Free Anyone Can Die by James Lepore Page B

him?
    “You’re not telling me something, Paddy,” Lorrie said.
    “Huh?” Pat replied, his reverie abruptly broken.
    “Something’s on your mind.”
    There it is again, Pat thought, she knows things. I can’t anticipate it, and I can’t fake her out once she throws that first pitch.
    “You’ve been brooding,” Lorrie said. “You’re too serious, I keep telling you that. I’m not smart, but together we can be.”
    Pat looked over at his wife, who looked back at him, her head slightly down, as if to say, stick with me, big guy, I’ll navigate. I’ll get us there.
    “Is it the sex?” Lorrie asked. “It’s not a sin. We’re married.”
    “Come on, Lorrie.”
    “Then what is it? You think I’m a brazen hussy?”
    “I’ve actually heard that before.” Pat smiled as he said this, as did Lorrie. After dating for a few weeks she had told him that she had decided that she would be trying out lots of words and phrases on him that he may not have heard before, as, she had said, he was such a tabula rasa: a big, dark-eyed, incredibly handsome, muscular, sexy, blank slate. He had not been
offended—so madly in love was he, and so obviously affectionate was her teasing.
    “The Jesuits again?” she asked.
    “I don’t remember.”
    “Your prior girlfriends, whom you’re supposed to have totally forgotten by now?”
    “Possibly.”
    They both stared ahead for a moment, their eyes on the empty two-lane highway that was now cutting through a vast, flat Indian reservation, their compact car chugging along at a steady 55 miles per hour.
    “What is it, Pat?” Lorrie asked after this moment passed.
    “I’ve been offered a job.”
    “It must not be your average, run-of-the-mill type of job.”
    “No, it’s not.”
    “What is it?”
    “Operating a dozer in Paraguay. They’re building a dam.”
    “Paraguay!” Lorrie said.
    Pat snuck a look at his wife, confirmed that she was, for once, dumbfounded, then quickly returned his eyes to the road.
    “Jimmy King,” he said, “is putting a crew together. The pay is unbelievable.”
    “How much?”
    “A thousand a week.”
    “A thousand a week!”
    Dumbfounded again.
    “Plus a place to live.”

    “What did you say?”
    “I said I would think about it.”
    “You should have said you had to talk to me.”
    Shit, Pat thought. I can’t win.
    “That’s what I meant,” he said.
    “When do you have to tell him?”
    “When we get back.”
    “When does it start?”
    “September.”
    “Are wives invited?”
    “Yes,” Pat replied, lying, and immediately feeling guilty. He didn’t know if wives were invited. He hadn’t asked. Jimmy King—Pat’s boss, a boxing fanatic and the owner of King Excavation—had mentioned the roughness of the jungle site, where they would be moving the Paraná River, creating a new mile-long channel where the dam would be located. Pat didn’t know which he loved more, the idea of moving the Paraná River, or his new wife. He literally did not know that he did not know this. It was not a question he would think to ask himself until later, when it was too late.
    “We have to discuss it,” Lorrie said.
    “Of course,” Pat replied. “It’s a big move,” thinking: please God, let her say yes.
    “There’s Elmo’s,” said Lorrie, pointing to a building ahead on the left. “Let’s stop and get beer.”

    A sturdy concrete bridge took them over the Rio
Grande. Midway across they spotted the hot spring, a semicircular outcropping of rocks jutting into the river about a half mile north. On the far side, they parked in the dusty day-use area and headed for the path that would take them to the spring. The path, hugging the gorge wall, wide enough for one person at a time, ascended steeply to a plateau that overlooked the river. This area they had also seen from the bridge, along with the small group of people standing on it smoking and talking. The climb was difficult and slow, the path narrow and rocky. They stopped often