....Grady gassed up at the service station at the edge of town before getting on the Chupadera Mesa Highway. He drove for several hours, lost in thought before his attention came back to the road. He hoped he hadn't missed the turn-off. But figuring he left Colrath around two, he knew he still had a way to go before Must Have. The sun was beginning to set. The desert daytime mein, a forbidding arid glare, was melting under the sedative glow. Having bought some sandwiches and a quart bottle of beer at the service station, he decided to pull of the road and eat. He pulled Sonny's truck off onto some hard scrabble. As he climbed out the truck the gold and rose world took away his breath. For the first time he empathized with these who had chosen to live out here. He hiked onto an outcropping of rock a few hundred yards away, carrying the food in his leather rucksack. He found a natural corridor leading up to a wide terrace of wind smoothed stone. He sat against a low smooth boulder, facing west. He opened the beer which was still surprisingly cool, took a sip and laughed at himself. He never drank beer unless he was completely freaked out. He knew he was regressing... but what did he care - he'd been sleeping three to four hours a night for weeks - he deserved a break. In med school during his depressions, he would go to the super market to buy baby food and beer. He especially loved Beech-Nut Junior Custard and Strained Cottage Cheese with Pineapple. The check-out girls would always give him the hairy eyeball. He thought their disgust was at his transparent need to be babied. Only later did he realize they must have thought him some alchoholicly neglectful father, buying expensive German beer for himself while giving the kids crummy bottled baby food.

As he sat there watching the sun sink, drinking the local brew, his anger toward Sister Mary Felicitas' rose. Her rejection of Clara, her willful incomprehension... "Maddening", he yelled then he looked down at himself as if he were in a minor D.H. Lawrence novel.  But why did that nun claim she not understand what Clara was saying? No wonder Clara was losing her mind.

He let the sunset and his liverwurst sandwiches clear his mind  (even though clarity soon gave way to reminiscence of Thanksgiving dinner with Sonny and Janice). The lengthening purple and orange clouds wrapped him their fingers. He leaned his head back and let the ceiling of the desert fill his field of vision. He imagined the apes from Kubrick's 2001. This could be North Africa where he was sitting - this could be the place man was born, in violence and anger. But where was the monolith? Black and singing. He tried to sing in a thousand voices. He was shocked to hear his 'song' bounce back from the rocks around him. It was a harsh, ugly sound. He hated that video - the one they made of his Grand Rounds' performance (part of his third year oral finals). Watching the tape played back with his faculty advisor was a requirement of the program. He found that he could never really concentrate on the chief resident's comments because his own voice so distracted him, so officious and judgmental - full of edgy, mocking tones. He tried to convince himself it was full of knowing humor - but it was so obvious the he was a bitter man - a bitter little man - Bitterman, Carl.

He looked around and watched the desert fade to a monochromatic cyclorama. Getting a buzz from the beer he called out, "How cleverness has failed me!" He took another long draught of beer and lay his head back again the smooth rock and sighed. He felt his eyes fill with tears - he tried to swallow but his throat was a knot of sadness. If Eileen were here he would let himself cry. She wouldn't have understood but she would have feigned sympathy - that was enough - the effort... But as he was alone and the tears never came. What would have been the point?

He closed his eyes and took a breath and the world spun around him as he rose up in the air... slowly at first...then suddenly he did a flip, his stomach dropping to his feet. He started awake but after a moment he lay his head back again and enjoyed the chaotic nonsense filling his head as he sunk back into the bottomless pit of sleep...

...And then he was flying again, not falling, up and up into the desert sky. He rose quickly to the clouds. He could still see a sliver of the disappearing sunset from this altitude. He looked down and saw Sonny's truck parked by the side of the road. He could hear music in his head but it was so uncategorizably strange. Full of singing - choruses, delicate and strained - as whispy as the cirrus he soared through. On the eastern horizon the moon rose, reddish and threatening. He wanted to fly straight up and intersect the moon's path but as he flew higher the earth below started to fade, the moon becoming full and white as it rose - a huge, cool breast. He knew that Clara was on the moon. Waiting for him. He must go to her, drink up the rest of her story, like from a bowl of milk hanging upside down over his head. But something dragged him down - hanging onto his feet, pulling him back to earth. Gravity. He tired soon of fighting it. He knew he'd never escape. Curling up into a ball, he fell, tumbling over and over through the atmospheres, back to earth.

He awoke with a start, bolting out of his fetal position. Snapping back to the present, he recalled the drive from Colrath - stopping to eat... But something was touching his leg. He reached down, and, as if electrocuted, he leapt to his feet. A SNAKE!  Once standing he didn't want to move - he had no idea which way led to safety. He remembered he had a small mag light in his backpack. He found it, turning it on, shining it on the rocks around his feet. He felt himself start to faint but he gritted his teeth and held on. Snakes everywhere - black uncoiling forms, slithering around him. So many of them he couldn't see the ground - they slithered over each other in a slimy weave.

This couldn't be happening! He had to be still dreaming. Influenced by Clara's talking about black snakes... Maybe everything was a dream - his whole trip out here. But that was ridiculous... and even were it true, this dream, this overwhelming reality had his belief system in its grip...

He felt his finger flick the mag light off. Clutching his backpack he took a step forward. Oh Christ, something slid under his shoe, undulating. He tried to run but each step sunk in rubbery squishiness, like being stuck in a jar of those phony nightcrawlers they sell at bait stores. He swore he could hear the snakes screaming as he stumbled over their backs. It felt like hours, traversing that outcropping of rocks. Suddenly he felt crunchy sand and gravel under his feet - the brush scratching his legs until he tripped, going ass-over-tea-kettle, landing in a heap. He jumped up and turned on his mag lite. No more snakes. He'd made it.

He ran to the truck and jumped into the cab and laughed in relief when it started up right away. He put the vehicle in gear and drove off toward Must Have...

**********************

Phyllis sat in the dark. From the couch in the living room she could see out into the back yard - the white lawn furniture dimming in the last glow of dusk. She was dressed in dark blue sweats - maybe she had been out running, her hair was damp. The traffic was zipping by - probably another shift change out at the Authority - when she heard a vehicle pull into her driveway, the headlights sweeping through her house, she froze...   What would she say to Grady. There was a knock at the door. She thought about just sitting it out on the couch but he probably would creep around to the backyard again - maybe even try to break in.

She had stopped drinking two years ago. She had to - it was wrecking her life. But she'd started back up again since she'd been dating Grady. In fact that large dark green Flintstones tumbler at her lips was filled with 2.2-liter-plastic-jug-chablis. She thought about Gene Tierney and how much she herself looked like the actress. Was her life unraveling tragically like Tierney's... There was another knock.

She laughed quietly as she swung open the door. Behind the screen door she saw a figure. He looked shorter and fatter than she remembered him. When she heard his voice she knew it wasn't Grady. She fumbled for the porch light and flickering to life she saw the UPS guy, "Phyllis Corngold?"

"Yes?"

"Good. This is my third attempt to deliver. After this it goes back to the office for pick-up... then return to sender."

"Are you Elvis?" she smiled.

Not getting the joke he started rambling, "See, you'd have to come into Albuquerque in the next two weeks or it would be sent back..." Her eyes made him nervous. So beautiful the way they looked through him thinking, 'Why this waste on some UPS guy.'

"Come in, come in," she said, stepping out of the way as she swung back the screen door.

"Oh, sure," he smiled carrying in the small box and his clipboard. Phyllis closed the front door throwing the living room back into darkness. He looked around, "Geez, um.. Can I put a light on, Ma'am."

"If you must," she laughed.

As his eyes adjusted to the dimness he noticed a lamp not far from him. Putting down the package on the coffee table he found the little sliding button up under the big white shade and turned it on. "Now if you could just sign on line thirty-four."

"Oh, just a second," she smiled as she looked up the stairs, "I'll be right back, it's my... I think he woke up..." she trailed off as she ran up the stairs two at a time. The UPS guy looked around the room feeling how weird it is to be in a stranger's home. Sometimes when he would be out on the street with his friends in Albuquerque, he'd pass a house and see a light on inside and wonder if he'd ever deliver something to them. He told all these thoughts to a girl he met at a two-step place in Phoenix, but she looked at him like he was nuts so he hadn't told many people about them since. 'There's so much going on in the world that you have no idea about - having a job like this lets you know about that...' On the kitchen counter he saw one of those 2.2 liter wine jugs. He remembered them from college. Maybe if they hadn't come out he would have finished school - them and all those beer balls just killed him.

"I don't care who it is!" a man's voice raged upstairs.

"Please - don't get upset. It's just some delivery guy!" he heard Phyllis pleading.

"I know what you're doing down there. I heard you take that stuff out of the fridge. I can SMELL it on you. And that's not the only thing I can SMELL on you, sister," the man insinuated.

"I'll be right back. Now go to sleep. I have to sign for this package and then I'll make you dinner."

The UPS guy wondered whether it was a husband or a father or what. He and Lilly, his last serious girlfriend (he moved from Phoenix to Albuquerque after their break-up), used to play a game in restaurants: They'd pick a couple at a nearby table and try to figure out what their story was. 'It was the best time I ever had with a girl - you know regular kind of non-sex fun.' When they broke up he referred to this game and she said if maybe they'd wondered more about themselves and who they were more they wouldn't have been breaking up now. It hurt him how unfair he thought that was. He thought the game was fun. 'I mean, in the end nobody really knows anything about themselves anyway so what would be the point?' He was sure in the first instant you saw a stranger, you knew more about them than you'd ever know about yourself, even if you looked in a mirror or watched films of yourself day in and day out. 'That's what the I think', he thought.

"I WILL BE DOWN IN A MINUTE!" Phyllis yelled down the stairs.

"You hurry up - I'm hungry!" the man called out as the UPS guy heard her feet on the stairs. He turned and put on a smile so he'd look pleasant when she entered. That was coolest thing they taught you at the UPS Academy - the 'smiling thing'. They always told the drivers to start smiling as soon as they rang the bell. It made a good impression. At first the thought it sounded dumb, but it did seem to put people at ease, especially if they looked out to see who was there before the door opened. And he also found having a smile on your face put him in good frame of mind. The teacher at the Academy said that when you smile, chemicals were actually released in the brain that make you happy. The teacher said the smile didn't even have to sincere or genuine, but this UPS guy didn't have a problem with smiling sincerely or genuinely.

When she saw him standing there smiling like an idiot she said, "Sorry, he's a drag sometimes, you know."

"Sure, no problem."

"So, where were we?" she asked.

"If you could just sign here..." he held out his clipboard and took a half step toward her. She kind of hopped across the room, flipping her damp hair off her face. She was really pretty - like girls were in those old black and white movies. It made him smile even more genuinely thinking that. As she signed she leaned against him - he could feel the soft edge of her breast on his arm. It felt so warm. I get it, the UPS guy thought, "The sweat suit, no underwear, damp hair, a guy upstairs in bed. They just finished having sex when he knocked on the door. He understood why the guy upstairs was pissed. He'd be pissed too having her down here with laying her breasts on some delivery guy's arm...."

She finished signing. He looked at the name and read it aloud : Gene Tierney. That wasn't the name on the box. He leaned over to look. No, it was Phyllis Corngold.

"Um... I thought you said you were this Phyllis Corngold," he frowned.

"Oh, damn. I thought I could get away with it. I always try to put her name down. I think I look like her and sometimes... Oh, OK, I'll sign again."

It was against regulations to let someone sign a second time but if there was a chance she might lay her breast on his arm again, she could sign fifty times, "Oh, sure, I mean they don't like it at the office but I'll make an accepti____" he stopped speaking (fearing his voice would break) as her breast swept across his arm.

"How's that?" she asked.

"Um... sure," he moaned as she first crossed out the name and wrote again.

"So, who's Gene Tierney?" he found the voice to ask.

"Oh, some tragic film star from the Forties," she sighed.

"Really? Wow!"

"What is it, Mr. UPS man?" she laughed.

"My names Pete."

"What be it, Pete?"

"Oh, I'm not supposed to have personal conversation like this with people on the job. They teach you that at the Academy___"

"There's an academy you go to learn how to be a UPS man?"

"Yeah. It's pretty good. I mean I thought it was stupid when I first heard about it... But it's pretty good."

There was a long pause as she smiled up at him, still leaning on his arm.

He finally blurted, "I was going to say... I was thinking to myself that you looked like a movie star, from the Forties. I really did."

"That's pretty coincidental, don't you think, Pete?"

"I don't want to move," he heard himself say.

"I understand. But in a minute you'll have to go or he'll start yelling again," she said, then feeling him begin to pull back, "No, no, not yet."

"You sure? shouldn't I go?"

"You can put your hand on me if you want, Pete."

He felt a buzzing pressure fill his head. She pulled away from him suddenly.

He began to apologize, "I'm sorry___"

"No, it's OK. It really is. He won't come down. Go ahead," and with that she pulled up her sweat shirt and held the bottom of it in her mouth, clasping her hands behind her back.

He stared at her breasts. Her nipples were much bigger and darker than he would have imagined.

"Go ahead," she closed her eyes.

He reached out with his right hand, having moved the clip board to his left. And just as he was about to touch her left breast the way that he remembered Lilly liking it, hoping that he would let him put her nipple softly between the backs of his fingers...

But before he could Phyllis laughed, "No tits for Tommy! No tits for Tommy," dropping the shirt from her mouth as she spoke. Pete took a step back hearing this and tripped over a hassock and fell on his back. "You better go, I can hear him getting up," she said helping him to his feet and hustling him to the door.

After he'd gone she leaned against the door and laughed, listening to his truck start up. As she moved to pick up her glass of wine, she noticed the UPS box on the coffee table. She sat down on the couch and opened the box - it was an answering machine. Then on the bill of lading she saw his name: DR. GRADY COCHRANE.

"What a jerk!," she laughed. She pulled the answering machine out of the box and started reading the directions. It seemed simple enough. She took a long drink directly from the 2.2 liter bottle of wine and went to work hooking up the machine to her phone....

*************

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