Out of Time

Wherever You Are, You're Already Gone

34 Wherever You Are, You’re Already Gone Her second child Joshua will shout out “No, no, no!” in his sleep and she will hear him from her workroom. She will turn immediately from her sewing machine, from the bolts of bright cloth and the fat spools of thread that surround her. Afternoon light will slant crazily through the windows. When she gets to the living room where he sleeps on the couch beneath a tattered afghan, he will already be back in another, better dream. She will not know this. She will smooth his hair away from his forehead. He will be dreaming of huge, friendly dogs circling him in a green grassy treeless field laced with goldenrod. — She is eighteen, and in love. Bobby is a linebacker for the Golden Hurricanes. She loves him primarily because he loves her, though neither of them will ever truly know this. They are sitting in the Red Lobster, eating shrimp smothered in butter and lemon. Something that is not hunger rolls as lazy as a fish inside of her. It is a Friday night. She asked for this. She asked for dinner out somewhere. She wanted a restaurant. She wants the smells, the tastes, the people surrounding them. She wants waiters saying yes, yes, yes, at once, calling him “sir.” She wants to imagine this part of it, this future. Waiters waltzing about them: yes at once yes at once yes. He looks across the table at her. He says, “Maybe we can go to the Fairview after.” He smiles: goofy, shy, eager. It is there again, the wash, the roll. She imagines small shrimp eyes Wherever You Are, You’re Already Gone 35 opening in absolute darkness. She closes her mouth. She closes it all up inside of her. — Bob walked in the front door. She heard him drop his briefcase and she heard his umbrella clatter after it. She heard the rustle of his overcoat. She heard him say, “Honey? Where are you?” She was in the bedroom, lying down, a wet cold washcloth over her eyes. And after a while, she said, “Right here. I’m right here,” even though it was not, had never been, true. — In the boy’s dream, the dogs will be huge and friendly and they will circle him on their hind legs, at a slow clumsy pace. They will swat at him playfully with paws the size of his head. They will sing the Happy Dog song. He will spin in the center of the circle, trying to look at all of them, all at once. He will sing along: I am a happy dog. I am a very happy dog. I am the happiest dog in this dream. — She and Bobby are waiting in the parking lot of the Fairview Mall. They are sitting on the hood of his truck, their feet on the bumper. The car engine ticks beneath them. His letter jacket engulfs her. His voice cantillates in her ears, and the warm vegetable smell of his breath trickles around her. He reaches behind them and opens another beer. She wants to tell him, she does want to do that. Again something giddy and sad stirs in her belly. Bats and swallows caper above them, wheeling around the yellow streetlights. It is chill autumn, the salmon night sky threatening snow. And then suddenly it has begun to snow, the first snow that does not stick yet, simply swirls and blows about their feet on the pavement. He is whispering; his breath is warm. She cannot think what it is that he is saying. She cannot possibly imagine. — Bob was cooking dinner because she was not feeling well: steak soaked in Geoffrey Sauce and smothered in onions, broccoli with 36 OUT OF TIME lemon and cheese, baked potatoes, plenty of butter, plenty of salt, plenty of pepper. He lost himself happily in the work, sipping beers while he pounded the steaks, humming to himself. She heard him from the bedroom: “Oklahoma... where the wind comes whistling....” Joshua sang along tunelessly, remembering only the words “wind” and “plains.” The afternoon light faded away to nothing. Whistling sad away. Something bubbled just there, just so, beneath her breasts.The dusk, the sizzle, a thousand flakes of gray memory, their mumbling voices, everything, everything , everything converged upon her. — She will smooth stray hairs away from his shut eyes. — Then the other...