Savage Gerry

by John Jantunen

  They mostly used them in Africa and South America, I think. To combat the malaria. You really never heard of nanopreds?

  Only just now.

  They even made a movie about ’em. Scary as hell too. Nano-Fright, it was called, which I always thought was a pretty shitty name. They should have called it Nano-Bite, you know bite, like with your teeth. That would have been a better name because boy, you should’ve seen what they done to humans when their safeties were switched off. Stripped them right down to their skeletons. It was like a tornado — a tornado of blood and guts, you know. I couldn’t sleep for days after I saw that, thinking they’d be coming for me next. Mind you, I was only six. Earl let me watch it one night when Mom was at work. Imagine, showing that to a six-year-old. That son of a bitch never did have any sense. This one time—

  Clayton, Gerald interrupted when it seemed like he’d never shut up.

  What?

  I’m tired.

  Oh, sorry.

  You should get some sleep too.

  I’m too wired up to sleep. Hell, it feels like I ain’t never going to sleep again.

  They lay in silence for some time. Clayton’s breathing took on an elongated rasp and Gerald knew he’d fallen asleep after all. Gerald though wasn’t any closer than he had been before and while he lay with his eyes closed in static repose, his mind was a veritable cyclone. Images swirled up out of the dervish, mostly parcelled memories from the night before, fragments broken off from the whole and battering against each other like leaves in a gale as if by some miracle of recombination they’d form into a pattern that’d make any kind of sense to him at all. The jackhammer lash of that big gun pounding at the forest, Jules tied to the front of the truck, screaming his agony as it raced past, his voice then pleading against the dark of their cell, I want you to kill me, that crumbling under the grating rumble as the excavator tore a hole in the wall, a spot of light appearing through the haze of concrete dust and that leading him right back to where he’d started, seeing again the transient flicker appear from between the trees at the edge of the field across from the prison, almost like a … a firefly.

  Knowing at once that it wasn’t that and yet the recollection still culled to mind now, as it had then, the memory of how the spring after he and Evers had fled into the northern wilds on the run from the law they had come upon a lightly wooded glade enlivened by the migrant glow of thousands of the phosphorescent insects transforming the forest into an almost magical realm where anything might have been possible.

  If it wasn’t for those damn fireflies, Gerald muttered to himself now, knowing it wasn’t really their fault him and Evers had been caught not six days later.

  You want to blame anything, you might as well blame that old rooster, Max. He was the one who got you into this mess in the first place. And while you’re at it, you might as well blame that old bear trap too.

  He was sitting up though he couldn’t remember doing so. He was breathing hard, impossibly so, and there were beads of sweat dripping over his brow. The salt was stinging the scratch on his cheek and he had the sudden urge to just get up and run, knowing even then he could never outrun the past.

  It was running that did you in to begin with.

  A fleeting enough thought, and one he knew was a lie.

  The only truth is right here, right now, he told himself, taking a deep breath and trying to still the race of his heart. It’s you and this boy, that’s all there is. Without you he’d have been dead twice over. And he’s given you a reason to live.

  Another sentiment that struck him as not entirely the truth and he looked down at Clayton for some sort of affirmation, that it wasn’t just chance that had thrown them together, but part of some greater design. He was lying on his side, his legs curled towards his chest and his head pillowed on his hand, its thumb twitching with the listless fret of a fishing bob tugging against the current. A mosquito landed on its knuckle. Gerald reached over to brush it off and was startled by the angry chatter of a squirrel, as sudden and loud as an alarm clock.

  Looking up, he found it perched on an overhanging branch, some five feet above. It was a red and it was peering down at him with an eager sort of malice, nattering in angry bursts like he’d done it some great wrong just by sitting there. There was another identical squirrel on the opposite side of the trunk some two feet above it. It scampered in a frenetic downward scuttle as quiet as a feather’s drift. If the other knew it was there it made no sign, continuing on in its unrelenting chatter, sounding more expository than angry now, as if it was relating to him a tale of great import — must have had something to do with nuts, the way it nattered on — and Gerald vacillating his gaze between it and the other. When the second came even with the other, it froze as still as a pine cone, only its tail twitching as if laying dire plans of its own.

  You better watch yourself, Gerald warned the first. He’s coming for ya.

  At the sound of his voice the other disappeared around the side of the tree, appearing a moment later behind the first and that one making a sudden leap two feet up the trunk, scuttling around it with the other in frenzied pursuit. As they chased each other in spiralling loops around the tree’s trunk with the zeal of a circular saw spinning out of control, one of them, he couldn’t tell which, emitted high-pitch reprimands that came out sounding like a dog’s squeaky toy, Gerald all the while watching their playful scurry and muttering to himself, At least someone’s having a good time.

  15

  Gerald spent the rest of the morning trolling along the river, looking for some staunchweed.

  He finally found a patch of the small white flowers at the edge of a meadow with the sun winking at him through the bristling leaves of a poplar tree on the western bank. It was the weed’s leaves he was after. They grew in a feathering of lance-like sprouts along their stem that always looked to him like a chipmunk’s tail. There were a dozen plants growing in a cluster and he stripped all of them clean, chewing the leaves and spitting out the bitter mush into a curl of birch bark he’d peeled from a nearby tree. He added to this a few camomile leaves to serve as a dressing and, to give it some cushion, a clump of moss that grew in sodden fields just inside the forest’s damp.

  When he’d come around a bend that brought the cedar grove back into view, he found Clayton down at the water, washing something in the stagnant flow. As Gerald passed the felled maple on the far shore, where they’d first come to the river, he searched about its branches for the ripple of pink that had marked it then. It was gone and he recalled the look of startled shame on Clayton’s face when he’d emerged out of the fog, his pant legs wet and Gerald even then certain he’d known why.

  Careful you don’t drown her, he called out as he approached and Clayton jerked around, his hands in a sudden and secretive flounder tucking something into the folds of his jumper.

  Drown who? he answered, genuinely confused.

  Your girlfriend.

  My wh— he started.

  His jaw locked and his cheeks flushed red, getting the gist of what Gerald meant. The expression recalled to Gerald the same look of befuddled shame that Evers, then thirteen, had worn one morning at breakfast after Gerald had asked the boy, Your girlfriend not coming down to eat?

  My girlfriend? Evers had asked, baffled.

  You didn’t have a girl up there with you last night?

  No.

  I could’ve sworn I heard someone up there with you. Sounded like the two of you was fixing to break the bed. What, she go out the window?

  Evers looking at him with shameful disbelief and Millie kicking him under the table, glaring at him with ice in her eyes.

  It’s no wonder he doesn’t talk to you anymore, she’d chided after Evers had gone up to take a shower.

  What?

  He’s thirteen.

  I was just having some fun.

  How’d you feel if you were thir
teen and your dad was making fun of you for — lowering her voice to a hush — jerking off.

  My dad was dead six years by the time I was thirteen, Gerald said laughing, so I guess I’d have been pretty shocked.

  Scowling, Millie had reached out and pinched him hard on the arm, which she often did when he’d said something stupid.

  Now Gerald was flinching at the memory same as if she’d reached out from beyond the grave to pinch him again. Back then, it had always seemed that it was his good moods that had got him in the most trouble. And he’d been in plenty a good mood just a moment ago. It had crept up on him unawares as he wandered along the river, lost in its quiet gurgle and the scamper of chipmunks and squirrels, the dry rustle of the wind through poplar leaves and the sun dappled in bursts of warmth on his cheeks and above all the sanguine spice of the forest’s musk, breathing it in as if in their decay the trees were releasing the essence of life itself, infusing his blood and bringing the loose amble back to his stride, feeling better than he had in years, a far worse trap than feeling bad.

  I thought maybe you’d took off, Clayton was saying. He’d recovered from his shame and was clawing up the bank. Through the open flap of his jumper, Gerald could just make out a tuft of pink winking at him from the cleft.

  No, he said. I was searching out some staunchweed.

  Clayton’s eyes brightened.

  You find any?

  Gerald held his package up.

  You think it’ll stop the infection?

  It sure won’t make it any worse.

  Seeing only a worried trace of consternation in the other’s eyes.

  Come on then, he said. Let’s go and get you fixed up.

  16

  They set off again only after the sun had settled beyond the trees.

  Last grasps of its light straggled through the wisp of a cloud hanging low on the horizon, an ethereal fanning like cotton balls pulled apart by some mischievous child. Its frayed tufts were soaked in reds and oranges as if daubed in paint and darkened at the edges as if by ink. One last ray of a brilliant yellow parted the billow, alighting, by some divine refraction, in a lucent downward blaze, casting its glimmer in a roving band on the blacktop ahead.

  It was the prospect of just that kind of sunset that would have sent his grandfather scrambling up the path leading to the ridge behind their barn so as to get a better look. He called it a ridge, or more precisely The Ridge, but to Gerald it always looked more like a mountain had crumbled leaving behind a jumbled conglomeration of granite ledges and boulders piled on top of each other with all the care of a toddler laying blocks. There was a flat-topped slab of grey granite, six-foot thick, perched precariously at its peak and within a seam of windblown dirt covered with moss at its base there grew a lone spruce tree. It was twisted by the paucity of its birthplace and seemed to be waging a battle against all reason, its trunk clambering in spiralling loops above the towering spires of the much grander trees below, though even the greatest of these could only dream of reaching a fraction of its elevation. His grandfather would use it to climb up onto the platform, where he’d stand in reverent contemplation until the last of the light had leaked from the sky.

  For all his prognostications about the sordid fate of humankind his grandfather had never been morose and had relished every sunset as a man cleansed within the dwindling shroud of its light. As the last of its radiance now leaked out of the sky above, dimming the road and remaking its promise into a threat of what might be lurking in the evening’s shade, it was with a desperate longing for his grandfather’s resolve that Gerald recollected something he’d said to him when he was seventeen.

  He’d thought his grandfather was dying at the time though he’d end up living another two years. The last memory Gerald would have of him was of the old man waving goodbye on a crisp autumn morning as he set off to check his trap-line. Gerald wasn’t there to hear his dying words, if he uttered any, and took in their stead what he’d said the morning after he collapsed while he was chopping the winter wood.

  Gerald had come out of the barn where he’d been milking their Holsteins and found him on his knees, trying to use the axe handle to lever himself back to his feet.

  What’s wrong? he’d asked walking towards his grandfather.

  The old man turned with a look of stark fright in his eyes, though when he spoke his voice betrayed only the mild irritation of someone who’d, say, just stubbed his toe.

  I don’t know, he’d gasped. I’m having trouble breathing.

  He then winced in pain and clutched his fingers in a spider-lock at his chest.

  Lie down then while I call the ambulance, Gerald said, already heading for the house.

  The ground’ll have me soon enough. Give me your hand, help me up. If I can get to my chair, I’ll be all right. Don’t just stand there, boy!

  Gerald had given his hand and eased him to his feet, clutching him around the waist, his fingers latching on the loose droop of skin over bare ribs, his grandfather sagging against his arm and it feeling like his skeleton was holding on for dear life while its flesh gave way around it.

  I’m reminded of something my Pop-Pop once told me, he choked through spastic gasps as Gerald half carried, half dragged him towards the house.

  Maybe you ought to save your breath, Gerald chided, though he knew there was about as much chance of that as him getting the old man up and into the pine rocker on the porch.

  Pop-Pop, that’s what we called my grandfather, the old man continued unabated, as if death might be too shy to interrupt a man while he was talking. I don’t know if I ever told you that. One time we’d come to visit, I couldn’t have been older’n five. I was chasing his black Lab along the driveway’s gravel, about where we are right now. I tripped over something, my own two feet likely, skinned both knees and an elbow. I was sitting there crying and Pop-Pop, he just picks me up, sets me back on my feet. He says to me, Not much a man can hope for in this life except putting one foot in front of the next and when he trips to be able to pick himself back up. Always seemed sensible advice to me.

  Coughing then, choking up a wad of mucus dribbling over his chin and taking up residence in his beard like a slug that had just crawled out of his mouth. They’d come to the porch and he peered up at the chair with a hateful scorn, as if it was in some way mocking him.

  Just set me down on the steps, he said then added: I think maybe you oughta call an ambulance after all.

  Gerald did and when he came back his grandfather had scrounged his pipe from his breast pocket and was engulfed in a mire of blue-tinged smoke, taking short draws and his chest convulsing with every puff.

  Now I got the (hic)cups, he said, as if that was the worst of his troubles.

  Then considering:

  I never heard of a man (hic) dying from the (hic)cups. You reckon I might (hic) be the first?

  The sardonic lilt to his eyes while he said it coming back to Gerald and more so even than his “dying words” firming Gerald’s resolve as he put one foot in front of the other, skirting the fringe of trees at the road’s edge and listening into the gathering dark for any sound to tell him there was something headed their way.

  As the night settled in, the moon’s pregnant crescent appeared behind the trees and the stars came out one by one. They looked less like great flaming balls of gas than the frays of string left over from a missing button. The image stuck in his mind such that by the time they reached where the 12’s two lanes ducked under the overpass supporting the 400’s four, it had begun to seem to Gerald that maybe the universe itself was coming undone.

  They’d crawled up its far embankment and were peering over the metal guard rail. The highway’s four lanes were all jammed as far as the eye could see, an endless clog of vehicles, all of them abandoned and pointed north and as lifeless as a collection of Matchbox cars scattered over a boy’s bedroom floor after a week of rainy
days.

  Shoot, Clayton said when he’d stood up beside Gerald, who was tracing with mounting dread along the span of cars and trucks and there seeming to be no end to their reach. I—

  But what he’d meant to say next was lost within the shroud of his gape, his mouth hanging open and his eyes growing wider in disbelief, the spectacular calamity before them quieting all but the ragged huff of his panted breaths.

  17

  They came onto the road, shimmying between two school buses. Forswearing the earlier caution that had kept them on the fringes, they walked along the yellow dashes in the centre of the northbound lane, soaking in the immensity of it all and neither of them saying a word.

  Most of the vehicles were buses, the majority of the school variety and others of the kind used by city transit, their digital screens dead and bearing no clear sign as to their origins. A meagre few were Greyhounds and amongst them was a spattering of cars and trucks, most of which were older models. There weren’t any of the self-driving varieties at all and that came as a bit of a surprise since Gerald had been hearing for years about how they’d come to dominate the road. Their absence was maybe a clue as to what had happened but how that might have fit into the grander scheme was anyone’s guess. Littered between the vehicles: empty water bottles and candy wrappers, chip bags and the odd suitcase or duffel rent open and disgorging crumpled pants and shirts, and all of the assorted debris one might expect from a plight of refugees fleeing the safety of their homes and later their cars, taking with them, at last, only what they could carry. A seemingly never-ending transit of detritus so profound in its panorama that the more they moved within its scope the less it spoke to them of a mass migration and the more it forced upon them a thousand or more isolated dramas.

  Here a soiled diaper discarded on the hood of a sedan, its flaps open to reveal a splattering of offal hardened and flaking, nothing about it to divine whether the mother was loving and gentle as she tended to the child’s needs or harried and frantic, battered by the bustle of passersby and the turbulence of her infant’s scream. There the thin and delicate frame of a ten-speed racing bike with a wobbled front wheel lying crumpled before the open driver’s-side door of a rust-battered Volvo station wagon. The car’s front windshield was smashed as if with a golf club and that spoke of a violent altercation, though who’s to say the scene didn’t end with an act of contrition, effusive apologies and the abiding remorse of one stranger tending to another stranger’s wound? A lesser act of mercy amongst strangers, perhaps, in a stippling of cigarette butts beneath the yawning tailgate of a Ford pick-up truck. Or was it the site of a couple’s last stand, an argument devolving into an angry storm of recriminations, someone dragging her away and someone else him, and never again the twain should meet? Gerald couldn’t say and there were fewer conclusions still to be made on the matter of the burnt-out husk of a Jeep on the highway’s shoulder or the anomalous sight of a thirty-foot yacht hitched to an abandoned trailer with its sails set aloft and snapping ecstatic against a stiffening breeze or the myriad of other artefacts, the all of them bearing witness to little but the unremitting inscrutability of humankind.