The Empty Horse



I.



I woke up on the couch. The couch was in a trailer by the side of Route 18. The trailer was next to a gas station. The gas station was next to an abandoned mine. I had been living here for six months. Or maybe a year. Time is different when you live by yourself.



My name is Frank Hill. I'm fifty-five. I drift. This is not a choice. It's what I do. I move from place to place. I work when work is available. I leave when it isn't. The mine was not available anymore. It had not been for ten years. The gas station was open but there was nobody to buy gas. I knew this because I had checked.



I made coffee. The coffee maker was old. It made a sound like a man clearing his throat. I drank the coffee black. I sat by the window and looked out at the mine. The mine was a hole in the hill. There was a fence around it. The fence was broken in places. You could walk right in if you wanted to. I did not want to.



The TV had no signal. The radio had no signal. The phone was dead. I had noticed this before but had not thought much of it. Now I thought of it again. I went outside.



The gas station was empty. Not closed. Empty. The pumps were there. The shelves inside the store were there. But nobody was there. I went into the store. There was food on the shelves. Canned goods. Bread. Milk in the cooler. I opened the milk. It was good. I drank from the carton.



I walked down Route 18. The road went through a town. The town had stores and houses and a church. The stores were open. The houses had cars in the driveways. The church door was locked. I tried it. I do not know why I tried it.



Nobody was anywhere.



I came back to the trailer. I sat on the couch. I drank water from the tap. I listened to the silence. It was not loud. It was just there. It was like a dog sitting in the corner. You do not notice it until you think about it. Then it is all you notice.



II.



I found her at a grocery store twenty miles south. I was driving. I had found a truck. It was a Chevy. It started most of the time. I drove south on Route 18 and then east on a road I did not know. The grocery store was a small place with a metal sign that said "HENDERSON'S FOODS" in letters that were peeling.



I went inside. The lights were on. The shelves were full. And she was there, in the cereal aisle, looking at boxes.



She was maybe forty. Short hair. A jacket that was too warm for the weather. She had a basket in her arm. She was reading the back of a cereal box. This seemed like something a person would do. It was reassuring.



"Morning," I said.



She turned. She looked at me. She did not smile. She did not frown. She looked the way people look when they have not decided what to look like yet.



"Morning," she said.



"You live around here?"



"I used to. I don't anymore. There's nowhere to live."



"I suppose not."



She put the cereal box back. She picked up another one. She read it. "I'm Sue."



"Frank."



"Sue Baker. I used to cook at a place up the road. A diner. I don't cook anymore. I did before. A long time ago."



"I'm sure it was good."



"I don't know. I never had anyone eat it."



"That's not how you know."



She put the cereal in her basket. "No. I suppose not."



We walked to the checkout. There was no cashier. There never would be. I took the items from her basket. I put them on the counter. I did not know what to do next. I had never bought anything without a cashier in my life.



"Take it," she said.



"I know."



We went outside. She put the bags in the truck. I watched her do this. She was efficient. She did not waste motion. This is something you learn when you have worked hard for a long time.



"You got a place to stay?" she asked.



"No."



"Neither do I."



"Yeah."



She looked at the truck. "Does it start?"



"Most of the time."



"Let me try."



She opened the door. She got in. She turned the key. The truck started. She drove it forward ten feet and then backward ten feet. She got out.



"It's a good truck," she said.



"Yeah. It is."



We stood there by the truck with the groceries between us. The sun was going down. The sky was gray. This is what West Virginia looks like in the spring. Not blue. Not green. Gray.



"Where should we go?" she said.



"Nowhere," I said. "We don't have to go anywhere."



"Yeah. I guess not."



We went back to the trailer. We sat on the couch. We ate cereal from bowls. We did not talk much. The silence was still there. It was not as loud now. It had sat down. It was getting comfortable.



III.



We lived together after that. This is not the same as saying we lived together happily. It is not the same as saying we lived together at all, in the way most people mean it. We were two people in a trailer. We cooked when we felt like it. We slept when we felt like it. We did not make plans. We did not make promises.



Sue had a past. She told me about it one evening. She had done drugs. Heroin, mostly. For a few years in her thirties. She had gotten clean. She had stayed clean for two years. Then the people disappeared and she forgot about being clean. Then she remembered again. She was clean now. She said this without pride. She said it like she was reporting the weather.



"I don't know if it lasts," she said.



"It might," I said.



"Yeah."



She did not cry. I did not either. This is not the kind of story that makes people cry. It is the kind of story that makes them sit still and think about nothing for a while.



I burned a Bible for firewood. This is not dramatic. There was a Bible in the trailer. I do not know whose it was. It was on a shelf in the bedroom. I needed wood one evening. The stove was not getting hot enough. I opened the door. I took out a book. I tore out the pages. They burned well. Thin paper. Burns fast. The cover was too thick. I threw that in the corner. It did not burn.



Sue saw me do it. She did not say anything. She sat on the couch and watched the fire. The fire was small but it was enough. The trailer got warm. We sat in the warmth.



IV.



One afternoon we looked at the mine. We walked down the road to the broken fence and stood there and looked at the hole in the hill. The grass was growing around the edges. The fence was rusted. The sign that said DANGER was faded but still readable.



"Where do you think they went?" Sue said.



"Don't know."



"Maybe they just left."



"Yeah."



We stood there. The wind blew. It was cold. Not winter cold. Just a cold that came from nowhere and then went away. Like a thought you almost had and then lost.



"Do you want to move?" she said.



"Where?"



"Someplace else. There's got to be other places."



"Yeah."



"Would you go?"



"I don't know."



She nodded. She did not push it. This was important. She was not the kind of woman who pushes. She had learned this, probably, the hard way.



"We could stay," she said.



"We could."



"We could also go."



"We could."



We went back to the trailer. We made dinner. It was beans and bread. It was enough. We ate at the table. The table wobbled. I put a coaster under one leg. It stopped wobbling. This was a small thing. It was the kind of small thing that makes a life.



At night I lay on the couch. Sue was in the bedroom. The trailer was quiet. The mine was dark. The gas station was empty. The road went on. The sky was full of stars. I did not think about it. I just lay there. I let the quiet come and go. It was mine. It was enough.

Author Note & Copyright: