“Next time you do it yourself.”
When Barney wasn’t looking Tick gave her some dates from his lunch. Barney wanted to search for caves. “There aren’t any here,” Benjie said. “They’re all way underground. Way down, in my dad’s city.” His dad told him everything, all his plans; used to anyway. Just one place Benjie couldn’t go, the most important, down to Terramac. The entrance to Terramac was on the far side of the land, too far to walk to. But sometimes when he was alone in bed or by himself he heard Terramac call, Come see me, come see me, Bennn, come see me …That scared and thrilled him.
Deirdre caught one small trout. They were back at the farmhouse by three, as promised. Her party started at four. She insisted on eating the trout. Her mother fried it and deboned it before the other kids came, two tiny filets. “Where’d you catch it?”
“In the pool by the waterfall.”
Priscilla nodded. “The rocks by the water are slippery.”
“My boulder isn’t. It’s beautiful.”
“You’ll be careful.”
“Sure.”
Deirdre came to be included in the gang. After Barney and Tick, the next nearest kids lived more than seven miles away, Benjie’s dad’s land was so big. Pastures, orchards, forests. His dad had torn out the walls of the old farmhouse there and built it over, straight and clean.
Benjie, Deirdre, Barney, and Tick explored and discovered. They fished at half a dozen spots in the stream. The dark pool below the waterfall was Dee’s favorite, thirty feet wide and very deep. They could shout and wouldn’t scare the fish because the falling water, a curtain of diamonds from the precipice thirty-five feet above, shattered into foam with a whirling roar. At the end of the pool the stream widened and got shallow where it flowed away over small rocks.
“Some of the water runs into the ground near here,” Benjie told Deirdre. “Barney’s uncle told him that.” Barney’s uncle was a plumber.
Benjie would see the underground Terramac soon, he told Deirdre, their dad had promised him. When it’s finished and beautiful. “Now it’s all caves and hollows,” he said, “but we’ll transform them, now they’re wet slimy stones. You wouldn’t like it.” Benjie heard in his dad’s voice two wonderful things. Terramac was the most important thing ever. And Terramac had called to his father, too.
“I bet there’s no water in those caves down there,” Deirdre said.
Benjie smirked. “Sure there is.”
Benjie knew the trout in the pool were growing, feeding on bugs and grubs that got washed down over the waterfall. They’d been stocked, little fellows, in the fall by a couple of Johnnie’s assistants for Benjie and his friends. Benjie didn’t know that his father was trying to keep the kids in one or two safe places. Or that touching a live fish made his father cringe.
In late May Barney and Tick went to France for three weeks with their parents. Nobody for Benjie to play with, just Deirdre. Benjie worked up a plan. “Daddy? Let’s go camping for a night, you and me.”
“Now? With all those blackflies?”
“We’ll use anti-bug goo. Please? Please?”
“Benjie—” But Benjie wore him down, and Johnnie agreed.
Benjie chose the place: by the pool. Planning details filled him with tingles of possibility. Enough propane for the little stove? Maybe cook only with wood. Get the big tent, or maybe just the pup tent but with insect netting. Maybe Terramac would call to him, right there. Maybe he’d hear it call to his father. Had it called to his father recently? His father seemed changed.
Camping in blackfly season? The worst. Gnats, mosquitoes, ticks crept across Johnnie’s eyeballs, under his skin, into his brain. But Benjie wanted this camping thing. Such intensity from the boy. Okay, Johnnie could do it. For one night.
Should they build twig mattresses or carry in inflatables? Eat only fish? Hamburgers too?
Two days before the trip a crisis hit. In a rifle shop in east-central Florida’s Mangrove Mall, built six years ago by Intraterra, a man was told he’d have to wait five days for his hunting rifle. He went berserk, killed the shop’s owner and two customers, was now in hiding somewhere in the mall’s maze of subterranean passageways. John Cochan knew those basements. He had to go, the police needed him. He came into Benjie’s room. “I’m sorry, it’s necessary.”
“But why?”
“It’s my job.” He didn’t tell Benjie about the crazy killer. “You can understand that.”
No, Benjie couldn’t. He held back a sob. “Sure, okay, yeah.”
Others knew the guts of that mall as well as John Cochan. He could have delegated the problem away. But it was better to go, he and Benjie would replan their camping for later. After the bugs were gone. Maybe by then Benjie would have given up on the idea.
His father left for his mall. Benjie told his mother he was going camping by himself.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Come on. I’ll be okay.”
“Your father will be angry.”
Benjie would risk his father’s anger. “He doesn’t like flies and things. He’d let me go.”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
How’d she know? “Of what?”
“Being all alone?”
“Course not.”
She stayed quiet for a few seconds, then asked, “Why don’t I come with you?”
No. He wanted his dad there. Or even by himself alone, there he might find out why his dad was different these days. Something had happened to his dad in Terramac. What? He loved his dad too much, please don’t let anything bad happen to him. “Okay. But not the girls.”
The girls stayed with Diana the nanny. Benjie and Priscilla unrolled their sleeping bags a few feet back from the pool. They put on more insect repellent. They made a fire. This was good but Benjie sensed something more, a distant excitement. They ate trail-mix, and cooked burgers. They slapped at blackflies and mosquitoes. Priscilla hugged Ben. “Goodnight.” They lay down in the tent behind the screening but with the fly open and heard rustles in the woods, tree branches swaying slowly, thin whines in the air. Benjie watched the embers go black. He heard his mother’s breathing slow into sleep. He listened to water splash in the pool and heard it flow down, it breathed at him, …nnn … nnn …ennn, like a little song. Go look? He didn’t want to. He had to. He found the flashlight. He pulled himself out of the sleeping bag. His mother rolled over. He froze. No, she hadn’t wakened. He crept up on the big boulder by the edge. He turned off the light…. ennn …ennn. He saw stars floating in the water, light broken by ripples. He stared down. Black. He heard the water’s breath, he felt something, down there, below the water. He flicked on his flash. A face! Quivering. His own face but not quite, his and part his father’s. Why there on the surface? He turned around fast, flashed his light up. Nothing. He looked again. A face far below. Out of Terramac? He shuddered. Go? He’d have to risk it; one day. He crept back to his sleeping bag. He stared at the sky, black as water. He slapped and scratched. At last he slept. They woke, packed up, returned home.
“So. Enjoy it?”
He made light of it: okay, just too many insects, his father was right.
Priscilla never told Johnnie that she and Benjie had gone camping overnight.
School ended. Benjie took to sleeping late, head under the sheet. Outside the house lay the strong draw of Terramac.
Before Terramac, Benjie would throw the ball and his dad would run for it, or in the house they’d play Go Fish and things like that. That didn’t happen any more. Or was he just a spoiled selfish kid, did he want to be down in Terramac really for himself, hear its stream from up close? He turned in bed, he listened for a whisper of song. Nothing. Too far away? He had to be there, down inside. But also he had to save his dad. Before Terramac— Before it sucked out from inside his dad the thing that made him his dad.
Deirdre teased Benjie for not getting out of bed, a lazy fweep. He snapped at her. “Fweep! Fweep!” she cried, giggling. He nearly jumped up to
hit her, but then held back. Without Tick and Barney, Benjie and she had to be each other’s best friend.
They marched together through the woods. The trees and rocks felt like something had—what? Changed too? He sensed an explanation. Just beyond his reach. He hated the change.
Deirdre loved fishing more than any other thing. She’d say, enjoying her mature joke, “The excitement of my first trout hooked me forever.” But it irritated him, her sitting alone on the big rock high above the water like she owned it. Below, foam flecked by on the black surface. “Aw come on, Dee, let’s at least try another place.”
“I like it here.”
“Pretty soon there won’t be any fish left.”
“Daddy’ll put more in.”
His father stayed in Florida for five days. He returned late in the evening but Benjie had permission to stay up. “I want to go into the Terramac caves.”
“Benjie, I’m tired.”
“I want to see it down there.”
“You should be asleep.”
“I really want to—to go down there. With you.”
“We’ve talked about this.” He took Benjie hard by the hand. “Way past bedtime.”
Benjie had to be dragged. He yelled, “No! Stop!” It hurt in his arm sockets. His father ignored him. “I could help you!”
Johnnie stopped. “Help?”
“Aren’t you—aren’t you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“A little bit afraid?”
Johnnie knelt to eye level with Benjie. “What are you talking about?”
“You know.”
“Benjie, you should be sleeping.”
“Of Terramac!”
“Terramac?”
“It’s taking you. Away.” There. Spoken.
Johnnie looked hard at Benjie. Something the boy had heard someone say? Priscilla? He drew Benjie to him and held him tight against his chest. He shook his head hard so the boy could feel the insistent negative movement. “Don’t worry, I’m here. Always.”
A lie. Less and less here. That his father spoke so easily was the proof he hadn’t wanted to hear. He’d guessed right.
John Cochan picked the boy up and carried him to the bed in the big safe room filled with games and toys. Where did Benjie get these notions? A couple of times recently Priscilla had complained to Johnnie he was away a lot. Had the boy overheard? Or had she said that to Benjie specially?
Benjie knew his dad wouldn’t let him go into Terramac because his dad wanted to protect Benjie from Terramac. He admired his dad, loved him for this. His dad hated flies and bugs and spiders, all those crawly things. Terramac’s caves were full of bugs. His dad went down into Terramac. Many times. Why? Because Terramac—Terramac had control over him?
In the morning Benjie refused breakfast. “I feel sick.”
He didn’t look sick. Priscilla said, “What’s the matter?”
“My head feels big. And puffy.”
She felt his forehead. A bit warm. “Shall I bring you to the doctor?”
“I’ll just stay in bed.”
“Let’s not take chances. Get dressed.”
Once last year at 2:00 AM, Benjie had had a headache so bad his mother took him to Emergency. Across the waiting room a teenage girl couldn’t stop dry-retching, down the hall an old man screamed about bedbugs crawling up his nose. Benjie’s headache went away.
At the breakfast table he drank his milk. His face went white, his stomach pounded, panicky tears filled his eyes.
Priscilla hugged him. “Benjie—”
He pulled back. “Don’t.”
Deirdre said, “You can hug me, Mummy.”
Priscilla stroked her shoulder. Benjie ran, made it to the toilet just in time. He cried half the morning. Priscilla took him to his pediatrician. Nothing obvious wrong. They’d do tests.
He stayed in bed. Barney and Tick came home from France and Deirdre went exploring with them. They told her about all they’d seen, and had souvenirs from Paris, a tiny Arch of Triumph for Benjie, an Eiffel Tower for Deirdre. They’d gone to the top of the real one, they saw everything. Deirdre couldn’t understand a lot but it didn’t matter, it sounded wonderful.
Later Benjie found them far downstream, around the curve with the high granite walls. A dangerous place, he thought. Hawkweed everywhere, and daisies. A thin flow of water here, moving fast. His repellent kept the blackflies off but they buzzed around his head. Above the watery rush he thought he could hear the roar of Terramac machines. “Hey, Dee!”
“Here comes the lazy fweep!” Barney laughed.
Benjie stayed cool. “What’re you doing.”
“Watching ants carry a dead bug,” Tick said.
“What’re you doing, Dee?”
“I’m watching ants too.”
“Well, come back. Mummy wants us.”
“What for?”
“She said to come.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, Deirdre.”
“O-kay!”
They all got up.
“You guys don’t have to come. My mother doesn’t want you.”
Tick stared at Benjie. “Our bikes are there.”
“Get ’em later.” Benjie grabbed Deirdre’s wrist. “Come on.”
“Hey, Benjie!” Barney shouted.
“What?”
“Fuck you!”
“Well, fuck you too!”
Deirdre followed Benjie, resisting his pull. When they were out of the brothers’ sightline he let go. “I’m going to tell you something, Dee.”
“What?”
“Don’t go with them if I’m not with you.”
“Why not?” She stood still.
His hand squeezed into a fist. “Because I said so!” He stepped closer, she pulled back. He spun around and marched toward the house. After a dozen steps, he turned. “Come on.” He watched her start, a step, another. He strode off. He turned. She’d stopped again. “Come on!”
“What does Mummy want anyway?”
“She’ll tell you.”
When they got back their mother and Melissa weren’t home. Deirdre went to her room, grabbed her stuffed koala bear and her worn lamb, lay on her bed, and cried into her animals.
His mother mustn’t think Dee crying was his fault. Comfort her? He didn’t.
•
Lola interrupted me. “I once had a stuffed snow tiger. All silver and white.”
Without thinking I said, “So did my son.”
She nodded, absently.
I glanced at her. Her eyes sent misty light my way. Stranger and stranger. Lola, remembering bits of her past. Something weird was happening here, as if Lola were evolving into a new kind of being.
•
A couple of days later, a gray morning, Benjie told Diana they were going fishing and took Deirdre to the boulder. He had to go now, he was leaving for camp next week. His dad was away again so this was the time. He left a note for his mother: We’re going to the stream. Afterward, when Priscilla read the note, she tore it up. Johnnie never saw it.
Benjie and Dee tramped through the high grass and the daisy fields to the brush, grown thick now. The vines grabbed at their ankles, last year’s blackberry brambles scraped their arms. They’d smeared enough repellent on so the swarming blackflies weren’t too bad. Where low branches cut across his way he broke them and left them dangling which made him feel good. When they reached the waterfall he took off his tennis shoes and socks and sat on the boulder. Deirdre said she wanted to fish from up there, it was her place. Benjie dangled his feet and stared at his toes and at the water below. It reflected the lead sky and trees on the far side. If he waded at the wide end where the pool emptied he could stand in water to his waist. Half of him above water, half below. The lower half near invisible in the tickling stream. Close to the waterfall was way deeper.
No wading today, today was for serious. He stepped back and jumped to the bank. Deirdre clambered onto the boulder. He walked away from her in bare
feet, and around, lower along the stream, lots of brush. After a couple of minutes he could hear the waterfall as a thin tickle. Slowly everything became clear. Find the way down, then bring his dad and they’d go there together.
With no path the scrambling was hard, branches blocked him, pointed stones stabbed his feet. He put his shoes back on. Away from the water he pushed downstream through bushes and stunted trees. The skin on his bare arms poured sweat, on his face too. Mosquitoes and blackflies swarmed. He got back to the stream at an open space below a curving run with high wet stone walls, daisies, some wild strawberry blooms, tall grass. Not much water coming down. The flies settled on him where sweat had washed the repellent off. Low to the ground he worked his way back, uphill through thick brush to the top of the run where the wet walls started. He broke out onto a muddy bank.
He’d never been here before. Wide, very shallow water. Then he saw why: the stream divided. In front of him, broad slow water. On the far side, a cut in the rock and an opening into the hill. Half the water disappeared over there. He took his shoes off again. He waded to the other side. A kind of cave, half the water flowed into it. He sat on a rocky ledge at the opening. The right side looked wider.
He followed the ledge, slow, a few feet. His eyes got used to the dark, lots of light from behind, dim shapes ahead. The water flowed in near silence. The ledge petered out at a curve in the flow. He stepped into the water, sometimes you have to take the risk. Plenty of light. The bottom was a bit slimy. He slipped, and sat, didn’t matter, his shorts were soaking anyway. Far ahead he heard a thin roar. On his hands and buttocks he inched his way forward. Suddenly a dip in the rock, like a slide at a playground. He grabbed out, much darker now, he slid slowly.
Stop! His own throat’s whisper, soft as blackfly murmur. Stop! Back out!
The water ran in silence, the rock slimy-smooth. No!
No! Echo of his dad’s voice, Grab out! The granite!
Benjie jerked his arm out, his fingers scratched at rock—
Graaaaaab!
In hard water he coasted across smooth flat slippery stone, nothing left for grabbing at, and the clutching surge of water slid him on.
“Daddy!”
Grab! Hold!
He rode the dark slide, on, nowhere to scramble. Spilling water brought him to the lip, over the lip, down, he rode the water down, all the while screaming, “Daddy! Daddy!! Daddy—”
Whatever Lola Wants Page 19