“ Why is Debbie running away?” asks Ken.

“ She’ s afraid of you.”

“ Of me?” Ken looks at Glyn. “ I would never hurt her.”

“ She is not sure of that.”

“ You know, says Ken. “ I should really talk to her and straighten things out. This game of I think, she thinks, I say, she says is bullshit. I need to see her and we need to have an honest talk, whatever happens, happens.”

“ How bad you want it?” asks Glyn. His teeth over the beer bottle shine with the electric colors of the beer signs on the wall.

“ There is nothing in life that I want more than seeing her again. I want one more chance, without a nut swinging a baseball bat cutting in.”

Glyn calls the old stick and asks him for pencil and paper. He writes a phone number on it.

“ This is Debbie’ s cell number. Now, I know her well and she will probably have it off, and who knows if she will ever turn it on before leaving town.” Glyn cuts the paper in half and gives the side with the number on it to Ken.“ Write you number down, in case Debbie calls me again, which I doubt is gonna happen, but just in case. I can give it to her.”

Ken writes his number down on the other half of the paper and gives it to Glyn.

“ Do you know where she lives?” asks Ken.

“ Somewhere in Englewood. That’ s about it. She kept her private life pretty much to herself.”

Ken drinks and thinks about her phone number, calling and calling and not getting through. The future that had waited over twenty years turned away because of a frigging phone call that didn’ t make it through. Glyn must have been reading his mind because he spoke with the same doubts.

“ You know, ” says Glyn. “ You may never be able to reach her through her cell.”

“ I figure that much, ” says Ken.“ Any other ideas?”

Glyn laughs, loud and long. “ It’ s time for you to chase her!” Ken says nothing but gives Ken a wondering look.

“ She told me that she’ s hitting the highway for Santa Fe tomorrow, when the sun rises. You gonna have to watch the damned highway for her piece of shit Geo to go by.”

“ Is she going to Santa Fe then?”

“ Nope. She’ s headed that way. She doesn’ t know where she is going to stop for good.”

After the beer was gone Ken bid Glyn good night and thanked him for the help.

“ Good luck tomorrow, ” said Glyn.

“ Thanks, I’ ll need it.”

Ken called Debbie’ s cell about twenty times while he walked back to his truck Good luck was not to be had tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

Traffic Watch

My sleep last night wasn' t worthy of the name. I kept on wakening up, tossing and rolling in bed, my mind unable to settle into a restful unconsciousness. I don' t know how many times I dialed Debbie' s cell to no avail. The people who turn their cells off is a rarity but the yare out there, walking among us with their dead phones. Vicente, one of my foremen, is such an oddball. If I leave him with a crew somewheres, I better call someone else in the crew but him.

"Why in hell you have a cell phone if it is always off?"

He shrugs. "It' s like a pay phone in your pocket, and you don' t need coins."

"What about people trying to get in touch with you?"

"The only reason people call you is because they want something from you, you know, money or do this or that for them," he says laughing. "I can do without it."

I cannot argue with the guy because he' s correct. My business depend son that stupid thing but I cannot tell you how many times I had wished I could just fling the damned beeping gizmo as far as I could. It is both a blessing and a course; I envy those who can just turn them off and live theirs lives without the agony of unexpected beeping.

Because I' m the one trying to call Debbie I infer, using Vicente' s logic, that I' m the one who wants something from her. Of course I do. I want her, the whole of her. Again, using Vicente' s logic, she doesn' t want to be bothered because she can do without me.

There is madness is in my dialing fingers, calling Debbie and each call never going through but still dialing, time after time, and like a madman, expecting her to answer using a phone that is not turned on. I stand on this stupid bridge facing the highway and every so often I go through the dialing motions, putting the cell to my ear and then putting it back in my shirt pocket, every attempt an exact copy of the previous failed one.

There was a chill in the morning that made me take a big jacket, gloves and a wool hat. The hat is white with red and yellow flames and has a long tip. It looks like a condom on my head. I have been standing on this bridge over I-25 since just before sunrise, watching my breath turn solid in front of my mouth. There is a steady buzz of engines and tires on pavement, a never ending stream of traffic heading south. With every car that passes my hopes diminish but I stay put. The sun climbs through the clouds and the temperature rises and I’ m still standing on the same spot, looking northward.

I have done crazy and stupid things in my life, but this one has to be one of the dumbest ones, watching traffic, watching for a blue Geo with a grafted red front end and a blonde behind the wheel to go by. The chances of me seeing her go by are so low that I should had given it up many hours ago, but here I' m, like a dupe, standing now with my jacket in my hand, the gloves in my pockets, the condom still on my head, pulled above my big red ears. Cops go up and down the street and look at me funny but they haven' t given me any grief yet. I think this is called loitering. I call it a waste of time.

Then, why am I here?

Because I don' t want to give up, no matter how ridiculous I may look standing over a bridge watching cars pass by, no matter how small are my chances of ever seeing Debbie again. It took over twenty years and a fat chance for us to meet, and things have not gone well since that first meeting, but if it happened once, why shouldn' t it happen again? It burns me up that after twenty years, after meeting by pure chance, our lives are drifting apart again without us having a chance to talk things over, to decide if our paths should be one or should split again. I don' t want our paths to diverge because of fate. If she tells me to go to hell, I can live with that, but just drifting away like shipwrecks in a dark night, pulled away by the currents, that I cannot accept and that' s why here I stand, my bladder ready to burst, my feet tired of standing.

If by ten o' clock in the morning I' m still here, then I have to switch to Plan B. I just have to figure out what plan B is.

Debbie and Cash

The Geo is pointed south, past Pueblo, in the slow lane. Every time a fat SUV or a truck flies by, the little car gets buffeted by the wind swirls. Debbie is not in a hurry because where she is going, which she hasn' t decided yet, there will be nobody waiting for her. That' s the way it has always been. Ernie is asleep on the passenger seat. The CD is playing Johnny Cash' s The Man Comes Around. She never liked the Man in Black but this CD somehow strikes a soft mood in her with its simple arrangements and pointed lyrics. Debbie realizes she is getting mellower as the years go by. Since she left Denver a couple of hours before sunrise the CD has been playing. Debbie wonders about Mr. Cash, with all his money and fame, and still having to deal with his addictions and life' s bad tricks. Well, Debbie muses, hard times don' t care how deep you pockets are or how well known your mug is; shitty times are for everybody.

Money doesn' t buy happiness but it buys options. Her detox program had been going cold turkey at the jail house. She shivers at the memories. Cash probably went to a fancy rehab center and his friends and family were behind him. That must be nice, Debbie thinks, to have people willing to give their support just because they love you. Debbie tries to imagine what that feeling must be like, to have somebody waiting when one comes out of jail, out of the hospital, somebody who comes running to one’ s side when things turn for the worse. Debbie looks to her right. She has a cat. She used to have another one but God took it away because she didn’ t deserve two.