Valley of Fire. Steven Manners

      For MBSEncore et toujours

      God does not play dice with the universe — and win.

       H e comes out of the desert in late afternoon, the only living thing in the Valley of Fire. It’s a Thursday in June, 4:03 p.m., according to a note in the ranger’s log book. The man identifies himself as John Munin. Tall, perhaps early forties. Old enough to know better. Explains there was a breakdown, engine overheated, the fuel line, he doesn’t know much about cars. His voice is raw; he’s been out there a while.

       It’s fifty degrees cooler inside the ranger’s office. “I’ll get you some thing cold to drink.” There’s a small refrigerator in the corner of the office, TV on top. Not much to look at outside the window; the land scape is hard to focus on, shimmering with heat, elusive. “You all right? Feeling dizzy?” The ranger has been trained to recognize the signs of heat stroke.

       “I’m a doctor.”

       “Then you should know I have to check your pulse. Procedure.” Grips Munin’s wrist for a few moments, grunts, then releases him. “Could have been a close call.” Hands him a bottle of water and a packet of salt from a drive-through.

       “I have to get back to town.”

       “You can camp out on the cot in the back. I’ll give you a lift into town when my shift’s over. A couple of hours. You look done in.”

       “I don’t want to be any trouble.”

       “No trouble. I don’t mind the company. You can get a tow truck out here tomorrow.”

       Munin takes off his shoes and sinks onto the cot. “It’s a rental.”

       “Then I guess it’s their problem.”

       Munin can feel the beginnings of a heat headache; his eyes feel scratchy and inflamed as if seeing in infrared. There’s a heat-bug whine in his ears, worse when he lies down. “Sorry to put you to so much trouble.”

       “This kind of thing happens out here.”

       “Do you like it? Out here?”

       “You get used to it,” the ranger says. Meaning the stillness. Heat and loneliness. “It’s a popular spot. We get a lot of visitors. Decent folks. It’s like nowhere else, I guess. No buildings. Rock formations, of course, but nothing much else to look at. A lot of emptiness and open space. People tell themselves that’s what they want. Until they get lost in it.”

      Contents

I. Narcissism

       II. The Unconscious

       III. Object of Desire

       IV. Intimacy

       V. Sex

       VI. Giving

       Acknowledgements

I. Narcissism

      This is cactus land

      Here the stone images

      Are raised ...

      — T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

      America is roulette: streets, cities, states of mind. Waiting for a hit, waiting for your number to be called. As they fly into a Midwest stopover, a voice crackles in the background like a rumour, the news at noon over a neighbour’s headset announcing a flash flood in Maine, nuclear spill in the middle dozens, earthquake with its epicentre at thirty-six red. The statistics of fate in the air: in the recirculating stink of burger and fries, sweat tang of nachos, a godawful hummus stashed away in a carry-on knapsack. They were warned there would be no food on this flight so they’ve brought it aboard. Enough to feed the Russian army, as they used to say. Enough to feed the thrombus and embolus of future coronary events. They know the risks, they know the odds — they are gamblers, junketeers after all. Later, on their way home, there will be time to analyze the action, work the numbers like a tension knot in the back of the neck, head tight as a migraine, memories ruminating and repeating like flashbacks or flatus, thinking of the down and the double-down. But that’s later. Right now it’s the play. The straight-ahead path.