Calvin

by Martine Leavitt

  Susie: Toy …

  Me: And how idiotic is it that some even pretty ordinary people over here have a single house as big as a whole African village, for only two people and their kid-dog. Really? Really? And these are supposedly sane people, Susie. You know what’s even stupider, Susie—even stupider than all that? That we all sit around and let it happen.

  Susie (with a dreamy smile): That’s why I picked you.

  Me: That’s a good answer, Susie. More than one word is good. Did you know the last war cost three trillion dollars? What if we got together over pizza and said, here’s three trillion dollars. We can use it to kill people, or we can use it to solve our differences. I bet three trillion dollars could go a long way toward solving a few differences. I bet our best TV-commercial makers could help people understand how moronic war is. What do you say to that, Susie?

  Susie: Mmmm …

  Me: That’s not a word.

  Susie: Moronic.

  Me: Okay, okay, because that was three syllables. It’s just that the world is so big, Susie. We think we can’t change anything because if we tried someone would call us crazy, but I can tell you that that is not the worst thing in the world.

  I thought about what I’d just said for a minute.

  Me: Okay, maybe it’s up there, but not the worst thing—

  Hobbes: Look at her. She’s cold, she’s exhausted. Her lips are chapped—

  Me: Susie—Susie, you doing okay?

  Susie: I really can’t feel my feet. How much longer, Calvin?

  I took off my mitten and scooped some snow in my bare hand. I held it until it melted.

  Me: Here, Susie.

  She lifted my cupped hand to her lips and slurped like a cat.

  I did it again.

  I did it until my hand was too cold to melt the snow.

  Susie: So good.

  Me: You’re doing great, Sooz. You’re strong.

  Susie: Not strong. Tell me again why we had to do this?

  Me: I don’t know.

  Susie:

  Me: I don’t know anymore.

  Susie:

  Me: I—I think I was trying to understand, trying to figure out why I am the way I am. I think I felt like if Bill came out and made a comic about me, I’d understand something about myself, just like Scout did when Boo Radley came out. It would make me feel like the broken bits of me were put back together and the cracks might even disappear—

  Hobbes: Crack.

  Me:

  Hobbes: Crack in the ice.

  I looked. A crack in the ice.

  Me: Just step over it.

  Hobbes: You step over it.

  I stepped over the crack.

  I lived.

  The ice felt firm under my feet, but soon I saw another crack, and then another.

  Susie: The ice is breaking.

  Me: No. Remember what Orvil said. These are old cracks. It’s frozen over again. And the cracks don’t intersect.

  We walked.

  Susie handed out a cookie when we couldn’t stand it anymore.

  We walked.

  Susie handed out the last cookie.

  We walked.

  * * *

  Calvin the abominable snowman, yeti for short, surveys his icy kingdom—

  Me (to me): Stop it.

  Man has driven him into the coldest wastelands—

  Me (to me): Stop it, stop it.

  His mate, smaller and weaker than him, has been pushed past her endurance. She’s a little on the toothy side, and has a tendency to bite, but when you’re an extinct race, you take your love where you can.

  Me: Doing okay, Susie?

  She shook her head.

  Me: Let me carry you for a while.

  She shook her head again.

  Me: Yes, let me carry you for a while.

  Susie: I’m too heavy.

  Me: Argue not, mate, only obey.

  She held out a hand to ward me off.

  Susie: Who are you now?

  Me: Yeti. We can do this, Susie. Think of it as a video game, and the snow and the cold are the enemy, and all we have to do is get to that next drift of snow, or that bump shaped like a fin, or step on twenty dents in the ice, and we get to the next level. Every level is a bit harder than the one before, but if you avoid trapdoors and keep moving around, you’re good. You’re sort of good.

  She shook her head. She didn’t want to play.

  Me: Susie, when we get to the other side of this lake, I’m going to buy you fried eggs and lots of white-bread toast slathered in real butter, with pancakes for dessert.

  Susie: And a breakfast brownie.

  It sounded like bre-fash bow-nee.

  Me: There’s no such thing as a breakfast brownie.

  Hobbes: There should be.

  * * *

  Spaceman Spiff looks out over the frozen wasteland of Planet Erie. It has been well named, he thinks wryly. He and his fellow astronaut are doomed, of course, stranded as they are on this cold ball of rock and ice, hurtling through the blackness of space. They have contacted the father ship. All hope is not lost. But did the captain get the message? Will he think it worth it to interrupt his own mission to rescue them? They will be declared heroes for the cause of space exploration, and people will speculate about how long it took them to die.

  But Spiff doesn’t give up that easily. Eventually the father ship will come to this planet, and won’t the captain be surprised to find they have conquered the elements and survived against all odds. Spiff looks at his female sub-officer. She is a good astronaut—uncomplaining, forging ahead in the hopes of finding shelter. Wouldn’t the captain be surprised to find they had not only survived, but procreated—their firstborn the first citizen of Planet Erie …

  Susie: Why are you looking at me like that?

  Wye r oo lookin ah meh like tha?

  Me: Oh, nothing.

  Bill, I wanted to live, and most of all I wanted Susie to live, and that’s what I was thinking about when I heard the most horrible sound in the world: the sound of Susie crying.

  Me: Susie?

  Susie (sniff):

  Me: Susie?

  Susie: Are you kidding me?

  Ah oo ki-ing me?

  Susie: Where is the shore? We should be able to see the land by now. We’re going to die out here on this horrible lake!

  Me: Well, the lake itself isn’t horrible—

  Susie: Don’t you talk to me!

  Me: I just—

  Susie: Don’t! Don’t you talk to me ever again! I’m not speaking to you, you understand? Ever, ever again. That’s what you get for killing me.

  Me: Susie, I’m not going to let you die.

  Susie: Let me? Let me? I’ll tell you what, you don’t let me do anything. I don’t need your permission to do anything, including dying.

  Me:

  Susie (gasping a little):

  Me: Is there a correct response to what you just said?

  She stood still.

  Susie: I can’t move now.

  I put my arms around her.

  Yeti’s mate laid her head on his shoulder and some primeval feeling he could not articulate filled his being. He would do this. He would get her to safety, to the civilization of man.

  It was all his fault, after all.

  All his fault all his fault all his fault—

  We weren’t freezing with all our juices in us. We were freeze-drying, freeze-squeezing. The lake was squeezing all the life out of us. I melted more water with my hands, but it only gave her a slurp or two. My hands were big toothaches, throbbing.

  Hobbes: My paws hurt. I’m thirsty.

  When you are in the middle of a flat, frozen lake, Bill, it looks like you are in the exact center of a perfect circle. Which is awesome in a way because it’s like the world really does revolve around you, like you’re at the center of all meaning. But then it gets kind of freaky, because no matter how long and hard you move, you can’t get out of the middle of that circle. No matter where
you are, you’re at the epicenter of the known universe, and it follows you wherever you go, even if it’s the stupidest universe you could come up with.

  Hobbes: I’m hungry. My paws hurt.

  The sun was getting lower on the horizon again. My legs were setting, too. Soon it would be night and that would be it for my legs. Susie took slow, shuffling steps. I was colder again.

  Suddenly she stopped and shrieked.

  Susie: Calvin! Lights!

  I almost tripped over my dead feet.

  Maybe they were stars …

  But no, they were lights, distant and tiny, but lights for sure.

  Susie: Land! We made it! I thought we were going to die.

  I knew things looked a lot closer than they really were on the lake, but I didn’t say anything.

  Susie: Oh.

  Me: Oh?

  She whimpered.

  Susie: I think I peed my snow pants.

  Me: Okay. It’s okay, Susie.

  Susie: I didn’t mean to.

  Me: Yeah, it would be different if you meant to.

  Susie: It was warm for a minute.

  Hobbes: Can we not go into the details?

  Susie: But now it’s cold.

  And then, Bill, she started shivering.

  She was shivering, and every Boy Scout there ever was knew that was bad.

  You couldn’t escape the reality of shivering.

  And right then, Bill, Hobbes walked into my full view—a massive eight-foot tiger with a head the size of a basketball and paws the size of cereal bowls and all his muscles rumbling and popping under his fur. I could see every bit of him now, orange against the white ice and snow and a black Rorschach test on his head. He was as real as Susie, or maybe Susie was as real as him, or maybe nothing was real including me, and I turned slowly around in a circle and came back to Hobbes and Susie, who had sat down.

  Me: No, Susie, you can’t sit down.

  Susie: I’m sleepy.

  Me: No. No sleep.

  Susie (so softly I could barely hear her): Is this what it feels like to lose your mind, Calvin? Like your brain is filled with a hundred thoughts at once and none of them go together and you don’t know if what you’re seeing and hearing is for sure? Is that what it’s like?

  Me: Yeah, Susie. A lot like that. Come on.

  I pulled her to her feet, but her knees started bending.

  Susie: I’m sorry, Calvin, I can’t.

  Me: I’ll carry you.

  Susie: No. I have to walk.

  Me: Yeah. You do. Come on.

  Susie: In a minute.

  She folded down.

  Hobbes: Make her mad.

  Me: Go away.

  Hobbes: Make her chase you.

  Me: I—

  I stopped.

  I bent down and picked up a handful of snow and chucked it at her.

  Hobbes: That’s it!

  Thwap!

  Susie: Calvin!

  She tried to scream it, but only this shrill pathetic sound came out.

  I hit her with another one.

  Thwap!

  Hobbes: That’ll get her up!

  Susie: Calvin, what are you doing? Stop it, you freak!

  She had put consonants on the ends of all her words.

  Me: Snowball fight! Snowball fight! Whoever wins gets to be the boss.

  Susie: You do that again, and I’ll—

  Me: You’ll what? You’ll what?

  I chucked another snowball. Thwap!

  She stood up like an old woman and picked up some snow and slowly formed it into a snowball.

  Susie: This!

  I tried to dance around a bit, but I was so stiff I moved like a robot.

  Susie: This is for bringing me on this stupid frozen lake—

  I dodged and the snowball sailed past me. She bent down again.

  Her pitch came faster this time and it caught my leg.

  Thwap! I got her again.

  Me: You’ll have to chase me!

  She made a huge snowball.

  I plodded in the direction of the lights. She started to stumble after me. She waddled like a baby in a big swollen diaper. We both half screamed and half laughed this dry wheezy laugh, and then I slipped and fell on my backside and she threw the snowball right in my face and said I’m going to pummel you, you jerk, and she swung her arms at me for a while and I held her off at arm’s length and then she stopped and breathed hard a minute and finally she said let’s go.

  * * *

  I thought we could do it, Bill. Maybe the lights weren’t all that far away.

  It turns out they were.

  The wind had blown the ice bare ahead of us, so the going was a bit easier for a while. Then Susie started shivering again.

  Hobbes was padding along just ahead of us, not speaking, not looking back at us, and I could see all of him now, all the time. He slunk and weaved in front of me, putting his nose to the ice as if he smelled something under there.

  Me: I figured something out, Hobbes. You might always be true about me. I can’t control you, I can’t make you go away. But you know what? If I can’t control you, you can’t control me either. That’s all I need to know.

  Hobbes: You, me, me, you. You can’t separate us. Listen to me. Maybe lots of people have a tiger, but they don’t know about it. I can help you.

  Me: I never wanted to hurt her.

  Susie: Calvin, what? What?

  Her voice was small and dry, like her throat had almost closed up.

  Her face was really peaceful.

  Susie: Calvin, I’m so sleepy …

  She stopped and stood there with her eyes closed.

  I picked her up and slung her arm around my shoulders, and she wasn’t even heavy, not even a bit heavy.

  Me: Don’t disappear on me, Susie. Just stay awake, okay, Susie? Even if I can only have the dream of you, I’ll take it.

  She didn’t answer.

  And that’s when Jenny Greenteeth crawled out.

  First her hands, Bill, big and purple with long curly fingernails. Then her head with kelp for hair and fish eyes for eyes, lidless and glassy, and inside her black mouth her teeth furred with green moss.

  Hobbes growled.

  She crawled out, big and whole.

  Jenny: I drowned, but I forgot to die.

  Stupendous Man carried the helpless damsel, Susie, in his impossibly muscular arms. If she knew he thought of her as a helpless damsel … He walked away from Jenny Greenteeth, but he could hear her following, hear her sloshing along behind him, slosh, slosh, slosh, her dripping skirts dragging on the ice. She kept up with him. She wasn’t going to go away. Stupendous Man was going to have to turn around and face her.

  Me: Can’t we work this out? Can you please just leave us alone?

  Jenny: It’s warm under the water. Come down.

  Me: No, thank you.

  Jenny: Why is there a tiger?

  Me: Why is there a ghost?

  Jenny: I died.

  Me: I’m sorry to hear that.

  Jenny: The girl is dying.

  Me: No.

  Jenny: She’ll be warmer under the water.

  She followed us, but she didn’t come any closer, keeping her ice-rimmed eyes on Hobbes. Her eyes clicked when she blinked.

  Click. Click.

  Jenny: First you’re cold, and then you’re not cold, and then you’re warm and you dream—

  Me: You’re not real. You’re not here. Leave us alone.

  Jenny: I’m true.

  Me: You’re not. I’m making you up.

  Jenny: Yes, you made me. I’m made. I’m here.

  Me: You have to go now.

  The lake was a big drum and the drum was thumping and booming and vibrating at a register just below hearing.

  Stupendous Man kept walking, the damsel in his arms. The ice had started to crack behind him … Stop stop stop.

  Jenny: Lots of monsters under the ice.

  Click.

  Me:

  Je
nny: What happened to you?

  Click. Click.

  Me:

  Jenny: Lots of monsters under the ice.

  Stupendous Man put the damsel down. Even with his unspeakable strength, he couldn’t carry his whole world in his arms forever.

  Me: Hobbes! Who’s stronger? You or Jenny?

  Hobbes: Me. I was always going to save you.

  Me: I know.

  Hobbes: That was always the point.

  Me: Yeah.

  Hobbes: We’re buddies, right? I know where the ice is good. Just follow me.

  Me: Between you and Jenny Greenteeth, Hobbes—who’s stronger?

  Hobbes: Not much to her.

  Me: Please, Hobbes.

  Slowly Hobbes turned toward Jenny. He growled and leaped away behind me. I lifted Susie up again and walked.

  I could hear Hobbes snarling.

  Me: Lots of monsters under the ice, Susie. But that’s okay—Hobbes can take care of them.

  Susie: Mmm …

  I heard an unearthly screeching sound, like metal grinding on metal.

  Susie: Wassat…?

  Me: You heard that, Susie?

  Jenny Greenteeth wailed and Hobbes roared and it echoed over the empty lake.

  Jenny glubbed and Hobbes yowled. It filled up the whole sky, that yowl.

  Susie: The ice is breaking up—

  Me: No, Susie, that’s Hobbes driving Jenny back down under the ice.

  Susie: That’s the ice screaming.

  Then Hobbes was in front of us again, licking his chops covered in green sauce.

  Hobbes: Like I said, not much to her.

  And then I put Susie on her feet, Bill, and we stood beside each other and stared at the lights on the shore and I couldn’t remember if they were stars or if they were some other thing my mind was inventing, and Hobbes stood with me, and I loved him, and Susie, too, and I cried because I loved me, too, and I’d forgotten that, if I’d ever known it, forgotten, just like I’d forgotten if they were stars or lights.

  Then Susie went down.

  Susie was lying beside me, curled on the ice like a baby, like the lake had a baby and just left it there, not even in a basket or on a doorstep, just left its blue baby there sleeping. I saw cracks in the ice, and this time they weren’t going away.

  Where were you, Bill? That’s what I kept thinking: Where are you? You would have known we were late, really late. I didn’t remember being mad since I was six years old, but right then I was so mad I stood up and started shouting—at the lake, at the sky, at you, Bill. Especially you.