Gods Without Men

2008

Jaz surveyed his new perimeter, the afternoon sun, the pale blue lining of the motel pool. A tactical retreat. He smeared more sunscreen on his face and lay down on the creaky plastic lounger, listening to the traffic on the highway, waiting for the sound of their rental car pulling into the front lot.

He slept for a while, woke up dry-mouthed. The shadows were long, distorted black streaks thrown across the paving, ghosts of chairs and sunshades. He went out and stood by the road, holding the boy’s hand. Raj was bored, twisting from side to side and making clicking sounds. They spent a while spotting trucks, the bigger the better. Raj liked trucks, though he covered his ears with his hands when they went by.

The manager came out of the office and stood watching them.

“You folks not been out today?”

She was wearing a striking outfit, shiny pants and some kind of tapestry vest woven with a wizardy pattern of stars and planets.

“Everything OK? Not sick or nothing, is he?”

“Just waiting for my wife. She went to run some errands. She’ll be back soon.”

The manager pursed her lips around a skinny menthol cigarette, exhaled skeptically. “Sure, honey. You just yell if you need anything. If you’re hungry, there’s take-out menus in the rec room. Pizza place delivers.”

He dialed Lisa’s cell. If she was off sulking somewhere it was time for her to stop. The phone went straight to voicemail. Ten minutes later he called again. The light softened to a pinkish gold, tumbling over the pool like gauze. He and Raj played an interminable game: Raj fetched pebbles, placed them in an arc by his seat. Jaz moved them to the other side. Raj moved them back. There was a system. Order. Cooperation. Every so often, he hit redial.

Voicemail.

And again.

With a click and a buzz, the motel lighting came on. The red glow of the sign leaped up. The string of Christmas lights tacked to the eaves burst out in a sudden scatter of multicolored points. What if she’d been in an accident? She was upset, she could have crashed the car.

As if summoned by the setting sun, the English guy emerged from his room, drowsily scratching his ass. Raj dropped his pebbles and ran straight toward him, skirting the pool in a busy arm-flapping run. He careered into his knees like a football player going in for a tackle. The English guy looked embarrassed.

“Well, hello there.”

“I’m so sorry. I’ve never seen him do that before. Raj, come here. Come to Daddy.”

“He’s alright. You got the time, by the way? My phone’s out of batteries.”

“It’s ten after eight.”

“Fuck, I missed the whole day.”

He cracked a kind of smile, more of a leer, revealing a missing tooth. His accent was alarming, like something out of Oliver. Jaz was surprised. Raj never wanted anything to do with strangers. He only touched his parents under sufferance. Now he was suddenly cuddling up to some sort of scabrous cockney vampire. “He doesn’t usually do this,” Jaz said again.

The vampire looked confused. Jaz felt he ought to explain. “He’s kind of autistic. He doesn’t find it so easy to deal with people.”

“I see.”

“I’m Jaz Matharu, by the way.”

“Nicky.”

“And that’s Raj.”

“Awright, Raj? Come on, you can look at me, can’t you? Don’t be shy.”

Raj kept his face buried in Nicky’s crotch. Nicky frowned. “So he’s like, locked away.”

“Yeah. You could say.”

“I’m sorry, man. That’s bad times.”

Jaz shrugged. “Bad times sounds about right.”

“Well, I’m just off down the Maccy-Dees.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, get something to eat. A burger.”

“Oh, right. Good talking to you. Say, is that your Camaro parked out front, with the rims and the pearl finish?”

“Yeah. Goes like the clappers.”

“Nice ride.”

“Thanks. It’s just a rented car.”

“A rental? Wow. I’m driving some piece-of-shit Dodge. Or at least I was, until my wife — well, she took off this morning. Family emergency.”

“You been stuck here?”

“Yeah. Raj is getting kind of cranky.”

“Probably wants his tea. So you angling for a lift?”

“Sorry?”

“A lift. A ride. We could pick something up in town for the lad. Be no bother.”

“God, I didn’t mean to — that’d be so kind. Are you sure? Hear that, Raj? The kind man’s going to take us to get food.”

“I’ll have to go find my keys.”

The night manager, a mournful Latino with heavily tattooed arms, took Jaz’s cell number and promised to call if Lisa turned up. They sank into the Camaro’s bucket seats, which were coated with a thin layer of dust and grit, as if the top had been left down in a sandstorm. Raj reluctantly disentangled himself from the gaunt young man and sat in Jaz’s lap. As they gunned down the hill into town, the sunset’s brief orange blaze subsided to a faint residual glow. The engine’s throaty roar and the wind passing the open windows were enough to kill conversation. Raj was sitting with his hands firmly clamped over his ears, his mouth fixed in a stern frown, like a soldier heading off to war. Something hard rolled against Jaz’s shoe. He looked down to see an empty tequila bottle in the foot well.

As they hit the strip, he thought he spotted their rental, but there were any number of white Dodge Chargers in the world, and this one was parked outside a grim-looking bar, not Lisa’s kind of spot. Farther down, in a lot between a Chinese massage place and a market, they found a Burger King. Nicky pulled in and peered suspiciously into the brightly lit restaurant.

“Last night this gaff was crawling with nutters. You know they’ve got a big Army base here.”

“Marines, actually.”

“Like Call of Duty. Anyway, looks quiet enough tonight. Want to eat in?”

“Sure, we can try. Sometimes Raj doesn’t get on too well in places like this.”

Raj refused his hand and attached himself to Nicky. He seemed completely content, placidly eating his fries like any other kid. One night only, screw the special diet. While Lisa wasn’t around to oversee.

“So,” he asked Nicky. “What do you do?”

“I’m a rock ’n’ roll musician.”

“Oh yeah? What’s your, uh, instrument?”

“I play guitar, sing.”

“That’s so cool. And you make a living?”

Nicky smiled. “I do OK.”

“I’m in finance.”

“That a fact? Merchant banker?”

“Well, kind of. I devise trading strategies.”

“Bet you’re loaded, you merchant banker.”

They both laughed, though Jaz wasn’t sure if it was about the same thing. Nicky had the type of hipster cool that always made him feel like he was failing an exam. It was soothing to find out he was a musician. It was somehow easier to think of the weird hair and clothes as a sort of uniform.

Raj yawned and flapped his hands.

“He OK?” asked Nicky.

“Yeah, he’s happy.”

Lisa wasn’t going to believe how well Raj was behaving. She’d think he was exaggerating, making it up to get on her good side. Lisa was the sole expert when it came to their son. Anything he told her was treated as provisional, as if he were some kind of assistant whose work had to be double-checked.

He and Nicky made small talk as they finished their food, mostly about cars. Nicky was cagey about the details of his career, so presumably his band wasn’t that big of a deal.

They drove back to the motel. Still no sign of Lisa. Raj was sleepy. Jaz put him straight to bed, thankful that he didn’t seem to be fretting. When he was sure he was down, he went over to the office and asked the tattooed night manager for the number of the county sheriff’s department. The switchboard passed him on to some deputy who said there’d been no traffic accidents, and no other reports of anyone matching the description of his wife. If Lisa hadn’t checked in by morning he should call again and they’d register her as missing, but until then it was too soon to get involved. The guy’s tone implied he’d heard the story a million times. Give her time to cool off, he suggested. Buy her flowers.

He made sure Raj was comfortable, and carried a chair outside. Should he start phoning hospitals? Nicky was standing by the pool, smoking a cigarette and looking up at the sky. He called over.

“Want a beer?”

“Sure.”

He opened the bottles with a plastic lighter, popping the caps onto the ground. They clinked necks. Jaz picked up the caps. Nicky drained most of his beer, and held his cigarette out to Jaz, who realized it was actually a joint.

“No, thanks.”

“Suit yourself. So, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you staying in a place like this? Doesn’t really seem like your scene.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Well, look at you. You’re not exactly the typical fifty-dollar-motel-room guest.”

Involuntarily, Jaz glanced down at himself — his polo shirt, his expensive loafers. He shrugged. “It’s mainly because of the boy. He can be — kind of a handful.”

“Seems like a nice enough lad.”

“The way he was tonight — I’ll be honest — it was unusual. We’ve been asked to leave places a couple times.”

“Yeah?”

“People complain. He gets so frustrated. He can be aggressive.”

“I would be.”

“Aggressive?”

“Frustrated. You know, if I was locked up inside that little head, trying to get out.”

“It puts a lot of pressure on my wife, him being the way he is.”

“So she does a runner once in a while?”

“She’s on a family errand.”

“Don’t worry, mate. She’ll come back. They always do.”

They sat in silence for a while, then Nicky said he had to make a call and loped off back to his room. Jaz watched the stars. They were so bright, they seemed to illuminate the scene in a way that wasn’t entirely physical.

Though it was late, the heat was still oppressive. He went inside and lay on the bed with the a/c up high, trying to read a book. The text swam in front of his eyes. Though the room had cable, most of the channels were snowy, and there didn’t seem to be much on except reality shows and telenovelas, so he opened up his laptop and connected to the motel’s patchy wireless. He surfed newsfeeds, stock tickers, a car site, some stupid blog of pictures of people dressed as Star Wars characters. It all led eventually to porn. Clicking through the forest of plastic vulvas just set him on edge: the relentless ramming of the animated tongues and penises, the woundlike holes. It looked like work, like a production line. Banner ads flashed migraine pink. He foraged halfheartedly under the waistband of his shorts, then slapped the laptop shut, unable to stomach another woman’s drugged sideways look to camera as another disembodied cock spurted over her face. He switched off the lights and tried to regulate his breathing, step himself down.

Come on, Lisa. Come back.

He closed his eyes. Sometime later he slept.

He woke up into a low-contrast world. Shades of gray, a room he didn’t recognize. The door handle turned. Trying to move quietly, a figure knocked against the door frame, making it vibrate.

“Lisa?”

She swore under her breath. “I’m tired. Let’s talk in the morning.”

“It is the morning. Where the hell have you been?” Sitting up now, trying to marshal himself.

“Shush. We’ll talk, but not now. OK? I can’t. Not now.”

“Just tell me where you were. I called the cops, Lisa. I was worried to death.”

“I need a shower.”

He got up, stood beside her, touched her bare shoulder. Up close she was an animal presence, sweating and shaky.

“Don’t,” she said, flinching.

His anger flared. “You stink of cigarettes. And booze. Were you in a bar? Christ, it was you. I thought I saw the car outside a bar downtown.”

“Don’t shout,” she hissed. “You’ll wake Raj.” She stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. He heard the sound of the shower. It ran ten, fifteen minutes. He began to wonder if she’d passed out and was about to get out of bed to check when the door opened. Without a word, still wrapped in a towel, she flung herself facedown on the mattress beside him.

“Lisa,” he said. “Talk to me.” It was no use: She’d passed out. He propped himself up on one elbow, ran his hand over her damp, naked flank. Her breathing was heavy and regular. He lay back down. After a while, she turned onto her back and began to snore.

Not long afterward, Raj woke up. Jaz let him crawl over Lisa, who moaned and raised her hands in feeble defense. Grimly satisfied, he pulled on a T-shirt and ambled over to the rec room to get coffee. The sun was already fierce. Back at the room he put a paper cup within reach of his wife, who’d rolled herself up into a cocoon of covers, a featureless hump that made a dull thud as it was battered, rhythmically and relentlessly, by their son.

“Coffee,” he told her. “On the side. Don’t knock it over.”

Her clothes were puddled on the floor by the bathroom sink. He picked them up, sniffed them. They didn’t smell like her. They were covered in sand.

He showered, going about his routine with defiant correctness, choosing a shirt and long pants, combing his hair. Businesslike; that’s how he wanted to be. Present without being present. When he was done, he cracked open the door, letting the full force of the heat fall on the bed.

“We need to get out of here.”

Blearily, Lisa sat up. Raj was pawing at her, cooing with pleasure. Jaz ripped the curtains open, forcing her to shield her eyes. She swung her feet to the floor and sat there for a moment, breathing in gulps of air. Then she pitched toward the bathroom and slammed the door shut. From inside came the sound of vomiting. Jaz hefted their cases onto the bed and began to toss in clothes and shoes. Lisa came out and pushed past him, retrieving underwear, a pair of shorts. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Well, you don’t actually want to stay in this dump, do you?”

“What about the park?”

“What about it?”

“Don’t you want to go?”

“You’re asking me if we’re going sightseeing? You have to be fucking kidding.”

“Please don’t shout.”

“Oh, have we got a sore head? Heavy night, was it? Where were you, Lisa? Where the fuck were you?”

“We should go to the park. We’re here anyway. I think we should go to the park.”

“I called the cops. I thought you’d had an accident. Raj and I were stranded here all day. We had to get a ride with this junkie-looking musician guy so your kid could get something to eat.”

“You called the police?”

“Of course I called the fucking police. You were gone all night. What were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry.”

“And there we have it, ladies and gentlemen. That all you got? Where were you? I want you to tell me right now where you were.”

“You’re overreacting. I needed some time to myself. I was losing it.”

“I’m overreacting? Is that what I’m doing?”

“You seem to have forgotten what happened yesterday. I was angry with you. I am angry with you. That fucking string thing. Bringing your mother’s bullshit into our world.”

“Oh, so you’re punishing me? By going out into a bar and getting wasted? Go on, what else did you do?”

Just for a second, a stricken look passed across her face. Just for a second, but he caught it. His throat constricted. His voice sounded different to him, whiny and shrill.

“What happened, Lisa? Where have you been?”

“Nowhere. And get off my back. Nothing happened.”

Raj was hovering by them, picking up their agitation, flapping his hands. Lisa squatted down, cupping his head in her hands, trying to get him to focus on her. Gradually he calmed down. Jaz sank into a chair and watched them.

“Look,” she said. “I was furious with you. I drove around all day, ate lunch in a diner. Then — I don’t know. I drove out into the desert. I needed to be alone.”

“And after that?”

“Yes, I went drinking. I sat in a bar and got drunk.”

“And you drove back.”

“Sue me.”

“Oh, very mature. God, sometimes you can be unbelievably irresponsible.”

“You know what? Fuck you. How about that? Mommy did something irresponsible. Bad Mommy, take her baby away. When was the last time you looked at yourself, Jaz? When did you turn into such a self-righteous prick?”

Raj began to wail. Lisa knelt down again. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m sorry, OK. Yes, darling, Mommy’s here. We’re going to go and get some breakfast. Yes, I know, I know you’re hungry. I’m hungry. I’m sure Daddy’s hungry. We’ll go get some nice breakfast.”

She looked up at Jaz, imploringly. “He needs to eat. Let’s go get something, OK? Please.”

They gathered their things in silence. As they were walking out to the car, they ran into the manager, who was showing a room to a middle-aged couple wearing identical sun visors.

“You OK, honey?” the manager asked Lisa. To Jaz’s surprise, Lisa nodded and gave her a hug.

“That’s good, dear,” said the manager. “That’s a relief.”

Jaz pointed the key at the car. The locks thunked open. They put Raj in his seat and belted themselves in. Lisa waved at the manager, who raised a hand as she walked back to the office.

“You were with her?”

“I ran into her at the bar.”

“That figures. Old freak.”

“Don’t call her that. She’s a kind woman.”

“In what way?”

“For two minutes, could you stop interrogating me? I need a coffee. I suppose there’s nowhere we can get something less revolting than the stuff at that place.”

“This isn’t Park Slope.”

He sped down the hill, ignoring her appeal to slow down. He pulled in at a Denny’s. They sat inside, silently watching the road through the window. Most of the other booths were filled with young Marines, scarfing down eggs. Jaz ate pancakes, watching Lisa nurse a mug of thin coffee. His self-righteousness was fading beneath a rising conviction that some disaster had occurred and he would be the last to know what it was.

“Did you meet someone?” he asked.

She knew what he meant. “Dawn,” she said. “I met Dawn, from the motel.”

“Who else?”

“I talked to people.”

“What kind of people?”

“I don’t know, Jaz. People. Men. I got drunk and talked to men. Now chop my head off with your curly sword for staining the family honor.”

“You just talked.”

“We just talked. I played some pool.”

“You didn’t come home until six. The bars round here don’t stay open that late.”

“Look, I know I should have phoned. I was angry. Let’s just try to deal with this. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. Let’s go take a look at the park. That’s what we came here to do.”

“You seriously want to do that?”

“Yes. Before it gets too hot. We don’t need anything from the motel. I just want to be outside in the open. I can’t breathe in that room.”

“We haven’t got a picnic. The water’s in the room.”

“We’ll get more water.”

“We haven’t brought his hat.”

“There’s a bag in the trunk. I don’t want to be in that room. Let’s just go, OK? You don’t have to talk to me.”

“That’s a stupid thing to say.”

“You know what I mean.”

They took the turn for the park and drove to the ranger’s station, where they paid an entry fee and got a map and a ticket to display on the dash. They sped on through a moonscape, cliffs and ridges strewn with shards of broken rock. The road climbed up to a gap, through a field of rounded boulders, haphazardly piled up into mounds and turrets, weathered into fantastical shapes. The light was dazzling. Below in the valley the concrete pavement shimmered on the straight and it looked to Jaz as if he was hurtling down into a phantom lake, set in a huge flat plain of Joshua trees. The lake broke into pools and streams. The pools and streams dried into flat white salt. All illusion, all fake.

“Make a left,” said Lisa, as they came to a junction.

“Where are we going?”

“See those rocks? I want to take a look at them.”

Jaz turned the wheel.

“Why? What does the guide say?”

“I don’t know. I saw them yesterday. Off in the distance. I tried walking toward them but they were too far.”

“You were here yesterday?”

“I think I must have been on the other side. I didn’t come into the park.”

They drove toward the three spires, which rose up out of the dust like skinny arms lifted up to the sky. On every side the horizon was marked by mountain ranges, a jagged, absolute border to the world. The country opened up, until only a few tortured Joshua trees broke the endless flat. Lisa watched the rocks intently, as if they were about to do something — start moving, sprout hands and fingers.

They left the car in a little graded lot by the road and took a path toward the rocks, pushing Raj along in his stroller. The ground was rough and the boy was a dead weight. Lisa handed over to Jaz, who felt like Sisyphus as he maneuvered his sleeping son onward. The path passed over a wash and climbed a gentle slope, pocked with creosote bushes. There was no sound but the crunch of their feet, the stroller’s squeaky bearings. Jaz could hear a faint high-pitched whine, almost at the edge of consciousness, and searched the sky for contrails. The clear ceramic blue was broken by high lenticular clouds, a formation of perfect little disks, like fluffy spaceships. He removed his sunglasses to get a look at them and was hit by a wall of light. The world was bleached out. Every scrap of color — Lisa’s green halter top, the stroller’s red nylon hood — had been subdued by the intensity of the glare. It was like walking through an overexposed photograph.

Finally they reached the rocks. They stood in their shadow and drained most of a bottle of water, decanting some into a plastic beaker for Raj. The three vast towers teetered on a flat plinth, stained black with desert varnish. They seemed to be straining directly toward the sun like heliotropic plants. Jaz looked at his watch. It was midday. He could see the car in the distance, a lone silver glint on the desert floor. Raj fell asleep again, so they parked the stroller in the shade and followed a path around the base to take a look at the country on the other side. A barren basin scrolled away toward the mountains, at its center the blown-out white plane of a salt flat, almost too bright to look at.

All about them on the ground were signs of recent occupation. Footprints, spent cartridges, a couple of crushed beer cans. They walked on, making a circuit. In one sheltered spot they found the remains of a poured concrete platform, a base for some kind of structure. Its crumbling surface was blackened by fire.

“I’ve been here before,” said Lisa. “Except I’ve never been here.”

Jaz kicked a can. “Looks like someone had a party.”

He saw a yellowy glint on the floor and poked it with his toe, expecting broken glass. A rock, shot through with bright flecks. He picked it up and held it out.

“We’ve struck it rich.”

Lisa turned it over. “Is that gold?”

“Pyrites.”

Suddenly there was a huge crack, as if the sky had been broken open like an egg. Involuntarily they both ducked, putting their hands up to shield themselves. The crack became a long rolling roar and a fighter jet screamed overhead, just a few hundred feet above the desert floor. Within seconds it was just a dot, heading away over the mountains.

Lisa exhaled. “It felt like he was aiming for our heads. Are they even allowed to do that?”

“They can do what they like.”

“I bet Raj hated it.”

“He’s not making any noise.”

As they walked back to check on him, Jaz saw something wasn’t right. The stroller’s red hood was pushed back. The harness was undone.

“He can’t have gone far.” He said the words instinctively. Magical thinking, making it true. Lisa was already shouting for him. “Raj? Raj!” He joined in. “Raj? Raju? Where are you?”

Hoping to get a better view, Jaz climbed a little way up the big rock and shielded his eyes, trying to spot movement among the bushes. Lisa was heading to the far side of the rocks, cupping her hands to her mouth as she called out Raj’s name.

The emptiness was vast, inhuman.

“Jaz, over here!” He responded preconsciously to the tone of Lisa’s voice, scrambling down to the ground, running toward the sound. He found her on her hands and knees, peering into a crack in the earth, a kind of hollow that led down under the rock.

“Is he in there?”

“I’m not sure. Raj? Raj?”

Jaz got down onto his belly and wormed partway into the hole to peer into the blackness. All he could see was a broken bottle and a tangle of rusty fencing wire. The hole seemed to be choked with loose stones and brush.

“We need a light.”

“I don’t have anything.”

“There must be one in the car. A flashlight. Isn’t there an emergency kit or something?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Well, go check!”

“It’s a half-hour back down the trail.”

“Raju! Raj! Damn, I can’t see a thing.”

“Raj! Come to Mommy.”

Jaz tried to crawl farther into the hole. There was nothing to be seen, just rocks and beer cans and a bad smell, as if some animal had made it a lair. A coyote? Too late, he thought about snakes and came scrambling back to the surface, breathing heavily.

“I don’t think he’s down there. It doesn’t go very far. It’s full of rubble.”

Lisa stood up and ran a few paces, shouting Raj’s name. Then she turned and ran in the opposite direction. Jaz couldn’t see her eyes behind her sunglasses. A sick feeling descended over him like a shroud. Something had happened, something that wasn’t going to come right.

They walked and shouted and walked and shouted, turning wider and wider circles around the rocks until their voices were hoarse in their parched throats and their clothes were coated in fine white dust. Even as his head spun and sweat soaked his back, Jaz felt as if an IV were pumping cold gel through his veins. The world was far away; he was trapped somewhere else, somewhere dead and bone-white, outside time and space. He thought perhaps he should look for prints, the ridged soles of a child’s sneakers, but any trace had been obliterated by his own tracks, crossing and recrossing the same ground.