Bizarre Love Triangle

The abortion is scheduled for Thursday. I am in a Wendy’s in North Las Vegas, not far from campus. It is 1991 and it is summer and I cannot trust my ears. My burger is square and it is dry. Ordinarily I would first nibble the corners from the quadratic patty, making it conform to its bun’s imperfect sphere. But the day is a furnace and the glare is oppressive and I am hearing about an abortion in a Wendy’s in North Town and I don’t feel like eating anything, much less performing Vitruvian-level surgery on a fucking hamburger.

She packs a forkful of wilting lettuce into her mouth. She is short and she is blonde and she is a b-cup and her face is a younger and less eyebrowy version of Sharon Stone. One blue eye bounces up and down as she chews, while the other remains stationary. This is bothering me. The eye. The eye tic didn’t bother me back when we met. I used to think it cute and unique and fetching. But not now. Not anymore. Not anymore because now there are the remains of a nameless cow on an unfolded wrapper in front of me that I don’t want to eat and there is evidently surplus life growing in the uterus across the table from me and the left eye of the owner of that uterus wobbles when she chews and it is very suddenly very annoying. All in all.

“No.”

She swallows and her eye steadies. “Huh? No what?”

“Don’t do it.”

More lettuce. She begins to talk with her mouth full. “It’s really not up for discussion. We—” she swallows. “We aren’t ready for a baby. I’m not ready for a baby. We’ve—”

A voice from the drive-thru speaker is loud and it is deliberate. It outlines its demands for the preparation of food in specific and monosyllabic verbiage more commonly used for teaching a child how to tie his shoes. The burger must have an extra slice of cheese and it must not contain pickles and any onions used in its preparation must also be grilled.

Mustard.

Mayo.

No ketchup.

And apparently on Thursday I will be skipping class.

At eight I drive west on Charleston until the malls and the tracts of housing and the apartment complexes die away. At its remote terminus I make a U on Charleston and I pull my car to the side of the road. The high desert ground crunches beneath my shoes. I sit on the hood of my Geo Storm and I smoke and I let the warm breeze caress my hair and I stare out at the strip. The sun buries itself in the mountain behind me. In the distance I can see the Excalibur and I can see Stupak’s tower taking form and I can see downtown and, further away, the lights from Henderson. What I cannot see as I sit and I smoke on the hood of the Storm is I cannot see myself helping her out of the clinic, after, practically carrying her. I cannot see myself languishing in the months to come. I cannot understand the guilt I will come to know and I cannot predict the night when I will inadvertently overhear an uglier truth as she confesses to a friend, over the phone, that the child wasn’t mine in the first place. Those things will happen. I just can’t see them yet.

Bursts of heat lightning begin to strike the city. A trail of headlights forms along Charleston and in minutes I am no longer alone. People I don’t know make U’s and they pull over and they sit on the hoods of their cars and they watch the show. They talk excitedly and they laugh freely. The streaks of heat lightning make no sound at all.