This River Awakens (24 page)

She blew smoke rings at the ceiling, unable to keep from straining to hear him downstairs. The zombie, doing his own pacing, from room to room, his boots scraping and clumping, rye in his veins, groping inside his own coffin. He’d kept himself half drunk the past two weeks, while his wife lay in the hospital bed, jaw wired shut, fevered and fighting infection. Half drunk, some kind of purgatory, Jennifer supposed.

Her mother’s fever had broken two days ago. Jennifer had walked into the room to find a thin, pale old woman. Sipping dinner through a straw, her eyes watery and puffy from the drugs. And the same question in them as she looked at her daughter.

‘No,’ Jennifer had said. ‘No different.’

Are you surprised?

What had she expected? That he’d collapse under the guilt, that he’d pick himself up and become a man again? That didn’t happen, not here in the real world. He was on the run – he’d always be on the run. All the while going nowhere.

Fuck that. Not me.

She lit another cigarette, pulling hard, swelling her chest as she drew the smoke down and held it there.
And that fucking doctor. Why doesn’t he mind his own business? Fucking phone calls, the threats of sending a social worker. In my face with so-called offers of help – ‘the school’s been informed of the situation, Jennifer. You’ll still have to repeat sixth grade, of course, because of your marks. But at least Principal Thompson understands the situation now, understands the reasons for your many absences. It’ll be different this time around, Jennifer…’

She released her breath. Nothing but air.

Down the hallway, steps shuffled into the bathroom. The door creaked as it swung shut.

Different this time around. Yeah, right. White knight Roulston, healing everything he touches. This wasn’t the kind of infection someone could just cure. No, it had to be cut out. Cut away what’s dead. And the man’s dead, Roulston. He just doesn’t know it yet.

She took another drag. The only way Roulston could help was by putting a bullet in her father’s head.

‘Your father has to admit that he’s sick, Jennifer. That’s the first step. Nothing can be done to help him until he does that.’

Fucking idiot. Her father knew damn well he was sick. He’s a drunk, not stupid. He doesn’t pretend he can control it. In fact, he’s surrendered. Completely. Hell, Roulston, he likes being sick. Can’t you see that?

‘He has to hit rock bottom, and he has to understand it when it happens. He has to ask for help, put aside his pride and ego…’

The toilet flushed. The door opened with another creak.

Rock bottom. There is no rock bottom, Roulston. Just mushy mud. You sink for ever. Once you admit to that, Doctor, then we can help you. It’s the first step, Dr Roulston.

Her head was spinning. She’d smoked the damn cigarette like a joint. Tonight, she was going to fly. A hit in the dark womb of her room. Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane and the Velvet Underground. She’d circle under the ceiling, a giant bluebottle orbiting the lamp, and then it’d be time for David Bowie and Patti Smith, the only geniuses left who weren’t burnt out.

Music inside and out, no skin in between. Catching her would be like trying to catch notes in the air, like trying to climb the scales with your hands and feet.

And then there’s Owen. Owen Brand.

She wanted him. It had started out simple, a way to get to his sister. Remove the threat. But when she’d thought about it, the reasoning fell apart. For all Jennifer knew, Debbie might hate her brother. Telling Debbie that she’d fucked her kid brother, that she’d turned him on and then messed him up – what difference would that make?

The plan was flawed, but it didn’t matter any more. Owen had proved elusive, and that was enough to make her want him, to make her all the more determined to pull him in.

She’d grown tired of the scene with Mark and Dave anyway. All she needed from them was the drugs, now that her visits out to Riverview had provided her with a new market, kids with rich parents, richer even than Barb’s old man – who’d already told his precious daughter that he’d buy her a car on her sixteenth birthday.
What a laugh. Barb can’t even walk straight these days, loading up on everything I bring around. And Sandy’s gone for speed – could see that one coming.

Speed was something Jennifer stayed away from.
Speed kills, or worse, it fries your brain and you end up finding God or Jesus or some dumb-fuck guru with all the answers.
But Sandy was eager, and it was
her
brain she was frying, after all.

Owen was only twelve. She wondered if he’d woken up yet with come on his sheets. She wondered if when she took his cock in her hands it’d come alive. Was he there yet? Did it matter? She’d take him there, eventually. He liked her tits – a good sign. Kids who just piss out of their cocks don’t even notice things like that.

Jennifer reached under the pillow and found the tab of windowpane. She held it up for a moment, admiring how simple and harmless it looked, then opened her mouth and slid it on to her tongue.

She left the bed and kneeled in front of the record player.
Floyd to start, then ‘White Rabbit’ – just ‘White Rabbit’, Grace Slick can’t sing worth shit – then back to Floyd
—

The door behind her opened. Jennifer swung around, still on her knees. ‘Get out,’ she said.

Sten stared at her from the threshold. He hadn’t shaved in days. His undershirt was stained yellow under the arms. ‘You fuckin’ bitch,’ he drawled.

The veins on his bare arms bulged suddenly. Jennifer’s eyes widened.
Shit, no, not with him.
The veins swelled fiercely, radiating purple and red waves of heat. His eyes had fallen away, completely away, leaving just sockets.

‘Got the fuckin’ principal breathing down my neck,’ he said. ‘Threatening me ’cause you never hardly showed up last year and he says if that happens this time he’s calling the cops. What the fuck’s the matter with you?’

‘Get out of my womb.’

‘Huh? You’re fucking stoned, aren’t you? Fucking taking drugs here in my house. What if Roulston shows up right now? The shit thinks he can drop by any time, just because she’s in the hospital under his care. I don’t give a shit if your jaw’s wired shut. Maybe I’ll just bust it again – you can have so many wires I’ll just stand on the roof and jerk you around your fucking precious garden. Think you can hide in your bed? Well, fuck you, it’s my bed too and I want to crawl in and nail you right here and now, I’ll do it ’cause I’m your husband. You weak little bitch. I’d like to see you hit back, I really would. I’d really like it if you just took my head right off. He’ll come by and sew it on but it’ll be too late and good fucking riddance. You think you can do whatever you want in this house? I never wanted you anyway. Just one more fuckin’ complication. I should’ve taken a coat hanger to you right away. Now get in that bed, the principal says you need a lesson and that’s what I’m here for like a good daddy.’

He moved towards her, still standing, his legs motionless, his clothes burning away. She found herself flat on her back on the bed, and laughed because her hands were now knives.

‘Touch me and I’ll cut you to pieces. I fucking will, Daddy, and all the king’s dogs and all the doctors in the world won’t put you together again ’cause I’ll tell them everything, Daddy. I will.’

‘You’re stoned, girl. What’s the point of talking. Get out of my house. The kennel’s full and no one’s going anywhere, so you just run, little hamster. Run on your wheel and when I stick my cock in you you moan like you like it. You used to like it, remember? So let’s go back to how it was. Okay?’

The door closed, rippling in its frame. Dog claws scraped on the stairs, going down, down into the bottomless mud.

Jennifer studied the wicked long, curved blades of her hands. ‘Look at this. I can cut myself to pieces, and all the king’s horses…’ A part of her watched in amused horror as she began slicing open her flesh, starting at the breasts.
Too big.
She hated them. She hated everything, this new body, its new rules and hungers.

Cut it all away. I want to be pushed higher, higher on the swing, Daddy. Higher and higher.

III

The day had passed as if in a dream, in which I only half lived the hours waiting for its end. Miss Shevrin seemed physically to slow as the hours in the classroom passed, her bulk solidifying, turning to stone. There was expectancy in the air, but it was only anticipation for the end to come.

We scrubbed our desks, took drawings down from the wall, struggled to return the classroom to its sterile condition in which we’d found it on the first day. It seemed a pointless effort, and it seemed that Miss Shevrin knew it. She anchored herself behind her desk and left the last two hours for reading.

I finished
Jason and the Argonauts
and then started on
Tarzan of the Apes.
Written in 1914, its story felt strangely older than Jason and his world. My thoughts quickly filled with half-man/half-ape beasts, the images blurring into that of the body lying on its bed of sticks, images shedding coarse hair and becoming smooth-skinned, shiny. The story’s solitude and loss spanned both scenes in my mind, shifting from the imagined to the real and back again, until I felt my life was a story, and that of Tarzan was as real as the desk’s wooden seat under me.

The day ended with me feeling shorn and disturbed, trapped in a pale world. My final goodbye to Miss Shevrin a mumble, I departed from the classroom and the school at something close to a run. It was done. I’d never go back, but the act hadn’t had the drama I’d anticipated. It had felt like flight.

I continued reading on the bus trip home. The world beyond the windows rolled past unnoticed, powerless to capture my attention. Instead, I was witness to a child switched in a crib, and a human life launched on a strange, pathetic and wonderful journey. I longed for jungles embracing me. I longed for a simpler existence and discovery and revelation neatly packaged and bitterly satisfying.

When I stepped down from the bus the cool wind washed over me, and it was like awakening for the first time that day. The last day. School over, the city surgically removed from my body, summer begun.

My friends were nowhere to be seen. I stood on the side of the highway, feeling vaguely resentful but also relieved. There’d been nothing but arguments since we’d found the body. The secret was hard to bear, it felt heavy and dangerous, but none of us was willing to let go of it. Though we hadn’t revisited it, the body rotted in our minds, the flesh swarmed in our heads, the face hid under the skins of our own faces. I knew the others felt the same. The body made us feel too old.

I walked along the highway’s edge, not wanting to cross Fisk’s field alone. Lord Greystoke’s and Lady Alice’s corpses lay forgotten in a small cabin at the primeval jungle’s edge. The bones of a child ape rested in the crib. A man, a giant hairless, faceless man, lay on a beaver lodge, his flesh punctured by gnawed sticks, the crayfish working hungry tunnels inside his body. And Fisk sat in the shadows of his porch, covered in frost with dead flowers at his feet. They all felt real. They all felt more than real, they clung like tastes in my mouth, hinted their truths with each breath I took, were fed deep in my bones by racing blood.

I was glad to be alone. We’d argued, my friends and I, over anything, everything. Lynk had been the most savage of us all. Summer was coming, and he’d come alive, showing his sneer at each of us in turn. I’d thought I’d been mean to Carl, but I was nothing compared to Lynk. Carl’s dad beat on him, and Lynk poked and jabbed at Carl’s fear as if it were an open wound. Roland had been missing school, either taking care of his kid brother – who’d broken an arm – or visiting the doctor. He’d been falling behind in his homework. Lynk knew more about it than I did, and he worked on Roland, too. Hints, veiled attacks, working around the truth without ever touching it. And Roland seemed unwilling to defend himself.

The only person between Lynk and the throne of summer was me. I wasn’t about to let him pass, and though he showed me his spite he didn’t seem ready to try me yet.

All because of the body, all because we felt lost and scared.

I approached the wooden bus shack at the top of the ‘U’ road, and saw the jean-clad legs of someone sitting on the bench. As I came opposite I saw it was Jennifer, smoking a cigarette. Her eyes were huge as she looked up at me and smiled lazily.

‘Owen Brand. Growin’ Owen, want to sit down? We all got out of school early. Your friends are over at the candle factory. Lynk called you a fucking asshole, but he’s scared of you. Why?’

I found myself sitting beside her, not sure why I’d accepted the invitation. A
disarming
smile – I remembered the description from a book I’d read once.
Disarming
– I’d looked up the word. Removing weapons, putting at ease. Opposite meanings, my favourite kind of word. Her smile was beautiful and left me with a delicious twisting and fluttering in my stomach.

‘Someone cut out your tongue?’

I watched the cars roll by, smelling her smoke, and something sweeter, like burned rope, filling the air inside the shack. ‘Nope,’ I answered, thinking of the body’s open mouth, lipless, the tongue – birds had pulled bits from it, leaving it white and stubby.

‘I can’t see why Lynk’s scared of you.’

‘No?’

She sat back, pulling hard on the cigarette. Twin streams of smoke shot down from her nose. ‘Want some?’

‘Some what?’

‘The butt. Want some of the butt?’

‘No.’

‘Chicken shit. You’d probably cough to death.’

‘Probably.’

‘You like your sister?’

‘Who? Debbie? Well, she’s my sister, right?’

‘So?’

‘So you don’t ever think about stuff like that. She’s a sister, that’s all. Don’t you have any sisters or brothers?’

‘No. Thank fucking God. I feel sorry for Debbie, having to look after you all the time.’

‘She doesn’t. All she does is listen to her records and talk on the phone with Dave, or Mark, or John or some other guy.’