Bloodroot

by Bill Loehfelm

  “Jesus,” I said, terrified. Danny seemed so much better, how could the dreams be getting worse? “How does it end?”

  “It never ends,” Danny said. “I just wake up. But sooner or later, I know they’re going to get me. The babies, the doctors—one of them is going to get me and that’s the night I’ll never wake up. I know it’s crazy to think that way, but that’s how it feels. Down into my bones.”

  We walked along in the dark. My brother’s eyes darted over the shadows on either side of us, electrified with terror, as if at any moment a tiny, dirty hand might emerge from the bushes, a blood-shot child’s eye rocking in its palm. I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. I knew that if our places were switched, I’d never have cleaned up. I’d stay high forever.

  Our family had never uncovered the root of Danny’s dreams. That was why we never could make them go away. True, our family had a history with hospitals. Our mother was a nurse, our grandfather chief surgeon of Methodist Hospital, where both of us were born. I’d always thought, if anything, that knowing hospitals should make Danny less afraid. He knew doctors as wealthy, gentle men who drank scotch and smoked pipes while watching golf on television.

  As a little kid, I’d been to the emergency room once, when I was five, maybe six. I’d fallen so hard on a patch of ice that a bump the size of a peach rose on my head. My folks had me checked for a concussion. I couldn’t recall Danny’s reaction to the hospital, which was weird. I remembered a lot about that accident, the smell of my mother’s snow-damp wool coat when she picked me up off the sidewalk, the blast of dry heat as we entered the emergency room, even the dull, hollowish sound my head had made hitting the ice. In fact, I couldn’t remember Danny there at all, but he must’ve been. There’s no place my folks could have put him. Regardless, that one crisis hardly seemed enough to traumatize a kid for life. Danny himself had been an indestructible child. He hadn’t been in a hospital since he was born, at least until his heart failed. I couldn’t remember him ever being sick.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” I finally said. “I don’t know a thing about dreams. And I don’t remember you even being sick much, never mind in a hospital. But still, I could be wrong. Maybe you’re getting better and that’s why the dreams are changing. Maybe they just need to get a little worse before they go away.”

  “I doubt it,” Danny said. “And I’m not willing to risk it. You think I’m crazy?”

  “No, Danny. I don’t. Everyone has nightmares. As real as they feel, try to remember that they’re not.”

  We came out of the park right by the library. Yellow spotlights shone up from its steps, glinting off the brass of the heavy doors and the building’s tall, gold-leafed columns.

  “Suddenly,” Danny said, “I don’t feel so much like going back there. Ever.”

  “Me either,” I said, backing away from the building, my hand on my stomach. Danny’s story had made me ill. I hoped that nightmares weren’t contagious. “I don’t read like I used to, anyway.”

  Walking back toward Santoro’s, Danny glanced once over his shoulder at the library. I patted Danny on the back and quickened our pace. We could see Al waiting for us outside the restaurant, pacing in the gaslight.

  “I’ve got some ideas,” Danny said, “for getting rid of those dreams. That’s where I’m gonna need your help.”

  Before I could ask Danny what he was thinking, Al caught sight of us and stormed in our direction yelling Danny’s name, reaching us as we made the last block back to Santoro’s.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Al asked Danny. Al held up his cell phone, clutched in his fist. “I been tryin’ to reach you for half a fuckin’ hour. We got a job. An emergency job.”

  “I had dinner with my brother and we took a walk over to the park,” Danny said, pushing past Al. “I turned the phone off.”

  “Off? You turned it off?” Al said, trotting up beside us. “You can’t turn it off. That’s rule number fucking one.”

  “Don’t yell at me,” Danny said. “I haven’t seen Kevin forever. I didn’t want us interrupted.”

  “I didn’t know you were on call,” I said to Danny. “I didn’t know you did that.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Danny said.

  Al froze, staring at me as if I’d materialized out of thin air. He said nothing to me, turning to Danny instead. “What’re we gonna do with him?”

  “How big is the job?” Danny asked.

  “Medium to big,” Al said. “And very fucking urgent.”

  Danny studied Al and then refocused on me. “So it can’t wait?”

  “We should be there already,” Al said, his voice wavering. “We gotta be done before our guy gets off.” He sounded afraid, like a good kid desperate to beat curfew. I got the feeling that whatever had gone wrong, Al had screwed it up. Al tilted his head in my direction. “I know this isn’t how you wanted to do it, Dan. We could put him in a cab.”

  “I’ll wait in the car or whatever,” I said. “Just drop me off after. I’m off tomorrow. I don’t have anywhere to be.”

  Al threw his toothpick down and immediately replaced it with another. He looked over at the Charger. “If we hurry, maybe we could drop him off.”

  Danny opened his mouth to speak, looking like he was about to agree. Then his words caught and his expression changed. “Could we use an extra set of hands?”

  “Of course,” Al said. “I’ve even got enough tools, but is now really the fucking time?”

  “We can trust him,” Danny said.

  Al raised his hands in the air. “It’s not that. You vouch for him, that’s gospel for me. You know that, Dan.”

  “I don’t need vouching for,” I said. “I’m waiting in the car, right?”

  Mr. Bavasi walked out of the restaurant, wiping his hands on his apron. I don’t know what he thought he had on his hands; the apron stayed pristine. He gestured for Danny to approach him. “You boys got a call about a job.”

  “I understand,” Danny said.

  “There was a second call,” Bavasi said.

  Al went ashen. “He called back? He called twice?”

  Bavasi glanced at Al, then turned back to Danny. “I told him you were already gone. Why are you still standing here, making a liar out of me to Mr. Santoro?”

  Danny and Al both turned to me. Somehow, just by being there, I was fucking up their plans. They had something important to do, I realized, that they didn’t want me to see. Something requiring tools. Before I could say anything, Bavasi sensed the heart of the problem.

  “Kevin, let your brother do his work. Stay here with me. I’ve got a crème brûlée left. We’ll have a cognac and dessert, like civilized men. I can tell you stories about the old Park Slope. Mr. S. and I, we knew your grandfather from back when he was running the hospital. He and your grandmother, they ate with us all the time.” He smiled. “Pride of the neighborhood they were. I bet there’s lots about them you don’t know.”

  Danny considered it. He seized me by the arm. “I’m sorry about all this,” he said, though to me or Al or Bavasi I wasn’t sure. I hated being apologized for.

  “Thanks, Mr. B.,” Danny said, “but he’ll come with us.”

  “You’re sure?” Bavasi asked.

  “It had to happen sooner or later,” Danny said. “Why drag it out?”

  I jerked my arm free from Danny’s grip, liking the whole situation less and less.

  “Forget it,” I said. “I love crème brûlée. After, I’ll take the L into the city and catch the boat.” Danny reached for my arm, but I backed away. “I can find my own way home, thanks.”

  I wanted to shove him and remind him that though it was only a year, I was still the older brother. But all the cryptic talk had set my brain racing. I was desperate to know what Danny had gotten into; he might need my help getting out of it. Maybe dragging me along was asking for that help without tipping off Al and Bavasi. Maybe Danny wanted me to see exactly what he was doing. He had showed me the stuff in h
is apartment. I’d go with him, if it helped him, but he had to know that I had limits. I grabbed Danny by the arm, pulled him off to the side.

  “Look, I’m not judging what you do,” I said, keeping my voice low, “but that doesn’t mean I want to be part of it. Not spying on people, peeking through their windows or whatever and digging up their secrets.”

  Danny slipped his arm across my shoulders. “I understand, but it’s nothing like what you saw upstairs. This is a totally different thing.”

  “Danny, you better be sure,” Bavasi said from behind us.

  “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time,” Danny called back to him. “You know that.”

  “The old man is making me nervous,” I said.

  “I told you before,” Bavasi said, “there’s no way back for him after this. Remember that.”

  I looked at Danny. “That doesn’t help.”

  “Forget him,” Danny said. “I need you with me.”

  He pulled open the back door of the Charger, but climbed into the front seat. He’d left the other door open for me. He looked up at me, waiting. Al hit the horn, impatient. Danny stayed calm, waiting. I could feel Bavasi standing behind us, watching. Getting into the car seemed like the quickest solution for everyone.

  “It’s just a thing I have to do,” Danny said. “Nobody’s gonna get in any trouble.”

  “Sure,” I said, climbing into the backseat, slamming the door behind me.

  WE CRUISED ACROSS THE VERRAZANO, the red-and-white lights of its blue-gray towers and spans reflected on the black, rolling waters of the Narrows below us. As we passed through the tollbooth on the Staten Island side my bravery waned and I suddenly hoped for an unspoken change of plans. I wanted Al to take me home. Danny could just tell me everything tomorrow, in the safety of the light of day. But we stayed on the expressway and headed south into the heart of the island, leaving my neighborhood behind.

  “Where are we going, Danny?” I asked.

  “How much further?” Danny asked Al.

  “Three minutes,” Al said.

  Bullshit. There was no driving to anywhere on Staten Island in three minutes. “Stop ignoring me, Danny. Answer my question. Where are we going?”

  “Take it easy,” Danny said. “We’re good. All of us.”

  Al left the expressway at Victory Boulevard and headed east. We wound our way through a maze of side streets and then pulled into the woods onto a dirt road I hadn’t even seen coming. More like a trail, it was barely wide enough for the car. Al swore as branches scraped the sides of the Charger. He had killed his headlights and drove by the glow of his parking lights. I stopped asking questions. Nobody would answer.

  Danny rapped his knuckles on the window beside him, staring out into the darkness. “I told you I didn’t want to come here anymore.”

  Al hunched over the wheel, his eyes focused on the next few feet of dirt trail visible in front of the car. “I know. That’s why I did it myself Wednesday night.”

  “You shouldn’t have put ’em here,” Danny said.

  “This is a good spot,” Al said. “Always has been. I’m not the only one that uses it, you know.”

  “It’s banned territory now,” Danny said. “What’s wrong with you? You bucked a direct order. The dump, the Meadowlands, the East River, that’s where we’re supposed to go.” I could barely see him in the front seat, but his voice gave away his growing agitation. “Anywhere but here. You got lazy and now we gotta bail you out.”

  “I hadda do it quick,” Al said. “You hadda hang with your brother. I don’t like using the dump, after the Towers went there. I told Bavasi that. And I didn’t have time to drive all over the eastern seaboard lookin’ for a place that met with your fuckin’ approval.”

  “I’m not the one you gotta worry about,” Danny said.

  The branches, bare and dead, closed around the front of the car, scraping the windshield like bony fingers. Al stopped the car, threw it in park and cut the engine. The lights went out. We were swallowed in darkness and silence.

  “Hey, I’m sorry,” Al said. “If I’d known we’d have to come back for them, I never would’ve put them here in the first place.”

  “Come back where?” I asked. “Put what here?”

  Danny opened his door and the dome light came on, illuminating both their faces as they stared at me, two men about to give bad news that it pained them to deliver. Al reached up and switched off the dome light.

  “I am not getting out of this car until I get some answers,” I said.

  “I hate this fucking place,” Danny said.

  He and Al got out of the car, slamming their doors in unison. I crossed my arms and stayed put in my seat. I heard them arguing outside in heated whispers. My door flew open and fists clutched my shirt, dragging me across the seat and out the door. I fought but it was no use. Al yanked me out of the car and threw me down in the bushes.

  “Take it fuckin’ easy,” I heard Danny say. “He’s my brother.”

  “Then get him in fucking line,” Al said. “I’m outta patience. You promised me he could handle himself.”

  “He can,” Danny said. “I just didn’t plan on going this far this soon.”

  “Then you shoulda left him in fuckin’ Brooklyn.”

  “Handle what?” I said, getting up, brushing dirt and leaves off my clothes. I’d torn a sleeve. One less work shirt.

  “Enough bullshitting,” Al said, and he opened the trunk.

  He unloaded a pick and two shovels, leaning them against the bumper. A black plastic tarp lined the trunk. I started to shake. Beads of sweat popped out on my forehead.

  “You gotta be fucking kidding me,” I said.

  There was a long silence.

  “I’m sorry,” Danny said. “But it’s better this way in the long run.”

  SEVEN

  CARRYING THE TOOLS, WE MADE OUR WAY BY THE GLOW OF A penlight on Al’s keychain.

  “Jesus,” Danny said, stopping to free a thorny branch caught in his jacket. “You know what this jacket cost me? Nice flashlight, limp dick. I should’ve brought my iPod. We’d have more light.”

  “Fuck off, Curran,” Al said. “You want someone seein’ us out here?”

  “Nobody could see us in these woods no matter what we carry,” Danny said.

  “That’s what somebody says,” Al said, “right before they get caught.”

  I walked in silence behind them, a shovel over each shoulder, trying to imagine what we’d be digging up—money, or guns, or maybe even a stash of drugs. But I couldn’t forget Al and Danny talking about “them” or how that word called to mind the strange excuses Al had made at the bar a few nights ago, how he talked about putting people to bed. I kept my gaze trained on Danny’s dark form in front of me. That’s your brother, I kept telling myself. You can’t get him out of it if you don’t know what he’s gotten into. You wouldn’t be here with this shovel, I told myself, if you’d done your job and stood between Danny and the needle like a big brother is supposed to.

  After what seemed like a good half-mile, we finally broke into a clearing. Al and Danny set down their tools and stood on either side of me, picking sticks and dead leaves from their clothes.

  We’d arrived at the edge of a lumpy field, the whole thing overgrown with monkey grass and tall dandelions. I swore I heard rats rustling around in the weeds. The half-moon hovered atop the black trees in the distance, casting everything in a faint, pearly glow. Tiny, swirling shadows darted across the stars. Bats.

  Across the field loomed the shadowy ruins of a large, abandoned building. The windows were either boarded or shattered. The bell tower had fallen, now a pile of rubble among many other strewn over the grounds. Despite the damage, the building still resembled what it had claimed to be: a hospital. I turned to Danny and Al.

  “I know this place,” I said. “This is fucking Bloodroot.”

  “No shit,” Danny said, staring at the building. He chuckled under his breath. “I wondered if you’
d remember.”

  I looked down at my feet. “Oh, shit.” I started dancing around on the tips of my toes, looking for a clean place to put my feet. “Danny, fuck, Danny, we’re standing in the graveyard.”

  The graveyard where the doctors buried the children who died under their care. The children no one claimed. Dozens of them.

  Al was already striding purposefully across the field, his penlight focused on the ground. He looked back at us. “Tell your ghost stories later, kids. We got work to do.”

  I threw down my shovel. “All right, fuck this. You had your fun, Danny. Nice joke. C’mon, Al, you can quit playing around. You scared me, all right. Ha, ha. Now let’s go.”

  I expected Al to walk back to us, shoulders shaking and head hanging as he laughed. I knew Danny had told him when suggesting the prank about how when we were kids, Danny used to lead me through the woods of Willowbrook Park to the Bloodroot children’s asylum.

  Danny and I would exit the woods and hide behind the low stone and mortar wall encircling the graveyard. From there, we tried to glimpse the resident freaks. Danny would yelp that he’d seen someone in a window, naked and deformed, staring blankly through the glass, but by the time I found the right window, the vision had always disappeared. When Danny bored of this game, he introduced another, more exciting competition. Without warning, he’d leap the wall and sprint across the graveyard, tap the nearest marker and run back to our hiding place. We dared each other to see who could run deepest among the graves and touch the marker standing the farthest away. Danny always won.

  Once, I thought I had him. An older brother can only take so much ribbing from his younger, and in a fit of daring I not only touched the farthest marker but circled the graveyard twice before tearing back to the wall and tumbling over it to land right on top of Danny. Not only had I thought him beaten, I thought I’d added a new level of danger to the game, an act that was almost exclusively Danny’s purview. Instead of laughing or congratulating me, Danny just stared me down, anger boiling in his eyes.