Rand seated himself. She avoided his gaze. Hey asshole, Bowman said. Not that I want to break the ice or anything, but a certain little issue has reared its ugly head.
Rand viewed Bowman groggily. What? Rand mimed. So? Bowman plucked her injured limb up and held it aloft. Then with exaggerated care returned it to her. Rand jammed the heel of his hand to his eye. Fuck, he said.
The bartender brought beer and oysters and she stalked to the damp closet-sized bathroom where she tried to relieve herself. Nothing came. She returned to the table, picking and drinking as wordless as Bowman and Rand. All three of them were still under the influence—residual narcosis and adrenaline’s wasting dopamine aftermath. Rand looked shrunken, old before his time. Some old geezer too worn to ask how she was doing, if she was okay. Finished with his dozen, Bowman cleared his throat. What’s the point, string bean? he said. Maybe you don’t care about your own safety. But you might want to think about his.
For a moment she and Bowman observed Rand, who was engrossed in opening a package of crackers. His? she said, pick-picking again at a shell—she could maneuver with difficulty but still get the job done. He can’t speak for himself?
Rand and Bowman both stared straight ahead. More silent treatment! she thought. Was that really such a good idea? She slathered an oyster into her mouth then lobbed the shell onto the plate piled high with empties in the middle of the table. A few shells leapt and skittered onto the floor. Then Rand picked up his fork again and Bowman drank and the bartender removed his shucking glove and mopped his brow with a dishtowel. Soon she let the door slam behind her and, with her good hand, rattled the handle to the truck and scootched in. Sweat ran off her face and sucked between her breasts and soaked her shirt. Hot sharp spikes jabbed her gut. Stomach flu was all she had. Three days of snivelling and god knows and meanwhile her fucked arm would right itself. Deserve or didn’t had nothing to do with it. It was just her luck, her fuckhead told her, hammering tight.
Part Five
34
No sign of Bowman by the time they hit it northbound. She and Rand stopped only for fuel, fries, other shit he killed on the go while she nursed vitamin waters. Nineteen hours in, a hundred clicks from home, an early snow sparked the night fields beyond a gas station. She managed herself from the truck, Rand sullen at the pump, shoulders hunched to his ears. The thick hose stirred between them. Wind fired their hair. Flakes drifted down.
Pitiful sleep. Now she squinted, stunned by weak sunlight. She parsed the rows of towering red-bricks, their rotting pumpkins on paved paths and polyester ghosts espaliered over shrubs. Orange leaf-stuffed bags. Her home-sweet dime-sized lawn scaly with waste. She shuffled to her front gate holding her arms from her sides as if walking a gangplank, breath in white parachutes. From the mailbox she scooped envelopes and flyers, other peoples’ ideas of things, and canted her face skyward. Cumuli, starling drift. The cold planed her skin at the jawline and cheekbones. In the hallway again she felt cleansed, de-cored like an apple. Not bad. Her wrist barely ached as she retied the drawstring on her sweatpants. The fabric bunched and she billowed the hem of her shirt over her concave stomach, pelvic bones thrusting like tusks. Last night in bed he’d strummed her ribs—first close contact in a week. You’re disappearing, he’d said.