Our Love Will Go the Way of the Salmon Read online

  After he saw the devil fish at his daddy’s funeral, the only things the man could do besides play the guitar were smoke cigarettes and drink and sulk in the musty darkness of Bear Naked.

  One day, he snubbed out his cigarette against the concrete foot of the bear-in-lingerie sculpture in the parking lot of Bear Naked, squinting against the white noonday sun. The butt fell to the pavement. He opened his pack for another, but he’d smoked his last.

  A red Impala pulled into the parking lot right then, pulling into the empty space next to the man. The driver stepped out, glimmering in the hot light. The driver was the devil fish. The man stood on the opposite side of the Impala and could not see how the fish was standing. Whether it had grown human legs or floated, he did not know. The fish stared at the man. The man ran home.

  He began seeing the fish everywhere—it stared in at him through the windows of the house at all hours of the night and day, at the bar, in the mirror. He withdrew as his condition advanced. He spoke not a word to his wife. He struggled to even communicate with her about so much as what to eat for dinner. He could not watch television, for the fish appeared in every sporting match and on every game show, in every sitcom and cartoon. Everywhere he looked, he encountered that unspeakable fish he and his daddy had caught and killed, and soon there was nowhere to retreat. The guitar now made him sad. Cigarettes and whiskey sickened him. So he stopped everything all together, resolved to sit and wait it out, blindfolded. If the fish was going to get him, he may as well let it happen. He spent most waking hours in bed, black bandana tied over his face, knotted behind, to shield his eyes, which remained squeezed painfully shut just in case the bandana slipped and leaked in light. Then one day his wife had had enough. She came home from work and said, “I can’t take it anymore. Either you get out of bed and you stay out or I’m leaving you.”

  This was it. Either he confessed to her the state he was in, or she would leave, and he would be alone. So he heaved a sigh, slipped the bandana down around his neck, and said, “I have a confession.” Her silence said continue, so he continued. “I’m being followed by a fish.”

  The wife looked at him in a sad way then.

  “Behind you. In the window. Don’t you see it?” he asked, for the fish was staring in at them as they spoke.

  “What’s happened to you?” she said.

  “I’m scared.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to do.”

  “Please.”

  “I just don’t know.”

  “I see the fish everywhere, even in mirrors. Where I go, it goes. There’s no escaping this.”

  The wife lifted the full-length mirror off the wall and swung it around so that before he had a chance to close his eyes he caught a glimpse of himself. He saw a different man than he thought himself to be, but there was no sign of the fish, just a man prematurely entering old age, nothing more.

  “What do you see?” the wife said.

  “I see me.”

  “Do you see any fish?”

  “No.”

  “Then get out of the goddamn bed and get a grip.”

  When the wife left the bedroom, he got out of the bed and dressed in clean clothes because he’d worn the same outfit for days. He went into the kitchen and the wife served up a dinner of pork chops and mashed potatoes and green beans. They spoke little during the meal but the words they did exchange were pleasant. Afterward, they made love. The wife said something about feeling glad to have the man back, that she’d missed him, and the man, feeling like he’d just touched down on earth after a prolonged journey through outer space, got it in his head that the best thing to do in that moment was to make a joke. He folded his hands behind his head and said, “Easiest kites there are to fly.” This did not go over well. The wife’s face turned to stone. She was furious. What ensued was this: an argument about everything that was ever argued about between two people who love each other. They covered all the bases. It was a real heavyweight title fight of an argument. When it ended, the woman sat crying on the kitchen floor, attempting to piece together the ruins of an antique teapot that had survived the great San Francisco earthquake and fire and which had been passed down to her from her grandmother. The man smashed it against the wall after the woman snapped the tip on his daddy’s old fishing rod. They hadn’t apologized for any of that. They simply reached a point where both were too wounded to carry on, so the woman cried and the man slammed the door and left the house, intent on getting plastered at Bear Naked, where he saw his daddy’s ghost race by. That is when and why he stole the truck.

  Right now, he’s pulling up to the lake. Lights in the distance waver in the valley smog, which acts like a shield between the earth and the stars above.

  Dark farmland.

  Coyotes howl.

  Somewhere, an owl picks off a mouse.

  The man sits in the stolen truck with the headlights shining on the still black water, the radio sputtering the day’s baseball scores through static. His daddy’s ghost is out there somewhere, ready to face the unspeakable fish, the one they feared, the one they caught and killed out of fear, so many years ago. The man knows not what he has done, but he is ready to find out. He is ready to see his daddy again. It is time to return the darkness to its home. He kills the engine. No more lights, no more baseball scores. He opens the door and steps out.

  A man drives a hearse down a desert highway, pursued by a police cruiser.

  His name is Andrew.

  Andrew owns a cellphone the size—but not the shape—of a personal watermelon.

  Andrew talks into the phone as he drives.

  He says, “Hey, it’s Andrew. I’m calling from my car phone.”

  On the other end of the line: “Your what?”

  It’s the mid-nineties.

  In the mid-nineties in the desert, people did not know of such things as car phones.

  Andrew says, “My car phone. They’re new. Listen, I got a copper on my trail. You mind if I stop by your place?”

  On the other end: “What’s the copper want with you?”

  “Look, I got a hot load. Will you be ready?”

  “Will you show me that car phone?”

  “Yeah, I’ll show you the car phone.”

  ***

  The hearse squeals off the highway onto a farm road.

  The hearse pulls up in front of a farmhouse, followed by the police car.

  The policeman steps out of his car, gun drawn.

  Then, boom.

  The cop and the police car explode.

  A man steps down from the farmhouse porch with a rocket launcher slung over his shoulder.

  This man’s name is Jesse.

  Jesse approaches the hearse.

  Andrew rolls down the hearse’s window.

  “Now let’s see this so-called car phone,” Jesse says.

  ***

  Andrew and Jesse sit in the living room of the farmhouse, the car phone on the table between them.

  The flaming police cruiser can be seen through the kitchen window, but they don’t care about that.

  “My god, I think you’re right. It is a car phone. But what the hell is a car phone?” Jesse says, and then he shouts, “Myrtle! Get in here. I want you to see this.”

  A pretty young woman enters the room.

  This is Myrtle.

  She’s Jesse’s fiancée.

  She’s the love of Jesse’s life.

  “What is it? Oh hey Andrew,” Myrtle says.

  “It’s a car phone,” Jesse says. “Andrew’s car phone.”

  Andrew stands in greeting.

  “Afternoon, Myrtle,” he says.

  “Where’d you get such a strange telephone?” Myrtle asks.

  “I bought it off a guy. They’re new.”

  “Can you call people on it?”

  This is what Myrtle wants to know.

  Andrew nods proudly and says, “Right you can, Myrtle.”

  Jesse does not like the sound of this.

  Jes
se says, “Now don’t be going doing that. Might be bugged. Satellites in space could be beaming all your calls straight to the government…the police.”

  “I want to make a call,” Myrtle says, almost too quiet.

  “It’s not bugged,” Andrew says. “You go ahead, Myrtle. You call anyone you want. You just turn it on with that button, and dial the numbers like normal.”

  Myrtle lifts the receiver like it’s a foreign object.

  Myrtle says, “The stationary store isn’t supposed to have our save-the-date cards all printed out and ready to pick up until Tuesday, but I may as well give them a ring. Maybe some of this car telephone magic will get ’em done quicker.”

  “Save-the-dates? Hell, congratulations to you both,” Andrew says.

  Jesse nods. “The wedding’s July 4th.”

  Myrtle speaks into the telephone now. “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? My name is Myrtle Mayberry. I’m calling about my save-the-dates. For my wedding.”

  Jesse still seems nervous about the telephone.

  Myrtle smiles. “Oh, you do. Well that’s just wonderful. My husband and I will be by to pick them up this afternoon. Thank you. Bye-bye.”

  Myrtle makes a squealing noise as she sets down the phone.

  She and Jesse embrace, kiss.

  “I love you, honey,” Jesse says.

  “You make me so happy,” Myrtle says.

  Andrew picks up the phone and presses the END CALL button, which Myrtle failed to do, having never used a phone with an END CALL button before.

  Andrew slides the car phone toward them.

  “An early wedding present, in case I’m not around come July. May it bring you all the luck a car phone can bring a beautiful couple’a lovebirds like yourselves.”

  “That car phone is magic, I swear. Those save-the-dates wouldn’t’ve been ready if I called on the regular phone. This calls for a celebration.”

  “Not now, Myrtle. Andrew and I got some work to do. Whyon’t you drive into town and pick up our save-the-dates. We may not finish till after the store closes.”

  “I feel overwhelmed with excitement,” Myrtle says. “Simply overwhelmed.”

  “Me too, hon. Me too,” Jesse says.

  Andrew gets up off the couch and stretches, heads to the door.

  “Say we do it,” he says.

  “Lead the way, Cap’n,” Jesse says.

  ***

  Myrtle honks the horn, waving a hand frantically out the window in goodbye as she drives away from the farm.

  She drives right past the flaming police cruiser like it’s nothing.

  Andrew and Jesse stand near the rear of Andrew’s hearse, as if waiting for Myrtle to pull out onto the highway and be gone.

  Jesse says, “So what’d you mean in there ’bout in case you’re not around in July? We’d be honored to have you at our wedding.”

  “Think I’m gonna hit the road for a while,” Andrew says. “You know. Business.”

  “Business, huh?” Jesse slams a palm against the top of the hearse. “What kind of business you in these days anyhow? Last we saw each other, you were as likely to put a person in the back of a hearse as you were to shake their hand.”

  “My killing days are behind me, Jesse.”

  “How’s a man like you pass his hours without shedding blood? It must drive you crazy.”

  “I’m a healer now,” Andrew says.

  “A healer in a hearse? Shit, you are crazy.”

  Andrew opens the passenger-toting rear of the hearse, slides the coffin back there halfway out, and throws it open.

  The coffin is full of snakes.

  Jesse jumps away.

  Probably shits himself.

  Probably maybe.

  He shouts, “Jesus fucking Christ. What the hell is the matter with you?”

  “They’re medicine,” Andrew says, an emotionless expression on his face, his eyes downturned as if gazing into the snake-filled coffin but seeing right past it.

  Jesse puts a hand on Andrew’s shoulder, fear giving way to concern.

  “You a Satanist?” Jesse asks.

  “The snakes are medicine,” Andrew says.

  “I asked you a question. Now are you a Satanist or aren’t you?”

  Andrew slams the coffin shut and turns, emits some words from between fixed rows of sharp teeth: “I’m no goddamn Satanist.”

  “THEN WHY IN THE DEVIL ARE YOU DRIVING AROUND WITH A COFFIN FULL OF SNAKES? JESUS MAN, YOU’RE LIKE SATAN’S DELIVERY SERVICE.”

  Andrew removes a flask from his back pocket, hands it to Jesse.

  Jesse takes a long drink, then another.

  Andrew takes a nip then replaces the flask.

  “Here’s the deal,” Andrew says. “The hearse and the snakes are separate. Do not think of them together. I needed to lift a vehicle to haul the snakes. Not any vehicle would do either. I needed a vehicle with an enclosed storage space. You know, so the snakes didn’t get out.”

  “And a coffin was the first thing you thought of.”

  “Right.”

  “So why in the hell did you need to haul the snakes? Are you a reptile man now? Don’t tell me you’re a reptile man.”

  “Sick people need medicine,” Andrew says. “I supply their supplier with the source.”

  “Snakes.”

  “The venom from the snakes in that coffin could save hundreds of lives.”

  “Shit, when did you start caring about saving lives?”

  “When I looked behind me and realized the road was paved with blood.”

  Jesse points at Andrew’s boots. “Still is.”

  Andrew looks down, exhales a prolonged noise like someone’s just played a very good prank on him and he’d be impressed and amused if he weren’t so pissed.

  He’s standing in a puddle of the policeman’s blood.

  Andrew says, “Those were new boots.”

  “Anyway, that’s a long way for some blood to leak,” Jesse says.

  “You’re right, it is,” Andrew says, then marches over to the cop’s charred corpse and stomps the skull in, muttering obscenities.

  Jesse looks on, the mortified expression on his face betrayed by a glimmer of excitement in his eye, as if he’s missed this.

  When Andrew’s boot breaks through the cop’s chest cavity and praying mantises spill out, Jesse turns and walks inside.

  Some men are just so full of insects.

  ***

  Andrew enters the farmhouse, bare-footed.

  Jesse pours him a whiskey, tops off the glass in front of himself.

  “So’s the pay good at least?” Jesse asks.

  “Let’s just say you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what I’m making.”

  “Suppose that’s why you had to steal a car. ’Cause you’re loaded.”

  Andrew takes the whiskey bottle and pours another three fingers’ worth, drains that one too.

  “Money’s not mine yet,” he says, exhaling fire breath. “Paid in full upon delivery. This’ll be my first.”

  “I wish the best of luck to you.”

  “It’s getting lonely on the road, though.”

  “That why you came here?”

  Andrew leans forward, serious, locking eyes with Jesse, and says in a low voice, “I could use a partner.”

  “What’d that cop wanna pull you over for anyway?”

  “Speeding. Ten over.”

  “Motherfucker. I should’ve known.”

  “What do you say? You in?”

  “Myrtle and me’re settled down now. We’re getting married.”

  “There’d be a lot of money in it for you. Enough for you not to worry about money for a long time.”

  “Give me a figure.”

  “I’ll give you half of what’s coming to me for the trouble.”

  “What’s coming to you?”

  “How’d you like to feel up a seven-figured beauty?”

  “You asking me how I’d feel about boinking a woman with, like, random mathematic
al angles pokin’ out of her, like she’s some kind of circus freak,” Jesse says. “Is that what you’re asking me. And if it is, are we talking seven tits or seven knees, or are these just weird growths or something.”

  “Money, jackass. I mean money. Seven figures.”

  Jesse is counting.

  Andrew says, “Seven figures is a million. We’re talking a million dollars. Half for me, half for you and Myrtle. If you come with me.”

  “All for droppin’ off some snakes?”

  “It’s a long drive. It’s dangerous. But these people need their medicine.”

  “What kind of illness do they got anyway?”

  Andrew refills their glasses with whiskey and says, “You ask a lot of questions for a man about to make a lot of money.”

  Jesses pushes the whiskey away.

  “I’m sorry, Andrew. I’m not your man.”

  Andrew slides the whiskey back in front of Jesse.

  “I wouldn’t be here if you wasn’t my man, Jesse.”

  Jesse seems to mull this over.

  Snakes.

  Money.

  Love.

  Death.

  Whenever faced with a tough decision, Jesse’s father would tell a little story. He’d say in the center of the earth there’s a grinning angel, and if you ever chance to meet the grinning angel, she’ll show you that all life is precious, then as your eyes balloon out, filled with the knowledge of all that is holy in life, the angel will rip your heart out and eat it in front of you, grinning all the while.

  And you have to ask yourself, is it worth it?

  That’s the question to ask in times like these.

  The million dollar question.

  Is it worth it?

  Jesse thinks it is. “I’m in, but only under one condition. Myrtle comes along.”

  “Hell no,” Andrew says.

  “Then I’m out.”