Fallen Land

by Patrick Flanery

  7:10 AM: He can smell his mother sitting on the chair next to his bed. He opens his eyes and pulls himself up to look in the mirror on the opposite wall. His cheeks and eyes are red, his hair angled in waves all over his head. When he sees the image of the boy in the bed at first he does not recognize himself. “I want you to tell me the truth,” his mother says, “did you write those words in the hall?” “No,” he says, “I never did any of those things. It was the man.” “Which man, Copley?” “The man in the woods yesterday, with the gun, he lives in the basement.” His mother exhales, “Oh, Copley. Come on, sweetie. There is no man in the basement.” He knows she has run out of patience. “Why don’t you believe me?” he asks. “I want—” she says. He does not understand what she wants. It almost seems like she wants to believe that he is responsible. “Let me show it to you again. Let me show you where he lives.” “Enough! Copley, honestly, enough already. There are four people in this house. Me, you, your father, and Louise.” “No,” he says, “not just the four of us.” “Stop. You have to stop lying. Do you know what the word means that you wrote on Louise’s door?” “I didn’t write it,” he shouts, outraged that she would believe him capable of such a thing. Of course he knows what the word means. He has heard other students at school whisper it when he and Joslyn pass. He never heard the word before that, and did not, at first, understand what it meant until he asked Joslyn. “Don’t ever say that word,” she said, “if you’re my friend you won’t say that word.” “I don’t understand what it means,” he said, “why do they call us that word?” “Not us,” she said, “they’re calling me that word.” “But what does it mean?” “It’s what nasty, stupid people call people like me. And it’s the worst thing you could call me.” That was enough of an explanation. He didn’t need to hear anything more than that. He looks at his mother and tells her about Joslyn. He says that he would never use that word. His mother gives him his morning pills and he swallows them. She looks at the bottles and turns them over in her hands and looks at him. “So you knew that word already,” she says. She shakes the pills and takes them into the bathroom. He can hear her opening the bottles and throwing the pills into the toilet and then dropping the plastic bottles into the metal trashcan. When she comes back, she’s smiling but does not look happy. “No more pills,” she says. “We’re stopping the pills today. That was your last dose.” “Why?” he asks. “Because I think they’re doing more harm than good. I think they might be making you do things you don’t even know you’re doing.”

  8:00 AM: His mother leaves him alone and he takes a shower, gets dressed, and goes downstairs for breakfast. His father and mother are standing up at the island, while Louise is sitting on one of the stools, eating a bowl of oatmeal. “You come sit next to me,” she says. His father looks at him and says they expect him to apologize to Louise. He thinks that the three of them have been arguing. His mother bites her lip and Louise raises a hand to his father but his father puts up his own hand and pats the air, as if he were a teacher telling Louise to be quiet. “I want to hear Copley apologize for what he’s done,” his father says. Copley looks at the three adults. His father stares at him, his face cut into many small triangles; his mother looks at him and then at the floor, chewing her lip. Louise won’t look at him at all and stares out the window instead. He can see there is only one way out of this, even though it means admitting a thing he knows he did not do and would never do. Then he notices the box of crayons that are usually in the activities drawer in the kitchen. His father taps the lid of the box. “These were thrown all over the floor of the kitchen.” He isn’t sure what his father expects him to say in response. He would never leave anything a mess. He hates messes. “Come on, Copley. Let’s hear it.” His father’s voice is calm in a way that makes the back of his neck prickle and crawl. “I’m sorry,” he says, “but I didn’t do it. I didn’t do any of it.” His father throws the box of crayons on the floor and stomps out of the kitchen, shouting at his mother, “I expect him to clean it up. No one else is going to help him!” His mother runs after his father, shouting, “Nate, be reasonable. He can’t clean it up. It’s going to be way too much work. I’ll call Di tomorrow and see if she can come earlier in the week.” “No!” his father shouts. “I want it cleaned NOW.”

  8:30 AM: His mother has given him her hairdryer, a bucket of warm soapy water, and a sponge as big as his head. “Turn the hairdryer on a small section and heat it up. When the crayon is warm and soft, wash it with the sponge,” she says, looking as though she is about to cry. She watches while he turns on the hairdryer and heats up a postcard-sized section of floor where the word AWAY has been written. His own handwriting looks nothing like the writing in the hall. When he can see the wax beginning to melt he turns off the hairdryer and draws the sponge up out of the water, squeezing it before he wipes it over the floor. He scrubs the melting word, moving feathery arcs of foam back and forth, watching the red wax begin to smear and disperse. He can see that it’s going to take a long time to clean the entire hallway. It looks impossible to do in a day.

  10:15 AM: He is on his fifth bucket of warm soapy water and has managed to clean a section of floor the size of a bath towel, although there is still a haze of pinkish wax covering parts of it where he could not get all the crayon to come off. As he heats and scrubs, his arms and back and knees and neck all aching, the sweat running along his body, he wonders who the man is that has done these terrible things, who took him up in his arms when he walked outside, who has tried in so many ways to drive them from the house. He has read about ghosts and poltergeists but thinks that neither of these are a way of describing the man. Instead, the man reminds him of a troll or an ogre, a creature who is real and fleshy and wicked, who lives in a dark hidden place, and wants no one to pass over his bridge or disturb his rest.

  12:05 PM: His mother comes to check on his progress. He is scrubbing so slowly, barely a quarter of the way along the hall, not even touching the walls or the doors, that she says, “Okay, time for a break. Come have some lunch.” They eat in silence. He pays no attention to the food on his plate. He puts it in his mouth and tastes nothing but soap and wax. When his mother’s back is turned, Louise winks at him and reaches out to touch his hand, which is red and raw, either from abrasion or heat or melted crayon. He does not know where his father is.

  1:00 PM: He is still sitting at the island in the kitchen, between Louise and his mother, when his father comes through the back door. “I think Copley and I should go for a walk,” his father says. “I think we should talk about things.” Although they are not touching, he feels his mother’s body grow tense. “Where are you going to walk?” she asks. “Just back in the woods, maybe into the reserve.” His father’s voice sounds calm and flat. “Cop and I need to discuss what all of this means.” “Nathaniel—” his mother begins, but his father interrupts her. “It’s okay, Julia. We won’t be long. We’ll be back soon. He has a job to finish this afternoon.”

  1:10 PM: There is low cloud over the woods and the fog from overnight still has not cleared; if anything, it is growing thicker and more opaque. His father says nothing as the two of them walk to the back gate, which is already unlocked. “The gate,” he says. “It’s okay,” says his father, “I was just out here a while ago. I was looking for those stairs and that chimney. And you know what? I still couldn’t find them.” After his father closes and locks the gate they are alone in the woods, standing in the fog beneath corn-yellow leaves.

  1:15 PM: His father leads him toward the stand of fir trees not far from the back gate. When he looks at the house he notices how the trees and fence block the view: he can’t see the house and the house can’t see him. He looks up through the twisting branches of one of the cottonwood trees. “You still haven’t climbed a tree, have you, Cop?” He shakes his head; the first branches are far above the ground. “It’s really an experience every child should have,” his father says, pulling a coil of rope from the pocket of his coat. “I want to help you climb t
his tree.” He watches as his father throws the rope up over the lowest branch, which is five or six times higher than his father is tall, and catches the other end when it comes down. “Come here.” He steps toward his father, who threads the rope through the small loops at the waist of his jeans, twisting it around his leather belt. His father ties a knot and then another knot and yanks several times on the rope to see if it’s secure. “Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to pull you up to that branch so you can climb on it.” “No,” he says, feeling his legs dance, “no, please, no!” And then, before he can run away, his feet are off the ground and the rope tightens around his waist. He grips the rope above his head but the noose around his waist pushes the wind out of him; he struggles to breathe as his father pulls him up through the air, the world falling away in spinning lurches as his head approaches the branch. “Now reach up,” his father says from below, “and when you can, you grab that branch and pull yourself up on top of it. Don’t be afraid, I’m holding the rope.”

  —:— PM: Sliding out of time, he forgets where he is, loses sensation in his body, slips away from his arms and legs, connected only by the head to his body, the two of them suspended in air, rising, rising, trying to separate from his body, and then a knock pushes his arms and legs back into their flesh, his two heads joining up first, aching from the blow of the limb against his crown. He reaches for the branch, fumbles onto the wet ridged surface, pulls himself up, trembling, the breath coming back to him, one leg over the branch, straddling it, his chest collapsing, arms clutching, struggling to hold on to the wet bark, seeking purchase on the rough edges. He looks for his father down below but the fog whites out the ground and fills his lungs. “Copley?” his father calls, “you all right? Stand up so I can see you. Come on, stand up! I want to see you stand up. You’re climbing a tree!” He pushes his chest off the branch and sits upright, looks back at the trunk, three or four feet away, and begins to scoot his body in reverse, tightening his legs around the branch as he moves, teetering from side to side, his balance precarious, until he reaches the trunk. He exhales. He inhales. His father hates him. His father is trying to kill him. “Now, Copley! I want to see you stand up. I’m not letting you down from there until you stand up on that branch and admit what you did. I want to hear a confession. I want you to stand up and tell me what you did. Copley? Say something!”

  —:— PM: It may have been seconds or minutes although it feels like many days of sleeping and waking, of dreaming in and out of consciousness as the fog closes around him, thickening and rising up until it is lying beneath the branch, the surface of a silvery white lake. He will walk the length of the branch, believing that if he falls, he will fall only into water, that he will be able to swim back to the branch, pull himself out of the water, and continue his walk. He knows how to swim, he was always good at the balance beam, his dance teacher in Boston said he walked the most natural straight line she had ever seen. There was a floating log in the lake near his grandfather’s house in New Hampshire, which they last visited two years ago during the summer vacation. He swam with his mother out to the log and she held it still at one end while he climbed on top of it, pulled his body upright by gradual degrees, and walked back and forth along its length until his mother let go and he walked for a full minute, she said, timing him, as the log rolled gently beneath his feet on the surface of the silvery white New England lake. Here the tree is holding the branch instead of his mother, so it will not turn beneath his feet. It is wet like that other branch was wet, it has ridges along its bark as that other log had ridges. He can walk its length, back and forth, without having to worry that it will begin to spin too fast, and that he will eventually plunge forward or backward into the void. Not a void, not the air, but water, the silvery white lake of fog on which the branch of the cottonwood floats, a body of water that will buoy him up if he falls.

  —:— PM: His father’s voice is distant and small and he cannot see the man, nor does he believe that his father can see him. All he wants is to be back on the ground. All he wants is for this terror to stop and for the three of them to go back to Boston. He reaches behind him, gripping the rough trunk as firmly as he can, and draws his legs up so his feet are resting in front of him on the branch. He turns, swinging his legs to one side, so that if he wished, he could lean back in space and hang from the limb by his legs. Instead, he begins to stand, clinging to the trunk, his knees wobbling and watery, and just as he is nearly upright, the rope still knotted around his waist, he cries out, “Help me,” before slipping and flying into the lake of fog.

  When he comes up from the cellar, rifle over his arm, pushing aside the gates of camouflaging boughs and trees, Paul can see the man on the ground holding the rope, leaning backward toward the stream, pulling and losing his footing. At the other end of the rope, the child is in midair, struggling, reaching up, trying to pull himself along the line, whimpering in a strangled voice, “Help! Help me!” It looks like the man is hanging his son, a noose tightening around the child’s neck as his father tugs at the rope from the ground, grunting. A low gasping comes from the child, then the sound of his sleeves rubbing against rope, slippery and synthetic. From this angle through the fog, the boy looks more than ever like Carson.

  Paul shifts the rifle from his shoulder and points it skyward, braces his legs and squeezes the trigger, watching as the man startles at the sound of the blast. He turns to face Paul and as he does, the man’s fists open, letting go of the rope. The child floats through the fog, feather-light, and as Paul races to the tree, believing he can catch the boy before he hits the ground, he sees those waxy, glassy eyes staring down at him, horrified, the child’s face puzzled, his body contorting and scrambling through vapor, trying to find purchase in the mist, to grasp something, looking always down, staring at Paul, and at last crying out as his feet, his knees, his hips and chest and arms hit the ground, his head falling last, cracking against a stone rising up from the sea of fallen leaves, the rope tied tightly round his waist, his neck unmarked.

  The man looks at Paul and does not even stop to attend to his son, but begins running in the direction of the stream. The rifle is still in Paul’s hands and he raises it into position, finding the man in his sights, and pulls the trigger. The whole movement, the raising of the gun, the aiming, his finger pressing against the trigger, it all happens in a single instant. He does not think. Or rather, Paul looked at the man who was trying to kill the child who resembled Carson and saw a man endangering his own child, Paul’s child. He has shot the man who was trying to kill his son.

  In the fog he cannot see if the man is dead, but hears the body splash into the water. He runs down the hill and finds the man swimming away from him, thrashing in water up to his neck. Throwing the rifle down on the bank, Paul wades into the water, swims to the man, and catches him up in his arms. They stare at each other for a moment, treading water, the current pulling against their feet, drawing them westward. Paul blows out a stream of air, empties his lungs and then fills them again, closing his eyes and leaning forward, pushing both of their bodies down under the water, thick with silt and leaves and blood. He can feel the man struggling in his embrace, thrashing and crying out, the man’s voice echoing through the clogged artery of stream, twisting and bouncing across its muddy bottom.

  When the man’s body is still Paul throws his head above the surface, breathes in dense wet air, and sinks below again, reaching for the man’s body, pulling it up, swimming it to the bank, and feeding the dead arms through an exposed root.

  WHEN HE TURNS THE BODY over the child’s eyes are open, staring at the sky. Paul leans close and holds his cheek just above the boy’s mouth. He listens against the child’s chest for a heartbeat, searches for a pulse in the thin neck, in the wrists. The rock is dark with blood, the boy’s eyes crossed, glazed ceramic balls, blood marking his brow. As Paul looks into those dead eyes a convulsion shakes his gut. He has never seen human eyes so fixed, unresponsive, without
light. Sprawling on the leaves, he is aware of how wet and cold he is. If he does not get back indoors he will slip into hypothermia.

  With his dripping bandaged hands he touches the eyelashes, closes the lids, fingers the hair, looks closely at the scalp, the fingernails, the line of the jaw, taking apart the child in his arms. The boy is not Carson. There is no resemblance. His own sons are alive on the other side of the country. He wants to be anywhere but here, on this land, skulking through these woods. There is no reason to stay.