The Archaeologists

by Hal Niedzviecki

  You don’t need to explain anything to me, son. You’re going through a hard time. I get that. I’m just saying—look, if you had collapsed on your couch watching TV at home alone, you’d be dead now. Do you understand me? Consider yourself lucky that someone saw you on the side of the road. Think of this as a second chance.

  Tim shrugs.

  You need to rest. And you need to get plenty to eat and drink. We’ll move you out of the ICU tomorrow as soon as there’s a bed empty upstairs. In the meantime, I’d like you to talk to someone. She’s a…doctor on our staff. A psychiatrist. She can help you with the memory loss, okay? Help you figure out who you are.

  Tim shrugs.

  The doctor stares down at Tim, who turns his head to the curtain isolating his bed.

  Blue, Tim thinks. Blue like the shimmering sky. And behind it? Bodies. Empty. Empty bodies.

  He wakes up slowly. His head is fuzzy, the blood pounding against his skull when he tries to think.

  I’m better. Time to—

  Time is money, Timmy boy!

  Thanks Dad. Thanks a bundle. And good luck down there, by the way, good fucking luck.

  Carly says there’s no such thing as luck. Carly says everything is connected, everything happens for a reason.

  —Carly—

  To his left, the curtain is peeled back, revealing a withered shape draped in sheet. Tim sees a shrunken crab-apple crone’s head. To his right, a machine man, inert chest getting air in processed pumps. Where is he, really? What weird hell? Dreaming. He dozed off. He’s still dreaming. No. Awake now, he can feel the pinch of his stitched scalp, the pressure in his chest when he breathes too deep. The ancient specimen next door twitches, mutters, falls still.

  Everything around him humming in place, in still repetition. Tim has the sensation of night, greyish suburban gloom. Suddenly he longs for the forest gully. The crackling bonfire, the feel of the cold earth against his back. The metallic taste of the air, trees swaying in a cold spring breeze while the river runs its endless marathon.

  Nurse! Nurse! Nurse! Nurse! He stabs the red button.

  What can I do for you? She glares down at him.

  It really hurts. My…head. It’s true, Tim thinks. It really does hurt. Can you give me something to—?

  Let me see, the nurse says, scowling at a point over him. I’ll be back. She turns to go, the soles of her white sneakers squeaking.

  And nurse?

  Yes? Sighing.

  Can you—when they…brought me in—did I…have anything?

  You want your personal effects?

  Yeah—I—

  I’ll be back.

  Tim waits. He has to fight off the urge to close his eyes and drift into sleep. Stay awake. No sleeping. Not here. Zombieland. You snooze you lose. He turns again to ponder the withered golem with yellow crust in the curves and cracks of her shrunken lips. Her breathing comes in a series of sporadic fits and starts. She twitches, arms and legs twisted and gnarled like old tree branches. Then her chest trembles still. Tim stops breathing too. Waits. Waits. Finally she inhales with a weak sigh. Tim exhales, slumps back against the bed.

  Then he does close his eyes. Just for a minute. While I’m waiting. What is he waiting for? He’s waiting for the nurse, for the old crone in the next bed over to die and hover over him, invite him to join her as she floats on up to that perfect patch of grass in the sky. Why not? Where else do you have to go? No. That’s not what he wants. He wants something else.

  He has to—

  He needs to—

  —Carly.

  The nurse returns with a plastic shopping bag and a small plastic cup.

  She hands the little cup to Tim, saying, Here, the doctor says to take these.

  Two green pills. Tim doesn’t ask what they are. He swallows them with water, but even so, feels them sticking to the inside of his dry throat.

  Thanks, he says, not sure if he’s being sarcastic or not. The nurse nods. She stands at the foot of his bed swinging the bag.

  Is that my—?

  This is everything you were brought in with, she says, frowning at him as if daring him to contradict her.

  Okay, Tim says.

  He reaches out for it.

  The nurse drops the crumpled plastic bag on his bony chest.

  Thanks.

  She stands there, looking down at him.

  Thanks, Tim says again.

  Nurse spins on her heels, rubber squeaking as she leaves. Tim feels the bag light on his ribs. He dumps the contents out on his lap. He smells his clothes right away. Rough dirty fabrics reeking of mud and blood and smoke. He can practically taste it. The forest river crevice.

  Tim pulls the cargo pants up to his face. One leg torn and bloodied. He slips a hand into a pocket. Nothing. And the other. Empty. Tim does the same for the back pockets. First one: empty. Second one: Hello, what’s this? He pulls out a single thin bent joint. Well then. How’s that for luck, Carly?

  He puts the joint on the tray next to his bed. He rifles the hip side pockets. He feels a hard rectangle. Pulls it out. Perfect. Just perfect. Che Guevara ready to light what there is to be lit. And? He pats the pockets again. In case he missed something. No. That’s it.

  He drops the pants over the side. Next up is his shirt. Bloodied, cut in half. It’s a total write off. Tim dangles it over the rail, lets it fall from his fingertips. His old life. So. What’s left? Everything you were brought in with. His hands move through the folds where the sheet meets the hospital gown. He comes up with a soft brown tattered leather wallet. He digs a finger into the fold of the big pocket. Please please please. Finger slides along the interior.

  Nothing. Ripped lining. No cash at all. ID gone too. No wonder they don’t know who he is.

  But, Tim wonders, where’s the car? Fuck! The car! He’ll buy her—them—a new car. He just needs—

  that tea tin—

  full of—

  Indian doctor—

  cash.

  Think. Fucking hell man! Think.

  He was driving away, away from—

  singed neurons, smoky receptors.

  He doesn’t have a clue.

  Wississauga.

  Tim falls back on the bed. If he’s going to make a move, the time is now. His pain has receded to a cloud on the horizon. They want him to see some—shrink. They’ll lock him up. He’s crazy. Of course he’s crazy. He sees ghosts. He’s been living in the—

  freaking woods.

  Carly says there’s no such thing as crazy.

  —Carly—

  I’m—

  He has to get out of here. Now. Right now. Find the car, wherever it is. He doesn’t remember, only: the tea tin roll of cash wedged under the passenger seat. It could still be there. He wrestles the rail down and swings his bare feet on to the cold industrial tiles. The hospital gown tickles his knees. Tim yanks the drip out of his arm. He bends down, grabs his pants and pulls them on. Got everything? Anything? He fumbles around the bed for the joint and the lighter. Light spilling in from the nurses’ station just outside the door. Any second they could come in and—

  Don’t think. Act. Escape. Escape from Wississauga.

  A few steps and he’s at the golem’s bed. For a moment, he considers pinching her nose, smothering her rubbery mouth with his big rough palm.

  He’d be doing her a favour.

  Her limbs twitch in faint protest. Her heart monitor beeps, slower then faster.

  He’s not a killer. Sorry old lady. You’re on your own.

  Tim pulls the plug on the heart monitor. An alarm sounds. Tim slinks across and stands in the corner. That evil-looking nurse rushes in, followed by another. Tim slips out past the empty station, and on into the elevator, which just happens to be waiting for him.

  Outside Tim breathes big. The air hurts his ribs, his bruised heart, his stitched-up head. The cool spring night slips up his gown, tickling his gaunt chest. His bare feet grip the sidewalk. His soles, his skin, everything tingling, trembling,
hyper-alive. Tim feels the rush of it, adrenal possibility, escape. Yeah, right, how far am I going to get? I don’t even have my boots.

  No boots. No cash. No luck, Carly.

  He peers into the hospital parking lot. The rows of cars remind him of the trees of the forest gully. They’re a place to disappear into. Tim breathes the taste of metal and exhaust and the faint promise of fresh air. He takes a few tentative tottering steps forward. He wants to run, he wants to spring into the anonymous night of parked cars lining dimly illuminated streets. He teeters forward. The bright hospital lobby lights fade. Tim penetrates the parking lot’s pallor. Grey air pushes through him. The hospital gown flutters around his knees.

  Tim digs into his pants and pulls out the joint.

  Steadied now, Tim wends through the parking lot, makes for the lone phone booth on the opposite curb. He likes the way his long bare feet slap asphalt. He imagines himself as some kind of suburban mutant primate, man-racoon-skunk-squirrel, as at home trolling the parking lots and backyards and dumpsters as he is in a forest river gully. The hospital gown flutters around him, and Tim thinks of Halloween ghosts in billowing white sheets. Did he ever—yeah, sure, when his mother was—when they were still a—

  He looks down. He can’t see his feet. He’s floating now. It’s a strange familiar high he’s on, a nice combo, one last twist of the China pot and whatever pain pills the nurse kindly provided.

  Tim stabs zero with a still-jagged nail and waits for the machine-operator.

  For what city, please?

  Collect call from—

  Will you accept the—

  Carly? Carly? Carly! It’s—

  Will you accept a call from—

  Then her voice: Yes. Okay. I’ll take the call.

  These charges have been accepted. You may proceed now. Thank you for choosing—

  Carly!

  Tim?

  Carly!

  Yes. Yes, it’s me. Where are you, Tim?

  I—ah—just got out of the hospital.

  The hospital? Are you okay? What happened?

  I’m okay. I’m—

  What hospital?

  Huh?

  What hospital were you in?

  Wississauga General.

  Wississauga?

  Yeah—I—I was looking for my—

  Tim hears noises behind him. Figures stomping through the parking lot, shouting to each other. He wants to say he’s sorry. He wants to say she was right all along, always has been. He presses the phone hard against his face, feels the stitches in his scalp bulge.

  Listen, Carly, I’m in a—his voice cool, easy. I’ll tell ya all about it later but I’m in a bit of a—I got in an—ah—our—car. But it’s cool, there’s—I mean, I can—only I need…could you, maybe, uh, come and get me?

  Tim. Carly’s voice in the night through the phone and across buildings and houses and schools and malls and empty lots and highways and factories and boulevards and discount outlets and box stores and backyards and small patches of forest adorned with sluggish rivers, dry ponds, and oily swamps. Tim. Are you high?

  No…I’m, hey, I’m—

  How could you just leave? I didn’t know where you were! What was I supposed to do? You just disappear? You just take off? Jesus, Tim. You stole my car? You stole my car! And there’s people looking for you. That creepy Clay guy came by. Are you dealing for him now? And a lawyer called. Some woman. Your father died, Tim. Do you even know that? Fuck, Tim! I can’t do this anymore. Do you get that? Don’t call me! Don’t call me ever again.

  He stands, listening to the long-distance hum of empty space. He feels the cold plastic pressed against his ear. Behind him: shouts and footsteps, getting louder. Tim holds the phone to his ear just a little longer. Then he drops the receiver. Eyes closed, there’s only the permeable darkness, the streaks of light on the insides of his head. He feels himself floating. Away, or back, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t fight it. He falls into it.

  HAL

  Thursday, June 26

  THE MAYOR’S LOOKING GOOD, Hal thinks. She’s in a summer chartreuse pantsuit, augmented by a simple but elegant strand of pearls. She smiles radiantly, addressing the modest crowd of thirty or so geriatrics bussed in from the senior centre for the photo op. The air is bright, the sun shines, a gentle breeze blows off the river. There could hardly be a nicer day in the Cartwright Falls Riverfront Park: green grass, maple trees, and picnic tables framing the river right before it drops off into the gully. Here in the northernmost boundary of Wississauga, the mayor unveils a plaque dedicated to Rose McCallion.

  She was one of Wississauga’s great founding matrons, the mayor intones dryly, a woman of courage, wisdom, and what they called, back in Rose’s day, pluck.

  The gathering chuckles. Hal doesn’t join in the subdued laughter. After all, he isn’t a participant in the ceremony. The Boss made that very clear. He’s not to get “personally involved” she said. Of course not, Hal thinks. I’m just a mouthpiece. I’m just supposed to tell it like it is. How is it? He knew Rose better than anyone here. The racist, misanthropic old lady hated the mayor, couldn’t stand the city bureaucrats, and considered present-day Wississauga a concrete Sodom and Gomorrah of shopping centres run by dusky shysters hell-bent on tricking old ladies out of hearth and home.

  But Hal’s just a reporter. He doesn’t have opinions. He doesn’t want to have an opinion. At least he still has a job. He stands to the side and surveys the scene through the viewfinder of the Cable Community News camera. The mayor utters one last platitude. There is a smattering of scattered applause. A velvet cover is pulled back to reveal the plaque. It’s an antique-looking copper signpost with gold raised letters saying simply, In memory of Rose McCallion. Accompanied by the chronology of her birth and death, the memorial already looks suitably old, already conveys the authority of authenticity that all good plaques should exude.

  The plaque unveiled, everyone claps again. Instant history, Hal thinks. Cake and coffee are served on an already erected folding table. After an appropriate interval, Hal approaches the mayor. He’s a bit tentative. He hasn’t spoken with her since the protest. But she greets him warmly, grasps his hand in both of hers and effusively thanks him for coming. Hal plays along, lobs a few softball questions for the nightly news. Rose deserves better, but his heart isn’t in it. He’s Hal Talbot, community news reporter, in charge of ribbon cuttings and plaque unveilings. He thought he’d be fired, reprimanded, promoted…something. But nothing happened, no grand inquisition, no major debriefing, no nomination for journalist of the year or unexpected job offer from the City. Just…nothing. Did they find bones? They claimed they didn’t. Hal’s not sure. Nobody’s talking about it. A report was released. Apparently they found something, stone fragments, maybe old, maybe not that old. That archaeologist at the university is studying them, taking his time. The road’s going full speed ahead, in the meantime. Mean time, Hal thinks, politely thanking the mayor. They shake hands again. Any time, Mr. Talbot, the mayor says merrily. She looks him in the eye and he looks away. Poor Rose. He did what he could, didn’t he? If it wasn’t for Cable Community News, who would have known the old bird even existed?

  The ceremony is already breaking up. The seniors are being herded back to their bus, and the mayor is glad-handing her way over to a waiting town car. Hal trudges back to the news van, starts packing up the equipment.

  Need some help there?

  He looks up, sees Scott standing over him.

  Hey! Hal can’t help but smile. What are you doing here?

  My last appointment cancelled. Scott’s also smiling, his big white teeth flashing in the sun. And I remembered you said you’d be out here. So I thought I’d see if I could find you. It’s such a… beautiful day.

  Great, Hal says.

  Two weeks ago they started talking again. It was no big deal. Hal’s phone chirped. A text from Scott: Hey. Whassup? Later on that night, they talked on their cells. The conversation was light, upbeat. There were n
one of the awkward pauses that had come to dominate their once easy-going relationship. They didn’t discuss it. They didn’t even mention it. The Incident. That’s what Hal has started calling it. The night sky roiling. Mournful ghost creature in the pit, the way he looked at them and through them. The way the air all at once filled with the scent of rotted spring nectar as if the coming season, and Hal, and Scott, and the pit, and whatever it was that lingered—that lived—down there, had suddenly been trapped under glass, left to slowly rot then dry out and die in some stifling specimen jar. Hal hadn’t forgotten what he’d seen. But The Incident went grainier and grainier every time it replayed in his mind. Now when he watches the scene, images shoot by in a whirlwind of accidental angles and sightline shadows. It’s over in a matter of seconds like a camera dropped then hurriedly picked up again, still filming. It’s not that he’s avoiding anything. It’s more like—

  what’s the point?

  So, uh, Scott says, you wanna go for a walk?

  Hal takes a quick look around. The mayor is being helped into her car by her driver, seniors are loading into their bus, various city employees, bureaucrats, and low level politicians are idly chatting near their vehicles, finishing their coffees, taking final drags on their cigarettes, sending texts.

  Uh…yeah, sure. He folds the tripod away, closes up the van. They stroll leisurely down the paved path toward the river. Hal resists the urge to look behind him—the mayor and her functionaries staring, noting, revising. In the distance, you can just hear the faint sound of trucks—men at work, Hal thinks. It’s the new road, already under construction. The road will peel away from the river right before the falls, emerge from the gorge and head north and west to connect with the highway. It won’t open for another year-and-a-half, but Hal’s heard that progress is good, work is on time and on schedule. Trevor’s covering that beat now.

  So, Scott says. How are things going?

  They’re walking close to each other. Hal feels Scott’s presence, a reassuring undeniable bulk. Their fingers brush. As if by instinct, Hal grabs and holds onto one of Scott’s huge paws.

  CHARLIE

  Friday, June 27