Cabin Fever

  He gets off the couch and stumbles into the bathroom, bumping into furniture and walls as he goes. I’m torn between being angry and sad as I watch him go. Is this what he does every day? Gets fall-down drunk and ignores everyone and everything around him? And how long has his wife been gone? Hasn’t it been almost a year? That’s a lot of alcohol for one liver.

  When he comes out of the bathroom and looks over at me, I force myself to look and sound cordial. “Did you have a nice nap?”

  “I didn’t take a nap.”

  “Oh. Well, you were snoring, sooo…”

  “I passed out. That’s not the same thing as a nap.”

  I nod. “You’re probably right about that.” At least he’s not in denial. That’s one step in the right direction, I guess.

  “Where’s the Jack? I know I left it on the table.” He looks around the room and rubs his head, making his hair look even worse. “At least I think I did.”

  I shrug. “I have no idea. I was busy building my IKEA table.” I gesture over to the alcove to get his mind off the missing bottle. My heart is thumping away in nervousness. He’s going to figure out what I did eventually. And what will he do in response? I probably should have thought that plan through a little further before executing it. Oops.

  “Cool,” he says absently. Instead of taking the bait and admiring my furniture construction skills, he wanders around the room, looking under and behind things. He stops in the kitchen and lets his eyes roam the space. Then his gaze lands on me.

  “Did you put it somewhere?”

  “Put what somewhere?” I’m getting irritated now as I flip the two fried steaks in the pan. Why can’t he just let it go? Is my company so lame he has to be wasted off his butt to enjoy it?

  “The whiskey. What’d you do with it?”

  “Nothing. I’m cooking dinner in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Yeah, for the last ten minutes, maybe. What else were you doing while I was passed out?”

  I don’t answer, but dread builds as I hear his footsteps fading out towards his bedroom.

  “Goddammit!”

  I guess he discovered my little invasion of his privacy. Oops again.

  I just keep on moving the steaks over the greasy pan’s surface, trying to act like I’m too busy to pay him any attention.

  “You had no right!” Long strides have him just a couple feet away from me in seconds.

  I reach over and take hold of a nearby knife, just in case. Not that I feel threatened, but he’s still pretty drunk if the smell of his breath is any indicator.

  “No right to do what?” I’m feigning a casualness I do not feel.

  He’s super pissed, practically growling at me. “You know very well what you did. You hid my alcohol.”

  Despite his obvious anger, he reminds me of Jaws. All bark and no bite. I release my hold on the knife and pick up the spatula instead.

  “No, I did not hide it.” I did much worse, actually. At the time it had seemed like a good idea, but now I’m not so sure. He seems pretty worked up about it. Maybe him drunk and passed out would have been preferable to him drunk and angry.

  “I’ll find it, you know.”

  “Have at it,” I say, waving my spatula around like I could care less.

  I’m going to leave the knife on the counter, certain now that he won’t touch me, even if he is madder than a wet hen. I’ve met his family and heard his story. He split all my logs knowing he was going to be leaving soon. He’s not an angry drunk, he’s a sad one.

  “I will,” he says, sounding like a huffy kid.

  “Knock yourself out. See if I care.”

  I flinch and cringe as he throws things around and tips over furniture, but I don’t say a word. I’m not going to defend my actions. Let him come to his own conclusions about my motives. They were pure, and nothing he says or thinks will change that.

  He storms outside, and a few seconds later, I hear a roar that’s almost inhuman. There’s that bear again. I guess he found the stains in the snow or maybe the empties. I hid them in a garbage bag under a bush; it was too cold to move them very far away from the porch steps.

  The door bangs closed, and Jaws growls from his blanket on the floor in response.

  “You dumped all my stuff out in the snow, didn’t you?” His voice is calm. Way too calm.

  I turn around to face him, finding bravery in the knife on the counter at my side. “Maybe.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  I shrug. “Maybe because I don’t like seeing a perfectly healthy guy try to kill himself.”

  “What I do with my life is none of your business.”

  “It’s my business while you’re in my cabin.”

  His face goes beet red and he yells at the top of his lungs. “This is not your cabin! This is my cabin and that was my whiskey and my beer and you had no right to go through my things!” Every vein in his neck is bulging out and I’m pretty sure he showered Jaws in spittle with every word.

  I’m proud of how calm I still am, all things considered. I speak to him like a teacher would to a recalcitrant student. “Be that as it may, there’s nothing you can do about it now. Why don’t you sit down and eat some dinner? Maybe tomorrow the plows will come and you can leave and go drink yourself to death then.”

  “You think after you steal my things and violate my trust like that, that I’m going to sit down at the dinner table with you and eat like nothing happened?”

  I laugh. “Aren’t you being just a little dramatic? It’s only alcohol.”

  “It’s not only alcohol!” He’s back to yelling like a maniac again. “It’s my medicine!”

  My eyes bug out a little at that. He sounds serious. “Your medicine?”

  “Yes! My medicine!”

  “I know your brother’s a real doctor, so I’m preeeetty sure you haven’t been given a prescription for Jack Daniels.”

  “Fuck my brother and his prescriptions.”

  “Okaaaay.” Wow, there’s some venom in those words. I wonder what happened between them.

  “I need a drink.” He comes over to the fridge and yanks the door open.

  “You’re not going to find anything in there other than orange juice and milk.” I go back to moving my steaks around in the oil. They’re almost ready.

  “You had wine in here earlier, I saw it.”

  Turning the heat off the meat, I use the spatula to transfer them over to the plates. “Not anymore. I dumped those bottles out too.”

  “Why in the hell would you do that?” He sounds like he’s about to cry.

  I turn to face him. “Because, I didn’t want to tempt you with something you shouldn’t have.”

  He comes at me so fast, I don’t have time to grab the knife. His body is pressed up against mine and his face is bearing down over me. “I need that whiskey.”

  I look up into stormy blue eyes and nearly cry for him. He’s so sad. I can see it so clearly now. It isn’t anger and maybe it’s not even addiction driving him to drink. It’s his wife. His dead wife.

  “I’m sorry, Jeremy, but there isn’t any left.”

  He glares at me, his mouth trembling, his eyes going red and tearing up.

  I put a hand on his arm and squeeze gently, trying to show him that I understand. “Why don’t you just sit down and eat with me?”

  He spins around and roars, yanking his arm away from me, his hands flying out to his sides as he half spins back towards me.

  “I can’t eat dinner with you! I need to forget, don’t you understand?!”

  “No!” I shout back, worried he’s about to lose his mind and we’re out here in the middle of nowhere. I have no idea how to help someone who’s so tragically broken. “I don’t understand at all! And I’m sorry about that, I really am!”

  He glares at me, his face a mottled red. “You stand there in the kitchen cooking and making those faces at me, and I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t care! I don’t care, do you hear me!”

/>   “Well, you’re shouting, so yes, I hear you loud and clear, but that doesn’t mean you’re making any sense, Jeremy.”

  “I need the whiskey,” he mumbles, wandering over to the couch. “I need the beer.” He pulls his jacket from the bunch of blankets and shoves his arms into it.

  “Where are you going?” I’m worried he’s thinking about going outside.

  “I need it. It’s my medicine.”

  I move to block the front door. “Medicine for what? What’s your illness?”

  He walks towards me, stopping when he’s just a couple feet away. “My illness?” He laughs, but it’s bitter. “Memories.”

  “Memories?”

  “Yes. I need to forget how much I’m missing her.”

  I try to sidestep and block his progress, but he gets around me anyway, taking me by the upper arms and setting me off to the side.

  “You can’t go outside!” I shout. He’s crazy. It has to be below zero out there right now, and with the windchill factor, I’ll bet minus thirty or more.

  A blast of cold air comes in and makes me grab for my chest as I try to hold onto the last bit of warmth I have.

  “Watch me.” He walks out the door and slams it shut behind him.

  I run to the window and see him fighting through the drifts of snow as he heads down the driveway. Within minutes, I lose his dark form in the swirls of white that are heavier now than they were just ten minutes ago.

  My chest hurts with the pain I feel for him, but I’m not sure whether it’s pity or anger fueling the emotion. I’ve known people who’ve lost spouses before, but I’ve never seen anyone fall as far as this guy has. And he has a baby he’s left behind too. What a horrible thing this whole mess is. And here I am taking over his cabin — the place he came to escape everything and everyone.

  Jaws walks over and sits near my feet. I look down at him and try to smile. Unfortunately, the only thing I’m capable of right now is tears. “I think he’s gone, Jaws. What do you think about that?”

  Jaws tilts his head and then stares at the cabinet in front of him. He looks about as sad as I feel.

  I bend down and pick him up, telling myself I can move on with my life and pretend like I didn’t just drive a man out to his death in the snow.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I TRY TO IGNORE THE idea and images my brain is conjuring up of Jeremy freezing out in the snow somewhere, but as the sun goes down and its last rays are blocked out by more falling snow, I finally give up.

  “Come on, Jaws, I need your help.” I have every bit of clothing I brought with me layered on my body and mittens over my gloves. “I just need to make sure he’s not lying out in the snow somewhere.”

  I almost change my mind when I open the front door and the cold air hits me in the face. When I breathe in, the hairs inside my nose freeze. “Holy shit, it’s cold out here.”

  Jaws takes off down the stairs, leaps from the bottom one, and promptly disappears into a pile of snow. All I can see is the hole where he fell into it.

  By the time I get the door shut and run down the icy stairs after him, his nose is sticking out, but his entire face is white. He sneezes and sends flakes everywhere.

  “Come on, little man.” I pull him out of the hole and adjust him in my arms. “I’ll carry you. You’re too tiny for this weather.”

  We struggle through the snow, making very little progress. My thigh muscles are burning with every step. Talk about a workout.

  “Jeremy!” I yell, my voice muffled by the echo-dampening, snow-covered trees around us. “Are you out here?!”

  I’m only ten feet from the porch, but my rate of respiration makes it seem as if I’ve already run a quarter-mile. The bend in the driveway keeps me from seeing either of our vehicles, so I have to keep going.

  “Jeremy! If you’re out here, I’m going to kill you!” I’m scared by my next thought: if he is out here I won’t need to kill him; he’ll already be dead from the cold. It spurs me on. My shoulders churn awkwardly as I try to stay upright and hold onto the dog at the same time.

  “Jeremy! Answer me, would you?!”

  I don’t remember hearing a motor starting up after he left. I pray the sounds were just hidden by the snow and that he’s long gone from here, sleeping in a motel bed with a beer by his head. Just let him be alive, God, and I won’t bitch at him about his drinking anymore.

  After what seems like way too long, I’m finally at the driveway and the corner of my car is the first thing I see. There’s a thick blanket of snow covering the rest of it. Four more steps forward, and I can see that behind my car is a pickup truck, and its windows have steam on the inside.

  “Oh, crap.” He didn’t leave. He passed out in there. Is it be warm enough to stave off frostbite? I have no idea, but I have my doubts.

  I drop Jaws into the snow next to me and he disappears again. “Come on, Jaws, you have to walk on your own.” I put all my effort into moving my body through the path that Jeremy made earlier. Jaws unburies himself and follows in my footsteps, hopping like a rabbit.

  “Jeremy!” I shout as I make my way toward his truck. “Jeremy! What are you doing, you idiot?!”

  When I finally reach the driver’s side door, I bang on the window. “Jeremy! Are you okay in there?!”

  He doesn’t answer, and I can’t see anything through the fogged up windows. Thankfully the door is unlocked. When I pull it towards me, a rush of warm, humid air hits me. And then a body follows. A very heavy body.

  “Ooph!” I fall ass over teakettle, the weight of Jeremy’s body throwing me into the snow onto my back. Jaws jumps to the side just in time to keep from getting squashed.

  “Holy shit, you’re heavy.” I wait for Jeremy to say something, but he’s completely silent.

  Several things run through my head at the same time. Dead? Suicide? Frozen? Passed out again? I have no idea what his problem is, but at this point, I’m more worried about myself than him. If I don’t get his two-hundred pound body off me soon, I’m going to die out here. I can already feel the cold from the snow seeping in through the back of my coat and jeans.

  “Get off me, you stupid, drunk jerk!”

  I have one arm free, that’s it. I wave it around and have just enough arm-length to bat Jeremy’s arm with my puffy gloves. It does me absolutely no good at all.

  “Jaws, bite him.” I look to my right and see little brown doggie eyes right there next to me, just inches away. “Bite his hand or his foot or something. Wake his stupid ass up.”

  Jaws steps gingerly over the snow in my direction. I can hear the tiny crunch of his footsteps compacting the snowflakes together. Crunch, crunch, crunch. It’s like listening to the theme song from the Jaws movie. I’m worried about the look in his eyes. Is that deviousness I see? Ack! Why did I name this crazy mutt after that man-eating shark? Was it foresight on my part? Please, God, don’t let him eat me! I don’t want to suffer a slow, painful death-by-terrier!

  “Not me, Jaws. Jeremy. Bite Jeremy.”

  Jaws stops and sniffs at my face. Then he licks my cheek.

  “Oh, God, no, not my face! I saw you licking your balls earlier! Gross!”

  Jeremy moves and I struggle to get away from Jaws’s enthusiastic tongue bath. The mutt’s expression has gone from devious to joyous. I can read his thoughts like they’re being projected in subtitles on the snow: A captive human face! How wonderful! What? Is it Christmas and someone forgot to tell me? I must have been on Santa’s good-boy list!

  “Ack! Go away! Horrible! That’s disgusting! Oh, no, the smell! God, what did you eat! Is that dog-ball smell?! Waaahh, hellllp meee somebodyyyy!”

  “Huhhh?” Jeremy moves around a little more and then rolls off me, onto his side.

  “Thank God,” I say, punching him on the back once before using his body as leverage to get up. I glare at Jaws as he scampers out of reach. “You little punk. I’ll get you later.”

  “Who me?” Jeremy rolls onto his back and stares up at the sky. His
breath comes out in a long stream of smoky air.

  “No, I’m not talking to you, Idiot. Get up.”

  He frowns, confused. “Did you just accuse me of licking my balls?”

  Just then, Jaws sees another opportunity and grabs it. He dives in and tongue-kisses Jeremy for a full three seconds before Jeremy realizes what’s going on.

  “Holy hell, what was that?” He jerks to the side and moves Jaws off him with a sweep of his arm. He looks around in confusion and then locks eyes on me.

  I can’t help but grin in satisfaction. “That was the dog who was recently licking his balls scouring the inside of your teeth with his tongue.” I hold out my arm. “Would you like help getting up?”

  He glares at me for a few seconds before answering. “Sure.” He reaches up and grabs my hand, but yanks too hard. I lose my footing and go down on top of him.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ.” I groan, trying to hold in my breath since my mouth is only an inch from Jeremy’s and we both just recently French-kissed a mutt.

  “I wondered how long it was going to be before you made a move on me,” he says, his words slurred. He’s grinning like a fool.

  I push on his face and chest to get away from him. “Oh, give me a break, would you please?”

  As soon as I have my feet beneath me and can get upright, I start heading back to the cabin.

  “Where’re you going?” he calls out, laughing. “Don’t you want to make out?”

  “Make out? What… are you in junior high school now?” I’m so embarrassed, I have to get away. Let him freeze out there in the snow, see if I care. This will teach me to run rescue operations for idiots. I can’t believe he was actually thinking about kissing me. It makes my heart feel like it’s flipping around in my chest.

  I’m only halfway back to the cabin by the time he catches up.

  “I was only kidding,” he says, churning up fresh snow next to me as I continue to struggle through the path I made earlier.

  “Shut up.”