Shoebox Trainwreck

by John Mantooth

  He came back to the car and opened the door. “Stay here,” he said.

  My mother said, “Bill—”

  But he was already gone, heading for the house.

  My uncle had several nicknames—Budgie, Whip, Bo. I always called him Rusty. I don’t know how he earned it or why it stuck, but I do know it fit him, and he wore the name with a kind of rugged grace I very much admired as a young boy.

  My first clear memory of the man would have been when I was seven. Dennis—Rusty’s son—and I were playing with baseball cards in the basement at Rusty’s house. Somewhere upstairs, we could hear the pleasant murmurs of our parents talking about the price of gas and Jimmy Carter.

  When Rusty came down, he went to a refrigerator on the far side of the basement and opened the door wide. Inside was Pabst Blue Ribbon beer—cases of the stuff. He pulled a can out and popped the top.

  He stood there, surveying us, one hand in his pocket, the other working the can up and down as he took long pulls from it, his face going fuzzy, a light smile playing on the corners of his lips.

  “Can I have some?” Dennis said. He glanced at me, almost as if he wanted to see if I was paying attention. He shouldn’t have worried. I was riveted. At seven, I must have had at least a vague idea of what a beer was. My own father drank them from time to time, though I’d never seen him attack a can with such obvious pleasure before.

  “A sip?” Rusty said. “Sure. Have a sip.”

  Dennis walked over. He must have been nine, maybe ten at the time. He stood next to Rusty, and they looked nothing like father and son, what with Rusty’s long lean build next to Dennis, who was short and dumpy like his mother, my Aunt Gloria. Rusty smiled and held the can out. Dennis, smiling too, took the can and turned it up, taking a huge gulp.

  “Easy, Cowboy,” Rusty said.

  Dennis swallowed, winced, and handed the can back to his father. Rusty looked at me sternly. “I’ll let you try it too, Will, if you promise not to tell your mother.”

  Even at seven I had been promising not to tell my mother things for as long as I could remember. Mom worried about rain or sometimes even clouds. You couldn’t cross the street without making her anxious.

  “I won’t tell.”

  And then I had the can in my hand, felt the cool aluminum on my lips. There was a strong odour, and I remembered thinking it smelled like Rusty. I let the tangy liquid slide over my tongue and almost spit it out.

  “Get her down,” Rusty said.

  I made myself swallow.

  “What’d you think?”

  I looked at Dennis. He looked at me expectantly.

  “Pretty good,” I lied.

  Rusty slapped me on the shoulder. “It’s a man’s right, Will. Beer. Don’t let nobody ever tell you any different.”

  The rockslide in the mountains near Rusty’s house was just that, a big slab of slick, moss-covered rock, tucked beneath a trickle of a waterfall. The slide must have been at least thirty feet from the top to the deep pool at the bottom. When we were really little, we would slide down in our underwear, spinning like tops as the sky pinwheeled above us, a carousel of blue interspersed with the green leaves of summer. Mom would be up top, wringing her hands, while Dad waited below, stripped down to a pair of cut-off blue jeans to catch us. Rusty sat on the tailgate of his truck, a beer in his hand, smiling as we splashed into the water so many times the moss from the rock turned the backs of our legs green.

  The rockslide was hidden in the most secret of places, a mile or so off the dirt road that traced an almost invisible line up the steep slope. I remember Rusty having to coax his truck over giant stumps and through rocky ravines, but he always got us there. Some of my best—and worst—memories happened on that rockslide, and even today, I can still picture the kind of details that usually fade with time: the patchwork of tree branches above us; the claw marks left by a black bear on the bark of a sycamore; the mud, thick on Rusty’s truck after hauling us up and down the mountain for the third time in a week; the faint sliver of moon in the late afternoon sky. Most of all, I remember the faces of the adults: Mom, Dad, Aunt Gloria, and Uncle Rusty, pleased with themselves at finding such a perfect spot, at providing this safe place for their children. And later, the worry, etched so deeply in the folds of their skin that it was easy to miss or misconstrue. I realize now that at least some of them were frightened about how it would all end.

  Wanda, Dennis’s little sister, was two years younger than I was, so she would have been about eight when she told me she wanted to die.

  “Why?” I asked her.

  We were out in her front yard, under the biggest tree I have ever seen. A white oak, so thick that together, four grown men couldn’t wrap their arms around it. Wanda was in the tire swing Rusty had put up years ago.

  She shrugged and let her feet dangle over the unmowed lawn. Her toes scraped past stalks of dandelions, destroying their blossoms and spreading achenes over the ground. “I don’t know. I’m just tired of living.”

  “That’s dumb.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah.”

  I gave the swing a push.

  “You ever think about heaven?”

  “Heaven?” I heard her fine, but the truth was, the thought of heaven scared me almost as much as hell.

  “You ever wonder exactly what it will be like?”

  “I don’t know. The Bible says there’s gold streets and mansions and singing and . . . stuff.”

  “Yeah. I hope it’s not that.”

  “Me too,” I said. “Be boring after a while.” I was a little surprised we agreed on this subject. Wanda scared me sometimes because she always seemed to focus on apocalyptic stuff like when Jesus was coming back and all the sinners would sink into a giant crack in the earth and burn forever in the flames of hell.

  “I hope it’s like the rockslide,” she said.

  “Dumb again,” I said. “Why would you want heaven to be like the rockslide? Even the rockslide would get boring after a while. Anyway, we can go to the rockslide any time. I want heaven to be a place I can fly or do anything.”

  Wanda shook her head and looked at me. Her eyes were so large and deep and full of a silky green colour that I almost wanted to look at them forever. I remember thinking she was lovely at that moment. It wasn’t sexual. I was still too young for that. The longing came from somewhere deeper. A longing for something true and steady.

  “No,” she said. “The rockslide. When I die, I hope it’s the rockslide.”

  “And if it isn’t?”

  “It will be,” she said and closed her eyes.

  I pushed her again. The oak limb creaked. Above us, in the high leaves of the towering tree, a wind breathed.

  I was twelve. We rode up the mountain in the back of Rusty’s new truck, one he’d brought home, according to Dennis, last spring. “He won it in Las Vegas. He told me he can win every time.”

  “You can’t win every time,” I said. My pre-algebra teacher, Mr. Bozeman, had spent a day that spring telling us about Vegas and the way they make sure to always get their money.

  “He can.”

  “Bull.”

  I let it go. Arguing with Dennis about his dad was dangerous. Once he’d slammed my head into his bedroom wall. The wall took the worst of it, but Aunt Gloria had been very upset and come upstairs with some putty and paint to fix it before Rusty got home. Anyway, I wanted to believe if anybody could take Vegas, Rusty could.

  When we made it to the secret road, the one that was little more than a slip between the trees, Rusty revved the engine and attacked the rough terrain. He swung the truck around a blind curve, narrowly missing an eight point buck running for deeper woods. We were slung side to side in the back; Wanda hit her head. It bled instantly, a scarlet V forming above her right eye. Dennis landed on me and I pushed h
im off. A cooler of beer turned over and ice and cans slid across the truck bed.

  Somebody up front screamed. It sounded like Gloria. My dad said something, but it got cut off as we flew into the air. For a brief second everything was airborne, nothing was stable or in place or safe. The world changed.

  When we hit the ground, the beer was gone. The cooler was gone. Bits of ice lay melting in my hair. I couldn’t breathe because the wind had been whoofed out of me and I just lay there, letting the vibrations from the truck bed shake my stuck lungs.

  My world became the simple need to breathe. Later, Mom told me that Dad climbed into the truck bed, lifted me up, shook me, turned me upside down.

  He must have slapped me on the back because my breath came, rushing through my lungs and the world slid back into focus. There were trees again, and my father’s face, voices saying words I couldn’t understand, and beyond that the gurgling of the rockslide.

  “You could have killed him,” Dad said.

  I turned. Rusty was off aways, behind the truck. He’d found one of the beers.

  “Or my own,” Rusty said. “It was an accident. I didn’t know the deer was going to be there.”

  I looked around. Next to me, Gloria held the hem of her sundress against Wanda’s forehead. There was only a little blood now.

  Dad said, “Give me the keys.”

  “The hell I will,” Rusty said.

  Gloria began to cry.

  Mom stood over Dennis. She turned to my father and touched his shoulder. “Maybe,” she said, “since we’re here. We should just make the best of it. Dennis is okay.” She looked at me. “Will just got the wind knocked out of him—”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “Wanda?” Mom said.

  “I’m okay.”

  Gloria was still crying. I looked at Dad. He looked away.

  Once at the slide, I was amazed how quickly the tension evaporated. Mom, who rarely participated, went first, primly easing herself down the slide, but she lost control near the bottom and her legs flew up and she flailed helplessly, as she splashed into the cold water. The kids laughed. Rusty opened another beer. Gloria stopped crying and smiled a little. Dad, however, sat on a rock by himself and said nothing.

  The slide was fast that day. We went down it head first, feet first, sideways. Mom and Aunt Gloria laughed. Rusty, who had collected all the beers, leaned against his new truck shouting encouragement.

  As the day wore on, I felt myself getting angry at Dad, still perched on his rock at the top of the slide, doing his best to remain aloof. Why couldn’t he loosen up? Why couldn’t he just let it go? Rusty had said it was an accident. Did Dad think he could have done any better if he had been driving?

  The brightness faded, the trees making it almost dark beneath their heavy boughs. Rusty asked Dad if he wanted a beer. Dad told him no. Rusty looked confused. “There’s plenty,” he said. “Just a short walk down the path.” He grinned.

  “I’ll be damned if I have one of your beers.”

  Rusty laughed, a deep wide open kind of laugh. “Well, suit yourself.”

  Dad shook his head, ignoring a glare from Mom.

  Rusty finished the rest of his beer and threw the can in the bed of his truck. He jogged over to the top of the slide where Dennis and I were getting ready for another trip. Rusty cut in front of us and jumped onto the rock. His blue jeans smacked against the wet slab and he went down, screaming with joy. When he hit the bottom, he disappeared into the water with barely a splash.

  The water went still.

  We waited and waited. No Rusty.

  Dad and Dennis moved at the same time. Dad leapt off his rock, sprinting toward the pool. When Dennis attempted to slide after him, his foot got hung on a root and he fell onto the rock, slamming his head. Rather than slide, his body bounced down the rock. I watched as Dennis’s body was wracked time and time again against the long flat slab.

  Dad reached the water at the same time as Dennis, and for a moment, he seemed confused about what to do: go in after Rusty or try to help Dennis. He chose Dennis, hauling him up out of the pool and laying him out on solid ground. Dennis whimpered. The side of his face had been smashed by the rock and his leg looked unnatural on his body, like an appendage belonging to someone else.

  Dad turned back to the pool just as Rusty emerged from the water. He wore a grin three sizes too big for his face and seemed confused when he saw Dad coming for him.

  Rusty never realized my dad was going to hit him until the second before it happened. At first, he just smiled that stupid smile, pleased at how long he’d stayed under, how much he’d made us wonder. Then the smile faltered just a little as Dad sprinted toward him. By the time Dad hit the water, the smile was gone, replaced by the wide eyed look of a man who knows pain is coming and there is very little he can do about it.

  Dad hit him in the nose.

  The blood came fast. Rusty crumpled back into the water. Dad swam to the side and pulled himself out.

  I could hear Mom praying softly under her breath. Gloria and Wanda were crying. I just stood there at the top of the slide, filled with a newfound sense of things, the way moods and tensions were like fast approaching storm winds and from this moment on, we would always be part of the storm.

  Until we weren’t. And on that day, the rockslide would dry itself and the smooth surface lined with algae and moss would harden and grow rough beneath our fingers. And I would try to understand. And try. And finally admit there was no understanding anything except what used to be and what was now. The slide is too fast. You reel too much. You hit the water and everything goes dark.

  Somehow, as if by force of will, we all survived. Dennis survived. His leg was broken. His nose never did look straight again and he spent the next several months in pain as he recovered.

  Nine months later, Rusty bought him a Kawasaki for his birthday. We made our usual visit, though Dad grumbled the whole way, and when we arrived, he kept his distance from Rusty.

  By the end of the weekend, the two men were talking again. Something had changed about Rusty. I noticed it the second I walked into their house. Rusty did not have a beer in his hand.

  “Dad stopped drinking,” Wanda said.

  We were out in the woods behind their house, having ridden bicycles behind Dennis as he put the new dirt bike through its paces. Tired, Wanda and I had stopped under the shade of some pine trees.

  “I noticed,” I said.

  “It won’t last.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She looked at me, something like a smile in the corners of her eyes. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “That Rusty likes beer?”

  She laughed.

  “Okay,” I conceded, “he’s an alcoholic. Is that what you wanted me to say?”

  “My dad isn’t happy without a beer in his hand. He can’t function.”

  “So why not drink? It’s every man’s right.”

  I realized instantly I had said the wrong thing. Wanda stepped away, out of the shade as if struck. She said nothing else. Picking up her bike, she climbed on and began to pedal back to the house.

  Rusty and I had the talk just before my thirteenth birthday.

  We were in his truck, just the two of us. I don’t know why. I don’t know where we were going. Sometimes, I try to remember, but I can’t.

  He did not have a beer in his hand. Both hands were on the wheel. His face was set in a hard grimace. He watched the road as the scenery on either side of us peeled free like loose skin.

  “Your mother tells me you like to read.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His fingers tightened on the wheel. He usually smiled. He wasn’t smiling now.

  “Don’t lose that.”

  “Okay.”

  He took
his gaze off the road and looked at me. “I mean it.”

  I nodded.

  “She says you’ve got talent. You’re smart. Creative even.”

  I said nothing. The air seemed thicker. I could feel it on my skin.

  “Do you drink?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Don’t start.”

  “But . . .” I wanted to tell him it was my right as a man.

  “But nothing. I used to have an imagination. Now, I can’t think of anything new. Just the same old stuff.”

  “But you made the woodsplitter, Rusty. Just last winter. That was new.”

  “That was shit.”

  I looked away. It hurt me to see him like this. I made up my mind that after the car ride, I would forget it ever happened.

  “If drinking would make you feel better, why don’t you just drink?”

  He allowed himself a thin smile, all lips, curled open to reveal almost clenched teeth.

  “There’s no figuring it out,” he said. “I just don’t want you to make the same mistakes I made.”

  “What mistakes?”

  He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and reached into the console for his cigarettes. Outside, it had started to rain. We were about three miles from his house.

  He lit a cigarette and cracked the window. Rain came in on his sleeve and one side of his face. He let the water hit him. Didn’t flinch, even though it must have been cold.

  “What mistakes?” I said again.

  He exhaled deeply and blew the smoke out into the rain.

  “So many, no one can count them. So many, they bury you.”

  He tossed his cigarette out the window and waved his hands, letting go of the wheel. A delivery truck loomed ahead of us, gleaming in the rain.

  I felt myself draw up. My fists clenched into tiny stones, my pulse beating out of them hard. My eyes scrunched themselves shut and for a second I felt the collision. A jarring smack spun us sideways and made me see in a rush that image of Dennis tumbling down the rockslide, somersaulting over the silent slab and onto the sharp rocks. I saw us splayed out upon the side of the road, glass in our mouths, eyes, nostrils; bodies immobile, crushed by pavement, just as Dennis had been crushed by the rocks.