Drifter

Abstract

Drifter Laura Steadham Smith (bio) Peter had only been dead a year, and Natalie still saw him everywhere. In the man running down her street, in the car beside her in traffic. Some mornings, he lay next to her in bed just before she opened her eyes, though in the light he was gone. Sometimes he looked exactly the way she remembered: hair fanned around the crown of his head, too straight to lie still, too thin to look kempt. Sometimes before she remembered he was dead, she wondered where he was. Like maybe he'd gone out. To buy a sandwich, maybe. To sit on the boat dock behind the abandoned TV station and look for dolphins. To cook with durian fruit. This time, a biker who looked like Peter sat between a garbage can and the door of the 24-hour Circle K on the causeway going into Mobile. Natalie closed the door of her truck and opened the gas cap. Sweat slid down her back. Across the highway, black water shimmered to Goat Island and the gulf beyond. The moon was a white disk where the sun would rise in a few hours. The man who wasn't Peter ran his hand over his mouth and looked back at her. He had the same broad shoulders and tense posture. His eyes were wide and brown, his mouth turned inward, his features traced with thin lines. Maybe 35, 36 years old. A red gash cut a line across his forehead. He leaned against a bicycle and held an open Snickers bar. He chewed and watched her. She lifted her chin and looked back. A breeze, wet like an open mouth, tugged at her t-shirt. She let the pump run until the numbers stopped, and then she put it back. She turned to slide her wallet back onto the passenger seat, then closed the door and looked to see him next to her. He wore boots heavy with dirt. Grime had settled into the crevices that lined his eyes, his mouth, but he smiled. The cut on his forehead was crusted with old blood. He pointed to his bike. The front tire lay in ribbons on the concrete. "Any bike shops around here?" he asked. She looked across the water to the dark smear where the bay melted into the gulf. The small boats scattered even now, their lights nodding on the surface. The trawler in the marsh, its nets two arms flung high. The gulls, always circling. Always calling. She nodded and slung the truck door open. "Help me with something first," she said. _____ The alligator breeding center sat tucked between Fish River and the pine forest that stretched all the way to the delta. Natalie turned off the highway and onto a dirt road that swung around the back of the farm. "I was going to take one of the babies," she told him. "But maybe we can get one a little bigger." The man who wasn't Peter raised his eyebrows. He didn't say no. He looked relaxed as she jolted him closer to the waiting alligators, which struck her as odd. [End Page 73] "Where you from?" she asked. "Ocala," not-Peter said. He rolled down the window. "You mind smoke?" She looked to her left, at the white house that waited with darkened windows across a wide lawn. "Wait till we're out of here," she said. He nodded and rolled the window back up. "It's Clay." "Natalie." She hadn't driven real Peter many places. There'd been a night when she drank too much and gave him her keys, but he couldn't drive standard. She'd leaned across the gearshift to put her head in his lap, then sat up and talked him through it, her speech slurred, the streetlights white halos on the pavement. He lurched all the way home, and she laughed, but he never offered again. "You bum all the way here?" she asked. He shook his head, and the truck pitched over an old rut. He spoke loudly. "Biked from central Florida. Ten days and only two states. Then my tire blew." He...