The Art of Floating

by Kristin Bair O’Keeffe

  • • •

  As expected, hundreds of men—boys really—disappeared in places like Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Chechnya. There they were swallowed up by the tens and twenties, but given the circumstances, such events were to be expected. Only their mothers were surprised.

  • • •

  Many men disappeared in coal mines, especially those who ventured into the deepest, blackest veins of Mother Earth.

  • • •

  One man, Sia read, was missing from Toledo, Ohio. Another from Tallahassee, Florida. The one missing from North Carolina had disappeared numerous times before. He was a bit slow in the noggin, on some unnamed medication, and in danger of once again being found in Tijuana, where he liked to bugger young girls.

  • • •

  The man missing in Texas was the father of twin boys who’d just celebrated their third birthdays. The photo showed the boys hiding behind their mother’s legs, their tiny hands pinching her bare calves.

  • • •

  The man who had escaped from an Illinois hospital was suspected of a heinous crime—the rape and murder of a pregnant woman who had trusted in the validity of his official ID and allowed him into her home to reconnect the cable on her television. His card, the one she’d obviously asked to see, was lying in a pool of blood not far from her body.

  • • •

  Gerald Langely, innocent of any crime except perhaps poor judgment, had fallen off a boat near the coast of Florida during a storm and a great wave had washed him out to sea. In her sorrow, his wife told reporters he had been taken by Poseidon, God of the Sea, for a higher purpose.

  • • •

  Next [click]

  • • •

  Theodore Criddle, Sia discovered, was driven to climb. When he was a baby, his mother told the paper, it was all she could do to keep him from scaling the refrigerator or even the roof of the house. At eighteen, after he’d climbed all the peaks in the eastern part of the country, he headed west. When he arrived in Colorado, he didn’t allow his body time to adjust to the change in altitude; he simply started climbing. A group of young hikers saw him on a path to Mt. Beirstadt at about twelve thousand feet. They tried to greet him, as was the custom on wooded trails—camaraderie and such—but he waved them off. He was weaving, one girl said, like a drunk, and she offered him a pouch of trail mix. He refused it.

  “Did he have water?” the reporter asked.

  The girl didn’t know. She hadn’t seen water bottles tucked in his pack.

  “He disappeared so quickly around a bend,” the girl told the reporter, “it was as if he hadn’t been there at all. We talked about following him, but we were tired. We figured he’d be okay. He wasn’t.”

  The reporter said the girl looked sad here, as if she might have been able to affect the outcome of things. People always think that. Sia thought that. But officials in Colorado speculated that altitude sickness played a major role in Theodore’s disappearance. “It happens every year,” the game warden said.

  Theodore’s body hadn’t been found.

  Whenever Sia saw a story on the news or in the paper like this about someone who had disappeared, the loved ones left behind were always quoted as saying they would not consider the possibility of the lost one being dead, but Sia knew that was a lie.

  “Liar,” she said when she read that Theodore’s mother said she would go to her grave believing her boy was alive. “Big, ugly liar.”

  That’s all you can consider, she thought. Images of your wife or husband or child or mother lying in a puddle of broken bones, blood and spirit seeping out. The images—the possibility—sit on your chest like the miserable, fat boy in elementary school. It’s the worst, most helpless feeling in the world, and Sia would have much rather known the truth than have been left wondering.

  • • •

  “Enough,” Sia said out loud. To the teakettle. The curtain. The sponge in the sink. “Enough.”

  CHAPTER 65

  “I read an article about ways highly empathic people can have better relationships.”

  “And?” Sia’s therapist said.

  “Pretty much what I’ve been saying all my life. You know, all the stuff that makes Jilly insane.”

  “Which is . . .”

  “I need my own space, my own bathroom, my own office. I need to be able to take breaks from other people’s sadnesses.” She paused. “I need, I need, I need.”

  “And?”

  “Easier said than done when you find a sad, silent man on a beach.”

  CHAPTER 66

  “When you’re hungry,” Jackson used to say, “you’ll do anything.”

  “Anything?” Sia would tease back, acting as if she’d never heard this story before.

  “Anything,” he’d say. “Like Trout.”

  “Trout?”

  “Yeah, you remember Trout. The fish that spent two years avoiding the fisherman’s expertly tied flies.”

  “Ooohhh, the fat-bellied fisherman whose shadow and footsteps always gave him away.”

  “That’s the one.”

  Here Jackson would wrestle Sia to the bed until she went limp, looked up at him, clearly feeling his hunger and her own, press her legs open, and plead. “Tell me again what happened to Trout.”

  “Oh,” Jackson would say, “one cold spring morning before the good hatches started to break, silly old Trout gave in to his growling belly and snapped up the woolly bugger he’d worked so long and so hard to avoid. For one quick second before the fisherman yanked the line—just before Trout felt the hook set in his jaw—it felt good, so good. My belly will be full, he thought.”

  “How sad,” Sia would say.

  “Hunger’s funny that way.”

  “And what do you know about hunger?” Sia would tease and press up against him.

  “Oh, beautiful Sia,” he’d say, wanting, hungry himself, but, “not so fast. First, you need to know about Bear.”

  “Bear?” she’d say.

  “Yes, Bear.” Then Jackson would unpin one arm so she could drape it across his back. “Though the men who finally trapped Bear thought he was cross-eyed from birth, it was actually hunger that drove his eyes so.”

  Sia would cross her eyes.

  “For many years Bear was a happy, healthy bear, but then there was a terrible drought. The world around Bear dried up like an autumn leaf and he could no longer find grubs in the old tree stump or berries on the bush by the stream. Old Bear grew hungry. By the time he smelled the mess of rotten fruit and bad meat in the back of the steel-can trap a few ranchers had set for him, that boy was beyond hungry. He was salivating so much he might have drowned in his own juices if they hadn’t caught him when they did.”

  “He was that hungry?” Sia would ask. She’d tuck her hand under Jackson’s shirt and drag her nails along his lower back.

  “Bears have big bellies,” Jackson would say, “and Bear hadn’t filled his for weeks. That’s a long time for a bear.”

  “That’s a long time for me,” she’d answer, wiggling beneath him.

  But Jackson would ignore her and continue. “The thing is, when Bear crawled into that trap, he didn’t care anymore. He was ready to chew off his own leg.”

  Sia would shake her head.

  “When he heard the cage door slam down behind him, he was pissed but resigned. He gnashed his teeth and growled like the devil, but set right to work on his meal. And again, like Trout, for a moment Bear was happy.”

  “You can make me happy,” Sia would say, trying to free the hand he still had pinned to the bed. She’d raise her head and bite his neck. “I can make you happy.”

  Jackson would pin her tighter. “You know, after hauling him some fifty miles east, those men shot Bear like they’d been told to do. They used a high-powered rifle and shot him right through the bars of the cage.
Then they dumped his body near a lake where if he’d been luckier and they’d let him live, he might have caught a few trout to tide him over until the rains came.”

  “And did the rains come?” Sia would ask, whispering close to Jackson’s ear. “Did they come?”

  Jackson would smile at her. “Oh yeah,” he’d say, “they came.”

  “Poor Bear,” she’d say. “If only he’d been able to resist that rotten fruit.”

  “Resistance is futile.”

  “What about Trout?” Sia would ask, hoping that maybe the fisherman had unhooked Trout so he could swim free for a few more seasons.

  “No luck. The fat-bellied fisherman whose fat-bellied shadow had saved Trout for so many years ate Trout that very afternoon. Cooked him over a small fire he built in a clearing.”

  “He must have been pretty hungry himself,” Sia would say.

  “No, just selfish,” Jackson would reply. Then he’d unpin the hand Sia had worked so hard to free and slip-slide her skirt up over her thighs.

  “I’m hungry,” she’d say.

  “I know,” Jackson said every time, “but you gotta remember that Trout and Bear both knew—on some level—they were giving in. They knew it would be their last bite, and it seems they didn’t care.

  “Me, too. Me, too,” Sia would say. “I’m giving in, too.”

  CHAPTER 67

  At exactly 4:30, Sia returned to the police station.

  Maude looked at the clock on the wall. “Right on time, Odyssia Dane,” she said.

  “How’s he doing?” Sia asked.

  “Okay, I guess. He’s a little hard to read. If I give him something to eat, he eats. If I give him something to drink, he drinks. If I take him to the john, he uses it. But the guy never asks for anything.”

  “I guess he’s doing fine then. He’s consistent.”

  Maude unlocked the door between them.

  “He hasn’t said a word to you?” Sia asked, stepping into Maude’s glass box.

  “No, though I talked his ear off while I filed some papers. It’s kind of nice to have someone so quiet around.”

  “He didn’t open up for Richard either?”

  “Nope, not a word.”

  “I didn’t think he would.”

  “It’s strange, though,” Maude said. “It’s not just that he’s silent. There’s also this silence about him. Like his soul is silent. Do you know what I mean?”

  Sia nodded. That was a good way to put it. “Have they brought anyone to see him?” she asked.

  “Yeah, that high-and-mighty psychologist from Boston drove up. Dillard, I think. He was wearing a bow tie and penny loafers, so I didn’t think he’d have much luck.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. He talked to Toad for a fairly long time. Showed him a few maps and photographs. Newspapers in various languages. But as I suspected, he got nothing. Those loafer-wearing types are useless.”

  “Are they offering any theories as to where he might have come from?”

  “None that I’ve heard.”

  “No new missing-person reports?”

  “Nope.”

  “Prison breakouts?”

  Maude laughed and shook her head. “Richard told me to send you in when you arrived.”

  Sia turned toward Richard’s office. “So what’s next?” she asked.

  “I’ll let him talk to you.”

  “Thanks, Maude.”

  • • •

  Richard was at his desk filling out a form when Sia walked in. She sat down and waited.

  When he was done, he looked up at her. “You want a housemate for a while?” he said.

  Sia leaned forward. “What?”

  “Do you want a housemate?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your Toad. Do you want him back for a while?”

  This was the last thing Sia had expected to hear. “Why?” she said. “What’s happening?”

  Richard organized a stack of papers into a pile, pulled himself up straight, and set his forearms on the desk. “We can’t get a word out of him, Sia. He doesn’t match any of the reports for missing men. I invited Dr. Elston Dillard up from Boston. He has a great reputation, but even he is stumped. He mentioned the possibility of depression or amnesia and wants Toad in a hospital down in Boston, but I’m just not sure that’s the best thing for the guy right now. Like I said before, as far as we know, he hasn’t done anything wrong. I don’t see any reason to lock him up in a mental ward and scare him even deeper into silence.”

  Sia nodded slowly. “So . . . ?” she said.

  “I’ve talked Dr. Dillard into letting Toad stay with you. He seems to have formed some kind of bond to you and that’s the only thing we have going for us at this point.”

  Sia looked at her cell phone. It was buzzing wildly. “Jilly,” she said. “I haven’t updated her in at least an hour.” She hit silence.

  Richard smiled.

  “Anyway,” Sia said, “Toad may have formed a bit of a bond to Gumper, but I don’t think he’s bonded to me. I’ve just served as his path to food and shelter.” As she spoke, the fish seemed to swell to the size of a whale.

  “Either way, you’re the only option to the hospital right now.”

  Sia paused. A million thoughts raced through her head, everything from Thank God to No way. “Richard, I’m not sure I’m up for this,” she said.

  He nodded. “Up to you, Odyssia. We’ve got a slot for him at the hospital if necessary. I just wanted to give you the opportunity since you’re the one who found him.” As he leaned back in his chair, Sia wondered if any of this was calculated. It was no secret the whole town wanted her to get over or through Jackson’s disappearance. Sometimes she could actually feel their urgency to have her happy and normal again. Was this part of it, too? Forcing her to deal with this lost man?

  “Isn’t this rather unorthodox?” she said. “I mean, they would never do this in the movies.”

  Richard laughed. “Probably not. They’d send him off to the hospital where he’d get all wrapped up in adventures with the doctors and in the end, a Good Samaritan nurse who couldn’t resist his charms would discover his origins, fall in love with him, and take him home. But I don’t think it’s fair to lock this guy up just for being a little lost. And I think he may be more likely to talk if we let him be for a while instead of poking and prodding him with a million questions. Dr. Dillard and his Boston associates are, to put it kindly, rather intense.”

  This was what Sia loved about small towns. Her small town especially. They all thought pretty much the same way about important things. Sure, they disagreed a lot about politics and sometimes dug too deeply into each other’s personal business, but they stuck together good.

  “Jilly’s not behind this, is she?” Sia asked. She imagined candles, lace panties, and poor, silent, salt-encrusted Toad sitting silently on the edge of the bed in a pair of silk boxers, courtesy of Jilly.

  “No,” Richard said. “That woman is imaginative, but she didn’t suggest this. I just think that your place is the best place for Toad right now.”

  “Okay,” Sia said, “that’s good enough for me. But not for long.”

  “No, it’s all up to you. You say the word. If it gets to be too much, just call me. I can be at your place in ten minutes to retrieve him. Besides, once Melissa Cho runs that spot on the news”—he paused, looking at his watch—“someone will probably call to identify Toad.”

  “I assume Jilly told you the whole tale?”

  “Eleven times so far.” He looked at his watch. “Shall we?”

  • • •

  Melissa Cho’s white Chiclet teeth gleamed in the afternoon sun, her black hair clung to her pumpkin-shaped head, and sweat dribbled down her nose, yet her enthusiasm for the hot story of the day was evident in the charge of
her jaws as she spoke.

  “Geez, Odyssia,” Richard said, “did you beat her up before the interview?”

  “Nope, just made her walk on the sand.”

  When footage of Sia’s house finally gave way to footage of the beach, Sia sighed. She hated seeing her house on television. You might as well just hand out a map to the gawkers who would decide that getting a glimpse of the Silent Man was going to be the highlight of their weekend.

  A few minutes later when Melissa introduced Jillian’s theory that Toad was visiting from another planet, Sia stomped around the room. So much for promises.

  “Where’d she get that idea?” Richard said.

  “Guess.”

  “Jillian?”

  “Who else? She’s got this cockamamie idea that Toad is an alien. She thinks I found him just seconds after he was beamed down by his spaceship.”

  “Really? Is she serious?”

  “Quite.”

  “Does she have any evidence?”

  Sia looked at Richard. “Are you serious?”

  He smiled a little.

  “Oh, my God, you are!” she said. “How can you be serious?”

  “You never know, Odyssia.”

  “I do know that Melissa Cho’s report is going to bring out every wacko in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and probably Vermont.”

  “Yep.”

  “To my house, you know. Not yours.”

  “Yep,” Richard said. “Still want him?”

  • • •

  Ode to the shower:

  Toad was clean. Fresh. Wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a blue T-shirt. Sandals, even.

  “We cleaned him up,” Richard said.

  “Obviously. Jillian’s going to be jealous of that hair.” Toad’s freshly washed hair hung about his head like a lion’s mane. The word godlike popped into Sia’s head.

  “I’m jealous of that hair,” Richard said, tapping his own receding hairline.

  “Did he fight you about showering?”

  “No. He pretty much showered himself, except for his hair.”