I wonder if Smokey is a liar. Maybe he doesn’t want to share. Why should he?
“What about a good hike, pretty, not too far, not so many people?” I ask.
“McCord Creek, Elowah,” says Smokey. Then he says, “You know the question I get asked most often? ‘Where’s the water come from?’ That’s what people want to know,” Smokey waves paw at the cliff on the far side of the interstate. “‘Where’s the water come from?’” growls Smokey. “This stupid suit itches . . .”
“Got milt?” No, that isn’t right. “Got milk?” says the winking cow on the back of the shiny tanker truck. No wonder she is so goddamn happy. She isn’t a salmon. They don’t kill her to steal what she’s got. They just take her baby and the food she had to give it. She doesn’t miss her calf. She would only miss her calf if her teats swelled up and hurt. They take care of that. They take the milk and haul it away and pasteurize it, which has nothing to do with a pasture full of grass. The cow is a machine to make milk. She doesn’t need dirt or grass or sunshine to make milk. But people need milk to make ice cream.
This is an easy trail—or it would be for Polly-That-Was and that kid Odd-With-Two-Legs, but they aren’t here. It’s a challenge for couch muscles, and couch muscles is what I’ve got. I can do it, but if I didn’t have a real good reason, like a waterfall, I wouldn’t go another step. I like green. I like ferns. I like the rotten cinnamon smell of the wet tree bark. But I’ve already got that. I had that at the edge of the parking lot.
I can hear kids’ voices behind us. It’s a happy family unit of parents, a little girl with cloth butterfly-fairy wings, and an even tinier person who will probably get lifted up and into a back carrier pretty soon. This is the kind of trail a toddler can own, and it’s killing me.
While the family passes us by I’m careful to keep the bad side of my face turned away. I let Odd do the smiling and nodding and howdy. I can hide behind him and let him make eye contact to prove we are good people, decent people, just like them.
The decent family is on the way back down the trail. They’ve been to the waterfall—or given up and turned back early.
“The waterfall’s great!” says the decent dad.
“Totally worth it,” says the decent mom.
“Piedoo!” says the butterfly-fairy, pointing at the dirt.
“Yes!” says the decent dad, “A spider! That’s great! He lives here in the woods. This is his home.” He hunkers down by his butterfly-fairy child to look at the wonderful spider that lives in the woods.
Behind me, I can hear them singing, “Itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout, down came the rain, and washed the spider out . . .”
If I couldn’t see the creek and hear the waterfall, this is where I would stop.
We are close to an ancient volcano, the black rock here is pure, hexagonal pillars bending under the weight of miles of sky, and, where the black rock breaks, the water falls and bursts into spray. When the spray touches me, I’m not tired anymore. The mist collects on me into droplets and diamonds.
The waterfall is totally worth it. I leave the trail and pick my way closer to the bottom of the cliff. I can feel the force of the water moving through the rocks and up my legs. It is like breathing thunder.
Then I hear Odd, a barking yell. He should have stayed on the trail, but he didn’t. He’s on his hands and knees in the water and the rocks. His lips are flat and tight. His whole lower face has gone dead white. I’ve seen that before. I’ve seen that at the Kid-O-Korral when some bitch mom dropped her little guy off for Mom’s Night Out and I discovered his arm was bruised, broken, when I took off his coat. I’ve seen it on my dad’s face when he couldn’t fix a horse that had been chained to a bumper and dragged for miles on asphalt. That is the face of a guy who is not going to cry even though there is damn good reason to do it.
“Come on.” I get my feet planted securely and offer him a hand up. For a second he isn’t going to take it. But then the fight goes out of him, his shoulders sag, he reaches out. It’s not easy getting him over the slick black jags of rock. They are everywhere, like the teeth under a trout’s tongue.
When we get to the trail, the battle should be over. The trail is wide and flat, not all that slippery most places.
“Can you put weight on it?”
He can’t. It buckles and rolls out from under him. He says, “It’s weird. It hurts. I can feel it, but it’s like it’s not there.”
“Let me take a look at it.” I prop him up, and we take a few awkward steps closer to the wooden bridge over the stream. Odd leans and steadies himself against the handrail.
It’s hard to see through the rip in his jeans. He’s definitely cut somewhere, although exactly where or how bad is a mystery kept by mud and blood and wet shadows. It probably looks worse than it is. That’s what I tell the little kids when they scrape a knee or an elbow . . . looks worse than it is . . . really . . . it’s going to be all healed up by tomorrow morning . . . your own body’s going to make it better . . . how cool is that?
But this isn’t the Kid-O-Korral. I don’t have Band-Aids spotted with dinosaurs and puppies, even though choosing is part of the ritual that makes it all better. And I can’t say the magic words, either. Your own body’s going to make it better. I can’t say that because the two of us, we know that’s not always true.
Trails usually seem shorter when you are coming out than when you are hiking in. It doesn’t matter if it’s uphill or downhill, the time just moves faster. Usually that’s true, but it isn’t going to be like that this time. The trail to the parking lot gets longer with every awkward step. We aren’t talking. I don’t have the breath for it. Odd needs to keep his jaw clamped tight on the pain.
We are making progress. I’m counting the steps and pausing every hundred, sometimes less. If there is a good tree that Odd can lean against, that’s a reason to stop. If we make it to the top of a slope, that’s a reason to stop. If I feel Odd’s muscles jerk to try to get away from the pain, that’s a reason to stop, but I have to ignore that because we need to move sometime.
I could never walk side by side with Bridger. We were always out of sync. I always felt off balance, like I couldn’t find my center of gravity. Other couples could do it. Other couples were well-oiled machines that could move together through the crowded halls between classes and then divide with a kiss. Other couples could float along together through the lights and music at the carnival like they were riding in the same bucket on a Ferris wheel. Or maybe that whole couple thing just looks simpler from the outside. Maybe those other girls were getting pulled around, too. Maybe it’s never easy to have someone steer you around with a thumb through a belt loop and their fingers in your pocket. Maybe I’m making Odd’s difficulties worse because I’m setting the pace and I’m the one with a death grip on his belt. Maybe, but if I don’t do it, he isn’t going anywhere. And if he isn’t going anywhere, then his story stops moving down the trail. And I think then, when that happens, he’s good as dead.
It’s raining. Odd is shivering. I am not. Not yet. But I’m getting damn tired. This worse than steering a drunk. If Odd were drunk I’d worry less about him falling down. He is growing heavier and heavier. He’s too much for me to carry, but that won’t matter if I have to do it. We are both drenched by the time we hit the last little switchback in the trail.
The other cars are gone from the parking lot, but D’Elegance is waiting for us.
“Can you stand?” I ask. I don’t get any real answer, but when I move his arm from my shoulder to the hood of the car, Odd props himself up. I don’t know how long that’s going to last. I steady him while I reach into his pocket for the keys. The wet denim of his jeans, the angle of my reach, my fingers have to fight their way into his right front pocket. There’s nothing in there but a gaping hole at the bottom. I imagine the keys . . . squished into the mud on the trail someplace . . . shiny and invisible as water in the creek . . . in the other pocket . . . please, please. My fingers are cold and stiff,
but the keys are there. I fish them out, hooked on my little finger.
The door to the plush interior of the car is wide open. I want to just push Odd in that direction and be done. My body is really ready to be done. I’m starting to feel the cold myself. The sound of drumming rain drowns out the sound of traffic on the interstate. The rain soaking my head is stealing the heat from my body. If we stay wet, the energy is going to bleed out of us. I’d feel dumb as hell if I let myself die of hypothermia in a parking lot.
“C’mon, Odd. Let’s get you warm. OK?” I pull his wet T-shirt off him. He’s gone all pale and blue and shaky. Then I unbutton his fly and start fighting the wet jeans down his legs. When I get them down around his ankles, I look up, right into the most vulnerable thing on the planet. Poor, pale, wet worm. Poor Odd. “Sit down in the car now, Odd. I need to get your boots and socks off. Here, let me look at that knee.”
The cut isn’t wide, but it might be deep. It’s right under his kneecap. One of those sharp black points of rock got pushed up under there when he fell. Someplace else it might have just left a bruise, but in that place it caught somehow and broke the meat open. The nerves there, the tendons, who knows? Red-stained rain is following gravity in little rivers all the way to his ankle.
I’ve seen what I can see. I untie his boot and pull it off. I fumble around until his stump is free from his robot leg. I take off the robot leg so his stump won’t be left sitting in the cold, wet socket. I nudge Odd’s legs around until he’s completely in the car. I shut the door. Then I just want a minute, but I can’t have it.
Daylight doesn’t last forever, not even in the summer, and it’s starting to bleed away. With every minute the air is getting murkier and the world is getting flatter as the shadows dissolve. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Herman the Sturgeon glide by outside the car in the remaining green light. It’s that wet.
I open the trunk and grab the sleeping bags. Then I climb in and get Odd as covered up as I can. Odd does nothing to help.
We’ve got two choices: stay here in the Elowah parking lot or get back on the interstate and head to a place with food—maybe even a twenty-four-hour clinic if Odd doesn’t perk up. How, exactly, is sitting in the parking lot doing nothing going to make things better? It’s mostly open road, I figure, so I jack the seat into place and turn the key.
All I have to do is get to the on ramp and merge. I can merge. I can see what’s coming. They’ll have the lights on. And I can wait as long as I need to—I can wait until there are no lights. Then I just stay in the right lane until I get to a place that has what Odd needs, whatever that turns out to be. There isn’t much traffic. It isn’t super busy. But shit, the semis. They blow by me so hard the wake nearly pushes me off the road.
The rain comes down harder. The crappy blades can’t push it off the windshield fast enough. The car wants to hydroplane. The tires are probably bald. Everything is original except the oil and gas. Thank you very much Gramma Dot, you sentimental lamebrain. If we die here, it’s your fault, Gramma Dot—and you won’t ever know. Or if you do know, you’ll forget it, Gramma Dot, lucky you.
Troutdale is the first place that looks like it will work. Or at least the first place with more than one exit so I don’t miss it by the time I should have turned.
Welcome to Troutdale, where all I have to do is drive around until I come to a place that sells Neosporin or Betadine and Tylenol—and maybe cough syrup if I can get the kind that puts me to sleep. And there’s a fast-food place open in the same mall. And parking isn’t a problem because I pull into the wide-open spaces in the back forty, where nobody in their right mind would park on a rainy night. Lines shmines. Straight schmaigt. I kind of coast forward until I bump up onto the concrete median and it’s good enough.
I turn to Odd. He looks pale in the watery light coming through the windshield. “You OK?”
“Not great.”
“I’m going to get some stuff. You want to get dressed and come with—or you want to wait here?”
“I’ll wait.”
“I’ll be back fast. You want me to leave the heater on? The radio?”
He doesn’t answer, so I guess not. I leave the keys if he changes his mind.
“Look. Drink some of this. It’s decaf. They didn’t have tea, but I put a lot of milk in it so it should be cool enough to drink right now. And take these,” I shake out two nighttime pain tablets into my hand. He doesn’t reach for them, but when I put my hand by his mouth he opens up and I tip them in. He lifts the coffee up and drinks by himself, though.
“I got you a burger and an apple pie if you want to eat.”
“Maybe later.”
“You want me to look at that cut? Make sure it’s clean and dry? I got some stuff to prevent infection.”
“Maybe later. The cut doesn’t hurt. But my robot leg is on fire.”
His robot leg isn’t even connected.
“Those pills were for pain,” I say. “They’ll help.”
“Not like the good stuff they used to put in the IV. That shit worked fine. Is there any whiskey left?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Could you check in the trunk? It could take the edge off.”
“No. I won’t. You can’t mix Tylenol and alcohol. It will ruin your liver. Tylenol is dangerous that way. If you take too much it will kill you. Just because you can buy it everywhere doesn’t make it safe.”
“Really?” Odd picks up the Tylenol bottle from the dash and looks at it like it’s suddenly more important. I take it away from him.
“This is the p.m. kind. You’ll fall asleep pretty soon. The pain stops when you sleep, doesn’t it? Give it a half hour.”
“I could smoke a bowl.”
“Yeah. I guess. If you want.”
“I do. But it’s in the trunk.”
“That’s OK. I’m already wet.”
When I’m at the trunk I look at the Tylenol bottle in my hand. I shake out a couple for myself. They taste good, like vanilla tea. Then I dump the rest into the water that’s streaming through the parking lot. It will go down the drain and into the river, like all the birth control and antidepressants and antibiotics. It will be in the water and nothing good will come of it. But there’s no chance Odd will poison himself with it, either.
I find the ziplock with his pipe and prescription bottle in the Lucky Charms box. Whatever else he can do with this bud, he can’t kill himself directly. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it is good medicine. But I’m so wet, cold, and tired I don’t have enough sense to get out of the rain. I should not operate a vehicle. I should not be practicing medicine without a license.
Odd is asleep. I will be soon. The rain is drumming on the car. The windows are fogging up. When we breathe, Odd and I, we breathe out water. The car is an aquarium at the bottom of the river. We are aquarium trout. Our fins are dissolving. Sad white lumps are growing over our mouths, over our eyes.
A shape moves by in the water outside of the windshield. Then it comes closer. The sturgeon’s barbels move like gentle fingers over the wet glass in a blessing. The glass is no barrier, it dissolves, pulled apart by water and gravity. I can feel the barbels on my cheek, caressing my scar.
“You are beautiful, Polly.” It’s Odd, his hand on my face. He’s half asleep. Probably delirious.
“Rest now, Odd. We both need to sleep.”
“Could you sing, Polly?”
“I’ll turn on the radio . . .”
“No, Polly, just go ahead and sing. I just need to hear your voice.”
So I sing. . .
“Come away, human child
To the water and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping
than you can understand.”
I stop. Odd doesn’t say anything. I listen to the rain and wait for sleep to come again. I wait, and I think about sturgeon. Their plan worked for millions of years, so they kept moving up the current into the future. Then th
e dams came and the future wasn’t where it used to be. The old plan doesn’t work anymore. I think about MRSA, too, the latest generation of something older than sturgeon. When the world changes, MRSA changes. It adapts. Try to kill it, and it reinvents itself. I wonder if maybe there is a sturgeon somewhere that is thrashing up a new channel to a new future. I wonder if, maybe, I can do that too.
“You OK? I got you some more coffee. High octane this time.”
Odd pulls his sleeping bag down from where it covered his face. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m alright.”
“How’s the knee?”
“Hurts a little. Stiff. But it feels like I own it,” he says and sits up to reach for the coffee. He looks good for somebody I thought was going to die.
“Do you have the address?”
“What address?”
“The address where that douche Bridger works. You know, the place we are going?”
“No,” I say, but I don’t say the rest of it, which that I’m not going to see Bridger. There is no point in trying to reach him. Bridger isn’t my future. My river doesn’t run in his direction. I’m over him. He is a douche. That’s for certain, but it doesn’t matter. He isn’t my problem. He can find someone else and become her problem. He probably already has. It doesn’t matter. I’m over it. I’m over him. I don’t need revenge. I don’t need to appear all scarred and stained with blood and chocolate pudding to yell at Bridger because he doesn’t love me. But Odd doesn’t know that. He’s still pretty excited about the whole thing going down. As far as he knows, that’s still The Plan.
I need to stall.
“I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”
“Yeah,” says Odd, “and we can figure out where we are going, too. We need a plan. There’s a place here somewhere that sells bacon doughnuts.”
Catch & Release Page 13