by Julie Paul
And Jack was awake now, listening to Barbara breathing. He wanted to help Russell, but he couldn’t. If only the brain could be fixed like a bone. If the spirit could burn once more, a match to the wick. If the heart could yearn for things beyond medication that only ended up killing instead. Jack wanted to help more than Russell: those poor souls trampled on the way to pray in Mecca a few months back, children without clean water, mothers unable to cope with their sick kids, polar bears stranded on small carpets of floating ice, the world that burned and maimed and raged. He wanted to fight back, but there was no way he could take on any of it.
Now, insult to injury, he could hear sleet hitting the balcony. Russell cried out again, and Jack pulled Barbara closer until it felt like they were nearly one. She was pliant in sleep, and he wanted this particular moment to never, ever come to a close. Well, he wanted the sleet and the crying to stop, but not their merged bones, their heat, even their sour breath.
They were, in his dozy state, a sculpture in a field, a Barbara Hepworth or a Henry Moore or maybe more like a Giacometti: a made object in a natural setting. Rain or shine, they would stay rooted on the spot, though sheep may graze at their knees, though birds may alight on their ears, though sleet may needle its way through their surfaces, storm by storm.
Insult to injury? The weather had no agenda, except for the agenda people attached to it. Same with that hole in the ice, not made for a person to be pushed into but simply for entrance of hook, line, sinker, and bait—and for the potential exit of the fooled fish, a thrash of silver and fight—although the hole he’d been pushed into must’ve been made a lot bigger, for him. No way he’d been that skinny as a kid.
Just before Jack philosophized himself to sleep, a thought barged in. More of a slogan, really, something popular these days to support small businesses. Keep it local.
What would happen if Russell got pushed like he had, into frigid water? What could come of a plunge like that? A stripping away—a return to original state, baptism and all of that? Would he slip away quickly, or fight for ascension, kick toward the lantern light, dully glowing above?
Jack was filled with such longing that all chance of sleep was gone. He was going to wait out the morning with his love in his arms, and then, once their exams were over, he would put this idea to poet and woman, to see if they would help him lower Russell into Lake Ontario.
Barbara’s lips were as dry as the husk of an old runner bean as she slept on beside him. The crazy ideas continued. Maybe he could ask her to marry him, to accompany him to the grave with love as their limo. Whatever would stop the line from “Four Strong Winds” from playing on repeat in his aching head. “Still I wish you’d change your mind . . .”
“Will you marry me?” he mouthed into her ear, quiet as a breeze. Then, from below, Russell cried out again, and this time, Barbara woke up. But Jack didn’t ask her anything aloud; he put his own chapped lips to hers and said good morning, and they groaned their way out of bed to go write their exams. Another day closer to the end.
|||||||||||||||||||||
Two days later, exams done, the three of them met at Oasis, the restaurant they reserved for celebrations, although none of them looked up for a party. Still, Barbara ordered the tenderloin, thick coins beneath a mushroom cream sauce; the poet got his usual deconstructed burger, everything on the side; and Jack splurged on a salmon filet presented where it had been cooked, on a cedar plank. Plants and animals, fusion again.
Before the food arrived, Joshua spread some photographs on the table. He liked to snap pictures of random moments and show them later, asking them to guess where and when.
In one photo, Jack’s own neck shocked him, taken from the back. It was too slender, barely there at all, and his shoulders! The bones made gables at their outermost edges, as if his shirt had been hung on sharp hooks. Barbara sat beside him, her hair’s waves catching the light in regular intervals of beauty, while Jack seemed to have a heavy head, unable to hold it completely straight. With a neck like that, no wonder.
It was attention the poet had caught; they’d been at a lecture on the intersection of biology and art.
Still, the picture made Jack wonder if he was capable of doing what he was about to suggest. None of them were athletes, but altogether, he hoped, they’d add up to one.
After two quick pints, he had to grab onto a chair to steady himself when he got up to use the bathroom.
“Are you woozy?” Barbara asked, and laughed approvingly. It was a game between them, to get the other drunk, despite Jack’s father’s history, and they weren’t any good at it.
“I’m okay,” Jack told her. “Just tired.”
With finals over, the break of nothingness between semesters loomed. Plus he’d botched at least one essay on his philosophy final (oh, the existential worry of it, too much awareness of his awareness), and Christmas was only days away, like an earthquake that was not only predicted but confirmed, and then the tsunami of her leaving would strike.
When Jack returned to the table, he launched into it—his idea to help Russell. To his astonishment and delight, they agreed immediately, wide grins all around. He couldn’t tell if they were humouring him or really on board, but he kept his hopes up.
“We’ll need a rope, around his waist or something,” the poet said. “We have no idea whether or not he can swim.”
“What about a life jacket?” Barbara asked.
“I have a rope,” Jack said. “No jacket.”
Over more drinks, they came up with the plan. Well, not so much a plan as a manifesto. They would save Russell. Come hell or high water, they’d grab him, nab him, then get him down to the river!
They just had a few logistics to work out.
Problem #1: None of them had a vehicle. Solution: Taxi.
Problem #2: The fight in Russell. They’d seen him throw punches as well as fits, sometimes both at once.
Solution: Something strong, offered to him in the guise of a warm beverage. Hot chocolate laced with NyQuil?
Problem #3: Immunity to such innocent drugs. Solution: Triple the dose?
Problem #4: Not alerting the cabbie to the crime. Solution: Acting like it was normal. Plus, luck?
Problem #5: Killing the guy instead of helping him. Solution: The rope?
|||||||||||||||||||||
They went back to the apartment to enjoy another few beverages, keep planning, and wait until nightfall. When the poet drank, he became goofy, effusive, obstreperous. When Barbara drank, which was news to Jack, she laughed and laughed and went weak, as if it went right to her bones and muscles. Jack tended toward verbal diarrhea and the munchies. He slowed down on the booze once the peanuts came out. Those recent memories about his father were a little too fresh.
Jack’s grandmother’s solution for everything was always food. No surprise—she was a classic grandma. Sad? Cupcakes. Can’t sleep? Peanut butter toast and a banana. Constipated? Prune juice smoothie. Lonely? Apple pie. Chest cold? Soup—chicken or mulligatawny, mustard and onions plastered on the chest. Really, really hungry? Mashed potatoes and cups of gravy, lots of meat.
He believed they could lure Russell in with something so delectable that he could not refuse. Cherry Delight, for some reason, was all that came to mind—another classic that Jack’s Grammie used to whip up monthly. Graham crust, Dream Whip, and cream cheese middle, a can of cherry pie filling spread on top. Perfection. But how would he get this into Russell’s hands? It was all goop and crumb.
Barbara came up with a better solution and set about creating it: warm cookies. It might appeal to the long-hidden kid in him, and as long as it wasn’t a major trigger, then it would work. Who could resist melted—melting—chocolate chips? Apparently not a trio of drunks—it was a wonder they saved any for Russell at all. But they reserved a few and tucked them into a yogurt tub for transport.
> |||||||||||||||||||||
Even in the frigid air they could smell Russell from ten feet away. He was rolled up in a tortilla of dirty sleeping bag and orange afghan, shaking and muttering to himself quietly, until they began talking to him. He emerged, rabid and lunging.
“We’re on a missive!” Joshua declared, and although Jack detected the boo-boo as soon as he said it, no one corrected him. Was he still that inebriated?
“Have a cookie!” Barbara cried. “They’re amaze-balls.”
Language skills were going to the dogs, but no one cared—they were on a mission and nothing, not blood alcohol levels nor punches nor sanity would stop them.
“How ’bout it?” Barbara continued. “Warm, still. I made them myself!”
“Here,” Joshua said, and presented the hot chocolate-NyQuil cocktail. “You can keep the cup too, bro.”
Russell had stopped thrashing about with as much intensity and was beginning to focus on each of them, one to the next, then back again.
He took the cup and drank sloppily, greedily. Perfectly. Then he set into the cookies. His grunts of pleasure were symphonic—or at least like hymns—to Jack’s ears.
Russell drank and ate. They stood and watched, stomping their feet to keep warm.
When he’d finished his cookies, he turned away from them, about to retreat into his nest. Jack recognized his pillow as the one he’d left for him a year before—its white Snoopy pillowcase gone brown. They had to stop him before he softened into a drugged sleep, but Barbara and Joshua were busy singing a jubilant version of “Away in a Manger,” arm in arm. One passerby threw change at them, either thinking they were carollers or just to shut them up.
“Russell,” Jack called. “We’re going to a party. Wanna come? Are you game?”
He swung his head slowly in Jack’s direction, his eyes turning to vacant once more.
“Fuck off,” he slurred. “Tired.”
They had to act quickly.
Once Jack got their attention, Barbara and the poet stopped singing, and while he made certain Russell stayed put, they managed to flag down a cab almost instantly.
“Here we go!” Jack said. “Russell?”
“No!” he said, over and over. He was weaving now, rubbing his beard and his head, kicking at cardboard and nothing. “No! Fuck off! I’m no trouble. I’m no trouble.”
“Let’s do it,” Jack said, and together, the three of them grabbed him and hauled him into the taxi’s back seat.
“A little too much holiday cheer,” Barbara told the cabbie, who seemed blasé about it all. Somehow, they all ended up in the back seat with Russell, pressed around him like big packing peanuts, trying not to breathe.
“To the docks,” Barbara said, and luckily, their chilled-out driver didn’t say a thing.
|||||||||||||||||||||
None of them ever looked at the forecast in Hamilton because nothing the weather threw at them seemed to make much difference in how they lived their young lives. They had the down jackets, the Gore-Tex, the toques. They had their (non) polar opposites. Youth wasn’t supposed to be spent mired in the details of precipitation. But if there was one day on which they would have been wise to check the predictions, it was this particular day. There was a storm on deck—a humdinger, a bazinger, a big, honking thing about to bury the whole bottom of the province within hours.
Russell had fallen asleep against Jack’s shoulder. The poet flourished a rope and a blue tarp from his satchel like they were magician’s supplies. What the tarp was for was anyone’s guess, but Joshua had insisted on bringing it when he spotted it in the front hall closet. Barbara was still singing carols, this time along to the radio. And with Russell’s filthy head resting on his shoulder, his mouth and nose taking breaths of such slight depth, Jack felt close to passing out.
When the snow amped up its productivity, the cab slowed sensibly, but they inched toward the lake nonetheless. Jack knew he was supposed to announce an exact destination, but he had no idea where to pick. All they needed was seclusion, a dock, and easy access, but the whole area looked like it would do the trick, aside from the lights that burned dimly through the chunky snowfall.
Yet, no. Slowly Jack’s brain had been coming back to alert mode, and suddenly, he knew with sober clarity that the idea was a lemon. But then the poet nudged him, signalled that this was the spot, and so he asked the cabbie to stop.
“Here?” he said. “You sure?”
“Thank you,” Barbara sang, like a jingle. “This is it!”
She and the poet unfolded themselves from the car and stood outside, completely stunned by the snow, tongues out to catch the giant flakes.
The driver looked back at Jack as he tried to pry Russell’s fingers from where they’d wrapped around the door handle. Even in his stupor he was somehow still fierce, guarded, rigid.
“He okay?” the cabbie asked.
“Oh, yeah, he’s just . . . ” Jack’s brain struggled to grab an explanation that didn’t involve them having drugged this guy before being about to throw him in the water. “He’s just having a diabetic episode,” Jack said. “His father works nearby, and he has the—he has what he needs.”
“No shit? Is he high or low?” The cabbie popped open his glovebox and pulled out a bright orange tube.
“I’m not sure, but—”
“Doesn’t really matter for now,” the driver said. “If this works, he’s low and we’ve saved him. My brother’s diabetic, so I keep this on hand. Here, open up his mouth a bit more. This needs to make contact with the gums.”
And just like that, he reached over the front seat and squirted some kind of goo into Russell’s chocolate-smeared mouth.
Russell’s eyes popped open and he jerked his head forward and hit Jack right in the chin. “What the fuck? What the fuck?”
“Whoa,” the cabbie said. “That was pretty fast.”
“Help, over here!” Jack called to the two snow worshippers, his eyes watering, teeth and jaw aching from the blow. Together they managed to get Russell out of the cab and pay the driver, who was pleased as punch to have saved somebody’s life.
Once the cab drove away, all they could hear was the whisper of the snow collecting above their prisoner’s murmurings. The air smelled like creosote, and snow, and then piss: Russell had peed his pants where he sat in the snow, leaning against Jack’s leg. But other than the odd strain against the rope they tied around Russell’s wrists, once the cabbie was out of sight, he was strangely still.
“Are we sure about this?” Jack asked. “I mean, maybe this whole little outing has been enough for him today. He seems pretty mellow.”
The poet laughed. “He’s just taken a piss against your leg, my friend. If that isn’t cause for a little swim, then I don’t know what is.”
Plan, still on.
But what if Russell didn’t want to wake up? Had he wanted to, that night his father pushed him under? He hadn’t wanted anything; he was numb. And when he came out? Not numb. Grateful? Hardly. Angry? Angry. And certainly more alert.
He’d seen Russell angry. That was not going to be pretty, if they were successful.
What had happened, really, that night he went under the ice? If he looked at it as a scientist, there were two possibilities. One, that the plunge had been an example of an acute stressor, causing a normal, healthy response in his body—adaptive stress that had made the blood flow to the areas it was most needed. Fight or flight instead of rest and digest.
Chronic stress was the villain; Jack had been reading papers on that since high school and had been witness to it, too, in his own mother. It didn’t take a psychiatrist to recognize that she’d been under tremendous strain with his father around, and once he left for good, the changes that began to happen. She would never turn her grey hair blonde again, except from a bottle,
but at least the light had come back into her eyes.
Acute stress, something sudden, short-lived, immediate, and then gone—that was the thing mammals were good at handling. Survival depended on it. Pain here, then gone, dealt with, over.
The second possibility was that Jack’s plunge into that lake had been an ancient hydrotherapy cure. A cold immersion bath. And hadn’t he read about cold exposure being as effective for depression and anxiety as drugs or electroshock treatment? Jack would have dismissed it all as more alternative mumbo jumbo, in the camp of homeopathy, if he hadn’t been the case study. He was the proof.
So, sure, he could pretend that they were doing the right thing here. Doctor Jack, prescribing, administering a medication. But he wasn’t a doctor. Who really knew what was wrong with Russell? Or what might change with a plunge?
It was all just a drunken caper, and now they had a captive man tied with rope who’d pissed his pants in possibly the biggest snowstorm of the decade, down at the docks with no way back home except walking. Cold water shock could just as easily set in if they ever got Russell into the lake; he was no teenager, lethargic but otherwise healthy—he was unwell, unstable, and now, unconscious. But what other choice did they have?
Jack untied Russell, then lay him down completely on his back and pillowed his head with the coiled rope. Barbara and the poet were busy making an army of snow angels until Jack stopped them at three apiece.
“Get up off your butts and help me,” Jack said to them. Why were they so mesmerized by this damned storm?
They laughed like maniacs when they looked at him, stern-armed, with his beard and toque gone completely white.
“Come on,” he pleaded. “We have to get serious. This is a bad thing here. We’re in deep shit.”
Just then, Russell began to moan.
All their cell phones were either dead or elsewhere, and the snow was continuing to make its wet descent—and then Jack had it, somehow. Another idea. A better one. The way out of this.
