"Look, you don't have to get out here. I'll drive you back into town."
"Fine," said Enoch.
"I'm really sorry. I just can't—"
"You done with that?" He was staring at her Tootsie Pop.
"You don't want this?" said Marilee. She was just getting down to the good part.
"Only if you're finished."
Marilee handed him her half-eaten sucker and restarted her engine. She made a U-turn and headed in the opposite direction, just as she had the day before when she'd first spotted Enoch on the highway. Enoch twirled the sticks in his mouth and hummed "Moon River" as she drove back to Rocket City.
"Where would you like me to drop you off ?" she asked, as soon as the highway had once again become White Sands Boulevard. She was tired of Enoch's humming; irritated by his casual indifference.
"Anywhere," he said.
"Do you want me to take you downtown, or drop you off here?"
"Whatever."
His attitude annoyed her. She wished he would yell at her or call her names. On Tenth Street she turned left, then made a quick right onto New York Avenue. "How's this?" she said, stopping suddenly beside a bench on the sidewalk. It wasn't a bus stop as far as she could tell; there was no sign or special lane leading up to it. It was just an ordinary, lime-green bench sitting next to the curb in the middle of the block. Weird, she thought. And appropriate.
"Excellent," said Enoch, opening the door. Cars backed up in the lane behind them. A man in a Cutlass tooted his horn until he saw Enoch struggling with his crutches.
"Well, I guess this is it," said Marilee.
"I guess so," said Enoch.
"It's been fun, really," she said, then hated herself for having said that. Enoch slung his backpack over his left shoulder and maneuvered the door shut with one crutch. "Bye," she called through the open window.
"Thanks for the ride," said Enoch.
"Take care," said Marilee.
"Have a good life," said Enoch.
"Let's go!" yelled the man in the Cutlass.
"Fuck you!" shouted Enoch.
The man in the Cutlass honked loudly as Marilee accelerated. She watched Enoch in her rearview mirror. He didn't try to hitch a ride or get up and walk away. He just sat there on the bench-from-another-planet, watching Marilee drive down the street and out of his life.
She signaled to turn left at the first intersection. She had no idea where she was going or what she would do once she got there. It would be hours before Larry arrived home, hours she would have to kill. She glanced again in her rearview mirror at the small lump that was Enoch. He sat alone on the bench, staring in her direction. He waved. She winced and pretended not to have seen him.
A group of blind children stepped off the curb and started to cross the street in front of her. She had not seen them waiting. There must have been twenty of them, shuffling en masse in a tight swarm, tapping their way across New York Avenue. They tapped slowly. As soon as the last of them had cleared the intersection, Marilee rounded the corner, and Enoch passed out of her sight.
The clock on her dashboard said quarter past ten. It was Tuesday in Rocket City.
DEATH'S WINDOWSILL
The morning after he cleaned his house from top to bottom, Figman drove to Roswell for art supplies. He took his painting book with him and bought everything it said he would need to become an artist. He purchased oil paints in a sketch box, assorted brushes, three canvases, and an easel. He bought a palette, a palette knife, turpentine, a brush washer, and rags. He picked up a notebook to keep a painter's journal. He considered, also, buying a beret, thinking that it would keep the hair out of his face while he painted. But Figman, who did not have sufficient hair to justify the need for restraint, ultimately rejected the notion as clichéd.
He would also require food, a necessity his book failed to mention. Passing up Furr's in Roswell, he headed back south on Highway 285. It was Saturday, and Lester's E-Z Mart was crowded.
She was there like a dream waiting to be reentered. Figman shopped for two days' worth of groceries, lingering in each aisle, pretending not to have noticed her. " Still shop here?" she asked as he moved through her checkout line.
"No," said Figman. "I went back to shopping at Bulldog Superette."
Oma laughed, a warm laugh. Figman felt the tension at the base of his neck subside. "No aloe?" she asked.
"Not today."
"That's too bad. It's on special. Two for eight ninety-five."
"Really?" said Figman. "That's a good price." He drew four bottles out of the box on the rack and placed them on the counter in front of her. He'd continued taking aloe, the least offensive of Mrs. Smith's remedies, as a hedge against the possibility that the woman's method had some actual legitimacy.
"What's okra this week?" Oma yelled to the checker next to her.
"Eighty-nine," the woman yelled back.
Oma punched in the numbers. "You like okra?" she asked.
"I thought I'd try it."
"I hate okra. Too slimy. Even breaded and fried, it feels like snot." She rang up Figman's bottles of aloe. "What do people do with aloe, anyway?"
Figman contemplated confessing his terminal condition. "Experiments," he told her.
"Experiments? What kind?" Her right hand raced over the keypad while her left emptied his basket.
"Plant experiments," he said. "I study its effect on plant growth."
"You some kind of scientist?"
"Sort of. Listen, would you like to go get some coffee? I could tell you more about it."
"I'm working," said Oma.
"Well, yes, of course you are. I can see that. I meant when you get out of here." He'd been careful not to buy anything frozen in hope of her being available.
Oma emptied Figman's basket and punched more numbers into her register. "I don't think so," she said. "That'll be sixty-one thirty-two."
The bagboy eyed him. He was a tall, well-built football type Figman had failed to notice. His badge said, "Dino." Figman reached into his wallet and handed Oma two tens and a fifty.
Her fingers flew. " Sixty-one thirty-two," she said. Oma counted the change into his palm. " Sixty-one thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, forty, fifty, seventy-five, sixty-two, sixty-three . . ." Would she ever get there?
"Need some help out with these?" asked Dino. He had slits for eyes, and the left corner of his mouth curled upward. He looked too old to be boxing groceries.
"I've got it, son," said Figman.
Dino's mouth uncurled and his eye slits narrowed, something Figman would not have imagined possible. Figman gathered up his three bags as if he'd purchased nothing but cottonballs. " Think about it," he whispered to Oma.
Oma shrugged.
Figman walked briskly to the store's nearest exit. Behind his back he heard Dino ask, "What the fuck's aloe?"
Having loaded his groceries into his trunk, Figman drove the five miles to his house on the highway. The day after his car accident, a representative of the Aion Corporation had contacted him before he'd checked out of the hospital. Off the record, the man had offered him a deal: Figman would be given a brand-new Aion in exchange for his refraining from any further mention to reporters of that insignificant detail about his car's locking left front brakes. Figman readily agreed. When he left the hospital shortly before dinner, the discharge nurse