Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events by Kevin Moffett

scattered with railroad ties. The sort of place you visited without leaving your car. In protest, Tad began running up the mound and down, up and down. A man in a blue uniform stopped him and said, “You’re running on the bones of my people.”
    The man’s lips held a toothpick. He clenched his jaw, a sheriff ready to pull his gun. He smiled. “Just kidding,” he said. “About my people, I mean, not the bones.”
    Tad thought of a few things he would’ve said to the man now. His thoughts were a junkyard. He hounded the edges, distracted by any oddity or shiny trinket.
    The spotlights danced in the sky as he finished the beer and began constructing a list of demands for himself and Amy. It went: We must take care of each other. We must be the best versions of ourselves. We must inoculate each other from unhappiness.
    Contented, feeling as if something serious had been achieved with very little effort, he walked back to the trailer. A pair of tombstones were pitched against each other in an interesting way, and Tad scrutinized them like something he might sketch. He felt expansive, blameless, a bit drunk. “Just passing through,” he said to the tombstones. He said it how Gar Floyd would. He made it sound dusty.
    All night a harsh wind shook the trailer on its moorings and he brought the sound into sleep with him, dreaming that they were being pulled down the highway. Into the unknown, into the unknown. In the morning he was awoken by the ticking of the trailer’s metal ceiling in the sun.
    They ate breakfast in a diner with framed articles on the wall about paranormal phenomena. They took a tour of the copper mine, which was cold and long and garishly informative. Amy sat with the disposable camera in her lap waiting for something photogenic to occur. Their guide, who’d worked in the mine before it closed, said everyone on the train had to ask one question before the tour ended. “Any advice for me and my new wife?” Tad asked him.
    The guide thought about it for a second, then said, “Never don’t say good night.”
    Afterward they went into antique stores and picked things up and set them down. Amy bought a piece of petrified wood that said OFFICIAL ARIZONA SOUVENIR and a dream catcher for Gar Floyd’s rearview mirror. This cheered them for a while. A trifle distresses, a trifle consoles, wasn’t that how it went? They looked around for consoling trifles. They returned to the trailer and listened to the radio shows.
    A man keeps seeing someone who looks exactly like him. A woman begins speaking another language, one that no one, including her, understands. The shows were really about aloneness, Tad decided. He helped Amy pull off her tank top and then licked a line straight down her back. He licked dots along each side of the line, like a surgical scar. He studied her back and tried to decide what else to do.
    What else was there to do?
    T he Volvo had been moved to the front of the service station, one fan blowing into the driver’s-side door, another into the passenger’s side. Beneath the wiper blade was a piece of paper, which Tad freed. THE HAPPY HAWKER , it said. WE PAY TOP DOLLARS FOR IMPORTS . There was a drawing of a car with dollar signs for headlights.
    He leaned in. The odor, though not as harsh, was still there. Still insistent. The remains of the remains outlived the remains, Tad thought. And the wildflower bouquet remained on the dashboard. It looked happy there.
    Inside the station, the old mechanic sat eating a sandwich half wrapped in wax paper. He listened to a portable radio and chewed in rhythm, as if eating the song.
    â€œStill stinks,” Tad said. “Any more fans?”
    The mechanic swallowed thoughtfully before speaking. “People used to put dead fish inside hubcaps, as a joke. Maybe someone’s playing a joke on you.”
    â€œI told you, it’s not my car. It’s Gar