I text Lettie, because there’s no way she and Richard would put up with this sort of bullshit. Are they here? In what quadrant? Could they issue a specific cry, maybe holler my name?
Airbnb! she texts back. Headed to Morley’s for clams and bloodies. Where r u?
Oh Jesus, right. People made plans. People thought ahead. I think it’s best not to mention this to James, because that’s something I could have been doing while he drove, securing our safe, private, cozy lodging and making dinner rezzies and otherwise running advance recon for this sweet adventure of ours.
James has curled up on the cot, and he’s staring into space. He looks tired. His color is James-like, which is never so great. I’m not sure how to monitor a change. I worry that he’s parked for good now, that the powerful laws of the late afternoon, which seem to visit men of a certain age, will be pulling him down into some bottomless, mood-darkening sleep, from which he will wake crankily, trumpeting his exhaustion, denying that he ever slept.
“Are you going to be napping?” I ask him, as neutrally as I can. “Because…”
“No, I’m not going to be napping. Are you kidding me? Here?” He has a way of shouting in a whisper. It’s his evacuation shelter whisper, I guess, although it has caught the attention of certain of our neighbors, who might want to scooch their cots somewhere else, come to think about it.
Yes, I want to assure them. We will be like this all night, whispering our special brand of kindness at each other, so pull up a chair and put your heads in our asses. That’s where the view is best. Perhaps that’s one way to secure our area and erect a kind of privacy barrier.
“Maybe you should get up?” I say.
“Jesus, Alice, I’ve been driving for hours. I can’t relax for a minute?”
“Yes you can, and even longer. Take all the time you like. I would just like to know your plans so I can plan accordingly.”
“What,” he hisses. “Are you going to go out and meet some friends? Go out to lunch, maybe?”
We have a different strategy when it comes to the timing of our emotional broadcasts. James buckles in public, and a hole opens in his neck, or whatever, and out comes his sour message for me and the world. One feels that he is emboldened in a crowd. It is possible that he does not see them as human, and thus fails to experience shame when he debases himself in their midst. Like masturbating in front of a pet. Whereas I frequently wait until we are alone, and then I quietly birth my highly articulate rage in his direction, in the calmest voice I can manage. I certainly have my bias, but it is possible that neither style is superior, and that a level silence in the face of distress or tension is the ultimate goal. Silence, in the end, is the only viable rehearsal for what comes after, anyway. I mean way, way after. And one certainly wants to be prepared. One wants to have practiced.
“Not here, James,” I say, as brightly as I can.
“What you mean is not anywhere, right, Alice? Not anywhere and never?”
Not bad. He is learning. Although I do not doubt that he will share his feelings with me when we find some privacy.
We head out to the car and talk this through. The cots will be here as a last resort, although it feels odd using the word “resort” with respect to such a location. James feels that we should start driving because there will be plenty of other people with our same idea, all of them racing to find the closest hotel room. It’s kind of the plot of Cannonball Run, except the people are old, they drive very slowly, and some of them just might die tonight. Eventually, James explains, if we go far and fast enough, we should find some part of this hellish country not affected by the storm, with plenty of empty beds. He would like to express confidence now, I can see that. I imagine that he wants me not to worry. If only he could do it without making me worry so much more.
The roads might still be packed, he says, and who knows about the weather. Around us there’s a fringe of rain and the sky is black and there’s that sound, a kind of pressurized silence, as if the orchestra is just about to start playing. The conductor will tap his baton and all hell will break loose. We figure we should get out of here, head further inland, and maybe there will be some food and a nice clean bed in a room where we can lock the door. It sounds decadent to me, and delicious, and I sort of cannot wait. We are a team, and it feels like we’ve just broken out of jail together.
We pull onto the highway and I check the news on my phone. “They are calling this storm Boris.”
“Boris,” he says flatly, as if I’ve just told him the name of a distant star.
“What’s the thinking there?” I wonder.
“They needed a B name.”
“Yes, well then, Boris, of course.”
“And they practice a kind of diversity.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure they want to be inclusive.”
“Not to trigger anyone by using a regular name?”
“Boris is a regular name,” says James. “In several parts of the world. With massive populations. Possibly more regular than John, worldwide.”
“Then let the storm go bother them.”
“I’m sure there are people named Boris over here.”
“Oh I’m sure. I bet their cocks stink.”
“What is wrong with you?” James is grinning. I don’t think he minds my moods when they’re not directed at him.
“Plenty. I’m hungry and you won’t let me eat. We just have to drive and drive. I’m going to hurl myself from the car.”
James smiles, and he pretends to do math, wetting his finger and tabulating an imaginary problem in the air in front of him. “Fifty,” he says.
“What?”
“I definitely think that’s at least fifty times that you’ve threatened to jump from a moving car. At least since I’ve known you. I can’t be sure about the time before that, but something tells me you had a penchant for it in your early years, too.”
He may be right. I don’t care to reflect too far back, particularly on the threats I may have needed to utter in certain stifling situations as a youth, which, one should not be surprised, very often occurred when I was a passenger in a car. I used to think about it more seriously, imagining myself rolling like a weevil, but finally free of torments. And of course the most delicious part of the fantasy was what would happen in the car after I ejected. The shock, the panic, the deep, abiding respect. Even the jealousy. Someone had finally done what everyone else could only dream of.
“Boo-ya,” I say. “Perhaps a more intuitive name.”
“Beelzebub.”
“Bitch face.”
“Bronwyn.”
“Bald Mountain.”
“Boredom.” And we both laugh.
“Boredom the storm is barreling down the coast. Boredom brings destruction in its wake. Coastal villages still recovering from the deadly effects of Boredom.”
The road is kind of gross. There’s a wild, erratic rain, as if some man with a bucket, hiding in a ditch, is occasionally hurling water at us, like from an old film set. We have the news on, and we’ve texted some friends. Everyone is everywhere. A few of them did opt for the cots back at the shelter. What could it hurt, they wrote. And they’ve come around with snacks! Our plan is to push to the next town, but it’s hard to see how that happens in this rain, in this darkness. It’s two hours or so in normal driving conditions, and looking at James, squeezed into an awful, tense ball behind the wheel, gnashing his teeth like a cartoon character, it’s hard to feel that he has two more hours of driving left to give. Poor thing. This is the statistic that is looking to claim our aging, musty bodies: the danger that befalls people in flight from other danger.