Zachary Karabashliev - 18% Gray

Just then, I see a woman slowly step out of the shadowy bushes next to the side of the pick-up. She sways back and forth. Cars zoom between her and me. I lift up my camera, open the aperture to two, and take a few shots. In the dusky bluish twilight, only her silhouette — cut horizontally by long white lines, the headlights of passing automobiles — will be visible. Damn, I grabbed the Nikon, and even used it completely instinctively. I hang it around my neck. The woman across from me keeps rocking back and forth as if mourning someone.

“Hey!” I yell. She starts walking toward me. “No!” I scream frightened. “No!” I gesture for her to stay where she is. I make eye contact. “Stay there!” Two cars pass, one between me and her, and one behind me. I see the headlights of several more cars, which are too close for me to cross the two lanes that separate us. She seems not to notice the speeding automobiles. It’s strange that they also seem to ignore us. For a moment, all this seems unreal — this unknown twilight, this unknown swaying woman, the road between us. “Don’t move!” I shout. “Don’t move!” She stares at me with bleary, uncomprehending eyes until I manage to cross over to her side. “Is there anybody in there?” I point at her vehicle. “Is there any one else with you?” She shakes her head. “No? No? Thank God. OK. OK.” I wonder what to do, I don’t know what to do, goddammit. “Are you OK?” She keeps shaking her head. “No? You are not OK? Are you hurt?” A tall, white pick-up truck with absurdly big tires and round lights on top of the cabin slows down and blows its horn. Laughter, booing, a beer bottle shatters a few yards from where we are. Somebody screams “assho-o-o-o-ole” as it disappears toward Albuquerque. “Are you hurt? Does it hurt anywhere?” Then, she lifts up her arm and makes a horizontal gesture in front of her throat. “You can’t talk?” Her eyes, I notice now, are filled with tears, but not a single one falls. “What’s your name?” She repeats the gesture. Maybe she has something in her throat and cannot speak. Maybe it’s the shock. She makes the same gesture again and, only then, a tear rolls down her cheek. She opens her mouth and struggles to utter something. I reach for her arm. Finally, she manages to squeeze out a few words:

“I wanna. .” A huge semi is approaching. I see how she measures the distance with the corner of her eye, pushes me aside abruptly, and attempts to jump in front of it. I manage to grab her waist and press her to my body until the danger passes. She doesn’t resist. Her whole body reeks of alcohol. “I wanna. .”

“Not here,” I say. “Not like this.”

Half an hour later, the failed suicide and I sit in the 66 DINER — a classic joint, as if teleported from the forties — and quietly sip coffee. She tries to concentrate on the menu as I check out the black and white photos on the walls.

The 66 DINER — the lights, the juke box, the Budweiser signs, the maroon seats, the chrome, the tables, the ketchup, the salt shaker, the pepper shaker, the middle-aged waitress with the coffee pot. . Americana, Americana, Americana. .

The 66 DINER, I learn from the photos, burned down in 1995, but, fortunately for everybody, three years later — under new ownership — it was completely restored to its former glory.

I don’t know her name. I don’t want to know it. We are waiting for some Joey guy, whom she called from the pay phone by the restrooms. Joey who will come pick her up so I can go on my way. She doesn’t have any relatives. She doesn’t have any friends. She doesn’t know what happened. She has no memory of what took place. Oh, yeah, she wanted to. . and again the gesture towards her throat, but it didn’t work, obviously. She wanted — Bam! Bam! — and that’s it. But, in life, I guess, if you are out of luck, you are out of luck and that’s that. An even bigger loser will show up and ruin the whole thing, trying to save your life. Why in the world did I have to show up there?

“Some more coffee, hon?” The waitress asks her.

“We are ready to order,” I say.

“No, we are not,” the woman says.

“Yes, we are.”

“I’m not.”

“I have to go.”

“Then go. Joey is coming to pick me up, I told you. Go.”

“I will as soon as Joey shows up,” I say. “The lady here would like to order something to eat.”

“A half-pound burger with cheddar cheese, please, and fries. Rare. Add bacon on it. Lots of it.”

I order spicy Buffalo wings.

“And what can I get you to drink?”

“Octoberfest draft, please,” I say.

“I want a Bud.” The waitress looks at me, I shake my head “no”, and she fill up her coffee cup.

“One little beer,” the woman begs.

I shake my head.

“Just one?”

“When your Joey comes, do whatever you want.”

“I want to die.”

“I got that.”

“So?”

“I can’t help you.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like helping people.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name is Zack.”

“Zack, I don’t want to live.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I’ve got an idea.”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s die together.”

“No, thanks.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to die with other people.”

“OK then, you die by yourself. I’ll watch.”

“I don’t feel like dying in Albuquerque.”

“Where do you want to die?”

“Where I was born.”

“Why?”

“That’s what lions do.”

“How do you know what lions do?”

“ Animal Planet .”

“So you’re a lion?”

“I am a lion.”

“Then why are you such a sad lion?”

“My lioness left me.”

“Where is she?”

“Gone.”

“Big deal. You’ll find another lioness. Can you order me just one beer, Zack?”

“No.”

*

Two hundred and ninety-seven.

That is the annual average number of sunny days where we live. Yet, I can’t remember a gloomier year than the last one. I wandered aimlessly through airports and hotels, read tabloids, watched CNN, ate Toblerones, followed the stock exchange, and dressed like a widower. Why had I been so sad, I wonder, now, when Stella was healthy, sound, and at home? So what if she had a little crush on some artist. Maybe it was temporary, maybe it wasn’t anything serious, maybe she simply needed a break from me. It wasn’t the end of the world. Maybe in I-won’t-mention-his-name she found something that I didn’t have. But what was it? His passion for his work, his belief in his own importance, his successes, his confidence that the world would know his name and work, his megalomania? How arrogant do you have to be, for God’s sake, to paint canvases as big as Niagara Falls? What’s so goddamn important to express that you have to use canvases that large?

Or perhaps those were the sizes of the holes in your soul, Artist, which you try to conceal with buckets of paint?

I learned everything that was out there about Bernard Foucault. I even dug into the crown of his family tree, trying to find an explanation. His father, an entrepreneur, had supported his only son through his undergraduate years in Lyons, then as a graduate student in Paris, and later in America. His father was still available if needed. But now, he wasn’t needed. Bernard Foucault was on his way to becoming one of the most successful artists of the new century. Nothing in his biography suggested, even in the slightest, Stella’s mysterious withdrawal from me.

*

An hour later, still no Joey. But she won’t stop whining that she’s bored. She’s sobering up now, and asks me where I’m going.