BACKSTORY: Growing up in Montana, country music was a big part of the soundtrack of my childhood. And there was no bigger star during those formative years than Mr. Johnny Cash. We watched him stroll out at the beginning of his variety show every week and announce in that wonderful baritone, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” Much to my dismay, I turned out to be a tenor. But Johnny continues to inspire, as he did with this story.
WHEN THE COP APPROACHED JIM HANDY on the street, he had a woman with him. A woman Jim recognized. He’d passed her on the sidewalk just a few moments before, and had smiled at her. He had in fact given her his best smile, knowing that she’d probably ignore him, that she’d just keep on walking, because that’s what downtown people do when people smile at them. Now, however, things did not look good. The woman was scowling at him, her brow lowered over her eyes like a visor.
“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” the officer asked.
“What do you mean?” Jim replied.
The cop pointed, down—at Jim’s crotch. Jim didn’t want to look down there with this woman standing there, right in front of him. But the officer was angry. Both of them were. Jim could see that for a fact. So he looked, and imagine his surprise when he found that his zipper was wide open, and spread apart like a goddamn barn door. He was on full display.
Jim quickly tucked and zipped. And then, flustered, his face burning up, and realizing that he must have been careless after he stopped at the coffee shop and used the restroom, Jim shuffled his feet, wishing he could hide somewhere. The cop was staring at him, waiting for some kind of explanation, but Jim’s jaw hung loose. Something needed to be said. Finally, Jim managed to speak. His voice rasped, nearly a whisper.
“I had no idea,” he said. “Really.”
The look that both the cop and the woman wore told him that they didn’t buy his innocence for a minute.
Jim tried to explain. It had been a difficult morning. An argument with his wife. He was distracted. And he was wearing loose pants. It was an honest mistake, forgetting to zip up. Wearing boxers. It could happen to anyone. It was also a warm summer day, so there was no cold air to alert him.
“He tilted his head,” the woman said with disdain. “He was definitely trying to get me to look.”
“I’m going to have to take you in,” the cop said. He turned to the woman. “Do you mind coming in, too? To make a statement?”
“Gladly,” she said. “Anything to see this. . . this . . . maggot put away. Just give me a minute to call my office,” she added, and the cop nodded. She pulled out her cell phone.
“This is awful,” Jim said, and his mind was working, trying to figure out how he was going to explain to his boss, to his wife, to everyone. But a look from the cop told him he’d better watch his step, so Jim didn’t say another word.
It had already been a strange morning—besides the argument with his wife, which led to a very unpleasant conclusion, there had been so many odd thoughts going through Jim’s head.
Every morning, Jim rode the bus downtown to work. Usually, like everyone else, he walked to the bus, got on the bus, and rode the bus with his eyes to the ground, or in a magazine—anywhere but on the eyes of others. But that morning, each time the bus came to another stop, and the hydraulic puff of air sounded when the door sucked to a close, Jim felt closed in. He kept going over the argument with Alice, and all he had to do at work, and for once in his life, he wasn’t comfortable burrowing further into his head. He needed a distraction.
Jim noticed a young father on the bus with his three small children. The children were adorable—about the same age as his kids. And having a great time, although the bus was packed. They giggled and made faces, and pulled their voices up and down into funny caricatures.
The people on the bus were not amused, not being accustomed to interruptions in their silent meditation. Especially from children. The presence was unusual, and the children’s giddy mood made a lot of people uncomfortable. They frowned, or fidgeted.
But not Jim. He smiled to himself when the little girl, about seven, threw her arms around her younger brother, nuzzling her face into his neck. It tickled the little boy, and he giggled, tilting his head toward her to try and force her face away.
Even the father was playful. He held a baby about nine months old, and blew raspberries onto its chubby tummy and its cheeks. And he touched the little girl’s neck with his finger and wiggled it, tickling her, too. The girl squealed, and people on the bus cringed, or hunkered deeper into their newspapers.
But Jim smiled at the little girl. Then he looked up, and noticed one other person on the bus who was smiling. An older woman. Her powder blue eyes were aimed directly at Jim, and she nodded, acknowledging that she appreciated this diversion as much as he did. Jim nodded back, but he suddenly felt uncomfortable, as if he’d been discovered doing something forbidden.
For the rest of the trip, Jim tried to catch the father’s eye. Jim wanted to let him know with a look that he admired the way he handled his children. And the fact that Jim couldn’t get his attention made him admire the man even more. Because the father didn’t even bother to look around the bus. He didn’t give a damn whether anyone was uncomfortable with his children’s behavior or not. He never took his eyes off them, and the smile on his face was one of pure joy—pure, unwavering, unapologetic joy.
The children and their father got off the bus, and one stop later, the older woman made her way toward the exit. As she passed Jim in the aisle, she looked up. “Thank you for the smile.” She gripped his arm.
Jim nodded, but he was embarrassed. And he was puzzled as to why her compliment would embarrass him. And when he realized why, he was troubled. It was because she had drawn attention to him. Even though it was only momentary, she had diverted the crowd’s eyes to Jim, and he was aware that just because he appreciated those children, and wasn’t as bothered by them as the others, he was really no different than the rest of them. When it came down to being singled out, Jim was just as frightened, just as determined to be another anonymous presence on another commuter vehicle to another mundane day of work.
The discovery shook him, and as he crawled out among the striding mass of white collars and suits with clean lines, Jim couldn’t stop wondering when and how he had become one of them. How and when had he become so scared? And how could he allow this to happen?
These were the thoughts that passed through Jim’s head as he strolled down the street that morning, looking for life in the unsmiling, serious faces. And he was trying to remember the last time he’d done something spontaneous.
And it was then, when that thought hit him, that he noticed the woman in question, his eventual accuser. She was quite beautiful, with the kind of sleek black hair Jim liked, and dark red lipstick against her pale skin. Quite out of his league, he knew. Even if he had been single. But with this thought of spontaneity fresh in his head, and the fight with Alice still lingering, Jim followed an instinct and smiled at her. And to his surprise, she started to smile back. But her expression changed quickly. Jim attributed this to a realization that she had let down her guard and smiled at a stranger on the street. He assumed she had been overcome with her own fear, and regretted smiling.
And so it happened. Jim was arrested. His first time. And it wasn’t as bad as he’d always imagined. Not at first anyway.
When the cop took him by the arm and “helped” him into the back of his car, Jim was surprised that it didn’t bother him much. Not even with all the people gawking—actually, they didn’t really gawk. It is important in the downtown environment to appear as if nothing fazes you, to keep your fear masked with a stiff indifference. Being distracted by the world around you shows weakness, a vulnerability that could lead to failure. So people didn’t stop, or gather. They glanced furtively. But Jim didn’t feel the need to tuck his chin into his neck, or pull his jacket over his head.
And it was then that Jim first began to feel a hint of freedom. On the ride to the station, Jim started chuckling thinking about it. The cop glared at him in his mirror.
“You think this is amusing?”
“I’m sorry,” Jim said. “It’s too complicated to explain.”
The cop glared again, and muttered.
And the more Jim thought about it, the more he felt that he could make the most of this adventure. After all, most of the people Jim knew had never been to jail. This could be an opportunity to give everyone some insight into what it’s like. Excellent party conversation. He’d always been curious himself. When they got to the station, the cop took Jim’s statement, which was pretty straightforward. Jim surprised him. He admitted his crime.
“I thought you said it wasn’t intentional,” the cop said.
“I know,” Jim answered.
“You know?”
“Yes.”
“You know what?”
“I know that’s what I said.”
“But it was?” he asked.
“Yes, I think so,” Jim replied.
“You think so?”
“Yes.”
Jim had noticed by now, from his nametag, that the cop’s name was O’Hare. He was thick, and his complexion had that Irish ruddiness. And as he got flustered, he reddened even more. Jim wanted to explain that he wasn’t trying to make him angry, but he knew the cop wouldn’t understand. So although he was cooperative, the more Jim talked, the more upset the cop became.
Jim’s accuser was not amused, either. In fact, she found his manner offensive. She had already given her statement, talking through clenched teeth, and glaring at Jim from the sides of her eyes. And then, as if she couldn’t bear to leave until she saw him behind bars, she waited while O’Hare questioned Jim. He could hear the breath racing through her nose.
“You want to make your phone call now?” O’Hare asked.
“I waive that right,” Jim said.
“You don’t want to make a phone call?”
“No.”
“They’ll be fine without me.”
The cop tightened his lips. Then he glanced at Jim’s hands. He pointed. “How about your wife?”
Jim shrugged.
The woman jumped in. “I wouldn’t want to call her either, if I had this kind of news,” she sputtered.
“Do you have a lawyer?” O’Hare asked.
“No.”
“You are despicable,” the woman growled, her voice barely audible.
“A lot of people don’t have lawyers.” Jim tried smiling at her, to lighten things up. But this drew the most hateful scowl yet.
Finally, the woman shook her head, in that shivering way that people do when they’ve endured more than they ever thought possible. And she left. Jim felt bad. After all, she was the victim of something she didn’t understand. She had no way of knowing that she had run headlong into a situation that involved more than a simple matter of indiscretion. It was fate. She just happened to be in the way.
O’Hare looked Jim over. “So you want to post bond?” The cop told Jim how much it was.
“No,” Jim said.
O’Hare kept his gaze fixed on Jim, his murky blue eyes boring into him. “No?”
Jim shook his head.
“Listen,” O’Hare said, leaning forward in his chair. He had one of those swivel chairs, and the springs groaned loudly when he tilted his ample weight. “You don’t have any priors. All you have to do is post bond, and you can go. You come back for your court date, pay your fine. . . .” He threw his hand in the air, indicating the end of it.
“No. I’d rather not do that,” Jim said.
O’Hare raised his brow. “So you’d rather spend the night in jail?”
Jim nodded. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what I’d rather do.”
O’Hare swiveled, and locked his hands together on the desk. He studied his fingers, as if trying to determine whether he had them in the right order. “Do you have any history of . . . mental disorders . . . anything like that?” he asked.
Jim informed him that he did not, and O’Hare nodded. Then his head changed its direction and started shaking back and forth. “All right,” he said. “No phone call?” he asked, making sure.
The second thing Jim noticed about his jail cell was how much it looked like he expected it would. Jim had never seen a jail cell. Except on TV, or in movies. But it seemed familiar in the same way that a neighbor’s living room does, even though you’ve never been inside. Familiar because of the assumptions you’ve made from observation.
It was gray, of course. Everything in the cell was gray. Even the sheets, although clean, were gray. Gray from being thin and from being washed with gray things over and over again.
Jim stood on the gray cement and took it all in, which only took a second or two. Then he addressed the first thing he’d noticed about the cell, which was the other inmate. A tiny man. He sat cross-legged on the lower bunk, and the mattress hardly showed his weight. He had slicked black hair, sideburns, and his bone-thin, tattooed arms jutted out of a sleeveless T-shirt.
He squinted up at Jim, showing his teeth, as if the sun was in his eyes. His teeth were tobacco-stained. Everything about him appeared to be stained with tobacco. His fingers, even his nails. And his skin. He was so tan that Jim couldn’t make out the tattoos.
Jim was still feeling a bit giddy from his newfound freedom, so when he spoke to the tiny man, he flinched at the lightness of Jim’s mood. Jim imagined what he must think, seeing this clean-cut man in dress clothes.
“Hello,” Jim said.
And after he jumped, he responded with his own, “Hullo.”
Then it was Jim’s turn to flinch. Because from the depths of this almost childlike man, whose chest was no bigger around than a basketball, came a voice as deep and smooth as Jim had ever heard—the kind of voice that pulls you into an immediate state of awe, and respect. He sounded like Johnny Cash.
“Handy,” Jim said, offering a handshake. “Jim Handy.”
The other man’s head tilted slightly to one side, and he measured Jim with an, “Are you one of them queers?” sort of look. But he shook Jim’s hand.
“Name’s Elvin,” he said. “Elvin Taylor.”
Jim hitched up his pants. “So what are you in for, Elvin?” He delighted in being able to ask this classic question.
Elvin’s deep-set, coffee-brown eyes remained fixed on Jim, the skin below them hanging like the seat of a truck driver’s jeans. He grinned and looked Jim up and down, shaking his head. “You never been in jail before, have you?”
“Well. . . .” Jim said.
Elvin just looked at him, then rubbed his eyes. He shook his head again. “What did you do?” he asked, and his voice rumbled through the cold walls. “Park your Mercedes on the sidewalk?”
Jim dug his hands in his pockets and paced across the cell, smiling at his joke. “Indecent exposure,” Jim said.
Elvin laughed. “Another pre-vert . . . two pre-verts in the same cell. Imagine the possibilities. And my last night, too.”
Jim laughed, but rumors about prison made his laugh nervous.
Elvin shook his head. “Don’t worry, pal. I’m jokin’. I’m not a big believer in ‘any hole is better than no hole.’”
Then Elvin laughed loud and long, and his rich voice almost shook the heavy cinder. The echo was so loud, it seemed that the walls actually shook.
“So it’s your last night?” Jim asked.
Elvin nodded, still chuckling.
“How long have you been here?”
“Just a couple days,” he said. “This time.”
“For?” Jim asked.
Elvin took a deep breath and looked away from Jim, toward the corner of the cell, as if they were outside, and he could survey the horizon. He let the breath out slowly, through his nose, and turned his look back to Jim. “I’m a lover,” he said, and a mischievous smile followed. A wink.
Jim laughed. “I didn’t know that was illegal.”
“It is if she’s married to a cop,” he said, leaning toward Jim confidentially. “The laws are a little different in that type of situation.”
“Ohhhh.” Jim nodded. “I see. So what did they get you for?”
Elvin sighed. “Well, I also have a bit of a problem, you know.” He held a fist up to his mouth and tipped his head back, miming a swig.
“Ah,” Jim said.
Elvin dug into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of Pall Malls. He held the crumpled pack out to Jim, and he shook his head. Elvin lit one up.
“You ever tried to quit?” Jim asked him.
“Smoking?”
“No.” Jim repeated his pantomime.
“Oh, that.” One side of his mouth stretched into his cheek, and he shook his head. “Hell yeah, I’ve tried. I been to all kinds of treatment programs, halfway houses. . . .”
He told Jim more, and Jim could hear in that solid, marble voice a combination of things—a helplessness, but also a bit of rehearsed rhetoric, a speech Elvin had probably used countless times in treatment, and in front of parole boards, to girlfriends, to convince people that he really was trying, just to get them off his back. Jim could see that Elvin had no intention of quitting drinking.
“So have you spent a lot of time in prison?” Jim asked.
“Oh, hell yeah. I’m a wanted man in more states than I’ve even been to.” Elvin laughed again, and Jim was intrigued by how proud he seemed of this fact.
A silent moment passed, and Elvin had nearly finished his cigarette when he started coughing. It began as a regular cough, a smoker’s hack, but it quickly escalated until he was hunched over on his bunk, clutching his throat. His body quaked, and jumped, and Jim stood helplessly watching, not feeling as though he knew this man well enough to approach. Elvin coughed for a good minute, and finally a spray of blood spewed from his mouth. Jim jumped back, but then his concern overcame any desire to avoid getting involved. He stepped forward, sinking next to Elvin on the bunk.
“What should I do? Should I call the guard?” Jim asked.
Elvin waved his hand, and Jim assumed from this gesture that this was a routine occurrence for him. Elvin seemed to expect that the fit would pass at any moment. But the coughing continued, and suddenly a stream of thick red flowed from his mouth, splashing onto the concrete with an echoing slap. Elvin Taylor’s tiny body then tumbled forward into the pool, where he landed on his back with a boyish thud. Just like that, he was dead.
Sitting on his gray bunk, just across from where Elvin Taylor sat a few minutes before, Jim Handy stared at the still-damp gray floor, where a gray mop had just swept away the thick blood. The guard had been annoyed at having to clean up after Elvin. He hadn’t been very thorough, and a few dark red streaks still crossed the floor, not quite dry. And staring at that spot, Jim could still see the shocked expression and the hunched figure of Elvin Taylor.
It did not escape his attention that in the matter of a few hours, he had met with two life-shifting experiences. Besides never having been in jail before, Jim had never seen anyone die, either. The idea that the day in jail would be something of a lark was gone. The situation didn’t seem humorous any more, and Jim found himself thinking about the consequences of his arrest.
His boss would be upset, not so much because Jim missed a day of work but because he didn’t call. Alice would be angry for the same reason. Jim could hear her now: “You didn’t call anyone? Anyone at all?”
She wouldn’t believe him, Jim suspected. She would think he was keeping something from her. She had been thinking that a lot of late. For good reason, he knew.
Sometimes Jim thought communication was highly overrated. Especially in marriage. They say it’s the key to a good marriage, but he found it such an incredible chore. Because of the repetition. The discussion that is the same discussion you had a week before, and the week before that. Jim always supposed that some people found reassurance and stability in this kind of repetition. But to him it was annoying. And sometimes unbearable. To the point that he often refused to participate.
His wife Alice was one of the people who liked repetition. She liked order. She liked routine. But she didn’t seem to acquire the sense of security she expected from these things. So her solution was to seek more order. More routine. More discussions.
They had discussed once a month for as long as they’d been together—ten years now—whether or not Alice was becoming more like her mother. Jim had told Alice several times that he would not discuss it any more. He had told her that in some ways she was like her mother, but that in many—in most ways—she was not. He had told her that he didn’t even care if she ended up being like her mother. Jim was one of the few men he knew who actually adored his mother-in-law.
But Alice was adamant. So they discussed it, even after he’d insisted he wouldn’t. And of course the path was always the same. His words had absolutely no bearing on the discussion at all. It was as if she had the conversation mapped out in her head before it even started. It was exasperating.
Jim had a friend, Jerry, who said that all women are this way. But in fact, Jerry was much more this way than his own wife, Sarah. Jerry and Jim had discussed time and again Jerry’s doubts about whether Sarah was still in love with him. He complained that she hardly ever told him any more, and that she didn’t like kissing him as much as she used to. Jim had told Jerry many times that being in love takes on a very different form after a few years. Jerry would nod and say he supposed this to be true. Then they would discuss it again a few weeks later.
Meanwhile, Sarah happened to be one of the most grounded people Jim knew. She understood that actions are more important than words. This understanding made her words more valuable than most peoples’. Because she didn’t talk to try and convince anyone of anything. When she spoke, people noticed.
Actually, Jim was in love with Sarah. But she didn’t know that. Nobody did.
He often thought of an afternoon when he went walking on the beach with Sarah. The four of them, Jerry and Sarah and Alice and Jim, rented a beach house for a long weekend. Sarah and Jim were the first ones up early one morning, and they walked. They talked about many things—mostly movies, or films, as Sarah liked to call them. Both of them loved movies, unlike their spouses.
They walked and talked for a couple of hours, and Jim felt as if it was the first fresh conversation he’d had in years. The first conversation that didn’t reek of well-practiced paragraphs. He felt as if he had been caught in a maze of these kinds of conversations. Conversations that revolved around accomplishments and qualifications. He’d been to several parties where he had decided by the end of the evening that everyone would have saved themselves a lot of time by handing out their résumés at the door.
Now Jim sat on his gray bunk thinking about that day on the beach. Interesting, because that day was also gray. A foggy day, early spring, so the beach still had that gray wintry blush, and the water also looked gray. The difference, of course, was that the gray from the day on the beach had been a beautiful gray.
He thought about all of these things, and the more he reflected, the more he realized that he should have called Alice. Just out of consideration. She would be worried. Despite telling him that morning that she was going to leave, that she wanted a divorce, she would be worried. Maybe that would make her even more worried.
Jim yelled at the guard. He yelled for a long time without any response. And finally a tall, thick, bored young man ambled into the cellblock, and stopped at his cell.
“What?” he asked.
“I want my phone call.”
“What phone call?”
“You know. My phone call. I never got my phone call.”
“You never got a phone call?” The guard smirked.
“No.”
“Right,” the guard said sarcastically.
“I’m serious.”
“You know how many times I’ve heard that one?” He started to walk away.
“Wait!” Jim yelled.
He kept walking. The clunk of his hard soles echoed along the walls. “Go to sleep,” he said over his shoulder. “And be careful not to mess up your suit.” He laughed.
“Wait!” Jim repeated. “I want my phone call!”
“Shut up,” one inmate muttered.
“Yeah. Shut up,” another repeated. “Yuppie asshole.”
The door slammed shut, and the metallic finality of the noise sent a shiver through him. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed it when he first entered the cellblock.
It wasn’t until the darkness settled in, after lights out, that the loneliness started to creep up on Jim. He noticed little things then. Like the smells. Smells of men. Sweat and cologne. And a hint of their evening meal, which had been some kind of meat—probably beef, cooked until it too was gray. Each noise was magnified by the echo of the concrete surrounding him. The breathing, sighs, snoring, and moans.
But he also felt a strange sense of security. He felt safe—from Alice’s sudden desire to discuss something, or a bad dream from one of the kids. Or phone calls from clients.
Jim realized he wasn’t lonely for Alice, or the kids. He was just lonely, and he suddenly felt bad for Elvin, coming to the end that he did. In jail. Elvin didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye to his girlfriend, the cop’s wife. Maybe he’d never told her that he loved her.
Jim thought about Elvin’s bravado. “I’m a lover.” Remembering this made Jim smile, and he finally drifted off with this smile on his lips.
The rattle of iron woke Jim. Scared the hell out of him. It was still dark, and for a second or two he wasn’t sure where he was.
“Get up, Handy,” a gruff voice said.
Jim sat dazed for a moment, trying to make a face out of the obtuse circle of flesh above him. It was clearly the middle of the night. “Why?” he asked. Again, the rumors snuck into the back of his mind. The ones about prison guards this time.
“Someone’s here to get you. Paid your bond.”
“Oh.” After sitting dazed for a second, trying to gather his thoughts, Jim pulled his jacket on, stood, unsteady, and followed, looking around the cell as he left, as if he might have forgotten his briefcase, or his umbrella.
Out in the lobby, he expected to find Alice, but instead it was Jerry and Sarah who stood looking confused and worried. Jerry twisted his hands around in his pockets, and Sarah’s brow was scrunched, as if she might suddenly start crying.
“Are you all right?” Jerry asked. “You look terrible.”
“I just woke up,” Jim said.
“Oh, Jim,” Sarah said, hugging me. “We were scared.”
“We’ve been up all night,” Jerry said. “Why didn’t you call? We had everyone we know calling, trying to figure out where you were. We didn’t even think to call the police until a couple of hours ago. It just didn’t seem possible that . . . that. . . .”
“That something like this could happen,” Sarah finished for him.
“Can I go?” Jim asked the guard, who handed him a bag with his things. The guard held out a pen, and pointed to a form, which Jim signed.
In the car, riding in the back seat, Jim began to wake up. He thought about how impossible it would be to explain to Alice, or to Jerry, or even to Sarah, how much the past twenty hours had affected him. They could not possibly see it.
“So what happened?” Jerry asked.
“Don’t make him talk about it if he doesn’t want to,” Sarah said.
“I’m not making him do anything,” Jerry said.
Sarah turned around in her seat and looked at Jim, smiling. “Do you want to talk about it, Jim?”
Jim glanced out the window, thinking, and he realized something.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
Sarah grabbed his hand, reaching for it and squeezing. “To our house,” she said. “Alice told us to take you to our house for the night. She’s scared, Jim.”
Jim turned to look at Sarah. She was beautiful, even after no sleep. “Is that all Alice told you?” he asked.
Sarah turned back toward the front, releasing Jim’s hand. A silence followed, which answered the question. But neither of them would say it. Nor could he. The fact just sat, unstated but present. Alice was leaving.
Jim studied Sarah, then Jerry, and he realized that he might only have one chance to show them how much his night in jail had changed things, how much differently he saw everything. He had to act then, while the feeling was still strong.
So Jim leaned forward, poking his head between the bucket seats. He rested his forearms on his knees. He cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry to have to do this in front of you, Jerry,” Jim said, and then he turned to Sarah, “. . . but I have to tell you, Sarah, that I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for a very long time.”
They were all silent for the next five blocks. Jerry drove, and Sarah’s head remained locked in its straight-ahead position. Jim did not retreat. He did not look at either of them. He watched the road, waiting for this revelation to sink in. He knew it must come as a bit of a shock. He understood that they probably needed some time to process it, and perhaps to figure out how it would affect their lives.
Finally, Jerry tilted his head toward Jim, half-looking at him. He raised his brow. “Are you on something, Jim? Did you take something today?” And Sarah jumped in as soon as Jerry had spoken, after waiting for him to break the silence. “Did they do anything to you in there?” Sarah looked at Jim, and the concern in her face made him ill.
“No, no, no,” Jim said, and his hands tried to wipe away their assumptions. “I’m perfectly sober. I’m perfectly sound.” He tried to remain calm, but his heart had sunk. Because he knew that if Sarah didn’t see that he was telling the truth, no one would.
“We’re sorry about Alice, Jim,” Jerry said. “But you’ve got to pull yourself together, man. You can’t let yourself fall apart over this.”
“Jerry’s right, Jim,” Sarah said. “Nothing is worth losing your head.”
And with that, Jim fell back into my seat. He was defeated, alone. Now he was sure. Nobody understood.
Of course, the worst thing about Alice leaving, the part that was hardest to understand, was that this was exactly the thing that she hated most about her mother. It is the one thing she had never forgiven her for.
“Did you get any sleep?”
Jim lifted his head from the passenger window, trying to perk himself up. He wore the same clothes from the day before.
“Yeah. Yeah. I slept great,” he lied, reaching up to smooth out his hair.
Jerry weaved his way through the residential development where he and Sarah had lived for four years, and Jim tried not to think about Alice hanging up when he called earlier. The last twenty-four hours hadn’t even registered in his mind yet, and the hours that he’d spent wandering around Jerry and Sarah’s house in the middle of the night had mostly been a daze. He remembered hearing them arguing, but he’d been so busy trying to figure out what he was going to do to even care what they were arguing about. Now Jim felt his palms getting damp. He was short of breath. The thought of going back to the office made his head whirl, as if it wasn’t attached to his neck.
“You want to catch the bus at Pine?” Jerry asked.
“That’s fine. Whatever is easiest for you.”
Jerry cleared his throat. “Listen, Jim . . . we’ve been friends for a long time, right?”
Jim nodded.
“What you said last night, to Sarah. . . .”
“I’m sorry about that, Jerry.” Jim barely had enough air to get the sentence out.
“We both know, Jim. We’ve known for a long time. We had a pretty nasty argument last night, after we picked you up.”
“You did?”
Jerry nodded.
“God, I’m sorry.”
Jerry waved a hand. “No, no, it’s okay. I mean, I’m not saying it’s your fault we had an argument. It was something we’ve avoided talking about for a long time.”
Jim frowned, looking out at the manicured lawns and polished cars parked along the street. Trying to catch his breath.
“But I have to ask that you never bring that up again.”
“Oh, no. Of course not.”
“Just because you’re going through a rough time doesn’t mean you can start saying everything that comes into your head, Jim.”
Jim nodded, but he felt as if he was about to lose consciousness. A thought came to him that seemed perfectly sound. He concluded that he was close to losing everything. He thought to himself that if he did one more wrong thing, his whole life was going to fall apart. He reasoned this out with the fevered thought process of a man who doesn’t see that something has already happened.
“Alice wants to be with you, Jim.” Jerry looked over at him. “You realize that?”
Jim’s chin fell to his chest.
“You are wanted.”
Jim collapsed against the passenger door, and before he thought about it, before he thought about anything else at all, he started talking about how unhappy he was. And from the minute the words started, a realization was born—not one that he could recognize or feel yet, but one that niggled its way into his subconscious. And there was a chance that someday he would know that the feeling he’d experienced the day before was nothing remotely like freedom.
RUSSELL ROWLAND’s first novel, In Open Spaces, (HarperCollins, 2002) received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which called it “an outstanding debut.” It made the San Francisco Chronicle’s bestseller list, and was named among the Best of the West by the Salt Lake City Tribune. Russell recently completed The Watershed Years, a sequel to In Open Spaces. One of Russell’s stories was chosen as one of the notable stories of 2005 by the Million Writers Award, and he was a MacDowell Fellow in 2005. Russell is currently co-producing a feature film with his brother, and consulting with several writers on their own projects. He lives in San Francisco.