hearts and bones

___________________________________________________________
HEARTS AND BONES

One and one-half wandering Jews
Free to wander wherever they choose

Andy pays full sticker price for the LandRover at a dealership in Mount Vernon. He lets Ephram pick out the color. "Black," he mumbles, through a mouthful of cereal. It's the only thing he's said to Andy all week.

The real estate broker sends a slick folder full of color copies, pictures of a house on a street in the middle of nowhere. There's a shiny brass key taped inside. It goes on the new ring with the all-purpose car key, which has more buttons than the television remote.

Six months after his wife died, Andy leaves the four keys to the apartment with the doorman. Delia says an elaborate goodbye to the building, standing and saluting on the sidewalk under the green awning where he liked to kiss Julia when it was raining. Ephram never takes off his headphones. They're on the road by ten o'clock.

Ten o'clock turns out to be an awful time to try to leave New York City. He's been at the hospital by seven since his residency and on Fridays he'd just take the train out to meet Julia and the kids. He had no idea traffic could be this dank-breathed ogre, this living wall he'd want to shake loose with tight fists.

Delia and Ephram insist on sitting in the back, which makes Andy feel like the chauffeur, but there are only so many fights even he can bear having with Ephram in one day. Already he's asked Andy what kind of deal he got for the car, and when Andy said, "What deal?" Ephram snickered and said "sucker" just loud enough for Andy to hear.

He's just trying to get a reaction out of you, she said. Ephram was four, sitting in the carseat with his arms folded across his chest. I'm not a baby, he said, and then pouted like he'd learned the first week of pre-kindergarten. Other kids got colds, Ephram got an attitude. Peer pressure is hell, Andy said when Ephram stuck out his lower lip. He'll get over it, she promised, putting her hand over Andy's on the gearshift.

"Can we, Dad?" Delia says impatiently.

"Sure," Andy says. Sure, whatever, she can have it, he promises as the line for the Hudson emerges through the haze, cars inching along blocked arteries. Thank god they're not moving.

They're not moving, and he didn't drive off the road or lose control of this ridiculous car that is supposed to be safe but is also big enough to steamroll a small village, but what the hell is he doing, getting lost in his head like that while he's behind the goddamned wheel.

This is all he has left. Everything left in the world that matters is in this car. They have to at least make it out of the city alive. He owes her that much.

New Jersey is just a state he'd like to have taken off maps, its rainy roads banished, but it turns out there's no other way to get from New York to Colorado. He keeps his hands at ten and two and tries not to get lost.

Delia has to pee twice in three hours and he waits outside the women's bathroom at rest stops until she comes out because he doesn't think he's supposed to go in, and anyway she won't let him. He hasn't taken a road trip without Julia since he was twenty-six.

This isn't a road trip.

"What?" Delia asks, and Andy blinks through Julia in her favorite blue sweater until the empty leather seat stares back. "It is so," Delia says. "We're on a road, aren't we?"

Ephram is leaning his forehead against the window, his eyes closed. He looks like he's in pain and Andy flicks his eyes back from the mirror so he doesn't try to diagnose the kid when he knows exactly what's wrong. Ephram is going to burst open one of these days and Andy won't be able to help. He doesn't get to help. He doesn't do that any more.

"If we follow the pink pen we should have another rest area in..." Delia rests her chin on the back of his seat. "Twelve point three miles. See?" She holds the map half in front of his face until Ephram yanks her back, mumbling about seatbelts.

Right. Seatbelts.

Andy simmers with grief and loss and he doesn't know why he let some guy in a embroidered polo shirt draw him a line on a map to some new life he invented. All he really knows is he wanted to die. He does want to die. He thinks in the meantime maybe he's gone crazy. He wants to crack open his own brain to take a look. If he were a podiatrist he could haul his foot up into his lap and poke at it with a pair of tweezers. If he were a dentist he could open wide, cram a mirror between his jaws. As it is all he can think to do is drive west.

Julia would skate her fingers over his neck in time with whatever radio station they'd managed to pick up. "Why do I need a map, anyway? You just drive toward the setting sun. It's the square one just to the left of the middle."

"No it's not," says Ephram. "That's Kansas."

***