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Daniel Silliman
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| 6.9.06 |
Moses
Whatever he was hiding from was forgotten, by now, was hidden back lost back behind one night motel rentals and tank fulls of gas paid with cash. That was too many reinventions ago to remember, to many name changes to keep track of. What was his mother's maiden name? What was his social and D.O.B.? What was the original fall from grace? No idea, friend, no idea.
There is a redeemer, he said aloud, and his fountain is filled with blood stretching from here to the shining sea.
He carried a suitcase full of little green bibles, some posters and pamphlets and a sandwich board sign saying The End is Here painted green on white wash-plywood. When he came into Red Bluff Reservoir, down into the lowest point of New Mexico, he pulled into the desert dirt lot too fast and there was the sound of crunching throwing up gravel behind him. The dirt spun out into a cloud that hung into the evening and settled down over the cars all laid up in the lot.
Hallelujah, he said. The cloud of the Lord went before the people of God into the desert, he said, a cloud by day and a fire by night and Moses led the people through the desert and to-wards the promise land hallelujah.
No one heard him. The words waited in the air, hanging there waiting to settle down onto something and there was no one there to hear him so the words waited and then went sneaking out into the edges of the cacti. Hal-lah-lu-jah, he said and he said it loud but it came out in a whisper.
There are only two ways to go, in reservoir. There's the east road coming in over the red bluff and the west road going out along the side of the red river. Half of it's gone and the other half is coming. The sun was up in that middle hesitation, the zenith where the sun looks the smallest and the brightest. The people there have been there so long that they have to invent stories about how people managed to get there, since not even the oldest person remembering the oldest person can remember any stories about how it was it happened. There are two old churches there. There's a baptist church that doesn't have a pastor. The last one left some time ago and the old ladies never agreed on why so they never could say what to say in a letter to send for another one. There's a Catholic church too with a priest so old he's half blind and the people think he might be making up the mass as he says it.
He had posters, in his suitcase. He had handbills. He had a gospel and an announcement of a revival where he could guarantee you that the holy ghost was waiting and where he would come if you would. They were all printed up and ready but the street was so empty. He stood there for a minute, his car door open and the little beep beep beep coming out and he couldn't think what to say.
He hefted the suitcase. The fabric sewn around the handle was starting to tear. He hefted the suitcase and it ripped and he threw the handle away. He threw the handle away in a side arm toss off and it splattered off into the ground and bounced and landed on the side of the building with the cigarette butts and the broken bottles. He grabbed the suitcase with both arms and kneed it up to his chest. He pulled it around up to his shoulder and walked around the side along the back where the kitchen door was open between the back of the place and the dumpster. The kitchen door was open and empty with a rag wet and stained a tomato red hanging of the handle and the dumpster door was up.
He stepped between the one door and the other and he mis-stepped a little and went sideways in the twist of an ankle. But he caught himself, leaning his neck away from the suitcase on his shoulder he took a running two step and lunged and grunted and heaved and the whole thing flopped into the dumpster. There was a crash of garbage bags crunching and the sound of the tin sides inhaling and exhaling and it was, like that, all over.
He walked around to the front and ordered a room. He rang the little bell and the man said, sorry. What ya need? the man said. He said, a room. The man said, what's the name, got to put down a name here, and he said Moses. It was the first name he thought of. Man said, hot enough out there? Moses said, it's hot. Man said, yeah, sometimes it gets that way.
by Daniel Silliman @
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| 4.9.06 |
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
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| 3.9.06 |
Safe inside
James spent most of his day driving between the parking lot and the gas station. No, no actually, he spent most of his day washing the cars.
He washed the cars in the dealership lot with a rag and a bucket going in circles. Going in circles he washed the cars, blue and black and tan, turquoise green and hunter green and white and red and yellow. The lot was in a line of lots along the highway with lines of lined up cars, all the cars washed and wiped and wiped until they were all shiny. All of them shiny, all festooned up with balloons and promises of million mile guarantees with no money now low credit now nothing down, fully loaded.
He would wash the cars in the morning, washing off the dew. He washed them in the middle of the day, burnishing the clean cars again just to be sure they shone. He washed them again in the evening so they'd catch the glint off the sun and the eye of the passing drivers and so they'd be clean for the dew to fall again.
He spent most of his day doing that and sometimes he'd be moving the cars around in a giant perpetual shuffle - from the truck to the spot up front and from the spot up front to the shop to the back to the middle, from the one side to the other and around. He didn't mind moving the cars but never really understood why they were going or what was the point of the cycle of parking places but they said to move them so he moved them.
But then sometimes - the times he waited for - they'd ask him to take the cars out on the road down the way to the Shell stations and pump some gas.
Jim-boy, the mechanics would say, standing in the door of the shop in clothes all dark smock-blue except it still didn't hide the oil stains that wouldn't wash out and spread over their bellies. Jim-my-boy, they would say and they would hold out the keys in a dangle.
Jamie honey, the parts lady would say, would say sitting in the red push up chair behind the counter in her flower print blouse and perm-curl hair and she would smile and put the keys out on the counter.
Catch Jimmy, the salesmen would say upswinging the last part of his name, sweat seeping yellow on white shirts and ties swinging awkwardly from their necks and they'd jock it, flip it, toss it to him in an arch saying catch and he'd have it in his hand.
He'd clench it.
In the center of his first its edges would bite his hand. Its edges would slip into the slot in the column of the car, making the silent click fitting in. Sliding in, locking in. He would pull out onto the road, out into the come and go of cars all converging here on this stretch of pavement along the stretch of dealership lots of new and used and shiny cars. It only took a minute. He drove up and pumped and the gas gurgled down the hose and into the tank and he drove down again to the lot and it was over.
For that drive, though, he felt at home. He felt in control, no, no, not control he just felt safe, wrapped in the steel and glass and upholsteried seats. He liked the way the inside felt bigger inside than it looked from the outside. He liked the way the car reached out every knob and switch to touch him. He liked the way he fit in the car and the way the car fit in around him.
He thought maybe he'd been born in a car.
by Daniel Silliman @
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