Souvlaki
Christopher Coake
In the long, cold year after Iris died, what I could and could not bear was often a matter of very minor degree. For many hours of the day I wanted to be alone in the little house I’d shared with her, to suffer with no witnesses. Then, without warning, I would need desperately to be anywhere else. I would sit for long hours in coffee shops, or in the downtown Reno library, or in a casino sportsbook—places in which I would be required to act like a living man just long enough for it to seem true.
Dinnertime was hard. I could just about manage to eat at home, most nights, so long as I did not sit at the kitchen table, and so long as I did not cook. I used to like cooking for the two of us, though my repertoire was basic: roast chickens, hamburgers, pork chops and salad. I baked bread. Iris liked my food. I had made plans to improve it. I’d bought cookbooks; I’d enrolled in a culinary course. They e-mailed me, wondering why I had not shown up.
During that year I bought frozen dinners, deli-counter sandwiches. Just as often I picked up my phone and asked other people to cook for me. This was before all the services that would bring food to your door—which was good, because in order to get my dinner after a long shift at the warehouse I had to come home and feed the dog, and then shower and put on a clean shirt, and drive to a restaurant and interact with the people who had made the food. Then I would return home and eat. Most nights I ordered a smaller portion for Jester, our Aussie Shepherd, grieving our loss in his own way, and he and I would sit on the living room
rug together and eat. Could I afford this? I had life insurance money, from a small policy Iris’s parents had taken out on her. More money in the bank than I had ever had before, even after I paid off the funeral home and the credit cards. I should have saved the rest, or refinanced the house, which I could not pay for for very long alone, but that would have required a vision of the future beyond remembering to eat.
(I would tell you I am different these days, all healed up, but it would not be accurate. As much as I would like to believe my grieving self is dead and gone, I know he is not. I sold the house. I am married again. Jester is passed on, a couple years ago, natural causes. I have a new life, a happy one, but I know better than anyone how tenuous happiness is. I know that happiness exists in direct relation to sadness; I know that a sense of safety only exists as a response to fear. I know that the life I lived then is one I could live again.
I know that the life I have, like all lives, all happiness, came about only by accident.)
Early that winter, nine months after Iris died, I discovered a Greek place about a ten-minute drive from our, from my, house. Olympus, it was called. A little hole in the wall in a strip mall on the west side of the city, but if you knew, you knew. Before trying Olympus I had never eaten that cuisine. I liked it, though, and my doctor kept telling me that if I did indeed want to be alive, I should pursue a Mediterranean diet, so I ordered there a lot. Lamb souvlaki and French fries and hummus and extra pita. I did not make conversation with anyone there, except to say thanks and to ask for plastic silverware so that I did not have to do the dishes. Once, I do not know why, or maybe I do, I told the beautiful blackhaired young woman who worked the register that the extra pita was for my dog. She smiled and said that was nice, and asked what kind of dog. A hungry one, I said, and she laughed, which revealed
I had made a joke. I liked her smile, the light in her eyes, the way her neck rose from the collar of her polo shirt. I went home and ate and then beat off in the bathroom and felt awful and cried and went to bed.
I was like that, then.
One night in December, just before Christmas, snow began to fall as I drove home from work. I had not checked the weather. To check the weather meant giving too much of a shit about a white Christmas, about the future more generally. The snow was coming down at a good clip through my headlights and the temperature was falling as the sun set. The house Iris and I had bought was higher up in the foothills. It is a lovely neighborhood, one we’d felt lucky to live in, the twisting streets lined by pine trees and visited by wild horses, and from our kitchen window you could see the lights of the city at night a few hundred feet below, but the roads there were steep and in snowy conditions you had to be very careful.
At home I let Jester into the yard and watched him pee and plow his nose through the snow and then went to feed him, and that was when I realized we were out of kibble.
I said unkind things to myself. I cried a little. Jester watched me, worriedly, sitting by his bowl on the kitchen floor. I told him I had fucked up. I told him I was sorry. I told him Iris would have remembered to buy his food. I told him my brain wasn’t quite right. He often understood me and always forgave me but in this case I was sure he would not. I could have just fed him food from the pantry, bread and beans and tuna, but I wanted to do right by him. He had been Iris’s dog before he was ours and then mine. One day, a few months after she died, I realized he’d lost fur around his eyes and lips. I took him to an emergency vet, and sobbed to her and told her I thought he was dying. She explained he probably just had an allergy. He should eat special expensive kibble. That
was why I shopped at the special expensive pet store ten minutes away and down the hill, in the same strip mall as Olympus. I told him I would make it right. I told him I would take care of him.
I put on my boots and my coat and got into my truck. The snow was falling thickly.
I was, am, a good driver. I didn’t really ask myself whether it was right to risk a wreck for Jester’s special food. I was hungry, too, in that shaking neglectful way. I felt sorry for Jester and for myself and from the driveway I called Olympus and a voice I was pretty sure belonged to the nice young woman answered and took my order and I paid with a credit card. I told her I would be down in fifteen minutes and she said see you soon. She said, Be careful. The roads were bad. Very bad. There are a lot of all-wheel drive vehicles in Reno, driven mainly by people who think that makes them invincible in the rare city snows. I knew better. I was in my pickup, in low gear, but I hadn’t loaded up my back end, and I fishtailed around curves and slid into stops and watched other drivers doing a lot worse. The snow had briefly been rain, and under the layer of snow was a sheet of ice, and the plows were, as usual, way behind. I descended the last section of our hill behind a mail truck that spent half the distance traveling at an angle, taillights flashing on and off in panic. I passed a pickup in the ditch. I crept along. Halfway to the pet store, on a quiet, mostly residential street, traffic had backed up, and farther down the road I saw pulsing emergency lights. My palms began to sweat. Vehicles ahead of me began to turn around and go back the way we’d come. I did too when it was my turn. I took another route, this one more travelled. It led me to an intersection that was busy at this time of day, right beside the big neighborhood grocery store. Three vehicles were in the ditches and on the sidewalks. I turned into the grocery parking lot and slid to a stop in a slot facing the intersection and watched as a truck like mine went through sideways, horn bleating, and nearly hit a little electric car.
I closed my eyes. I worked on my breathing like the therapist taught me. Don’t think don’t think. Don’t think about it. Iris’s little blue Honda. The big truck. What it must have been like, whether she realized it was going to happen, how long it took, whether she thought of me or of the dog, her dog, waiting at the house.
I had to go home. I could get less-special kibble at the grocery. Jester would be fine and if he itched I’d take care of him and he would still somehow love me.
I called Olympus. I said, I’m sorry but I underestimated the quality of the roads. I hate to do this to you, but can I cancel my order?
The nice woman said, Ummmmm. Actually, it’s ready. We can’t cancel it. I’m sorry.
I said, It’s okay. Look, let’s just call it a donation to the restaurant. It’s just not safe for me to get there. I told her I was at the Albertson’s down the road watching accidents happening.
She said, Hang on.
A minute later she came back on. Hey, she said, my shift is up and I’m about to leave. I can just drop it off if you tell me your address.
No! I said. No. That’s nice but you can’t do that. I live up the hill and it’s too dangerous. Just take the food home with you and eat it. And be careful.
She said, Wait, you’re at Albertson’s? That’s only ten minutes from here. I can hand it over to you.
I said, Look, you’re super nice, but please don’t go to any trouble.
She said, It’s not trouble. It’s not far and the food’s already made.
I said, Okay, okay, that’s so nice. I’m going to get you something for your trouble though. And if you don’t feel safe at all, get off the roads and don’t worry.
CHRISTOPHER COAKE 83
She laughed and said, That’s sweet but you don’t have to. She said, I’ll text you at this number when I’m there.
I told her once again to be careful. I had my hand on my forehead.
I skidded in my boots across the lot and into the store, which was already mostly empty. A manager was looking sourly out the front windows, hands on hips. I bought a bag of kibble and a cylinder of tennis balls. I couldn’t get over how nice the woman had been. I tried to remember her name. What did she drive? I hoped not a little car. God. I went down the wine aisle and bought a bottle of cab. I don’t much like wine, but Iris liked cabernet sauvignon and I knew some of the bottles she used to buy and it felt dirty, picking one of those, so I went with an expensive one and hoped the woman was of legal drinking age. Then I stood outside by a picnic table that was already coated by a couple inches of snow. The wind wasn’t blowing and the snow fell thickly in a hush. A fire truck rolled out of the station across the street and its lights came on and then its siren and it trundled off slowly to the west, in the direction of the restaurant.
I saw it clearly: the woman had driven out of her lane and into oncoming traffic and she was dead and covered by my food and blood and burning gasoline.
I put my hands in my pockets. I counted to ten. I looked at snow gather on the red wax at the top of the wine bottle. I told Jester in my mind that I would be home soon. I thought about him going from window to window, waiting for me, barking at strange sounds. He did that for a while after Iris’s accident. What would he do if I didn’t make it home? My parents lived in Idaho. When would they find out? When would my coworkers? My friends Dougie and Patrice? I should text them and let them know where the spare key was.
If I drove home, would I slide off a steep slope in my neighborhood and roll into one of the gullies filled with
rabbitbrush and sage and hang upside down and strangle? Would I think about Iris or Jester or the woman driving to me or something else? What would I consider as I died?
My phone buzzed with a text: hi it’s Becka I’m in a black pickup I looked for her and didn’t see her. I texted her so.
My phone rang.
Wait, she asked, which Albertson’s?
I told her which one.
She said, Oh my god, I’m an idiot. I went to the one at Caughlin. I just assumed it was this way because it’s uphill.
She had gone ten minutes out of her way the other direction, up a steep foothill, where the snow would be thicker. I couldn’t remember if I’d specified which grocery, but I was sure I hadn’t, that I’d doomed her.
You’ve done way too much, I told her. Throw the food away and go home.
She laughed. Okay, she said, but you know what’s funny? That store is literally on my way home. If you can wait ten more minutes I’ll bring it to you!
I am so worried for you, I said.
Like a true Reno girl, she said, Nah, I got a big truck.
I have a truck too, and—
I am bringing you this food, she said, and laughed again. Hang tight.
Okay, I said.
For the next ten minutes I thought about her laugh. Becka was dumb or brave, probably brave, but bravery could be plenty dumb sometimes. It just meant she did not know the worst that could happen. I looked at my phone, checked the score of the football game I’d been planning to watch at home, controlled my breathing.
Ten minutes passed. Eleven. I saw it clearly: She would never show and the next day I would learn she died descending the big
CHRISTOPHER COAKE 85
McCarran hill; she couldn’t stop at the intersection at the base and went through it screaming and a semi truck was there, a grocery delivery truck, and she went under it and burned and died.
My phone buzzed. I’m here!
A big black truck was entering the parking lot. Bigger and nicer than mine, with an extended cab, heavy and clean. A lot of truck for that young woman, which was a thought I had that probably made me sexist. Her parents or her husband has money, I thought, which probably made me an asshole. I hoped it was parents and not a husband, and I don’t know what that made me.
I waved and she pulled up in front of the store and got out of the truck with the bag of food. She was wearing a blue knit cap and gloves and her cheeks were red and she was grinning like she’d been on a roller coaster. Loud music played inside the truck. Country.
Wow, she said, the roads really are something. I got you this, I said, and handed her the wine. That’s so sweet, she said, you absolutely didn’t have to. I was going this way.
Outside of the truck, free of the counter at Olympus, she was shorter than I’d remembered. She had fine lines at the corners of her eyes and I wondered if maybe she was older than I thought, which was nice, because I had felt pretty skeevy about her being maybe under drinking age and me being thirty.
Iris was five years younger than me when I met her, I was twenty-five and she was twenty and my friends called me a cradle robber when I told them my new girlfriend couldn’t come out to the bars with us.
Becka’s gloves meant I couldn’t see if she had a ring. Will, right? she asked.
I said, Yeah. And you’re Becka.
I am, she said, and looked at the wine. Oh, this is fun.
I said, Wait until you get home, and she laughed and the corners of her eyes crinkled.
She asked, You gonna be okay to get up the hill?
I said, I’ll take it slow.
She seemed maybe minutely, infinitesimally sad. All right, she said.
I said, I can’t thank you enough.
Well, she said, Come back and order again. She climbed behind the wheel and held the bottle of wine up and shook it at me and then said, Thanks again, Will.
I said, Thank you.
I said, Please be careful, but she had shut the door.
She grinned again and flashed her lights at me as she left and I watched her drive slowly and steadily away.
The drive home wasn’t as bad. Enough snow had fallen on the ice that I had more traction, and enough time had passed that a lot of folks had gotten their asses off the road. Even so the fiveminute drive took fifteen minutes.
Had she been hinting to me? I thought about that. How when I was younger I would have known. You okay to get up the hill? she’d asked. I could have said, I’m not sure. Maybe if I’d said no she would have given me a ride in her big truck. (If I’d said, My wife was killed in an accident a year ago, and I’m afraid, how would Becka have answered?) At my house I could have asked, Do you want to come in and have some of this souvlaki? And she could have said yes and come into the house where I’d lived with my wife and of course that would not have happened; along the way we could have crashed and died together, she would have died because she met me and tried to help me, both of us in a ditch considering our mistakes.
Or maybe we could have gone to her house or apartment or wherever. Me standing in the middle of her space, this young
woman who had a big truck and whose rooms would have particular sweet smells, like Iris’s apartment did, the basement apartment in Corvallis where I first spent the night, her two rooms that smelled like candles and cooked garlic and her soap and her perfume, and where her cat had bumped my chin with its forehead and Iris had said, She likes you, and smiled. Maybe Becka would have a cat. Or a big dog. Some lab that Jester would like. Let’s have some of that food before it gets cold, she might say, and we’d eat and she would pour some of the wine and of course that wouldn’t happen, we’d crash on the way, we’d get broadsided by a truck at an intersection, we’d die together, strangers.
I am a widower, I might say to her, before or after we arrived. I was married.
I saw her face change, the things she imagined about me changing behind her eyes.
I pulled into my driveway. The house was dark; I had not turned on the lights. When I got out with the kibble and the food I slipped on the walk; I fell on my tailbone and only barely managed to keep my head from bouncing off the concrete, like Becka’s might have, if she came here, if we made it this far, if she fell; she would of course have fallen; I would not be able to stop her from falling.
Jester barked inside and I said, I’m coming. I made tracks in the fresh snow to the door. Maybe three inches already.
I might just have to stay, Becka would say to me later, the wine’s gone to my head; but I would have left the gas stove on by mistake.
Jester cried happily while I opened his kibble bag and poured some into his bowl. I gave him extra. I opened my bag of souvlaki and laid out the ingredients on a tray and carried it into the living room. I sat on the rug in front of the TV and turned on the game and ate and I watched it and fed Jester the extra pita, thinking about
how I had Becka’s number in my phone, that I could text her and see if she had made it home all right. I didn’t. Outside snow fell off the branches in the yard and the gully beyond with little thumps, and every time Jester was startled, as he always had been, and then I heard a couple of distant booms, transformers going, and I got out candles and a camp lantern and fed Jester strips of lamb.
Becka and I would have already gone to bed, laughing, knowing if the power went out we’d be warm, and we got married and had two children, and of course that didn’t happen; she grew angry at me for crying and she left a little drunk and on the way down the hill she crashed and she died, she died, she died.
The power went out. I reached out my hand and found my dog and pulled him beside me on the living room floor.
That was what it was like, back then. I lived a thousand lives. I lost them all.