He came to Rockville with a naked ring finger and a loaded gun. It was spring. The Virgin River was muddy; the cottonwoods were blooming. Most travelers stay in Springvale, where they shuttle back and forth from Zion Park. Rockville is a quiet and barely incorporated collection of ranch homes and cattle yards on the road just before Springvale; our claim to fame is a steel truss bridge with a historical marker.
Rockville has one bar. Well, I call it a bar; others call it the shed in the back of Henry Mailer’s yard. He converted it in the early aughts for a little extra cash. He either got a liquor license or a good forgery; it’s framed behind a shelf of tequila next to the first dollar from his first customer—his wife, Connie. She ordered a Manhattan; he didn’t know how to make one. It’s a funny story, providing you tell it right. I usually do. I’m pretty good at telling stories. But this stranger did me one better.
His name was Frederick Murphy. He did not go by Fred. He told me so the first I called him that; “I prefer Frederick.” And when I slipped again, he gave me a look, nothing at all violent in his eyes, but a warning all the same. “I prefer Frederick.” I didn’t call him Fred a third time.
He told his story the second night, about twenty past ten. I only know because the TV in the far corner of the bar was playing the evening news, and they were just getting to the weather report. High of 79, low of 48, no chance of rain. That first night I did all the talking, after asking the usual questions. Where you from? “Colorado. Boulder.” What brings you here? “Thinking about what I need to do.” I took that answer in stride, told him he’d picked well, nothing like a walk in a hundred-million-or-so-old canyon to give a man perspective. Listen, in a town of two hundred, you get pretty starved for new conversation. I’d be willing to listen to just about anything. So I listened. God help me, I listened.
“She told me she wanted a divorce in the middle of supper. Rotisserie chicken and boiled green beans. I had a mouthful of the chicken. I couldn’t swallow it, had to spit it out and ask her to repeat herself. She said she was unsatisfied. I said, ‘Unsatisfied?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘How? How are you unsatisfied?’ She said, ‘Sexually, among other things.’ I said, ‘What other things?’ I didn’t even want to get into the sexual part. The truth is—let me have another shot before I tell you this— the truth is she could be…threatening…in the bedroom. Yeah. Threatening. But, impersonally. Storm cloud on the horizon kind of thing. There was never violence. I was never, like, raped or nothing. Never. But sometimes, in bed with her, I was afraid. She’d get this look. She’d look hungry. And I don’t mean like, a sexual hunger. I mean she looked at me like all she needed was the barbeque sauce, you know? It was unnerving, is what I’m saying. But anyway, it wasn’t even just the sex thing. She said I was distant. Emotionally, I guess. She said I’d lost my spark, my joie de vivre. Where the hell she picked up something like joie de vivre, I’ll never know. We were living just outside Las Vegas at the time, have I said? There aren’t too many people around Vegas talking about joie de vivre. The other stuff, the emotionally distant and the sexually unsatisfied, well, okay. But joi de vivre? I asked her, ‘What do you want from me? What would make you happy?’ See, I still thought we were together at this point. But she—she was already long gone. To her, this was goodbye, and I was making it longer than it had any need to be.
“She said, ‘What would make me happy is if you needed me.’ I said, ‘Baby, I need you.’ She said, ‘I read on the Internet that if the human body doesn’t have water for three days, it dies. Is that how you need me?’ I said yes. I said yes because I thought that’s what I was supposed to say. She shook her head. Her bags were packed. She was already gone. But I told her, ‘I’d do anything.’ And she looked at me in that way. Like I was just two salt shakes shy of having. Like I was close to satisfying.
“I guess I should tell you, I repair cracked phones for a living, do some other tech support on the side. I used to have a business. She worked at the casinos. She managed the beverages and food for conferences. The coffee and water on the back table. Those stale pastries they always give you. That was her job. We were stable, but that’s about it. Going out-of-state was a treat. So I thought, maybe, what she wanted was adventure or, you know, something in the ballpark. She said, ‘If you want to prove that you need me, need me like water.’ I asked her how. She said, ‘I’m going to leave.’ And then, looking at me like I was a prize on a carny’s wall, ‘I’ll look you up three months after I’m gone. I’ll see what happened. If you really do need me like water.’”
He paused here, nursed his drink. It was just us in the bar. Henry Mailer had stepped out to use the commode in his house. He had a bathroom attached to the shed but preferred the comfort of his own home. It was just me and Frederick Murphy. I could’ve walked away then. Excused myself, stepped out and walked away.
He said, “She was an only child. Her parents were dead. There was no one to call when she was gone. I don’t know where she went. I don’t know where she is. The friends we shared, the people I knew who knew her, never heard from her. Or if they did, they lied to me. It doesn’t matter. What matters is, she was gone, and I was left with three months ahead of me. I closed my business, left Vegas. I went back up to Boulder where I had some family. Didn’t help. You have to understand. At first, I think I just said it to say it, but it became true. It did. I needed her. I tried. I even got to where I hired women. I’m not proud, but I did. I tried not to be lonely. I tried to let her be in my past. I couldn’t. I need her, and there’s only one way to prove it.
“We’d come to Zion on vacation, early in our marriage. We liked the colors in the canyon. How the sun changes them during the day. We stayed at a bed-and-breakfast, here in Rockville, just up the road. You know it, I’m sure. I’m there now. In two days it will be three months. She’ll keep her promise. I know she will. I’ll show her. I’ll show her I need her.”
The TV was still on. An old rerun of Seinfeld. The one where they go to the Chinese restaurant. A classic. I had been watching it for a while. I hadn’t been able to look at him. He hadn’t been looking at me as he talked, mind. But there was this awful shine about him. A happiness. A sinister happiness.
I said, “Can I ask you one thing?”
He nodded. He’d finished his drink. Henry Mailer was still on the shitter. Maybe he’d fallen asleep. Maybe he’d had a heart attack.
I said, “You’re not wearing your wedding band.”
A long time before he spoke again. Nearly a whole commercial break. I didn’t rush him. I’ve learned that, to hear a story proper, there has to be a space for it. A silence. Well. He nodded a couple of times, opened his mouth to speak. Looked around for Henry for a little liquid courage and, failing that, put the empty glass to his lips, as if the taste would be enough. And I suppose it was.
He said, “I was hoping. When they find me. It would be on the report or, I don’t know. I was hoping she would see a picture and, well. I don’t know. I hate her. I think that’s what she wanted. I hate her. Christ, I hate her. And when I pull the trigger, I’ll be free. I’m going to be free.”
He pushed back from the table, stood, and excused himself for the restroom. He didn’t return. Eventually Connie Mailer came in to close up. Henry, it turns out, had forgotten we were out here. He’d got caught up in a ball game inside his house and fallen asleep on the couch. Go figure. I helped her clean up what I could, then said goodbye and left the lights to her.
He didn’t pull the trigger, not in Rockville at least. I inquired with Susan Reed, who ran the bed-and-breakfast he’d been talking about. She knew him and told me he’d checked out the day after he told his story to me. That would give him one more day, by his reckoning. One more day to decide. I read local newspapers, crime beats, you understand. Checked the Vegas obits. Never saw a thing. I don’t think he did it. I think he had to tell the story so he wouldn’t do it. I think—and you can stop me if you think I’m reaching—but I think once the story was out, once it was sound, physical in another man’s ears, he was able to, maybe not free himself, but understand it, maybe. See it closer to what it was. People aren’t water. Any need we have of them is a story. That’s my piece, anyway. But I’ve kept you long enough. It’s late, and you probably have someone you need to be getting home to. Get going, then. Leave us lonely be.
