by Rob Hart
“Well, the world ain’t such a bad place,” he says. He extends his hand and we shake. “Now, you sure this spot is okay?”
“I’m headed to that restaurant right there,” I tell him. “This couldn’t be better.”
He nods. “You get on safe, then.”
“You too,” I tell him.
I open the door. Pause, and consider telling him my real name. Like maybe I owe him that much. Shake it off and climb out of the blissful air conditioning, into the stifling heat, and close the door behind me.
He waves as he pulls out and onto the road. I watch him drive away, a little thrown on how to take that. He drove, what, a hundred miles out of his way? More, round-trip? That’s weird. People being nice for no clear reason is weird.
I turn to the station and it’s empty. Drive by fast and it might look deserted, with the way one window is boarded up and the lights inside aren’t turned on. But the proprietor is there, sitting on the rocking chair in the shadow of the propped-open door. He looks like a bridge troll in overalls, and he’s staring at me like he stares at everyone, with a great deal of contempt. I nod and he doesn’t acknowledge me.
Momma’s looks equally as empty. Given it was originally a two-story house with a wrap-around porch and a big bay window, it doesn’t look much like a restaurant. The only sign it’s a business is “Momma’s” hand-painted in red on a white plank over the porch.
From what I hear, this place used to be nuts—they only served meat until they ran out for the day, and the only way to ensure you got some was to line up around dawn. But the housing collapse emptied out the surrounding area, and some newer restaurants opened a little further away, closer to the more affluent neighborhoods. Momma’s still seems to do pretty good business, but not nearly as much as it used to.
This is also where our mail gets dropped off. Mail trucks won’t come all the way down to camp, so we have to get everything sent here. In exchange we provide herbs and fresh vegetables to the owner, Luanne.
The front door is locked so I walk around the porch, footsteps echoing in the hollow underneath, follow the smell of applewood smoke and charred meat. Luanne is in the back yard, dipping a mop into a plastic bucket of thick red liquid, then leaning into a smoking rig fashioned from the remains of a massive propane tank. She drags the mop over the piles of meat inside, which snap and smoke and crackle. I skipped breakfast and didn’t eat lunch and I want to stick my face inside the smoker, see where luck takes me.
She hears me approaching and drops the mop back into the bucket. She turns, smiles at me. That smile makes me think thoughts unbecoming of a gentleman. Her hands are covered in red barbecue sauce, like they’re covered in blood. She runs the back of her arm across her brow to clear it of sweat. The way she stands, long limbs cocked out at odd angles, smiling like her face was built that way, skin shining like bronze in the sunlight. Fuck.
“How’re you, Ash?” she asks.
“Fair to middling.”
“Something I can do for you, now?” she asks, loading that question with so much subtext it’s a wonder we’re not both suddenly naked.
“Need a favor,” I tell her. “Got a package coming within the next week or so. It’s pretty important. When it arrives can you put it someplace safe?”
She nods. “Of course. I’ll make sure you get it safe and sound.”
“Thanks, kid,” I tell her, hoping the use of the word ‘kid’ will deflate the sexual tension. And it does, a little. Her body unwinds. She leans down and picks up the bucket.
“That it?” she asks.
“That’s it. We’ll be on by in the next day or two with some baskets. You good until then?”
“Good as I can be, everything considered.”
“Cheers then,” I tell her. Salute, turn, and leave the yard. Feel her staring after me. Wishing I could go back. But Luanne is nice. Nice enough I don’t want to risk it. She’s hanging on by a thread here, trying to keep her mother’s restaurant alive in what amounts to a ghost town. I tend to cut threads. Rarely is it intentional, but it’s definitely becoming an unsettling pattern.
The sun has arced enough that one side of the long stretch of road is in the shade. I strip off my shirt and cram it into my belt. It’s a long walk and I don’t have to be worried about sunburn if I stick to the tree line. That, at least, is nice. The threatening voice of sobriety calls out to me, so I take another swig of whiskey, drain the bottle empty, and set off toward the waving lines of heat sprouting off the asphalt in the distance.
The road is straight and uniform. Nothing to break it up, just the odd car passing by every few minutes. I lose track of how far I travel. I wish I had brought my phone. I was halfway to Atlanta before I realized I left it at camp.
Just about when I’m wondering whether I missed the turn-off, there it is, hacked through the tree line. A dirt path with a weathered wood sign at the foot, carved into it the words: SOUTH VILLAGE.
Underneath that: EST. 1973.
I follow the worn-smooth path. The canopy is so thick it takes my eyes a second to adjust to the darkness. The temperature drops a good ten degrees, too. Now I’m almost chilly.
As I walk down the path I feel two sets of eyes on me. That same set I always feel in the forest. There’s not someone watching me. I know that, intellectually. But still, those eyes are there, boring into my back.
I ignore it. Wish I had more whiskey.
Concentrate on the trees. Palmettos and magnolia and cedar and holly and pine and myrtle. More trees on this walk than I’ve probably seen in my entire lifetime. Trees are nice. The forest is so big and so dense it feels like being inside someplace else. Nothing but the sound of my sneakers in the dirt and the occasional animal noise. The call of a bird or shrill click of an insect.
I think about Bill, too.
To take pride in your work, even if it’s a little messy, that must be a very nice feeling.
A half-mile in, I hit the bridge over the stream and stop to check it. One of the visitors reported it was shaking when she drove over it, though she seemed like the nervous type. I stomp on some of the boards, hold the railing and shake. It feels solid as concrete, but then again, I’m not a car. I’ll come out and take a look at it with someone who knows what they’re doing, to make sure it’s sound, but it doesn’t seem to be in imminent danger.
Bridge cleared, it’s not too much longer until I reach the Hub.
The first dome is the biggest, dark wood and covered in moss, the size of a small house. There are more behind it, no consistency to the size or order, so the domes look like giant mushrooms grown up out of the forest floor. The only pop of color, the only thing that looks artificial, is the long rows of rainbow-hued Tibetan prayer flags, crisscrossed between the domes, some of them reaching up to the canopy, haphazard the way Christmas lights are strung up around a college dorm room.
The porch in front of the Hub and the paths cutting around and behind the domes appear to be empty. There’s no one in the front clearing. Which is strange. Usually this place is bustling with people doing chores, lounging, participating in workshops. There’s not a single acoustic guitar playing.
There’s always an acoustic guitar playing.
But all I hear now is the gentle flap of the prayer flags.
There must be an assembly somewhere. Some event I wouldn’t have given a shit about if someone told me. Maybe everyone is down by the lake. It’s a good day for a dip. I keep walking, past the Hub, to Eatery. Climb up the back steps and into the glorious mess of the main kitchen.
I should go back to the bus and get a clean shirt but I don’t really care to, so I toss my t-shirt into the corner, pull an apron off the wall, and pull it over my head. Turn on the window fan that will keep the air moving enough so that when I turn on the ovens, I will not immediately die.
I nearly trip over Mathilda, who’s poking at the floor with her beak. She doesn’t look up, just clucks to acknowledge my presence, like I’ve annoyed her delicate chicken sensi
bilities.
“Fuck you too,” I tell her.
It’s probably not sanitary to cook in an apron with no shirt underneath while a chicken wanders around the kitchen but I’m a rebel. And anyway, not a day goes by that some goofball isn’t wandering around here naked.
My stomach roars. There’s a tray covered with foil on the stove. I pull the foil aside and find rows of desiccated brown twigs, glistening with oil, sprinkled with piles of rocky sea salt. Aesop roasted some mushrooms. I love when Aesop roasts mushrooms. He has to forage them; I don’t know which are safe and which will kill me, but he does, and he leaves them in the oven until they turn into tiny little flavor bombs.
I grab a handful and cram them in my mouth, wipe the oil off on the apron as I chew, and wash it down with the plastic jug of whiskey I keep stashed underneath the sink, behind the cleaning supplies. That helps a little. I refill my flask and stick it into my cargo pocket.
After a few handfuls of granola, I head into the pantry to pull ingredients for the night’s dinner, not even sure of what’s going to be on the menu, but we’re close enough that I need to get some stuff going.
What I find is an entire wall of cans, their labels torn off.
There’s a shuffle from the main kitchen. Aesop is standing there, his face blanched. At least, the parts of it I can see underneath the mammoth mountain-man beard. It reaches down past his chest. He’s not wearing a shirt either, and his muscular torso is riddled with tattoos. Random stuff—tribals and faces and symbols and words—all done in black and white. Some of it is intricate and professional. Some of it is muddy and uneven, a clear sign of stick-and-poke. The kind of stuff you get in prison, or after a long night of drinking and your idiot friend has a sewing needle and some printer ink. I’ve never asked him which.
“Can we please figure out who’s recycling the labels, and tell them to do it after we use the cans, not before?” I ask him. “We’re going to be eating bean and veggie and whatever the fuck else surprise for the next few weeks…”
“Ash.”
“What?”
“Crusty Pete is dead.”
“Ah fuck.”
The tree reaches out of the earth and unfurls toward the canopy like an open hand, a pale wood structure perched in the palm. The way the tree spreads up and out, it was impossible to get a ladder to the front door, so the ladder was built onto another tree twenty feet away, and the two were connected by a rope bridge.
The bridge isn’t up anymore.
Everyone’s here. With camp currently at capacity—the staff roster full and all the tree houses rented out—that means nearly forty people are crowded around the base of the tree. Heads downcast, still as statues.
Aesop and I approach, twigs cracking under our feet, and a few people look up, some familiar faces, most not. Some people are weeping, others are holding themselves or each other, and some are blank. A tapestry of shock and mourning. People step aside, allowing us to pass. At the center of the scrum, Tibo is crouched down so low his long dreads nearly touch the ground. He’s contemplating Pete like a painting.
Pete is sprawled out on the ground, limbs askew and head kinked at an unnatural angle. He’s shirtless, shoeless, wearing a pair of cargo pants cinched tight to his emaciated frame. His long red hair is spread like a burst of flame, draped across his face.
My breath catches in my chest. It’s cool here in the shadows created by the trees, but the heat on the back of my neck rises. No one is staring at me, but it feels like everyone is staring at me.
This guy looks way too comfortable. Can’t be his first time around a dead body.
Real dead doesn’t look like dead in the movies. The skin doesn’t take on a cool icy hue. The face doesn’t rest in a position of serenity. The joints and muscles fall slack. Everything gone but the meat. You look at a dead body and know it’s empty of something.
Pressure builds in my face like an over-filled water balloon, stretching my skin.
“Ash.”
The bridge is there, lying in the dirt. It looks like the bridge Indiana Jones gets trapped on in Temple of Doom, stuck between Nazis and the crazy Indian death-cult. Except this bridge was twenty-five feet over the forest floor, not hundreds of feet over a croc-infested river. I’ve walked across the bridge. I thought it was sturdy.
“Ash.” Tibo is standing next to me, his voice low. “I need you right now.”
I nod at him and he turns to the assembled staffers and guests and says, “This is a tragedy, but one that must be dealt with. Could everyone please return to the Hub? We’re going to call the sheriff and inform him there’s been an accident.”
A few people drift off, the guests and the newer staffers, the ones who didn’t know Pete, but most of the crowd lingers. Ignoring Tibo, staring down at the ground, like Pete might shake off being dead and stand back up.
Tibo raises his voice. “Please, everyone. I know this is very difficult.”
More departures. Tibo grabs Cannabelle as she passes. “Call the cops, okay? Ask for Ford specifically.”
She nods, her eyes rimmed in red. One small hand, her fingernails caked in dirt, placed over her mouth. Not like she might throw up, more like she’s trying to hold something in. She turns to me and her body looks like it’s about to unwrap and fall to the ground. She wants a hug. The comfort of human contact, and anyone will do.
I step aside, let her look for someone else.
She settles on Magda, whose face is mostly hidden behind a wild bush of fuzzy gray hair, her thick body draped in a yellow sundress and yellow shawl and yellow ceramic jewelry that clacks when she moves. They fall into each other and Cannabelle glances back at me, disappointed. Tibo puts a hand on each of their shoulders.
“Okay, ladies,” he says. “Head on back.”
They disengage, hold hands, and walk off.
There’s a sharp voice behind us. “We should start cleaning up.”
Marx is standing at the edge of the clearing, tense, like he’s preparing to pounce on someone. He’s barefoot, wearing an old pair of jeans, the legs folded up mid-calf, and a red t-shirt, and his stupid black bowler hat.
My understanding is he and Crusty Pete were close, but he’s not betraying any emotion other than anger.
Tibo takes a few steps toward him. “Why don’t you head on back with the others?”
Marx puffs his chest. Tibo is wires and bone and sinew. Marx is thick and lean. The kind of body that indicates a life of working outside. I’ve got a big ego and I wouldn’t want to fuck with him. But I kind of assume it’s going to happen eventually, only because he’s got a bad attitude and I’m good at inviting stupid things into my life.
“We can’t leave him lying there in the dirt,” Marx says.
“Yes we can,” Tibo says, pushing up his thick-framed black glasses, which are sliding down his face on a sheen of nervous sweat. He’s not so much looking at Marx as he’s looking at some point past Marx, beyond the trees. “We can’t start disturbing things. I know it’s not fun, but we have to do the right thing here…”
“The right thing. Leave him lying in the dirt. Of course you wouldn’t care.”
“This has nothing to do with me and him,” Tibo says.
Marx takes a step forward. “Does it? Maybe it does. How am I supposed to know that?”
This is the start of a familiar and very unproductive dance, so I get between them. “Marx, go back, keep everyone organized. We’ll handle things here.”
“What the fuck…”
“I’m not repeating myself,” I tell him. “This whole thing is very unpleasant. Let’s not make it even more unpleasant. In case it’s not clear, yes, that is a threat.”
Marx is mulling over whether a challenge is worth what’s next. His eyes studying me like he’s looking for a weak point. I want to tell him that no, it’s not worth it, but that’d be throwing gasoline on a trash fire. I hold his jade green eyes for what seems like a moment too long, and finally he shakes his head and looks around me
to Tibo. “This doesn’t smell right.”
Tibo still won’t make eye contact with him. Marx spins around and stalks off. We watch him until he disappears, and then it’s the two of us.
And Pete, lying on the ground.
“That dude is a giant walking bag of dicks,” I say, nodding after Marx.
“That’s a strange analogy,” Tibo says. “I’d just call him an asshole.”
We turn, survey the scene. The bridge. The body. Look up at the tree house.
“Can you get up there?” Tibo asks.
“Cannabelle is the resident climber. Want me to go get her?”
“I need you to go up there.”
“Why?”
“Because I trust you.”
I put my hands on my hips, look at Tibo. “What’s going on?”
“I need to know Pete wasn’t stashing any drugs,” Tibo says. “Anything hard, at least. We don’t have long until the sheriff gets here.”
“What happened, anyway?”
“No one saw it. Sunny found him. I think the scene is pretty self-explanatory.”
“Snap, fall, snap.”
“It’s my fault.” Tibo says. He takes a big breath and sighs. “It’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault.”
He looks at me sideways. “I’m in charge. It’s my fault.”
“Let’s put that aside for right now.”
Tibo arches an eyebrow, leans forward, and sniffs. “Little early to be drinking, isn’t it?”
“Only if you lack resolve.”
He rolls his eyes and hurries off, so I circle the tree, give the body a wide berth, look for a place to get a handhold. There doesn’t seem to be a very good one until I get all the way around to the other side, and find a branch low enough that I can catch it and thick enough that, hopefully, it won’t break under my weight.
Hopefully. One broken neck is enough.
Wait, no. One is too many.
I take a long drink from my flask, cram it back in my pocket, take a few steps and jump, grab the branch. The wood cuts into my palms and the branch dips toward me but it doesn’t break, so I pull myself up and wrap my legs around it, twist myself over until I’m lying on top of it. I slide down toward the base of the tree, to where the branch is thicker, and there are enough branches around it I can get up to a standing position.
