Fires. Essays, Poems, Stories

happened: Little Judith, who couldn't swim a stroke, came up missing. We figured she fell overboard during the night. What she was doing up on deck so late, or what caused her to fall overboard, neither Tomds nor I know. All we know is that the next morning she was gone and neither of us saw anything or heard her cry out. She simply disappeared. That is the truth, so help me, and what I told the police when we put in at Guaymas a few days later. My wife, I told them—for luckily we'd married just before leaving San Francisco. It was to have been our honeymoon trip.
    T said things have changed since Harry's death. Now here I am n Mazatlan and Tomis is showing me some of the sights. Things you never thought existed back in the States. Our next stop is Manzanillo, Tomis's home town. Then Acapulco. We intend to keep going until the money runs out, then put in and work for a while, then set out again. It occurs to me that I'm doing things the way Harry would have wanted. But who can tell about that now?
    Sometimes I think I was born to be a rover.
    THE PHEASANT
    Gerald Weber didn't have any words left in him. He kept quiet and drove the car. Shirley Lennart had stayed awake at first, for the novelty of it more than anything, the fact of being alone with him for any length of time. She'd put several cassettes on to play—Crystal Gayle, Chuck Mangione, Willie Nelson—and then later, toward morning, had begun dialing the radio from one station to another, picking up world and local news, brief weather and farm reports, even an early morning question-and-answer program on the effects of marijuana smoking on nursing mothers, anything to fill in the long silences. From time to time, smoking, she looked across at him through the dark gloom of the big car. Somewhere between San Luis Obispo and Potter, California, a hundred and fifty miles or so from her summer house at Carmel, she gave up Gerald Weber as a bad investment - she'd made others, she reflected wearily—and fell asleep on the seat.
    He could hear her ragged breathing over the sound of the air that rushed by outside. He turned off the radio and was glad for the privacy. It had been a mistake to leave Hollywood in the middle of the night for a three-hundred-mile drive, but that night, two days before his thirtieth birthday, he'd felt at loose ends and suggested that they drive up to her beach house for a few days. It was ten o'clock and they were still drinking martinis, though they'd moved out to the patio that overlooked the city. "Why not?" she'd said, stirring the drink with her finger and looking at him where he stood against the balcony railing. "Let's. I think it's the best idea you've had all week," licking the gin off her finger.
    He took his eyes off the road. She didn't look asleep, she looked unconscious, or seriously injured—as if she'd fallen out of a building. She lay twisted in the seat, one leg doubled under and the other hanging over the seat almost to the floor. The skirt was pulled above her thighs, exposing the tops of the nylons, the garter
    belt, and the flesh in between. Her head lay on the arm rest and her mouth was open.
    It had rained off and on through the night. Now, just as it began to turn light, the rain stopped, although the highway was still damp and black and he could see small puddles of water lying in the depressions in the open fields on either side of the road. He wasn't tired yet. He felt all right, considering. He was glad to be doing something. It felt good to sit there behind the wheel, driving, not having to think.
    He had just turned off the headlights and decreased his speed a little when he saw the pheasant out of the corner of his eye. It was flying low and fast and at an angle that might take it into the path of the car. He touched the brake, then increased his speed and tightened his grip on the wheel. The bird struck the left headlamp with a loud thunk It spun up past the windshield, trailing feathers and a stream of shit.
    "Oh my God," he said, appalled at what he'd done.
    "What's happened?' she said, sitting up heavily, wide-eyed and startled.
    "I hit something.. .a pheasant." He could hear the glass from the broken headlamp tinkling on the pavement as he braked the car.
    He pulled onto the shoulder and got out. The air was damp and cold and he buttoned his sweater as he bent over to inspect the damage. Except for a few jagged pieces of glass which he tried for a minute with trembling fingers to loosen and work