by Jeremy Bates
“Mushrooms?” I said. “Magic mushrooms?”
“Just a little,” John Scott said breezily.
I’d heard you could legally purchase psychedelic mushrooms in mail-order shops and head shops across Japan as recently as a few years ago (as long as you promised not to eat them), but they were now illegal and impossible to find. So where had Ben gotten his from? And what was he thinking eating them in this forest at nighttime?
“How do you know he’s on mushrooms?” I asked.
John Scott shot a Marlboro from his pack and lit up. “I gave them to him.”
I frowned. “You did?”
“Sure.”
“Where did you get them from?”
“I found them.”
For a moment I imagined him finding a bag of mushrooms on the street. Then some brain cells kicked in. “You mean you picked them?”
“Yeah.”
“Here? In the forest?”
He exhaled smoke, nodded.
“What do you know about picking mushrooms?”
“We do it all the time off-base.”
“Did you take them too?”
“Sure.”
I was watching him closely. “And you’re fine?”
“Perfectly.”
“Anyone else take them?”
Neil, Tomo, and Mel all shook their heads in the negative.
“Nina?” I asked.
“Nah,” John Scott said.
I looked in the direction of the Israelis. Ben appeared to be rocking back and forth. Nina’s arm was around his shoulder.
“There’s always one guy who has a bad trip,” John Scott said indifferently. “Like I said, he just needs some space, some time to mellow out.”
“Like eight hours,” I said.
“I can’t control how other people are going to react.”
“Then don’t give out fucking mushrooms. What are you, a drug dealer?”
“Dude, chill out.”
I was getting angrier by the second. I was no saint when it came to experimenting a little with drugs, but the idea of John Scott handing out wild mushrooms in Aokigahara Jukai was beyond stupid.
“You still have some?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Anyone else want to do ’shrooms in this forest?”
Nobody replied.
“What happens if he has a serious reaction? How would we get him help?”
John Scott waved his hand. “Dude, you’re killing my buzz.”
“I don’t give a shit about your buzz! Doing mushrooms in a controlled environment is risky enough. But stuff you pick? And here in the middle of nowhere? He could go into a coma—”
“Don’t give me that shit—”
“It’s true!”
“Fuck off. I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Ethan—” Neil began.
“No, it’s irresponsible and it’s fucking stupid.”
“Ethan, John, stop it!” Mel shouted. “Just stop it.”
There was a long, tense silence.
Biting back my words, I shrugged my backpack off, dumped the wood I’d collected onto the ground, and began building the fire.
CHAPTER 12
I got a roaring blaze going with little trouble or help from anyone else. Neil opened his bottle of whiskey again, this time sharing it freely. He and Tomo and John Scott drank silently, passing the bottle back and forth. Mel attempted small talk, trying to lighten the mood. Tomo got drunk quickly and talked everyone except me into a game that involved naming actors who had won an Academy Award. This helped to alleviate the negative atmosphere that had settled over the camp. It was still far from cheerful, but it was no longer gloomy.
For someone on mushrooms John Scott was acting amazingly normal. He either didn’t eat as much as Ben, or he was one of those guys who could function well on drugs. He was playing the games Tomo kept coming up with and chatting to the others and ignoring me, which I was more than fine with. Nina and Ben remained off by themselves. Mel and I sat next to each other with our feet warming by the fire, our backs against a rock. The flames popped and jumped in front of us. I watched them in an almost hypnotic state, trying to block everyone else out. Every so often a tiny spark would zip away on its own into the night, then blink out of existence. I wondered if that’s what happened to Yumi and the comb-over guy and the others who decided to end themselves here.
Blink out of existence.
Because what was the alternative? Ghosts and spirits and an afterlife? I wish I could believe in all that stuff. It was comforting to think you’re part of something bigger than yourself, that life goes on in some form after your death. But I simply couldn’t convince myself of this. I’ve thought about death too much. I’ve lived with it for too long. I’ve come to know it too well.
It was the end, and telling yourself otherwise wasn’t going to change that fact.
My Guns ’N Roses ringtone snapped me out of my morbid reflection. I took my phone out of my pocket, thinking it was Derek again. I glanced at the display and swore to myself.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Neil said.
“I don’t feel like talking much now.”
“Maybe it’s Honda. He might be checking up on us.”
“It’s not Honda.”
The ringtone continued to play, Axl’s screechy voice seeming all the louder and insistent because of my refusal to acknowledge it.
“What the fuck?” Tomo said. “I answer.”
He reached for the phone, but I shooed him away.
Finally, an impossibly long time later, the goddamn thing shut up.
“Was it Derek?” Mel asked.
“No.”
“Who?”
“What does it matter?”
“Why are you getting defensive?”
“I’m not.”
“Maybe ex-girlfriend,” Tomo said.
“Well?” Mel said, looking at me expectantly.
I blinked at her. “Well what?”
“Was it an ex?”
“Come on.”
“What’s the big deal?”
“It was just an old friend.”
“Shelly?”
“No,” I said, and instantly regretted the lie.
Mel studied me.
I tried to ignore her.
“Let me see your phone,” she said.
“Are you kidding?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Have you gone mad?” I was doing the suitably outraged act, and probably coming across guilty as hell. “So I didn’t want to answer my phone. What is this?”
“Let me see the phone.”
I considered denying her request, but that would be as good as admitting it had been Shelly. I shrugged and handed the phone to her.
“Mac,” she said, reading the name in the call log. “Who’s Mac?”
I almost told her it was a guy I’d gone to school with, but there was something in her eyes. She knew. She was luring me into a trap.
“You know,” I said.
“Shelly MacDonald?”
I didn’t reply.
“Why didn’t you input ‘Shelly’ into your phonebook? Why ‘Mac?’”
What the hell was this interrogation about? “Because if you saw her name,” I said evenly, controlling my temper, “I knew you would flip out, like you’re doing now.”
“I’m not flipping out.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“Because you lied to me, Ethan.”
“Give me a break.”
“If you’d simply told me it was Shelly when I’d asked, that would have been that.”
I shook my head. “What’s this all about?”
“Really, Ethan? I have to tell you? Okay. Your ex-girlfriend calls—the second time in a month—someone you once told me wanted to marry you. You don’t answer the phone and lie about who it is. I think I deserve some answers.”
“What did you want me to do? Answer it here? What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Shell!
What’s up?’ You and I would be doing exactly what we’re doing as soon as I hung up, which is what I wanted to avoid.”
“I wouldn’t have gotten mad.”
That was a load of crock. Mel had been insanely jealous of Shelly ever since she’d found provocative photographs of Shelly on my computer. It had been on the day Mel and I celebrated our six-month anniversary. She’d been going through my photos, looking for a good one of us to print and make into a card, when she came across the pictures. I had completely forgotten I had them, and when Mel asked me to delete them, I did so gladly. But after that she would always bristle at not only any mention of Shelly but any mention of my college days in general, for it represented a world to which she had not belonged and knew little about.
Then, last month, Mel and I had been at dinner for my birthday when my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the unlisted number and answered it, thinking it might have been my parents. It turned out to be Shelly, calling me out of the blue. I hadn’t spoken to her for years, so I excused myself and was gone for ten minutes. I admitted to Mel who it was when I came back. Mel went into a mood, and the rest of the evening was ruined.
“Can we drop this?” I asked tiredly.
“No.”
“You think I’m having some trans-Pacific affair?”
“I want to know why she’s calling again.”
“How am I supposed to know? I didn’t answer.”
“Tell me the truth, Ethan!”
“She called me on my birthday. And she called me tonight. Twice. That’s it.”
“Has she messaged you?”
I glared at Mel. What did she know? Obviously more than she was letting on.
“Have you been going through my phone?”
“It buzzed last week,” she said. “You were in the shower getting ready for work. You were late because of Becky’s party the night before. I thought it might have been Mr. Kurosawa wanting to know where you were. So I checked to write back for you. Do you want me to tell you what I read?”
I knew what she would have read.
“You don’t understand,” I said simply.
“Yes, I think I do.”
“You don’t know anything!” I shook my head. “I can’t believe you went through my phone. Do you go through my emails too?”
“I told you why I checked it. And don’t try to turn this on me.”
Neil cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should go for a walk.”
“No, stay,” I said. “I’m going.”
I got up, grabbed a flashlight, and left.
No one tried to stop me.
CHAPTER 13
I didn’t bother following the string. I simply walked off in a random direction, my anger trumping my delusory fear of the forest. Ghosts and bears were the last thing on my mind right then. I was playing over everything that had just transpired and cursing myself for how I’d handled it. Eventually I found a large rock and sat down on it. I could see the campfire in the distance, a small orange glow.
Shelly.
Christ.
Although my parents’ farm was only a twenty minute drive from UW Madison, I had chosen to live in residence during my freshman year to gain the campus experience and to meet people. I joined Kap Sig the following year and lived in a small room on the third floor of the sprawling frat house. Nevertheless, the nonstop drinking and partying had left my grade point average in danger of going negative, so during the summer before my senior year I moved into a two-bedroom apartment with a non-frat friend.
On the day I’d met Shelly I’d been in the convenience store across the street from my building. Shelly entered not long after me, wearing dark sunglasses, a breezy summer dress that revealed ample cleavage and long legs, and two-inch-tall clogs. She passed behind me in a cloud of perfume. I watched her for a moment while she went to the freezer and contemplated ice cream.
Suddenly George, the store-owner, blurted, “Ethan, come here! Come quick!”
I joined him at the cash. A mother duck had entered through the store’s front door, which was always propped open in the summer months, followed by four golden chicks. They were zigzagging all over the place, seemingly with no purpose or care.
“They must be from the river,” George said excitedly. “Somehow they got lost and came here.”
I opened the bag of potato chips I had selected earlier and tossed a few chips on the floor. It was a feeding frenzy.
“Good idea, Ethan! Grab some bread too!”
George knew publicity when he saw it and called The Capital Times. A reporter and a photographer arrived ten minutes later and took pictures of the event. Shelly and I got talking and exchanged phone numbers. Later that evening we met for a drink. Two days after this we went to another bar. Over the weekend, dinner, and on the following Monday, a small festival in a park. Within a week of meeting her it became clear to me that we were dating. I didn’t know how I felt about this. Shelly was a lot of fun, but come the new semester in September I wasn’t sure I wanted to be the boyfriend of another sorority girl. I’d dated a few in the past and knew what it entailed: parties, cheese-and-wine soirées, parties, formal balls, parties, semi-formal balls, more parties. Basically everything I was trying to distance myself from.
Nevertheless, I became comfortable in the relationship, and after Gary died in December, Shelly was supportive and helped me through the next few months. We graduated, got jobs in Chicago, and moved in together. Everyone thought we were the perfect couple—everyone except for me. I felt trapped. Restless. I felt like I was playing at being somebody I wasn’t. The air kisses, the expensive fashion, the cocaine that went around as freely as grass did in college—none of this was me. I wasn’t ready for any of it. Then Shelly began talking about getting married. That’s what made up my mind. I had this image of working at the same company, socializing with the same people, doing the same silly stuff in ten years’ time—only then with kids—and I decided I needed to get away.
I had a few thousand dollars saved, enough for a decent holiday somewhere, but I wasn’t looking for a couple weeks in the Caribbean. I wanted a reboot. For whatever reason India had sounded like a good place to start. It was cheap and huge and I could easily lose myself there for a year. Problem was, I would need some kind of work, and the only jobs available for Westerners were call center managers, which I was neither interested in nor qualified for. I switched my focus to Asia and found that English teachers were in high demand.
It was the best move in retrospect, considering I never would have met Mel otherwise. After only a couple months in Japan, the pain of Gary’s death faded, I was in a much better place mentally, and with each passing day, with each passing year, my old life ceased to exist.
But, of course, the past always has a way of catching up with you.
To say I was surprised when Shelly called me on my birthday a couple weeks ago would be a gross understatement. We hadn’t communicated once since I’d left Chicago. So when she said, “Hey, Ethan! It’s me! How are you?” I had no idea who it was. I went along with the conversation until her voice clicked. She asked me how Japan was. The food, the culture. Had I met any Japanese girls? To that last question I answered no. I should have mentioned Mel. If I had, that would likely have been the first and last call I received from Shelly, and I wouldn’t be in the dilemma I was in tonight. Regardless, I didn’t. It hadn’t seemed like any of Shelly’s business.
I remained on the phone as long as I did because I kept expecting her to drop some sort of bomb. Like a friend had died. Or she was pregnant. But ten minutes later she said, “Good talking, Ethan! I have to run. Stay safe.” And just like that the surreal conversation was over.
A few days later she sent me an email, a rambling three or four paragraphs in which she explained she was thinking about me a lot lately, our time together, and some of the things we had done. She never came out and said she wanted to get back together, but the implication was there, which I found bizarre considering I was half a world
away. Did she think I was going to fly home—or she fly here? She ended with, “Missing you. Love, Shell.”
I cringed, because this was the message Mel would have read. What would she have thought? And why hadn’t she said anything to me before now? Had she given me the benefit of the doubt? Had she been waiting to see if I got another message? Obviously she had been keeping watch on me. Perhaps waiting to catch me in the act, just as she had done tonight…
With these thoughts in my head, I started back toward camp to sort things out.
CHAPTER 14
I was so focused on avoiding the trees and branches and holes in the dark I didn’t see the red glow of a cigarette ember until I was less than ten feet from it. The person was sitting at the base of a tree. I couldn’t make out any more than an inky silhouette, but who else smoked aside from John Scott? I was preparing to give him a wide berth when Nina said, “Ethan?”
I went over to her. She had her knees pulled up against her chest. And it wasn’t a cigarette in her hand. The smell was green and skunk-like.
“Hey,” I said.
She held the joint out for me without a word. I considered for all of one second before accepting. I hadn’t smoked pot for years; it was almost as hard to get in Japan as mushrooms. Nevertheless, I decided it was exactly what I needed right then to unwind.
I sat down across from Nina and took a long drag. She hadn’t mixed the marijuana with tobacco, for which I was grateful. I held the smoke in my lungs until a tickling in my throat told me a coughing fit was about to commence, then I exhaled, slowly, evenly.
“Where’s Ben?” I asked.
“He went to the tent to lie down.”
“How is he?” I passed the joint back.
“He is okay.”
“Is he still…?”
“Tripping out? It is his own fault. I told him not to eat too much. He is greedy.”
“You were there when they ate them?”
She nodded.
“Where did John Scott find them?”
“By a tree trunk. Ben, this happened before, you know.”