Navajo Nation by Robert Perron

We’re motoring east on Route 160 in northern Arizona—me driving, engrossed in red mesas and boundless landscape, nothing but us and the desert, when Carol says, “Where’s my Wi-Fi?” Then, louder, “Do you hear me, John? My Wi-Fi. It’s gone.”

I say nada because I don’t want to blow up. How many times do I have to explain it to her?

“Wait,” she says, “Here’s their number. I’ll call.” She jabs a forefinger at her phone. “Nothing’s happening, John. It’s not ringing.”

Each syllable dripping with patience, I say, “How many bars do you have?”

Carol raises her voice. “Do you always have to start with the mumble-jumble? How am I supposed to know how many freaking bars I have?” She raises her arms. “Stop. Stop the car.” We’re approaching a roadside bodega in the middle of nowhere, two tables, an awning, a pickup truck, and a porta-potty.

“We can use their Wi-Fi,” Carol says.

Now I blow up. “Jesus Christ, they don’t have Wi-Fi out here. What the hell’s so important anyhow?”

“Don’t you remember Trish and Arny?”

Trish and Arny? We’ve met them what, twice? Friends of friends, dinner, and a show when they visited the city, three or four couples—boring.

“They live right here in Phoenix,” says Carol.

“Phoenix,” I say, “is four hundred miles away.”

Carol sweeps her arms over the desert. “Distance is nothing in the west.”

I’ve stopped the car. We open doors and step into heat and wind-driven dust. We saunter across the road to the two tables, replete with dreamcatchers and arrowheads. Against the truck leans a twenty-something in jeans, boots, a cowboy hat, and a Navajo Nation T-shirt. A sign taped to the tables reads restroom for patrons only, and below that, the Wi-Fi password LongWalk44, case sensitive. Carol gives me a smirk as she puts her phone to her ear.

But she soon takes it away. “John. I’m still not getting anything.”

The twenty-something pushes away from the truck and says, “You got Wi-Fi Calling?” He peers at the phone. “Yeah. Just turn it on.” He pokes a finger and hands the phone back.

“Oh my god,” says Carol, “it’s ringing. You’re a genius. John, he’s a genius.”

I decide to buy a few dreamcatchers. It’s the least I can do.

“Oh, no,” I hear Carol saying. “Wait. I’ll put John on.”

Now she’s shoving the phone against my ear. In the background, a woman coughs. Arny’s voice approaches. “I was telling your wife,” he says. “We’d really love to have you, but can you hear?” The background cough reiterates. “It might be covid. Or the flu.”

“It sounds awful,” I say.

“It’s really bad.”

“Well, we hate to be driving by and not stop, but—hey, another time.”

“Hey,” he says.

The twenty-something with the cowboy hat and Navajo Nation T-shirt says, “Cash or credit?” I reach for my wallet.

Carol says, “Excuse me, sir. Sir?”

The cowboy hat turns her way.

“Is there a real bathroom somewhere?”

The twenty-something points in our direction of travel. We follow his finger over miles of mesa and desert.

Carol squeezes her thighs. “That looks like a long way.”

“Out here,” twenty-something says, “distance is a state of mind.”

He holds a portable card reader in front of me.

I push 30% for the tip and tap my card.