Now Is the Hour (67 page)

The crack of lightning is a bony hand up from the earth. Thunder, crash.

That quick, George's goodbye note is gone.

On the pavement, it's my shadow.

I lift my chin up, make my head so the shadow of my head looks like my head is an alien being's big round head.

Alien.

You can always tell how you're feeling by how your shadow looks.

That's when I see it on the horizon. Coming from the east. A glint of sunlight on the windshield. A car.

I zip up all the zippers, button up all the buttons, quick put my arms through the straps of my backpack, square it up my shoulders. I pull my hat down, step off the gravel up onto the asphalt, plant my feet firm. This guy's going to have to run me over if he's going to pass me by.

I stick my thumb out.

The car is two miles away, ten miles. Out in the desert, in all this infinity, there's no way to tell. My eyes are squinting, and I have my hand over my eyes. I can't see the car anymore, and I begin to think the car is just one more heat puddle on a hot day. Then just like that, the car pops up out of nowhere. A tiny toy car far away. The sunlight is bright on its windshield again. Only this time I can see two sections of windshield. The center post of the windshield making two sunshine glints. That center post in the windshield only in old cars before cars got modern with the windshield one piece of glass.

The color of the car is the color of the rest of the desert. It's gray or brown or sage green or sandy or beige. Then the car dips down, and for a long time again it's gone.

When it pops up again, the car is close enough for me to see it's an old Ford.

A '49 gray Ford.

I'd recognize that car anywhere.

From behind me, the half of the sky that's dark and full of lightning and thunder and rain is coming at me as fast as George's car is coming at me out of the sun.

Thunderbird, eye of lightning, grant us peace.

Part of me wants to run into the sagebrush and hide.

Another part wants to start running toward George.

Another part says, Hold your fucking horses. That may be his car, but that doesn't mean it's George.

He's probably sold his car to someone else for a case of gin.

Something else, though.

The weirdest thing.

It's uncanny and immediate.

Out there in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the road, I'm having a very good parade.

So I'm trying to stuff it down inside my pants when George's car comes over the last rise not fifty feet away from me.

It's George all right who's in the car.

He's probably not alone, though. He's probably got some cowboy with him in a big hat and a turquoise belt buckle.

Then I'm crying, and that quick I stop crying. I'd rather die than cry.

It's too late to run into the bush, so I just stand there.

When George pulls up, I look inside.

As far as I can see, he is alone. Around his head, the red tie.

The radio's on. The song is “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” George reaches over, with his long, beautiful, cinnamon brown fingers turns the radio down.

Morning, sunshine, George says. Going my way?

Fuck.

My good parade is very good and poking up my pants.

What are you doing here? I say.

What are
you
doing here? George says.

Then I'm kicking in the side of George's door. While I'm kicking his door, I'm not quite sure why I'm doing it.

Then: Motherfucker! I yell. You said you'd wait! You didn't wait! Where the fuck were you?

I don't wait for George to answer, I stomp off in the direction of San Francisco. Wind and rain ahead, you can almost see the line of rain crossing over the desert.

George's car pulls up alongside. The big, black wheels, the engine heat, so close. That quick, the rain hits. It's pouring down in buckets.

George hollers through the car: Rig! George says. Get in! Let's have a cigarette.

Something explodes in me, and I'm pulling off my backpack and I'm around the car at George's window. It's like running through a car wash. Still, I can't figure why it is I'm doing this, but, still, I lean back, and with all my weight my fist heads straight for George's jaw.

And misses.

George grabs my arm, pulls with both his hands, and in seconds flat the top half of me is in the car, the other half, my legs, are outside kicking in the rain.

It's easy to tell about something after it's over, but while it's happening, it's all just one thing after another flipping past your eyes.

The car is still running, and the car is in gear, and the way we are thrashing around, I know we're not on the road. My head is on the floor on the passenger side. From that angle, looking up, George's face is some Picasso painting.

Somehow I get up, and I'm sitting in the seat. There's no way to see out the windows. Sagebrush after sagebrush scrape up against the car. George is yelling at me, but I can't hear what he is yelling. All I'm thinking is the son of a bitch didn't show, and I land a punch smack in his mouth. His head goes back, and blood comes out his nose. I quick go for the door handle. I'm out the door, I'm on the ground, I'm sliding across the mud in the rain. George's hands slap down on my shoulders, and in nothing flat I'm flying. I'm on my back. George has my arms pinned behind me.

George is on top. He lifts his knee and puts his knee on my chest.

Both of us are breathing hard.

It ain't like on television when you fight. You have to catch your breath.

When George speaks, his eyes look away to just above my head.

When things are hard to say.

Rig, George says. What's going on? Why are you treating me this way?

George and I in the rain in the mud. The wet red tie. The beads of rain on his face.

I hate the tears. I can't wipe the tears away.

You said you'd be at Granny's house, I say.

George's perfect dark, black eyes. The gold bars.

I waited, George says. All that day and the night too. When you weren't there in the morning, I took off.

What I say next are words that spit out of me all over George's face.

I would have waited for
you,
I say. I wouldn't have ever stopped waiting.

George lifts his knee off my chest. He lets go of my arms. He sits back on his haunches, looks up into the rain.

I started shaking again, George says. I couldn't stop. I didn't know what to do.

The rain beads up on George's face, rolls down.

You didn't get drunk, did you? I say.

I had a couple, George says.

Two beers, George says. Then I just said, Fuck it, and hit the road. I was in Salt Lake at a truck stop when I opened the
Idaho State Journal.

Rig, George says. Why didn't you tell me you were in trouble?

That wasn't trouble, I say. You were trouble.

Then: What's with this rain? I say.

Thunderbird, George says. He ain't through with us yet.

What's going to be left of us when he's through? I say.

My hand inside George's brown hand. He gives me a pull up. Mud all over on us.

Come on, he says. Let's get in the car.

The car. Both doors open wide, the windshield wipers going. The radio's on.

George has to rock the car back and forth while I'm on the back bumper, pushing. It takes us awhile, but we get out of the hole. I get in the car quick before we get stuck again. George floors it through the rest of the sagebrush, and once we go into a fishtail I don't think we'll ever get out of.

We do, though.

After I pick up my backpack, we're driving down a shiny black ribbon of road.

West. California. California. San Francisco, California.

George reaches across, opens the jockey box. Inside is a carton of Camels and matches. George gets out a pack, opens the pack with his teeth. He taps a cigarette out. I put the match to the cigarette.

George's perfect French inhale. A couple times. Then he hands the cigarette to me.

Our fingers touch.

I take a deep drag. I wasn't going to smoke no more, and here I'm smoking.

How'd you find me? I say.

Your girlfriend was at the hospital, George says. She said to tell you Simone sends her love. She said to tell you that she'll always keep
her promise. And she told me you were on your way to San Francisco.

There's only two ways from Pocatello to get to San Francisco, George says, the short way and the long way. I figured you'd take the short way.

Maybe it's a miracle I found you in the desert, George says. Like the Mormons.

George's face is real serious. Even when you laugh real hard, he doesn't crack a smile.

Outside my window, through the rain, way far out on the horizon, a big old ray of sun.

I'm seventeen, I say. And you're thirty-five.

That's right, George says.

I'm just a kid, I say. Won't be long, and you'll be bored with me.

Or you with me, George says.

I hand the cigarette to George. His drag is long. We're going to hot-box this one for sure.

I'm a minor, I say. And I've already spent a night in jail. The police could be looking for me.

Could be, George says.

I could get you in a lot of trouble, I say.

You already have, George says.

That's when I notice.

George's head is shaved again, slick and shiny. The red tie around his head.

I put my hand on the top of his head, let my palm lie there.

I thought I lost you, George says. At this rate I'll never have any hair.

George hands the cigarette to me.

Our fingers touch.

Moments of gesture.

Things are dizzy, the way they look when your breath is knocked out.

I'm not going to Vietnam, I say. That'll mean the feds will be after me too.

There's a way we can get around that, George says.

Under my hat, there's nubs of hair. I check the knot on the red tie.

You hate white people, I say. I'm white people.

You're more pink than you are white, George says.

I hand the cigarette back to George.

Our fingers touch.

The windshield wiper on George's side is a regular swipe back and forth. The windshield wiper on my side lies there and twitches like something trying to die.

The heat's on too because we're wet. The heater's so loud you can't hear yourself think.

What about your drinking? I say.

What about yours? he says.

I'm not the one who said he was going to stop, I say.

Quiet. Like you've disappeared quiet. Just the windshield wiper dying and the heater.

You're right on there, George says. I fucked up. I won't be doing it again. Promise.

Static on the radio. I'm flipping through, trying to find a station.

George has never lied to me so far.

He hands me the cigarette.

Our fingers touch.

The ash is almost an inch long. I flick the ash off into the ashtray.

I'm free, I say. I'm an artist, and I'm traveling the world to discover what's inside.

Me too, George says.

Then: Don't worry, he says. I'm just taking you to San Francisco.

After all, George says, we're
solitary
warriors of love.

But what about Thunderbird? I say. You said he wasn't through with us.

We'll have to wait and see, George says.

As fate will have it.

Then I just can't stand it any longer. I've been all cramped up in my two layers of pants, hot and wet and hard and uncomfortable. I unbutton my Levi's, undo my cutoffs, reach in, pull my shorts away, pull out my cock.

There it is sticking straight out, bobbing around like it's listening to music.

George's big smile comes up from the right side first. His laugh is just like Granny's laugh, only he's got all his teeth. Never seen him do that before.

On the radio, out of the static, all of a sudden, it's Jimi Hendrix singing “Purple Haze.”

Both me and George say at once: Oooh! I love this song.

I reach over, turn the radio up.

George reaches down, puts his hand around my cock.

A gust of Idaho wind gets inside me and blows me around.

Actin' funny, but I don't know why.

George keeps his hand on the wheel. He lowers his head, puts his lips around the head of my cock. Then he's back up, looking me in the eyes. Gold bars in his black eyes. Nothing in between.

'Scuse me while I kiss this guy, George sings.

This guy.

When George smiles, after all this time, when George smiles, it's a miracle what happens in his eyes.

They go a little crazy. One pitched south, the other east.

Another gust of Idaho wind, this time outside the car.

The wind through the windows is a sigh. Deep and quick. The way you catch your breath. Before something happens. You can't do anything to stop.

My exhale settles my body deep into the seat.

I loved God so much right then.

My deep appreciation to my editor, Anton Mueller. Thank you for loving this book so much.

Thank you, Neil Olson of Donadio and Olson, Literary Representatives—twenty years now, Neil, can you believe it?

My thanks to Grey Wolfe and thegolden catalpas, Clyde Hall
un son baisch,
Mendala Marie Graves—how old Mendy Graves? Steve Taylor, Carol Ferris, James Bolton,
El Boy
Joe Rogers and Kate Callahan, Ellie Covan and Dixon Place, Philip Iosca, Luisa Quinoy, Kathleen Lane and Jelly Helm, Geri Doran, Ken and Jane Leeson, Emily and Rachel, Charles Lawrence, Joe Modica, Paulette Osborn, Maria Kozmetatos and the staff at Multnomah County Health Services, Leslee Lewis and Corepilates, Ken Gordon of Ken's Place, Suzy Vitello, Michael Sears, Leslie Sears, Kally Thurman, Jim Erdman, Kathy Hanson, Ashleigh Flynn, Mark Weigle, Larry Colton, Diane Ponti, Ward Green, PK Kozel, Tomas and Liz, Murray Edelman, Robert Hill, Carrie Hoops, Liz Scott, Joanna Rose, Joanna Ponce, Stevan Allred, Kate Grey, Chris Fadden, Queen Butter, Muthani and Jim, Kahunya, Damani, Diane Greenwood, Martin Mueller, the Dickie family, Andre Pruitt, Stevee Postman, David Weissman, Gregory Saks, Ampersand, Jerako, David Ciminello, Ari, Pikkul and Vetivert, Shanna Germain, Jared Germain, John Hinds, Kevin Meyer, Darin Beaseley, Charles Dye, Shannon Chaffe, Tom Chaffe, Zuna, Leo Gulick, Lynn Salcido, John dePasquali, Steve Arndt, Ruth Füglistaller, Paulann Petersen, Elizabeth Snyder, Cupcake and Vicki, Alex Cadell,
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