by James Zerndt
“Betsy’s fat,” I say.
“Betsy’s big-boned.”
“And lonely.”
“Definitely lonely,” Jerusha says. “Poor Betsy.”
“Should we invite her into the tent?”
“I don’t think she’d be comfortable.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t think clouds get along with steam.”
“Can we pretend you didn’t just say that?”
“Forgotten,” I say and focus all my energy on maintaining a stroll.
*
Another miracle happens.
Only this time it lasts a bit longer and afterwards Jerusha has this big, goofy grin plastered all over her face.
With my body still humming, I poke my head out of the tent, check to see if Betsy’s still hanging around. She’s hasn’t been scared off yet, so I climb out, remove the tent’s dome. When I climb back in, Jerusha has my Mom’s book propped open on a pillow.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Dustin said he was finished with it.”
“Finished?”
“Not finished like that. I think he just wanted me to read them.”
“It’s all he has of her now.”
“I know,” she says, and we both look at the book like it’s possessed or something. When Jerusha speaks again, her voice is thick sounding, like it’s coming from somewhere deep inside. “When did she write these anyway?”
“Pre-drought.”
“Some of them are really eerie. Like she was a prophet or something.”
“Or something,” I say and lie down beside her. “If it’s okay with you, I’d rather not think about my mom at this particular moment.”
“Which moment is that again?” she says and closes the book.
“This particular one. This right now moment here.”
“So I guess the poetry gene pretty much skipped you entirely?”
“Pretty much.”
“Yeah. I’d say completely much.”
Jerusha snuggles up against me, tilts her head against my chest so she can get a good look at Betsy.
“Is she the right kind?”
“She’s nimbus,” I say. “Just depends on if she’s hungry or not.”
“She looks fatter than the last time we saw her.”
“More big-boned, you mean.”
“Oh, right,” she says. “Sorry, Betsy.”
We take a nap, the shade from Betsy acting like a sedative and I find myself dreaming of cloud porn, cloud orgies, full cloud-on-cloud action.
*
My feet are halfway out the tent before I realize what’s happening. I yank my ankles out of what I’m guessing are hands and scramble back into the safety of tent. When I look through the opening to see who’s trying to kill me, my face is met by a thunderclap of tiny fists.
Dustin.
He knows.
Harder.
That’s all I can think.
Hit me harder.
But Chewbacca himself couldn’t hit me hard enough.
I let him wail away but when Dustin starts calling me every bad word I’ve ever taught him, Jerusha finally figures out what’s going on and scrambles out of the tent.
The look on Dustin’s face.
It shouldn’t belong to any human.
And now I know it’s official.
Dustin’s childhood is finally over.
“You killed them! You fucking killed them!”
Jerusha bear hugs him, trying to calm him down, but it doesn’t do any good. I’m trying to think of something to say, like there’s this word out there that’ll fix everything, when something hits me in the head.
A brick.
Maybe an asteroid.
A crowd has gathered.
Twink’s there.
Other campers.
Cyndi and her parents.
I want to open my arms, raise them to the sky, toward what’s-her-face up there and let them stone me to death, but I can’t move. All I can hear is Jerusha telling Dustin over and over, “He didn’t do it, he didn’t do it...”
Dustin just squirms harder, all the while yelling out these confused, mangled curses.
“You fuck dick! Cockwad! Shit Humper!”
I’m surrounded by a ring of hate and it can’t close tightly enough around me. Another rock hits me in the back of the head and something inside of me unlocks.
My own hate.
My own exhaustion and pain.
I let it flood out of me, my jaw unhinged, my neck craning towards the sky, everything spitting out as I scream into a cloud I’m sorry I made fun of because it still hasn’t budged, still hasn’t been smart enough to run away. It just sits there soaking up all the pain I’m giving it, telling me she can take whatever I give her, that there’s been a drought, that this is what she needs, this is what we all need, this is what will save us.
I don’t know how long it lasts, but when it ends my throat feels like it just gave birth.
The crowd is staring at me.
Dustin is staring at me.
“They killed themselves,” I say, my voice hoarse, barely a whisper. “They killed themselves, Dustin. For us. So we could have more water. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry.”
And that’s it. That’s all I have.
My knees buckle and I hit the ground.
Something wet runs down my cheeks.
I crawl back inside the tent knowing full well whatever fantasy I thought we might find out here has now turned into something else: a place Dustin will go back to for the rest of his life when he thinks about his childhood.
Or the end of it.
*
I must have passed out.
When I wake up, Dustin and Jerusha are both hovering over me.
“Can you see?” Dustin asks, wiping my forehead with a towel. The hatred’s all gone from his face now.
I’d kiss him if he’d let me.
“Shit humper?” I say. “Where did that come from?”
He smiles, just barely, but doesn’t say anything.
“That girlfriend of yours has some arm,” I say, trying not to wince as he dabs at the blood around my eyes.
“It wasn’t her.”
“Who then?”
“We didn’t see,” Jerusha says. “Does it matter?”
“No,” I say. “I suppose not.”
I’m told not to move, to lie still. My head is buzzing. Burning. Medical supplies are handed into the tent and the next thing I know Dustin is cradling my head in his lap, Jerusha wrapping gauze around and around my head like maybe there’s a hole in it and they’re afraid something might fall out.
“Is this really necessary?”
Dustin holds the towel up. It’s a dark red.
When Jerusha finishes, she holds my chin, admiring her handiwork. “You look like a painting. Of a dying soldier.”
Dustin hands me a cool glass of goat’s milk. “Here. Drink this.”
I’m not really thirsty for goat’s milk, or water, or champagne, but I drink it down anyway.
When I finish, Jerusha leans over, gives me a kiss on my good eyebrow. “I need to take care of something,” she says. “Don’t worry, I won’t be long. Besides, I think you two could use some alone time.”
Jerusha’s not gone for more than five seconds before Dustin asks, “So where are they?”
“Mom and Dad?”
“Yeah, well, their bodies I guess.”
“Now? I don’t know.”
“Then where were they?”
“In the basement,” I say, my voice too worn out to shake. “They buried themselves in the basement.”
“Why?”
“Good a place as any I suppose.”
“I mean why didn’t you tell me.”
I look up through the mesh dome of the tent. “Because I’m a coward.”
“What were you going to tell me when we got to California?”
“I don’t know. I just wanted you to have some fun
first. Really, D, that’s all I was thinking about.”
“Yeah, this is a real blast,” he says and turns the cup over in his hand, shakes a few drops into his palm. “And Jerusha? She knew, too?”
“She wanted me to tell you.”
“She could have told me.”
“No, she couldn’t have. I made her promise.” He licks his palm then lies down so that his feet are by my head. “Who told you anyway?”
“Cyndi,” he says. “Her parents heard it on the radio. They don’t want her to play with me anymore.”
“I’m sorry, D. More than you can know.”
The words are barely out of my mouth when he says, “Then tell me. I want to know everything.”
And that’s what I do.
I tell him everything.
About the scar on Mom’s wrist and how she used to tell us it was a white minnow, how Dustin used to run his hands over it, pushing on her veins, saying he was trying to make the minnow swim, how Mom would always pull his hand away.
How they left a shovel out for me.
How it wasn’t the first time she tried it.
*
Jerusha comes back carrying Lando’s head in the palm of her hand.
“The body,” she tells Dustin gravely, “is outside.”
Dustin takes the severed head, tosses it up and down. “Too young to die you were.”
“Didn’t you give Lando to Cyndi?” I say as Jerusha checks my bandages. “If you ask me, you’re better off without her.”
“A bitch she was,” Dustin says and puts the head in his pocket before crawling out of the tent, presumably to find the body.
Jerusha looks bone-tired.
Worse. Marrow-tired.
She lies down next to me, says, “How’d it go?”
“Good?” I say and shrug with my eyebrow. “I mean he listened at least.”
“That’s enough,” she says. “For now anyway.”
I want to ask her where she’s been, but she looks so tired I content myself by stroking the hairs on her forearm until we fall asleep.
Everything else can wait.
*
By the time we wake up, it’s nearly dinner time. My head is pounding, a sharp pain sawing away at the back of my skull, but I say nothing to Jerusha or Dustin about it.
“I need to talk to Dustin before we eat.”
“Now?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
“Fine,” she says and gives me a quick peck on the cheek. “Meet me there?”
I pull her to me, kiss her right there in front of Dustin, slow, like when we’re alone. When she pulls away, she says, “Go without you. Yes, sir. Will do. Anything else?”
She walks off and my heart wants to explode. It does just about every time she’s out of my sight lately.
“Bring your jacket,” I tell Dustin and crawl back in the tent to find the envelope I brought from home.
The poem’s faint, but still legible.
I read it slowly, like I did the first time, a line at a time, trying to make each word count, but it doesn’t help.
They’re still just words.
I place it in the book, let the paper stick out like a yellow flag so Dustin will see it.
“C’mon,” Dustin yells from outside. “I don’t want to miss dinner.”
I tuck the book into my jacket, climb out, and, just as we’re about to leave, Cyndi’s mom walks by. She turns her head when she sees me, tries to hide her face, but it’s too late.
She’s got a big, black-and-blue shiner over her left eye.
Like someone walloped her with a hammer.
Would you rather mess with a Grizzly or Jerusha?
I’m pretty sure Dustin hasn’t noticed, so I keep my mouth shut and we walk to the top of the hill that overlooks the camp’s dining area. As we stand there looking down at everybody, I realize I have no idea where to begin.
When I search the sky for help, Betsy’s gone.
Useless. Like a book of poems.
Or an apology.
“D,” I start to say, and he looks up at me, leery, like he’s just waiting for me to dump more bad news on him. “Mom left us something when she died.”
“When she offed herself, you mean.”
“She had reasons, D. Reasons we’ll probably never understand.”
“So what is it?”
“A poem. Sort of.”
He shakes his head, says, “Yippy.”
“Look, I just want you to have everything I have. To know what I know.”
I pull the book out, but, just as I’m about to hand it to Dustin, we see something strange going on down below.
Like ants swarming.
But they’re not ants.
They’re Water-cops.
People are running, scattering, but it’s useless. They’ve got the perimeter closed off, our fellow campers being herded right into captivity.
There’s a gunshot.
Then another.
My first thought is of Jerusha, but I can’t see her in the mess below.
“They’re killing the goats,” Dustin says. “Look.”
He points to the pen, and, sure enough, a couple of cops have opened the gate, are picking them off one by one as they amble off on wobbly legs. The sicker ones they’re just shooting right inside the pen.
“Why would they do that?” Dustin asks, but before I can answer him, something hits me in the back and more fireworks shoot up the base of my skull.
I hit the ground and when I look up, I see Dustin being held from behind.
“Gag and bag the little shits.”
A cop tapes Dustin’s mouth shut and when I try to get up, there’s another crack, another round of small explosions snaking up my spine.
“Wait--,” I stammer, but that’s all I’m able to get out before I’m gagged and forced to watch as they place a hood over Dustin’s head.
After that, everything goes black.
Only this time, I’m wide awake.
Marooned in Bathwater
My belly is a submarine,
a child inside
launching missiles
made of elbows and feet,
warring for the simple right
to drown
like all the rest of us.
10 Got Water?
-You should try to be more positive.
-I am positive. Positive you should shut it.
-The typical response of a complete nobody. That’s why you’ll never make sergeant.
-At least I’m not an incomplete nobody.
-Hilarious. Corporeal Hilarious. You boys hear that back there? No? Ah, well, I’m sure you’re laughing on the inside.
My dad and I met the President once. Back when Dad was still working for the government and won some fancy-pants award for Clean Energy research. I remember being proud back then, thinking my dad was a hero, that the President was going to turn this country into an example for the rest of the world. Dad even gave a short speech about third world countries needing water, how with extended research we could control nature, use it to help all of mankind.
The applause that day was thunderous.
I remember the look on the President’s face, too, how serene it seemed, how enlightened. We were ushering in a new era, one of good will, one of science and clean energy.
Science was God now.
And my dad was the Pope.
-I have to take a dump.
-Not happening.
-Seriously, I’m crowning here. We’re talking turtle head.
-Lovely. Thanks for sharing.
I sat in the front row, mesmerized by the President. I don’t remember much of what he said that day, but that was about the time things began to change, about the time we went from eco-friendly to eco-hysterical.
They closed the borders soon after that.
-What do you suppose made them turn?
-Maybe they loved the smell of Leftovers.
-Was that it boys? You love the smel
l of Leftovers? Just couldn’t control yourselves anymore?
-They can’t talk. Their mouths are taped shut.
-I realize that.
-Then why are you asking them questions?
-I don’t like you. I mean that. I really do not like you.
(Over the police radio: ...one more captured... a few runners, but they’ll be found shortly...)
-Turn that crap off.
-I’m telling.
-You don’t like it either.
-Do, too.
-Turn it off.
Soon after they closed the borders, they passed a law limiting each family to one child. If you wanted more than that, you had to pay a fine. The ultimate in natural selection, the rich becoming the only ones allowed to breed.
“We’re going completely China,” my dad said a few months before the law was officially announced. “If you want another one,” he told my mom, “we’d better sneak it in now.”
Nine months later Dustin was born.
-Remember that Leftover who carved WATER into his forehead?
-No.
-The guy did it in the mirror, ended up doing it backwards so it said RETAW. Idiot was trying to make some political statement, but everybody started calling him retard after that. Now that was funny. You should take notes.
-I’ll get right on that.
Something hits my leg.
A foot.
Dustin.
He’s okay.
-We should do the same thing to these two assholes before we bring them in.
-Carve WATER into their foreheads?
-Something better. More stupider. Like Sons Of Bitches. Only we’d do it backwards like that other guy.
-And what would Sons Of Bitches be backwards?
- Steb...sticheb. Whatever, it’d be funny.
-Maybe something shorter.
-Yeah, shorter. Like what?
-Asshole.
-Yeah, that’s not bad.
-No, I mean you. You are an asshole. Frontwards and backwards.
I hear a short, muffled grunt. Hopefully it’s Dustin laughing at these jokers, but, for all I know, he could be trying to scream for help. Our hands are bound and it’s getting hard to breathe.
The air is black.
Everything is bouncy and black.
