Salamander
Mazie’s graduation party is in the fellowship hall at our family’s church. My parents don’t want me there, but little sis was adamant. She said that if I wasn’t invited, she wouldn’t show. Mom and Dad would have all their friends there, a folding table loaded with catered barbecue, and no guest of honor.
As always, Mazie gets her way.
I’d gone to Walmart that morning to pick up something appropriate to wear, slacks and a button-down shirt. I’ve got several nicks on my throat from shaving. My hair is parted, sticky with cheap hair spray.
The fellowship hall at Reedy Creek Baptist Church is like a time capsule, the details no different than when I was a kid. Yellowed linoleum, dark wood-paneled walls, limp flags hanging in the corner—one for America, one for Christendom. It gets noticeably quieter when I walk in. People halt their conversations, chew their lips, trade significant glances. I think most didn’t know I was out. It’s only been a month. Mazie breaks the tension.
“Clay!”
She leaves behind a group of girlfriends and comes running over. She squeezes me in a tight hug, surprising me with the strength in those twiggy arms.
“So glad you came.”
“Of course.” I give her a sly grin. “Not sure everyone feels that way.”
“Anyone who doesn’t want you here can fuck off.”
She makes no effort to lower her voice, and at a nearby table Jerry Wilson—white-haired, church deacon, self-serious—looks up from his brisket, scandalized.
God, I love my sister, the most foul-mouthed high school valedictorian east of the Mississippi. She’ll be gone soon, on a full ride to San Diego State. Whereas I had dropped out halfway through my second attempt at 10th grade, she’d spent the past four years racking up AP classes, serving in student government, and volunteering at a camp that teaches kids with special needs to ride horses. She was also the only family member who wrote regularly when I was at Green River. For all three years of lockup, those letters arrived once a week, like clockwork. They kept me sane, kept me tethered to the land of the living.
To my mind, Mazie can’t leave Muhlenberg County quickly enough. She’s going to do big things, and for that to happen, she needs to get her ass out. As for me, my own plans are less ambitious. For the next 24 months, they’ll mostly involve avoiding parole violations.
She steers me toward food.
“Come on. They just started lunch.”
When I’m done serving myself, my paper plate is sagging with pulled pork, potato salad, baked beans, and corn bread. And I plan to go back for seconds. I’ve gained ten pounds since leaving prison. To be able to eat real food, and to do it at my own pace, without some CO barking at me, is a luxury I still can’t wrap my head around. Mazie points at the table with her friends.
“Sit with us. There’s room.”
Her friends seem less enthusiastic about this arrangement. Fellow overachievers, cleanly scrubbed future sorority pledges, they stiffen when I sit down. I’m exactly the kind of guy these girls’ parents have told them to avoid, the type that can ruin all those college plans. I give a sheepish half smile to the table, hoping to communicate that I’m harmless, that I have no designs on impregnating them or introducing them to controlled substances. I’m just here for Mazie.
I keep my head down, intent on my food, and their conversation picks back up. I see Dad across the room, sitting at a table by the back door. Tubes sprout from his nose, portable oxygen tank sitting next to him. His polo shirt is baggy, his arms veiny. He’s chatting with Garland Thomas, owner of the auto salvage yard on Highway 431. I worked there for a few months after dropping out. Dad hasn’t looked at me yet. I wonder how long he can keep this up, to be in the same room and pretend I’m not here. Hours? If he expects me to break the ice, he’s got another thing coming. I can go hours, too.
At least Ma comes over and talks, though I suspect this is mostly to save face in front of her church friends. The only thing more embarrassing than having a criminal for a son is having a criminal that you’re estranged from. Pastor Giles accompanies her. He’s been in that pulpit since I was five years old. Over the years, I’ve received my share of stern lectures from him.
I haven’t seen him in a long time, but he looks the same. His belly extends over his belt a little more than it used to. Other than that, same cowboy boots and blue jeans. Same cock-of-the-walk stroll. At least Ma looks nice. She’s wearing a blue floral pattern dress, walking unsteadily in heels.
“Glad you came,” she says.
It’s good to hear this, even if it’s a lie. I stand and for a moment am not sure what to do. Hug her? My family doesn’t hug much, so I don’t. I wish Giles wasn’t here, his presence making the whole encounter tense. I’d love just to talk with my mother. This is only the second time I’ve seen her since becoming a free man, the first being when they dropped off a recliner at the duplex I’m renting. Ma helped me carry the chair inside because it was too much for Dad. He never even got out of the truck. I didn’t hear anything from him other than some racking, phlegmy coughs.
I’d like to tell Ma what’s up with me, that my parole officer has a contact with the county and might be able to get me a job in Public Works. That in the meantime I’ve been picking up hours with a high school buddy who’s a contractor. I haven’t touched drugs, haven’t reconnected with the crowd of shitheads who got me in trouble. I’ve surprised even myself by how well I’m adjusting. I’d love to tell her all this, but that’s not happening today.
“What do you say, Clay?” Pastor Giles says. He’s got thumbs hooked in his belt loop. “Keeping your nose clean?”
I bite my tongue. No smart comebacks today. I give a tight smile and say, “Yessir.”
I sold drugs because I didn’t want to work in the mines. I don’t mind hard work, I just prefer the type that you can recover from, the type where you’re sweating at the end of the day, but after a shower and a good night’s sleep, you’re back to normal. I’m not interested in work that destroys you, where no matter how much you clean up, it’s still inside, carcinogens settling in your bones, razor particles clinging to the soft tissue of your lungs.
And sure, drugs were not the only path out. I could have taken community college classes and learned to code. Or gotten an electrician’s license. You name it. List all the options that softheaded, well-off people think of as a noble path out of poverty.
But if you want to feel superior, I’ve got bad news. If you were eighteen years old, and you grew up like I did, and you got offered a thousand dollars to drive a backpack across town, you’d fucking do it, too.
By 9:00 at night, I’m asleep in my parents’ giveaway recliner, the last few innings of the Reds game playing out on the screen, bathing the room in blue light. A knock on the door wakes me. My eyes snap open, and for a moment I’m convinced it’s over. My freedom, that is. I’ve violated parole—somehow—and they’re coming to haul me back in. Then I hear a voice, and it brings me back to reality.
“Hey, yo. I’m going to the river. Want to come with?”
It’s Arlen, the tenant on the other side of my duplex. I’ve been trying to avoid the ne’er-do-wells I used to run with, but I’ve somehow moved next door to a clone of them. Going with him would be a double whammy of parole violations—out past curfew and associating with known criminals. If I go to the river, I’ll see old friends, guaranteed. Many of whom have records. They’ll be sitting on the tailgates of trucks, smoking weed, passing pills around, coupling up to sneak off into the woods for a quickie. Or maybe not even sneaking off, just going at it right there on the ground, too strung out to have any self-consciousness.
So no, I’m not going to come with. I don’t answer the door, and soon enough Arlen is gone.
A few days later, in the middle of the week, I meet Mazie at Whataburger. We sit at a booth by the window, looking out onto Pritchett Street, what passes for the main drag in Central City. Dollar General is on the other side of the street, and beside it, a Mexican restaurant. Salt Lick Mountain looms behind. What’s left of it, anyway.
It’s a slag heap now, the peak having been hacked off to access the grimy riches inside. It used to hum with activity, trucks and workers scurrying like ants. The constant creak of the bucket wheel excavator, its skeletal frame rising out of the ground like some war machine from Mordor. As a kid, the excavator scared the hell out of me. It kind of still does. I mean, it’s a machine that eats mountains. They grind those spinning buckets against the exposed coal seam and—chunk by chunk—a 50-million-year-old mountain disappears.
While all that activity felt ominous, I think I prefer it to nothing. There’s something heartbreaking about the mountain being empty. All used up and discarded, like the people who worked so hard to put it in that condition. The operation has now moved five miles to the south, where the Mordor-machine is currently feasting on Iron Ridge. It won’t be a ridge much longer.
I turn back to my burger, reassuringly warm in its greasy wrapper. I take a bite and wash it down with a swig of soda. Mazie has come straight from working with horses. She’s wearing a T-shirt and dusty blue jeans. Her strawberry-blonde hair is tucked behind her ears, the freckles on her nose starting to show from exposure to the summer sun.
“You’re leaving soon?” I ask.
“Next week.”
“I thought classes don’t start until August.”
“I found summer classes.”
“You’re wasting no time, huh?”
“I’m ready.”
“To get out of here?”
“For everything.”
Neither of us has traveled much. In our entire lives, we’ve only left Kentucky once, and that was just across the border to Ohio. Looking at pictures of where she’s going, it seems like another planet. Palm trees and white beaches. The Pacific Ocean framed by a glowing city skyline.
No slag heaps. No cancer clusters. No black lung.
On the street, a diesel truck rumbles to a stop at a red light, pulling a trailer loaded with landscaping equipment. A teenage boy sits in the truck’s bed, smoking a cigarette. The light turns green, and the kid flicks his cigarette butt onto the street as the truck takes off.
“Have you talked to Dad?” Mazie says.
“No.”
“You should.”
“He knows where to find me.”
“Come on, Clay.”
“He’s the parent. Let him make the first move.”
“You know he won’t. Be the bigger person.” She gives me a significant look, her fierce brown eyes locking onto mine. “He’s not getting any healthier.”
“What do you mean?”
I ask this even though I know the answer. I’ve heard that soul-rattling cough. Anyone who grew up around here knows what that means. His lungs are coated with twenty years’ worth of rock dust. It means death by slow, inevitable suffocation.
“You can breathe,” she said. “He can’t. Try to imagine what that feels like.”
I don’t want to.
At the table next to us, two young brothers are arguing while their mother attempts to mediate. A group of men walks in from the street, wearing coveralls. They’re staff from the quick lube around the corner. Mazie glances at them, then turns back to me.
“I saw a hellbender at the creek.”
This gets my attention.
“No way.”
“Okay, maybe I saw one. It was kind of murky.”
“If it was murky, you didn’t see one. They need clean water.”
A hellbender is a salamander, but saying that hardly does it justice. That’s like calling the Allman Brothers a band. There are some things that transcend labels. A hellbender looks like a Star Wars creature, like something Jabba the Hutt would keep under his throne room to feast upon prisoners. They get up to two feet long, with giant flat heads and beady eyes that peer out of loose, slimy skin. The first time I saw one, I was eight years old, playing in the creek. I flipped over a rock, and a sea monster darted out, slithering against my leg as it scrambled for safety.
After that, Mazie and I became obsessed. We checked out school library books on hellbenders. We marched down to the creek with fishing nets, determined to apprehend one and keep it in the bathtub. We never did, of course. They’re slippery devils. They’re also rare. Despite our efforts, we had only a handful of encounters with them over the years, all tantalizingly brief, as they would flicker into a crevice at the slightest disturbance.
“You should go down and look for yourself,” she says. “How long since you’ve been to the creek?”
“Years.”
“I’ve been going a lot recently. Out there, I can’t hear him coughing.”
When you chop off the top of a mountain, you create a shit-ton of excess dirt. This is referred to as spoil, and it all has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, that somewhere is the valley below. This is how I know that Mazie didn’t see a hellbender. You only find them in pristine water, and seven years ago our stream was ruined by a valley fill. The water used to be moonshine clear. Now it’s cloudy. It used to have a strong current, dancing over slick rocks. Now it’s a trickle.
Even so, I pay a visit the day after my conversation with Mazie. I’m driving home from a job in Powderly, reroofing outbuildings at our county’s one-runway airport. My car rattles over narrow back roads. I hit an especially jarring bump and check my rearview mirror to ensure that I didn’t leave the muffler behind.
My ride has seen better days, but it’s a minor miracle that I even have one. Most people fresh out of prison don’t. I leveraged my connection at the salvage yard. Garland let me wander up and down the rows of abandoned vehicles until I found one that I could restore. It’s an old Cutlass with cloth seats that reek of cigar smoke. I swapped out the battery and the alternator and got it running. Probably only worth a few hundred bucks, but I don’t even have that much, not if I want also to make rent and utilities. I’m going to work for Garland a few weekends until he feels it’s paid off.
My parents’ property isn’t much of a detour. I’m not there for them though, so I park down the street, in the parking lot of the Pentecostal church. I cut through the woods, behind the house of the only neighbor who lives within a half mile, Silas Johnson, an elderly widower who happens to be the pastor of that church. I used to cut his grass as a teenager. I notice the yard is still neatly trimmed, and this makes me smile. Good ol’ Mr. Johnson, never one to let things slide.
There is no walking path, so I’m picking my way over downed trees and under low branches. The summer air is sticky, my work shirt damp against my back. The stream is halfway between Mr. Johnson and my parents. I go straight to the boulder that Mazie and I used to sit on. It’s a slab of granite that juts out over the water, wide and flat and furry with moss. I sit down and lean back on my elbows. The moss is cool on my skin.
If you didn’t know what the stream looked like before, you wouldn’t know anything was wrong. You’d just see a peaceful trickle of water, meandering through the forest. But to me, there’s nothing peaceful about it. It looks like death.
I know what’s lurking in that water. When they relocated the top of the mountain, they did more than just crush things. They released toxins, heavy metals that were stored up in the mountain. Elements that had no business seeing the light of day filtered into the ecosystem and began working their way up the food chain. People from around here, even people like myself, who never paid attention in school, know our chemistry. We know what selenium is—where it comes from and what it does. It’s why I’d think twice about eating a fish pulled from any body of water in this county.
Even though I know I won’t see a hellbender, I sit for a long time and look. I see shadows under rocks and try to convince myself. I now understand why Mazie said that. It was less about what she saw, and more about what she wanted to see.
I’m with her. I don’t need eyewitness verification. I just want to believe they’re still possible.
Hanging over the dinner table at my parents’ house is a picture taken from the top of Black Mountain, Kentucky’s highest point. My Uncle Jay took it, Ma’s older brother. He’s an artistic type who lives in Nashville with a man who my parents suspect is his boyfriend. On the rare occasions that Jay visits—always alone, never with his friend—he makes a point to go hiking with his camera. My father finds this frivolous, both the hiking and the picture-taking.
“I work in those mountains,” he said once, when Jay invited him to join. “Last thing I want is to spend any more time looking at them.”
I disagree. I could look at Uncle Jay’s picture all day. It’s the most beautiful thing in the house, the one thing that isn’t grubby or tobacco stained. It shows the Cumberland Plateau stretching out to the west, mist filling the valley like a silver river, rolling hills carpeted with dense hardwoods. It is amazing how green Kentucky is. It’s, like, neon green. Just as amazing is that my community can suffer in the midst of it. Somehow, all that abundance was not enough. I’m not religious, at least not in the way Ma would like me to be, but I detect something holy in that picture. And if the land is holy, then what we have done is a sacrilege. Maybe that explains the suffering. God is pissed.
I’m looking at this picture as I sit at my parents’ table, eating Sunday dinner. I took Mazie’s advice. I swallowed my pride and made the first step, and now my plate is loaded with fried chicken and mac and cheese. I wish Mazie was here, but she’s at work, cashiering at the Piggly Wiggly, saving for San Diego.
I also wish the food was Ma’s home cooking, but it’s just KFC. She didn’t have time to prepare anything, since she just got home from work, one of her two jobs. Weekdays she works the front office at Greenville Elementary. Weekends she’s a nurse’s aide at a long-term care facility, changing bedpans and flipping people over so they don’t get bedsores. Since this is a Sunday, she’s still in her scrubs. Her red-gray hair is pulled back in a ponytail, but one strand has gotten loose and hangs down by her temple. She stifles a yawn when we sit down.
Dad is managing without oxygen right now, but his tank is close by, sitting in the corner. His flannel shirt is tucked in and buttoned all the way up. His hair is dyed jet black and crisply parted, always attended to by the comb in his pocket. His Carhartt boots sit by the door. He hasn’t worked in two years but still wears those damn boots. His face has a yellow tint. The skin is drawn and waxy. It looks like the undertaker is trying to get a head start and has him already half-filled with formaldehyde. He and I have barely spoken since I got there, so Ma is gamely trying to keep the conversation alive.
“I hear you’re working with Brandon Quintrell.”
“That’s right.”
“I always liked him.”
“Yeah. He’s good people.”
“What’s he have you doing?”
“Right now we’ve got a contract up in Powderly. Working at the airport. I was there Thursday through Saturday.”
Dad finally speaks, looking up from his plate.
“A three-day work week?”
“First half of the week we got rained out.”
He snorts and flashes a disgusted grimace, as if this is the lamest possible excuse.
“We’re roofing. You can’t put up shingles in a storm, Dad.”
This explanation is, of course, quite reasonable, but it will not make a dent. Dad divides the world into two types—hard workers and shiftless bums. I have long been in the second category. As for himself, he used to pull epic shifts at the mine, 12-hour days, five or six or seven in a row. He’d come home and shower and leave a ring of black around the drain, then shuffle out to the living room where he’d fall asleep in the recliner. At 4:30 the next morning, he was up and at it again. That was his identity for most of his life, and now he exists in a state of forced idleness. He can barely walk up a flight of stairs, much less mow the grass or do basic repairs around the house. This has not improved his mood.
I reach to the center of the table for the cardboard container of mashed potatoes and spoon a heap onto my plate. I feel a wet nose on my knee and reach down to scratch Billy, my parents’ aging basset hound. When no one’s looking, I slip him a chunk of dark meat, his warm tongue lapping my fingers. From where I’m sitting, I see a folder on the couch with the San Diego State logo on the front.
“Her flight is this week, huh?”
“It is,” Ma says.
“I’d like to ride to the airport when you go.”
She nods while sprinkling salt on her green beans.
“You seen the pictures of that college, Clay?”
“Oh yeah. It’s something else.”
“The girl is flying two thousand miles to live at a beach. I’ve never even been to the beach.”
“Ha. Me neither.”
“That’s our fault. We should have taken you.”
“Nah, I wasn’t saying that. I don’t even want to go all that bad.”
She twists a strand of hair around her finger.
“You think she’ll be okay? I’m a nervous wreck.”
“Mazie’s gonna be fine,” Dad says. “We raised at least one child who’s able to take care of herself.”
He says this to Ma, like I’m not even there. I’m about to respond, to let him know I’ve been taking care of myself just fine, that I didn’t need them to buy my goddamn dinner, but before I can say this, he starts coughing. It’s a harrowing sound, like his lungs have come loose and are rattling around his rib cage. He stands and tries to walk away, but the fit gets even more violent, and he sinks to a knee. He grabs the edge of the table to steady himself while the fit continues. It goes on for a long, painful minute. Then two minutes. The napkin he’s holding is flecked with black spots.
When it finally, mercifully ends, his breathing sounds different. His mouth hangs open, and the air whistles in and out, like he’s forcing a large quantity of air through a small space. Like he’s breathing through a straw. I feel short of breath myself, just hearing it. I put a hand on his shoulder, an instinctive reaction.
He slaps it away.
With a groan, he pulls himself up and shuffles out of the kitchen, grabbing his oxygen tank as he goes. Its wheels squeak as it rolls behind him. Ma’s eyes follow. Down at the end of the hall, we hear the bedroom door close.
“It got worse while you were away,” she says. “He’s got COPD now, too.”
“What meds is he taking?”
“He’s got an albuterol inhaler that opens up his windpipe. And a few months ago, they finally put him on painkillers. Had to beg for those.”
“How’s that working?”
“Like a gift from God.” She suddenly seems on the verge of tears. “I have prayed that your father would get relief, and God answered. Those pills let him sleep through the night.”
Left unsaid is that relief is the best he can hope for. There is no cure for black lung. It will get progressively worse.
“That coughing fit you just saw,” she says, “That was mild. Sometimes they go on all night. He says it’s like getting stabbed from the inside.”
“I’m glad he’s got something for the pain.”
Ma looks at me across the table, her expression strained. She lowers her voice.
“He’s gonna be short.”
“What do you mean?”
“Last week was awful. He was hurting so bad, I gave him more than prescribed. His refill is in three weeks, and we’ve only got five days left.”
“Tell the doctor.”
“Can’t. They’ll think he’s abusing. Might cut him off. We’ll just grit our teeth and get through it with ibuprofen.”
“What does he want to do?”
“He doesn’t know yet. I manage the meds. I can’t figure out how to tell him.”
She lowers her eyes. She is running a fingernail back and forth across the plastic tablecloth, and I find the sound grating. I want to think of something to say, but can’t, so I stand up and clear the table. It’s all plasticware and fast-food boxes, so there is nothing to wash. Once the kitchen trash is jam-packed, I wrestle the swollen bag out and walk it to the bin in the backyard. Dad’s push mower sits beside the shed, weeds growing up around it.
The evening is soggy, pulsing with crickets and cicadas. To the west, the sun is perfectly situated on top of the hills, like it’s resting there, like it fell from the sky and nestled among the red clay and shortleaf pines. The pink sky is pocked with clouds like bruises.
Back inside the house, Ma is still where I left her. Her hands are folded in front of her on the table, her posture straight, like she’s waiting on something. God, maybe. Or probably just me to leave so she can relax.
I open the pantry to get a new trash bag, and there, sitting on a shelf, I see Dad’s meds. They’re on a TV dinner tray—an inhaler and a few pill bottles. In a moment of inspiration, I spin the bottles around until I find the one I’m looking for. It’s Vicodin. 10 milligram pills.
Okay.
Turns out I’m not able to accompany Mazie to the airport. Her flight is on a Wednesday morning, and I can’t afford to miss work, so I meet her for dinner the night before she leaves. Same Whataburger. Same seat by the window. She’s been making preparations all day, packing her bags, running around town to say her goodbyes. She’s wearing a T-shirt from a 4-H event that she organized last year. Her eyes have a tan line from being outside in sunglasses, working at the horse camp.
Our table is messy when we sit down—crumbs, ketchup smeared on the silver napkin box. Mazie immediately cleans up. This is just second nature to her, to put things in order. As a kid, I used to mess with her, moving items in her spotless bedroom to see if she’d notice. She always did.
She asks me about work, and I tell her. We’re finishing up the roofs at the airport this week. Next week is more roofs, this time on an apartment complex. I like roofing. Up in the air, sunlight on my face. It’s as far as I can get from breathing rock dust in a hole.
“Brandon says if I stick around for a year, he’ll put me in charge of a crew.”
“Think you will?”
“Probably. Not many other opportunities.”
“He used to have a crush on me,” she says.
“Brandon? You’re too young for him. The bastard.”
“It was harmless. He’d just tease me whenever he came over to the house.”
“Glad to hear it was harmless. Won’t have to drop a hammer on his head tomorrow.”
Mazie rolls her eyes.
“You nervous about the flight?” I ask.
“A little.”
“Nothing to be afraid of. What’s that they say? The drive to the airport is more dangerous, right?”
“Yeah.”
She swirls a fry in ketchup but doesn’t eat it. She fiddles with the salt and pepper shakers until they are properly aligned.
“You get a window seat? First time in a plane, that would be pretty cool.”
“I dunno.”
Something is off. Me bringing up the plane flight seemed to flip a switch in her.
“What’s wrong?”
She looks out the window. I see her doubled, her reflection looking back on herself with wide, expressive eyes.
“I’m never coming back.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“I thought so. Getting the acceptance letter was the best day of my life. I’ve spent years counting down to college. But now it’s here, and it doesn’t feel like I expected. I just feel—I don’t know—guilty. Like I’m turning my back on them.”
I feel a sudden rush of anger. “What? Did they say something?”
She shakes her head.
“They’re supportive, in their own way. But there’s a wall now, you know? I feel like a stranger in my own house.”
I can relate. That’s how I felt at dinner the other night. Of course, Mazie has created this separation by overachieving while I have done the exact opposite. But we ended up in the same place.
“It’s okay that you don’t want to live here,” I say. “You’re carving out your own path in life.”
She smiles at me, but it’s a sad smile, like she appreciates my words but thinks I don’t understand. I know more than she thinks though, maybe even more than she does. I’m no valedictorian, but I am four years older. Sometimes big brothers know stuff, even no-account ones.
What I know is that she will be fine. She’ll flourish wherever she goes, and, except for the occasional family visit, she will indeed never come back. I also know that in this bright future there will be a touch of darkness. Just a hint, like a corner of shadow in a midday field. It’ll be something that comes to her on long nights, lying awake in whatever big-ass house she ends up in. Or moments like today, when a long-awaited achievement is greeted with melancholy instead of elation. She’ll feel that she did something wrong but won’t be able to say what exactly. This feeling won’t slow her down, won’t keep her from accomplishing whatever she sets her mind to, but it also won’t ever go away.
This place always gets its pound of flesh, even from those who escape.
It’s not hard to get my hands on hydrocodone. On Friday night, I just say yes when Arlen wants me to accompany him to the river. I drive myself, not wanting to be stuck there any longer than necessary.
When I arrive, I find a dozen vehicles already there, parked in the field next to the river. The water is black and glassy under the moonlight. It’s wide here, several hundred yards across. I swam it once, young and stoned and trying to impress a girl. I’m not a great swimmer, and I came back shaken, dragging myself to the shore with the sobering realization that I could easily have drowned. The girl didn’t notice. She’d already left.
Jesus, it’s strange to be here. First time since I was eighteen.
Down past where everyone is parked, there’s a fire going. People are gathered around it, sitting in camp chairs. I walk closer, but not too close. I need as few people as possible to see me. Music plays on a portable speaker, something bass-heavy that sounds like it belongs in a club. I see my duplex-mate Arlen, sitting with a girl on his lap. He’s smoking something. An orange dot hovers in front of his face.
I scan the faces, illuminated by firelight. Half are familiar. I’m not looking for anyone in particular. There are multiple people here who can get me what I want. I stop scanning when I see Tim Caldwell. This is my guy. Tim and I were pretty much the same person back in the day, two skeevy young hustlers making money as errand boys. Only difference is I got caught. From what I’ve heard, he has moved up in the world. He’s now the one sending people on errands.
I hang back. If I walk up on that circle, I’ll get drawn into a bunch of conversations I’d rather not have. I’ll wait on Tim to get up. So that I won’t look suspicious, just standing there, I pull out my phone. I put it to my ear and pace back and forth, pretending to be occupied with a call. This takes longer than I would like. Tim isn’t moving, so I walk back to the car several times, just to avoid drawing attention to myself.
Finally, he stands. He heads into the woods, presumably to take a leak. I walk over, and when he comes out from behind a tree, I quietly say his name. He looks at me, squinting in the moonlight, then does a double take.
“Clay Leach!”
He says this way too loud, and I put a finger to my lips.
“Careful. I’m not supposed to be here.”
We clap hands, and he pulls me in for a hug. Then he leans back and looks me up and down, as if trying to see what’s different.
“How was Green River?”
I shrug. “I got out in one piece. Earned my GED.”
“Good for you. See much of Art?”
Art is Tim’s older brother, who’s still locked up. No drug charges for him. He threw his girlfriend down a flight of stairs. I avoided him.
“Not much. We were on different schedules.”
“You come here with anybody?”
“I guess you could say Arlen invited me. You know him?”
“Yeah, it’s hard to miss that crazy bastard.” Tim chuckles. “Don’t know if you noticed those flattened fence posts back where all the cars are. That was courtesy of him last week. He got loaded and drove over them. The guy is an animal. Great customer though. Don’t know where all his money comes from.”
Here is my opening.
“Actually, that’s why I’m here.” I lower my voice. “I need to make a purchase.”
His demeanor immediately changes, from partying good ol’ boy to shrewd businessman.
“What do you need?”
“Vicodin.”
He gives me a quick nod and starts walking. I follow him toward the line of vehicles. Next to the campfire, two girls in bikinis are shotgunning beers, surrounded by dudes cheering with lusty admiration. Tim stops at a Jeep Cherokee and opens the back door. The cabin light comes on, and I see a car seat inside. On the floorboard is a child’s quilt with a jungle pattern on it. He pulls a duffel bag out from under the quilt and rifles through it, using the Jeep’s cabin light to see. He produces two plastic bags and holds them up for me to examine.
“I’ve got five milligrams or ten.”
“Ten.”
“How many pills?”
“Let’s say twenty.”
That should give Dad a buffer, in case he runs out again. Tim pulls an empty bottle from his bag, counts out the pills, and drops them in.
“Five hundred,” he says, screwing the lid on.
I do some quick mental math. That’s $25 per pill. Holy shit. More than I remember them being. I have the money though, just barely. And I don’t want to start an argument or do anything that draws attention to myself. I need this done quickly. I produce a stack of cash from my pocket. The bills are clean and crisp, fresh from the ATM. I try not to think about how many hours on a roof they represent. We make the swap, and I pocket the pills. Tim puts the duffel bag back on the floorboard, covering it with his kid’s quilt. He nods in the direction of the party.
“The night is young, my friend. You wanna have a taste now?”
“I’m good.”
It’s dusk when I pull into my parents’ driveway the next evening. The curtains on the front window are drawn. Behind them I can see the blue glow of the TV. I knock and am relieved that it’s Ma who answers. She’s wearing pajama pants and a UK Wildcats hoodie. She looks surprised that I’m here. Her eyes scan me up and down, as if checking to see what’s wrong.
“Dad in there?”
“Asleep in his chair.”
“Asleep is good.” I gesture for her to join me. “Wanna come outside?”
She steps onto the porch and closes the door behind her.
Gently, so as not to wake him.
“What’s going on, Clay? Are you okay?”
“Everything’s good. I just got off work. How’s Dad?”
“Same as last time you were here. Not much changes with him.”
Now that I’m here, I struggle for words, not sure how to broach the reason for my visit.
“I talked to Mazie today.”
She had called me from the beach. She was walking barefoot in the sand, right next to the water. I could hear the surf in the background.
“We’ve been texting some,” Ma says. “She never wants to answer when I call. Always with the texts. How did she sound?”
“Pretty good.”
This is a lie. She had been crying. She said she feels like a hillbilly, like she doesn’t belong and can’t hide, because every time she opens her mouth, a backwoods drawl comes out. I’d never heard her like that before, vulnerable, all her confidence stripped away. I reassured her, of course, and told her it would just take time. I talked about Green River and how I’d cried too my first week. I’d even looked at the pipes in my cell and wondered how easily I might be able to rig a bedsheet noose around them. But no feeling is permanent, not even soul-crushing despair. The darkness had lifted, and I learned to make do. She’ll do the same. In the meantime, she needs to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Get her homework done. No skipping class. Do the next right thing, to cop a phrase I used to hear from the 12-step guys in lockup.
“Of course, dumbass,” she’d said. “You know I won’t miss class.”
Ma is giving me a curious look. She knows I didn’t come here to stand on the porch and talk about Mazie. Since I don’t know how to start, I just pull the orange pill bottle from my pocket and offer it to her. She reaches for it, but then pulls her hand back.
“What is this?”
“What do you think?”
She shoots a furtive look at the door, as if afraid Dad is going to barge out at any second and witness this illicit transaction. She closes her eyes and exhales, massaging her temples.
“What are you doing, Clay? You’re gonna get sent back to prison.”
“He needs these.”
“Not like this. He wouldn’t want this.”
“Then don’t tell him where they came from. Does he even know you’re short?”
She shakes her head. “Not yet. We still have a few left.”
“Okay. Problem solved.”
Ma looks away, past the road at the field across from their house. Their neighbor farms it for soybeans. It’s May, so the plants are still young. They stripe the field in stubbly green rows. A deer is munching on one of them, its body a black silhouette in the fading light. Without looking at me, Ma holds her hand out, and I give her the bottle. The pills rattle as she puts it in the pocket of her hoodie.
“Trust me,” I say. “This is a one-time thing. It was nerve-wracking.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because I heard him. That night at dinner. I heard what he sounds like now.”
I look at the window, at the blue glow behind the curtains and wonder what Dad fell asleep watching. Since it’s summer, probably the Reds. He always had them on when I was growing up. He’d get out of the shower after work, crack open a Busch, and settle in the recliner, play-by-play chatter in the background. Within twenty minutes, he’d be asleep. Funny thing is, he doesn’t give a shit about baseball. One time I tried to engage him by talking about Cincinnati’s bullpen, and he looked at me like I was speaking Latin.
“Hell, I don’t know, son.”
The games were just white noise, something to get a buzz and fall asleep to. He certainly had no interest in ever taking me to a game, or even attending the ones I played in. That’s an odd quality of his, this tendency towards nonengagement—with people, with ideas, with the outside world. Much of it seems to slide right by, not piercing his shell of indifference. To this day, I couldn’t tell you what my father is interested in. Besides work, of course.
“I’d better get,” I say to Ma. “I’ve got a curfew.”
“Don’t be a stranger.”
Then she steps over and surprises me with a hug. I’m not sure how to take this. I realize that I’m tense, like hugging a board, so I loosen up. I put an arm around her and squeeze. Her hair smells like cigarette smoke. She’s been trying to quit, but stress makes her pick them back up. I’m about to step off the porch when I recall what she said that night I was over for dinner, about her prayer that Dad would find relief.
“I guess the Lord works in mysterious ways.”
I say this with a grin, trying to convey that I’m being earnest, not a smart-ass. She grins back.
I make my way down the brick steps, back to my car, shoes crunching the gravel drive. My steps are lighter now that I don’t have those pills. It’s like I shrugged off a bundle of shingles at the top of a ladder.
That night I’m jerked from sleep by a knock on the door. The glowing display on my bedside clock tells me it’s 11:20. The knock comes again. It’s insistent. I throw my covers back and get out of bed. My window faces the driveway, and I crack the blinds and see a police cruiser.
I want a bolt of lightning to zap me into a pile of ash. I want a hole in the Earth’s crust to open up and swallow me. Goddammit. Anything but going back.
Somebody saw me. Some weasel at the party. And then later, he got in trouble and ratted me out, trading information in an attempt to save himself. Or maybe it was simpler than that, just someone who doesn’t like me. Hell, it could have been Tim. Now that I’m out, he thinks I’m going to be competition. He sells to me, then gets me busted for it. Pretty tidy way of handling things. As I walk down the hall, my mind races through all these scenarios.
I don’t have the pills on me, so maybe there’s nothing they can prove. But even as I think this, I know it’s useless. Just being at the river was a parole violation, regardless of what I did or didn’t buy.
I approach the door with leaden footsteps, and in that moment I hate everyone. Myself for the stupid choice, my mother for telling me about the pills, my father for needing them. And Mazie, for kicking it all off with what she said.
You can breathe. He can’t. Try to imagine what that feels like.
Thanks, sis. I did. I exercised my empathy muscle. Now your turn. Try to imagine what a few more years in prison feel like.
I’m reaching for the doorknob when I hear another door open. It’s Arlen’s, right next to mine. I hear the patter of conversation through the walls and realize he’s talking to the officer. It wasn’t my door they were knocking on, it was his.
I stand there for a long time, stunned by the feeling of reprieve. The vise grip on my chest releases. Breathing comes easier. I lean against the wall and close my eyes. I try to listen to Arlen’s conversation with the cop. I can halfway make out what they’re saying but soon realize I don’t care. Whatever happened, it’s his problem, not mine.
There’s no way I’m going back to sleep now, so I grab a beer from the fridge and sit on the futon, channel surfing. I end up watching the last hour of Field of Dreams, even though I’ve seen it a million times. The final scene has always bothered me, but tonight it makes me want to go Elvis and put a bullet through the TV.
Hey Dad, you wanna have a catch?
I’d like that.
It’s not that fucking hard, is it?
Whatever.
I turn off the TV and sit in the dark. Moonlight comes through the window, blue squares on the ancient hardwood floor. Three beers in, my nerves are finally starting to settle. It’s muggy in here, but I don’t want to turn on the window A/C unit, which rattles and keeps me awake. I open a few windows to let in a cross breeze.
I flop back down on the futon and polish off what’s left of my beer. I am now pleasantly buzzed and content to let my mind wander in the free association way that comes with a buzz. For some reason, my thoughts gravitate toward hellbenders, the mysterious dragons of my youth. I haven’t thought about them since my trip to the creek, but now they’re back, gripping my imagination like they used to.
They once lived here, then they vanished. This place got to be too much, so they packed their metaphorical bags and set off for greener pastures. I feel like there’s something profound about their disappearance. It’s like I’m seeing it in a new light, right on the edge of some discovery.
It’s probably just the buzz. In the sober light of morning, with a cup of coffee and a headache, these thoughts will seem trivial, if I even remember them.
Right now, though, I can’t get the damn things out of my head, can’t stop asking myself two questions.
Where did they go?
And can I go there, too?