Authors: Mark Wisniewski
DEESH
SUMMERTIME IN PENNSYLVANIA’S
woods isn’t as hot as it is in the Bronx. But there’s brush you can feel trapped forever
inside, which can make you sweat fast. And, for real, there is no path anywhere. There
are only trees and a darkness more serious than any I’ve walked through. It’s everywhere
above and between the branches and down to the rocks and vines and dirt under my feet.
I’d fear wildlife more if I wasn’t sorting through thoughts about Bark:
The guy stabbed your back.
And he’s a killer.
Possibly turned on you long ago, when he knew you slept with Madalynn.
Who knows?
Who cares?
And of course I care, but I can’t afford to care. Any focus on my past, I think, saps
focus from what I’ll need to do to survive from now on.
Keeping walking, I think.
Keep training your mind to avoid light.
The less you can see anything near you, the less likely you will be seen.
You can’t risk being perceived as the brother on the run.
From now on, there must be no people.
JAN
FOR HOURS AFTER
Colleen and Tug and I realized Tom was indeed gone, we visited every barn on the track’s
backside, asking about Tom as nonchalantly as possible. We checked the paddock and
the crowd near the winner’s circle and every nook of the grandstand, and Tug himself
checked the jocks’ locker room, where he was played off until Jorge Garcia raised
his eyes and shook his head no.
Minutes before the first race that day, Colleen said she was thinking of going into
town to ask around about Tom there, and her use of that phrase—
into town
—caused Tug’s throat to catch, probably because reliance on people like Bill Treacy
struck him as a notch above desperation.
And my crush on Tug did not in the least keep me from noticing that catch in his throat,
and I right off suggested it might be
best if Tug and I stayed on at the track, and Colleen paused to consider this, maybe
trying to decide if the track was still a comforting place the Corcorans could use
to escape their troubles, then nodded good-bye and headed off. And, standing there,
with me and me only, Tug convinced himself that Tom was as likely to appear here as
anywhere, and he focused on the action of the first race, then on the uplifting reds
and pinks and yellows of the picnics near the snapdragons and phlox.
Then a voice behind Tug said, “Champ.”
And Tug and I didn’t turn around because it sounded like Arnie DeShields, and Tug
didn’t want to give Arnie the satisfaction of watching him blink if Arnie asked, “Where’s
the old man?”—and I didn’t want to give Arnie any satisfaction period.
“Champ,”
the voice said.
“Someone’s talking to you,” I told Tug. Race two’s entries were being led from the
stables to the paddock, unsaddled, unmounted, just horses.
“I don’t think so,” Tug said. “I think the sonofabitch is talking to you.”
DEESH
I DO NOT SLEEP.
I keep walking through gangs of gnats and mosquitoes and streetlight-forsaken darkness.
For hunger, there are the three chocolate bars. For fatigue, there’s plenty of fear.
In late morning sunshine on the fourth hill, I hear no birdcalls or traffic noises
or swishes from breezes. Bears, I keep promising myself, would hate this much light.
My insides are jittery yet my pace stays even. Maybe, I now believe, a guy actually
can disappear into woods.
When I see a gravel road, I stop. Everyone knows one road leads to another, and this
one is at the very bottom of the hill I’m descending in zigzags to keep hidden behind
the thickest trees. Then I see, across the road, a long, barely curved orange-mud
driveway leading to a small, moss-stained white house.
And near the dented car in the driveway is a hand-painted sign:
FISHING GUIDE—INQUIRE WITHIN
Inquire within? I think.
That’s all I’ve been doing.
I remove Bark’s gun from my waistband, let a finger rest on the trigger. I still believe
I could never kill. I turn off the safety, though, and once I’m in the yard, I stride.
I climb the porch stairs. One hard kick opens the door. I hear television—a CNN report
that’s probably long past showing some photo Bark took of me—so I dash through a room
faster than my eyes can scan all of it, the gun in both hands as far from my face
as possible. Just off that room, in a bedroom, on top of the covers with an open book
lying on his chest, is a white guy, round, balding, eyes closed.
“Excuse me,” I say.
His eyelids open. Neither of us moves. He goes a little cross-eyed, blinks twice.
“You’re that killer,” he says flatly, and his calmness has me all the more scared.
“Never killed a soul,” I say.
My aim zeroes in on him.
“But what’s important,” I say, “is you’re a fisherman.”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“And you guide people.”
“Been known to do that.”
“Well, today you’re gonna guide me way the hell into these woods. And on our way,
you’re gonna tell me what you know
about living out there. Then we’re gonna say good-bye, and you’re never gonna tell
anyone about me.”
I keep the gun pointed directly at his face. He clears his throat, says, “How do you
plan to make that last part happen?”
“I’m hoping to hear some damned convincing talk on your part about how I can forget
about pulling this trigger.”
He is standing now, beside the bed. He’s wearing jeans and a coffee-stained shirt.
A breeze from the doorway behind me passes my neck.
“Justice, man,” I say. “You could be part of it.”
He walks straight toward me, then passes me and leaves the house. On the porch he
sits on a gray metal rocking chair flecked with rust, the only chair out there, then
looks up to face me as if to say,
Yeah, I’m basically crazy.
“What kind?” he says.
“What kind of what?” I say.
“Fish. I can teach you trout or bass.”
I shrug. “Both?”
“Takes a lifetime to learn either.”
In the shade thrown by big trees, his face looks younger than the rest of him. If
he ever played anything, it could have been football but not much else.
“Which is easier?” I ask.
He blinks three times. “Bass.”
“Then bass it is.”
He rocks in the chair, then stands and heads down the porch stairs, and I follow,
keeping aim.
“Douglas, right?” he calls over his shoulder.
“Right.”
“Sharp.”
“Yes. But my friends call me Deesh.”
We are headed toward an unpainted wooden shed behind his house, on a clearing of spiky
weeds between a propane tank and a stream.
“You do know you’re the latest celebrity,” he says.
“Kind of had that figured.”
“I mean, your name and face are
out there.”
“A lot of TV watching around here?”
He steps into the shed, and I follow to just inside the doorway.
“They sure aren’t reading Chaucer,” he says. Here with him, I’m attacked by the darkness
in the shed and rushed memories of Bark’s gunshot last night. Then, after I take a
step back, I’m hit by hot sunlight and fatigue.
He gathers up two wooden oars and a tackle box.
“They watch TV, drink, and hunt,” he says.
“So they’re armed.”
“And they consider themselves the righteous majority.”
“But not you.”
“If I were armed, Douglas, you wouldn’t be here.”
I feel myself exhale. It’s like he wants me to shoot, thinks I’m down to one bullet
and betting his life I’ll miss. He takes a fishing rod in one hand, a second in the
other, and again we are walking, again with him pulling ahead of me, plodding over
flagstones toward the stream. Two varnished oars are tucked under one of his thick
arms, each hand aiming a fishing rod at the stream, a fat finger dangling an olive
green tackle box. I square myself with the truth that I have never in my life caught
a fish, that I tried only once, in Georgia when I was six, with the aunt who took
me in during the summer my mother tried rehab and couldn’t care for me.
I call, “Think I have a chance to actually live around here?”
“Does it matter?” he shouts over his shoulder. “What anyone thinks?”
“Matters what
you
think,” I say. “What I’m trying to ask, Mr. Guide Man, is can I survive out here?”
We are at the shoreline now, roughly beside each other, the gun somewhat lower but
still aimed at his chest.
“If you disappear.”
And he’s looking me straight in the eye. No smirk, no grin, no frown, just suntanned
skin over bones over a brain digesting those three words like mine is.
“And therein lies the irony, right?” he says.
“I guess so.”
“As for how you’d be received if you run into the typical denizen of this all but
virgin wilderness? My guess is not well.”
“So I’m lucky I found you,” I say.
“Indeed you are.”
“You’re like an angel.”
He nods at the gun, then says, “Ready to fly.”
I glance over my shoulder at the gravel road. It’s still just us—it seems.
He says, “Name’s Gabe, by the way.” He’s packing a boat chained to the shore of the
stream, which is not as long across as the narrowest stretches of the East River near
the Bronx. But what really makes this stream unlike any I’ve seen is how it
glistens
over algae-covered rocks greener than the leaves on the trees. And here’s an orange
and black bird that swoops twice, then lands in brush on the far shore, which rises
into what Bronx folk would call a mountain.
I step closer to Gabe. Sunlight makes me blink. Gabe heads back toward the unpainted
shed, and I follow, the gun aimed as he gathers more equipment. Last night’s over,
I tell myself. He asks,
“Ready?” and again passes me as if Bark’s gun is as harmless as dust, this time straining
through the arms to carry toward the stream a car battery in one hand, an electric
boat motor crammed under an armpit, and another two fishing rods, their tips leading
him.
“Yes,” I answer, and then the yard goes bone quiet, as if this is the word we needed
to say to scare off birds.
He loads the boat, which, tethered at both ends by chains hung from stones cemented
to the shoreline, has three aluminum bench seats, its floor an unexpected turquoise
blue, its outsides spray painted Desert Storm camouflage. He says something I can’t
quite hear about knots.
“Say that again?” I ask.
“That’s my pet peeve—knotted lines,” he says clearly. “One line tangled around itself
I can handle. But more than one? Forget it.”
I nod, Bark’s gun steady. A single bird chirps.
“You get to some fishy spot with the weather just right?” Gabe says. “And then spend
an
hour
untangling your lines?”
And as if following someone else’s orders, he walks off, up the stone path toward
his house. He could phone someone, so I jog to catch up. I realize I could shoot him
and take the boat. The gun, aimed well, quivers as he opens his fridge. He moves aside
jars and I remember my aunt in Georgia telling me how, when you fish in creeks and
rivers, you should proceed
up
stream, since the current takes whatever you dislodge downstream—and this scares fish
into not wanting to bite. And I all at once miss my aunt, in this rattrap of a house
miss her as badly as ever, though I’m also glad she passed on before Bark lied about
me on TV.
With his back to me, Gabe says, “You like liverwurst?”
“Love it,” I say, though the truth is I’ve never tried liverwurst, since liverwurst,
this same aunt once told me, was for
them
.
Gabe stuffs something I can’t decipher into the bag, so I ask, “What’d you just put
in there?”
“Bread.”
“What else is in the bag? You got a cell in there?”
“No.”
“You got a cell on you?”
“I have never owned a cell phone, Douglas.”
“Come on, man. This is really no time to mess with me.”
He sets the bag on his counter, holds up his hands. “Go ahead and search me.”
I step toward him, and it hits me that this risks him wrestling me for the gun, so
I step back and say, “Just pull your pockets inside out.”
He obeys.
“You really don’t own a cell?”
“Mr. Sharp,” he says. “Look at this place. Who am I going to talk to?”
His shabby couch and dusty floor assure me he lives alone. I’d feel sorry for him
if the gun didn’t remind me of Bark, whose name now means anyone friendly can backstab.
I gesture with the gun, and he heads out the door and presses on, waddling toward
the boat. The stream all but dazzles me. He kneels beside the boat, arranges the motor,
batteries, tackle box, oars, two safety-orange seat cushions, the four fishing rods—each
handled individually—and the lunch bag. He points at these things one at a time, as
if his mind needs to count to know everything’s packed. Is he old enough for Alzheimer’s?
“We’re set,” he says.
“Which way we headed?” I ask.
“Upstream,” he says. “And that’s always, Deesh. You always,
always
go up.”
JAN
“TALKING TO YOU, GIRL”
was what Tug and I then heard, and I glanced over and saw the usual crew of railbirds
along the chain-link, but there, third closest to me, stood that pig Arnie DeShields.
And he had the nerve right then, on that same day Tom went missing, to lift his chin
at me the slightest bit, in a way that assured me he rarely needed to try to get women
to sleep with him. And after I stayed put right beside Tug, he beelined toward me
as if Tug weren’t there, and Tug headed off without a word, toward the bet-taking
tellers under the grandstand, and I thought: If I were Tug today, I’d probably want
to escape the world, too.
“Mr. DeShields,” I said.
Arnie held out his hand. “Just call me Arn. Or, if you insist, Arnie.”
I nodded and we shook, and as his hand squeezed mine, I was sure he knew something
about where Tom Corcoran was.
But all he said was “You know, your daddy jocked entries for me.”
“Yessir I knew that.”
“And he asked me once if I’d let any of his offspring ride for me someday. And now,
young lady? Well, you do look old enough.”
All I wanted right then was to be running at night. “You’re acquainted with my mother?”
I asked flatly.
“Rather well. And I see you’re her daughter because you have her same shape.” Two
of his fat fingers touched his fake upper teeth. “Lemme put this to you directly,”
he said. “I could use you to help handle my morning workouts. If everything goes fine,
we could then discuss you riding for me.”
“Arnie?” I said. “Let me put this to
you
directly. I have a few other concerns presently.”
“I bet you do, girl,” he said, and he winked. “Not a man here would doubt that.”
Which removed any doubt in me that I could jock professionally a heckuva lot faster
if I slept with him. But all I did at that point was shake his hand curtly, not one
more utterance about a future between us, though I’ll admit that, with this handshake,
the wannabe jock in me squeezed his hand firmly enough to show off my arm strength.
And being “courted” like that really did mess me up on the inside. Because after Arnie
walked off, I stood there, roughly where Tug had left me, all jangled in my thoughts
and jittery and queasy in my stomach. Plus I felt this sort of woodenness in my face,
like my jaw was now suddenly heavier, like I couldn’t have smiled if you paid me,
and when Tug returned from beneath the grandstand,
where I now figured he’d probably made a bet, I was sure he’d say something about
how weirdly thrown off I looked, but he just stood next to me, hands clawed to the
chain-link.
And after a while of us being together like that, he said, “Let’s get out of here.”
“To look elsewhere?”
“No. I just wanna leave.”
“Because we can keep looking, Tug.”
“I know. But I can’t imagine where else around here my dad could be.”
“He’s never anyplace else other than here or at home?”
“Hate to say it, but that’s pretty much the truth.”
And so there we both were, near the finish yet leaving it quickly, Tug in the lead
until, out in the parking lot, we headed toward the woods that bordered the railroad
tracks that led to the Corcorans’. As I recall, we passed The
Form
Monger out there that day, and as we did, I glanced at his purple stump, clueless
about why his hand had been severed (because, as of then, no one had told me the story
about his losing streak and his wife’s disappearance), and he ignored me to nod Tug’s
way and shrug, as if to say
I have no idea where your father is
.
Tug looked over his shoulder to face away from me, maybe because he was set to cry
and didn’t want me to see, maybe just to take a last look at the grandstand, full
as it was of rusting steel beams and concrete and that particular seat up inside it,
where his father had usually sat.
So then there we stood, in that parking lot short of the woods, Tug completely still,
maybe missing his father, maybe worried about some bet, my insides a little shocked
by the uproar of the grandstand crowd, which happened to be cheering now that we’d
left.