“They should like you,” I said, pointing out that Hand, with his Aryan looks, his blond hair and dark eyes, at least seemed to belong here.
“But you’re the Pole,” he said.
“I’m a fourth Polish,” I said. It might have been less. It was my father’s name, which diminished my attachment to it, to its origin, to the ancestors whose genes gave way to that man.
“I know this comparison is going to sound weird,” Hand was saying, “but I feel like we’re black and in the Jim Crow south. Like they know they have to accept our money but they don’t like it one bit. Like everyone here’s just waiting for us to leave. I mean, do we look fucked up or something? Are we dressed funny?”
“You look like a snowboarder, I look like a junior explorer, and my face looks like something rotting.”
—Why are you people the way you are?
—You cannot judge us.
—I know you.
—We have been overrun for centuries. The Swedes, the Germans, the Russians. Then the Germans again, the Russians again. In the last thousand years, we have known twenty years of peace. You have no place to judge. You know nothing.
—But I do!
—You can’t ever guess at life, at pain. All pain is real, and all pain is personal. It’s the most personal thing we have. It eats each of us differently. You cannot know—
—But I can! I can!
For a while we drove with our tongues. The road was empty and dry and I was behind the wheel and tried it first. I pushed my tongue down hard and got a sort of grip on the wheel. I could easily keep the car straight, but did not try turning. Then Hand, leaning over, licked the wheel to steer. It didn’t work as well from the side. We kept veering. I wiped it down with one of Hand’s shirts.
“That was fun,” he said.
It wasn’t all that much fun. For more fun we stopped for a second to practice rolling over the car like stuntmen, in case we got hit from the side while walking, or if we were chasing someone with a gun. We stopped and Hand got out. Then I drove, very slowly, and Hand ran from the side of the road, jumped, and rolled over the hood, regaining his feet on the right side. It was pretty smooth. Then we switched and I did it. For a moment, sliding over the hood, I knew I could have been a great cop. But being a cop requires you are forced to react only—your destiny daily is determined by the failings of the world—
We didn’t have coats and after a few minutes couldn’t feel our extremities. In the car we threw the heat on.
“I can’t believe we never tried that before.”
“I know,” Hand said. “It’s totally a skill you need.”
Stopped in the road, our headlights were the only illumination for what seemed like hundreds of miles, though they, feeble and pointing down, made clear only the fifteen feet ahead of us.
“Let’s run,” Hand said.
“Where? The road?”
“Through the woods.”
“Okay.”
We ran down the embankment into the woods. It was absolute black. I knew one of us would hit a tree. I ran with my hands outstretched, like a blind sprinter. Hand hooted. We were running at full speed, dodging the trees, our footsteps skatching loudly under us on the thick crosshatched forest floor. My eyes were tearing up in the cold wind. The tears were leaving my eyes quickly and shimmying toward my ears. Hand was running with his arms out, too. I turned around briefly to see how far we’d gone. The car was visible but small. When Hand and I were young, before we knew Jack, we ran from the older kids. At high school football games, which were too boring to possibly watch, we’d throw acorns at their heads and run. We were never caught; we knew every hiding place, every gully and footbridge along the creek behind the field. Lord—just now I jumped over a circle of stones, the remnants of a fire in its center—what were we doing in Latvia?
Now there was snow again. It was black but the trees were slightly blacker, and the snow poked tiny holes into the surface of the night. My breathing was becoming louder, filling my head, and the leaves underfoot were hitting my feet harder—
I fell. The ground was soft and it was a relief to fall. It was warmer on the ground. Hand was ahead and still running. I turned onto my back and looked up through the black interlocking boughs, their edges silver. My breathing was so loud.
I had the fake star stickers on the ceiling of my room at home. The room had been Tommy’s first, and he’d done it, and now they curled from the ceiling at their points. They didn’t glow.
I would get up. I would walk the cold steps to my mom’s room and as soon as her door was cracked her eyes would be open. She did not sleep the way people should sleep. She rested but never slept. C’mere sweetie, she would say and open her covers. The smell was sweat and lemon; her breath was so warm. It was so hot under that I wondered if I should go back, to my bed with its space, my cool blanket, my cool pillow. She would scratch my back softly for a few seconds and whisper
Oh Will
Oh William
Oh William honey
Oh Will my dearest one
Will, Will my son
then stop, falling back asleep, or wherever it was that she went. I would lie, staring at the painting on the wall, it appearing black and white in the dim foggy light. In the painting was a sailboat on sawhorses, tilted, with a green lake in the background. Or maybe a river. It was a boat being repaired—the picture was called “By Spring We Sail”—painted by my grandfather, she had explained once, hands on my shoulders as we looked at it. In her bed I would stare at this painting, its yellow greys and grey blues, its hollow whites, at the way the naked trees bent and the ground beneath them twisted and knotted.
Sometimes I wouldn’t fall asleep and would slip out of the bed—from her hot face a breathy “Okay, sweetie, you go back to bed now”—and would slowly open her door, its bottom shushing over the carpet, slowly close it again, shushing again, and then would sit in the hallway, in front of the linen closet, sliding its two doors back and forth, slowly, first one open then the other. I would sleep in that closet often, on the floor, covered in towels. I would sleep anywhere; I would love to hear her looking for me in the mornings. I slept in the bathroom, head under toilet. I slept in the living room, under the glass coffee table, waking up to the white-ringed bottom of my milk glass from the night before; in the car I slept again and again, in the driver’s seat, as she had so often done on long trips, after pulling over to rest on the heat-blurred highway.
—Hand you’re the one we never were sure about. When something had to be done, it wasn’t you we went to. I went to Jack and Jack went to me. I trusted Jack. I trust you, too, but I knew, we knew, that you would not be there—not always. You were usually there but you have to always be present. Most of being a man is being there, Hand.
—You’re talking about your father again.
—I am not!
—You are.
—I am. He was not there and that means you must! It means I know a man from a worm. And it means I have no patience for men who are worms. For men who are not there.
—But this whole trip, Will, is about you not being there. You’re not anywhere. Where are you? Who are you there for? You’re halfway across the world, driving at 100 mph through countries you know next to nothing about.
—There was a time when we planned to go into space.
—I did. That was me.
—When we all argued about whether we’d leave everything here to go into space. What we’d do if given the chance to see space on an exploratory mission, without possibility of return. Without possibility of ever seeing family or friends again. It was a choice between the world or your eyes.
—I said I’d go.
—That’s why we worried about you, Hand.
—I won’t go now.
—Now you wouldn’t go.
—No.
We were lying in the forest and had to think of something to do. I had a vision and we would have to enact it. I told Hand that I would climb one of these tr
ees and, once about twenty feet up, I’d jump from its branches to another tree, which I would catch and hang from.
“Can’t be done,” Hand said.
“Of course it can.”
“Not by you. Look what happened to you in Morocco.”
“That was different. It was a moving target.”
“You’ll die this time.”
“We’re doing it,” I said.
“Now?”
“Give me a second.”
I needed to rest first. It was still snowing. I needed to be sure.
—Jack.
—
—Jack I know you hate us for doing this. I know you think it’s stupid. Everything we’ve done I know isn’t your thing.
—
—Jack I have forced myself to dream of you. I have dreamt of you under ice, awake.
—
—Jack Lord God yesterday we traveled under a baking sun and in forests that looked like our forests. Jack I looked for you between those trees and I know it’s stupid but in Saly while we watched a woman who would later be Annette, Hand talked about something called the multiverse and I wasn’t really believing anything, wasn’t convinced that what he said had any validity or basis in anything true but still then, as my fork ticked against my knife, I wondered over possibilities, and then today I found myself thinking that I would see you. Today it seemed not possible but maybe even probable. Probable here where the landscape was so similar to ours at home and—The multiverse explains dreaming, doesn’t it? Fuck Jack I really thought we’d see you. But I don’t even know if it’s possible for you to live somewhere like this, another you, if you’ve died in Wisconsin. Is it many selves living at once, dying at once, or do all of our selves have their own path? I should have asked. Why didn’t I ask?
—
—But Jack I’ve spent this day in Latvia thinking I would see you. The people here look like us, look like our neighbors, and the forests look like ours—there was a road today, one we followed looking for the Liv, that bent through pine so much like the road that takes us to Phelps and for a second I thought that yes something like this was possible and yes Hand and I would be delivered to you. I thought for a second that around the bend in the road there would be light and clarity and you’d be there and it would be like some kind of surprise party, you know what I mean?
—
—I just had a moment where I thought something like that was possible, that we would turn around a bend in the road and there would be an explanation, and an end, and we would say Oh, right, there he is. Or, Of course, of course, it was leading up to this all the while. Something like that, you know?
—
—Jack we have been above Marrakesh, to the top of the Atlas Mountains, we went there at midnight or something and we weren’t even sure why but we outraced everyone chasing us and then we went up, and the whole while as we climbed I was sure there would be a reason. So often lately I have believed that if we put ourselves somewhere that we will be answered and there will be a reason. That if we see the Atlas Mountains in the dark and are compelled to drive to the top of the Atlas Mountains in the dark that once we’ve arrived at the top, after passing soldiers and over bridges, that a reason will be revealed to us. Because otherwise why have we come? Our own guidance systems … well, I just don’t know if they’re working so well at this point, we keep finding ourselves lost between the narrowest alleyways, men holding other men at knifepoint while others cheer and goad, and so many times I’ve thought that maybe that was the answer itself, that we were meant to stay there with them, that the car in front of us was meant to slow and the car behind us was meant to squeeze us and together they would keep us there, in those dark streets. But then the car chasing was gone, and maybe wasn’t chasing us in the first place, and the car we followed we followed farther and he pointed us to the mountains. Everything opened up and we were free to go. We’re there under the blank sky and we’re free to go.
—
—So we went up to the mountain, as the air went cooler and colder, and we illuminated the treetops with our headlights, and all the while we were sure there would be a reason at the top, but then we were at the top, where we imagined the top to be, and we stopped and stepped out onto the road, and could feel that we were at the pinnacle of something, and there was silence. There was no sound of anything—no animals, no water, no birds, no insects, no people, not even the wind pushing through trees. We had come to the mountain, to its apex, and there was nothing. So many times this week Jack, Hand and I have found ourselves somewhere we thought would speak to us and when we got there no one was speaking to us. At the hospital, Jack, I was sure we were being spoken to, that we were being given a chance, that that wretched money would have a point and Hand and I would have a point but then your mom came out to the parking lot with her hands on her head.
—
—A few times out here, and on the savannah, people appeared and made gestures to us, and we gestured to them, but I don’t know if we were understanding each other, ever. Sometimes we were. I don’t know. We’ve chosen money as our language, and I don’t know if it was the right one. Jack?
—
—You know, though, the worst thing was being on top of that mountain, and having the thought that I wanted to be back below, being chased through those streets. I don’t want to tell you this because I’m not in a position to be wishing for these things, and I’m sure you find this offensive considering where you are and why but Jack while up on that mountain listening to nothing, waiting and hearing nothing, and getting cold, I wanted to be back down in those alleys. Jack I wanted to be pursued and wanted to pursue, I wanted to be closer to death than I did to be there in the silence at the top of the mountain. Jack I don’t know if you know how quiet it was up there. It was so black! It was much lighter within those streets, and even the knife at the throat of the man being pressed against the wall of the alley seemed to promise so much comfort, the edge of the blade seemed to me to give such love, would be like a finger lightly stroking my neck, and I wanted then, on the roadside when Hand and I had gotten out and were waiting, to be back down there again, lost in that ghetto. There were rules down there, and there was a task at hand, and there were few options and with few options comes such great solace, Jack!
—
—Jack I never told you this but for so long I’ve wanted something like that, I wanted to have some kind of boundary, and this part you will hate but before you were gone and even after, I daydreamed about car crashes. I wanted so many times while driving to flip, to skid and flip and fall from the car and have something happen. I wanted to land on my head and lose half of it, or land on my legs and lose one or both—I wanted something to happen so my choices would be fewer, so my map would have a route straight through, in red. I wanted limitations, boundaries, to ease the burden, because the agony, Jack, when we were up there in the dark, was in the silence! All I ever wanted was to know what to do. In these last months I’ve had no clue, I’ve been paralyzed by the quiet, and for a moment something spoke to me, and we came here, or came to Africa, and intermittently there were answers, intermittently there was a chorus and they sang to us and pointing, and were watching and approving but just as often there was silence, and we stood blinking under the sun, or under the black sky, and we had to think of what to do next.
—
—Jesus, Jack, there would have to be a fucking reason that woman in London, that beautiful information woman, sent us here, right? When we were there it seemed random and we thought ha ha, we’re in control, yes ha ha, we have a week and here we are why not—but then when we were on the plane, and landing in Tallinn, I had that feeling you always get when you’ve arrived somewhere unconscionable: you wonder what went wrong in the world to allow you to be there. You want to go back. You want to have never left home. You’ve made a mistake. Everyone’s made a mistake. It’s a nightmare. You want to have never left. You want to throw yourself back into your bed and then lat
er spend the money on CDs. But you also hope that quickly you’ll be told or reminded why you’re there in the first place. At an airport I guess it would be if your relatives were waiting or something, your mother, your cousins, an aunt or uncle, nieces—you would see them, maybe your chubby little cousins, and they’d show you their homework or something and you’d know why you’d come. But I never had that kind of thing, you know that, and when we landed in Estonia, or any of those places, there was nothing, of course, no one waiting, and no one wanting us there, no one needing us. There wasn’t one thread connecting us to anyone and we had to start threading, I guess, or else it would be just us, without any trail or web and if it was just us, ghosts, irrelevant and unbound, not people but only eyes, then there was something wrong. Something would feel wrong. I don’t want it be just my eyes, do I, Jack?
—
—But I mean, $32,000? What kind of shit is that? What could that possibly mean? Jack at different times of my life I’ve wanted to be eyes only but I don’t want to be eyes only. I want that knife at my throat, Jack, or holding the purses of the Moroccan girls so everyone can dance. And the $32,000—I know you would think I was a fucking jackass, I know you would stare at me for a full minute, cleaning your teeth with your tongue in a way that threw my stupidity back at me but I do think it’s worked, is starting to work. Intermittently it works.
—
—Jack at the top of the mountain we heard nothing, and there was no order. There wasn’t even a line in the middle of the road. There were no homes, no animals even. But within the streets below, chasing and being chased, following and being followed, there was such order! Brilliant order! Not a doubt about any one moment—all was scripted, all was action. Reason! Purpose! A love born of caring that we were there! Even if their intent was to rob or maim or kill, they cared enough to give chase! There was reason to the butchers pushing their bloody carts under the windows of the homes within which young boys heard the knives, still sharp after quartering so many calves, and they knew their future. There was reason! And I wanted to be that boy in that room. I wanted to be in that room, safe, enclosed, thinking of a girl in a burqa walking on the outer streets of Marrakesh with her mother, smiling at strangers in a car. Smiling at strangers in a car from behind her burqa good God can you imagine! That was it, Jack, holy fuck! I want to be in that room, Jack, thinking of one day knowing a Charlotte—Fuck, Jack, when we were young did you ever think we could know a Charlotte, a Charlotte with the hair to there and flesh abundant everywhere, a Charlotte who could kill us with one low meaningful laugh? In that room over the streets full of knives there would be life because you were never far from the touch of a blade or the hot breath of your mother, her breath on your back, half-asleep behind you as you watched the painting of the sailboat on sawhorses and dreamed of a home on Saturn—See, there was order there in those narrow streets! There was a task at hand! There were people to touch and fight! People to touch and fight! Fuck, even fighting is better than that quiet up there—I want only to speed more through that narrow path, feeling squeezed, chasing and chased—every turn was our only option and that felt so good!—but as we climbed up the mountains there was nothing like that—we couldn’t even see where we were, how high, how far it would be to fall.