Telemachus Rising (6 page)

The fire roared in my ears.  It burned my brain.  It coursed through my veins like napalm.  My heart was working on overdrive.  I could feel the heat in my face.  My hands throbbed.  I didn't even notice how tightly my fists had formed; I found the nail marks in my palms later.  I flung the front door the rest of the way open so that it slammed into the wall.  The door knob gouged into the plaster.  I stormed into the kitchen, the heat of my rage rolling off me in waves.  I stopped in the middle of the room and turned toward the table.  For once, the asshole was not smiling.  I caught him with a stare that should've turned him to ashes.  The look in his eyes only made me hate him more.  What was it?  Uncertainty?  Curiosity?  Fear?

As I stood there, eyes locked with the single person I despised more than anyone or anything I'd ever encountered in life, my fire turned inward and stoked hotter.  The flames that had spread to the tips of my fingers, to the soles of my feet, that burned behind my eyes, raced back toward my heart, all together.  The fire raged, roiled, concentrated, grew even more intense.  I could feel it inside.  As I stood there, burning him with my gaze, I could visualize real flames forming at my fingertips and collecting in the palm of each hand.  I could feel the fire at my core joining with the fire in my hands, one in the same, the physical fire commanded by the rage burning inside me.  I wanted to burn him.  I wanted to set the cuffs of his goddamn pants on fire and watch him run out of the house in a panic.  I wanted to watch him lose his shit as the flames spread.  I could see it – I could feel it as the fire tickled the palms of my hands.  The flames were cool compared to the burn of my own skin, the unadulterated fury coursing through me.

I felt the fire at my core reach out to gauge my surroundings as I stared the son of a bitch down.  The house itself was highly flammable.  It would go up like a book of matches.  Matches.  There was a box of matches on the windowsill.  My new sense spread further, flaming wings of a phoenix opening wide, wrapping around the entire building.  There were several highly flammable liquids under the kitchen sink.  More in the bathrooms.  Lots more in the garage.  A can of gas in the trunk of my car.  The flames behind my eyes showed me a new scene as a glared at him.  Matches from the windowsill.  Gas from the can in my trunk.  One shitty red car.

I watched myself cross calmly to the window.  Take the matches.  Walk slowly to the front door.  Quietly open my trunk.  Remove the gas can.  Smash the driver side window of his car.  Open the door from the inside.  Deliberately douse the upholstery with gasoline.  Turn to face the house as the asshole rushed to the front door.  Strike a match.  Toss it without looking.  Hear the roar of flames.  Feel the sudden wave of heat singe the hairs on the back of my neck.

I stared that son of a bitch down.  Without a word, I calmly crossed the room to the kitchen sink.  There, on the windowsill where I knew it would be, sat the box of matches.  I took it, and turned back toward the table.  We locked eyes again, and I returned to the entryway without breaking contact.

“You have five seconds to get the fuck out of this house before I burn your car.”

His mouth dropped open in shock.  The flames in my chest had grown into a towering inferno.  He closed his mouth for half a second before it dropped open again, like a fish out of water.  He looked to my mother, then back at me.  He gave a strangled chuckle, like the whole thing was some kind of elaborate prank.  I stared that son of a bitch down.  I didn't break eye contact, but I could see my mother looking back and forth between me and her boyfriend.  She didn't say a word.  She didn't seem to have any idea how to deal with what was happening in front of her.  For his part, the asshole kept looking back and forth between the two of us.

I didn't count out loud.  Counting out loud is what you do when you're bluffing.  Counting out loud is what you do when you're putting on a show.  Counting out loud is what you do when you're not serious, but you're trying to convince someone else you're the one in charge.  I got to five and turned for the door.  It was still standing open.  I walked outside without any hurry, down the steps and along the walk I'd just salted.  I crossed toward my car and pressed the button to pop the trunk.  Muffled by the distance, I heard a chair scrape suddenly across the kitchen floor as I weighed the gas can in my hand.  I was walking toward that shitty little red car when I caught the asshole in my peripheral vision, running through the snow across the lawn.  He reached our mutual destination before I did, where he fumbled with his keys.  He just managed to fit one in the door lock and slammed the door shut behind him as he climbed in.  The engine turned and he was in reverse before I even got there.  The tires squealed on the icy pavement as his car shot down the driveway like a rocket.

I watched him go without a word.  When the tail end of his car swung out of sight, I turned back to my own vehicle and set the gas can back where it went in the trunk.  I slammed the lid and headed back toward the house, along the walk and up the front stairs.  The door was still standing open.  I crossed the threshold and flung the box of matches through a doorway off to one side.  My mother was still sitting in the kitchen.  I went into the bathroom where I'd replaced the sink and had only finished mopping up water about five minutes earlier.  There was my phone on the counter, right where I knew I'd left it.  I dropped it into my back pocket and walked back toward the front door.  I grabbed the handle and pulled it shut behind me as I left.

I felt the steering wheel vibrate under my fingertips as I sat there waiting.  It was already dark.  We'd be driving all night.

The urge to leave town hit me early that morning.  It was like that sometimes.  Out of nowhere, I'd get this claustrophobic feeling, like I had to get out.  Like I wanted to be anywhere else but where I was.  I really had to go.  I didn't just want to get away, I needed to get away.

That's something incredible about taking a road trip in America.  You can get in your car and drive until you're someplace that doesn't even resemble home.  You can drive until the weather changes – not just into or out of a weather front – you can actually drive into a different climate zone.  You can drive until you feel the difference in your relative distance from the sun.  That's amazing.

This time, I needed a break from my life.  I needed to get away from the hospital.  I needed to get away from my responsibilities.  I needed to be completely irresponsible for a little while.  I needed to go somewhere else, where no one knew or cared who I was, where no one expected anything of me.

“Hey!”  She looked beautiful climbing into the car.  She always looked beautiful.  “I'm glad you're coming.”

“I'm glad you invited me.”

I pulled out of her apartment complex's parking lot and turned the wheel toward the highway.

“So where are we going again?”

“Copper Harbor.”

“And where is that, exactly?”

“All the way at the top of the Keweenaw Peninsula – about as far north as you can go and still be in Michigan.”

“Awesome.  Why Copper Harbor?”

“Well...I felt like a road trip, but I only wanted to be gone for about 24 hours and I didn't really want to go to a city.  I looked at the map and didn't see anything south that caught my eye, so I thought I'd go north.  As soon as I saw Copper Harbor, I was sold!”

“I love northern Michigan.”

“Yeah?  You go there often?”

“My family used to go to Higgins Lake every summer.  I love it up there.”

“We would go up to Leelanau when I was little.  I liked it more as a kid than when I was a teenager.  When I was young I'd just stay outside all day, but when I got older it was too much family time without enough going on.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.  It never really bothered me, though.”

“Lucky girl.”

“So how far is it, really?”

“I don't know...five hundred miles?  A little more?  I figure with stops for food and gas it'll take about 24 hours round trip.  I just want to see the sun come up, maybe take a few pictures.  We should be able to hang out for a couple hours and still make it back on time.”

“Cool.  I think I'm supposed to work tomorrow night.”

“Alright.  We'll see how long it takes us one way.  I'll get you back on time.”

We hit the on ramp to the freeway north, and I got a rush of excitement as I floored the gas.

“You know, I've heard that Copper Harbor is so far north, you can see the northern lights the right time of the year.”

“I've always wanted to see the northern lights!  That's definitely on my bucket list.  That and going to Alaska.”

“Really.  Have you traveled much?”

“Not as much as I'd like to.  I went to Mexico for spring break last year.  I'm doing a study abroad in Italy this summer.”

“Wow...that's planned pretty far in advance.”

“Yeah, it's being offered through another school, so I had to have the application stuff in way early.”

“Sounds fun.  You speak Italian?”

“No, but you don't have to.”

“What are you going to study?”

“They have a bunch of interdisciplinary classes you can take...government something or other, Renaissance art...I don't know.  It's gonna be sweet.”

I laughed.

“Sounds like it!  I'm kind of jealous.”

“I'll bring you a souvenir.  Is there anywhere you want to go?”

“I guess I haven't really thought about it.  Italy would be cool.  I'd like to go to Japan someday.  Maybe Russia.  Australia?  I don't know, places that are different from here.”

“Have you ever been out of the country?”

“I've been to Canada plenty of times, but I don't know if that counts.  I've been to almost all the states!”

“That's cool.  I haven't really traveled in the U.S.”

“Well soon you'll be able to cross Copper Harbor off your list!”

She smiled.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“What else is on this bucket list of yours, besides Alaska and the aurora borealis, since that's pretty much two birds with one stone?”

“Oooh...let me think.  I actually have it written down at home.”

“You have a real, on-paper bucket list?”

“Absolutely!  If it wasn't on paper, I'd never do it.”

“Huh.  Alright, well tell me the ones you can think of off hand.”

“Hmm...well I want to go sky diving, for one.”

“Me too!  That'll be on my list.  What about bungee jumping?”

“Nope.  No way.  Not bungee jumping.”

“Why's that?”

“Call me crazy, but jumping out of a plane seems way safer than bungee jumping.”

“How do you figure?”

“I don't know.  I guess I figure that you have to really know what you're doing to run a skydiving company, but anybody can tie a rubber band to a bridge.  What if the cord breaks?  What if they hook you up wrong?  What if it stretches too far and you smash into the ground?”

“What if your parachute fails and you smash into the ground?”

“Yeah, well if I die skydiving, at least that's an awesome way to go.”

I didn't say it, but I thought she kind of had a point there.

“I mean, if you're in a skydiving accident, that's it.  You're dead.  Game over.  If you hit the ground bungee jumping, you might just be paralyzed or brain damaged forever.  No thanks.  Not for me.”

“Alright, alright.  What else is on this list?”

“I want to ride in a submarine.”

“You want to ride in a submarine.  How are you going to pull that one off?”

“I don't know.  I just want to ride in a submarine.”

I cracked up.

“What?  What's wrong with wanting to ride in a submarine?”

“Nothing's wrong with wanting to ride in a submarine!  It's just funny.”

“Shut up!  I'm not telling you any more.”

“You know, I bet there are places that do commercial submarine rides.”

She turned in her seat to face me.

“Think so?”

“Absolutely!  Haven't you looked into it?”

“No.  I'm not dying.”

“Isn't the idea to do this stuff before you die?”

“Yeah.”

“Then don't you kind of have to do it when you're not dying?”

“I guess so.  I just figure I've got time.  I'm bound to run into a submarine one of these days.”

“In Michigan?”

“Never know.  What about you?  What do you want to do before you die?”

“I don't have a bucket list.”

“Oh come on, think of something.”

“But I don't have anything...”

“I've got one left.  You tell me one thing you want to do, and I'll tell you my last one.  But it's got to be something good!”

I thought for a minute.

“Huh.  Okay.  Last summer I drove to Arizona to visit some family.”

“You drove to Arizona?  Isn't that kind of far to drive?”

“Yeah, it's about two thousand miles.  Anyway, while I was there I went to the state fair.  So I pay my money to park, and I go through the front gates.  And I'm checking things out, sort of getting the lay of the land, trying to figure out where I might want to eat later, when a hundred yards away, I see an elephant.”

“An elephant.”

“Yeah, an elephant.  With a saddle.  The second I see it, I want to ride it.  You have no idea.  My mouth dropped open.  I literally gasped.  I really wanted to ride that elephant.  Bad.  So I make a beeline for the elephant, but when I get there, there's a huge line.”

“Well that's no big deal.”

“Of course not.  Who cares if there's a line.  But get this, when I get up to the line, it's all kids.”

“Ooh.”

“Yeah, and not just kids, like...kids, kids.  We're talking five year olds, here.  Kindergarteners.  Every single one.  I wasn't even sure if adults were allowed to ride the elephant.  So I talked myself out of it.  I moved on.  I looked at some antique tractors, checked out the farm pavilion...you know, state fair stuff.  I didn't play any games, but by the time I went on a few of the carnival rides they had set up, I was about ready to go.  I start walking toward the exit, but that's when I realize the elephant is on my way out of the park.  I've got another shot!  Who cares if most of the people in line are kids?  If I want to ride the elephant, I'm gonna ride the elephant.”