Mosquitoland(33)

“Good. We’re close now, you feel it?”

Holding my breath, I inch closer and picture what I must look like—lurking in the dark woods wearing these ridiculous cutoffs, my hair matted in clumps from the murky lake, and to top it off, my muddy war paint, acting as true camouflage.

“Yeah. Four hundred more should do the trick.”

“Well shit, the kid’s gotta have that and then some stashed away. Now remember, last time we tried, he had the cash tucked down in the bottom of his sleeping bag. So we’ll check there, plus the suitcase.”

I’m closing in now, circling around through leaves and brush. It’s slow-going, but any faster, and I’d lose the stealth factor. I need the stealth factor. The stealth factor is crucial.

“You and I have had enough trouble out here to last two lifetimes, see. What we need is a fresh start. Beaches and girls and, who knows, might even get us a job in the movies. Shit, our story is prob’ly worth millions.”

“Prob’ly billions,” says Caleb.

“You’re an idiot sometimes, you know that? Nothin’s worth billions. Anyway, millions is plenty.”

Fingertips to forehead, I am caked in sweat. I crouch as low as possible, move quickly, quietly, efficiently, dart around the final tree, then duck and roll behind a prickly fern. I can already tell my stealthy instincts have not led me astray; I’m in prime vantage point, the perfect position to see who Caleb is talking to. Still holding my breath, I peer around the fern.

“I could be a writer,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to write.”

My skin crawls as Caleb contorts his face, answers himself.

“Yeah, we’ll write it ourselves. More money that way.”

Now back to his original face and voice.

“Sure, more money. But it might open other doors, see. For other projects.”

I close my eyes, willing this to be a dream. In some miraculous sonic anomaly, I hear the voice of my father, miles and miles away, whispering in my ear: Here we have a rare first-hand account of the Schneiderian First-Rank Symptoms of schizophrenia. Thought echo, voices heard arguing, voices heard commenting on one’s actions, delusions of control, thought withdrawal, thought insertion, thought broadcasting, and delusional perception . . . Suddenly, I’m in the living room back in Ashland, playing bank teller, doing the voices of both the teller and the customer. “Something’s wrong with her, Evie.”

Eyes still closed, I grip the fern for balance. It pierces my palm. A shriek pulls me from the memory.

“Who’s there?” says Caleb.

The shriek was my own.

Now it’s Mom’s turn to whisper in my ear . . .

Run, Mary.

Turning, I Goodwill myself through the woods, darting past trees, hurdling limbs and branches. I am Arrow Iris Malone, Olympic Record Holder in the Wooded Sprint, running straight and true, striking at the heart of my prey, the clearing. I burst through the line of trees, dive into my bedding, pull the blanket up to my chin, and close my eyes.

Caleb approaches, crashing his way through the woods, his lanky gait wrecking the pureness of the soundscape. And I am struck, now more than ever, at what an unnatural person he is. His footsteps crunch and crackle, closer, closer. He can’t be more than a few feet away now. They stop, just by my head. Eyes closed, heart pounding, I am a statue.

Minutes pass.

He’s standing there, I know it, waiting for me to make the first move.

Fake-sleeping in front of a psychopath in the middle of the woods is, believe it or not, harder than it sounds.

I pray that my right eye is actually closed, and will my breath to slow; my hand, which landed on my chest when I dove into bed, is rising and falling with each breath.

The external sounds of the forest dissipate.

The internal sounds of my body swell.

He’s there.

I know it.

Don’t move, Mary.

I used to lie in bed with my hand on my heart, just like I am now, and listen to my parents fight. That’s when I discovered something: with extreme concentration, I could hear my own insides over the sound of Mom and Dad’s yells. Blood coursing through veins, muscles stretching and creaking; sometimes, I could even hear my hair growing. It was bizarre, no doubt. But the worst, by far, was the amplification of my heartbeat. I would hear that sucker pounding and pounding, and consider all the things I hadn’t done, and all the things I didn’t even know about not doing, and all the heartbreaks I would never experience, the ones that led to love and everything else, and what if right there—what if right here—right now—I actually hear my heart stop beating?

beating . . .

beating . . .

beating . . .

Caleb hasn’t budged. His uncomfortable nearness is palpable.

Each breath, in and out, rising, falling.

I think of those days long ago, lying in bed, terrified not of the yelling but of what the yelling meant. And here’s what I learned: it’s impossible to wonder when your heart will stop beating, without wondering if that time is now.



NO COFFEE.

This is my first thought upon waking.

I am alive.

A close second.

I rub the fall air from my eyes, willing my brain to get its wheels out of the mud.

“Mornin’, honey.”

Across the campfire, Caleb sits in all his shadowy glory, a cigarette hanging from one side of his mouth, a spoon of ham from the other. He pulls a tin from the box and offers it to me. I vomit in my mouth, swallow, shake my head.