Wisconsin

I’m running and before I can tell Miss Julie to stop there are two yellow bursts of light cracking loud from the center of her silhouette.

My eyes closed, I imagine I hear sirens. I imagine I hear people shouting, running away. Any sound at all, anything but the miles of silence in every direction.

The night is bitter and freezing and doomed and somehow that feels like my fault.

Then there’s the chink of a Zippo lighter. The grind of a flint. The smell of nicotine mixing with gunpowder.

Poison mixing with poison.

“The problem with a cigarette in winter,” says Miss Julie, behind me, staring at the cherry, “is that you can never see the smoke. It’s too windy, or it’s too bright, and it ruins the whole effect.”

The first time it snows in Wisconsin is never spectacular. It’s like a warm-up. Just a few lazy flakes swirling in the air.

Outside, that’s how the world looks. Almost snowing but not quite.

Me, I'm standing real still. No sudden movements.

And I’m like, You didn't have to do that.

"He was trying to run,” she says.

Wasn’t necessary.

"He was going to take it all for himself. You saw.”

Miss Julie walks past me to where Harry is, limp and broken in the grass a dozen yards away. If he’s lucky, he’ll bleed out before he freezes to death, but Harry’s never lucky.

Poor Harry.

And I’m like, We should go.

"Wait," says Miss Julie, and kneels down, combing through the underbrush. The wind rustles sheets of tall brown grass around her, swaying slow and easy, like they don’t even care.

It's dark. The freeway isn’t far. A car could drive by any second. I can just see us, fumbling in the grass, flaring white in the headlights of some idiot on his cell phone who screams and tears away to get a cop.

And I’m like, Let’s get out of here.

"Just hold on."

I push through the weeds and there's poor Harry, gasping for oxygen, looking to me for help. All those sweaters and that heavy coat must be absorbing his blood, because there's no mess. Just two black holes in the middle of his jacket.

Miss Julie stands up. She hands me her cigarette. "Hold this. It's got to be around here somewhere. I saw him drop it."

Forget about it. Someone will see us. We have to get out of here.

She glares at me. "Are you crazy?" Then she's on her hands and knees again, sifting, swearing.

Harry’s still looking at me, his eyes wide and bulging. His mouth is moving but I can’t hear him. Some best friend I am.

Miss Julie is digging through the ground, digging through dirt and grass and shit, and she grabs Harry by his coat and screams, “Where is it?! Where is it, you fat fuck?!” She slaps him across the face with one hand.

When he tries to answer, blood drools out through his teeth.

Harry’s not fat, he’s just put on a few pounds since he got married. Since I stood to his left on a bright summer day in Hawaii and listened to him take his vows. Since I pounded down beers with him and his wife in a shitty Irish pub on Halloween.

Miss Julie looks at me. “Are you just going to stand there? If you want your half, you’ll help.”

There’s a car coming.

That gets her attention. She looks up.

In the distance, there are two tiny lights that seem a million miles away.

It’s too far to tell how fast it’s going, or what kind of car it is. If it’s a truck with big, bright lights, I don’t know. If it’s a cop, I don’t know.

On a long stretch of road like this, on a night as dark as this one, we’ve got a good couple of minutes or so before the car is close enough to see us, but it’s there, and I won’t just pretend that it’s not.

I’m still holding Miss Julie's cigarette when she whispers “Get down, idiot!” I turn to look at her and she’s already laying flat in a nest of tall grass, invisible.

I kneel by Harry, who is still staring at me and trying to talk. His hand finds mine and he squeezes.

Poor Harry. What a slob.

The car is getting closer, faster and faster, and Harry’s got my hand, and Miss Julie is saying, “Help me look, help me look, damn it...”

Buddhist monks don’t stay this calm.

Somewhere in this darkness is a Versace briefcase that Harry must have dropped as he was running. This is what Miss Julie is so desperately trying to find. Miss Julie, usually so concerned about her split ends and fingernails, her oils and perfumes and designer labels, she doesn’t think twice about tearing through piles of mud in below zero weather.

Miss Julie, she’s covered with dirt like the rest of us.

Harry’s still looking at me. I avoid his eyes until I can’t anymore, and he manages to whisper, “Camille.”

Then his hand gets real tight for a second, and his eyes glaze over, and I know he’s dead.

I try to sound all somber as I say it.

Miss Julie turns, sees her cigarette burning in my other hand and plucks it from between my fingers angrily. “Fuck him. Useless sack of shit.” She takes a long, hard drag and blows it in dead Harry’s face. “You hear me? You’re a useless sack of shit, and you sucked in bed. I faked every time. Every time, you pig.” She spits.

Camille is dead Harry’s wife.

He met her in Mexico on some kind of business trip. Married her the next day. Bought a house in the suburbs, had two kids. Got a Civic. The whole deal.

When I asked him, twelve years later, how he knew she was the one, he looked at me and smiled and said, “I just did.”

I wipe off Miss Julie's spit from his face. I can do that much for the bastard.

The car is closer. It’s no truck.

Miss Julie is busy on her knees, screaming in this crazy kind of panic. “Mother fucker, God damn it!”

I’m watching her and I’m thinking how she looks doing this, how small she really is, like a hamster or something looking for a treat. She still has the gun in one hand, she’s using the barrel to spread the grass.

I stand up so I can look down on her.

“Shit!” she hisses, all frantic. “Shit!”

Me, I’m standing real still.

I think about how this isn’t what I signed up for. This isn’t what I wanted. Nobody told me I would meet Miss Julie, who turns everyone’s life to crap. Nobody told me how she can get losers to do whatever she wants.

“Help me! Help me look!”

Nobody told me about Harry.

The life I gave up to get dragged into this mess.

Miss Julie. Miss Julie.

And I see the car, heading right for us, and I just start walking towards it.

Miss Julie starts screaming at me, but she’s too scared to follow.

All I have to do is keep moving straight ahead, slow and steady, and I can end this nightmare right now. I’ll flag down this cop, and I’ll tell him what happened, how everything started, and maybe I’ll do some time but Jesus, it has got to be better than this.

I can stop the ride. I have that power.

Just keep walking.

Miss Julie is shouting my name. She says she’s going to shoot.

My foot hits something, soft and hallow.

The car swings its lights across me as it takes a curve. I freeze, and for the first time I see that Harry’s blood is all over me.

In that instant I look down. The briefcase is there. Not a scratch on it. I stoop to pick it up.

The car roars by. It’s an Escort. Decal on the rear says Wisconsin State University. It zooms off into the darkness.

Who it was, I don’t know. If they saw me, I don’t know.

I turn around and there’s Miss Julie aiming a gun at my chest. She’s covered in shit and she’s heaving. Her eyes are wild, reflecting light off the moon so all you can see are two tiny glimmers in a head hidden by shadow.

“Give me the case,” she says quietly. I can tell she’s scared.

No sudden movements.

Her face lights up, her shoulders relax a little. “Come on, baby. It doesn’t have to be like this.” She steps closer. A small, careful step. “We’ve got everything we need, now. We can make it. You and me.”

The whole time she’s talking, the gun never drops.

“Just give me the case.”

She steps into me, smooth as honey. I feel strands of her hair on my cheeks. I smell strawberry perfume.

“You were always better, anyway. You were always the man.”

Her hand makes its way from my dick to my chest to my arm, then drops to my fist.

To the case, pulling it away.

The whole situation is just weird.

She steps back slowly, reeling it in. I don’t resist and I don’t let go.

She tugs.

“This is my only chance,” she whispers with tears in her eyes. “Please. I need this. I can’t go to prison. I can’t. Please.”

She tugs.

Her eyes flash and the gun jabs into my ribs. “YOU FUCKING COWARD!” she screams, and she pulls the trigger.

And it clicks.

Twice.

Miss Julie stares at the cold, useless thing she’s holding.

And I swear to God, she just starts to cry.

Drama queen that she is, she actually sinks to her knees and starts wailing into the mud. She even drops the gun, sobbing, shrieking. Like a baby.

The wind is getting strong.

In my mind, I open the case.

The lid drops away and I see a hundred thousand dollars in unmarked bills swirl into the air like doves. In my mind, I watch them flutter together in gentle, delicate arches, unified for three precious seconds before they scatter into the night.

I could do that. I could crush the hopes and dreams of Miss Julie once and for all, make it so she can never hurt anyone ever again.

I can do this. I can stop the ride.

But I won't.

Of course I won't.

Back home there's a big glass building with an empty cubicle that used to be mine. There are bills to pay. Loans to pay. Invisible money moving in and out of my pocket too fast for me to keep track.

Back home you go to bar after bar, club after club, and you meet the same shallow people with the same formulaic personalities. They tell the same stories, they see the same films, and it's funny because all of them think they're originals. These women, they're routine. These women, they're nothing.

When she's calm again, I give Miss Julie her case, and she looks up at me, her wet eyes glistening in the moonlight, mascara all over her cheeks. She stops crying and hugs the leather for what seems like an hour, and whispers the words “I’m okay” over and over and over again.

Then she picks up the gun, gets to her feet. She takes a long, deep breath, and she says , “Let's go. We have to get out of the state by morning or we're fucked.”

Cool as a cucumber, she turns on her heel and starts walking back to the diner.

After a moment, I follow her.

Men will always follow the Miss Julies of this world. We are stupid that way. We say we want happy homes and loyal wives, but we don't.

We will tolerate the madness, the abuse, to color our world with drama and excitement. To convince ourselves that we lead lives enticing enough to be worthy of existence.

Maybe chasing the rebel woman is a primal, instinctive urge. Maybe it’s the ultimate adventure. Maybe that’s why we do it. Maybe the thought of being just another tool in a long line of tools is so terrifying to us that we are willing to sell out our friends over money just to feel like we have something special.

I know that before this is over, Miss Julie will probably kill me. I'm not stupid. Once I've played my part, once she's taken all she can, she won't have any reason to keep me around.

But I'll never be bored.

And I'll die with my eyes open.

Together, we head north.