Beneath the Bonfire (14 page)

“My die has been cast,” Foreman said at last. “This planet. It's worth a hell of a lot more than any of us. Oil ain't worth dying for. But this planet sure as hell is. And I want it known that I tried my best, that I didn't give up or shrug my shoulders. I believe that.”

“You've been reading too much poetry. You sound like an old faggot.”

They stayed that way for some time, looking at each other, their hearts racing, sunlight careening through the windows and outside the birds singing and deer moving in the shadows. The old man began coughing, tasted his own blood and bile, last night's meal not sitting well in his fragile gut.

“You're safe enough here, anyway,” Foreman said. He pulled a duvet over the fallen man until it covered him like a tarpaulin. “I better head into town. Make things look normal.”

He moved unsteadily into the kitchen, made coffee, drank water. His hands shaking apart.

HOUR TWENTY

The little town teemed with police, unmarked cars, television crews. The main street packed with automobiles, vans, strange pedestrians in suits and ties and skirts and high heels. Foreman drove slowly, hands loose on the wheel of the old truck as he gaped at the ruckus. His legs trembled in his trousers. If they were not already looking, they would be looking soon. He pulled into a parking space and sat a moment collecting himself. He would spend the day in town being seen.

He left the truck and pulled his barn jacket tight. He had lost so much weight that it felt more like a robe of tattered canvas. The wind seemed to pass through his body as if his flesh were gauze. He knew he would not make it to see the end of winter, and maybe not even the beginning. He shuffled down the sidewalk.

In the post office, to one side of the counter, a television woman was interviewing Father Malloy. The priest was praying for the CEO, calling for forgiveness. A light was attached to the camera aimed at the priest and the light shone so brightly as to make Malloy's skin translucent as milk. Foreman knew Malloy and had never trusted him. The priest's hands too soft for Foreman's liking. The priest that had shepherded the town prior had been a miner in his youth, who split five cords of wood every autumn before the snow began flying. That priest had hands covered in sandpaper and leather. Hands like paws. Rumors abounded that in his mining days, he could beat all comers at arm wrestling. He'd had a beard that seemed full of the magic of God. Black eyes. You did not want to sin because something in his countenance made you believe that he knew your sins and would wrestle them out and away from you. Beat them out of you, if necessary. Absolve and redeem and make you repent, weeping like a scared child. This new priest looked like a spy. Foreman gathered his mail and left. There wasn't much—a few sweepstakes circulars and some catalogues addressed to his wife. Sad little reminders of her.

He walked across the street to the town's only caf
é
. It was crowded. Unable to sit beside the bay windows, he took a seat at the counter, where the loggers, farmers, and old men sat. He ordered toast and coffee. His stomach was upset. He drank slowly, the hot coffee in his belly warming him.

A logger he knew leaned in, said, “Truth is, I don't give two shits if some rich bastard gets lost in the woods, wanders off. Fuck him. Should've packed some expensive Gore-Tex. Some fancy wool. Shit. Could've thrown some locals some money. Hired a guide.”

“Amen,” said Foreman. “Well, they think they're indestructible, bulletproof. They think they know everything.”

“I heard a report on the news,” said the logger, “that there was enough oil down there to fill Yankee Stadium. Maybe more. Who'll ever know? Goddamn travesty. Fucker should've been hung, is what should have happened. But it don't work like that, do it? You know the drill. You got money … Shit. They set you up at the Club Fed. Probably get shrimp cocktail for dinner, only it don't come out of Galveston, that's for sure.”

Foreman nodded. “So he just wandered off then?”

The logger blew his nose in a handkerchief, not managing to remove all the particulate from his mustache. “It don't really make sense to me. The maid showed up at his place and all his shit was still there. Posh car. Luggage. Like he just disappeared. I think he just got himself lost. Fucker left his wallet on the counter next to his keys. They ain't got any idea of anything.”

“How long's he been out there?” Foreman asked.

The logger shoveled catsupped eggs into his mouth, shrugged. “Less than a day, they figure. No idea.”

They watched the television suspended in a corner of the caf
é
. It was surreal, the way the world was seeing their town live. They watched time unspooling before them, turned occasionally to peer at the main street, where the faces broadcast on the TV talked into cameras and microphones. It was dizzying, as if two worlds nearly identical existed just ten seconds or so apart, their actions and drama otherwise almost indistinguishable.

Foreman and the logger sat at the counter a good hour or more. There was nothing else to do. They traded sections of the battered newspaper out of Minneapolis/St. Paul. Played several games of cribbage.
Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, and pair of sevens for two equals eight.
In the sky, gray clouds scudding quickly and the fallen autumnal leaves tumbling faster than passing cars.

“Snow coming.”

“I feel it too. Thought it was the cancer this morning, but maybe it's just the weather.”

“Christ, Foreman, I am sorry about that.”

Foreman blew on his coffee. “That's kind of you. But it's all right. I'm going to be with my wife.”

“She and my mom used to play bridge together. I never heard an unkind word.”

Foreman's eyes had suddenly become misty and he looked away from the logger. He said very quietly, “I miss her.”

The logger left some money on the Formica counter and touched Foreman's back. “You need anything, don't be afraid to holler.”

Foreman nodded and stared into the diner's kitchen. He would wait until dusk before leaving.

HOUR THIRTY

Foreman found Hazelwood where he'd left him, in a pool of his own bright urine, the seat of his pants filled with shame. The man was broken and weeping, shivering. Foreman dragged him toward the fieldstone hearth, then began working quickly, balling up a few sheets of newspaper, building a structure of wood and paper intermingled with twigs and kindling and pinecones. He struck a match and touched the paper with fire. He blew on the little flames tenderly, coaxing them to climb the ladders of wood. He tore curls of birch bark from the woodbin and added them to the fire.

“I'm so cold,” Hazelwood complained. “I shat myself.”

“You know the deal,” Foreman said. “Drink up and we're done. I told you, I'd even cut it. How do you guys say it? I'd blend it.”

“I'm so goddamn thirsty.”

Foreman warmed his palms and felt the fire through his garments.

“What if I change?” Hazelwood asked. “What if I make a public apology?” He snuffled. “There has to be another way! I've got a wife. Three kids! I've got pictures—take a look—on my phone. Please! Please!”

“About your telephone,” said Foreman. He went outside briefly, came back in. In the palm of his old hand, the destroyed components of the telephone. “You never know,” said Foreman. “I thought maybe they could track you or something. Technology such as it is these days.” He tossed the wrecked cellular into the fire, then stood from the hearth and went to the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water and watched Hazelwood. Against the windowpanes, stars of snow sizzling briefly and then expiring.

HOUR THIRTY-FOUR

Both of them at the table, their eyes locked. Between them the tin cup, and outside a November blizzard come down out of Alberta and through Saskatchewan and the Dakotas. The winds shook the cabin and the fire in its place wheezed and snapped.

“This ain't going to help your cause,” said Foreman.

The other man was now dying too, if only a little. He continuously licked his blackened lips, but there was no moisture left inside the hole of his mouth to lubricate anything. His lips had grown chapped too. “I'm so thirsty,” he said in what was now a tragic loop.

“These early storms are sometimes the worst. Heavy snow full of moisture. The plows not yet ready. The salt trucks not loaded. People not used to driving through such conditions. No chains on their tires. They ain't gonna find you in time now. It's all up to you. You got to drink up. Pay the piper. You drink from that tin cup and I'll give you all the water you can drink. Wine even. Feed you. Take you straight away to the hospital in Duluth. I give you my word on that. But I ain't budging on this thing, either. We're here together now, you and me. And if we both die, we both die, and I am at peace with that.”

Foreman stood from the table and went to the refrigerator. Came back with a glass of water and an apple. He ate the apple slowly, chewing its skin, his old teeth biting into the white meat of the fruit. He looked out into the storm and watched the swirling of billions of flakes, watched drifts gathering at the bases of young balsams. He would have to go out at least once during the evening to start the truck and charge the battery. He would take every precaution. There were two pairs of snowshoes in the bed of the vehicle and chocolate and brandy in the glove box. Candles and matches and extra clothing and an ancient blanket.

“Honeycrisp is my favorite apple. The best acidity. Cleans your mouth right out.”

The cabin was quiet then. Foreman's chewing and the fire's spare music.

Hazelwood said, “My wife drank oil one time.” The bound man seemed to hang from his perch, his body leaning forward, head bowed.

Foreman stopped chewing a moment and then continued, watching Hazelwood.

“Our first child was overdue. Just didn't want to come out. And my wife, she wanted to do things the old-fashioned way. No drugs during the birth. She's crazy. I mean, I love her, but she's crazy. You two might get along.” He shook his head, worked his captive hands in their knots. “The midwife gave her castor oil. I remember that now. Mixed it with a little orange juice. She drank it all down. I remember that. Never complained. Meredith was born about an hour later. In the bathtub. You know what that stuff does? It irritates the bowels, I guess. And that in turn stimulates the uterus. I took a sip. It was awful. I'll never forget.

“You never had children, did you?” asked Hazelwood, looking up now at his captor.

Foreman gnawed at the apple and glowered at his prisoner.

“I bet it makes it a helluva lot easier for you to kill me, doesn't it? Without having kids of your own? Without knowing what it means to be a father? Without anyone to embarrass or to take the shame of what you've done. You fucking environmentalists. Living in the abstract. Your goddamn hearts are two sizes bigger than your heads.”

Foreman threw the core of his apple square at Hazelwood's face. “Eat that.”

Hazelwood stayed cool. “You think I'd do something to leave this planet worse for my kids? You think I'd do that? Knowingly? How could I face them? It wasn't my fault. I'm just a man. One goddamn man.”

“Why ain't I surprised that a CEO is sitting before me shirking the responsibility, rather than standing up and trying to change things, to make things better. You fuckwads get paid big money to sit before Congress without a recollection of a thing, to smile into the camera and lie, to find new ways to bilk people. Push comes to shove, you're salesmen. Plain and simple.”

And then they glared at each other for hours, the tin cup between them still full of its patient blackness. Foreman glanced at his old nicked wristwatch. Midnight; a new day. He stood from the table, bent down for the thrown apple core and went out into the blizzard to run the truck, charge the battery. Two feet of snow on the ground heavy and wet as new cement not yet hardened. He sat in the truck with his eyes on the cabin. He could see the top of a leg of Hazelwood's chair and he could see that the chair wasn't moving. He turned the heater up and sat in the flowing warmth until the heat of the engine had melted the carpeting of snow that had obscured the truck in whiteness. Then he cut the engine and went back inside.

“No blanket tonight,” Foreman told Hazelwood. Then he dragged the man's chair into the bathroom and kicked him over. “I'm locking this bathroom. Wake me up when you're ready to drink. I'll hear you.”

HOUR FORTY-TWO

Foreman woke up, his bladder full and burning. Outside: the world seemingly erased and made anew. Everywhere: whiteness and snow yet falling from the well-obscured sky. A strange sound coming from the bathroom. The old man shuffled quickly to the locked door. His key in the knob, he tried to press into the room but he could feel the CEO resisting. The door slightly ajar, Foreman could see that Hazelwood had somehow forced himself up at one point and drank from the porcelain toilet bowl. The front of his cashmere sweater, already ruined by oil, now also a V of dampness. His back was against a low cabinet and his feet pressed against the door, still taped up to his chair.

Foreman said, “You quit this shit or I'll break your motherfuckin' legs!”

Hazelwood relaxed his legs after a moment and the door caromed open. The oil magnate was laughing through his missing front tooth, his gums and teeth slightly less black. “I pissed all over your floor,” he said. “I drank for hours. Best water I ever had.”

Foreman jerked the man and chair out of the room and across the house, their path delineated by marks across the wooden floorboards. Foreman dragged him outside, kicked him down a small set of stairs, and let the man come to rest in a dune of snow. The old man went back inside. He had been beaten again. Tore at his scalp, the flyaway hair.

“Dumb,” he said to himself. “Dumb, dumb, dumb.”