Brian and Deborah, a
Los Angeles couple in the arts, decide to move full
time onto his ranch in New Mexico but have no idea
how the courses of their lives will be altered by
this change.
Big city people, they
are unused to acceptable rural mores and conduct.
Shortly thereafter, a move to Texas to get deeper
involved in the horse business proves too much
stress for their relationship.
Divorced and forced
off the ranch, Brian in loneliness and misery drifts
into a pen-pal relationship with a woman
incarcerated for life for murder; as is her
boyfriend/accomplice.
Now visiting her,
Brian begins to take steps to have her Parole
reviewed. This brings him to the attention of her
family and her boyfriend’s pals; a group of
ex-Seals, Rangers and Commandos; all of whom want
her to remain imprisoned. They send him ‘messages’.
Brian continues
unwittingly along the path that inevitably leads him
to confrontation and judgment by those who would
have him stop. Not understanding, he appears to
ignore their warnings, inciting them to stronger
actions. He is ultimately called upon to answer for
himself to people who live by a violent and very
unforgiving code of the West.
"Deborah, open the
door." No answer. "Open the door or I'll break it
down." She laughed.
There was no room
to get more than three feet from the door as it
faced into a hallway, opposite a walk-in closet. He
threw his shoulder into the door with no result. He
opened the closet’s sliding door and backed in
amongst the clothes to get another foot and a half
of run at it and began to hurl himself against the
door. After what seemed like an eternity, the jamb
splintered and the door flew open.
She was seated on
the bathroom floor amid a sea of empty, brown
plastic prescription bottles. She looked up at him
and said, triumphantly, "AND, I took Compazine so I
won't throw it up!"
He ran to the
phone, called 911 and as it rang realized just how
isolated they were, how impossible to describe their
location. When he got a response, he told them that
his wife was attempting suicide with pills and for
an ambulance to go to mileage marker # 8 on the
Mineral Hill Route, turn on its flashing light and
HE would find them.
She was dead
weight. He managed to get one of her arms around his
neck and he held her by the wrist and wrapped his
other arm about her waist and they careened down the
open staircase almost losing balance time and again.
She was like a pendulum, her weight swinging this
way and then back, nearly causing them both to
plunge headlong down the stairs. Now, the effect of
7,300' and the whiskey was taking its toll on him,
breath was coming in gasps, he couldn't speak, just
roar.
He got her into
the car and sped over the rocks toward the road. He
nearly crashed into the steel gate before realizing
that he had to open it and entered the combination,
in the moonless night, with salami-like fingers,
over and over as it refused to yield. Frustrated and
terrified, he was thinking about trying to ram his
way through the gate as he had the bathroom door,
when the lock fell open in his hands and he leapt
back into the car and floored the pedal. Her head
had lolled over to her shoulder by the window and
she appeared lifeless; he yelled at her to wake up,
smacked her face with the back of his hand again and
again to try to revive her; shaking her when he
could get a grip on her shoulder or a fistful of her
sweater.
They flew through
the pitch black night in a shower of dried mud and
stones and sparks. He saw the flashing lights in the
distance and laid on the horn. There was not only
the ambulance, there was a New Mexico State Trooper
as well, both with flashing lights ablaze. He
screeched to a halt by the ambulance and flung her
door open as hands tried to grab her and help. He
ran to haul her out of the car as the burly Trooper
took control of him and moved him aside to let the
Paramedics get to her. They were scared, scared as
he was, he could tell, and they got her on the
gurney and into the ambulance yelling at the cop to
lead them “FAST”. And the caravan was rolling.
The Trooper led
the way, the ambulance close behind and as Brian
floored the Mercedes to keep up, he was, all of a
sudden in the complete silence of the rural New
Mexico night. He was keening, the sunroof open to
the stars, calling to heaven at the top of his lungs
as if being out in the desert required yelling to
get God's attention.
He screamed to the
night, making deals with God, "Just let her live!
PLEASE! I'm begging you, just let her live!"
Years later, in an
AA meeting he began to weep when remembering this
moment as he realized that when you make a deal to
get something, you have to give something in return,
but what had he pledged? What was his part of the
bargain? Then it came to him. He heard himself
dealing the thing dearest to him away in exchange.
"If you let her live, I swear I'll never drink
again!!" He wept as quietly as he could; these
people had troubles of their own.
I didn't keep my
promise, he thought, and that's why I lost her. Not
to death, but he had lost her love. She loved him no
more, and that bargain was sealed years ago on that
deserted desert highway when he lied to God. Or was
too weak to honor his word, which was just as bad.
All that had happened was born that night when her
heart stopped, when God allowed her to be brought
back to life with electricity and the efforts of
people Brian had never met and who owed him nothing;
but who had saved his life; saved his wife. And he
didn't keep up his end of the bargain. Good Lord,
did he want a drink!
When they had
pumped her stomach and it was pretty clear that
while she was serious, she was no longer critical,
except of him, the State Trooper made Brian take him
back to the house for some reason which sounded
reasonable to him at that moment, but which he
realized upon further reflection was to affect a
search for illegal drugs. It didn't matter. He was
too numb to even be suspicious or to care what they
found. There were endless empty pill bottles which
had been full, since they had visited Dr. Feelgood
prior to departing LA and stocked up on Vicodin,
Codeine, Xanax, Valium and Restoril. And those were
all just Brian's prescriptions. Who knew what drugs
Deborah had of her own? He allowed himself to feel a
moment of amusement mixed with the sorrow as he
realized that she had taken HIS drugs.
Steve Marvin lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
with CeCe, Precious, and Gracie . . . all of
whom make life joyous, while only one of
whom is a bi-ped.
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