Page 18 - Vol. VII #1

Thirst (continued from preceding page)
The dog belonged to a man who sat on a Harley. Large orange-red flames engulfed the side of the bike, sprawling onward and upward so that it seemed the bike was floating, and the spotless chrome gleamed in the sunlight. A small trailer was attached to the back of the Harley, presumably for the dog, and Marion thought it looked quite cozy.
The man was old and handsome, or perhaps young and much wizened—most likely very old indeed and etched to perfection by constant wind and rain, his face softened by the touch of his leather jacket under his cheeks when he slept. He had flowy gray hair, nearly white, and a suede vest lay caressingly on his hairless chest. The leather jacket was neatly folded
in front of him. Despite the aging, flabby arms, its skin thick and tan from a lifetime of sun exposure, the man’s shoulders were still strong and sinewy, and he sat on his bike still, perfectly erect, his leather- clad legs planted on the ground firmly. It was only a moment—a wild, reckless, selfish moment she didn’t indulge in—but Marion wanted to jump onto the bike and join that beautiful man who Marion believed, although she didn’t really know, was an American In- dian, wanting to stay and flee in equal measures, like herself—or so Marion imagined. She could almost feel the buttery touch of the suede vest on her chest as she hugged the man from behind, the warm wind embracing them both.
The Indian, as Marion called him now, got off his bike and turned his back on Marion. He searched for something in his jacket, his movements unhurried, and as Marion watched the man’s vest, she saw that it was mended in the back in multiple places and frayed at the edges. She marveled at the possibility of not being wealthy and still living so free, wondering how the man did it, did he really do it, or was this sense of freedom just an illusion, like so many other things? The longer she stared at the small mended parts of the vest, the threads carefully applied and the inci- sions appearing like small, healed wounds, the louder Marion’s heart began to beat in her chest, until she felt she couldn’t breathe anymore.
“‘Tain’t your life, stop yur starin’.”
Marion turned around at the voice. Brian sat on his seat with Lidia’s door wide open, legs thrown across Lidia’s seat, smoking a cigarette, smoking it down to its nub. He watched Marion with a fascination that made her blush, then, his face suddenly slacking into a bored stillness, Brian looked away and flicked his cigarette onto the burning asphalt. Orange light smol- dered for a moment where the nub hit the ground before the glow died out.
Lidia emerged from the restroom, walking slowly, dazed by the sudden luminosity. She was pale but smiled at Marion as she passed. They got into the Chevy, Lidia first, settling not in the front but in the back; then Marion climbed in, her feet weightless. Bri- an kept his hand on the key in the ignition as if wait- ing for something, head tilted slightly towards Lidia, then with a quick angry move he started the car. The Chevy responded with a loud drumming of a sound that burst through the day rudely. They were already pulling out when Marion remembered the Indian and turned in her seat, lifting an arm before she even knew the Indian was still there; and he was there, standing next to his bike, his hair like a white flame in the sun- light. He seemed to be standing as if he had lost track of time, as if time had lost its meaning to him and he could have stayed there all day. When Marion waved, he waved back. Raising his hand, a silver bead on his vest blinked for a moment and Marion thought, maybe an alien up in the sky would take the sudden flash as a sign of greeting, and she grinned.
~
The further south they went on Highway 1, the less shaggy pines they saw, until the trees were gradu- ally replaced by colorless grass and rocks. They crossed muddy rivers, their beds stirred up from the storm, flies buzzing atop their surface crazily, bobbing and pitching into the river, and Marion knew that fishing would be lousy now, but her mother could still catch plenty of rainbow trout behind one of the boulders where the water was deep and serene. Marion often wondered about the strange relationship between her mother and wa- ter, of Lidia’s ability to become one with it as if she was made of the same elements. Before their move to the city, before the blue envelopes and Lidia’s nightmares and before heroin, Marion had spent countless hours with her mother fishing at their favorite river, even on weekdays before school and work, the two of them packing up their fishing gear as the sun turned from dark purple to orange to yellow behind them.
Marion never asked her mother about the blue enve- lopes which arrived every Friday, beginning about a month after Lidia started her new job at Dick’s. The way Lidia handled the envelopes, her reaction to not only the letters but soon the mail truck coming and the weekend nearing and eventually to everything colored blue, so that Marion stopped wearing jeans and inviting Lidia to her swim meets because her team’s swimsuits were blue—all of this shut Marion’s mouth every time she gathered up her strength to
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