American Dead

by PW Cooper

  * * *

  The path above the falls got more narrow as it wound its way up. Jeffrey ran one hand along the wall of layered stone, the other on the smooth wooden railing. It was a dizzying drop down to where the water moved below, deep in the crevice.

  Alice was well ahead of him. He turned a corner and found her leaning against the railing, seemingly unafraid of the fall. For a moment, he wondered if she was thinking about jumping.

  “Are you doing okay?” he asked.

  “I'm alright. Just tired is all.”

  “That's not what I meant.”

  She buried her face in her hands. “Everything is fine.”

  He was breathing hard, his legs aching. “Come on. You didn't bring me all the way up here for the view.”

  She groaned. “God...”

  “What's wrong?”

  “Everything.”

  “It's not that bad.”

  She shrugged.

  Jeffrey sat down against the wall. The stone was warm against his back. “I'm thinking of leaving the country.”

  She crossed her arms. “Where are you going?”

  Jeffrey shrugged again, realizing too late that this wasn't really something he wanted to talk about with her. He was a bit embarrassed, like he'd exposed something meant to be hidden. “I... I guess Europe. You know, to look at the buildings. The architecture. It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time.”

  Alice chewed her lower lip. “Huh.”

  “I know, it's stupid.”

  “No, it sounds great,” she said, “I think you should go. If that's what you want.”

  “Really?”

  She tried to smile, but she just looked sick. “You can't wait to get away from me, right? I don't blame you.”

  “It's not like that. It doesn't have anything to do with you.”

  She looked down again. The waterfall was roaring. “Oh,” she said, and her voice was very small.

  They started walking again without another word, trudging up the ancient stone steps. They stood at the top, breathing hard, and they looked out with their eyes shaded against the glare of the sun.

  She touched his arm. “What do you know about him?”

  Jeffrey stared down at the falls below. He trembled. He wished that she wouldn't touch him, and that she wouldn't ever stop. “Who?”

  “I know you found something.”

  “You mean Robert.”

  “Of course I mean Robert.”

  Jeffrey shrugged. “He's involved in some something. I can't prove anything, though.”

  Alice gnawed her lower lip. “What's he doing?” Her voice was tight, strained.

  “How can you not know?”

  She turned away. “He hides that stuff from me, Jeff! What do you think it's like? You think he tells me about that kind of thing?”

  “Well... I don't know.”

  “He doesn't tell me what's he into, Jeff, so I need you to do it for me, okay?”

  Jeffrey thought back to the suitcase in Robert's hotel room. “I think he's got people... working for him. Mike was, I guess. Mom too.”

  Alice wouldn't look at him. She stared blankly out into the tumbling whitewater. “Do you think he killed Mike?”

  Jeffrey hesitated. “I don't know. I think he could have. I don't know. I just...” He took a steadying breath. “I just know that he's... a bad man.”

  Alice laughed under her breath. “A 'bad man.' That sounds so... trite. I mean, what is a bad man, anyway? Sounds redundant.” She laughed again, sharply, as though she'd surprised herself.

  Jeffrey felt his features freezing into a rictus grin.

  She touched his hands again. Her fingers were soft, they felt so fragile against him. “Not you, Jeff. You're one of the good ones.”

  He had nothing to say to that.

  Her mouth opened. She was holding something back. A question. He had a feeling he didn't want to hear it, so he didn't say anything.

  “Jeff?”

  “Yeah?” He felt his blood go cold. He could still run... There was still time...

  She met his gaze, and he found that he could not look away. They stared at each other like lovers on the plateau, deep into each other's eyes. “Will you do something for me?” she asked.

  “What?” His throat was dry.

  She reached under her clothes and took out a gun. It was Robert's, Jeffrey recognized it immediately. The oiled leather holster gleamed in the high sunlight, the cold metal shone. She just held it there, the muscles in her cheek twitching. He looked at the gun for what seemed to him to be a very long time. “Where did you get that?” he asked.

  “I found it in his things.”

  “Won't he notice that it's missing?”

  She ignored him. “He's having a party. He has a party every year. September tenth, it's always on the tenth. Even after what happened, he's still going to... It's gonna be at our house this time, the new house.”

  “Where did you find it? Won't he check?”

  “It's the perfect chance. You know where the new house is, right? I'll give you the address. It's easy to find. He'll be there on the tenth, Jeff. And... and you can leave the country just like you planned. No one will suspect you. There will be a crowd, I'll tell the police something... They'll believe me, I know they will.”

  Jeffrey swallowed. She'd been thinking about this for a while, that was obvious. “Why can't you do it?” he hissed.

  Her mouth opened, but there were no words, not for a while. Then: “I... I love him...” She leaned against the guard-rail and she stared out. She dropped the gun to the hot black dust.

  Jeffrey picked it up. The weight of it was familiar in his hand. He didn't quite know what to do with it, so he shoved it into his pocket. “You don't really want this.”

  “I do. Oh God I want it so much.” She started to cry.

  “Are you sure?”

  “He killed Mike, I know he did, I just know. He's gonna kill me too someday... You said it yourself. He's a bad man.” She looked at him. Her makeup was smeared, and for a moment, she looked just like their mother.

  “Okay,” he said. “I'll do it.”

  She came to him and she wrapped her arms around him. Her knees were smeared with dirt. She lifted up on her tiptoes and kissed him gently on the forehead, and she smiled. Her expression was wistful; it that made his chest ache with regret. Regret on her behalf, he supposed. Sympathy.

  He couldn't get out. It was like his fingers were clawing at the edge of a great sloping pit, never finding purchase. Every time he tried to get away he found himself unable. He'd had to come back to the Verden, back to the trailer park. He was tied to them, to Alice. You couldn't leave your family.

  She kissed him again, then she started back down the path.

  Jeffrey remained a moment longer, staring out at the world below. A carpet of trees was spread out before him, leaves tinged red and yellow as though they were slowly catching fire. Rivers and waterfalls cut through the woods; he could see water shining in the summer light, wet rocks glistening like pieces of a cracked mirror. New York was turning red. It always turned red this time of year, like the hills were washed in blood.

  He knew then that he would never leave.

  Everything Ends

  She is staring at the ceiling.

  Her hands are trembling. She has never felt this way before. She knows now that she has never been truly happy before and will never be happy again without it. That thought wakes some vestige of sadness in her, though not strong enough to break through the good feeling. She clutches for it but it is already gone. He has taken it from her.

  The ceiling moves. The floor moves. The sofa-chair moves. She moves.

  Come on. Let me show you the inside. This way. Watch the gate, it sticks. Down here through the garden. Just stick to the path and you won't get lost. Stay to the right, okay? The stairs are at the far end of the path, just stay right and don't leave the path. I'll meet you there, just gotta grab something from the car
first.

  His hands are moving down there. He pushes her legs apart and he kisses the insides of her thighs. They are bare. She hates her thighs. Hates to be looked at without any covering. She cannot find the words to make him stop.

  She is staring at the ceiling. She has never been happy before.

  Now his hands are pushing inside of her. She doesn't look at him, she doesn't move, the world moves and she is perfectly still. She is sitting in the sofa-chair, her fingers clutching for it; it is gone. He has taken it from her. Something is creeping all over her skin, friendly little insect legs that scuttle and wriggle as they troop ardently across her flesh.

  Sorry, I've never been a, you know, a neat freak. Give me just a sec to tidy up and shit.

  She feels like she is sliding her entire body into a warm rubber glove. She pushes her limbs and her thoughts and her body out into the clinging stuff until it is full and tight around her. His hands are working back and forth in her.

  She is staring at the ceiling. She has never been happy before this moment.

  Happiness has eluded her all of her life. It comes back to her now. When she is twelve years old she rubs her privates with her wrist. When she is thirteen years old she puts a finger inside of herself and slides it back and forth just a little ways in and afterward she lays in bed shivering and sweating for hours before she is calm enough again to sleep. She does it several times. When she is fourteen years old she wraps her thighs around the old teddy which she had treasured as a little girl and she rubs herself against the fuzzy skin which had once caressed her face and it makes her feel ticklish and good in a way that spreads slowly up inside her belly. When she is sixteen she lets her cousin kiss her down there, just once. But none of it makes her feel happy. Isn't that what sex is supposed to mean? Happiness?

  His thing is forcing its way into her mouth. She is too far away from her body to open her mouth. He opens it for her and then his thing is filling her up and he's pushing it in too deep and she gags and drools.

  She is staring at the ceiling. She is bursting with light, she has transcended her body. There is only happiness.

  Okay then. Here we go. This shit kicks, I'm not kidding. I don't know, I think I read it somewhere. Look, that's not the point. Give me that. And the lighter. Okay, sit back. Yeah, that chair's fine.

  She remembers her first orgasm. The feel of it was so sweet and full, it made her want to turn into scraps of cloud and drift away on the wind. She saw colors in the backs of her eyes, colors dancing in her brain. It felt so good that she became frightened. Frightened that it would never end, wishing that it wouldn't.

  He is sliding his self between her thighs and into her self but that no longer matters to her. Her eyes swim and dance and she can scarcely keep them open. She touches him, meaning to push him off but he is so heavy and her arms are made of paper or air and she cannot push him away. Her head is twitching and eager and energized but still she cannot bring her body properly under control. Normally she would worry about something like this, but she cannot worry now. It's too good for worry.

  You should take your clothes off. For your first time. Trust me. Nah, I'm fine. Come on, take 'em off! Look, will you just... Jesus fucking Christ, you'd think I wasn't doing you a favor here. That's better. Shit... you're so fucking hot. Okay, here you go. Just breathe in, all the way into your lungs, remember. That's right.

  He places it back into her hand and she brings it to her mouth and she sucks on the little glass end and the sweet smoke curls in the bowl, curls through the pipe, curls through her body, curls through her toes and fingers and every part of her as she sucks it.

  She stares at the ceiling. She holds it in her hand. She has never felt so happy. She is no longer afraid of happiness. She wants to feel this way always, and she is not afraid.

  His thing is filling her, but it is not her that is filled, it is another body. Whose is this body? She rises out of herself and she looks down and she sees him using the body and sees his hands clawing at the body's breasts and sees the body's lips peeled back and the body's teeth grinding and the body's eyes fluttering upwards. She hears the word coming out of his mouth, the same word, again and again and again: the name of the body.

  “Gena, Gena, Gena, Gena, Gena,” he says.

  She is so happy.

  High Gorge Park – Autumn

  The earth was cold on the last day of August.

  The nameless border collie came from the woods in the misty first hours. Her fur was shaggy black and white around the eyes, tangled with burrs and needles. She had bright gray eyes that mirrored the hazy morning light. No one knew if she had always been wild or if she'd once been tame and was now wild again. But she was loose now, and free.

  The bitch padded quietly into the park, nose twitching excitedly as it took in the odors of that place. She went silently from trailer to trailer, sniffing at refuse-heavy garbage cans and dead plants in plastic pots, at car tires and old sneakers left out on welcome mats, at laundry hanging on the crudely strung up lines, all the wreckage of assembled human existence.

  The sun melted away the fog. Her ears pricked up at the sounds coming from inside the homes: slipper-clad feet shuffling on scarred floors, water rushing down sink drains, the hissing sputter of showers, the whistle of tea kettles and the dripping of coffee makers, the lethargic scraping of butter-knives across scorched toast and the angry sizzle of bacon in cast-iron pans. Doors opened. Men in rumpled second-hand suits trudged out to their cars. Women with their hair tied back walked to the bus stop and stood there with their arms folded, just waiting.

  The bitch returned to the woods, deep into the forest where the thick pines let in no more than a few drops of pale sunshine to the needled floor. She went along the edge of the gorge, nose low to the ground. She came to a place that had been roped off, where tattered police tape hung abandoned from the trees, a yellow and black garland left to adorn wild trees. She sniffed the tape curiously, then moved on, further into to the woods.

  Night had fallen before she returned to the park, her mouth red and her hunger sated.

  She slunk between the scattered trailer homes, moving low to the ground, liquid as a shadow. Her nose twitched at the pungent stink of the park under dusk. The smell of engine oil settled deep into the earth overwhelmed everything else, covering every other smell like a sheen of filth.

  The dog sniffed her way across the park to where a tall woman with short blond hair was getting out of a car, talking loudly at a girl, both their voices jagged and barbed. The woman said, “Well maybe you should have thought about that before you-” but then she saw the dog, and she stopped.

  The border collie stood below the door of their trailer, her eyes locked on them and her mouth open, red tongue lolling from her mouth.

  “Oh my God,” the girl said, startled. “Do you know whose dog that is, Mom?”

  “Whose?”

  “I don't know. I was asking you.”

  The tall woman stepped closer, her feet grinding over the gravel street that wound from trailer to trailer. “Do you think it's safe?” she asked, reached her hand tentatively out, even though she was still a half-a-dozen paces away from the animal.

  “Uh... well, its mouth isn't foaming, I guess,” the girl said, “the mouth foams if it's got rabies, right?”

  The tall woman stepped closer. The border collie came towards her. They met between the car and the door, and the dog looked up at her with its clear gray eyes. She reached out and touched the animal's head, patting her tentatively, scratching behind her ears.

  The dog panted contentedly, arching towards the woman's fingers.

  “Aw, poor girl,” the woman murmured, “you just need a little affection. Poor baby. Are you hungry, girl? Where's your home, girl? Who loves you, girl? Who's missing you, girl?”

  The dog shook herself and trotted away down the gravel path.

  The girl watched her go. “Should we do something?”

  The tall woman shook her head. “She'
s probably just going home.”

  “What makes you think it's a she?”

  The tall woman did not answer.

  Dusk was thickening into night when the border collie reached the road. She didn't stop, but went on, moving down the hard path away from High Gorge Park, moving relentlessly towards the great nothingness of the American world, into the summer night as the air turned cold, turned again towards Autumn.

  Part III: September

  September First

  Nathan Riley stared up into the hissing water, blinded.

  It had been a month almost since he'd last seen Jessica. He was sleeping in his car, parking somewhere different every night. The night before he'd slept in an empty lot overlooking Cayuga Lake. The sunrise had come golden through the clouds while he was driving back to the college, feeling that odd sensation of moving very fast and yet not at all, and the lake below seemed frozen in the misty morning air and he'd started crying so hard that he had to pull over for a while.

  The showers were open to the public, but if he went early enough than he would have them to himself, almost like they were his own. He felt the hot water pouring down, almost too hot to stand. A cleansing heat, like bathing in fire, like he was burning away everything that he had once been.

  He saw Jessica every time he closed his eyes, her face was drawn on the inside of his mind. He hated her, and loved her more than ever before. It was a complicated love. He was afraid of her, and he liked to be afraid. Fear was something he understood, could cut out and hold up to the light and know.

  And then there was Gena – her voice on the telephone, hurt and confused, enough to break his heart when she talked. He hadn't been able to say any of the things he'd meant to. He had wanted to tell her that he was going to make everything right again, that he was going to fix it all. He couldn't lie though, not to her.

  Nathan felt blindly for the soap. There was a hair stuck in the bar, an incised ridge like a black vein in the slippery lime, a fault-line crack. He looked down at his chest, his dark hair. He plucked the hair from the soap with his fingernails. The bar felt smooth when he ran it over his body, up the inside of the arm, down the outside of the thigh, the shin, the bottom of the foot. It was the way he had been shown as a child, standing naked beside his naked father. He'd loved showering with his father when he was very young, standing there in the man's bare shadow, passed through the curtain of privacy and now face to face. That had ended, of course, when Katrina died. He'd never again seen his father naked.