Landscape: Memory

by Matthew Stadler

  "What can I say, pumpkin? I want to help."

  She had a knack for the wrong word. "I don't want help. I want a simple conversation. I was trying to share my thoughts with my mother, as all little boys should."

  * * *

  She began packing things back in the basket. The sky was black and clear to the east and deep blue over the hills west. I watched a yacht strung with colored lights chugging across the inky bay, puffs of white smoke trailing from its thin smokestack. I hated what I'd said but would not speak to undo it.

  "I'm tired, pumpkin. I'm just very tired now," she said, and she took the basket and left me.

  I walked around for quite a while, it might have been hours. My body was tired but my mind woke up as night came on. I thought maybe I'd walk to the Sutro baths and watch the people swimming but when I got there the baths were closed. It must've been almost midnight. I decided to go wake up Duncan.

  "I want to show you somewhere," I whispered, lying down next to him and rocking his shoulder to wake him up.

  He stretched and yawned, turning toward me and propping up on one elbow. "You're up still?" he asked. "I thought you'd been asleep all evening. Your door's closed."

  "I've been with my mom."

  "This late?"

  "Earlier, for drawing. I've been walking around."

  "Aren't you tired? You looked a mess today."

  "I'll be tired, but I'm pretty awake now."

  "You should've left a note on your door or something."

  "Yeah? What would you've done if I left a note?"

  He paused to think. "Nothing, I guess."

  We lay there in silence, the nighttime breeze blowing in the opened window. I watched the blankets rise and fall with his soft breathing, and felt my own move in time with his.

  "So come on. I gotta show you somewhere."

  "No, Dogey, no. I'm so warm here." He started whimpering.

  "Yes. I'm serious."

  "Why? It's freezing out there." And he pulled the covers tight around him.

  "It's not so bad once you're dressed and walking. You'll like it."

  "You don't know that."

  "I know that. You will like it, it's an adventure. It's a wilderness adventure."

  "Ooohh, spooky." He made a horrible spooky sound. "Will there be bats and things?"

  "Yes, yes. Horrible screaming."

  "Mine?"

  "Yours," and I pulled the covers off. "Come on then, before it's dawn."

  We were soon out of the house, Duncan scoffing a biscuit and me leading.

  I wanted to take him to the woods up in the Presidio, to that place in the woods, the hollow looking west. I hadn't been there in the dark yet but I felt certain I could find it. I remembered routes mostly by terrain and not so much by sight. Particularly in the thick of the woods, I followed the feel of my feet on the ground.

  The bright half moon cast our shadows as we walked, the night full with cool ocean air. No one was awake, it seemed, anywhere. Silence stretched out around us. We scrambled up into the trees, the moonlight shut out now by thick branches. Duncan had hold of my shirttail and kept bumping up against me or pulling back. I felt his breath, warm and billowing, against my bare neck, and kept on, blindly, through the woods.

  The rough ground rose and fell beneath us, the trees so thick we'd brush against them without seeing. The moon was gone. I knew the path and could follow it so long as I didn't try and think. Down a short drop, left and quickly right, up a steady rise, the ground harder underfoot, over a small ridge and onto soft moss. We were there, so suddenly I almost didn't stop. The trees opened up around us. The half moon came clear among the clouds again. We stood in silence, breathing, and listened to the ocean breaking against the rocks below. Buoy bells clanged their warnings to ships at sea. The water broke white against rocks caught in the dim moonlight.

  "It's this," I said. "Right here."

  Duncan sat down on the damp moss and looked into the soft rustling of the eucalyptus. He turned to me, his eyes bright white in the dark brown of his face. "Spooky," he said, quiet and quick, and he shivered.

  "Yeah," I agreed. "Right here." And we both watched in all directions, the shadowy mess of tree tops and down low into the thicket, around the soft stretch of moss and out across the wide-open water. I wanted to say how I felt here but that wasn't possible.

  Hollow metal banging came crashing up from the rocks, scaring white birds out of the tree tops. The waves kept up their rhythm, heavy and slow, drawing off the rough tumble of land and surging back again. The metal banged again with each wash of water hard into the rocks. Then there was a terrible sound, metal scraping metal, and men's voices yelling in some strange tongue.

  We stretched and strained to look down onto the rocks. White foam splashed high and took the shapes of phantoms, ghostly blobs engorged against the black face of the rock, then gone back into the sea. In the waves we thought we'd spotted the prow of a boat, certain we'd seen its outline. Water washed over the gunwales. Its nose dipped dangerously and battered in close to land's end. It may have truly been a ship, but what I saw went under while what Duncan saw floated free and disappeared to the east.

  The awful metal scraping started in again, gathering its pitch and wail to a pinnacle and a gunshot snap. The yelling was loud now, and angry. One water-washed phrase was garbled in the roaring waves, and a chorus of other voices yelled back, growing distant. And the metal banging was gone.

  * * *

  Duncan had leaned out over the edge, holding tight to the trunk of a heavy fir, and stretched as far as he could. We couldn't go down, for fear we'd never make it back up. The man's voice kept up a long time, more and more frantic, and then stopped.

  "Anything?" I asked Duncan, hoping he'd seen what happened.

  "Nothing. What we saw was waves, I think." We kept quiet and strained to hear, but the wind and water were as full of phantom sounds as the night was of ghosts. Each moan and call sounded like a dying man or a criminal, scrambling uphill all bloodied and ruthless.

  "1 can't tell if that's him," I said. It worried me, every sound was so ambiguous.

  "That's water, or birds, I think."

  Loud laughing came at us again, only now it sounded much more like wild water. Duncan looked at me and then peered out over the edge.

  "That's water, too," he said.

  "No. That's a man." And the sound came rushing up through the woods again, more watery still.

  "That's water for certain."

  I first thought he must be wrong, that everything I'd heard and seen meant this must be a man, crushed to death and bloody against the rocks. But that reality was too frightening and impossible to deal with. I huddled close to Duncan, seeking comfort in his explanation.

  "It sounds so weird," I whispered to him. "It's like this here all the time."

  "You heard it like this here before?"

  "Yeah," I answered quietly, remembering my dream and the deep sleep of last time. "It's the shape of the hill, and the rocks down there. Every time it's weird. That's why I brought you here." It seemed possible.

  Duncan smiled and looked up through the ghostly trees. "Jesus, Max, it's wild. It sounds so real." He rolled back across the moss and groaned hysterically up into the night, spreading his arms and pushing against the damp ground. I felt glad for his enthusiasm, and quickly buried my secret fear that what we'd seen and heard, however incomplete, could not have been simply rocks and water.

  Duncan's laughter wobbled all around me. The tall trees, waving in the blackened sky, the water beating on the rocky shore, the empty night turning on its pivot toward dawn. I lay still in the hollow. The mystery of that broken man echoed inside my sleepless head, and slipped away to hide inside me.

  2 MAY 1915

  This from The Call:

  Joseph H. Hunt, wealthy fruit packer, and his wife are prostrated at their home in Oakland over the tragic death of their thirteen-year-old son, Harold. Edith Akerly, the lad's girl chum, who made a heroic a
ttempt to save him, is in the hospital.

  The boy was thrown into the lake when his canoe was overturned by a gust of wind as he was paddling across to keep a tennis engagement with Miss Akerly. After swimming a short distance he suddenly sank, but came up again, calling calmly to his chum, "I am all right. I'll be fine." Miss Akerly told doctors that young Hunt swam about in small circles as though dazed. He looked around him, calling again, "I am all right, Edie. I'll be in soon" and then sank.

  The brave girl was standing on the shore when she saw the boy sink, tore off her outer dress and plunged into the lake. She swam about waiting for him to come up. The body of the boy was recovered an hour and a half later but no spark of life remained.

  Dear Robert,

  There's a game we play with the four or five of us on watch when it's near to dawn and even the snipers have fallen into a dead sleep. Each man takes a card and slaps it face out up to his forehead so that everyone else can see and we proceed to bet good money on it. No one knows what card they hold. We're silent as church mice.

  Could you send along a dictionary? We speak so seldom (silence being our best protection) that I fear I'm losing my English. Dirt flies off shrapnel bursts and my every thought is contained in action—sudden flight, a waving of arms, rapidly shifting facial expressions strung together like sentences. No words intercede.

  I wonder about the night, its many secrets. Is that where wisdom lies?

  * * *

  4 MAY 1915

  It must be three o'clock a.m. now. I've got a candle lit in a giant Persian lantern all filigreed and fancy, casting spooky shadows, dancing across the heavy carpets hanging on the walls, all shapes of women and animals and crouching men. Duncan's fast asleep and I will be soon, but this lantern's got me all dreamy and scared. I wanted to put it down now, not remembering.

  The candle's burned an hour or so. It's bright inside the metal chamber, bright yellow brass. It's dripping wax out the bottom where the walls curve in and the shapes give way to a filigreed border. I can convince myself the flickering figures are alive. They jump and bob, knocking into one another, playing out some ancient play that's lived in this lamp forever, come to life with the flicker of flame, and composed of whatever they're cast upon. In this room it's wooden walls and carpets, books full of nonsense, and black windows they fall through.

  I've blown it out now. The metal's going cold. There's enough light out there to see in the night, once you get used to it. I see shapes sharper than daytime and if I look off to the side I can make out the finest details, like the words I'm writing. I can see them only if I look sideways past them. But you've got to keep your eyes moving, otherwise things just disappear.

  The Fair at Night

  _______________________________________________

  24 MAY 1915

  It was night again, and there was no moon out. I'd walked from the house through a neighborhood I rarely went to, just uphill from the Fair at its east end. It was still warm from the day and I sat on the stone steps of a large wooden house opposite a family's picnic, feeling the warmth of the stone through my thin cloth trousers. It was twilight then, and the evening stars were bright, other stars emerging, and the sky going black. I watched it all from the steps, just resting there, leaning back on my elbows, resting and feeling the breeze blow across my bare arms and face.

  The family had two dogs with lace-lined party hats tied by bows to their doggy heads. The children were dressed up too, some as clowns and others nearly naked Indians. The mother came out the wide-open front door bearing bowls of punch and sporting a hatchet, its blade buried in her skull. It must have been a novelty. They had electric lights, as we did, but seemed also to have some uncommonly strong spotlights, perhaps stage lights and certainly bright enough to be.

  I watched the night sky, the thick wash of the Milky Way now in view, and pretended to pay them little mind. It was a night much like all the other nights. The Tower of Jewels lit like a bloody saber, climbing crimson into the black sky, the promise of fog sometime before morning, and most of the city, it seemed, walking the broad avenues of the Fair or taking streetcars and strolling their way over there. I had dressed dapper, just because. Collar and tie, a pair of clean trousers, a soft snap-brim cap and my face well-scrubbed. I even wore a clean white shirt. I don't know why. It felt nice to dress neatly, I suppose, like camouflage.

  There by this family I felt invisible, the night settling in and them awash in their own bright lights, playing some elaborate pantomime probably of their own devising. Its meager plot tumbled forward to a close, and then came the dousing of the lights. Everything went suddenly dark.

  I felt bathed in the night then, it snapping shut around that big family, wrapping us all up together, and the Indians whooping their courage against the total darkness, whooping loud and long up into the cool, smoky air. Dogs howled and I howled too, on impulse and undetected, howling up to the stars, my neck stretched and chin way up till my head went dizzy, and I howled some more. I could see some now, not just the stars, but the ghostly glow of the pale-skinned Indians running and rolling in the big lawn, laughing and calling in some new game with the clowns.

  "British bulldog, British bulldog," I heard one calling loud, and then all the rest rushed at him, all but one reaching the far end of the yard, and that one wrestled to the ground by the boy in the middle, an Indian shorter than me.

  "British bulldog," he called again, and the pack rushed back, two now tackled by the two in the middle, so then there were four.

  Neighbor kids were coming from out of the dark, running toward the call and joining the mob at one end of the soft, grassy lawn. They all pulled off their shoes and stockings, all familiar, I figured, with the rough-and-tumble of the game. I ran there too, tossing my shoes into the pile and pulling off my stockings as the throng went rushing into the fray, the middle now dense with Indians and clowns and neighbor kids all running and wrestling, wild and muddy.

  I lined up for the charge, cocky and bold for no good reason, and I got in with an Indian, his bear hug well-timed and tight around my belly. I broke free when my top buttons burst and I twisted neatly out of my shirt and away to safety. There were eight of us left and nearly a score in the middle. I was tossed, my torn shirt, and I put it on again, always thinking.

  "British bulldog" and we rushed in. I smartly lingered a moment, letting the hasty gangs engage themselves, each with a victim. Three of us made it through, I by guile and the other two by brute force.

  I was down in an instant on the next rush, my shirt ripped away again and at least ten involved in my demise. The sweaty skin of several Indians smushed up against me and a clown puff fell within easy reach of my grabbing hand. We rolled and wrestled across the quickly muddied lawn, whole piles of dirty kids falling into the fray, no end to the game, and I uncontrollably laughing from excitement, dragging down whomever I could get my hands on.

  The cold air was filled with hooting and howling, more kids than I'd ever grabbed before, rubbing each other senseless into the mud. It went on and on, of course, and ended as suddenly as that. Tired kids got up off the ground and poked around by the bushes, looking for shoes and shirts and this and that. They wandered back into the night, to houses whose windows were warm with firelight, up to their rooms or a bath and then bed.

  I lay there and looked sideways across the muddy grass, my pale arms stretched out into the dark, and watched the bodies walking away. The ghost white of my shirt lay alone near the bushes, one tear evident on the sleeve. My two black shoes were somewhere behind me. It was another moment like so many moments these days. I watched the lights of the Scintillator playing its curtains of color across the black sky above the bay and remembered that I'd meant to go to the Fair.

  The Zone hooted and howled, its bare-bulb lighting shouting up into the dark. Drunks reeled against the fence that ran down Chestnut Street. I could see lines of revelers, their bowlers tipped back, standing in wait for the Aerospace, watching its long iron-boned
arm lift the thin metal carriage up into space, an airborne carton of gawkers leaning out against the fenced walls to see as far across the fairgrounds as could be. Buddha gazed serenely out into the night, from atop the center of Japan Beautiful, deep in the Zone. Mother told me it was Buddha and that he always looks sleepy like that.

  I went in under the bright white lights at Fillmore, handing my photo pass to a turnstile guard who looked at me with what I took to be suspicion, though, given my appearance, it may well have been concern.

  "There's only an hour or so left," he warned me. "You'll not be looking to stay in after closing now." He must have taken me for a vagrant. A vagrant with a season's pass.

  "No sir, I'll just be in for some rides. I'll go home to bed," I assured him.

  I didn't go for rides straightaway, steering clear of the noisy Zone and walking instead down the Avenue of Progress toward the water. Bright banners hung high the whole length of the avenue, beating about in the wind, casting shadows into stray clouds of steam. They looked like lurid poppies floating in a black pool, all poked and pushed by drunken fish, jumping around there in the night. I got to feeling dizzy, what with the long avenue leading off into infinity and the sky displaced by so many colors. I turned into the shelter of the Court of Mines, its clean, manageable space marked off by high marble walls, sheltered from the wind and nonsense of the broad avenue.

  I sat on a rough stone bench and took some deep breaths to relax. Really, the Fair was a bit much without a guidebook. Looking across through the central courts I felt buried by the avalanche of statuary and symbolic ornamentation, legions of nymphs and dryads and slumping Indians facing off against stout pioneers. And all the colors. The guidebook or Mother could set it all straight, accounting for each and every pairing and juxtaposition in the various courts. But now it was a dizzying muddle, what with the jumbled colors leaping off into the night and me feeling a bit piqued. I took some more breaths and looked down into the pretty pink gravel, just watching my two shoes set firmly on the ground.