True Story

by Kate Reed Petty

  They were headed up the hill. Going roughly the same direction as Nick. But he was sure it was fine. They were probably hunters. Although they were wearing these weird brown robes. But maybe there was a monastery or something up somewhere. Anyway, they were definitely headed somewhere else. He knew for a fact that nobody used the cabin in the winter. He knew because he had begged Lindsey last winter to take him up here, this was a month before she left for good and two months after she had started threatening to leave, and he’d said he could do it this time, he’d said, Let’s go to the cabin and not drink for three days. She’d refused. There had been multiple reasons for that, but the cold weather had been one of them. The cabin wasn’t winterized, so nobody went up in the winter. He was not going to interrupt anyone at the cabin. Took another sip of whiskey. Started driving. Kept getting flashes of the movie Deliverance. Kept drinking to shake the dumb fear away.

  Top of the hill, the road curved and opened onto a wide-open meadow. The cabin at the far end, with its red porch. He recognized it with a thrill. Then his stomach sank. He missed Lindsey. He took another sip of whiskey, drove across the meadow. A herd of deer looked up and watched his car as he passed. They struck him as unconcerned. Cool guys, those deer.

  He remembered that Lindsey had pulled the spare key from the belly of a ceramic deer on the porch. As he parked in a patch of dirt and got out of the car, he saw the same menagerie of ceramic animals lining the porch. But the key was not in the deer. He checked a frog, three bears, a flamingo, two ducks, and a gnome. Finally found it under a second frog. It was a funny thing to misremember. As he fit the key into the door he ignored the NO TRESPASSING sign nailed into the wood right at eye level. It didn’t apply to him. He let himself in to the smell of old fires and dead bugs.

  The inside of the cabin was a series of punches in the gut. The mustard-colored couch where they’d cuddled around a movie on Lindsey’s laptop. The table where she’d taught him cribbage. The kitchen where she’d made him a grilled cheese. It wasn’t even a kitchen, really. Just some stained white plug-in appliances and a narrow chopping block. She’d made the sandwich on a George Foreman grill, but the George Foreman was now gone. There was the thick fireplace at one end with a black woodstove jammed in its mouth. There was the horizontal row of antlers displayed along one wall where he’d hung a pair of Lindsey’s panties as a joke. She had laughed so hard. She had the best sense of humor. The cabin was a time capsule. Happier times. It hit him in waves. He hadn’t talked to her in six months.

  It was very cold. He fortified himself with a little more whiskey and reminded himself that he had a job to do. He was here to drink and face his faults. So he kept settling in. He went back to the porch and found some logs. There were a few piled by the door. He carried them all in. He piled them all in the woodstove. They were long dry and lit easily. He rubbed his hands together. The logs were burning quickly but hopefully would last through the night. There were no more logs. But he could chop some tomorrow. A massive ax hung over the fireplace like a trophy. He would use it tomorrow to chop more wood. He would make it three days in the cold. See, Lindsey? I got this. He was just fine.

  Outside it was suddenly dark. Like a curtain draped over the house. Flicked switches until the porch light came on. Slipped the whiskey pint into his jacket pocket. Pleased with how neatly it fit. Walked to the car. Grabbed his backpack and the grocery bag. The jerky and granola bars and oatmeal. He’d purchased them in his hometown. The checkout guy was some guy from high school. Nick had forgotten his name. But he remembered Nick’s. “Nick Brothers, holy shit!” the guy had said. Greeted him with a smile. Clearly, he hadn’t heard what Nick had been up to these past few years. “What have you been up to?” he’d asked, and Nick said he was on his way to a weekend in the mountains. Said he was going with his closest college friends. He had meant it as a polite lie. Realized the irony only now, holding the bottle’s familiar hand.

  Back inside, measured the oatmeal into the Crock-Pot. Three days’ worth. One case of beer in the minifridge. The other case would stay cold in the trunk. Took two beers to the porch. The stars were amazing. Went inside, turned all the lights off. Then back out to the porch, and even more stars. A beautiful night. Wanted the cigarette already. Tested himself, holding it in the palm of his hand. How long could he go without lighting it? Forever. He was reckless and disciplined. An artist of chaos. He sat for a long while, looking at the thin moon. The beer was delicious. He studied the delicate black weave of the tree branches. The richly blue night sky. Admired his own eloquence. And his powers of perception! They really could have used him at that consulting firm. Their loss.

  Then across the field he saw something. No, it was trees. No, it was people. In a circle.

  It was an odd hallucination. He watched. Waited for it to change to something else. It stayed a circle of people. They lifted their arms. All at once. And clapped. The sound echoed across the meadow. They were maybe a football field away. Or maybe not quite that far. Anyway. They were pretty far. Their hands were still raised. They were totally still. Like trees, again. It reminded him of something. He remembered the men he’d seen in their weird robes. Some kind of weird backwoods cult? He wanted to shout at them. No trespassing! Can’t you see the sign? But he was too creeped out.

  Out of nervousness he went to light the cigarette. Then stopped. He was afraid. Which was stupid. But there it was. Didn’t want the pagans to see him. He put the cigarette in the pack. Like a soldier in a trench. Too afraid to light a match.

  His second beer was empty. Maybe that was the answer. This little extra buzz of fear could be easily fixed. Stood up slowly. Kept his eyes on the figures, slowly lowering their arms now. There was a new sound reaching him. A low hum. He walked back to the door. Opened it gently. Latched it behind him. Walked quickly to the fridge. Drank the beer in three long pulls. Focused on the alcohol rinsing out the veins in his arms. Took another beer back to the window. Looked out.

  The temporary absence of fear made its return sharper. The circle was moving now. Uncoiling. It was no longer a circle but a line. It was pointed at him. He could see each person’s shape. He counted twelve of them. He was embarrassed by his fear. But couldn’t move. Frozen at the window. They were heading toward the cabin. Not going to come all this way. A football field away. Not coming for him. Just going to pass by.

  But they were getting closer. He realized they reminded him of

  He must have fallen asleep on a pile of blankets and sheets on the unmade bed in the bedroom, because that’s where he woke up, cotton in his mouth and the day outside bright with false promises, his car-hood-bruised hand hurting, the familiar hangover knocking on the inside back of his forehead like a landlord, he would need a beer fast, and a glass of water, but first he had to pee, his mornings were always so busy and complicated, so urgent in contrast to the rest of every day.

  The cold was sharp and prickly, so he wrapped one of the old blankets around his shoulders as he stumbled into the bathroom, where he found a wet towel on the floor and the smell of vomit, and also his bottle of sleeping pills on the floor, he didn’t think he’d taken any, but then again he’d slept, but then again no need to dwell. He tried not to think about the dreams he’d had, the pagans coming for him across the field; it was just his subconscious trying to scare him into leaving, and he wasn’t giving up so easily, he was really committed to this weekend. He splashed water on his face, filled his mouth with it, splashed more, and dried his chin on a corner of the shirt he’d slept in.

  He got dressed and put on his jacket and gloves, at least until he could start a fire, and then went into the small kitchen and put water on the hot plate for coffee and scooped himself a mug of tepid oatmeal, and he decided to sit on the front porch to eat. But when he opened the door he saw that the hulking red ax was buried in the front, the business end sunk deep into the sign that read NO TRESPASSING.

  Someone had tried to chop down the fron
t door with the ax, and there was nobody else in this cabin, so it must have been Nick himself, blacked-out drunk, who had tried to chop down the door with an ax.

  It was so strange and shocking that he closed the door immediately, walked back to the bathroom, and vomited up the three bites of oatmeal he’d eaten, then went to the kitchen and ate some jerky, which he managed to keep down with the help of a beer. He slowly let the idea come into his head that he must be crazier than he thought, that he had taken the ax down from above the fireplace and taken it to the front porch, maybe to chop wood, maybe just to do his impression of Jack Nicholson, just to shout, Here’s Johnny!, but either way it was legitimately suicidal, he could have chopped off his leg, he could have bled to death, and it’s not even like Lindsey would be the one to find him dead, no one would find him up here, not for months.

  He grabbed a second beer and tucked the pint of whiskey into his jacket pocket, then went out the side door, through a mudroom stacked with old tools and flattened cardboard boxes, and it was a little warmer outside, the late fall sun gently baking the meadow, and he made a point to enjoy it as he walked around to the porch and stood looking at the ax, sunk directly in the middle of the NO TRESPASSING sign, cleaving the N and the O.

  He took a step back and tried to think about this thing rationally, because this situation was definitely a first, he had never before done something so legitimately suicidal as swing an ax hard enough to embed it three inches deep in a solid wooden door while blacked-out drunk. This made him think about finally getting around to attending Alcoholics Anonymous, which was not something he felt he could do with a straight face, but it would at least give him a venue to tell this story. They would all say, Hi, Nick!, and then he would say, Well, I woke up, my first morning on a bender I had planned for myself, alone in the woods. I had borrowed my mom’s car (you know what I mean by “borrowed,” he would say, and the crowd would laugh supportively). I’d gone to the woods to drink so much that I wouldn’t want to drink ever again. Yes, even I knew that was stupid, even at the time, he would say, and all of the other alcoholics would laugh and be impressed that Nick was so honest.

  But the truth was that he was still far away from any kind of twelve-step program. It was his understanding that most people had to hit rock bottom before they signed up for AA, and he maybe wasn’t in the greatest shape but he wasn’t at rock bottom yet, he was still on his way down. Ha ha, he thought, yes! He was on a twelve-step program. He was on the twelve steps down. Equal and opposite to the other twelve steps. When you thought about it that way, everything he did was on his way to redemption.

  He finished the beer, then felt in his jacket pocket and found the packet of cigarettes. He opened it and was delighted to find the single cigarette still inside. What a pleasure, a reward in his future. He was so happy he almost lit it, then was proud when he again decided to wait. This pride gave him the returning urge to smoke, which was harder to resist the second time. Anxiety crept up along his neck, and he looked up and saw again the ax embedded in the door, and he thought how dumb it was, it was just a stupid ax, and here he was feeling all afraid of it and letting it ruin his morning. He crumpled up the beer can in his fist and threw it, missing the ax handle by a mile, but it still made him feel a little better, he was the boss around here.

  He walked over and grabbed the handle with both hands and pulled, but it was wedged in so deeply that he couldn’t get it out, which freaked him out all over again. He let go and closed his eyes and tried to think about this rationally, because he needed to chop wood, he would freeze to death in this cabin without wood. He couldn’t get the ax out of the door, but he didn’t really want to touch it again anyway. He took a sip of whiskey. It was weird that it was wedged so deep. He didn’t know his own strength. Maybe he should leave. Yes, he should definitely leave. He would sober up a bit and then pack up and go.

  But maybe there was a smaller ax in the cabin. Like a hatchet that he could use. This house was full of old tools, right? There had to be something. He could even go out and just hack some thin branches off of some trees in the woods nearby. He didn’t have to split those whole big logs. He just needed a little fire.

  He went inside and decided not to have another beer just yet, in case he decided to leave. He wasn’t sure yet. Either way he would chop wood, though, he should at least replace what he had taken. So he went back to the mudroom and found a plastic case of tools tucked under a bucket, with a hammer, some screwdrivers, and an inexplicably short length of rope. Under the rope he found a soft pair of leather work gloves. He checked for spiders and pulled them on. He opened and closed his hands a few times, flexed his fingers. He felt like a complete and total badass in these gloves. He felt that he could go out with these gloves and just grab the logs he needed from the woods. He could rip the trees up by their roots. Who needs a hatchet when you have leather hands like these.

  Then he looked around and saw the power saw. Oh, he thought. Well, that’s an idea.

  He remembered Lindsey had put the saw out here when they had found it on the stack of towels in the bathroom. Seemed like nobody had touched it since. He imagined holding the saw was like holding her hand, or the ghost of her hand. He took off his glove, held the saw handle tenderly.

  He carried the saw first into the kitchen to plug it in and make sure it worked. It worked with a metallic sheer roar. He went back to the case of tools and found an extension cord. He fed it from the outlet in the kitchen, through the mudroom door, and out and around to the far side of the house where there was a pile of thick logs and a stump set up for chopping. He grabbed another beer and carried the saw out, plugged it in, tested it again. Then he set a log up on the stump.

  He cut the first round like butter. It practically fell into four neat, fire-size pieces. He shouted with the thrill of it. He held the saw over his head and swung it up and down like the guy in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. He grabbed another log, cut it, and stacked the six total pieces of firewood beside the stump and put his foot on them and said, Yeah bitch! He dropped the saw on the ground and sat on the stump to rest. He finished the beer. The day around him was bright and sunny, and he watched a hawk swoop above the meadow, long and lazy flight patterns. And just think, an hour ago he had been planning to leave.

  He carried all six of the logs inside and fed them into the woodstove. When it was roaring, he stood and watched it roar, warming his hands, and he got a little bit of whiskey to speed up the warmth. He took off his jacket as the room warmed up. He wished he had built a fire for Lindsey when she was here. It would have been romantic, a nice thing to remember. But that had been in the summer. Too hot. They had taken cold showers and slept naked on top of the sheets. They had taken a walk on the second day and come back soaked in sweat. They had fought more than once that weekend, and he remembered it had been because of the heat.

  A walk would be nice, he thought. Now that it was bright outside. The fire was really going now, and the woodstove looked secure, he could take a walk now and warm his blood. He could take a long walk, and then get back in the late afternoon, cut up a little more wood for the evening, and then start drinking seriously around three thirty or four.

  He put his jacket back on and patted his pockets, encouraged by the firm, friendly hand of the whiskey. He left through the side door and made a point not to glance back at the ax. He set off across the field toward the woods. He felt the sun on his face, felt his legs move. Already he was thinking about how nice it would be to go for a walk again tomorrow and the next day. His daily walk. By his third day he would know the woods like the back of his hand. By his third day he would have perfected his drunk. The bender would be in proper swing. There would be nothing to do but ride it out. That’s when he would let himself have the cigarette, on his walk on Sunday, at the peak of his trip. It would be the best day of his life. He would see himself clearly. After that it would be easy, he would drink everything and sleep soundly through the
night and wake up Monday morning and not have even one drink. He would be fresh as he drove back to his mother’s, he would return her car with no booze on his breath. She would be pleased to see him. She would not ask about why he had disappeared with her car while she was at work.

  He sipped whiskey and the walk was pleasant. He drifted downhill. He thought only vaguely about the return, the climb back up. It would be exhilarating, he reasoned. Soon he would be finished with this whole thing. He followed the road for a while. He came out of the meadow. He walked through the woods. Next to a small fir tree he saw a narrow path. It was one person wide. Probably a hiking trail. It was lined with pine needles and dappled light.

  He followed it into the woods. Why not? If it took him too far in the wrong direction, he could always double back. That was life. Sometimes you had to double back. But usually it was better to press forward. You had to go all the way around to come back. Like this hike, his drinking. For too long he had been doubling back. This weekend he was going to go all the way down the hill. To rock bottom. Then he’d be ready to go all the way back up. He was on those twelve steps down.

  He decided to list the steps. Then he would know how far along he was. This was the goal of the weekend, after all. To face himself. To take stock of his faults. And wasn’t this one of the steps? A weekend bender. Maybe not the first time he had lost three days to alcohol, but the first time he had planned ahead for it. With no remorse. He decided that was step eight. And then step seven was probably when he lost his license last month for that DUI.

  He hopped onto a log that had fallen across the path. He stood on the rotting bark and felt triumph. He was on his way to rock bottom. This weekend was one of the necessary steps! He was really committed. And just two or three hours ago he had been planning to leave! He was proud of himself, again, for his commitment.