At first I thought I was having a miscarriage but maybe I was just bleeding. I didn’t know if I wanted it to be a miscarriage because that meant I might have been pregnant. And I didn’t know if I wanted to be pregnant or how I might have felt about no longer being pregnant. 

The miscarriage made me think about my family dying. Most of them were dead, they just hadn’t all died at once or because I might have had a miscarriage. I didn’t want to go to the hospital to find out why I was bleeding. If you didn’t know anything you didn’t have to make as many phone calls as when you knew some things. And if there was no body you didn’t have to worry about what to do with the bones.  

I didn’t go to work either. When your family was dead you didn’t have to work. If you were lucky the inheritance kept you afloat and blacklisted you from shame, particularly the shame of underworking, even if shame was all you felt. I worked part time at a dog bakery. 

When I called in sick I didn’t tell them I was maybe having a miscarriage. That might have carried me full circle back into judgment. Instead I drove up and down Campbell and thought about buying fentanyl. I drove all the way to the top, the end of the street with the slanted parking spaces where high schoolers had sex. And I called one of my dealers, the one who delivered. His name was Moses, and whenever he said he was on his way, I pictured him parting the red sea and me on the other side fishing. Now I just pictured bloody water.

“I can deliver tomorrow, car’s in the shop right now,” he said. “I have to get my eggs in a row first.”

“What?”

“My eggs in a row.”

“It’s ducks in a row,” I said.

“What?”

“The saying, it’s eggs in a basket, ducks in a row.”

“Why would I want my ducks in a fucking row?” he asked.

“I don’t know, I didn’t make it up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Damn.”

I drove all the way up to Tempe before I realized I wasn’t interested in going to hell that day. On my way back south, Elise called me. Elise was the florist for my grandmother’s funeral. She’d picked out some gorgeous and expensive lilies and I cried a second time when they died. She said I was the only client of hers who asked for the flowers to be cremated. And now we were codependent.

“There’s a haboob on the loose,” she said quickly before I could say anything. “Get off the interstate now.”

“How do you know where I am?” I looked around as if she might burst from the dirt or climb out of someone’s pick up.
“I have your location and I was tracking you because I’m bored to death at this hospital. And you’re usually doing something weird.”

“What?” Was Elise having a miscarriage? The flowers would spill out of her room. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. My dad is getting kidney stones removed. Which is so embarrassing. What if a reporter comes up to me and asks ‘where were you when the haboob hit?’ and I have to answer with that.” 

“Where is your mom?”

“She made me take off work so that she could go buy him some fancy water bottle at an outlet mall. Apparently they specialize in drinking efficiency.”

I laughed. “What is drinking efficiency and why didn’t we know about it when we were in college?”

“Apparently it's about getting the water from the bottle to your mouth in the quickest way possible.”

I snorted.

“I know,” she sighed, “it’s dumb. She just needs to feel useful. Anyway, beware the haboob. Pull over somewhere safe, will you?” 

There was just the lone flat road, which I knew she knew since she had my location. 

“I will,” I said. “Call me tomorrow with the water bottle review.” 

“Don’t threaten me.” 

Already from the west, the haboob was forming. The thick gray clouds held the thunderstorm, and jutting out from under, like a growth, was the dust storm. A milky tan color. Casa Grande was twenty minutes away and I could probably make it. The cars in front of me on the interstate swerved back and forth in anticipation, like snakes rearing their heads trying to divert a threat. I drove through them and counted the rectangles until I was at my exit. 

I pulled into the Circle K parking lot and had to brace myself against the car as I opened my door. The winds were already high and everything tasted like hot salt and garbage. I peeled open the gas station door and nearly collapsed once inside. The place was empty.

Gas stations always had so many chips and bottles of water and soda in perfect rows and you could stay forever but nobody ever lingered unless they were afraid of where they might go next. The cashier was young enough, maybe my age, but age was hard to quantify in sand storms. He had a creepy thin mustache and a buzzed head. He nodded at me as if to say, ‘welcome to the island, we might live, we might die, we might chain smoke an entire pack of cigarettes, but one thing is for certain, we won’t let ourselves care about one another.’ That could all be contained in a nod.

I bought pads and a sad looking muffin because I felt like I needed to cut the tension as the haboob hit. 

It pushed against the station walls as if it had feet and legs. As if it were some octopus suctioning off the glass, inking everything up. The force made the bell on the door jingle. He didn’t ring me up, we just stared at the clouds of sand. They were so thick I was unsure if my car was still there. I was unsure if anything was still there, and for all I knew all that was left of humanity was me, the guy, and the underwear I was bleeding through.

He pulled out a glock 19 from behind the counter, the same type of gun that some psycho fuck had used to shoot our congresswoman in the Safeway parking lot, which added to its weight when he put it down. I stared at it.

“It’s not for you,” he said.

“Who is it for?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Storms bring looters.”

“And if there are no looters?”

He shrugged again. “Then it’s for the storm.” 

I sat on the floor against a Takis display and we burned through a pack of Camel Crushes over the next two hours while we waited for the haboob to pass. They tasted like tenth grade. I said it out loud and he laughed. I kept waiting for something to pop out of the dust. A hand, a whale, a receipt, a revelation, a car tire. Nothing new ever came but eventually I could see my car again. 

If the heat hadn’t burned all the rain off, I would have only a few minutes before the monsoon. I was used to driving in those. He gave me a road cigarette and I wanted to give him something in return but I knew I didn’t have anything an arbiter would want.

“Thanks,” I said. “Stay dry.” It was laughable. 

“Prepare for scorpions and roaches,” he said. 

They always wormed their way inside after a rain. 

“I think I'm having a miscarriage,” I said. Then I walked out of the Circle K and got into my car. 

By the time I was off the interstate, the heavy rain and the thunder were shaking my car so I gave up on the wipers and drove the rest of the way home based on feel. The rain was muddy brown. I got in the shower and the blood was muddy brown. 

I tried calling one of my other drug dealers, Gemma. The line was cut and I had forgotten. A month ago two men broke into her home with knives. She shot them and was arrested. Not for killing them, we were all killing each other out here, but for the drugs. It was like being born into a drought but inheriting a flood. She was a kindergarten teacher. I didn’t know what kind of gun it was. 

I padded the couch with towels and sank into my living room. The miscarriage and the storm made me think about Moby Dick. I had stopped reading it somewhere at the gay part. Haha. But I knew the gist. They all boarded a boat led by some alcoholic pegleg with an Old Testament grudge against a sea mammal with no thumbs. When put like that it was all a bit sad, but you were supposed to respect Ahab on some level, even if you didn’t like him. You respected the whale inherently because the whale was like God and because it was sometimes fun to watch yourself not just fail, but to watch yourself die trying. 

The rain was as heavy as it had been and pressed down on my home and on the dust and mud covered land like a fist. There was nothing beyond my windows, just the rushing of water. 

I put on Jaws. They were all the same, some just gave you the illusion of winning. I fell asleep at the part where the big fish got away. 

That night I had a dream about my grandmother. I was feeding her a pastry but she kept trying to dial a number on the phone. I asked who she was trying to call and she said she needed to speak to her mother. But when she pressed ‘call’ my phone started ringing. It kept ringing. 

In the morning it was like we’d all been buried and then dug up. I pulled myself out of the living room couch and turned off the television. My windows were mud stained and hazy so the sun came through in blurry patches.

Elise was calling me. 

“Oh thank god,” she said. “I thought you hadn’t made it.” 

“What?” I said. “You have my location.”
“Yeah but for all I know you were swept away by the haboob and all the police found of you was your phone.” 

“I’m okay,” I said. 

“Good, good,” she said. “But just so you know, the flowers at your funeral would have been immaculate. I’m talking about orchids. Nobody would have even noticed if they couldn’t find your body.” 

“Thank you, I appreciate it,” I said. “How is your dad?” 

  “Oh he’s fine. He passed two beautiful stones early this morning. They have his eyes.” 

I laughed. “Did the water bottle work?” 

“It’s less a water bottle and more so a water gun. It shoots water into your mouth, but the accuracy isn’t too great. My mom’s going to try to find a better one this afternoon.” 

“I hope she finds one,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a scorpion, the size of a cigarette, crawling on my living room tile. Its body was muddy brown. It squeezed itself behind a bookcase, but I knew it was there, probably hunting a cockroach. Probably hiding from me. I turned away. 

The towels underneath me were wet. I rolled them up and put them in the washer. Then I closed my eyes and sat with my back against the machine as the water poured into the basin. The tide crept up my spine. All those bodies swimming beneath the current, some surfacing to breathe. Ahab was such a raging narrow-minded fuck, I was jealous. I wanted to care about something that was still alive that much. To the point that it killed me.