by Isla Morley
We race to the car where the dog is already sitting in the passenger seat. Adam and I are once again on the run. Tumbleweed people in a land where the wind has its way. I unfold the note when I’m in the car. It’s a packet of peony seeds with a note that reads, Flowers for Charlie’s grave. It seems to confirm my fear. Only the dead put down roots.
HAVING TRAVELED MOST of the way via firebreaks, the car now turns onto what is left of Haskell Road. The ravages of a recent fire can be seen long before we get to the sign that reads, WELCOME TO LAWRENCE. We’ve been given to understand that there are no longer seasons like winter and spring. With weather patterns having changed, there is now only rainy season and fire season. The meadow to our left is nothing but cinders. The breeze blows across it, forming dirt devils of ash. On my side of the car, the world is a monochromatic canvas. Scorched tree trunks are snapped in two, as though from a failed effort of retrieving their splintered limbs. Adam, squashed on the other side of the monks and Molly, with the dog on his lap, is looking out at a different scene altogether. So much color it can make your eyes water.
Anybody who went to public school in Kansas was taught that seismic activity millions of years ago caused much of the state to sag. Water seeped into the great basin, forming wetlands. On field trips to this area, teachers would have us look out at the federally protected land and ask us to imagine what it might have been like in eons past, when thousands of species of birds feasted at a banquet of bugs and larvae. What we’d see was a bunch of grass, maybe a duck or two. We’d all yawn and scratch, and someone would raise his hand and ask if there was someplace to go potty. Well, it seems as though Eons Past has returned, taken up where it left off, and then some. The bright pink smear along the water’s edge is a flock of flamingos. Scores of blue heron have claimed much of the marsh. Every reed is gussied up with the iridescence of a kingfisher. A flock of goldfinches takes off from the bushes, and all at once the sky is strewn with sequins.
The driver has asked us to keep the windows closed because we’ve already had to drive through one locust swarm, but you can still hear it, the sound of bursting seams. I look across the charred landscape and can hear it on this side, too. The earth can’t contain itself. Should we drive down this very road tomorrow, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turned as green as a golf course.
There is something comforting about my side of the road. It is the side of loss. It is the side of mourning, of things past. The remains of a tree, the remains of the fence rail, the implied remains of the man who pegged that fence in place. Nature is making a spectacle of herself on Adam’s side, but the landscape sketched in charcoal on my side speaks to how I feel. What remains of me?
Once the main thoroughfare, Haskell Road is cracked and marred by potholes big enough to swallow a vehicle. The driver steers the car around trees growing up through the tarmac until there is no going forward. The rest of the way is going to have to be traveled by foot. We thank our driver for the ride and bid a hasty farewell to Molly and her parents, who are to meet a caravan near Baldwin City, ten miles farther. We pull on our canvas helmets and jackets, grab our belongings, and wave at the retreating car.
To the east, the sky is beginning to darken. Instead of being dazzled by sunlight, we are now being stalked by a sobering gray.
We are ten or so blocks from downtown, and a good walk farther, we are told, to our final destination. Adam and I both assure Marcus we are up to the task. I haven’t coughed all day, and it might just be wishful thinking, but Adam’s legs don’t look nearly as bowed as they used to be. It’s our vision that’s the issue. Never having needed our eyes for long ranges, we are both nearsighted. Adam overcompensates by using the binoculars. I rely on memory.
* * *
The Victorian two-and three-story brick houses along the road are abandoned. Some have their roofs caved in and others their windows blown out, but many are not as far gone as you might expect. Prop up the leaning porch rails, clear away the hammock-size spiderwebs, and slap on a fresh coat of paint, and you might have something habitable.
“Was this the biggest city in America?” Adam asks.
“Kid, Lawrence had a population of eighty thousand. New York had close to eight million.”
Adam smarts, like he’s just run smack-dab into a force field. He grows more pensive the farther we walk, the more homes we pass. “Doesn’t anybody live here?” His disappointment goes echoing down the street ahead of us, as though it would like to rustle up, at the very least, a few ghosts.
Marcus explains that Lawrence has gone the way of most towns. Survivors migrated for all kinds of reasons—to volunteer in the rebuilding efforts, to look for work, to move their kids closer to treatment centers. To forget, is what he doesn’t say. Who would want to be reminded of such loss? Who could stand to look at the empty tire swing or the driveway into which that certain car will never pull? Who could look across the backyard fence when the much-loved or even much-despised neighbor is not there to look back? Who would want to listen to those church bells just hang there, plugging up your ears with silence?
We turn onto Eleventh Street. Trees encroach from both sides, turning what used to be a two-lane street into a narrow path. The trail is a bright green carpet of moss. The dog, which has been five paces ahead of us with his nose to the ground, stops and barks. Marcus bends down to see what caught his interest. Crossing the path and headed into a forest that used to be Hobbs Park’s baseball field are tire tracks. The mud is still wet.
“Don’t worry. If they come back this way, we’ll hear them in plenty of time to hide,” he says.
The dog resumes his loping stride. Adam picks up a gnarled stick. I take the shovel out of my backpack.
At the corner of Eleventh and Rhode Island Streets is a field of nettles and bull thistle, what used to be a parking lot. Taking a shortcut across it, Marcus points out the giant nests on the second-floor windowsills of a building. “Bald eagles. A menace,” he remarks. Adam looks through his binoculars. He scans the surrounding area and points out a row of goalposts.
“You don’t want to tarry in a place like this.” Marcus urges us to move quickly. I do as I’m told. Adam, on the other hand, walks over to one of the goalposts. The dog looks reluctant to join him and tucks his tail between his legs. For the first time, Adam yells at him to come. The change in Adam frightens me. His enthusiasm has gone. In its place is this fretfulness. I reach Adam and see what has disturbed him so. Instead of a net, the basketball hoop is threaded with a noose. A sign welded to it reads, SOCRATES CHOICE.
“Executions?” I whisper to Marcus.
He shakes his head. “Assisted suicides.”
Adam has moved to a sign on the door of the building. “What is Young Men’s Christian Association?”
I shrug. “They used to do a lot of stuff with kids.”
That’s all it takes for Adam to throw open the door and dart inside.
“Adam, come back!”
The foyer has brown water marks on the ceiling. Every wall is streaked with rust stains. In places, plaster has fallen away like giant scabs, exposing the rotting substructure. In the corners, rubble is stacked like snowdrifts. The floor is ankle-deep in debris. I worry the ceiling is about to cave in on us but forge ahead after Adam. We pass an old classroom where desks are covered with a thick layer of gray chalk but are still in mostly neat rows, facing front. Where a blackboard should be is a gaping hole. Were students to take their seats they would stare straight into the lavatory, where porcelain basins lie on the floor along with broken wall tiles. At the hall, we step over the metal doors. Nothing is left of the gymnasium except a couple of risers and a pile of rubber that was once basketballs. The wooden floor is a carpet of splinters too treacherous to walk on.
“So, children were kept in places like this?” Adam asks.
The way he says “kept” is the way I say “kept” when referring to what Dobbs did with me. I try to explain day care and working parents, how kids liked hanging out
in places like this. He lowers his chin and looks at me as though over the rim of a pair of glasses. Sure.
Next door is a two-level, white-tiled hole in the ground, the deep end of which is full of shattered glass. Blotches of green mold bloom on the pool tiles, the metal lockers, and the ceiling. It blooms where only moments before was a bare wall. Lest we break out in lichen, I insist we leave, hurrying through the broken window onto Massachusetts Street.
Downtown Lawrence used to pride itself on its historic buildings. Now without caretakers, the landmarks of Massachusetts Street have been left to fend for themselves. In the war against the elements, they are taking a beating. Mangled elm and twisted sycamore trees have the courthouse in a chokehold. The clock in the tower puts the time of death at two fifteen. The red stone building that used to be the county museum has itself become a relic. Liberty Hall has only three letters on its marquee: SOS. The storefronts—those that are visible through the broomstick trees—are dilapidated. All that remains of Restaurant Row are wire spokes where awnings used to be and old menus taped to windows. Adam pauses to read one of them. “Did people spend all their time eating?”
On the corner of Massachusetts and Ninth is Weaver’s, the city’s first department store. Mannequins lie in a heap in the display window, and behind them are scores of empty clothes racks. Adam says a hardware store with three floors he can understand, but not one this big just for clothes. “Why would anyone need more than two outfits?”
Across the street is Farmers Bank, another multistory structure. Adam asks how much gold a building this big could have held, and I explain that banks in a small town like this didn’t keep gold or much money, for that matter. “They mostly kept track of numbers.”
Adam wants to look inside, but we all stop dead in our tracks when Oracle starts barking madly.
Marcus looks down the street, and says, “Oh hell.”
Roaring toward us from the south end of town is a three-wheeler. Marcus doesn’t have to tell us to run. We charge down Ninth Street. I wonder if it’s possible the biker hasn’t seen us, until I hear the bike slow down just enough to bank the corner. Marcus has found the entrance to Weaver’s basement, but Adam and I both shake our heads. Anything but going down below. We dart into the back alley. A pile of bricks makes the access too narrow for the three-wheeler. It skids to a halt. For a brief moment, we stare at the driver. He’s wearing a wet suit, a vest with a tangle of hoses, and the kind of mask that scuba divers wear. Oracle stands in front of Adam, looking rabid.
As soon as the biker backs out into the street, we take off in the opposite direction. He is going around the block to cut us off at the pass. Marcus has anticipated this and is trying each back door we pass. For a ghost town with broken windows, it makes no sense that these doors should all be locked. He tries putting his shoulder against one of them; it budges not one inch. The three-wheeler gains access to the alley two blocks down. Left to us is only one way out: the fire escape.
We bolt up the stairs. It sways and scrapes against the bricks as we scramble to the top. It is a wonder the whole thing doesn’t collapse with the weight of us all. I reach behind me to give Adam a hand over the parapet, only to find he is not there.
“Adam!”
Marcus and I run in opposite directions, each of us peering over the edge to see where he might be. Despite the revving of the three-wheeler’s engine and its squealing tires, I hear Adam call for me. Marcus and I rush to the side of the roof that fronts the main drag just in time to see Adam dart into the hair salon next door. The three-wheeler pauses and then makes another loop. When Adam pops back out into the alley, the driver has already blocked one side of the alley with a sheet of corrugated iron. At the other end, he dismounts his bike and stalks Adam.
“Leave him alone!” I scream. The wind gobbles up my words.
Marcus is already backing down the staircase. He’s not going to reach Adam in time.
The biker is directly below me. He is negotiating with Adam. He doesn’t want a fight, he wants Adam to surrender; take the easy way, kid, I hear him say. If the self-preservation instinct played a role in getting me through all those years of being a captive, there is not one tiny vestige of it left. My only concern is to launch myself in such a way that I land on the biker. I step up on the parapet. I shuffle a few paces to the left. The biker is only about ten or twelve feet from Adam. Every joint becomes spring-loaded.
The biker hesitates.
The moment presents.
Just as I am about to jump, a streak of fury flashes out from the side ally. Adam’s dog sails across the air and hits its target squarely on the chest. The biker goes down. Shrieking turns to wailing. Adam is frozen in place. We all watch the dog go for the man’s throat. It doesn’t take long for flailing legs to still, for arms to slacken. By the time Marcus reaches the scene, the bloodied dog has loosened its grip and returned to Adam’s side to have his head petted.
Marcus stubs the figure with his foot. By the time I reach the bottom of the ladder, he has both boy and dog packed up on the back of the ATV. “Hop on,” he says. “There’s bound to be another headhunter on the way.”
I have the backpack but not Adam’s suitcase. “Our stuff.”
Oracle’s ears prick, and he yaps a short warning bark. We all think the same thing—they are coming.
That’s when we hear another engine.
“There’s no time.” Marcus cranks the kick-starter with his foot, but the engine sputters, whines, and quits. “You can do better than that.” He tries again. Still nothing. He has us get off, and then jumps down on the lever several times.
A voice comes over a bullhorn. “Surrender, nobody gets hurt.”
“Hurry! Hurry!” I tell Marcus. We can’t see them, but the noise is getting louder. They have to be seconds away.
Marcus strokes the gas tank. “Come on, baby, show me some love.” He twists the throttle and thrusts down on the lever again. This time, the bike jerks to life. I scoop up Oracle and we all pile on. The ATV swerves out of the alley and shoots down Vermont Street. Behind us, the voice on a bullhorn is calling for us to stop.
THE BIKE SKIDS to a stop in front of a wire fence. We have driven a wide loop, only to end up four blocks north of downtown, a stone’s throw from the bridge, or what’s left of it. The Kaw River may be high or dried up; there’s no telling for all the bracken. Down a little ways is an abandoned construction site with a jackknifed tower crane.
Marcus shuts off the three-wheeler and slides off the seat. He offers me his arm. “You don’t look too peachy.”
“I’m okay.” I lock my knees, just in case.
The air has turned bitter. The cold makes my ears ache. Large, dark clouds have pulled together, and the wind carries in it menace. A wind like this—the latches on storm cellars should be ringing clear as church bells. Instead, there is an eerie quiet.
Marcus is sweating a great deal and doing a very poor imitation of keeping calm. He doesn’t need to tell us twice to hurry.
The ground is rocky. Marcus lifts a flap on the chain-link fence and puts his hand on Adam’s head as he crouches through the gap. On the other side, we scuttle down the sandy embankment and come to a smooth concrete pathway. It leads to two round entrances, like gaping mouths. I am both eager to find shelter and afraid to take another step. Above the entrance is a painting that looks like stained glass of a robed creature with long hair and outstretched arms. Trailing from her hands are stars.
“Our guardian angel,” Marcus explains.
Each tunnel entrance is draped with mesh that is weighted at the bottom with fishing sinkers. Marcus lifts it up and we scoot under, but not before hearing what sounds like laughter, children’s laughter, coming from the other tunnel.
“What’s in there?” Adam has heard it, too.
“We’ll get to that later.”
The curtain falls back into place. Marcus tells us we can now relax, leaving me to wonder how so flimsy a net is supposed to deter bad guys. He
reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small flashlight. A familiar dread rises up in me. I tell myself this hole in the ground will be different. There is no door, for one. I have my son with me, and a friend. I have a dog that knows how to rip out a man’s throat.
We proceed deeper into the tunnel. The beam of light instills the same confidence that caulking on a crack in a dam wall would.
“Bet you never imagined you and me would have anything in common. See, I’ve lived underground for years, too.” Marcus leans toward Adam. “You aren’t afraid of spiders, are you? Get them as big as your hand in here.” Marcus uses the flashlight to scan the ceiling and the walls, and what pops out are colorful pictures painted in the same style as the angel at the entrance. Adam stops to examine the naked-lady picture.
“Nikon mostly practices in this tunnel. His best work is in the other one. To me, they’re pretty pictures, but he says everything means something.”
I startle when the thunder booms. “Isn’t this a storm drain?”
Marcus has us keep walking. “I know what you’re thinking—soon as those clouds start dumping water, we best have snorkels. Fifteen years ago, you’d have been right. When we first started living down here, we’d get washed out every other week. Now, we got those gutters at street level plugged up tight, let me tell you. It rains, and a river as big as the Missouri runs down Mass Street, but we stay bone-dry.”
The air is moist, almost thick enough to swill and spit out. Beyond the light is nothing but the cloying void, at least that’s what I think until the dog breaks rank and growls. His ears are flattened against his head, and the sole tuft of hair on his neck is raised in a spiky ridge. Another dog, one that looks like it’s been stitched together from patchwork squares, stares at us from the scrap of light.