Everyone thinks Jericho is in a mid-life crisis. They think he’s bipolar, unhinged. He doesn’t like to call it that.
Jericho prefers to see it as any other stage. High school, career, marriage, home-ownership—to him it’s nearly the same. Crises fade away and come crashing back like the tides. Eventually he will have his old age crisis and his death crisis, and those will be the same too. He can’t wait.
Jericho is lying on his couch. Fragments of a dream leak into his mind. He is walking up a steep hill, watching the halo of light growing at the summit. He squeezes the bridge of his nose. Something cool and wet is on his hands. Mud. He shuts his eyes tightly, trying to remember where it came from. Muddy boots dangle over a white couch arm. A small spade, an empty bucket, and a steaming mug rest on the endtable.
He hears a newspaper ruffle in the kitchen. In his dream he is close to the top of the hill. The light is starting to hurt his eyes, but he goes on anyway. Today is, uh, Tuesday? Wednesday?
“Thursday. Today’s Thursday. People go to work on Thursdays.” His wife says from the kitchen. She’s on vacation this week, the first one she's taken in years. Jericho hears a sigh. “Do you want coffee?”
“Yeah, coffee. I was just, uh, getting ready. In fact, I was so ready that I thought I’d nap on the couch before work.”
“It’s ten o’clock.”
“So I’m a little late.”
“Coffee’s on the table.”
Jericho opens his eyes and she’s standing in the doorway. In his dream he reaches the top of the hill and the sun blinds him. Mara's eyebrows slowly inch upwards. They run out of forehead and her face collapses. A hand attempts to hold it all together. Her hair shines against the heavy sunlight pouring in through the kitchen windows. Everyone says she should be more assertive. But to Jericho, her problems always seemed to work themselves out so easily.
Now Jericho remembers what today is. Today is the second day after his 15th anniversary at his job. Today is the third day since his old friend Rob came to visit, since his wife took her vacation. It is the day on which, 16 years ago, they were married.
"Where were you last night?"
Last night was a blank. "Meetings, you know. Had to stay late."
"Jerry, you didn't go to work yesterday. I think you got fired."
Jericho thought he would remember something like this, but his memory is stumbling over its own feet. At the crest of the hill, he holds his hands out and walks in circles.
“Jerry, are you okay?”
He looks around him. His eyes run slowly over the photos and portraits on the walls. There was something he was supposed to see from the top of that hill. “I don’t know. Yes.”
“Jerry, are you sure?” Her voice cracks.
Jericho looks down at himself. He’s covered in mud, from bare legs to wrinkled shirt collar. He looks at the couch.
“Honey, I can explain—“
“No, you can’t.” Mara turns back into the kitchen. Her slippered feet scuff across the tiled floor.
It’s true. Jericho can’t explain. He wishes he could show her somehow—like acting it out, or drawing pictures. That’s her territory though. He never learned how to draw pain and confusion, and he feels silly describing it. He wishes he could show her, any way other than standing like a mud-covered madman in the living room.
He gets up slowly and stares down the portrait on the far wall. Jericho’s arm is hooked over Mara’s shoulders and she looks out calmly. Over the mantle there is a framed photo of a beach, next to it a pencil rendition—two blurry figures standing together in the distance. Memories of cold wind and halogen lights edge around his consciousness.
Jericho tries to see the beach. Out loud, he repeats the names, conjuring friends who were there, and those that should have been. He remembers Fran, Chris, and Erik around their driftwood fire, telling stories. He remembers Rob building sand-castles, pointing to the tailor’s house, the shoemaker’s, the banker’s, the knight’s. His bare feet are damp and cold, but his hand is warm holding Mara’s as they run up and down the surf, challenging the waves and only at the last moment retreating from the advancing tide. The wave breaks and reaches its fat white fingers towards them. He looks up smiling, and the water is receding and she is gone.
He hurls the bucket at the wall. After a few seconds, the spade follows. The portrait thuds to the floor. He hears glass shattering in the kitchen.
Mara purses her lips. Her hands shake only a little as she mops up spilled wine and sweeps glass from the floor. She wishes he would say something, anything. Sometimes she can feel the past gathering around her, clattering like a freight train by their window at night, tapping her on the shoulder early in the morning, ambushing her on her lunch break. In times like these, she goes up in the attic. She sits by the small window with the delicate frame, amidst piles of their old records, the good china, and the dust. She looks outside and she paints. But she knows now, this feeling can't be covered with layers of acrylic anymore. Remembering the wet sand between her toes, she can’t help feeling guilty. Mara always assumed having each other would be enough.
She hears the door slam and goes into the living room to clean up.
In the driveway there is a tiny sports car and Jericho crams himself into it. He can barely drive the manual transmission and now he can’t afford it either.
He sets his hands on his knees, which peak conveniently at the middle of the steering wheel. The sun shines on their suburban paradise and heat waves blur his view. His face sags and the skin under his eyes looks like rubber. A bead of sweat jumps from his nose.
“I’m sorry,” he says to the leather interior. He wonders how you can just say… anything. Rob is an architect. He designs buildings in New York City. He looks good in a bandanna. Jericho throws his fist against the steering wheel, and it honks halfheartedly. For an instant, things are quiet. Rob has three Shetland terriers, he lives next to a recording studio. Jericho decides he’ll get a better sound if he uses his forehead.
He waits for his wife to emerge. Jericho is ready for her to scream, to call him a failure, a charlatan, a zombie. She would use much shorter words. He wouldn't move if she took a swing. Half an hour later, he turns on the car and puts it in reverse and pulls out of the driveway. He thinks he sees a curtain move upstairs, but he can’t be sure.
* * *
Jericho drives aimlessly and he feels young. Back then he would drive with his friends out to the beach, and they would throw sand and their voices into the wind, and everything would blow away. They would build sand-castles and sometimes sand-people. They would talk about how good life is. Jericho’s sand-people always looked eerily like him. He would put his cap on their heads. Give them a stick for a pen, a rolled-up diploma. As long as they looked happy. As long as they looked like they were helping people or doing something useful. It was all a joke then.
He met Mara for the first time in May. She was sitting alone in the wet sand, staring into the horizon. She never seemed to notice the waves as they eddied and gurgled around her. After that he would slip away and walk along the beach alone, searching for her.
He speeds past parks with children playing, dogs walking, a cluster of office buildings. His building. The window washers are out, writing secret messages in broad strokes.
He parks the car and goes into his building.
Groups of business suits are scattered through the lobby. He recognizes Sally, the receptionist. He says hello, she tries to smile. They had meetings down here sometimes—he would sit unmoving at the table, staring in her direction. He remembers the restaurant, the candle burning between them as he looked deep into her eyes.
“I never thought it would get like this. I used to know if I was doing the right thing.” He had said.
“Nothing was certain. Compromises leveraged, guilt exploited, fingers pointed.”
“The beach was always too perfect to be true. We invested our plans in sand castles.”
“He promised me everything. It felt like a betrayal not to believe. How do you not go for it?”
After that he had taken her home, kissed her on the cheek. He said he would call her but they both knew he wouldn’t.
Signs of the party still remain. A big banner—Happy 15 Years! Jericho remembers now. He is sitting unmoving, while Rich is saying nice things about the employees. Rich gives them each a silver watch, one by one. They are all much older than Jericho. He picks at his fingers, waiting for his turn. When Rich finishes giving out watches he asks for a round of applause. After it is over, Jericho raises his hand. Rich is surprised he is there. Rich asks him why he never mentioned it. Then he asks for another round, for Jericho. There is some scattered clapping. Rich is sorry, he is out of watches.
Jericho goes to the elevator. He swipes his badge and the light turns red. He swipes it again, and again. Finally the elevator opens. The steel doors split his face in two and his eyes meet the red tie of his boss.
“Oh Rich, thank God. I—I need—I need to talk to—“
“What are you doing here, Jerry?” the tie asks. “You think you can scream at me like that and still... Not come in for days... Jesus, you almost broke Tim’s wrist...”
“I—I don’t know. I just—”
“I’m going to need your badge. And your watch.” The tie waggles and holds out a hand.
“You never gave me a watch.” The badge in Jericho’s hand slips through his fingers to the floor. The watch was stupid. He never wanted it anyway.
“I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave,” the tie says.
Jericho turns and heads for the desk. “Thank you,” he says to the receptionist. She looks at him and her smile is real this time. He follows his muddy footsteps to the door, shouldering through groups of ties, sport coats, and pantsuits.
On his way he thinks of the beach—the single-stoplight town, tin-shingled roofs looking out over the water. He barely knew himself. They were lying in the warm August sand when he asked her to marry him. That word, the wind could never blow away. Jericho thinks of afterward, of how they would walk through the thick pine trees and feed stray cats.
In the shadow of the glass tower, Jericho lays on the grass. He stares into the sky and his hand picks landscaped office flowers.
The man behind the counter doesn’t think it’s strange for a guy to be buying rum this early. He knows about the itch. Though he is curious about the muddy gym clothes and the wild hair. Jericho’s debit card doesn’t go through. He tries it several times, then the credit, which fails too. The whole time Jericho grips the neck of the bottle, half expecting it to grow legs and run. Now the counter guy takes the lower part firmly. Jericho doesn’t let go. He considers trying to explain his situation, trying to hammer the words together.
“Do you really need this?” The man behind the counter asks.
“No, I guess not.”
“Well, then let go.”
Jericho wrenches the bottle from the man’s hand and runs out the door. Half-way to the car his legs give out and the bottle breaks open on the ground. The man behind the counter notices the people walking by, talking behind their hands and pointing. He watches as Jericho gets up and struggles to start the car. He wants to laugh and maybe cry a little, but he has a job to do so he hits the alarm. The sleek vehicle stalls in the parking lot.
A few blocks down the street Jericho hears sirens behind him. They must be looking for someone else. He feels like being home sooner and struggles to shift into fifth. The car floats back and forth over the yellow lines.
The ball of pain is back, and in the crowded cell Jericho holds it between his knees. The man next to him is looking forward and talking to no one.
“…’s like it was there all from the start. Dangling ‘em all right’n front o me.”
Jericho wishes he’d shut up.
“What a guy ‘sposed to do? Signals never clear. Never so simple as that.”
Jericho remembers Rob sitting at their table, eating chicken. His wife making conversation. Rob talking too much about New York. Jericho could barely say a word, Jericho had nothing to talk about.
The voice joins the general buzzing. The drone of explanations in the back of his head. The justifications like a pile of throw-away milk cartons, names of lost children printed on the side. He has to call his wife, but his head is too loud right now. He puts it back between his knees.
On the phone his wife’s voice is strange.
“What is it?”
“I ran into some trouble.”
“So you did get fired. I can’t—“
“No, it’s not that. Well. But it’s not that. I need to, I need to tell you something.”
His pause was too long and she began to cry.
“I knew it, I knew that—
“No, but—“
“Is it me? Oh god, it’s my fault. I...”
Jericho let her go on for a moment, wondering how anyone talks to anyone else.
“I hit a tree.”
“Oh. Oh my god, are you—“
“I’m at the police station.”
“Oh.”
* * *
“This isn’t what I meant.”
“It’s what you said.”
“I just meant, I—with your life, you should do… something.”
She knows exactly how bad this sounds. There is a silence. Mara was never good at resolving their conflicts. It was usually enough just to listen. Her words get all tangled, so instead she shuts herself away and paints.
“Thanks for the advice.” There is no sarcasm in his voice. She would come out after three days locked away, and show him the result. Somehow he always knew what it meant.
Mara pulls the car into the driveway and turns the key.
“Re—“
“I—“ They both speak at the same time.
She meets Jericho’s blue eyes for a second. He looks down at his hands, lying open in his lap.
“What happened?” he asks.
Sometimes they had yelled at each other. Screamed. He had almost hit her once. But their arguments always receded with the tides and the darkness. The wind blew their words away. But this silence was too heavy.
“Things got in the way. The kids at the rec center, they needed me, they needed someone to talk to, they needed me. I—but we still had to eat—you never got to…”
Jericho lets her go on. His head is pounding and he wonders how anyone talks to anyone else with all this noise.
“—just back from the corps—“ Her voice comes in snatches.
“—your friends—“ He can barely recognize the life she sketches.
“—so far away—“
But he recognizes the beach. The drive was too long. During the week they would talk for hours on the phone, but in the car he would still plan out what he had to say. Wasn’t Carson funny today? I like your eyes. Will you marry me?
He thinks of his crumpled car and the handful of office flowers spread cross the front seat. About the dream, whatever he was supposed to see from the top of the hill. He wishes he could go back to coasting along. She’s still talking but he gets out of the car and goes into the house.
* * *
The house is like it was. No muddy couch, no fallen pictures. Only there’s a new portrait in place of the one Jericho knocked down. Two blurry forms stand apart. He runs a finger over the surface. It comes away wet and blue-black. He can feel her eyes on his back. As he takes the stairs up to his study, no footsteps follow him.
Jericho feels the urge to write. Talking softly, he scribbles on a piece of paper. After a few minutes, he realizes he's covered every inch of it. He erases it carefully, then writes again. When he looks at it, the paper is so clogged with fragments of words and cramped handwriting that he can't decipher it. There is a marker on the desk and he takes it and draws a snaking S on the wall. He reaches up again, all the way this time, and brings his hand snaking down.
He gathers some paint cans from the basement. Sounds of movement come from the kitchen. His wife won’t be happy about this.
At the side of the house, facing the street, he uses a brush to apply paint to the wall. A few feet away is a field of mud. Standing in the middle is a crude brown figure draped in Jericho’s sport coat. A red tie circles the neck and his slacks are pinned into the muddy waist with nails. He stands beside the figure, looking from eyeholes to the wall and back again. The muddy mouth is frozen. He carefully smoothes an imperfection in the cheek.
Jericho takes the can and, pumping his arms, lands a crooked line of paint on the wall. Another attempt and a slashing line intersects the first. His paint can is empty. But he has a lot of paint and a lot to say.
When he is finished, he looks at his work. Some of the letters in the middle are mixed together and runny, others sagging in places and too sharp. But he deciphers it. It says: “SATISFIED?” He looks at the figure in the field of mud and shakes his head.
He is about to leave when Mara comes out. He had almost forgotten. She looks at the house, then at the mud man dressed in Jericho's clothes.
“Repainting the house? And what is this?” She is pointing. She is trying to sound calm. She is not sure what keeps her from screaming. Jericho looks down at his feet.
She stares at him for a second. Then she takes a paint can.
“What the fuck is this?” She screams, and then she swings the can into the mud man. It sticks in the torso, an arm slides out from under Jericho’s coat. She cocks her arm again.
“No!” Jericho screams. He runs over and, shoving her out of the way, frantically mends the arm. "Don't hurt him."
She is crying now. “So, what? This, this statue is taking my place?” Across the street, a family is walking with their dog. Parents whisper to each other and hurry their children along.
Jericho says the worst thing he can think of. “Well I don’t fuck it, do I?”
“You don’t do that to me either. I’m not even on your fucked up radar.”
Jericho realizes he can only make things worse now. His head is floating away like a balloon.
“Jericho. What am I supposed to think?” He doesn’t deserve her. He never did. Everything is far away.
"Jericho. You have to get him out of here. This has to end. Jerry, I can't—we can't..." She tries to calm her voice, to slow down the thoughts in her head, to ignore the consequences. "Jericho, it's him or me. Please Jerry."
In silence Jericho dumps the last can of paint over the mud man and gets in his wife’s car. She stands in the field of mud and watches as the engine starts, as the car struggles over the lawn toward her. She doesn’t move.
Mara watches the car bearing down on her, flinging mud from the wheels. Going twenty-five, Jericho plows into the coated figure, spraying paint and mud. He bounces the sedan over the curb and on to the street and drives away.
Mara lets her breath out. Mud and paint drip from her hair and her fingertips.
* * *
Jericho looks into his old office. The wind whistles through his hair. The window washer cart shakes in ways he doesn’t like.
Jericho works the cart clumsily, moving it into position. He knows now, this is one of those things that seems easy, but is actually terrifying. The wind shakes the cart and he thinks of waves crashing against the beach. That time was never coming back. The sun peeks through a hole in the clouds. He sees his boss at his desk, back to the window. Jericho can’t resist tapping a few times on the glass, smiling and waving at the red tie and open mouth. The sun reflects off the window and hits his eyes like a fist. His own jerking almost unbalances the cart. His dream rushes back to him: he is blind at the top of the hill, so blind that he can no longer feel himself. He still feels like a self, just someone else, someone he had never met.
There is something he needs to see from up here, he is sure. Something that will make the climb worth it. It's not that far down, he thinks, though he is too afraid to look. From below, he hears the sounds of sirens and indistinct voices. He hears one voice clearly. It is crackling, gigantic.
“Come down from there, son.”
God?
“You have so much to live for.”
No, that wasn’t God.
“Don’t do it.”
They must be talking to someone else. Jericho looks around. Seeing no one else, he shouts “Why not?” The wind carries his words away.
On the crowded street, the aging sheriff puts aside the megaphone. He looks at Mara and shakes his head. “Can’t make out a damn thing, he have a phone?”
Jericho scratches his head and rethinks his question, shouting “Maybe you’re looking for someone else?” No answer. He shrugs and dips the roller—the largest he could get. His pocket vibrates. His wife. “Not now, honey,” he says into the speaker and closes the phone. It rings again. At least she is persistent.
He shrugs again and flips the phone into the air.
Down below, cell phone innards lay scattered across the ground. The sheriff looks at Mara and shakes his head again. Her face is held tight, but she’s been through worse. She wishes for the beach and for a glass of wine and a taste of salty wind. She knows there are a thousand ways things could have gone, and she wishes for a moment that she had never asked him to stay, but she isn’t wishing very hard. She takes the megaphone and runs forward.
Jericho starts writing. He lets his mouth run a bit—he always liked talking to himself. He talks about the peace corps, the teaching job, the books he never wrote, the kids, Lilly and Matthew, that he never had, the sand at the beach sparkling and the waves whispering softly. He talks about the acceptance letter he still keeps in a box somewhere, about his trouble pissing, about the calls from his friends never returned, about Rob, who was too satisfied with his life. Thoughts about his wife careen around his head like shrieking, pecking seagulls he can never catch.
The curving river line follows his voice, sometimes it breaks and drips, but he’s not too concerned. He thinks they’ll get the idea.
“Jerry, please don’t do it.”
The woman won’t stop. He leans over the side of the cart and tries to tell her. He needs her now. But how could he say it? There was too much. A gust of wind blows the cart and he almost topples over it.
“Jerry, please don’t jump.”
Jump? Jumping? Don’t worry, he wants to say.
He looks down again. Jump? What an interesting word. He looks back to the glass. A less-than-graceful S winds above him like a path he could follow through the woods. He looks back down. Oh the ruthless possibilities of that S. He could jump and the wind would take him. It would take him to where they kept all those words they used to say. It wouldn't matter what he was supposed to see. He was at the top, and he had to go down. He would write his message on the asphault, like the mud man splattered across the lawn.
“Jerry, I love you,” comes the huge voice.
Shut up God, he thinks.
Safety. Sadness. Satisfy. Suicide. Words were never enough.
“Jerry, I’m sorry. I don’t care. I don’t care about the job, the car, the mud. You can do whatever you want.”
“No I can’t,” he screams, leaning over the rail. He can finally make out her tiny body below.
“You can be whoever you want. You can be a goddamn mud artist if it makes you happy. You can write all over the house. I just want to look into your eyes and know what’s there.”
He looks at her, way down below. He works his mouth. If there was ever a time, this was it. He thinks of the blue-black paint on his fingers. Blurry figures standing apart.
“Jerry—remember when we used to walk? Just walk for hours, along the beach. How surprised we were when the sun rose?”
Mara remembers when the weather had caught them out on the beach. It was a warm spring night, but the wind and the rain had driven them into a shack some kids had built with driftwood and sheets of corrugated metal. Jericho remembers trying to make a fire, but the wood was wet and crumbling. They shivered and held on to each other and when they woke they could almost see the sun through the morning fog.
His mouth is moving but no sound comes out. The roller leans up against a rail and he grabs for it. He misses, and it tips over the edge. Jericho thinks about going after it. Instead, he sits down and puts his head in his hands. Mud drips from his face, the soft feeling of wet sand sliding between his fingers.
“Jerry, remember that I love you.”
They had talked of sacrifices. It wasn’t going to be easy. But was it worth his sanity? He holds the sides of the cart and shakes it. His whole body is shaking, crashing back and forth.
“Do you love me?” That voice, like it was coming from inside his head, crackling and gigantic.
He looks down and he can see her there, covered in brown and white and holding up a painting of two blurry figures standing together by the beach. It makes sense to him.
“Yes.” He whispers. He shouts it.
He looks down and shouts it again. Yes. He can’t see her eyes, but it doesn’t matter. She hears his words softly on the wind. He dips his hand in the paint bucket. White paint splatters on the asphalt below. Before the S he writes the two letters, just to be clear.
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