Crazy Blood

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “Uhhh … yes.”

  “Is it the dog?”

  “It’s in addition to the dog.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “I get low sometimes.”

  “I heard. That’s okay. We all do.”

  “Okay.”

  “Dangerously low?”

  “Very low, yes.”

  Ivan scratched at the door with vigor, growling softly.

  “Is it me?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I’m good for you, Sky.”

  “I’ll need to be alone for a while.”

  “It’s me.”

  “I swear it isn’t.”

  “For how long?”

  “A few days.”

  “Let’s have sex.”

  “God, yes.”

  By now, Ivan was tearing at the door with industrial strength. There were odd pauses, then the sound of the dog rending wood with his teeth. Sky turned to Megan and wrapped his arms around her and pressed his body against hers. His desire, urgent and whole, blocked out the dog, and, for a moment, even the Black Not. Megan’s mouth was warm and her taste was sweet. And those apples in her hair! Then the Black Not found him and Sky sensed its blackness easing closer and he heard his father’s voice again, the one that as a boy he had played over and over and over on video to save in memory, now telling him, You’ll ruin love, Sky. Like I did. And it will be the end of you.

  “Harder,” she said.

  * * *

  Later, Sky rose and let in Ivan, who flew onto the bed and defended Sky’s place as his own, backed into the pillow, his butt hitting it with each bark. Two weeks ago, the dog would have bitten Sky, but Ivan’s ferocity was waning and now he allowed Sky back into the bed with only warning growls and barks. Megan turned the pillow and patted it and Sky lay down next to her. They looked out the window at the stars, always good in the fall. “You don’t have to leave here, Meg. I have a safe place to go. It’s kind of a regular deal.”

  “How regular?”

  “Once a year. Maybe twice.”

  “Is this the first since we’ve hooked up?”

  “Yes, it is. I have a favor to ask before I go. I’d like to take Ivan with me.”

  There was a silence. “He’s my dog. I’d miss him.”

  “I know, but I want him with me.”

  “Why? He’s not … sold on you yet.”

  Coming down from the lovemaking, Sky was aware of the Black Not having moved closer. He felt the first little burst of pain in his stomach, always in his stomach, left side and low. Like a bee sting, but deeper. Followed by a hard ache that would grow in area over time. Until it had his whole body—the quick of his nails, the nerves of his teeth, the arches of his feet, even his testicles. “Ouch.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I want to take Ivan because I like Ivan. And he’ll distract me.”

  “You can have him for your trip. Can you call me?”

  “No bars out there.”

  “I hope you’re not just playing me like your next dumbass chick. I’m trusting you, Sky, but I don’t tolerate disrespect. Zero tolerance. Take care of Ivan. You know what he means to me.”

  “I should get a move on.”

  * * *

  He hit the market and the gas station on the way out of town, got his usual provisions, and for Ivan a box of chew sticks designed to clean his teeth. The dog stood on the passenger seat with his front paws on the window frame, watching the world go past.

  Three hours later, Sky was down south and west of Randsburg, in the high desert, wind whistling through the hard arroyo of rock and scrub where the cabin stood. His truck bounced up the last half mile of two-track, Ivan managing to keep his balance and a weather eye on the rock-strewn, sparsely vegetated, faintly moonlit desert.

  Sky came to the cabin and parked. It sat in a loose stand of Joshua trees, which shivered spikily in the wind. Dug into the western hillock above the arroyo was a long-abandoned copper mine. The tailings formed a pyramid at the base of the hill and the tailings glowed blue in the moonlight. Sky got out and stood a moment and looked at the blue light surrounding the mound like a halo. Ivan waited at his feet, still, nose to the wind, ears cocked.

  The cabin belonged to an acquaintance Sky had given ski lessons to one winter, and who was willing to replace the window glass the vandals broke, and keep it locked and baited against the kangaroo rats. No water or electricity, which suited Sky fine. Inside, it had a picnic table and benches, bunk beds with thin mattresses, perfect if you had a sleeping bag.

  The important thing was the privacy, being able to confront the Black Not without having to worry about the commotion. You couldn’t go through a battle like this with people around. People trying to help. People watching you unravel. Straitjacket time. He hoped Ivan could handle it. Dogs were forgiving. Years ago, he’d come here with Tyrell, a formidable pit bull/rottweiler mix who had kept a silent eye on Sky through the rantings and ravings. More than once. Tyrell was big enough that Sky hadn’t worried about the coyotes here. The dog had met his end against a speeding driver on Minaret one evening, and Sky hadn’t yet found the heart to get another. Which had left him vulnerable to Ivan’s charms.

  Before unpacking, Sky poured two fingers of añejo tequila into a coffee mug and took that first promising sip. He was still living almost totally on Soylent, which had ground a few pounds off his lean frame but allowed him greater strength and stamina in whatever he did. Earlier this week, his runs on Helixon’s Imagery Beast had been nothing short of amazing. Even Brandon was impressed. Brandon had taken a run on the Beast himself, just to see if maybe the clock was off, but no. What else could Sky attribute those times to, other than Soylent and clean living? And aside from two weeks of excessive intestinal gas to start out, the Soylent was absolutely agreeable, once you got used to the idea you no longer got to enjoy conventional food. Sky flavored his Soylent with chocolate or vanilla and sometimes cheap Kool-Aid-like products from the market. He’d never gone through an encounter with the Black Not while living on Soylent. He figured the lack of substance—once mixed with water, Soylent was more of a goop than a liquid, but certainly far from solid—might make the effects of alcohol even more dramatic with the Black Not upon him.

  * * *

  That first night wasn’t too bad—just a lot of trembling and not much sleep, and night sweats that soaked his T-shirt and briefs. Then the eerie awakening to a new day with the Black Not fully within him, tightening down his vision, tensing up his muscles, multiplying the pain. And the worst of it, really, wasn’t the pain, but the hopelessness the Black Not brought. That was the Not part—the utter impossibility of all that was good. The Black Not poisoned all his hope and optimism, all his dreams and wishes. All in his father’s voice.

  Not.

  No.

  Never.

  That morning he walked Ivan into the desert on his leash. It was easy to imagine the dog taking off after a rabbit and never coming back. Terrier fearlessness was a threat to their survival. Megan would be crushed if something happened to Ivan, and Sky loved Megan. The October weather was mild. He poked around up on the hillside, where the copper ore tailings shined in the sun. Picked up a few warm pale blue rocks for Megan.

  He smiled to himself bitterly while the Black Not told him in his father’s recorded voice how poorly he would do at the Gargantua Mammoth Cup in January. Sky imagined Wylie sending up a victorious rooster tail of snow in the out-run. The Black Not asked him why he thought that Soylent and the Imagery Beast and clean living would be enough to defeat destiny. Was it pride? And wasn’t that what ruined every man? The prideful attempt to deny one’s fate? And was it not true that Megan would take up with Wylie after he won the cup? She was a very attractive woman who would need more from a man than losing, noted his father. Of course she will take up with a winner, he said. Yes, Sky had to agree: Of course she will.

  The pain had spread. While standing on a low hillock, the arches of his feet suddenly cr
amped, as they often did, just knotted right up, like fists. Sky gasped and dropped to his butt and tore at the laces of his hiking boots. How could a foot arch hurt that much? When he’d gotten the boots off, he used both hands to unclench one cramp, then the other. It was like trying to unbend metal. Then the first arch locked tight again.

  Ivan seized the opportunity and ran. Sky foresaw coyotes. He ordered Ivan back, but the dog tore off along the bottom of the hillock, leash bouncing along behind him, apparently fixed on something that Sky couldn’t see. Sky tried to run a few steps, but the rocks were brutally sharp, so he high-stepped back and plopped down and got the boots on as fast as he could, but the long laces kept falling out of the “speed hooks,” so by the time he finished, the boots looked like they had been laced by a chimpanzee.

  Sky ran around the base of the hill. Ivan was out of sight, but Sky heard his barking and understood that the dog was soon going to die here in some painful and gruesome way. It was the only thing that could happen. He slipped and fell, and this did not surprise him, because the Black Not only allowed him pessimism, defeat, pain, and death. Even an appreciation of beauty, like a sunrise, say, or gratefulness for sudden good luck, or the genuine joy in a glass of cold, clean water—all this was forbidden by the Black Not. Banished. Only Black. Only Not.

  Sky rounded the hillock and saw Ivan out a hundred yards ahead, barking furiously at a pack of bony stray dogs closing in on him in a rambling, low-snouted fashion. But Ivan’s leash had miraculously caught between some rocks! Without this restraint, he would probably have already raced to his own death, but Sky saw no good fortune in the snagged leash. All he could envision was Ivan stuck there and unable to run, soon to be torn to ribbons and devoured by the marauders. Torn to ribbons right in front of you, said his father.

  Sky didn’t think he’d ever get there. Then he was there, grabbing the snagged loop end of the leash without stopping or even slowing down. But when he took up the leash, a weird slackness greeted him and the collar came hopping back along the rocky ground toward him while newly freed Ivan sped in the other direction, toward the dogs.

  “IVAN! NO!”

  Sky put everything he had into the sprint. Running was such a crude, slow thing compared to downhill skiing. He yelled as loudly as he could, hoping to frighten or confuse the dogs. Ivan was fast, but suddenly he stopped, cocked his ears, and looked silently at the pack moving up the arroyo toward him. Sky dug in, knowing he’d trip and fall on the sharp rocks, cut his knees badly enough for stitches, maybe even lacerate or crush both patellas, which would ruin his workouts for weeks and reduce his Mammoth Cup chances from slim to none. Of course he would fuck everything up.

  Before Sky knew it, Ivan was in his arms, solid and squirming wildly. Sky tucked him against his side like a football and kept charging toward the pack, hollering. The dogs stopped and waited a moment, ears and tails up, before splitting off in halfhearted, sideways retreats. Sky stopped, clutching Ivan fast and watching the dogs, which watched him and Ivan as they blended into the desert.

  * * *

  He spent the rest of the day inside the cabin in light, sporadic sleep. Ivan prowled the interior for vermin. Then night came, and with it an eternity of waking hallucinations arranged in the maddening nonlogic of dreams. He lolled on one lower bunk, sweat-drenched and shaking, stripped of willpower, his muscles aching like the flu he’d sometimes had as a child, but much worse. In these flulike fevers, the world was black-edged and huge, and Sky was minuscule within it. Powerless. Helpless. The bunks across from him appeared to be immense ramparts of frame and fabric, and Ivan, on the other lower bunk, seemed the size of a bison. A huge snake with scales the size of Sky’s head appeared outside all four cabin windows at once, as if preparing to constrict it. A naked, wizened crone threw open the door, smiling broken pillars of teeth, curling a come-hither claw at him. And all the while, the voice of the Black Not goaded him. You cannot. You will not. You will never. You are not.

  So he closed his eyes, but this was worse. He became a small whirling thing, plummeting through a bottomless, black sky. At first, he was small as a pea, but the velocity of his fall rubbed away at him, sanding him down to the size of a mote of dust, then to a thing even smaller than dust, until he was nothing but nerves and senses, helpless in this huge and tactile world. Then he wasn’t there at all, and this was not a bad thing. A goddamned relief, actually. He was gone but the world went on. Fine. So good to feel no pain. He lay there trembling.

  Ivan never took his eyes off him.

  Sky pulled himself up and off the bed and stumbled to the picnic table and his boxes of provisions. He dug down into the first box but couldn’t find it, though he was sure he’d put it there. So he upended the second box and out tumbled the snacks and the teeth-cleaning biscuits for the dog, more Soylent, the bottled water, another bottle of tequila, some underwear, socks, his iPod and computer tablet, and, finally, the handgun!

  It was a trim little thing, a .38-caliber autoloader with nine shots. It was here for times like this, when he seriously considered trading the Black Not for the much kinder black forever. He stared at the weapon while he tore open the box of dog treats and, without looking, dropped one into Ivan’s mouth.

  It would take only a few seconds, he thought. Already loaded. You check the chamber. You unsafe it. You hold it to your temple and close your eyes. No pain forever.

  The Black Not had gone quiet now, as it always did when Sky got out the gun.

  The implication was, Of course you can’t do it.

  Because he was Sky Carson, who lacked nerve, just as his father had lacked nerve, according to Cynthia. Who knew everything. Every single thing. And clearly did not lack nerve.

  Because he was Sky Carson, a mid-pack ski crosser forever trying to catch Robert and Wylie and whoever else was racing well on any given day.

  Because he was Sky Carson, royally born and genetically gifted. But assaulted on his own X Course by Wylie. And what had Sky done about it? Nothing. He had responded with a threat that people saw as comic but had taken no real action at all. Made no defense of his honor. If that wasn’t lack of nerve, what was?

  Because he was Sky Carson, knocked out cold with one punch by Wylie that night at Slocum’s. In front of his friends and fans and the waitress he liked, and half of Mammoth Lakes.

  Because he was Sky Carson. Of course he couldn’t pull the trigger.

  He couldn’t even pick up the thing.

  Sky poked at it with an index finger, as if trying to see if it were alive. Vision off, he kept missing. Then his fingertip caught the front sight and the gun spun and came to a stop with the barrel facing away from him and the grip waiting for his hand, just inches away, an invitation.

  He still couldn’t pick it up.

  Because Sky Carson couldn’t even answer an invite from God.

  Dad, what should I do?

  Pick it up, you fucking coward.

  He went to the open bottle on the kitchen counter, tilted it up for a long swallow of the añejo, then veered back to the bed and fell in.

  * * *

  The next two days were similar, but without Ivan trying so hard to get killed by a pack of wild dogs. Sky tightened up the dog’s collar and got him outside every few hours on the leash to do his business, then pretty much dragged him back inside the cabin for the next assault from the Black Not. Sometimes Sky argued with the voice, denying the terrible emotions the voice made him feel. Sometimes he yelled. In quieter moments, he fed the dog. Threw a wadded-up sock for him. Drank Soylent. And tequila to blunt the pain.

  By the third evening, he was exhausted. Then late that night, after several hours of torment that left him looking down on the gun once again, sobbing at his lack of courage, Sky fell into a sleep that lasted well into the next afternoon.

  * * *

  He woke up and drank a double helping of Soylent flavored with powdered raspberry mix. Downed some pretzels, too. He washed himself with bottled water and a little tablet of motel
soap, rinsed with fistfuls of the water, air-dried in the sun and put on clean clothes, then headed north for Mammoth Lakes.

  Coming up Highway 203, Sky looked out at the forest and the mountains looming high and he felt that strange sense of newness that always followed the Black Not. As if he was seeing things in a fresh way. Familiar but different. Old but new. It made him feel as if he’d been away a long time. The afternoon had turned cool and the sky beyond the mountain looked gray and solid as granite.

  He caught the light red at Old Mammoth Road and watched the cars coming down from the village. He saw Johnny Maines roaring down Main toward him on his yellow motorcycle. Sky was always kind of impressed by how Maines could control the big Harley on tight turns even when the weather was bad. He’d seen Johnny slide through ice on the bike as if he were snowboarding it. Sky saw the fly-rod tubes that were strapped to the back of the motorcycle, vibrating with the speed; then he saw a flag of brown hair waving behind Johnny and realized he had a passenger. Even with the helmet and sunglasses she was wearing, Sky recognized Megan, for sure, holding Johnny tight around his middle, and damned if Megan wasn’t smiling as Johnny ran the red light and turned the loudly farting Harley right in front of him.

  No Harley out front when he got home. He led the dog up the stairs and let him in. It looked like Megan had had a party—cans and bottles and open bags of chips everywhere. A sleeping bag lay on the floor beside one slip-on canvas sneaker. He looked into the bedroom, cringed when he saw the unmade bed with the sheets all twisted up and every pillow on the floor.

  He sat down on the bed with his back to the door, looking out the window to the sharp peaks of the Sherwins. The Black Not, never fully absent, piped up: Of course she’s with Johnny Maines. Cat away. Probably learned it from you. What did you expect?

  He heard the pounding of someone starting up the outside stairs, soon joined by a second person. Ivan launched into a tirade of barking and ran to the front door. Sky heard voices, male and female, something being discussed, the male voice louder and more forceful but the female agreeing. The front door opened and shut and a moment later he felt eyes on his back.