“Stop it, Dad,” said Elliot. He smiled at Sarah from across the room and she immediately felt calmer. “It was ages ago.”
* * *
—
Sarah was lying on her bunk, having kicked off her shoes, stretching her feet out in small circles and repeating under her breath what had become her new mantra: All that matters is that the baby is healthy. From the other room, she could hear Elliot and her parents talking about some friends of theirs from the university who were looking into buying property nearby.
“There goes your getaway,” she heard Elliot say, and Sarah snorted. She imagined bringing her child here in the years to come, initiating them into all their bizarre family rituals—secular Christmas, paddling with Plato, keeping a sharp lookout for the Larsen Cabin sign in the dark—and by doing so, tacitly endorsing them. With her baby, she would finally have to decide whether she was part of her crazy family or not.
After all these years, the people up here still took them to be Larsens. Anybody would. Sarah’s parents never bothered correcting anyone or letting them in on the joke. They were only ever up here in the summer or for the odd weeklong stretch, and they maintained their share of the road, which was all that had ever concerned the neighbours. Once, years ago, Sarah had been lying on the dock, the cabin perched high and derelict on the hill above her, and a woman had come paddling up, quiet and swift as a minnow. Shading her eyes against the sun with one hand, the woman had called out to Sarah, “You’re that Larsen girl, aren’t you? Is that where I am now? The Larsens’ place?”
And Sarah, glancing up from her book with a mute and graceless look of panic, was caught between the guilt of exposing her parents’ meaningless deception or the inanity of propping it up, which might be worse. In the end she only nodded, and the woman nodded back, dropped her hand from her face, and paddled away.
* * *
—
Gretchen was talking about her fear of the woods when Sarah returned to the living room.
“It’s a perfectly natural phobia,” she said, sipping red wine out of an ancient coffee mug. “Historically, dating to the beginning of agriculture, the woods have been outside of our arena of control.”
Frank disagreed. “It isn’t about some horror lurking in the dark. It’s the terror of humans left to instinct. Lord of the Flies, et cetera.” Her father always seemed to find his conversational rhythm more readily after a couple of drinks. “Society is the only thing preserving us from the state of nature. It’s just a fear of our true selves.”
“No, just bears,” said Sarah. “And wood ticks.” She started to sit down, then said, “I have to pee.” She was surprised she hadn’t had to go before. They didn’t use the cabin toilet in the winter, though two years ago, on Christmas Eve, Frank had taken a single drunken piss without pouring antifreeze in afterwards and the bowl had cracked spectacularly. After pulling on her coat, Sarah picked up the flashlight from the table and pushed out the front door and up the path, taking slow small steps to avoid the places where there was an icy sheen on the rocks. She was more afraid of falling than of the hardy dismissiveness she imagined from her parents: her mother booming out an account of tumbling off a ladder with a belly full of Elliot, or some strange fact from Frank about the pregnant women of ancient times drinking lead and jumping over bulls. Spartans or some shit.
It was much warmer out than before and she was happy she’d left her coat open. When she reached the wooden door of the outhouse, she pulled at it and fell back, seeing a metal hook and fastener, a keyed padlock snapped shut. A drop of rain hit her hand before she felt more dripping down her forehead. Then she heard the noisy rustling in the leaves as it came down. Freezing rain.
“Where’s the key?” she shouted when she was back at the cabin, her voice sounding high and needy in her ears.
“It was my project,” said Gretchen, always happy to take credit for any inconvenience, any strange and insistent whim. “There were a few incidents up here of some teenagers getting into outhouses, throwing things down there, messing things up.” She looked at Frank. “But the key…” She frowned. “I can say for certain that wherever it is, it is not here.”
All together they trudged up to the outhouse, Gretchen pushing into the lead, hood raised to keep off the rain. “I’m sure we can just bust in the door,” she said.
“Then why bother locking it?” asked Elliot. He rattled the door, then kicked at it with his foot. It splintered but didn’t break.
“I really have to go,” said Sarah. She was close to tears and frustrated with herself. If this was her breaking point, it didn’t bode well for motherhood.
“Just go in the woods,” said Gretchen, throwing up her hands. Inside her hood, her hair circled her face like the mane of a lion. “Didn’t you use to live out in the wilderness with those people?”
“Come on,” said Elliot. “Good thing you’re wearing a skirt.” He took Sarah by the hand and led her off the trail and into the woods, out of sight of their parents and the lake, to where the trees were younger and grew closer together. “This looks good,” he said.
She rustled up her peasant skirt and tried to squat out of range of the underwear she pulled down. It was brighter out than Sarah had realized—a big moon.
“I can’t.”
It was pathetic. The urgency in her bladder seemed to spread throughout her abdomen, a miniature earthquake shooting nerves of fear across her body, and all at once she considered how much larger were the tasks ahead. She felt more alone on the path she had chosen than she thought it was possible to feel. Blinking up through the branches, she remembered the sensation of looking up at the sky in Bolivia, a salty layer of sweat crusting her face and forearms, and the sinking feeling of having gotten everything wrong. A few hippies with a land title could never build a perfect world. People were too flawed—too venal—for paradise. She wondered now if she would ever recover from the realization of how easy it had been to walk away from her life, how seamlessly the world closed up around the place where she used to be.
“I’m scared,” she said. As if on cue, the baby kicked. “I can’t do this.”
“There’s nothing to it,” said Elliot. “Here, I’ll start.” She heard her brother unzip his fly and whistle a few bright notes as she stared down at her boots sunk in the snow, its smooth surface pocked here and there where the freezing rain had penetrated the trees and slipped cleanly into its layers like ice-cold seeds planted at depth.
From a few feet away, Sarah could see the steam rise and the snow falling back. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” There was a hint of teasing laughter in Elliot’s voice. “But either way, you have to start by letting go.” Then her brother turned serious. “And I’m here for you no matter what.”
After a moment, she repositioned herself and sighed, and there was the sound of her stuttering stream joining his, then the rain getting heavier. Sarah closed her eyes and let herself go, spreading herself out until all of winter melted away.
Program:
The Hugh Besnard Show
Date:
November 9, 2020
Time:
9:36 AM EST
Duration:
2 minutes 2 seconds
Interviewer:
Hugh Besnard
Interviewee:
Keelan Gibbs
BESNARD: Professor Gibbs, the writer Owen Grant has gone on record saying that disaster preparedness is a moral obligation for those who can afford it. Since that time, the United States has faced shortages of N95 face masks and generators, not to mention antivirals. Do you think Mr. Grant got it wrong?
GIBBS: Preparedness isn’t wrong in and of itself. But it’s also critical
not to give in to fear. It’s fear that prompts people to hoard more resources than they need to survive—they’re nervous there won’t be enough for everyone.
BESNARD: What do you think is the biggest single ethical issue surrounding ARAMIS?
GIBBS: We’re already talking about it: fear and the way it can subvert reason and decision-making. In previous flu pandemics, healthy people starved in quarantine because others were too frightened to bring them food. But these days, we have plenty of information on how to safely interact with those in quarantine while avoiding infection.
I’m also concerned that we will see this type of anxiety play out on a nation-by-nation level, right at a time when global cooperation is most required. The government has a responsibility to protect its citizens, but it must also continue to join forces internationally in offering medical resources and staff, monetary relief, and assistance in kind. For instance, we cannot close our borders unilaterally.
BESNARD: What is your personal philosophy, Professor?
GIBBS: Human beings are flawed, just like our leaders. Sometimes we make the wrong decisions. That’s why it’s important to think carefully and consider the consequences of our actions—not just for their impact on others, but on our own psyches. This is especially true during times of crisis. If we want to continue to think of ourselves as good people, we need to ground that belief in everything we do.
Important Disclaimer
Although efforts are made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, The Hugh Besnard Show and its associated companies accept no liability for what is said, for any discrepancy between the spoken and written word, nor for any errors or omissions. In matters of doubt, please refer to the original broadcast video.
ELLIOT
NOVEMBER 2020
His last days in New York City were the only time in his life Elliot remembered being afraid. He had picked up a call for a burglary in progress in the Bronx, but when he arrived at the squalid basement apartment, it turned out to be a standoff between a mother and her teenaged son. Piles of dirty dishes overflowed from the sink onto a counter littered with all manner of human detritus: knapsacks, makeup, shoelaces, cigarettes. A mattress in the corner was heaped with garbage bags and there were no shades on any of the lamps, perhaps to admit as much light as possible into the cramped space. The woman and her son stood in front of a dresser with every drawer yanked open. Both were clutching knives.
“He says I’m too old,” the mother said, appealing to Elliot and gesturing with the knife as though she were an actor breaking the fourth wall. She was wearing an oversized Metallica T-shirt over a pair of flowered leggings. “Says I’ll slow him down. Can you believe it?” she said. “I’m fifty-two years old and being junked by my own son.”
The word junked gave Elliot a quicksilver shudder of permeability, as though she somehow knew he had been thinking junkie. He felt outside of himself. Only the gun on his hip registered, like a lead weight tethering him to Earth. “Ma’am,” he said, “this isn’t about what I believe.” Although he understood that, in some way, of course it was. “It’s about the two of you putting down those knives you’ve got.” He wondered if the boy really was desperate to flee the city or if it was only an excuse to get away from his mother. It was an interesting question, whether the world ought to belong to the young or the old. The young seemed to feel they were owed something—a life. But…well. Maybe it wasn’t a question for the childless. He remembered that someone once said youth was wasted on the young, and when he saw the terrified expression on the face of that scared, snarling teen, it certainly seemed to be true.
A call squawked through on his radio. There was a request for backup at a brawl on Courtlandt Avenue. The 911 caller had reported gunshots.
Elliot felt the emptiness of his patrol car outside on the street. The force was bleeding officers who’d taken ill or left town. His own partner, Russ, had gone on indefinite leave after his youngest child was hospitalized at Methodist Morningside just a week after the end of their posting there. Most beats were run solo these days. The usual arrest targets had fallen away. The order of the day was avoiding martial law. As the chief of police had said, “For God’s sake, just try to keep the peace, or else we’ll end up kowtowing to the National Guard.” His salt-and-pepper beard had snowed over since the start of the outbreak.
“He’s taking all the money I have,” the woman said. Elliot detected a note of satisfaction mingled with the outrage. She waved her knife towards a pile of dirty clothes on the floor. “He’s stolen it right out of my drawer. I want you to arrest him for robbery.”
An impatience flickered within Elliot, along with a powerful urge to strike them both, burn the money, and leave them to figure out their own mess—or arrest them for wasting his time. “Nobody’s getting arrested,” he found himself saying. “We’re going to resolve this together.” Even as he renounced the idea of it, he was reminded of the extra weight brutality could lend to authority. The boy and his mother just stared at him, her lip curling up in what Elliot interpreted as disappointment. But he could tell the boy was used to being bossed. He was only tired of being bossed by his mother.
“Give it here, son.” It was a butterfly knife the boy was holding, with a filigreed handle. “Just the money,” said Elliot, as the boy tightened his grip on the blade and came closer.
Elliot held out his hand, and into the centre of his dry palm the boy deposited the wad of crumpled bills. With his thumb, Elliot separated out seven twenties—why seven? who knows? fairness was a feeling: it came from the gut—and handed these back to the son.
“If you want to leave, leave.”
It took nothing more than a curt nod in the direction of the door for the boy to pocket the cash and flee. The flush of pride Elliot experienced then reminded him of how he’d felt after his very first calls as a rookie.
But the mother was not as grateful as expected. She entered into a maudlin howling. “I’d have given him all the money,” she wailed, “to stay.”
Elliot’s sympathy curdled. He sensed the limits of the temperament that made him, most of the time, one of the good ones. “You called the police,” he said. “You get what you pay for.”
* * *
After his shift, Elliot returned to the converted industrial building where he and the other students continued to practise kung fu. He waited a moment in his parked car before going in. Two weeks ago, in early November, a grey belt student named Cassie had stopped coming and had gone silent on the group chat. Nobody knew if it meant she had caught the virus or not. Then, last week, there were three more absent, though two logged into the chat to say they’d quarantined themselves as a precautionary measure only: they were afraid Cassie was sick and they’d all been exposed. A general discussion began about whether they ought to disband the weekly gathering, and just last night Elliot had weighed in before he could stop himself: I don’t know what I’ll do without this, guys. And without meaning to, he had effectively shut down the debate—possibly by embarrassing the others into silence. Elliot didn’t often chime in on the group chat, and perhaps a trace of authority still adhered to him as the only surviving member of the advanced class, not to mention as a police officer violating the social distancing ordinances. Nobody had typed a word in the thread since last night.
Elliot put on a mask and a pair of gloves, then exited and locked his car with a tamped-down apprehension stifling the base of his throat. The likelihood was that no one else would be there. Without wanting to acknowledge breaking their pact, he suspected the others would silently absent themselves—signalling both a sympathy to his point of view as well as a wholly natural self-preservation. He had been irresponsible with his words: too candid, too desperate.
He took the stairwell to the third floor. The air felt stagnant and too thick. All the units in the large commercial building remained unleased. Without the influx of human activity, the
building still smelled of paint, sawdust, the sickly off-gassing fumes of chemical sealants and treated wood. Elliot steeled himself in the hallway before going in. It made him heartsick to imagine their numbers continuing to dwindle, week by week. If that was their future, then the others were right: they should stop now. And perhaps they had already. The room where they had balanced and flexed and wept together for their shared and private griefs would be deserted. In short order, it would return to the anonymous sterility of stalled enterprise, unless he decided to continue visiting by himself. A lonely vigil of one.
Elliot pushed through the metal door and opened his eyes, just as he inhaled the boozy lemon scent of disinfectant and the acrid tang of sweat. There were a dozen people, the bulk of their group, spaced out across the warehouse, moving through their usual warm-up exercises. They all turned to look at him, raising gloved hands of welcome. He couldn’t see their mouths behind the masks, but he could tell from their eyes that they were smiling.
* * *
The next day, Elliot responded to a robbery call at Saint Michael’s Parish on Alexander Avenue. The carved wooden door swung open more easily than he expected, then slammed shut behind him with an echoing clang. He removed his hat, noting that the marble holy-water fonts to the sides of the doors were topped with wooden covers. Blinking, he waited for his eyes to adjust, savouring the abrupt relief from the sounds of the street. Colour pooled on the floor from the stained-glass windows, forming spotlights for towering motes of swirling dust. A handful of worshippers were scattered throughout the sanctuary, each in a separate pew.
A priest in a black cassock and clerical collar signalled to him from the front of the nave. Elliot nodded back, his gaze lifting to the vaulted ceiling where heavenly beings re-enacted stories about which he felt an uneasy ignorance. Elliot heard his steps echoing and became aware of an unexpected ceremonial gravity as he walked down the aisle. He wasn’t often in churches.
Songs for the End of the World Page 27
