As Simple as Snow (27 page)

“Stop,” Carl shouted. She stopped. He jumped out of the car, and we could see him bent over, pushing the gray salamanders toward the side of the road. He moved forward a few feet, continuing his rescue effort. Claire and I got out and helped him. The salamanders froze when we approached them, so we had to pick them up and carry them, placing them gently on the dirt in hopes they would continue toward the pond, not venture back onto the pavement.

It was a good night for salamanders. The air was thick, with a flavor of damp earth that filled our noses and mouths. When we finished moving the damp salamanders, Claire playfully wiped their slickness off on the front of Carl’s blue jeans. He pushed his palms toward her face, but stopped just short of touching her. I thought about going over and wiping my hands on her dress, but didn’t. I watched them laughing in the headlights of the car, while Mrs. Hathorne waited impatiently inside.

I had almost forgotten Carl’s affection for animals. When we were little we had made a pact to become forest rangers, or Greenpeace activists: we would live and work in Alaska or Africa or at the Bay of Fundy, helping preserve the wilderness and protecting the animals living there. Carl had it all figured out. He had become a vegan and had read a lot of relevant books. He knew what needed to be done. But as he researched more and we got older, he determined he could do more good by making money and supporting organizations than by working for one of those organizations. Then it seemed that he forgot about what he was going to use the money for; the point, it seemed, was to make money. But seeing him there in the dark, pushing and prodding and carrying the salamanders to safety on the side of the road, I thought that he might still be operating according to his plan. Maybe he still had it figured out, but he just didn’t talk about it anymore. It also made me think that I was no longer part of his plan. Carl had left me behind.

hay in a stack of needles

My father took me to the first Saturday home baseball game. He hadn’t even told me that he had bought tickets, or maybe they’d been given to him. Either way, he told me at dinner Friday night. We had never been to a game together, and I couldn’t remember him ever going. But there we were, driving to the game. I had wanted to take the train, but he insisted on driving.

My father refused to get an SUV. My mother was always telling him that we needed one, that she needed one for all her errands—which she never ran. We might have been the only family in town who didn’t have a huge vehicle, an SUV or a truck; my parents both drove Volvos, my father a little brown two-door coupe and my mother a brown four-door. They looked like cardboard boxes on wheels. But really safe cardboard boxes. My father wanted the smallest, safest car built, and I’m sure he would have driven a single-passenger model if they had made one. The only cargo he cared about was his golf clubs. As long as they could fit into the trunk, the vehicle was big enough. Anything more was a waste of space.

I stared out the window and listened to Anna’s CDs on my headphones. She had ended the first CD with a song by Bauhaus, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” It was almost ten minutes long. It started with a tapping sound, drumsticks against the metal rim of the drum, and then that sound became distorted, echoing and repeating over itself. A slow bass came in, droning along until the guitar snarled around the rhythm; it was almost two minutes before there was any singing. The chorus was basically the title repeated again and again, and another phrase along with it. I had always thought the phrase was “I’m dead,” but when I listened to it on headphones it sounded like “undead,” which made a lot more sense, I guess.

Anna had always laughed when she played that song. “Are they serious?” she’d said. “It’s so campy—high drama and tragedy.” She thought it was hilarious. “Do you think they thought it was funny?” she’d asked.

“Does anybody else?” I’d said.

“People take it very seriously. My father said it was like the Goth anthem.”

“It’s a little creepy.”

“But fake creepy, like vomiting-pea-soup creepy. You have to laugh.”

I listened to it over and over. It was funny, but I wasn’t laughing.

My father looked over at me and lifted his chin. I took my headphones off.

“When you went to that TV show,” he said, “did you sign anything?”

“A release form, I think.”

He nodded and looked back toward the road. “I think I know what they wanted with the photograph.” When he was sure that he had my complete attention, he said, “They wanted to do a show about you, using the taped stuff they didn’t use before, and then the picture.”

“And?”

“When they found out the release form wasn’t binding, that you lied about your age, it ruined their plans.”

“How do you know this?”

“Your old man isn’t a complete idiot,” he said.

“You ruined my chance to be on TV.” He knew I was joking.

“You’re young, you’ll have plenty of better chances.”

 

 

 

It took us about three hours to get to the stadium. We had to wait on line at the will-call window for tickets. I had brought along a pair of binoculars, even though my father had kept insisting that I leave them at home. “We have good seats,” he’d said. “You’re not going to need them.” When he finally got the tickets, he noticed that they were in the upper deck. He didn’t say anything about it until we got all the way there.

We were in the first row of the upper deck, about halfway between third base and the left-field wall. “These aren’t bad,” he said as we sat down. It was a cool, gray day, threatening to rain any minute. Every now and again a strong wind would gust into the stadium and hit me in the back. I felt that if I stood up the wind would blow me over the railing and down into the seats below. I had never really thought of myself as afraid of heights, but I couldn’t look straight down from our seats. Yet there was something inviting about the height; it made me want to jump. It was a physical urge, an impulse or temptation that had to be resisted. There was no way I would jump, but I had a feeling in my gut, in my muscles, that made me think that I might jump despite my own will. I wanted to move away from the railing, but then what would I tell my father? That I was afraid? I kept the binoculars to my face and concentrated on the players on the field or scanned the crowd.

My father was eating oyster crackers out of a bag he’d brought inside his coat, and drinking a beer. He was trying to keep score, but he kept getting distracted, or else he was just making conversation. Or maybe he was trying to make me focus on the game. He kept asking, “What happened?” I had to pay attention to the game and help him out with the plays. “Was that three-six-three?” he’d ask. “No, the pitcher covered first,” I’d answer. We almost had a conversation.

Around the fourth or fifth inning I noticed a group of Goth kids sitting across the diamond, near the top, in right field. I hadn’t noticed them before. There were eight or nine of them, and I thought of how there might be a group of them at every sporting event, huddled together in their black uniforms. Then I saw her. It was Anna, in the middle of the group, calmly watching the game. With her blond hair she was like a piece of hay in a stack of needles.

I told my father that I would be right back. I rushed up the aisle and out of the stands. I had to make my way around the entire stadium, running through lines of people at the concession stands and bathrooms. I ran as fast as I could, but kept getting slowed down. It took me more than ten minutes to get to the right-field seats. I could hear the game on the field, and from the televisions at the concession stands. Something had happened in the game; a big roar went up from the crowd. Everyone was standing when I came out into the seats. I hurried up the steps—there had to be more than a hundred to the top row—and waited for the crowd to sit down so I could see. I was out of breath. I was still one section away from the Goth group; I would have to go down the steps, across another section, and then up again. I looked frantically for Anna once I got to the right section. The group was sitting at the end of three rows, close to the aisle. I looked for her, right in the spot where I had seen her, but she wasn’t there. The spot was empty.

“What do you want?” one of the Goths asked me.

“Nothing. I was just looking for somebody.”

“She’s not here,” another one said. It was Bryce Druitt.

“Where is she?”

“You should know.”

“Why’s that?”

“Your buddy almost killed her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Claire OD’ed on shit she bought from your friend.”

His words barely registered. I must have been talking like a robot or a zombie. “I didn’t know,” I mumbled. I looked around furiously, hoping that Anna would show up and stop everything, that she would show up and say that Bryce was lying and that everything was all right.

“What are you trying to do? Get rid of all the girls in school?” Bryce said.

I had to leave. I couldn’t talk to them anymore. Something on the field made people jump to their feet again. The Goths stayed in their seats; I could feel them looking at me. The crowd was roaring, and the Goths were silent, staring at me. I felt I might pass out or throw up, maybe just fall down the aisle and roll onto the field. My legs ached and were weak. I turned and walked slowly down the stairs. I heard Bryce say to the rest of them: “That’s the boyfriend of that bitch who almost killed me.” I wanted to run back and scream in his face, I wanted to punch his teeth out, but I had nothing. I was suddenly exhausted. I could barely move down the stairs. Adrenaline was coursing through me so strongly I was almost shaking, but I had no energy. I made my way down the stairs and into the walkway that led to the concession stands. I waited there, knowing that Anna would never be returning to where I had seen her, but still I waited.

When I eventually made it back to my seat, my father asked me where I’d gone.

“I just took a walk around.”

“I saw you way over there.” He pointed across the stadium.

“I saw Bryce Druitt.”

“And you had to rush over there?” I didn’t answer. “What did he have to say?”

“Nothing.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know.”

“What a coincidence.”

It started to rain, a cold drizzle, and no one moved. Only a few umbrellas opened. The rain felt good at first, but then it started raining harder. People moved out of the lower seats and gathered under the overhangs; some left the stadium. We were stuck in the rain.

“Do you want to go?” my father asked.

“There’s only a couple of innings left.” It was a close game. My father was keeping score. He’d be disappointed if he had to leave with an incomplete scorecard. He seemed more intent in putting all of the plays on paper than relaxing and watching the game. He dutifully filled in all of the boxes with numbers that didn’t mean anything to me; he kept track of everything, the number of pitches each pitcher threw, the time of the game, the temperature, the names of the umpires. The whole story was there in pencil on his program, neatly detailed and accounted for.

I sat through the rest of the game thinking about Claire and Carl, and Bryce, and Anna. I kept looking over at the spot. It was empty. I had imagined her. I knew that I had, but the thought kept creeping into my brain that she had been there, and had left when she noticed me coming over. I fantasized that she was still alive, that she was tormenting me, haunting me, playing with me on purpose. Every time this thought went on, I tried to push it out and consider what Bryce had said. Questions kept piling up, ping-ponging through my head, colliding so quickly and so hard that they became blurred, dented, and damaged. I clutched the binoculars and stared across the field. I’m sure my father had noticed that I wasn’t watching the game, because he asked me what happened on almost every play. “Was that a called third strike, or did he swing?” “Was that a wild pitch or a passed ball? You have to look at the scoreboard—they’ll put the official decision up there.” “What was that? Come on now, help me out.” I was moving the binoculars back and forth from the pitcher to home plate to the upper deck where Bryce was still sitting, until I became dizzy, disoriented. I had to put them down and take a few deep breaths.

My head was aching so badly that I thought it would split open. I wished it would split open and release everything in it, all the thoughts that were boiling and building up steam, and then maybe I could calm down. I looked down again. It was hard not to jump. I just wanted some relief. I thought I was going to cry. I could feel the tears building up in my eyes. I had to close them and lean way back in my seat. The crowd roared again. A walk-off home run. The game was over.

“Are you okay?” my father said.

I opened my eyes. “I got dizzy all of a sudden.”

“Maybe you got up too fast. Just sit there a second and relax.” He sat down and went back to writing on his scorecard. The cool breeze felt good. I sat and let it stream across my face until I didn’t feel so clammy. We stood and joined the crowd making its way down the cramped rampways to the bottom of the stadium. It took us almost an hour to get to the car, and then we sat in traffic for almost another hour. My father didn’t seem to mind. In fact, I think he was enjoying himself.

“We should try to go to more games,” he said. “When it gets warmer.”

“Can we take the train next time?” I said.

“Why? This isn’t so bad.”

As we passed the exit to Ellroy, about an hour and a half from home, the rain turned to snow. Large, wet flakes rushed toward us out of the black night. They were dying stars, or tiny white fists, crashing down on us. My father had to slow to about twenty miles an hour, just to see. “April snows are the worst,” he muttered.

We didn’t get home until almost ten. The ground was covered with snow. There must have been a foot of it. I had to get out and shovel a path for the car. I moved as quickly as I could and then called the hospital.