Exhausted and disoriented, he trudged through the desert. The sun cooked everything to a lifeless brown crust. His jeans were frayed at the cuffs and the knees. His shirt was unbuttoned and the sleeves were rolled up. He was grimy with dust and sweat. His hair clung to the back of his neck, his forehead and his cheeks. His hands were cracked and scraped, as were his feet, sore, scraped and bleeding. He wore no shoes.

He was thoroughly lost in the blurry landscape. He had the vague notion that he did it to himself on purpose. He had driven his old car as far as it would go, then left it on the side of the road. He locked his shoes in the trunk with the car keys and wandered off into the desert.

It was difficult walking, partly because the ground was hard and covered with sharp rocks and cactus, and partly because of loose footing. He was taking long strides but was only progressing in tiny steps. Sometimes he felt as he was walking backward, but continued on anyway.

He wanted to die out here, to walk as far as he could, using the last of his strength, then collapse and escape into the sun. He had decided that he’d had enough and began looking for his release. He was too chickenshit to commit suicide outright, (which is odd because it takes a true chickenshit to kill himself in the first place) so he chose to do it this way.

He was hoping for a moment of clarity, somewhere between dehydration and exhaustion and death, to soothe the beasts that raked at his heart. He wanted to have a vision, like the Indians did during their rites of manhood when they wandered around in the wilderness, half-starved, dying of exposure and tripping on mushrooms. The young brave would see something, some hallucination, that would make him a man, a warrior, a survivor.

Some came back hardened. Some came back wise. Some came back completely insane, their brains fried by what they saw. Some didn’t come back at all. He was hoping he wouldn’t come back at all, because he knew no matter what vision he saw nothing would change.

As he walked, he dreamed. He slipped through a dark, quiet tunnel and into the world he left behind. Here it was cold and damp and dark. Here it was lonely, the loneliness like an icy fog that sank into his bones and clouded everything in its mist.

He lay on a bed in a messy room, murky gray light from the window showing only the shapes of things: furniture, pictures, plants. Through his moist eyes he could see the glow of his cigarette above his stomach, an amber disc floating and smoking in the air. The television was dark. The telephone was silent. It hadn’t rung in days. He was calling out to her with his mind, hoping she would hear him.

She left him a month ago, after a final, unsuccessful attempt to beat him once again into submission. He had stood there with his head up and took the blows, one after another, rhythmic forehand and backhand slaps wringing his face and ears. The squadron of tiny hands only hurt him on the inside. He had forced himself to look at her, with her white teeth bared and her black hair in her face, eyes full of fury. Growing more and more confident every time she struck him, he finally hauled his arm back and with one blow knocked her to the floor. She landed sideways, her legs on the carpet in the dining room, ankles crossed, her palms sprawled on the vinyl in the kitchen, her mouth a round “O” of shock and surprise.

This was the first time he had ever hit her. She carefully picked herself up and glared at him. An angry red handprint ran from her mouth to her ear and a trickle of blood oozed from her lower lip.

She coolly asked, “Do you realize what you’ve just done?” He did not reply, afraid he would give in. “You did this to yourself,” she accused him, and walked out. He was released.

He slowly came back to the desert, descending again through the black tunnel. He was sitting on the scorched earth and weeping softly; he couldn’t remember why. He couldn’t remember anything in this place.

When his crying ended, he wearily stood and gazed into the sun. It hadn’t moved. It never moved. Time had no meaning out here. He had been wandering for days and the sun was always in the same place, bruising the back of his neck. He had taken a million steps but nothing ever changed: the mountains on the horizon never came any closer, the crumbly terrain remained.

He began walking again. He was weaker now, taking smaller steps and making very little progress. He fell often, scraping his palms and knees. He had an uneasy, frightening feeling that he was being followed. He stopped, turned, looked and listened but found himself still alone.

When he turned back he saw what he had felt a moment ago: the sun-bleached carcass of a man, bones picked clean, tatters of clothing spread around the ribs and pelvis, a canteen looped over the shoulder. When his eyes absorbed the heft of the canteen, his swollen, leather tongue danced and moaned. He absently slid the strap from the dead man’s arm and unscrewed the cap. He upended the empty container over his mouth, tasting only dust, then indifferently tossed it to the ground. It hit the dirt with a hollow thunk and a rattle. He collapsed.

Even though he stared at the sun with open eyes, everything went black and he understood that he was back on the bed in his dark room. He poured some vodka into a glass lit a cigarette. He began to cry as he remembered the first time they had met, in high school, at a party.

It had been an Indian summer, and they were outside at somebody’s farm, with a towering bonfire and kegged beer. She was there by herself, strolling from group to group as if looking for someone.

He had seen her around school, but didn’t know anything about her other than that she smoked behind the building after lunch. She was beautiful, with impossible green eyes, jet black hair and an unblemished seventeen-year-old body. She spied him poking the fire with a stick.

She brought him a beer and offered him a cigarette, which he readily accepted. He lighted it with the glowing end of the stick and inhaled deeply. Smoke filled his runner’s lungs and he hacked and sputtered it back out, eyes watering and plastic cup spilling beer. He looked at her guiltily, and laughed. She laughed too, assuaging his embarrassment with a smile that looked real.

She asked him about school. She asked him about his car. She asked him why he had never talked to her before. When she ran out of questions, she smiled at him again, took his hand, and led him into the barn. She guided him into the loft and laid him down on the hay. She seduced him and told him that she loved him.

This had been the first time a woman had shown him any real attention since his mother had died, just before his sixth birthday. His father worked two shifts and they had no nearby relatives, so he spent his adolescence pining away for some sort of generic female affection. He continually fantasized about a nameless, faceless woman who wrapped her arms around him and breathed softly into his ear.

All the things that he had dreamed of had come to life in this dark, mysterious stranger. She was warm, hot in some places, soft, and had a lingering scent, like some kind of fruity flower. Her hair was silky and her hands were warm and supple. When he finally thrust himself inside her, it was like spinning through a swirling haze. It was dark there, sort of a reddish dark, with no sound other than her voice. He was floating, immersed in a warm liquid, breathing through his mouth. He could feel her hands and fingernails on the back of his neck. It was a safe place, a wonderful place, and he was afraid to leave. When she whispered that she loved him, he knew he wouldn’t have to.

But that was a long time ago and she was gone now. He missed her terribly. His grief consumed him, gnawed away at him, sapping his strength and will and clouding his vision. Now he stayed inside, drinking steadily and smoking one after another and nurturing his anguish.

Gratefully, he returned to the desert again and found himself standing at the foot of the mountains. They had appeared all at once, squatting impassably before him, a wall that went forever in every direction. He squinted up into the sun, still high in the sky, searing his skin and drying his mouth and eyes. He began to climb.

He didn’t bother looking for a path to walk: he recklessly put one foot in front of the other, lunging upward, but ascending only inches at a time. He was determined now, breathing hard and scrabbling, sliding on his knees and stomach, using his bleeding hands for leverage.

He did not look down. He climbed without thought, looking only as far as his next step, but his mind slid unwittingly back into the dark tunnel to watch the film that played again and again in his mind.

He had come home from work at lunchtime, to suprise her while she slept and then spend the afternoon making love. He had found the door unlocked and the apartment empty. He called to her even though he knew she wasn’t there. There was no note and the cigar box she kept on the nightstand was gone. He was worried.

He went out to look for her, locking the deadbolt. As he reached the stairs, he heard a door click shut somewhere behind him and he turned to see her padding down the hall toward their apartment. Relieved, he walked toward her and was about to say her name but stopped short. She struggled with the locked door, swore softly, and glanced around, her eyes falling on him. She was in her pink silk pajamas, unbuttoned and disheveled, holding her slippers in one hand. In the crook of her arm she carried the cigar box.

“Where were you?” he said as he approached. “I was worried. I came home early to suprise you and the house was empty.” He eyed the cigar box as he reached for his keys.

“I needed some coffee. He was the first one who answered.” She smiled nervously. “Why’d you lock the door?”

He turned the lock over. “I dunno.” He looked her up and down. “You always go over there dressed like that?”

“I just woke up and we were out of coffee. I’m not gonna do myself up just to go talk to him.” She inclined her head towards the stairs.

He opened the door for her. “But you’re wearing makeup.”

She paused. “What are you trying to say?” She was angry now.

“Nothin'.”

She walked in ahead of him and went into the bedroom. He followed her. She put the cigar box back on the nightstand, then went into the bathroom and shut the door. He could hear water running in the sink.

He approached the nightstand, glancing at the bathroom door. He lifted the clasp and opened the cigar box. It was filled. The faucet shut off and he closed the box quickly, walking back toward the bathroom. She told him often that it was none of his business how much she used.

“Where’s the coffee?” he asked through the door.

“Huh?”

“The coffee you went to get. Did you forget it?”

The toilet flushed. “He didn’t have any.”

“Oh.” He sat on the edge of the bed and began to unlace his shoes. She came out and stood in front of him, weight to one side, hands on her hips, eyebrows arched, annoyed.

“What’s with all the fucking questions? I went over to get some coffee, and he didn’t have any. What the fuck are you trying to say? You think I slept with the fucking dealer?” She cocked her hand back.

He held up his hands. “No!” he denied. I was just worried, that’s all.”

“About what?” Her eyes narrowed.

“You weren’t home...I thought something happened...the door was unlocked.” He faltered.

She whacked him soundly across the temple. Her face was flushed with anger. “Don’t lie to me!” She hit him again, in the same place.

“I’m not lyin’! I just didn’t know where you were!”

“You fucking liar! You think I slept with the fucking scummy drug dealer!” She knocked his hands away and boxed his ears, first right, then left.

“I didn’t know where you were!” he complained.

She began slapping him, left, right, left, right. “Liar! Fucking...LIAR!” she screamed through gritted teeth, running out of breath.

He stood up. “I DIDN’T KNOW WHERE YOU WERE!!!” he roared. He grabbed her hand in mid-swing, and lifted his other hand to hit her back.

“I wouldn’t do that,” she panted, looking at his fist.

Suprised, he looked at his fist, then dropped it and released her hand. He sat heavily down on the bed and stared at his feet.

She flipped the hair out of her eyes and glared down at the top of his head. After a few moments, she pushed his shoulders gently back to the mattress and climbed on top of him. He had tears in his closed eyes. Biting her lower lip, she began undoing the buttons of his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked.

“I know.”

She slid down to his knees and unfastened his belt and trousers. She stood on the carpet to pull them off, then stepped out of her pajama bottoms and straddled him. He was already very hard. As she eased him inside her, his mouth opened with a quick intake of breath. She started grinding into him and he opened his eyes. She was staring at him with a haunted, passionate look. Without stopping, she slowly pulled her silk top over her head and leaned forward, dangling her breasts above his mouth. He closed his eyes again and placed his hands around them, kneading. He lifted his head and began kissing and suckling her nipples, moaning softly and lifting his hips to meet hers. It didn’t take very long, and his breathing stopped and his teeth clenched as he came. When he did, she quickly put her lips to his ear and ground harder as she came with him.

“If you ever hit me, I’ll only be a memory,” she whispered.

He returned eagerly to the desert. He had somehow scaled the mountain and then crumpled to the ground. He stared up at the sun, sensing that it was almost over. The desert floor was far below and the hot breeze seared his blistered skin. An eagle screamed from somewhere far above, and he drifted downward into the silent darkness

and realized that he was in his room again. He laid back and considered his bed, the one that he made for himself, the one they had slept in. She had kept him expertly on a hook. For four years she used her body as an instrument to coax, manipulate, pacify and control him. He was convinced that that he was in love, and that she was in love with him. She proved that time and again with her mouth and her hands and her pulsating cleft.

He slaved hard to prove himself to her, every day an example of his devotion. He worked twice a day so she could remain a princess bride, lingering about the apartment and awaiting his return. He gave her anything she wanted without question: expensive jewelry, sexy clothes, drugs, money, whatever it took. He was enchanted. Everything he did for her he did with great respect and appreciation and awe because she took him nightly back into her womb.

She could sense whenever he came close to understanding their relationship, and took great care at those times to distract him. Sometimes she would fight violently with him, beating him with her fists, then throw him to the ground and make love to him, reducing him to tears, begging her to never stop. Sometimes she would stop him mid-sentence with a kiss, then take him into the bedroom for a pornographic debriefing. Other times she simply threatened to take it away from him forever, reducing him to tears, begging her to stay. No matter what, he was always relieved that nothing had changed and renewed his efforts to keep her happy.

It was clear to him now that she never loved him. She had loved manipulating him. He had been a mere toy, someone she could render helpless with her harsh words and flailing hands, a puppet to quell her insatiable appetites. He never realized it because she never let him. He thought back to all the times when a light bulb flickered over his head; when he saw something that didn’t seem consistent, something that raised his hackles, something that he wanted to pursue, an inquiry, a challenge, a confrontation. All those times she had either stopped him with her acid tongue, with violence, with her libido, or a combination of all three.

Again, he felt a great sense of relief to return to the desert. With the last of his strength he rose to his feet and centered himself. The mountain fell away in front of him, thousands of feet of sheer drop to the valley floor below. The sun was much closer here, tearing his burned skin like a wire brush. He stared into the light one last time. Then he closed his eyes, lifted his arms like wings, and leaned forward, pushing off the edge with his toes. The desert and its heat disappeared; all he felt now was the wind rushing through his ears. He opened his eyes and watched the ground race toward him, eager to reclaim his body. As the ground came closer and closer he began to regret his decision

to end his marriage. It had been a sick, twisted relationship but it had to be better than this, this vast, empty apartment and this searing loneliness.

At the time he didn’t know why he did it. He had felt something, something in his stomach, that said it was time. Maybe it was instinct. They had fought constantly about having children, an acrimonious and ongoing battle that he realized he would never win. She would not submit to having children. When he finally found his strength and suggested that perhaps he should find someone who would, she exploded in a flurry of teeth and fingernails and knuckles and feet until he apologized, just hoping to close the subject.

With hatred in her eyes she had said, “Don’t ever say that to me unless you mean it.” Then she cut him off. For three days he spent his nights on the couch, his rights to her body taken away. She would not speak to him. He offered her gifts, which she ignored. He pleaded, apologies on his lips and tears in his eyes, and she denied him, again and again, telling him succinctly that he was being punished for his actions. She went out at night, dressed like a starlet, coming home late and walking past him and locking the bedroom door behind her.

She finally let him into the bed again but refused to let him touch her. “I’m not ready for that yet,” she would say. She continued to go out at night. “I need some space,” she would say. She would stumble into bed, still wearing her clothes and radiating stale smoke, and turn her back to him. He would lie awake for hours, calling out to her in his mind, praying for it to end.

He decided to do it himself.

She came home, late the next night, to find the apartment empty. Completely bare. The dining room table and chairs were gone. The sofa and love seat, the recliner, the coffee table, gone. The mammoth entertainment center and its satellite speakers, gone. The television remained, on the carpet in the middle of the living room, and he sat on the floor staring at it and concentrating, but not watching. He heard her come in, but did not look up.

She stepped carefully, peering around in confusion. The rug had been vacuumed, giving it a clean, brushed look. The floor lamps were still in their usual corners, the plants still hung from their hooks, the pictures were still on the walls, all as they should be. But the furniture was gone. He sat Indian style, his back to her, hunched toward the TV. She silently went to the bedroom. Everything was still there. She suspected it was a joke.

“What happened to all the furniture?” she called from the bedroom.

There was a pause. “What?” he asked back.

She came out of the bedroom. “The furniture.”

“Oh. I gave it away,” he said, still staring at the TV.

She lit a cigarette. “How come?”

“Well, I was gettin’ sick of it, and this guy at work just got a place and he needed some stuff. I told him he could have ours.”

“When did you decide this?”

“Today,” he said without looking up.

She thought for a moment, then blew out a mouthful of smoke and stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray on the counter. “Get it back.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Get it back. All of it.”

He looked at her over his shoulder. “I can’t do that.”

“Of course you can. You can, and you will.”

He pressed his palms to the floor, then stood up slowly. He turned off the TV with his foot, then turned. He approached her, and calmly put his hands on her shoulders. She watched him warily. “I cannot, and I will not.”

She gritted her teeth, tapped her finger on his chest and said, “You get the fucking furniture back tomorrow,” then wheeled and stalked into the bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind her.

When he came home from work the next day, she asked him where the furniture was.
“I told you, its gone.”

“You have no intention of getting it back.”

“None”

With blinding speed she cracked him across the face, then glared up at him. When he said nothing she cracked him again, in the same place. Still he said nothing, and her eyes glazed over with rage. She began rhythmically beating his face and neck and ears, putting all her weight into each slap and panting and grunting with the effort.

Somewhere inside him light flooded through a window and he understood what had to happen. He was looking at her through a long lens and could barely feel her blows anymore. He forced his arm back, then in a tremendous flash of speed sent it through the air. He caught her squarely on the cheek with his open hand, nearly half the size of her face. The force of the slap sent her to the floor, palms down, gasping in disbelief.

He removed his wedding band and tossed it toward the garbage in the kitchen as she stood. He watched numbly as she walked out of his life forever.

Even though he was right, and even though she was wrong, and even though he knew better than to mourn her absence, in his loneliness he regretted his decision every day. Palms against his temples, he had been driven to his knees, beaten. Man down.

The desert was a nightmare, but at least there he had no memories. The exhausted stumbling, the oppressive heat, the blinding sun, the raw skin and hands and feet, the fear, the inevitable fall, was still better than the loneliness of reality.

Whenever he reached the ground, instead of the thunderclap of bone meeting earth he would vanish into that black tunnel, spiraling downward into that familiar dark, quiet, thoughtless place, sort of a reddish dark, the transition from sleep to wakefulness.

But he never could stay there long, and when he woke the sadness would once again sit on his chest and hold its hands tightly over his mouth, pinching his nose, cutting off any chance of regaining his breath.

He could no longer endure his life or his dream, and longed for the dark place in between, to remain there, to hide in his mind’s womb forever.

© 1995 Pat Hahn

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