The Removed(28)

I wondered if my dad would be able to share a memory at the bonfire this year, too. He was so different from how he used to be. The first time I noticed his Alzheimer’s was when I visited home after having been away with Rae for a few months. I couldn’t believe how quickly he’d changed. The day I showed up, the first thing he wanted to do was go out to eat at a Mexican restaurant.

“They have good enchiladas,” he said. “Good salsa. The hot kind.”

I was happy to see him and my mom, but he wasn’t well. At the Mexican restaurant he told me he wanted to construct works of art from motorcycle parts that would hang in museums all over the Southwest. In my room that night, I rummaged through old boxes full of photos and drawings. I found a picture I drew in crayon of him when I was little. He had a long beard. He looked like a god. He had giant birdlike wings.

The longer I sat in Jackson’s house, with Jackson typing and sniffing across from me, the more anxious I felt. I needed to relax. I remembered I had a joint in my bag, so I stepped out onto the back porch and smoked half of it. I walked around the side of the house and looked at the area outside my window where I had seen the red fowl. There was a cluster of bushes that needed to be trimmed badly. As I drew nearer to that area, I heard something rustle in the bushes, so I turned and hurried back inside.

When I stepped into the front room, Jackson was standing there, waiting for me to join him. I followed him downstairs to the basement, which was too warm and brightly lit. The walls were dark-toned wood. There was a cabinet against a wall, and a stepladder in the center of the room. Some papers and a few cords were scattered on the floor, as well as a basketball, a football, and a video camera on a tripod. Jackson told me to stand by the wall. He tossed me the basketball and then turned on the camera, which beeped and flashed a red light.

“You’re filming me for the game?” I asked.

“Right, the game.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Dribble, shoot. Play pretend ball. Raise your arms, pivot, whatever you need to do.”

“Shoot? There’s no rim in here.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I just need the movement and your image on video.”

I dribbled the basketball while he filmed. I did a head fake and ran in for a layup. I shot free throws. I moved my body across the room, maneuvering right and left, guarding an invisible player. I pivoted with the ball. I blocked out, elbowed, faked left, and drove.

This went on for half an hour. Jackson kept stopping me to get a second take. Afterward, I watched him edit the clip on his laptop. I coughed, out of shape, weak from smoke in my lungs. Jackson slowed the video down, clipped parts of it. The film was all me, playing in real time, in slow motion and finally in animation. He added music tracks, heavy on drums and screeching electric guitar. I watched myself dribble and shoot, pitiful. There I was, trying too hard. “I’m no Jim Thorpe,” I said.

Jackson didn’t respond, focused on his editing. When he finished, he powered down the camera. He seemed pleased. “Fuck yes,” he said. “It all looks good.”

I followed him back upstairs, and he got us beers from the fridge.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s all so weird. Today I was downtown, and someone asked me if I was Jim Thorpe. Someone else asked me about Devil’s Bridge. It’s all so strange.”

Jackson felt at his jaw, thinking. “Devil’s Bridge,” he said. In a way I wanted to grab him and shake him into rational thought. It wasn’t paranoia driving me to this line of thinking. It wasn’t drugs. I was clearly seeing something very strange happening all around me. I didn’t trust it. I was starting not to trust Jackson. He was not the same person he was so long ago.

“Don’t be paranoid,” he said. “Look, there are nervous citizens here. They see a new neighbor, and they freak out. It’s the confined space, the cloudy air, fog all the time. It destroys everyone. There is no happiness anymore. I don’t even know where I’ll be in the future. The thought of being stuck here doing the same thing forever is miserable.”

I coughed a few times, held my chest. “I should just leave,” I said.

“You crazy, Chief? You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Give it a chance. Before coming here, I tried to develop phone apps with no luck. I applied for a patent that didn’t work out. Things take time. Be patient, you haven’t even been here a day.”

He cracked his knuckles and looked at his phone. “We’re just working on software development, that’s all,” he said. “My colleagues are disappearing. One went missing a month ago. His body was never found. Another added to the missing persons list. Sorry to sound so depressing. This place is a trap. Maybe you can earn your leave, but I don’t know how.”

“What do you mean, a trap?”

“Where would I even go?” he said. “Some other hellhole? I don’t have anyone. I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“What do you mean, a trap?” I asked again, but Jackson was too busy texting someone on his phone to answer me. He kept texting and sniffing.

*

That night, long after Jackson was asleep, I lay in bed watching the ceiling fan whir above me. Outside, the snow-foggy world was in strange form. A rainbow of light reflected on the wall across the room. Something was happening, but I couldn’t place what it was. My lungs rattled as I breathed. I coughed and brought up phlegm. Once or twice the walls of the house creaked. The unknown was frightening. I heard soulful groans. I heard the sad howl of a dog’s spirit outside my window.