Jon Frankel, Chapter 27

Jon Frankel is a poet, food writer and a novelist in Ithaca NY

That night Irmela came to me. Everyone was asleep. The coals of the fire were covered in white ash. I was staring at the sky and smelling the air. It was keeping me awake. Sleeping out always does. I didn’t know she was there until she climbed naked into my sleeping bag, or as she would say, bag that sleeps, and wrapped her leg around me. She pulled me to her lips hard and before I knew it we were writhing around in the bag, smothering our cries with kisses.

We lay on our backs staring at the stars, fingers twined and feet touching. An owl hooted and a fox killed a kangaroo rat. When the shrieking was over Irmela stood and walked away, into the crickets.

Sometimes the roads were nothing more than logs thrown across a wash and a path cleared of stones and brush. We changed tires and repaired compressors, patched leaking water tanks with lead seals. We crawled up a gully and then rocked down a sloped clearing into a hole cut in a wall of Douglas fir. By noon the car had gone on scent and was driving itself, Junior and his crew following. By late afternoon we crested a pass and descended over switch back roads to the palace. The back way in was totally different; nothing was familiar until we reached the driveway.

I had no idea what awaited us at the gates. The sun was low. We drove through the silent arrays of sensors to the gatehouse, where the driveway took over, conveying us down the aisle of redwoods and stopping beneath the portico, which was in deep shadow. The house was dark. The car doors opened. A soldier stood behind each door, weapon drawn. Junior approached the front door. “I wonder if it’s locked?”
-Jon Frankel, Chapter 27
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