Dave Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity

We stood for a few seconds, calming down, watching the TV across the kitchen table, in the next room. A desert scene, an ancient village in dry pink. Then a close up shot of a gaunt man. Then Ernest Borgnine in Roman soldier gear. Then the gaunt man again, someone's hands entering the frame – Borgnine's? – and placing onto the gaunt man's head a bird's nest sort of thing – Oh. Crown of thorns.

Hand pointed to the bedroom, and held up four fingers, then made a sleeping gesture, indicating that the family, the four of them, was sleeping in the room, in one bed. We were in their house and they were sleeping in one bed in the next room. It was only then that I began to wonder so many questions: Why was the apartment door ajar? What would we do now? We'd wanted to come in, with our flowers, and then sit with them, be welcomed in, fed, and we'd leave with new friends in Saly, and they'd be left with a gift commensurate to our appreciation. But where I'd pictured loud conversation and joking in broken English and bad French, we were instead skulking in the dark, making no sounds. At least we could unload some currency.

The home was clean and comfortable and small. People lived here, even with the sound of the bars and clubs below and down the sandy street. The kids had places where they put their things, and the – I would never have something like this. I didn't want a kitchen table or pictures on the wall. I wanted to leave.

Every time there was a closeup of the apostles, they were staring off in a way that appeared drug-induced. Saints did not have to stare so glassily, did not have to move with slow graceful gestures. Did they? I wanted a clumsy saint – or a fast one. A saint that liked to run like a sprinter, in little silky shorts. Anne Bancroft. She was there, as mother Mary. And then, just below her, wailing, the woman from Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet. She looked the same. Borgnine, watching his comrades hoist Christ up onto his cross, was having a hard time. He felt terrible about what was happening but was, it seemed, powerless to stop it.

Hand stepped over and turned the TV off.

I looked in the cabinets above the sink for a vase, or large glass, or jar. There was a short stack of plastic NFL cups. None would support the weight of the flowers. Hand gave me an urgent look. Now he wanted to leave. I shrugged with great force, needing more time. There was a bucket in the corner, full of sand and cigarette butts. I brought it to the center of the kitchen table and jammed the stems of the flowers into it. Hand rolled his eyes. The flowers would be dead, dead, dead by the morning.

We sat in our car thinking.

"We can go looking for more donkeys," Hand said.

With a burst of light, a car full of people, younger than us it seemed, started theirs, behind ours. They pulled out and we followed, with me driving, guessing that they, attractive and confident young people, must know something. We left the town and trailed them for miles, out to the highway. We were quickly leaving the sphere of lights and people. We drove through black fields, miles and miles.

"This is not good," I said.

"They're going really fast. How fast are we going?"

We were doing 100 kph.

"They think we're following them," Hand said.

"Why are we following them again?"

"I don't know."

They pulled away from us, quickly. They were in a car much more powerful than ours, and soon they were out of view.

And now there was someone behind us.

"Jesus," I said.

The headlights were coming quickly.

"How is that possible?" I said. "We're going too fast."

There was a roar from behind. The headlights engulfed us. They were coming from above, from a truck. It was inches from us. I was sure it was closing in.

– Jack.

– Jack will you -

I swerved to the side of the road. The truck screamed by.

"What happened?" Hand asked.

"That fucker was going 200 miles an hour," I said.

Hand looked at me, puzzled.

"Will, it wasn't -"

"What?" I said.

"Nothing."

The highway was dark and the air was cooling.

We got out, and sat for a while on the hood, throwing pieces of the road at the road. I had the idea that we should lay our heads on the road. It was a vision that had occurred to me, and we'd decided to follow through on these ideas, pretty much all of them, so we did it. The pavement was hot, but we heard nothing.

"Let's do the money-taping," said Hand, getting up.

"Where?"

"We'll find a place."

We drove on, stopping at a small square adobe home with a thatched roof. We jumped out; a goat bayed. It was a big goat, about five feet to the top of its head, white with grey crawling from its underside.

"We could drop it through their window," I said.

"No," Hand said.

"Why?"

"Let's do the goat."

We had to. Hand got the pouch and applied new tape to its sides. We were ready.

"You come at him from the front," Hand said, "and I'll sneak up the side. You distract him."

"With what?"

"Make some hand movements."

The goat was watching me now. He was on a long leash.

"Like shadow puppets?"

"Whatever. Sure."

Jesus. Hand had the pouch, and was walking slowly toward the goat, hands outstretched, the pouch ready to be attached.

"Hey goat," I said, wanting badly to make it feel at ease.

The goat bayed again.

"Be careful," Hand said, "goats can be really nasty."

"How? What makes them mad? You fucker."

"I don't know. Your eyes. Don't stare at him."

"You just -"

"Don't stare! He's growling or something. Are you staring?"

"No!"

"And don't yell. They hate that."

I hated Hand. I turned my head away from the goat while walking sideways toward it, a Ben Vereen kind of thing.

"You close yet?" I asked.

"Almost there. He looking at me? He see me?"

"I don't know. I can't see either, dumbshit."

"Well glance at him at least."

Glance at him.

"You!"

"Shh. I'm almost there," Hand said.

"Got it?"

"I'm scared to touch him. Grab his head."

"What? Grab his head?"

"Get his horns."

"No."

"Uh oh."

"What?"

"Look!" Hand yelled.

The goat was coming at me. But sideways. Its head was down and it was jumping at me, in great and bizarre lateral leaps. It was unnatural, the way it moved. For every few feet it propelled itself forward, it threw itself eight feet to the side. I backed up a few steps, then turned and ran.

"Not that way!" Hand yelled.

"What?"

"Run this way! His eyes are bad!"

"Where?"

"Serpentine! Serpentine!"

I ran toward Hand but to the side of the goat, getting within five feet of it, hearing its snarling and coughing. Hand was behind a low wall near the hut.

"Come here!" he yelled.

I jumped over the wall, huddling next to Hand. The goat was on the other side of its pen, standing still, staring into the black night like the stupid rank animal it was.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Do the hut," Hand said.

"We're not going in," I said. I could never do that again, go into a home like that. Any home.

We took the pouch and taped it to the outer wall of the hut. It barely stuck, but Hand smoothed it as much as we could.

We had taped money to the outer wall of the hut.

"How much you figure?" I asked.

"About $300."

"That's a weird thing to find, money taped to your house."

Maybe it was too peculiar. Maybe they wouldn't open it, given the circumstances. There was no time to debate it. Any second we'd awaken everyone inside, and we didn't want that. The package still bore Hand's message -

"Man," said Hand, "we really should be here tomorrow morning to see what happens. I have to see."