He thought he would have trouble sleeping that night, but he did not. He slept more easily and deeply than he had in many nights. In his dreams, predictably, he found himself back at Daddy’s house. He stood at the edge of the woods, looking across the field. Above him there were countless silvery strands, connecting all the stars, weaving them into a glittering web, vast and complex. They hung low over the house, which had grown so that it was now no mansion but a castle, the largest building he had ever seen, nearly swallowing up the clearing and reducing him to the size of an ant. The windows were all shuttered, but from them light still blazed, and he could see the silhouettes of many people, milling about. He could hear the raucous sound of their laughter clearly, and the tinkle of glasses clinking together. It seemed that the noises came not only from the house but from all around him. They assaulted him from all points like surround sound in a movie theater. He left the shelter of the trees and began to push through the grass. As he came closer it seemed the house grew larger and larger still, till it loomed over him, pulsing and throbbing like an open wound. The web of stars above contracted and expanded as though the sky itself was breathing. When he had come three quarters of the way across the field, there was a sudden crash as one of the upper windows shattered. He heard a gale of laughter as particles of glass rained down on the ground below. He felt the same multitude of feelings that had engulfed him that evening at dinner- fear, anticipation, excitement, elation. Jubilation. The knowledge that it was all beginning, or ending, or possibly both. He was about to find out; now was the time. He walked up the porch steps and there he hesitated. The door that had stood inoperative for as long as he had been coming there was back on the hinges. It was closed. He stood in front of it, staring ahead. Inside, the party raging. The party of all parties. Whiz-bang, hyphen, ampersand, semicolon. Decadence. What sort of people were these that he was about to meet, his new friends, waiting to shepherd him into a larger, grander world? He reached out, took hold of the knob, and pushed inward. As he withdrew his hand the door swung open, slowly. The noise burst out into the night like the hot current from a steam grate, rushing past, engulfing him. The laughter foremost among the sounds, rising and falling. But there was no one there. He stepped inside, and although the place was lit more brightly than ever before, it illuminated only the same careless mess; the furniture was still askew, the filth still coated the floor. The same squalor prevailed that had always been there, only now he could see it more easily. The light was harsh and glaring. All the soft shadows of the many afternoons had been thrust back, revealing pointless disarray. And there was no one there. He walked from room to room, past the place with the altar where he had sat at tea with Stitch and Daddy, past mounds of detritus, scrawled messages and symbols on the walls. The noise of the party continued all around him, carrying him, buffeting him like a landslide. But the laughter now held no mirth. It had become mocking, and he knew that it was all directed at him. An empty house had made him the butt of its joke. And foremost among the throng was a laughter that he knew only too well, though it came with many intonations. It all came from the same throat. It was too much. He wanted to leave, and he would do so. He tried to retrace his steps, looking for the door, but now he couldn’t find it. He came to the place where he thought it had been, but now there was only a blank wall. At the last he dropped to his knees and put his head in his hands, feeling a helplessness and a blind and potent anger. But more than anything else he felt the white-hot sorrow that only a betrayal can bring, and he felt utterly and incurably alone. Just before he woke he heard that whining, grating voice, speaking again from all around him- we shall drown in our tears, and burst our sides with laughter! When he opened his eyes there was a gray light coming in from the window, and already resting on the coverlet he could feel the intractable weight from the warmth of the day that was to come.
That day, for the first time in weeks, he did not go to the house in the woods. He sat at the breakfast table and poked at his porridge, pushing it with the spoon from one side of the bowl to the other, and then he returned to his room, took off his clothes and lay back down amid the rumpled sheets. He wasn’t lucky enough to have been granted the use of one of the family’s box fans. Casey had been the only one of the three children who had been allowed that privilege, and by ten in the morning his room was like a sauna. The heat made him lethargic, and though he lay listlessly on his bed through the early hours of the afternoon, he did not ever fall completely asleep again. Rather, he stayed in that semiconscious in-between place, and he had another series of dreams, most of them taking place in the house in the woods, none of them very comfortable. A little past three he shook himself fully awake, but he continued to lie there on his back, at a loss for something to do. He could hear his mother’s footsteps as she moved around downstairs, and occasionally Daisy’s light tread up above. He selected a book from off the shelf and tried to read, but it was futile. He would finish a paragraph and realize that not a single word of it had registered. Eventually he threw the book aside and dressed again. He went downstairs and left by the back door. He walked past the majestic grandfather oak and climbed the slope, heading toward the rear acres of the family property. Before he was even fully aware of it, his mind lapsed, as it had for as far back as he could remember, into one of his fantasy worlds where he had spent so many blissful hours of his youth. His arms held the imaginary rifle, and he was scanning the trees for signs of enemy agents, Private First Class Surrey, reporting for duty. The games. His internal security blanket. But as he made ready to plunge into the bushes, avoiding enemy fire, he felt, for the first time that he could ever remember, an overpowering sense of foolishness. His face flushed furiously, and he felt a heat that had nothing to do with the sun. He actually felt embarrassed, as though someone was watching, someone who would leap out at any moment, pointing a finger, bent over double, laughing at him. Look at the little baby, playing soldier. That’s just so precious! And in his mind he heard again the laughter from his dream, the laughter of people he couldn’t see. Dismayed, he returned to the house to wait for supper.
The format of the days that followed was much the same. He purposely avoided not only visiting Daddy and Stitch, but stayed well out of that area of the woods altogether. Instead he stayed as close to home as possible for as long as he could stand it, dozing through the brutal heat of the late morning and reading in the early afternoon. But, invariably, sooner or later he would grow itchy and need to get away. He would have a vision of himself becoming like Daisy, a shut-in, cloistering himself in his room as she did in the attic, and it was too much. The walls would start closing in, and he would throw on his sneakers and trot down the driveway toward the Willow Road with the swaying green shelter of the leaves overhead. And each time, stubbornly, he would try to return in his mind to the places where he had been going for so long, where the world could be bent around him through pure force of will. His comfort zone. But he couldn’t. It was lost to him. Each time he felt that same sense of embarrassment and shame, the sensation that he looked like exactly what he was, a boy playing war. A child’s greatest protection against the threats and cruelties of the world is a complete lack of shame; it is the amulet that repels everything harmful, whether in the physical realm or the mental, making it slide off like water. When the spell is broken, a valuable tool has been lost, for then other forms of protection must be sought, and none of them will ever be as good. That is why some people are never happy in their adult lives; they are taking themselves too seriously, and they have lost all capacity to imagine.
For most people, the loss of this protective membrane occurs gradually, which is why they don’t notice it until years later, long after it is gone, and usually by then it is too late to retrieve it. For Tad the effect was much more jarring, because for him it was gone in a mere matter of days, and he felt its loss as acutely as if he’d just been separated from one of his limbs. It was a truly terrible feeling. Again and again he would try to bring it back, but he si
mply couldn’t. It was like trying to light a room with a burnt out bulb. He would be standing in the woods, alone, and for the first time in such circumstances truly feeling alone, and the hot tears would come to his eyes, and then he would feel worse, because only a baby would cry at something like this. Because this wasn’t a loss that he could put into words even to himself, and so essentially it would have been like crying at nothing. And so he scrubbed the tears away and returned to the house, knowing only that something had changed, but not being able to put his finger on exactly what it was, only that he felt hollow inside, and empty, and lost.
As bad as all of that was, there was yet another problem too. He missed Daddy. He missed Stitch also, to a lesser extent, but that was nothing compared to how much he wanted to see Daddy again. It was true, the physical urge, the push that had led him to Daddy in the first place had not returned, but even without it, the desire to run headlong into the woods and not stop until he’d reached that marvelous house and was once again in the presence of his friend was nearly overpowering. Never did he feel the urge more strongly than at night, when he had been lazing around during the heat of the day and the coming of the dark found him energized and his mind active. It was even more appealing with what had previously been one of his main sources of pleasure no longer accessible to him. The simple fact of the matter was that he didn’t feel truly alive anymore unless he was with Daddy. The man had a vibrancy and an energy, even when he was in the doldrums, that Tad had come, in a remarkably short time, to crave like a junkie. To be away from him or to be doing anything else just seemed like a colossal waste. A drug. The man’s very presence was like a drug, and Tad was hooked.
Lying in his bed at night, the breezes making a mournful sound as they blew past the window, it was to the conversation on the last day that his mind kept returning, and the description of the event, the “gala of all galas,” that was to come on the 7th of July. It was this topic that was the fuel for an ongoing bout of mental chess; incidentally, it was also the only thing, at this difficult time, which was providing him with the least amount of pleasure- the knowledge of the possibilities that were before him. The two halves of the debate should not be very difficult to determine. He was trying to decide, of course, whether or not to crash the party. There were several pros and cons for either side; the argument for each was as follows. Among the cons, the first and foremost was the prohibition by his father to wander the woods at night. If Walt Surrey discovered him gone, the consequences this time would be worse that the last, and he didn’t want to attract unnecessary attention to himself. He also didn’t want his parents to find out where he’d been spending much of his time for the past month. Then there was the thought that anything that had Daddy this excited was probably something it would be wisest to avoid. The simple fact was that the rather fanciful description aside, he didn’t know what he was getting himself into. He felt, deep down, in the intuitive parts of him that he was rapidly learning not to question, that he was on the verge of taking the plunge, and if he took this step, there might not be any going back.
And then there was this to consider. He had scrutinized the conversation of that day from every angle, trying to remember not only every word that had been spoken, but also every nuance, every facial expression, and every minutia of Daddy and Stitch’s appearance and attitude during the few minutes’ time that the topic had been under discussion. What he couldn’t decide, try as he might, was whether or not the entire incident had been planned, and whether he had just happened to walk into the room at that instant by chance, or whether it had been an elaborate setup. Was the perceived duplicity all in his mind, that was the question. How much, if any of it, was real? How much could his instincts actually be trusted? Because he felt that in these uncertain waters, his instincts were probably his best and only protection, and what his instincts were screaming at him in this case was that the conversation had been entirely contrived. He was sure of it. Daddy had planned it so that the “gathering,” whatever it was, would be under discussion when he entered the room. And if that was the case, then the whole thing was one big setup, specifically designed to make him want to be in attendance when it happened. If he thought back to comments that had been made, by Daddy and Stitch both, then this theory made a certain kind of sense. Like Stitch, for instance, telling him the details weren’t “age appropriate.” It’s classic reverse psychology, isn’t it, designed to pique my interest. And if that’s the case, then it can only mean one thing- the two of them want me there. And that’s as good of a reason not to attend as I can get. The best thing I can do is play it safe.
But then there was the other side of it, with the driving force on that end being that greatest of human failings, curiosity, of which Tad Surrey had been given a healthier dollop than most. He felt almost like the past month had been an extended interview, a lengthy feeling out process, and now that his credentials had been established, he had been offered the chance to take that first step forward into that new world. This, this, was his chance for some answers. He had no doubt that here all would be revealed. For the first time in seven years, this old dump will awaken completely from her slumber. She will yawn and stretch. She will dust herself off. All her doors will be unlocked and flung wide. All her skeletons will emerge from their closets. Indeed, Daddy’s speech and Stitch’s hesitance had elicited the exact response in him they’d been hoping for. Whatever it was that had been growing in him since the beginning of the summer had been waiting for this, and he had no choice now but to see it through, no matter what the risk, no matter what the cost. He had to step into the arena. And as he lay there, he knew that the decision had already been made, and that any thoughts to the contrary were only wishful thinking. He would be there, come what may. He had only to wait now for the seventh day of the seventh month.
He awoke one day and came down to breakfast to find his mother in a jubilant mood. She was humming quietly to herself as she dolled out the pancakes, and when Tad sat down at the table she bent over and ruffled his hair. He reached up and pawed at it irritably. This was a gesture that he remembered from his childhood, but that he had not seen her employ in a very long time, and the kindly expression on her face as she did it stung, for some reason. “Don’t eat too much,” she said. “Save some appetite for the picnic.” Only then did he realize that the date was the fourth of July, another compulsory day for a family activity, and that everyone would be required to ride into town for the annual Feral Independence Day celebration. He bolted his breakfast hastily and went upstairs to dress.
Casey had gotten a ride from some friends earlier, and a little past ten the remaining four Surreys piled into the old green pickup, Walt driving, with Marta by his side, and Tad and Daisy stretched out on the floor of the flatbed behind them. Tad was leaning against the back of the cab, with his legs spread out in front of him, and he could hear his father saying something to his mother about the weather as they rolled down the drive. The truck maneuvered through the series of lazy turns that he knew so well, and as it did so he reflected on how it should have been easy to forget his troubles on a day such as this one, with burgers grilled to perfection and the usual rowdy game of Frisbee and a fireworks display all forthcoming. But rather than the excitement he’d always felt before on one of his favorite days of the year, this time he was merely irritated by the thought of bullshiting with his school friends about the pennant race, and who was at what summer camp, and who had gotten to second base with who. He just didn’t care. As they rolled past the trees, wilting in the heat, it all seemed so trivial that he just didn’t think he could stand it. He felt like he was seeing the world through tunnel vision. From the bottom of a well. And as they continued on their way toward the Willow Road, he caught himself glancing out, again and again, through the foliage in the direction of the property that for years he had taken as belonging to Roy McKenton, wondering where he was, and what he was doing at that exact moment in time. Was he up in one of the junk strewn rooms of his de
caying mansion, dressed as a Conquistador or a Magi, shouting nonsense words at the walls? Or was he looking back at Tad even now, hidden behind the wall of green, dripping buckets in the heat, leering from out of those horrid bulbous eyes?
So close, such a presence, a threat, that no one else knows about but you. Well, almost no one. As if detecting the course of his thoughts, Daisy drew closer, pushing herself toward him along the bed of the truck on her thin, wiry arms, lay her head in his lap, and looked up at him questioningly, squinting against the sun. It was such a simple gesture of concern and affection that for a second he couldn’t breathe. Then he looked down at her and forced himself to smile, and stroked her hair, and she turned so that they were facing the same direction as they turned left onto the Willow Road and went into town. He could feel the touch of her wiry, tangled hair on his knee through a hole in his jeans. Today her mother had forced her out of her sweatshirt for once, and she was wearing a sky blue dress with white flower petals, daisies, her namesake, sewn around the hem. She had closed her eyes as the truck bounced along, picking up a little speed now as it joined the stream of traffic moving in the same direction; everyone in town would be at the picnic, though Tad could think of two residents, at least, who would not be present. As they rode he lightly stroked the skin of one of his sister’s arms. So ghostly pale, here in the natural light that she shunned, like the skin of a corpse. They hadn’t spoken in days, but her wordless gesture to close the gap that seemed to have been building between them made him immeasurably happy, and as they neared the picnic grounds he smiled easily for the first time in days, and there was no bitterness in it.
Woods Page 17
