Halibut on the Moon

by David Vann

  “I need to see John or Tom,” Jim says. “What the fuck am I doing this trip?”

  “Jim,” Gary says. He’s grim at the wheel, nothing new there, evergreens and various bushes swept by the headlights as he turns along this mountain road. Paved and faster, but not so different from the ranch at night.

  “I’m going to see them.”

  “I’m not sure when we can fit that in.”

  “Tomorrow we go to Lakeport, and John is close enough. Then Tom on the way back down to Santa Rosa.”

  “It’s not on the way to go through Williams and the Central Valley.”

  “Close enough. And when am I seeing Rhoda? When do we fit that in?”

  No response, of course. And Jim should be paying more attention to his children. This may be his last time ever seeing them, this short ride over the hill and goodbyes that will no doubt be quick since everyone has been crying.

  “Remember that money doesn’t matter,” Jim says. “David and Tracy. Remember that. Do something you like in life. Don’t be like me. And try to be kind when you remember your dad. He didn’t mean to be as fucked up as he was. You’ll see when you get older. Sometimes a life just goes beyond your control.”

  Tracy is jammed in close next to him on the bench seat, and David between her and Gary, straddling the stick shift. Jim looks at both of them in shadows and light that keep sliding away, but they don’t look at him. Both with their heads down, enduring, same instinct as adults when cutting someone out of the pack.

  He has an arm over them, and he shakes David’s shoulder until he looks. Jim grins. “Come on, son,” he says. “Don’t be hard on your dad.”

  David grins just a bit, still sad, and gives a nod, some acknowledgment but faint, just a tad more than you’d get from the wind or a pile of rocks. Jim curls his arm around Tracy and pulls her even closer. “I’ll miss you, Tracy,” he tells her, and then he’s choking up, out of nowhere, eyes watering and mouth hung. “Even the monster feels something, eh?” he says, but he has trouble getting the words out.

  Bundled so close beside his children who are so far away. And the time so short. They top the hill and descend into Hidden Valley, take just a few turns, up Rolling Hill Drive and down and there’s the house. The life he’s excluded from now. His own fault, but still exclusion.

  “Don’t forget me,” he says. “Try to remember our best times, out hunting or fishing or skiing, wrestling on the carpet or playing pinochle. Think of times when I was happier, not the way I am now, okay?”

  Gary has already pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. Elizabeth is out on the porch, and Jim has to open his door to let them escape. “A hug,” he says. “Give your dad a hug.” They pause long enough to do that, but not real hugs, not enough for the end, then they’re gone and he’s back in the truck weeping as Gary drives away. Such a weak sound, this choked little crying, so high-pitched. And the terrible feeling of loss, as if his children have been taken from him, as if they have died. A cavern inside him without limit. A stone would fall forever.

  10

  Gary’s house is in Sebastopol, only twenty minutes away, on a steep hill dense with redwoods. A winding road without lights or traffic, then up the long private driveway, almost needing four-wheel drive. Log house at the top, built by Gary himself, blond pine. Big, two stories, peaked roof. The front part of the house on stilts because of the hill.

  “We should sleep,” Gary says. “It’s been a hell of a day.”

  “Yeah, I’m exhausted,” Jim says. “Not from the flights, but from everything here.”

  “Yeah,” Gary says.

  They walk in darkness to the house, Jim carrying his duffel bag and valise. Weight of the magnum still, always there. Shells in the duffel.

  The air wet and cool. Stars visible, clouds mostly cleared away. The redwoods giant shadows above extending, leaving only small clearings of sky. Shadows so tall to remind us how far away everything is, unreachable. You’d think a tree above at night would be only black and flattened, but somehow it still retains its height even in darkness. We know the shape of everything beyond what we can see. The smell of redwoods, both sweet and acidic, and peaceful, memory of hikes and camping. He’s often dreamed of living in a forest, but the truth is they’re cold and damp. You never feel the sun. They’re the worst possible places to live, except caves.

  “You’re lucky here,” Jim says. “This place and house, and Mary.”

  “You could be too. You could live here with me for as long as you like, and you could find someone new, someone good who treats you well. And you could see your children every day if you wanted.”

  “I’ll never see them again.”

  “Of course you will.”

  “No I won’t. Or if I do, that will be bad. It’s better if I don’t see them again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The warning Dr. Dickhead gave you was missing one important element, the what if our poor suicide becomes not so likable in the end and takes out others with him first.”

  “You’d never do that.”

  “I’ve thought about shooting Rhoda first. Imagined right where I’d shoot her, in the left tit when she’s naked or wearing lingerie, standing by the bed.”

  “Jesus Christ, Jim, why the fuck can’t you stop? Just stop thinking of this shit. Just remember we all love you and find small things that are pleasant. Go for a hike here in the morning, and we can play pinochle or watch TV. Anything to not go where your thoughts go. And I can’t deal with it anymore tonight. I’m all done with crazy for today.”

  “Sorry. I’ll try to stop.”

  “Thank you.” Gary is opening the back door now, and they leave their muddy boots outside.

  Gary doesn’t say any more but just heads upstairs. Jim knows he won’t see him again tonight.

  So he has the whole downstairs to himself. Open front room with a twenty-five-foot ceiling, large stone fireplace reaching up to exposed timbers of the peaked roof. Such a grand feel, and amazing it’s owned by a teacher. Soft thick carpet and a wall of glass to look out over the valley, acting only as a mirror now.

  Jim lies down in the middle of the room, stares up at the ceiling so far away. He does snow angels. He wants everything to be soft like this carpet.

  A mead hall. This could be a mead hall if it weren’t for the carpet, if the floor were only wide planks of wood. And the insulation not as good, more wind coming through the walls. Jim could be a Viking, ready to die in battle. That would be no problem. Swing the ax and kill and hope to be killed.

  There is an ax here, no doubt, and Jim rises to find it. He walks into the spare bedroom and checks the closet, finds clothing and a shotgun, a 12-gauge pump. Boxes of shells above, a few choices, from small birdshot to the big pellets for geese. Enough to take off a head without any problem at all. He loads three into the magazine and grabs three more to stuff into his pockets. Then he walks into the hallway, checks another closet.

  Rain gear and boots, fishing rods broken down, small hand nets, and another shotgun, a semiauto. Jim has never liked these, because they jam. You try to take your second shot at a goose and there is no second shot. Pumps are more reliable.

  But he takes the shotgun anyway, loads it also, wonders where the ax might be. Outside, in some shed? But he doesn’t remember a shed.

  Jim sets the shotguns on the dining table, barrels pointing at him. It would be a far reach to the trigger, but he could do it. The timing isn’t right, though, something off. All the ache is there, missing his children, missing Rhoda, missing his life and any memory of what it was to be without pain, but this isn’t enough. Some catalyst needed to make it all happen.

  Gary appears above, on a kind of balcony upstairs to look down. “What are you doing with those shotguns, Jim?”

  “Fair Rapunzel, let down your golden hair.”

  “What are you planning to do?”

  “Nothing,” Jim admits. “I guess I can’t do it at your house. Something about what y
ou would have to see, and the fact that this is your home. I don’t know. I can hardly tell what holds me back or doesn’t or pushes me forward. All hidden away, things not known until they happen. But nothing is happening here. I know that much. All just for show.”

  “Let’s put the shotguns away then.”

  “No, I do like having them here.”

  Gary comes down the stairs. Jim has time. If he wanted to grab a trigger he could. But apparently he doesn’t.

  Gary takes both shotguns, holds them barrels down. “That thing Brown said about not letting you spend the night alone in your own room, I’m starting to see why he said that.”

  “But can you stay awake all night?”

  “No.”

  “Then what good does it do? I need to be in a padded cell, with the door locked. That’s the only real safety.”

  “Or you can just decide.”

  “Decide what?”

  “Use some will. Decide to be strong. Decide to stay for your children and rebuild your life. Can you do that?”

  “It’s more like the weather. Can you decide the weather?”

  “How about we start with tonight. I’m exhausted. I need to sleep. Can you just promise me we’ll have breakfast together, that you’ll keep yourself alive for that long?”

  Jim considers this. Gary standing there holding the shotguns.

  “Okay,” Jim says. “If you take the pistol, too, and you sleep with all three guns in your bed so I can’t get them. And your rifle too.”

  “I’m not going to sleep with all my guns.”

  “You are if you want me to promise. I mean the pistol under your pillow, so I’d wake you if I moved it, and the shotguns and rifle wrapped up in the sheets with you so I can’t get them either. That’s the only way I can promise. I know I’m not going to use a knife or look for pills. It will be a gun when I do it.”

  “The guns don’t have some special power.”

  “But they do. And you know, from hunting. What they can do is irresistible. The trigger has to be pulled. Don’t you want to pull the trigger?”

  “No.”

  “Yes you do. You shot that last buck four times. Not just once.”

  “I was only trying to knock it down.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you ever picked up your rifle at night before sleep, held it to your shoulder and sighted in on some knot in the wall, or even your reflection in the glass?”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with anything, but yeah, plenty of times I’ve picked it up.”

  “And you still say it has no special power.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What kind of dream is it, when you hold the rifle?”

  “I’m awake. It’s not a dream.”

  “A dream is happening then, all the stronger for being awake.”

  “Look, I’m going to sleep. I’ll sleep with the guns. But no more mumbo jumbo. You’re used to therapists now, but that’s not how I talk.”

  “I’m talking about what you do, and what I do. Something real.”

  “Not real.”

  “So real I can’t even say all the things it is. I’m several possible Jims when I hold a gun, and who knows which one will win. The feeling is so different for a shotgun or a rifle. Each with its own power, and every one of them makes me want to kill. Every one demands to be used. Every one offers an exit.”

  “You just said they were different.”

  “Yeah. They all kill, but the pistol wants my head. The .300 magnum wants my neighbor or someone in a car far away, or someone walking across a parking lot, and a pump shotgun wants a crowd in close. It was never about ducks or geese or deer. Just feel the weight of those two shotguns right now.”

  Gary closes his eyes. This surprises Jim.

  “I do feel something,” Gary says.

  “Told you.”

  “But it’s not like you say. I feel an obligation, to be careful, a responsibility.”

  “That’s not the first thing you feel. Not the strongest, either.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “The fact that it wins doesn’t mean it’s strongest.”

  “Look, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  “That’s because you don’t need the padded cell. But I do.”

  “Just give me your pistol now. No more of this shit.”

  Jim can feel himself smiling. “We come so close to the truth, little brother. I’ve had some amazing conversations with you today, you know that? We come so close to something, but then you always say it’s nothing.”

  “The pistol.”

  “Fine.” Jim grabs his valise, worn brown leather that’s always made him feel he could be called Doc in a western. Pulling out teeth in a saloon, administering whiskey as painkiller. Everything real then. Bags made of leather, floors made of thick wood planks. He unzips the valise, hating that it has a zipper, something that wrecks the look, and he reaches inside and feels the instant something that can’t really be described. The perfect smooth density of metal, its surprising weight, the compactness even of this enormous handgun with its long barrel, a kind of black sun with too much gravity. He holds it by the grip, finger on the trigger. “How can you deny what this feels like?”

  “Give me the gun, Jim.”

  But Jim is grinning again, raises the barrel to the side of his head and pulls the trigger, hears the heavy roll and click.

  Gary drops the shotguns and swings and this is the first time Jim has ever been punched in the face in his entire life, the popping sound of it, which could be his cheek or could be Gary’s hand, and he’s falling backward and feels some strange joy, a moment immersed. Fall that lasts so long and impact that takes all breath, and his head become a tunnel of sound. He closes his eyes and wants to enjoy this for as long as he can.

  “You fucking stop right now!” Gary is roaring somewhere above him, calling on clouds to stop moving in the sky, asking the wind to settle, moon to hang still. The carpet so soft and the pain reassuring, clean, locatable and with a cause, a reason, and not something that will last forever.

  “Thank you,” Jim says. “This is nice. I feel a bit better.”

  His thigh kicked hard, a dull sensation that isn’t really pain. “Damn you,” Gary is saying.

  “Yeah,” Jim says. “I think that’s already taken care of.” But he doesn’t want to talk, doesn’t want to spoil the moment. He wants to enjoy. “Shh,” he says. “I want to feel this.” Eyes closed and the back of his head rolling softly on the carpet side to side, the comfort of repetitive motion, almost as good as being rocked to sleep.

  His sinuses are jammed, though, and he can’t breathe. It happens whenever he lies down, when he changes position. So he has to sit up, has to find Kleenex or toilet paper to blow, and Gary is gone already, the shotguns gone, his pistol. All reachable still, though, in that room upstairs, and his brother too tired to stay awake all night, and Jim will be awake, always awake.

  He goes into the bathroom, grabs toilet paper and blows and gets some but not most. Ninety percent of it locked inside and pressurizing, like a car jack in his forehead being slowly cranked. He looks at himself in the mirror, a sick thing out of place among all the blond wood, the innocent walls. “Sorry,” he says to the bathroom.

  He should try to sleep now, so he goes into the chilly spare room lit by one bare bulb above, a mattress piled with old sleeping bags from hunting, no sheets or blankets. Thinner bags with red or blue plaid inside, and one of the enormous down bags from the army, dark green. He curls up in this, the reassuring weight of it and smell of steelhead and grouse, deer and geese and salmon and various boats, smell of bilge. He will try to rest, try to breathe and fall away.

  11

  Jim roams that night, unable to sleep, never able to sleep. Exhausted, feeling so heavy after several hours lying in bed, but some switch will never turn off. He’s outside in the cold wet night air and still can’t wake fully, lost
in some half land, a taste of what purgatory will be, dark and cold and trackless and steep with the moon gone and shadows above. He descends, because this is easiest and where we’re inevitably drawn, and he would like to lie down but he knows how many scorpions are here, hidden in all the deadfall. Purgatory vast, unlimited, no hordes of broken souls but each soul alone and afraid to rest because of all the small demons waiting. And what is the purpose, of purgatory or of this night? Is he supposed to be somehow made no longer himself?