a wayward passage
by free man jung
Mediocrity is the sudden dimming of another day spent in vain. It is just another set of waking hours wasted on the inconsequential details-- the minutae of living in the modern day. Days & weeks slip by as tho they were nothing. Perhaps the finest moment in one's life is the opportunity to forego the worthless mundane in anticipation of the Kingdom of Heaven-- that blinding apotheosis whereby the Truth be joined in an instant together with all matter &, like a flame, the countenance of every One be modified to reflect that very nature. We stand in synaxis every day, tho rarely do we ever acknowledge it or offer any salutation. -- Fra. Zacarías
Not far from their home, a Young man & his wife set off on an outing in an ordinary vehicle on a sunny Spring day; a day to be spent hiking the Barranca Dolorosa in honor of their anniversary. They did what they had set out to do, & the day was fine if uneventful. Twilight was now upon them & they both felt a looming urgency to find someplace to pitch their tent for night. Old forest roads in nuevo Mexico are often narrow & at times treacherous. One rarely ever sees another living soul, but it isn't unheard of. The couple might not even have noticed a pale truck turn out into the road & follow them at a fairly close distance; for whatever reason, the Wife glanced in her rearview mirror & took note.
"I don't know why, but I have a strange feeling about that truck," she told her Husband, "I'm going to turn here." She did so. When the truck made the same turn, the Husband wrenched around & caught brief eye contact with the driver but turned back to face forward immediately. He was breathing very heavily & seemed gripped by a sudden, horrific phobia.
"Pull over here, love, & let this jackass pass us," he said to her. She pulled the car into a short turnoff & stopped. The truck stopped behind them. After the brief grinding of wheels in gravel, there was no sound.
"He's not moving," she said, the timbre of her voice gaining in dramatic inflection.
"He's waiting to see what we do," he told her, lowering the tension again with a feigned coolness, "go on just like you were making a three-point turn & see what happens." She turned & drove the car past the other driver who was idling in his truck in the middle of the gravel road. The couple waved slightly, the custom in these parts between passing motorists.
The man did not wave, but just stared a mean, hardened stare with grotesque, bulging eyes set beneath a monstrous unibrow. He wore glasses, thick & tinted a smoky amber color which lent his gaze even more of a ghastly, unheimlich indifference. He had a small mustache the color of sand but the rest of his long face was pale & gaunt & shiny as tho recently shaven. He wore the kind of jacket one might get from a bowling league, or a Knights of Columbus council & he did not return the wave or even smile.
"If he follows us, I'm calling the cops," the Wife said with determintion.
"I kind of agree," the Husband replied, "that guy looked-- " There was a profound subtext which remained unspoken.
"He looked like--" the Wife trailed off.
"Just say it," he told her. She moved her lips as tho to tell him, but then stuttered, changed her mind before the first phoneme formed on her tongue.
"Tell me doll, what is it?" The Husband was unrelenting. She looked at him momentarily with her deep eyes the color of earth before repenting her gaze back to the line of the road. She knew how stubborn he could be.
"I just had a bad feeling. Like he's the type to follow us back to our tent, you know, wait around till we're asleep & after baiting Banshee & killing you, he'd rape me & skin us & make a teepee out of our hides or something." A moment passed & then she added, "Maybe that sounds silly."
"Naw, people are crazy sometimes," he reassured her, "You never can tell what some folks'll do. Seems like nobody's content just to be anymore. It was always like that, tho, I guess. That guy gave me a bad feeling too. I just didn't want to freak you out, but I felt like he was the type to chop us up into bite-sized pieces & put us in his freezer for the winter."
"I don't think he followed us after that turn," the Wife said. "Hopefully we lost him." They drove on in silence. Shortly before sundown, a broad, flat, dun-colored piece of public land appeared with a large ring of stones for a firepit & the Wife pulled over. She got out of the car first & began to take care of the dog while the Husband gathered firewood.
"I just hope that creep doesn't find us," the Wife said when she joined him stacking kindling & then abruptly changed the topic, "Isn't there a lot of cow shit around here?-- Where will we pitch the tent?"
"I dunno," he said, "maybe over there," but he didn't indicate anywhere because he was carrying a stack of short logs over his shoulder. He dropped them in a heap near the fire ring. One by one, he began to stack the logs in a pyramid shape.
"I want to go somewhere else," she said quietly. & then, "Are you mad?"
"Why would I be mad, love? Come on, let's go."
"Your fire looks like it would have been nice," she said, admiring his woodstack. "Someone else will come along & enjoy it, I reckon." She smiled at him. He smiled at her. They were hopelessly, desperately, madly in love.
"I love you to death," he said & they got back in the car. "Do you want to go back up that other road?" he asked her as he buckled his seatbelt.
"I kind of want to go back to that last town, see how much the motel costs, is that okay?"
"Yeah, of course, that sounds nice-- clean sheets & a shower. I didn't really bring any money, tho-- did you?"
"I got it, baby," she said.
The first motel had a handwritten sign which read: "No Vacency." Below that was another sign, also handwritten which read: "Office closed. See rm. 133 for assisstance." Perhaps there was some mistake. Maybe the sign had been left up, or one of the tenets had changed her mind, or maybe they always just kept a room vacant, the Husband thought. He walked right up to room number one hundred & thirty-three & knocked lightly on the door with his knuckles. A woman in curlers & bathrobe with a face like a huge pan of sweetrolls & a bit of a cigarette clenched in her tiny mouth came to the door. She barely even looked at the Husband but waited for him to speak.
"Evenin' ma'am, are there any rooms available?"
"Sign says--" she whistled at him, the cigarette perfectly poised on her bottom lip, "no vacancy!" She shut the door abruptly. He returned to the car & shook his head. Without a word, the Wife backed out & drove the car on towards the other hotel they had seen the day before. Tho there was a sign for a hotel, the couple immediately discovered that the hotel itself was nowhere to be found. The sign was in front of a rather small house with one of those split-in-half-doors like one would find at a kindergarten. The top half was open & a little old lady was inside watching television & smoking a long, elegant menthol. Someone on the television was yelling, "Come on, big money!"
At first, she didn't notice the Husband standing there. He cleared his throat a few times, but it wasn't until a yappy Yorkshire the color of a rusty nail discovered the Husband that the little lady even looked up from the Wheel of Fortune. She had an empty look on her face & one of her eyes was milky & far off. She spoke with a Southern lilt as she hobbled slowly to the door,
"I'm a comin'-- didn' see ya thar, hope ya didn' wait too long, naw." She had a lively, misleading quality to her voice that belied her tiny stature & languid mobility. The Husband imagined that when outoftowners spoke to her on the telephone they cultivated a vision of a grand, distinguished lady with a lavalier draped over her arm & coiled in her lap, sitting in 'the parlor,' sipping a mimosa & admiring the magnolias out the window. It was nothing like that. Magnolias don't grow in nuevo Mexico. She opened the halfdoor & ushered him in.
"Sign here, please-- I got a King-sized bed-- Is it just you?" she asked him abruptly as tho beginning in the middle of a scene with which he was already familiar for he immediately handed her the prop-- a plastic square with magnetic strip-- across the counter.
"And my wife." the Husband smiled as the old woman read the Wife's name on the card. She paused a moment & he knew she was thinking about how their last names were different-- or at least he thought so. After deciding that the world had turned, she handed the card back to him with a receipt, leaned forward & stared at him with stern countenance.
"It's got a King-size bed. Do you know where the room is?" she asked with a tone of suspicion, as tho she were asking him if he was a criminal. He shook his head & with a defeated look of exhaustion, she hobbled around & lead him to the front door. She motioned to the back of the parking lot where a row of buildings, a disparate collection of structures, were lined up like stage sets. One looked like a warehouse, there were a few log cabins, another like a Western saloon, still another like a two-story French colonial bungalo. The Husband waited in awkward silence, expecting more from her than just an ambiguous hand gesture, but when he looked down, she was nowhere to be found.
He returned to the car & they drove to the back of the lot. All of the buildings had numbers on the doors & they suddenly realized that the entire strange collection made up the hotel. The room number on their key matched the number on one of the log cabins.
"Do you think this used to be a summer camp?" he asked her as they entered the little room. The cheap faux bois panelling on the walls was dark & dingy & only poorly represented the idea of woodgrain at all. The bed was not a King-sized as the lady had insisted, nor even a Queen, but a full-size at best. The bedspread was the sort of horrendous grey & pastel eighties abstraction that is become ubiquitous in hotels & nursing homes & framed in doctors' waiting rooms & hole-in-the-wall diners. The bathroom had obviously been added to the room as an afterthought.
"Maybe so," she said & began to unpack the food bag & campstove. She cut a potato into small pieces with her pocketknife & began to fry them with red chile.
"Mmm-- sugar, can you find some ice?" she asked of him.
"No problem, love," he said, grabbing the taupe-colored bucket & lid above the television. A strip of thin, white paper encircled the bucket & lid from top to bottom. This riband bore the illusion of sterility, but was easily broken.
Outside, & down the row a little, the Husband discovered boys' & girls' showers-- confirming that the motel was once a summer camp-- but no ice machine. He continued along the row of buildings in search of ice. Music was coming from the second-storey window of the Southern plantation home. Someone was smoking pot, somewhere. He was about to call up to some people sitting on the balconey when he decided it was ridiculous & set out across the parking lot towards the office.
When he approached the door, there was no sound, no yappy dog or television. It was completely silent. The door was cracked, but the room inside was dark. He stepped near the doorway.
"Wheel of Fortune must be over," he said out loud & then louder, "excuse me, ma'am," & was frightened by the sound of his own voice echoing back at him. He peered inside. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he gasped for air when he saw that the room was completely empty. There had been furniture!-- not just a couch & television, there had been old lady knickknacks & kitsch. There had been works of taxidermy displayed on the walls. There had been a desk, & a credit card machine just a moment ago, but now, the whole house was empty. The Husband couldn't believe it. It wasn't humanly possible.
He stumbled out of the house in consummate shock & stood a moment to observe the sign. A sort of nongeometric form made of steel, the decaying remains of once-shiny midcentury design stood now ignored & covered in a thick layer of rust. Red letters, once cherry-bright, now faded by the harsh, desert sun made the Husband suddenly feel a chill in his spine, like he was remembering his entire existence as something that only once was, in a fraction of a moment.
The screak of the door opening jerked his attention behind him, his body turned around to follow. A hunched over old woman dressed in raven-black from head to toe was exiting the door. A short veil covered her face.
"Excuse me, ma'am," he called to her, for at first he thought she was the old desk clerk. As he approached he realized it was not the woman who he had hoped to find, but someone older, darker & more obscure. Her blouse, sumptuous as it was austere & clasped tightly at the neck was a rich, black brocatelle that simply could not have been made in the modern era. She wore lacy gloves that clutched a rosario with beads of blood-red garnet. She stopped & tilted her head only slightly when he addressed her. He could not see her eyes. They were obscured by her dark veil.
"Iyam no la Jefa-- soy la Limpiadora." The Husband dropped the ice bucket suddenly. Without a word, the cleaning lady, who certainly could not be called that by her dress or appearance, knelt before him & procured an enormous deck of cards, like a stage magician, from thin air. "Please," she said, "señor" & handed him the cards. Intuitively, he took the deck, cut it thrice & handed it back to her. She took the top card & laid it on the pavement. La Sota de Espadas: the image of a cunning, androgynous youth hiding in the wood & wielding a sword. She placed the next card par terre across it. La Torre- depicting a castle being struck by lightning with human bodies raining down all around. Above these, she placed El Enamorado, the lovers, & below them, El Diablo, the devil. At this, she lifted her veil & studied him a moment with a stern, intent gaze that was so chilling, the Husband had to look away. To the left of the spread, she placed el ocho de Bastos & to the right, she placed a card bearing the image of a skeleton turning a great wheel.
"Rueda de la Fortuna." She spoke the name aloud with a tremelo in her voice & then quickly grabbed the cards up & disappeared into the shadows.
"Thank you?" the Husband spoke out loud to nobody. Leaving the ice bucket where he'd dropped it on the pavement, he returned to the room & shut the door quickly behind him.
"Did you find it?" the Wife asked. She looked up. "What's wrong?" She was still busy at the frying pan, but she set the spoon down. Without a word, he went to the bathroom to wash his hands. The bar of soap was wrapped in paper & gave the impression of being hermetically sealed. An ashtray lay upsidedown, sparkling clean nearby.
"It's funny, isn't it?" he said to his Wife from within the bathroom.
"What's funny?" she asked him.
"How everything in a hotel room is made to give the illusion that no one's ever slept in the room before, that everything in the room is just crisp & new & waiting here all sealed up-- even in a cheap motel like this joint. Something like Kierkegaard said--" but he stopped abruptly because thru the mirror, he distinctly saw a man's face leering in the window. A horrifying sallow face with empty eye sockets the color of dark amber. When he whirled around, there was no one there."
"What was that?" she asked.
"Nevermind," he said, walking out of the bathroom & drying his hands on a white towel.
"Will you open this?" she asked, handing him a can of frijoles refritos. He opened the can hook on his pocketknife, carefully traced the rim & handed it back to her. The husband stepped outside a moment to smoke & when he returned the burrito was ready. He said it was the best he'd ever had.
Somewhere in the dead of night, the Husband awoke with a jolt because he distinctly believed someone to be standing outside the door. He tiptoed up to the door & opened it as swiftly as he was able, but there was no one there. The night air was warmer than it had been lately. He found it fresh & nice. "The room's a bit stuffy," he said to himself, but thought nothing more of it. When he laid down again he began to rehearse his Latin conjugations, like a flashback from a Jesuit boy's school education, "Regno, regnavi, sum sine regno, regnabo," until he fell asleep.
La Limpiadora found them in the afternoon the next day. She knocked twice but there was no answer. When she unlocked the door, it was the dog she noticed first, lying dead on the carpet-- she gasped. The Husband was completely covered up, but the Wife's arm was hanging from the side of the bed like a limp towel. La Limpiadora stepped timidly towards the bed. She could see the Wife's delicate face, a pale shade of lilac. A deep maroon rivulet was dried up & caked on her upper lip. La Dama made the sign of the cross with reverence before running out of the room.
She said it was God who had taken the Young couple away. The police said a leak from the campstove might have asphyxiated them while they slept. A fat mechanic watching the police take the bodies away said an Angel of the Lord struck them dead. When the county coroner wrote his report, he suggested that a carbon monoxide leak could be present in a bad ventilation system which he referred to the State Board of Health for further inquiry. This turned out to be unnecessary. The whole place burned down a few weeks later. Anyway, none of them had it quite right. A pale truck was parked there earlier that morning, but the police found the description useless because all vehicles get to looking that way around here on account of all the dust.