Dead and Alive

CHAPTER 60

Jocko in the big car. Not driving. The day would come. All he needed was the keys. And a booster pillow. And long sticks to work the floor pedals. And a reliable map. And somewhere to go.

Until then, riding was good. Being driven was nice.

“Jocko’s first car ride,” he told Erika.

“How do you like it?”

“Smooth. Comfy. Better than creeping through the night, scared of brooms and buckets.”

Rain rattled on the roof. Wipers flung big splashes off the windshield.

Jocko sat dry. Racing through the rain but dry.

In the night, wind shook trees. Shook them hard. Almost as hard as the crazy drunk hobo shook Jocko while shouting, Get out of my dream, you creepazoid, get out of my dream!

Wind slammed the car. Hissed and grumbled at the window.

Jocko smiled at the wind.

Smiling felt good. It didn’t look good. He smiled at a mirror once, so he knew how not-good it looked. But it sure felt good.

“You know what?” he said.

“What?”

“How long has Jocko not twirled or backflipped, or nothing?”

“Not since you’ve been sitting there.”

“How long is that?”

“Over half an hour.”

“Amazing.”

“Is that your record?”

“Got to be. By like twenty-seven minutes.”

Maybe having clothes relaxed Jocko. He liked pants. The way they covered up your flat butt and the knees that made people laugh.

After the crazy drunk hobo stopped shaking Jocko, he shouted, spraying spit, What the hell kind of knees are those? Those knees make me SICK! Never saw knees make me SICK before. You freak-kneed creepazoid!

Then the hobo vomited. Just to prove Jocko’s knees really were sick-making.

Erika was a good driver. Focused on the road. Staring hard.

She was thinking about driving. But something else, too. Jocko could tell. He could read her heart a little.

His first night alive, he found some magazines. In a trash can. Read them in an alleyway. Under a lamppost smelled like cat pee.

One article was called “You Can Learn to Read Her Heart.”

You don’t cut her open to read it, either. That was a relief. Jocko didn’t like blood.

Well, he liked it inside where you needed it. Not outside where you could see it.

Anyway, the magazine told Jocko how to read her heart. So now he knew something troubled Erika.

Secretly he watched her. Sneaking looks.

Those delicate nostrils. Jocko wished he had those nostrils. Not those particular nostrils. He didn’t want to take her nostrils. Jocko just wanted nostrils like them.

“Are you sad?” Jocko asked.

Surprised, she glanced at him. Then back at the road. “The world is so beautiful.”

“Yeah. Dangerous but pretty.”

“I wish I belonged in it,” she said.

“Well, we’re here.”

“Being and belonging are different things.”

“Like alive and living,” Jocko said.

She glanced at him again but didn’t reply. Stared at the road, the rain, the wipers wiping.

Jocko hoped he hadn’t said something stupid. But he was Jocko. Jocko and stupid went together like … like Jocko and ugly.

After a while, he said, “Are there pants that make you smarter?”

“How could pants make anyone smarter?”

“Well, these made me prettier.”

“I’m glad you like them.”

Erika took her foot off the accelerator. Eased down on the brake. As they stopped on the pavement, she said, “Jocko, look.”

He slid forward on his seat. Craned his neck.

Deer crossed the road, in no hurry. A buck, two does, a fawn. Others came out of dark woods on the left.

The trees shook in the wind, the tall grass thrashed.

But the deer were calm under the trembling trees, in the lashing grass, moving slowly but with purpose. They almost appeared to drift like weightless figures in a dream. Serene.

Their legs were so long and slender. They walked like dancers danced, each step precise. The grace.

Golden-brown coats on the does. The buck was brown. The fawn was colored like the does but with white spots. Tails black on top, white underneath.

Narrow, gentle faces. Eyes set on the sides of their faces to provide a panoramic view.

Heads held high, ears tipped slightly forward, they stared at the Mercedes, but only once each. Not afraid.

The fawn stayed near one of the does. Off the road once more, no longer directly in the headlight beams, it capered in a circle in the half-light, in the wet grass.

Jocko watched the fawn caper in the wet grass.

Another buck and doe. Rain glistening on the male’s antlers.

Jocko and Erika watched in silence. There was nothing they could say.

The sky black, the rain rushing, the dark woods, the grass, the many deer.

There was nothing they could say.

When the deer were gone, Erika drove north again.

After a while, she said softly, “Being and belonging.”

Jocko knew she meant the deer.

“Maybe just being is enough, it’s all so beautiful,” Jocko said.

Although she glanced at him, he didn’t look at her. He couldn’t bear to see her sad.

“Anyway,” he said, “if somebody doesn’t belong in the world, there’s no door they can throw him out. They can’t take the world away from him and put him somewhere different. The worst thing they can do is kill him. That’s all.”

After another silence, she said, “Little friend, you never stop surprising me.”

Jocko shrugged. “I read some magazines once.”