14 Degrees Below Zero

by Quinton Skinner

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Acknowledgments

  INTRO. PEOPLE LIKE THIS MUST HAVE THEIR SHARE OF PROBLEMS

  Chapter 1. ALL HER FEARS DISSOLVING FOR A SECOND OR TWO

  Chapter 2. MAYBE HE NEEDED TO HAVE A WORD WITH STEPHEN

  Chapter 3. IT WAS KIND OF AN UGLY THING

  INTERLUDE. IN THE CAR, THERE WAS NO WIND

  Chapter 4. A SINGLE MOTHER COLLEGE DROPOUT WITH RAVEN BLACK HAIR

  Chapter 5. HIS CONTINUED WILLINGNESS TO WEAR THE MASK OF LEWIS

  Chapter 6. IT WAS ALL WELL AND GOOD FOR A DEAD BEARDED GUY

  Chapter 7. THE POINT OF FEAR, BEYOND ITS UTILITY AS A WARNING

  INTERLUDE. SHE WOULD MAKE HERSELF DUMB AND SLEEPY FOREVER

  Chapter 8. OF ALL THE THINGS HE NEEDED AT THIS STAGE OF HIS LIFE

  Chapter 9. THE DENUDED TREES, THE BARREN FLOWER BEDS, THE STILLNESS

  Chapter 10. HE HAD DEALT WITH HIS SHARE OF JEALOUS FATHERS

  Chapter 11. HE WAS THE CENTER OF HIS OWN TRAGIC OPERA

  INTERLUDE. NO ONE GOES AWAY, SHE SAID

  Chapter 12. THEY HAD LEARNED TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM DISAPPOINTMENT

  Chapter 13. THEY HAD RIDDEN THE SWEET WAVE OF LUST; NOW IT WAS OVER

  Chapter 14. HIDEBOUND, EARTH-LADEN, AND FINALLY FREE

  INTERLUDE. FEEDING THE PENGUINS AND MAKING SURE THEIR BABIES WERE SAFE

  Chapter 15. EITHER EMBRACE HIM OR THROW HIM OUT IN THE SNOW

  Chapter 16. BECAUSE SHE WAS A LOT LIKE HER FATHER

  Chapter 17. THE VOID WAS REACHING OUT AND CREATING A MONUMENT

  Chapter 18. EVERY FEW YEARS A REAL CLIMATOLOGICAL HORROR CAME ALONG

  Chapter 19. IT FELT LIKE A VISIT TO A CHAPEL OF HELPLESSNESS

  Chapter 20. TRANSMITTING WHAT SHE TOOK TO BE PERTINENT FACTS

  INTERLUDE. HE REALLY NEEDED SOMEONE TO TAKE CARE OF HIM

  Chapter 21. NOTHING BUT THE CRYSTALLINE FORBIDDANCE OF THE BAY

  Chapter 22. THE RUSH OF RUNNING TO SAVE HIS OWN SKIN

  Chapter 23. YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE THAT

  Chapter 24. LIKE BEING ANYBODY ELSE, MAYBE A LITTLE MORE INTENSE

  Chapter 25. HAPPY TO HAVE EVEN TRANSITORY COMPANY

  EPILOGUE. HIS LOVE FOR HER TRANSPARENT AND SHINING

  About the Author

  Also by Quinton Skinner

  Copyright

  I have placed my happiness on seeing you good and accomplished, and no distress which this world can now bring on me could equal that of your disappointing my hopes.

  —THOMAS JEFFERSON, in a letter to his daughter

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Alicka Pistek, Mark Tavani, Brynnar Swenson. My loving gratitude to Natasha and Gabriel for providing an abundance of (often inadvertent) inspiration.

  Thanks always to Sarah.

  INTRO. PEOPLE LIKE THIS MUST HAVE THEIR SHARE OF PROBLEMS.

  The ancient Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu once enjoyed a vivid dream of being a butterfly—swooping, beating his wings, riding the currents of the most minute disturbances in the atmosphere.

  When he awoke, he was forever troubled. He could never answer, to his satisfaction, whether he had been a man dreaming he was a butterfly, or whether he was now a butterfly dreaming he was a man.

  When he went down the slope in the snow, his mind was in a riot. He tried to overcome gravity and deposit himself unharmed at the top of the tree-lined trail. It was no good, of course. He was unable to out-will reality, to bend time and happenstance, to reverse the sixty seconds that had seen him battered, his consciousness fractured. He knew that he might never recover from this.

  His eyes sent to his brain a series of snapshots: the denuded trees, the whiteness of the snowstorm broken by black spots of rock, his own breath forming trails in the winter air as he fell.

  He slid and tumbled, his rage unfolding. Big clumps of snow fell from the sky and landed in his eyes. He craved revenge for what had just happened, but his body ignored his commands, sending back spiky blasts of pain from his extremities and a blast of panic from his chest as his wind was knocked out.

  Gravity continued to do its thing and he fell. He began to roll, and then remembered what was at the bottom of the slope.

  The river was partially frozen and covered with floating snow. From the top of the hill it had been a thing of beauty, winding in serenity through the city. Down here it was noisy, its currents sounding like a long exhaled breath. He looked up and caught a glimpse of the bridge, with cars going past, and wondered if anyone could see him.

  The thin ice snapped like a glass tabletop. The sound was muffled by the snow and cold; it was as though the elements had conspired to make his death as quiet and uneventful as possible. He tried to grab hold of something, anything, and gasped when the freezing water enveloped his shoulders and legs.

  Get up. Just stand up. Don’t let him get away with this.

  He was in the water now. A deep part of his mind urged him to stay alive, but he couldn’t get his arms and legs to work. His cold-weather gear started soaking up water, and he felt himself begin to sink.

  Up above, in the snowstorm, an airplane passed. Inside they would be worried about their landing. But they would be warm.

  Then the water was up around his face. It was black and too cold to be believed. His eyes and mouth remained above the surface, and he sucked in air in panicked gasps. Water filled his ears.

  Get up get up get up get up get—

  The air was . . . no, that wasn’t air. Was he breathing water? He wasn’t breathing. He was drowning. Pain seethed through his arms and legs, into his chest. He couldn’t feel his hands and feet.

  This isn’t good. I don’t want this.

  He could hear the river singing a sleepy song. He tried to remember where he was. He had fallen. He was in the river. He could still see the sun but it was filtered through an aqueous gauze.

  Someone get me out of here. Please.

  He was on the bottom of the shallow water. The sun had gone out. He tried to remember the sound of his own name. He—

  —remembered holding a photograph. It showed a man in his forties, with thick dark hair and upright posture. Next to him was a younger woman, obviously his daughter—the resemblance between them was striking. In between, holding both their hands, was a beautiful little girl in a flower-print dress, her bangs hanging over her forehead, caught in mid-sentence, talking to her mother and grandfather. To one side was a handsome man of about thirty, in a blazer and open-necked shirt; he stood just apart, as though not sure whether he was allowed to get too close to the family—or if he wanted to.

  It was a sunny spring afternoon at the farmers’ market. In a second photo, the young woman turned to the handsome man and kissed him on the lips. The older man made a point of diverting his granddaughter’s attention. They were good-looking, well-dressed people. They seemed comfortable and happy together. They were worthy of envy. They showed little sign of what they had just been through.

  The father and the boyfriend shared a glance. In a third photo we might try to discern what passed between them, but the image revealed little. They smiled with their mouths and not their eyes. They looked through each other, rather than allowing their gazes to meet.

  People like this must have their share of problems. Everyone does. At the market they smelled the hay, the flowers, the cotton candy. Each in their various ways tried not to think about sickness, loss, resentment, and the shadowed corners of the will that had to be checked. They appeared a picture of happiness. He remembered that day. He—

  —he was trying to talk, but the freezing water burned his throat and the centers of his eyes clouded over with the awful whiteness of the voi
d.

  1. ALL HER FEARS DISSOLVING FOR A SECOND OR TWO.

  Even in her sleep she could taste her mother’s grilled-cheese sandwiches: crackling on the outside but rescued from dryness by a fatty residue of butter coating her tongue, the cheddar inside melted perfectly and peeking innocently around the bread crust. It smelled of calmness, security, and warmth.

  “Something to drink, Jay?” her mother asked.

  “Milk,” Jay mumbled through the first mouthful of the sandwich.

  “Excuse me?” Jay’s mother said; she was beautiful but looked tired, with her long hair tied back and a suggestion of shadow around her eyes.

  “Milk,” Jay said more clearly.

  “Is that how we ask for something?”

  “Can I have some milk, please?” Jay blurted out.

  Her mother nodded with satisfaction and went to the kitchen. Jay heard the sound of the refrigerator opening and the milk being poured. She had another bite of her sandwich.

  The light streaming in through the dining-room windows cast pools of reflection on the wooden tabletop. Jay made sure not to leave crumbs. Her father wasn’t home—he was at work—but she had trained herself to avoid the looks of irritation her carelessness provoked. He made Jay tense and worried. She loved him so much that she grabbed hold of him whenever he was near, pressing herself to his leg or arm, her thumb making for her mouth, all her fears dissolving for a second or two.

  The milk was in front of her. Jay couldn’t remember her mother bringing it. Somehow she knew none of this was real, but it felt so good she didn’t want it to stop.

  She lived in a place called Minnesota. It was a very cold place where people knew how to behave themselves. It was actually only cold for part of the year, but that cold was so profound, so shocking and even terrifying at times, that it cast a shadow over even the hottest and sunniest days of summer.

  Jay’s mother was gone. She had left. That’s right, she had left.

  The house was quiet. It was three stories including the spacious attic, full of comfortable furniture and a kitchen always stocked with food. Though she was in a little girl’s body, Jay could remember growing to adulthood there. She’d snuck cigarettes by the big elm in the backyard, and lost her virginity in her room one afternoon when she was supposed to be at school. She loved the house, for all its residue of pain and disappointment.

  Another bite of the sandwich. The crispy pan-fried bread gave way to the hot, liquid core. The place was entirely quiet, the way it had often been when she was a teenager, with her father off somewhere and her mother silently painting in the sunporch—no music, no talk radio, nothing but Anna’s endless meditation on the back garden. It had grown increasingly quiet during dinnertime as well, the laughter and storytelling between Jay’s parents having shifted to a more muted song of things unsaid that Jay could never entirely penetrate.

  She got up from the table. Strange, she was so short. The top of the table was at about shoulder level. How old was she? Five? Six? She reached up and felt the soft outlines of her cheeks, the feathery wisps of her shoulder-length hair.

  The living room was as she remembered (when was it?), with stacks of magazines and books everywhere, her own and her parents’, with Anna’s gardenscapes on all four walls.

  Anna. Jay’s mother’s name was Anna. And now she was gone. She had died.

  Jay sat on the worn-out sofa under the room’s largest window, raising a small nimbus of dust that dispersed around her. From there she could see the open door to the sunroom, and make out the workbench where Anna kept her paints, rags, and brushes. Jay tongued out a stubborn bit of her sandwich from the back of her teeth, enjoying the flash of a flavor she hadn’t tasted in . . .

  She was never going to see her mother again.

  With an emotion resembling panic Jay thought of the closet upstairs where Anna kept her clothes. She knew everything was just as Anna had left it; Jay’s father, Lewis, was too benumbed by grief to get rid of them. Jay had an urge to go up there and lose herself in the smell of her mother’s stale perfume and the feel of the dresses Jay used to press her face against.

  But she couldn’t. She willed herself to stand, but it was impossible. She might as well have been cemented to the couch.

  The room began to break apart as though it wasn’t real. Of course it wasn’t real.

  Her bedroom was suffused with the morning chill. Weak light insinuated its way through a crack in the curtains. Jay stretched her body and remembered where she was, and when it was.

  Next to her slept a man. Stephen. That was Stephen. He slept with his arms folded, his chest rising and falling, his handsome face tense as though he was working out some unsolvable problem. Somehow he sensed Jay waking up and shifted toward her a couple of inches.

  Jay was twenty-three. She wasn’t a little girl any longer, though she could taste the grilled-cheese sandwich of her dream and, almost gasping, remembered that she had been in the presence of her mother just moments before. She had asked for the milk correctly, after some prompting. She had pleased her mother one more time.

  She shook her head because it wouldn’t do to start the morning crying. There was a real little girl down the hall, after all, and Jay had to be strong for her. She had to be strong in spite of how certain she was of her own weakness.

  It wouldn’t be irresponsible to doze for ten more minutes. Ten more minutes, and then Jay would launch herself out of bed and transform into a domestic whirlwind effortlessly getting Ramona ready for school and then heading to work. It would be easy. It would be simple, in a way that it never was before.

  2. MAYBE HE NEEDED TO HAVE A WORD WITH STEPHEN.

  Now he had to walk the dog every morning before work—the beast had needs. Lewis had named it Carew, after the baseball player, and had regretted the decision ever since. Rod Carew, in his playing days with the Minnesota Twins, had exemplified subtlety and finicky precision. Carew the dog, in the prime of his canine days, was the polar opposite. Carew the dog was spastic, perpetually overexcited, and utterly oblivious to the finer points of his master’s moods.

  Lewis Ingraham held Carew’s leash in the chill air, the breath of man and beast condensing in the gray morning, with the leafless trees and dim blues and whites of the autumn morning. And a thought occurred to Lewis.

  He had come to realize—or at least believe, with the heartfelt conviction of a man uncovering an essential truth until then hidden beneath the mundane surface of things—that Carew had single-handedly (granting the beast, for the moment, the symbolic gift of hands) tipped Lewis’s life from stoically bearable to entirely unpalatable. Oh, the fucking dog. The walking, the feeding, the constant emotional thirst for attention—they all entailed an added level of obligation and toil, and had transformed an otherwise flat but satisfyingly habit-ridden stage in a man’s life into a hectic, fecal-tinged routine of unrewarding strife.

  Not that it was all Carew’s fault, to be fair.

  It was acceptable to Lewis to admit that he didn’t like his dog, and never really had—he was a man untroubled by some of the more unseemly aspects of his personality. The dog had been a gift from his daughter Jay, and as such was laden with so much symbolism and implicit significance that it was nearly unthinkable for Lewis to, say, simply unleash the animal and encourage it to amble from sight and disappear forever. Actually, no, he had tried that. The dog always came back.

  The day they went to get the dog had been a scorcher, burning with heat and humidity. Lewis had been hungover and numb with grief. They’d gone together to Animal Control with Jay’s daughter Ramona—Lewis’s granddaughter, his consolation prize for continuing to exist. The thought of Ramona enlivened Lewis’s step and robbed the sting from the morning air. He remembered going that day to the derelict city facility near downtown, nestled near the steel prison of the automotive impound lot, on a mission to get a dog for himself. It was understood that the dog would also be Ramona’s—that Lewis would care for it, and that it would provide him with a s
upplemental reason for continuing to live, but that Ramona was also gaining a dog-by-proxy, saving Jay the trouble of adding more direct responsibility to her aimless and fairly feckless young womanhood.

  Funny, he hadn’t thought about that day in a while. The dog was also Ramona’s. And Ramona loved Carew.

  “You might not realize it,” Lewis said to the dog, who looked up with perked ears. “But you just earned a reprieve. Again. You fucking mutt.”

  Yeah yeah yeah, Lewis, the dog said. You’re the man.

  Ramona had selected the spotty, shaggy thing—it had the wild-eyed look of the career convict who had come to enjoy prison. Jay had paid the adoption fee (still more symbolism) that sprang Carew from his death sentence—it was just a few days from euthanasia, according to the tag on its cage. Then she paid for the veterinarian visit, a one-stop extravaganza including Carew’s neutering, delousing, and treatment for kennel cough. Jay had granted Lewis the gift of a living being, a companion, an entity to dilute his solitude.

  How long had it been since Anna died, anyway? Soon it would be closer to seven months than six. Her clothes still hung in the walk-in closet in their bedroom—his bedroom, where he rarely slept now. His shirts, suits, and shoes were all in the guest room, Jay’s former bedroom, to which he’d transferred many of his things after his only child left for college. He used it as a dressing room, and he liked to see himself in the full-length mirror hanging on the closet door. He liked to inspect his naked body, proud of his flat belly and strong thighs—he still ran at least three times a week around Lake of the Isles, no matter the weather. He took care of himself, and had a better physique than a lot of the soft, doughy twenty-somethings he saw padding around his neighborhood. But he didn’t make a point of it. No one needed to know he was vain about his body, or his full head of hair, or the way time had carved his features into a mask of masculine solidity.