37

A few days before her birthday, Nancy, was thinking too much. Her head was talking to her, saying crazy things. It was telling her just one. Come on, baby. Just one.

“You know, even after thirty-seven years you still hear the voices,” she told the group, the dry windows rattling in the desert wind. “They never leave. While you’re sleeping they’re awake. And when you’re awake they’re awake. It’s not a question of being strong. Anyone can be strong. It’s a question of what’s sacred. And this—this here is sacred.”

Nancy looked over the group: the clean, the soul-dead, the ones about to break and go back out again. Some would make it. Most wouldn’t. They told her years ago she would see them die. Some clean in the light of god. Others torn up, too young. No prejudice, they said. No, fucking prejudice. She took a drink of water, a hint of whiskey flashed through her head.

Hi, Nancy. Remember me?

“Don’t do what you’re used to doing. That doesn’t work. If it did you wouldn’t be here. So keep your house clean. Put things in the right place. This is a stain. A stain on a wall that will never be rubbed clean. Ever. But it’s just a smudge. A big one. But still a smudge. So own it. Make it stand out in what are rooms and rooms full of better things.”

They clapped. They told her congratulations. They ate chocolate cake and sipped black coffee.

Nancy leaned against the faded building smoking a cigarette. The wind swirled around her, the black outline of the mountains loomed behind her.

“My doctor used to tell me to stop smoking,” she said looking at me knowing I’d be out there again. “But he knows how these things work. If it’s not one thing it’s another.”