John McManus - Born on a Train - 13 Stories

Cause it’s dead, said Jearold. That’s the fucken point.

This is Swope land, Diesel shouted. You best of got my dog to be a trespassen. He breathed hard, right in Jearold’s ear. Answer my question, boy — where’s my dog? Where’s my dog?

It’s right here, Jearold yelled to shut him up.

Give him here or I’ll make you dead.

Shut up, Jearold screamed. He said it over and over until suddenly the radio stopped its scanning on a gospel song. The volume was up as loud as it would go, and Isaac hurried to turn it down, and they all breathed in synch with one another.

I better not get hurt, said Diesel.

I’ll let you out of the car right now if you want it.

The song died down, and the radio went quiet. Isaac heard thick static crackle as they passed through a granite cut. Another gospel song began. They hadn’t passed a car for many miles up and down the steep hills, through sliced stones of the earth’s crust. It was twenty miles to Harlan by a shot-up sign whose paint was almost gone. The dog cage rolled over on its side and stretched the seat-belt to its limit, and Rocks’s bones crashed against the metal grid. Holy shit, Diesel whispered. Isaac hated Diesel’s voice as much as he hated Jearold’s. The radio reminded him how raw and red they were. He wondered if this program was the highway ministry that Swortzel Swope’s dog liked; he hoped so. Gospel music sounded pretty, like something God would want him to be listening to.

Just call and tell him, Diesel said. Drop the dog off at a parken lot and tell him where you left it.

That ain’t what we’re up here for, said Jearold.

It won’t matter what we’re up here for once you’re dead, said Diesel. He reached across Jearold’s body for the phone, and Jearold swerved.

It’s out of range, dumbass.

Stop at a pay phone, Diesel said.

Do you see any pay phones? Jearold asked.

Isaac looked around; the land had become a factory of blackness. They hadn’t passed a light in many miles. Their struggling motor was the only outside sound as they curved just like the road. Pack another bowl, said Jearold, and Diesel did, and they passed it back and forth. Isaac wondered if they would offer him any. The smoke in the car warmed his lungs and body, and he wished Jearold and Diesel would turn around to him so he could stare back with a mean glare. Diesel shut up for a while. The windows fogged. Verses of “Amazing Grace” wended their stems through static, became the air, and Jearold almost drove the car off the road reaching into his pocket. These is yellow roses, he said to Diesel, holding two small custard-colored pills, and Jearold swallowed his.

Where’d you get those? said Diesel.

You ain’t the only one in the goddamn county.

Isaac watched as Diesel let the pill slide down his esophagus. His muscles weren’t as stiff as dog bones anymore. Diesel looked at himself in the rearview mirror and there he was, just like always, and he laughed. Rocks, he said to the dog, and turned around but didn’t look at Isaac once. Here boy. You can’t see me but I see you. The car’s right headlight burned out. It made Kentucky dark like all the static’s croaks. The engine sounded like an airplane up the grade as they sank together into mountains’ grip. Diesel stayed calm until he dumped the bowl’s ashes out the window just as Jearold struck a furry fox. At the impact Diesel lost his grip; the bowl’s blue-green and swirly resinated glass crashed behind them into the bowels of the night. The dead fox beat against the bumper like a snare drum. It flew into the woods and never landed, and Jearold started laughing. He pulled them off the highway onto gravel. Isaac’s lungs itched from the pot smoke, and everywhere in the dark he saw glowing stones.

I’m taken a piss, said Jearold. Everybody out.

It wasn’t much colder outside the car than in. The animal had knocked the front bumper loose, and the night was too black to see much else. Maybe what’s-his-face is a mechanic, Diesel said.

Who? said Jearold.

Old doo-lolly, said Diesel.

Why would he wanna fix my car? said Jearold.

I’ll bet he’s got a junkyard fifteen acres long, said Diesel.

They ain’t nothen wrong with it, said Jearold.

I bet it’s right upside a mountain like a strip mine, Diesel said. He stared straight up at where the moon would have been shining. I’ll bet you can see it from space, he said. Maybe he’s a vet. We’ll catch the fox and stick em in the cage.

It was too big for a fox, said Jearold. And it’s dead.

Exactly, Diesel said. His shoulder twitched like jagged streaks of lightning shocked his eyes. Isaac followed Diesel’s line of sight to the backseat of the car, whose light didn’t come on when Diesel opened the door and got the carrier out.

What are you doing? said Jearold.

I’m going to save our lives.

Put it back in the car.

Diesel shook his head and said, You can’t deliver a dog you don’t have.

All of them were shivering in the cold. Diesel disappeared into the woods with Rocks. It didn’t make sense for Isaac to be scared for the dog, but Diesel wouldn’t know where cliffs were in the darkness, or the openings of chasms, and Rocks would fall away, and now the radio was screaming. I got shot, raged an old man’s voice. My eyeballs was black. Hallelujah.

Diesel reappeared. He froze as stiff as Rocks.

Black like you was dead, the man said, which was what Isaac’s eyes were seeing too.

I’ve got a knife, Jearold yelled.

It’s the radio, said Isaac.

The radio ain’t on.

It was on scan, said Isaac.

It was on gospel, Jearold said, and then we turned it off.

No, said Diesel, it just went to static.

So where’d the static go? said Jearold. Did the hills move?

Hellfire ain’t red, the radio man said, it’s black. Cause you ain’t got no eyeballs. The voice had holes in its throat and cancers in its mouth. Come down to the store, it said, and the gas man cried, The blood, the blood.

He’s talken to us, said Diesel.

They’s blood behind your eyeballs, said the radio, and Jearold felt his eyes for blood. This invasion will hit you anywhere you’re at, said the radio. Steal away your shadow, hallelujah.

I can’t see my shadow, said Diesel.

They’s soon to be an invasion come inside your house like you’ve never had before, said the radio.

Isaac was sure it was the voice he’d talked to on the phone. It sounded kind and wise. He hoped the man was married, that he and his wife would see together Isaac’s life and want to help him. Preachers helped other people; it was their job. They made money doing it, like deliverymen. The invasion was inside my house, the radio said, and Diesel cried out, He’s talken to us. He’s talken to the dog.

That was my eyeballs back in my head, said the radio. That was my eyeballs back in my head.

They ain’t no dog to talk to, Jearold said.

His eyeballs are back in his head, said Diesel. Maybe it’s okay.

Hallelujah, said the radio, we’re gonna do some things to your eyeballs.

Your dog’s dead, Diesel yelled at the radio.

Hallelujah out there on the roads. All of your eyeballs.

Diesel tore at the stereo. It was a Spark-o-matic from Walmart, and it came out easily. He threw it into the woods and held his breath and listened for its landing, which came much later, at the bottom of a rocky cliff. Isaac thought of the river, not so many yards away.

I paid thirty dollars for that tape deck, Jearold said.

I killed that tape deck, Diesel said. That tape deck is dead. He pointed toward the cliff that the sound had dug, and Isaac hated them both. He wanted to crawl down the chasm wall to find out where the eyeball preacher’s eyes had gone, and now Diesel was petting Rocks, stroking a bone as if it were the nape of the dog’s brown neck. Play dead, he whispered, and Isaac could see his breath again. Diesel’s air hung right above the dog’s head.