Flash of fear. That’s what he wanted. He wants to hate me. Because I’m not him.
He looks down at the ground bitterly, and puts his warm clothes on. Then we’re back on the machine and moving down the coast again.
I can imitate the father he’s supposed to have, but subconsciously, at the Quality level, he sees through it and knows his real father isn’t here. In all this Chautauqua talk there’s been more than a touch of hypocrisy. Advice is given again and again to eliminate subject-object duality, when the biggest duality of all, the duality between me and him, remains unfaced. A mind divided against itself.
But who did it? I didn’t do it. And there’s no way now of undoing it. — I keep wondering how far it is to the bottom of that ocean out there. —
What I am is a heretic who’s recanted, and thereby in everyone’s eyes saved his soul. Everyone’s eyes but one, who knows deep down inside that all he has saved is his skin.
I survive mainly by pleasing others. You do that to get out. To get out you figure out what they want you to say and then you say it with as much skill and originality as possible and then, if they’re convinced, you get out. If I hadn’t turned on him I’d still be there, but he was true to what he believed right to the end. That’s the difference between us, and Chris knows it. And that’s the reason why sometimes I feel he’s the reality and I’m the ghost.
We’re on the Mendocino County coast now, and it’s all wild and beautiful and open here. The hills are mostly but in the lee of rocks and folds in the hills are strange flowing shrubs sculptured by the upsweep of winds from the ocean. We pass some old wooden fences, weathered grey. In the distance is an old weathered and grey farmhouse. How could anyone farm here? The fence is broken in many places. Poor.
Where the road drops down from the high cliffs to the beach we stop to rest. When I turn the engine off Chris says, “What are we stopping here for?”
“I’m tired.”
“Well, I’m not. Let’s keep going.”
He’s angry still. I’m angry too.
“Just go over on the beach there and run around in circles until I’m done resting”, I say.
“Let’s keep going”, he says, but I walk away and ignore it. He sits on the curb by the motorcycle.
The ocean smell of rotting organic matter is heavy here and the cold wind doesn’t allow much rest. But I find a large cluster of grey rocks where the wind is still and the heat of the sun can still be felt and enjoyed. I concentrate on the warmth of the sunlight and am grateful for what little there is.
We ride again and what comes to me now is the realization that he’s another Phædrus, thinking the way he used to and acting the same way he used to, looking for trouble, being driven by forces he’s only dimly aware of and doesn’t understand. The questions — the same questions — he’s got to know everything.
And if he doesn’t get the answer he just drives and drives until he gets one and that leads to another question and he drives and drives for the answer to that — endlessly pursuing questions, never seeing, never understanding that the questions will never end. Something is missing and he knows it and will kill himself trying to find it.
We round a sharp turn up an overhanging cliff. The ocean stretches forever, cold and blue out there, and produces a strange sense of despair. Coastal people never really know what the ocean symbolizes to landlocked inland people… what a great distant dream it is, present but unseen in the deepest levels of subconsciousness, and when they arrive at the ocean and the conscious images are compared with the subconscious dream there is a sense of defeat at having come so far to be so stopped by a mystery that can never be fathomed. The source of it all.
A long time later we come to a town where a luminous haze which has seemed so natural over the ocean is now seen in the streets of the town, giving them a certain aura, a hazy sunny radiance that makes everything look nostalgic, as if remembered from years before.
We stop in a crowded restaurant and find the last remaining empty table by a window overlooking the radiant street. Chris looks down and doesn’t talk. Maybe, in some way, he senses that we haven’t much farther to go.
“I’m not hungry”, he says.
“You don’t mind waiting while I eat?”
“Let’s keep going. I’m not hungry.”
“Well, I am.”
“Well, I’m not. My stomach hurts.” The old symptom.
I eat my lunch amid the conversation and clink of plates and spoons from the other tables and out the window watch a bicycle and rider go by. I feel like somehow we have arrived at the end of the world.
I look up and see Chris is crying.
“Now what?” I say.
“My stomach. It’s hurting.”
“Is that all?”
“No. I just hate everything — I’m sorry I came — I hate this trip — I thought this was going to be fun, and it isn’t any fun — I’m sorry I came.” He is a truth-teller, like Phædrus. And like Phædrus he looks at me now with more and more hatred. The time has come.
“I’ve been thinking, Chris, of putting you on the bus here with a ticket for home.”
His face has no expression on it, then surprise mixed with dismay.
I add, “I’ll go on myself with the motorcycle and see you in a week or two. There’s no sense forcing you to continue on a vacation you hate.”
Now it’s my turn to be surprised. His expression isn’t relieved at all. The dismay gets worse and he looks down and says nothing.
He seems caught off balance now, and frightened.
He looks up. “Where would I stay?”
“Well, you can’t stay at our house now, because other people are there. You can stay with Grandma and Grandpa.”
“I don’t want to stay with them.”
“You can stay with your aunt.”
“She doesn’t like me. I don’t like her.”
“You can stay with your other grandma and grandpa.”
“I don’t want to stay there either.”
I name some others but he shakes his head.
“Well, who then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Chris, I think you can see for yourself what the problem is. You don’t want to be on this trip. You hate it. Yet you don’t want to stay with anyone or go anywhere else. All these people I’ve mentioned you either don’t like or they don’t like you.”
He’s silent but tears now form.
A woman at another table is looking at me angrily. She opens her mouth as if about to say something. I turn a heavy gaze on her for a long time until she closes her mouth and goes back to eating.
Now Chris is crying hard and others look over from the other tables.
“Let’s go for a walk”, I say, and get up without waiting for the check.
At the cash register the waitress says, “I’m sorry the boy isn’t feeling good.” I nod, pay, and we’re outside.
I look for a bench somewhere in the luminous haze but there is none. Instead we climb on the cycle and go slowly south looking for a restful place to pull off.
The road leads out to the ocean again where it climbs to a high point that apparently juts out into the ocean but now is surrounded by banks of fog. For a moment I see a distant break in the fog where some people rest in the sand, but soon the fog rolls in and the people are obscured.
I look at Chris and see a puzzled, empty look in his eyes, but as soon as I ask him to sit down some of the anger and hatred of this morning reappear.
“Why?” he asks.
“I think it’s time we should talk.”
“Well, talk”, he says. All the old belligerence is back. It’s the “kind father” image he can’t stand. He knows the “niceness” is false.
“What about the future?” I say. Stupid thing to ask.
“What about it?” he says.
“I was going to ask what you planned to do about the future.”
“I’m going to let it be.” Contempt shows now.
/>
The fog opens for a moment, revealing the cliff we are on, then closes again, and a sense of inevitability about what is happening comes over me. I’m being pushed toward something and the objects in the corner of the eye and the objects in the center of the vision are all of equal intensity now, all together in one, and I say, “Chris, I think it’s time to talk about some things you don’t know about.”
He listens a little. He senses something is coming.
“Chris, you’re looking at a father who was insane for a long time, and is close to it again.”
And not just close anymore. It’s here. The bottom of the ocean.
“I’m sending you home not because I’m angry with you but because I’m afraid of what can happen if I continue to take responsibility for you.”
His face doesn’t show any change of expression. He doesn’t understand yet what I’m saying.
“So this is going to be good-bye, Chris, and I’m not sure we’ll see each other anymore.”
That’s it. It’s done. And now the rest will follow naturally.
He looks at me so strangely. I think he still doesn’t understand. That gaze — I’ve seen it somewhere — somewhere — somewhere. —
In the fog of an early morning in the marshes there was a small duck, a teal that gazed like this. — I’d winged it and now it couldn’t fly and I’d run up on it and seized it by the neck and before killing it had stopped and from some sense of the mystery of the universe had stared into its eyes, and they gazed like this — so calm and uncomprehending — and yet so aware. Then I closed my hands around its eyes and twisted the neck until it broke and I felt the snap between my fingers.
Then I opened my hand. The eyes still gazed at me but they stared into nothing and no longer followed my movements.
“Chris, they’re saying it about you.”
He gazes at me.
“That all these troubles are in your mind.”
He shakes his head no.
“They seem real and feel real but they aren’t.”
His eyes become wide. He continues to shake his head no, but comprehension overtakes him.
“Things have gone from bad to worse. Trouble in school, trouble with the neighbors, trouble with your family, trouble with your friends — trouble everywhere you turn. Chris, I was the only one holding them all back, saying, ‘He’s all right,’ and now there won’t be anyone. Do you understand?”
He stares stunned. His eyes still track but they begin to falter. I’m not giving him strength. I never have been. I’m killing him.
“It’s not your fault, Chris. It never has been. Please understand that.”
His gaze fails in a sudden inward flash. Then his eyes close and a strange cry comes from his mouth, a wail like the sound of something far away. He turns and stumbles on the ground then falls, doubles up and kneels and rocks back and forth, head on the ground. A faint misty wind blows in the grass around him. A seagull alights nearby.
Through the fog I hear the whine of gears of a truck and am terrified by it.
“You have to get up, Chris.”
The wail is high-pitched and inhuman, like a siren in the distance.
“You must get up!”
He continues to rock and wail on the ground.
I don’t know what to do now. I have no idea what to do. It’s all over. I want to run for the cliff, but fight that. I have to get him on the bus, and then the cliff will be all right.
Everything is all right now, Chris.
That’s not my voice.
l haven’t forgotten you.
Chris’s rocking stops.
How could I forget you?
Chris raises his head and looks at me. A film he has always looked through at me disappears for a moment and then returns.
We’ll be together now.
The whine of the truck is upon us.
Now get up!
Chris slowly sits up and stares at me. The truck arrives, stops, and the driver looks out to see if we need a ride. I shake my head no and wave him on. He nods, puts the truck in gear, and it whines off through the mist again and there is only Chris and me.
I put my jacket around him. His head is buried again between his knees and he cries now, but it is a low-pitched human wail, not the strange cry of before. My hands are wet and I feel that my forehead is wet too.
After a while he wails, “Why did you leave us?”
When?
“At the hospital!”
There was no choice. The police prevented it.
“Wouldn’t they let you out?”
No.
“Well then, why wouldn’t you open the door?”
What door?
“The glass door!”
A kind of slow electric shock passes through me. What glass door is he talking about?
“Don’t you remember?” he says. “We were standing on one side and you were on the other side and Mom was crying.”
I’ve never told him about that dream. How could he know about that? Oh, no
We’re in another dream. That’s why my voice sounds so strange.
I couldn’t open that door. They told me not to open it. I had to do everything they said.
“I thought you didn’t want to see us”, Chris says. He looks down.
The looks of terror in his eyes all these years.
Now I see the door. It is in a hospital.
This is the last time I will see them. I am Phædrus, that is who I am, and they are going to destroy me for speaking the Truth.
It has all come together.
Chris cries softly now. Cries and cries and cries. The wind from the ocean blows through the tall stems of grass all around us and the fog begins to lift.
“Don’t cry, Chris. Crying is just for children.”
After a long time I give him a rag to wipe his face with. We gather up our stuff and pack it on the motorcycle. Now the fog suddenly lifts and I see the sun on his face makes his expression open in a way I’ve never seen it before. He puts on his helmet, tightens the strap, then looks up.
“Were you really insane?”
Why should he ask that?
No!
Astonishment hits. But Chris’s eyes sparkle.
“I knew it”, he says.
Then he climbs on the cycle and we are off.
32
As we ride now through coastal manzanita and waxen-leafed shrubs, Chris’s expression comes to mind. “I knew it”, he said.
The cycle swings into each curve effortlessly, banking so that our weight is always down through the machine no matter what its angle is with the ground. The way is full of flowers and surprise views, tight turns one after another so that the whole world rolls and pirouettes and rises and falls away.
“I knew it”, he said. It comes back now as one of those little facts tugging at the end of a line, saying it’s not as small as I think it is. It’s been in his mind for a long time. Years. All the problems he’s given become more understandable. “I knew it”, he said.
He must have heard something long ago, and in his childish misunderstanding gotten it all mixed up. That’s what Phædrus always said… I always said… years ago, and Chris must have believed it, and kept it hidden inside ever since.
We’re related to each other in ways we never fully understand, maybe hardly understand at all. He was always the real reason for coming out of the hospital. To have let him grow up alone would have been really wrong. In the dream too he was the one who was always trying to open the door.
I haven’t been carrying him at all. He’s been carrying me!
“I knew it”, he said. It keeps tugging on the line, saying my big problem may not be as big as I think it is, because the answer is right in front of me. For God’s sake relieve him of his burden! Be one person again!
Rich air and strange perfumes from the flowers of the trees and shrubs enshroud us. Inland now the chill is gone and the heat is upon us again. It soaks through my jacket and clothes and dries o
ut the dampness inside. The gloves which have been dark-wet have started to turn light again. It seems like I’ve been bone-chilled by that ocean damp for so long I’ve forgotten what heat is like. I begin to feel drowsy and in a small ravine ahead I see a turnoff and a picnic table. When we get to it I cut the engine and stop.
“I’m sleepy”, I tell Chris. “I’m going to take a nap.”
“Me too”, he says.
We sleep and when we wake up I feel very rested, more rested than for a long time. I take Chris’s jacket and mine and tuck them under the elastic cables holding down the pack on the cycle.
It’s so hot I feel like leaving this helmet off. I remember that in this state they’re not required. I fasten it around one of the cables.
“Put mine there too”, Chris says.
“You need it for safety.”
“You’re not wearing yours.”
“All right”, I agree, and stow his too.
The road continues to twist and wind through the trees. It upswings around hairpins and glides into new scenes one after another around and through brush and then out into open spaces where we can see canyons stretch away below.
“Beautiful!” I holler to Chris.
“You don’t need to shout”, he says.
“Oh”, I say, and laugh. When the helmets are off you can talk in a conversational voice. After all these days!
“Well, it’s beautiful, anyway”, I say.
More trees and shrubs and groves. It’s getting warmer. Chris hangs onto my shoulders now and I turn a little and see that he stands up on the foot pegs.
“That’s a little dangerous”, I say.
“No, it isn’t. I can tell.”
He probably can. “Be careful anyway”, I say.
After a while when we cut sharp into a hairpin under some overhanging trees he says, “Oh”, and then later on, “Ah”, and then, “Wow.” Some of these branches over the road are hanging so low they’re going to conk him on the head if he isn’t careful
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“It’s so different.”
“What?”
“Everything. I never could see over your shoulders before.”