The Rabbit
By Meredith Harvey
The Rabbit dies a week after Daniel.
The night before, I drove to the campground just west of Craters of the Moon. I could see the peaks of the Sawtooth Mountains still covered in snow as I turned off the highway. The desert turned volcanic black and the mountains filled in more of my horizon. Then, I was there, and purple rockcress blanketed the park, an ocean with a yellow shore of balsamroot.
The ranger waived me through, no fees for mourners—unofficial though this memorial might be. The sun set and the teeth of the mountain went from white, to pink, then soft blues. When I pulled up, the fire was already going. It was May, had nearly hit 70 degrees earlier, but in the high desert temperatures plummet when the daylight fades. From the front seat, I started counting bodies, at least twelve silhouettes and what had to be PBR in a silver keg that reflected the bonfire’s flames.
Digging through the day’s detritus, I found Daniel’s green bomber jacket in the backseat, couldn’t find my own. Grief though, causes me to focus on silly things, so as soon as I pulled on the bomber, I questioned my decision. I worried Matty might scoff. He might see me wearing it as some type of unearned homage. I had recognized Matty in the silhouettes. He’d never really liked me—I knew I’d always be an outsider to him. Neither the four years here for college nor the three years I’d stayed beyond that could have convinced him otherwise. I settled on my black Breeders hoodie instead of the bomber. It wasn’t insulated, but I could survive the cold.
I hadn’t even set up my chair before someone put a PBR in my hand, gave me a hug. “Fucking sucks, to Daniel,” the click of red Solo cups. We read poetry, sang songs, told tales, and laughed. Christ did we laugh. Thirteen grew to forty. From there, I’d stopped counting. An artist friend of ours had sketched a tribute. I’d supplied words. As the night went on, we all burned photocopies we’d made of this tribute, an effigy to mark our retreats, as one by one we escaped to cars, sleeping bags, and tents.
It had been close to four when I’d finally watched my tribute burn, walked to the car, laid the seat back, and cuddled up in my sleeping bag. But soon after sunrise hit windshield, I woke in trapped heat. After shedding my sleeping bag, I wrestled with the busted lever, until the seat popped back up. I rolled down the window. Matty was still there. Last man standing, but barely, still holding onto his tribute. Fuck it. I pulled on the bomber jacket, and went to say good-bye.
“His folks let you keep the Rabbit? That’s cool.” He nodded towards the car, then looked down at his dust-covered Vans. “She did a real good job with this.” He held the tribute in front of him. “Words are ok too I guess,” he grinned at me just a little, looked up. “But that sketch though, it’s him.” He crumpled the paper and threw it at cinders. He and the artist were married once. Daniel had officiated their wedding.
#
The Rabbit dies a block from my house on the way home from the campground. It had survived the entirety of Daniel’s life, his childhood in the backseat, and young adulthood at the wheel. Though it’d never given him much trouble, three years before, we’d taken it apart, cleaned each piece, and put it back together; the rebuild, my final exam after a six-year tutorial that began when I asked him to teach me to change the oil in my Jetta my freshman year. I think again about how it’s only been ten days since he dropped me off at my place and handed me the keys to the Rabbit, in case I needed it. I had asked if he wanted to stay on my couch—his house felt empty when his boys were gone, and I knew that look when he might die of sadness. He smiled, he had a great smile.
There isn’t a rattle before the Rabbit dies. It’s just going, and then it isn’t. I try everything to get it home, to my garage, so I can fix it. Bring it back to life. After some calls, a few friends in town for the bonfire help me push it home and up onto the blocks that Daniel left in my garage last summer, so he could work on his VW, mine, the ‘77 Beetle he gave to his ex-wife Olivia as a birthday present. He’s a magician with an old VW—though he couldn’t save my Jetta after I hit that deer two weeks ago.
#
When I get home from work later that day, though sleep-deprived, I decide to fix the Rabbit myself. That was the point of the lessons, right? Independence, self-sufficiency. I search for his toolbox, all metric. Those Germans build cars right. He told me that in the same breath that he’d told me he was glad we were friends, that we’d never fucked anything up by sleeping together. I’d agreed.
Still, the September day I’d met Daniel, I remember calling my best friend in California and telling her that I had bought a coffee from the most beautiful man alive—that he wore a bandana. By October, I helped him steal a pumpkin from the Albertson’s parking lot, a pumpkin that he hoped to give to a girl he was in love with. Before he left the pumpkin on her porch though, we sat on my dormroom floor and carved our best anatomical heart into its skin. Even in college though, even during that brief stint between the pumpkin girl and Olivia, I’d known better than to sleep with him.
The tools aren’t in the box, but on the workbench. Wrench, ratchet. I open the hood, reach around. My hand finds the problem, belt. We hadn’t replaced it during the rebuild. I hadn’t wanted to walk the three blocks to his VW guy in town. Bad move, he’d said, the belt holds everything together. Without the belt nothing works. I need a torque wrench, so I reach behind me and it finds my hand. Each tool is attained until the belt is removed. I wipe my hands with his bandana. I can’t remember when he would have left it on the bench, but there it is.
I grab an Olympia from the fridge and take a swig. The sun is setting. One week, it has been one week to the day. The official service is tomorrow morning, his mom will be there, his sister, family I don’t know, Olivia back from Tacoma with the boys. I really need to see if I can still pick up that belt from his VW guy. I go to grab my phone off the workbench, and then notice it, the belt, hanging on the pegboard like a smile, two rolls of electrical tape on hooks as eyes.
#
The Rabbit starts right up in the morning. Sounds better than ever, a new lease on life just in time for the memorial. We don’t call it a funeral, though that’s what it is. The word seems too final when all evidence still points to his presence.
Tulips in front of the church, yellow, red, and purple. They bloom each year around our shared birthday, and we celebrate each spring with tulips. We’d started the tradition that first year. I was missing my family extra that day, so to distract me, Daniel pointed outside and insisted we make a wager on which tulip would open first. He picked the red. I, the yellow. That day we sat on the Espresso Pump patio with coffees and watched. Just before the sun set, the yellow tulip opened just slightly. I won. Later, he bought us PBRs as we listened to Wilco on the jukebox. The bartender nestled those candles that don’t blow out into the crust of our shared pizza.
#
Daniel’s oldest is four now, a mini-version of his father. Serious, until you see his white teeth peeking out in a grin. Floppy hair covers dark eyes. I give him a hug.
“He told me he helped you with the car.”
I take a deep breath, “Yup, we rebuilt it so well, it’ll be yours someday.”
“Not the rebuild Tia, the belt.” His teeth a too-old smile.
I don’t realize I’m crying until he hands me his bandana.
THE END
Author Bio: Meredith Harvey is an English Professor who has published primarily in academic venues on the subjects of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and postcolonial identities. More recently she has published flash fiction in the online literary magazine Instant Noodles, as well as the university literary journal, Nolos. Additionally, she published a co-written horror short story in an anthology by Graveyard Press.