The Vanishing Point

by Elizabeth Brundage

  He is a fascination to them, this man who fell from the sky. They entertain him with their games and plays. Handmade toys of felt, wood. They sing songs to him. Recite made-up poems. He is like Gulliver the giant, and they are his loyal attendants.

  At night, alone in the hut, he lies awake. He is attuned to all sound. He hears the animals on their nightly rounds. There are coyotes in these woods. Foxes. The sway of the brush, like the rustle of a woman’s skirt. A skunk loitering outside, she finally wobbles in. He lies there, unmoving, as she sniffs and investigates. Finally, disinterested, she wobbles out, and he can breathe again, relieved.

  There is the constant music of the river. It laps and laps, like a dog drinking from a bowl. A dog that drinks, then waits, then drinks again. He watches the light. The colors. Colors that he once intensified in the darkroom. They are real to him now. The colors are bright. They are teaching him to see.

  It’s a social experiment, Lotus explains. What we’re doing here. We’re like a cult, but the only religion we practice is freedom. She has brought him coffee and a bowl of raspberries. The berries are small and sweet and dazzle his taste buds. The coffee is black and strong.

  Freedom, she says. To be ourselves.

  He watches her as she talks. She uses her hands. Her clothes are loose and soft, in the colors of the forest, brown and gray and mustard, and made by her own hand.

  There’s a field up yonder, she tells him. We’ve got a big garden up there in the summer, and our vegetables last us through the winter in our root cellar. There’s a couple barns, some livestock. About a hundred and ten acres, all told. I can’t remember the last time I went to a supermarket. It was a hunting camp back in the day, all these huts along the riverbank. I used to see them from the train, never knew what they were for.

  I’ve heard the train, he says. I like the sound of it.

  You haven’t told me your name, she says.

  He answers automatically, as if someone has just whispered it in his ear.

  Her husband is Tracey Boyd. People call me Boyd, he says, tossing some more wood on the fire. It’s a miracle you survived that fall. Do you remember it?

  Rye shakes his head, but it isn’t true. He sees glimmers. Flashes, as if from a dream. He remembers fighting with a man in black leather gloves. He remembers falling, the feeling of being utterly weightless, wholly intact as he turned through the air. Sometimes, when he concentrates very hard, the jagged outlines of the man’s face come clear, but the image lasts only for a second. Somebody pushed me, he tells Boyd. Somebody threw me off.

  Who would do that?

  I’m trying to figure that out.

  Boyd sits in the old lawn chair beside Rye’s bed, a thin mattress they dragged in from somewhere, his face lit by the yellow light of a Coleman lantern. They are sharing a joint, the smoke earthy and fragrant. A man in his forties, Boyd projects the confidence he’s earned through studied and determined progress. A student of life, as it were, Rye thinks, with an expressive, nineteenth-century air, his hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, his clothes strategically assembled for the late-winter cold: the canvas jacket over a down vest over a flannel shirt, his jeans held up with suspenders, a blue wool scarf around his neck. On his feet, well-worn hiking boots. His eyes are warm and brown, a man whose quiet, intelligent gaze induces trust.

  Is there somebody we should notify? To let them know you’re alive?

  But Rye is unable to fathom it. No, he says.

  Boyd looks at him curiously.

  I need some time. I need to think.

  It’s your call. This is a real good place to do that.

  Rye nods with appreciation. Truthfully, he doesn’t feel ready to go home. He can’t even imagine it. He is too broken now. But it’s not just his physical predicament. A shift has occurred deep inside of him, a fear of the world beyond this quiet place, of the person out there who did this to him. The person out there who wanted him dead.

  Over games of chess, he comes to know Boyd. Boyd tells him his life—his childhood in Buffalo, the son of two college professors, his BA from Cornell, a master’s from Hopkins, the PhD from Rensselaer.

  During my last year at RPI, I found this tract of land down in Albany, he says. It was all overgrown, full of garbage. People thought I was crazy. I scraped together the money and bought it and put a fucking barn on it. This is a rough part of town, a lot of poverty. A barn was something to see. People started showing up, curious about what I was doing. It just kind of grew from there. We started a community garden. Chickens. Goats. I ended up raising a lot of grant money and opening a center for urban sustainability.

  Rye watches the excitement light his eyes as he talks. He finds his confidence inspiring.

  Then I met Lotus, he tells him. She came down to work with me. She’s a nurse and an environmental activist—with a BA in philosophy. Smart as hell. We did a lot of educational programs with the schools, teaching kids where their food comes from. We were trying to show people how to get along without depending on supermarkets and places like Walmart. It was cool. We did a lot of good.

  Then what?

  We wanted to test ourselves. To see if this was really possible.

  How long have you been out here?

  It’s going on two years. It’s been a process. I think we’re starting to get the hang of it. You learn to use your hands out here.

  Boyd’s are large and expressive. He holds them out so Rye can see the various marks and burns and scars. He’s learned to hunt and fish, to build and to sew. Hunting and gathering, he says. It can fill up your day. So yeah, I’ve learned a lot out here; we all have. You get really tired. We don’t compartmentalize. Everything shares equal importance. It’s been a big change for me. I was one of those nerds staring into a computer screen all day, looking at statistics, living on pizza and good Kentucky bourbon. I used to have all kinds of health problems. Not anymore. What I’ve discovered is how well we can adapt as a species. The body changes. It gets more efficient when you use it right.

  He tells Rye there are fifty-three people on the riverbank as part of this study of collaboration. We’re an enterprise of ideas, he clarifies. You come out here, and, well, all that anxiety I used to feel kind of went away. Like was I making enough money? Did I have the right apartment, the right car, stove, clothes, what have you. The material world gets a whole lot quieter. You pretty quickly figure out that there’s a lot out there that just doesn’t matter, all of the distractions we think we need. It kind of changes how you see things, you know what I’m saying?

  Yes, I think I do.

  What about you?

  I’m a photographer, Rye says. If I remember correctly, I’m pretty good at it.

  I wouldn’t doubt it, Boyd says.

  Rye takes a moment to describe his professional history.

  It sounds to me like we’re sort of in the same business, Boyd says.

  How so?

  Figuring out what we’re all doing here. The true essence of things, he says, making quote marks with his fingers. Humanity as a concept, a revolution.

  Rye nods. Indeed.

  Tracey Boyd smiles. As usual, I’m talking too much, he says. It’s kind of an occupational hazard. Anyhow, when you’re up to it, I’ll give you the grand tour.

  I’d like that, Rye says, and hands him back the joint. Soon, he says.

  You’re getting there.

  After he leaves, Rye gives their conversation some more thought. Whereas Boyd and the people out here are all about making change—living off the land, sustaining the planet, pushing forward to something better—Rye’s work is essentially about how things stay the same, moments that have passed, never to be again. With this idea, he perceives a conundrum that he will somehow have to resolve.

  It comes to him that he is a little terrified, just being here. Without his camera to hide behind. For the first time, maybe, in his whole life, he feels exposed, vulnerable, and totally alive.

  In the morning, the children come for
him. They want to show him their house.

  Slowly, on crutches, he maneuvers out into the cold fresh air. His senses are wild, ravenous. The green of the trees, the pale white sky. The smell of the earth, the air. He looks up into the trees, a little amazed by their fortitude, their branches constantly moving, the sound they make in the wind.

  Like a small parade, Cleo holds one sleeve of his jacket, Gus the other. They show him the garden, the chicken house, the root cellar, one old goat. Bella, the horse. Up in a clearing, scattered among the distant trees, stand all variety of shelters, lean-tos of plywood and thick-plastic tiny A-frames, and mud huts with thatched roofs.

  Welcome to the neighborhood, Boyd says, coming out of a small log house, opening his hands in the air like a ballet dancer.

  This is really something, Rye says.

  This is the future, Boyd says. As in right now.

  Their house is small, adequate, comfortable. Built by loggers around the turn of the century, Boyd explains. The walls are decorated with the children’s drawings.

  I like the art, Rye says, and Cleo flushes with pride.

  Please, take a seat, Lotus says, and he does, gratefully. The walk has made him tired.

  The table is laid with crisp white cloth. They share a meal of bread and cheese, grapes, and several small salads, artichokes in olive oil, potato salad, thick wedges of purple beets, white beans. Sitting here with this family, he can only think of Simone and Yana, understanding, as if for the first time, the full reality of his situation, the fact that he is here and they are there, with so much space in between. He has fallen into a black hole, he thinks. He doubts his own strength to climb out.

  After they eat, Boyd hands him a camera and a bag of film. I thought you could use this. It’s nothing fancy, but—

  It’ll do fine, Rye says. Thank you. It’s an older SLR. Elated, he holds it in his hands, a beloved relic.

  It may help you make sense of things, Boyd says.

  Rye nods. I appreciate it.

  Take all the time you need, Lotus says.

  Thanks for lunch.

  They walk back along the river, just him and Boyd. The water is black and murky and freezing cold.

  There, Boyd says, pointing up at the bridge. Thar she blows.

  It’s higher than he pictured. He stands there a minute, suddenly breathless, disabled by a sensation of vertigo, the vivid memory of falling through the air. He staggers a little and Boyd grabs hold of his shoulder. Hey, now.

  That’s a long way down.

  It sure as fuck is. You all right?

  I can’t even look, Rye says.

  Boyd studies him with concern.

  My son almost died, Rye explains. We were at the hospital.

  In his head, he is back in that parking lot. He can see Magda’s taillights pulling out and can almost feel the cold wind on his back. He remembers thinking how quiet it was as he walked to his truck and climbed behind the wheel.

  I was in my truck. Somebody banged on my window. Somebody—

  He shuts his eyes in frustration. He isn’t ready to see that face. Doesn’t want to see it. I can’t—

  Rye cries. It’s all right, Boyd says, and takes him in his arms, and they stand there, holding on to each other, two men in the middle of the forest, with no place else to go.

  Later, alone in his bed in the dark, the face of his assailant comes clear, and a fresh terror consumes him. He pulls himself up, drenched in sweat. That such a thing could have happened to him…he can barely comprehend it. That Ladd’s hatred was so great, he saw no other alternative than to throw him off that bridge. And even more unfathomable is the fact that he is still out there, living his life, a murderer disguised as an ordinary man.

  At first light, he rises from the bed and puts on his clothes. He knows it is time to go, he must. But not just yet. Not before he photographs this place, this refuge, this haven. This figment of his imagination. He wants to show the world that this is possible. This place, these people, this simple, beautiful life. For he fears if he does not photograph it, he won’t believe it exists. Once he leaves, it will be gone forever, like some strange, hallucinatory dream.

  He loads the camera and sets out.

  How to describe freedom in a photograph? What might it look like?

  Maybe the old horse, Bella, with her skinny ribs, grazing in the long grass at moonrise.

  Or the woman with a broken face, hauling a bin of summer vegetables from the root cellar, her large, callused hands.

  Or maybe it is his solemn hut that has sheltered him all this time, its ancient black stones pulled from the river by the men of another century, stacked one upon another for all these years. Or the mattress on which he has slept the blackest sleep of childhood.

  It isn’t something you can own, he realizes. It is the thing inside you that makes you shine.

  Later that night, under a sky vivid with stars, they have a great feast. Bread, baked in a large pan of water over the fire, a feat he never thought possible, but here it is, warm and delicious, served with homemade butter and honey. Yellow squash roasted over smoldering ash, its warm buttery pulp seasoned with pepper and salt. Sweet potatoes on skewers, half burned, smoking hot. Striped bass straight off the rod, sautéed in a cast-iron pan over the open fire.

  After the meal, they build a bonfire out in the field. Standing there with all of these strangers, some of whom he feels closer to than lifelong friends, he reckons with his own wild hunger, dislodged and freed from some deeper place, and watching the flames crackle and twist, he can think only of the word rejoice—for that is what they are doing. And for now it is enough.

  Part Six

  Raw

  To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as a camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a subliminal murder—a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time.

  —Susan Sontag, On Photography

  Simone

  They never find him.

  Early in March, just after the stripers start running, his phone turns up in a fisherman’s net. The same two cops, Johnson and Sanchez, appear at her door. They sit at her kitchen table and show it to her inside a plastic evidence bag. Written on the bag in Sharpie is her husband’s name.

  She asks if there could be some mistake, but they tell her no, the serial number checked out, there’s no doubt.

  He could have dropped it, she says.

  Yes, Johnson says. That’s true. But we also found this.

  She waits while he retrieves another evidence bag from a black duffel.

  At once she recognizes its contents, one of Rye’s tennis shoes, the white Jack Purcells he’s been wearing all his life.

  She stares at it. Somehow this one thing convinces her more than all the others.

  I’m sorry, he says gently. Stuff washes up with the thaw.

  It takes her three more weeks to accept the fact that he’s gone. Finally, the papers print his obituary, which makes his death a fact. It still feels strange and unreal, and part of her doesn’t believe it, will never believe it. Nothing is what it was. Yana comes home, more mature somehow, sobered by the mystery of this life, the insistence of loss. They lounge around in their pajamas till noon, drinking strong black coffee. By four, they are drinking whiskey and smoking the pot Yana has been growing for years behind the barn. They are knitting long scarves with big wooden needles, using the wool from her farm share, soft and thick and a little damp, fragrant of a life in the open, of sheep content to roam the fields and nothing more. The scarves are blue and purple, yellow and green.

  People call and write emails and texts. Letters arrive in the mail. An author proposes a biography. Simone meets with the rabbi. She decides to go ahead with the memorial. Even without his body. Even though they haven’t found him. Even though he could still be out there. Somewhere. He could
be out there somewhere, alive.

  His name comes into her head even before he says it. Of course it’s Julian Ladd. After the memorial, when they are all back at the house, he appears at her side like an apparition. She tries to conceal her surprise, not wanting to insult him. Nevertheless, there is something undeniably strange about him, something that puts her off. It’s not anything you can see—not the Armani suit, or the shiny, expensive loafers, or his immaculate hands—but something about his eyes, a story sitting there, one he is keeping to himself. If memory serves, he and Rye were on awkward terms by the end of that year. Rye had told her he didn’t trust Ladd, something about waking up in the middle of one night to find Julian standing over his bed in the dark. It had freaked him out, he told her. Maybe you were dreaming, she proposed, but he shook his head, he was adamant. That was no dream. They’d moved out of the apartment the next day and hadn’t spoken since.

  Somewhere in the middle of their conversation, her synapses begin to buzz, and she makes the connection about Magda, that Magda Ladd is Julian’s wife. She’s about to admit to him her revelation, when he abruptly begins to cry—to sob, actually—and launches into a soliloquy about his friendship with Rye, how that year had changed his life, and how he’d lost not just a friend but a brother. It makes her uncomfortable, how he’s carrying on, and it occurs to her that there’s something very wrong with him. That he is the very definition of a person unhinged.

  He tells her he’s missed his train, so she puts him up in Rye’s studio. She doesn’t want him staying in the house. It doesn’t matter. She’s up all night anyway, worrying because he’s here. Worrying that perhaps he’ll come into the house and do something, God only knows what. When he doesn’t show up at breakfast, she and Constance go over to the studio to have a look. The bed is neatly made, and the place looks almost neater than before, as if all of its surfaces have been wiped clean. The only evidence of his occupancy is the heap of shredded paper on the counter in the darkroom, a photograph, she and Constance deduce, torn into a hundred pieces. With her agile fingers, Constance separates the shreds and moves them around like the pieces of a puzzle, reconstructing the image. The picture is old, worn at the corners, and all twelve of the Brodsky students are standing together on the marble steps of the building with their cameras hung around their necks, an unlikely army, elite, beaming with pride, ready to begin their fabulous lives.