of the story was not just death and disease.

        **          **          **          **          **          **

Ambrose had just stepped out into the evening heat when the cloud of dust forced him to close his eyes and entirely miss the bumpy, lurching arrival of the truck. He was still standing in the shadows of the garage wiping his face with a greasy rag when he heard the door slam and the inevitable gravel crunch of footsteps coming his way. Squinting against the glare of the setting sun he stepped out of the shadows and was just able to make out a figure limping toward him when a woman’s voice startled him.

“Sorry about the dust.”

He turned toward her and shrugged as if to say that it was expected. She had already removed the cap from the gas tank and stood dragging what Ambrose thought of as a dainty leather boot in a half circle through the gravel.

Three girls still sitting atop a pile of trundles and suitcases in the back of the truck were squirming in a fit of giggles. Ambrose noticed the girl in the middle, her mouth was laughing, but her eyes were much more piercing than the two that were clearly her siblings. He eyes seemed to be reflecting the first bit of sunset so the she looked a little on fire, which added to intensity of her gaze. Ambrose felt suddenly uncomfortable. The image of her eyes stayed in front of his even after he turned his face away. He could feel her eyes burning, he felt himself somehow caught in them, he began to sweat.

He tried to busy himself with pumping gas, but regrettably it took little concentration. He looked at the pump and let the glare of the setting sun momentarily blind him. A strange loping sound caused him to look away and as color slowly returned to field of vision a strange figure took shape. A man slightly older than himself was limping across the gravel driveway. He had a curious way of walking, one side of him appeared to be badly crippled, but the other side of him looked like it could pull down a charging steer with its one good arm. Consequently he sort of loped along listing to his left, dragging his right behind him.

Ambrose turned back around and found the woman studying him.

“That’s my son Jim.”

“Oh.”

“The polio gave him that way of walking…”

“I figured.” Ambrose mumbled, unsure what to say.

“The doctors told me he would never walk again and that it was best to keep him in a dark corner of the house and try to forget about him. Well, they didn’t say that exactly, but that was what they meant. As you can see he had other ideas.”

“Yes, ma’am. Never liked doctors.”

“Well, they also told me to come to Arizona on account of my husband. They said that the clean air would be good for his tuberculosis.”

She gestured to the back of the truck and Ambrose stood on his tiptoes and looked over the slated wormwood sides to noticed that the bed of the truck was outfitted with a crumpled mattress upon which a very much dead looking man was reclined. For a moment Ambrose thought he might indeed have perished on the journey, but then the eyes opened and revealed a glassy pained look that was quickly swallowed in a cacophony of hacking desolate sounds. The three girls had ceased their laughter and were staring liquid eyed in Ambrose’s direction. All three seemed relatively unconcerned with the fit of coughing emitting from the reclining man.

She paid him in coins and the crippled man climbed back in the passenger’s side of the truck. The engine coughed back to life after a few sputters that Ambrose attributed to a grungy distributor cap. The truck crept across the gravel drive and lurched out onto Prince road. Ambrose watched them for while, long enough to see brake lights in front of Vida court.

I knew it. He turned around and walked back into the garage and grabbed his cigarettes. He pulled down the garage doors, yanked the chain that turned on and off the lighted sign that Mr. Munson was so proud off, visible from the highway he said, though Ambrose lacked car so he couldn’t say for sure. He made his usual tour of the building turning off lights and locking doors. He flipped the open sign over and stepped outside locking the front door behind him. Satisfied, Ambrose fished out a cigarette and lit it, pausing for a moment, watching the thunderheads over the Catalina Mountains begin evening’s journey toward crimson. After a moment he shoved his hands in his pockets and began walking down the street toward the Vida Court.