Be Not Far from Me(19)

Yesterday I wanted to make two miles. Today I’m just aiming for the next maple.

All I can do is hope I’m headed somewhat west. The clouds have been constant, a thick gray haze that won’t let me get a good read on the sun, make much use of a shadow stick, or allow its rays to ever really warm me. When I do get sweaty it’s a slick kind of feeling, like maybe I’m sweating not because I’m too hot but because I’m getting sick.

My foot is back in the sling, up off the ground. Even though I know it doesn’t matter one way or the other to the dead part, the living tissue is swelling, and keeping it elevated is the only thing I can really do right now. When I set out this morning, the crutch rubbing the raw spot on my back, I was thinking I had to get somewhere—now.

Like maybe I’d been playing the last two days, having an adventure. Like maybe I could just decide to find the trail, then the road, then help. None of that’s true, and so by midday I’m in a puddle under an oak, my chest hitching as I decide whether I’m going to cry.

I landed near a pile of clovers, which is lucky not because any of them have four leaves but because they’re edible. I pull it up by the handful, chewing and swallowing carefully while my stomach complains again.

Clover can keep me from starving, but I’m burning off more than I’m taking in, covering miles with a rotten foot and not much in my stomach. I won’t die from hunger, but I’m not going to put on any weight either. I noticed this morning that my pants were sagging more than usual, hugging hips that aren’t quite what they used to be. My body has already started digesting itself, breaking down my fat reserves and using them to keep me moving.

Next it’ll move on to muscles.

And I need those.

“Shit,” I say to the sky, watching a break in the cloud cover overhead. I’ve got to get back up, move forward even though I don’t know what I’m moving toward. The only thing I can say for sure is that I haven’t seen a hint of another human being for days. Never in my life have I wished for litter, but a forgotten water bottle or tossed pop can wouldn’t be taken amiss right now. Usually that stuff is all over. Cans. Bottles. Chip bags and candy wrappers. Anything people can carry and eat and leave behind, they do.

Duke and I hated it, this casual disrespect. Anybody that loved the woods enough to come spend time in it ought to know better than to trash it. But there was always something blowing in the wind or floating past in the stream, stuff that won’t break down in a million years, only get bleached out by the sun, its color the one thing to leave naturally.

That’s why I used to wander sometimes, if Duke wasn’t with me. I’d start somewhere on public land, but there’s not always an easy way to tell when you’ve stepped into private areas—and to be honest I was never looking too hard for signs anyway. Places with no people—or the leavings of them—were sacred to me, offering a distinct sense of being alone that I couldn’t achieve with power walkers moving past me, neon shoes flashing as they bitched about their neighbors.

I guess I was always looking for solitude.

I’ve got that now, in spades.

“You’ve got to get up,” I say aloud, hoping it’ll be more motivating that way.

It’s true, whether I only say it in my head or put a voice to it. There’s no energy left in me, no strength in my legs or my arms, but I do it anyway because I’ve decided that’s what I’m going to do, and I can be stubborn.

Living things will fight to stay that way.

When I was little we had a trampoline, a ratty old one that some relative thought trashed up their yard so they donated it to us out of the kindness of their pinched, tiny hearts. I loved it, and Dad could give less of a shit about the yard, so I spent most of the summer I turned eleven trying to see if I could bounce myself onto the roof of the trailer. I managed once, and Dad came out red in the face, told me I was likely to fall right through the ceiling and then how much rain would come in?

After that, I kept to aiming for branches of the elm that hung nearby, grabbing one when I could reach it and hanging there for as long as my bony little arms could take it. I was right at the quivering stage and about to let go when I spotted a raccoon moving through the field across the way.

It was moving slow and funny, and it was bright daylight. You don’t see a raccoon during the day unless there’s something wrong with it, and this one had more than a few problems.

Distemper was the first.

The second was a buzzard following behind, waiting for him to die.

He walked, patient as anything, matching the sick coon step for step. The raccoon knew it was there, kept looking over his shoulder every now and then. I dropped from the elm, ran inside, and grabbed Daddy’s twelve-gauge. There wasn’t anything left of that buzzard but a beak and a few feathers after I took my shot.

Then I put the raccoon out of his misery.

I wanted him to see that buzzard die first. Wanted him to know that every step he’d taken with death on his heels hadn’t been taken in vain. He’d fought for each one, walking toward nothing but knowing that he couldn’t stop. So I let him see it was worth it, in the end.

Now here I am, doing the same.

And I admit, I have taken to looking over my shoulder to make sure nothing is following me.

I come across water about a mile later, and a nice rocky overhang that I can sleep under tonight in case it rains again. It’s not late yet, barely evening, but I’ve got nothing left in me except tears, so I collapse next to the water, not so much drinking as opening up my mouth and letting water flow into it.