Whiskey by Bruce Holbert

Author:Bruce Holbert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

LAMENTATIONS

June 1984

Peg scanned rest areas and emergency turnouts for nondescript cars or trucks carrying two or more men and scratched the details on a notepad beneath her seat. A seedy-looking pickup sauntered onto the highway in front of them. Four men lay in back under a canopy, but four exits later they departed into thirty square miles of strawberries.

Peg paused to top off the radiator and add an equal amount of antifreeze then filled the gas tank. Another pickup pulled through the pump beside her, but its noisy occupants ended up only being high-school boys loading up on beer and ice. Peg retrieved her floppy hat from the trunk and donned sunglasses then strolled inside for mustard and bread and lunch meat.

The boy awoke. Distance or boredom along with a Big Gulp coffee loosened his tongue and he began a makeshift biography. He hailed from the north country, Stevens County. He had attended community college, toiled at a discount clothing store, and served senior citizens dinners on trays at a local buffet. Recently, he had seen the tiger smile, he said, and watched a man’s last breath leave him.

Peg said nothing. The boy was ridiculous but amusing.

“Scientists, they pluck the first flower of spring, just to see how it works,” he said. “Science. Space and time, spinning planets orbiting stars. Big words to make whoppers against Providence when we are just thoughts bobbing and sinking in God’s mind.” He paused. “It ruins the flowers,” he said, finally.

Evening, she stopped for gas again and used the restroom, then let the boy have his turn. He vanished into the 7-Eleven and reappeared with a grin on his face and a long-stemmed yellow rose in cellophane. He extended it to her. They traveled on. The flower between them rocked on the seat. He’d paid likely ten times its worth.

Midnight, they parked in an abandoned gravel quarry Peg had scouted on the trip down. Together they built sandwiches and ate, then drank bottled water. Peg swallowed a sleeping pill, but the boy didn’t require one.

Morning, they continued, pausing occasionally for coffee and gasoline or a dozen donuts. Then he began a homily against words. He put no stock in them or their symbols. Lying was as old as Adam. If it was a miracle for near-apes to separate their grunts into chains that made sense beyond onomatopoeia then it was just as significant a miracle to undo such matters and close the circle. The pages of every book were only white space and ink scratches and, though the marks had multiplied into a torrent that made Noah’s deluge appear a summer squall, their slashes and dots and intersecting lines could not construct the truth.

He broke from his monologue to build them each another sandwich. Peg watched him devour his and the other half of hers. She had forgotten how much she enjoyed watching men eat. Women let each bite teeter on their forks, balancing the pleasure of taste and a sated appetite against the monster in the mirror they would encounter afterward.

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