Me, Myself and Ike

by K. L. Denman

  “Yeah. I’ve got some. But I thought it would be good to have that on me as another artifact.”

  “So we’ll just put twenty bucks in the tank, get the food, and we’ll be fine, right?”

  It feels wrong to be going back the way we came, but burgers do sound good. We get the gas first, and when I count my money, I still have over two hundred dollars. Me and Ike can have a feast.

  So we go to the drive-through and place our order. Two burgers each, large fries and large sodas too. When I pull forward to the window to pay and pick up the food, the girl looks at me and laughs. “Hungry, huh?”

  I shrug and hand her a couple of twenties. When she reaches out to take it, I see her tattoo, a small rose on the inside of her wrist. “No wonder you’re a freak,” I mutter.

  “Pardon me?”

  It’s not worth talking about. It’s too late for her. But I feel sorry for her, and as she hands me the food and then the change, I say, “Keep it. And good luck.”

  Her eyes widen, but before she can say more, I press down on the gas and go.

  “What’d you do that for?” Ike asks.

  I stuff a handful of fries into my mouth and talk around them. “Her tattoo.”

  “What about it?”

  I’ve never told Ike about the terminanos. Should I tell him? No. There’s no point in getting him worked up about that. “Never mind,” I mutter. And I crank up the radio and get back on the highway.

  We turn onto the Parkway again, and when I take a certain curve in the road, it’s like a curve back in time. Last summer, Dad wanted to take Fred and me back-country camping for the weekend, get in some “just us guys” time. We were in Dad’s SUV, cruising with the oldies channel, singing (if you could call it that) along with Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” There were some deer on the road, just before the curve, and we stopped, waited for them to move off. They stared at us, big-eyed and startled by our chorus of “How does it feeeel, to be on your own, with no direction home…,” and I wondered what they thought of us noisy humans, howling for no apparent reason.

  They bounded off into the forest, and I told Dad he’d scared them, and Fred said, “No, it was you, Kit. You sound like a bullfrog,” and just then the radio played Three Dog Night, belting out “Jeremiah was a bullfrog…” We all laughed like crazy, started singing along again, and drove on. The whole weekend was like that, totally free and easy, as if the chorus line “Joy to the world” got right inside us and kept us high. We did some fishing, ate when we felt like it, and one night we caught an amazing meteor shower. We swam, hiked and talked to the park ranger about the legend of Queneesh. He told us that’s what the local First Nations folks call the Comox Glacier, and it means great white whale. I remember thinking that was sort of cool, was only half listening when he went on to talk about the perpetual snow on the mountains…

  There’s plenty of snow on the mountains now. I switch the radio to the oldies station but they aren’t playing “Joy to the World.” I don’t recognize the tune at all, but I leave it and focus hard on following the narrow swathe of headlight beams on the road ahead.

  FIFTEEN

  By the time we reach the Paradise Meadows parking lot in Strathcona Park, it’s only 3:00 AM, still dark. The headlights flash over the sign for the trailhead to Forbidden Plateau, and I stop to point it out to Ike. “There’s our route.”

  “Forbidden Plateau? We’re going there?”

  “It’s the quickest access point.” I park the car close by the sign and switch off the engine. We’re plunged into deep, dark and absolute silence.

  “Whooo,” Ike says. “You know the old Native stories about Forbidden Plateau, don’t you?”

  I nod.

  “Yeah? You know it’s inhabited by evil spirits who eat women and children?”

  I’m not going to let him get to me. “Good thing we aren’t either one, eh?”

  He snorts. “You’re not a child?”

  “Not. Listen, we’ve got one more thing to do before we go.”

  “What?”

  “The video shot on the Blackberry. I didn’t do it yet.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Well, it’s not like we can do it now, in the dark, can we?”

  “The interior light in the car should be good enough. Remember that guy in the store told us the Blackberry can get video in low light?”

  “Grainy and fuzzy video.”

  “That’s good enough. I don’t even know why we have to do a video anyway. What am I supposed to say?”

  “You aren’t supposed to say anything.”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to do the talking. You got to write your stupid manifesto. I get to have my say on the video.”

  “Fine.” And then the enormity of this pounds into me, breaking through a layer of icy detachment I didn’t know I was wearing. “Ike, does this mean you’ve decided to stay with me? You’re laying your life down too?”

  “Yeah, man. Screw this life. I don’t need it.”

  “But…it’s not about that. It’s about the mission.”

  He laughs. “If you say so. Come on, get the Blackberry and let’s get this over with.”

  I want to argue with him, convince him this mission is noble, it’s for the benefit of humanity and history, but another part of me whispers, No, don’t talk him out of it. I don’t want to do this alone. He can have his reasons, and I can have mine.

  I rummage in the pack, find the Blackberry and then flip on the car’s interior light. I study the Blackberry, being careful to keep my expression bland. I should have studied the manual so I’d know how to operate the video function. Only I didn’t have a manual, did I? But if I tell Ike I need to figure it out, he’ll get pissy, won’t he?

  “What’s taking so long?”

  I’ve got it now. I remember the guy at the store showing us how it works. I point the Blackberry at Ike and start filming. “Go.”

  Ike puts on this fake deep voice and says, “Good evening. Welcome to my world. So glad you could stop by. Heh heh. Kinda cool to be talking to you people of the future. If you’re still here, that is. I’m not going to tell you about life now ’cause my bud here, Kit, he already did that and you’ll probably have a good laugh reading his manifesto.”

  “Ike!” I hiss.

  “Silence! No comments from the cheap seats.” He lowers his voice and says, “That was Kit. Always causing trouble.”

  I grit my teeth and keep quiet.

  “So, like I was saying. I’m going to give you a prediction. I’m predicting that if us lousy humans are still around, by now we look like aliens. You know, puny little bodies, gray skin and big fat heads with big round eyes. Ugly, man, real ugly.”

  “Ike!”

  “Shut up, Kit. This is my bit. You want to know why I think they look like that? It’s ’cause I don’t believe in aliens. I think those little dudes some people see are us. Humans from the future who figured out how to time travel. It’s us, coming back to see what people are supposed to look like. So take a good look, you little shits. You’ve probably trashed the planet, and you’re living in holes in the ground so you’ve got that gray skin and big eyes like bugs or bats to see in the dark, and you’ve got machines hauling your skinny little asses around and doing all the work so your bodies are wasted. And you’ve got those huge ugly heads ’cause all you do is think, and you don’t even screw each other ’cause you figured out how to live for five hundred years and you don’t have room on the planet for any more babies. Am I right? You bet I’m right.”

  “Are you finished?” I whisper.

  “Yeah, I’m finished.”

  I switch off the Blackberry. My hands are shaking. “Do you really believe what you just said?”

  “Maybe. What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “Nothing.” It’s useless to argue with him. I know he won’t rethink this, won’t want to send a kinder message to the future. That’s Ike. Just who he is.

  I tuck the B
lackberry into my jacket pocket and lean back. “Let’s rest a bit until it’s light out, okay?”

  “Whatever, man. Just as long as we don’t screw up and sleep all day.”

  I turn off the light, turn the radio down low and close my eyes. I don’t sleep. But in a way, I do leave myself. I imagine what this little scene would look like from space. There’s me and Ike, slumped in the car. The car is the only vehicle in the parking lot. I can see it, parked askew, the gravel space surrounding it, and around that are the trees. Fir, cedar, hemlock. I go higher and there are the mountains rising up; higher yet and I see the whole of Vancouver Island, then the continent of North America, the Pacific Ocean; Earth itself, a jewel, silver and blue, aloft in the black sea of space.

  And way down there, a mere mote of insignificance, is me. Me with an M.

  And then I hear Bob Marley, Marley with an M, singing, “Don’t worry, every little thing gonna be all right…,” and I know he’s trying to help me. An ember of peace glows in my chest, soft and warm, like a candle. Maybe it’s not peace exactly. More like the absence of anxiety. I’m here. I’m finally doing what I said I’d do.

  Behind my closed eyelids, there is light. I wait and the light strengthens and I know the dawn has come.

  “Ike?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Let’s go.” We get out of the car, and the chill air makes me notice I need to pee, so I do that, right out in the open, leaving my mark in the snow. Then I pull on my gloves and my tuque, zip my jacket, get out the sled, load the computer and my pack, take hold of the rope. And start walking.

  “You know the way?” Ike asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “So which way is it?”

  “Up.”

  “Up? That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  It’s beautiful on the mountain, a clear day dawning pink and gold, sharing its color with the snow, the sunlight glowing like halos from the frosted tips of the trees. Wow. Just, wow. This day was made for me. For my mission.

  SIXTEEN

  “How long we been walking now?” Ike asks.

  “I don’t know. Maybe a couple of hours. Maybe more.”

  “How much farther?”

  “Come off it, Ike. You don’t get to the top of a mountain in a couple of hours. It can take a couple of days.”

  “Dude, there’s no way. We can’t walk for a couple days. We’ll be dead.”

  I can’t help laughing. “Isn’t that the whole idea?”

  Ike laughs too. He laughs for so long I think maybe he’s lost it. Finally, gasping, he asks, “So why not right here? This looks like a perfect spot. Let’s break out the vodka.”

  “No. This is no good. There’s snow here now, but by spring it’ll all be melted. We have to climb high enough to get to the permanent snow. Then we dig in, and then we break out the vodka.”

  “How can you tell the difference between this snow and permanent snow? You’re making that up.”

  “I’m not making it up.”

  “Yeah, you are. Snow is snow. All cold and white and too damn much of it, if you ask me.”

  “Ike, you’re not getting cold feet are you?”

  “Bad joke, man. Real bad.”

  “Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

  “Yeah, and I noticed you couldn’t answer my question either. I’m telling you, this snow right here is fine.”

  “Ike, I’ve hiked here in the summer and there wasn’t any snow on the ground. It only stays permanent way higher up, and if we don’t go there, we’re not going to be like Ötzi. We’re just going to be a couple of stupid dead guys who get found in no time flat.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  I can’t believe he’s saying this. After all his tough-guy talk, he’s wimping out? I can understand him getting tired. I’m tired too, but not so much that I’m giving up. “It’s not good enough for me.”

  “Of course not. Not for the perfect Kit. No. It has to be special. Gimme a break, man. This is it. I’m stopping.”

  “Fine. You stop. I’m going on.”

  “Go ahead. But give me the vodka.”

  “What? I’m not giving it to you. I’m going to need it.”

  “So who’s the one who thought to bring it, huh? That was me. So I get it. Hand it over.”

  I stop. Now what? I have to convince him to go on, but how? I look around and notice a gap in the trees up ahead. “See that?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “So we go there, then we cut off the trail and go up a gully. I remember that spot. It’s like a short cut. The climb will be a bit steeper, but we’ll hit the perma snow way faster that way. Come on, Ike, you can do it, man.”

  “How long will it take?”

  I shrug. “I can’t say exactly. But I know that route to the peak cuts off a few hours.”

  He hesitates and finally says, “Okay. But you better not be lying or you’re going to have one more thing in common with the Ice Man.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Forget it. Let’s go.”

  We start walking again, but the pleasure I had in the hike has evaporated. I shouldn’t have stopped. Somehow it’s harder now to keep going. My legs feel about ten times heavier; just lifting them is an effort. The sled too has packed on weight. It’s dragging behind me like a house. Or a noose. And that threat of Ike’s…He wouldn’t actually bash me on the head, would he? It’s not like he has an arrow to shoot me with, but there are rocks around.

  We keep going. I start to notice things I hadn’t noticed before, like the numbness in my toes and the cold curling in around my neck. Maybe I was sweating and the halt was enough to let the sweat cool, and now the chill air seeks the moisture on my skin with probing tendrils. This air, it’s thin. It’s pure. It would be repulsed by sweat, wouldn’t it? Its nature is to purify, to freeze all it finds, to transform it into dazzling shards of ice.

  I love that purity. There, just to the side of the trail, I see flowers. The flowers are made of frost petals, intricately formed arrays of crystal. I’m reminded of my grandmother and her crystal collection. She showed me this book about it once. What I liked most about the book were the flowers that fluttered out from between the pages. She said, “Oh, I forgot I pressed these in here. They’re from my favorite pansy.”

  I bend to examine the delicate furls, amazed at how some have nested in formations like the scales of a fish while others rise up in sparkling shards. When a sunbeam lights them, they take my breath away.

  I shouldn’t be taken in by the beauty. I know this. Beauty can betray. It can draw you close and then crumble in the instant you reach out to grasp it. It can leave you holding dust, with all the charm of dandruff.

  I laugh aloud and call to Ike, “Dandruff.”

  He doesn’t answer.

  It takes longer than I thought it would to reach the gap in the trees, maybe because the snow is deeper now and it takes ever more effort to slog through it. Finally we make it, and I lead the way off the trail. Almost at once the going gets steeper, the snow we’re trudging through deeper yet. We keep going, one step at a time, heads down, plodding. Then, suddenly, I’m in snow up to my chest, floundering, and far off I hear a roar.

  Avalanche? No. It can’t be. This isn’t the place for it. The slope isn’t steep enough. I’ve just stepped into a low spot, one hidden by the drifting snow. All I have to do is push on, forward, and I’ll be clear. I draw a breath and it doesn’t satisfy me. I need more air. Why? Not enough oxygen? Are we that high? If so, we must be getting close. I draw a few more breaths and it’s no good, it’s like sucking in dry ice. It hurts down deep, in my lungs. I close my mouth, notice my tongue feels thick. I force my feet to move. It’s like pushing against a wall of clay, a substance almost set solid, one that gives up inches only grudgingly.

  At last I’m clear of the dip, and I find myself jerking forward like a puppet on a string, expending far too much effort on the clear ground my feet have gained. I stagger to a hal
t, and in that moment a witching scream of wind slices the air. It cuts through me, right down to my marrow, past that, keeps cutting until it stabs, icicle sharp, into my soul.

  It’s the sound of nightmares. Of things not seen, only felt in the grim dark of our primitive past. It’s the cry of cave lions, of wolves, of creatures with fangs and claws, on the hunt for warm blood. I go still, a creature of prey, aware only that I am weak, I’ve been found, and I am finished.

  I wait, passive, and nothing happens. I’m not finished. We’re in the open and the ice-salted wind is blasting down the face of the cliff that now confronts us.

  “Holy shit,” Ike says. “You think we’re climbing that?”

  I don’t answer him. I’m still pulling back from the abyss. I don’t remember the cliff being quite this daunting.

  “We can’t do this, dumbass! That’s the sort of thing where you’ve gotta have special equipment. Ropes and axes and stuff. There’s no way.”

  “Okay, okay,” I gasp. “Let’s just take a break and we’ll figure it out. I’m sure there’s a deer trail or something that cuts across the face. If we can find that…”

  “A deer trail? A deer trail?” Ike guffaws, long and loud. “Give me the vodka, Kit.”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “I’m not going to drink it all. But I need a shot of courage if I’m going up a deer trail.”

  I look up at the cliff and decide maybe he’s right; I’m desperately thirsty and a shot of courage might be something we both could use just now. I reach into my pack, find the vodka, unscrew the top, hand it to Ike. He takes a drink and hands it back. I take a drink. It burns like crazy going down my throat and hits my stomach like a punch. Then it spreads warmth, a slow burn, and I take another swig.

  “Hey, not so fast,” Ike says.

  He takes another drink, and I take another, and then we sit down to study the cliff.

  “You see the deer trail, Kit?”

  “I’m looking.”

  “You sure this is the place?”

  I hate to admit it, but I’m not sure. “Everything looks different in the winter.”

  “So you’re not sure, are you? We’re screwed, aren’t we? Why the hell did I think, even for one lousy minute, that I could trust you, of all people, to get me to the top of a mountain?”