Coalinga 1/2 Way

Illustration by Brian Rea

HE PULLS OVER AT THE EDGE OF THE Coalinga feedlots and kills the engine. He has a view of the entire yawning San Joaquin but he's in no state to take it in. He feels no awe or sense of history about it, only contempt. The scalding air stinks of cattle. His pulse pounds through the base of his dry tongue and his whole head is on fire. His entire head. There's the silent pay phone, marooned on a chrome pipe with a pale blue plastic globe guarding it from the blasting sun. Its modernism disgusts him; makes him feel worse off, more removed. Beyond the phone, pathetic groups of steers stand on tall black mounds of their own shit, waiting for slaughter. Heat vapors rise from the mounds, cooking under the intense sun as though about ready to explode and send dismembered cow parts flying into the highway. Beyond the cattle there's nothing. Absolutely nothing moves, clear to the smoky gray horizon.

"It's time to make the call!" It comes to him like a voice; a command. If he doesn't make it now, he never will. Dread or no dread, it's time to make the call. He swings out and slams the door of the Dodge. The sound doesn't carry. It ends abruptly at his feet. He digs for change and crunches toward the phone through loose gravel and mouse bones, flattened beer cans and sun-bleached condoms. He sees all these objects very clearly now; sees them as though they've been laid out on a steel table for his personal examination, like crime evidence. He can see her face too. Her big eyes. He can hear her voice before he drops the quarter -- the terror in it. He makes it person-to-person collect, negotiating through the composite voices of recorded operators; female voices, different ages, each one completely devoid of sexuality. He knows his wife has got to be home. He's timed it, knowing she'll be there. She is.

"Where are you?" is the first thing she says. He knew that would be the first thing and his dread cranks up a notch.

"Coalinga," he says.

"What're you doing way down there?"

"I'm on my way south."

"Why? What're you doing?"

"I'm just -- going."

"Going? When are you coming back?" she says, and he can hear she knows already.

"I'm not."

"You mean, ever? You're not ever coming back?"

"I don't think so."

"Oh my God!" she gasps, and now he hears the horrible thud of shock in her chest; her breath chopping away into black silence. Nothing. A truck blasts by and drones off into the steel gray bands of heat. A single cow moans. His hearing has become acute. "Listen," she suddenly says. "Why don't I drive halfway down and meet you? You drive halfway back and I'll drive halfway down. Does that sound fair? Just to talk, okay? Will you do that? Will you meet me halfway?"

"I don't think so," he says, trying to keep his voice steady.

"It seems like after fifteen years we could just do that for each other. Just meet halfway. That's not too much to ask, is it? Then we could at least talk. We can't talk like this, on the phone."

"I've already come this far," he says.

"I know. That's what I'm saying. I'm not asking you to come back all the way. I'm willing to drive halfway down there and meet you somewhere."

"Where?" he says. "There's nothing down here."

"I don't know. Gilroy or something."

"Gilroy?"

"Anywhere! I don't care where it is. It doesn't matter."

"No, I can't go back," he says.

"Why not? After all this time? All these years? What about Spence? Are you going to tell him you're not coming back?"

"Not right now."

"When?" she says.

"I don't know."

"What am I supposed to tell him then?"

"Tell him I'll call him."

"When?"

"I'm not sure." Silence again. A high piercing shriek of a circling hawk. A Jeep roars past. A Jeep with no windows or doors, just the wind ripping across the wide-eyed face of the driver. "Are you still there?" he says to the phone.

"Where am I supposed to go?" she says.

"I don't know."

"Is this about her? Is that what this is? You're going down there to be with her?"

"Yeah. I am."

"What about her man? Isn't she with someone too?"

"Yeah."

"Well, what about him? What's she going to do?"

"She's going to tell him, I guess."

"She hasn't told him yet?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know and you're still going down there?"

"Yeah."

"You know what this is for me, don't you? I mean my history and everything -- my father --"

"Yeah. I do."

"Your father too."

"Yeah."

"You didn't think of that?"

"I did."

"And Spence --" Her voice chokes. He stares down at his boots. He wants to feel something. He presses the heel of one boot down hard on the toe of the other. The sun cuts the back of his neck. "What is this going to do?" Her voice comes back and he can hear it's taking everything she has. "What is this going to change? Changing women. Do you think that's going to solve something; make something different?"