Richard Risemberg

 
“Anything’s possible. But I guess not.” I thought about the kid, who was leaning over the grill with his straight black hair tufted up at the collar of his shirt. What kind of life did he have, at seventeen, in a town like this one? He straightened up, plated our breakfasts, carefully took off the hat and apron and hung them back on their hooks, then picked up the napkin and laid it over his arm again. He plodded silently to our table and placed the dishes before us, then walked away, folded his napkin, and picked up the broom again. I looked at our repast.

On each plate was, indeed, what could not be called anything but an egg sandwich: a fried egg between two pieces of spongy white supermarket bread. White bread, with a rim of egg white showing past the crust, on a white paper plate. That was all: not even a trace of relish or other dressing. Just an egg and bread. Next to the bread was a bag of potato chips, one of those tiny bags they sell in gas station convenience stores. I looked at my wife, and she raised her eyebrow in the way she had. “Don’t laugh,” I whispered.

“I know,” she said. “That poor kid, working here.”

It took an effort, but we didn’t laugh. At least not then. We did eat the sandwiches. We were, after all, hungry, and they were  food of a sort. When we finished, the kid looked over from the far corner of the room to which his sweeping had taken him, leaned the broom on the wall, put the napkin over his arm, and brought us the bill, which wasn’t much. I thanked him and left a decent tip.

We walked out into the morning. It was still cool, but you could tell it would be a hot day. Another hot day. The street showed no signs of human movement, though a couple of pickup trucks had appeared at the curb in front of a hardware store, which was, however, not yet open, if it ever opened. We crossed the street to the hotel, drank some water in our room, packed up, checked out. The same ancient clerk sat at the desk and wished us well. There was a thin layer of dust on the windshield when we went to our car, and I pulled a rag out of the trunk and wiped it down. I didn’t try very hard: there would be plenty of dust on the rest of the road out of Emmetsville. We put our luggage into the trunk and got into the car for a drive to someplace less flat and dry. The Sierra Nevadas were on our itinerary. My wife settled in on her seat beside me, and off we went.

Time passed even though you couldn’t really feel it. The land began to rumple and lift, the hills became steeper, the gullies that passed under the road a little wetter. Although the world seemed generally flat as before I could feel from the vibration of the engine that the road was climbing slightly. At one point it wound through an actual if not very impressive pass; the road had been cut through the crest of the dry hills, showing strata in bands of brown and yellow, the remains of ancient rainfalls testifying to the caresses of earthquakes. When the road spit us out of the pass, we could see a shallow valley with steep mountains rising abruptly beyond in a distant haze: the Sierra Nevadas. There was a turnout, and we pulled onto it and got out of the car. The same lost wind as before tugged at our sleeves. We could see low, forested hills in the middle distance, looking confused in the broad sands. Near at hand were twiggy shrubs that made no effort to look green. A hawk circled in the sky far above us: sign of both life and death. My lips felt dry, as they had for the last three days. There was a little town in the distance; a glint of metal moved across it: someone driving somewhere. I asked my wife: “What do you think?”

“That poor kid,” she repeated. “Living here…. And that dead-end job.”

“Maybe someday he really will own the place.”

“And maybe he won’t.” She sighed and turned back to the car. “Maybe that little town up ahead has a diner.”

“And maybe it doesn’t. I guess we’ll find out.”

“Sure,” she said. “We can always find out.”

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