1.7 A Vagabond Howls

     I need to tell you something. It’s about that day, long ago, when the winter clouds couldn’t stop the sun from burning your house down. The smoke billowed so high up the state declared your neighborhood a dead zone. That didn’t stop your friends from roasting marshmallows on your postbox like a family of train hoppers. I was carrying on a conversation with a thin, vapid boy at the bodega when the sirens went off, and I didn’t pay them much mind. It gave me a reason to leave him be, but other than that, I felt nothing. Just another siren for another burn victim. His name was Colin or Caleb, I’m not sure. He couldn’t keep his feet in one place for more than a sentence and his arm was dotted with tattoos of tiny Mussolini portraits that he insisted were ironic. He was speaking directly to me but refused to look away from the television in the bodega window, showing one of those ice cream ads that had basically become pornography for people like him. I hated him. I truly hated him. At that moment, outside the bodega, he embodied every single thing I despise about this city. I’ve never wanted to kill a man, but if I had the capacity to feel the urge, I certainly would have felt it that day. 

I wandered up and down the Townhill blocks like a mouse in a maze but without the urgency. I didn’t care where I ended up, just that it was somewhere other than where I was at the moment. An old station wagon rolled by as I rounded a corner and it burst into flames. I stood and watched as a mother pulled her children out and grabbed groceries from the back before calmly walking away from the blaze. I kept watching the fire as it licked out from the windows and wrapped around the roof like sheets in the wind. A man in rags tried to grab a handful of magazines from the back before they caught fire, but the heat was too much for him and he gave up, spitting on the sizzling hood as he strolled away. I didn’t realize it then, but the fire wasn’t just where you could see it. Everybody was cooking inside. Colin, or Caleb, or whatever the hell his name was. The mother and her kids. Me. We were all slowly simmering. If you looked close enough, you could see the first few bubbles on our skin before we started boiling. 

I kept walking until I got to the empty lot where they used to bring the circus. A few burned-out vehicles were parked there, but there was no sign of the carnival. I remember the chaos when the wagons caught fire. They rolled through the crowd, burning as they went. Four or five tents were set ablaze before the carts burned out. That was really when it all started I guess. The cold station. The mandatory air conditioning. No buildings higher than two stories. You told me you had to move because your apartment was on the third floor. I thought they would condemn the higher floors, but they just cut the damn buildings in half. Anyway, this isn’t about that. 

I stood outside of the lot for almost an hour, just staring. I felt like a flat tire. I felt like four flat tires on the burnt-out husk of an old Lincoln Town Car. I threw the wrapper of the candy bar I picked up at the bodega into the lot to see how quickly it would catch. Before it hit the ground, it was a ball of fire. Once the pool is overflowing, what’s another drop right? It was close to sundown by the time I got to the museum, but they still let me in. They don’t really enforce those rules anymore, they’re just happy anyone is there at all. This is really what I needed to tell you. I paced through the halls like a bored ghost, not looking as much as I was haunting. It didn’t matter, I was the only one there anyway. It wasn’t until I reached the romantics that I stopped floating through the desolate ziggurat of creativity. I saw you there. Not you, of course. You were in the back of a coldbox ambulance. But it was you. And me. Three hundred years ago. We were sitting on a blanket, draped over a downed redwood. You were laughing, and I was holding a strawberry up like an alien parasite. Over our heads were a dozen tendrils of the sky, just like they were before the shell cracked and they melted away over the Atlantic. You never liked the tendrils. You said the shadows would ruin your tan. Someone painted us back then. Before we knew what we were. Neither one of us had died yet. In fact, I died that day. I had forgotten that. Food poisoning. I stayed in that museum all night. Most of the halls aren’t prepared for nighttime visitors, so one of the guards gave me a flashlight. I asked him if the light would damage the paintings and he said “Hell if I know. They’ll burn up soon anyway, have at it.” 

I found us again, but this was twenty years after I first died. You still hadn’t. I was leaning on your wheelchair, out on a dock somewhere. The water before us was a bright clear blue. Do you remember when it used to look like that? Blue as blueberries. Not the rusted metal color it is now. You could even fish from it without sludge nets. Just a rod, a line, and a hook. Your beard was long, and I had a mess of tangled purple hair, pinned back with a dozen bobby pins. I don’t remember how old you were, but that must have been the furthest apart we’ve ever been. I can’t believe I was still hanging around with you. 

I couldn’t find us again until a painting from two hundred years ago. I was swinging an axe down on a chunk of wood and you were sinking a hoe into the dirt behind me. Healthy crops bloomed all around, and a delicate line of smoke curled up from the cabin before us. I remember that one. I’ve never been as happy as I was in those days. We were perfect there, with all of our mistakes and our fumblings. I couldn’t build a fire to save my life, and our corn didn’t take year after year until finally it did. That was when we talked about kids, and whether or not we could handle seeing them go as we live on. We decided that we couldn’t, and I think we were right. Now I know we were right. The cabin had a porch so small that when you were in your rocking chair, I would have to climb out of the window to join you because your chair would block the door. I remember the trees the most. They towered over us, reaching towards what would be their demise. I used to talk to them. I don’t think you ever knew that. I would walk out some nights and sit with them. I thought it was foolish even then, and more so now, but it calmed me. On nights when I would have a bit too much to drink, I would give them voices and carry on a conversation with myself.

We reappeared one hundred and fifty years ago, in a beachside hovel. I like to call them the dark years. It was during our “thousand beaches” venture, that ended in a bar brawl and fifteen stitches in a hospital in the Philippines. I didn’t think he would actually hit me when I said what I said. If I could go back and do something different, that would be number one on the list. We didn’t speak for almost three years after that. It was the longest I had ever been away from you. At least as far as I could remember. The painting is right before the fight. We’re leaning against an old wooden shack, I think it was where we were sleeping, and our dog is waiting patiently to play fetch. My head is bowed low, stick gripped tightly in my hand. You’re looking straight up. I was careless with you then, and I still hate part of myself for it. I hate beaches, sure, but that wasn’t enough to act the way I acted those years. There’s sand piled on the corners of your dress in the painting. I remember piling it there to tease you, but you just looked away and left it. It was more than just the sand, I realize that now. I had piled so much on you that you couldn’t move. The emotional weight you were under could split a mountain in two, and I somehow thought we were still a partnership. You were dragging me along like a dead body. I’m sorry for those years. That apology means so little in the shadow of it all, but I offer it up nonetheless. 

The last painting of us was a hundred years ago. We’re on the deck of one of those short-lived airship tours. Do you remember those? The cities had begun to heat up at that point, and to bring people in they offered free tours aboard those rickety sky ships. I heard it cost fifteen grand just to keep the deck cool, but somehow empty apartments started filling up just because of a silly tour. I guess it was worth it. Locals used them all the time just for the cool air. Elise was with us. She was only four or five at the time. We’re holding her arms up as she swings her legs wildly. It was closer than any of the other paintings. Her face was perfect. It was like she was looking right at me. I cried for nearly an hour, looking back at her. I will never forget holding her hand, in our ramshackle two-bedroom apartment. She was eighty, and we were a youthful twenty-something-year-old couple. She was so confused. All we could do was tell her everything was going to be alright. It wasn’t much comfort, coming from strangers.

I don’t know why I’m sending you this. It’s been ten years since we’ve spoken. No one else will hear me, or believe me, but you know we’re real. This isn’t some sort of a nightmare. We are in this place, and we have always been in this place, and we’ve done so much together. I miss you. I miss the only other person that can’t seem to leave this world. I’m living down in the Wells these days. It’s not bad. It’s cooler at least. If you ever want to talk, just let me know. I’m not going anywhere. 

• A Pilgrim to His Better Half -