The Passage

They’d set up a little desk and a couple of file cabinets in the back; the room was still full of empty racks that had once held DVDs, and a lot of tangled wires and other junk was hanging from open spaces in the droppanel ceiling. Leaned against the rear wall of the store was a life-size cardboard figure, coated with a film of dust, of some movie star Grey couldn’t place, a bald black dude in wraparounds, with biceps that bulged under his T-shirt like a couple of ca

Two days later-by which time he realized he’d never learned the names of the man and the woman, couldn’t even have said what they looked like-he was on the plane to Cheye

“Wallets, cell phones, any personal stuff, photographs, anything with writing on it, right down to the pen you got at the bank,” he told them. “I don’t care if it’s a fucking fortune cookie. In it goes.”

They emptied their pockets, hoisted their duffels into the luggage rack, and climbed in through the side. It was only when Richards closed the door behind them that Grey realized the windows were blacked out. From the outside the vehicle looked like an ordinary van, but inside it was a different story: the driver’s compartment was sealed off, the passenger compartment nothing but a metal box with vinyl bench seats bolted to the floor. Richards had said they were allowed to trade first names but that was all. The other two men were Jack and Sam. They looked so much like Grey he might have been staring into a mirror: middle-aged white guys with buzz cuts and puffed red hands and workingman’s tans that stopped at the wrists and collar. Grey’s first name was Lawrence, but he’d barely ever used it. It sounded odd coming from his mouth. As soon as he said it, shaking hands with the one named Sam, he felt like somebody different, like he’d boarded the plane in Dallas as one person and landed in Cheye

In the dark van, it was impossible to tell where they were going, and a little nauseating. For all Grey knew, they were just circling the airport. With nothing to do or see, they all fell asleep soon enough. When Grey woke up he had no sense of the hour. He also had to pee like a jackrabbit. That was the Depo. He rose from his seat and rapped his knuckles on the sliding panel at the front of the compartment.

“Yo, I gotta stop,” he said.

Richards slid the window open, affording Grey a view through the van’s windshield. The sun had set; the road ahead, a two-lane blacktop, was dark and empty. In the distance he glimpsed a purple line of light where the sky met a mountain ridge.

“I need to take a leak,” Grey explained. “Sorry.”

In the passenger compartment behind him, the other men were rousing. Richards reached onto the floor and passed Grey a clear plastic bottle with a wide mouth.

“I gotta pee in this?”

“That’s the idea.”

Richards closed the window without another word. Grey sat back down on the bench and examined the bottle in his hand. He figured it was big enough. But the thought of taking his equipment out in the van, right in front of the other men, like this was no big deal, made all the muscles around his bladder clamp like a slipknot.

“No way I’m using that,” the one named Sam said. His eyes were closed; he was sitting with his hands folded at his lap. His face wore a look of intense concentration. “I’m just holding it.”

They rode a little farther. Grey tried to think of something that could keep his mind off his bursting bladder, but this only made matters worse. It felt like an ocean sloshing around inside him. They hit a pothole and the ocean crashed against the shoreline. He heard himself groan.

“Hey!” he said, banging on the window again. “Hey in there! I’ve got an emergency!”

Richards opened the panel. “What is it now?”

“Listen,” Grey said, and pushed his head through the narrow space. He lowered his voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “I can’t. Seriously. I can’t use the bottle. You’ve got to pull over.”

“Just hold it, for fucksake.”

“I’m serious. I’m begging you. I can’t… I can’t go like this. I have a medical condition.”

Richards sighed with irritation. Their eyes met quickly in the rearview, and Grey wondered if he knew. “Stay where I can see you and no looking around. I fucking mean it.”

He pulled the vehicle to the side of the road. Grey was muttering under his breath, “C’mon, c’mon… ” Then the door opened and he was out, sprinting away from the rumbling light of the van. He stumbled down the embankment, each second ticking off like a bomb between his thighs. Grey was in some kind of pasture. A sliver of moon was up, wicking the tips of the grass with an icy glow. He had to get at least fifty feet away, he figured, maybe more, to do the thing right. He came to a fence line and despite his knees and the pressure of his bladder he was up and over it like a shot. He heard Richards’s voice behind him yelling for him to stop, fucking stop right now, goddamnit, and then he heard Richards yelling at the other men to do the same. Dewy grass swished against Grey’s pant legs, drenched the toes of his boots. A dot of red light was skipping across the field in front of him, but who knew what that was. He could smell cows, feel their presence around him, somewhere in the field. A fresh surge of panic pressed upon him: what if they were watching?

But it was too late, he simply had to go, there was no way he could wait another second. He stopped where he was and unzipped his fly and peed so hard into the darkness he moaned with relief. No tepid arc of gold: the water shot out of him like the contents of a busted hydrant. He peed and peed and peed some more. God almighty, it was the most wonderful feeling in the world, peeing like this, like a great plug had been pulled out of him. He was almost glad he’d waited so long.