JESSE CAN’T SLEEP. EVERY TIME HE DOZES OFF, A JOLT SHOOTS through him, zapping him back to wakefulness. He gives up after an hour, crawls out of bed and sits at the little table in front of the motel room’s curtained window. He thinks about putting on the television but doesn’t want to disturb Edgar, who’s snoring away on the other bed.
Abby is curled beside Edgar, protective as a good dog, yellow eyes blazing in her coal-black head. Edgar turned the cat twenty years ago behind Jesse’s back. Jesse hates the damn thing and she knows it, hissing whenever he gets near and swiping at him, claws out, if he makes to touch her. He’d have gotten rid of her a long time ago if she didn’t calm Edgar. Petting her brings Edgar out of his worst tantrums and brightens him when he’s at his bluest. So Jesse puts up with the hissing and the scratching, the foul-smelling food and even fouler shit box.
He picks up Edgar’s deck of cards, intending to play Klondike. A slash of sunlight that’s pushed between the curtains cuts the table in half. He stares at the beam while he shuffles, tracks the dust motes schooling in it like fish in a lustrous sea. Then, as if in a trance, he puts down the cards and slides his index finger into the light.
The pain is sudden and intense. He grits his teeth against it. A wisp of smoke rises from a knuckle, the flesh blackens and chars, a blister swells. He pulls the finger back, and as soon as it’s out of the sun, the burn begins to heal. A few seconds later he can’t even tell where the damage was. Enough, he thinks, but can’t stop, is never able to. He thrusts his finger into the beam again, again it starts to cook, and again he pulls it back as he’s about to scream. He repeats the ritual until he’s finally worn out enough to sleep.
He asks the desk clerk what’s going on in town. He and Edgar have passed through Phoenix countless times, and he’s sick of the same old pool halls and miniature golf courses but doesn’t feel like spending another night in front of the television.
“You can still catch the game at Municipal Stadium,” the clerk says.
Jesse’s wary of taking Edgar anywhere there’s a crowd. He never knows how he’ll react to the noise and confusion. But sitting outside, drinking cold beer sure sounds like a nice way to pass the evening. He asks Edgar what he thinks, and his response—bouncing with excitement—convinces him to take the chance.
“If you start making monkeys, I’ll drag you out so fast your head’ll spin,” he warns his brother.
“You’re the boss,” Edgar replies.
They drive to the stadium and settle into a couple of cheap seats. It’s the bottom of the fourth inning. The stadium lights shine down as bright as the sun on the green grass and red dirt of the field, transforming it into an oasis that defies both the darkness and the desert.
The players’ uniforms gleam, music throbs in the warm air, and wherever Jesse turns he sees happy faces. He allows himself the briefest fantasy that he’s safe among these people, but the reality is, if they knew he and Edgar were rovers, they’d tear them to pieces.
Edgar’s thoughts are nowhere near as bleak. He’s enjoying the game even though he barely understands what’s going on. Jesse’s explained the rules to him a hundred times, but they never stick. Instead, he looks to other spectators for cues, cheering when they cheer, stomping and chanting, “Let’s go, Giants, let’s go,” when they stomp and chant.
He spots a boy eating a hot dog and decides he wants a hot dog too.
“I’ll get you one later,” Jesse says.
“I’m hungry now,” he says. “Come on, good buddy.”
Jesse looks for a vendor, but none are nearby. What he does see is a man in the row below theirs taking beer orders from his friends.
“How many?” the man asks. “You want one? You?” His pals hand him money, and when he pulls out his wallet to cram the bills inside, Jesse notices a lot of cash already stashed there. The guy’s been drinking. He knocks his ball cap off scratching his head and nearly falls picking it up. His friends send him on his way with catcalls and good-natured shoves.
“Wait right here,” Jesse says to Edgar.
“Attaboy,” Edgar says. “Mustard and ketchup. You know how I like ’em.”
Jesse follows the drunk down the stairs. The man takes the steps slowly, one at a time. When they reach the echoey concourse, he hurries to a bathroom, and Jesse enters right behind him. Men and boys piss into a long metal trough, lined up like cows at their feed. The drunk slips into an open spot and unzips his trousers. He stares at the wall above the trough, humming whatever song is playing outside. Jesse wedges in beside him and mimes taking out his prick. Then, quick as a robin plucking a worm, he reaches over and lifts the drunk’s wallet from his back pocket and sticks it into his own.
The drunk is still pissing, still humming, when Jesse leaves the bathroom. Jesse walks some distance along the concourse before ducking into an alcove, where he pulls the money from the wallet and drops the wallet to the ground. He counts the bills while waiting in line at a concession stand. Fifty dollars, a decent score.
The announcer reminds everyone about the upcoming Bicentennial Fireworks Spectacular, “a night of patriotic fun for the whole family.” Jesse was born in the centennial year—1876—and he’d swear more than a hundred years have passed since then. It feels to him he’s been on the roam forever. He steps up to the counter and orders a dog for Edgar and a beer for himself.
Back in the stands the drunk is on his knees, searching for his wallet. He tosses aside empty popcorn boxes and drink cups and brushes peanut shells off his palms. “I know I had it,” he says. “You guys saw.” Jesse, coming up the steps, freezes. Not because he’s worried about the drunk fingering him, but because Edgar isn’t in his seat.
He scans the crowd, trying to recall what his brother is wearing. Jeans and his favorite Mickey Mouse T-shirt. He’s been going on about catching a foul ball, so maybe he moved closer to the field, but there’s no sign of him on the rail either.
He’s slipped away before, and Jesse usually finds him within a few minutes, quaking with fear, his wanderlust having faded as soon as he got out of sight of his brother. Three years ago, though, things played out differently, in a way that’s troubled Jesse ever since.
They got separated at a county fair in Butte, Montana, and when Jesse eventually tracked Edgar down, he was walking hand in hand with a little boy toward the exit.
“What are you doing?” Jesse asked Edgar.
“I’m hungry,” Edgar replied.
It had been only two weeks since he’d last fed—too soon for bloodlust.
“Let the boy go,” Jesse said.
“I won’t,” Edgar said and pulled the kid closer. The boy started to cry.
“Let him go, or I’ll dust you where you stand,” Jesse said.
Edgar hesitated, reluctant to give in, but he could see Jesse meant business. He released the boy, who dashed off, and Jesse grabbed Edgar by the neck and hustled him out to the parking lot before there was any trouble.
Back at their motel, Jesse alternated between punching and threatening him.
“I say when it’s time for you to feed, and I do the hunting,” he said.
“I know,” Edgar said.
“You don’t have the brains to do for yourself. You’ll get us both killed.”
“I know.”
Edgar’s never again shown an inclination to satisfy his bloodlust on his own, and Jesse’s been hoping that what happened was a one-time thing. But what if it wasn’t?
He sprints down the concourse, calling for his brother into every restroom and pausing at every concession stand to make sure he’s not there trying to wheedle a hot dog. When he gets to the end, he turns around to make another pass, his heart kicking at his ribs, and his mouth so dry, it’s work to swallow. He wonders if Edgar’s in the parking lot, looking for the car, wonders if he remembers they swapped the Ford for a Grand Prix last night.
He comes to a door he missed before and pushes it open to reveal a stairwell.
“Edgar!” he shouts.
An echo, then silence.
“Don’t be scared, buddy. I’m not mad at you.”
He hears a shuffle and a faint “I ain’t scared.” Edgar peers over the rail of a landing two stories up.
“What’s going on?” Jesse says.
“I seen a rover.”
“You sure?”
“He glowed black.”
He’s talking about the dark aura surrounding rovers that only other rovers can see.
“What did you do?”
“What you always say to: took cover.”
Because there are berserkers out there, rovers who wouldn’t hesitate, who would in fact relish the opportunity, to dust another rover with an eye toward cutting down on the competition for prey. It’s for this reason Jesse avoids others who’ve turned and why he’s tried to instill a fear of strangers in Edgar.
“You did good,” he says. “Let’s get our asses out of here.”
As Edgar starts down the stairs a commotion rattles the walls. Cheering, stomping. A home run.
“What about my hot dog?” Edgar says.
“I’ll get you one on the way out,” Jesse says.
“Can I pay for it myself?”
Jesse fishes a dollar out of his pocket and hands it to his brother.
“A dollar’ll buy two,” Edgar says.
“So get two,” Jesse says. He pulls open the door and leads Edgar through the crowd. If he really did see a rover, the rover likely saw him, so the quicker they leave the stadium, the better.
Jesse isn’t quite ready to go back to the motel. He’s all wound up and could use a drink. He and Edgar drive down Central Avenue. The street is clogged with cruisers, a slow-moving procession of greasers gunning cherry hot rods and high-school kids packed into sedans and lumbering station wagons borrowed from their parents. Every window is down, every radio is on, and a sticky-sweet Top 40 cacophony floats above the revving engines and car-to-car sass. “Take the Money and Run,” “Love Machine,” “Jive Talkin’”—Edgar knows all the songs and sings along.
They come to a bowling alley. That’ll do. Edgar likes to bowl, or try to anyway. Most of his throws end up in the gutter, but toppling even a few pins is enough to make him happy. Jesse rents shoes for him and helps him pick out a ball, then parks himself at the bar where he can keep an eye on his lane.
The girl tending bar asks what he’ll have. He starts to order a beer but is struck dumb. The bartender is the spitting image of Claudine, beautiful, doomed Claudine, dead, oh Christ, some seventy years now. The only woman he ever loved, the only woman he’ll ever love.
“Need a minute?” this bartender says.
Same skin the color of red-elm heartwood, same green eyes that shine as if lit from behind, same long, black hair, only not worn loose, but plaited into two braids that hang past her shoulders.
“I’ll have a Coors,” he manages to say.
“Jesse! Hey, Jesse!”
He turns to see Edgar pointing at five pins he’s downed and gives him the thumbs-up.
The girl sets a bottle in front of him. “Is that your friend?” she says.
“My brother,” he says. He keeps staring at Edgar so he doesn’t stare at her.
“Why aren’t you playing too?”
“He has more fun on his own.”
“Nah. You’re afraid he’ll beat you.”
Jesse smiles. Claudine liked to joke around too. He gathers himself and turns to face the girl.
“Ain’t you smart,” he says.
“And don’t you forget it.”
“What’s your name, smarty-pants?”
“Johona. It’s Navajo.”
“You’re an Indian?”
“My mom is. My dad’s Dutch.”
Claudine kept changing her story. Sometimes she was Spanish, sometimes French, sometimes a gypsy princess.
“How’d that happen?” Jesse asks Johona, talking about her parents.
“My dad came over here to study Indians,” Johona says. “He’s an archeologist. You know what that is?”
“Someone who studies old things,” Jesse says. “Ancient civilizations.”
“You’re pretty smart yourself,” Johona says. “What’s your name?”
“Jesse.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jesse.”
Johona goes off to see to other customers. Jesse watches her out of the corner of his eye, can’t stop. Claudine in tight jeans and a black tank top. She’s got an easy way with people, knows what to say to make them feel good. A nice girl. Claudine wanted to be nice, but because she was a huntress at heart, used kindness mainly as a lure.
Jesse checks on Edgar. He’s getting ready to roll. He apes the form of the bowler next to him, but his ball still ends up in the gutter. The clatter of falling pins from the other lanes is as sharp and startling as firecrackers. It bounces off the high arched ceiling and returns twice as loud.
Johona replaces Jesse’s empty bottle with a full one.
“On me,” she says.
“Thanks.”
“Where you from?”
“Guess.”
“Not here. Somewhere down South?”
“West Virginia. But it’s been a while since I’ve been back.”
“So you live in Phoenix now?”
“Passing through. Got work in Denver.”
“Doing what?”
“Construction.”
“Construction?” Johona says. “You’re as pale as a ghost. Give me your hand.”
She runs her thumbs over Jesse’s palm, his fingers. He remembers Claudine’s touch and breaks a little inside.
“You aren’t a construction worker,” she says.
“What am I then?” Jesse says.
“You’re a bank robber.”
“You get a lot of bank robbers in here?”
“No, but we get a hell of a lot of construction workers. I’m on the lookout for something more exciting.”
“Exciting can go different ways.”
“At this point, I’m up for anything.”
Two drunks at the end of the bar call for another round. Jesse forces himself to get up when Johona goes off to serve them. He could stay here all night, watching her and seeing Claudine, but what’s the point? She’s not Claudine. Claudine’s dead. He joins Edgar, who’s sitting at the scorekeeper’s desk and drawing stick figures on the acetone sheet, grinning to see them projected overhead.
“Ready to get your ass whupped?” Jesse says. He picks up a ball, hefts it.
“You ain’t no good,” Edgar says. “You ain’t no better’n me.”
They start a game. Every once in a while Jesse looks toward the bar and catches a glimpse of Johona, and every time it makes him smile. Even better, once or twice he catches her looking at him, and she’s smiling too.