Woods

by Finkelstein, Steven

  The picnic grounds were in a naturally occurring clearing on the southeastern side of town, close to the elementary/middle school and high school, a meadow surrounded on three sides by trees, the fourth side leading down to the Willow Road as it passed through the built up, “downtown” area. At one end of the field there were rows of vehicles already parked, some of them with bumper stickers of a crass nature stuck to their fenders- Uncle Elmo’s Crawdad Shack- Pinch the Head, Suck the Tail. They were waved to a halt by the free hand of a deputy sheriff in dark glasses, who held a can of Old Milwaukee in the other. “How y’all doin?” he said, as Walt threw the junker in park and stepped out, smiling and nodding in the genial way that he saved for his dealings with other men in social situations. Marta came over to stand beside him, carrying with her an old quilt under one arm and a tremendous wicker basket with a checkered tablecloth spread over it. Tad climbed over the edge of the truck first and helped Daisy down after him. She had brought a book with her (Paradise Lost), and Tad supposed she would be spending her afternoon sitting by herself under a tree somewhere, venting her wrath on anyone who came close.

  The four Surreys weaved their way through the rows of cars, eventually emerging in the middle of a long line of booths, some selling food and patriotic merchandise, others set up for games of skill. Beyond them, Tad could see many picnic tables, most of them already occupied by families who had arrived early, and further still, blankets and cloths laid out on the grass for picnicking by families who hadn’t been lucky enough to get tables. Children ran shrieking past him, chasing each other. Dogs barked. The sun beat down, dizzying, dazzling, over all. And as he squinted out at this pastoral scene of small town tranquility that in years past he’d been so glad to take part, he felt a sense of disgust that he’d never had before, and he was saddened by it and a little dismayed. How quickly things change.

  “Mamma,” Daisy said, pointing to the trees at the edge of the meadow. “I’m going to go sit over there and read.”

  “Just don’t go wandering off,” Marta called over her shoulder. “We’re going to have lunch soon.” But Daisy had already ducked through the crowd and disappeared from sight, obviously intent on distancing herself from the rest of the assembling Feral citizenry as quickly as possible. Marta lost no time in finding an unclaimed patch of ground, and Tad helped her spread out the quilt and set up the picnic things. Walt stood a few feet away, and when Tad glanced over, he saw that his father was talking to their neighbor, Roy McKenton, a rawboned man in a black Stetson hat with a square jaw and a chaw of tobacco bulging in one cheek. As Tad looked on, Roy turned in his direction and winked at him, at the same time squirting a brown jet of juice from between his teeth into the grass. Tad flinched; he couldn’t help it, and McKenton frowned. He mumbled something to his mother about going to find his friends, and began walking quickly further onto the field, while faintly behind him he heard her call out the same admonition about eating soon and not going too far. Though he did not turn back, he was sure he could feel McKenton’s eyes boring into him. Then again, maybe he was just imagining it. Perhaps it was more of the paranoia. Since becoming involved with that man, I’m a bundle of nerves. I hate it. But admit it, a part of him said, it’s exhilarating too. Exhilarating? I’m afraid of my neighbors.

  He worked his way around to the taller grass at the edge of the meadow, avoiding the clusters of men standing around portable grills, drinking, laughing. The sunburned youngsters in baseball caps playing tag. One of them ran by with a plastic squirt gun and blasted him on the back with a stream of cold water. It caught him off guard, jolting him out of his gloomy mood, and he smiled. He did not speak, but instead went down on both knees and spread his arms wide, the palms held upward, his eyes closed, like a man beseeching the gods, and beckoned to the boy, who obliged him, letting loose another jet which struck him fully in the open face and mouth, running down his chest. He laughed, and the delighted child did the same before dashing off after his friends. As Tad ran a hand over his face and wiped it on his shirt, he was hailed from a few yards away, and he turned to see several of his classmates approaching, led by Nicholas Slesher, who had been his science partner the previous year. “Hey Nick,” he said. “What’s the good word?”

  “Surrey, man,” Nick said. “Where you been hidin’ yourself?”

  “Nowhere. I’ve just been helping Pa around the house.” Again he had a self conscious sensation, as though everything he’d been doing and thinking and feeling for the past few weeks were stamped on his face, and anybody with half a brain would have no trouble reading it at a glance. But Nick appeared not to notice and accepted his explanation, and within a few seconds they were talking about the upcoming school year, and the classes they would be taking, and how much trouble Nick had gotten into for raiding his mother’s liquor cabinet, and Tad was beginning to feel something close to normal again. After all, it was hard to remain focused on his current troubles in this atmosphere, with good food on the way, surrounded by people his own age that he knew and was at least moderately friendly with. Nick was just telling him about his cousin, who had been hospitalized with heat stroke the day before, when there was a loud catcall from further out on the field, and Tad was instantly reminded that there were other threats in town to be mindful of.

  “Hey, Fresh Meat!” the voice called, and Tad and Nick turned their heads in that direction along with the others.

  “Ah, shit,” Nick said. “Now we’re in for it.” Trotting toward them now were a group of beefy individuals, most of them in the crimson jerseys of the Feral High football team, some of them carrying tennis rackets. One of them was holding a cricket bat. Tad could see his brother in the lead, a devilish grin on his face. When they locked eyes, Casey broke into a run. “Scatter!” Nick yelled. “Everybody scatter!” The younger boys broke for the woods, as their pursuers gave chase behind, fanning out.

  “Get my brother,” Casey was yelling. “Somebody grab my brother!” Tad gritted his teeth. He knew that this sort of hazing was all a part of the high school initiation process, but that didn’t mean he wanted to get smacked around with a cricket bat either, particularly not at the behest of his brother. He elbowed his way past another one of his classmates and hurled over a fallen log as they entered the fringe of the woods. He and the other boy continued sprinting in the same direction, matching each others’ pace. The foliage here was dense, the trees packed in close together, making it difficult to run at full speed. The drought had also dried everything out, so the branches were brittle and far less pliable than they normally would be at this time of year. In the full light of the late morning the leaves had an unhealthy yellow cast, and even here in the shade it was hot- fiercely, brutally hot. Turning for a glimpse behind him, he was outdistanced by the other boy, and he looked back around in time to be slashed across the cheek by a thin branch at face level that had been bent back by the progress of the body ahead of him. He swore heatedly and cut abruptly left, running down a steep bank, slipping through the carpet of fallen leaves. Behind him he could hear laughing, war whoops and other high pitched exultations. Despite the present danger he caught himself grinning as he skidded to the bottom of the hill, his tongue hanging out. It was the exhilaration of the chase that he was feeling, though how much better, he knew, to be predator rather than prey; the fun would come to an abrupt halt if he were caught.

  He was running along what appeared to be a dried up watercourse. The banks on either side of him were growing steeper and widening dramatically. There were pebbles and larger stone slabs, like steps, jutting out from the ground. “There!” someone yelled. “Down there!” The stream bed was widening and beginning to slant downhill, and he had no choice now but to leap from rock to rock like a goat, continuing along this path that had presented itself and to which he was now committed, as the banks on either side were now too severe for him to climb back up.

  “Yoo-hoo!” came a voice, drifting down the cliff on his left. “Hey, little bro! Hey shit stain! You can
run all you like, I’m still going to get you! There’s no escape, you know!” He glanced up to see Casey on top of the bank, loping along at an easy pace, beaming down at him, his jersey a spot of gaudy crimson amongst the yellows and greens of his surroundings. Tad spread his arms, glaring up at him brazenly.

  “Come down here and get me then,” he called, before turning and hopping down to the next rock flat, turning his back on Casey snarling up above. Here there were actually some spots, closer to the overhang, where the long absence of rain had failed to completely dry up all the moisture, and there were pockets in the rock where brackish water sat, choked by molding leaves. From other points in the woods he could hear faint cries, suggesting that some of his other classmates were being introduced to the business end of a tennis racket. He crossed over the rock’s surface, which was marked by many small craters, being careful to avoid the slippery patches. Here and there actual trickles of water were seeping through some of the deeper channels in the rock, and he could hear them splashing down to the next plateau; it sounded like someone taking a nice long leak. Then from behind and to his left he heard a scraping, clattering noise, size twelve sneakers scrabbling against a rocky wall. Despite the incredible steepness of the cliff, Casey, not to be denied, was still climbing down. He had lowered himself over the edge and was hanging by both arms while looking down for chinks in the rock to position his feet. Catching sight of his brother looking at him, Casey smiled again, showing all his teeth in a grin that Tad knew all too well, having seen it enough times in his life; it was the grin that usually preceded a wedgie, or an Indian burn, or a spitball, or just a good old fashioned smack in the mouth.

  “Just stay right there, bro,” Casey panted. “Don’t you go running off now. I’ll be with you shortly.” Noticing a flash of movement on his right, Tad turned to see another pair of crimson jerseys on the opposite bank. Apparently these two had found another way across the gorge back where it wasn’t so treacherous. He saw that one of them was holding the cricket bat. Luckily, they were both hesitating; it didn’t seem that they were as eager as Casey to try rappelling down the cliff wall without a rope. Tad moved forward again, navigating easily between the streams of water, until he came to the brink of this particular drop off. He looked down, thinking it over. Below was a wide oval, like a rock-bottomed crater surrounded by sheer banks, with trees growing in places along its sides, the roots gripping stubbornly to the uneven surface. There were places just below the lip on which he was standing where the water was actually a few feet deep. He guessed that some of these must be fed from underground sources that the surface drought could not affect. There were plenty of dry spaces where he could leap down without any danger of soaking himself, but it was a significant drop to the surface of the basin, probably between twelve and fifteen feet. Not only that, but once he was down, then climbing back up the banks might well be an impossibility. The only way out would be by traveling back up the stream bed again. He would be effectively trapped.

  He glanced back to check on Casey’s progress. His brother was now about a third of the way down the bank, holding on for dear life, his back turned. Tad could see his fingers gripping the rock face as he inched his way further down. Never let it be said the guy’s not persistent. There were two options available to him, seemingly. He could either turn and go back the way he’d come, and hope to lose his pursuers that way, or he could leap down and try to find another way out of the basin. If he turned back, then his brother would be hot on his trail again in no time. Once Casey was down in the stream bed with him, then it probably wouldn’t take long for him to catch up with Tad, what with his stamina and his longer, more powerful legs. Not only that, but at some point Casey’s teammates, who doubtless would be following along the rim above, might be able to outdistance him, find a way down, and cut him off, and he didn’t like the prospect of three on one, especially when one of those three was armed with a cricket bat. On the other hand, if he jumped down, then it would be just him and his brother- not an appealing notion either, but at least he wouldn’t be outnumbered, and besides, Casey appeared to be unarmed. Whatever the case, he needed to make his decision quickly. Casey was now halfway down, and moving with the speed and grace of an orangutan, using his powerful arms and shoulders to grip the rock face. “The hell with it,” Tad said aloud, and jumped. He landed hard on the soles of his feet in about an inch of water, bending his knees as he did so into a crouching position to absorb as much of the impact as he could. He remained kneeling down, so he was momentarily out of Casey and the others’ line of sight, and looked about him for a way out.

  “Hey,” he heard Casey yell. Apparently he had turned around long enough to notice that his brother had made the leap. It registered somewhere in the back of Tad’s mind that this was a positively scenic spot that he’d discovered, a sort of secluded, shady, oasis, made private by the steep walls that surrounded it, that apparently had not been altered by the inescapable heat that they’d been suffering through for the past few weeks. Out toward the center there were natural fissures in the rock, piles of dead branches, and sifted, rotting clumps of orange and yellow leaves that had drifted down over the years from the trees that lined the outer rim and clung to the canyon walls. Over all the soft unbroken murmur of water trickling down from a dozen places, fed by the pools above or some unseen source beneath the bedrock. He took all of this in with a glance, but really all he saw were a multitude of places to hide. There was a whizzing noise above his head and a rock clattered off a branch a few yards ahead of him. One of the football players on the other bank must have thrown it, but Tad didn’t think they could see him from their vantage point. He saw immediately that trying to climb up on the far side would be futile. Keeping low to the ground, he began to move parallel to the overhang in the opposite direction from where Casey was climbing down. He tried to avoid the deeper pools, slipping on the soft, waterlogged leaves, and scrambling over the fallen branches. Then as he was glancing beneath the overhang he saw it- a narrow crack between two rocks, partially obscured by branches, as though at some point the two had been one, and the natural erosion of the water flowing from above had caused their eventual separation. He had very little time. He darted forward, soaking his sneakers, and pushed the branches aside. There was barely room for him to squeeze into the crevice, but he was determined, and after one panicky instant where he thought he was stuck, he rotated his hips and forced his way forward. It was dark inside, and damp. Behind him was an unyielding rock wall, and there was an inch of water flowing by his feet. He had just been able to turn away from the rear of his hiding place and look out toward the entryway, when he heard the hollow echo of footsteps above him, and a moment later he heard a thud as something landed on the rocks up ahead of him. Squinting through the wilted leaves of the branches that concealed the entrance, he could just make out Casey’s profile, as his brother stood a few yards away, red faced and sweating. Tad could see his hands opening and closing, his teeth gritted in a predatory snarl. “Hey!” Casey yelled. “Where’d he go?”

  “I didn’t see,” Tad heard a voice reply faintly, and a moment later, “I saw him jump down! He’s down there somewhere!”

  Casey’s head swiveled back and forth, and then he disappeared from Tad’s line of sight. “Hey, little bro!” Tad heard him call, frustration in his voice. “Come on out. I just want to talk!” Yeah, talk my ass, Tad thought, crouching down as much as the dimensions of his burrow allowed. “You’re only making it worse on yourself,” he heard, from somewhere off to his right. “I’m going to kick your narrow ass when I catch you!” He remained where he was, breathing hard, getting his breath back, as the glorious adrenaline that had flooded his body during the chase began to slip away. He reached into his pocket and lifted out the silver watch. It was ticking away, busily recording the seconds as they passed by. He could hear his brother yelling, but now he was too far away for his voice to be understood. Tad stayed there for a minute, two, three. Then five. Then fifteen. He tho
ught again, not for the first time in the past few weeks, of how subjective the passage of time is, and how much we take it for granted. Like now, for instance, when all he could do was sit there and scrutinize it as it marched along, how it seemed an eternity for the second hand to make the entire rotation from twelve to six and back to twelve again. He was becoming stiff from having stood for so long in the same position. All he could hear, and all he had heard now for some time, was the steady stream of water flowing around him. It was quite cool in his little cave. His shoes felt cold, and his cheek stung a bit, where the branch had whipped across his face. Surely they’re gone now. He moved slowly out to the entrance and tried to lean out to look in either direction. With the branches in the way, it was hard to tell for sure whether he was alone without actually slipping back between the rocks again. He hesitated a moment longer, then squeezed through. Fuck it. We all gotta go some time.