by Tod Wodicka
“Crazy,” Drew said. He looked again at the painting. “This place is right up the road and I could tell you far more about the Eastern Front of World War Two, you know, about Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk, or about the War of the Roses in Tudor fucking England, excuse my English. It’s like the forest and the lakes ate our own history. Swallowed it up.”
Howie did not understand. He said, “There are a lot of books about the French and Indian War.”
Rogers Rock was a massive, sloping cliff, hundreds of feet high. It looked like the crumbling, antagonistic side of a grey, concrete glacier. Few trees grew on it—only some wretched, wiry bushes, a few daring little saplings, ferns, moss. Boulders were always cracking from its side, especially in the frozen winter months.
Drew yawned. He clicked the overhead light off. “So you’re saying that this Rogers was killed there?”
“No,” Howie said. “Rogers escaped.”
Relentlessly pursued. That was the legend. He’d lose the screaming Indians, they’d find him, and they wouldn’t stop screaming, the entire forest screaming—the trees screaming—and this hide-and-seek continued for almost an entire day. Finally, Rogers approached the most brutal edge of the cliff and tossed down all of his supplies, even his rifle and his distinctive bear-head hat. He tossed down the already frozen body of a comrade. Then he walked backward from the edge of the cliff, making it look as if two people with snowshoe prints had gone over the edge. Howie thought that this maneuver was called doubling back.
“Something like that,” Drew said. “Sure.”
“Rogers found another way down to Lake Jogues.”
The Indians, catching up with Rogers’s trail, looked down at the part of the rock that would come to be called Rogers Slide, and knew that Robert Rogers’s game was up. Nobody could survive that fall, slide, whatever. They noted his stupid, distinctive hat, and a British body–like shape, and a bundle of supplies. However, as they were leaving, one Indian saw something unbelievable. There was the hatless figure of Robert Rogers himself, running from the bottom of the cliff, across the frozen lake. It was impossible. Thinking that he’d survived the fall as well as their righteous massacre, the Indians decided that this Rogers was surely protected by the Good Spirit. They let him run.
“The Good Spirit, huh?”
“Yes,” Howie said.
“That’s what they called it?”
“I believe so.”
Howie felt strangely dejected. This wasn’t at all what Howie had wanted to tell Drew. But what, then, had he wanted to tell him?
Drew shouted at Rogers Rock in the backseat: “You comfortable back there, honey?” He tapped the side of the painting. “She’s comfortable,” he told Howie.
“That’s good.”
“She’s sleeping,” Drew said. “So maybe, Howard, hey, let’s you and I have that talk?”
Howie thought that they had been talking, but OK.
Drew turned the music up a little louder. He said, “You know, she has a point sometimes.”
“OK.”
“I mean about the money you give to Harriet. Look, I don’t mean to pry, she’s your daughter, but it has to be said. You know what I’m talking about here.”
“The money that I give Harri.”
“Well, yeah.”
“OK.”
Drew sighed, said, “Maybe it’s not OK, Howard. Maybe not. Hear me out. Look, you two, you and Harriet, you’ve got a really special bond, one that, to be honest, you-know-who back there has always been jealous of. The way she comes up here five, six times a year, stops at our house for an afternoon argument at most and then it’s off to your house for a week or two.”
This was confusing. Howie had not seen Harri in over a year. Perhaps he’d misheard or was Drew more inebriated than he seemed? Howie said, “OK.”
Drew said, “It bothers her to no end, Howard. How you can do no wrong in Harriet’s eyes. She thinks you inspire her misanthropy, that you set a crummy example. Now, fine, you and I know better. Harriet is and always has been Harriet, but there could be a kernel of truth to this, correct?” He stopped. “Hon, you awake back there?” Nothing. “Look, she’s a good woman, Howard. She’s a good mother. She’s a great mother. She tries her best, you know that she does. But Harriet is difficult, to say the least, and those two, I swear, they’re like fire and ice, temperamentally so different, and my wife isn’t perfect. She’d be the first to admit. She doesn’t understand Harriet’s art, not like you and I do. Harriet says that she doesn’t even try to, but that’s not fair. That girl has no idea how much her mother tries. I guess what I’m saying is how long do you think that this can go on?”
“I don’t know.”
“The point is, New York City. Harriet can’t keep living there as if she’s some kind of trust fund kid. You’re not doing her any favors. She needs to find a real job. Let me ask you something: Harriet says that you’ve been saving up for a boat?”
Harriet knew about that? How? Howie said, “Yes.”
“Well, how is that going?”
Howie said, “Good.”
“Really, because the way we see it, and correct me if I’m wrong, you’ve been giving most of your money to Harriet these last few years.”
“Not all of it, Drew.”
“Understood. Not all of it. I hate to pry and I’m not saying she’s using you, exactly, but, I’m sorry, when do you think this is going to end? When Harriet becomes a rich and famous painter? Do you know how many rich and famous artists there are in New York?”
“No.”
“There are three,” Drew said.
“There must be more than three.”
Drew laughed. “But you know what I mean. It’s not only difficult, it’s nearly impossible to succeed as an artist in New York these days. Might as well say you plan to make a living playing the Lotto. Be a starving lottoist. Can we agree on that?”
“Sure we can, Drew.”
“Harriet worries about you,” Drew said. He paused. Drank from his flask. “It’s why she’s up here visiting you so often. Plus, and don’t tell our painting back there, but she’s always on the phone with me, you know? Not her mother, Howard. Me. Trying to get me to take you out for a drink, check in on you, make sure you’re OK. She’s got a big heart when she chooses to show it. But she really shouldn’t have to worry about you. Is that fair for someone her age? That girl loves you so much.”
Howie said, “Drew, I haven’t seen Harri in a long time.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Drew grew angry. “You saw her last week, Howard!”
Howie said, “OK.”
“OK? Look, I’m sorry, just think about it. I’m sorry. I know that you can’t help being the way you are. I get that. I appreciate that. But listen. The question is, man-to-man here, what are we going to do about our daughter?”
Howie was genuinely touched by Drew’s our. He said, “I don’t know, Drew.”
Howie no longer loved his ex-wife. He only occasionally missed the idea of her, even if this was an idea that hadn’t survived the first few years of their marriage, anyway, and probably wasn’t his idea to begin with. Besides the first one, Timmy—just that name, Timmy—Howie had never experienced what he’d identify as jealousy. He maintained a certain warmth toward his ex-wife’s boyfriends and husbands. They felt familial, like brothers—or, possibly, more successful versions of himself. They were like sports teams that Howie wanted to win.
They’d exited I-87.
They were approaching Howie’s ex-wife’s house in Saratoga Springs. Howie did not want the drive to end. He and Drew had settled into a comfortable conversation; it was like bantering, almost, something that Howie recognized from TV. Drew told Howie about a book that he was reading. Then they’d watch the road. Drew would joke about politicians whom Howie didn’t know; Howie would smile. Drew recommended a movie that Howie might enjoy. Did Howie like a particularly sexy actress? Howie did not know but promised Drew that he would look into it.
Drew told Howie about his ex-wife, a vile woman named Pam. They had a son, also a teacher, who was married to a Baptist and living down in godforsaken Maryland. Drew was a grandfather. He said, “Did you enjoy your party?”
“Well, Drew,” Howie said. “I guess they really partied the shit out of me this time.”
Drew paused, then laughed so hard that he sprayed whisky onto the dashboard, just like in a movie. Drew couldn’t stop laughing. “What the fuck?” he said. “I’ve never—they partied the what out of you, Howard?”
“Did they party the shit out of you, too, Drew?”
“Stop, you’re killing me!”
This had been an easy, wonderful evening and Howie didn’t even care that he was smiling. Who cared? Not the road. Not Drew.
“Yeah, well, the stone anniversary,” Drew said, finally. “I gotta say. Those guys, they’re good guys, Howard. You’re lucky. They’re really a good bunch of guys.”
“They are.”
“But we really should go out for a beer sometime, Howard, you know?” Drew said. “Me and you.”
“That would be nice, Drew.”
“Nice,” Drew repeated. Laughed. “Now, full disclosure time. You haven’t told me about that woman. Did I notice something? Don’t tell me I didn’t.”
Howie had no idea what Drew was talking about. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We don’t do coy, you and me, OK? We’ve been married to the same woman. Why do coy? Do brothers do coy?”
Howie asked if this was part of the joke.
Drew said, “What are you talking about?”
“Well,” Howie said. He thought about this. “That we’re telling jokes.”
“We’re not telling jokes!”
But they were. Or, rather, they had been laughing. Howie felt stupid. “OK,” he said. Probably he should stop talking now.
“Don’t tell me you weren’t picking up the same vibes I was from that woman, what’s her name? I’m sorry, I forget. She was handsome. Outdoorsy and a little on the, you know, the full-figured side. Really sweet face.”
“Marcy?”
“I met Marcy, Howard. She’s married. She looks like a mongoose.”
Suddenly, Howie knew. Drew was talking about Rhoda Prough. Rho. It was something he’d always kind of known but forgotten; it was obvious, wasn’t it?
Was it?
Rho was Darren Prough’s ex-wife. By mistake, Howie and Rhoda had always gotten along very well at company picnics, holiday parties, and GE union bowling league nights. Rhoda mistook him for something that he was not. Rhoda, like her ex-husband, enjoyed fishing. There was that. She would get close to Howie and joke, under her breath, about the irritating, dull people around her, his pals, the sheeple she called them, instigating a kind of militant camaraderie of antisocialness. Baaaah, she’d say. Bah. She often tried to impress Howie with how much she didn’t like being where she imagined that Howie didn’t like being either. But how to tell her that this was only his face? That his face didn’t like being anywhere. How to tell her that he never had a problem being where he was, and that most people were nice, if too loud, and that his greatest desire was to be nice to people? That people made him happy.
Rhoda would say, “What are we doing here?”
Howie would say that he didn’t know, who knows, and this would make her laugh.
Sometimes she and Howie spoke about lakes.
“This is crap,” Rho had said once. “Don’t you wish you were up in the mountains? Let’s go to the mountains, Jeffries.”
“Now?”
Rho barked, “Ready when you are, buddy!”
They never went to the mountains. Howie, also, didn’t understand the crapness of not being in the mountains. You were where you were, what can you do?
Darren Prough no longer worked at GE but, apparently, Rho was still friends with some of the other GE wives, or she enjoyed attending their functions in order to tell Howie how crappy they were. It was curious. During the divorce, Darren had referred to Rho as the armadillo. Howie imagined her running through walls, eating pretty flowers. But that was unkind.
Before he left, Rho told Howie that they had to get together soon, go fishing or something. She had said that they should go for a proper drink at a proper bar one of these days and that she knew just the place—up near Fort Ticonderoga. But, Howie knew, that was just the kind of thing that people often said instead of good-bye.
“She was talking to a lot of people,” Howie told Drew.
“Who, Howard?” Drew liked that. “So you admit it! Come on, let’s have a name.”
“Her name is Rho.”
Howie dropped his ex-wife and Drew off and they insisted that he get out of the car right this instant so that they could hug him properly. He obliged.
Driving down Route 29, Howie decided that there was no way Robert Rogers had tricked the Indians. Not like that, anyway. Howie knew that rock; there was no safe way down, especially in the winter. No, Howie knew why Rogers alone had survived. He’d stayed there at the bottom the entire time. The Battle on Snowshoes had begun and Rogers had taken off his snowshoes and found a place to hide. Maybe he’d climbed up a tree, or he’d buried himself in snow, or maybe he played dead. Playing dead seemed most likely. Rogers had laid there and listened to his men being slaughtered around him, the soft, safe, grateful sound of their bodies falling in snow, the crack of gunfire and hatchets hitting skin, skulls, bone, backbones, and then, at the last moment, Robert Rogers had gotten up, thrown down his gun, his belongings, everything, and he’d run across the frozen lake, straight toward where Harri had no doubt been when she painted Howie’s birthday present. There are no extravagant tricks. No spirits, good, bad, or otherwise. The trick? You keep your head down and hope that nobody notices. Then, at the last moment, you run for your freaking life.
He would promote this version of history the next time he saw Drew, see what he thought, but Howie thought about that, too, and knew that he probably wouldn’t see Drew again like this—not for a long while anyway.
Good night, Howie. This had been a good night. He looked at his painting in the rearview mirror, making sure that it was still there. He loved it so much, especially now, without his ex-wife sleeping behind it.
Howie did not realize that anything was wrong until he pulled into his driveway. He smelled it first, stepping from his car. Smoke. It was sickly, like burning plastic or hair, and his first thought was that his car was on fire, somewhere in the engine, the trunk, and that his car would surely explode before he could get the painting safely out of the backseat. It was almost a relief, then, to find that the smoke was spilling from the open front door of the Phane house. He watched. One second, two. Three. Four. How quiet and unreal, feeling relief harden into horror because there was Emily Phane, on the lawn, lying in the manner of someone who had been on fire and was now dead.
17
Emily, asleep on Howie’s sofa, looked like a telephone that you expected to start ringing with bad news. Like, at any moment, she would ring and Howie would answer and she would tell him that she was, actually, as a matter of fact, deceased. You were too late.
But she was OK, Howie reminded himself. She breathed; she no longer coughed. The worst was over.
The fire had started in the fireplace. Emily had, of course, started it. Everything would have been fine if she had remembered to open the chimney flue.
Later, Howie saw that it had been started with some pillows, chair pieces, magazines and newspapers, and what looked like a bunch of potted plants. The smoke, with nowhere to go, had stayed home. It had filled the house. The wallpaper around the fireplace had bubbled and charred like a thin sheet of roasted marshmallow. The ceiling was black.
Howie hadn’t exactly saved her life, but, he knew, he would have if it had come to that. He had been prepared to do whatever it took, running from his car to Emily. The unexpected thump of his feet had made the earth feel stage-like, hollow. He hadn’t used his l
egs in that manner since high school, and it had thrilled him, the way that he had been able to momentarily outrun his shyness.
So. Freckles and sleep, not soot or ash or death. There were bits of cut grass stuck to the side of Emily’s face. She looked otherwise OK. No burning.
He had woken her.
“Mmmph—” Her hands groping for a pillow that wasn’t there. “I don’t wanna.”
Neither did Howie, but he had. He did. He was. Howie pulled his neighbor up from the gathering smoke and held her in his arms. He took her to his living room, laid her on the sofa, and found himself back outside, facing the blaze alone. Except it wasn’t a blaze exactly, just smoke. Howie noted the green garden hose that snaked from the outside of the house into the front door. He watched water lazily slip out the front door, over the porch, and down the steps to the grass. It sounded like an old fountain at a Chinese restaurant.
The lights were still on inside Emily’s house, giving the smoke an eerie theatrical aura. Like a rock ’n’ roll person was soon to step from Emily’s front door, followed by fireworks, noise. But then, as Howie approached, he heard a loud crack. He jumped. The lights clapped off. Something sizzled. Howie walked through the smoke up to the front door and followed the hose to the fireplace, holding on to it as if he were a mountain climber. The living room was flooded. He stepped on broken pottery, heaps of soggy leaves, mud, clothing, what felt like a squishy wet mattress. He couldn’t exactly see. The water must have shorted the electricity, and Howie realized that had he entered the house a minute earlier, he might have been electrocuted. There was no fire now, just smoke. Covering his mouth, Howie stepped back outside. Howie did not call 911.
He coughed. He listened to the pines. They were a community here, he thought. You take care of your own. For ten minutes he waited with Emily’s house, as if holding its hand, calming them both down. Gradually, the smoke dissipated. Because you could not be too sure. Never turn your back on smoke.
They’d assess the damage tomorrow.
Howie walked back to his house. He walked down Emily’s driveway, turned right on Route 29, and then another right up his own driveway. He approached his living room with considerably more fear than he’d approached Emily’s house. She was still asleep. Howie went upstairs, listening to his footsteps, and he found a red, white, and blue afghan in Harri’s room, or the guest room, because, despite what his daughter had been telling her mother and Drew, she hadn’t been to visit in years. Howie covered Emily with this afghan, tucking her in. Howie went to the kitchen and drank a refreshing glass of milk. Then he went back upstairs.