The Year of the Storm

by John Mantooth

  “Damn it, damn it, damn it. I knew you didn’t leave me. You slipped. Tell me you slipped.”

  “I slipped.”

  He stood up and danced—yes, danced—around the shelter. He did this until a coughing fit took him and he had to get some oxygen from his tank.

  I sat up. “I don’t understand it all, though.”

  “It’s a mind trip, isn’t it?” He leaned forward, his face turning deathly serious. “Were they there?”

  I nodded.

  He waited, his mouth hanging open expectantly.

  “I thought I brought them home. But . . .” I trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

  “But they didn’t come with you, huh?” He looked sad. He sat back and lit another cigarette. “Shit fire. Goddamn shit fire.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “Woke up and found my oxygen tank. Saved my life. You were gone. Slipped, I figured, so I climbed out of here in the dead of the night. Saw my place. Torn to the ground. They’re saying it was the worst storm in the state’s history. Your place had some damage too, but all in all, you were lucky.” He puffed on his cigarette. “Can you tell me about it?”

  I told him I could, but first, I thought I needed something to eat. “How long have I been gone?”

  “Best I can figure it is three days.”

  I tried to get my head around this number. It seemed like only a few hours.

  “Your daddy made bail. Least that’s what I heard one of them sheriff’s deputies saying while they were out hunting for us. I found an overturned tree. Hid back behind the roots, right down in the mud, but I could hear every word they said.” He shrugged. “Wasn’t about to leave until I saw it through with you. When are we going to go back?”

  “Back?” The very idea caught me off guard. “You don’t understand. There’s no going back. I did everything I could do. The rest is up to her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “I’m sticking around for a few days just in case.” He stood and clutched the ladder with one hand, his flashlight with the other. “Can you make it home?”

  “I think so. But aren’t they looking for you?”

  “They are.”

  “You’d better split.”

  “Nah, I’ll be fine in these woods, at least for another few days. I know them like I was born in them.” He grinned, and so did I. As much as I didn’t want him to get caught, I was still glad he was going to stick around.

  “Give me five minutes to make sure the coast is clear. I don’t want one of them cops to start harassing you before you get a chance to see your daddy. I’ll whistle when it’s clear, okay?”

  A few minutes later, I heard the whistle. I climbed out of the shelter and made it about halfway home before collapsing in the mud.

  Chapter Forty

  I woke up in the hospital with two IVs in my arms. My dad sat beside me, and when he saw my eyes open, he stood up and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Son?”

  I think I tried to smile. It was tough. Before the expression could form, I remembered that I’d tried and failed. Mom and Anna did not come back.

  He squeezed my shoulder gently. “Thank God.” He dropped his face into my chest and began to sob. I put a hand on his head and patted. It was strange, feeling like I was the one with the strength and not the other way around.

  Eventually, he sat up, wiping his face clear of tears. He smiled weakly. “I thought I lost you too.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m still here.”

  “I’m so happy.”

  “You made bail. That’s good.”

  He flushed, embarrassed, and I wished I hadn’t said anything.

  “Are you okay?” He said the words slowly, as if I might be traumatized. “You can tell me what happened. You can tell me anything, Danny.”

  “Are Mom and Anna back?”

  He shook his head. “Danny, please don’t do this, okay? They’re gone. I don’t know where, but sometimes you have to accept that and move on. Your mother didn’t want us in her life.”

  “I saw her.”

  “What?”

  “She came with me. She may be here. Did you check at home? When have you been home last?”

  “Danny, the doctors say you’re dehydrated and you’ve had a severe concussion. I’m sure things have been confusing for you, to say the least.” He leaned forward. “Did he hurt you? It’s okay, Danny. Just me and you. You don’t need to be afraid.”

  “Did who hurt me?”

  “Walter Pike. Who else? If he hurt you, just say the word. Sheriff Martin is already looking for him. They’ll bring him to justice.”

  “He didn’t hurt me. He helped me. Pike would never hurt anybody.”

  Dad scoffed. “History says otherwise. You know he was wanted for murder when he was fourteen?”

  “I know. He told me. It was self-defense.”

  Dad stood up. I could see he was getting angry. “Danny, he’s brainwashed you. I don’t know how he did it, but it’s clear.”

  I closed my eyes. There was a small part of me that was ready to concede. I’d taken Pike at his word, done exactly as he recommended, and what did I have to show for it? Sleep deprivation? Dehydration? Three days missing from my life?

  No. I went there. I saw her. I beat Sykes. I would believe it. I had to.

  —

  The doctor came in and talked to Dad. They stepped outside into the hallway, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but afterward, Dad didn’t mention Pike. He didn’t seem angry at me either, so I imagine he was told that I was in a fragile state, some bullshit like that. Whatever it was, he laid off me.

  Until we were on the way home.

  I asked him about the man he assaulted.

  “Who was it?”

  “I don’t want to get into that, Danny.”

  I sat in the passenger seat, watching the cotton fields go by in long silver streaks.

  “But I do. I need to know.”

  He sighed and pulled the car over to the shoulder. He killed the engine and turned to face me. “I suppose you’re old enough to handle the truth.”

  I waited. For some reason I felt nervous, even though I was pretty sure I knew what he was going to say.

  “When you were a little kid, your mother had an affair with a man. His name is Wallace Turner. He’s the bartender out at Ghost Bells on County Road Seven. She had been drinking a lot. Using drugs. When I found out, I don’t know, I sort of freaked. It wasn’t hard to know something was going on. She was out every night—she said it was with her friends, but I knew that was a lie—and I was home every night with you.” He touched my shoulder. “Not that I minded hanging out with you.

  “Anyway, she eventually told me she wasn’t happy. She told me she wanted to leave me. Us.” He let the last word linger, and I felt tears welling up from some place deep within me, tears that I’d tucked away for a while, tears that I’d pretended weren’t tears at all.

  “I couldn’t accept it. I went down there one night and followed her out into the parking lot behind the bar. Wallace was with her, and they took turns shooting up. Do you understand what I’m talking about when I say that she was shooting up, Danny?”

  I nodded.

  “She was using heroin. I lost it. I went for her right then and there. I dragged her back to the car and took her straight to a rehab clinic. Two months later, she came out a different person. At least she seemed different. Life got better. It really did. We started trying for a second child, and after some pain and heartache, we had Anna.

  “Anna changed your mother. At first, I thought it was for the better. She was fiercely protective of her. Whatever Anna needed, your mother made sure she had. She took a second job waiting tables to help pay for the tests Anna needed.” He sh
rugged. “But that didn’t last. She came home late from work one night, drunk out of her mind. I told her to quit. She quit, but not before making it clear she didn’t like being told what to do.

  “Then about a year and a half ago, I noticed some of the signs again. She was drinking again, maybe even doing drugs.” He clenched his fists on the steering wheel. “I tried, Danny. I tried to pull her back out again, but I couldn’t. The man I beat up was Wallace. I shouldn’t have. Since I caught them those years ago, he’s cleaned up, stayed away from her, I think. But I was so angry. I think she’s with somebody else now. I just wish she could have left Anna behind.” He let go of the steering wheel and put a hand on my shoulder. “If I could have just done more for her. I tried, son. I promise that I tried. I think that sometimes when a person goes too deep, only they can decide to come back. It has to be something that she wants to do. You understand?”

  I did. I understood all too well. Dad wiped away a single tear and started the car. We drove the rest of the way in silence.

  —

  The roof was partially gone from the house, and Dad had covered the missing sections with black tarp.

  “We were lucky,” he said. “You should see Cliff’s house.”

  “Is Cliff okay?”

  “He’s fine. He and his parents were in the basement. Wanna know the kicker? Because they had such a great insurance policy, they’ll be rebuilding the whole thing from the ground up. It’ll be bigger and better than ever. That Banks, he called to check on you, and then talked for fifteen minutes about the movie room they’re going to have. Son of a—”

  He finished the sentence. Eventually. But what happened in between his last word and the expletive to follow totally changed his meaning.

  Mom stepped out of the house. She was haggard, worn out, maybe even dirty, but she stood there on the stoop in the very place Pike had stood on that stormy night not too long ago. She stood there and smiled.

  “—bitch,” Dad finished.

  I didn’t wait for him to stop the car. I opened the door and jumped out while he was still rolling to a stop. I ran as fast as I could and embraced her.

  When I finally let go and looked into her eyes, I saw something—recognition, maybe. She knew. I can’t explain how I was so sure, but I was. She remembered.

  “Dan-dan,” a voice said from inside the house. “Say ‘in the dark.’”

  —

  This is how I explained it to Dwight.

  I accept that my mother left me. Left us. She took Anna with her. Based on what I remember about that day, it wasn’t planned, at least not completely, but something caused her to take Anna and go. If Dwight helped me at all, it was only to see this.

  What I also accept is that I had a hand in bringing her back. I can’t explain how I used the slip to contact her. I think it had something to do with Anna and those girls and Pike’s steadfast belief that she’d be there. The darkness that had fallen over her life had put her there, or at least a version of her, a husk of herself that could at least see me and respond to me. Maybe to her, it was just a dream, but not on my side. On my side it was real.

  At least I think it was.

  No, not think. Believe. I believe it was real. I have to. The other choice scares me worse than anything else in the world. Not only does it make me crazy, it makes the world sane. It makes a storm just a storm and the past something that can’t reach into the future and matter. It makes the wind that blows against my window at night nothing more than a trick of the atmosphere instead of the breath of heaven. Dwight says I’m choosing to believe lies.

  Maybe he’s right.

  Then again, maybe he’s wrong.

  There is a possibility, however slim. And that’s enough for me. Always has been.

  Chapter Forty-one

  I have said that I believed storms are a kind of magic. There are other kinds too. There’s the magic of being young, of believing in things that only a young person can fathom. There’s the magic of the unexpected, of returning to a full house, a family reunited despite all the evidence that suggested it would never happen. And finally, there’s the magic of memory.

  Dwight suggested to me once that what had happened to me was really no more than a series of coincidences from which (“rather nobly,” he added) I’d tried to assemble meaning. He would have me see it like this: My mother leaves with Anna. A delusional Walter Pike returns to town and learns that they are missing. This feeds his delusion and his guilt. He contacts me and tells me his story. The timing was perfect, Dwight would say. I was fourteen, an emotional wreck, susceptible to anything. I needed to believe. Add to this the storm, me hitting my head on the ladder, the three missing days in the shelter. My mother and Anna coming back.

  “You piece it all together and make something bigger. It’s human nature, Dan. It’s how religion began at the dawn of time. It’s the root of superstitions, fears, any number of things. We take the random and give it meaning. Hear what I’m saying. We give it meaning. It doesn’t inherently have meaning.”

  Dwight’s a smart man, but he doesn’t have any imagination. He forgets about storms. The way they change things, the way they wipe out what came before and make room for what will come later. And what is a storm if not a series of unlikely coincidences? The temperature, humidity, dew point, any number of other factors must be just right in order to produce a big one. Yet they happen all the time. Should we dismiss them, pretend they don’t matter?

  Maybe we should, but I can’t. I’m not one of these people who believes that every storm is a message from God, a deluge of Judeo-Christian reckoning spilled out over a world of sinners. No, storms are nothing like that. Instead, they’re puzzles, cryptic labyrinths through which we can glimpse power and transformation, and yes, even meaning. Maybe they mirror the human experience after a fashion, the way lives are shaken free in the wind, the way years pass in torrents, leaving us lightning flashes of memory, fleeting images, seared to the brain for further consideration, electric treasures that wait for us, buzzing dimly. The way (much like the trees) some people fall and others remain standing, at least for a little while longer.

  —

  I saw Walter Pike only one more time after that day in the shelter, but he told me something that I’ll try to hold on to for the rest of my life.

  This was after all the long sessions with police, after the frustration of Mom not wanting to talk about where she’d been, after all the hugs and kisses, and after the moments of stillness when I wanted to pinch myself because a miracle had happened. Not a coincidence. A miracle.

  Pike was easy to find. I just walked to the storm shelter. I stood there, looking at the landscape, trying to remember what the swamp had been like, trying to imagine how it had been right here in this very spot, ushered in perhaps by that terrible storm.

  Magic. It’s there. We just don’t look closely enough.

  “I hear you had a surprise waiting for you when you got home?”

  I turned and saw Pike standing behind me. He still wore the same dirty T-shirt he’d been wearing the day I pulled him through the mud. His oxygen tank lay at his feet, the tubing twisted into a knot, and he was smoking a cigarette. I ran to him. When I got close enough, he dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. He reached out for me. We embraced for a long time, his hand patting my back as I cried.

  When we separated at last, I saw that his face was wet too. His one good eye looked at me closely, lovingly, and I knew this would be the very last time I ever saw him.

  “Listen to me, Danny. Listen real good.”

  I nodded.

  “You brought your mother and sister back. Never for a second think otherwise. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  I hesitated. I wasn’t sure what I believed.

  He shook his head and squeezed my shoulder hard. “You go
tta believe.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Say it.”

  “I believe.”

  “Good. It’s going to be hard. I can tell it already is. I was like you. Hell, I am still like you, but seeing this . . . this is confirmation. I just hope I die before I begin to doubt again.”

  “Don’t say that—”

  He shook his head violently. “It’s the way I feel. Believing in something . . . something more . . . it changes everything. You understand that, right?”

  I told him I did.

  “What happened to you inside that storm shelter . . . you’re going to have grief over that. You think it’s hard now? It’ll get harder, the older you get, and you’ll want to take it and bury it somewhere, like I did those photos. Except it’ll be more of a symbolic kind of burial. Do you know the kind I mean? Where something just hurts too much to think about and you push it aside and pretend it never happened?”

  I almost laughed. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

  “Good. Don’t do it with this. That doesn’t work.” He leaned in, his face almost touching mine now, his good eye locked on mine. I’ll always remember him like this. “Here’s the key. Remember. Don’t forget. No matter what, don’t forget.”

  He let go of me then and stepped back. For a second longer he held my gaze, and then he looked away. He reached for his oxygen tank and tucked it under his arm. He was crying, but he refused to look at me again. He turned and walked back into the trees, and for a moment I entertained the notion that he’d been a ghost all along, just as I had originally thought, but the moment was over. I knelt down and picked up his discarded cigarette butt. It was real. I held it for a long time, and when I stood up, I slipped it into my pocket. I might need it one day.

  No matter what, he’d said, don’t forget.

  —

  And that is why I’m writing this down. I took some liberties with Pike’s story, but I think I got the important stuff right. His voice—that was what had to be there. The details matter least in the end. But I’ll never forget his voice in that dark cabin. It swept me along to 1960, until I felt like I knew Seth as intimately as a best friend. Sometimes, I still dream about them both. Though these dreams are simply fleeting images at best, there is always a strong sense of joy in them. I awake from one with a feeling of euphoria that can sometimes last me throughout the day.