I didn’t say anything. I didn’t think I could stand her more than another half hour but I gritted my teeth and made ready to try.
“All of this dreary, wasted effort because you upset some girl? Come on. So you’re all afraid she won’t like you? Here’s a news flash, piano boy: lots of people don’t like you. Sometimes, even the people who do like you have their doubts. There is Senbein who thinks you’re an unreliable prick. There’s Meister Eisenhart who is desperately trying to cover his ass since he’s made no secret that you’re the best student he’s ever had. Carl is wondering if he spent all those years helping you along just to see you self-indulgently destroy yourself because you can’t always feel the great power of music flooding through you.”
“Shut up, Misty.”
The rain opened up with a roar. Solid sheets of it pouring down. Nets of lightning spun across the sky—flashbulb bursts that strobed the world and blinded me. But, nothing could drown Misty out.
“There are people, like that first row violinist, Murdock, for example, who envy you your talent—currently being squandered in a rainstorm in the middle of Godforsaken Missouri, in case you haven’t noticed—and would pay for tickets to watch you go down in flames. I bet even Sandy is trying to remember what the hell she ever saw in you.”
“Shut up, Misty.”
I looked around. The wind blew up the leaves so they looked pale and dead. The wind tugged at me. I held the coat shut. Heavy as hell. Heavy as sin.
“You’re throwing away everything we worked on for the last seventeen years and I should shut up? Just because you’re upset that some flat as a pancake boy-wannabe justifiably thinks you’re jumping every slut that comes your way you think I should be the one to shut up? Get a grip, little boy. Wake up and smell the riverbed.”
“Get the fuck out of my head!” I screamed at the sky, the woods, the rain.
“I’m here to stay, buddy boy.”
The rain eased a bit. The road forward at least was downhill. There were some lights shining over the ridge. Maybe I could find a phone.
Water always runs downstream, I thought. The road hugged the side of the hill as it wound down and the water ran across the hill, over the road, and down the other side. It brought all manner of mud and gravel with it. My sneakers had been soaking before this. Now they had rocks in them, too.
Amanda had been the first. She was the one who persuaded me that setting the Christmas tree on fire on New Year’s Day would be a good celebration. My parents thought it was just boyish excitement. Then, Gerald convinced me the only way to see what was coming out of the end of a Roman candle was to light it and stare down the tube. Gerald and Amanda and I figured out how to break into the hospital kitchen. Then, Donald spoke up for the first time to tell me the best way to use a knife.
Misty had beckoned me to the piano while the stitches in my wrists were still fresh and sore. It was Misty who helped me get rid of the rest as long as I kept her a secret. Which was kind of like an exorcism except without the fun of rotating heads and projectile vomiting. She’d been with me ever since.
This whole trek was stupid. I laughed a little in the rain. Maybe the light was a bar. I could get some guy in a red shirt with a pickup to take me back to Columbia.
Or, I thought, maybe there’s a new life under that light. It’s the Emerald City—or somebody I could care about, anyway. Something spectacular that would make everything clear. Something amazing.
The road leveled out and I walked around the curve into the thriving village of McBane—well documented by the city limits sign. Two houses, one trailer on stilts and a tiny ripoff grocerette in a green cinderblock building. Bait and beer sold here. When it was open. The light from a reddish street lamp shone down. The transformer on the same pole crackled and the air was laced with the faint smell of ozone.
I sat down on the bench in front of the store. The rain let up to a drizzle and the clouds rose up so they no longer looked like they were scraping the trees. The only sound was the hum from the light, the snap of the transformer and a rushing sound I guessed was the river.
There was no phone. I’d either have to hike back or knock on the door of one of these houses. Or the trailer.
At least I couldn’t smell myself anymore.
“Okay,” Misty said. “What are you going to do now? Maybe you can conjure up a taxi like your little witch friend.”
I tried to ignore her. But she kept chattering at me.
“Maybe you’re not even much of a pianist. Maybe all those people were pretending to enjoy it. After all, if you can’t enjoy it yourself, somebody ought to get something out of it.”
There was another, brighter and more distant glow in the direction of the river.
What the hell, I thought. I started walking towards it.
“Great. What rough beast its hour come round at last is slouching towards the river to drown.”
You know, I thought. Maybe Misty was right. Maybe I had this all wrong. So I didn’t get the rush I used to get when I played. I could still hear it. I could still play it—play it damned well, too. There was some pleasure in that. Nothing was perfect. It wasn’t like I would never feel anything about music ever again. There was no perfect darkness any more than there was perfect light.
The lightning and thunder stopped but the rain still came down. All I could hear was the rain.
The road curved to the right deep into the trees but there was a trail that led up a rise. I could now hear the river from the other side. I started walking up the trail.
Carl seemed to have a good life. So it was a little smaller than I had wanted. He had a house. He had a job. He had a good time with his band. Carl obviously enjoyed his life. He didn’t mind it. Why should I?
The edge of the bluff was bare and the edge was darkness. The light was below at the edge of the water shining over nothing more than a dock. I could feel the river, smell it. “Oh, yeah. Carl is so great. Maybe he would have actually been able to get it up for Sandy.”
“Shut up!”
“Make me, fat boy.”
“That’s it.”
I reached over my left shoulder, just like I had for Amanda and Gerald, just like I had for Donald, just like Misty had instructed me, and grabbed her by the neck. I pulled her across. She felt light. Flimsy. I threw her to the ground.
She fell in a heap, too weak to stand on her own.
“No,” she wailed. “You weren’t supposed to do it to me!”
I knelt next to her and grabbed her by the throat with my left hand. “Go away,” I said quietly. “I abjure thee.”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she snarled at me. “I’m not some demon. I’m not some evil spirit. You can’t exorcise me. It’s just psychiatric crap I fed you to get rid of them.”
“I consign you to the Hell from whence you came.”
“You can’t get rid of me!”
I kissed the thumb of my right hand and held her tight as I brought it to her forehead. She screamed and her skin smoked and caught fire.
Then, she was gone. My hands were holding empty rain.
She was gone. Just like Amanda. Just like Gerald. Just like Donald.
“Hallucinatory psychiatric crap that works,” I said to the air. I didn’t call her. I didn’t want her to come back.
I could see up the river from here. There was something going on upstream at the bridge. I recognized the sheen of police lights—I’d seen them shine off the Tobin Bridge down in Boston when they were searching the water. Sometimes I’d read the next day it was a body or a smuggler’s boat. But a lot of the time I never learned anything more than I saw in the lights. Somebody was searching for something.
I stared down at the black river. Maybe that’s all there is. Is that so terrible? You pick a place to be, I told myself. Playing concerts. Teaching music. A place to live. As permanent as this river, I thought. As strong as the earth I’m standing on.
I looked around. Could I go back, now? Had this all been an ex
ercise to get rid of Misty?
I heard an odd sound and looked back upstream towards the bridge. Like a wave curling over, the bluff caved in and the fall raced down towards me. Before I could move, the ground I stood on rolled forward and I was flung into the darkness until I hit the water.
I was under in a moment, the coat heavy as lead.
The coat dragged me down. Off! Get it off. Kick to the surface. Come on. It’s just a couple of feet.
The water felt so cold it burned down my chest and my legs. I felt a cramp start in my leg but let go. I managed to break the surface and choke down a breath when the water spun and dragged me down again.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic! It’s a whirlpool. They must come off the banks. It’s no worse than the ocean off the back of Dad’s boat. Just swim for the surface so you don’t get dragged down too far. Hold on.
I felt a cough spasm in my chest. I couldn’t swim. I yanked off my shoes.
Come on. Hold it a little more. The surface has got to be only a bit further.
I broke the surface again. My legs felt heavy and I was having trouble breathing.
A log smacked my head. I grabbed it and held on.
A few seconds later, I felt silt suck down my right foot. I slid off. The water was still here. I pulled myself up on the muddy bank.
On my hands and knees I looked around. I couldn’t see the bridge anymore. Not even a shimmer of light above the trees. My right foot throbbed and I sat down on gravel—a road? I was shivering. It had to be near dawn. I’d never wanted to see the sun as much in my entire life.
Sure enough, I looked in the east and saw a gathering light. The clouds were dissipating. I lay down on the gravel, suddenly sleepy.
I fell asleep there, cold and wet next to the river, alone for the first time in years.
Chapter 1.11: Katelin
I’m one of those people who always wakes up at the same time regardless of when I go to sleep. So, at 5:30 a.m. I woke up on a sofa. For a moment, I thought I was still dreaming. I looked around the pine walls. So this is Witchlandia, I thought. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Then I remembered: I was sleeping on the sofa at Arnie’s. I didn’t remember falling asleep. The last thing I could recall was staring out the window as Arnie drove west over the I-70 bridge towards his Wooldridge farm. I don’t think I made it to the exit. Arnie must have carried me inside. Or maybe Mattie. I wasn’t so conceited I didn’t think I was tiny. I got off the sofa and went into the kitchen.
The house was quiet in that early morning way when the world only exists surrounding the kitchen. The only sounds were the house, breathing in and out. Ticking sometimes. Cracking, as the earth roused and shook itself. It was warm outside. I set up the coffee maker, put on my jacket and went out and sat on the porch swing to wait for it.
The rain had cleared and it seemed that the dawn had dipped the world in golden honey. Every surface glinted yellow and wet. The house was on a little hill and looked down on Arnie’s furrowed fields. The winter wheat was an impossible green. The sky an unlikely blue. It irritated me. As if the stormy death of last night was meaningless. Hadn’t happened. Without form and void. Thinking about the dead trucker made me think about Sandy last night. And David.
Mattie came out a few minutes later and handed me a cup and a plate with some raisin toast on it.
She sat down on the chair next to the swing. Mattie was a big woman and the chair creaked. “I’m letting Arnold sleep in. You should, too. On a Saturday, Anita gets up when she wants to.”
I nodded and we sat in a companionable silence for a while. “Pretty,” I said. It was in point of fact beautiful.
Mattie nodded. “Arnold says farming is the best life there is if you don’t have to make a living at it.” She sipped her coffee. “Arnold told me what happened last night. I called DeWitt and when he decided to change ears, as I had burnt that one right off, he said to tell you the divers managed to get to the truck a little after first light. The driver was dead just as you said.”
“That’s what I told him last night.”
“So he said.”
I drank my coffee and didn’t say anything.
Mattie looked at me. “There wasn’t anything you could do.”
“I know that.”
“Your mood on this fine morning has nothing to do with the trucker last night?”
“Some,” I admitted. “But not as much as I wish it did. Does that make me cold and heartless?”
“You’d feel better about yourself if you were crying and carrying on?”
“Maybe. He was dead, after all. It seems like I should have more of a reaction than just getting pissed off.”
“People are different,” she said. “I see lots of things at the hospital. Arnold, too. Unspeakable things. I come home short-tempered, then, and bake up six or seven pies.”
I smiled into my coffee.
She watched the crows hovering over the winter wheat. “So what’s bothering you then?”
I shrugged and didn’t answer.
Mattie shook his head. “You know, one time or another you might let something kind of slip out and see what happens. Just for fun. I might die of shock.”
“It’s not important.”
“That tone I know. I have a daughter, you remember. That sounds like a problem with a boy.”
I never thought of David as a boy. It’s kind of hard to maintain that sort of image when they’re sleeping with your roommate. Or, I corrected myself, not sleeping with your roommate. If Sandy could be believed.
“It’s complicated.”
She laughed. “Knowing you, I expect it is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She leaned forward towards me. “I grew up with your father, you know. But I didn’t get to know you until you came into Arnold’s class. Now, why do you think that is?”
“I have no idea.”
“Because you keep to yourself. Peter Loquess was born a politician to the bone. Patrick is just like him and Matthew’s eye is never far from a dollar. Your mother, bless her, just didn’t last long enough to change any of them. Don’t get me wrong. Peter did right by Arnold and there are far worse scoundrels could be in office than either him or Patrick. And Matthew is about as straight a businessman as you could expect to find anywhere. But even so, a person raised in a family like that learns to protect themselves or they don’t last long. That little fiasco on the primary trail was only the expression of something that had been going on before you were born.” She pointed at me. “You are always protecting yourself tooth and toenail. That’ll serve you well up to a point. But it’d be tough to be your boyfriend.”
“I hate that word.”
“Anita does, too.” She sat back and laughed quietly. “She says I’m old-fashioned. So does Arnold. I expect I am.” She looked at me. “Tell me God’s own truth. Is there any joy in your life?”
“What do you mean?”
“You work hard and I respect that. But I do not see that you take any chance to enjoy yourself on the way. Even when you fly—and what a blessing that must be—your mouth is set and your heart grim. Do you think we’re put on this earth to practice?”
“I do okay. I don’t need anything.”
“I think otherwise.” Mattie looked back over the straight, green rows. “I’ve been married twenty-five years. Do you know what Arnold does for me?”
“What?”
“When I come home and bake those pies, burned as they get sometimes, he eats every one of them with a smile. After a while, I get so I can smile back and things get better.” She looked back to me. “That’s worth a lot.”
I didn’t say anything. I finished the toast and the coffee. “I have to get back.”
“Burning daylight, aren’t we?” Mattie stood up and took the cup and plate from me. “Your stick is in the hall closet. If you could, DeWitt wanted you to fly back over McBane. Seems Dawson’s Bluff fell in the river last night. Nobody’s been reported lost and all
the houses are intact. But he thought you might take a look.”
I nodded. “It’s on the way.”
The sky was clear as I took off east towards the big, muddy river. The Missouri is always a flat brown in spring; water boiling up with trees or broken bits of wood floating past. Once when I was a kid in Jeff City I saw a house float by serenely under the Highway 63 Bridge.
I flew among the hawks and vultures, catching the updrafts as the day warmed up. The flat plain unrolled under me. I could see the curves of the river and the green of the new crops and the spring leaves on the trees. I couldn’t remember the last time I actually saw things when I flew. Mattie was right. This was a blessing—even if we might not mean the same thing with the word. And I had taken it for granted.
So I took my time rolling over the river. I paced the vultures as I came down the river valley. I looked for fish jumping. I watched the deer coming to the water’s edge, the wood ducks and geese.
I thought about what Mattie had said. Was there any joy in my life? I did work hard. I liked working hard. But joy?
I watched the light strengthen on the land, to slowly change from a feather touch to a steady grasp. Feel it, I thought. Just a little bit. Just a touch. And for a moment, I felt like singing.
Maybe there was more. More than just working for the sake of satisfaction. More than moments. I thought of Mattie and Arnie. And I thought of David. Someone like him. Maybe.
When I saw Dawson’s Bluff I descended to the height of the bank. The bluff had carved off a couple of hundred feet, a great stinking pile of mud staining the water. There was a breakwater just above the boat landing. Below that, I saw someone sprawled on the gravel road.
I came in and landed next to him. He was face down in the dirt, in a wet T-shirt and jeans, bareheaded and barefoot. I didn’t want him to be dead, whoever it was. I’d seen enough of that.
I reached under his jaw and felt of his pulse: strong but a little slow. I tapped him on the shoulder.
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