David Wiltse - The Edge of Sleep

Dee was away, looking for work, and Ash was alone. The television was very disappointing; the mountains interfered with reception and there was no cable service. It was the least modem of all the many motels in which Dee and Ash had stayed together. Too far from the Berkshire Festival and Tanglewood to get the summer tourists, too remote from any sizable city to attract traveling businessmen, located on too small a road to pull in even random travelers, the motel existed primarily on local trade, which meant high schoolers looking for a place to drink after the prom, illicit lovers, homeowners whose bedrooms were being painted or whose houses were being fumigated.

Fifty yards from the motel, without any line of demarcation, a car sat on cement blocks next to a pickup truck, its engine parts scattered among the weedy lawn. Immediately beyond the autos was a ramshackle house with a line of wash hanging behind it. Two children played under the clothesline, screaming at each other with abandon as they slashed with sticks at each other’s shins.

Behind the motel, parallel to the road, was the forest that surrounded all of man’s incursions in this part of the country. Ash could not see from his side window just how close it was to the motel in the back, but he knew it was there, close by, a perfect home for bears. He imagined himself venturing into it some night, shuffling up the mountain amid the trees, smelling the trails of the other animals, hearing them scurry off at his approach. It pleased him to think of finding a cave high up the mountain, one known to other bears before him but never seen by man, where he could live on berries and fish and water from the high country streams. Dee could find him, of course-an eagle could go anywhere-but his lair would be too high and too steep for anyone else to dare. When winter came he would curl up amongst the leaves and sleep for months. No one would suffer because he slept because none would be within his reach.

Ash looked at the distant mountain with simple longing. Perhaps, if Dee brought no one home, she would let him seek the woods and mountains one night soon. But he knew she would bring someone home. And soon. She had taken no pills since Tommy left but had not crashed into her abyss of depression. There was a difference in her mood, however. It was no longer wide-ranging ebullience but seemed tempered and directed by a strain of hostility. Dee appeared to have found a target for her energies and was focusing on it in a way Ash had never seen before. When she got work, which never took her long, Ash expected her to bring someone home again. His chances to get into the woods were fading quickly.

Dee was successful at the third nursing home she tried. As usual the manager looked at her as if she were a gift from heaven. In a business with a chronic shortage of qualified personnel, a young, attractive, white registered nurse with experience and the willingness to work in less than glamorous conditions on any shift and for low pay was even too much to pray for. And, of course, too good to be true. The manager understood that the woman was recently divorced and relocated, along with the implicit suggestion that this job would be temporary. How long could it be before someone like this found a better job or remarried or moved to a big city? Not very long, the manager thought, but however long it was, it was worth it. As usual, she asked Dee as few questions as possible and hired her on the spot.

Driving back to the motel. Dee formulated her plans. The situation was new for her. She had never had a specific target before, and thus had never really had a plan. Just a method. She had employed it when the circumstances seemed right and the need was overwhelming, but always with a strong element of randomness in the process. This time was different.

She felt a swelling sense of excitement. This time she would not only fulfill her irresistible need, she would also be performing an act of retribution. Take and it shall be taken from you, she thought triumphantly. There was a Biblical ring to it, and a Biblical fitness to what she would do as well. She would have her son back at long last, and those who had taken him away would suffer. Dee felt exceptionally good. The laughter bubbled in her chest and burst from her throat as she approached the motel. She was quickly laughing so hard she had to slow down to avoid swerving into the wrong lane.

She could see Ash’s finger stuck between the slots of the room’s Venetian blind. He was gazing out at the mountains again, and exposing himself to discovery in the process, but Dee could not be angry with him, she felt too good.

“Put on your hiking boots,” she said as she opened the motel door. Ash sprang guiltily away from the window.

“Where are we going?”

“To the mountains, of course,” Dee said. “I tried, but they won’t come to us.”

She was smiling so broadly that Ash’s heart sank.

Becker wished he were a drinker. Rejection and sorrow seemed to call for burying one’s nose in a glass of sour mash, but Becker only found himself getting sleepy after the first drink and downright stupid if he forced himself to have the second. The sense of being out of control that alcohol caused frightened him far worse than being unhappy, so he took his mourning sober.

“A little nip couldn’t hurt,” said Tee, tipping up a beer to prove his point. The police chief had brought over a cold six-pack on a mission of commiseration. Receiving no cooperation from his friend. Tee had undertaken the six-pack on his own. He was making impressive progress.

“It heartens the disconsolate,” Tee said. “I read that somewhere. On a cereal box. I think.”

“What heartens the disconsolate?” Becker asked.

Tee lifted the beer can. “Getting shit-faced.”

“Are you disconsolate. Tee?”

“No, you are, but if you’re not going to do it, somebody has to.”

“That’s what friends are for,” Becker said.

“Is that what they’re for? I always wondered. Well, it’s a small sacrifice to make for a buddy. I know you’d do the same for me if I got dumped.”

“What I will do is drive you home after you finish your sacrifice. It wouldn’t look good if the chief got arrested for DWI.”

Tee belched loudly, then tapped his chest with his fist, looking immensely pleased with himself.

“So why are these fine women dumping you all over the place?” he asked. “What do you do to them?”

Becker studied empty space for a moment before answering. “I think I make the mistake of falling in love with them,” he said at last.

Becker’s distress and confusion were so obvious that Tee shifted uncomfortably in his chair and examined the top of his beer can.

“I think in the beginning I’m a mystery to them and they find that intriguing and challenging. But once I fall in love with them. I’m not a mystery anymore because I make an effort for them to really get to know me.”

Tee wished Becker would not be quite so open about the whole business. He was not accustomed to being spoken to like this by another man. He didn’t know how to respond. If Becker were a woman, there would be no problem, of course. Tee would already be on the sofa beside her, a comforting arm on her shoulder. A comforting arm on Becker’s shoulder would make them both so uncomfortable that Tee could not imagine placing his there.

“Once they get to know the real me, it scares them,” Becker continued.

“You’re not so scary,” Tee said.

Becker looked at him directly.

“You don’t know the real me,” Becker said in a tone that implied that Tee was much better off in ignorance. Tee drank again, then broached a new subject.

“So, you’re retired again, or what?”

“She didn’t think she could continue to work with me, under the circumstances.”