The Never-Open Desert Diner Read online

  In my haste to retreat, my jeans slipped to my knees. I stumbled backward and over. Despite my best efforts, the flow continued undeterred while I thrashed around on my backside. It occurred to me at that moment I might have borne a striking similarity to a cheap Walmart lawn sprinkler. All that was missing were a couple of brats in swimsuits jumping over me—and, of course, the lawn.

  By the time I got control of the floodgates and up on my feet again, the face in the window was gone. But I had seen her. I was certain of it. I walked around to the front of the house to check again for signs of a resident. There were no tracks, human or machine. There was no evidence of any kind that would have warned me I was trespassing. I expressed my apology to the porch. I waited. I announced myself again, this time a little louder. Only the wind answered me. A block away, as I headed up the slope to the arch, I heard a woman’s voice tell me to go away. She didn’t need to tell me twice—or even once.

  Under the arch I turned and squinted back down at the model home with all the glass in the windows and the chair on the eastern-facing porch. At my truck I looked up toward the archway and realized it was just high enough on the hill and far enough away that it couldn’t be seen from the highway. I wondered if it had been designed that way.

  My next stop was the Lacey brothers’ place. I spent the thirty miles convincing myself to forget what had just happened. I could not be an unrepentant house-pisser. There was also her face, which I easily remembered and then struggled to forget. Maybe it wasn’t exactly a beautiful face in the popular way of advertisements and magazine covers. The face was oddly striking, with a high forehead and a wide nose and no-nonsense lips, all framed in thick black hair that lightly settled upon her shoulders. It was a face with staying power.

  My company, Ben’s Desert Moon Delivery Service, consisted of one truck, one trailer, and one driver: me, Ben Jones. Several years earlier, as the result of a serendipitous tragedy, I was given exclusive contracts to deliver for FedEx and UPS. My route on 117 took me back and forth across a particularly remote hundred-mile stretch of Utah’s high desert. The highway dead-ended up against the granite face of a towering mesa just outside the small former coal-mining town of Rockmuse, population 1,344. I also trucked whatever else was freight-forwarded through various shippers. My bread and butter, which had become mostly bread and damn little of that, came from the scattered locals who lived out in the desert and placed orders directly with me for whatever they needed.

  I delivered to lonely cattle ranches along the way and sometimes to the odd desert rats holed up in their aluminum trailers that rose shimmering out of the brown distance like so much tinfoil pinned against the horizon. Rancher or crazy old sun rat, all had chosen to tuck themselves away in the rolling dirt, sand, and tumbleweed miles down rutted side roads that had no names.

  Such folks were a special breed. I knew every one of them, though the sum total of every word ever exchanged between us might not equal what could be squeezed onto the back of a drugstore postcard. Entire life histories were swapped in three or four words with a narrow squint or a wave thrown in for punctuation. Between hello and good-bye was a thick slice of silence that told a story you couldn’t forget even if you wanted to. Conversation in the high desert was parceled out like water and often with less enthusiasm, each drop cherished for the life it represented.

  The Lacey brothers, Fergus and Duncan, lived a mile off 117 in two sand-scoured red boxcars that had been welded together and placed on top of a foundation of gray cinder blocks. I didn’t know how long the brothers had lived there or where they had come from, or their ages, or what they did, if anything, outside of running a scrawny bunch of cattle and horses. They never offered and I never inquired. How boxcars got out in the middle of the desert when there were no train tracks within seventy-five miles was a bit of a mystery. I mused upon it when it occurred to me, which was probably too often.

  Fergus had seen me for several minutes as I made my way over dips and bends accompanied by squeaks and rattles across the ruts and holes of their nameless road. When I pulled into their dusty turnaround, he was half sitting, half leaning on a large wooden spool that had once held heavy-gauge cable. Nearby were two gray plastic milk crates that served as chairs, which I had never seen the brothers use. This was their yard furniture, reserved for entertaining guests that might have included the lost coyote or buzzard and not much else.

  The Lacey brothers were small and scrappy, raw-boned men who wore their years in the desert like leather armor. What had once been red steel-wool hair had become a calico with short tufts of orange popping out between patches of white from the backs and sides of the dirty Stetson hats they rarely removed. Lopsided boot heels made them look as if they were always fighting a strong crosswind, and the wind was losing. Even in winter they wore T-shirts with jeans held up by red suspenders. Their clear, ice-blue eyes further identified them as brothers. Never blinking, those eyes did all the work for their beard-stubbled faces.

  Fergus lowered the brim of his sweat-stained hat an inch or two by way of a hello. Together we unloaded three rolls of barbed wire and ten cases of Hormel chili. As usual, we stacked everything against the side of the boxcars. He signed for his goods and paid me in cash. My delivery completed, I turned to leave.

  Fergus hoisted a work glove. “Hold up, Ben.”

  Duncan stepped out of the boxcars holding a shallow pie tin. “Birthday cake,” he shouted.

  “Which one of you old farts is having a birthday?” I asked.

  Duncan set the cake, which was not actually a cake, down on the wooden spool table. The two brothers looked at each other and then at me.

  Duncan said, “It’s your birthday, asshole.”

  They both laughed.

  I lifted my cap and dragged the back of my wrist over my wet brow. “I guess it is,” I said. It wasn’t.

  Something passed between the two brothers, an unspoken thought, which I supposed was not uncommon between brothers. Duncan muttered a curse under his breath and disappeared inside.

  Fergus shook his head. “Appreciate it, Ben. Duncan is having strange spells these days. For some damn reason he’s convinced it’s your birthday. It isn’t, is it?”

  “Nope,” I said.

  Fergus sniffed the air. “It don’t matter to me, Ben,” he said, “but I think you might have pissed yourself.”

  I didn’t feel like explaining. I ignored his observation.

  Sounds of rooting and banging came from inside the boxcars. Fergus released a slow, good-natured sigh. “I’ll go help him.”

  A short while later they reappeared. After all my years of driving a truck I knew a road flare when I saw one. Duncan held one in his hand. Fergus carried three cans of beer. We met at the table.

  Duncan admired the cake for a moment. “It’s jalapeño corn bread,” he said. “Made the frosting out of Velveeta cheese.” Judging from the pride in his voice, he considered the Velveeta frosting an inspired invention on the order of penicillin and toilet paper.

  The charred letter B floated upon the cheese lake of orange frosting. Fergus added, “It was my idea to make your initial out of bacon.”

  I nodded and tried to exhibit the appropriate amount of insincere admiration.

  Duncan pulled the strike cap off the flare and struck the ignition end with the cap still in his teeth. The flare burst to life and spewed a bright flame into the already warm air. “Let’s see you blow this out.”

  With a flourish worthy of a pile driver, Duncan jammed the lit flare into the center of the corn bread. The two of them sang “Happy Birthday” to me. They let the flare burn a few seconds. Suddenly Duncan threw his hands into the air and danced an animated but nonetheless pitiful jig around the table.

  It didn’t taste half bad. It was all bad. Whatever the recommended daily allowance of phosphorus was, after a few bites there was enough of it in our systems to meet that requirement for a lifetime and well into whatever came next. The beer was surprisingly cold, and not just
welcome but medicinally necessary.

  A very short time later I pulled through the turnaround. The remains of the cake sat next to me on the seat. Burn holes still smoldered in the Velveeta icing. My side mirrors caught the flare blazing behind me in the dirt where Fergus had thrown it. Fergus and Duncan were acting like two little boys, scuffing up a fine dusty haze into the air as they kicked the dying flare like a soccer ball back and forth between them.

  It wasn’t my birthday, but it was a birthday I’d remember until the day I died, which at the moment had never seemed closer.

  A courteous distance down the road, well out of sight of the boxcars, I pulled over and buried the cake in a shallow grave. There was a big chunk of sandstone nearby. I used it to seal the tomb. Some poor scavenging desert creature might thank me.

  If it was true that it’s the thought that counts, I didn’t want to know what Duncan Lacey was thinking when he made that cake. On the other hand, the ten cases of canned Hormel chili and other foodstuffs I regularly brought them needed no explanation. I took some solace in the fact that, though it wasn’t my birthday, God willing, it wouldn’t be my birthday again for another year.

  I drove west, homeward, into a fiery late-afternoon sun. I cranked down my window and gulped at the clean desert air that had already begun to cool in anticipation of a spring evening.

  No other vehicles appeared in either direction for almost an hour. I searched the road ahead for the turnout to Desert Home, unable to decide if I was going to stop. It wasn’t until I’d parked and set the brake and listened to the engine relax that I began to wonder why I had stopped where I was so clearly unwelcome—the famous “scene of the crime.” My wondering was short lived. I knew from experience that if you’re about to do something you probably shouldn’t do, the best advice you can give yourself is not to think about it too long. It ruins the surprise when the worst happens.

  The wind picked up in ferocious gusts that roared in my ears and partially obscured my view of the model home. I hiked down the slope. Blowing sand burrowed inside my clothes and forced me to squint. Well away from the porch, I threw my “hello” toward the house. The chair was gone. I shouted several more times, gradually moving closer each time. With each step the wind scooped up my voice with the sand and sent them both to parts unknown. I knocked on the door. The wind took that, too.

  The front windows were now covered with blankets from the inside. Newspaper had been taped across the picture window on the north side. Two of the sheets didn’t completely overlap and allowed the sliver of a view. I pushed my cap back on my forehead and cupped my hands to shield my eyes from the blowing sand.

  The woman sat on the green chair that had been on the porch. She was alone. The chair was the only piece of furniture in the empty room. Her bare left shoulder angled toward my window. A skylight directly overhead encircled her with a narrow stream of honeyed light. The rest of her body drifted in shadow. My eyes adjusted. Her raised left elbow revealed the soft curve of a breast. She appeared to be vaguely Asian, though her skin looked too white. She was clearly naked. Her fingers moved rhythmically along the slender neck of a musical instrument.

  The wind died. Silence took its place. I held my breath. What was about to happen was rare, though I had experienced it a few times in my years on 117.

  The setting sun burned into a layer of advancing high red clouds that swirled with sand. Propelled by the wind, the clouds picked up speed and rushed across the flatlands, where they broke against the mesa cliffs and splintered like a giant wave. The backwash of wind roared toward me across the miles of desert shore driving sand ahead of it. My hands glowed from the intense approaching light.

  I was caught in a blinding red flash. The air around me crackled with electricity. I fought the impulse to close my eyes. The skylight above the woman filled the room with a pulsing pink glow like the inside of a beating heart. In the unnatural light, the fingertips of her left hand flew over the absent strings. Her right hand grasped nothing as it sawed the air. The soundless instrument rocked side to side with music only she could hear and I could only imagine.

  The light in the room transformed into deepening shades of the spectrum. I tried to recall the name of the instrument the woman played. Its name was lost in the curve of her bare shoulder and half oval of breast, seamless yet distinct against the instrument. The woman and the instrument were a cameo in the empty room.

  She stopped playing. I felt shame. I had no right to be there. It was wrong.

  Too late, I realized the light had slipped behind me. A misshapen silhouette of my head was cast through the newspaper and across the floor in front of her. She turned toward the window where I stood. She returned her attention to her instrument. Her chin dropped to her chest. She was lost again in her private music. I felt shame but was helpless to turn away. I continued to listen.

  The sun dropped below the mountains. It only took a few minutes. She played on until I could no longer separate her from the darkness. I walked from the house into the dusk and remembered the name of the instrument—a cello. I sat in the cab with the engine idling and thought about the woman and the cello and the red room and the haunting music I didn’t hear. I whispered to myself, “Go home, Ben.”

  The headlights wrangled the soft darkness in front of me. I stared but didn’t see. She might have been standing there for some time. The sleeveless flowered print dress she now wore was loose fitting and fell to her knees. A slight wind fluttered its hemline. Her coal eyes were intent upon me. She moved only to push wild strands of her long dark hair away from her face. There was little chance she could see me with the headlights shining in her eyes, though I felt as if she could. Maybe I wanted her to see me through glass the way I had seen her.

  I opened the door and slid out from behind the wheel until I felt the chrome running board under my boots. The interior lights flashed on and off. She reached up again and brushed the hair from her face. I stepped out in front of the headlights. She took a step backward to the very edge of light.

  She didn’t shout. Her voice lifted itself without effort over the rise and fall of the gently fluctuating rpms of the Detroit diesel.

  “Are you a music lover or just a pervert?” she asked.

  There were only two ways to answer that question. I wasn’t pleased that the question so precisely limited my response. “Are those my only choices?” I asked. When she didn’t say anything, I said, “I guess I’m a music lover.”

  “Go ahead, then,” she said, her voice breaking this time. “Take it and go.”

  “Take what and go?” I asked.

  Instead of answering me she turned and disappeared into the darkness. The faint sound of her footsteps stopped. From out of sight, she asked, “Did the owner send you?”

  I didn’t know what she was talking about. “No one sent me,” I answered, aiming my voice up and out into the night.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I just wanted to apologize again for what happened this morning.”

  Her own laughter caught her by surprise. It erupted from her throat in choking hiccups before it exploded into a brief howl. A coyote answered her call. She howled back in a long, high-pitched response that made me shiver. I tossed my head back and let loose a howl of my own. My effort fetched only silence.

  There was no way for me to know if she was still nearby.

  “I’m a truck driver,” I said. I turned back to the cab and stepped up on the running board. I stood there high and small beneath the first shy desert stars. “I’m sorry I bothered you, ma’am,” I said. “Thanks for the loan of the wall.”

  I already had one leg inside the cab when her clear voice drifted down out of the darkness: “You’re welcome.”

  I listened hard for more and wished for another hiccup of laughter or a tender howl. All I could hear was the rhythmic fall of her shoes on sand that told me she was moving farther away up the slope. The coyote let loose again while I was closing the door.

  As
I backed up to turn around, my headlights rose slowly toward the entrance. She stood on top of the hill beneath the arch, her arms wrapped around herself against the chilly breeze. In the desert, the line between what is dead and what is alive often gets blurred. She appeared to me as a vaporous feminine spirit guarding the gate of a cemetery. I confess, as my headlights aimed toward Price, there was an odd sting of homesickness inside me, though for what exactly, I couldn’t have said.

  I felt the comfort of moonlight on my face. The glow from a small digital clock next to my bed marked the long moments of waiting for sleep, moments thinking of her face and the questions that came and went unanswered, questions and answers that were none of my business. Who was she? Where did she come from? How had she come to an abandoned housing development with a cello—a cello without strings? What was she doing for food? Water? Was she alone? How long would she stay, or was she already gone? Did she need my help? I remembered a definition of chivalry I’d heard once: a man protecting a woman against every man but himself.

  Using my toes, I manipulated the moonlight to make shadow puppets on the wall. As entertaining as this exercise was, I had another option.

  After midnight I pulled my ancient Toyota 4×4 pickup onto the asphalt ranchlands of Walmart parking. I was determined to find a CD of cello music, though part of me actually preferred the phantom music the woman had shared with me in silence. Price had just one Walmart and it was open 24/7. During most of the day it was a popular place. The next nearest Walmart was a hundred miles west through the mountains, in Spanish Fork, a sprawling satellite of Salt Lake City along the I-15 corridor. Somewhere in the endless aisles of car batteries, tank tops, and Hostess Twinkies there had to be a CD of cello music. I wasn’t convinced of this, merely hopeful.