Ryan Jahn - The Dispatcher

Monica is silent for a long time. Then: ‘I guess I don’t want to talk about that.’

‘Okay.’

Ian takes another swallow of beer.

‘What about you?’ Monica says.

‘What about me what?’

‘Where you headed to?’

‘California.’

‘Los Angeles? Hollywood?’

Ian shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says, ‘not this time.’

‘But you been before?’

Ian nods.

‘Do you know anybody famous? Is it glamorous?’

‘No. It’s just a big suburb surrounding pockets of city.’

‘No, I bet it’s glamorous.’

Ian shrugs.

‘I was in a play once. A school play. Macbeth , I think. Is Macbeth the one with the witches in it?’

‘It has witches in it,’ Ian says, ‘the weird sisters.’

‘Yeah,’ Monica says. ‘I played one of them.’

‘Do you remember any of it?’

‘Oh, God.’ She looks far away for a moment, and then a smile lights up her face. ‘ “When the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won.” That’s all I remember. I always wanted to go to Hollywood and be famous.’

‘It’s never too late,’ Ian says.

‘You really think so?’

Ian doesn’t answer for a moment. Then: ‘I guess I don’t.’

‘That’s what I thought. What are you going to California for?’

‘It’s my turn to not want to talk about it.’

‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

Ian shakes his head. ‘You didn’t.’

He picks up a couple fries and shoves them into his mouth. They taste good. Warm and salty and over-cooked by normal standards, which is how he likes them.

‘It’s so lonesome, isn’t it?’

Ian looks at Monica. She is staring out the window at the desert landscape.

‘I guess it is.’

‘Do you ever get lonesome?’

‘Doesn’t everybody?’

‘You married?’

Ian shoves a couple more fries into his mouth and holds up his left hand. There are no rings upon his finger. ‘I was once. Well, thrice, actually. None of them stuck.’

‘You were married three times?’

He smiles. ‘I believed the vows every time, too.’

‘Wow. Do you miss it?’

‘What?’

‘Being married.’

‘Sometimes. Mostly at night.’

‘Do you think you’ll miss it tonight?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘’Cause we could pretend.’

‘I’m sorry?’

She puts her hand on his knee. ‘We could pretend. I could. .’ she licks her lips, ‘we could lie together.’

Ian smiles at her, suddenly understanding. But after laying his hand upon hers and letting it rest there a moment, he pushes her hand away. Gently. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘It would only be seventy dollars. We work it out where we charge for an extra room. You could use your credit card.’

‘It’s not you, Monica. I have a medical condition.’

‘What, like herpes?’

Ian is so startled by the question, and the blankly serious look on Monica’s face, that he actually laughs. The laugh turns into a cough, but he manages to stifle it early. He clears his throat. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘No, not herpes. It’s just-it’s not a good idea.’

‘Okay,’ Monica says. ‘Do you mind if I still sit with you?’

‘No,’ Ian says. ‘In fact, I’d like that.’

He’s just eating the last of his dinner when a local news program comes on. After some talk of little or no import a brunette woman with her hair in a bun, big brown eyes, and a tight-fitting blouse says, ‘Just under three hours ago, on Interstate 10, outside the small Texas town of Sierra Blanca, a Hudspeth County Sheriff ’s Deputy, Deputy Pagana, was killed during a routine stop. The incident was captured by the deputy’s dashboard-mounted camera. Police have released the footage to the media in the hopes that it will lead to information on the whereabouts of the perpetrator of this crime. We would like to warn you that the following footage is of a disturbing nature and may be inappropriate for children.’

An awkward pause during which the newswoman blinks at the camera, and then a cut to grainy footage seen through a dirty windshield. The footage is in color, and has audio, though the audio is tinny and hard to hear. Mostly just background noise with the occasional rumblings of a voice you can’t understand. It is dated and time coded. For a moment all that’s visible is the back of a gray Dodge Ram pickup truck. Ian can see Maggie through the rear window. She is looking back at the car, seemingly at the camera, at him, then a hand, Henry’s hand, grabs her and turns her around. A uniformed sheriff ’s deputy then walks along the left side of the frame. He reaches the truck. Ian’s Mustang passes by on the road behind him. There is some talking. Then, without warning, the deputy pulls out his gun. He steps back. He looks scared. He yells. He pulls open the truck’s door and yells some more. He wipes sweat off his face with his shoulder. And then a flash from the truck. A red explosion from the deputy’s hip. He staggers backwards several steps, out of frame. A red mist hangs in the air. Then another flash from the truck. Henry steps into the daylight, breaks open his sawed-off shotgun and pulls shells from it. He drops them to the asphalt. He reloads, points the gun at something out of frame, and yells. Sounds like he’s telling someone to get out of their car. He curses and the curses are censored by beeps. He walks out of frame toward the person at whom he was yelling. A moment later Maggie slides out of the truck and onto the asphalt. There she is, the bravest person he has ever met. She looks around with frantic eyes, and then runs around the front of the truck and disappears. The gray truck wobbles slightly. Perhaps someone getting out of the passenger side. That side is not in frame. A woman’s voice tells someone named Sarah to stop. Henry runs across the frame and around the front of the truck. Toward Maggie. The program cuts back to the woman at the news desk. She looks very serious.

‘Police believe Deputy Pagana’s killer is a man named Henry Dean,’ she says, ‘who is already wanted for questioning in connection with several kidnappings and murders in Tonkawa County, Texas. He is believed to be traveling with his wife, Beatrice Dean, and a young girl named Magdalene Hunt, who, police believe, Mr Dean kidnapped from her home over seven years ago. If you have any information as to the whereabouts of Mr Dean, please call Detective Roderick with the Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Department or Detective Sanchez at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s El Paso field office.’

Phone numbers appear onscreen.

Ian steps out into the dying light. He walks to his car, grabs a duffel bag with clothes in it and the sawed-off shotgun he got from the police station. He squints out at the gray asphalt of the interstate and past it to the desert landscape.

The entire right side of his body throbs with pain. He feels sweaty and sticky and dirty and sick.

After a moment he turns away from the road and makes his way around back of Motel/Food to find his room.

Picture yourself standing on a road beneath the white sun. Sweat trickles down your face. Your skin is overheated and itchy. Your clothes are damp and they stick to your skin. How you got here is irrelevant: you’re here. And you are looking to the northeast, toward Sierra Blanca. You’re looking that way because that’s where it’s happening. .

A blond girl in a dress runs through tall dead grass. She is barefoot, you can see that as her heels kick above the grass, and her feet kick up sprays of dirt as she runs. If the frame included only her bare feet cutting through the grass the scene could be a happy one: a girl running toward her one true love. It would all depend on the soundtrack. But this is a long shot and you see much more than just the feet, and the soundtrack is raspy breathing and feet pounding against dirt. Behind the girl is a fat older man. You’ve never met him but you know his name. Henry Dean. He runs after the girl. For every two steps she takes, the man requires only one. The distance between them shrinks and shrinks and shrinks, and she screams for help as she nears the town, but help does not come. Then the man is upon her, and he swings with a heavy arm and his fist hits the side of her head like a swinging club, and she is off her feet, in the air, still moving forward, but also sideways with the force of the blow. Then she falls, vanishing into the tall grass.