He didn’t answer, but cast his eyes off into the dark with a look of sadness. She walked over and sat down at the opposite corner of the table, opened her cooler, grabbed two beers, and put one in front of him. “Okay,” she said. “I have pepper spray and a knife with me. Just so you know.” But instead of opening his beer, he put his head in his hands and sighed. “Aw shit,” he mumbled, and then she heard, “It’s over. My time has come. I need a clean minute to wrap my brain around that,” and then he started to cry, head in hands.
She waited. Looked around as if the dark sky would give her some clue as to how to respond. Finally, she ventured, “I’m squatting too. But I’m not on the run from anything except my boring life. Though that felt pretty dangerous, I will say. I think I was in real danger of becoming a TV-watching alcoholic and wasting my days and then dying. I always believed I’d die young, I don’t know why, but regardless of when I do, time is shorter than we think, and I only get this one life, you know? And believe me, wasting the time we do have is a serious fucking danger.” The words came out of her before she could stop them, but somehow they seemed true and necessary.
He looked up, surprised. “You’re not this trailer’s owner?”
“I am not. Some wealthy man in Texas owns this trailer.”
“And he doesn’t know you’re here either?”
She paused. “He does not.” Then, “What’s up with your feet? Why aren’t they cold? That’s weird.”
A smile darted across his face. “My sisters always say the same thing. They hate me for it. My feet, I don’t know what to say about them, they just don’t get cold.”
“They don’t get cold? I’ve never heard of such a thing. All I ever have is cold feet; even in the summer my feet feel cold. It’s like my feet have an air conditioner built into them, meant to torment me.”
He leaned sideways to regard his feet. “I mean, I wear socks and shoes usually. But you pulled up. I grabbed my stuff and ran to the bathroom. But, my feet, they’re just sturdy.”
“I hate you,” she said. “Tell your sisters I agree.”
He laughed. “I got so lonely that I started to talk to them. My feet. Their names are Righty and Lefty. I can’t believe I just told you that. I’m not crazy. Kat, you say?” He paused for a minute, thinking. “Kat. Well. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Kit.”
She snorted, assuming he was joking. Or, rather, lying; after all, she just had. Kit and Kat. But she decided not to press it. Who cared, anyway? He smiled again. “I apologize for my…smell and looks. I haven’t showered in a good long while. I haven’t seen a person in a good long while.”
“Liar,” she said gently. “You have ice. Ice doesn’t just appear in the desert. Where’s your car?”
He started to say something, stopped. “A s— A family member.”
She opened her beer, took a swig, and looked at the stars. “You’re on the run and hiding out and a sister or someone brings you food and ice.” She nodded to herself, knowing it was right.
“An unidentified person,” he clarified. “Maybe it was a UFO. No one else is involved.”
She nodded an okay. “Well, don’t tell me what you did, because then I’ll know, but do tell me—was it really bad? Did you kill someone? Never mind. Tell me. What did you do?”
He shook his head no. Then said, “I’m from Wisconsin.”
She wasn’t sure what to do with that piece of information, so she nodded, pulled her blanket around her, looked at the stars, waited.
“I don’t know much about the desert,” he said. “I’m from Wisconsin. I don’t know how to live here. Or how to, say, get to Mexico.”
She snorted with the clarity of the irony here. He was going the opposite way of so many people. So many people traveled to find safety, and here she was, traveling to lead a less safe life.
“Or how to live a life under the radar?” she asked.
“Yeah, I don’t know much about that either. To answer your question, monkey-wrenching, I guess you’d say. Of the noble sort. A kind of earth justice, shall we say. No one hurt, physically. And let me say right here that I’m not trying to be political. Not left, not right, not nothing.” He stood, as if deciding to run, then sat. Stood again, then sat. Pressed his fingertips to his eyes. “Except I notice that we’re fucking ruining our one home! Do you understand how rare and irreplaceable this planet is? It’s a floating blue ball in space that has just the right conditions to support life and we are fucking it up! It is a horrendous crime, a form of torture and abuse. What we’re doing. Let’s just leave it at that.” This last bit was said with a thickness to his voice, and she knew he was still crying.
She chewed on her lip. “Well, good for you. Probably. Maybe. No doubt it’s complicated.”
He turned to her, his eyes showing surprise. “Thanks, lady,” he said, with real emotion. “We’re running out of time, lady. Planet is, I mean. What you said about your life goes for Mama Earth too, you know.”
When she breathed out softly, the sound coming out of her mouth was still shaky. “That’s the dog’s name. Lady. Lady Shackleton. I stole her from a bad guy. So I guess you could say we both have justice on the mind. Justice that goes beyond this country’s laws.”
“Right on, man.” When he reached out to scratch Lady’s ears, she could see his arm shaking as her voice had.
They both took a deep breath at the exact same time and for the exact same reason. As they did, they caught each other’s eyes and there was a recognition. “I call them the Shakes,” Ammalie said quietly, and he nodded, understanding.
“That was scary,” he said.
“A lot of adrenaline.”
He nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose, then opened his eyes wide, as if that would help him gain some clarity. She could see by the bright lantern-light that his eyes were also green, like hers, but his were like some old rock around here, and they were very sad. She felt the world tilt a little, the result of two gin-and-tonics and the beer and the bath and the adrenaline. “I should go,” she said. “If the law is looking for you…Well, I’m not wanting to get caught myself. I’m on an adventure and was just looking for a place to call home.”
“This world is fucked,” he said, and she assumed he meant whatever environmental destruction he was trying to protest.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m trying to protest the fuckery myself. By going a little crazy.”
“Right on.” He smiled a smile so genuine and young that it made her heart crack.
“How do you stay warm? The propane wasn’t on.” She herself was quite cold, and she suddenly and desperately wanted a fire. Her eyes drifted to the firepit near the picnic table, but it seemed unwise to build a fire in a place so visible from afar.
He followed her gaze, read her thoughts, then jutted his chin toward an outcrop of rocks. “I make fires over there. It’s protected, I don’t think anyone can see it. I don’t want to use up the propane, except in case of a major emergency or something. I’ll make us a fire, if you want.”
“You saw me naked,” she blurted out of the blue. She was truly surprised by this fact and her voicing of it. She tried to explain. “You are the first man besides my husband to see me naked in about thirty years. Can you believe that? I go to female doctors and female massage therapists, so, truly, you are the first man…Wow. That’s insane.”
His eyes went from her to the tub. “Well, you had a towel. And, oh, now I understand! You were taking a bath under the stars!” He was staring like a hungry animal at the big plastic tub of water glistening in the moonlight, then he turned to smile at her with real warmth and respect in his eyes. “Right on. A hot bath would feel kick-ass. A hot bath and a fire. Nothing more fundamentally better than that, right?”
“I’ll heat you up some water,” she said, rising. And that’s exactly what she did as he went to build a fire in the small rock enclave. Then they switched places—he to the bath, she to the fire, and when she caught sight of his naked body from the corner of her eye as he stepped in, she let her gaze linger, both out of curiosity and concern for his slight frame. An old line of poetry floated up in her mind: I’ve been warmed by fires I did not build. The peace she felt looking at him, and then at the stars, and into that fire—it was solid, and it was real.
—
