Peter Heller - The Dog Stars

That morning I rose slowly, stretched, took an inventory: Hig, you have your arms? Check. Your legs? Check. You have not really been blown to pieces? Nope. You have your heart? Not a question you’ve asked before. Not after. Yes I do. A little joggled, a little fuller. Lighter and heavier, too, go figure.

They were at the fire. I smelled roasting meat. I splashed my face, chest, dunked my head, dried myself with the shirt, walked to the fire.

Morning.

Pops nodded. She was squatting, adding a chunk of split wood to the flames and the sunup breeze swirled the smoke around, wreathed her. She winced, grimaced, craned her face to the side, added the wood.

Morning, I said.

She was either too smoked out to hear me or couldn’t answer. The grimace. She stood, stepped out of the smoke, put her knuckles to her teary eyes.

Morning, I said.

She wiped the tears, blinked at me out of irritated eyes. Saw her heave a breath. Didn’t say a word. She lifted the steaming kettle off a stump, poured it, handed me my mug without looking at me.

Meat’s gonna burn, she said. To her dad or to me or no one. Edge of frustration.

I’ll get it, I said. I reached for the long fork but she pushed my hand away with her forearm, grabbed the fork, turned the chops on the wire grill.

Relax, she said.

My insides froze. Glanced at Pops who politely turned to the side on his seat, his expression blank. He studied the top of the far canyon wall, sipped his drink.

Again:

Just relax. I’ll have chops in a minute.

I heaved a long breath, turned aside, too, studied the far wall with Pops. You have your arms? Hig? Hig? Yes, I do. Your legs? Yes. Stop there. Be grateful for that.

I could’ve cried. Stood in the billowing smoke and used it for cover. So this is how it is.

After a silent breakfast, silent chewing, I took the dishes to the creek as I always did: three plates, three mugs, three folding knives, three forks, the long fork. Let the wire grill burn off. I spread the fine sand around on the enamel plates with my fingers, scraped at the grease. Focus on the task at hand, concentrate, Hig. The water. It seemed warm. Warmer. That was frigging sad. Sad. Dug the fork tines down into the gravel bottom, wiped them in my fingers. Fuck. I breathed. When I was done I lay them out to dry on the board table. Pops passed me. He was carrying the rifle, shoulder slung, and the spade.

I’m going to scout the highway, he said. I don’t want to walk out there on the big day and find a beat up useless piece of road.

That made sense. We didn’t have enough fuel to circle while he filled and packed some potholes.

He took a step, then glanced back at me.

Everybody’s been through a lot, he said.

I loved him then.

For the first time I felt him as some kind of family. As much as you could construct from blowdown and debris.

Yeah.

He nodded, walked on downcanyon toward the brush fence.

She was sweeping the packed dirt around the fire with a twig broom. She did it every morning to beat back the crumbs and keep ants and mice away from the kitchen.

As I approached, she swept. No pause. Focused on the dirt ahead of the broom.

Want me to pick some greens for lunch, I said.

My guts were gripped. She kept sweeping.

If you want, she murmured. Swept.

Cima?

Sweep. The harsh twiggy scrape.

I caught her arm. She went rigid.

Ow!

I dropped it like a hot grill. She stared at me.

That’s gonna bruise, she said. No modulation.

Cima. Jesus. I’m sorry.

I stood rooted to the dirt. Sheer panic. Couldn’t even see straight. Against all will my chest began to heave and then I felt tears running off my chin. Completely paralyzed. She stared at me. A mask. Like a death mask but the eyes alive or gathering life. Her dark eyes still as coins, then somehow gathering light as eyes do and registering, softening. She stood there trembling and studying my face and then I saw the tears well in her eyes and they were hers again, the dark pools. We stood like two trees. Swaying. What was left of the fire’s smoke puffed and wisped.

Last night she said. After we fell asleep. I dreamt of Tomas. Dreamt and dreamt of him.

Her lips shivered and her mask crumbled.

He was calling me. He was dying on his cot and calling me, bleating just like an animal that knows it’s going to slaughter. Just like an animal, Hig! And I stood against the wall unwilling to help him. My husband. My best friend.

She was sobbing with a hypoxic violence.

My love was frozen. Like a winter pond. I must have dreamt that for hours. In the end I couldn’t take it and I picked up my skinning knife and walked over and slit his throat. Oh god!

She collapsed. I stepped forward and caught her. I thought of two trees nearly unrooted and leaning against each other.

I don’t know if I can do this, she said. I thought I could.

Pops reported that the highway was good and straight for at least a thousand feet. Good enough, no big holes. He had left a bandana tied to a mile marker for a wind sock. Cima was warm enough, but more withdrawn. She came out to the hammock but not every night nor every other night. We didn’t make love again for days. Five. Can’t pretend I didn’t count. And when we did, when we were about to—I mean we lay on the blanket naked, holding each other, not kissing, not talking, but just our noses exploring ears and necks, and hands reconnoitering a territory made brand new by these new reckonings of loss—when it seemed to be time to consummate or at least somehow celebrate this new vulnerability, I pulled her on top of me and she was not wet and I had trouble entering and I could feel that it hurt her, and for some reason I thought of Tomas—the dream Tomas, bleeding—and a wave of panic overcame me and I lost my erection.

Damn the dream world. His ghost was wading through it and ruining what only a few days ago had been as euphoric as any love affair I’d known.

She gave my wanger a consolatory double squeeze which made me feel worse. Sighed heavily—I read Disappointment—and rolled off to the side. Her arms came around me gently. Lying on the blanket, arm in arm, in an unconsummated paralysis. I felt lonelier then than I had felt before the canyon. The hearts thudded and ricocheted against each other, but the spirit did not. I could not stroke her more than absently, or kiss her, or even talk with authenticity. As if failing in consummating love had robbed me of all legitimacy as a lover. Had stripped my license to love or even express affection. It was awful.

It occurred to me as I lay next to her on my side and tried to catalogue this new dread—the dread of separateness when love was so near—it occurred to me that what may have been transmitted at the critical moment the moment of truth, of penetration, was her own memory of the dream. I mean we communicate without speech of course. I thought that in all likelihood that blood curdling image of the dead had passed through her at the same instant or just before. Which meant that none of us was ready. Okay, Hig, I thought. Reason it any way you want. Make yourself feel better any way you can, but you can’t rewrite it. It sucks. Can’t make it better. I can’t, I can’t move. Can hardly breathe.

Hig.

She whispered the word, a wind eddying in my ear.

Huh?

Will you give me oral pleasure?

She said it in a French accent and I knew she was referencing that old classic, Pulp Fiction .

I chuffed, a soundless laugh without mirth.

Really? You don’t want that.

She nodded, her head against my chest.

Okay. Big exhale. Duty calls.