The Wind Telephone

Whine...Clutch...Shift...

Whine… Clutch… Peter’s foot jammed the bare metal pedal to the floor with a thunk. Shift… Steel clunked against iron as his hand slammed the stick up through the gears. His foot switched to stamp on the gas.

Whine… The shrill, agonized scream petitioned release. Clutch... Ignoring the chatter of the lifters, the shiver of the vintage engine as it strained to throw off its tethers, Peter mashed the accelerator. Faster. The wind tore at his hair, scoured his face and pummeled his ears as he hurled the topless convertible along the curved country road.

Without a destination, Peter wasn’t running to anything in particular but from something quite enormous and specific, something that was proving impossible to outrun. Anger and grief clung to him like his shadow.

To the west, a pallid sunset spilled a watery sheen across late winter fields. To the east, creeping dusk probed the stubble with pale violet fingers. Oblivious to cold, to color or light, Peter drove blindly, mechanically, as he’d performed everything for the past interminable week and a half. Like that damn robot vacuum she’d wanted so badly, she’d left him behind in a dark, empty house to expend grief-ravaged energy bouncing mindlessly off silent walls.

The beige and black verge of the faded macadam corridor fluttered past the like the unpicked fibers of a torn, ratty blanket. Peter lifted his weight off the gas pedal. Whine… The sudden hitch in forward motion sent up a tuneless chiming on the passenger floor. Clutch… He mauled the shifter down through the gears and then reached for the last bottle in the six pack on the empty seat. Wedging a knee beneath the steering wheel, he let go, used both hands to hold and crack open the bottle. Peter tilted the beer to his lips and decanted the bitter, foaming contents down his throat. It was still cold. Even after two hours of driving, the icy wind that washed through the convertible had managed to preserve the chill. Not that it mattered.

The baby blue Mustang convertible belonged to Elyse. Or rather, it was Peter’s car now. Peter wiped his mouth on a sleeve, dashed angrily at the tears that pricked and welled again. Jesus; after ten days of sobbing, he could hardly see, couldn’t understand how he could still have enough tears left to cry. Glass clattered, shattered this time, as he tossed the last empty to the pile on the floor.

A preternaturally warm afternoon had melted the dark, gritty snow into slush puddles that sparkled in the sun like grey diamonds. “It’s so lovely, Peter. Take a break and come outside with me,” Elyse begged. “I have something to tell you.”

Peter had a stack, still, of briefs to review. He’d cocked his left wrist for a glimpse of his watch. “Can’t it wait, El? he’d inquired, endeavoring but not quite managing to squelch the asperity in his tone. “It’s only three o’clock; I’ve got about an hour’s more work, and then I’m all yours for the weekend.”

“Just for a minute?” she’d pleaded. “Remember I’m going out with Bev and Cathy?”

“Ah. Right.” Peter quirked his lips in a lopsided grin. “Wake me up when you get home, baby.”

“Pffft,” Elyse exhaled her impatience. “It’s really nice; think I’ll take Blue for the ride.”

Peter skewed a glance out the window. “Come on, El. It’s been in storage all winter. And you know those roads will get slick when the sun’s gone. Take the Volvo.” He dug in a pocket and handed her the keys to the wagon. “Have fun. I’m all yours tomorrow.”

Peter’s throat constricted. Around it, he realized dimly, he was still wearing his tie. He inserted a finger beneath the Windsor knot, yanked and dragged the rose-spattered noose over his head. The Mustang veered right, and he hauled it back onto a road so remote it apparently didn’t merit a yellow line.

The hand-painted silk tie was a Christmas gift from Elyse. She adored roses so, of course, he had to wear them. Elyse had chosen the black worsted suit for him, too. Even though he generally wore a sport coat and jeans for work, when his grandfather died, she’d insisted it was more respectable. His funeral suit, he called it. He hadn’t even stopped home to change; just couldn’t go there.

A knock at the front door hauled Peter from dreamless slumber. Sleep-drunk, he sat up; scrubbed his face with his hands. He groped the nightstand for his phone, checked the time. Two o’clock. Running his hand between bedsheets to his left, he realized he was alone. The knock came again. More insistent this time, it sounded harshly; repeatedly importuning him. “Two a.m., El? Really? AND you forgot your key?” Peter muttered. He drew on his pajama pants before letting her in; it was fucking cold out there.

Peter stalked through the darkened house to the tuneless percussion of knuckles on wood. “I’m coming, El. Not my fault you forgot your key.” Out of habit, as the lock snicked in his fingers, he put an eye to the peephole. And saw the sharp, canted brim of a dark grey campaign hat.

“Peter Ballard?” A clipped voice addressed him through the wood. Heart pounding now, Peter yanked at the door. Damp, chilly air enveloped him but had little to do with the shiver he couldn’t control. “Mr. Ballard?” the state cop asked again. Peter opened his mouth, but his voice failed him so he nodded. “Elyse Ballard’s your wife, sir?” Peter nodded again. “I’m sorry; there’s been an accident, sir. Your wife’s been taken to Danbury Hospital.”

“What happened? Is she…I don’t…She took the car…. I don’t have…”

The cop steered Peter into the foyer, stepped in and closed the door. “Get dressed, sir. I can drive you over. Is there someone you can call? Someone to drive you home?”

Peter rode the back seat in stunned silence. Face underlit by the red and blue glow of the dashboard, the cop pinned him briefly in the rearview mirror. “Can you tell me where she’d been?”

“Dinner with friends,” Peter mumbled.

“Mrs. Ballard’s car went off the road in Ridgefield. We’re still investigating; not sure yet was she drinking or maybe it was just the ice…” Peter turned empty eyes to the frigid, aluminum gleam of the highway lampposts zipping past.

Twilight draped its muzzy, grey blanket across the road. Six feet into the fields to the right of the road, telephone poles, arms akimbo, leaned at intervals like drunken scarecrows. Petrified and cracked by the sun, they staggered beneath the weight of endless miles of swagged wires, but not one shone a lamp against nightfall. Peter reached with two fingers for the knob to the left of the dash, flicked it out, and the Mustang’s yellowed beams tunneled into the gloom.

Faster. Whine… The engine keened bitterly as he goaded the gas pedal. Clutch… He was on a straightaway now; the headlights bored twinned holes through darkness as tight-woven and black as the suit he’d worn since this morning, black as the echoing emptiness inside his chest. Shift… Faster; dammit. Peter felt the hot breath of the thing that chased him; had to keep moving; couldn’t let it catch up. The headlights flickered once, twice. Tendrils of fog floated like specters from the cold ground, splitting the light into indistinct ribbons of fractal color. The engine coughed without force as if strangled, and the headlights extinguished. With the car’s last forward motion and two white-knuckled fists, Peter dragged the intractable wheels of the dying machine off the road.

“Really, God?” Peter snarled, addressing the moonless sky for the first time since that dark, awful morning. Hands shaking, he pulled out his cell to call for roadside assistance. The four stair-step bars to the left of the screen shrunk to pavement, and the WIFI arc drooped. Peter pressed his forehead to the steering wheel and shuddered. Didn’t matter; he couldn’t tell them where the fuck he was anyway.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Ballard…” Peter flinched when the young ER doctor laid her hand on his shoulder. “We’ve confirmed she wasn’t drinking, but the car hit a tree. I’m sorry; there was nothing we could do...” The young woman in blue scrubs paused. “for either of them.” Peter’s eyes widened, and his face drained. The doctor hesitated, uncertain. “You knew, didn’t you, Mr. Ballard?”

Bev’s husband, Peter’s friend, Hank picked him up. Bev and Cathy tamped down their own tears to walk him like a zombie through arrangements and rituals. Well, he knew now; didn’t he? But they didn’t because, of course, she’d wanted to tell him first. So, he didn’t tell them. Friends, colleagues, came and went, offering condolences and platitudes in a language his brain declined to interpret. A drowning man, Peter watched everything as if from the bottom of the ocean. He surfaced only once, spluttering, to remind them there had to be roses.

Peter chucked his traitorous phone to the detritus piled on the passenger floor. Inside his eyes endlessly ran the short, looping filmstrip of his life from that day he’d been smugly certain he’d be granted another to the moment he’d tossed the last rose on the coffin.

Behind him loomed everything he was set on outrunning. Frantic now, he didn’t even bother to pull on the door handle. Instead, he levered himself to his feet on the seat, swung his legs over the door and started walking. The wind announced itself with a sibilant whine. A flood of despair dragged at his feet, surged to lick at his ankles. A towering curl of regret, grief and anger raced behind to break over him. Faster. Peter was running now in a world without light. Night became his own winding sheet; it filled his eyes and his ears, his mind and his heart with a personal, intimate darkness.

The wind taunted him; shoved him hard from behind, and then petulantly switched to bluster headlong. Oblivious to where he was headed, Peter ran. Somehow his feet kept the road until he tripped, flew and sprawled on bleeding palms and torn knees. Dazed, Peter pushed to his feet, and a light in the distance caught his eye. Bruised and shaking, he hobbled towards its halcyon glow. The gold and red beacon resolved into glass and metal and incandescent light with a red and white sign: TELEPHONE.

Who would he call? Peter wondered as he drew closer. He’d driven for nearly three hours, and how long had he run? He shot the scraped cuff of his jacket to peer at his watch. Two a.m. It figured. The unsheathed incandescent bulb spread a warm and wondrous halo on barren grey soil. Peter huddled gratefully into the phone booth, away from the wind. He lifted the receiver. No dial tone. Moron; he thought. Everything costs something. He reached for his wallet and debit card; faltered when he saw the sign and the coin slot: Quarters Only. Peter patted his pockets futilely; he never carried change. He cradled the phone; slid bonelessly down the fly-specked glass wall. His head fell back, and he stared at the naked light until sunbursts crowded his vision.

The telephone jangled importantly. Peter startled to his feet, studied the Bakelite receiver for another two rings before retrieving it gingerly and lifting it cautiously to his ear. All he heard was the wind. “Hello?” He listened. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

“Peter…” Had to be his imagination. He almost hung up.

“Peter. Can you hear me now?”

No. Not fair, God. “Not funny. Who is this?”

“Peter, honey; it’s me.”

The trembling started in his legs, claimed him a molecule at a time. It built until he thought it would tear him apart. He almost dropped the receiver, clenched it tight to his ear. “Elyse? Lissie-baby; is that you?” Peter’s voice broke around unshed tears like splintered glass lodged in his throat.

“It’s me. I’m so sorry, honey.”

“You’re sorry?” Peter sobbed incredulously. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I should have stopped working. I should have listened to you. How could I have forgotten for even a minute that you’re the most important thing in my life? He berated himself bitterly. “I love you so much. I miss you so much, baby. Are you cold? Do you hurt?”

“Oh, Peter; I miss you, too. You’re my everything, but you have to stop being angry with yourself. Only way it wouldn’t have happened would have been if I cancelled our dinner. It was dark, there was ice and a deer. Sometimes bad things just happen. I’m okay now.”

“What am I going to do without you, Lissie? And the baby? You wanted to tell me, but I didn’t listen.”

“I know it hurts, Peter, but it won’t forever. You will be okay.”

“I don’t think so. I can’t sleep, El. Haven’t slept since that night….”

“Hold on a sec, honey.” Peter heard the wind in the phone again, and he panicked.

“Lissie? Lissie? Please don’t hang up on me…”

“I’m back, darling. I just had to check. They don’t like us to Bogart the line, but this time, they said it’s okay. I want you to make yourself comfortable.” Peter melted along the glass wall, felt the horizontal steel bar of the frame bump under his back. His fingers hurt from gripping the receiver so hard, but he wouldn’t let go for a second to change sides. Couldn’t chance losing the connection. He winced when the light bulb winked out. “I’m still here, Peter. You know you can’t sleep with the light on. It’s alright, sweetie. Take a deep breath.” For the first time in a more than a week, he filled his lungs fully and exhaled. “And another. Look up; tell me what you see.”

Peter stared at the sky as he breathed in and out. He always loved his wife’s voice. It was as lovely as she; Peter felt his muscles unknot, his heart slow and his body relax. His eyes finally adjusted to the night, and he found the sky wasn’t dark after all. “Stars. So many stars. Like that Christmas you spilled all that glitter.” His heart was still breaking, but he smiled.

Elyse giggled; “That’s better. They’re breathtaking; aren’t they?”

“You can see them? Can you see me?”

“Of course, I can see them. They’re like a curtain of diamonds between us. And no; I can’t see you. I don’t have to. I shan’t ever forget what you look like. Close your eyes, now.”

In spite of himself, Peter did. “I love you more than all of those stars…” he murmured drowsily.

“I love you more than twice all those stars…” Elyse whispered. Peter thought he heard humming but decided perhaps it was simply the wind.

*******

Sunlight prised at his eyelids. Peter gasped, almost dropped the receiver. “Lissie-baby, are you still there?” he begged.

“Good morning, Sunshine! I’m still here, but I have to hang up in a few. How’d you sleep?”

“Pretty good; thanks to you. Please don’t leave me!”

“Honey, I already did.” Regret rang in her voice. “It’s not forever, Peter; I’ll be waiting. In the meantime, you have to go have a life so you’ll have stories to tell me when I see you again.”

“I...I don’t know if I can. Are you sure you’re okay, baby?”

“Peter, my love; I’m fine. I’m more than fine. The roses are beautiful here. It smells like…” Peter heard the self-conscious gurgle caught in her throat. “Hunh…Of course, it does.” She whispered in a voice tinged with humor and wonder; “It smells like heaven.”

Peter laughed. “I love you so very much, my Elyse.”

“I love you back, Peter. Go plant the garden and look up at the stars. We can’t see each other for a while, but if I know you’re watching and you know I am, then it’s almost the same thing, isn’t it?”

“As ever, your logic is inescapable, baby.” Peter wept and chuckled.

“Goodbye, darling. Time’s different here. See you before we both know it.”

The wind picked up in the line. Peter could hardly hear her now. “I can’t hear you, baby.”

“I said, goodbye; I have to go now. I love you, Peter.”

“I can’t say goodbye. I love you, too, Lissie. Lissie? Lissie?” Peter stared for a while at the receiver before gently setting it back in the cradle. He stepped out, walked a few steps and glanced back between the glass and steel shelter and the listing utility pole from which it had long since been disconnected.

It was noon by the time he made it back to the car. He picked up his cell phone and saw he had service again. When he twisted the key, the Mustang rumbled to life.

His throat was raw; Peter swallowed hard and took a long look at the sky. Whine... Clutch… Shift... The stars were still up there somewhere. Perhaps, he would plant some more roses.