are wretched birds.
It’s a merciless drive from San Jose to Bakersfield—you’d think it was Iowa or Texas if you couldn’t, faintly, sense the sea air coming over the western hills. Inland like this, it’s hotter and more humid than Fish, who grew up in Illinois, wants California to be. Heat echoes off the road in liquid waves, cars heave with asthma, and Fish’s penis is sticking to his thigh in a way that seems irrevocable. It’s actually a decent drive for a while—all those velour hills by the dropping of a barn-red sun—but then the road just goes, moaning its way south, and it’s so straight you want to kill it all and chop your goddamned head off.
Fish tells himself, audibly, not for the first time, that he would kill his cousin Adam if he had the chance and could get away with it. As children, he and Adam were made to think of each other as brothers, because their mothers were close and neither of them had a male sibling.
They looked nothing alike.
Adam was an only child, while Fish has a younger sister, Mary, married now and with two sets of twins, all of them freckled and insane—they jump on visitors like dogs. Adam lived in Aurora and Fish lived in Galena, so they saw each other only once a month and in the summers went on uneventful canoe trips in lower Wisconsin, passing in their quiet canoe groups of sharp-toothed kids, poor, wearing bandannas and white rope bracelets.
Fish is driving to see Adam—there goes another one of those black birds, with plumage like a chest exploding— because Adam has tried to kill himself again. This is his seventh attempt, and now Fish knows he should have flown. San Jose, he’s almost sure, has a direct flight to Bakersfield, less than an hour in the air. Piss! Every time he finishes this drive he vows never again, and then two months later he’s here, punching the window, back soaked, left arm sunburned, cursing himself.
Five hours at least, this drive, plenty of time to come up with a plan, something to say. He tries to concentrate on Adam but finds himself constantly adrift and onto other subjects, like food and war. Years ago he thought he could have an effect on Adam’s life, but now he knows he’s a spectator, a parent watching a child’s sporting event, hands twisted into fists, unable to influence the outcome.
Fish passes a huge beef-processing plant, where a hundred thousand cows are kept so close they can’t move their tails enough to swat flies. There is no earth visible below their doomed hides. He rolls up the window, the stench vile, punishing. Those stupid cows, he thinks, born to die, born to be eaten, born to walk in their own feces. Jesus! It smells fetid, bloody and sweet, like human innards, if you could open yourself up and bring it all to your nose and inhale.
Adam doesn’t talk to his mom or to Fish’s parents, and he’s never had a job, none that Fish can recall, which in a way is impressive, how he’s been able to get by for so many years without any sort of legitimate income. There are people who do this, who divert just enough energy and funds and goodwill from those close to them to exist without anyone taking much notice; it’s like stealing cable, but on a larger scale. Fish has given Adam about twenty-two hundred dollars over the years, which he has used frugally—he is clever that way. He’s clever in every way, really, even in surviving so many attempts on his own life. Maybe he’s unkillable, Fish thinks, and he suddenly snorts out loud at the thought.
Fish’s other cousin, Chuck, a tax lawyer in Charlotte with the face of a priest, rose-colored and surprised, says that Adam looks about forty now, though he’s only twenty-eight. The drugs do that, Chuck says. Chuck should know.
Fish hasn’t seen Adam in almost a year and now he’s afraid to. If Adam looks old, it means Fish is old and they’re both old, everyone’s old, and— Damn, another one of those birds. There must be a name for those
It’s a merciless drive from San Jose to Bakersfield—you’d think it was Iowa or Texas if you couldn’t, faintly, sense the sea air coming over the western hills. Inland like this, it’s hotter and more humid than Fish, who grew up in Illinois, wants California to be. Heat echoes off the road in liquid waves, cars heave with asthma, and Fish’s penis is sticking to his thigh in a way that seems irrevocable. It’s actually a decent drive for a while—all those velour hills by the dropping of a barn-red sun—but then the road just goes, moaning its way south, and it’s so straight you want to kill it all and chop your goddamned head off.
Fish tells himself, audibly, not for the first time, that he would kill his cousin Adam if he had the chance and could get away with it. As children, he and Adam were made to think of each other as brothers, because their mothers were close and neither of them had a male sibling.
They looked nothing alike.
Adam was an only child, while Fish has a younger sister, Mary, married now and with two sets of twins, all of them freckled and insane—they jump on visitors like dogs. Adam lived in Aurora and Fish lived in Galena, so they saw each other only once a month and in the summers went on uneventful canoe trips in lower Wisconsin, passing in their quiet canoe groups of sharp-toothed kids, poor, wearing bandannas and white rope bracelets.
Fish is driving to see Adam—there goes another one of those black birds, with plumage like a chest exploding— because Adam has tried to kill himself again. This is his seventh attempt, and now Fish knows he should have flown. San Jose, he’s almost sure, has a direct flight to Bakersfield, less than an hour in the air. Piss! Every time he finishes this drive he vows never again, and then two months later he’s here, punching the window, back soaked, left arm sunburned, cursing himself.
Five hours at least, this drive, plenty of time to come up with a plan, something to say. He tries to concentrate on Adam but finds himself constantly adrift and onto other subjects, like food and war. Years ago he thought he could have an effect on Adam’s life, but now he knows he’s a spectator, a parent watching a child’s sporting event, hands twisted into fists, unable to influence the outcome.
Fish passes a huge beef-processing plant, where a hundred thousand cows are kept so close they can’t move their tails enough to swat flies. There is no earth visible below their doomed hides. He rolls up the window, the stench vile, punishing. Those stupid cows, he thinks, born to die, born to be eaten, born to walk in their own feces. Jesus! It smells fetid, bloody and sweet, like human innards, if you could open yourself up and bring it all to your nose and inhale.
Adam doesn’t talk to his mom or to Fish’s parents, and he’s never had a job, none that Fish can recall, which in a way is impressive, how he’s been able to get by for so many years without any sort of legitimate income. There are people who do this, who divert just enough energy and funds and goodwill from those close to them to exist without anyone taking much notice; it’s like stealing cable, but on a larger scale. Fish has given Adam about twenty-two hundred dollars over the years, which he has used frugally—he is clever that way. He’s clever in every way, really, even in surviving so many attempts on his own life. Maybe he’s unkillable, Fish thinks, and he suddenly snorts out loud at the thought.
Fish’s other cousin, Chuck, a tax lawyer in Charlotte with the face of a priest, rose-colored and surprised, says that Adam looks about forty now, though he’s only twenty-eight. The drugs do that, Chuck says. Chuck should know.
Fish hasn’t seen Adam in almost a year and now he’s afraid to. If Adam looks old, it means Fish is old and they’re both old, everyone’s old, and— Damn, another one of those birds. There must be a name for those
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