Okay, now I got it. “You think I’m losing it and that it would be good for me to go fishing. This is charity.”
“Yeah, you look like you’ve been living under a bridge, but hey, charity actually comes from the ancient Greek word ‘chair,’ meaning ‘sit,’” Hubie said in his most professorial voice. “This is the exact opposite of sitting. Sure, I think it would be good for you, or anyone, to go fishing. Even me. Plus, it’s a primo day! The golden orb is glowing, the raptors are screeching, the leaves are fermenting or whatever it is they do. Time to get out, bro. Time to attack the water, terrify the salmonids, occupy our rightful place as outdoorsmen!”
The more I awakened, the better the idea actually sounded. He was right. I could see the sunshine on the trees through our windows. Late February California!
Not many rivers were open for trout fishing, and we were a little past the winter steelhead season, but maybe it would be good for me to get away from my house for a day. It had been a couple of months since I’d gone out of town for steelhead. We could be on the Trinity in a little over an hour. The smell of fresh river, a little steelhead action. Could be great! I would set Hubie up with one of my old spinning rods so I wouldn’t have to surgically remove hooks from the back of his head when he tried to fly cast.
“Okay,” I said, “give me fifteen minutes to do my stuff and get the gear from the garage. You sure you’re up for this?”
“Does an elephant defecate in the veldt?” Hubie asked.
We parked off the road where the creek came in by Junction City. There were two other guys downstream a few hundred yards in a long straight run by the highway. I figured we’d walk across the rocks straight upstream and wade in where the river takes a ninety-degree bend. I was giving some instructions while we clomped along in our waders.
“Use the staff like a cane for stability whenever you move in the water.”
“Thy rod and thy staff?” Hubie asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “if you slip and fall in, you better pray, all right, cause you fill your waders with water and they’ll sink you.”
“Okay,” Hubie said, “pay attention when I’m wading.”
“Right,” I said. “And I’m setting you up with a silver Castmaster. Just throw it across the river, let it sink and swing, and then retrieve it.”
“I can’t just leave it alone and it’ll come home, wagging its tail behind it?”
“Joke if you want to, but there’s a real chance you could hook up with a jumping locomotive that’ll stop your heart,” I told him.
“Now that sounds like fun,” he said. “Does Weaverville have good EMT services?”
“You fish ahead of me, right at the bend, and let the lure swing around the turn,” I told him. “I’ll fish below you in the tail-out.”
“Thank you for not suggesting I’ve already gone around the bend.”
I ignored him. But I had to admit, I was having a good time out here already.
“I think you ought to use a size eight Brindle Bug,” he said, surveying the water as we walked.
I was dumbfounded. I had been planning to use exactly that to start out. I held his elbow and stopped him.
“Internet,” he said. He left me standing and walked the rest of the way to the bend by himself.
By the end of the afternoon, I had hooked and released three small trout. Hubie had hooked and lost what looked to be a six- or seven-pound steelie.
“I see what you mean,” he said as we took off our gear at the trunk of his car. “This angling thing’s got possibilities.”
I agreed but I didn’t say anything. I was watching a great blue heron gliding above us, neck tucked in, heading for the bend we had vacated. The air had the flat, dusty smell of granite mixed with distant fir.
I reached over and yanked Hubie’s cowboy hat down over his ears. His reward for being right.
Some Mistake
Monday night I ate with the Ludlows and planned to study with Hubie. I mentioned to him that I hadn’t seen Marco in the past two weeks. I said I wondered where he was, that he didn’t seem to be home.
Hubie snorted, no fan of Mr. Lasalle. “My mom might know something about that,” he said in a tone of voice that indicated he’d heard more than enough about the Marco matter.
I asked her before Hubie and I went downstairs to work.
“You know,” she said, “I must not have understood your story correctly. I talked with Winona, like I said I was going to. She still does shifts on the psych unit, and she said that to the best of her knowledge, no woman by that name had ever been admitted to the unit.”
“No,” I said, “that can’t be right. Marco went in to visit her, went right inside the ward, while I was there waiting to see about Mom, the time she made a scene at school.”
Mrs. Ludlow thought it over. “Well, then, I don’t know what to say. Must be some mistake somewhere.”
Later that evening I thought I heard a car drive up and the front door slam. I tapped Hubie to let him know I was taking a break, and went upstairs looking for Z. I found her in the kitchen, drinking some milky yogurt-type stuff straight from the bottle.
“How can you stand that taste?”
She gave me a look like I was a first grader in a philosophy class. “Women drink kefir for a number of reasons,” she said, “none of which I’ll discuss with you.”
She was wearing a white strapless formal over Levis, red track shoes. Hair mashed down by a propeller beanie. So fun, so creative, so hot!
“Where you been?” I asked, hoping to be more like her bud than a bud of her younger brother, now that we had cemeteried together.
Again the withering look. “I’ve been out, Wrestlemaniac. Out. Period. Clubbing.”
Clubbing? In Riverton?
“Hey, Ben, give it a rest. I got my life, you got yours. I heard your mother got eighty-sixed.”
“Yeah,” I said, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I couldn’t keep taking care of her. Went to relatives.”
“So you alone?”
“Well, your mom’s really helping. You know, meals and everything.”
“Yeah, but it’s still pretty tough. You need a shoulder, somebody older to lean on, you know where I live.” She put the yogurty stuff back in the fridge.
Shoulder to lean on. That’s closer, but still not quite what I was hoping for.
Locked Unit
The next day, March first, our good stretch of weather broke. The sky had been dark during school, sheets of rain making it hard to see out the windows. I was at Hubie’s and I could hear the gusts of wind bumping against their house. We were just in the middle of pork chops and cheesy macaroni with pea salad, when Mrs. Ludlow tapped her head like she had forgotten something.
“I meant to tell you sooner,” she said. “Winona cleared up the confusion. A Mrs. Lasalle, to the best of her knowledge, has never been admitted to the unit, but a young man calling himself Marco has. No real ID, she said. Anyway, the reason she remembers so clearly is that he’s supposed to be admitted again tomorrow.”
My mouthful of peas felt like I was eating a pillow. I kept chewing, trying to get the wad in manageable shape to swallow. You accidentally kick a Scrabble board and suddenly none of the words make sense anymore. “Huh,” I said.
That news sent Hubie off on a rant about how he never did trust that Marco guy, even though he had never met him.
I was glad Hubie was talking, but I didn’t listen. I was hearing something else. A different story. A very different story.
I rang the buzzer in the lobby to let the nursing station know I was waiting. A grizzled middle-aged man with short, tightly curled silver-and-black hair opened the door.
“I’m here to see Marco,” I told him. “I’m a friend.”
“He can’t have visitors tonight. Try again tomorrow.” The man started to close the door.
“Why not? Is he sick?”
“Not physically, if that’s what you mean.”
“Why can’t I
see him then?”
“He currently does not have that privilege. That’s all I can say.”
This time he got the door all the way closed before I could ask anything else. I thought I knew what he wouldn’t tell me. Once before, when Mom was really out of control, they wouldn’t let her have visitors. They put her in a seclusion room, might even have strapped her down. I couldn’t imagine Marco acting that way. I wondered if maybe he had tried to escape.
The next day, when I went over to the unit after school, they let me in. Marco was pacing the main hall that went the length of the corridor, rooms on either side. He didn’t seem glad to see me, but he didn’t try to avoid me, either. He stood looking at the floor.
“Can we talk someplace?” I asked.
“I have to stay where the staff can see me,” he said, putting his hands behind him.
“What are you doing here?”
“They’re keeping me here for a couple of days.”
“Why?”
“They think I’m crazy.”
I didn’t know what to say. I thought he was crazy. I just wasn’t sure.
“I told them the truth, but they didn’t believe me.” He looked around us.
A man and a woman behind the nursing station were watching us, but I didn’t think they could hear what we were saying.
“I’m not from here,” he said.
Early on, he’d told me that he and his family had just moved to this area. “Yeah,” I said. “That’s why the no furniture and stuff.”
“I think you know what I mean,” he said.
Did I? This was starting to get like my mom’s world. He was crazy. He couldn’t mean what I was thinking.
“I have to get back,” he said.
He looked awful. Bags under his eyes. Face oily. His breath stank. “Back…” I said. It seemed like a question.
“Help me,” he whispered. “Get me out of here.”
My stomach slipped when he said that. Not that he was asking me to do something illegal, although I was uncomfortable about that, because the staff obviously thought that he needed to be here. No, I was getting weirded out because I didn’t like what I was thinking.
He wants to go back to 4000—I mean, forward to 4000. Or he thinks he does. That’s his delusion. The whole thing’s been his delusion. The whole story.
But how did he know about Mom and the Lizards and my neighbors?
I got it! He was on the unit before. He was. He went on the unit at the same time as my mom. He was in the lobby that day when I was waiting to find out about my mom after her school visit. He was asking to be admitted because he knew he was crazy. He’s bipolar! Like he told me his mom was the day I met him. The 4000 story is his crazy fantasy, and telling it to me gives him some kind of sick grandiose pleasure, like I’ll think he’s somebody very special. He and Mom cooked up some of this Lizard crap together!
My mind was on two different tracks. Going in opposite directions. I was getting another headache. No, the other side was saying, he wanted to get on the unit because it was part of his historical research on mental illness. He could be from the University. In 4000. A student from the University, using a wormhole to do his academic work.
I was going crazy. How could I have even thought that? Well, at least I’m in the right place!
A nurse was at my elbow. “Are you all right?”
Marco had walked all the way down the hall and was staring out the window of the staff door to the parking lot. I hadn’t noticed when he walked away.
“Uh, uh, no,” I said. “I mean, yes. Yeah, I was just giving Marco time to think. We’re going to talk some more.”
“Don’t upset him,” she said, “and tell him he needs to come away from the door, or he’ll have to take a timeout,” she added as she stepped back into the nursing station.
“I know, I know,” he said, as we met halfway. He looked around again. “So, will you?”
“I can’t,” I said. “I have to know more. I’d have to be sure that was the right thing to do. I’d have to know what I’m doing. I’d have to know what you’re really doing.”
“Prove it?” he asked. “You want me to prove it or you won’t help me get out?”
This was like his story. He was pulling me into his story! But it’s flipped.
“They’ll catch you,” I said aloud. I didn’t mean to say it. I didn’t mean that. I meant me. If I run right now, the staff will catch me and they’ll think I’m crazy. I’ve been infected. Mom got me! I was speeding up, speeding up.
“Not if we do it at night,” Marco said, reaching out, touching me on the arm to bring me back.
I couldn’t stay one second longer. “I have to go. I’ll be back. Hang in there…” I was talking on my way to the door, signaling the woman at the nursing station, trying not to jog, trying not to be conspicuous. By the time I got to the parking lot, my shirt was soaked through.
I started the car. I was driving. Don’t get a ticket, I was telling myself, don’t get caught. I was trying to remember how to chill out. Lighten up. Easy. Easy. Over and over again, like a mantra, until I got to his house.
Up to the front door. Knocking. Knocking.
I tried the knob. Unlocked. I knew it would be. But I didn’t want it to be. I wanted one of his parents to come to the door. I wanted somebody to be home. I wanted televisions and recliners and coffee tables and diddly little knickknacks. But it was empty, just like the last time I’d been there. Marco’s room was exactly the same. Sleeping bag on top of the bed. No, it wasn’t the same. The star posters were gone. The walls were bare.
I walked out the front door. I wanted to go to Hubie’s. I did not want to be walking around the side of the house. I did not want to be looking for that oak tree. I did not want to see it way back at the end of the yard. I argued with myself until I was close enough to touch the branches.
There was something funny about the way this tree filtered light. The whole thing kind of shimmered. It was late in the day, so it was probably the angle of the sun. It could be spider mites with their shiny, glinty little webs, leaf to leaf, branch to branch. It could have been heat waves, but it really wasn’t that hot.
I stood there another minute. And then another. I wasn’t ready. Was I such a coward? I just wasn’t ready. Yet.
I went to Hubie’s instead.
Z was in the living room watching some fashion reality show. Nobody else seemed to be home yet. I sat beside her but she didn’t look over.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hube’s still at work,” she said, glued to the tube.
Hubie called it work, but I knew that messing around with computers was like play for him. Do that and still get paid. A pretty good gig.
I could feel her tensing to get up. I wanted to tell her about Marco, about 4000. About the empty house. I wanted her take on the whole thing. She looked like she had been around some pretty strange places. I mean, not at this moment. Today, her hair was flat to her head, just washed. Gray sweats, beat-up rubber sandals. Ears red where studs and hoops were being given a rest.
“Z, you said to tell you … if it got any stranger?” I cleared my throat to get some more strength in my voice.
Z turned toward me. The look on her face said this probably wasn’t a good day for this talk.
I plunged on. “Have you ever had a friend go crazy on you?” How far was I going to take this?
“Besides you?” she asked. “Lately, Ben, you been looking really scruffy, eyes red like you’re either strung out or not sleeping. Get straight with me, or it’s private time. You know? Home alone? Solitude?”
“Hey, you said if I needed a shoulder.”
“To lean on,” she said. “Not to carry you around. You’re getting screwed up and you’re lying to me about something. I can feel it.”
“What if somebody you knew was really from the future, but everybody else thought he was crazy?”
“Is this you we’re talking about?” she asked, cocking her head as if ge
tting the right angle would allow her to see right through me.
“No, it’s not me,” I said. “It’s a guy who may have been spying on me.”
“Okay, I’m gone,” she said, rising. “Namasté.”
She split while I was still trying to translate.
Slick
The next afternoon when I pushed the unit buzzer, the older guy with the kinked salt-and-pepper hair was working again.
“I’m here to visit Marco,” I told him.
“No one here by that name,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I thought I knew, but I wanted to hear him say it.
“I think you know. We’re all worried.” He made one of those sad grins where you’d like to smile but can’t, and stepped back inside.
He escaped! I was figuring it out as I walked to the car. They can’t tell me that, but they want me to talk him into coming back.
I drove straight to his house, ran up the steps, through the front door, and into his room. He wasn’t there. Nothing was changed. He hadn’t been there. I went to his window and looked at the oak tree. No sign of him. That didn’t make sense. And then it did.
I got back in my car and drove to my house. I found him sitting on my bed in that position he uses.
“Hey,” he said. If it was possible, he looked more tired, more wasted than yesterday.
“What are you doing … here?” He was going to tell me the truth. I’d make him.
“I couldn’t really go to the other place, could I?” he said, closing his eyes and resting his chin on his chest. “The police would look there first, and they’ll probably keep dropping by all night. This seemed like the logical spot.”
“How’d you find my house?”
“You told me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“It doesn’t matter. I know where you live. Maybe your mom told me.”
I didn’t believe him, but I couldn’t prove it. “Why did you make up that story? Why did you tell me that story?”
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