She startled, contemplated the glass of clear liquid. “You mean ever?”
He laughed unpleasantly. “No, I mean now. Here and now. In the past two weeks. Anybody try to cross? Anybody try to pay you off?” He grinned. “Or fuck you?”
“Does knifing a guy in the back count?”
It was his turn to startle. “You knifed a guy?”
“God, no,” she said. “I’m just thinking aloud. Your back looks in need of a knife.”
“You’re a beaner, aren’t you?” he said. He was rubbing his hands together, looking her over. “You like it rough, don’t you?”
“I’m a beaner the way you’re a drug dealer, dude. And I’m sure you’ve heard worse. The N-word, for example? Calling somebody a beaner tells me all I need to know about you. You don’t know a damn thing about who I am or where I come from.”
“The N-word?” he said. “You’re thinking it, aren’t you?”
“No, dude, not thinking it, not saying it. I can honestly tell you that not once in my awful, tainted life—not one single, damned time—have I spoken that word or thought it to myself. The men I’ve known with dark skin who’ve treated me like shit? I throw the same words at them I throw at anybody else who does me wrong.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Asshole. Jerk off. Piece of shit. Misogynist. Good-for-nothing. That enough?”
“You started it,” he said, staring down now, biting his bottom lip.
“Nyah, nyah, nyah. You kidding me, right?” She was calm now, collected, or maybe dazed after two weeks alone in the desert keeping a logbook, checking out the beeps that indicated trespass, living alone with her thoughts. “Actually, I’m a mama; that’s what I am. Call me that if you call my anything.”
He took it in as though it was a piece of buttered toast. “I apologize,” he said. “I truly am. I don’t know why I said that. Maybe because you have so much sympathy for them. The beaners.” She laughed in disbelief, hearing him repeat the word, but he looked like he meant it, the apology, with his mouth open so that she could see between his discolored teeth. He arched his brows to indicate sincerity. He sat across from her and poured a second drink. “Boy or girl?”
“Girl. Serena. Haven’t seen her in a very, very long time.” She bit her tongue. The last thing she would do in front of this guy was break down in weepy weakness.
He stared, maybe feeling for her and thinking that he had two weeks to work himself into the condition she was in. “That’s too bad. Beautiful name. She up north?”
“Don’t know,” she said. “I gave her a phone. Don’t know why I can’t bring myself to call the number. Maybe I’m hoping, you know, that it’s still hers? And know that it isn’t? As ridiculous as that sounds. That number has to be long dead. That’s for damn sure.”
She heard what she had just said. “That doesn’t make any sense, does it?” She didn’t know why she was telling him stuff. It’s what isolation did, made her indifferent to a slapstick clown’s opinion. Actually, she thought, he’s good-looking, except for that gap between the teeth. She saw her daughter many years ago sitting on a linoleum floor building a mountain from Lego blocks and climbing it with two fingers. “When I grow up,” she had said, laughing with delight, “I’m climbing to the real top of a real mountain.”
There was a beep from the monitor. Technically, she was on duty until she left, so he let her walk to the console and study the dials. “From the tower east of us. Could be something,” she said. “Might be nothing.” She shrugged. “Animals, I guess.” He laughed. She turned, quick to take offense since she had meant the word literally, just like she said “coyote” literally and something else to indicate smugglers—she hated the dismissive slang her colleagues used every day; she had a code even when down and out—but grinned instead. They were fellow officers, after all. “Story of our lives, eh?” She did a goose-limbed dance back to her chair to amuse him and get loose for the long drive ahead.
He laughed again. “We’re waiting for Godot, Chiquita.”
“Chiquita? I’m bigger than you, asshole,” she said, surprised he knew the reference. Samuel Beckett: She had seen the play in another lifetime but still remembered most of it. Her tone deflated them both. She knew he wanted to fuck her, a farewell fuck. They had had a go once or twice, nothing but comfort food. Hello and goodbye, have a nice two weeks. He knew she knew what he was thinking, but he wasn’t the type to try anything gonzo. She could tell, though, by the way he filled her tumbler to the rim with vodka, that he wanted to get lucky. “Or just drunk.” She said those last three words aloud.
A ticking time bomb. She had spent her life listening to such ticks, waiting for the explosion. “No more,” she said. “That vodka?” she said. “You want me to pour it down the sink? Or you want it?”
He startled again. “You driving out tonight? What’s the hurry?”
She could read the disappointment as if it was a book for kids. “My body is clean of everything but booze,” she said. “I have a daughter. Her name is Serena. I told you that. I’m going to find her, by hook or crook. She might be wondering what’s happened to me. If I give a damn. It’s a scratch I have to itch.” She took a breath. “Or something like that. I’ve been remiss. For a long time. Too long. It’s probably too late. But who knows? If the phone number don’t work, I’ll get up north and look around. Or check out Tulsa. Last time I was up in Fargo, Tulsa was Mecca. The Land of Milk and Honey. It was like an itch everybody had to scratch. Seemed like lots of people head there sooner or later. Hard to figure, right? Tulsa, of all places.” How many nights had she beaten herself to a pulp with guilt? And how many nights had she decided against doing anything at all? I’m not ready, she told herself. Not yet. It was a peculiar taboo.
He considered her words. He nodded. “Only one way to find out, I guess.” He moved her drink to his side of the table. “Do it. Don’t put it off. We all have regrets.”
“Thank you for that,” she said. She could tell he thought she was being strong, doing the right thing, and to help her stay strong had risen above his desires. It made him desirable, but she wasn’t interested. He was still a clown, though she felt vague affection. She didn’t feel strong. Anything but. The odds that the old phone number might reach the daughter abandoned so long ago—under duress, admittedly—weren’t good. It was a fantasy. She knew that. It was probably why she couldn’t bring herself to dial. One shred of dignity still left in the tank. If the number was kaput, she would feel like a funeral that she had to attend every day for the rest of her life. How could she track down a daughter when she herself had been missing in action for so many years? Did she think her daughter was waiting to hear from her?
The monitor beeped again. He stood, stretched, and walked to the barred window to stare outside as if a prisoner doing time. The air conditioner didn’t help much. She could smell her stink. It filled the room. She should have aired out the shack and showered before he arrived. It embarrassed her.
She watched him from where she sat. She could feel a mania coming and fought against it. “North Dakota,” she said. “It’s a good place to go back to. There’re some good people up there. It might not be a place to live a life, but I wouldn’t mind returning there when it’s my time.”
“People nearby,” he said, clicking a fingernail against the monitor’s screen. “Three, maybe four.” He walked to the window.
“You can’t see anybody from there, through that window,” she said. “If they’re there, let them be. Some of the Americans already stateside, some here their entire lives, are filth, but they scream, ‘Send them back where they came from.’ Can you imagine any decent human being shouting such a thing? Such people are filth. Let the ones outside in. They can’t be worse than what we have. It’ll be an improvement.”
He shook his head. “We have to saddle up,” he said. “Who knows? They could be coming after us. Those Marauders and Militias springing up.” He holstered himself, reached for his Glock 47, special made for the border, and a rifle. “You coming?” he said.
“No, dude. I’m not. Happy trails.”
He stared hard at her.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Let it be.” She repeated the name “Serena” in her head like a prayer. She had the number memorized. She wouldn’t let him distract her.
He stood like a statue, clenching and unclenching his fingers.
“I’m off duty,” she said. “Don’t go after nobody. Call a drone. If you must.”
“I need the job,” he said. “They don’t just monitor them. They monitor us too. You know that. Things have changed. This ain’t a democracy.”
She shrugged. “It is, for me. A democracy of one. Stay safe,” she said.
He left without goodbye. She heard him fire up the ATV. It backfired, gained traction, and roared into the desert. She decided she would go to North Dakota first, and then, if she had no luck, to Tulsa. Or maybe stop first in Tulsa, which wasn’t that far away. The city had been her mother’s Holy Grail. “Everything copacetic there, Ava,” she had said, daydreaming. “The Police are professional. The housing affordable. The people friendly.”
“Oh, yeah?” Ava had said, stoned, cynical. “Sounds like bliss.”
