The O. Henry Prize Stories 2005

by Laura Furman

  Our first camp was disappointing because we could hear Boy Scouts hooting and farting around, a troop of about sixty in green uniforms with red or yellow hankies around their necks. It was like the army, with pup tents everywhere. Mr. Cheetam said not to worry, higher up there wouldn’t be any Scouts.

  We found wood and lit a campfire and made dinner—beef Stroganoff— and I sopped up all the gravy with my fingers. We washed the pots and pans with pebbles and sand in the river. Mr. Cheetam drank whiskey from a silver flask, wiping his lips and saying, Aaahhh, this is living!

  The Boy Scouts sounded off with taps. Donny and I shared a smoke-wood stogie—a kind of gray stick you could smoke—and when it was quiet Mr. Cheetam cupped his hands around his mouth and moaned, Who stole my Golden Arm? Whooooo stoooole myyyy Goool-den Aaaarm? You could hear his voice echoing in the forest. Whoo stoooole my Gooolden Aaarm? You did! Mr. Cheetam shouted, grabbing Donny. We crawled into our tents and I started laughing and Donny got hysterical, too. Mr. Cheetam had a different tent and told us to shut up.

  Donny whispered how he hated the Japs and never wanted to be captured by them—they knew how to make you talk. I told him about the Inquisition and all the tortures they’d invented for getting confessions.

  They had this one thing called the press, I said. If you were accused of a crime and didn’t make a plea, the King ordered you to lie down. Then he piled rocks on you until you confessed the truth or got crushed.

  How big were the rocks? Donny asked.

  I don’t know.

  What if you had thirty—what if you had a hundred—no, wait, what if you had a thousand rocks on you and then you decided to tell the truth?

  You could, I said. But if you said you didn’t do anything, the King didn’t want to hear that, and he’d just go ahead with another rock, until you admitted you did do it.

  Donny hesitated, and I thought I understood.

  I know, I said. I know.

  At the next camp, only two people were around, a man and a woman, who were sitting naked on a rock in the river when we first arrived, but kept to themselves afterward. Donny and Mr. Cheetam fished for a while but quit after Donny's hook got caught in the trees too many times. Mr. Cheetam said, Don’t worry about it, Donny. It's no good down here. Higher up the water's colder and we’ll catch tons of rainbows, maybe some Dolly Varden.

  We ate a great meal of dehydrated chicken tetrazzini and pilot biscuits and chocolate for dessert. Donny and I shared more smokewood. Now and then we added sticks to the fire and the light breathed out and made a circle around us. I love getting away from it all, Mr. Cheetam said.

  He tipped back his flask and in the bright curved silver I could see the fire flaming up.

  Once upon a time, Mr. Cheetam said, there was a boy and girl who were very much in love.

  Where was this? Donny asked.

  Oh, Mr. Cheetam said, it doesn’t matter, does it? Love's the same everywhere you go, so let's just make up a place.

  How about the Eurekan Territory? I said.

  O.K., Mr. Cheetam said. The Eurekan Territory, that's where they were in love. It was a small place, and everybody knew everybody else, so eventually people figured out this boy and girl had a thing going. You know what a thing is, right?

  Donny said he did.

  Good for you, Mr. Cheetam said. Well, this thing was frowned on by everyone. People took different sides, against the boy, or against the girl, everybody blaming everybody else. But the boy and girl were madly in love and you can’t stop love, not when it's the real thing.

  He went to his pack and pulled out a big bottle and refilled his flask. When he came back he said, You know what that's like, to have a real thing?

  Donny said, Yeah, I know.

  I mean really real, Mr. Cheetam said.

  How real? I said.

  Mr. Cheetam ignored me. To hell with what anybody thinks, these kids, these lovers, said. So one night the boy meets the girl on the edge of town and they drive up a dark winding road to a lover's leap. They can see everything from up there, but they’re not looking. No sirree, Bob. The boy and the girl sit in the car, spooning, as we used to call it back in the day— making out, and listening to love songs on the radio, until one of the songs is interrupted by a special bulletin. A prisoner has escaped!

  Does the prisoner have hooks instead of hands? I asked.

  Yeah, Mr. Cheetam said, that's the guy.

  How’d you know? Donny asked.

  I knew because the story wasn’t true. The girl hears something outside, and the boy says, Oh, baby, baby, don’t worry, we’re way up here above everything, we’re safe. The boy tries to get at the girl, and the girl keeps hearing something outside. Eventually it's no fun, and they go home. When the boy opens the door for the girl to drop her out he finds a hook clawing and banging at the door handle, just clinging there, ripped right off the prisoner's arm.

  Mr. Cheetam didn’t scare me, but Donny was scared.

  We were quiet for a minute, and then I told them about when my dad was driving in his car. The other car came out of nowhere, I said. And my dad was hanging half out the door. His foot was stuck under the clutch and his head was banging on the road. He was dragged about two hundred feet. He was in the hospital for a month. My mom died.

  No one said anything, so I added, That's a true life story.

  You don’t think mine was? Mr. Cheetam asked. He looked at me strangely and winked.

  Well, I said, yeah, I do. I know it is. I heard about those lovers before.

  Mr. Cheetam stood up, stretched, and fell down. Donny and I looked at each other, then we got in our sleeping bags.

  Your dad sure enjoys whiskey, I said.

  In the middle of the night, Donny said, Hey, you hear that?

  Come off it, I said.

  I swear I heard something.

  There's nothing out there, I said, but Donny went over to sleep in his dad's tent anyway.

  We reached a sign that pointed different ways: the High Divide and the Low Divide. We took the high, up and up. There were fewer trees, and we climbed on loose rock called scree, and the air was thinner. Donny had an ugly blister on his heel and complained, and Mr. Cheetam got impatient with him. Just pull yourself up and get going, he said. Don’t fall behind.

  Finally we crossed a field full of pink and yellow wildflowers, and at the far end, where the path ended, was a lake. The surface was perfectly clear and placid and we could see ourselves.

  Here we are, Mr. Cheetam said.

  Skinny-dipping, Donny said.

  First things first, girls, Mr. Cheetam said, so we hopped to, setting up camp and scrounging enough wood for the night.

  Donny and I stripped naked and jumped off the cliffs. No one else was around but when we swam and shouted and splashed our voices bounced back and forth off the rocks. Ricochet, we yelled. We dove and dove. Then we lay on a hot flat rock. I noticed that Donny had hair on his balls and he probably noticed so did I. You want to smoke a stogerooni? Donny asked. Nah, later, I said. We were stretched out and quiet: blue sky, yellow sun, white mountain—everything was perfect but Donny got antsy doing nothing for so long and took another dip. He came up fast and said, A fish! I saw a fish! And he got his fishing pole and caught a rainbow, like pulling a prayer from the water.

  Good work, Donny, Mr. Cheetam said.

  The fish wasn’t all the way dead yet and Mr. Cheetam had to slap its head against a rock. Blood came out the eyes. The knife blade sank into the skin with a ripping sound. What do we do with the guts? I asked. Toss ’em in the lake, Mr. Cheetam said. We don’t want any animals coming into camp. Bears? Donny said. It's not impossible, Mr. Cheetam said, but not likely, either. Maybe the Sasquatch, Donny said. Mr. Cheetam said to shut up about that damned Sasquatch. It's time you grow up, he said, shaking Donny's arm. Jesus, Donny said, rubbing himself.

  Mr. Cheetam wrapped the fillets in foil and set them on the fire. It was soft out now, not dark but not light, either. Our shadows were weak
around the fire, and Mt. Olympus was tinged pink and purple, and the wind died down.

  Hey, I said, what about the Quinault?

  Yeah, the Quinault! Donny said. You said I’d get to walk across it.

  Oh crap, what was I thinking? Mr. Cheetam asked himself. You already did and I forgot, God damn it!

  We ran back through the darkening wildflowers. We found a little stream about a foot wide and three inches deep that you would never think was a river but it was. There's your mighty Quinault, Donny, Mr. Cheetam said. Donny asked if we built a dam would the river dry up below and Mr. Cheetam laughed, saying, No, I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. We bent down and drank and splashed our faces in the water. We listened to the little river, trickling in a whisper. It was almost like nothing.

  The fish was all burned to hell when we got back to camp. Donny was upset and kept whining. I’m sorry, Mr. Cheetam said, but things happen. What can I say? Then he offered, Tomorrow? You want to stay another day? Donny looked at me, then said, Stay! Stay! O.K., Mr. Cheetam said, I think we’ve got everything we need—plenty of provisions—and we’ll catch some more fish.

  After dinner, Mr. Cheetam drew out his flask again. His face was like my dad's had been in the last days, rough and black. One night toward the end I’d found him, my dad, in our broom closet. He had all his Bob Dylan records out and was writing new lyrics on them with a nail. Other things happened that I prefer to keep to myself. All week his loud voice was like the echo of thoughts he’d had a long time ago. Then one morning at the very end I heard him calling me in the rain. He was on top of our house in boxer shorts, yelling. Our neighbor tried to drive him off the roof by throwing a pot of geraniums at him. My dad started ripping apart the chimney and pitching bricks down on me and everybody else on the front lawn. We had to call the authorities. For a while he thought he was Jesus in a hospital called St. Judas, but it was really St. Jude's and my dad, of course, wasn’t Jesus. The same people who took him to the hospital brought me to the Home. I hadn’t eaten in three days.

  Nearby we saw field mice hopping around, and Mr. Cheetam said that we’d better keep our packs inside the tents tonight. He hooked his arm around Donny s neck and said, How’d you like to go to California?

  Not Eureka, Donny said.

  No, Mr. Cheetam said, L.A.

  Donny said he didn’t know anything about L.A. Mr. Cheetam fussed with the fire, arranging the coals. When that goes out that's it until morning, he said. He tipped back the flask. Then he capped it and said, That's it for that, too. He stretched and groaned and walked out where the firelight failed. I heard him whistling in the dark.

  Son? Mr. Cheetam said.

  What? Donny asked.

  Come on over here a minute, Mr. Cheetam said.

  They were in the shadows. I heard Donny say, What does Mom think?

  That's the thing, Mr. Cheetam said. Your mother would stay.

  I don’t know, Donny said. How long would we be gone?

  Donald, Mr. Cheetam said, don’t be stupid. We’re divorcing, your mom and I. You see, we won’t come back—we’ll live in a brand-new house there.

  Donny begged, But why?

  Donald, come on. You see how things are.

  The two of them were quiet and staring ahead, like their next thoughts might fall out of the sky.

  What can I say? Mr. Cheetam said.

  Nothing, Donny said.

  I love you, Donald. You know that.

  I crawled inside our tent. A little while later, Donny got in his bag, buried down inside. He was crying and choking. I whispered, Donny, hey, hey, Donny? Donny? I think I hear something out there. Do you hear it? Let's go look! I hugged my arm around him and he started jerking in his bag and sat up and cried to me, Here's your stupid spatula! Then he crossed over into Mr. Cheetam's tent but kept crying and begging even louder for no divorce.

  Look, I heard Mr. Cheetam say, after your sister died—His voice fell apart. That's too easy, he said. I’ve met someone else. He was quiet a minute. That's the truth.

  I thought the crying would go on forever, but eventually Donny must have fallen asleep.

  I turned over and over in my sleeping bag, and then I put on Sister Celestine's scapular and grabbed the flashlight and crawled out of the tent. The fire made a hiss and I kicked the last few embers around in the bed of ash. Mr. Cheetam snorted in his sleep and I heard Donny say, Dad? And Mr. Cheetam say, What? but there was nothing after that, even though I stood outside their tent a long time, listening.

  I aimed my flashlight ahead to the flat rock rim of the lake and followed the narrow beam up there. I sat, dangling my feet, and snapped off the light. I think I was feeling sorry for myself. Suddenly it felt like we’d been gone for ages. Was it Sunday? I gathered up ten rocks for a rosary, to count my prayers. I rattled them in my hands and started the Our Father but my voice was weird. I shook the rocks in my fist like dice. I threw one in the lake, and a little while later I heard the splash. Circles opened out where the stone had vanished. I thought of saying something in Latin but couldn’t recall a single word, except amen. I yelled out, A-men! and heard back, Hey-men, hey-men, hey-men, smaller and smaller.

  I stretched out on the rock. Sister Celestine's scapular was old, the wool worn soft from handling. Once, at the Home, I had climbed the stairs, six flights up from my room in the basement, to see where she lived. We weren’t supposed to go up there. I saw why. Hosiery hung from the water pipes. Candy wrappers were crumpled on the floor. A black habit lay like an empty sack beside the bed. The bed was unmade, and I could see the hollow where Sister Celestine slept. A pale-green blanket and a thin yellow top sheet had been twisted into a tight braid and kicked off the end of the mattress. The only decoration was a black wooden crucifix, nailed on the wall above the bed like a permanent shadow.

  I was still lying there when Donny and Mr. Cheetam came running up the rock in their undies. Hey, what's going on? they asked. They said they’d heard me shouting and were afraid I’d got lost or seen something.

  Maybe the Sasquatch, Donny said.

  God damn it, Donald, there is no such thing, Mr. Cheetam said. That's just a myth.

  Oh yeah, Donny said. How do you know?

  Don’t worry, I said. It was nothing.

  You sure? Donny said.

  It was nothing, I said. I’m sure.

  A wind was blowing and it was a little cold on that rock. Nobody knew what to say.

  See out there? Above Mt. Olympus? That green star? Mr. Cheetam said, pointing. We all looked—a vague white shadow, a green light. It's not really a star. That's a planet—that's Venus, Mr. Cheetam said. The goddess of love.

  That's just a myth, Donny said, looking at his father. Bastard.

  I didn’t hear you, Mr. Cheetam said. What did you say?

  Nothing, Donny said.

  Nothing? It didn’t sound like nothing to me.

  I pitched another rock in the lake, way out there, as far as possible. We all listened. Across the water a circle spread out, wider and wider. Then, shaking with cold, Donny folded his arms around himself and yelled out, Hey, and we heard back, Hey, hey, hey, and then I yelled out, Hey, and even Mr. Cheetam joined in, and we kept hearing back, Hey, hey, hey, like there were millions of us everywhere.

  Gail Jones

  Desolation

  from The Kenyon Review

  1

  AMELANCHOLY seriousness settles on the faces of people attending concerts; it is a look both distracted and concentrated, disturbed and imperturbable. Something says: we shall endure this, it will eventually pass; we shall orient our serried faces to the irresistible stage, and hope for suspension in the glorious no-time of music. Everyone is the same; everyone feels this. Concerts impose a rude aura of collectivity and the tense AC/DC of the serious/glorious.

  She had noticed it last night at a piano recital, in which a slim Chinese woman, beautifully intense, played Rachmaninoff with superhuman celerity; and she notices it here, listening to Death in Vega
s. Faces shining in the dark, riveted, young, are replicating the expression. The music they are listening to is electronically synthesized, and has a quality of pounding and insistent stammer: the squeal of a keyboard and the whine of electric guitars are encased in an overamplified throb.

  Repetition, repetition, repetition, she thinks.

  On the stage, absurdly familiar, is a skull-and-crossbones flag, and behind it hangs a screen of fluctuating and synchronized projections. Images loop, and loop again, then accelerate to crescendo. There are sol- diers marching in formation, dancers whirling out of focus, machinery, lightbulbs, a weather balloon ascending.

  She wonders what meaning operates here, that employs the visual as mere flash. The bald head of the keyboard player is her stable sign; throughout the concert it is variously and fantastically lit—red, blue, purple, and then gold—but it remains somehow definite, a human globe, a wonderfully absolute, pure, and untechnical thing.

  Ragged applause: then the system of repetitions restarts.

  There is too much sound and too much light: she is feeling denuded and swathed in excess. Ordinary and strobe lights rake the dark crowd, and at some point this young woman, who has come to the concert alone, covers her eyes with one hand to counter the bluish-light blindness. Even with her eyes closed she can still see the fulgurous strobe, and she is even more willfully and emphatically alone; she is locked into some solitary concert and closed to community. She is a foreigner, people will know it, she does not belong here.

  Someone reaches over and holds gently her other hand.

  The young woman can feel the touch, which she takes as a gesture of solicitude. Perhaps, seeing her shade her eyes, someone has imagined her distressed. Perhaps it is simple kindness, a vague gesture of concert solidarity. When she reopens her eyes, blinking against the renewed brightness, a man is standing beside her: an Algerian, possibly, or an Indian, or a Moroccan. They are listening to music in Paris, foreign together. The venue for the concert is the Elysée Montmartre, an old cabaret—belle-époque-looking, even in dereliction—a hall gutted and transformed for dance parties and concerts. The plaster ceiling is decorated with eight women's faces. They are gigantic and smiling and have flowing fin de siècle hairstyles; scarlet lights sit at their chins, so that they appear mean and infernal.