Stone Junction

With a faint smile Daniel said, ‘With me, it’s more like I can’t stop imagining it.’

‘About the same thing, huh?’ Ernie said. ‘Just another way of looking at it.’

Irma said to no one in particular, ‘Oh, it wasn’t that bad.’ She turned to Daniel with a distracted smile. ‘Do you enjoy your work?’

‘I don’t know,’ Daniel said. When they glanced at him nervously, Daniel smiled and explained as well as he could. ‘I guess it seems strange not to know if I enjoy my work, but I’m honestly uncertain. I don’t think of bowling in terms of enjoyment. I’m too busy concentrating on trying to do it right, do it well – do it at all, for that matter.’

Irma smiled blankly, idly stroking Chester’s thin back.

Ernie volunteered, ‘I worked for GM, thirty-five years at the Chevy plant in Detroit – what we call “Motown.” Irma and me been married thirty-four years. I retired three years ago, kids gone, house paid for, so me and Irma just take off whenever the notion moves us. Going out and seeing things keeps ya young. Last fall we went and looked over New England. Real pretty in the fall, all them red and golden leaves. Now this country here strikes me as a little grim, but the light’s nice, the sunsets and all.’

Irma, with the same distracted smile, said to herself, ‘It always is.’

Daniel said, ‘What’d you do at GM, Ernie?’

‘I was just on the line. Mounted the spare, put in the jack and lug wrench, then shut the trunk.’

‘Did you enjoy it?’ Daniel said.

Ernie shrugged his heavy shoulders. ‘Like ya said, it’s a job.’

Irma said to the poodle, ‘He enjoyed it, didn’t he, Chester?’

Chester yapped sharply once.

Irma nodded with satisfaction.

‘You know,’ Ernie addressed Daniel, ‘I didn’t mind the routine. Gives life shape. And even if you’re doing one thing all the time, it’s never really the same. Like closing those car trunks – each one sounded different. Millions, and every one different. You know what I mean?’

‘I think so,’ Daniel said.

Irma asked Chester, ‘Does Daddy know what he means?’

Chester yapped twice. ‘Twice means “no,”’ Irma translated, a smug glint in her eyes.

Ernie muttered, ‘Damn dog hates me. I was the one who thought he needed some exercise. Let him off the leash to go sniff around the park and the Doberman bit off all his tail and half his ass in one chomp ’fore I could nail him with a rock and run him off. Tried to tell Chester he was up against a rule of life: Big dogs eat. Being on the leash wouldn’t have made no difference.’

Daniel bent and said to the quivering poodle, ‘We don’t like big dogs, do we, Chester?’

Chester hid his head. ‘He’s so amazing,’ Irma trilled. ‘He understands everything he hears.’

Ernie, Irma, and Chester said good-bye on the west side of Las Vegas during the sunset’s fiery crescendo of gold and crimsons, the colors so pure and clear that the blinding sundown on Ernie’s shirt paled to the edge of vanishing, so stunning that Ernie turned off the engine and they sat and watched in silence, Chester stretching his front paws against the dashboard to get a better view. Daniel was taken with how easily the air let the colors go, how inexorably Earth turned on the axis of darkness and light. He suddenly felt a panic to get out of the truck’s cab, vanish, vanish or else start weeping. But he couldn’t vanish with them there. He said, fighting the tightness in his throat, ‘Well, on that lovely, fiery note, I’ll take my leave. Thank you for the ride and your splendid company.’

Amid their farewells, he slid out. Just before closing the door, Daniel said, ‘Drop it in a river.’ Even Chester seemed puzzled by the remark.

Daniel stepped back to let the truck pull away, but it didn’t budge. Muffled inside the cab, Chester barked frantically. Irma rolled down the window, calling excitedly, ‘You forgot your balling ball! Chester saw it! Understands everything, just like I told you.’

Daniel lifted the bowling bag through the open window. ‘Wish I had Chester’s mind,’ he said. ‘Pretty dumb to forget your means of livelihood. Thanks again. Take care.’

He watched the taillights disappear back toward Las Vegas. He knelt to unzip the bowling bag, shielding the Diamond’s light from traffic, though the road was empty. He looked into the Diamond. ‘You don’t want me to let you go, do you? I’m the one, aren’t I? If so, help me. Help me. Please, please help me.’ He vanished with the Diamond.

Around midnight, without warning, Daniel’s concentration buckled and collapsed. He tried to tighten his focus but there was no power left. Overwhelmed, it took him a terrifying moment to gather himself and imagine him and the Diamond returned. The entry back was ragged. Daniel had no idea where in the world he was. On his knees, he stared at the Diamond, wondering where the spiral flame had gone. He heard a faint roar to his right. He turned, blinded by a ball of light hurtling toward him. He dove to the side, wrapping his body protectively around the bowling bag just as the driver of the black Trans-Am stood on the brakes and skidded into a one-eighty, stopping a hundred and fifty yards down the road. As the car headed back, Daniel zipped the bowling bag shut. The driver pulled onto the opposite shoulder and swung across the divider and stopped beside Daniel. For a moment the long blond hair made Daniel think it was a woman. He was sharply disappointed when a stocky man in his mid-thirties wearing cowboy boots, Levis, and an army fatigue jacket stepped around the car and said, ‘What in the name of fuck was that all about?’

‘What?’ Daniel said with puzzled innocence, getting to his feet.

‘Didn’t you see it, man? There was this huge fucking flash of light and bam! There you were, this weird glow all around you. No fucking way you could miss it.’

Daniel said, ‘I was squatting down when I heard you coming and stood up real sudden – might have been the headlights reflecting off the case here, lots of bright metal, might have caught the light perfect.’