Bloom in Reverse

The Last Good Man

77 tHe LaSt good Man Her life before him was like being in a car that comes to a rolling stop, exactly like in the movies where the passenger is pushed out onto a deserted street late at night, the hour when everything settles into itself, and the houses, which are not nearby, are buttoned up against fleeting desires, head and lungs full of drink and smoke; it was like watching the car pull away without hesitation, belly-crawling off the road and into the brush, like falling into a deep well, the ground cold and wet and lovely to not be seen, the darkness overhead, a bird of prey, the nothing that gets out a comfort, the nothing that gets in a dream. It was like lying in the bushes until dawn, being woken by an animal in search of something primal, more basic than the need to stand and brush the dirt off, walk an unknown distance toward an equally unknown destination until a car stops, a window rolls down, a man leans over the passenger seat and says get in, the way it sometimes happens in the movies; it was like complying without knowing if these would be the last words ever heard, the last chance to dangle an arm out a window, 78 cup a hand to catch the air, to ride in a car with the windows down and not have to speak, not have to explain to the man who stops and asks for nothing, his quiet kindness a rope, the last good man who picks her up, or the first. ...