by Eric Arvin
That tree! I want to see it destroyed. I want to be the one to destroy it.
As if the clamor going through his head wasn’t enough, another disturbance began to slowly creep into the room as he lay with Maggie on the bed. At first it was low, more like a humming. But then it grew louder in a matter of seconds. Laughter. A high-pitched cackle from a single source. And then, another voice chimed in. And another. Soon it was drowning out all the other annoyances Wilder had been suffering through, crowding his head like a blaring alarm. A drill.
Maggie stirred and sat up quite unexpectedly, facing the door as if the laughter would take form and burst through it. As if she was expecting its company. She wiped at the tears on her cheeks.
As the voices grew in mass, Maggie put her feet to the floor. Wilder supported himself on his elbows and viewed her reflection in the full-length door mirror. She was smiling a toothy grin. Her mousy ears seemed alert and attentive as they peeked out from her short brown hair. Yet her gaze seemed to be elsewhere, floating off into some reflective world with the laughter.
Wilder grimaced at her reflection. “What the hell are you smiling about,” he demanded. What is happening? Again, he found himself on a teetering planet.
Maggie turned slowly. Wilder thought she looked half possessed by the rising voices that overtook the room. She looked at him over her shoulder. “Wilder, get the hell out of my room,” she said softly, like an afterthought. Her eyes were dry.
“What?” Wilder demanded harshly. He adjusted himself on the bed, preparing for a confrontation. One he would win. He was Wilder Rawls.
Maggie stood up and opened the door. “I said get out,” she said more forcefully. “I’m taking control.” Laughter swirled, glided, somersaulted all around her.
Wilder stood up in disbelief. “Listen, cunt….”
“Get out of my room!” Maggie yelled. Wilder had never heard her like this. He was taken aback. “When I come back, I expect you and your tiny little penis to be gone,” she said, leaving the room.
“Where are you going? Maggie! Maggie!” Wilder yelled after her, zipping up his pants. “Get back here! I’m Wilder Rawls!” He continued to yell, but his voice seemed strangled. Cut off and defeated by the laughter that was swelling through the entire dorm.
“Maggie,” he said one last time. “I’m Wilder Rawls.” His voice fell to a whisper. She was gone.
Back in Maggie’s room, he slammed the door shut. “What the fuck… what the fuck…?” he repeated to himself as he paced the dorm room. “What the hell is going on?” He looked into the mirror, this time at himself. The unfriendly face offered no answers. Instead, he saw a depleted, unfamiliar face with desolate, restless eyes. This was not the reflection of his father’s son.
“That’s not me,” he said in barely a whispered breath, his eyes filling with tears for the first time in his life. “That’s not me,” he screamed as his mouth twisted into a terrible scowl.
A sudden fit of contempt and choler came over him. He reached for the mirror, ripping it from the door. He slammed it to the floor, where it shattered into hundreds of pieces. He stood over the reflective mess, breathing heavily. He wiped frantically at the tears flowing from his eyes as if they were insects crawling on his skin. The largest fragment was sharp, like a blade, and an idea took hold of him.
He raced from the room with the shard. Down the hall, down the stairs, chased by the echo of laughing girls. Taking the back door so no one would see his state, Wilder sprang out the dormitory like a shot rock.
The world is collapsing. All falling apart.
As he made his way from the dorm hall, walking furiously with the wind, he saw a figure disappear around the corner of the building. It looked like a bird. Large wings of silver. A bird or an angel, Wilder’s mind suggested before he could control the ridiculous notion. He rubbed at his face, trying to clear away certain thoughts. Thoughts of Maggie, of a choir of laughter, of giant birds and angels.
Grasping the broken piece of mirror in his hand, he felt it cut into his flesh. Wilder walked quickly, distancing himself from the dorm hall as fast as he could. He tried his best to walk with the wind. Whenever he made a turn that required him to walk against it, he sought a tree or a building to soften the blow.
Soon he had reached the old tree overlooking the river. The wind pushed at him full force as it came up over the bluff from the valley. He had no shield and no way to stay alongside the temper of nature. The wind lunged against him as he approached the tree. Snow dust clung to his face, and he struggled to keep it from his bleary eyes.
Directly beneath the tree, he glared up at its branches, at its ancient gnarls and curves. With one swift motion, he drew up the shard of mirror and slashed at the tree viciously, knocking a long fibril of bark loose. He struck over and over. Bark fell in ribbons to the ground. Wilder dug into the wood with ferocity and hate, gritting his teeth. He grunted and growled as he gashed and tore at the flesh of the tree. The blood from his own cuts dripped from his hands onto the wounded wood and the ground below. He wiped at his face again as tears began to stream down his cheeks. Every slash he took was at something, a purpose behind every hateful cut.
This slash at Maggie, this one at Dr. True, this one at Dashel, this one at Tony, at Ashley, at my father….
Wilder dropped the shard in confusion and heart-pounding shock.
My father? A slash for my father?
He had thought it. The ghost of the thought still lingered in his head, yet he was unsure he had meant it. He put his hand to his forehead and stumbled away from the tree, befuddled by vertigo and colliding ideas. The world spun around him, whipping about a hateful breeze and snow. His knees hit the ground, and he sat there, dislocated from the earth. The howling wind lashed, and the tree peered relentlessly at him, scarred but still imposing.
His mind swam round, and something struggled in his chest. A fidgeting, agitated thing worked its way up. Finally, he could no longer hold it in. Wilder let out a great howl, bellowing at the old arbor like a punished child. Somebody probably heard him, but he didn’t care. His mind was unhinging. Disassociating everything he knew. Nothing was right. Nothing was certain. Everything was out of position and lost from course.
He sat on the wet ground for a long while and eyed the tree, trying to glue things back together in his mind, to set things the way they had been. The way his father had explained to him they should always be.
My father. A slash for my father….
Evening was coming on. Wilder sat lifeless, his energy taken from him by fury. Beneath the dusklight sky, he heard soft steps on the wet ground behind him and a voice sliding through the air.
“Wilder,” it whispered. The voice was shaky. Incredulous.
What is this? Who? Wilder’s mind went wild with nightmare imagery, yet he remained still as stone.
“Wilder, is that you?” Gabriel came around and faced him. “Wilder, what’s happened to you? Why are you in the middle of the road? Wilder?”
Wilder looked up. His head bobbled as if his neck had lost some muscle control. Gabriel gasped at the sight of Wilder’s face. Not only was it drawn and haggard, but it was streaked with tears and blood.
“Gabe,” Wilder said in a soft, almost undetectable voice, a voice that didn’t seem to belong to him. “What’s happened to the world? Why has it all changed?”
Chapter Eight
RETURNING FROM a long, wind-harassed walk around the campus, Tony was thinking too hard to notice much of anything. He passed brothers, unaware of their salutations and remarks. He was elsewhere, a more important place, devoid of useless pleasantries and idle chitchat.
He tried to focus more as he made his way upstairs. Dashel and Ashley’s room door was covered with yellow stickies, mostly reminders and duties from house president Ashley. Tony couldn’t hear anything inside the room. He brought up his hand and knocked slowly, as if he were a child petting a dog but afraid of being bitten. Nothing. He waited and knocked again, harder.
Tony walked into his own room and threw his keys on the desk. His mind returned to that place it had been before he came to Dashel’s room, and he fell down onto the bed, plagued by progressively stranger thoughts until sheer exhaustion lulled him into sleep. A dreamless, empty sleep.
Solid, strong rapping at the door roused him. Someone had been knocking for a while.
“I’m coming!” he yelled, bleary-eyed and miffed.
As he opened the door, he saw Maggie Parma. He had never really talked to her before, but her reputation preceded her. She didn’t really look like the kind of girl you usually heard rumors about.
“Tony,” she said. Her voice was soft but full of vigor. The tone of her voice woke him. “Can I come in? I need to talk to you. It’s very important.”
“S-sure,” Tony stuttered. He scratched his buzzed head.
Maggie came inside, brushing against him unintentionally. She sat in front of him on his bed. Tony remembered seeing Maggie in the crowd when Wilder had flaunted the photographs. Standing in the cold, Maggie seemed sad, sullen, and beaten. Yet he had felt recognition and understanding. Here in his room, however, she was quite different. Strong and assured. Her back was straight, and she carried herself with a faint semblance of pride. She smelled of lilacs and seemed an altogether different person.
“It’s Maggie, right? What’s going on? Why do we need to talk?” He stayed by the door and yawned.
“Because,” she began, “we have the same problem. Wilder Rawls.”
Tony set his jaw. Does she know what Wilder holds against me?
“I don’t know what he’s got on you,” she answered his frightened face. “I don’t care either. But he’s got you. He’s got a lot of people in his deep little pockets and on his accurate little lists.”
“So, why are you here?”
“I have something in mind,” she said. “Something that I was afraid to do until now. Afraid what people would think if the truth ever got out. But I don’t care anymore. I only have to answer to myself.” She paused. “As do you,” she said gently. “He’s done terrible things. And like any man with unquestioned power, he thinks he can get away with everything.”
“Can’t he?” Tony stated. He drew closer to the bed, feeling more at ease with the situation.
“No. Not any longer,” Maggie declared. “He has folders, Tony. Folders on every person he has ever fucked over. His conquests. He keeps them in his room under his bed.”
“How do you know?” Tony sat down opposite her.
“I’ve seen them. Or at least a couple of them. He showed a few to me, you know, to keep me in line. To frighten me. He showed me mine.”
“To show you he was in control,” Tony said.
“Exactly,” Maggie nodded. “These folders have detailed descriptions about everything. There are pictures, and, in some cases, tapes.”
“But he told me not to bother trying to get the photos from his room. He said they weren’t there. He kept them elsewhere,” Tony said.
“He keeps the negatives in the dark room in the journalism lab. Easy enough to get and destroy.”
“How?” Tony was curious and doubtful. “He’s bound to keep them locked away. He’s not stupid.”
“No, he’s not stupid, but he is arrogant. I’m the only one who knows about the negatives. I developed some of the pictures for him in the beginning before he knew how. And since he thinks I’m too scared of him to do anything, because he believes I’m weak….” Maggie stopped and gazed at the floor, looking angry with herself. “Something has happened to me,” she said to Tony. “I can’t explain it, but I think it has something to do with this weather and this place. We can get him, Tony! Help me.”
Tony saw possibility bloom in front of him. A flower of vengeance. “Maybe…,” he whispered. “Yes. I like the idea. Folders? Really?” He rose and paced the floor. “But we need a third. We need someone else to keep watch while we go through his room. And what about the negatives?”
Maggie took her backpack off, unzipped it, and dumped the contents onto the bed. Canisters of negatives. “Every last one of them. We can destroy them later,” she smiled. It was a sweet smile, not at all like one that would fit her sullied reputation.
Tony returned the look. “Maggie, one of these days you’re going to make some man very happy.” The small containers were like black gold spilled all over his covers and sheets.
“You too,” Maggie winked. “A third party might be a little harder to get,” she said. “Everyone else is so afraid of that fuckbutter. I took a chance on you. I remembered your face when you hit him.” A pause. “I wish I could have hit him.”
Tony sat back down on the bed. A few of the canisters of film rolled toward his hip. He picked one up and rolled it about in his palm. “So without a third person, the plan is too dangerous,” he said despairingly. “He might catch us without someone else keeping him from the room.”
They heard a sudden scuffle in the hallway just outside the door. Maggie and Tony looked at one another in alarm. The door shook as someone pounded on it with fierce determination. Indeed, the wood seemed it would splinter.
“Come in,” Tony said after a moment’s hesitation. The door opened with a slam backward, and Ma Toots pushed Gabriel Herring inside.
“Gabe, baby,” Ma Toots said with a huff, “I want you to explain to Tony why you were making love to his door with your ear.” He looked terribly uncomfortable. “Go on,” Ma Toots encouraged.
“I-I-I don’t… I wasn’t,” Gabe stammered.
“What the fuck, Gabe!” Tony rose to his feet again. Gabriel went white and looked from Tony to Toots.
“Don’t look at me,” Ma said. “I ain’t helpin’ you outta this. Looked like you were up to no good. I’ll leave it to Tony to decide that, though.” She turned but paused. “Gabe, honey, you’re good friends with that Wilder, aren’t you?” she said as she left the room, closing the door behind her. Maggie chuckled softly.
“Tony, listen…,” Gabriel said.
“He knows Wilder very well,” Maggie said. “Ma Toots was right. In fact, you could say that Gabe is Wilder’s greasy little henchman.”
“Shut up!” Gabriel glowered at Maggie. “Tony, don’t listen to her. Come on, man.” He put up his hands as if to ward off a blow. Tony looked like his temper was about to get the better of him.
“Gabe, you’re going to help us,” Maggie ordered. “You’re going to keep Wilder out of his room. Just long enough for the two of us to search it.”
“Fuck you, bitch!” Gabriel screamed. “I’m not helping you do anything!”
Gabriel hardly got the words out when Tony hit him squarely across the jaw. He fell hard against the wall.
“Shit! Tony! We’re brothers!” Gabe whimpered as he recovered his footing.
“Will you help us?” Maggie asked.
“No! I can’t. He’ll come after me!” Gabriel began to whine out his words.
Tony slammed him against the wall. A wooden shelf lined with textbooks jarred loose and toppled to the floor in a loud thump.
“That’s your problem, Gabe. And as far as us being brothers, you should have thought of that before you sold me out to him.” Tony drew back a fist and hammered it into Gabriel’s abdominals. Gabe crumpled to the ground a mewling mess.
“Help us,” Maggie said again. She stood over him beside Tony. Her tone implied helping was the only way Gabe could avoid the beating that was to come.
“Okay… okay,” Gabriel wheezed out through his tears. “What do you want me to do?”
“Whatever the lady says,” Tony threatened. “And if I find out you told Wilder about what we’re doing, you’re going to be needing those glittery wings you threw out.”
Gabriel had his job, and Tony and Maggie had theirs.
Maggie put the negatives back in her bag and stashed them under Tony’s bed, a new sense of res
ponsibility and importance in the air.
“Let’s do this,” Tony said intensely, possibly a little too heroically. But he savored the matinee idol flavor of the moment.
They locked the door behind them and walked into the hallway, full of purpose. Tony drew his fingers across Dashel’s room door as he passed, a gesture of an unmentioned promise.
Tony and Maggie met the battering breeze outside with such resolve and fortitude a strange thing occurred. The gusts glided over and around them, but neither of them was touched by the slightest chill.
SARAH’S DAY had been good. At least, it ended that way. It had started off well, too, if a little confusing. She had loved waking up in Ashley’s arms on the steps of the chapel, but then she had to sit caged in her father’s uncomfortable company. She was sure the day would be worthless after that. Nothing could rescue her or offer respite from the hours spent with her father.
And suddenly, Ashley rolled by a window, and she felt a brisk new light. The same kind of feeling she had felt in the vale, only this time audible as laughter.
As she had started the day, she also ended it in the arms of her lovely angel-boy. She held him gently in her bed. Ashley was nestled and asleep at her breasts, his hands taped in strips of gauze due to his falls as he had skated around the dormitory. The lovely silver wings he had worn were draped over the end of the bed. Moonlight cast its glow on them, and they echoed brilliance throughout the room.
This, Sarah thought, would be the perfect moment to fall asleep. To fall deep and maybe wander into Ashley’s dreams. But she needed to do something, and she couldn’t get any true rest until it was accomplished. Although the day opened and closed perfectly, the unhappiness wedged between those pleasant bookends needed to be addressed.
Sarah untangled herself from Ashley’s embrace. He stirred little as she placed a delicate feather pillow between his arms to substitute for her softness. In the dark, she pulled on a thick sweater over her nightshirt, slipped on a pair of running shoes, and grabbed her thick black coat and pink scarf.
