No, she couldn’t, she said, it varied, it depended on how many patients the doctor was seeing and how long it would take for him to see them. Et cetera, she added.
But ballpark, I said. I had developed a killer headache in the last five seconds. I put my hand on Logan’s shoulder. I felt like I was going to fall. I could hear Thebes singing something over by the Free Air. She was twirling around, fully inhabiting her weird zone, lit up by the sun and laughing.
You okay? said Logan.
Of course! I said.
I’m sorry, said the woman, I wish I could tell you more. Really, it would be best if you could call again later. Tell me your name again? In case I’m able to pass the message on to the patient…
Min! I said. I mean, no, Hattie! Hattie Troutman. I’m Min’s sister. What the fuck?
I hung up and smiled. Okay! I said. Everything’s fine. Gold. She’s busy.
She’s busy? said Logan. Doing what?
Oh, stuff…like, you know, I said. They have meals and then they have Group and then they have sessions and then…tests…They walk around too, don’t they? It’s nuts.
Well, he said, why’d you ask if she was okay?
I don’t know, I said. No, I do know. Because that’s obviously the big question, right? Is she okay? I mean, that’s what we want to know, right? That’s why we’re calling the hospital. I sat down on the pavement and leaned against the cinder-block wall of the gas station. I closed my eyes and tried to pray but all I could do was channel Bowie and think about how planet Earth was blue and there was nothing I could do.
What are you — Are you okay? asked Logan. He crouched down beside me.
Oh, yeah, I said. It’s just so hot…isn’t it?
When I came to I was stretched out in the supply room with a fan blasting cold air five inches from my face and Logan and Thebes sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor beside me, staring. I looked at the kids and smiled.
Wassup, player? said Thebes.
Thebes, said Logan. Jesus.
I showed Logan how to start the van with the screwdriver. If you get pulled over, tell them you’re sixteen, I said.
What do I do if they ask to see my driver’s licence? he said.
Oh, I don’t know, I said. Stall for time. Don’t get pulled over.
He’d drive to a town called Fruita and then we’d deke down to Moab. First of all he stopped at a grocery store and he and Thebes ran in and bought some cheese and salami and something she called shabu-shabu and bread and fruit and water and a bunch of jumbo-sized chocolate bars and fireworks and a stylin’ cover with flames on it for the steering wheel and a bottle of wine for me and a corkscrew.
I lay in the back seat of the van and listened to a family in the parking lot discussing our licence plate.
What the hell is that? said the guy.
It’s not what, it’s where, honey, said the woman. It’s a licence plate.
Yeah, said the guy, but what the hell does it say?
It says something like Anaconda, said the woman, or…
No, it doesn’t, it says…lemme see.
The guy slapped his hand on the back window and I sat up and opened the side door and said, It says Manitoba, okay? Manitoba.
Where the hell is that? said the guy. In California?
Yes, it is, I said.
Well, now, there you go, hon, mystery solved, said the woman.
When I opened up the bottle of wine, Thebes said whoa, you yanked that cork out of there like you were saving it from drowning. She got out her markers and drew a screaming face on the cork. She made me a sandwich and cut it into tiny triangles, bite-size. I lay on the back seat with my head in her lap and she tried to cheer me up. She made the rescued cork sing songs from Super Fly and she played games with me. Logan was driving with his mondo headphones on so his music wouldn’t bug me but mostly so he couldn’t hear Thebes.
Okay, said Thebes, who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Frankenstein or George Bush?
Frankenstein, I said.
Okay, who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Frankenstein or Freddie Krueger?
Frankenstein, I said.
Okay, who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Frankenstein or Peter Pumpkineater?
Peter Pumpkineater. No, wait, I said. Franken—
No, you already said Peter Pumpkineater, said Thebes. Who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Peter Pumpkineater or Snoop Dogg?
Snoop Dogg.
Okay, who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Snoop Dogg or Paul Martin?
We did that for a few minutes until I eventually ended up with the Lion King’s runty brother as my boyfriend.
The whole time I was thinking about Min. Well, I was also thinking about Marc and I was thinking about Cherkis, and I was thinking about what a world-class champion of fucked-up I was. One week ago I’d been a carefree bon vivant in the City of Lights ballin’ in the mad cheddar, as Thebes would say, and now I was passing out in gas stations and drinking wine out of the bottle with an imaginary animal for a boyfriend and a fifteen-year-old at the wheel. I didn’t know if we should turn around and go back home, head straight to the hospital, or crank it up a notch and haul ass to Twentynine Palms. Maybe drive all night. But in which direction?
Thebes and I fell asleep all tangled up while Logan careened like a rangy demon through the mountains with his Biggie blasting and the wind howling and semi drivers blaring their horns at him to get the hell away from them.
ten
WHEN I WOKE UP we were in a corner of the parking lot of a motel, parked under a dim streetlight covered in moths. Logan was slumped, asleep, over the wheel and Thebes was lying on the floor, also asleep, between the back and the front seats. I sat up carefully and silently and looked at them. The streetlight was buzzing but not very loudly and some moths were gently throwing themselves against the windshield of the van. Logan was snoring very, very quietly and still gripping the wheel with both hands. His music had stopped. His notebook was in his lap. I reached around to the front and picked it up and stared at it. Logan had used a fat Sharpie to write Hot Tears Is a Concept on the cover. I put it back in his lap.
Thebes looked a little confused while she slept, like she was trying to remember what the distance was between the sun and the earth or why it was, again, that she’d had to be born. She had a thin moustache of sweat on her upper lip and her hair was plastered to her head. She had corked up my bottle of wine, and I meticulously uncorked it again and sat there sipping plonk and wondering what it would feel like to leave these two homies behind.
Hi, Hattie, whispered Thebes. Are you awake? Where are we?
Hey, I said. I don’t know. Moab, probably. You okay?
Rock solid, she said. She glanced at Logan draped over the wheel. Did he get shot?
No, I said. He’s sleeping.
She wiped her eyes and mouth with one filthy hand and patted my knee with the other one. Drinking alone? she said.
No, you’re here, I said.
I don’t count, she said. Want to hear my dream?
Yeah, I said. Tell me.
I dreamt that there was a thirteenth month, she said. And everybody knew about it except me. Like, it had been there all along, like all throughout time. A thirteenth month, and nobody had told me. And then I found out that even my birthday was in the thirteenth month, which was squeezed somewhere in between February and March. And this month, the thirteenth month, was called Shtetl. So, like, my birthday was Shtetl the Eighth.
Shtetl, I said.
Do you know what that is? she said. She was busy adjusting her holster.
No, I said, well, yeah, sort of. Like, a small town. I think it’s a Hebrew word, like Moab. Maybe that’s why you had the dream.