Ryan Jahn - The Dispatcher

Looking at this while he drives and eats barbecue-flavored corn chips and the second half of his dry tuna fish sandwich Ian thinks, not for the first time, about how ancient this land is. After he finished high school his mother-still mourning her husband’s suicide-sent him traveling through Europe, visiting London and Paris (where he met his first wife) and Rome, and the history there made him feel very strange about coming from such a young country. It made him feel like an orphan somehow, without any real history to call his own. The curse of the American mutt: you come from nowhere, son. In America you build yourself from scratch, from the ground up, making your own bootstraps to pull yourself up with, or you don’t exist. Don’t expect to stand on the shoulders of those who came before: this is a land for which there is no before. But Burroughs was right: America is not a young land. It is old and dirty and evil. It lay here for millions of years in silence, waiting; it lay here home only to beasts with no language but the hunt, waiting; it lay here ancient and scabrous, waiting. And finally twenty thousand years ago, thirty thousand years ago, people arrived, but still the evil of the land remained trapped in the soil. Then the Europeans came to the eastern shores, and they pierced the soil with their flags, and released it. And it spread across the land and polluted the waters and the vegetables and grains whose roots the waters fed. And through the food it got into the people.

Ian pops the last of the sandwich into his mouth and washes it down with a swig of water.

As he nears Sierra Blanca he decides, because he wants to see if the gray Dodge Ram follows him, to stop someplace and buy a Coke. The town is less populated than the last one he went through, and if it is Henry behind him, perhaps he can end it here. He pulls off the interstate and onto El Paso Street, glancing in his rearview mirror. The gray Dodge Ram is just in view, a glint on the horizon. Which means his car should be just in view too.

He drives past a dirt lot, then the firehouse, a red fire engine parked inside and a sign on the garage door that says DO NOT BLOCK. Beyond the firehouse, an empty parking lot. He stops at a stop sign. There are no other cars around. Brown hills float in the distance. He takes his foot off the brake. On his right he passes a white Spanish-style building and on his left a brown structure advertising ICE and COCA-COLA. Sweat trickles down the side of his face. The ICE is very tempting.

He glances at his rearview mirror. The road behind him is empty.

If the truck was going to follow him into town it should have done so by now. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Henry Dean did not own a gray Dodge Ram pickup truck. But of course even a dumb man would know to get rid of his own vehicle while on the run, and while Henry probably isn’t well-read-ain’t book-smart, as they say-Ian does not think he’s dumb. He thinks he’s sharp as a blade and merciless in exactly the same way.

He passes a grocery store and then a place called Best Cafe with a wood shingled roof and tables draped in red checkered cloth set out on a concrete slab. He passes a motel and a Southern Pacific train car sitting on a plot of dirt. He passes the Historic Sierra Lodge and a turquoise-painted gift shop with a Dr Pepper machine out front and an American flag hanging limp in the dead heat. He glances into the rearview mirror once more.

Nothing.

He pulls to the dirt lot in front of a place called the Branding Iron Steakhouse and steps from his car. The white hot sun beats down on him.

He squints at the road behind him and sees nothing.

‘Fuck,’ he says.

He no longer wants a Coke.

He’s shifting into third when he sees the gray truck on the side of the interstate, a Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Department car parked behind it and a sheriff’s deputy standing at the driver’s side window.

As Ian drives by he tries to catch a glimpse of the man behind the wheel but the deputy is blocking his view. Then as he passes he glances over his shoulder thinking maybe he can see through the windshield, but it’s late afternoon now and the sun is in the west, and its light glints off the glass making it impossible to see anything.

He shifts into fourth and looks behind him once more. He simply can’t tell. It could be Henry. It could be anyone. It could be Jesus behind the wheel with a couple apostles piled onto the seat beside him.

‘Is there wine in that jug, sir?’

‘It was water when we left. I swear it, officer.’

As he continues on he can see eastbound cars pulling off the interstate and into a lane leading through a border checkpoint.

He wonders again if that was Henry back there. If his daughter was in that truck.

He doesn’t know if he hopes it was-or if he hopes it wasn’t.

Maggie is looking through the cab’s rear window, watching the road fly out from under the truck like a gray ribbon, when she sees the police car flash its lights.

‘Shit,’ Henry says.

He slows the truck, downshifting, and the police car comes nearer. The man behind the wheel is big, with a round pink face and a mustache. Maggie smiles and waves at him and he waves back without smiling. His hand looks very big.

‘It’s the police,’ Maggie says.

‘Shut up.’

Henry flips his turn signal on and pulls the truck to the shoulder of the road.

‘Turn around in your seat,’ he says, grabbing Maggie by the shoulder. ‘Buckle up.’

‘He already saw me.’

‘Just buckle the fuck up.’

She sits down and fastens her seatbelt. She looks up into the rearview mirror to see where the policeman is, but cannot see him. The angle is wrong. She listens to traffic. A car flies by. A moment later another one. She hears footsteps on asphalt. She leans forward, past Henry, and sees a policeman appear in the window. He is broad and has black hair and for some reason his mustache looks kind of fake up close. Maggie remembers a friend having a mustache like that. He wore it when he dressed up as a pirate for Halloween.

‘Afternoon,’ the policeman says.

‘Howdy, sir,’ Henry says. ‘Hot out, ain’t it?’

‘Do you know why I pulled you over?’

‘Can’t say that I do.’

Maggie wants to mouth two words to him. She wants to but he will not look at her. He only looks at Henry.

‘You were going ninety-two miles an hour.’

‘Was I really?’ Henry laughs. ‘I’ll be goddamned, I sure am sorry about-’

‘There’s no need to take the Lord’s name in vain, sir.’

‘Aw, shit, I’m sorry. My mouth runs about five steps ahead of my brain sometimes.’ He flaps his right hand like a talking puppet.

‘I’m gonna need to see your license and registration.’

Look my way, look my way, look my way. Maggie thinks this with great concentration while staring at the policeman’s sweaty pink face.

And for a wonder he does look at her. The policeman looks right at her and their eyes meet and he has green eyes like her daddy has green eyes, like she has green eyes, and he nods his head slightly.

Help. Me.

He blinks at her, not seeming to understand.

‘You mean a sorry don’t cut in this county?’

‘License and registration, sir.’ Then he glances back toward her.

Help me. Please.

Another blink. And then, as if suddenly poked in the back by a sharp stick, his whole body stiffens and a light flashes behind his eyes. He licks his lips and his right hand drops toward his weapon. He takes a step back. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.

‘Step out of the car, sir.’

‘Hold on, now,’ Henry says, reaching under his seat. ‘I think I got the registration down here under the-’

The policeman draws his gun and aims it at Henry. ‘Put your hands where I can see them,’ he says. ‘No, freeze. Freeze.’