Fisherman: When Watterson stopped, I felt like somebody I loved died. I mean, I cried.
Me: I understand.
Fisherman: You’re serious about this.
Me (nodding):
Fisherman: Okay. I’m going to give you the shortest lesson on ice I can. You listen up. It’s probably safe, given that we’ve had a month below freezing. But if you see logs, stumps, rocks, anything sticking up out of the ice, you stay away. They pick up heat from the sun in the day and make weak moats of ice around them. If the ice looks gray and pebbly, that’s rotten ice. It forms in a snowstorm and all those trapped air bubbles are bad news. Another thing—you see water on top of ice, you beware. Water is heavier than ice and it creates fractures called honeycombs. Honeycomb ice is deadly. Discolored snow might mean slush: avoid. If the snow is even and you see a sudden depression? Avoid. If you see a straight open crack, not to worry—they can freeze over. But if two or more cracks meet, avoid. You got all that?
Me: Yes, sir.
Susie: Got it. Logs, gray and pebbly ice, water on ice, discolored snow, depressions, and more than one crack.
Fisherman: This lake, she’s a bit o’ ocean, left over from a dinosaur ocean, and she has suffered. She has had to swallow boats. There’s a Civil War tugboat down there, preserved in the cold water. In 1841 the steamship Erie burned, killin’ 250 people, and they say you can still see it burnin’ sometimes out on the water. In 1923 Chevy made a coupe with engines that used copper cooling fins and suffice to say they were a fire hazard. So GM recalled them all—498 of them—and dumped them in Lake Erie. And then the people on the bottom, of course. She doesn’t like it. The lake, she looks pretty, but people forget she’s a force to be reckoned with. She’s a sea, and she doesn’t like any human garbage. You remember that. Don’t make her suffer any more than she already has.
Me (nodding):
Susie (nodding):
Fisherman: Lake Erie has her monsters, too. Jenny Greenteeth, she’s a monster that can see up through the ice. Then there’s the Black Dog of Lake Erie. He appears on ships before they go down to the bottom. And of course there’s South Bay Bessie, the sea monster.
I’d heard of South Bay Bessie, the forty-foot serpent that was sighted every so often in Lake Erie. Even the Seneca Indians knew about her.
Fisherman: So now I’ve told you about the lake, do you really mean to do this thing?
Susie:
Me: Yes.
He opened our duffel bag and dug around in our gear.
Fisherman: Seems like you got what you need.
He rubbed his beard a moment, considering us, and then he shoved his hands in his coat pockets.
Fisherman: Tell him about me. Bill Watterson, I mean. When you see him, tell him about me.
Me: I will.
Fisherman: Tell him my name. Orvil Watts.
Me: Orvil Watts.
Orvil: Wait…!
He slipped back into his shanty and came out with a bag.
Orvil: Cookies.
Hobbes: Cookies!
Orvil Watts put the cookies in the duffel bag.
Me: Thank you. You’re not going to make that call, though, right?
Orvil: No. I get it now. Walk on.
Susie and I walked on, pulling the sled. I looked back once, but Orvil was gone.
* * *
Trudge, trudge.
That was the language of boots.
They only said one thing now—trudge, trudge—but it was possible that boots had a sophisticated poetry that only they could hear with their rubber ears and speak with their rubber tongues.
Susie: Well, this is exciting.
Trudge, trudge.
Susie: Yes, everybody’s going to be über-impressed with this.
Trudge, trudge.
Susie: Yup, here we are, out on the bald, boring, frozen lake …
Me: It doesn’t have to be exciting. It just has to be a pilgrimage. That’s all Bill cares about.
She stopped.
She was still a moment. She bent down and picked up a wad of snow and threw it at me.
Thwap.
Right in the face.
She always was a good shot.
Hobbes laughed.
I started making a snowball and she ran away.
Me (running after her): Bill will understand. I’m Calvin, remember? I was always doing stuff he didn’t like or agree with.
Hobbes: The embodiment of human stupidity.
Susie turned back toward me. I chucked the snowball, but it didn’t connect.
Susie: Calvin, just think about it. If Bill pays the slightest attention to this, just imagine the crazies that would come out!
We looked at each other and laughed until we had to sit down.
Susie’s face changed when she was laughing. It went all soft and relaxed, and stayed that way for a while after she stopped.
Susie: I haven’t laughed like that in—
Me: In a year?
She frowned and stood up.
Susie: We’d better get going.
We weren’t making near the time I’d thought. It was slower going when you were walking on snow and around chunks and ridges of ice. But it felt good to be in the dimension of nothing. Close to four o’clock now, the sun was lower on the horizon, a whiter hole in a white sky. It didn’t shine. It looked like a dead sun, a ghost sun, as if the heat had all burned out of it. You could look right at it. We had maybe two hours before dark, so we had to make good time.
I couldn’t hear anything but my own breath and my boots and Susie’s boots like an echo after mine. The sled felt like it was loaded up with lead. I could hear Hobbes snoring, so I figured he was taking a ride.
Spaceman Spiff had been disconnected from the spaceship and was just drifting, drifting, drifting away into the vacuum. Earth kept getting smaller until it was a blue basketball and then a blue baseball and then a blue marble, and he stared and stared until it was a blue dot. His air ran out and his body died, but weirdly he didn’t decay in the vacuum of space, and one day an alien garbage man picked him up and Spiff’s eyeballs were wide open and filled with shiny blue atoms—
Susie stopped. For a second I’d forgotten how to stop, and then I remembered.
Susie: Listen.
She was staring into the sky, staring like a blind person would stare—unseeing, listening with her whole body.
Me: What?
Susie: What do you hear?
Me: My breathing.
Susie: No, Calvin. Listen. Just listen.
So I listened.
When you’ve lived all your life with the sound of Life in General, you don’t even hear it anymore. You don’t hear the noise of cars, trucks, trains, airplanes, refrigerators, air conditioners, furnaces, and you don’t feel radio and television waves shooting through you, and you don’t hear telephones, animals, birds, floors creaking, doors opening, the voices of six billion people all talking and laughing and crying, and over a billion cows mooing and nineteen billion chickens clucking and a million species of bugs buzzing, and you don’t realize that it all adds up to this low hum of Life in General.
Life in General doesn’t live in the middle of the lake.
Me: It’s quiet.
Susie had closed her eyes. She didn’t answer me.
My ears started straining for something, like they had this need to hear something, anything, like that little eardrum needed something to beat its bongos. After a long moment, I did.
Me: It’s the sound a planet makes when it travels a hundred thousand kilometers an hour through space.
Susie: It’s a truck.
Me: Huh?
Susie: That sounds like a truck!
Hobbes: A planet spinning through space sounds like a truck?
Susie (turning): Calvin—
We turned around.
A truck was coming.
A gray truck.
Coming straight at us.
Me: It’s a truck.
Susie:
Me: On t
he lake—driving on the lake—
Susie:
Me: Tell me you see that.
Susie: I see it.
The truck slowed down as it pulled up beside us. It had no doors or roof, but it was a truck.
A man wearing a plaid hat with earflaps nodded to us, as if he met people walking on the lake all the time.
Plaid-hat guy: Have you seen Fred?
Me:
Susie: We … we don’t know a Fred.
Plaid-hat guy: Okay. Thanks.
Me: Bit chilly without the doors and roof of your truck?
Plaid-hat guy: We take ’em off. If the ice breaks, we can jump out.
Me: Oh.
Susie stared down at the ice.
Plaid-hat guy pulled away.
Me: Okay, a truck just drove up to us on the ice and asked for Fred. Sometimes the world is crazier than me.
Susie (staring after the truck): Stuff like that only happens when I’m with you.
She looked doubtfully at the ice and started walking.
You know how if you stare at clouds long enough you start to see shapes? The same thing happens with snow. You don’t just see snow anymore. It has textures and colors and shapes: snow like silk, like a wedding dress; snow like slabs of cement, like the lake was an abandoned construction site for ice palaces; snow like crunchy cookie crumbs; snow stretched and blown and fine as desert dunes. And maybe, Bill, the same thing happens with people if you spend enough time with them or think about them enough.
That’s what was happening to me, walking beside Susie hour after hour. Here on the lake she was tough and gutsy. Growing up with her I just took her for granted. She was just this kid who was always there when I wanted to hang out with someone or bug someone. And now she was like this woman, this strong woman who was doing this thing with me.
Susie: How far do you think we’ve gone?
I knew we weren’t doing five K an hour, and I was worried we weren’t even doing four.
Me: I’m sure there will be a sign soon to let us know how far we’ve come.
Susie: Clever.
Me: My brain I offer to the gods.
Susie: What makes you think they want it?
Me: What makes you think I want it?
Calvin the human furnace moves forward on his mission to cross the arctic lake. The human furnace and his companion are tiny hot spots in a wasteland of frozen cold. Together they trudge, partners in their dark destiny, willing to share in the glory of success or the ignominious fate of defeat.
Me: Trudge, trudge.
Me: Trudge, trudge.
Me: Trudge, trudge.
Susie: You’re driving me crazy.
Me: Welcome to my world.
Susie: I know we’re trudging, I don’t need the voice-over.
* * *
We trudged and I didn’t say the word trudge once. Susie took over the compass because I kept forgetting to look at it.
Hobbes: I know why you did this. You did it on purpose knowing that I’m a jungle animal and I don’t like the cold. You want me to freeze to death.
Me: That would be a bonus.
Hobbes: Why do you want to get rid of me? I’m your friend.
Me: Are you sure you’re my friend?
Hobbes: I’ve never eaten you. Doesn’t that prove my undying friendship? I’m here to protect you, and to make sure you don’t give up on winning the Change the World Lottery.
Me: You’re not protecting me. You’re the thing I need protecting against.
Hobbes: I could help you with Susie. I’ve got a way with the babes.
Me: We’re on a hike, not a date.
Susie: You got that right. Other guys take me to the movies.
Me: Let’s remember I didn’t ask you on this date.
Susie: That was very gallant of you to say.
Me: But I’m glad you came.
She stopped.
Susie: You are? You admit it?
Me: It’s easy to admit things to a figment of your imagination.
She laughed.
That was a bad sign. The real Susie would have punched me in the arm.
Susie (frowning, looking down): Calvin, I’m sorry.
Me: You should be. What are you sorry for?
Susie: For ditching you to hang out with other people.
Me: Oh that.
Susie: Turns out they were boring.
Me: Even the guys you dated?
Susie: Especially them.
Me: And I’m not? Boring?
Susie: No. Sometimes I wish you were a bit more boring.
Hobbes: You are boring. You keep telling me to go away. When did you get so boring?
Me (to Hobbes): I can’t play my life away. There’s this thing called growing up. It’s essential for functioning in the adult world.
Hobbes: The adult world is highly overrated.
Me: It’s the only one I know of for people over a certain age.
Hobbes: We could have our own world.
Me: Bill Watterson is in the adult world and I—
Hobbes: Bill Shmill. Also highly overrated. Why do you keep talking about him like he’s the creator of the known universe?
Me: Hey! You wouldn’t exist without him.
Hobbes: Remember what it feels like to wake up on a summer morning and not think about anything except going outside and sitting under a tree? You’ve forgotten. I bet Bill has, too. Instead of a heart you’ll have an iPhone. Instead of a brain you’ll have pings that tell you what has to be done that day and that minute. You’ll never sit in a tree house again, or build a snow fort. You’ll rake and shovel walks, instead. But it doesn’t have to be that way, ol’ buddy …
Me: Susie—
Susie: Oh, you’re talking to me now? Please, don’t let me interrupt what must be a scintillating conversation—
Me: Do you know what the default network in your brain is?
Susie: Yes, I know what the default network is.
Me: You do?
Susie: Of course I don’t! I’m normal! Normal people don’t know all this stuff about their brains.
Me: So the default network consists of three main regions: the medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex, and the parietal cortex.
Susie: Sounds like a fabric for fitness wear.
Me: All these parts of our brain talk to each other, like social networking. The medial prefrontal helps us imagine ourselves as individuals and also the thoughts and feelings of others. Animals have trouble with that—this is a thing that makes us human.
Hobbes: Hey!
Susie: Can you imagine my thoughts and feelings right now?
Me (ignoring her): All those brain bits give you this sense of yourself, like you’re the star in the movie of your life. But people who have schizophrenia, their medial prefrontals go on strike—malfunction, malfunction. We’re thinking, all right, but we don’t know where the thoughts are coming from, so it feels like someone is putting thoughts in our heads, or someone is reading our minds.
Susie: You are so weird.
She stopped suddenly and sat on the sled.
Susie: I have to sit.
I sat beside her. I reached into the duffel bag and pulled out two granola bars. We peeled the wrappers off and ate slowly. I threw a piece behind me for Hobbes.
Susie: What are you doing?
Me: Feeding Hobbes.
Susie: That’s a waste of food.
Hobbes: That’s a matter of opinion.
Susie was staring out over the lake.
Me: You okay?
Susie: It’s beautiful, really, isn’t it.
Me (stomping the ice): What, this old thing?
She didn’t smile.
Susie: This emptiness. I bet we’re the only ones who have come this far. It’s been this beautiful and strange on the lake every winter forever, and nobody knew about it and nobody cared and it still went on being beautiful. Just because.
Sometimes Susie was hard to figure out, but she just
went on being beautiful and strange forever. I had watched her around the kids at school, and she was never like this with them, never raw like she’d bleed if you touched her.
Susie: Doesn’t it make you feel kind of awesome that the world is beautiful for no other apparent reason than that it is? Like beauty has its own secret reason. It doesn’t need human eyes to notice. It just wants to be glorious and unbelievable.
Me: You’re unbelievable.
Susie had been breaking off bits of her granola bar and eating them as if her hands were part of her digestive system before teeth. After a minute she looked at me.
Susie: You’re not following that up with a sarcastic comment?
Me: No.
Susie: That was a major step forward in our relationship.
I didn’t answer because the word relationship was pinging around in my skull.
Susie: Do you ever wonder what life is all about, Calvin? Yeah, I know you do. You’re one of the few guys I personally know who stop to wonder about that. For me—I don’t know what it’s all about, but I’ve decided maybe that’s the cool thing about it. Life lets you decide for yourself. I mean, it would be awful if it wasn’t up to us, wouldn’t it? If life said, this is what I’m about and don’t go getting any ideas of your own?
Me: So have you had any ideas?
She nodded.
Susie: As weird as it sounds, I got an idea a long time ago that you were one of the things my life was about.
Me: When you say you, do you mean me?
Susie (ignoring me): I didn’t know what that would mean. Maybe it would be just something I felt and wouldn’t add up to anything. Maybe I’d just, you know, keep newspaper articles about you in an album if you became famous. Or maybe if you became a starving artist I’d have to send you money in unmarked envelopes. But then you got sick and I thought maybe it meant that I was supposed to be there for you, or—or help in some way.
We were quiet for a while.
Me: You’re wrong about us being the only ones who have ever seen this. Walter Lick walked across the lake in the winter of 1912, Gene Heuser in 1963, and Dave Voelker in 1978. Who knows if there’s been anyone since.
Susie: Did they live?
Me: Barely.
Susie: Barely is better than nothing.
We finished our granola bars and got walking.
* * *
I felt like I could walk to the moon, Bill. I was on this hike with a girl who could see something beautiful on a vast, empty, eerie, frozen lake. Underneath the ice it was dark and cold and mysterious, but all she saw was the beauty and awesomeness of it.
Calvin Page 5
