Michael Smith - Rivers

“She okay. She okay,” the short woman said, pushing Cohen away, and then she moved Elisa’s arm from around her neck as if to say, Here you go, she’s yours. The woman’s glasses were held by a silver chain around her neck and she had kind, wrinkled eyes.

“I’m all right,” Elisa said, laughing a little and reaching for Cohen. “You look freaked out.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Got lost. Like we said I would.”

The woman made a fist and bonked her own forehead. “Head hit on ceiling,” she said.

“Street,” Elisa said and she pointed at the ground. “Head hit on street.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Head what?” Cohen asked. Her arm was around his neck and she held her hand out to the woman. The woman took her hand and Elisa said, “Thank you so much. Grazie so much.”

“You okay?” the woman asked, nodding.

Cohen stuck his hand in his pocket and took out some money and tried to give it to her but she wouldn’t take it and she backed away, nodding and saying, “Okay, good. Okay, good.”

“ Grazie, ” Elisa said again and the woman waved and turned and went back her way.

Cohen and Elisa moved inside the hotel and sat down at a table by the bar. She fell into a chair and moved the rag from her head and she was cut and swollen above her eyebrow.

“Goshdammit,” Cohen said.

One of the teenagers passing by saw Elisa’s eye and Cohen stepped behind the bar. He took a clean rag and wet it with cold water and gave it to her. “Something else?” he asked and she said no and told him thanks.

“I’m stupid,” she said.

“You’re not stupid, but what happened?”

“Running. Lost. Tripped like I almost had about a hundred times already trying to run on these stones and bricks and hit forehead-first. Knocked me a little loopy. Then that woman walked up and found me. Helped me sit up and I guess she lived right there ’cause she went in a building and came back out with the rag and some water.”

Cohen reached over and wiped a trail of blood and water from the side of her face. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I told you that you’re not supposed to exercise on vacation.”

“I get it now.”

He touched her hand that held the rag and moved it from her eye. It was about to stop bleeding. “Does it hurt?” he asked.

“Does it look like it hurts?”

“Yep.”

“Then it hurts.”

He moved her hand and rag back to the cut and said, “I’ll be right back.” He went upstairs to the room and found a bottle of Tylenol and went back down to the bar. No one was around so he went behind the bar and got her a bottle of water and himself a beer.

He sat down at the table and handed her three pills. She looked at them. Looked at him. Looked at his beer and her water.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

He got up again and took another beer from the cooler. He grabbed a bottle opener from the bar top and he sat down and opened the beers and slid one to her. She took the pills, stuck them in her mouth, and washed them down with the cold beer.

“Now that makes a girl feel better,” she said as she set the bottle down on the table.

Cohen reached into his pocket and took out the Lucky Strikes. He picked up his beer and let out an extended sigh. She winked at him with the eye not covered by the rag. The anxiety of separation fell from them but didn’t disappear.

“No more solo excursions,” he said.

She shrugged.

“I mean it,” he said.

“Should we leash ourselves together?”

“If we have to,” he said. He reached over and moved the rag from her face and looked at the cut, swollen and red. He then replaced the rag and said, “Just drink your beer.”

MARIPOSA HAD STOOD AT HER window and watched. When she saw Cohen come out of the trailer and walk to where he slept, she waited to see if a light would come on. When it didn’t, she figured he must have gone to sleep so she waited. While she waited, she watched the commotion. A couple of the other women and Aggie went in and out of the trailer and when the door opened and there was some light she saw the blood on their hands and arms and shirts and then she finally saw a bloody mess wrapped in Ava’s arms and she wondered if it was dead or alive. The door closed for a while and when it opened again Ava held a bundle wrapped in white and she walked out into the rain, Aggie holding her by the arm, and across to his trailer and it seemed as if he or she had made it. For now.

She looked again to where Cohen slept. Still only black inside.

She put on her coat and when she got to the door she remembered that she was locked in. But she turned the handle anyway and found it unlocked and she figured in the madness Aggie must have forgotten the doors. She walked out and the wind slapped the rain against her face and with her head down she moved to his door. She paused, looked around, saw them bustling back and forth in the trailer where Lorna lay.

Then she put her hand on his trailer door handle, turned it slowly, opened the door, and slid inside.

She moved in the dark. Didn’t see him. Didn’t hear him at first.

Then he snored.

He was facedown on the mattress, his arms and legs spread out as if he were free-falling. He breathed big and heavy, and her eyes adjusted some and she moved over toward him and knelt next to the mattress. He was still wearing his coat and his muddy boots and they hung off the edge of the mattress.

She took a candle and a lighter out of her coat and she lit the candle and set it on the floor. She removed her coat and laid it on the floor, then put her hands on his left boot and felt for the laces and untied and loosened them. She tugged some. He didn’t move. She wiggled it and the boot gave and she pulled it off, and then she did the same to the right one. He grunted once and heaved but didn’t turn and didn’t wake.

She heard voices outside and she stood and looked out. Two others were moving across the compound, going back to where they slept. The light was off in Lorna’s trailer.

Mariposa knelt again. She listened to him breathing. Listened to the random snore. Listened to the rain and the wind. Listened to the words in her head that wanted to come out and then she let them out in whispers.

“I know what you came for,” she started. “I know you came for her. What’s left of her. What’s left of it all. I know what you came for.”

She paused. Put her hand on the back of his leg.

“Don’t let him keep you,” she whispered. “Don’t be like him. But I know you’re not that way. I already know it.”

She paused again. Removed her hand.

It was the first time in a long time that she had spoken to someone without angst, without vehemence, without fear.

Her hair was held back with a rubber band and she reached behind and pulled it out. Then she eased herself onto the mattress. Cohen snorted and raised his head for a brief moment. Then it fell and he continued on in his restless sleep. Mariposa leaned first on her elbows, waited on him to settle some, and then she let herself down and lay quietly beside him.

SOMEWHERE ELSE. NO COUNTRYSIDE. NO beach. No pastures or barbed wire or crepe myrtles. A concrete world where he walked down a city street on a normal day with normal people up and down the sidewalks and in and out of the stores. Looking at the street signs but in a language that he didn’t understand and there was nothing distinct about this place. He walked on, looking into store windows, stepping into bars and looking around the tables, stopping at a pay phone and dialing and then ringing and ringing and no answer and hanging up and walking on. Newspaper stands and vendors selling hot dogs and a woman in a tight silver dress smoking a cigarette in front of a dress shop. A dog without a collar sniffing at a garbage can. The random honk of a car horn and he walked on, looking in the windows, looking at himself in the reflection. His hands were cold and he blew on them as he walked and then he was lost, stopping and looking back over his shoulder to see if he could recognize which direction he had come, walking on another block or two or three, stopping and spinning and trying to figure where he was or where he was going or how to get back or anything. He tried to ask but no one understood what he was asking and they hurried past or snapped back at him in annoyance or pushed him. He walked on and everything looked the same and he couldn’t figure out what or who he was looking for and with each step the anxiety grew until he was calling out for help but none of the strangers responded and then there was a sudden, heavy rush of clouds and they disappeared inside stores and apartment buildings but he had nowhere to go and he stood and watched the black clouds suffocate the daylight and then he felt the body beside him and he turned but no one was there but he felt the body again and then he opened his eyes and there was the darkness of the night and there was the thing beside him that he had felt in his dream.