Ruin Falls

by Jenny Milchman

  SO WE COME HERE. KIND OF A ROOM-WITHIN-A-ROOM.

  WE’RE NOT ACTIVE ALL THE TIME. AND SOMETIMES WE DO JUST HANG OUT WITH THE REST.

  BUT WHEN WE GET GOING STRONG, WE’RE BRAINSTORMING INSTEAD OF JUST COMPLAINING. IT’S NOT ABOUT WHETHER YOU CAN GET A FAST FOOD BURGER THAT ISN’T FACTORY-FARMED. IT’S WHETHER OUR CHILDREN ARE GOING TO BE EATING ANYTHING BESIDES WHAT THEY CAN FORAGE A DECADE FROM NOW.

  THIS IS WHY NOBODY WANTS TO ANSWER OUR POSTS. THEY’RE SO HOPELESS.

  AT LEAST WE FACE REALITY.

  THERE’S JUST NOTHING TO DO ABOUT IT.

  And then the Professor had waved a flag. Liz studied Paul’s avatar: a bespectacled owl that looked more severe than avuncular.

  I HAVE SOME IDEAS.

  Liz sat forward in the desk chair, her eyes wide and unblinking. She tried jumping from post to post, scrolling for those written by the Professor, but they made no sense out of context. And since each entry had the potential to tell her where her children might be, she knew she’d better read closely. Liz followed the evolution of Paul’s presence in PEW, witnessing the balm participation must have been to the ego Tree had bashed.

  Someone had responded immediately, avidly, to Paul’s first post.

  TELL US! WELCOME, BY THE WAY. AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

  WE DON’T HAVE TO BE PRISONERS TO THE FACTORY SYSTEM, Paul had typed.

  GO ON, wrote someone named Processed whom Liz remembered from other threads.

  MY FATHER’S RENTED OUT HIS LAND TO PERVADON FOR TWO DECADES. BUT HE ALSO EXPERIMENTS WITH VARIETALS THAT HAVEN’T BEEN GROWN IN A HUNDRED YEARS. FUNNY, HUH? BIGGEST AGRIBUSINESS IN THE COUNTRY DOESN’T REALIZE IT’S PAYING HIM TO FIGHT GMOS.

  People typed in a train of emoticons to recognize the irony. Smiley faces, toothy mouths. Here was a whole new crowd of Adoring Girls, Jakes, and Lias, just waiting to be schooled. A chorus of questions asked Paul about food production in colder climates, whether Cuba surviving the embargo was merely a result of its long growing season, and if pest resistance could begin in the soil.

  IT SURE CAN, Professor replied. You SHOULD SEE MY FATHER’S FARM.

  Tears were rolling, silent and salty, into the corners of Liz’s lips. She felt as if she’d found the seeds of her undoing, preserved like amber in distant cyberspace. They were here for the discovery, but unable to be impacted or changed.

  THERE ARE MEASURES WE CAN TAKE, Paul had added. RIGHT HERE AT HOME.

  LIKE WHAT?

  SAYING NO TO CORN, EVEN IN ANIMAL FEED. MAKING OUR OWN DISHWASHING DETERGENT. COMMERCIAL DISHWASHING AGENTS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TWELVE PERCENT OF THE POLLUTION THAT SHOWS UP IN AQUIFERS. OR HOW ABOUT ESCHEWING ANYTHING IN A CONTAINER SMALLER THAN DRUM-SIZED? BUY IN BULK. THAT MEANS NOT USING DRUGSTORE HYGIENE PRODUCTS OR MOST SUPERMARKET WARES.

  Liz herself could’ve typed that list. But from the clamor of responses, she could see how welcome the ideas were, and how novel. She saw Paul come alive, his posts entered faster, fewer seconds between, his tone more and more commanding as he was asked to elaborate.

  Magpie tried to wrap things up, the late hour marked by the time-stamp of her post.

  WE SHOULD ALL CALL IT A NIGHT. THIS THREAD HAS BEEN A RALLYING CRY.

  I KNOW, wrote someone with the handle Unplugged. IT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING. LIKE WE COULD DO SOMETHING.

  KEEP ASKING QUESTIONS LIKE THESE, Paul had counseled. DEMANDING ANSWERS. SMALL CHANGES ADD UP. IT DOESN’T TAKE A LOT. THINGS WILL START TO CHANGE.

  I GUESS, Magpie typed. ISN’T THAT GANDHI? LIVE LOCALLY, ACT GLOBALLY?

  IT’S THINK, NOT LIVE. AND YOU’VE GOT THE LOCALLY AND GLOBALLY REVERSED.

  Magpie entered the emoticon with its tongue thrust out for reply.

  GANDHI SAID BE THE CHANGE WE WANT TO SEE.

  THAT’S WHAT I’M SUGGESTING, Paul wrote. You could hear sagacity even in the toneless quality of chat.

  NO, someone else typed impatiently, a few errant keys stroked. I DON’T WANT MY GARBAGE TO DWINDLE WHILE MY NEIGHBORS LUG THEIR OVERENGINEERED, FIFTY-FIVE GALLON RUBBERMAID TRASHCANS TO THE CURB EVERY WEEK. ANY CHANGE I MAKE IS LIKE TRYING TO SWIM UP A WATERFALL. I WANT A WORLD WHERE WE CAN START FRESH AND THE DAMAGE HASN’T ALREADY BEEN DONE.

  A man who called himself the Shoemaker spoke up for the first time. De-lurking after the initial flurry of posts.

  WELL? LET’S DO IT.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Although everyone’s enthusiasm appeared to be sparked, the Shoemaker was clearly the most serious. He asked questions about everything from fast-growing crops to natural medicine, soaking up the information like a root system took in water.

  He also clearly had a deep regard for Paul. A long string of posts culminated in, YOU SEEM TO KNOW EVERYTHING, PROFESSOR. YOU JUST NEED A SHIP TO STEER. WHY HASN’T ANYONE EVER GIVEN YOU A SHIP?

  There was a lag in the thread after that. Liz took in the silence, from Magpie and Unplugged and Processed and others, as if everyone were holding a collective breath.

  LOTS OF SMART GUYS OUT THERE, Paul had at last replied.

  SMART IS ONE THING, came the next post from the Shoemaker. I AGREE WITH YOU. GOOD MINDS ARE A DIME A DOZEN. BUT VISION? THAT’S ANOTHER.

  Paul had logged off then. He hadn’t entered another reply.

  The next day, though, the conversation continued unabated, Magpie and Unplugged and Processed and the Shoemaker and others cross-posting, the virtual equivalent of everyone speaking at once.

  HOW MANY WOULD WE NEED?

  A FAIR NUMBER.

  THERE ARE A LOT OF ROLES TO FILL.

  LET’S MAKE A LIST.

  I WOULDN’T KNOW WHERE TO START.

  YOU CAN’T BREATHE THE SAME AIR AS THE PROFESSOR AND NOT KNOW WHERE TO START.

  As if summoned by the admiration, Paul appeared for the first time that day.

  TOO MANY IS WORSE THAN NOT ENOUGH. THE DANGERS OF SOMETHING LIKE THIS COLLAPSING HAVE BEEN PROVEN TIME AND TIME AGAIN.

  The Shoemaker responded, each word precisely whittled to engage Paul, and puncture any resistance. How welcome his contribution must’ve been in the wake of Tree’s assault.

  COME ON, PROFESSOR. WE ALL KNOW WHAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF. WHY ARE YOU RESERVING YOUR POWER FOR THIS LITTLE BOX? HAVE YOU NEVER WANTED TO DO SOMETHING BIG? NOT JUST THINK ABOUT IT, BUT ACTUALLY DO IT?

  Even as Liz grew chilled to the core, shivering and shaking in the desk chair while she watched the theft of her children approach, she also experienced a dawning sense of bafflement. How had the Shoemaker known so exactly what to say?

  Liz clicked swiftly, entering another thread where she’d seen the Shoemaker’s avatar. Its association was less transparent than Paul’s: one of those elliptical faces from an old-time magic show or carnival.

  There was a less frequent poster on this thread—young, from the sound of her comments—who was expecting a baby. She called herself Mommie’s Dearest, an odd twist on handles used by people who identified themselves by their children’s names. Mommie’s Dearest got lots of support and interaction from the other moms on the site, but the Shoemaker also seemed especially focused on her, asking minute details and following up.

  The Shoemaker knew when her backaches, which Mommie’s Dearest described as bolting her to the bed, started to subside; the names she had considered for her baby; and that the baby’s grandmother had found a good pediatrician, a good secondhand crib, a good brand of formula. The Shoemaker engaged in long strings of posts, listening to speculations about what life would be like once Mommie’s Dearest became a mother herself, and adding a few conjectures of his own.

  HOW WONDERFUL IT WOULD BE TO RAISE YOUR CHILD AWAY FROM THE SHACKLES OF THE WORLD. THE FREEDOM YOU’D HAVE TO DO WHAT YOU WANT WITH HER.

  HOW DID YOU KNOW I WANTED A GIRL?

  It was true. Liz scanned back, but nowhere could she find Mommie’s Dearest indicating a preference for either gender. She had listed more girls’ names than boys’. Had that been the giveaway?

  I ONLY KNOW
THAT YOU DESERVE A GIRL. AND SHE DESERVES YOU.

  THANK YOU. THANK YOU FOR SAYING THAT.

  There was a time lag before Mommie’s Dearest posted again.

  BUT FREEDOM IS NOT SOMETHING EITHER OF US ARE GOING TO HAVE.

  The darkest of emoticons accompanied the statement, a tiny yellow circle with eyebrows drawn down, and features contorted with fury.

  Liz couldn’t tell from the threads who was imprisoning her—an abusive boyfriend was her guess—but that was the thing. Somehow, the Shoemaker honed in on the truth.

  SOON YOU’LL BE A MOTHER YOURSELF AND ABLE TO WREST BACK ALL THE POWER YOURS HAS ALWAYS WIELDED.

  Her mother, not a boyfriend, then.

  There was a long gap between posts. Liz assumed the girl must’ve logged off. But then a final entry came, wistful in its brevity.

  HOW?

  After that, the posts tapered off. Whatever reply or conversation the girl’s query had led to must have occurred via private messages or even offline. The thread went into another phase of dormancy, and whatever came next took place in the real world.

  Where had they gone? Somewhere near Wedeskyull? That seemed likely since there was so much space here, and also because Paul was the de facto leader. But could it be Junction Bridge; was that why Paul had suggested a vacation there? Or someplace Liz had never even considered, pegged to where one of the PEW people might have some land? She scrolled backward, but it wasn’t clear from the posts where anybody lived.

  Liz stared at the yawning maw of the computer screen, its cursor one winking eye. Her actions too would have to take place in the real world. She could call Tim and ask if his inquiries about Crane’s had amounted to anything, although she knew in a place deeper than reason—the mothering place—that the company was false.

  Jill’s voice: You’re just going to see if someone else has done the work for you?

  Liz needed to call her best friend. Apologize for how she’d treated Andy, and figure out a way to ask Jill if she knew what her son had been doing in Ally’s room.

  Talking to an ex-con sounded easier.

  It was time to locate Paul’s football coach.

  Liz found the coach’s full name, although the search didn’t yield an address, since until recently the man had resided behind bars. Christopher Allgood had done a portion of his sentence at Sing Sing, then served out the rest at Wedeskyull’s maximum-security facility.

  A human-interest article in an online Wedeskyull weekly described the recently released inmate’s desire to “find peace in a quiet mountain setting,” which narrowed things down some. There was only one mountain people could live on in Wedeskyull, in either a handful of spread-out vacation homes or a colony of condos. The other mountains were too steep for anything besides sport, even if environmental regulations hadn’t prohibited building on them.

  Liz drove to the small grocery that serviced the skiers and climbers and asked the clerk if he knew a new resident named Christopher Allgood.

  “I don’t know that name,” the clerk said, his face revealing the lie. Distaste, too: ex-convicts probably didn’t do much to drive tourism. “But the Palmer place just got itself a year-long rental. Nick Palmer was real happy about that.”

  The clerk told Liz the address.

  Back outside, she stood for a moment, staring at the mountain. Devoid of snow, the peak had the look of a shorn poodle. Next to the slopes stood tiny trees, closely clustered as quills. Liz wondered what was contained up there that couldn’t be detected from this vantage point.

  She got back into her car and reversed out of the lot.

  Flares lit in her belly as she drove. At the end of a sparsely populated road, Liz turned into a steep driveway and got out, making sure to set her emergency brake. The house was an imitation chalet: brown wood, cutouts along the gabled roof. There were no late summer flowers, asters or hyssop, nor much of a lawn. This had been somebody’s winter getaway, plain and serviceable. Liz climbed three steps to an unfurnished deck and knocked on the front door.

  The man who opened it bore no resemblance to anyone who had ever been involved in football. Prison must have shrunk Allgood. He was small and slight, though he might’ve appeared taller if he hadn’t been so stooped. His hair was cropped short, and he wore stiff new jeans and an equally rigid shirt.

  The sunlight seemed to stun him. He blinked without saying hello.

  “Mr. Allgood?”

  “Yes?” The man looked over his shoulder. “Today isn’t the tenth, is it?” His gaze darted inside. “It’s the ninth.” He twisted back around. “I don’t have an appointment today.”

  “No,” Liz began. “We don’t have an appointment. I just wanted to see if we could talk for a few minutes.”

  “Are you a reporter?”

  “No,” Liz said again. Although she seemed to be getting asked that a lot.

  The man straightened then, and Liz caught a glimpse of what might have enabled him, decades ago, to lead a bunch of unruly, barely formed men to victory.

  “Who are you then?”

  Liz told him her name.

  “Daniels?” Allgood echoed.

  Liz waited a second or two for the necessary calculation, then said, “Paul is my husband.”

  There was a longer pause this time.

  The man turned and Liz realized that she was being allowed in.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The house had a great room on the first floor, with the bedrooms cantilevered on a loft above. As Liz entered, a medley of sounds hit her: the TV and radio playing, steady ticking from a clock on a wood-paneled wall, water plinking into a metal sink.

  Allgood seemed impervious to the noise. He sat down in a battered seat.

  After a moment, Liz dropped herself on a pilled seat. An awkward stalemate arose between them. It was hard to muster words amongst the clamor of reality-show screeches and synthesized music.

  Liz raised her voice. “Would you mind if I turned that down?”

  Allgood looked up. “What?”

  “The television.” Liz spoke louder. “The radio! Can I turn them down?”

  “Oh.” Allgood looked around, as if unsure where both items might be. He rose slowly and took a few steps until, with some fumbling of knobs, there was blessed silence.

  Liz spoke again. “Paul was on your team?”

  Allgood nodded, taking a seat in the same beat-up chair. “One game and I knew that boy was destined for great things.”

  “Paul was a great football player?” Liz asked, disbelieving.

  Allgood shook his head, looking out into the room. “Nah. He was a mediocre quarterback. Not enough power in the throwing arm, so-so accuracy. And he couldn’t read his blindside for shit. But he knew the playbook by heart, managed the clock like Joe Montana, and everyone could see how he commanded a team. No matter what play Paul was calling, his men always wanted to follow.”

  Liz couldn’t make out all the references, but that sounded more like it. She sat in the grimy chair as the coach seemed to reflect, cast back somewhere in time. Finally, she worked up the courage to bring the conversation around in a different direction. “And Michael Brady? Was he a great player?”

  The question delivered an electric shock; Allgood’s body jerked in the chair. “I should’ve kept them from driving. I was there that night at the bar. They would’ve listened to me.”

  Liz wondered if they would have. Paul didn’t listen to anybody besides himself, and Allgood didn’t seem the type to command unparalleled attention. But perhaps her husband had been different back then. Perhaps the coach was, too.

  She recalled a detail that hadn’t added up. “Paul was driving Michael’s car.”

  The coach’s eyes shuttered. “I asked him to,” he said, hardly above a whisper.

  Liz wasn’t surprised by the content of the disclosure, although the fact that Allgood had made it was unexpected. Marjorie had said the coach felt responsible, and this explained why.

  He went on, talking more to hi
mself than to her. “Brady hurt his ankle at practice that afternoon. I didn’t want him having to use the clutch.” A pause. “My boys always hung out at Darts the night before a big game.”

  Liz knew the place; it was still a haven for underage drinking.

  Allgood focused his gaze on some distant spot in the room. “Paul hadn’t been drinking hard. I didn’t realize one or two beers would affect him.”

  It was a tragic domino row of events, a succession of carelessness and bad decisions, any one of which might’ve been preventable. But taken all together, they resulted in an endless fall.

  Liz leaned forward. “Mr. Allgood, I didn’t come here to resurrect old pain.”

  He met her eyes for the first time, and though his gaze was rheumy, it gave a hint of former steel. “No? Why did you come then?”

  Good question. Liz looked toward the galley kitchen.

  “Some water …” she croaked.

  Allgood didn’t respond to the request.

  Liz got up and found a glass in one of the cupboards. She filled it from the tap, drinking thirstily.

  When she returned, Allgood was standing. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans, shuffling back and forth across the space in front of his chair.

  “My husband—” Liz drank again, draining the glass.

  Allgood didn’t appear to be listening. He was shifting from one foot to the other while staring at the clock.

  “Mr. Allgood, Paul’s taken our children. Kidnapped them. I think he has this idea that he’s going to build a better world for them. But he didn’t tell me—involve me even—and now they’re gone and I can’t—”

  Allgood paused in his pacing. The look on his face made the water in her stomach slosh, a slow, seasick roll.

  “No,” he said. His eyes darted again to the clock. “No.” He crossed the room bit by bit, stopping by a slit of sliding door.

  The coach let out a bolt of laughter that made Liz flinch.

  “I have to take a leak, Mrs. Daniels. I’ve had to relieve myself for the past half hour. But I haven’t gone, and do you know why?”

  Liz scrambled to come up with the answer he seemed to be demanding.