Miller didn't believe in numerology, but the alignment of significant numbers seemed more than coincidental. It was early morning of his 45th birthday. The newborn sun, spraying through his bedroom window, teased his memory: he had entered the world in 1945, the same day the first A-bomb had exploded at Alamogordo. His current address was 1445 Hilltop Road, less than a 15-minute drive from the 45th parallel. He weighed 180 pounds, which, divided into quarters, once again yielded the magic number, 45.
Peg rolled over and buried her face in a corner of his pillow, a low moan vibrating in her throat. Her limp hand fell across his chest. Miller covered the soft fingers with his free hand, dark and dry from the summer sun. His rough fingertips settled in the valleys between her knuckles, feeling the familiar wedding band. What had become of his youth? He remembered their first morning together. It had snowed while they slept their lover's sleep, and the barewalled bedroom of his apartment shimmered as they woke, facing each other. Her sleepy-eyed smile seemed a reflection of his own. He was 25 then, living for the moment. And now?
He looked at the smoothworn oak alarm clock that had belonged to his grandfather long ago. How had the poet put it? “The Bird of Time has but a little way to fly — and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing?”
Birds, the poet should have said. Robins, starlings, juncoes, sparrows. Outside, the morning was alive with feathered bodies. Dipping past the bedroom windows, perching on the backyard fence, hopping in the grass. It promised to be a beautiful summer day. His day. Forty-five years old.
"Happy Birthday, sweetheart," her lazy voice hummed. "Penny for your thoughts."
"Sorry, too old to have any," he said. “Fresh out.”
She reached up and massaged his gray-and-brown crewcut with her fingertips. "There's a surprise in the drawer of your nightstand."
"A what?"
"Don't tell me you're going deaf. Open your drawer."
The envelope was addressed, "To Harry." He smiled at the joke.
He had dreamed two nights earlier that she was having an affair with long gone President Harry S. Truman. Miller had followed her to a bar in Portland, literally floating above her as if he were a sparrow hawk. She walked to a table in a dark corner where Harry, wearing a double-breasted grey suit, polishing his rimless glasses, waited. Miller hovered, unnoticed, next to a cheap ceiling fan. When she sat down opposite Harry, the old fellow slipped his glasses on and looked at her. With a deadpan face, his voice edged with crumpled tinfoil, he said, "They tell me you're a hot number."
"How would you have heard that?" she said. "I don't know anyone you know. Besides, I thought you were …"
"Dead? Well, I still hear all sorts of things." Behind the thick lenses his eyes were the size of robin's eggs. "Can I buy you a drink?”
"This seems very unlike you, Harry."
"A man has to break new ground."
"Maybe," said Peg. “But you don't seem the type. And neither do I."
"Let's not waste words, Mrs. Miller. “As history has recorded, I'm a man of action." He tapped his chicken-skin knuckles on the table. "In Missouri you have to prove it, one way or another."
"We're not in Missouri, Harry," said Peg. "We’re south of Portland.”
Miller propped himself on his elbow, removed the envelope from the drawer and opened it. On the front of the card was a bright bird, a toucan, saying, "Don't worry about another birthday." On the inside was written: "You're just as immature as ever. Happy 45th. Love, Peg."
"Thanks, I needed that."
"Let me see it. I love the toucan." She smiled at the bird. "Now the box."
He took a small box from his drawer.
"Open it."
He removed the lid. Nestled in a pad of cotton was a single key, well used. "You didn't," he said.
"I did."
"Then it's true. Forty-five is my lucky number." He sprang from bed and slipped into sweat pants, sweatshirt, slippers. Peg wrapped herself in a house robe.
"All I ask is you don't lose it," she said. "It's the only one."
"I won't lose it."
"Like the watch I got you for Christmas, the one you left at the municipal pool?"
"That was more than a year ago. I'm a big boy now."
The old Dodge pick-up, an unrestored classic, squatted in the gravel drive beneath the black walnut tree. Perfect hood ornament. Straight grill. The fender on the driver's side was caved in and small dents pocked the doors. The bed was in good shape except for the tailgate, which needed to be replaced. The paint was oxidized green, the color of dried leaves.
"Look at that old beauty," he said. "A little body work will bring it right back. What year is it?"
"1947. I tried to find a '45 but they were too busy building atomic bombs that year.”
“Was that why you had an affair with Harry?”
“I could have bought an old army jeep,” she said, ignoring him, “but I knew you wanted a pick-up."
"How's the engine?"
"Runs. The door on the driver's side is sprung."
"Perfect. How much did it set you back?"
"Not much. A couple weeks pay." She opened the passenger door, removed the envelope with the card in it from her bathrobe pocket, and reached in and placed it on the old dash. "There. To remind you it's your birthday. In case you forget."
"You're beautiful, you know that?" He hugged her.
"You're only saying that because you expect to make insanely passionate love to me tonight."
"Does that mean I have to do it in a straitjacket?"
After Peg dressed and left for work in the Toyota, he took the truck for a spin in the country, down Hilltop Road and west on Meridian to the 45th parallel sign, where he turned around. On the drive back a ringnecked pheasant shot out of a pasture and glided over the road in front of him.
"Another good luck sign," he said.
He parked in the driveway short of the black walnut to avoid bird droppings. When he got out on the passenger's side, he noticed the lawn needed mowing. He walked around to the driver's side and fiddled with the sprung door. After a minute he gave up, leaning on it gently, forcing it mostly closed, safe enough. He stepped back and admired the rugged compactness, the wellmuscled aspect of the old pick-up. "The Green Armadillo," he said. "That's your name." He stepped backward a few more steps, imagining the body restored. New paint. New chrome. Baby moon hubcaps.
He turned and headed for the equipment shed. As if on cue, the birds fell silent as he passed under the black walnut. He stopped and looked up. He knew they were there somewhere, hidden in the leaves of the old tree, but he could only see the outline of a single fat house finch.
When he had passed out of the drip line of the tree, the birds resumed their chatter. Was he such a fearsome sight?
For 10 years he had walked under the same tree daily, and still the birds fell silent, as if no man could ever be trusted. Alamogordo — maybe they had heard about it. Maybe they knew he was the same age as the bomb. Perhaps there was something about him that suggested fissionable material. That was it. The birds knew, as caretakers of flitting time itself, how unstable a 45 year-old man can be. At any second his core could heat up. He could enter the primary stage of a chain reaction. He could fly apart at the seams. But not today. The lawn needed mowing.
*
In the early evening they sat close to each other on the lumpy bench seat, like joyriding teenagers. They both wore blue jeans and t-shirts. His said "Over-The-Hill-Club," from his 40th birthday, while hers announced her favorite vice: "I take chocolate bribes."
Windows down, they drove along the river in the warm summer air, past the falls, and crossed over the freeway and took the old highway into downtown Portland. He tried to keep the speedometer on 45 miles per hour. "Magic number, magic speed. Drives good. Not too many rattles. Steering's a little loose." When he reached the central city he slowed to 30, hitting all the green lights until he reached Burnside. "I'm hungry," said Peg. "Maybe we could get a burger."
"I've got a better idea. How about the Cafe de Monmartre?"
"Are you kidding? Wearing this?''
"Why not? We're clean. We can put it on the card."
"You're the birthday boy. You go in first. But if they won’t let you in, I don’t know you."
He drove north one block, turned left, then left again, crossed back over Burnside, cruised two blocks past the Cafe de Monmartre awning, turned into an insurance building parking lot and parked squarely in front of a black and red sign that warned: "Violators will be towed and impounded."
"Do you think this is a good idea? Not everyone knows it's your birthday."
"It's after 6. No problem."
"I hope you’re right." He reached across her and rolled up her window, leaning on her breasts.
"You sure you don't want to roll it up and down a few more times?"
"Good idea."
"Stop it. You're wrinkling me." She sized up her t-shirt, chin hugging her chest. "I'm barely presentable as is."
She pretended to straighten up her short curls, patting them. "What would Harry say?"
"Screw Harry. If he comes to our table, I'll smear butter on his glasses."
"Out."
He tried to open his sprung door before remembering.
"My way, Mr. Memory," she said, scooting to the passenger door.
A fortyish hostess with too much blue eye shadow showed them to a table in a corner that looked out on the sidewalk. As they settled in, a young man, shirtless, torso glistening, jogged by. Miller wondered how many years had passed since he looked that way, then smelled the carnation in the slender vase to see if it was real. "I can't tell real from plastic anymore," he said.
"You're losing your sense of smell as well as your hearing? What about vision? Anyone can see it's real."
"Just testing."
"Please don't order oysters. You know how I hate oysters. They make me want to gag." She made a face.
"You don't have to eat them. It just so happens they give me … energy. If I could coax them into solution, I'd ask for a syringe."
A small graying man with a long nose and thin lips presented them with menus. "Good evening. Take as long as you want. When I return I'll describe the special entrees. May I suggest the fresh razor clams as an appetizer? They're immensely popular."
His shoes squeaked as he retreated.
"Immensely," said Miller in his best parroting voice. "This guy's straight out of a New Yorker cartoon. I'll just bet you, somewhere inside that neat vest jacket there's a drunken logger waiting to bust out."
"Here, read," said Peg, tapping his menu with a shiny nail. Her eyes had the look of a wary psychiatrist. "And leave the little man alone."
Miller opened the menu and scanned. "Whatever happened to beef? All I see is fish and fowl. And veal. Baby calves. Disgusting. Look at this. You'd think the menu was created by the Brothers Grimm. Baby beef, baby coho salmon. Baby quail. What could be more innocent than a baby quail? No wonder the birds don't trust us."
"What birds?"
"The ones that know about Alamogordo."
Peg covered her face with her menu. "Please," she said, "I'd like to finish the meal before they take you away."
"I'm not kidding. The birds know. Every time I walk under the black walnut, they stop talking." He delivered a firm, yet gentle judo chop into the palm of his hand. "Just like that. Miller appears, no more talk."
"You've been eavesdropping on the birds again?" She peeked over the top of her menu.
"They talk in code when they see me and they stop when I get too near."
"I see," she said, disappearing behind her menu again.
The waiter returned and stood before them, clasping both hands behind his back. "Tonight we have —
"I'll take the pepper steak. Medium rare."
"I'll have the baby coho, thank you."
"All right, then. Will you have something to drink? Have you had a chance to look over the wine list?"
"The little lady will have a glass of Vouvray and I'll take a bottle of Beaujolais, the most expensive you have."
She kicked him under the table. "Ahhh … On second thought I'll just have a glass or two of the house burgundy."
"Very well. Will that be all?"
"No, we'll stick around until we're through eating," said Miller. The waiter ignored the remark, glancing at Miller's t-shirt while collecting menus.
"It's his birthday," said Peg. "He's feeling a little feisty."
"I gathered," said the waiter.
“Enjoy your evening," he said, turning.
"Oh," said Miller, suppressing an impulse to tug at the back of the waiter's vest. "For an appetizer, we'll take the oysters." * When they returned to the parking lot, the pick-up was gone. "What!?" Miller shook his head and shut his eyes, as if the truck would magically re-appear when he reopened them.
"I told you!" she said.
"How could they?" He walked up to the posted sign and squinted. "Acme Towing … Great."
"Where's Acme Towing?"
"224-0010. Wherever that is. I thought Acme Towing only existed in cartoons. You bring your cell phone?”
“I thought you brought yours.”
“On my birthday? I wanted this one day free from it.
"You can call from the restaurant."
"No …no. I don't want to go back there. I’m sure they’ve had enough of me. Must be a phone booth nearby."
They walked two blocks past the restaurant to a gas station on Burnside, where Miller squeezed into an old phone booth. "Got any change?"
"Change!? That was years ago. Use your card."
"What card? You paid for the meal."
"All right, use mine, then. I refuse to make a fool of myself." She rummaged in her purse. "Here."
"Come on in here and be with me,” he said, stepping into the booth. “It's cozy."
"Don't be silly. It's too crowded."
"No really. You look so pretty tonight I just want to be close to you."
"Well, all right, but don't think that kind of talk's going to get you out of the doghouse."
While he dialed, drumming his fingers on the ledge, Peg looked out the door at the traffic.
"I can't hear," he said. "Too much noise." Peg closed the door.
"Uh, yes, Acme? You've got my pick-up, an old green Dodge, '47. How much to get it back? Yeah. I'll wait." He cupped his hand over the receiver. "Can you believe it, he doesn't even know if it's there. How many '47 Dodges you think they towed tonight?" He put the receiver to his ear. "What? No, no, you must have it. You sure? Could it be on the way? You picked it up at the insurance building four blocks down from Burnside. Yeah … You sure? You got any other lots? You're absolutely sure? … Okay, okay." He hung up. His reflected face, glowing with pink neon, stared back from the side window.
"You have got to be kidding." she said.
"That's what the man said." He shrugged his shoulders. "Open the door, it’s getting stuffy in here."
"Maybe someone stole it,” she said, refusing to move. “Serves you right.”
"Smack dab in the middle of downtown? Open the door, would you?"
She didn't budge, enjoying her cross-examination. "You didn't leave the key in it, did you?"
"Of course not. I took the key from the ignition, put it in my pocket …" He reached into his pocket.
“It's not there, is it? You forgot to take the key out. I knew it! I knew something like this would happen. Call the cops. Call the damn cops and tell them you lost your birthday present!"
"We'll get it back, we'll get it back!"
"Sure. Just like the watch." She yanked back the folding door and stepped out of the booth. "Some birthday."
She put both hands on her hips and stared at him, purse dangling from her forearm, foot tapping, marking the passing of each second.
"Would you knock it off?" he said, still inside the booth. "This isn't helping."
"Happy Birthday. I go to the trouble of saving my money —"
"All right, all right. So what do you expect from a 45year-old with a rare case of dementia praecox and one foot in the grave. My luck has run out. The waiter insulted me, my steak was tough, they towed my car — okay they stole my car, I made a stupid mistake. I'm human." He picked up the receiver again.
"Just barely," she said.
He called the police and told them someone had stole his pick-up.
Whoever he talked to asked his location and instructed him to wait there. Someone would be there in a matter of minutes.
Forty-five minutes later Miller leaned against the outside of the phone booth, arms crossed. Peg, in the distance, looked out the window of the gas station office, standing next to a vending machine. The city police car, new, pulled up next to the phone booth. A tall black cop opened the driver's door and stood behind it, leaving the car running. "You Miller? The guy that called about the pick-up?"
"Yeah, I'm the guy."
"Okay, I want you to show me where it was. You never know, there might be a clue. Did they break a window?" He ducked back into his patrol car and reached for a clipboard on the seat.
Miller watched as Peg opened the office door and walked toward them, business-like. "It wasn't locked," he said. The cop wrote down something on the clipboard.
"Hotwire?"
"I don’t know.”
"No hotwire?"
Peg stopped on the other side of the cop car. "He left the key in it."
"You Mrs. Miller?"
"Yes."
"Left the key in, huh. That'll do it every time."
"Are we going or not?" said Miller.
"How far is it?" asked the cop.
"Four blocks. I'll walk," said Miller.
"Might as well get in," said the cop. "We're all going to the same place."
"Can I sit in front?" asked Peg. "I don't feel like I've done anything wrong."
"Sure."
"I'll sit in back," said Miller, "where I belong." He climbed into the back seat, behind the cop, and sulked, peering through the wire screen. An aura of red neon-lit Peg's curls. "Some nut steals the thing but I'll have to do time," he said.
What's that?" said the cop.
"Nothing."
They rode in silence, hitting every red light, listening to police calls. A disturbance in a tavern on N.W. 6th. A domestic problem on Wayside and S.E. 36th — a wife wanting her ex-husband removed from the premises.
"It's my husband's birthday," said Peg to the cop.
"That right? Not much of a birthday."
"Oh, but we've had such a wonderful time," she said, tossing her head at Miller. "I had a 'Cup 'o Gold' for dessert at the station."
"Yeah?" said the cop. "I like 'Cup 'o Golds. Cup 'o Golds and Zagnuts."
Miller couldn't stand it when she got like this, refusing to let him off the hook. He curled his wrists back, wedged both hands under his armpits, making wings of his arms, and chirped at her in his most aggravating crow voice, "Cup 'o Gold … Cup 'o Gold."
Peg turned and glared through the cage at him. He craned his neck forward, sucked his cheeks in and made beak-lips. He ruffled his feathers and tilted his head to one side. She refused to smile.
"Your husband okay?" said the cop.
"No," said Peg. "I think not."
"This the lot?" said the cop.
"Well if that doesn't beat all," said Peg.
Miller blinked his eyes. He couldn't believe it. "Armadillo!"
"Is this some kind of joke?" said the cop. I've got better things to do than play birthday games."
"I don't understand it," said Peg. "An hour ago it was gone."
Miller got out and trotted up to the old pick-up. He tried opening the driver's door, then remembered. He hurried around to the passenger door, opened it, and slid over behind the wheel. The key was still in the ignition. Crumpled beer cans littered the floorboard. The cop tapped on his window and Miller rolled it down as far as it would go, less than halfway. Peg got in on the passenger's side.
"So what's the story? Did they wreck it?" said the cop.
"No, it was already like this. Except for the beer cans."
The cop stuck his head in the window and sniffed. "It's against the law to smoke marijuana, you know," he said. "Even on your birthday."
"I don't smoke the stuff," said Miller. He looked at the cop and tapped his temple with his forefinger. "Bad for the memory."
"Must have been kids," said Peg. "A bunch of crazy kids, smoking dope and drinking."
"What's that on the dash?" said the cop.
"My birthday card," said Miller.
"Wait a minute," said Peg, plucking the envelope from the dash. "They left a message. She smiled and read with glee: “Dear Bozo, Happy 45th Birthday. Get a Horse. Love, Angel, Chainsaw, and Kitty.'"
"Bozo, eh?" said the cop.
"Now what do you think of that?" said Peg.
"I knew it was my lucky day," said Miller.
*
On the drive home along the river, the stars shone like beacons. Miller ran his fingers over the cracked steering wheel and wondered if beings in distant solar systems worried about growing old. Peg sat next to her door and said nothing. When they passed by the falls, he stuck his head out his window and felt a light mist on his face.
"What are you doing?" said Peg.
"Now I know why newlyweds go to Niagara. I'll bet it's like taking a cold shower. Invigorating."
"When have you ever taken a cold shower?"
"When I was 14, vacationing at Lake Tahoe. We had to shower the sand off before coming in the cabin."
"And you liked it?"
"You're right. I hated it. Gave me goosebumps all over." He patted the seat. "Come on over here."
Reluctantly she slid over next to him. He put his arm around her. "You know, when I woke up this morning I thought about that first morning we woke up together. Remember?”
"Of course I do. How could I ever forget?"
"Now I can’t stop having that where-have-all-the-years-gone feeling."
"I knew that."
"Really? How did you know that?"
"I'm your wife. I know everything."
He pulled her close and hugged her. "You know, maybe we should go to Niagara before it's too late."
"Sure," she said. "We should also go to the Pyramids and Hawaii and New Zealand and the Caribbean. But right now I'd just like to get home safely. Would you keep your eye on the road, please?"
"We could do it. We really could. That's the trouble with us. We need to do things. Go places. Break out of the rut."
"What rut? Are you saying you're unhappy?"
"No, no, it's just — our life is so normal now, so predictable. We can't even get away from the 45th parallel."
"What's wrong with the 45th parallel?"
"Nothing, it's just halfway in between everything. Not cold, not hot. Not far, not near. From here on in, it's all the same."
"I wouldn't bet on it," said Peg.
He pulled in the gravel drive and parked just past the black walnut. They slid out the passenger's door and walked toward the house. When they were directly under the tree, he stopped. "Wait," he said.
"What is it?"
"Listen …"
"I don't hear anything."
"That's just it." He looked up. "Where do they go at night?"
"Who?"
"The birds. I'll bet they're there, listening to us." He went quickly to the equipment shed, grabbed a shovel, and walked to the base of the tree.
"Miller …"
"Watch," he said. He gripped the wooden handle like a baseball bat, reared back, and whanged the base of the tree with the rounded blade — one, two, three times. A flight of darting shadows shot out of the crown of rustling leaves. "Whoa! Look at that! I knew they were there! Look at them go!" He whanged the tree two more times before Peg grabbed the handle of the shovel.
"Stop it, Miller, you'll wake up everyone within five miles."
"Did you see them?"
"Of course I saw them."
"Where'd they go?"
"I don't know and I don't care. I'm going to bed now," she said, leaning the shovel against the base of the tree. She walked in the direction of the house until she was just out of the drip line of the tree, stopped, and turned around. "Are you coming?"
Above her head, on the western horizon and a little to the south, Miller saw something. "Was that what I thought it was?"
"Was what what you thought it was?"
“A shooting star."
"I didn't see a thing."
He walked over to her and pointed to the sky. "Over there. You see those bright stars in a row?"
She sighted in on his arm. "Orion's belt," she said.
"Yeah. That's where it was. You realize right now we're seeing what happened years and years ago?”
"Light years."
"Right. The light is already older than we are, and our light hasn't even reached them yet."
"Reached who?"
"Whoever's out there, growing old like us. In their world I haven't even been born yet. We're all energy waiting to happen."
"You're 45 years old, Mr. Wizard."
"Out there 1945 hasn't even arrived. The bomb and I are just a couple of flashes of light waiting to happen."
"You're 45, your hair's thinning, your memory's as gone as those birds, and I haven't seen a single shooting star."
"I'm atomic potential. Newborn energy. I knew it when I woke up today. All the numbers are right. You know what I'm going to do tonight?"
"You're going to come to bed and give me some of that energy."
"I'm going to do what I always wanted to do as a kid."
"Let's go to bed." She took his hand and led him across the grass toward the back porch.
"I'm serious. Tonight, later, when the birds are asleep, I'm going to build a treehouse. I'm going to knock apart that old pallet in the garage and use it for the platform." The closer they got to the porch, the tighter she held his wrist. A single yellow bulb burned above the screen door.
"Tonight I'll lay down the platform where the two largest branches intersect,” he said. Then tomorrow I'll get more lumber.”
"You'll come to bed and make love to me and tomorrow you'll be on your way to being 46." She put the key in the lock and turned it.
Insects buzzed the light. Miller thought of them as electrons, circling.
***
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