Read More: A brief Q&A with Casey Bell
Joey speeds down Highway 10. The radio is tuned to a religious talk radio show that’s been on the air forever. For most of her childhood, her mother insisted on listening every week and would pray along. She hated it. Those people all seemed crazed. Now, though, there’s something comforting. A richness she likes in the preacher’s voice, a tenor with songlike swing. Organ plays softly in the background between his words. She’s reminded of being small, before she’d acquired or inflicted much damage.
She adjusts the rearview to check on JJ. His pacifier pulses with little clicks. He looks out the window, transfixed. The whole sky’s one big sun, like the tine of a fork stabbed a yolk and it seeped out in all directions. And the ground on either side of the black road is cracked and bleached, scattered with sagebrush and silver cholla. A road sign, Joshua Tree National Park: 10 miles, whips past.
The strange trees are rooted every few feet, all the way out to the horizon. They look like they were caught at a party they’d been forbidden to attend, gyrating and twisting, when suddenly someone turned on all the lights and yelled to stop right where they were, not to move a muscle. Some trees arc in a backbend, stretching their arms toward the ground where they came from. Others crane up and out, grasping for sun with their dagger-shaped leaves. All of them in irregular angles. She wonders how long they’ve been stuck like that.
You’re listening to KSXE, 96.9 and this is Reverend Calvin Rooney reminding you that everybody has a bad time sometimes, my friends. Whenever you think you’re alone, remember you are not. Jesus is always right there with you. Jesus is on your side and so are all the listeners out there, and me, we’re with you too. My friends, we are a community of caring. Let us be together and not alone. Now, friends, we’ve reached the part in our program when I read your prayers and send them up and out on the radio waves all afternoon long, right until the sun sets. Remember, when I read your prayer on the radio, it’s like an amplifier straight to Jesus’s ear. So go ahead, write your prayer down on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope along with ten dollars and send it to The Church of the Sacred Bleeding Heart of Jesus, 613 Broken Branch Drive in Rancho Cucamonga, and Reverend Rooney here will say your prayer live on the radio.
JJ’s brown eyes, small replicas of his father’s, grow heavy. The radio lulls him to sleep. They’re three hours from La Paz Valley, where Hank’s parents live. It’s remote out there, safer. She is spiraling, she recently realized. It’s common, this feeling of spinning out, when reality rearranges itself behind your back. That’s what she gathered from the pamphlet on dealing with grief the police officer gave her. Hank was walking down Wilshire Boulevard after lunch when a giant bird, or as several witnesses described it, some winged man, an angel of some kind, swooped down and took him in its clutches or maybe its arms. It flew off, Hank’s legs kicking wildly all the way to San Pedro Bay, ascending higher and higher until they were out of sight. She did not believe the officer who explained this to her until they showed her cellphone footage from gaping witnesses below. Massive, opalescent wings. A muscular, humanoid form. Pale, shimmering skin. A head of silver curls. Knowledge of an experience and acceptance of it are two very different things, the pamphlet had said that too. Hank was one of the first, but not long after, another man was plucked from the Earth while hiking along the Los Angeles River. These incidents were cropping up in major cities with the worst concentrations in LA and Chicago and New York. Zealots called it signs of the rapture. Scientists disagreed but provided no alternate theory.
Her phone buzzed on the passenger seat. Probably Nance again, wanting to know just how long she and Dave would have the baby, when she’d arrive. Nance would want to feed her, run her a bath, have her rest in the cool, dark guestroom, Hank’s childhood bedroom. She didn’t want to be sucked into the softness of their care, to be in the space and time and stillness it would allow for acceptance and grief. She let the phone buzz.
Friends, our first prayer comes from Irene out in Alta Loma. Just like always, I’d like you to close your eyes as you listen. Let Irene’s prayer into your heart so it becomes your prayer. Ask for it with all the deep goodness inside of you.
She did not close her eyes, but she opened the glove compartment and fished out a cigarette, a habit she’d broken when she learned she was pregnant. She could visualize Hank’s protests, but now was a time for immediate, short-term, concrete relief. She rolled down the windows so the smoke wouldn’t get to JJ, though since he was born, the air quality index for the entire West Coast was mostly in the red. The knots in her neck slackened a little with her exhale.
Lord, please let there be a way for my scooter, a green, Model 4 Spitfire Pro, to get fixed so I can make it down to the river. I can’t cover the bills and get her fixed, Lord. I never even thought I wanted her to begin with, and I never win raffles, but they put everyone’s name in the drawing at the senior center. I thought people would look down on me like I was lazy or something, but it opened up all these possibilities. Since I’ve had her, Lord, I’ve been outside every day. I ride her all the way down to Day Canyon Wash with my fishing pole and save so much money on groceries, you wouldn’t believe it. Please, help me fix her. I’ve been eating fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don’t have any money. Walter died and left me nothing and I don’t drive. She’s all I have, Lord. I need this. Please. Please.
Friends, you’re tuned into KSXE, 96.9 in Rancho Cucamonga and let’s pray deeply for Irene now. May Irene find the means, Lord, to repair her beloved and soul-affirming scooter. Remember, friends, that everybody has a bad time sometimes. Irene, you are not alone.
She stops for gas and to use the bathroom. It’s January. The heat is unbearable, and her mask traps her breath to her face. The attendant stands in front of an oscillating fan, a loose mask beneath his nose, and passes her a key tied to a gummy wooden spoon. JJ is bound to her in his sling, somehow asleep, his legs dangling down as she hovers over the greasy, spattered toilet seat under flickering fluorescent light. There is no soap. She wets her hands with sulphury smelling water and wipes them on her jeans. In this heat she should be red, but in the mirror, she looks ghostly. JJ is pink and blotchy, but her skin is pale gray, her eyes tired and flat. It’s just this terrible light, she thinks, making her look dead. Hank would have tried to convince her to pull off on the side of the road and walk out a ways into the distance to squat down. It was cleaner and safer, he’d always said.
And don’t you think it feels good, Hank asked. Having your parts out in the open air like that? Like in an animal kind of way?
She asked what would happen if some bad person saw her, came after her. There’d be no witnesses around, nobody to call for help. Or what about some kind of mountain lion or snake. Hank would ask what the actual chances of that were.
He’d say, nobody’s going to come after you, Joey. The world’s not always so mean as you make it out to be, he’d say. Plus, you’ve got me to watch out for you. Always.
Inside, she picks out an ice cream sandwich and liter of cold seltzer. She gets a popsicle for JJ. He is already so sticky and so is the car and so is she. She hadn’t realized how much of motherhood was just the feeling of stickiness, of being always coated in film. Two people are ahead of her in line, and as she waits, she scans the newspaper rack next to the register. Bizarre Giant Bird Attacks on the Rise. National Guard Deployed to Major U.S. Cities. Governors Declare State of Emergency. Citizens Cautioned to Remain Indoors. The old woman in front of her turns to her. Her eyebrows are painted too high. She doesn’t wear a mask. You don’t actually believe any of that propaganda, do you?
She opens all the car windows and changes JJ in the back seat. His diaper is full of green-tinged soft serve. He’s sweaty and irritated and his skin needs air. She wipes him, lifting both his ankles in one hand, and fans him with the clean diaper. She holds the bottle of seltzer to his forehead and to the sides of his fleshy, rolled neck. He’s 18 months old. Doughy and big boned like Hank, dark haired like Hank. Same cow eyes. Same cupid’s bow. Not yet a toddler. But ravenously curious, grabbing for signals with mouth and outstretched fingers. She unwraps the popsicle, lets the plastic fall to the floor. I’m sorry, Baby, she says, bringing it to his lips. We’re almost there. He gums the hard, icy sugar, wrapping his tiny hands around hers, pulling it closer. Windex-blue juice runs down his chin, disappears into his neck. The car smells like sour milk, wet wipes, feces. Other mothers’ cars probably don’t smell this bad, she thinks. She merges back onto 10 and clicks the radio on.
—is why, Lord, we’re asking you to reunite Andrew with his bearded dragon lizard. Let the lizard return safely home, please Lord. Next up, my friends, we have a prayer from Claudette. Let’s fill up our hearts with Claudette’s prayer now. Dear Lord, please help me lose my fear of car accidents. It’s gotten so bad, Lord. I have to walk everywhere I need to go and it takes hours and I’m always so sweaty by the time I show up anywhere. I bought a rolling cart for groceries. My milk spoils by the time I get home. Even if I’m not driving, I’m still afraid. I’ve taken to wearing bright colors any time I leave the house. Not a normal kind of bright, Lord, but an unnatural, jarring kind. It started off with just small pops. A lime green scarf. A neon orange hat. Drivers veer off the road all the time and kill pedestrians. They ignore crosswalks, they blow through traffic lights. So all my clothes are dayglow. I can’t meet people this way, Lord. Everyone’s put off by me. They think I’m eccentric. And I’m terribly, terribly lonely. Help me lose my fear, Lord. Help me to have some faith that people aren’t trying to kill me. Help me to wear earth tones and not be so afraid of mankind.
Claudette, we are all praying your prayer in a chorus to Jesus right now. Claudette, you are not alone, my friend. Lord, please, free Claudette from her fears so she may have the rich and full life she so clearly deserves. Claudette, my friend, if I may chime in with what are hopefully some helpful thoughts for you. When I find myself feeling anxious, Claudette, I try to remind myself that everyone around me is doing the very best they can. That none of us want for a bad thing to happen. We’re all paying attention and we all have good intentions. Just walking around with that assumption can be wonderfully therapeutic, Claudette.
Dear God, she thinks, please free Claudette from her fears. There’s not another car in sight. Everyone around me, she thinks, everyone is paying attention and everyone has good intentions. When she told Hank she was pregnant, he wrapped her in his arms and whispered onto the top of her head, this is so, so amazing. She agreed but also asked, tentatively, if they were sure. Were they actually ready? Like financially. And was it even ethical to procreate with one coast perpetually on fire and the other under water? The mass defunding of public education. All of the variants. The armed mobs of Proud Boys. The feeling of careening toward the end of democracy. What if our kid grows up to save people from this shitty desert? This is a good thing, Joey. I want us to believe in good things happening. But not if that’s not what you want. Joey, can you just tell me what you want?
She’d fastened his diaper as loosely as possible for ventilation and he’d wiggled halfway out of it. Any second, he’ll start peeing, she thinks. He drank all that water. It’ll get all over him, and then just seep into the car’s hot fabric. He’s already so sticky and sweaty, beyond the reach of a wet wipe. She pictures the look on Nance’s face, handing him to her dirty and smelling like piss. She wants to get there before dark, to keep going. But she pulls over to fix him. He’s uncomfortable and doesn’t smile back when she coos at him. JJ has been a markedly less smiley baby since Hank’s been gone. She doesn’t blame him. There’s no one in sight, just the black road slicing through the rolling desert, baked dirt and yuccas splayed out forever. She walks with him writhing on her hip, just a few feet out into the desert and then lets him crawl in the dirt like he wants to. He examines one of the yuccas, Spanish daggers they’re called. She holds him back when he tries to reach for a pointed tip and he thrashes, howling. They shouldn’t be in bloom, but some of them have clusters of purple-white, bell-shaped flowers. Carefully, she pulls a few of them free from the yucca, pricking herself only once, and presents him with a tiny bouquet. He grabs for them, and she intercepts only seconds before they’re in his mouth. They head back to the car. She tosses the flowers in the back seat and opens the trunk. She pulls a clean t-shirt from her backpack and soaks it with bottled water. She tries again to clean him, a cowboy bath. The heat penetrates her whole body, weakens her. It’s probably good to let the engine cool down for a minute or two, she thinks. The car’s been running hot. She fans him, gives him more water, a handful of cereal. The cowboy bath is surprisingly effective and she feels better about the future look on Nance’s face. It’s a shame to put him back in his car seat, syrupy smelling, with cheerios crushed into the fabric. She checks her phone. Three missed calls from Nance and two texts. Are you okay, sweetheart? And We can’t wait to have you and the little bean here. We’re going to take such good care of you two, okay? She starts to text but decides to wait until they’re closer. She circles the car to check the tires. The right rear looks low. She made the decision to leave so quickly, in such a panic. Hank would have gotten the car fixed first. Hank would have maintained the car to begin with.
Ahead, she can make out a person walking down the middle of the highway. Bleached out and wavy in the over bright sun, but probably male. Tall, lanky with long hair. He sees her and starts waving his arms wildly. He starts running. As he gets closer, she can make out his yelling. Please! Can you help me? Please, I need help! He’s fast. She gets back in the car and fumbles to start the engine. She has to drive toward him to escape him. He puts his body in her path. She slows down and he pounds his fists on the hood. He puts his face against her window. His eyes are bloodshot, urgent. His clothes are torn. His skin is olive. God damnit stop, help me! Stop the car! I need help! Wait! She speeds to swerve around him, and the man falls to the ground behind the car. She stops. JJ shrieks in the back seat. The man is lying face up. She can’t tell if he’s breathing. Maybe she ran over his foot. Maybe he had a heart attack. She drives away and wonders if he wrestled free from an angel. A mile later, she calls the police. I don’t really know, she keeps hearing herself say.
Where exactly was this, they ask? What exactly is your emergency?
JJ sleeps. Mercifully, he’s a car sleeper. Whenever they couldn’t get him to settle, she and Hank would put him in the car and drive around the block until he was out. It worked even faster with NPR on. She liked driving in her robe and slippers, how sometimes the car became soft, dreamlike, the soothing click of the turn signal. She twists open the seltzer and lets the bubbles sear her throat. The ice cream sandwich melts in the seat beside her.
These are strange times indeed, my friends. If you’re feeling alone or afraid amid all this uncertainty, take heart. The Lord has a plan for all of us. If we keep him in our hearts always, we’re safe from any kind of harm. Real faith persists in the face of the absurd, my friends, and in the end, it is rewarded by the return of all that the faithful one is willing to sacrifice. Remember that, my friends. You’re listening to KSXE, 96.9 and this is The Reverend Calvin Rooney with you. Next up, we have a prayer from Lonnie out in Wonder Valley. Dear Lord, please let there be water for my farm. We’ve never had a drought last so long, Lord. There’s nothing for the U Pick Produce people to actually pick. Everything’s shriveled and struggling. I’m worried we won’t be able to make it through the season. Lord, a few days ago, I hired a dowser, some kind of water witch I saw advertised in the paper. I should never have done it, Lord, but he promised he could tell me if there was water in the ground, how deep it is, how many gallons per minute it is. So I trusted him and he took my money up front and then when I went to drill, 500 feet down, it turned out he’d been wrong. I’d torn my land up. I’d given him almost all my savings. Lord, please. Let it rain. Let there be water in the ground again.
Lonnie, my friend, we are all praying your prayer together right now. Lord, let there be water on Lonnie’s farm. Everywhere there is drought, Lord, let there be good, soaking rain.
She remembers one of their first dates, when they rode bikes to Balboa Park and saw a Magritte exhibit at the art museum. They talked about their most serious relationships, and she got the sense that she wasn’t exactly as together as the people he’d dated before. She downplayed how volatile things had been with her last boyfriend before he moved out. She waited tables but was actually a filmmaker. He taught 11th grade chemistry and was taking grad classes one at a time for his master’s. He was steady and generous and thoughtful, and she loved his gentle cow eyes and the soft slope of his belly and how much taller than her he was, his giant hands. Magritte had been her idea. So unusual, he’d said, passing the clouds, the pipes, the green apples, the bowler hats. I really like it. He was literal, but trying. Afterwards, they biked across town for oysters. She drank too many gin and tonics, and with empty half shells and melting ice between them, she teared up a little when he asked about her family.
It’s kind of a lot, she said. We don’t have to get into it.
You can tell me, he said. I want to know.
It’s actually just me and my mom. And she doesn’t speak to me. She cut me out of her life about three years ago. When I moved away for college, she said she said she was lonely, so she joined this, like, women’s spiritual group that met once a week a few towns over. I guess she found them on Facebook. And then after that, every time we talked on the phone or when I visited, all she wanted to talk about were these conspiracy theories. Like how there’s this cabal of liberals and elites controlling everything and how we need to take back our freedom from them. And how the pandemic was totally made up, and hospitals were all overreporting deaths to receive federal aid.
So they, like, brainwashed her?
Yeah, and it got worse. She started telling me about these shape-shifting lizards from space who had this global network of underground tunnels. And she wouldn’t let me or anybody talk her out of it. […] Subscribers can read the full version by logging in.
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Casey Bell has an MFA from the University of Nevada, Reno. Her debut short story collection, Little Fury, is forthcoming from Metatron Press in 2023. Casey’s fiction appears in Cream City Review, New South, The Boiler, Reed Magazine, The New Limestone Review, and Timber. She was shortlisted for the Iowa Review Fiction Award and was a finalist for the American Short Fiction Halifax Ranch Prize, the University of New Orleans Publishing Lab Prize and the Calvino Prize. Casey is the co-director of Girls Rock Reno, a music camp for self-identified girls, trans and gender-expansive youth. She’s also the proud mother of a pug-mix named Maud.
Read More: A brief Q&A with Casey Bell