He thought that he wanted to make David more comfortable but then he remembered how Mr. Frederickson had said you should never move someone who’s unconscious or someone who’s been in an accident and David was both. Then he thought about how that rule probably only applies for regular circumstances where help is on the way and they can take over and do the right things. This wasn’t a normal circumstance he thought and he didn’t know when help might be coming and it was cold and he didn’t think it would be good to leave his brother lying in the snow with his face on a cold rock on a mountain. He wondered if he could get him back into the plane and make him comfortable there but decided this was a bad idea first of all because he would never be able to get him up and inside and second of all because he probably shouldn’t move him that much and third because their parents were still in there and he didn’t want to go back there himself or have his brother wake up to see them dead like that.
So John Parker made another plan and he rose but his right leg was dead because of the tourniquet so he limped over the boulders and scree and snow on the mountainside with his hand guiding him along the plane and his leg and arm and insides and head and neck hurting and he searched among the camping gear littered there for something to make his brother comfortable. Their duffels and packs were torn and their contents scattered but after looking for a while he found his father’s sleeping pad and David’s sleeping bag which was mostly still in its waterproof stuff sack and dry except for a spot near the foot. He gathered up some clothes that were still reasonably dry and went to where his brother was and sat.
I’m back, he said. Got some stuff to make you comfy while we wait.
John Parker released the valve on the sleeping pad and set it aside to let it inflate while he unpacked the sleeping bag from the stuff sack. This he tucked under the canoe where it was still dry because of the shelter it provided from the weather. He took up the sleeping pad and finished inflating it by mouth and closed the valve and laid it in among the rocks and snow beside his brother.
I’m gonna roll you over okay David?
David didn’t answer and then John Parker worked carefully to roll him over onto the pad. Working his way up and down his body and minding his head and his shoulder so that they didn’t move too quickly or strike anything. When John Parker had finished rolling him over David was on his back on the pad with his hips down in a gap in the rocks and snow which elevated his feet and John Parker thought that this was probably a good thing.
How’s that, he said.
He thought about working the sleeping bag over David’s body to get him inside but then thought that it would be too difficult and it might not be a good idea to move him around too much more in case he had bones broken somewhere unseen because he would probably have to move David around a fair amount to get the sleeping bag around his hips. Instead he unzipped the bag completely and laid it over him like a blanket and tucked it in. Then he took the clothes he had found and balled them under his head for a pillow and sat.
There, he said. Need anything else?
He laughed at this and closed his eyes and leaned back against the plane which felt warm against his back because the sun had now and then been shining through the clouds and had heated it. Then he looked at his brother and remembered how thirsty he had been in the plane and how he had forgotten about his thirst but now it was back.
I could make us some Dr. Pepper, he said.
He laughed at this as well and then he took and handful of snow and put it in his mouth and chewed it. He swallowed and took another handful of snow and put it in his mouth and thought about how Mr. Frederickson had warned them about eating snow and how it could give you hypothermia and make you freeze to death but he didn’t care. A third handful of snow he saved for David and he packed it into a ball and ran it over his brother’s lips which were dry and cracked. Then he held it against the goose egg on David’s head until it melted and ran down the side of his face and neck and John Parker smiled because David was still warm enough to melt snow.
He was tired from the effort of collecting the things to keep his brother warm and from rolling him over and covering him and from getting a drink and getting snow for his brother’s head. He looked at David.
I’m so tired, he said. I’m gonna rest a little bit.
He closed his eyes and thought about the things he had to do. Find the first aid kit. Look for a phone or a radio something to use to call for help. He opened his eyes.
Holy shit David, he said. I forgot about the pilot.
Again he thought about the crash and how the plane had probably hit the mountain and he wondered about what condition the pilot must be in. He didn’t know if he wanted to see that. Then he thought about his parents and what he had seen there and that he hadn’t seen their faces or even tried to. The shame of it. He should have looked at them and given them the proper respect and not be ashamed of them in their final hour and he thought to himself maybe I’ll still do it but deep down he knew he probably wouldn’t.
Rest now, he said.
He closed his eyes against a shaft of sunlight that was coming through a gap in the clouds. Coming from its nuclear core millions of miles away but like Mrs. Ballweg his science teacher said taking only eight minutes to make the journey. The scale of it.
***
John Parker dozed against the plane and in a dream his brother came to him but the events in the dream hadn’t really happened and David never really said the things he said in the dream. David was dressed in finery befitting a man of god and he was standing in the doorway of the cabin on Florence Lake looking out. John Parker sat watching and listening from the dock with his insides trembling and hot with anticipation of the good word. David spoke with a flourish and gestured as if addressing an enormous congregation even though John Parker looked around and saw that there was no one else there.
Honor thy mother and father, David said. Though honor themselves they may not and indeed may speak ill and lash out at each other in anger. Be thee not judgmental, for this is the providence of god. Only he can judge us our heart and our deeds and so with our parents it must be. Though a mother may punish her child for anger she bears for her husband, let not this passive aggressive bullshit lead thee astray of the path of righteousness. Likewise if a father lies in adultery with thy aunt Maria, curse not their sinful ways or their bastard child but pray for their salvation in his name’s sake. Praise be to god.
Praise god, John Parker said.
For these are weaknesses of the flesh, David said. And if thy soul is cleansed with forgiveness the kingdom of god will be thine for ever and ever. And if thou believe that thy mother and father will grow old together then thou art a nancy. Amen.
***
John Parker woke and the sun was high and the sky was clear and it had warmed but he was shivering and afraid from the gravity of his condition and from his dream. He looked at his brother and then checked for his heat and breathing and found they were still there and he was alive. The water from the snow he had pressed against David’s head was still on his face and he wiped it away with the sleeve of a shirt he had put under his head for a pillow.
I’m here, he said. I’m going to check the pilot and see if I can call for help.
He thought about what he had said and then he told David that the rescuers were still coming for them and this was just for extra insurance. Because they would know where the plane was supposed to be and when it didn’t arrive they would know where it was by GPS technology and come find them.
So he went to the cockpit of the plane and it was getting hard for him to move and he leaned heavily against the plane as he did and he watched where he placed his feet because he didn’t want to fall and not be able to get up again because where would that leave them?
In general agreement with his imagining of it the front of the plane had collapsed against the rocks like an accordion during the crash and the pilot was indeed dead and had been flattened such that John Parker could recognize
him as the pilot only by past reckoning. He felt sick to look at the pilot but he did and then he thought that whatever communication method there was in the cockpit would be crushed or fouled with blood and tissue or both and ill-suited for use. John Parker thought about looking at his parents through the mess of steel and plastic and fabric and foam pressed up behind the cockpit but then he thought he wouldn’t and he looked down at the floor.
There was a steel bottle with a plastic cap with a carabineer clipped through it sitting there and it was dented and covered with dried blood. It was of the kind Mr. Frederickson used to transport white gas which was the fuel for the troop’s camp stove but a lot of other people used them to contain water for drinking. John Parker remembered his thirst and he didn’t know where his own water bottle was or where any other one was so he picked up the pilot’s water bottle by the finger hole in the cap where there was none of the pilot’s blood and took it to the snow where the pontoon was. It felt half full and he plunged it into the snow and moved it around to clear away the blood and he had to do this several times to get it cleaned to his satisfaction.
He took some snow and went back to where his brother David was lying down on his father’s sleeping pad in the rocks and snow under his sleeping bag and ran it over his dried lips and pressed it against the bump on his head which was still big and purple and black. He wished he could give his brother some water from the snow or from the pilot’s water bottle but he didn’t think he should because David was unconscious and he might choke and so he sat against the plane.
The plane felt warm on his back and he looked down the mountain and saw the pattern of roads and manmade developments out near the horizon that indicated there was a town there. He wondered how far it was not because he thought he could walk there and get help but just because he wondered. The cap was jammed on the pilot’s bottle from the crash but John Parker was able to unscrew it by inserting a scrap of metal tubing from the plane through the hole in the handle for leverage and then by turning the cap with that.
He set the cap on a rock beside him and sniffed the contents of the bottle and then lowered the bottle to his lap and thought. It smelled of alcohol and he wondered if the bottle wasn’t meant for drinking at all but was intended for some purpose of the plane’s operation but then he smelled it again and he knew it was the smell of whiskey which was what his father mixed with water sometimes and drank. He thought about this.
He was drunk David, he said. The pilot was drunk and flew us into a mountain and killed our mother and father the son of a bitch.
John Parker started to cry and he screamed and cursed the pilot and he held the bottle out from his body and his hand was shaking and he looked at the bottle like it was a bomb going to explode. He set the bottle down and crawled across the rocks and snow to where the pilot had been killed by being smashed inside the cockpit.
You killed them you killed them, he screamed at the tissue and blood and bone that used to be the pilot. You fucking drunk asshole.
He rose to his knees and picked up a stone from the mountain and threw it into the cockpit and it bounced off the crumpled metal there and fell to the floor. He threw another stone and it struck the place where the pilot’s stomach had been but was now an empty cavity because the pilot’s viscera had come out and hung uncoiled to the floor and so the stone was swallowed by the cavity and disappeared.
Fuck you you drunk piece of shit, John Parker screamed.
He threw stones at the pilot and screamed and cursed him until his strength failed and he fell crumpled onto the flattened surface of the boulder he was on. He lay there crying and his leg and arm and insides and head were all in pain from the exertion of throwing stones and cursing the dead pilot. John Parker pressed against his stomach with his hand and sat up and turned his back to the pilot that had been drunk and killed his mother and father and made his brother unconscious when he crashed the plane. He ate some snow and then he crawled to his brother and rubbed snow over his dried lips and he let some of it melt and run into his brother’s mouth and then he pressed some more of it against his brother’s head which was still warm.
John Parker sat against the plane and groaned with the effort because his insides hurt more than his leg or his arm or his neck or his head. He looked at his brother thinking.
You’re lucky, he said. You get to sleep until they come.
He thought some more and then told his brother that he didn’t think that he would be able to get the first aid kit from the wreckage and that even if he could there probably wouldn’t be anything in it that would help much. He said he was sorry for using up his energy by throwing stones at the pilot and yelling at him and that when he got his strength back he would look for their phones but he couldn’t right now. He said the best thing to do now would probably be to stay calm and wait for the rescuers to come that would be able to fix what was wrong with them and then he said that they would surely be here before he could find their phones anyway.
John Parker closed his eyes and thought about the time his mother was yelling at his father for having sex with her sister and about how his father had been drunk during the fight and how he got so mad at his mother that he punched his fist through the plaster of the kitchen wall. He had broken some bones in his hand and the skin was torn away in spots but he didn’t seem to notice and just kept on yelling.
Why are they still married, he said to his brother who was lying on the mountain before him with a bump on his head and black and blue eyes.
He thought about this question and about what his brother would say if he wasn’t mute with unconsciousness and then figured he would say it was for them. So they wouldn’t come from a broken home and have to live on regulated schedules in shitty apartments. Then John Parker thought about what he would say in response to that which would probably be something like it would be better to come from a broken home than to come from a home where people scream and cry and fight with each other all night and punch holes in walls and have sex with people they’re not supposed to. He figured his brother would respond to this by saying that there was more to it than meets the eye and that it has to do with rumors and appearances and such and that they were probably going to wait until their kids were grown and out of the house before getting a divorce and that he should stop being a nancy and just suck it up because he only has to wait four more years. The thought of his brother saying that made John Parker angry with him and he wanted to say to him that none of this made any sense and that it was all stupid and nobody should have to live like that and that it sounded like he was giving up but he didn’t say any of this because his brother hadn’t actually said anything because he was unconscious.
He thought about all of this as he picked up the pilot’s bottle of whiskey and smelled it. He took a sip because it wasn’t the whiskey that was bad it was the pilot that was bad and he thought that maybe it could make his insides hurt less like it had made his father’s hand not hurt when he punched the wall. It tasted terrible and burned on the way down and it made him cough but after a time he took a bigger drink and then set the bottle down.
They’ll be here soon David, he said.
He looked at his leg and there was no blood coming from his wound anymore and he wondered what would happen if he took the tourniquet off because Mr. Frederickson had said that when you put tourniquets on you sometimes lose the part below them and he didn’t want to lose a part of his leg. Then he thought about how the wound was still open and deep and wet and that if he took off the pressure he would be in trouble so he tightened the tourniquet by one turn instead which hurt so he took another drink of whiskey.
He rolled up his sleeve and looked at his arm and felt sick from the appearance of it. This didn’t make much sense since he had seen the pilot’s body turned inside out and that should be a lot worse but he thought that maybe since he was looking at himself it was different. This made sense he thought and he took another drink. He touched the bone where it had been forced through the flesh
of his arm and thought about the novelty of that. Touching a part of your body that was never meant to be looked at let alone touched. He thought about that and laughed a little because it sounded like the time sister Helen told her Sunday school class at saint bernard’s about the sins of playing with yourself and how you could be blinded and grow hair on your palms and how you shouldn’t do it or even think about doing it unless you want to be cursed with eternal and burning damnation in hell. He laughed some more about that because he found the memory of it quite funny and when he touched the bone in his arm again he found that funny as well but when he thought about it he couldn’t figure why that would be funny but he didn’t care so he took another drink of whiskey to which he said blood of christ and then he set the bottle between his thighs and held it there laughing.
The sun was behind the plane in its arc over the world and John Parker was in the shade where he sat drinking and laughing and he thought that he should be cold but he wasn’t. What he was was tired and so he screwed the cap back onto the bottle with the scrap of tubing for leverage and then he put it in the rocks and rested his head against the plane and closed his eyes.
Getting late, he said. We better go David. We’ll be late for supper.
He laughed at that because there was nothing else he could think of to do. He opened his eyes and looked at his brother lying there under his sleeping bag on the side of a mountain and his head was spinning and he was dizzy but that was okay because it didn’t hurt anymore and neither did his arm or his leg and his insides only hurt a little and then he closed his eyes again.
Nighty night, he said. Then he fell asleep.
***
John Parker opened his eyes and it was dark and cold and his head and arm and leg hurt and his insides ached unbearably. He could see his brother lying there because the moon had risen in the night and was casting a glow on the green nylon fabric of his brother’s sleeping bag and his face was visible as well and it was outlined and discernible. His mother and father stood by his brother one on each end of him and John Parker could make out their features as well and they were unbroken and free of any marks of injury from the crash and they smiled at him. He knew that they were ghosts and he knew that they were going away and he knew that they were going to take his brother David with them and so John Parker screamed at them.
Ghosts of Florence Pass Page 2