Mosquitoland

  “What about the girl?” asks Caleb. After our little campfire story time, I’d recognize his voice anywhere.

  “Sweetheart’s a liability, ain’t she?”

  They’re talking about me.

  “She’s kinda cute,” says Caleb. “Even with the mud.”

  The moon is just bright enough to see Caleb’s outline, but from this angle, I can’t make out the second person.

  “Keep your eyes on the prize, Caleb. That girl gets in our way, we’ll just have to take care of her. You can do that, right?” A brief pause. This second voice has a strange guttural quality, as if the person is eating cake while talking. “Caleb?”

  “What?”

  The second person makes a noise like he’s spitting or something, then says, “If the girl gets in our way, I need to know you will take care of her.”

  My heart is at an Olympic pace.

  “Yes,” whispers Caleb. “I will.”

  “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.

  “More for me,” he mutters.

  Shivering, I sit up and pull the blankets around my shoulders. I must have fallen asleep while I was pretending to be asleep. Pretty damn effective, I’d say.

  “How’d you sleep?” The corners of Caleb’s mouth curl into a faint smile.

  “Like a log,” I lie. “You?”

  “Same.”

  I scan the clearing quickly, avoiding Caleb’s shifty eyes. “Where’s Walt?”

  “Shit pit,” he mumbles, chews, puffs. I see him glance toward the tent, and wonder if he’s already made a pass at Walt’s money. I’m guessing not, or he wouldn’t be here.

  He’s trying to figure out what to do with me.

  I grab my backpack and rummage around for the makeup-remover pads, eager to be rid of last night’s war paint. Mud or not, the pads should do the trick. Unfortunately, they’re at the bottom of the bag, forcing me to acknowledge my many talismans of disappointment: one wooden box (wherefore art thou, Ahab?); one cell phone (thirty-nine missed calls); one bottle of Abilitol (if habit is king, I’m the joker); one terse letter (Think of whats best for her. Please reconsider.); and last, but certainly not least, one Hills Bros. coffee can (behold! the Mistress of Burgling). A morning of harsh disappointments tends to slide down the gullet a little easier with some fresh java behin
d it. But as New Chicago seems to be heavy on the tainted meats and light on the gourmet beans, I’m forced to swallow my disappointments as they come.

  I locate the makeup remover and begin wiping the caked mud off my face.

  “You know. . . ” says Caleb. His cigarette is now a stump. Sucking down the last of its juices, he flicks it into the ashes of last night’s campfire and looks up. His turned-off eyes stir a strange combination inside me, of both fight and flight. As if waiting for his sentence to finish itself, Caleb sits with his mouth open, the accusation there in spirit, but not word. Not yet. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be spoken. I can feign ignorance till I’m blue in the face, but I was there. I know the deep end of his soul’s pool. I know Caleb’s dark secret: not who he is, but what. A shadow. A creepy-ass-Gollum-Gollum-schizo-effing shadow.

  “Hey, hey, Mim!” Walt yells, bounding out of the woods, buttoning his pants. His face is still covered in dried mud. When he sees my clean face he stops. “Is the war over?”

  Lord bless and keep the House of Walt for all of eternity!

  “Sure is, Walt. Come here, let me clean you up.”

  Caleb tosses his bedding into the tent, his accusations dangling on the tip of his tongue. “Well.” He yawns. “I’m gonna take a shit in the pit and a wash in the lake. Walt, I got something I wanna talk to you about when I get back.”

  “Okay, Caleb.”

  Then, looking at me, he winks. “You too, sweetie.” He retreats into the woods before I have a chance to give him my eat shit squint. (It’s a dynamite squint, too, one I save for the purest of assholes.)

  After cleaning Walt’s face, I stick the pack of makeup remover back in my bag. My good eye lands on my bottle of Abilitol, and for a split second, I imagine the shape of a great grizzly charging me head-on. I see its sharp claws, its glassy eyes, its lolling tongue—I catch my breath and stuff the bottle down in the bag.

  Fuck it. I can miss a day.

  “Hey, Walt,” I say, a plan beginning to take shape. He’s eating ham—like it’s his first, last, and only—watching a bluebird tug a worm from the ground.

  “Yo, Walt,” I whisper.

  The bird seems desperate for its early, earthy breakfast. Walt is enthralled. “Hey, hey,” he says, still staring at the bird.

  “You ever been to Cleveland?”

  His head turns from the carnivorous bird to me. In my ear, I hear my mother again. Have a vision, Mary, unclouded by fear.

  I have limited experience, but I know this: moments of connection with another human being are patently rare. But rarer still are those who can recognize such a connection when they see one.

  The camera zooms in on Walt’s piercing eyes.

  It cuts to a close-up of my own.

  The connection is there, wriggling below the surface, just like that worm. And what’s more, we both feel it.

  In the distance, Caleb is splashing around, making a ridiculous racket.

  Walt looks toward the lake, then whispers, “He won’t like it.”

  May the House of Walt live forever and ever, Amen!

  “No he won’t, Walt.”

  20

  Run, Run, Run

  IT FEELS NICE to be out of those cutoffs and into some real clothes again. Downright delightful, actually. Pulling my repacked JanSport tight, I wrap one of Walt’s extra blankets between the straps and my chest. The kid has spent the last few minutes packing one of those hard, fifties-style suitcases full of canned hams, blankets, and God knows what else from that decrepit blue tent.

  “Okay.” I put my hands on his shoulders. “We just need to get back to the overpass. We can get a ride from there, okay? Just stick close and—”

  Suddenly, Walt raises an arm. In his hand, he’s holding my mother’s lipstick like a champion’s torch. “I found your shiny,” he says, avoiding eye contact.

  I reach for it, but can’t stop looking at Walt—the kid is about to cry.

  “Thank you, Walt,” I say, taking the lipstick in my hands.

  Without another word, he reaches his arms around my waist in a gentle hug. I’m surprised how natural it feels, as if a team of scientists designed his arms to fit the precise specifications of a heartfelt embrace. In his hug, I feel the things he tries to say but can’t. I feel his pain and childlike innocence, his unencumbered joy and I-don’t-know-what . . . life, I suppose. All the good things from the very best of places.

  “We need to get going,” I whisper, slipping the lipstick in my pocket. Caleb has gone quiet, conjuring all manner of nerve-racking scenarios in my head.

  Walt straightens his Cubs cap, grabs his suitcase in one hand, his Rubik’s Cube in the other, and leads the way down the hill.

  In an all-out sprint.

  The shrubbery is dense but doesn’t slow him one bit; he’s weaving in and out of bushes and trees with surprising agility. By contrast, I follow behind like an errant sled, haphazard and zigzagged.

  A minute later, I hear it—behind us—a third set of scurrying leaves. Walt must hear it, too, because he picks up the pace considerably.

  “Where y’all running off to?” Caleb’s voice comes in rasps.

  Ten paces ahead, Walt is absolutely hoofing it. “Mim?” he yells over his shoulder.

  “I’m here, buddy! Keep going!”

  Behind me, Caleb gasps like he wants to say something, but can’t. Clearly, the cigarettes have taken their toll; his lungs are absolutely screaming for air. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one wearing down. Either the aftereffects of last night’s woeful sleep have kicked in or my youthful stamina is wavering. At the bottom of the hill, we hurdle the metal guardrail. It’s early morning on a holiday weekend, so highway traffic is scarce. Right now, I would give all the cash in Kathy’s can for a passing car, truck, van, just . . . someone. My head droops, my backpack sags, my shoes lag, the slap-slap of their worn soles on asphalt growing slower with each passing step. Under the bridge, we sprint past the very spot where I met Walt. It was only yesterday, but God, it feels like a month ago. On the other side, Walt races around a miniature hill, through a line of shrubs and bushes, and into the gravel parking lot of the same derelict building I’d seen from the window of the Subaru. Off-white. The offest white there ever was. A single pump in the middle of the lot has a handwritten sign taped over the handle: 87 OR BUST.

  It’s a gas station.

  Like a track star, Walt digs in on the homestretch. Even with that hard suitcase slamming his knees, he reaches the front door at least twenty paces ahead of us. I watch him pull a set of keys from behind an ice machine, open the door, and step inside. Caleb is only feet behind me now. I will my burning legs through the entrance, hear Walt slam and lock the door behind me just as Caleb flings himself against the double-paned glass. And like that, the cool and collected Caleb is gone, replaced by some zombie-eyed maniac pounding his fists against the door, gasping for breath, raging-bull mad.

  I turn in a circle, trying to catch my own breath. The gas station is dark and empty, still closed for the day. “Walt, what are we doing here?”

  “Obeying,” says Walt, bouncing on the heels of his feet. “He said run. Run and let him know. When there’s trouble, I have to let him know.”

  I take a second to catch my breath, letting Walt’s bizarre statement sink in. “Who?”

  Walt bends at the waist, setting his suitcase and Rubik’s Cube on the tile floor. He turns toward the refrigerated section, pulls out a Mountain Dew, pops the cap, takes a long swig, then wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

  “The karate kid,” he says.

  21

  Rooftop Revelations

  BLIMEY, THIS KID’S full of surprises.

  “The what?” Only it’s more like, the-hell-you-say???

  He looks at me with a blank expression, tilts his head like a dog.

  “Walt???
?

  Nothing. At all. And then—everything at once. He tosses the empty twenty-ouncer into a trash can, throws his suitcase over the checkout counter, hops over after it, and disappears around a back corner.

  Like I said . . . surprises.

  I throw my bag over the counter and jump it myself. These last couple days have been tough on my poor leg. At this rate, that cut will probably heal into some horrible disfigurement. Just add it to my list of medical oddities.

  Around the corner, I spot Walt’s green Chucks on the top rung of a ladder, now disappearing through a trapdoor in the ceiling.

  “Wait up, Walt!”

  Caleb has stopped banging on the front door, which is unsettling, to say the least. I picture him crawling like a snake through the ductwork—hissing, spitting, eagerly calculating an alternate point of entry.

  After scurrying up the ladder, I emerge through the same trapdoor and climb out onto the roof. It’s still morning, but the sun is out in full force, beating down on the gravel and cement. Broad pipes, ventilation fans, and all manner of rusty eyesores sprout up like weeds every five feet or so. Planted right in the middle of the gas station roof is a massive tank; it’s circular, like an aboveground pool, only taller. Standing at least eight feet high, it takes up more than half the surface area of the roof.

  “Where is he, Al?”

  I follow Walt’s voice around the side of the tank and find him standing next to a 340-pound whale of a man in aviator sunglasses. The guy is lounging shirtless in a folding chair, sipping an umbrella drink. He’s frightfully pale, a condition magnified by dark oil stains smeared across his face. Layer after folding layer, his stomach hangs down over his swimming trunks.

  “Walt”—I point toward the fat guy—“you see him, too, right?”

  The man’s blubber shakes as he laughs. He sips his daiquiri through a crazy straw, looks from Walt to me. “Nah, I’m just a figment of your imagination, kid. What, you were expecting a hookah-smoking caterpillar?”

  Walt, ignoring us both, bounces up and down on the heels of his feet. “Where is he, Al, where is he?”