The Crossing

by Jason Mott

  “How long ago?”

  “When I was five.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I can still be sorry,” Connie said. The pain was washing over her again. “So, do you think they’ll find life on Europa?”

  My smile indicated it was a question I had wanted to be asked for many, many years. “I don’t know,” I said, sitting forward. “It’s the best chance. All of the preliminary data says conditions are right. There’s an ocean beneath the surface. And, as a general rule, where there’s water, there’s life.”

  “Bacteria?”

  “Probably certainly,” I answered, excitement filling me up all of a sudden. “But for it to really be meaningful to most people, we’ll need more than bacteria. There’ll need to be something bigger than that, something that, when you stick a camera into the water, swims up to the lens and dances in front of it.”

  Connie laughed. Then the medicine hit her like a tidal wave of relaxation, like a cloud moving through her veins.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “You’re a dreamer,” Connie replied. “And that’s not an insult.” Then, “Jesus, this is some good medicine.” She laughed.

  “I’m carrying a gun,” I said softly.

  “That’s nice,” Connie replied, blinking slowly.

  “And I hate my brother because he’s the only one of us who gets to forget how much he misses our parents.”

  “That’s very wonderful,” Connie said, the words slow and drowsy. She was already asleep before the sentence finished, leaving me alone with my confession.

  I wasn’t there when Connie woke up. Nor was I there when Nolan came back from taking care of the paperwork. I hope that their child came out healthy. I hope they were all happy together. I hope she and Nolan stopped being afraid. I hope the war and The Disease, which were unkind to so many, were kind to all of them.

  ELSEWHERE

  Justin watched and waited for as long as he could. He’d never been the type to worry and fret and overreact to things, and that’s what had made him such a good father and husband and manager of the small retail store where he worked. He was dependable. That’s what anyone who knew him was bound to say about him if asked to boil him down to a single word. Dependable.

  And being dependable meant that a person didn’t run off in a panic every time something seemed to be going wrong. No. Justin prided himself on an attitude that could hunker down and sit out the worst storm until it had passed over and the sunlight finally broke through the clouds and a person could stick their head out into the cool, wet air and know, in the pit of their stomach, that everything was going to be okay in the end.

  But this time things were different.

  For the first few years after The Disease appeared he didn’t think much of it. It was just another mysterious disease—just like all diseases were when they first started off. And just like every other disease that had come before it, eventually people would solve what caused it and how it spread and all those other things that always come to light with enough time and then everything would be okay. Maybe they wouldn’t cure it completely, but at the very least things would come under control.

  And when the war followed hot on the heels of The Disease a few years later, that too was something that he felt he could wait out and endure. Dependability was a simple way to be brave. Live your life, stick to your routine, and let the vicissitudes of life swim and swirl around you until calm came back.

  But then years passed and the war wasn’t over and The Disease was still spreading and the economy was slowing and people were being drafted and going off and not coming back and people were cashing in their life’s savings and buying guns and bullets and food and water and stockpiling things and traveling around the country behind parties just because they needed something to believe in and none of it was looking any better. Not even a little bit.

  It was when his daughter fell sick and he took her in to the doctor and found out that they didn’t have any antibiotics on hand...that’s when everything changed. She made it through her illness, thankfully. But that was the end of it. If he was going to be dependable, then he would worry less about being there for everyone else—including humanity as a whole—and more for the wife and two daughters he was trying to raise.

  So the next week he cashed in his life’s savings—which was a good thing because the banks were running low and it wasn’t long before there would be no money left and the bloodshed would begin—and when he had the money it only took him another week to find a boat big enough for him and his family to live on.

  He’d grown up in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Learned to swim before he could walk. The idea of hiding out on the water while the world fell down on its knees seemed like a good alternative to anything else that he could think of. It seemed like a good way to keep his family together.

  So they packed things up and drove down back to the Outer Banks that they knew so well and he put his family on the boat at the dock and tied it off and told them to give him a few more hours before he came onboard and they all set off. He had one more stop to make.

  He hadn’t seen his parents in nearly three years and even though he talked to them on the phone nearly once a week, he had never actually said the words to them until he stood at the end of his childhood driveway and they stood on the porch watching him with fear and sadness in their eyes:

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice raised enough to carry his words, but not so loud as to make them think he was yelling at them. He’d never, not even when he was a hardheaded teenager, yelled at his parents. “It’s just the way things are,” he said.

  “I know, son,” his father said. His voice was as warm and even as always. The man had been an electrician all of his life. An electrician and a fisherman when the budget called for it. Both careers had given him a hard, grizzled look and an overall sense of capability that, even now that he was in his midseventies, had not waned. “You need to do what’s right for your family.”

  A lump formed in Justin’s throat. “That’s all I’m trying to do,” he said. It was hard to breathe all of a sudden. Or, rather, it was hard to breathe without crying.

  “Don’t you worry about us,” his mother said. She was just as small and frail as always, but the sound of her voice calmed him now just as much as it did when he was a child. Once a child always a child, Justin thought.

  “I don’t want to do it,” Justin said. “But...it’s the girls. I’ve got the girls and I’ve got to make sure they’re okay.”

  “We know,” his father said.

  “It’s okay,” his mother said.

  He wanted to hug them, and all of its own accord, his foot took a step forward.

  “No, baby,” his mother said. Her eyes were puffy all of a sudden. And then she was crying. “Don’t come any closer.”

  “Listen to your mother,” Justin’s father said. “We wouldn’t forgive ourselves if we somehow gave whatever this disease is to you and then you took it back to those grandchildren of ours.”

  “But you don’t know that you’re infected,” Justin said.

  “But you don’t know that we’re not.”

  And that was the truth of it. A truth that Justin swallowed along with the lump in his throat. After a moment he nodded and said, “I’ll call. I promise I’ll call.”

  “Please do,” his mother said.

  “We’ll be here,” his father said.

  He stood there for a while longer, staring and waiting for the world to change, waiting for something to be different than the way it was. But that change never did come and the silence was only broken by the sound of his father saying: “Okay, son...go on now.”

  And what else could Justin do but listen to his father and leave?

  When he made it back to his family and the boat, his wife a
sked him where he had been—even though she knew perfectly well—and he didn’t answer. He only took his children in his arms and wept and kissed them and held them tight and did not speak as he pulled anchor and the boat pulled away from the dock, leaving behind home once and forever.

  TEN

  Tommy watched through the cell bars as Gannon walked in through the front door of the small police station.

  It had been only a few moments since Hodges had offered his speech on duty and responsibility as it applied to today’s youth. It had been a challenging speech for the man—full of words so big Hodges had to stop and lick his lips and sometimes nibble the word down to its smallest syllables in order for it to be spoken. He used the term “duty.” He used the word “privilege.” He tossed “God” in now and again, something Tommy tried not to notice. He believed in things enough for that. If Hodges had been a more handsome man or simply a man born with more money, he could have become an elected official. Maybe even president.

  But Hodges was here and he had caught Tommy at Maggie’s place and called Gannon and brought Tommy to the station and put him in a cell and looked over his paperwork and looked him up in the computer and given his speech on responsibility and now that Gannon had arrived, Hodges looked at Tommy with something akin to pity in his eyes.

  The two men greeted each other with mumbled hellos. Gannon hardly glanced in Tommy’s direction. He only followed Hodges into the office, with Hodges smiling and with his thumbs tucked into the loops of his belt like a caricature.

  They sat in the office with the door open for a while. Hodges sat back in his chair talking, looking over his desk like a king holding court. Gannon sat with his back straight and his eyes on Hodges. After a while Hodges reached onto his desk and picked up Tommy’s draft notice. He pointed at the letter and spoke and, once or twice, looked over at Tommy. Then his eyes went back to Gannon.

  The conversation ended and Hodges led Gannon out of his office to Tommy’s cell.

  “Here he is.”

  Gannon looked in through the bars at Tommy. “Told you I’d catch up,” he said.

  “You’re in a hell of a situation,” Hodges said to Tommy. He held up the draft notice. “A hell of a situation.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Gannon said.

  “Yeah,” Hodges replied sadly. “I suppose that’s only right.” Finally he reached into his waist and pulled out the cell keys and unlocked the door. The bars opened with a groan. “C’mon,” Hodges said. “You’re hereby evicted from my hotel.”

  Tommy continued sitting on his cot. “What if I don’t want to go?”

  “No choice,” Hodges said.

  “What if I don’t want to go with him?”

  “Still no choice,” Hodges answered. “But life ain’t never really ever been about choices. Did you choose to be here? Did you choose to look the way you look or think the way you think?” He licked his lips the way he did before when he talked about the war and about responsibility. He was ramping up to something. “And even when you make a choice, do you ever really make it? Isn’t everything a person chooses to do just the end result of everything they’ve already done?”

  “What?” Gannon asked.

  Hodges waved him off. “I’m making a point,” he said boldly. “This is my station and I’ll say what I damn well please.”

  Gannon lifted his hands, giving up.

  Hodges turned back to Tommy. His jaw clenched. He took a deep breath, held it, opened his mouth to speak...but nothing came out.

  “It’s okay,” Tommy said. “I know what you mean.”

  “Do you?” Hodges asked. “Do you really?”

  Tommy nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good,” Hodges said. There was solemnness in his voice. “Good.” He stepped away from the door. “Take care of yourself.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Hodges,” Tommy said.

  * * *

  The hotel was a small mom-and-pop affair just off the highway in the shadow of the Smokey Mountains. The couple who owned it was in their seventies and they bickered now and again—just like any other long-married couple—as they booked Tommy and Gannon in, but they were nice enough. They didn’t seem particularly concerned about the war or The Disease. They seemed to care only about talking to people. The old woman behind the counter asked Tommy what type of music he liked and went on and on about The Beatles as she showed them to their room. Gannon booked a single room with two beds and told Tommy, “You’re not going to run away.” He said it simple and plainly, and Tommy found it to be true.

  Though he couldn’t say why, Tommy realized that he had absolutely no plans to run away. He hadn’t forgotten about me, and he was worried about my being out there on my own, but now that Gannon had actually caught up to him, now that he was finally caught—something he knew that would happen eventually—there was a certain degree of freedom in it. He could stop worrying. The feeling of being chased had gone away.

  In short: he felt better.

  But it wouldn’t last. Even though his memory was full of holes, his heart was always able to fill in those places in his mind. His heart told him that he had to meet me the way we had talked about before leaving. His heart told him that he needed me and that I needed him. His heart told him that we were all each other had in this world.

  The old woman showed them to their room. “Not many people come through here anymore,” she said. Then: “Story of life, I suppose.”

  The motel was a long rectangle that looked as though it had come out of some movie in which people hid from the bad things they’d done. “Picked these out myself,” the old woman said when she opened the door. She pointed to one of the paintings on the far wall. “I used to paint when I was younger. Got pretty good at it too. Maybe I should take it up again, considering how much those things cost to buy. Could save a whole lot of money if I just painted them myself.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gannon said.

  “But then I’d have to do all of the work,” she said, chuckling.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gannon repeated. “It’s good to see some type of normalcy in this world. I didn’t know it existed anymore.”

  “What do you mean?” the woman asked.

  “Well, you know, with everything going on the way it is.”

  The woman clucked a laugh. “We don’t worry about the world,” she said. “It never makes it this far into the woods. No matter what happens out there, nothing ever changes in here.”

  “But aren’t you afraid that it might one day?” Tommy asked.

  The woman’s brow knotted like an old tree. Then it relaxed. “Everything always comes out okay,” she said. “It’s like that climate change stuff the people kept saying would come get us. Never did. Both world wars stalled out long before coming here. No, sir, this place is immune to the world.” She smiled a wide, proud smile. “So I bet you and your son are heading down to Florida like everybody else.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gannon replied. “And there’s my father out in the car. I’ll be bringing him in shortly.”

  “It’s a good time of year for it,” she said. “Weather’s a bit more sane down there. Too cold for me here these days. I don’t suppose you’re going down there for that big rocket launch, are you? And don’t you dare say ‘yes, ma’am’ again.”

  Looking at Gannon just now, really trying to take in who he was at this particular moment, all Tommy saw was a man who was hung up on something and never willing to let it go. Every day of his life the shadow of something hung over his head, haunted his footsteps, made him into someone he might not otherwise have been.

  And all Gannon had to do, Tommy knew, was let go of it. Release the past. Release the future. Give up them both and just try to exist. Tommy did it every single day of his life. Though it was easy for him. Just like I had my Memory Gospel, Tommy had his ability to forget anything.

  “Poi
nt of fact,” Gannon said to the old woman, “we are going down to Florida.”

  The old woman clapped her hands together in excitement. “Holy Moses! That’s just so exciting! I never thought I’d live to see something this important happen again in my lifetime. Seemed like for a long time there everybody forgot how to get excited about anything. After we went to the moon and found out it wasn’t made of cheese we just lost all of our desire.” She laughed then, a long, hard laugh.

  Tommy took off his backpack and slumped down on the bed. It smelled a little bit like mothballs and cheap air freshener. But it wasn’t totally unpleasing.

  “I tried to talk that husband of mine into going down there. Tried to explain to him why it was important. But talking to him is like talking to a mule.” The old woman stood in the doorway, lost in her own train of thought. Tommy guessed that she and her husband didn’t get many visitors.

  “That’s a shame,” Gannon said.

  “That’s exactly what I said to him,” the woman replied, her voice full of sudden pride and energy, as though God himself had validated something she had known since birth.

  “Well,” Gannon said, “I suppose we’ll just go ahead and get settled in now. It’s been a long day.”

  “Oh yes,” the woman said, embarrassed now, “I apologize for keeping you. I should let you sleep. I don’t know why I babble on the way I do.”

  “It’s okay,” Gannon said.

  The woman began to speak again, but then she stopped herself and looked even more embarrassed than she already was. “Okay,” she said, and then she left.

  “Not a bad place,” Gannon said once the woman was gone. Then he went out to the car and brought his father in while Tommy prepared a place on the bed for the sick man. Once Bill Gannon was situated, Gannon thanked Tommy and switched on the television and took a seat on his bed. “Not a bad place at all. What do you think, Pop?”

  Bill Gannon offered no reply.

  Tommy stretched out on his own bed, rolled over and turned to the wall. He wanted to let Gannon know that he was still holding a grudge on account of how he had taken him away from his sister. But at the same time, he was also just plain old tired.