Caleb approaches, crashing his way through the woods, his lanky gait wrecking the pureness of the soundscape. And I am struck, now more than ever, at what an unnatural person he is. His footsteps crunch and crackle, closer, closer. He can’t be more than a few feet away now. They stop, just by my head. Eyes closed, heart pounding, I am a statue.
Minutes pass.
He’s standing there, I know it, waiting for me to make the first move.
Fake-sleeping in front of a psychopath in the middle of the woods is, believe it or not, harder than it sounds.
I pray that my right eye is actually closed, and will my breath to slow; my hand, which landed on my chest when I dove into bed, is rising and falling with each breath.
The external sounds of the forest dissipate.
The internal sounds of my body swell.
He’s there.
I know it.
Don’t move, Mary.
I used to lie in bed with my hand on my heart, just like I am now, and listen to my parents fight. That’s when I discovered something: with extreme concentration, I could hear my own insides over the sound of Mom and Dad’s yells. Blood coursing through veins, muscles stretching and creaking; sometimes, I could even hear my hair growing. It was bizarre, no doubt. But the worst, by far, was the amplification of my heartbeat. I would hear that sucker pounding and pounding, and consider all the things I hadn’t done, and all the things I didn’t even know about not doing, and all the heartbreaks I would never experience, the ones that led to love and everything else, and what if right there—what if right here—right now—I actually hear my heart stop beating?
beating . . .
beating . . .
beating . . .
Caleb hasn’t budged. His uncomfortable nearness is palpable.
Each breath, in and out, rising, falling.
I think of those days long ago, lying in bed, terrified not of the yelling but of what the yelling meant. And here’s what I learned: it’s impossible to wonder when your heart will stop beating, without wondering if that time is now.
NO COFFEE.
This is my first thought upon waking.
I am alive.
A close second.
I rub the fall air from my eyes, willing my brain to get its wheels out of the mud.
“Mornin’, honey.”
Across the campfire, Caleb sits in all his shadowy glory, a cigarette hanging from one side of his mouth, a spoon of ham from the other. He pulls a tin from the box and offers it to me. I vomit in my mouth, swallow, shake my head.
“More for me,” he mutters.
Shivering, I sit up and pull the blankets around my shoulders. I must have fallen asleep while I was pretending to be asleep. Pretty damn effective, I’d say.
“How’d you sleep?” The corners of Caleb’s mouth curl into a faint smile.
“Like a log,” I lie. “You?”
“Same.”
I scan the clearing quickly, avoiding Caleb’s shifty eyes. “Where’s Walt?”
“Shit pit,” he mumbles, chews, puffs. I see him glance toward the tent, and wonder if he’s already made a pass at Walt’s money. I’m guessing not, or he wouldn’t be here.
He’s trying to figure out what to do with me.
I grab my backpack and rummage around for the makeup-remover pads, eager to be rid of last night’s war paint. Mud or not, the pads should do the trick. Unfortunately, they’re at the bottom of the bag, forcing me to acknowledge my many talismans of disappointment: one wooden box (wherefore art thou, Ahab?); one cell phone (thirty-nine missed calls); one bottle of Abilitol (if habit is king, I’m the joker); one terse letter (Think of whats best for her. Please reconsider.); and last, but certainly not least, one Hills Bros. coffee can (behold! the Mistress of Burgling). A morning of harsh disappointments tends to slide down the gullet a little easier with some fresh java behind it. But as New Chicago seems to be heavy on the tainted meats and light on the gourmet beans, I’m forced to swallow my disappointments as they come.
I locate the makeup remover and begin wiping the caked mud off my face.
“You know. . . ” says Caleb. His cigarette is now a stump. Sucking down the last of its juices, he flicks it into the ashes of last night’s campfire and looks up. His turned-off eyes stir a strange combination inside me, of both fight and flight. As if waiting for his sentence to finish itself, Caleb sits with his mouth open, the accusation there in spirit, but not word. Not yet. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be spoken. I can feign ignorance till I’m blue in the face, but I was there. I know the deep end of his soul’s pool. I know Caleb’s dark secret: not who he is, but what. A shadow. A creepy-ass-Gollum-Gollum-schizo-effing shadow.
“Hey, hey, Mim!” Walt yells, bounding out of the woods, buttoning his pants. His face is still covered in dried mud. When he sees my clean face he stops. “Is the war over?”
Lord bless and keep the House of Walt for all of eternity!
“Sure is, Walt. Come here, let me clean you up.”
Caleb tosses his bedding into the tent, his accusations dangling on the tip of his tongue. “Well.” He yawns. “I’m gonna take a shit in the pit and a wash in the lake. Walt, I got something I wanna talk to you about when I get back.”
“Okay, Caleb.”
Then, looking at me, he winks. “You too, sweetie.” He retreats into the woods before I have a chance to give him my eat shit squint. (It’s a dynamite squint, too, one I save for the purest of assholes.)
After cleaning Walt’s face, I stick the pack of makeup remover back in my bag. My good eye lands on my bottle of Abilitol, and for a split second, I imagine the shape of a great grizzly charging me head-on. I see its sharp claws, its glassy eyes, its lolling tongue—I catch my breath and stuff the bottle down in the bag.