Wild Thing: A Novel (15 page)

Omen Lake: not that ominous. It’s dumbbell shaped, with orange-red cliffs facing each other across the narrow part, where the pictograms are. The water’s so clear you can see boulders on the bottom, and the leaves on the trees are already turning colors
that, relative to green, absorb less infrared light.
^*
We’re the only ones there.

Violet takes us right to the base of the cliff. Then stands in the boat and grabs hold of the rock.

“Push out from the left to keep us steady,” she says.

“What are you doing?”

She swings out onto the cliff face before I can get my oar in place. The canoe spins away from the wall. By the time I get it under control, she’s ten feet off the water.

“You can rock climb,” I say.

“All paleontologists can rock climb. And this is a nice rock. It’s probably four billion years old.”

I lie back to watch her do it. It’s not the worst view in the world.

So when the lake
does
suddenly turn ominous, it feels like a trap’s been sprung. One minute: sun, and Violet from behind and below. The next: water that smells like salty rot and pumps malice off its surface like sound from the face of a speaker. The previously minor splashes and drumming against the membrane of the canoe now feeling like the exploratory peckings of hungry underwater animals.

I search for something that’s changed: a cloud across the sun or a new vein of cold water that I can feel through the Kevlar. But there’s nothing. Just invisible darkness, and the fact that I’m sweating all over, and gone.

What I tell my patients with PTSD—of whom, in the desperate world of cruise ship labor, I have many—is that the panic
attacks are currently thought to be of physical rather than psychological origin. The reminder of whatever shitty thing happened to you communicates directly with the most primitive centers of your nervous system, which from their own strange memories cue the physiological changes before you even know you’re afraid. The panic comes in reaction to the sweating palms and the shortness of breath, not the other way around.

Knowing this is supposed to make people feel better, or at least less responsible for their craziness. It may even be true. But out on Omen Lake, with my vision dimming and my sides wet with sweat, terrified of a freshwater lake that’s been photographed and visited a million times, it doesn’t do me much good. The only thing I can focus on besides fear is raw anger.

Eleven
years?

All this because of some ugly things I saw in a shark tank
eleven years ago?

Magdalena died the next day. Most of me died with her. But guess what? Freaking out all the time doesn’t seem to be bringing her back.

Was signing up for a twelve-day canoe trip a particularly good idea? Survey says no.

How bout working on a cruise ship?

Still:
For fuck’s sake. Get over it
.

“Lionel!”

The spookiness evaporates like it doesn’t want to be seen with me. Violet’s come back down the rock face. The canoe has drifted ten feet away. I use something called a J-stroke to get it back to the rock.

Once she’s seated, Violet stays twisted around, looking at me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You don’t look okay. What happened?”

“Nothing. I’m fine. How were the paintings?”

“About what we expected.”

We didn’t expect much. Books describing the paintings in English go back at least to 1768, and both carbon dating and the Ojibwe say the paintings are twice that age. Which doesn’t
entirely
rule out a hoax—the Ojibwe could have painted them in 1767, using two-hundred-year-old fish oil—but does make Reggie Trager unlikely to have been involved.

Violet’s still staring at me. “Are you sure there isn’t something you want to tell me?”

“No,” I say, pushing off the wall with the end of my oar to get us going.

Which at least is true.

Back at the lodge, there are a couple of nice pieces of distraction. First, Del—the guy who works with or for Reggie or whatever—meets us at the dock to tell us Reggie wants us to join the rest of the group in the registration cabin for an announcement. Second, when we get to the registration cabin, in addition to Wayne Teng’s party and what looks like every employee of the lodge, there are five new guests. One of whom, Tyson Grody, is famous.

Grody has to be in his mid-twenties by now. He’s a singer-dancer thing who came out of a boy band. Pop songs you hear in a cab en route to some expat bar and think are sung by an actual middle-aged black man. Women on cruise ships always have him on their fuck mixes.

In person Grody’s tiny, bug-eyed, smiling, and twitchy, but at least he’s got a pair of actual black men with him. They’re enormous. When they first see the Teng brothers’ bodyguards,
there’s a four-way sunglass stare-off that makes you hope for some Super Street Fighter IV action later on.

The two other new guests are a grim-faced couple in their late fifties. His and hers Rolexes, hair and skin the color of their safari outfits. Same pushed-out lower lips.

“People, I’ve got some bad news,” Reggie says from the front.

When everyone’s quiet, he says “The ref’s not here, and won’t be until tomorrow afternoon. So we won’t be leaving tomorrow morning. We could leave as soon as the ref gets here, but there wouldn’t be much point, since we’d still get to White Lake a full day late. We’d only end up spending an extra night in the field. So I’m going to delay the start of the trip by a whole day and leave Sunday morning instead.

“If that’s a problem, and any of the guests can’t stay, I understand. If any of the guests
do
choose to stay, we can go into the field for one day less than we were planning and still get back here on schedule. Or we can stay in the field for the full length of time and get back a day later. Whichever you decide. Obviously, your extra night at the lodge will be free of charge, along with any activities we can interest you in while we’re here. Fishing, canoeing—whatever you want. And whether you come with us or not, I hope you’ll join me and Del and Miguel and some of the guides for dinner.” He looks at a clock on the wall. “Which should be right after this.”

“Can you at least tell us who the referee is?” Violet says.

Reggie shakes his head. “You know, I just asked that question and was told it has to remain secret, even with the delay. Legally and personally, I have to respect that. Again, I apologize.”

He looks tired, and maybe disappointed, but not particularly anxious. I wonder if there ever
was
a specific referee. Someone Reggie thought he could rely on but then got fucked by. Or
whether all along it’s been a gamble, with offers out to anyone even possibly sucker enough, or greedy enough, to accept whatever Reggie’s offering. Which, after all, is for a single corrupt act in the privacy of the woods.

If it’s a gamble, I can see where Reggie might want to let it ride for one last night.

“We’re still interested in the trip,” Wayne Teng says.

Tyson Grody says “We’re cool to wait too.”

“We’ll consider it,” the grim safari guy says.

Reggie looks at Violet and me. “We’ll have to check with our boss,” Violet says.

“Thank you,” Reggie says. “Thank you all.” He looks genuinely touched, though it could just be that his frozen-open eye has a tendency to run.

CFS Lodge, Ford Lake, Minnesota

Still Friday, 14 September

“Here’s what
I
want to know,” says Fick, the grim-looking safari guy. To Violet, though she’s eating and pretending not to notice. “Why does evolution have to contradict the Bible?”

Reggie’s guys Del and Miguel, at our end of the table, perk up. Earlier, Fick described himself as “a businessman,” and his wife, “Mrs. Fick,” as “a homemaker,” and Miguel said “That’s cool—Del and I make homes too.” Del and Violet and I laughed. Even Mrs. Fick smiled. Fick not so much.

Also not smiling was the bodyguard of the Teng brothers
who’s seated with us—either because he doesn’t understand English, like Teng said, or because he’s pretending he doesn’t—and Clipboard Davey, our earnest young guide.

Davey has turned out to have an equally willowy and sun-desiccated wife who’s also working as a guide for Reggie’s tour, one Jane. Right now Jane is at the end of the other table, sitting next to Tyson Grody, and Davey looks worried.

I’d be worried too. I wouldn’t call Grody attractive, exactly, but he’s got the energy of a mongoose, and the shamelessness. When Violet and I met him, he introduced his bodyguards to us, swear to God, as “M’blackberries.” Neither of them seemed offended by it, or by Grody in general.

“Miss,” Fick says.
“Miss.”

“You’re talking to me?” Violet eventually says.

“Sure am.”

“Can you pass the corn?” she says to Miguel.

Exactly what I was thinking. I haven’t had creamed corn since I was a kid. Particularly with the burnt part mashed into it, it’s awesome.

Miguel pushes it over. Fick says “Why
does
evolution have to contradict the Bible?”

Violet pours. “I don’t know. Does it?”

“Not in my opinion.”

“Okay.”

“But I would say that where a lot of people who believe in the Bible respect scientists, not too many scientists respect people who believe in the Bible. Why is that?”

“I have no idea,” Violet says.

“Do
you
believe in the Bible?”

She looks at him. “You’re asking me about my religious beliefs?”

“Why, are you an atheist? Most scientists are, in my experience.”
^*

“I don’t know that I believe anyone’s actually an atheist,” Violet says. “Everybody believes in
something
irrational, even if it’s just that they’d be happier if they had a nicer car.” She turns to me. “Don’t start on my car. Jump in any time, but don’t start on my car.”

“You think believing in the Bible is irrational?” Fick says.

Violet looks around. Del and Miguel both nod, egging her on. I just eat, but I’m impressed. I never argue with people whose opinions I don’t care about.

Violet sighs. “Believing that it’s the word of God?” she says. “I don’t know. What’s the evidence for it?”

“More people believe it than don’t.”

“So reality is subject to democracy?”

“No, but unless there’s evidence to the contrary, the wisdom of the crowd is a good place to start.”

“There
is
evidence to the contrary. The Bible says humans were created the same week as the planet. Jesus says the world’s going to end within his audience’s lifetime. You can try to semantically twist those things so they don’t contradict your hypothesis, but that’s not rationality. It’s just faith.”

“I wasn’t aware that faith was a bad thing.”

Violet looks at him. “Did I start this conversation?”

“No.”

“Good. I never said faith was a bad thing. It’s just obviously not all that satisfying, or you wouldn’t feel the need to try to bully people like me into agreeing with you.”

“Oh boy,” Del says.

Fick says “Let’s keep this respectful, please.”

“Why?” Violet says. “Here’s what
I
don’t understand. When did the definition of religion stop being ‘things people should have the right to believe’ and become ‘ideas other people should be forced to respect, even if they’re demonstrably false’? And why doesn’t it work both ways? You clearly don’t feel a need to respect rationality.”

“Maybe I just don’t see how believing in evolution is rational. People have been trying to prove evolution since Darwin’s time, and it’s still just a theory.” He looks around, smiling. “Now
that’s
what I call faith.”

Violet stares at him. “Are you serious?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Evolution’s a theory in the Pythagorean sense, meaning it’s a general rule that applies to numerous real-world cases. Not in the sense that it’s never been proved. It gets proved all the time. Every time you get a flu shot you prove evolution.” To me, she says “Like I say, jump in any time.”