“Hey,” he said, smiling a warm smile. “Can I sit up here in front?”
A week ago, he had sent her flowers. Five yellow roses, two red roses. A low-pressure bouquet.
Three days ago, a note on stationery paper, saying he was sorry. Saying he had a surprise for her.
At home, he built a little Jodi shrine. A plastic toy pig. A grocery-store receipt. A candle. A picture of some mums. A picture of a school bus.
Now here he was, half on, half off the actual bus.
Ten little kids and two young teens sat perfectly still, observing.
“I’m not supposed to have riders,” said Jodi, keeping it quiet. “Extra grown-ups, like friends or whatever you are.”
“Not supposed to” didn’t mean “no.” Milo started climbing the rest of the way onto the bus, but Jodi reached for the lever, slowly closing the door.
“You can follow me back to the garage,” she said. “Now, get down; you’re going to get me in trouble.”
All right. He stepped down. The door closed in his face.
He followed the bus to fourteen more driveways and three schools, with kids piling up in the backseats, staring. One of them made a face at him. He made a face back. The kids laughed. He could see them turn around to tell Jodi.
Schoolkids, he thought. Thumbs-up.
—
“I quit the slaughterhouse,” he told Jodi after she parked the bus at the district garage.
“So much for putting food on the table.”
“It’s okay. I know somebody who knows somebody over at SynthaGro. They might put me on.”
SynthaGro was a company in Troy that would come and spray little pellets on your lawn and keep bugs and weeds from doing what they did. If he got hired, Milo would be wearing a green uniform with his name on it and pushing a little green spreader—kind of like a lawnmower—around people’s yards. It didn’t pay as well as Dinner Bell, but hey.
“Dinner Bell is like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” said Jodi. “Anything but that.”
And she kissed him on the cheek.
For some reason, this made the dead switch perk up. In the space of his own head, Milo whipped around with a savage grin, teeth exposed, and made the switch disappear.
I’m going to have this, he thought, lashing out. I’m going to have this one good thing. And then another good thing after that. And another.
His old souls peed themselves, spiritually, in amazement.
He kissed her back.
Roses. Letter. School bus.
“What are you thinking?” Jodi asked.
“I’m doing poems in my head,” he answered.
—
She wouldn’t sleep with him unless they were living together.
“So move in,” he said, shrugging. “Your apartment’s the same as mine. What difference does it make?”
She squinched up her eyes.
“That’s romantic,” she said.
“It’s practical,” he said, but then he wheeled around and grabbed her and kissed her and took her hand. She shook his hand off and put her arm around him. They walked out of K’s with their arms around each other.
“The kids are asking when you’re going to follow the bus around again.”
“I thought you were going to get in trouble?”
“I did. Someone called the school. I’m lucky I didn’t get written up.”
It might be fun to be a teacher, he sometimes thought. Once he got to college, anything could happen, really.
—
She moved in that same evening.
Jodi paused in total silence when she saw the Jodi shrine he’d built. He didn’t explain. Just stood worrying, making silent finger-snapping motions.
She didn’t say anything. Just moved on, kept moving in. The second all her things were inside and she’d cleaned the bathroom, she pulled him into the bedroom and said, “You may take off your clothes.”
He saw that she had arranged some things beside the Jodi shrine. A simple Milo shrine: the word “Milo” on a piece of paper, and a candle.
Bright skin. The lamp. Twisted sheets. Breeze. Open window.
And then the list stopped. The poem stopped, if that’s what it was, and there was just her and him, one thing, breathing perfectly.
After, she lay half on top of him, stroking his chest. She said, “I love you. You know that, right?”
“I do,” he said. He loved her, too. He wanted to, anyhow. Wasn’t it the same thing?
So he said “I love you” back to her, and the dead switch screamed as if he’d poured acid on it.
—
It was a lazy afternoon and evening. They unpacked some things and arranged some things. Argued in good humor over whether to use his couch or hers (hers), which TV to use (hers), which plates to use (hers). Three times, they stopped to make love.
The dead switch calmed down and took a softer tack.
What are you doing? it whispered. This could be good or bad. You had to have something bright and human and normal going on, right? Otherwise the beautiful things you did might come to light.
After the second time, they didn’t bother getting dressed again. They sat on the living-room floor, sorting records, naked. Jodi had a tattoo of a dolphin on her shoulder.
“See my dolphin?” she asked, leaning forward, almost into his lap.
“It’s nice,” he said. It was blue.
“I like your armband,” she said.
Milo’s forearm said “Jodi” around it, in a ring.
“It’s not a real tat,” he said. “I drew it on with a marker.”
“Wow.”
“We should both get real ones. Real armband tats with our names.”
She shook her head.
“What?” he said. She wasn’t excited about the idea. He had thought she’d be excited. Why wasn’t she?
“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” she said.
Yeah, said his thousand voices. Don’t.
They were right. Milo nodded, looking away. He sat quietly, tracing her dolphin tattoo with his finger, pulling her close.
Okay, he thought. Breathe out. Be still. It’ll all be so good if you’ll just be still and let it.
—
After she fell asleep, he went for a drive.
Parked his truck off-road and hiked to a bluff overlooking Tick Ridge. Part of Jodi’s bus route.
He needed someplace totally new, after all, if he was going to shoot again. No doubt they had their eye on I-75 now.
Full moon.
Breathe in…let it go…
Crack! The sound of a real rifle, the kick of a real rifle against his shoulder.
The punch! of a real car window disintegrating.
Squealing tires. Headlights going all sideways. The car slid backward into the ditch on the far side of the road.
Warmth bloomed in Milo’s gut and spread through his chest. His groin tingled.
Had he…?
He waited.
Faint car radio.
Scraping noise.
The driver’s-side door opened, and a woman got out. Walked to the middle of the road and stood there with her head down. One hand on her hip, the other rubbing the back of her neck.
Okay.
That was good, right? She wasn’t hurt. Right?
The old voices and the dead switch locked grips and wrestled.
When he got home, Milo was momentarily startled to find Jodi sitting on her couch in his living room, wrapped in one of his blankets, watching her TV.
When people move all their things in together, it takes a while for their minds to follow.
“Where were you?” she asked.
He leaned over and kissed her.