Thebes, I said, are you okay? Why aren’t you talking?
I don’t know, she said. I think I might be depressed.
Logan and I both whipped our heads around to look at her and the van veered towards the dotted line. Nobody gets away with using the D word in our family without a team of trauma experts, a squad of navy SEALs, Green Berets and a HazMat crew appearing instantaneously in the midst.
Just kidding, said Thebes. Dope art, Lo. There’s nothing more I can teach you.
Thanks, T., said Logan. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me.
El Corazón, said Thebes, and tapped her chest twice with her fist.
We were driving through the Valley of the Gods, getting close to the Arizona border. Cliffs, canyons, mesas and buttes. It was hot, and the light and the shadows were spectacular and shifting and everything looked like it was on fire, red and orange and eroded and ancient and dry. Navajo territory.
Mexican Hat itself was tiny, maybe fifty people, named after a rock formation that looked like an upside-down sombrero. We stopped at a roadside stand and bought some burritos and fruit from a silent family with seventeen kids who kept popping up out of nowhere like spam, and sat on a rock overlooking the valley.
Where are the gods? asked Thebes. Salsa dribbled down her chin and onto her eggshell suit.
I can’t watch you eat, said Logan.
Nobody asked you to, said Thebes.
I was hoping we’d make it to Flagstaff, at least, before the van broke down. We had about two hundred miles to go. Troutmans, let’s move, I said. I hadn’t seen a garage or a gas station for a long time. Thebes dibsed the front seat, Logan sighed heavily, a sigh for the ages, and we all piled back into the mother ship.
And now, said Thebes, for poetry!
Noooooo, said Logan. I’m not playing.
Thebes squinted her eyes and pointed her pistol at Logan. Shit list, she said. It was the first time I’d heard her swear.
Logan put on his headphones. He’d taken off his hoodie in the heat but he pulled his T-shirt up over his face and lay down in the back seat.
Thebes put her feet up on the dash, next to the boy’s head, and turned my music down. What do you want to talk about? she asked me.
My first choice was nothing and my second choice was nothing too, there was so much that I needed to think about, but I told her we could talk about whatever she wanted to talk about.
Have you ever had one of those out-of-body experiences? she asked. Like, where you see yourself…like getting into a car or on a swing set or something like that? Like, for that split second you really believe that the person you’re seeing is actually you?
Yes, I said. I was listening hard, but to the van, trying to determine if it was still making that sound.
That’s wild, eh? she said.
Yeah, I said. It was making that sound.
When Logan and I were little, she said, we only knew one number: 911.
Well, if you’re going to know only one, I guess…, I said.
Then she told me a story. One day we were bored, so we called it eight times in a row, she said.
They had hung up every time the operators answered. But eventually the 911 people sent six cruisers to their house with lights flashing and sirens wailing. Min looked out the window and said oh, bite me hard in the ass. She asked the kids what was going on. They told her what they had done. They’ll charge us with mischief, said Min. Or neglect. Or some damn thing. (Another thing about our family, apparently, was that we were never able to define, precisely, or understand the charges being brought against us. Patterns of incomprehension.) Min ran to the kitchen, grabbed the cast-iron frying pan from the top of the microwave, plunked it on the floor and messed up her hair. The cops banged on the door and she opened it and told them, in a thick Eastern European accent, that everything was okay now, she was so sorry, she had wanted to heat up some perogies, her frying pan had fallen on her head, she had been knocked out for a minute or two, her husband was at work, her children had panicked but were self-conscious about their English and afraid to speak to the 911 operator. No, she had not been assaulted. No, they had not been broken into. She told them she loved Canada. She told them she loved horses. Thebes didn’t know why she’d said that. The cops asked the kids if they were okay. They said yeah. The cops told the kids that next time there was an emergency at home they should attempt to speak with the 911 operators, even though their English wasn’t good. They said okay. The cops left and Logan and Thebes watched them laugh all the way back to their cars.
Hmm, I said. I smiled at Thebes. Your old lady rules. So I guess you’ve stopped calling 911?
It was one of those stories that could have gone in so many different directions. Had Thebes been embarrassed when she saw the cops laughing? Stricken with the realization that the cops knew her mom was nuts, hadn’t believed a word she’d said, and thought it was hilarious? Or had she been proud of Min’s wacky resourcefulness, sure that the cops had bought it, or, even if they hadn’t bought it, had been impressed with the effort, and had gone away feeling happy. Another trippy day of serving and protecting. Was Thebes trying to tell me that Min could handle tricky situations if she needed to, that all was not lost, that she could live life on life’s terms, or was she trying to tell me that Min had seemed crazy to her for a long time?
I think we’re in Arizona, said Thebes. I liked the way she sat up in her seat then and looked around with fresh eyes, like things might be radically different now that we had crossed an invisible state line.
twelve
I WAS AT MIN’S PLACE when Cherkis left. I played with Logan in the backyard while Min, with baby Thebes on her hip, chased Cherkis down the front sidewalk, screaming obscenities and at the same time begging him not to go. A few of the neighbours had come out to watch.
Logan was wearing a red plastic fireman’s hat and was pretending to put out a fire with the garden hose. I was a burn victim and wasn’t allowed to move. Every time I heard Min shriek I’d turn my head and try to get up, but Logan would race over to me, put his hands on my cheeks and his face close to mine and attempt to redirect my focus. You’ll be okay, he said. Don’t worry. You’re gonna make it. You won’t die. And then he’d race back to the fire.
Later on, after Cherkis had successfully managed to escape, Min lay sobbing on the living room floor and Logan sat beside her watching TV. I tried to get him to come for a walk with me and Thebes but he said no, he wanted to watch the Ninja Turtles with Min. When we got back I told Min that I was going to leave for a few hours but that I’d be back that evening to make dinner and help her get the kids to bed and after that I’d hang out with her and sleep over if she wanted me to. I tried to talk to her about Cherkis, about everything, but there was nothing she wanted to say or hear.
It took me forever to leave because Logan had hidden my shoes and wouldn’t tell me where.
Thebes convinced Logan to play Deborah Solomon’s Q and A.
Okay, she said, I’m Deborah Solomon and you are you. Logan Troutman, she said. You’ve experienced a lot of failure in the past. What makes you think this venture will be a success?
Logan: What do you mean failure? Fuck off.
Thebes, interjecting as herself, told Logan that he wouldn’t really say that to Deborah Solomon. Remember, it’s The New York Times, she said. Let me start again.
Logan Troutman, she said. You’ve experienced a lot of failure in the past. What makes you think this venture will be a success?