‘I’m stuck here, in a place without a place around it. It’s like a dot of reality, this place, this experience; my car breaks down on a two lane mountain road, no one stops, it’s hotter than any hell could ever be, then this old man and a wrecker that’s held together by a body of peeling paint; like an apparition, that wrecker rattling up. The old man with the punched in face pulling off a cowboy hat with black hand prints circling the brim, walking toward me in a rolling gait - a short, fat imitation of John Wayne - his smile, almost toothless except for a few black nubs. His voice a frog croak, “Looks like you’re in a fix, little lady.”’

‘Life in the Arizona desert is akin to life in a frying pan, without the oil. Dry heat, dry skin, dry mouth, dry, hot air that sears the throat and burns the eyes. That’s the only moisture, those tears from scorched sun-dazed eyes.’

Penny put the notebook down on the only uncluttered surface, a spot near her feet, but she had forgotten about grease and oil, and the sandy dust that blends these ingredients into a sticky dark goo. The strange old man was gone again. She turned toward the front of the station, then gave her neck a painful backward twist to check out a noise. She saw him, peering up at the underbelly of her old Chevy Malibu. The hand-printed sign on the wall across from her warned, ‘No Customers Alowed in Repare Bay’. Defeated by bad spelling, she sighed, deeply, then bent to retrieve her notebook.

“Well now Missy, seems you got a real problem there.”

With a start, she raised her head, felt the notebook slip from her fingertips and heard the whir of clean white pages as it fell onto the grimy floor. He had appeared on soundless feet and stood above her, his eyes doing a quick appraisal of everything from her head to her feet. She shook her head, gave him a stare meant to intimidate.

“What?”

“That Mali’s got a busted trannie. Ain’t a single thing I can do today. Got some parts coming from Phoenix in the morning. I’ll call in and tell them what your car needs. Okay?” He scratched his head, rubbed a dirty rag across his forehead and in slow motion raised his eyes.

“God, no. I can’t spend the night here.” She had spoken too quickly, too sharply and his expression changed in seconds. For a moment she saw anger, but it was gone and replaced by a smile of the type used to placate irate customers.

“It’s, it’s.” She heard the stammer, knew her own uncertainty and how often it surfaced despite the long years spent in dispelling her lack of self-esteem.

The old man waited for her to continue, but when she didn’t, when she could only stare at him, mutely, he nodded and pointed a grease stained finger toward the repair area. “There’s a pay phone. You could call someone, if you want.”

“I have a cell phone.” She rummaged through her bulky purse, then remembered where it was. “It’s in the car. On the front seat, I think. Can I go get it?”

He shook his head. “Won’t work up here.” He spun around, with a speed and dexterity his bulk and age defied. “You see those mountains?”

She followed his gaze and saw the majestic height of naked mountains with natural colorful stripes that gave them unique faces. “They’re beautiful.” She said, sincerely.

“They block out cell phones. Something to do with density. Had a fellow try to explain it one day, but never owned one and can’t say I ever wanted one. I told him that. He gave me a funny look. Does everybody down below have a cell phone?” He turned toward her, his smile in place; his eyes shaded by the hat brim.

“Many do.” Her gaze was still riveted by the mountains and though she could feel his eyes, she ignored them. “They’re convenient, especially when I travel.”

“You travel a lot?” He leaned against the door frame, with his arms crossed and when she rolled her eyes toward him, he winked.

She stood up. “Where’s that pay phone?”

The old man nodded toward a black wall phone.

“How far is Phoenix?”

The hat came off and a grimy hand rubbed his bald head. “Ain’t far, ‘bout an hour and give or take twenty minutes.”

As she walked toward the phone, she made a mental note for the article she was writing about life in the Southwest; ‘People here do not give directions in miles. They use time and the listener is left computing distance.’

A quick appraisal of the contents of her purse, informed her that greasy fingertips leave greasy marks on everything, including paper wrapped tampons and her expensive Gucci wallet. It also made her realize that she had one quarter, two dimes, one nickel and an odd assortment of pennies. She turned to ask him for change, but he was gone again, noiselessly. She saw him through the dusty window squeezing gas into a customer’s car. With a glance around, she spotted a door marked ‘R st Ro m’ in faded, half-discernable letters and started toward it.

“Won’t work.” His croak came from near her elbow.

She spun toward him. “My hands are greasy. I need to wash them.”

“Out of water. They truck it up but the truck ain’t do for another two, maybe three days. Got a big tank out back for storage.” He glanced at her hands, a lingering gaze that made her uncomfortable.

“Do you have a rag or paper towel I could wipe them on?” To avoid meeting his intense dark eyes, she looked around the garage for a paper towel dispenser.

“Got some stuff. Cleans grease real good. Out there.” He nodded toward the back of the garage.

“Okay.” She waited for him to say something, but in silence, on those noiseless feet, he turned around and began walking away. After a brief hesitation, she followed him.

He held a gallon jug of orange liquid and rasped, “Hold your hands out.” She searched for a place to put her purse, then jammed it between her knees. He grinned. He growled instructions as he poured the liquid into her hands. “Rub it in real good.”

“I’m getting greasier.” She complained, as the grease from her fingertips covered her hands. “It’s spreading.”

“Supposed to.” He muttered, then reached for another gallon jug of clear liquid. “Hold still.” He poured this liquid over her hands.

“It’s water.” She felt a smile ease the tension in her face muscles. “Smells like a swimming pool.”

“Clorox. Keeps stuff from growing in it.” He put the water jug on the floor, then found several blue paper towels.

“Thank you.” She shared her smile with him.

He didn’t respond and gave her another of those quick glances that made her skin feel crawly. After a quiet moment of studying her, he nodded toward the front of the garage. “Reckon you need to make that call.”

“Yes. Oh, I almost forgot. I need change. Do you have about ten quarters?” With quick motions, she pulled the purse from between her knees and found her wallet. She extended three ones toward him.

He snatched the bills, spun around and began walking away. This time she didn’t hesitate to follow him and trailed along like an obedient puppy. She started to speak, changed her mind, then did speak.

“It’s quiet up here. Have you had this station long?”

“A while.”

She dropped the effort at conversation and followed him into a cramped and dirty small office. With ease, he stooped to peer under a cluttered counter top and pulled out a square metal box. The box contained paper money in every denomination, some bundled together with rubber hands and others loose in a small tray. Under the tray was a pile of coins and he picked through these until he had filled his hands with quarters and held them out to her.

“Thirteen.” He muttered. “That’s it.”

“That’s fine.” She cupped her hands to receive them. He just stood there with his palms extended until she was forced to retrieve them, one by one between her thumb and fingertip to avoid the grease from his hands.

“Thank you.” She backed up a step, began to walk away, but he stopped her with a raised hand.

“Won’t be enough.” He nodded toward the coins.

“Phoenix isn’t that far.” She walked toward the phone.

He walked behind her and repeated, “Won’t be enough.”

She felt her jaw tighten, felt a surge of anger, then drew a breath to calm herself. “If I run out I’ll charge it to my home phone.”

There was no response, so she turned with the intention of letting him see the anger on her face, but he was gone. She sighed and pulled the letter from her purse. After a quick perusal, she found the man’s name and the contact phone number. It didn’t include his area code. “Damn,” she muttered.

“What’s wrong?”

“How do you do that?” Her voice came out harsh.

“Do what?” He cocked his head and studied her through squinted eyes.

“Nothing. What’s the area code in Arizona?” She shook the letter.

“Depends on where. We got two of them.” He eyed the letter. “What’s the address?”

She glanced at the masthead and saw the newspaper’s name, address and phone number, with the area code. She shook her head and with a deprecatory laugh said, “Never mind. It’s here on the top. I didn’t notice it before.”

He was gone. She dialed the number, dropped coins in the old pay phone, and waited through four rings. A voice mail message came on, “Hi, this is Scott. If you got this message, I’m not here. Leave your name and number.” She spoke, “This is Penny. My car broke down and I’m stuck in an old garage on route 93. There’s nothing else around here. I don’t think this place has a name. The number on this pay phone is 555-4637. When you get this, give me a call. I can’t stay here until they get the parts to fix my car. You’ll have to come and get me.” The operator cut in with a message, “Your time has expired. Deposit more coins to continue this call.” She glanced in her hand, saw only four quarters and hung up.

“Did you get through?” The old man was behind her.

“I left a message.” She turned around and stared at him. “I gave the number on the phone.”

“You calling a boy friend?”

“What?” She frowned.

“Just wondering is all.” He shrugged and pointed toward the front of the garage. “Traffic’s thinning out. Getting close to sunset and people that knows don’t drive this road after dark.”

“It’s - it can’t be that late.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh God! How long have I been here?”

“Close on to two hours.” He grinned.

A car drove up to the gas pumps and she glanced toward it. A young man, in a bright red Mazda was looking around, reading the signs on the gas pumps, then peering into the garage area. She followed the old man outside, considered the option of asking this stranger for a ride, until the man saw her and his blank gaze became a leer. As she backed up into the garage, his eyes held her, a grin creased his face and he nodded. She spun around, raced into the dank, silence of the garage and darted for cover behind the nearest door. Goose bumps pimpled her arms and she held them against her body for comfort. Images from old horror stories flooded her mind until she shook her head to erase them. She had to get out of here and ran to the phone. The voice mail message played in her ear. Fear was evident in the shrill message she left, “This is Penny, again. Please come and get me.” She had used the last quarter.

“Did you get through this time?”

“How do you walk that quietly?” She glared at him. “No, no. I didn’t get through. Look there has to be a motel around here. Where can I go for the night?”

“Who you trying to call?” He asked, with his head bent at the same cocked angle he had used earlier.”

“A business associate.” She blurted. “Look, about the motel. Where’s the closest?”

“Ain’t none. What business you in?”

A car drove up and blared its horn. She raced outside before the old man, then stopped to study the occupants. A man and woman, with two small children in the backseat eyed her. She thought they looked safe and began to walk toward them. The man leaned out of the window and spat something brown and ugly onto the graveled driveway, then the woman yelled something at one of the children. As she watched, the woman reached across the seat and swatted a small child across the face. The child’s thin wails followed her into the garage.

“You didn’t like the looks of them.” The old man was behind her, again.

“There has to be a motel somewhere near here.” She ignored his comment.

“The next place to here is Wikieup. Ain’t nothing there but some tourist trap places. What business you in?”

“Wikieup?”

“Indian name.” He nodded. “Used to have more but folks don’t stop in the little places so they kinda gave up, maybe went down to Wickenburg to set up business.”

“Is there a motel in Wickenburg?” Her heart thumped and she had to wipe her sweaty hands on her jeans.

“Probably, ain’t been there in years. You didn’t say, what business are you in?” He had walked around her in a tight circle and was facing her, again. She felt like a horse being appraised as a tingle of fear traveled up her spine.

“I’m a writer.” She heard herself gasp, tried to calm down. “I write feature articles for magazines.”

“You work for a magazine?”

“Please, Wickenburg, can you take me there? In that?” She pointed toward the wrecker.

“Nope.”

“I’ll pay you. I have cash, traveler’s checks, a credit card, whatever you want, but I can’t stay here in this garage all night.” She followed his eyes, saw the way they narrowed, saw the way he scrutinized every inch of her.

“Can’t do it.” He shook his head. “What magazine do you write for?”

“Why can’t you take me to Wickenburg?” She stepped back because his closeness made her breathless.

“No tags.” He muttered through tight lips. “You didn’t say, what magazine do you write for?”

“I freelance.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t understand. You drove the truck when you picked up my car. Why can’t you take me to a motel?” Each of her steps backward was met by a slow forward motion from him.

“No cops on the mountain roads. No one to care.” He raised his head and stared outside. “Getting dark.”

“Oh, God!” She followed his eyes, saw the rosy display of the vibrant sunset, then sighed. “Where can I stay tonight?”

“Could call the wife. Put you up on the couch. Ain’t much but might do for a night.” He nodded toward the pay phone, then studied her face.

“Yes. Yes, please call her. Tell her I’ll pay for the accommodation.” Her head jerked toward the phone.

He reached in the coverall pockets, until his hand emerged with a few coins, then selected a quarter and walked toward the phone.

She breathed a deep sigh of relief. The day-long tension began to melt. That he had a wife was welcome news and that she might let her sleep on their couch was better. For a moment she eavesdropped on his side of the conversation, heard him say, “Okay, bout ten minutes or so.”

“Is it okay with her?” She asked.

He grinned. “Makes no never mind if it is or ain’t. I said you were coming home with me, she yelled why. I said cause you were.” He laughed out loud. “Indian women don’t truck with their men.”

“Your wife is an Indian?”

He nodded without a word and began the closing procedures for the garage. She watched for a moment or two, then asked, “May I help you with anything?”

“You need anything from the car?” He called back.

“The blue tote bag.”

He came from the back of the garage with the tote bag in his hand. With his arms in the air, reaching toward the overhead doors, he asked. “You want that notebook?”

She darted past him and grabbed it from the floor. “Thanks, I almost forgot it.”

“Stuff you’re writing?” He nodded toward the notebook as he barred the big doors and snapped a heavy padlock into place.

“Yes. Notes for it.” She followed him to the wrecker, fumbled with the loose door handle, let out a sigh and slid onto the cracked seat.

He drove like a teenager, with frenetic speed, bursts of power hauling the ratty wrecker around sharp curves on the narrow road, then suddenly a jerk of the steering wheel made her gasp as the wrecker aimed toward what looked like a steep drop-off.

“Bit of road here.” He rasped from the corner of his mouth.

She did see a ‘bit’ of road, more a dust trail with a few, sparse tire ruts. The road seemed to curl around the base of the nearest mountain then disappeared. “How far is your house?”

“Two, three minutes.” He laughed with a high-pitched noise she hadn’t heard him use before. “Up there.” He bent his head across the steering wheel to peer up at the mountain.

She leaned forward against the dash and stared upward. She gasped and drew back. Above them rose a solid rock face and beside them was nothing. “Is that a drop-off?” She turned toward him and caught his eye watching her and saw a grin crease his face.

“Bit of one.” He shrugged.

The wrecker lurched around a narrow bend, and engine whines sounded harsh and loud as they began to climb. “Do you have electricity and phones up here?” She spoke to distract herself from a shiver of fear.

“Generator, water tank, no phone. Ain’t nobody else up here but me.” He kept that grin in place. It meant something, but she couldn’t read it and drew her arms close to rub them.

“And your wife.” She said.

“Yea and her.” His laughter came out as a cackle.

The truck stopped with a suddenness that threw her forward. She heard herself say, “Ouch.”

“There she is.” He pointed.

“Why it’s gorgeous.” She gushed but meant the praise.

On a small outcropping of rock slightly above them perched a charming Alpine Chalet with an entire wall of glass. A wide wooden deck circled the front. She stepped out of the wrecker and stood still to drink in the peace of this place. The mountains surrounded the chalet with the effect of hugging it. She closed her eyes and listened to the still night air.

“Better get in.” He said from beside her.

“It’s so pretty here, so peaceful.” She drew a deep breath.

“Rattlesnakes.” He said. “They feed at night. Coyotes, too.” He pointed into a nearby shadowy clump of sage.

She followed him up a narrow gravel path. “This house is amazing, up here in the middle of nowhere the way it is.”

“One of those kits. Took me three years to build.” She couldn’t see him, but could hear the pride in his voice.

They stepped inside of the house onto the Spanish tiled floor. She watched him move around in a vast living room that was dominated by a huge rock fireplace and over-sized furniture. She swivelled her head to see everything, then stood still, and listened to the sounds of the house. That there were none registered quickly, and she turned toward the old man. He was gone.

“Hello.” Her voice echoed back. “Where are you?” Another echo.

There was a waiting calm, as she told herself not to panic, everything was okay. She thought about asking him if he was part Indian, because of the stealthy way he moved around. She also wondered where his wife was and why there was such an empty feel to the house.

She glanced toward the window wall, thought about looking outside, then realized it was full dark and everything inside of the room was reflecting in the glass. There was colorful Indian art everywhere, in the throws on the couches, the woven rugs on the floor, large, unframed canvases hanging from the walls and the pottery on top of the low, heavy wooden tables. She pondered the source of the mellow light in the room, since she hadn’t seen a lamp anywhere, then looked up and saw the track lights along the ceiling. In a flash she realized this was probably the most isolated house she had ever visited. The fear from earlier shivers began to creep back in and she moved toward a table, toward a round piece of painted pottery as a way to distract herself from thinking.

“Do you like it?” His voice was behind her, almost coming from her elbow.

Startled, she nearly dropped the pretty artifact. She drew a deep breath before she spoke. “Yes, is it hand-painted?”

“It’s real old, from the Inca’s.” He moved around to face her. She gaped, then heard herself gasp.

“The old man cleans up good, huh?”

“I - I. You don’t look the same.”

He wore a bright blue Western style shirt with tiny pearl snaps, fresh, creased, well-fitted jeans and shiny black cowboy boots. The earlier grime from the garage had been washed away and when he smiled, she saw the shine of dentures.

“Yes, yes, you do. You look great.” She stared behind him. “Where’s your wife?”

“Who?”

“Your wife.”

“I’ve never had a wife.”

“But you said -.back at the garage, you called her.”

“Yes, I did.”

“But, why? What do you want? Why did you bring me here?”

“Think about it.”

“Oh, God, no.” She backed up, bumping into things, panicking toward the door.

“Rattlesnakes.” He walked toward her, that grin on his face, his eyes pinning her.

“What?’

“You go out there and they’ll get you. Where you gonna go anyway?”

Her eyes searched for a weapon. A fat, squat vase sat on a nearby table and she groped for it, but it wouldn’t lift, would barely shift when her hand wrapped around it.

“Won’t work.” He grinned, hands outstretched, reaching toward her.

“W-what?”

“I built this house. Everything in here is designed to keep me safe. You’ll see.”

She walked to the window, then abruptly spun around and walked to the couch, from there to the fireplace, then began to repeat herself, in a ceaseless pattern of pacing. Her notebook lay open on a nearby table with the words she had written this morning in full view. She ignored it and continued pacing, back and forth, back and forth, in the restless rhythm of a stalled horse.

Nothing is real any longer. The sun rises, then the sun sets and between times I’m here, inside of this lonely house, alone, unable to leave. The windows don’t open. They won’t even break when I hit them with heavy things. That only door must be made of metal. I’ve tried to chip away around the deadbolt, maybe free it up enough to jam something in there, pop the bolt, but nothing happens, just scratches, ugly long gashes on the surface. If he’d just stop being nice, bringing me things to eat and wear. If he’d forget the bed straps one night, give me a chance to find his keys; give me any chance. I wonder if anyone misses me, then I wonder who would miss me. That man in Phoenix probably assumes I changed my mind. I’m not dating anyone right now. Mom and dad can’t miss me from Riverview cemetery. Who else is there? Have I been evicted from my apartment? Has it been that long? Is anyone looking for me, anywhere? I don’t even know what day it is. How long have I been here, a week, a month, or maybe longer, two months? Is this how people go insane? First the fear, then the reality of fear, then this total loss of anything real? Nothing is real any longer.

Writing is not an occupation; it is a compulsion, the fulfillment of a greedy need. At sixty, I write because I must. At twenty, I wrote because it was fun. The fun and the drive have been never ending. MAC