“I’ll be Riggs,” she said, “and you’ll be Danny—wide-eyed Danny, round mouthed Danny. You be Danny, Danny. Be my Murtaugh.” She hadn’t stopped saying it for three hours. There were minor variations, but it was always the same underneath. Outside of the repetition, she’d figured out ways of sneaking into the backseat, climbing over during tricky pass or as we rounded a hairy switchback and curling up beyond my reach. From those spots she’d laugh and masturbate and whisper, “Be my Murtaugh, Danny. Be my perfect-headed Danny,” while I threatened to pull over.

I could’ve killed John for showing it to her, knowing how fixated she could get. It was a dick move, but I’d been in a pinch and John had been the only one who could watch her for me. Goddamn John and his videos. This was seven years of marriage—the payout.

“You’re too old for this, Danny. Say you’re—” She’d pause while she came, but what stuck out most was how she’d finish the sentence before getting confused and climbing back over the bench seat. ”—too old for this.” Lost, so close to self-aware for a moment that anything resembling a memory of the previous span would shine a light on a world too confusing to reconcile, she’d reclaim her space beside me, hold my arm like she meant it, and lay her head against me. This was seven years of marriage.

Three hours faded easily enough into two days. She’d wear herself out from time to time—pass out with her hands between her legs in the backseat. I’d given up on swatting at her and telling her to stop, and the rushes of blood to my face at her being spied by passing truckers had become less and less frequent. This was the comfort they talk about, the comfort of knowing the truckers will honk but that at the end of the night she’s going home with you, even if it kills you.

“Murtaugh…” It’s night, now. It’s an endless stretch of flat Texas filled with dinosaurs and roadside graves. She’s leaning, her face pressed against the window and I know every bit of how good it must feel. Her words come through like radio signals from deep space, taking the years buried in each empty Texas mile to reach between us. “They say I’m suicidal. Do you think that’s true?”

“Sugar,” I say, “they don’ say that about you. That’s not you. That’s just the movie.”

“I know, Murtaugh. I know. I don’t mean to make things difficult, Danny. That’s just the way they get…all by themselves.”

“I know,” I say. I say, “I know,” and I dream of the thousand ways to make this trip over, to end the slow crash of this life-ending life we’ve found between us. I say, “I know,” and I think the thousand terrible things and I put my hand on her knee for as long as she’ll allow it, and I pretend she understands. This is seven years with the hurtful promise of seventeen. This is the hope against suicide, that my weakness will outlive my strength for another day, and another after that, and another still.

“I’ll be Riggs,” she says as the sun glides high above Phoenix, “unless you wanna be, my sweet-lipped Danny,” and she slides her hands beneath her skirt.

“No,” I say, calculating the remaining miles. “It’s OK. I’ll be Murtaugh.”

Timestamp: 03.28.07 at 08:43 AM. Filed under: Fiction.