by Rob Hart
“I don’t want your job, asshole.”
“Well, just know, I’m watching you.”
I nod toward the shower. “You’re wasting water.”
He purses his lips and disappears behind the barrier.
Something deep in my gut wants me to walk around the divider and throw him up against the wall and ask him how tough he’s willing to play this. Show him how scary real life can get. But I don’t do that. Instead I leave, out into the forest.
Fucking Gideon.
Within moments I’m nearly fully dry. Something flies up under my towel and I flap it loose, keep walking. I step off the wooden walkway and into the dirt, navigate a thin trail through the brush until my bus appears out of the woods. The paint is shorn off, down to the gunmetal gray chassis. The engine block and tires missing. The few windows that are open are covered with tight layers of mosquito netting. My addition, when I moved in.
No one wants to live in the bus. I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s remote. So far from camp you can’t hear anything. There’s also something vaguely apocalyptic about it. And it was in sorry shape when I showed up. Very sorry shape. It took a few days of cleaning and dragging furniture out here to bring it up to a livable standard.
Livable for me. Because fuck this forest and all the monster bugs that dwell within. Nothing but me gets in here.
I make my way for the steps leading up to the door, and one of those roach motherfuckers is chilling on a step, glaring at me. I slam my foot down, hoping the vibration will scare it away. It starts running toward me and I hop back.
Maybe Pete got scared by a bug. He jumped. The rope snapped.
Who knows?
Pete does. That’s it.
The roach breaks and runs behind the stairs and disappears. I wait until I think it’s safe, climb to the top and push in hard. The accordion door opens. I get inside, drop the towel onto the driver’s seat, the only thing that’s still bolted down to the floor. I take a pair of shorts and a t-shirt off the bookshelf that serves as the dresser. Spray myself with some deodorant, not that it’ll help much at keeping me dry, but it’s nice to pretend. The dirty clothes I hang over the single bench bus seat that’s pushed up against the back.
Something feels off.
I turn, look around the bus. There’s not much here. A cot, the bookshelf and seats, a small table. On the table, a few books, borrowed from the library: A nearly-fallen-apart copy of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and some cookbooks. A yellow plastic flashlight. My nearly-empty plastic jug of whiskey, which reminds me I need another one of those.
Then there’s the small tie folder full of personal documents, sitting on top of the bookshelf.
I’m not a neat freak, but I like to keep things tidy. Which is not hard, because I don’t have a whole lot of stuff anymore. Still, this small pile of things feels off. The sleeping bag looks more pushed into the corner of the cot than normal. And the books look like they’ve been moved around, maybe.
The folder, though, that’s what does it.
I’m right-handed. When I loop the rope back around the enclosure, I go clockwise.
But the rope is now tied counter-clockwise.
I open it up. Everything’s there.
Personal documents, a couple of photos. Including the one of my dad in his bunker gear, standing outside his firehouse in Bensonhurst. I look at that for a couple of minutes before putting it back.
Speaking of. I go to my dirty shorts and dig into the cargo pocket, so I can replace the items I brought with me to the passport office, and find the arson guidebook I swiped from Crusty Pete’s tree house.
Was someone in here? Were they looking for this?
I pull my cell phone out of my bag, turn it on. It’s still got a bit of a charge. I take a picture of the code on the back. I turn the phone off and stick it in my pocket. The phone is mostly useless, since there’s no cell signal out here, but I figure I can send it to Bombay next time I’m out by the road. He’s smarter than me and might have some input. Plus I’m overdue to check in. It’s been weeks since we spoke. What a sorry best friend I am.
The arson manual, I fold up and stuff into the pocket of my cargo shorts. I feel the need to keep it close. Just in case.
The sun is nearly gone now, a sliver blazing orange beyond the trees. The no-see-ums are out. Like mosquitos, but more insistent. We’re out of the lemon-eucalyptus spray Aesop makes and I need to remind him to make more.
Tibo is crouched low to the ground, holding a lighter to a chunk of newspaper that’s been doused in cooking oil. It catches on the edge, the flame slowly crawling across, and he places it into the circle of stones on a bed of kindling. He picks up a twig and pushes the newspaper in the center so the whole thing will catch.
He stands and returns to the circle, taking hands between Cannabelle and Gideon. The entire camp is here—I think the entire camp is here—standing in one large circle around the fire sputtering and coming to life, flames licking the dead wood.
I step into the shadows, sit up on a picnic table. Tibo looks at me for a couple of moments, expecting something, like today was going to be different from every other day, but it’s not. I settle into my spot, comfortably away from the circle.
A dark cloud is cast over everyone. I scan the faces I can see, that instinctual part of my brain taking over, sorting them out. There is a very good chance the person responsible for killing Pete—if he was killed—is here. Holding hands, like everyone is together in this. No one has left camp since he died, that I know of. I keep an eye out for the stereogram soul that matches mine.
Tibo clears his throat.
“Today was not a good day for us as a community…”
“Excuse me.”
Tibo stops and looks over at a short Asian girl in overalls and a white tank top, her black hair in a braid that brushes her lower back. Katie, I think.
“Trigger warnings, please?” she asks, with a heavy layer of condescension.
Tibo looks at the ground and sighs. “Tonight we will be discussing death. I thought that might be obvious?”
He looks around the circle one more time, to make sure there won’t be any more interruptions. Then he gives a slight nod. “Usually before dinner, we stand here and take turns sharing what we’re thankful for. But this is a unique circumstance. A member of our group died today in a very unfortunate accident.”
His eyes seem to flick in my direction when he says this, but I can’t be sure in the failing light.
“I thought this might be a good opportunity to share our memories of Pete,” Tibo says. “If you didn’t know him and there’s something you’d like to share, that’s fine, too. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
He stops and looks around, waiting for someone to speak.
Tibo. How to describe Tibo.
Last I saw Tibo, before I saw him here, he was dredging the bottom of the Narrows to find several million dollars’ worth of silver bars that had been lost in a shipwreck in the early 1900s. While working on this plan, he dressed like a pirate, because he thought it might help his creative process.
It was fucking lunacy. But lunacy is square in Tibo’s wheelhouse. The plan worked. He found a couple of the bars, buried in the muck and mud. And he made enough money to buy this place.
He’s the kind of weird that most people want to pat on the head and call “cute.” Unless you’re paying attention, and you realize there might be something to it. I always knew he was smart, toeing up on brilliant. But back when we were bouncing around the East Village, had someone asked me, I never would have guessed he’d be good at something like this.
The leadership role has galvanized him. That puppy-like sense of wonder is gone, replaced by a laser focus on making this place run. He talked about it for years: Finding a plot of land down south, turning it into a commune, developing a model of sustainable living. Granted, part of that was due to his belief we were approaching the apocalypse and humanity needed a place to ride that out, but
motivation is motivation, no matter where you find it.
The important thing is, he’s found the place where he fits in the world. The only thing I’ve got looming in my future is a loose plan to go to Prague and do stuff, contingent on my passport arriving in time.
My five year plan consists of two things: Be alive and not in jail.
And here’s Tibo, building something. I’m proud of him. Maybe jealous, too.
This is something I would tell him if we still have conversations like that anymore.
Marx is the first to speak.
Of course he’s the first to speak.
“Not all of you knew Pete the way I knew him,” Marx says. “He was more than a person. He was a spirit leader. He was a revolutionary. He had the heart of a lion. He saw the world for what it is and dared to think differently. I can only hope to carry on Pete’s good works.” He glances at Tibo, clearly and deliberately. “I know not everyone agreed with him, but he was right, you know? He was right.”
That doesn’t sound loaded at all.
A few people in the circle nod in agreement. Marx oozes so much charisma you can almost see it, like the tentacles of an octopus, wrapping around people, pulling them toward him. If I was coming into this cold, without knowing he was a dick, I’d at least be intrigued by him.
Next up is Moony. She looks nice tonight. Yellow sheer sundress that accentuates her bony frame, dark hair in pigtails. Not smiling, which is rare for her. “Pete was… he was an interesting guy. We never spoke much, but he was kind, and I measure a person by their kindness. It’s sad that he’s gone.”
Sunny, who’s standing to Moony’s left, picks up like it was a trailing sentence. “We pray for him. To Mother Earth, and to the great unknown. May the energy of his life-force travel forever amongst the stars.”
People nod in acknowledgment.
Gideon says, “Excuse me, everyone. I’d like to go next.”
All eyes turn toward him. A couple of them roll, mine included.
“Pete’s death was a tragedy, and I hope everyone understands that.” He stares at me when he says this. I am not a fan of this attention I am suddenly getting. “But I want you all to know that I’m on top of this. We’re going to make sure everything is safe, and no one has to worry. Starting tomorrow we’re going to begin a full accounting of all the rope bridges. We’re going to check the water and electric lines, too, just to be safe.”
There’s crunching from the tree line, and everyone pauses. Katashi comes barreling out of the encroaching darkness. He sees the circle and winces, says, “Sumimasen.”
Which I think means ‘sorry.’ It certainly sounds like it.
He steps between Sunny and Moony. They hesitate, but part and allow him to take the spot. Sunny leans forward and raises an eyebrow at Moony. Katashi, oblivious to the intrusion, sets his grip and surveys the circle. I expect he won’t be contributing a memory of Pete. Growing up in New York, you get an ear for languages. I understand a little Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, and oddly, Czech. Can’t speak them worth a damn, but if I hear them and the person is talking slow enough, I get the gist. Japanese, I’ve got nothing.
But I’ve been listening, paying attention to body cues. It’s like a game. People carry so much of their story on their body. Katashi is the first to volunteer for a task and also content to wander alone. That makes me like him.
The ritual continues. People share memories of Pete. Nothing too deep or interesting. Nothing that blips on my radar. Happy claptrap. Some more exaltations to Mother Earth or the eternal wind or the dark matter of the universe and blah blah blah.
At the end of it, it’s only me and Katashi who haven’t spoken. Katashi gets a pass for not speaking English. I get a pass because no one expects me to contribute. It’s not that I don’t believe in what they’re doing. But I never participate in the circle. If we’re all going to stand around and talk about what we’re thankful for, well, what part of the broken shards of my life do I have to be thankful for?
At the end Tibo lets go of Cannabelle and Gideon and walks to the center of the circle. “Let’s eat. And please, if anyone needs anything, or has a concern, please come see me. I’ll be here until the last person leaves.”
The circle breaks apart. Me and Aesop head for the kitchen, where the trays have cooled down enough that we can haul them out to the serving table bare-handed. We set them up alongside a pile of wooden plates and metal utensils and pull back the aluminum foil.
The potatoes browned nicely, and it smells real damn good. Aesop dumps a Tupperware container of his dressing on the salad and tosses it with his hands. As he does this, he looks up at the dry erase board hanging over the food, makes sure all the ingredients are listed. A reference for those with allergies and weird eating habits.
Once the food is ready, we step away. No one would probably be bothered if we went first, but we both like to wait until everyone has filled their plates. It’s one of the reasons I think Aesop is probably a good person, even though we barely speak about anything other than cooking.
When everyone’s gone up and sat down, I get my plate and take a hefty scoop of the shepherd’s pie and a bit of the salad and go to the far picnic table, at the edge of the clearing. The food is good. It’d be nice to have some meat, but I’ve lost a little weight since I got here, and it’s weight I probably needed to lose anyway. Can’t feel bad about that.
It’s dark now, dinner starting way later than normal given the circumstances. The clearing is lit blue and orange. Blue by some solar-powered lights that’ll last another four hours or so on the juice they sucked up today. Orange by the fire, three feet high, light dancing off the people assembled close to it.
No one here looks like a killer.
Tibo’s got to be right. I’m overthinking it. That’s what I do. I build narratives. I need things to make sense in my head. And apparently the only thing that makes sense is for everything to be a conspiracy. For people to be uniformly awful no matter where you go or what you do.
Maybe I bore too easily.
Maybe nothing was moved on the bus.
Maybe I closed the folder in the reverse direction without thinking about it. It was dark this morning when I closed it and I was half-asleep.
Still. I pull the pamphlet out of my pocket, look at the numbers scrawled on the back. I take a look at the fire.
The numbers could be a code.
What else would they be? The way the numbers are spaced, it certainly seems to correspond to words. I look for one that’s a combination of three letters, figure if I can crack ‘the’ maybe I can chip away at the rest. But that doesn’t work. I look for the most common number, thinking maybe it’s the letter ‘e’ because that’s the most common letter, and that doesn’t seem to bear out.
I am not a code breaker, in case there was any question of that.
“Nice job tonight.”
I look up and Job is standing over me, barefoot in jeans and a flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his muscled biceps. His head is meticulously shaved, which contrasts with his long, thick, carefully coiffed beard. He smells a bit like shit, which I can’t really blame him for. He handles the outhouses. It’s a dirty job. He’s the only one who seems to want to do it.
I nod at him, and he lingers. I want to tell him to leave when Cannabelle comes shuffling through the dirt toward me, suddenly assuming this is a party.
“You’re welcome,” I tell Job, and he walks off. Cannabelle climbs on top of the table next to me. She doesn’t say anything as she balances her plate on her laps and eats.
After she demolishes half the plate she says, “Food is good tonight.”
“Thanks.”
“This is weird, right? This whole thing?”
“Yup.”
“Is there something someone’s not telling us? I feel like there’s something someone’s not telling us.”
I look over at Cannabelle, who’s looking out at the fire, chewing. Another person I’ve barely inter
acted with in my time here. And yet. She’s as curious about this as I am. And maybe she senses that. I consider telling her about the rope. But I’ve seen how messages spread through this place. Sunny got a rash from some fire ants and the next thing people were whispering that she caught an STD and that the outhouses weren’t safe and suddenly people were shitting in the woods. Our mock society falls apart with a stiff wind.
“Not sure,” I tell her.
“You think maybe what happened to Pete wasn’t an accident.”
It’s not a question.
“I don’t know what I think,” I tell her.
“Pete was a weird dude.”
She goes back to eating. Cleans the plate, licks off the remnants of food, and places it next to her. She sits there holding a mason jar full of water between her hands, her fingers loaded with rings. She clicks them against the glass, short taps mixed with long taps.
She wants to tell me something.
“How was Pete a weird dude?” I ask.
“I see things up in the trees.”
I glance up. The tops of the trees are veiled in darkness. But Cannabelle goes up empty-handed and comes down with bud and sweet leaf. Apparently there’s an entire grow rig up there, something out of sight but close to the sun. I’ve been curious to see how it works. I’m less curious to know what it feels like to fall from up there and break my neck.
“What do you see from up in the trees?” I ask.
“I see Pete. He runs around a lot, like he’s a spy on a mission.”
“Where to?”
“Not sure.” She takes a long sip. “I don’t follow him. That wouldn’t be cool.”
“You see everything here, right?”
“Just about.”
“How’d he been the past few days? Anything of note?”
“He was carrying a book everywhere. Outhouse, dinner, on walks. He always had this book sticking out of his pocket.”
“What book?”
“The Monkey Wrench Gang.”
“I don’t know that one.”
“We have it in the library.”
It’s full black beyond the trees. The library lights don’t get turned on at night, and I don’t like fucking around with the candles in there. I don’t want to be the guy who sets the place on fire.