The Dark Path

by David Schickler

  “Son . . . once we’re home, we’ll get you back in to see Matt Argento. He helped you before, he’ll help again.”

  I nod vaguely. I think of awful Drake off somewhere doing awful things.

  My father makes a frustrated sound. He looks at the Christmas tree, then back at me.

  “David.”

  I know this tone of his. It used to scare the living shit out of me. But now I don’t want to hear it. I stare at Daphne.

  “David . . . I know you’re hurting, but you have to stop acting so proud.”

  “I think I’m in a pretty humble place, Dad.”

  “That’s not what I mean. You need to start taking those pills.”

  Jack Sherlock Schickler, I think.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “Not maybe. Definitely. No more screwing around.” He waits for a response.

  I give none. I’m twenty-five and finally able to be a stubborn dick in front of my dad. It feels terrible.

  “So,” he says impatiently, “will you? Take them?”

  I shrug and look at him. Growing up, I always saw it in his eyes, the dark light that meant I was one split second away from getting spanked or grounded or chewed out. It’s there now.

  He stands up, looms over me. “Well?”

  I shrug again, like there’s not a single thing left in the world that could scare or startle me.

  But I’m wrong. Because my father starts doing something that I don’t see coming. He starts dancing. He backs out onto the dance floor, catching the rhythm of the Beatles song, all the while looking at me with his eyebrows raised like You drove me to this, sad sack.

  “Well?” he calls once more.

  I’m too taken off guard to give an answer, but he doesn’t wait for one. He goes into his routine, starting to shuck and jive and boogie, solo-style, like he always does at weddings back home when his favorite songs come on. Except this isn’t a wedding back home. This is my new place of work, where people don’t know him, and those people are watching him, since he’s the only one dancing.

  “Hey,” I say. It comes out like a complaint and it is. He’s too far off to hear me, but he’s still looking right at me while he gets down.

  “Hey,” I tell him. “Just . . . c’mere.”

  He shakes his head back and forth and then moves it in a beckoning way, like No, you c’mere. He stays where he is and keeps hoofing it.

  I can see Daphne and others watching my father now. The music switches to “Walking on Sunshine” and I glare at the DJ. He had to pick a barn burner.

  I wave at my father, trying to get him to stop and sit. He’s in one of his fancier suits and I hope that this will limit his repertoire, but, nope, oh sweet fuck, here he goes, crouching down on the ground and hopping up, doing his famous little explosion move.

  I stand, trying to wave him over to me.

  Stop. I’m sending him telepathy with my eyes. You’re embarrassing me. Stop.

  Come on. His eyes send me telepathy right back. Get out here.

  My hip’s fucked up.

  So dance anyway, his eyes say. Come on, gimp. One song.

  I see Daphne smiling as she watches him. She makes a surprised face and claps her hands for a second when he does his explosion move again.

  God might be a lie, my eyes tell his. I might never go to Mass again.

  Dance anyway, his eyes say. He does a couple twirls.

  I’ll never be like you. I’ll never be a deacon, and I drink way more than you do, and I can’t bear those god-squad preachers whose sermons you listen to. And all the sexed-up, violent books and movies that you hate are all the things that I love and admire and want to write. I can never be good the way that you’re good. I can’t even want to.

  I love you, his eyes say. Get out here.

  I’m not like you.

  You can dance like me. Even better. I’ve seen it. Come prove it.

  No.

  I dare you, kid . . .

  He’s not going to stop.

  Screw it, I think, and I slam the dregs of my Manhattan, set down my glass, and go join him. I can’t help it. We’re probably out there dancing together for maybe only thirty seconds before Daphne and others hit the floor, too, but for those few moments when I’m on show with just him, I bust some crucial moves. I can feel in my hip that I’ll pay for this in the morning, but I stomp and glide and whirl alongside my dad. I catch Daphne watching me and looking impressed. It feels good.

  I make it through two fast songs, then head back toward my chair, spent.

  As I’m going, my dad gives me a thumbs-up and says, “Schicklers can dance their asses off.” He has no intention of sitting down.

  • • •

  HE AND I drive to Rochester the next day. Halfway home, while we’re at a rest stop on the New York State Thruway, I take my first Paxil pill, being careful not to let my father see. I’m standing outside and looking at brown-slush snow on the pavement. I wash the pill down with some Snapple fruit juice and after I swallow, I wait for some Armageddon in my brain, some revolution in the world around me. It doesn’t come. The Snapple tastes like Snapple. The slush looks like slush. The person in my skin is still panicky and neurotic. He’s still me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “TEACH ME TO DO IT,” I say.

  It’s three days after Christmas. I’m in Matt Argento’s office, lying twisted like a pretzel on his chiropractor table while he whales on my hip, cracking it violently, yanking my right leg around. This is my third visit in a week and it’s working. My hip pain is less than half of what it was when I left Tapwood.

  “To do what?” says Matt.

  “Maybe I got my piriformis in trouble this fall because I was stressed out and wasn’t going to the gym. But I’m sick of this. The pain. I’m sick of trying to understand it. Whatever you do when you adjust me, it works. Teach me to do it myself.”

  “Minghia! Mr. Proactive!” He laughs and keeps shoving parts of me around, hard and sure.

  “I’m serious.”

  He stops working, plants his palms on the table, and leans on his beefy forearms. “I’m not an MD, Schickler, but that doesn’t mean that you can do what I do. Plus it’s a breach of a bunch of—”

  “I’m one of your people.”

  He gives me a level look now, no bullshit. I remember seeing him wear a similar look one time when I was little and we were playing football, and a bully from the next block called Matt’s sister a whore seconds before Matt rearranged the guy’s face.

  He prods my hip with his thumb. “This is really messing with you, huh.”

  “I feel like I’m ninety. And there’s no one like you who I trust in Vermont and I don’t want to have to keep coming in here. I’m sick of needing help. Please, Matt.”

  He studies me for a long moment and nods. “Maybe a couple tips. Off the books.”

  • • •

  IT’S MY EIGHTH night with the Paxil, and it’s making my insomnia worse. At two in the morning I get out of bed in my parents’ basement and dress and go out to the woods, to the dark path. The snow on the tree branches is Dr. Seuss thick, but my old shadows are where they’ve always been. I stare at them emptily.

  When my hip twinges, I drop to the ground and lie on my left side. I bring my right knee up to my chest. Using my left elbow like a fulcrum, the way that Matt showed me, I wrench my right knee down, cracking my right hip multiple times. I manipulate my right leg around some more, the way Matt showed me, then I hold the right knee down firmly to the ground for fifteen seconds, stretching.

  Dear Lack-of-God: I am done crying. Period. And I’m going to end this pain in me. Period.

  • • •

  TWO NIGHTS LATER I meet a girl out for a drink. I haven’t seen her in a long time. Her name is Scarlet, she’s a couple years younger than I am, and she’s the
only child of a devout married Catholic couple named Helen and William Cates who live in an upscale part of Rochester called Pittsford and who do Catholic volunteer work with my parents. I’m pretty sure that my mother has told Helen Cates that I’m in a fragile way, and I know both mothers want their children to Meet Someone Nice. Given my frequent quicksand attacks and hip pain and occasional mental whiteouts, I’m not optimistic, but I arrange to meet Scarlet at Richmond’s, my favorite Rochester bar. It has a busy downstairs area, but only a few people ever notice the narrow staircase that leads to a grungy, less-traveled second-floor lounge, which has a pool table, old couches, and low lights.

  Scarlet meets me upstairs at Richmond’s at eleven o’clock one night. She used to be very quiet, now she’s very hot. She wears a vintage gray-and-black-striped dress, and black boots, and her blond hair is a bell on her shoulders. She tells me the college in Chicago where she’s a junior. Seconds later I’ve forgotten and I ask her where she goes to college.

  “You’re so funny!” She laughs and touches my arm. “What’ve you been up to?”

  I decide on the truth. I tell her that I wanted to be a priest, but that that was a bust, so instead I’m taking some really strong antidepressants.

  “Wow. Are they working? What do they feel like?”

  “Like there’s an extra electricity running around under my skin.”

  “Are you still depressed?”

  “Very much so.”

  Her eyes look more intrigued than when she first came in.

  My hip twinges. I say, “Excuse me,” and I get down on the floor and pretzel up and crack my hip.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Adjusting,” I say.

  She likes doing lemon-drop vodka shots. After she’s done her second, she tells me about the classical theater group she’s in. After she’s done her fourth, she sits close to me on the couch and asks if I want something memorable to happen between us, right now.

  I look around. There’s nobody else upstairs.

  “Yes,” I say.

  She strokes my left arm and rolls up the sleeve of my U2 T-shirt. Then she leans down and bites my arm so hard that I stifle a scream.

  “Scarlet . . . Jesus.”

  Keeping her eyes on mine, she holds the bite, not letting off pressure. Her teeth are on me for about ten seconds. When she lets up and pulls away, she kisses gently the place where she bit me. She gives me a sympathetic look that seems to say, I understand all that you’re going through, you poor man. Then she bites me again on the same arm, just above my elbow, just as hard. I again work not to shriek. She holds the bite for a long while, then kisses where she bit me and sits back, looking satisfied.

  I stare at my arm. Neither bite broke the skin, but each shows vivid red teeth marks.

  “The first bite is you. The second one is me.” Scarlet gives me a bedroom-eyes look as if a great wisdom has been shared.

  My arm hurts. I angle myself toward Scarlet, hold her, and kiss her mouth. She lets it happen, then wriggles free. She gives me the great-wisdom look again. In confused desperation I try to kiss her once more and I get shut down.

  What the fuck? I think. I wonder if this is how courtship works in Chicago or in classical theater groups.

  At the end of the night we both go home, separately.

  The next morning I’m sitting at the breakfast table with my mother and my younger sister, Jeanne, who is home from college for vacation. We’re all eating my mother’s blueberry coffee cake, which she makes in abundance for the holidays. My elder sister Pam is in the other room, watching a Christmas movie.

  As Jeanne talks about some friends she saw last night, quicksand fills my lungs. I grip the table as the panic shouts, Give up the pills, fucker! Give up on Dr. Brogan, give up on teaching, so you danced with your dad, big fucking deal, you’re alone, you should die!

  I close my eyes and try to jolt my thoughts toward goodness. I’m tasting brown sugar and blueberries. I love this taste.

  You’re alone! Just give up, go die, God’s a lie, and there’s nothing!

  There is something, there’s this taste, this butter and brown sugar taste. My mother made this and she loves me.

  She’ll die and you’ll die, there’s no meaning.

  There’s this taste. It’s real and I love it.

  I open my eyes and try to breathe evenly. My mother takes my hand and squeezes it. I take another bite of cake. The spell passes.

  But my mother is now staring at my left arm in alarm. She points to the two sets of teeth marks on me. “David, holy cow, did Uncle Nick do that?”

  Uncle Nick is our next-door neighbor’s dog.

  “No . . . I went out with Scarlet last night. This, uh, happened at Richmond’s.”

  “What happened at Richmond’s?”

  “Um . . . Scarlet bit me.”

  Jeanne leans over and inspects my arm. My mother is inspecting it, too. She is a dental hygienist and I was hoping to avoid this conversation, but I forgot to put on a long-sleeve shirt when I woke up.

  My mother says, “Scarlet bit you?”

  “Yes.”

  “At Richmond’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you having an argument?”

  “No. We were sort of hitting it off, actually.”

  “Pam,” yells Jeanne, “Scarlet Cates bit David.”

  My mother runs her fingers over my arm. The teeth marks have turned a deep, wounded blue. “Twice. She bit you twice, I see. David, why in the world did she bite you? Do you know how germy our mouths are?”

  “Pam, she bit him twice,” yells Jeanne.

  “I’m calling Helen,” says my mother.

  “No. Mom, sit down. It was just a weird moment. I think she thought it was . . . romantic.”

  My mother is still on her feet, looking at me, perplexed.

  Jeanne leans to my ear and asks in an excited whisper if Scarlet and I hooked up. I tell her there were two bites and one kiss and that’s all.

  “Lord in heaven,” says my mother. “Biting people to the point of trauma is romantic now?”

  Jeanne laughs. “Trauma?”

  “That’s the medical term. That’s what we say at the office. When skin has been injured to this degree, it’s referred to as trauma.” My mother is shaking her head. “She did this at a bar. David, no wonder you’re so . . . I’m still trying to . . .”

  “Did it hurt?” asks Jeanne.

  I tell her that it hurt a great deal.

  “Of course it did!” My mother points at my arm. “I can see her whole bite pattern, like you took a molding. She should’ve paid you forty dollars for this. Wait. Oh God, David, did you bite her?”

  I tell her that I’ve never bitten any girl.

  “And she did it to you twice. So, the second time, you let her?”

  “Maybe. I guess so. She moved pretty fast.”

  Jeanne is still laughing.

  “David.” My mother squeezes my hand again. “I know you’re having a hard time right now, but don’t let girls bite you to the point of trauma, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “I’m getting the iodine.” My mother goes upstairs.

  “Trauma.” Jeanne wears a delighted smile. “Killing me.”

  • • •

  CLEMENT TELLS ME to stay in Rochester for one extra week in early January, to work with Matt Argento and keep my hip on the road to recovery. Clement gets a substitute to teach my classes.

  I see Matt for three extra sessions, mostly so he can take me down to the gym and coach me through a regimen of stretches, free weights, and Nautilus that I can do in Vermont or anywhere. I am hell-bent on curing my hip. If I can kill the pain there for good, maybe my mind and heart will fall in line, calm down, heal.

  Wherever I go, if my hip twinges extr
a strong, I drop to the ground, pretzel up, crack my hip, and manipulate my leg till the pain is gone. I do it on my parents’ kitchen floor, while my sisters watch. I do it on the floor at Marketplace Mall, outside of Banana Republic.

  It is something I can do, something I can control, and I don’t feel weird about it. I don’t care if people see, and I am way past caring what they think. Doing it helps. Paxil can try whatever it is trying in my brain. I am trying this.

  • • •

  MY FIRST WEEK back at Tapwood, I get a membership at the Water Wheel gym. In the fall I did some workouts at the Academy field house, but they don’t have the machines that Matt wants me to use, and at the Water Wheel there are no students, so I can focus. The gym is on the banks of the Connecticut River, which flows through Tapwood. The building was formerly a mill, but now it has a workout floor with a big bay window overlooking the river. Since I teach only three Academy classes instead of the standard five, I have two hours free each afternoon starting at one o’clock. I spend this time daily at the Water Wheel staring out at the river while I do my weights, stretches, and hip cracks. I devote myself to my workouts as fastidiously as I once thought I would to vigils or Vespers or other priestly endeavors. When the quicksand invades, I grip extra tightly whichever barbell I’m holding and I pile on the reps. My right calf is still the weakling cousin of my left, but I’m hobbling less, and my hip rarely clicks now.

  I still have a mental whiteout once in a while. One morning I find myself walking through a snowy graveyard near my apartment, tracing my fingers over the names on headstones when I suddenly remember that I work at the Academy, and it’s Monday, and it’s ten o’clock, and I’ve missed at least two periods I’m supposed to have taught. I walk home as fast as I can, dress for work, drive to school. I go to Clement’s office first and tell him what happened. I ask him either to dock my pay or suspend or fire me.

  “No. I heard you were AWOL and got someone to cover for you. Just get to your next class.” He is sitting behind his desk. I’m standing in front of it and I don’t move.