The Narrows(5)

“Okay,” Dwight said in a huff. “We came and we saw the stupid mask. Can we go down to the Narrows now? You promised.”

The eyeholes in the mask were gaping black pits; the pronged maw of its mouth looked like some sort of trap set deep in the woods to catch bears. Matthew only looked away from it when he felt Dwight tugging at the hem of his shirt.

“Dude,” Dwight moaned, “you promised.”

Matthew sighed. “Okay. Let’s go. But we gotta hurry.”

“Sure.”

They headed back toward Cemetery Road, then crossed into the undisciplined swell of forestry that comprised the foothills of Haystack Mountain. Beyond, the Cumberland landscape, with all its swells and slaloms, looked like there was something enormous just beneath the earth trying to push its way out. In the summer, the trees surrounding the base of the mountain were full and green, obscuring the curving blacktop of Route 40 and the roiling gray water of the Narrows beyond. Now, in autumn, the trees were bare and the curl of asphalt could be glimpsed though the meshwork of ash-colored branches.

Despite his labored respiration, Dwight Dandridge moved quickly ahead of Matthew, crossing through the trees and out onto a plain of sun-bleached reeds like some pioneer straight out of a history textbook. There was a darkened triangle of sweat at the back of Dwight’s striped polo shirt, and Matthew could hear his friend’s wheezing exhalations—heee, heee—as clear as day.

Matthew was still thinking about the Dracula mask as they slowed down to an airy trot at the cusp of Route 40, the winding whip-crack of highway that cut through the mountains. Matthew’s mother didn’t allow him to travel this far from town, and she had on more than one occasion forbidden him from crossing Route 40. Although it was typically within the boy’s nature to adhere to his mother’s mandates, Dwight Dandridge’s influence over him was greater than any other force in his life, as is customarily the way with young boys and their friends. Often, his mother would employ the old adage, suggesting that, if Dwight jumped off the Highland Street Bridge, she had no doubt her easily-manipulated yet good-hearted son would readily follow. This comment always reminded Matthew of the time Dwight had tied a bunch of kites to his back, arms, and legs, and contemplated jumping off the highest point of the bridge to see if he could fly. Somehow Matthew had talked him out of it.

“Come on,” Dwight urged, making Matthew aware that he was lagging behind. “Don’t chicken out on me now.”

“I’m not chickening out.”

“Bok bok bok bok bok!”

“Cut it out, jerk.”

Dwight waved a hand at him as he crossed the highway. “Come on!”

After checking for traffic, Matthew crossed the highway toward the steep embankment on the other side that led down into the cold, black waters of the Narrows. Dwight was already peering down the embankment, no doubt assessing the tribulations of traversing the rocky decline down toward the flume of water. White stones burst out of the hillside, looking like the tops of skulls rising from their graves, and Matthew could see tentacular tree limbs and nests of brambles sprouting from the earth, ready to snatch them up and trip them down the side of the mountain and into the Narrows. Some random garbage was strewn about as well, remnants of the storm. People’s lives had been uprooted and swept away, the leftover bits scattered like flotsam and jetsam throughout the wooded mountainside.

Dwight began descending the hillside, pausing halfway down to peer over his shoulder at Matthew, who remained standing at the cusp of the highway. “You coming?”

“This is stupid,” he responded, though he was already testing his footing on one of the large white stones. Slowly he descended the hillside, using the stones when he could to secure his footing; when he couldn’t, he crouched low to the ground, hoping that the muddy earth wouldn’t betray him and send him tumbling down the rest of the way. At one point, startled by the growl of a heavy engine whipping along Route 40 directly above his head, he nearly lost his balance and tumbled down. Dwight, having seemingly materialized beside him like a guardian angel, managed to snag a handful of Matthew’s shirt and prevent the fall.

At the bottom of the valley they crossed over to the concrete lip of the Narrows and peered down. The water level was still very high, the water itself black, swirling and fast moving. Cattails spun out of rents in the concrete and crickets chirped happily in the tall grass. Dried mud covered everything, further evidence of the flood that had so recently besieged their hometown.

Matthew had heard stories of fishermen pulling three-eyed rockfish from the Narrows, or kids catching uniquely colored frogs with extra appendages. Before his father had left, Matthew had asked him if these stories were true. Hugh Crawly, who had evidently been just months away from leaving his son, daughter, and wife, had told the boy that he couldn’t vouch for the stories of others, but that he had once personally witnessed a two-headed turtle sunning itself on one of the footpaths down by the creek. He’d been with some other friends that afternoon and claimed that one of his buddies had suggested they catch the thing and call the Smithsonian in D.C. Someone else volunteered that they should make soup from it, though the notion of eating a creature as so clearly deformed and unnatural as this one did not sit well with the rest of the men. Finally, in the end, no one wanted to touch it. “It’s because of the old plastics plant,” his father had concluded that afternoon. They had been out by the garage, where his old man had been working on the family pickup truck, wiping down one greasy gadget he’d removed from beneath the pickup’s hood. “Before that plant closed down, people would see all sorts of funny-looking critters down in the Narrows. The water there is still polluted with runoff from the plant. You should never swim there.”