That’s not it, either.
I’m so tired, I just want to close my eyes. Except for that moon. It’s getting brighter and higher, like God lifting his lamp, looking for his lost sheep.
I think the highway is up the slope, above me. If I were nearer to it, someone might see me. It might make a difference.
I get to my hands and knees, swaying, and put the waxing moon in my sights.
On your feet, soldier. You can do this. You’re made outta this.
Then I stand up.
Part I
one
NINE DAYS EARLIER
“Do you ever think about Jonah?”
“Jesus, is that my Bible? I haven’t opened that thing in years. So you’re talking about the guy that was swallowed by a whale?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I’d have to say I don’t think about him. I wouldn’t think you would, either. I didn’t take you for particularly religious.”
“I’m not. That’s my point, though. When you’re not raised religious, you think of Jonah as the swallowed-by-a-whale guy, like Noah is the ark guy. But when you actually read the Book of Jonah, it’s not what you expect.”
“You read the whole book?”
“It’s three pages long.”
Morning in San Francisco. Jack Foreman, tall and thin, in his early forties, with a premature streak of gray in his light brown hair, was across the room, already dressed at quarter to eight, already having cleared away last night’s Ketel One bottle and two glasses, showered, dressed, and fixed and consumed breakfast and an espresso. He was now scanning the headlines of both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times, and at the same time keeping an eye on CNN with the sound off. I was still in his bed, naked, with my hair half raveled in the braids I forgot to take out last night, reading his Bible for no particular reason other than that it had caught my eye while Jack was still in the shower.