Tideland
Page 16
If I tried hard enough, if I closed my eyes and held my breath -- if I tried hard enough-
I never heard the breath leave my body. Before sleep, the last sound to fill my ears was the beating of my heart, and I knew I was slipping past the tideland, going beneath the ocean and sinking away from What Rocks. The afternoon light had faded above; maybe the waves had curled high enough to extinguish the sun. And in that far-flung region of my imagination, I tried understanding the exact circumstances that brought me to Texas instead of Denmark, but nothing presented itself. I knew only that I’d been on my own since that first night in the back country, and that I’d fled Los Angeles after my mother turned blue. Then I saw myself swimming through a vast underwater wilderness, going deeper and deeper, like a penny tossed into the Hundred Year Ocean -- or Alice falling very slowly in the rabbit-hole, looking about, wondering what was going to happen next.
22
The end of the world was purple, appearing as an iris or a rose in my dream, blooming with an ear-piercing eruption, the petals suddenly bursting away from the bud like a fire- work. Or was I already half-awake -- having just stirred beside my father -- when the explosions shook What Rocks so abruptly, so violently, that the table lamp beside my bed fell to the floor; the window near the staircase collapsed in pieces, and all the windows downstairs -- I soon discovered -- shattered inward, throwing glass over the floorboards.
Then with astonishing speed, the ruinous aftermath of the blasts unfolded beyond the farmhouse, cacophonous and jarring-the whine of iron wheels sparking on the tracks, passenger cars tipping this way and that, metal striking metal, the ground quaking-then everything was quiet, enveloped in a brown and white dust which rose into the evening sky like smoke.
No, it isn’t really the end of the world, I thought, only the end of the monster shark. But I wasn’t certain, not there in my bedroom or downstairs or out on the porch. I wasn’t certain until reaching the grazing pasture, where the derailment became apparent -- the bus had been smashed beneath a toppled passenger car, another car rested in Dell’s meadow. Waning sunlight cut through the dust cloud, reflecting off the silver-tinted wreckage -- and it seemed the entire train had turned edgeways, spilling cars on either side and across the rails, up and down the tracks, as far as the eye could see.
Then, in the stillness following the crash, I understood that Dickens killed the shark, that somehow he escaped Dell and her fingers. Now he was diving in Lisa, and if I sat and waited he would find me. He would emerge from the dust in his goggles and flip-flops, his lips puckered and ready for a kiss. And as the silence gave way to alarmed voices calling back and forth from within the passenger cars -- as stunned men and women and children began climbing from the wreckage -- I looked for him, searching the faces of those who staggered toward me.
At first just a few came, settling down in the pasture, speechless and seemingly uninjured, sitting upright with dazed expressions. But eventually the crowd grew in number, bringing both the wounded and the shocked -- a young woman, pressing a bloody handkerchief over her mouth, held an infant to her breast; in front of her stood an elderly man, staring at the flattened, upturned bus, shaking his head in confusion as his left arm dangled limply. Others begged for water or help, some complained about the dust. Every so often I heard weeping, at times screaming. And the chaos swarming around and on the tracks -- all those people running along the embankment, clamoring among the high weeds and foxtails -- showed no signs of ending.
"Little girl -- are you hurt anywhere?" said a woman. She was sitting nearby, cradling her purse in one arm. "Are you okay?"
Aside from a scratch on her cheek and disheveled hair, she appeared to have survived without serious injury. But her eyes were watery, her voice trembled when she spoke, and I noticed how she absently yanked bluebonnets, one after another, crushing the flowers firmly before dropping them.
"I’m just hungry is all,” I told her. "I was sleeping."
And she flinched, as if my words had agitated her.
"Here, I have sornething." She opened her purse and pulled out an orange, asking, "Are you traveling alone or with someone?"
I shrugged.
"Don’t know,” I replied, my stomach grumbling while she peeled the fruit. "I guess Dickens will come get me, I’m pretty sure he will.”
I watched as she rotated the orange, using her fingernails to scrape away the rind. Then she offered me the orange with a shaky hand, and instantaneously my teeth were on it.
"Your parents weren’t on the train?"
I shook my head, chewing.
The woman’s face twitched. I couldn’t tell if she was smiling or frowning. She scooted closer, wrapping an arm across my shoulders, hugging me against her.
"It happened so fast," she said, nodding at the toppled passenger cars. "We’re two of the lucky ones, thank God. We’re very, very lucky.”
But I didn’t feel lucky; I was starving. And eating the orange, I continued looking for Dickens in the crowd, scanning the grim newcomers to the pasture. I kept imagining what it would be like to see him again, to find that he was all right.
Hello, Captain. You killed the shark. I love you.
All at once my eyes found a woman who, like the elderly man, seemed to he standing in a stupor. She was wearing a blue bathrobe, and her hair was covered with a clear-plastic shower cap. When she turned -- glancing about frantically -- I saw her face in the dusty evening light, and fear seized me.
"Dell," I mumbled, thoughtlessly biting into the orange.
She was shouting for Dickens, searching the crowd. And she was frightened, I could tell. Her fingers gripped the bathrobe, her fuzzy slippers trampled bluebonnets. She was so close that if I ran she’d surely spot me.
You’ll stay far, I thought. You’ll mess elsewhere.
And if my mouth wasn’t full, I would’ve turned my head and spit.
But in the brief instant that I considered fleeing, Dell hurried off, moving toward the tracks, pushing through the throng of people. Then she vanished, disappearing somewhere among the wreckage.
"It’s all right,” the woman was saying. "We’re safe now. We'll take care of each other, how’s that? I’ll make sure you get where you’re going.”
I wanted to say that there was nowhere else for me to go. I would’ve told her too, except the fireflies arrived. Dozens of tiny flashes materialized at once, swimming overhead -here, then gone, then there, gone -- flashing in the thick dust, blink blink blinking in the pasture.
"They’re so beautiful,” I said. "They’re my friends, you know. They have names.”
And for a moment I forgot why I’d come to the pasture. I’d almost forgotten everything. I brought my head to the woman’s breast, snuggling myself into her, and finished the orange -- licking my lips after the last bite, aware of the lingering sweetness on my tongue and the stickiness on my chin -- content as the fireflies welcomed the night.
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