Wireless

46

“What’s the sign say?” Ronnie yells from the car.

Flynn hunches over, cocks his head. “Says, ‘Open 8 A.M. to midnight.’ Want to wait?”

“It’s only five-thirty. We’ve got two and a half hours.”

“So you want to keep driving?”

Ronnie’s silent, thinking. Finally she says, “Let’s wait.”

She pushes open the car door, steps outside, and goes through a long run of stretching and bending that Flynn finds both amusing and lovable.

He starts to walk over to her. “Your back hurting?”

“Just a little stiff,” she says, and they hug and let both their bodies lean up against the side of the Jeep.

“We’ve got to take more breaks,” Flynn says. “Switch off more often.”

“Yeah, but you’re not much of a navigator. And you’re lousy with the radio.”

He holds onto her and digs a finger into her side and she squirms and laughs.

“The funny part is, that’s the truth,” Flynn says. “I’m no longer a big fan of irony.”

“It’s only partly your fault. That last two hundred miles it was illegal to play anything but Elvis.”

“The King always makes me hungry. You got anything left from the 7-Eleven?”

“We got licorice and nacho crumbs,” Ronnie says. “And the beef jerky.”

“Why did I buy that? I’ve got to be more careful with the money.”

“It’ll go a lot further down here.”

They stand and look out over the desert, quiet for a while. They’re fifty miles from the nearest collection of people and buildings called Sotela Village. They’re parked in front of a small, transplanted lunch car, a 1940s diner that sits like a deco mirage fifty feet off the side of this secondary road. The Gothic lettering on the front of the diner tells them they’ve reached the Duluoz Cafe. They almost rolled past it, thinking it was just an abandoned mistake, a long-closed-down gas stop left to bake and recede in the sand. But as they went by, Flynn recognized the architecture as native Quinsigamond and yelled for Ronnie to pull in. He jumped from the Jeep and looked in the window and wasn’t sure whether it was a good or bad omen. But it was a genuine, functional diner. And probably their best bet for breakfast if they stayed on this road.

“What do you want to do till they open?” Ronnie asks.

“Want to tilt the seats back? See if we can snooze awhile?”

She nods and they climb back inside and try to get comfortable. Flynn’s behind the wheel and he turns the ignition key backward and hits the power button on the radio. A growly Texas voice rumbles into the jeep.

… And in conclusion, brothers and sisters, let me just reiterate that the Millennium is upon us and the time is short. The signs are already beginning to appear and we must not be blind to them …

“For God’s sake,” Ronnie says with her eyes closed, her voice midway between a laugh and a moan, “does every region get issued its own Ray Todd?”

Flynn doesn’t find the preacher funny, but he bluffs and says, “Absolutely. It’s a requirement. You set up a country, you need a militia, a post office, and a guy to interpret the Book of Revelation.”

A new voice comes on the radio with a light, melodic Mexican accent.

Thank you, Brother Baker, for your words of inspiration and welcome to Borderland Broadcasts. I’m your host, Sancho “el Coyote” Panza. It’s going to be another gorgeous day, so let’s get things started with a classic as we watch the sun rise together.

A scratchy rendition of this old tune from West Side Story comes on. Flynn can’t place the singer. Possibly he’s never heard this version before. He hears Ronnie start to hum along with the tune and opens his eyes to find her staring at him.

Before he can say anything, she cranks up the volume, tilts her head sideways toward the door, and says, “C’mon.”

They get out and walk around the front of the Jeep. She puts both her arms around his neck, starts to sway, brings her lips to his ear, and says, “I’ll lead,” her voice low and on the verge of a laugh.

Flynn looks up at the lightening sky, tries for just a second to think of something to say, then abandons the impulse and turns his attention to the music and the slight motion of Ronnie’s legs and hips against him.

And they slow-dance that way for a few moments, eyes closed, heads resting on each other’s shoulder, palms of their hands rubbing slowly in circles on their backs. Flynn starts to kiss her neck, softly, more tender than exciting. He feels like he should whisper something, but he knows silence is better than an inexact, imperfect phrase. He wishes that what he’s feeling right now could be channeled, like a strong, unbroken electrical current, and passed through his hands, into Ronnie’s back, her spine, patched straight into her nervous system, unobstructed by language and air. He’d give anything for a connection that pure and direct, that free from interpretation and the need for translation. He knows he’s not the first person to have this exact desire, but he’s certain he’s feeling it as powerfully as anyone ever has.

This moment, this instant, slow-dancing in the desert parking lot of a transplanted diner, is as close to his idea of perfection as he’s ever likely to come. He wants his memory to make it eternal, but that’s one more impossibility he’ll have to accept. Everything starts to fade after a while. Decay is simply a matter of time. That’s a given, a rule of nature, the thing that’s left at the end. And in light of that, he knows, the best thing to do, maybe the only thing to do, is live in the warmth of this moment as it crests and peaks.

Hazel’s probably right about order being an illusion. But where’s the value in that knowledge? How is life improved by knowing this?

The unknown singer continues.

… somewhere, we’ll find a new way of …

Then comes a blast of static that knocks “Somewhere” into oblivion.

They stop dancing, but remain in a tight embrace. They look at each other and then at the Jeep.

And of course, there’s the sound of a mouthful of air being blown out over a microphone, a fresh breath, and an American voice:

Buenos días, amigos y amigas. We are back in the fellaheen fairgrounds. Come one, come all, and dance the day away with the d.j.’s of the dispossessed. Say hola once ag’in to Los Hermanos O’Zebedee and their Sistema Rebelde. Ei caos continua, kids, the chaos does continue.