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NSummer

Page 8

by Never Summer (retail) (epub)


  Conyers was too angry to speak. They fashioned a crude splint for Jamie’s broken arm. After which, there was an accounting.

  “What in the hell is the matter with you, boy?” Conyers almost shouted at Watters. He had already fired Ferman and hated losing Jamie as well, because it turned out the boy was right. They found the kitchen money in one of Ferman’s pockets. It was hard losing two planters, but what was the alternative? Due to the broken arm Watters was useless anyway. Before the man left for the emergency room Conyers paid him what he owed him. “You’re done, Jamie. You won’t be planting any more trees this winter. Maybe next year. Good luck to you.”

  It was the last they saw of either man.

  Bill Nelson fared the worst. When he got back from the hospital his face was a swollen pulpy mess, covered with bloodstained bandages. The only upside was that he seemed in strangely good spirits, a fortunate thing because Bill was going to require a skilled plastic surgeon and months, maybe years, of professional care.

  How does a crew recover from such an incident? There was no way back. A feeling of gloom descended over camp.

  Next evening after dinner, Tom was deeply immersed in Kant as usual when he heard a light tapping on his window. It was Tallie, again.

  “Oh. Hey.”

  “Hi.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “OK.”

  “Just OK?”

  “Actually, things are not so great. I need your help, again. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not. You need a light?”

  “No, a ride.” She was leaving, she said, and needed a lift to the bus station in Cross City.

  “OK. Sure. When? Tomorrow?”

  “No. I have to leave tonight.” She had a backpack and some other belongings. He also noticed that she had been crying.

  “You mean right now? This minute?”

  “Look, if it’s a problem I...”

  “No. No problem. I don’t mind. Just ... wondering.”

  He slid a bookmark into Kant, dimmed the lantern, and made ready to go.

  They talked during the drive, their first actual conversation. The fight had powerfully affected her. Tallie blamed herself, especially for what had happened to Bill Nelson’s face. She was convinced she had brought the crew bad luck. The only solution was to leave. He disagreed and told her so.

  “It wasn’t your fault. Stuff happens. Come on. Some of these guys are crazy.”

  “That poor man will be scarred for life because of me.”

  “Tallie, you didn’t cause the fight. Don’t blame yourself.”

  “Tom, I was responsible for the kitchen money. I kept it in a coffee can and I should have put it away. But I left it out ... almost two hundred dollars.” Their eyes met. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  “Hell,” he said.

  Now she wept openly, unconsolably. He felt lost. He did not know what to say. He drove in silence. Dark country sped by.

  “What about your cousin, Alan?”

  She snuffled, “Alan’s not my cousin, he’s my half-brother. I never should have come down here with him. He thinks he owns me, and…”

  There was more to it, apparently. “And what?”

  She finally told him. “He started coming onto me. It’s why I can’t stay. I have to go tonight.”

  “And Linda?”

  “She understands.”

  He concentrated on the driving. The headlights seemed feeble in the surrounding darkness. “Where will you go? Back to Maine?”

  “There’s nothing for me there.”

  “Where then? Parents?”

  “I have a friend in California. She wants me to come out there and live with her.”

  “That’s a 3,000 mile trip.”

  “I have the fare.”

  But they missed the last bus out of Cross City, and had to spend the night at a motel. He offered to get her a private suite but she refused. She did not want to be alone. They took a room with twin beds.

  They were both tired. After saying “good night,” Tom turned out the light. He was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.

  FOURTEEN

  She awoke gasping for air and knew she was lost. Her skull was in a vise. A mountain of rocks had been piled upon her; and the incalculable mass was slowly crushing the breath out of her, grinding her to dust. The pressure was approaching the outer limits of pain.

  Now, the pain increased to another level. Someone inside her cranium was violently pounding with a sledge-hammer. The pounding throb merged into a continuous piercing knife that cut all of the way through her, even to the core of her being. There was no escape. She would have wept but the hot blade had already scorched the tears out of her.

  All of this was happening inside her head.

  It was extraordinary that in the midst of this waking horror she managed some clarity of thought, because a part of her somehow remained detached. The migraine was like a prism in this respect, a crystal lens that actually heightened her awareness. The pain was a portal through which she went out of herself into a kind of universal witness space that gave her a more clear perspective on her life. Strangely, it was in such moments that she knew herself best.

  In this zone there was no room for illusion. The pain was too intense for vain bullshit, too relentless for self-pity. In this respect, the migraine over which she had no control was a perfect metaphor for her own existence. In such moments she saw herself with keen dispassion. She had been running all of her life. She could scarcely recall a time when it had been otherwise. Running from school, from work, from every responsibility and obligation, from the past, from reality, from mature relationships, from herself. Her affairs were a continuing fiasco, little more than stolen kisses, snatched moments of pleasure. They always ended the same way. How many hearts had she broken because of her impulsive faithlessness and her lack of loyalty to anything or anyone? It was as if she lacked a center of gravity. How she loathed the person she had become.

  It was paradoxical that in such moments she also felt closest to the ones she truly loved, the family members who had died, and whom she had betrayed by living. She sensed their presence through the pain. During the migraines she relived the head-on collision with the semi, five years before. The car crash still haunted her. She had been in the back seat with her sister Deborah. How many times had she revisited the horrifying moment when the semi veered across the median strip? By rights, she should have died with them. The terrible impact had reduced her father’s Volvo to a crumpled mass of twisted steel; only pieces of dismembered bodies had been recovered. That she had come through it with only a bump on the head and some minor cuts and abrasions was one of the imponderables. She had lived, yes, but for what?

  Within weeks of the accident the migraines started.

  Five years later, she knew that the threshold between life and death was razor-thin; but the only answer she had ever found to the questions that mattered most was a cup of pain.

  Now, the migraine intensified, driving out her capacity for rational thought and self-reflection. She descended into unmitigated suffering and absolute despair. How she longed to lose consciousness, yes, even to die. She sensed the proximity of death and longed for it the way a man lost in a desert thirsts for one sip of water. She was no longer frightened. Death had lost its sting. The migraines had long since squeezed the fear out of her. Had she been physically able she would not have hesitated to do herself in, simply to put an end to the pain. It would have been so easy to slip over the final threshold. The peace of death would have brought such exquisite relief. But this too was denied her, for by the time she descended to this level, the pit of the migraine, the abyss, she was invariably too weak to lift her hand from the bed. She was physically incapable of the act of suicide.

  Mercifully, later, she never remembered her own suffering. Afterwards, when the veil of pain miraculously lifted, she quickly regained her usual zest for life. Nor did she recall the witness space. It was like a dream that van
ishes when one awakens. It had always been like that.

  But what’s this?

  Through the agony she sensed movement near the bed...

  Tom was shaving when he heard the moan. He came out of the bathroom with Barbasol on his face and was shocked at the sight of her. She looked so different, so pale. Her normally healthy color had drained from her face, along with most of her beauty. Her skin was tightly drawn over her cheekbones and had a wooden cast. Her breathing was shallow and irregular, her skin hot to the touch. She was flat on her back, almost unable to move. She seemed to have withdrawn into a wraith of herself.

  He asked how he might be of assistance. Did she need her pain medication? But she only groaned softly. She was unable to speak. He had no idea what to do.

  He opened the drapes to let in the morning light, thinking this might revive her. But she moaned the louder and tried to turn her head away. He realized the light was hurting her, making it worse. So, he closed the curtains tight and also turned out the light in the bathroom. After that, he kept the room as dark as possible.

  He was concerned that she might become dehydrated. So, he went out and minutes later returned with a bucket of ice. He sat on the bed and gently spooned small chips into her mouth. She sucked on the ice and seemed grateful to have it. He also fashioned an ice pack, using a towel from the bathroom. For a time she tolerated the ice on her forehead.

  He was horrified by the intensity of her suffering. The migraine seemed to him like a descent into hell. He wondered how she could stand it, how anyone could. Her face had taken on an ethereal ghost-like quality, as if she were barely present, as if the pain was driving her out of her body. Judging by her appearance, this level of suffering seemed beyond the limit of human endurance.

  He felt useless, so frustrated by his inability to help that for a time he paced back and forth, wondering what to do. Eventually, though, he realized there was nothing to be done but wait and keep watch over her. He positioned a chair outside the room by the door, where he sat reading Kant; or tried to, anyway. But he couldn’t concentrate. He thumbed the book, staring blankly at the page.

  His thoughts also wandered to the recent lesson in the field. Will Hatcher and the man from the Nature Conservancy had tossed a monkey-wrench into his obviously ham-fisted view of things. Treeplanting had suddenly lost its appeal, the qualities that made it feel worthwhile, and now seemed like an exercise in futility. He was in the throes of yet another rude awakening, another episode of disillusionment. He felt like a cog in a giant faceless machine that was spinning madly out of control. The gears were binding up, the tires coming off. Was everything loco? Had the whole world gone haywire?

  No, he could not read. Every so often he looked in to see how she was doing. The hours slowly passed.

  The migraine lasted fifty hours; two seemingly interminable days.

  Early on the third morning she came out of it. Her recovery was remarkably swift. After showering, the transformation back to her usual smiling self was complete. She laughed as she emerged from the bathroom, drying her hair with a towel. Incredibly, she appeared none the worse for her suffering and even made light of it. Her radiance and healthy color had returned.

  She was ravenously hungry, and no wonder. So, after she dressed they went out for breakfast. Tallie ate like a horse, then ordered a second meal which she ate with equal gusto and wiped her plate clean.

  They returned to the room a little after 9 a.m.. Her bus to New Orleans did not depart until 1:15 that afternoon. She hung the “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on the outside door knob, then closed the door and made certain it was locked. An impish light sparkled in her eyes. Before he could say a word she pushed him backwards onto the bed, climbed on top of him and tenderly anointed his nose, eyes, and lips with kisses.

  Slowly, she unbuttoned his shirt.

  Three hours later they rose and dressed without a word. He loaded her belongings into the truck and drove her to the station. They sat holding hands in the lobby while they waited in silence. Speech seemed almost a defilement of the emotional space they now shared. She waited until the last moment to board.

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  “I have to.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “I want you to stay.”

  “I can’t.”

  He kissed her. “Yes you can.” She put up no more resistance when he took her by the arm and led her to his truck. They returned to the motel. He paid for another night. This time, he undressed her.

  Afterwards, they showered together. Then, he took her out to eat at a decent Italian place. She was lovely in a simple sky-blue blouse and jeans. She wore no make up. Apparently she never did. With her looks she did not need makeup anyway. She had left her shoes in the truck. She said they made her uncomfortable. She preferred going barefoot. She said she felt more “in touch” this way. She liked to sit with her legs curled beneath her.

  He called her “twinkle toes” and “peek-a-boo”, which made her laugh. While they ate, the subject of her departure eventually arose. She said with finality, “I will leave tomorrow.”

  “OK.”

  “What will you tell them when you return?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll think of something.” After a moment he added, “I’ll tell them the truth. If they can’t handle it, to hell with them. That’s their problem.”

  They changed the subject.

  However, the next day the same thing happened. He took her to the station, but somehow they ended up back at the motel between the sheets.

  By the following day they gave up the pretense of going to the station. During the next few days the room was an oasis, a respite from every care. The good things in each of them burst forth, as when a many-colored flower garden appears in the desert after a rare torrential rain. They lived fully in the moment, affirming one another.

  However, early on the sixth morning they arrived at an impasse. It grew out of a common understanding. A deep bond was now forming, and both of them sensed that if she stayed one more night she would never leave. This was fine with Tom. He wanted her to stay. But she was stubborn, every bit as stubborn as he was. She said there were things that she could not explain and might never be able to tell him. She didn’t want to go there. So why start?

  “Things? What things?”

  She sighed.

  He noticed the strain around her eyes and coaxed her so persistently that eventually he dragged it out of her. Some of it, anyway.

  The migraines were only part of the problem, she told him. She was in pain most of the time, physical pain. She lived with it. She had been that way for five years, so long that she could not remember anything different, what living had been like before. She used a scale of one to five to describe the intensity of the moment. A “one” was a good day, a day free from pain. She had such days but they were the rare exception. A “four” approached the outer limits, though she reserved a “five” for the migraines. “Twos” and “threes” were the general rule.

  The doctors had no idea what was the matter with her. They had done every kind of diagnostic test. You name it she had tried it. They had palpated her and stuck and prodded and x-rayed her. She had endured numerous kinds of treatment, including exploratory surgery, even three years of psychotherapy to no avail. She had used various types of pain medication which did help for awhile, until she became addicted, and this she could not stand. She hated being an addict even worse than the pain. In the end she had voluntarily gone cold turkey; and was determined never to backslide. She was presently medication free and would stay that way.

  She had her own theory about it. She said she was “a freak.” She called herself “a marvel of medical science.” She was “a medical emergency waiting to happen.” She thought her brain was wired differently. She was too sensitive, she said. Her pain threshold was too low. Things that were normal to other people were painful to her, especially bright light and noise. This expl
ained the sunglasses.

  There was no cure. Anyway, she had never found one and some time back she had given up looking. She lived without hope. Something inside of her was broken, some deep part that could not be fixed. Simple as that.

  He felt the bite of her sarcasm. It seemed so out of character. She was like a wounded bird, innocent and accepting, deeply tragic, without a trace of guile or bitterness. She was blind to her own good qualities and her own beauty. He was astonished, under the circumstances, that she was able to maintain a positive outlook most of the time. Her resilience amazed him, yet, he was appalled by the toll.

  About noon on the sixth day they returned to the station. This time – he knew – she was really going to go. She had made up her mind to leave, and he respected her decision. He told her so. He would not stand in her way. All the same, she waited until the last second to board the bus.

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Tom,” she said, “what’s to become of me?” Then she stepped up into the Greyhound and passed out of his life.

  BOOK TWO

  FIFTEEN

  Jacques St Clair was enjoying his second cup of coffee, and took a deep breath of mountain air. Bracing! A spray of morning sunlight was filtering through the nearby conifers. Songbirds were singing their hearts out, and back in the forest a woodpecker was busily announcing his existence to the world, as he excavated a nest.

  Jacques loved the woods, and was especially pleased on this fine day. He had a feeling that fortune was about to smile upon him. Finally.

  The previous afternoon, he had finished moving his heavy equipment from Cameron Pass to the new job site at Bowen Gulch; and within a week or so, the woods would be dry enough to start what promised to be the most profitable timber sale of his career.

  Like other operators, Jacques preferred logging old growth. No bones about it. From the standpoint of value there was no comparison with second-growth timber. Old growth was like money in the bank. Large diameter, straight-grained, centuries old trees always brought a premium price at the mill. Top dollar. The timber sale volume was supposedly ten million board feet, which was extremely auspicious. Of course, this was on paper. Jacques knew from experience not to trust Forest Service estimates, which were often overblown.

 

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