Hannah Pittard - Listen to Me

He closed his eyes and let the fan blow into his face.

“Fuck,” he said. “Double fuck.”

“Sir?”

It was the clerk again, who’d returned without the child.

“Sorry,” said Mark. He stood and moved the fan away, as though returning the breeze he’d only temporarily borrowed. “Really, I am. I didn’t mean — We’re just beat, that’s all. Dead beat.”

The kid appeared not to have heard him. He was acting twitchy, nervous even. Perhaps one of the hotel’s paying customers had left a turd in the deep end. Perhaps the clerk was worried it would fall on him to retrieve the thing.

Mark turned to leave. But the kid put a hand on his.

“I know a place,” he said.

Mark looked down at the narrow fingers on top of his own. They were speckled with eczema.

The kid was whispering, and he’d leaned in toward the counter and toward Mark so that now the portable fan blew the blond wisps of what was left of the kid’s hair up and away from his scalp. Caterpillar scabs inched across the hairline.

“What I mean is, I can’t recommend other hotels. It being policy and all. But my brother-in-law’s got a place up in Black Crows Hill, and I know for a fact they still had rooms an hour ago. Lots of ’em.”

Mark hadn’t heard of Black Crows Hill before, which meant it couldn’t be on 64. But perhaps it was close. A little townlet just a few miles from the interstate.

“Could you give me directions?” Already Mark could feel himself the hero. His fantasy wasn’t an impossibility after all. He pictured himself walking back to the car, starting the ignition in such a way as to not wake Maggie, and delivering them to a mountainside gem with a generator and running water and clean cool sheets.

“Policy says…” the clerk trailed off.

“Please,” said Mark. He knew he sounded frantic. Then, thinking perhaps of the wet child or the unsavory feel of the clerk’s hand on his or the idea of inbreeding and incest in general or maybe simply because he missed Maggie at that moment, missed her savagely and needed to invoke her presence, the idea of her presence, needed to confirm her mere existence in his life, Mark said, out of nowhere, “My wife — my wife and I both — we really appreciate anything more you can tell me. The name”—he was whispering now, hoping to show his respect for the policy—“just give me the name, and I’ll find it on my own.” He held the clerk’s gaze. “Please.”

For a moment, the clerk just stood there, a possible mute. Mark thought he could hear the ticking of a wall clock from somewhere behind the desk, but the ticking was too lazy, too irregular to be marking time precisely.

Slowly, the boy raised a hand to his mouth, as if to stifle a yawn. The ticking continued. Then, nearly inaudibly, the hand still covering his mouth, he said, “Holiday Inn.”

“Holiday Inn?” said Mark. He stood up straighter. There was no way there was a major hotel that wasn’t already filled to capacity. The storm — though it had essentially quieted down — had left a bona fide, governor-declared disaster zone in its wake. Just as his parents had predicted it would.

“No,” said the clerk, nearly hissing now. “Holi days Inn.”

“With an s ?” said Mark.

“With an s, ” he said. “Like lots of holidays.”

Mark nodded. Of course. Lots of holidays. Every holiday. It was perfect. Simply perfect. He nearly shrieked with laughter. A mongoloid hotel with a mongoloid name in a mongoloid town. Maggie would die. She would just die.

Mark didn’t even say thank you. Didn’t even need to. The clerk was already on his way back to the pool.

Their automobile was gone.

This wasn’t possible.

Mark was standing next to the streetlamp beneath which he’d earlier parked the car, the car in which Maggie and Gerome had been sleeping. And, here — right here — just where he was standing now, was the very same Wagoneer he’d parked next to. Here were its long dented doors and backyard paint job. He recalled like it was still happening the decision to park next to the Wagoneer despite its ratty appearance because it was the middle of the night and its owners were probably already in bed, probably fast asleep, but more importantly because it was a spot beneath a streetlight. Though the streetlight hadn’t been illuminated, he remembered thinking, In case the power comes back. In case. If Maggie wakes, there will be light. Here the Wagoneer was and here Mark was, but the spot in which their car had been was empty.

He checked his front pocket. The keys to the car were still there. Next he reached for his phone but— fuck —he’d left it in the car. He put his hands on his head; he was about to start thinking all the worst thoughts. He was about to take a page from Maggie’s book and let his imagination run wild, but just then a car across the lot turned its headlights on. Mark put a hand to his eyes. The car’s brights flashed — on then off then on again.

It was their car.

It was Maggie.

He trotted across the lot, still using his hand to shield his eyes from the high beams.

She was in the driver’s seat, laughing.

“What the fuck, Maggie?” he said. “Jesus Christ. I thought — I don’t know what I thought.”

She rolled down the window and looked up at him, completely unconcerned. “I used the spare,” she said. “Thank god I remembered it. Gerome nearly had a stroke.”

Mark looked in the back at Gerome who, though lying down, was awake and alert to — if not completely interested in — the action around him.

“The GPS is broken,” said Maggie. She knocked on the screen at the center of the dash. “Or not working. Or something.” She knocked a few more times. “Worthless.”

“What were you thinking?” said Mark. He was still standing at the driver’s-side window, still looking in at his wife. “Were you trying to be funny? Moving the car?” He could feel himself getting angry. Or, rather, he felt the right to be angry, to get angry, if necessary.

“The question is what were you thinking?” she said. “You left us in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere.”

“We’re not in the middle of nowhere.”

“With the doors unlocked.”

“With the doors un—” Mark stopped himself. He couldn’t believe it. After everything he’d been trying to do for her. While she was comfortably asleep. After the six hotels and the imbecilic desk clerks, after all that, she wasn’t even a little bit thankful? She wasn’t grateful? Why was he surprised? She was exactly as she’d been for the past three weeks: scared. And scared, he was realizing now, perhaps for the very first time, of everything. That was it. He was finally starting to see. It wasn’t just nighttime; it wasn’t just the man in the alley and the man in the college girl’s apartment. She hadn’t simply turned scared of the dark. She’d turned scared of life.

“But Gerome is here,” he said at last. “You were completely safe, Maggie. You must see that?” He felt on the brink of despair; felt very close to losing respect for his wife forever. Please, he thought. Please don’t be as nuts as I think you might actually be. He was lonely in an adolescent way, like he was the last one on the playground, his mother not yet arrived and even the janitor gone for the night. He felt helpless and, god, he felt utterly alone.

Maggie stuck her arm out the window and took his hand. Was she reading his mind?

“Yes,” she said. “I do see that. I do, which is why I thought I’d have a bit of fun. Come here.” She pulled at his hand, and he bent down to the window. “Kiss me.”

He kissed her — nothing dramatic or drawn out, but a real kiss, lip against lip. They both smelled of salt and sweat.