Chris McCormick: Desert Boys

The green light of the bulbous lanterns sharpened her features, lengthening the shadows of her cheekbones and nose. She had the look of something between a Halloween-store witch and our thinning mother toward the end of chemotherapy. The wub-wub-wub s seemed to increase in frequency and in volume, and although Jean continued to speak, I stopped straining to hear her. Soon we would catch our flights — Jean to New York, me to the Antelope Valley — and I didn’t know when I would see her next. Suddenly I imagined this was the last moment we’d ever share, and because I knew she would go on to remember it differently than I would, I ached to do something so spectacular and unordinary that, if every other memory of Paris were to be corrupted, at least we’d have this.

I stood, accidentally knocking one of the green orbs into a sway, and held out my hand. “Jean,” I said, the French way. And soon, while everyone else in the club beat their bodies against the thick air between them, I held her — my sister, depending on the swinging light, or my mother, or Karinger — and danced, slowly, to another kind of music. “Je t’aime,” I said through her hair, into her ear.

“I love you, too,” she said into mine. “Moi aussie, je t’aime.”

* * *

When you spend a life leaving a place, only to return to it again and again, the returns become increasingly shameful. One way to deal with this shame is to create theories, theories that either justify your returns or else allow you the possibility of leaving — actually leaving, once and for all.

This time, my theory is this: The antelope — the pronghorn — somehow knew that Emily and Karinger were different from Jean. Emily — married, pregnant with twins — continues to live in the Antelope Valley, just off Avenue N where the water tower looms in the foothills. Karinger became a husband and a father after joining the marines, and I’m convinced he would have lived in town the rest of his life if he hadn’t gone off and died in a different desert. My theory, I guess, is that the pronghorn knew Emily and Karinger were meant to stay, and Jean was meant to leave. All places, maybe, bear these two kinds of people, and ours just happens to have a way to tell the difference.

It’s a hypothesis, anyway. In order to make it a theory, I have to run a test. So, in the late afternoon I tell my dad I love him, I’m heading out. I drive my mother’s old car east, away from the light and the railroad tracks, far out into the desert. I leave the road and go as far as the Toyota’s tires will take me before they fail, settling for good in the soft grip of the dirt. The headlights I leave on and the keys I throw thirty feet into an enormous heap of tumbleweeds. I remove my shirt and shoes, and sit. Far off, the sun falls — slowly at first, and then as quickly as a dropped coin — behind the San Gabriel Mountains. This is death country, and I am either going to survive it or not. Under the bleeding sky, I wait for the antelope, the pronghorn, the god of staying and the god of leaving, to show me what kind of man I am.

How can I thank enough:

Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee, my mentors and friends and greatest advocates, for all the brilliance and confidence over the years.

Rick Moody, an unerring adviser, and Robert and Peg Boyers for introducing us at their wonderful New York State Writers Institute.

Scott Covell, for teaching literature with humor and enthusiasm and high expectations, and for assigning books written by the living, which gave me the courage to try.

The Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan, which changed everything for me, and the program’s namesake, Helen Zell, for the financial and creative freedom granted by her extreme generosity and dedication to the arts.

The faculty and staff who looked out for me at Michigan, especially Peter Ho Davies, Eileen Pollack, Doug Trevor, Michael Byers, Sugi Ganeshananthan, Keith Taylor, Andrea Beauchamp, and the legendary Nicholas Delbanco.

All the writers I lucked my way into befriending including my mythically great cohort at Michigan, but especially Brit Bennett, fellow country mouse, for help on this book at every stage.

My earliest reader and closest comrade, Ezra Carlsen.

Jenna Meacham, a true artist and friend, and the unstoppable Suzy Chandler, both of whom stuck with me through the awkward phases.

Jenni Ferrari-Adler, my agent and trusted guide, for seeing through the haze before I could, and for motivating me to move forward.

Everyone at Picador, especially Anna DeVries, hyper-sagacious editor and deus ex machina of my life, who turned a book I was proud of into a book of which I’m prouder; Elizabeth Bruce, synonymous in my mind with good news, for working so hard to smooth the publication process; Stephen Morrison, kind and inspired publisher, for providing safe passage for this book and so many others into the world.

My family, for enough to fill another few books.

Mairead Small Staid, who came into my life like an RKO outta nowhere, for making this book and its author so much better.

And all my fellow desert kids, especially Bob Kniepkamp, Anthony Galura, and Nick Reuter, for being there.

CHRIS McCORMICK was raised in the Antelope Valley. He earned his B.A. at the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.F.A. at the University of Michigan, where he was the recipient of two Hopwood Awards. You can sign up for email updates here.