Falling Down by David Cole Read Free Book Online

the odds of my life of serenity disappearing into the world of random, senseless violence where assassins killed with no more emotional involvement than no me jodas ?
    Those dreams really freaked me out.
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    I cuddled and nested, touching my nose all over his chest and arms.
    Then I really fell asleep. Like a proverbial log, like a baby, like a lover after a picnic on a hot day, the chicken and potato salad gone, the wine bottle empty, naked on a blanket after making love.
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    When I awoke, Nathan was gone.
    I ran through the house, looking. Saw his pickup was also gone.
    And the world turned. It’s a shock, it’s a crossing over, you’re in this place, then whop, you’re in that one with gates closed behind you.

4
    A ll righty then , I thought next morning. Let’s look at the odds of my dilemma. I mean, what are the odds that one chosen path is better than another? Have you ever noticed, while driving, that some days you hit nothing but green lights, and on other days, all lights are red?
    What are the odds?
    I mean, is it random, like flipping a coin, heads come up half the time? Is it your karma? Your mood? Distractions from your too-spicy Thai food lunch?
    I never saw it coming.
    That he’d actually leave without me.
    That he’d actually leave me.
    Like all unsuspecting lovers, in hindsight, I should have seen the signs.
    He’d kept his own house, he’d lived in his own time zone. He’d appear to spend a week or a month with me, then he’d just leave.
    What I always expected to happen, what I’d really wanted, really dared to hope would happen, was that one day I’d have Nathan permanently at my side, arms around each other, eating at Kingfisher or Ric’s or Janos or Cuvee or Hacienda del Sol or Nonie or the Arizona Inn. The two of us seeing movies, hands across adjoining stadium seats at some mall cineplex. Okay, so I loved Robert De Niro and he liked Finding Nemo, so what, I’d see anything.
    Of course, it never really happened that way.
    In truth, Nathan Brittles, my two-year lover, my partner, he didn’t care for movies or fine restaurants at all. I might watch or eat anything. He didn’t. He’d said more than a few hundred times how he’d rather be back up on the rez. How he wanted to be dineh again.
    Indian.
    Navajo.
    One who returned and lived the old ways.
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    Let’s not dwell on this, I thought. I’ll go see this Emich woman, then I’ll drive up to the rez. Just one step at a time . I heard that in a black church one day, in Yakima I think, back in my wild days. Had no meaning for me then.
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    I snugged into my oldest swim suit, black, with a racer back and the embroidered Speedo logo. Chlorine-resistant, but old enough that the chemicals had degraded the polyester. I snapped it against my butt and breasts, my nipples erect under the fabric, we used to call them high beams. The suit a size too small, but this morning it protected my heart, squeezed my heart inside so I didn’t have to deal with it.
    I slid into my pool, dove through layers of heated water toward the bottom and cooler water. Breath almost gone, I surfaced like a small whale and crashed back into the water. Without thought, I swam idle laps, easing into a backstroke. Overhead, a red-tailed hawk dipped and dived, riding a thermal, surveying me and my property for
    rodents
    snakes
    birds
    anything small enough to eat.
    I powered into a freestyle sprint for four laps, focusing my body and focusing my thoughts.
    I needed my private investigator license back. I’d do whatever it took. I’d always run my life that way:
    set a goal
    move undistracted to that goal
    find another goal
    one step at a time
    This morning I fixed the most important goal in my life.
    I’d accept that Nathan had just left, unannounced, as he’d done many times. And that he’d come back to me.
    That was my goal.
    I’d meet Mary Emich later in the morning,