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  Rozmer. He gets Rozmer's machine: "'Every moment and place says, Put this design in your carpet.'"

  "It's me. Mark. I'm waiting for a detox bed in … up around Brookfield … Camden. I'll give you a call a little after seven tomorrow morning if I don't get hold of you later tonight. I'm hoping it's still on for you to take me. Thanks."

  Rozmer always has on his machine some wild-ass thought for the day that half the time makes no sense to him whatsoever. Rozmer, half the time, makes no sense to him whatsoever. Is that me, Rozmer, or you? You, man, it's you. About his sponsees, Rozmer always says, Send the crazies to me. No shit, he says this. Rozmer's just what he needs. Someone who's a tad de-rockered himself. Rozmer's been clean for twenty-three years. A speed freak. No rehab for Rozmer. Just after he gets out of the Marines, one day, Rozmer's sitting at some bar on Houston Street, bartender shuts him down. That's it, Rozmer says, I'm done. Never took another hit of anything.

  Wood. Nasty stuff coming out of the sky. The wood is wet. His negligence. Againgingin. Mostly only big logs left. Whoever sold her wood last year, one split was it, when two were required. Nothing to say, of course, he couldn't have given the go-devil a go himself. Ahh, but the junkie's busy elsewhere. Busybusybuzzzz. Luke races back and forth between the wheels and the door. "Watch it, buddy. You make me upend this load, your ass is grass."

  He is able to bounce the barrow into the house over the low sill, jockey it right up to the stove, fill one of the wood boxes to the top. Three more loads should do it.

  Dishes. He may have been high, he may have been just about comatose, but he did remember almost always to put enough water in each dirty pot, glass, and bowl to keep it from being hopeless. He brings all the dirty shit down from the loft and washes that too. Plus bags and bags of trash. He slides his fingers beneath the microwave again. Ten pills. His getaway depends on these. He should have conned more.

  Laundry. Luke joins him and begins rooting around in the chaos. His choice of plunder: underwear. "Luke, come back here with that."

  A dog? No, she said. He'd be the main caretaker. Up early with a puppy every morning? He promised. That's why she finally gave in. A puppy was to be the instrument of getting his ass out of bed before noon. Behavior modification. Of course that plan had circled the drain of all similar rescues. Her, out there in the dark on January mornings, freezing, saying, Pee, Luke. Her, pissed. But. Luke. He cracked them up. He cracked them open. Luke, their buoy out on the black sea.

  A couple of big comforters. Sheets. Stinking from the night-sweats. Every towel. Just about everything he owns, swelling in piles almost level with the dryer. He grabs the top layer and shoves it in the machine. It all goes in together: dark, light, towels, sweaters. But doesn't it get a little gray, she sometimes asks. Yes, but he's into gloom. Gloooooom. Ahhh, the clothes he's lost. It's always get out of town before sunset, so he boards the Greyhound unencumbered: his army jacket in Austin, his slit-drum in San Francisco, his mountain bike in Key West, his four-track in Portland. Owhereowhereo underwearo. Approaching worn-out-your-welcome, it all gets jettisoned. By that time his bass long gone for dope. His real bass long-long. Three cheapos since he came back upstate. Sold for seventy apiece. Then no bass and he's so down; she fronts him another one and he pays her back in installments. Last time, the absolute last time, she tells him. Of course, he's bassless now.

  He's awake by six, commotion zinging his extremities. He starts the coffee. Okay, he's got enough left for three more hits. All the edges nicely dim. Better land himself a bed today or … To con more. He does not want to do that. He still hasn't made contact with Rozmer. He tries him again. Gets his machine. Same carpet message. "It's me, Mark. Yo, Rozmer, if you're there, pick up the phone. I'm getting a little concerned … I'll try you again right after I get word from the hospital." What the fuck? He smokes and waits. Coffee, so strong, so sweet—no spoons, of course, so you have to pour in the sugar—it's a hot weight he hefts up the ladder.

  Seven A.M. He punches down the new numbers, one rubber finger at a time. "Detox unit? Mark Merrick. Just checking in to see if you've got a bed today." They do. Bring just the empty vials for his meds. Only a few clothes. Can he be there by four? He can. Just has to get hold of his sponsor and make the final arrangements for a ride.

  Four. This is good. He should still be in Wellsville, with hours to spare. He figures it on his fingers. Nine hours. Say it's six hours to get there from here. That's three hours to: Get hold of Rozmer. Get his shit together. Get his drums down and stowed. She'll have to pack up the computer. Hide that someplace safe. Maybe Richard's. When Smithy doesn't get a wire, who knows? Conceivable someone could bust in and steal the G4. More than conceivable.

  He dials Rozmer again. Carpet. Have to wait a million beeps. "Rozmer, I've got a detox bed. It's a little after seven now. It's about, maybe, six hours there. Need to leave here by … Well, you figure, you're the genius with time. Call me. Thanks." Thanks for nothing. You can count on me, man, to get you there. Where are you, Rozmer?

  What day is it? Somewhere, somewhere he's got a calendar his mom gave him. But he's got no point to work from—the last time he knew what day it was. She even gave him one of those watches, you press the little top right button and it tells you the date. Hey, but where's that? As a kid, he could read Dickens, but he didn't know what month came after March. His mom will know, of course. Year, month, day, hour, minute. And every appointment into perpetuity. Rozmer can't be at work already. Rozmer's Construction. Can't work much today anyway. The sky is falling.

  He opens the heavy door between the living room and the extension, what he thinks of as the dividing line between his part of the house and hers: her studio, her bedroom. She's wood; he's stone. Richard built the extension when his mother insisted they move back to the land, that the land was not haunted. The summer Aaron broke his arm when he fell from Sawyer's Bridge. Sixth grade. Her part of the house, all windows. Richard's house all windows, too. His mother and Richard are into light. He goes to the foot of the stairs that lead up to his mother's room. "Mom, I think you may want to get up. This is going to be my last morning here. They've got a bed. I have to be there by four."

  He jams in another load and carries a bunch of clean clothes to the loft. He hears Luke's dry food clatter into his dog bowl. This is the first thing she does every weekday after yoga. Weekends she stays at Richard's and he can stay under, buried in the dark until Luke's restlessness below forces him to surface. He hears Luke's tags jingle on the edge of the bowl. Luke will now go sit by the door, wait for her to finish her cereal so they can go for a walk up to the falls. If she takes longer than he can tolerate, Luke goes after his tail. In the loft if he's in the depths, it's about now he rushes down and pushes Luke out in a fit of irritation. Then he stomps back to bed. Ahhh, but today, he's up and going, going, soon gone.

  She's salvaged the kitchen. On her return from Richard's last night, she spent the whole evening scrubbing, singing "Goodnight, Irene," over and over. He hears her get down the frying pan. She'll ask him if he'd like some breakfast next. He calls down, "What day is it?"

  "Saturday, March 2nd." See—right there in the front of her brain. "Your money's probably been deposited since the third's on a Sunday."

  Money. Money. And for the first time in forever, he's not on his way to get high. He can buy a carton of cigarettes, pay for Rozmer's gas. Be a grownup with some green.

  She calls up, cheery, "How about some breakfast?" From her voice, he knows she's in whatever-I-can-do mode. "Two eggs, fried potatoes?" she says.

  "Yeah, that'd be good." A blast of protein and carbs. Got a lot to do. He knows, like him, she's circling. That she wants to tell him, Don't forget your toothbrush … She wants to ask a whole string of where, when, what. But mostly, Deargod, do you have a ride?

  She's a frightened driver. If she ever has to go somewhere she's never been, she worries for days. Cities, she flat-out won't do. He remembers when she used to have to drive him to Lawrence when he'd tri
ed going to high school in Massachusetts, living with his cousins. The night before, she'd write out the directions—every fucking turn, when she had to change lanes. She told him "getting over" was her biggest fear, followed by having to make a left across two lanes, without an arrow. She'd write the directions in black marker and fasten the sheet to the dashboard. She always insisted on leaving at some godforsaken time so she could miss the rush hours around Albany and Boston. Already he was having trouble sleeping by then. Having her drag him out in the dark put him in a state of fury. Her perched at the wheel, on the verge of asking him some bummer question. He always felt like smashing something. And she's no easy rider either. It's good Rozmer's promised to transport him because already she's down there shredding potatoes, breathing, letting her questions fly out the top of her head. Fucking worry-birds.

  He brings down the last bag of trash and joins her at the table. He knows she registers this. It's rare he faces her across that space. More often he takes the occasional meals she fixes up to the loft. Taketaketake. She hands him a bagel to butter.

  "I still haven't gotten Rozmer—but don't worry—last time I talked to him, he said he'd take me whenever. Worse comes to worst, somebody else from program can drive." The eggs are perfect. He mixes them into the home fries and loads on the salt.

  "Where is it?"

  He hesitates. Camden or Brookfield? He realizes he doesn't know for sure. "Brookfield. It's way north. Just before Camden." Unknown driving territory for her.

  "After you finish eating, why don't you get the road atlas from the car? Check about how far it is, what's the best route."

  She's got the two worry lines between the eyes. His mother is not a big woman, but when she's anxious … one hundred and twenty pounds of nervous coming at you. He does not want to get pulled into this energy. He needs to stay easy. Eeeeeezzzzzze. "Rozmer will know how to get there." He watches her check the outside thermometer.

  "It's right on the border between rain and ice," she says.

  He scrapes what's left into Luke's bowl. He hears Luke lumber off his bed. He needs … he needs to get the fuck out of here.

  11:00. Already he probably can't make the hospital by four. One hit left.

  He's left a message at Charlie's, but he doesn't think that's a real alternative. Charlie's schizophrenic. Five years in recovery, but a six-hour drive up, a six-hour drive back … It's a job for someone like Rozmer. Besides, he's been counting on Rozmer's counsel. Shit, he does not want to have to give up this bed, to have to wait and try again tomorrow morning. To go in there sick. Sick he won't go in at all. Or to have to go to Carla again. And she's down there rustling the pages of the road map, her panic seeping up through the floor.

  He dials the detox number. "This is Mark Merrick again. I haven't yet been able to connect with my sponsor for a ride." Sweat running down his back. "But I'm still counting on getting there today … I'll check in right before I'm ready to leave… Thanks."

  She's back from the Quickway. She's gotten him a carton of Camels and a phone card, money from the ATM. "It's pouring rain, and it feels like the temperature's dropping."

  Fucking heebie-jeebies wheeling his way.

  He's packed. The loft's as good as he's going to get it. Probably she'll take down the sheets he's got pushpinned to close his space off; she'll take down the towels over his window. Once a year, at least, she recounts how when he was thirteen he woke up one summer morning, yelling, I hate the sun. Like—there it is. She doesn't mention how hot it was, the glare, the flies buzzing the corners of his mouth.

  She's back with the map again. "Looks to me like it's about three hundred miles. Six or seven hours. How long did it take you when you drove Rudy?"

  "About that," he tells her, but he doesn't really remember.

  He unscrews the cymbals. The hundreds of times he's taken down these drums. "Can you stow the computer at Richard's? It isn't safe here." This machine he still hasn't learned to use to record his own music, edit. He's wanted it for years, and just before she left for Florida—hoping to make him happy—she'd said, Let's buy it together. You pay me for half, a little each month. It'll be part mine. She meant, Don't ever sell this for drugs.

  "Luke and I are going for a walk. Be back before Rozmer gets here," she says.

  "Just me again, hoping," he tells Rozmer's machine. No response from Charlie.

  There is Richard. A trip to detox with his mother and Richard—not his choice scenario. Not that he dislikes Richard. There's no bullshit with Richard. He respects that. Back at the beginning Richard tried to line him up with jobs: helping him roof, split wood to sell. Richard's counsel: Keep it simple. But he'd always fucked it up: not met Richard on time, not showed up at all. No doubt Richard has his own demons, but, well … he and Richard … never the twain. Still, Richard is the long-distance driver, commuting to the city all those years. No, she'd say, I can't live here on my own all week and then turn to Richard when it's handy. Besides he knows Richard believes she should drive into her fear. When bucked, get on that horse and ride.

  4:00. His nose is starting to run. He's going to have to do the last hit. How much well-time after that? Maybe … probably … all depends.

  "Feel like taking me over to Rozmer's in Otego? I want to try that last thing." He puts a message on their machine. "Rozmer, I'm on my way to your house. If you're not there, I'll be back here by five."

  They lock all the doors. The rain, coming down loud, and even through that, the cold roar of the brook rising. They're silent all the way to Otego.

  "Maybe his wife is home now and she'll know where he is."

  "Nope. She's gone." Took the kid. Gone.

  Rozmer's truck is not parked in his driveway. The garage is empty. He bangs on the door. Looks in a few windows from the porch. Rozmer's gone too. You can count on me, man, to get you there. He watches her from the steps. Leaning forward, tense, her hands gripping the wheel like she's about to lift up the car. He gets back in. Soaking. For a few minutes they just sit there. The rain so hard, the whole world blurs.

  "Well," she says, still looking straight ahead.

  "Yeah."

  "Well," she says again, turning the key in the ignition, "looks like you and I are going to have to do this by ourselves."

  3 : Ice

  UTICA 35 MILES

  Already it's starting to get dark. The sky leaden, the constant din of rain. Heading north, so the temperature's bound to drop. The wipers keep time with her jitters. Almost no traffic since they left Marwick. If only they could get there on two-lane routes, if time wasn't a factor. She glances at Mark. His hood's down. He looks okay.

  "Tell me again what we're going to do when we get to Utica."

  He turns a little her way. "We'll start to see signs I'll recognize. Then I'll know where we're going next."

  Knowing the way as they get to it is not the way she wants to go. When he'd said he basically knew, she hadn't wanted to undermine him by calling the hospital to get directions. He told them he'd be there by nine. Nine. That had never been a possible time. It's six now. It's going to take longer than three hours. "Did the hospital say anything about not being able to admit you after a certain time?"

  Mark switches on the radio. The music is too loud. He lights a cigarette from the one he's smoking now. He opens the window a few more inches. More cold air. In her haste to leave, she forgot her gloves. She defiantly packed them away with most of her winter clothes before she left for Florida. "Why don't you see if you can find a weather report."

  Mark presses the seek button. Loud, loud blasts by. "There," she says. "NPR, the news, after that, they'll give a local report." She turns the sound down.

  Dan Burns, a news voice she trusts, says, "U.S. and Afghan troops target remaining Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in a mission dubbed Operation Anaconda."

  "Operation Anaconda. What a load of crap. Bunch of fat PR guys sitting in safety making up product names to cover collateral damage. 'Dubbed.' They got that right." Mark switche
s back to music. "Get the weather later. Got to stop. I need to find a pay phone to try Rozmer again. I have to eat. You can look at the map then."

  Mark is not a map reader, but then neither is she. Only in the last few years has she started to decipher road maps: the black arrows, the tiny red numbers between exits, where to find how many miles between Danford and Crystal Key. And only under pressure from Richard: If you won't share in the driving, at least you can navigate. It was Aaron who was their map reader. He would know how to get there. The green leather-bound atlas her mother gave him for Christmas, the best present he ever got, he told them. Second grade. The year he did the report on Japan. Need to know where anything is in Japan, he said, just ask me.

  "Mark, could you check to see if we've even got the map?"

  "It's on the back seat," he says, without looking.

  What will she do if Mark gets too sick to tell her where to go next? She'd tried to get directions from Richard, but all she got was his machine. She smiles to think of his terse announcement: not one syllable beyond the necessary in a tone that said, Be brief. She was. She was driving Mark to detox in Brookfield. Would he come down and give Luke a bathroom run? She'd be in touch tomorrow. Even if Richard had answered, the text of her message wouldn't have changed much. Richard would have given her all the routes, but he wouldn't have offered sympathy or optimism. We'll see, his terra firma. Actions, not words. Words: Get to the point. But this is the point, Richard, I need to blather on. In the twenty-plus years she and Richard have been together, on and off, they've never chatted on the phone. Even those long-ago calls. True, his tone was warmer then: Can you meet me? And in a few minutes she'd be on her way.