The Book of Accidents, page 42
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too. Sorry, Mom.”
“Sorry for what? Not your fault I’m out here.”
“I know. Just…sorry.”
“See you soon, Dude.”
She handed the phone back to Jowly John Deere. “Thanks,” she said.
“Your kid all right?”
“He’s…okay. He’s had a rough go of things.” And that, she thought, was the understatement of the year.
“Lemme guess, teenager?”
“Yeah.”
“I have one of those. She’s nineteen. Sucks out there for kids. We squandered all the good we got and left them with the empty bag. But yours will be all right—it’s clear you care about him. Willing to do whatever it takes. That’s parenting, good parenting. That, and trusting them. You trust your son enough to leave him alone, but you also would do whatever it takes to get back to him. That right?”
“That’s about right,” she said.
“Then that’s all you need. Trust and hard work.”
They shook hands, and she thanked him again.
“Fred,” he said.
“Maddie,” she answered.
And then, like magic: The snow squall thinned once more to flurries, and she saw the red and blue strobe of a police cruiser ahead. The air shrieked with the squeal of hydraulics as the tractor trailer blocking the road started to move.
* * *
—
It took time.
A lot of pacing, a lot of thinking.
Oliver assured himself that he wasn’t going to do what he wasn’t going to do. He told himself that he couldn’t give in to what Jake wanted. But he also asked himself, what choice was there? Jake would do what he said. He was committed. He’d hurt Caleb, hurt him bad, then kill him. Then he’d go for Hina, too. Probably come for Mom, do all the awful things he said he’d do. In the end, what choice did Oliver have?
He took his mother’s phone, pulled up her contacts, and made the call. Oliver wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be gone, but he had to do this before she got back—and before the weather got worse.
He wrote a hasty note.
He took the phone.
He took the gun.
Then Oliver walked out the door, past the scattering of thirteen owls on the ground (each now covered in a little mound of white fluff). The boy hoofed it through the snow, down the driveway, toward the end.
73
Better Remember, Lightning Never Strikes Twice
Nate told Carl the next day, and Carl thought he was fucking nuts and said as much. But he also said he’d help. So they got to work constructing a lightning rod. Carl knew the principle, said they’d had one at the plastics plant where he worked. A lightning rod was just a long metal rod, ideally copper, mounted atop a building, with a wire leading from the rod to the ground—so lightning would strike the rod, and then go to ground, leaving the building unharmed.
In this case, though, the wire wouldn’t necessarily have to go to ground…
It could go to Nate.
“Which would of course kill your hiney dead,” Carl said.
“Yes, in any other universe. But you…”
“What happened to me was crazy, Nate. These storms aren’t predictable. And so, I’d wager, their results aren’t either. I don’t guess it would be reproducible, but what do I know.”
Nate shrugged. “I don’t have any other ideas. Do you?”
“I don’t.”
“Then this is the idea.”
Carl had copper pipe in the walls. The house’s plumbing relied on a well pump—which itself required electricity—so the pipes weren’t doing anybody much good. He and Nate ripped some out and fashioned a rod out of it. Spooled some coils of wire from the cellar around the rod, and then used the ladder to get to the roof. Nate said he’d go up, and Carl said he could fucking handle it, by god, and instead told Nate to stay on the ground with the rifle. Just in case.
As the old man clambered up, some of the slate shingles cracked and broke—pieces skidding off and shattering as they hit the ground. Nate ducked a few bits of debris.
“You all right up there?” Nate asked.
“I’m fine, and quit asking. I’m old but I’m not old,” Carl barked.
Nate couldn’t see much. Just heard lots of banging and rattling and slate chips surfing down. Carl suddenly hollered, “Fuckin’ hell!”
Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, Nate hurried up the ladder—
He peered over the bent and rusted gutters. Now he could see Carl straddling the peak of the roof, riding the house like a horse. Blood streamed down his hand as he shook it.
“Hell, Carl, are you all right?”
“Fine, fine, just—cut the meat of my palm on the flashing up here. Sharp tin shit.” He pulled off his shirt and wound it around the bleeding hand. The blood soaked through fast. Nate said he’d come up to finish, but Carl said, “No, hell, I’m already done. I was just fixing the flashing around the chimney here so it doesn’t leak. I’m done, I’m done, just head back down the ladder and give me some room.”
Nate, reminded of his own father’s stubbornness, knew better than to wrestle this old oak tree. So he stepped back down the ladder, made some room. Carl scooted over to the edge—
And his rear end slipped off the roof, hitting the gutter—which broke away from the house as Carl tumbled through the air—
Nate called out—
And then there was a rush of air, a smell of ozone—
In midair, Carl simply disappeared.
“Oh, shit,” Nate said.
He knew how fast the old man came back last time, and so he hurried to right where Carl had fallen, trying to guess at his trajectory. He stabbed out with his back heel to brace himself, opening his arms—
Just as there was another puff of air. Carl reappeared, and this time, Nate caught him. Or, rather, “caught” him—because he was bowled backward, slamming his ass bone against the dirt, and suddenly the two of them had sprawled into the unkempt lawn. The two of them groaned and rolled around in pain, but had no real injuries. Carl finally sat up, holding his cut hand under his armpit. “That sure was something,” he finally said.
“What happened?”
“What happened? You saw what happened. I went away again.”
“Where? And when?”
“I…well, I don’t know when, Nate, I just know I was suddenly standing up. Looking out the attic window of this house. And I was watching…you, I think. You and your boy. On the driveway. The boy with a busted bicycle from the looks of it.”
Nate nodded. “I remember that. I remember seeing you up there.”
“Jesus. Ain’t that a thing?”
“Sure is, Carl. Sure is.”
Carl stood, shaky, his knees popping as he did. “Tell you one thing, though, Nate. I know he wasn’t my grandson, not proper, but it was good to see Oliver again. Real good.”
I imagine it was, Nate thought. And that’s all he could do. Imagine.
* * *
—
The first sign something was wrong with Carl came a few nights later. Nate awoke, finding Carl standing there, the beams of bright moonglow coming through the boarded-up windows of the room, painting him in the zebra stripes of light and shadow.
The gun was in his hand. He pointed it at Nate.
“Identify yourself!” Carl hissed. “Wake up, you piece of shit. You can’t squat here. Who are you? Where’d you come from?”
“Carl,” Nate said, calm as an unstirred lake. “Carl, it’s me. It’s Nate.”
“This was my son’s room. He’s coming back. You can’t sleep here.”
“Of course he is, Carl. I can sleep downstairs, if you’d rather.”
The old man seemed staggered by that. “Okay,” he said, finally.
Then he tottered out of the room. Somewhere down the hall, a door slammed. And that was that. Nate figured it was just the old man sleepwalking, or suffering from the vagaries of age. Just in case, though, he went downstairs and slept on the couch.
He hoped that was the end of it, but really, it was just the start.
* * *
—
Days went by, and Carl didn’t mention it. Neither did Nate. Only real change in the old man was that he seemed a little draggy, a little unfocused. Said he was dealing with a cold, maybe. “Feeling a little achy today,” he said. “But I’m good,” he added, and life seemed to resume. They hunted, they scavenged, they waited for a good storm to come, but none did. It was a week later—seven scratches in the wood—that it went to hell.
Nate was sitting outside, rifle across his lap. He’d taken to leaving out scraps of food gone bad for the squirrels, because squirrels were dumb as paint and would cape for a moldy kernel of corn quick as they would a fresh one. One well-placed shot to the head and that was that. Squirrels were easy to skin, too—Carl showed him that all you had to do was lift the tail, cut a slice “right above the shitter” (his words) and then across the legs, and then step on the tail, grab the paws, and pull. The skin peeled right off. Maybe you had to use the knife to cut a few more bits away, but that was it.
After that, it was imperative to get the squirrel into a stewpot and over some fire pretty quick. Carl said back in the “good days” you had a few hours at least, and could extend that time with ice. Now, they went rotten fast. Rancid in under an hour. (“Whole world’s gone rotten,” Carl had taken to saying, and Nate flinched whenever he heard it.)
There Nate sat, waiting. Waiting for a squirrel much as he was waiting for a storm. Waiting for anything. Outside he was calm and still. Inside he was a maelstrom of worry and impatience. I just want to go home, he thought, before there came a crackle of brush, and the movement of weeds and grass. The front lawn to the house had obviously grown wild, turning to a rangy, mangy meadow—but where he placed the moldy corn, he stamped down the grass and weeds in a straight path for his line of sight.
A squirrel danced into view. Skinny, but they all were. Looked healthy, though. Wouldn’t get much meat off it, but it could flavor the stew well enough. Nate hugged the rifle against his shoulder, pressing his eyes against the scope. He pinched that squirrel right between the crosshairs—
A door slammed. The squirrel bolted.
“Shit,” he said, and turned to see Carl coming out of the house. The old man staggered out like he was deep in his cups. He had a cigarette in his mouth, unlit.
“Gone rotten,” Carl said. The cigarette fell from his lips.
“Carl, what the hell, I had a shot lined up—”
Then he saw: Carl had the gun. The .45 pistol. It was slick. Barrel dripping with gun oil. Each drop hit the ground with a little pat-pat-pat.
“Carl,” he said, more gingerly this time. “Put down the gun.”
Slowly, Carl turned his head toward Nate.
“Nathan, that you?” the old man asked.
He didn’t know how to answer. He’d heard tales of friends having to deal with parents suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s, and they always seemed to tell the truth to try to steer the parent back to reality—but in those stories, the parent never had a gun in their hand. “Sure, it’s me.”
A shadow of uncertainty passed over the man’s face. “No. Are you? It’s gone rotten, son. World ruined. Everything’s in danger. It’s Oliver. You see? Where’s Oliver?”
Then he pointed the gun at Nate.
“Carl—uhh, Dad—”
“What did you do to Oli—”
He disappeared.
One minute, Carl was there. The next, gone. With that came the little chuff of air and a stink in the air like chlorine and rain-slick roads.
Nate knew where the old man went.
He remembered the night: Carl appearing behind him at the house on the night of the storm there. Clocking him with the gun. Calling him Nathan. Telling him the world was ruined and rotten, that danger was coming…
And then, like that, Carl appeared once more.
Sweat-slick and dizzy, the old man teetered. Nate reached out to steady him—and to snatch the gun out of his hand. The old man relented easily. He woozily stumbled toward the same chair Nate had been sitting on while waiting for a squirrel. Carl plopped down on it, legs splayed. He seemed lost for a moment, staring at the grass.
“I went somewhere again.”
“I know, Carl. I know where you went.”
He licked his lips. “I think I…I hit you. With that.” He dipped his head toward the gun in Nate’s hand.
“Don’t feel too bad, it healed up okay.”
“I wasn’t just gone…physically. I was gone up here too.”
Carl tapped his forehead.
“I know that too.”
“I’m sorry, Nathan.” He hissed, as if mad at himself. “Nate.”
“It’s okay. It’s fine, don’t wreck yourself over it.”
“Could I trouble you for a spot of whiskey? I got a taste in my mouth like…like a bloody nose, you ever get that?”
Nate wasn’t sure whiskey was the best medicine, but given that they had no medicine, what could it hurt? He nodded and went inside to fetch one of the bottles the old man kept under the sink. Only problem was, they didn’t seem to have anymore. He did find a bottle of something called Oberon’s gin—had a label with a scruffy-looking Irish wolfhound on it—and he figured that would be good enough. His own father used to say of gin, Tastes like Christmas, and that was that. (And here Nate’s insides twisted up. Wasn’t it almost Christmas here? Or there? Or somewhere? He’d already passed Thanksgiving, hadn’t he? If he could get back there…No. This was something to worry about later. Right now? Carl.)
He grabbed the bottle of Oberon’s and twisted off the cap. He grabbed a couple of coffee mugs on the way out, one finger through the ceramic loops. They clinked and clunked together as he headed outside—
And saw Carl wandering out into the grass. He faced away from Nate. His head was bent. His arms, slack by his sides.
“Carl! Hey. No whiskey, but I found gin—”
The old man tumbled forward into the grass.
Shit!
Nate set down the bottle and mugs and bolted toward him. He got his arm around the old man’s middle and eased him back.
Carl’s face was a tangled mess. Black, wet tendrils hung from his face like rotten vines. Red-black worms pushed up out of his nostrils, dangling from his lips; one even pushed out from the corner of his left eye. He made a fluid sound in his chest and then gagged. Nate backpedaled as Carl retched, loosing a gush of black threads from his mouth in a bile-yellow froth. They spattered against the ground. Still alive, the worms clumped in a pile.
Carl locked his arms and heaved again, letting fly with fewer worms—just a handful now. Nate reached over and helped him pull some away from his face, careful not to break them. He took off his own shirt and used it to wipe the old man’s face and mouth before helping him stand quickly and back away from the writhing mess in the weeds.
“Jesus,” Carl said, followed by a despairing groan. “Christ on a…”
“You’re okay. You’re okay. C’mon. Got something to help you…uhh, wash out your mouth. Disinfect, too.”
He advanced ahead of Carl, fetching the gin and handing it to him.
“Here. Go on.”
Carl took it greedily in both hands like a toddler clutching a juice cup. He plugged it to his lips and drank. First round, he swished and spat. Second round he just drank. Three hefty glugs.
“There you go,” Nate said. “You’re okay.”
But Carl shook his head. “I’m not okay.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know it. I know it like I know rain. That—what just happened, it wasn’t good. The, the worms are in me. I’ve seen this before, Nate. Eggs, cysts, the worms, I dunno, but I’m pretty sure I can feel them in there, son.”
Nate was about to reassure him once more, but something moved across Carl’s eye. A black worm. Little, like a baby worm. Its tail flagellated in a whiplike motion, swimming across the surface of his eye, from one corner to the next, before disappearing again.
“What is it?” Carl asked.
“I…”
“I’m not going to be okay.”
Nate shook his head, feeling the blood drain from his face.
“I think you’re right, Carl. I’m sorry.”
* * *
—
The old man made his wishes clear. He said he did not want to die here, but rather he wanted to die where Oliver died. He was to meet his maker on the altar stone. For he was, in a way, a sacrifice too. Nate told him he couldn’t do it, wouldn’t do it, but Carl objected, said, “You have to, Nate. This is what mercy looks like. I don’t want to lose my whole mind—my brain—to these things. You end me now. Before I’m not me anymore.”
The grim irony of all this was not lost on Nate. Before, all he wanted was to see his father die. And in the deepest, darkest chambers of his heart, he wanted to be the one to kill him. Watching him die of cancer was second-best, a silver medal, not the gold. And though this man was not his father, he also was. Or had become, at least.
Carl, this Carl, saved Nate. Helped him. Taught him things. Like a father did. And now Nate wanted anything other than to watch him die.
Worse, anything other than to help him die.
One version of Carl Graves he wanted to kill, and couldn’t.
This Carl Graves he wanted to save, and couldn’t.
It was what it was.
He took the pistol, and together they walked to the boulder field.
