of questions. The gears and cogs that labor constantly so that she becomes who she will become in each moment and the next.
Sometimes she is so exact.
It might be against her rules to change the name.
To change the game.
I would change that if I could.
“What could we call it?” she asks.
She is willing to rewrite history. Willing to make something new. Willing to change the rules of the game.
“I don’t know. I guess… when we get there we could see what we think of it and then come up with a new name. What do you say about that?”
They both hear a bat crossing the lonely desert, flying up the desolate highway, beating its leathery wings in the twilight.
Tomorrow we will follow him beyond those rocks and down into the desert at the bottom of the world.
“I would like that, Grandpa. Yes.”
IN THE DARK, the Old Man is falling into even darker depths.
I was falling.
Yes.
The nightmare.
If only I could change it like we’re going to change the name of Death Valley.
The Old Man drinks cold water from his canteen.
His granddaughter sleeps, her face peaceful.
The Old Man lies back and considers the night above, though his mind is really thinking of, and trying to forget, the nightmare all at once.
I wish I were free of it.
I wish I could change the rules of its game.
If she called me by another name, then the nightmare wouldn’t frighten me anymore. Then, I would remember in the dream that she calls me by another name and I could hold on to that.
And thinking of names, his eyes close and the sky above marches on and turns toward dawn.
Chapter 16
The morning sky is a clean, almost electric bright and burning blue. The desert is wide, stretching toward the east and the north. Small rocky hills loom alongside the road.
They have finished their breakfast and make ready to leave.
The Old Man starts the auxiliary power unit and a moment later, the tank. He watches the needles and gauges.
What could I do if there was a problem with any one of them?
Natalie might know something.
We should get as close to Death Valley as we can today. Then cross it tomorrow.
He watches his granddaughter lower herself into the driver’s seat. She smiles and waves from underneath the oversize helmet and a moment later her high soprano voice is in his ear.
“Can I drive today, Grandpa?”
“Stay on the road and when we come to an obstacle, like a burned-up car or a truck that has flipped across the lanes, stop and I’ll tell you which way to go around, okay?”
“Okay, Grandpa.”
They cross onto the highway and she pivots the tank left and toward the north. She overcorrects and for a moment they are off-road.
“Sorry, Grandpa!”
“Don’t worry. You’re doing fine.”
She gets them back on the road and the tank bumps forward with a sudden burst of acceleration as she adjusts her grip.
“Slow and steady,” he reminds her.
“I know, Grandpa.”
They drive for a while, crossing through a high desert town whose wounded windows gape dully out on the dry, brown landscape and prickly stunted yuccas as peeling paint seems to fall away in the sudden morning breeze of the passing tank.
“Are you excited about finding a new name for the valley we’ll cross tomorrow?”
She doesn’t reply for a moment as the tank skirts around a twisted tractor trailer flipped across the road long ago. Inside, the Old Man can see bleached and cracked bones within the driver’s cab.
“Yes, I am.”
The dull hum of the communications system fills the space between their words. Each time they speak, they sound suddenly close to each other.
“If you were going to give me a new name, what would it be?”
The dull hum.
Wheels turning.
“Why would I do that, Grandpa?”
Why would you indeed?
Because I am frightened that I might die and leave you abandoned out here, all alone.
Because a nightmare torments me and calls me by the same name you do.
Because I am trying to change the rules of the game.
And.
Because I love you.
“Oh, I don’t know,” says the Old Man. “Sometimes ‘Grandpa’ makes me feels old.”
“But that’s who you are. You’re Grandpa!”
Silence.
If we can change the name of a valley, can we change my name?
“I don’t know,” he hears her say. “You’re not so old, Grandpa.”
“I know.”
“But I guess… I guess if you wanted to be something else, I could call you… Poppa, maybe?”
I like that.
If I were Poppa, then when I was stuck in the nightmare, I could remember my new name.
And then I would remember it is just a nightmare, and that all I need to do is wake up.
I don’t ever want to be anything else but Poppa.
“I like Poppa. It sounds young. Like I’m full of beans.”
Silence.
They start up the grade that climbs into rocky wastes beyond the fallen buildings of the little town that once was and is now no more.
Where did all the people go? To our west is the Central Valley, Bakersfield, and the Grapevine. I remember passing by those fields on long highways. Long drives are some of my first memories. We had family in Northern California.
Fried chicken.
Summer corn.
