Caitlin Eliza McKenna

The Thick Red Line

The dining hall thunders like a July storm over the Flatirons.

You lead nine guys in palomino linen shirts through the standing ovation that started in the bar and unfurled like a signal flare all the way to the kitchen. Cooks emerge to join in.

Sunburned, tipsy, and embarrassed, the men sit around a ten-top. The table wobbles under the weight of cracked wheat bread, salted butter, bacon-wrapped tournedos, and bottles of Cabernet.

One-by-one, residents take the empty seat at the head of the table. Crying, they squeeze the guys’ calloused hands. Laughing, they joke that they forgot their passports but somehow evacuated their whole sock drawer. One of the other waitresses tells them that her car wouldn’t start. She stuck it in neutral, pushed it to a dirt lot, and hitched a ride out of town.

Outside, twilight chills the air.

Even at dusk, you can tell that the ground is black, the trees charcoal, the pine needles ash in the breeze. When you stroll to the edge of town during your break, knit sweater pulled tight over your apron, you can still see the slurry in a thick red line, staining the back porches on Hill Street. Later, driving towards Boulder after your shift, you will pass hundreds of solitary chimneys, upright stone corpses alone in the dark.

The dog, your computer, your passport. What would you bring if you left home in the middle of the night, flames lapping at the backs of your calves, turning your neck to a hot plate?

Your mother has a list, in descending order, of the most important items, held by four magnets to the fridge.

And what would you leave?

The garden — lilac, day lilies, sage. A net full of mandarin oranges. An oil painting of a bull, dancing under the waning moon.

The leather-bound Complete Works of William Shakespeare, signed by your great-grandfather, it’s shallot-skin pages eager to burn. The first bracelet your aunt ever bought you. Silver. Carved with galloping mustangs. The photo of your sister as a toddler, exploring a conch shell, tendrils of hair tickling the tops of her full cheeks, developed long ago at Walgreens.

This thick red line — rough on the dirt, blending into the ground — was what kept you from finding out what meant the most.

You know, anyway.

Your heart catches, as if it’s been squeezed, at the thought of the dog in the house, barking for help, running to the closet, hiding under the bed.

You’re tearing up. The air feels raw. You’re not the only one to cry tonight.

Back at the restaurant, the guys eat orange rhubarb pie. You wrap up two more, plus a folded note, for them to take home to Oregon.

Michael McGriff