then she took the paper the husband had written on and stuffed it into the pocket of her cardigan.
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: What really became of the Zodiac Killer? And what better place to move to except here, to a small town in the woods out here where no one might know who you are. Maybe you meet the girl of your dreams and you tell her who you are and she forgives you and she spends the rest of her life protecting you, because you are forgetful. You leave bits of your writing around without remembering that it’s your handwriting that could condemn you, but your wife remembers.
WHAT YOU TELL YOUR WIFE WHEN YOU GET HOME: I have met the Zodiac Killer.
WHAT SHE SAYS: Eat some soup.
WHAT THE KIDS SAY: Who is the Zodiac Killer?
WHAT I SAY: I’m lucky to be here. What if they saw the look in my eye that meant I realized exactly who they were. I wouldn’t be here, I said. They would have bludgeoned me to death.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: What was wrong with the dog? The dog, I say, was fine. But I tell her it reminds me of what I just learned. Guess, I said, what is the closest relative of the whale?
WHAT THE WIFE SAID: The dog? The horse? Humans?
WHAT I SAID: No, no, no. You would not believe it but it’s true. Cows are the closest relative of whales. When I said it, it made sense. I could see cows floating peacefully in the ocean waves, their large eyes moving side to side, taking in their water world.
WHAT SAM SAYS: Poppy, do you know what a female bear is called? It’s called a sh-sh- sh-she bear. Can you believe that?
WHAT THE WIFE SAID: Who left these dishes in the sink? Can’t anyone wipe the stove top? What kind of husband are you? I bet the Zodiac Killer at least leaves his shoes outside the living room. I bet the Zodiac Killer empties the dishwasher. I bet the Zodiac Killer buys his wife a flower on Valentine’s Day. Where’s my flower? My card? My anything? the wife says.
WHAT I DO: I go upstairs. I think maybe Sam was shot by the Zodiac Killer. I think maybe, in a sick way, that’s kind of cool. I mean if you’re going to get shot, it might as well be the Zodiac Killer and not some slovenly hunter with bad aim and a high blood alcohol content.
WHAT MIA DOES: Gives her mother some chocolates from a heart-shaped box her mother left at the foot of her bed on Valentine’s morning.
WHAT I SAY TO THE WIFE: See, there are your chocolates. We didn’t need to spend money on more.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: I need a mammogram. I need a Pap smear. I need these things I haven’t had in years. I’ll go to the clinic with you the day of your appointment.
WHAT I DO: Work on a chicken coop with the kids. I have not bought the cedar the Zodiac Killer recommended I buy because the cedar was too expensive. I have bought pine, but I realize, as I’m trying to fit the boards together to see how the end product will look, that the pine is very heavy and I wanted this chicken coop to be the kind of chicken coop two people could pick up and carry to a new spot in the field every day so that the chicken poop wouldn’t destroy the same section of grass every day, but darn if the Zodiac Killer wasn’t right about the cedar. The pine weighs a ton.
WHAT GISELA WANTS TO KNOW: Is there anyone who will go to Tubingen with her? (Gisela is no longer after me about my levels.)
CALL: The man who had a horse I had to put down and who speaks German has another horse that is a little lame. The man tells me that his uncle, who is not right and who lives in the apartment above their barn, has seen the spacecraft, too, and that he did not believe him. Now, he says, he has a new perspective on his uncle, and he doesn’t want to have to think about it but maybe, just maybe, more of what he has said over the years is possibly true. The man still has three horses, and they stand in the field, their manes whipping in the wind, in a wind the man tells me is the fiercest in these parts and he swears there are no other fields, no other hillsides that could quite compare. Maybe it’s true, I think, I am so cold up here. I zip my coat up as far as it can go, so that if I bend my head down, the zipper digs into my chin. “Furchtbare Kalte,” I say to the man who speaks German. Ah, yes, very good. I understand you. You just said it’s very cold out. Your German is coming along well, he said. You will know when you are really good at speaking a language when you start dreaming in the language. Have you dreamt in German? he asked. No, I answered.
RESULT: I X-rayed the foot. I could not see any damage, just a slight swelling. It could be the shoes, I said. The man who spoke German nodded. I will have the farrier come pull them, he said. What kinds of things? I asked the man who spoke German. What do you mean? he asked. What are the things that your uncle has said over the years that maybe you believe now? I asked. Oh, well, he believes there are people in the woods watching us. After the man who spoke German said it, I thought of the shape I saw form out of the leaves by the bonfire I built behind my house. The uncle was right, I thought. I wanted to meet him. You can’t, he doesn’t like people. He won’t talk to anyone, except me and my wife and our children. He talks to the children quite often, more than he talks to us. He has pointed out the people in the woods to the children. They see them, too. But of course, I thought the children were just playing along with their uncle’s game.
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: Maybe this uncle knows who shot my son, and now I think how it’s two people who know the man. One is a spaceman, and the other is a man who only talks to children and won’t talk to me.
WHAT I THINK I HAVE TO DO IN ORDER FOR THE SPACECRAFT TO COME BACK SO IT CAN TELL ME WHO SHOT MY SON BECAUSE THE LAST TIME IT HAD COME I HAD DONE THIS: Test my levels.
WHAT MY DOCTOR IS: So happy to see me when I get to his office, he gives me a handshake/hug and I’m pressed up against his breast cancer pin that digs into my own breast. Right, he says, he smiles so broadly. His favorite patient is back. Let’s have a look at that prostate, shall we? He likes to talk about other things while he’s palpating me. He likes to talk about sports and he is amazed I’m not well informed about scores and that I don’t have television reception to watch sports. I don’t know why, but I think about the zebra we have in our town when he’s examining me. Yes, we really do have a zebra. It’s someone’s exotic pet they stable like a horse. The zebra has its own barn. The zebra has its own paddock. The zebra is alone on its hill, its black and white stripes not blending in at all with the tall-reaching pines on the fringe of the forest beside the rails of the paddock. Whenever we drive on the road by the barn with the zebra, my children open the windows and stick their heads out of the truck and yell “Free the zebra!!” because no one likes to see something that should be in Africa here instead. I always laugh when my kids yell out when we drive by the zebra, and so I laugh while the doctor’s palpating me. My laugh isn’t loud, it’s more of an exhalation of breath with a little of the sound of my voice trailing with it. The doctor asks, Does that hurt? and I can hear he’s a little anxious when he asks, because he asks so quickly, and he bends his head close to mine, so that when I answer, he won’t miss what I’m saying. No, not at all, I say.
At the end of the visit, the doctor scratches his head. I’m miffed, he says. I’ve found nothing unusual once again, but your levels, still considered high, are slightly lower. He looks sad, and I want to tell him something funny to cheer him up. I wonder if the zebra story would do it. Is the zebra story a rib-tickler to others? I wonder. I don’t tell the doctor a story before I leave. Instead I tell the doctor how much I appreciate him taking the time to see me. I shake his hand, and he holds on to it for a while and I think he wants to take a look at my hand, too. Maybe he wants to palpate it as well. He wants to find a lump on me somewhere, on my palms, on the bit of skin between my thumb and forefinger that looks like a bat’s wing. I promise him I’ll come back in six months, for more tests and more exams. You never know, I say. My levels might mean something after all. He looks happier after I say it. Yes, I look forward to seeing you then, he says.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS AFTER HER VISIT WITH HER DOCTOR THE SAME DAY: Hallelujah. There was nothing out of the ordinary about my exams, either. My breasts are perfect, but you already knew that, she says, laughing. We drive home on the winding road from the hospital back to our town. It is coming on maple syrup season. The days are warmer, but the nights still cold. On their land, most people have tapped the maples and the metal buckets that hang from taps hammered into the trunks look strange, as if the ceiling of the sky were leaking and the buckets were set out to collect the rainwater.
CALL: A one-and-a-half-year-old shire has a respiratory infection.
ACTION: I drive to the farm, taking my wife along with me while the kids are at school, and even Sam’s back in classes. We drive on the dirt roads thinking how our dirt roads are prettier. Our dirt roads are
