Lost Memory of Skin

by Russell Banks

  Any particular canal?

  Yeah.

  You know how to find it?

  Yeah.

  Maybe we oughta take a ride over there for a look-see. What do you think? I’m driving back to Calusa later today. My work here’s about done, only got to interview one of the rangers for my piece, and this disappeared- professor story is a lot more interesting.

  I don’t think he’d want you writing about it in some big New York magazine.

  It’s not that interesting. I’m just curious is all. I’ll even bring you back here afterward if you want. I can interview a ranger later.

  You should do it, hon. Go with him. Or at least tell the police about the canal. Especially since the last person he was seen with is you. Clear your name, so to speak. We’ll watch your pets and your stuff.

  Clear his fat friend’s name is more like it.

  There you go! Exactly, clear the professor’s name. Who knows, out there in the sun investigating a canal, the guy might’ve had a heart attack or something. He looks like a heart attack waiting to happen anyhow. I’ll drive you there and we’ll check around for him. If we see his car, we call the police. If not, not. And since they’re probably also looking for you, you being the last person seen with him, I’ll do the calling. You can stay out of it completely if you want.

  Dude, I’m not that hard to find. See? Check this out. Speaking of which, I got to charge this thing before I turn into a pumpkin. It’s a good thing I came outa the swamp when I did. I didn’t know there wasn’t any electricity in the houseboat or at the so-called campsites.

  Wow. I’ve never seen one of those before. They make you wear that?

  Yeah.

  For how long?

  Like ten years.

  You poor thing! That’s horrible! Look, Cat, it’s like he’s a prisoner or a slave in shackles.

  No comment, Dolores. No damned comment. He’s paying his debt to society, that’s all. Same as those guys the corrections department sends over. We don’t know what he done. Frankly, I don’t want to know. And I don’t want to hear what your late husband Abbott would say.

  He’d be horrified.

  So what about it, friend? Shall we take a little ride in my rental? It’s a Lincoln Town Car. Great air. How far is the canal? About an hour?

  Hour and a half, maybe.

  Is that a yes?

  I dunno. I gotta charge my shackle.

  I rented a GPS when I picked up the car. Maybe the outlet jack’s the same size as your thingie there and you can charge it while we drive. Let me take a look. Yeah, it’s the same. No problema.

  Okay. But if we see his van, you be the one to call the cops. I don’t want nothin’ to do with finding his body.

  How do you know he’s dead?

  I don’t. It’s just . . . like you said, he’s a heart attack waiting to happen.

  Well, if he is dead we can prove you had nothing to do with it. He was certainly alive when he left here, and we can testify that you’ve been in the Panzacola the whole time since.

  You still have three days’ rental on that houseboat, sonny. You gonna want a refund on that?

  No. I’ll be back. Maybe I’ll just not take it into the swamp again. It’s kinda primitive out there. Maybe I’ll just keep it tied up here at the dock this time.

  Suit yourself.

  First I gotta get something from my backpack.

  Terrific. Meet you at the parking lot up by the ranger station.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CANE FIELDS STRETCH FROM THE CANAL nearly to the horizon where a rough line of citrus trees divides the green earth from the cloudless blue sky. Half- a-dozen police cars—Calusa County Sheriff’s Department, local police, state troopers—and a white Sheriff’s Department tow truck and at least three vans from local TV stations are lined up on the shoulder between the two-lane road and the canal. Uniformed and plainclothes officers in twos and threes mill around the edge of the canal talking and smoking. Occasionally one of them breaks off and peers down into the dark still waters of the canal as if he dropped a coin in for luck. Wearing oxygen tanks and weight belts, a pair of divers in dripping black wet suits lean against a fire engine red EMT rescue truck.

  Highway traffic is backed up for a quarter of a mile in both directions. Waving impatiently, a single state trooper tries to keep the rubbernecked drivers moving their vehicles in a single lane past the site, and as the Writer’s Town Car approaches the trooper, the Kid slumps in his seat and turns away. The Writer does the opposite: he stops the car, lowers his window, and hands the trooper his business card. He says he’s covering the story for his magazine and asks where the officer would like him to park.

  The trooper glances at the card and shakes his head with irritation. Boy, you guys’re all over this one, aren’t you? Park down there beyond the TV guys and stay the hell there till we get this done.

  You find the body yet?

  It’s still down there. We got to get his van out first. Get moving now. You’re holding up traffic.

  How’d you know to look here, officer?

  Sir, I said to keep moving! There’ll be a press briefing later. Save your questions for that.

  The Writer takes back his card and salutes the trooper and drives on, parking the car a short ways past the TV vans and several nondescript civilian sedans on the shoulder of the highway. Reporters and cameramen and sound technicians drink coffee and smoke and wait. The Writer swings open his door and tells the Kid he’s going to try to speak with one of the divers. Always talk to the guys you won’t see later at the press conference. You coming? he asks the Kid.

  No way, man.

  Why not? You could identify the body for them. Assuming it’s your friend they bring up.

  They probably got his wife here for that. Besides, I barely knew the guy. Plus I’m a convicted felon, remember? They’ll be all over me like white on rice. I don’t need no added scrutiny. The Kid likes saying that, “white on rice.” It’s an expression the Rabbit used to slip his way now and then and for some reason for the last few moments the Rabbit has been flashing across the Kid’s thoughts. He’s been replaying the instant out there on the Causeway in the hurricane-force wind and rain when the Rabbit stopped trying to stand on crutches and just gave it all up, when he ceased to fight gravity and pain and let his tired broken old body tumble down the hill into the rising floodwaters. For the first time the Kid thinks he knows how the Rabbit must have felt in the last months of his life when his only counter to the loneliness and shame of banishment and harassment official and otherwise was his sometimes sly wit and his guarded friendship with the Kid. Then the city officials sent the cops to bust up the camp and scatter the residents like cockroaches and when that didn’t work and they all sneaked back because they had no other place to live and under the guidance of the Professor rebuilt their camp, the hurricane came along and did what the cops couldn’t. By then the Rabbit’s life despite having almost no options had gotten too complicated to bear or even to understand. So he let gravity take over. Which is what the Kid feels like doing now.

  Why? You don’t have anything to hide, do you?

  Dude, I got a lot to hide. Everyone does.

  The Kid imagines being frisked by a cop and the cop coming up with the DVD of the Professor’s final interview which will implicate him in the Professor’s death even if after watching it they actually buy the super-spy story which is highly unlikely. Either way, to nail down the Kid’s exact relation to the death of the famous college professor they’ll go out to Turnbull’s Store to check out his alibi with Cat and Dolores. They’ll have a warrant to rummage through his duffel and backpack where they’ll discover over nine thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills which the Kid will have a very hard time explaining to anyone. It’s money beyond money. It’s like winning the lottery only not. He has a hard time explaining it even to himself. All it’s done for him so far is complicate his life. He almost wishes he’d refused to let the Professor pay him for his servic
es so he could simply drop the DVD into the canal and let the Professor’s wife think whatever she wants.

  The Writer has disappeared. All the reporters and cameramen have seen what the Kid sees now and have scrambled down the line of vehicles where they’re bellying up to the yellow crime scene tape watching and already filming the tow truck that’s been backed up to the edge of the canal. The operator locks the brake and steps down from the cab and walks toward the rear of the truck. He’s a professional and moves slowly and methodically so everyone can know it. He takes his position at a panel fixed to the bed of the truck and checks the gauges and levers that control the tension of the steel towing cable.

  Cautiously the Kid makes his way to the tape and stands among the reporters and TV cameramen. The police officers and EMT technicians crowd forward and peer into the canal. The black steel cable curls loosely over the concrete edge of the canal and drops into the water and disappears. The operator shifts his hands from one lever to another, the engine digs in and the winch at the rear of the flatbed truck slowly starts spooling the cable, gradually straightening and tightening it until it’s taut as a steel bar that when reaching the turning drum seems magically to soften into coiled black rope. Then the dark waters of the canal rise into a green bubble that bursts apart, and the front bumper and chrome grill of the Professor’s Chrysler van appear, dented and dangling, headlights smashed. The waters part and the vehicle keeps coming like a whale emerging from the depths of the ocean, until it’s half in and half out of the water, held tight to the truck by the cable as if harpooned. The operator locks his levers and walks forward to the cab and climbs up into the driver’s seat. Very carefully he puts the truck in gear and edges it ahead a few inches at a time, bringing the van slowly up and out of the canal onto the embankment where it ends shuddering on all four wheels, sheets of water slithering off its roof and sides and pouring out from under the doors and hood. A police officer steps to the rear of the van and swings open the wide door and a wave of water spills onto the ground. Another officer pulls on the driver’s side door. It suddenly opens and another, smaller wave breaks onto the ground. Slumped forward in the driver’s seat, his forehead resting on the steering wheel, as if he fell asleep while parked, there he is: the man known to the Kid as the Professor.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ON THE DRIVE BACK TO APPALACHEE BOTH the Writer and the Kid for most of the first half hour are stuck deep in separate and distinct thoughts and stay silent until finally the Writer tells the Kid he doesn’t get it. Why would the cops immediately say to the press that the Professor’s death is an apparent suicide, no foul play, et cetera, when they don’t even have a coroner’s report yet and can’t produce a suicide note?

  The Kid shrugs and notes that they only called it an “apparent” suicide. And maybe there is a suicide note except it’s at the Professor’s house. Or he sent it to his wife in the mail. Or maybe the police know something about the Professor’s past that could cause him to commit suicide but to protect other people’s privacy they can’t reveal it to the public. Also it is possible they’re only saying it was a suicide just in case he actually was murdered and they want whoever did it to think he got away with it until they gather enough evidence to make an arrest. Cops do that sometimes,the Kid adds. I’ve seen it on TV.

  Sounds like you buy the official version, though. But then you knew the guy personally.

  Sort of.

  The car has left the main road and turns onto the narrow lane leading into the Panzacola National Park. They pass clusters of green-uniformed work crews, chain gangs made up of young black convicts still clearing away debris and fallen trees, the aftermath of Hurricane George. The Writer glances over at the manacles and chains linking the men and asks the Kid about the fact that the Professor’s hands were chained to the steering wheel and his foot to the gas pedal. Before they could remove his body from the van they had to use bolt cutters to cut his hands free of the steering wheel and his foot from the accelerator, remember? That’s a far-fetched and fanciful way for a hugely obese man to kill himself. Especially one who’s supposed to be a genius. There have to be a hundred better ways for a man that smart and that fat to make his death look like a simple accident.

  The Kid says he must have wanted to make sure he couldn’t change his mind at the last second. Besides, they weren’t really chains, he points out. They were combination bicycle locks made from steel cables and the cops didn’t know the combinations to unlock them. Which is why they used the bolt cutters. It’s the same type of eight-millimeter cable the Kid used for locking his own bike back when he had one and is probably where the Professor got the idea. That could be why he opened the driver’s side window too—so the van would fill with water immediately and he wouldn’t have enough air inside to give him time to escape. It must be wicked hard to kill yourself while you still have time to change your mind, the Kid says.

  The Writer agrees. But something about the way the man did the deed suggests that it wasn’t a garden-variety suicide. If he wanted to make some kind of point or issue a statement to the survivors or to the general public—a not uncommon desire among people who kill themselves—there are ways to do it without making it so strange and ugly.

  Unless that was the point. Unless that was the statement. The Writer reminds the Kid of the damage done to the Professor’s face by the crabs and who knows what other underwater creatures that got into the van through the open driver’s side window and ate at his eyes and ears. There are eels in those canals, and alligators.

  True, it was very ugly. And strange. The Kid doesn’t want to remember how the Professor looked when the EMT guys finally succeeded in getting him out of the van.

  Hemingway blowing off his head with a shotgun in the kitchen while his wife is asleep upstairs. There’s a statement for you.

  Yeah? What was he stating?

  He spent his life killing animals with guns. Big dangerous animals like lions and water buffalo and rhinos. He wasn’t about to kill himself in bed with a bottle of vodka and a jar of sleeping pills or by taking a flying leap off the Golden Gate. Not a big dangerous animal like Ernest Hemingway.

  Who was he stating it to? That he was a big dangerous animal.

  History, naturally. Literary history.

  That seems dumb to the Kid but he doesn’t say it. He can’t imagine wanting to make a statement about who you really are to history. Especially “literary history”—whatever that is. Unless you’re a Hitler or a George W. Bush talking to history is a waste of time. You’d have to believe that people hundreds of years from now would give a shit about knowing who you really were. Still, the Writer is showing him something he never thought of before: that when you decide to kill yourself you also get to choose the method and therefore how you kill yourself in a sense can reveal who you really are. You don’t get to find that out for yourself of course because you’re dead by then but it is like a form of self-expression, your true last words after you’ve already said what were supposedly your last words. For the Kid this casts a slightly different light on many things: the Professor’s telling his super-spy assassination story and recording it onto a DVD; making the Kid agree to be the story’s delivery boy; then there’s the one hundred Benjamins nicely wrapped and waiting in the safe, the van in the canal, the bicycle locks—all the details that lead up to the Professor’s death and come shortly after it. With only one carefully planned detail yet to play out: the Kid’s actual delivery of the videotaped interview with the Professor to the Professor’s widow.

  But what kind of man would think up and then arrange all that? If he did kill himself—and the Kid is now pretty sure that he did—then what does the way he went about it say to those who are still alive, to his wife and children, to the Kid himself, to the Professor’s students and fellow professors, to everyone who ever knew the man? Even to history like the big dangerous animal Ernest Hemingway?

  It says the Professor was somebody with lots of secrets, the Kid reasons. With maybe
a whole secret life. And that he was somebody who wanted people to believe that he was smarter than everyone else. Also a man who got off from observing people from a safe distance. A man who didn’t want to be known for what he was but at the same time did want to be known for what he was. A man who loved hiding the truth but also loved revealing it.

  The Kid asks the Writer if at the press briefing he found out how the cops knew to search for the Professor’s body at that particular spot in that particular canal. There are hundreds of miles of canals in Calusa County that they could have searched just as easily and logically as this one only they would have come up empty-handed. It might’ve taken a year before they happened onto the right spot at the right canal. Somebody must’ve dropped a dime on where the van went in, he says.

  Couldn’t have been the wife. The police told us she and their two kids were living with her mother temporarily and she hadn’t seen or spoken to him for days. That leaves only one person who could have done it.

  Who?

  You.

  Very funny.

  Well, when we left Appalachee you seemed to know precisely where they’d find him.

  C’mon, I just remembered he was kind of interested in that one canal. Besides, I was way deep in the swamp since before he went off the radar. I couldn’t’ve called the cops.

  Cell phones, Kid.

  For a minute or two the Kid wonders if maybe he did call the cops from way deep in the swamp. He remembers being surprised by the NPR news coming as it did from what seemed like another planet than the one the Kid was on with Annie and Einstein in his houseboat out there in the sloughs among the mangroves like the crew of the starship Enterprise. And he remembers being frightened at first because he wasn’t sure how he was connected to the Professor’s disappearance but knew that somehow he was connected and it could turn out to be dangerous to him. He was backsliding right then, bored and generating head-porn and jerk-off fantasies which has always had a dulling effect on his awareness of what else was going on at the time and not much memory of it afterward so that often the next day if he was no longer bored he would remember his thoughts and actions of the previous day as if he had only dreamed them. Did he call the cops and tell them where they were likely to find the missing professor? Or did he only dream it? Or wish it?