Richard Ford - A Multitude of Sins

“‘In one sense it’s a big hole in the ground formed by erosion.’” He was reading aloud now off the back of her Grand Canyon guidebook. Up ahead, another big gray-and-white jackrabbit sat poised on the shoulder as cars whipped past. He stared at it. The rabbit seemed on the verge of venturing forward, but was waiting for what it must’ve felt in its busy rabbit’s brain to be the perfect moment. In the opposite lane, semis were hurtling south toward Phoenix in the twilight. This rabbit’s got problems, Howard thought. Overcoming man-made barriers. Circumventing unnatural hazards. Avoiding toxic waste on the roadside. “Watch out for the rabbit,” he said, not wanting to seem alarmed, taking another sip of his warm gin.

“Roger. That’s a copy, Houston,” Frances said. She had the lip of her white Styrofoam cup pinched between her fingers, letting the cup dangle under the top arm of the steering wheel. She made no effort whatsoever to steer clear of the bunny, poised on the berm. She was drunk.

And just as the Town Car came almost abreast of the big rabbit, a critical split second after which it would’ve been spared and perhaps made it across all four lanes to sleep easily one more night in the median strip — in that split second — the rabbit bounded forward straight into the car’s headlights, never looking right or better yet left. And whump ! The Lincoln sped over it, bopping whatever part of the rabbit was highest and tumbling it senselessly across the highway.

“Ouch! Damn! Oh shit. That’s two. Sor-ree little Thumper,” Frances said. “Bummer, bummer, bummer.”

“Why didn’t you change fuckin’ lanes?” Howard said.

“I know.” Frances had not even looked in the rearview. “It’s on my karma now. I’ll be paying for it.”

“It’s really ridiculous.” He glared at her, then back out into the darkening scrub. It’s fucking idiotic, he thought.

“I’ll get shaped up here,” she said.

“Not for that rabbit you won’t.”

“Nope. Not for that Mr. Bunny Rabbit,” Frances said. “He’s part of history now.”

He wished he was back at the Radisson having a glass of Pinot Grigio, not cheap warm gin he didn’t even like. He could be enjoying the glowing amber grid of nighttime Phoenix, and getting ready to call Mary.

“Do you think you can find something to be jovial about?” She looked at him and smiled a smile that exaggerated her face’s angles. “Try to think of one thing.”

She was hateful, he thought. Flattening a rabbit wouldn’t be the half of it. It was probably how she sold houses: a steamroller; never relenting, never seeing anything but the sale; driving buyers crazy with cell phone calls from her car; working every weekend.

“Put on some new music, why don’t you, Mr. Moody?” Frances said. The insane bongo drumming had stopped miles back, rendering the car peaceful. “Put on the Rolling Stones,” she said. “Do you like them? I do.”

“Whatever,” he said, fingering through the stack of cassettes she’d lodged on the leather seat between them. He tried to think of one Rolling Stones song but couldn’t. He’d drunk too much for sure.

“Put on Let It Bleed , in honor of the brave rabbit who gave his life so we could see the Grand Canyon and commit adultery.” She didn’t even look at him.

This was fucked up, he thought. Just all of a sudden, she was a different person. The best thing would be to find the bus station in Flagstaff and let her drive off drunk into the night and never see her again. A smart man would do that.

“I was kidding about Let It Bleed .” She sniffed. “It’s not there. Put on some more Chiquita banana music and give us some gin. We’ll be seeing the bright lights of Flagstaff pretty soon now. Surely something there’ll make you happy. Isn’t it a famous place?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Howard said, then under his breath added, “I hope so.”

“So do I, sweetheart,” Frances said, handing over her empty cup so he could fill it. “Or else, we’ll just have to make it famous.”

In Flagstaff, they found a dim little strip-mall sushi place, facing a wide avenue clogged with evening traffic. He was tired of Mexican and spaghetti, and wanted fish even if he had to eat it raw. He would never make a westerner, he realized; he needed to see the ocean once a week and seafood was healthier. Though he also realized, as they were searching for a restaurant, traffic lights blooming into a blue-lit distance, that he’d actually been to Flagstaff — in the eighties, on a ten-day overland vacation the whole Cameron family had made to Disneyland. He’d somehow forgotten it. Though naturally, nothing looked the same. The streets were all widened twice as big and there were now a thousand motels and burger franchises and car washes. It was weird to have been in a place, and then to have blotted it out completely. It was possible, of course — and he was already beginning to forget the memory again — that he’d only dreamed about Flagstaff, or possibly seen it on TV.

From the fake teak table by the window, Frances had begun eyeing the phone booth outside in the parking lot. She wanted to call Ed. He’d be in bed soon, though the sky was still lighted over the mountaintops here. She couldn’t remember when she’d called him last. And she was sorry to have gotten smashed, sorry she’d run over a rabbit, sorry to have forgotten all about her husband. It was so unusual being this free, and fucking somebody she absolutely didn’t care about, or for that matter fucking anybody at all. It was disorienting and actually embarrassing.

Howard was eating sea-bass tempura and was happy for her to go make a call. She walked outside into the warm evening and stood beside the Lincoln to make the call on her cell phone. A police substation was set up in one of the empty mall store spaces. Through the windows you could see police inside sitting at desks, talking on phones and writing under fluorescent light. A young black man was also standing inside and appeared to be wearing handcuffs, his hands behind his back. Two police officers standing with him were laughing as if he’d said something funny.

“Hi, sweetie,” she said brightly to Ed across the vast distance. She wanted to be upbeat. “Guess where I am? In Flagstaff.”

“Yeah. So?” Ed said. “Where’s that, Texas?” Ed suffered from an unusual blood disease that made his bones disintegrate from the toes up, and he was in pain a lot. He took steroids and maintained dietary restrictions that made him either hungry all the time, or else nauseated, and he was almost always in a bad mood. When she’d met Ed, who was fifteen years older, he’d been strong as a racehorse and had run his own jet-ski business. Now he couldn’t work, and just watched TV and took his meds.

“No silly, it’s in Arizona,” Frances said. “But guess where I’m going. You won’t believe it.” She wondered if she’d said, “Guess where we’re going.”

“Bulgaria,” Ed said. “Iran. I don’t know. Who cares? I won’t be there.”

“The Grand Canyon,” she said, manufacturing enthusiasm. She felt her mouth break into an involuntary smile. She was smiling for Ed, standing alongside a big red Lincoln.

Silence opened on Ed’s end.

“The Grand Canyon,” she said again. “Isn’t that great? I’m going to see it tomorrow.” She needed to be careful about particulars. She could say she was with one of the lesbians. Ed would think that was a riot.

“And what?” Ed said irritably. “You see it and then what?”

“I don’t really know.”

Silence again. Ed had become distracted by something in his room, possibly the Red Sox game. The thought flitted through her mind to say, “I’m going to the Grand Canyon with a man I’m fucking every night and who’s got a cock as hard as a hoe handle.” Though it didn’t make Howard any more interesting for that to be true. He might as well have not had it.