Grist Mill Road (25 page)

I don't believe in God. And church is a crock.

That's a valid opinion as well.

You don't want to talk me into it?

Nope.

We looked at the rainbows some more and I put my hand in your paper bag, which you'd left beside us on a rock. When I pulled out a small handful of trail mix it was studded brightly with M&M's. Hey, I said, you never told me.

You never asked, kid.

It tasted way better with chocolate. After I'd munched through a couple of fistfuls, I told you it had given me enough energy to scramble back up Devil's Ladder. Boosted by candy, I climbed twice as fast, but you still beat me to the top, and then we agreed—same time, same place, next week.

One day later, Hannah hopped off the school bus, all fresh-faced and peppy, six weeks of school left to go, six weeks before Hannah would tip my life over the edge, sending me to a place where there could be only one way, one choice of direction—down.

 

ROSEBORN, NEW YORK, 2008

Hannah is beside him in the front seat, her meltdown somewhere in the post-thermonuclear phase now, McCluskey wondering which way he should turn at the end of the driveway, left or right?

Yeah, shit couldn't have gone any better than that, Mikey,
he thinks.

He heads left, back the way they came in, seeing O'Sullivan's bar at the top of the hill, pulling into the parking lot, lights off inside, neon unlit, the clock on the dash reading 9:09, several hours until opening, shame, Hannah could do with something. Shit, he could do with something. Temperature on the dash already reads eighty-five.

He puts his hand on her shoulder, Hannah having reached the deep-breathing stage, just about ready to talk.

Hey, Aitch, he says, giving her shoulder a squeeze. What happened back there—don't worry about it, OK?

One final breath, her head tilting back. Sorry, Mike, she says, I'm sorry, I just lost it.

Nah, I seen a lot worse at closing time, he says.

She wipes her face. Yeah, well no one forced you to live in New Jersey, she says, letting out a wet snort at the end.

Laughing at your own jokes, Aitch, he says, patting her shoulder three times. I guess you're all fuckin better then.

King of the world, Mike, she says, putting her hand on top of his. And by the way, McCluskey, you have my permission to run a million miles now. Just drop me off at my friend's and don't ever look back, OK?

Nah, he says, don't worry. I'm Team Aitch all the way.

*   *   *

SHE CALLS HER FRIEND TO
let her know they're en route, and directs him through town, the place full of climbers with colorful ropes, belts heavy with clips, morning coffees in hand, stark ridge in the distance.

As they pull up beside the house, two girls come running out the front door. The big one's Katie and the little one's Lizzy, says Hannah, unbuckling her belt, getting out of the car, and then squatting to receive the girls' greetings as they fling themselves around her like horseshoes, the girls' mother standing in the doorway, beaming at the scene.

Say it, Aunt Hannah, squeals Katie, say it, say it.

Say it,
pleeease
, says Lizzy.

OK then, says Hannah, snapping the elastic of her eyepatch, and then whispering it conspiratorially, Why are pirates called pirates?

And then they all shriek the punch line together.

Because they
arrrrr
.

Arrrrr,
repeats Hannah.

Arrrrr,
the girls growl, making pirate arms as each of them covers a tiny left eye with a tiny left hand.

Who's that man, Aunt Hannah? says Katie, pointing at the car, McCluskey still in the driver's seat, lowering the window.

He's a police detective from New York City.

Are you in trouble? says Lizzy.

Nooo
, you know I'm a good pirate, right?

I have an arrest warrant, says McCluskey, leaning out of the car. The suspects are about yay high and yay high, he says, his hand jumping Lizzy-tall to Katie-height.

Oh no, says Hannah. Wanted dead or alive! A pair of salty sea dogs.

I'm not salty, says Lizzy, I'm sweet.

I'm not a dog, I'm a cat, says Katie, making kitten paws.

Are these suspects dangerous, Detective McCluskey? Hannah calls over her shoulder.

Yeah, exceedingly, says McCluskey. I gotta handcuff them immediately, he growls.

The girls look at each other, Katie tagging her little sister on the arm and squealing, This one's chief pirate, as she starts running away, and then they are both running, running and screaming back to their mother.

Hannah stands up and turns to him. Are you leaving, Mike? she says. I told you it's OK, you can go. Jen'll look after me.

Nah, I'm coming back, says McCluskey. There's just this one thing I gotta do, he says, scratching his ear.

I'll see you soon then, says Hannah.

Yeah, soonish, he says, winding up the window.

*   *   *

HE DRIVES BACK THROUGH TOWN,
Roseborn seeming like a pretty nice hood, decent place to raise a family, nature and shit. McCluskey scratches his ear again, because he can't scratch the voice, the voice that doesn't give half a crap about the town, couldn't care less about family-friendly, because all the voice is concerned with is
the right thing to do
.

He lowers the window, pulls out a cigarette from the packet in the cup holder and lights it.

Yeah,
the right thing to do
, that's a good one, almost as funny as
I got your back
.

Oh right, you got my back? Doesn't that imply I'm going in first, then? You know what? How about you got my front here? Or maybe just one of my sides? No, better still, how about I stay here, drink a coffee with my feet up on the desk, and you can take care of whatever kinda shit's going down?

Only here's the problemo. That wouldn't be
the right thing to do
.

Jesus, he hates that whiny-assed voice.

Makes a left at the turn, maybe O'Sullivan's might be charitable
enough to be open next time he passes, because what McCluskey has somehow stumbled upon here is one hell of a setup, or what might be known as a five-alarm shitstorm.

And yet the voice is still there.
You're Team Aitch, you stand by her. It's a little something called loyalty, buddy boy.

When he arrives this time, he leaves his gun under the seat before stepping out of the car, no need for a jacket to cover his holster a second time, and he ditches the thing on the driver's seat.

Matthew is cleaning dirt from the millstone on the porch, brushing its furrows with a dish towel. Detective McCluskey, he calls out. Welcome back, he says, standing up, wiping his hands on the towel. Come in, come in, Detective, says Matthew, beckoning. Celeste is making pancakes. You like pancakes?

 

MATTHEW

Straight off the school bus, Hannah's first day back after her mono-enforced absence, Jen gave me a threatening look, while Hannah flashed me a tentative smile. This didn't happen often, but at that moment I was paralyzed by indecision because, not knowing when Hannah would be back, I hadn't formulated a plan for this scenario.

I called out to her—something bland like,
Hey, Hannah, glad to see you're all better
—then turned and ran up the steps into school. It was just a delaying tactic, I've never been much of a liar. A good lie has to be premeditated—my first instinct is always to say what I think.

I suppose at that point I must have had some sense I was falling for you, Pete, because I knew that I wanted to keep Hannah at arm's length—and yet I didn't want to reject her completely. Not only did I still feel bad about what had happened in the aftermath of our kiss, I was also, let's not forget, a pubescent boy bursting with hormones. However, not pushing Hannah away, while not inviting her closer, seemed like an impossible task.

It was Hannah who provided the solution. When I went to my locker at lunchtime, I found that a note had been slipped inside, a message from Hannah signed off with only her name and no kisses, the words as tentative as her earlier smile, something banal
about being happy to be back at school—evidently we weren't meant to be together—and thanking me for saying I was glad she was better. Clearly, Hannah was waiting for me to make the next move.

I nudged one of my pieces carefully forward, replying to her note with one of my own. Something like,
Hi Hannah, sorry you were sick, I was really happy to get your message.
(No word of a lie.)

And so it began, the trading of secret messages back and forth, Hannah leaving notes in my locker, slips of paper adorned with drawings of flowers, birds, and bumblebees (but never love hearts). Some of the messages would recount to me the travails of her difficult teenage life (older brothers, an annoying mother, boohoo), never mentioning the great hardship of being from the richest family in town. Others told me about her desire to escape Roseborn and her longing to visit exotic places like Japan.

In return I wrote her about my adventures with Tricky in the mountains and she replied that she'd been up to the Swangums only once, that her mother had spotted a suspected patch of poison ivy and ran screaming back to the car. Next I switched to family stuff, writing about how my mom was an Italian-American from Corona, Queens, and that she worked at the Blue Moon diner. I even told her my daddy's favorite war tale, and then when I ran out of adolescent chatter, I told her about the process of Wisconsinan glaciation, the formation of Long Island, terminal moraines, striations … In retrospect I realize this isn't exactly the stuff of secret missives and dangerous liaisons, but increasingly this was what mattered most to me now. Every week, Pete, you taught me a little bit more, and I sucked it down like a milkshake.

Even the most technical geological musings didn't discourage Hannah from continuing our correspondence, however. I think she was in love with the mystery, a sense of conversations in the dark, of playing out her fantasy life without all the messy business of bare flesh and body parts. In truth, I even started to enjoy the sharing of notes and the telling of tales. I liked the knowing looks she gave me in the hallway.

However, more and more I was coming closer to understanding that what I truly loved lay somewhere else, because that's what I spent most of my time thinking about. You in the sunlight, you breathing the good air. You, Pete, beneath the tall sky.

*   *   *

IT WAS THE SUNDAY IMMEDIATELY
before the last few days of school. You led us on a hike you'd been promising me for a while, along Sunset Ridge to see Dinosaur Rock, a glacial erratic as big as a school bus.

When we reached the erratic, the pleasing illusion of a dinosaur's head was unmistakable, craggy rock giving a sense of reptilian scales and a crack running half the length of it forming the mouth. It even had teeth, jagged stones lining its jaw, although you told me people had added those in to complete the look. Perhaps most remarkably of all, however, the huge rock was balanced on the edge of the escarpment.

Just think, you said, if the glacier had dropped this rock a foot farther west, it would have toppled straight down into the valley. Some kind of miracle.

Next, you pointed out carvings in the bedrock all around our feet.
V.H. MORRIS 1866. ELLENVILLE BAND 1883. T.A.S. CONKLIN 1890.

There used to be a huge hotel nearby, you said, five hundred rooms. Burned down sixty years ago. The Victorians would come up here by horse-drawn carriage, three presidents stayed, Oscar Wilde, all the famous people of the age. As you can see, they liked to leave their mark, and people think graffiti's something new. There's nothing new, you said. Then you pointed down at the barrens below us, nothing but dwarf pines as far as the eye could see. I like to call that place the pine orchard, you said, but perhaps that's just me, an old man's foolish whimsy.

I didn't think it was foolish at all, and I didn't think of you as old anymore, either.

You started fishing around in your backpack. I'd like to give you something, you said. This here is to commemorate your first
trip to Dinosaur Rock. You pulled out a stone and handed it to me. It looked like a red potato, and when I took it in my hand it was smooth as glass.

That there is a gastrolith, you said,
gastro
for stomach and
lith
for stone. A stomach stone. Did you ever hear about why chickens need grit?

Is it so they can cross the road? I said, grinning.

Enough of your sass, kid, said Pete. Now listen, chickens like pecking up grit because they can't chew. No teeth, see. So they swallow the grit and it sits in their gizzards. When the food mixes around with the grit it gets broken down. That there in your hand is something similar, you said.

I looked down at the rock covering most of my palm. Must've been one helluva chicken, I said.

Certainly was, you said, laughing. That was a chicken the size of a Greyhound bus, maybe bigger. That rock you're holding once sat in the gut of a dinosaur. Sure enough, those were some pretty big chickens.

My body started to tingle as I rubbed the rock in my hand. Feels like soap, I said.

Doesn't it just, you said. That stone got tumbled and tumbled around in the cement mixer of the dinosaur's belly, wore the thing smooth. But anyway, you said, I guess as well as using the word
gastrolith,
you could also say that what you're holding there is a
dinosaur rock
.

I loved the proper names for everything you taught me,
bedrock
,
striations
and
chatter marks
,
cobbles
,
boulders
and
glacial erratics
 … but right up to this day, I have always thought of that gastrolith as my dinosaur rock.

The tingling in my body increased as I felt an intense connection to the world, from its smallest grains to its tallest mountains. However, what I was also feeling was a connection to you, and all of a sudden I became overwhelmed by emotion. I knew I was going to cry, but certainly didn't want you to see, so I threw my arms around your neck.

Hey now, whoa, you said, not knowing what to do with your
hands for a moment, a heavy pause in the air, before eventually you thought to ruffle the hair at the back of my head. Well, I guess that means you like it, you said.

My arms holding on, your cable-knit sweater drying my eyes—that was the precise moment I fell in love with you, Pete.