JRZDVLZ
Page 21
“Every time I seen the Kid I knew he was there before I turned,” Duven said. “Gotta turn quick to see him.”
Moss jerked to the left and pointed, a spastic gesture we all expected.
Kirsch had known Moss since before they knew how to speak. Now Kirsch stared Moss down.
“I swear I saw nothing special,” Moss said. He pointed again into the distance and smiled.
Duven said we’ll come to a fence twenty yards down the path. We’ll crawl through a hole and then there’ll be water. “I’ve got a boat waiting,” he said. The fence was five feet taller than anything we’d like to climb. As Kirsch shimmied beneath it, a twist of metal snagged his jacket. Corrine and Mack made it through just fine, helped to their feet with some show of civility by our guide. On the other side, we saw the boat.
Duven let us drift after every few paddles. Mist blurred the separation between water and sky. Moss primed his finger on the trigger of his digital camera. He once said he wished he’d somehow taken a photo of the coma that enveloped his mother.
“Reminds me of the River Styx,” Riv said. “Can’t wait until a three-headed dog greets us at the gates of Hell.”
Duven and Riv seemed amused by each other, though the words “fuzzy foreigner” and “redneck dirtbag” also seemed about to slip from their lips. But who would ever insult the bushy-eyebrowed, bearded Rivkin? “A very compact man” was how, after his divorce, Kirsch told me he would describe Riv to women he knew. “So much power in his calves,” he’d say. “Strongest calves in America.”
Francesca was half-Cuban, with halting eyes and almost-Asian hair dyed red. Soon after Riv introduced Francesca to his friends, she went to the beach with us on a perfect August Sunday. Moss watched her walk into the shorebreak in a bikini. “She’s got big plans,” he said, and Kirsch said, “How do you mean?” and Moss said, “I mean she plans on being big.” But she fought off those plans at the gym, where she met a trainer who worked her over, inside and out. Poor Rivkin, who would have thought it would all work out like this?
Black water coasted beneath us. Stars, the mist, the erratic silhouette of pines and cedars, hypnotized, dazed, coaxed into a pleasurable stupor. The whole state looked like this before they selected the extraordinary out of existence. I could emerge sans dress, walk across the water, and they’d wave.
“Hear that,” Duven said. It was a command, not a question.
Our eyes followed every sound. Water against the boat. Riv’s breath. Spearmint gum snapping in Moss’s mouth. Kirsch ironically knocking his knees together. An oddly rhythmic distant whistle.
“A whippoorwill,” Duven said. “No worries.”
We drifted and listened. Mack held her breath. Duven turned an ear across the water ahead.
“See,” Duven said, “folks hear a blue jay get real scared. But I tell you what, you hear the Kid, you’ll feel it first. You’ll feel it. Hear it once, your bones’ll know. Trust me.”
Riv opened his eyes wide as though to better absorb the atmosphere. “So great if the Jersey Devil were a lonely lady,” he said. “I’d one up Francesca.”
Riv had been made to feel so small when the trainer at the gym who his wife had left him for demanded the picnic basket Riv and Francesca had bought to celebrate their fifth anniversary: a picnic out at Battlefield Park under a gnarled old tree from the Revolution. That basket had meant zilch to Riv. An overpriced wicker box with latches and leather handles, bought on sale at Williams Sonoma. But once the trainer wanted it, that sentimental nothing became Priceless Symbol of What Had Been, something Riv would have fought to protect if the trainer hadn’t been twice his size and ripped. Oh but once he and his mythological sweetie shot across the skies and alighted on the roof of the trainer’s condo. Or maybe Riv’s eyes opened wide when Duven conjured these screams because he too wanted to wail but never permitted himself such an expression of grief.
Some boating, hiking, communion with the woods, we even heard a whippoorwill.
Moss said he had thought we would only see pines and sand, pines and sand.
We floated on. Duven smoked cigarettes and doused them in a puddle at his feet. Peaceful now. Legs numb. Not ready when Duven yanked the oars for a decent pace. The boat seemed lighter the more momentum it built. The trees were larger on this side of the water: oaks more than pitch pines, or what Duven called “Jersey Bulls.” He pulled the oars into the boat and let the hull slide ashore. He jumped from the boat and tied a rope around the nearest pine. We all managed to get out too without anyone falling on their faces.
“Welcome to Kalikak Beach, my friends. Named after Boney Kalikak, a recluse who stayed out here for years, eating fish and squirrels and turtles and whatnot... Speaking of turtles, who’s hungry?”
He pulled from his backpack a plastic Cool Whip container. In it were sandwiches on small dark squares of spongy wheat.
Corrine whispered to me that Duven seemed more like a Wonder Bread guy.
“Snappers pull ducks to the bottom of the river and eat them,” Duven said, “then I catch the turtles. Makes for real good, greasy meat. Try some.”
Riv didn’t hesitate. He must have been starving. Moss muttered and took one.
Corrine asked Mack how long ago she thought Duven had caught the turtle, how long it had been unrefrigerated, how much bacteria was on it, not to mention radioactive gunk from illegal dumping and run-off from Fort Dix.
“Those ducks, too,” I said.
Riv made an exaggerated mmm. Moss feigned nausea. Kirsch said he’d think of it as a communion of sorts. “Cheers,” he said.
I tried some. Fresh, flaky, moist. Duven had even put some sea salt on it.
“Sorry for the hesitation there,” Corrine said through chews. “I’m never sure where turtle fits into my diet.”
“Can’t find it up where you guys live, huh?”
Duven told us there were more oaks here because this side of the lake hadn’t burned in eighty years. Oaks give up after a few burns, he said, but not the bulls. They got this built-in mechanism that shoots new limbs out after a fire dies down, before things cool. Everything’s still smoking when the pines start coming back.
He led us down a narrow trail through a patch of deciduous forest. These white cedars, he said, descended from the trees used to build the desk where Thomas Jefferson wrote The Declaration of Independence.
Kirsch smirked. “Really?”
“Verifiable fact you can search on your internet,” Duven said. “They say it’s mahogany but it’s stained white cedar like right over here.”
The oaks gave way to pines that gave way to an open expanse of smaller, fuller, conical evergreens, like a farm of perfect Christmas trees.
“Dwarves,” Duven whispered.
Nothing out here but a sky filled with constellations and a horizon glowing with civilization. “As good a spot as any,” he said as he led us into the field of dwarf pines. “Put the night-vision goggles on.”
Kirsch faced the trail we’d made through the dwarves out from the woods. Moss had his back to him. Everyone else faced a horizon of weirdly perfect little pines in all directions.
“Remember to feel it first,” Duven said. “Feel it before you see it. Once you feel the Kid coming you’ll see him. No other way, unless he swoops on you.”
A bird of prey soared from the woods. Through the goggles it looked like something in a video game, a blast from an Asteroids ship.
Kirsch whispered into Mack’s ear: “If we see a winged kangaroo right now, it’s one of Duven’s buddies, right? Bet he works with some guy crawling out a pickup right now.”
“Shit,” Riv said. “No way.” Our tight circle of surveillance broke. He pointed into the pines. “Something bounced across that line of trees.”
“C’mon,” Moss said. “What’d you see?”
Riv scrunched down. He spoke slowly, clearly, restraining himself: “It was like one of those Chinese new year dragons, but smaller, with wings.”
Kirsch laughed
to release the tension. He pulled off the goggles.
“There!” Riv pointed to the left of where he’d pointed before. “Just its head.”
Kirsch seemed to feel it now. I almost felt it, too. It was infectious when someone like Riv saw it first.
“You serious about this?” Kirsch said.
Riv stumbled through the tiny trees, rearing from what he’d seen.
Duven grabbed him. “You need to chill, my friend.”
Rivkin was not chill. He tried to look past Duven’s shoulder.
“It was probably nothing,” Duven said. “Shit what’s that?”
The sound came from where we had been minutes ago, toward the water. No way it was a whippoorwill. A whippoorwill’s like a model train compared to that locomotive. Riv squatted and wrapped his arms around his knees. Now that he’d heard the sound he needed to make, the night filled with so much grief it knocked him down.
Mack stood on her toes, waiting for something to move. “Seeing is believing,” she said. “Here I am, Kid, a rock-solid potential believer.”
“You set this up,” Moss said. “You set it up, didn’t you?”
“I swear to you, my friend,” Duven said.
“Swear to me then,” Moss said. “Put your hand in mine, look me in the eye, and swear to me no one’s there.” Moss nodded toward his hand.
Duven pulled a pistol from his camera bag. Moss stepped back with hands up. Duven pointed toward the woods and said, “If I had a friend out there would I do this?” He took long strides toward the place the wailing came from, and then he fired into the darkness. “Would I do that, huh? Would I shoot into the woods at a friend?”
“Please I can’t stand it,” Riv said.
Moss kept silent, an easier target than wailing in the woods. Mack and Corinne and I froze, all set to defend ourselves by running away.
Duven returned the gun to the holster. “Never fired it before,” he said. “No one’s ever doubted me. Not like that.” He looked at Moss. Duven’s skin barely covered striated muscle that clung like dark meat on a turkey bone. “Believe me,” he said. “I’m not working with people. But maybe one of you are screwing around ... Tell you what, I’ll walk twenty steps off. One by one, you guys come and let me in on it.”
Duven stepped through the dwarves, head down.
He called back. “Who’s first? How bout my little Russian buddy?”
Riv followed the path Duven had made through the dwarves. The two men seemed like different species.
Moss and Kirsch stood side by side, arms crossed, elbows almost touching, watching Duven’s conference with Riv.
“Good thing he didn’t shoot you,” Kirsch whispered.
“You set this up?” Moss turned so Kirsch could see he was smiling.
“I’m just along for the ride,” Kirsch said. “You?”
“Never crossed my mind.”
“No reason to believe that,” Kirsch said.
Riv trotted back and said, “He wants to talk to you.” Moss jacked his hands in his pockets and slouched in Duven’s direction.
“You’re just joshing, right?” Kirsch said.
“I saw something,” Riv said. “Saw it enough to know it wasn’t right.”
Kirsch turned to talk to us. “Ya gotta trust the Rivster,” he said. “He never lies without revealing the truth.”
Riv was straight and honest and clear, a life preserver in the wash of it all. But after Francesca, the trainer, the picnic basket, and everything else no one knew about, maybe Riv learned to lie like a Jersey native. This is the state, after all, haunted by a kangaroo crane with ram horns, donkey hooves, and pterodactyl wings. No simple Bigfoot.
Our guide wanted to talk to Kirsch and me together for some reason, so we trotted over and slapped hands with Moss as we passed. Duven offered a shot from his flask. I politely declined but faked a swig when Duven insisted. Kirsch didn’t hesitate.
“They all say they’re innocent,” Duven said. He pulled off his cap and ran his forearm across his brow. He had a serious widow’s peak, like a volcano set to erupt down his face. “Just tell me straight,” he said, “these guys tell you anything they didn’t tell me?”
“Whatever’s up your sleeve tonight, as long as no one gets hurt, I’m down with it.” Kirsch said this quickly and clearly, as respectfully and as forcefully as he could, like a catcher settling some rattled pitcher on the mound. “Lead us around. Scare the shit out of us. Get us home. But whatever you do, don’t fire that gun again.”
Duven seemed to appreciate the talk. “Keep it quiet but the gun shoots blanks. Still, your friend Moss better watch it.”
“Six of us against one of you,” Kirsch said.
Duven took a step back. “I’ve got the Pines and the Kid on my side, too.”
I put my goggles down and scanned the perimeter for a sign of the supernatural.
Next few hours we hiked the trails. Kirsch armed himself with pinecones, one in each hand, ready to take out the Kid’s eye with one and beam him in the nuts with the other. Each time we crossed a spot that reeked of sulfur, Moss said, “Jersey Devil farts.”
We sat and sipped applejack whisky and talked and listened. Every nocturnal critter that rustled the underbrush made us jump as we waited for Duven to turn his trick, expecting one scary sight and sound after another.
We walked and rested. Riv bummed smokes from Duven and put them out in the sand. We’d been hitting a thermos of milky-sugary coffee. It was almost four AM.
Moss and Duven were serious Yankee fans. They complained about management’s lack of concern for middle relief.
Cranberry bogs and wild blueberry bushes everywhere. Vines of thickets, dense like kudzu, choked whole acres. Recently burned parts of the woods seemed like scrubby sand dunes, only the pines coming back.
Duven indicated the remains of an old bonfire spot. On the vernal equinox, he said, about two dozen people come here to dance around a fire. Wearing face paint, some dancers seem like white folks, he said, but others look like real Indians. Drummers beat a staggered rhythm that enlivens the dancers before they establish a common rattle. A reenactment of an annual ceremony the Lenni Lenape called “The Missing.”
“It’s to protect the crops and children,” he said, “plus there’s a surprise guest.”
Not fifty feet from where we are now, he said, something emerges from the woods and runs at the fire. Beneath its arms a stretchy fabric looks like wings. It wears an expressionless mask: eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks. Not diabolical at all. It’s stoic. Flat. Like one of those Easter Island stones. The rest of the body is covered in furry animal hide. Woolly white boots around its feet, it runs at the others, dances with them, and then gets a good sprint going and dives through the fire with arms outstretched, landing in a graceful shoulder roll, popping up without missing a beat. It leaps over the shoulders of smaller dancers, stretching its arms while airborne. Chanting becomes more furious as the surprise guest flings itself through the fire, over the dancers, and through the fire again.
Duven couldn’t remember the original Indian name for the masked beast, but translated to English it meant “Solid Face,” the centerpiece of a ceremony European settlers thought was an evil spirit, when really it protected against everything. Groups now carried out the tradition each spring. Made no difference if the drop of native blood they claimed originated in legend. If they believed it, they believed it, and it sure seemed you needed to believe it to dance around a fire all night.
Once Duven finished conjuring the action around the bonfire a season ago, Mack said “Seems like we could all use some Solid Face about now.”
I decided then I would make the trip worthwhile.
“The thing is, we really need to make a Jersey Devil theme park, like Six Flags,” I said. “Maybe we could bring Solid Face into it and that stuff Duven pulled with his gun—and get the Jersey Devil on board, too, of course.”
I’d hardly said anything all night, just going along, naturally gravitating tow
ard Mack. I’d been quiet so long no one really seemed able to respond to me.
At this point, we were most interested in encountering dawn’s early light. The major obstacle between seeing the beast and not seeing it was staying awake. Moss was more vigilant, but even Riv’s energy had sapped. Kirsch looked like he would happily curl himself up in a pile of orange pine needles. Corinne attended to Moss and then chatted ahead with Duven. I trailed behind with Mack.
“You really think we could sell this to tourists?” she said. “Staying out in the woods all night with a guide is one thing, but we’d have to do a better haunting job. Shooting into the woods, that’s not quite enough.”
“I have some ideas I bet you’d like.”
“Like what?”
I had learned not to announce who I was, so I suggested she record what she saw in the next hour and come back to the area every once in a while so I could see her. She seemed to hear what I said but kept walking, maybe thinking I suffered from sleep deprivation.
I slowed down, letting them walk toward what Duven said was a great spot to watch the sunrise, an overhang of rock I knew from my earliest days, where I peered into a pool of water and saw human eyes surrounded by so many animal elements.
They walked ahead. Mack now seemed to accelerate as though my gift to her journalism career were a stink bomb, an irrational come-on undercut by monster breath.
I had in mind a fireworks display at dawn. This hunt must end with my appearance and, after so much time, a transformation forever after into what I’ve always been. Cast off this mysterious vestment of domestication that’s served me so well for so long, let her go now that her lost sailor has finally returned home.
I slipped from the path and into the brush. I removed shirt and pants and shoes and tore apart the Velcro clasps holding the dress in place. This wonderful dress, I must release her into the wilderness. I let it go, hoping it would move on its own toward the sea. But all the life in it seemed used up. It just lay there.