The Long Highway Pt. 24

Hiroko translated

Mitchell came home on his break between classes, which was unusual. You'd already gone by then. You came and went early, had things to do with your day.

Mitchell said over lunch that he'd felt funny leaving me in the morning. Then he told me two stories about other times he'd left me and felt the same way.

He recounted a misadventure we'd had. We'd gone to the country for a day drive to a nature preserve. On the way he stopped at a strip mall to buy condoms and dark glasses for the sun in his eyes through the windshield.

There seemed to be no drugstores. None were in sight near where we'd parked. The other stores looked neglected, less rundown than unused. "The forgotten strip mall," that place might be called. You sensed the surrounding area, a wooded suburb, wasn't very prosperous, or maybe a new shopping center, a real mall had opened, better stocked, more inviting, and residents had moved their shopping there.

Among the lineup of stores in sight when we stepped out of the car was a fortune teller. That was written in the plate glass window, behind which the interior looked dark or at least dim. You could imagine it covered in a fine layer of dust, again as if recently no one had so much as run a finger over the premises.

Mitchell walked off to look further for a store selling what he wanted, and as he stepped away he noticed the woman from the fortune-telling shop come out and begin inviting me in. He heard our conversation.

"Do you want a session?" she asked. "Special good price for you."

She was Vietnamese. Mitchell recognized that from her voice.

He finds the Vietnamese accent sexy but also knew that self-professed psychics often are con artists and that Vietnamese, like many immigrant groups struggling, engage in criminal enterprises, have networks.

He called to me, "Uranaishi!" which is Japanese for fortune teller. He thought I might not know the English, maybe the word "readings" and others stenciled on the storefront glass were not in my vocabulary. He explained now he used my language because he knew the woman enticing me wouldn't understand and would miss that he was giving me a warning by saying it.

He walked off to look for a store even though I was in the clutches of the fortune teller. He assumed I could handle myself.

That was the first time he'd felt funny leaving me. There was a second on the same day. He reminded me.

We drove on. The country road became hilly as it neared the nature preserve where we would eat outdoors and maybe make love on the rocks. It was a weekday. Not many people were there.

But a police car stopped us. We saw it backing up in front of us and that its lights were on, white blurs, and that that was a signal for us to stop.

Two policemen approached and we waited in the car.

Unlike some people, Mitchell likes, trusts police and told me all would be fine. The two men who'd stepped out of their patrol car and were advancing toward us looked grim and businesslike, though. Mitchell assured me that was just how they went about their work. It would be a routine check and soon be over.

"Don't worry," Mitchell told me. "Just stay relaxed. We have nothing to worry about. No contraband or anything."

But the cops thought otherwise.

One, the leader, older and bigger- his very dark blue uniformed shirt appeared about to pop open from his burly chest- didn't smile as he put his head in the window Mitchell had rolled down.

It looked like they were going to do a serious check.

"I have to be at a class at twelve o'clock." Mitchell lied that he was teaching that day and couldn't be delayed.

The police said more or less that that was too bad. "Bear with us a little."

Showing no hurry, they went to their car to do something, came back and said, "Wait here," then stepped to their car again and drove off!

They didn't return to us.

"What should we do?" Mitchell and I wondered after a while. Disobey their orders to wait? Would they ever come back? Had they forgotten us?

Mitchell said he'd walk and see if he could find them, on the off-chance.

He thought maybe the two policemen had stopped their car around a corner out of sight and if he walked he'd see it and could remind them we were still waiting.

Not seeing anything quickly, he continued walking, and he went too far.

After how many minutes he wasn't sure, he realized he didn't know the way back to our car and me in it, wasn't sure which fork he should take to retrace his steps.

He was at a loss. If he called the police for help, what would he say? Phoning 911 wouldn't work. They'd ask for specific details. He needed the number of the local precinct but didn't know it.

There was a gas station ahead, facing him. He could ask for help from the people who worked in the big white square space, front open, in the sunlight black like a maw (I saw it later), but where would he tell them he'd been? He didn't know the name of the road. There was no address. He couldn't explain the route because he didn't know it either. His mistake was not noting the fork he'd taken.

He saw he also should have gotten the names or badge numbers of the two men who stopped us. That's what some people say you should do, but Mitchell trusts, likes the police. Some people regard them as a threat to guard against but he doesn't so he hadn't taken that step.

He told me he felt that morning as if he might never see me again.

I don't know why he recounted that story then, reminded me. Maybe somehow he'd sensed you'd visited me and how far away from him I'd been.