Primal (7 page)

Around the dinner table are the Krafts, Hobbs, two college
boys named Grant and Bruce, the Hutchinsons, a young married couple, and two
hard-core redneck fifty-year-old fisherman named Dan and Mike. On the table is
a bowl of hearty looking beef stew and a loaf of brown bread. Alison does not
eat meat, but would never admit it with this crowd. She notices there is no green
anything, no salad, no string beans, no asparagus…nothing. Ironically, she
thinks, all of the green is outside. The bread looks okay and she could eat
that if she could eat - which she can’t.

Grant continues, “Hey, look, we’re all disappointed, but
only a moron would go out in a boat in this kind of storm.”

“Are you calling me a moron, college boy?” Dan riles easily.

“It’s a general comment. Not specific to anyone here,” he
answers coolly.

Mike talks to Dan, “Calm down. The kid didn’t mean anything
by it.”

Bruce joins in, “Maybe it’ll blow through by morning.”

Dan looks to Hobbs for input, “Will it?”

“Dunno.”

“Yeah,” Dan looks dejected, “I sure as hell didn’t come all
this way to play Parcheesi.”

Jimmy says delighted, “You have Parcheesi?” Hank laughs and Jimmy
looks at him confused.

Julie Hutchinson says, “Have you ever been fishing, Jimmy?”

“No, but so far, this is the coolest vacation we’ve ever
had.” Hank and Alison exchange smiles. “Last year we went to this boring hotel
in France.”

Julie holds her grin, “Yeah, sounds awful.”

“Nothing to do there. Mom liked it ‘cause at the beach she
got to take her top off.”

“Jimmy, I did not.” The group looks at Alison who reddens.

“Okay you didn’t but other girls did. It was gross. They
were all old.”

“Clearly the wrong child to take to Nice.” She looks back at
her plate with the one chunk of bread on it. Her stomach lurches again. “How
can I still be seasick? I’m on the ground.”

“Sometimes it takes a couple of hours to feel normal again,”
Bella says kindly. It only took Bella seconds to recognize this is not Alison
Kraft’s idea of a vacation. She is so obviously the gentle bookworm type. Bella
doesn’t usually run into women like this when she travels. They are usually
more like Julie Hutchinson: Patagonia jacket, hiking boots, scrubbed face, no
nail polish. Yes, there is most definitely a type of woman for this kind of
travel. Maybe that should be the angle for her story, she thinks.

* * *

Out on Lake Superior the defining edge between air and water
has become indistinguishable. The lake is apoplectic: spastic water reaches up
white-armed toward the sky as saturated charcoal clouds spit back. The storm
batters the speedboat carrying the Burne boys. Gravel, Theo, and Kent sit
stoically and completely relaxed. The crushing natural display bores them. They
are accustomed to sharper stimulation. Ben is calm at the controls. He revels
in the icy slap of the elements on his bare cheeks and forehead. He smiles. His
biggest complaint about prison is that it was dull. Now, he is moving again and
he likes moving. Who was it who wrote, “How dull it is to pause?” Something
someone read to him on the inside, probably that annoying librarian who spent
more time fucking inmates than lending books. He remembers that poem though because
he had liked something about it; it stayed with him. He’s proud of his memory:
exacting and steely. He remembers things in distinct detail. He remembers
plenty of storms exactly like this one when they were growing up. His mom used
to make them stand outside and yell at the lightning. Four little boys, out in
the pouring rain, screaming at the sky. It was empowering. She prepared them so
well for life. He is so grateful to have been home-schooled, and not
contaminated, or brainwashed, by the fairy tales they stuff down the throats of
little kids. Mother taught them the truth: beyond each other, there is no one
and no thing of value. “Civilization is a pretty dress on a snake,” Mom used to
say. “There’s no right or wrong, just winners and losers, and the winners get
to write the books to make ‘emselves look good, but the bare-assed truth is any
human starving in a snow bank will eat his neighbor. They don’t tell you that
in school.” Ben thinks fondly back on his mom. She would say, “There are groups
a folks with different ideas ‘bout what is good, and what is evil, and if
that’s not proof enough that it’s all a crock of bullshit I don’t know what
is.” She was so practical and real. “Worry only about each other, take whatever
you can, and don’t be a fool.”

The only interference the Burne boys had growing up was when
the school would send a spy to check on them. Ben grins recalling how they
would laugh after each visit. The spy, invariably a woman social worker, would
stop by and say, “You know, Mrs. Burne, those boys need to play with other
kids, be socialized, learn camaraderie and compromise.” Ben remembers how Mom
would listen with that I’m-so-interested-in-what-you’re-saying expression on
her face, like she was getting superior advice, and after a thoughtful pause,
she would talk about music lessons they never really took, and athletic teams
they didn’t actually join. And then she’d drop the big bomb; it was religion
after all that didn’t allow public schooling. She would invoke Jesus Christ and
the social worker would shift her little ass around in the seat and look like
someone shoved a gag in her mouth, which of course, was exactly it. Mom had
raised all four of them to be God loving. She followed the Bible, as she used
to say, religiously. She taught them that they were made in God’s image and so
were meant to be all-powerful. She explained how Jesus would forgive them
anything as long as they said sorry after because this was what he said over
and over in the Bible - the forgiveness thing is your free ride. She did prefer
the Old Testament’s clarity, although Revelations was awesome with all those
infants damned (because really how could one enjoy heaven with a bunch of
screaming babies) and that everlasting torture stuff, now, that was a good
read. How could you not respect a God who came up with ever…lasting…torture?
Still, she did explain to them the Jesus forgiving element was goddamn useful.
She showed them in the actual Bible verses for the justification for
everything: rape, infanticide, slavery. “Just learn your Act of Contrition,”
she would say. And they would recite it every night. Kent is the most religious
of the brothers because he always liked the idea of saints and spirits, ghosts
and witches.

Mother Burne kept her four boys close so she could teach
them what they really needed to know. With her gone now, Ben knows that his
brothers are truly his wards. Theo is easy. He’s always been more of a pet.
When Ben was nine years old and he wanted a dog, his mom gave him Theo. It was
a perfect compromise. No one really knows how much is going on inside Theo’s
head, but to Ben he really is better than a dog because he’s like a dog with
hands. There are times when he does think Theo’s his favorite. Kent is okay,
although he’s not too smart, and Gravel has a lot of issues, but the best head
of hair. They are brothers. They are blood.

A sputter. A cough from the boat’s engine. Ben looks down at
it. “Shit.” He looks out to assess the shoreline and possible landing spots.

Inside the lodge, Alison has abandoned her chunk of brown
bread on her plate and joined Bella over by the hearth. The rest of the group
continues with the meal. The atmosphere has loosened a bit as these strangers
triangulate each other. It is a process as each finds their proper spot in a
new assemblage: verbal jockeying, body language, informational downloads
including jobs and residences serve to establish strengths, weaknesses, and put
into place the requisite social hierarchy. They smile and nod politely while
testing each other to precisely gauge who is successful, who isn’t, who is
educated, experienced, conservative, liberal, sophisticated, rich. We want to
know, we need to know this to determine how the group is to be configured for
the week ahead, each member of the new group subconsciously wondering where is
my proper spot; where is yours? So much is decided in those first seemingly
casual moments: the roll of an eye, a certain vocabulary, the tilt of one’s
head. And how often these decisions are accurate one rarely knows because these
determinations are sticky and subject to confirming bias. Alison has always
seen this weighing out process as blatant, even as others proceed ahead at the
subliminal level.

Alison asks, “Not hungry?”

“Always dieting.” Bella lies. “It would be good if you could
get something in your stomach.”

“I’m still having nausea. It comes in waves. Ugh…” Alison
holds her stomach, “shouldn’t say waves.” Even sick, she manages to connect on
a personal level with Bella. Alison is so plainly likeable. She has an innate
softness that touches others gently. She is as naturally warm as the blaze in
the hearth.

“So, did you lose a bet or something?’ Bella raises her
eyebrows.

“Oh, no,” she grimaces and runs her fingers through her
hair, “Is it that obvious?”

“The French Tips were a dead giveaway.”

“You know what? I’m going to fix that. I can play with the
team,” convincing herself as she tries to convince Bella. “Sometimes don’t you
just get sick and tired of being exactly how everyone expects you to be?”

“Yeah, I guess. Although people don’t expect much from me.
I’m a writer so they expect me to observe and then huddle in front of a
computer screen in a room by myself. And they’re actually not far off.”

“Yeah? I’m a middle-class, middle-aged, married, elementary
school teacher, and I’ll bet a whole bunch of prefab characteristics popped
into your head when I said that.”

“Yup, they did. With those statistics I guess I now know
everything about you.” She teases.

Alison says, “And look over at the table each of them in
their little bubble of stereotypes: outdoorsmen, frat boys, newlyweds. I wonder
if we construct those stereotypes or if they construct us.”

“Already a deeper conversation than one usually gets on a
fishing trip.”

Alison tosses her head and smiles at Bella, “I’m not really
prepared to talk about bait.”

“There will be a lot of talking about bait here unless this
storm keeps up, then, the entire week may really be about Parcheesi.”

“Hey, I rock at Parcheesi.”

“I kinda knew that about you.”

“You see?” Alison smiles honestly and Bella genuinely likes
her.

Back at the table, Ed Hutchinson asks, “Hey, Hobbs, there’s
no cell service so where’s the phone?”

“No phone.”

“No, phone?” Hank asks surprised.

“Got a shortwave for supplies.”

“A shortwave?” Bruce glances at Grant.

Grant responds, “And here we are inside a living
anachronism.”

Hobbs continues, “Shortwave. This storm. Only static.”

Julie says shyly, “It’s kind of romantic being isolated like
this.”

Mike says, “Hey, I ain’t that attracted to Dan.” They laugh.
And nothing brings a disparate group of individuals closer faster than a shared
laugh.

“You ain’t my type either,” Dan responds with his voice
booming, “You got less hair on your head than you got on your earlobes.” Mike
laughs so hard his eyes scrunch up around the outside and look like little
squinty slits.

Alison has a sudden wave of nausea. “Oh.”

Bella asks, “Hobbs, where’s the head?”

“Through the kitchen.”

Alison makes a dash for the kitchen and disappears into the
other room.

Dan says to Hank, “Maybe you should’ve left her at the spa.”

Hank defends, “Hey, she’s a trooper. She came along and it—”

The front door bursts open! Violent winds and sheeting rain
blast into the room along with the four Burne brothers. Around the dinner
table, mouths drop open and eyes widen. Gravel slams the door behind them. Even
with their oversized trench coats, they are drenched. Gravel’s stringy hair
clings to the sides of his cheeks. Kent’s baseball cap sits sopping and tilted
forward on his forehead. Their handguns are out of sight tucked into the back
of their belts and in their coat pockets. Ben is holding the carburetor from
the outboard motor. As the door slams, thunder claps loudly, and Julie jumps.
Ben takes a quick measure of the dumbstruck group and begins genially.

“Gee, folks, so sorry we startled you. Our engine gave out
and we were lucky to find you in this storm. A guy could drown standing
straight up out there.”

Hobbs ask, “You fishermen?”

Ben answers, “Yes, sir. Blue Marlin, Mako. My brother here
(indicating Kent) held a record on a Giant Tuna for a while.” Ben is calm,
smooth, and believable to the core.

Dan looks interested, “That so?” Kent nods as the room
relaxes. Theo crosses to the dinner table.

“Fishermen always welcome here,” Hobbs says.

“Gee, thanks.” Ben smiles. His blue eyes sparkle kindly and
his grin is broad and sweet. “We’re much obliged.”

Theo has trudged over to the table where he sticks his
fingers into the stew pot, takes out a large chunk of meat, and puts it in his
mouth. Ben notices the disgusted looks and he adds, “Ah, sorry, about my
brother, Theo, he skipped lunch and he’s well…” affectionate emotion rises up
in his voice, “he’s special.”

“He can’t talk,” Kent explains.

Hank experiences a rising alarm. Even with Ben’s calming
words, the guys just don’t look like fisherman. A clutching feeling in the back
of his neck travels down his spine. He will wait just a minute for Alison and
scoot them back to the cabin.

“You fellas should dry out by the fire.” Mike says.

“We’re only staying a moment. Carburetor’s dirty I guess.”
He puts the melon-sized carburetor on the floor of the lodge. “If I could just
get a good toolbox so I can get into it and clean it out.”

Off the kitchen, inside the tiny bathroom, between the noise
of the pounding rain and intermittent thunder, Alison is throwing up. She hears
nothing from the other room. With her head over the toilet, she rests her chin
on her fist and wishes she could get it together. Why is her body sabotaging
her this way? Where is her reliable sangfroid? This whole adventure is becoming
one long embarrassment.