I ditched the pizza-delivery boy's subcompact behind a Quonset hut of corrugated steel and made for the hills, desirous, you could say, of goodness-feeling good-and thinking maybe I had the night's blessing. For what a fat moon. What a high and ventricular wind, with leaves to tell its secrets. I had: a flashlight (working); two energy bars; an owner's book for the 1992 Festiva (paper for fire); and a John Irving novel (maybe paper for fire, maybe not)-all lifted from the delivery boy's ride. I had also: my lighter, my smokes (they'd need to be rationed); my cell; and my bottom lip to milk for pain in my central incisors.
My fire was no larger than a ballcap, at first, but I worked it. I knelt, applying the lightest of twigs to the core of that burning. And then it got bigger. A calling rose up through its throat, and my cheeks tightened into a mask.
In the valley below, the phone-numbered rooflight sucked battery from the delivery boy's car. That light was so small. I felt for my cell, turned it on. Texts from Susannah flew in.
What the fuck, she was saying.
I texted her back.
For a time we went on in this way.
Where are you? she wanted to know.
I asked why she cared.
She made clear to me then that the cops might have interest, that I was a fuck-up supreme.
I said, Blah blah.
I said I was turning a page.
The fire had died down, and I kicked it.
She said that she was—and she spelled this out—SPEECHLESS.
I said that was all right.
I said who the fuck cared.
I said, Why did you turn on me, S?
You turned on me, I said.