Fellow Travelers

by Thomas Mallon

“A hundred minutes ago,” Tim finally said, as they passed the battlefield cemetery, “I’d have been wishing I were lying there.” “Having to look at Karl Mundt will do that, I’m sure,” said Hawkins, never taking his eyes from the road. Tim struggled to keep from fishing, from begging for reassurance: You know what I meant. “A hundred years ago,” said Hawkins, “you would have been here, freshly dead. While your Grandma Gaffney was out rioting against the draft that stole you for a drummer boy.” “Before I died I would have had a case on you, in your fancy uniform at the head of a Zouave regiment.” “No, you wouldn’t have. You’d never have met me. I’d have bought my way out of conscription for three hundred dollars, so that I could still be eating oysters at Delmonico’s while you were cracking your poor Irish teeth on hardtack.” Tim smiled and rested his head against the backseat. A minute later he fell asleep, exhausted with relief as they continued riding westward. He slept until the beginning of a bright orange sunset made itself felt through his closed eyelids and woke him to the sight of a hundred pink flowering trees, the smell of their blossoms rushing through the car’s open windows like the surge of violins on one of his sister’s Puccini records. He burst into sobs.