The Other Mr. Bax (19 page)

F
rom a distance, the growth resembled
a tight cluster of cactuses, but as Roland and Joyce drew nearer, it became obvious that it was all one massive plant, over thirty feet in height.

The day had begun in a lazy fashion, with no agenda—sipping coffee in bed, lingering as they sometimes do on weekend mornings. The two mulled over various incentives for leaving the sack—breakfast being the clincher. The hike, afterwards, to Twin Peaks, just over two miles southeast of their backdoor, was Roland’s idea.

They’d made that same trek in the past, hiking the res regularly since moving there, just north of it, five years earlier, but had kept more to the east of where they now were. Sharing an interest in their environment, they were both familiar with the cactus standing before them. Most everyone living in the Southwest knew, by name, the giant saguaro cactus—the stereotypical cactus of cowboy movie, cartoon, Marlboro-man fame—with its distinctive, thick, spiny trunk and its multiple raised arms. Beyond its common name, however, Roland’s knowledge of it and most other desert plants was substantially limited. He slipped the daypack from his back and dug out the field guide he kept in a side pocket. After finding the cactus listed in the index, then flipping through its pages, he came to a picture with only a passing resemblance to the example before him.

“They can grow to a height of fifty feet.” He lifted his eyes from the book, and looked again at the cactus. “Odd that we haven’t noticed it before, don’t you think?”

“Right here in our back yard,” Joyce automatically offered, as she wandered off toward a circle of small boulders.

He gazed northward, toward Mineral Butte, roughly two miles away, and feigned puzzlement. “Did it grow?”

“Did what grow?” Joyce said, her back to him.

“Hel-loo… fifty feet.”

“Hey, look at this.”

“Just talking to myself,” Roland said..

Joyce twisted around. “Fifty feet? What’d yourself have to say to
that
?”

He shook his head. “You don’t want to know,” he said, “it’d freak you out.”

“Probably would,” she said. “But, really, look at this.”

He returned the book to his daypack then went to see what had Joyce’s attention.

“Oh,” he said, “I think it’s a medicine wheel. I read about these somewhere. The four spokes are set to the points on a compass… or the stars.”

“What’s it for?”

“Well, okay, I didn’t actually read it, I just looked at the pictures.”

Joyce pointed toward the toe of her shoe. “A cigarette butt.” A set of footprints led off toward the gully. The mountains in the south were miles away, resembling mere hills from where they stood. About midway between them and the mountains, perhaps five miles from where they stood, was a Pima village, which they were both familiar with.

A long walk
, Roland thought.

The house he and Joyce had built in ‘94 was located less than a quarter-mile north of the Gila River Indian Reservation. Attracted to the idea of having that vast expanse of wilderness immediately to the south of them, while at the same time, being conveniently close to Phoenix, they’d purchased the seventy acre parcel bordering the reservation, along Olberg Road. The Pima Indians had lived there for over two thousand years, their population changing only a little in that time. Roland thus concluded that any land development directly south of theirs was unlikely in his lifetime, and perhaps ever. They would forever live at the edge of civilization.

“We’re far from… everything.” Roland peered back over his shoulder.

Joyce pivoted, scanning the distance around them. Mineral Butte, to the northwest, was like a homing beacon, visible for miles. Two-thirds of the butte’s flat top was level, but the eastern end angled up about twenty degrees, making the elevation at that end ten-feet higher, creating a distinct landmark, resembling a giant lopsided molar.

Roland stepped over alongside Joyce and looked off in the same direction she was looking.

“You getting hungry?”

“What time do you suppose it is?”

As neither had bothered strapping on a watch that morning, he glanced up toward the sun and guessed. “About two… or two-thirty.”

“A little,” she said.

“If I’d said four or five, would you’ve said, a lot?”

“What are you…? I’m not even going to answer that.” She turned and marched off toward the butte. Roland moved into step behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder. “I would have said, eat me.” She tripped over a rock, stumbled, but then recovered.

“And I’m sure you’d mean it in a nice way.”

“Whatever.” A small lizard scampered across her path and hid in the shadow of another rock. “Huh…”

“What?”

She stopped, turned, and pointed. “A plant that big… I don’t really think of cactus as being trees. I guess they are though, right?” She twisted back around and walked on. “How long do you think it took to get that tall?”

“About a hundred years per twenty feet”—a fact he’d only just read. “I’d guess that one’s around two hundred years old.”

She again stopped and turned toward the cactus. “They live that long, huh? Lewis and Clark could’ve been pricked by it.”

“You mean Lewis and Holflapper?”

“What?”

“Lewis and Clark were never this far south.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t mean… I meant the cactus was here… should they’ve chosen to come this way, and… Duh.”

“They didn’t though.”

Joyce met Roland’s eyes with a stern look—“Probably scared of being pricked”—then spun around and marched on. Over her shoulder, she added, “And being that you’re so mean, you can make lunch.”

Back at the house, Roland removed his hiking boots, slipped on a pair of sneakers, then went into the living room and put on some music. The room filled with the opening chords of a Schubert string quartet. He then returned to the kitchen where Joyce was quaffing a glass of water.

“So, what do you feel like?” he said.

“I’m hungry. I could eat just about anything.”

“Something quick and easy then. A veggie rollup and soup?”

“Cream of broccoli.”

“How about, whatever’s in the can?”

“Yummy. I’ll be upstairs. I want to send Brenda a quick e-mail.”

“They still in Vancouver?”

“They were coming back today,” she said.

A wave of energy spread up through Roland’s body, ending with a gentle burst of tingling across his forehead. He stood there for a moment, intrigued by the sensation.

“You okay?”

“A déjà vu… what you just said about the e-mail, and then Vancouver. That whole thing.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve had a lot of those lately… and synchronicities. Like that mummy thing I was telling you about. Remember? Mummies popping up over and over, the other day.”

Joyce smiled.

“Don’t laugh. It could be a tear in the fabric of reality, which may not be pretty.”

“You want to see something not pretty? How about your wife lying on the floor, dead… from lack of nourishment.”

“Right, that don’t sound purdy.” He opened the refrigerator and pulled open the veggie bin. Without looking up he said, “Don’t want dead women lying about… git’n in my way an’all.”

Joyce left the room, shaking her head.

“About fifteen minutes,” he called.

Roland rummaged through the corner cabinet until he found a can of soup, which he set on the counter by the stove. He washed some vegetables, then began slicing and chopping them. As the first movement of the string quartet ended, a whistling, like a distant teapot, drew his attention. It grew louder, but he could not decide from what direction it was coming. He stopped, turned….
The stereo
? The noise exploded in volume, squealing like tires burning across pavement. The knife he’d been using fell to the floor. He grasped for the countertop in front of him, but missed, swiping only the air. A glint of bright light struck his eyes. He thought of a mushroom cloud, from a film he’d seen, and a house peeling from the earth and then tumbling, everything tumbling; he remembered mowing the grass in the backyard, singing and marching, a wood-pile with organ stops hidden throughout it, the voices described black on ivory, a fat bumble bee, swings on a playground, leaves swirling, a photon floating by. Then, all at once—
Thump!

His heels punched into the sand. His back slammed to the ground, causing something to shift in his head. Everything began to spin, and sink, spiraling, sinking into a smog of gray, growing denser and darker as he fell farther, and farther still, until there was nothing left but a single note, a hum.

D
ana’s mother, Clara, placed the last four pizzas
in the oven to bake. Four had just been removed and placed upon a rack to cool. Another four, cooled enough to be wrapped in foil for freezing, were waiting on the counter top. These pizzas, anchovy pizzas as Clara called them, were not pizzas in the usual sense—flat and round with cheese on top—but were large, log-shaped rolls with a flaky texture, similar to a croissant. They’d made twenty-eight, all total, most of which were wrapped and ready for storage.

Food played a central role in the Serrano family tradition—everything made from scratch—with mothers and daughters spending days together manufacturing quantities of food. Dana could still recall her first time helping; she was six or seven, and had begged to be included. But then, as she got older, she and her sisters would plot ways to escape what had come to be seen as a day lost to slavery, especially the ravioli days. Now though, she saw it as a form of therapy, a chance to bring up stuff that so often got pushed to side: things that Roland showed little interest in hearing, or maybe lacked the capacity to understand. As the cooler weather arrived, she would arrange to spend a day a week helping her mother cook-up copious amounts of lasagna, stuffed shells, fresh pastas, raviolis, or pizzas.

While the last of the pizzas were baking, Clara opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses as Dana sliced one of the still-warm pizzas. They sat across from each other at the kitchen table and offered up their ritual toast to abundance. Dana particularly enjoyed this tradition; she, for the most part, enjoyed cooking and spending time with her mom. And then, at the end of the day, there was the bounty to split up—each pizza representing a night off from cooking.

With the day behind her, Dana gave her mom a hug, and a kiss on the cheek, then hauled her share of the pizzas to the car. She started the engine, then turned on the headlights. It was that time of day when car lights seem inadequate in penetrating the approaching night—dark but not dark enough; leaves tumbling across the road could be field mice or frogs. As the car accelerated up the rural road, a chilly breeze lifted a slip of paper from the dash and whipped it into the backseat. The warm, yeasty aroma of fresh baked pizza replaced the cool swamp air from outside as the windows went up.

She made a left onto Main Street, drove another two blocks, then pulled into her driveway and stopped to unload. With a bag in each hand, she hooked a finger through the handle of the storm door, pulled it open enough to sneak a foot in, then gave it a fling with her knee and slipped through into the dark, quiet house.

She set the bags down, then turned and flipped the light switch behind her. “I’m home!” She listened. “Hello. Don’t bother answering if you’re hiding in the closet with another woman.” She stood in the kitchen, peering down the length of the house into the living room at the front end. “Roland?”

A murmur—the rhythm of a conversation came from somewhere beyond the walls of the front room. Two voices talking about the Y2K bug, a coming cold snap, or maybe a sale on rump roast at the IGA. The voices drifted apart, then a few short, sharp words, a thump, and another dull—
thump
—the kind of thing you learn to ignore when living across the street from a busy post office.

Dana returned to her car, drove it around back, and parked it in the garage, alongside Roland’s. She stepped outside to a clear night—the sky, moonless, the overhead-door rumbling down behind her. The autumn air was a welcome break from the hot kitchen she’d spent the day in. She took her time returning to the house, lingering a few moments near the back porch. She found the Big Dipper above the peak of the neighbor’s house, then shifted toward the streak of a meteorite, catching just a fleeting glimpse as it vanished in the west.

Hauling the pizzas to the freezer in the cellar, she passed through Roland’s makeshift studio, where a long, wooden bench was pushed against the wall. Partially crushed tubes of oil paint, pencils, papers, rags, and brushes were scattered over its surface. The scent of linseed oil was always present. A new painting, not yet signed, was clamped to an easel standing in the corner. Dana switched on the pair of lamps positioned to either side of it, but even lit, the painting appeared dark. Forms in the background were suspended in a thin, nighttime fog. Their shapes brought to mind the massive boulders she and Roland had sun-bathed on in Sequoia National Park a few years earlier. The painting felt peaceful and calm, while, at the same time, mysterious, as though the dark hues held secrets that may be revealed only through patient observation and only to someone familiar with the language.

She stepped back into the kitchen to check the answering machine for messages. A note, a small yellow post-it, was lying on the desk next to the phone.

“Honey, went for a walk. Will be back soon. XXX”

The answering machine displayed a large, red, glowing zero within its “new messages” counter. She went into the living room, seated herself at the piano, and began picking her way through a piece of music her teacher had given her as an assignment for the week. The piano was a gift from Roland, from two Christmases before. For as far back as she could remember she’d wanted to take lessons, but by the time her parents were in a position to buy a piano, and did, she was seventeen. It was her two youngest siblings, both still in grade school, who scored the lessons, and neither of them could have cared less.

She glanced up and down the keys, spread her fingers into a C-major chord, then E-minor, followed by its seventh, then a G. She closed her eyes and listened as the vibrations faded. There’d never been a happier Christmas than that one. But then, as if the two were linked by contrast, she recalled her first Christmas with Roland, her first Christmas away from her family—the blizzard Christmas, the no money, no gifts, no anything, not even a tree Christmas. Roland had planned on taking her to Indiana to meet his family and spend the holiday there, but then the snow came, tons of it, and there was no going anywhere for days.

The memory of that old house in Kempton was part of a package—the bizarre dinner invitation from Roland, the birth of their relationship, the autumn of ‘83, memories chasing memories—an unraveling of images, people and places, the faded remnants, now just fleeting impressions of what had once been real.

Above the piano was a small, framed lithograph—one Roland had claimed he’d hung to inspire her. It was a simple line drawing, conveying a straightforward spontaneity—a light, comical quality, the stripped-down essence of a character. At first, she didn’t know what to think of it, but over time she became comfortable with it, and even fond of it, though she couldn’t say with any honesty she was ever inspired by it.

She pushed away from the piano, went back to the kitchen. The clock on the stove read 9:17. The note Roland had left her was still lying on the desk where she’d left it. She reread it, but it offered no more than it had the first time she’d read it—too short and simple to be misconstrued.

Two hours
, she thought.

Returning the note to the desk, she glanced toward the window overlooking the backyard. Only the reflection of the room where she now stood was visible.

Walking in the dark
?
Alone
?
Why
?
Is something bothering you
?

She lowered herself into a chair at the table—her fingernails tapping the surface of the tabletop, a blank gaze in her eyes as she drummed and searched her mind. But nothing came.

Leaving the chair, she wandered through the house, hunting a distraction. She picked up a paperback, plopped down into a thickly cushioned armchair in the living room and began reading from where she’d left off. She read for almost half an hour, but the nagging awareness of Roland’s uncharacteristic behavior made it difficult to remain in the story. She set the book down and picked up the TV remote.

Because they’d never subscribed to a cable service—one of Roland’s eccentricities, which Dana had reluctantly agreed to—there were only three stations she could tune in, and only after fiddling with a pair of rabbit ears. Switching back and forth between her limited options, she disregarded the less-than-perfect reception and settled on a snowy sitcom—amazed at the sacrifices one makes in the name of love and compromise.

The flickering images on the TV proved more effective at keeping the ghosts at bay than the book had. Commercials interrupted her program—so many that it became unclear as to what was interrupting what. The device, nonetheless, worked its magic, so she stayed with it, while a subtle but persistent foreboding continued nibbling at the edges of her mind.

As the next commercial arrived, she pushed herself up from her seat, went to the kitchen and again checked the clock—
10:18
.

What the fuck
?

She stood over the stove, glaring at the four annoying digits, while various hypothesis competed in her mind, with conflicts resulting in dissolution, leaving mostly holes. She stepped over to the phone, stared at it as though willing it to ring, the muffled chatter of the TV mocking its silence. She considered calling her mother, but then realized she’d be in bed. She thought of her older sister Mary—
She’ll think I’m being ridiculous
—and then her brother.
Maybe I am being ridiculous
. It had only been a few hours, after all.

She stepped out the back door onto the dimly lit porch, where a cool, light breeze swept in from across the tiny backyard. The chirping of a cricket hiding in the flowers near her feet drew her attention. As if in denial of the season, the ground cover bordering the walkway held onto a sprinkle of tiny pink blossoms.

She sighed. “Stupid note.” A gentle dong came from the wind chimes hanging next to her, as if in agreement.
He just screwed up on the
“
soon
”
part of it
, she thought.
Patience
.

Rubbing the chill from her arms, she returned to the house, poured herself a vodka and tonic, then slouched on the couch in front of the TV. The image of a young boy jumping from a boat dock into a lake glowed on the tube—a life insurance commercial. She pointed the remote toward the TV and selected a different station—the local PBS, an animal documentary. She watched a bird, which resembled a crow, push twigs into the ground with its beak. The bird constructed a wall around what appeared to be a pile of bones and other small white objects. Its construction brought to mind a cage; it even had an arched opening from which the animal could enter and leave. She watched, taking occasional sips from her drink. As interesting as the program was, Roland’s absence continued to plague her mind. She countered with a sip of vodka, then stretched out on the sofa and watched with fresh determination as some brutish, furry creature, for no apparent reason, annihilated the structure the bird had worked so hard at creating.

The day had piled up hour upon hour. As she dozed off, the bird on the TV screen began rebuilding. In her last moment of consciousness, she imagined herself being awakened by Roland, returning from his walk.