Warm Whiskey in a Cold Ditch: #23

One winter afternoon Dr. Fay asked me what I imagined myself being as an adult. "Do you ever think about it?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," I said. And, frankly, I hadn't imagined much for myself. The previous few weeks had been gray and snowy, and since we'd had so many days off of school I had spent most of my time outside. During some light snow flurries one afternoon I hid my .BB gun beneath my heavy coat and walked Sam, our half-blind mutt, into the middle of the nearby cornfield where the short stalks were mostly hidden by drifts. In one bare patch Sam flushed a pheasant, and I shouldered my .BB gun, shot, and I watched as the .BB itself curved to the right many yards behind the bird's tail feathers. Before then I had not fired a gun at anything in motion, and I had not yet learned the art of leading the target. Even sitting on the train today I can smell the cold air of that day and see Sam silhouetted against the snow as he bounced through the snow in pursuit of the pheasant, as I cocked the gun and hoped for another shot.

"What would you like to do when you grow up?" Dr. Fay continued.

"I really don't know," I said. My sister had known early that she wanted to be a doctor, and my brother was sure that he would be a professional baseball player. I had always been impressed with how sales clerks worked cash registers, though I didn't think that Dr. Fay would've accepted that I wanted to be a sales clerk.

"Well, that's okay," she said. "How is school going?"

This was easy. "It's nice having so many snow-days," I said.

"What have you been doing every day that you're home?"

"Going outside, mostly. I like to be outside when things are quiet and covered up like they are during the winter."

"A lot of people spend their entire lives outside," Dr. Fay said.

"That sounds good to me," I said. "But why do you keep talking about what I want to be when I grow up, or what I can do?"

She smiled. "I'm just trying to find out what interests you."

"Being outside, then," I told her. "I'd like to be outside most of the time." This was true enough, but I also hoped it would put the doctor off the scent. I could look through the window beyond Dr. Fay's right shoulder and see that the snow was falling again--full, thick flakes. This meant that Steven and I would have to shovel the driveway and sidewalks clear that afternoon, but we had developed a system that got us done quickly and would give us time for something else afterward.

"I want to ask you something else," Dr. Fay said in a tone that made me realize she wanted me back from the distractions on the other side of the glass.

"Okay," I said. And I knew she was serious because of how she lisped each "s" in the statement.

"Do you think it's worthwhile, coming here and talking to me?"

This seemed like a trap, and once again I was caught wondering what she wanted me to say. "I don't mind it," I said, which was true enough. But she wasn't giving up as easily as she usually did.

"I want you to not just 'mind it'; I want you to think it's helpful for you." She was firm.

As much as I wanted to look at the falling snow, I refused the urge and instead looked directly at her. Years later, Peggy would speak to me in much the same way when I sounded unsure or even fearful. "I think it's helpful," I said. "I like talking with you. I'm just never sure of what I'm supposed to say."

She softened. "You aren't supposed to say anything. I just don't want you to be afraid of our conversations. I'm not trying to hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable."

"You don't hurt me," I said, but I could not commit to feeling comfortable.

As my father and I drove home later, I looked through the window of his Ford Falcon and felt the vibration of snow tires on the packed snow. The snow was still falling, and as we passed the field where Sam and I had encountered, the pheasant, I noticed that the cornstalks were now completely covered. The snow was still falling, and as we turned down the street we lived on, Steven was already outside shoveling.

"Your brother's crazy for not waiting for you to get home," my father said as the rear wheels momentarily lost traction on the slight slope of our driveway. Steven opened the garage door for so my father could park the Falcon, and when I got out of the car my brother handed me a shovel.

"Let me get my boots on," I said. We cleared the sidewalk and driveway quickly, and we rested for a minute to catch our breath and admire our work. When I looked to the house, I could see my parents and sister staring at us through the living room window, gesturing for us to come inside.

Warm Whiskey in a Cold Ditch: #22

Along with the train and its captive souls, Steven and I continued to sit. I leaned my forehead into the window glass and wished I had my brother's patience, his ability to accept circumstances. He seldom seemed flustered, something he said had helped him in a corporate world where so little of the workday made sense.

But I could not be like him, and only at fishing was I superior. Our father taught us early how to slide worms and grubs onto barbed hooks, how to bobber-fish ponds and small lakes. We also learned how to remove those hooks from the palms of our own hands or our thumbs though Steven never did quite understand how to push down on the hook just enough to get the barbed tip to slide out of the skin without tearing the small wound.

One summer our father and Uncle Frank to me, Steven, and Cousin Mark to Ontario, Canada, to "fish for something other than blue gill and sunfish." Mark, who never quite accepted my brother and me, refused to sit in the back seat with us and instead settled himself between my father and uncle in the front. Steven and I were less offended than we were sad that Mark was the only one among us who did not have a brother.

Our fathers were up early--too early for us--and ready to go each morning. From our rented aluminum boat, we would drop minnows deep into the lake as we fished for walleye before lunchtime, then stop on an island where my father uncle cooked whatever fish we caught. In the afternoon we got back onto the water and switched to lures. Casting was often problematic with five people in the boat, but when we returned to our cabin each evening we had stringers full of northern pike and, on one day, a couple of muskie. I was proud that as we cast with our open-face reels, Steven was always more prone to getting snags in his fishing line, usually whenever a fish hit is lure--the fish would be gone as soon as the line went slack. I got to where I could cast the lure in a perfect arc and then drop my thumb onto the line at just the right moment so that the lure stopped within feet of floating logs or a stand of reeds. After two days, the boat was less crowded because Cousin Mark decided to stay in the cabin so he could read one of the many books he had packed. Later when we asked our father about this, he said that Mark was the type of person who would rather read about life than live it.

"How did you like the fishing trip?" Dr. Fay asked me one snowy afternoon not long after I started seeing her.

"It was fun," I told her. "I'd like to do it again."

"What did you enjoy about it?"

I shrugged. "Everything. Being away with my dad and my brother. Being outside."

"I talked to your dad about the trip. He wasn't sure if you liked it."

"Why would he say that?"

"He said that you never talk about it."

"I talk about it with Steven."

Again, I didn't know what she--or my father--expected of me. I stared out the window behind Dr. Fay's desk and watched the snow grow heavier. The sledding would be good, I thought.

Snow was falling outside the train window, too, though I could barely see the flakes. Steven shifted in his seat, and the way he sighed I could tell that he, too, was finally starting to get edgy. The train had not moved for hours by that point. "Give me the notebook," he said.

"You going to read, or write?"

"Read," he said as he turned a couple of pages. "There's not much room left in here."

"Nope."

"You decide what you're going to right?"

"Who said I was going to write anything."

"Margie told you to. She gave you a pen."

"She should write something," I said. "Or Mark. He's the writer. Give the notebook to him."

"Not a chance," Steven said. "Mark's not getting his paws on this thing." He then slammed the notebook shut so loudly and suddenly that the people in the seats in front of us jumped. "I think we should mutiny," he said as he dropped the notebook on my lap and stood up.

"Where are you going?"

He looked one way up the aisle, then the other. "I need some answers. I'll be back when I find out what's going on."

Both of my knees were vibrating up and down, and I tried to calm them. I watched my brother walk away.

Warm Whiskey in a Cold Ditch: #21

A problem I had with Dr. Fay was that I could not tell her all the things I wanted to be heard. At some level she must have sensed this--an inability to confide such things as, yes, I was quite fearful of many things. I would often lead her to just far enough in one direction to make her forget about something else, recognizing early that adults search for specifics and are easily distracted by tangents. "How is school?" and "how are things at home?" were her two most common lead-ins, and I would give her a few pieces more than "fine" even when things were not fine.

Sitting alone on the motionless prison of a train, I wondered about Dr. Fay. Not long after I told my parents I would not see her again, Dr. Fay apparently got married and started a family of her own. I often felt pity for her children, for how good could childhood be if your mother is trained to always seek out problems even when there might be none? Still, I thought I might enjoy having her see me as an adult. I would ask her if I had turned out as she had expected, or if I had somehow surprised her. I squinted into the shaded window glass and put my teeth against my tongue in a week attempt to mimic her lisp.

"You sound like a god damned snake," Steven said as he plopped into the seat beside me. He thought it was funny when he startled me enough for my head to bounce off the thick glass.

"Asshole," I said. "Where have you been?"

"Talking to Cousin Mark. He's going as batty as you are right now. Says if the train doesn't move soon, he's going to, and I loosely quote, "sue the fucking wheels off of Amtrak for the mental distress of my not being able to give my parents a proper burial."

"He's a college professor," I said.

"Exactly. Not much of a legal menace, is he."

"Where are Dad and Margie?"

"Playing cards again. They won three bags of corn nuts off of Mark before he quit."

"I was thinking of Dr. Fay," I said. I put my tongue against the back of my teeth again but did not hiss.

"Did you know that I saw her a couple of times?"

"You?"

"Yep. Mom and Dad thought it'd be a good idea if someone who knew you really well talked to her."

"Shit."

"That's pretty much what I said. I tried to beg off by saying that I hardly knew you."

"Was I really that much of a head-case?"

"No more than the rest of us were, I don't think. Or are, I guess. You want to know what I told her?"

"Think it'll damage my sensitive psyche?"

"I'll risk it. I told her that I thought you just liked being alone. That you didn't hate anyone, and that you only wanted to do things in a different way. Mom and Dad were worried, so you can't blame them."

"I don't. Dad said it was mostly Mom's idea."

My brother shrugged. "Maybe. I always thought it was the other way around. Mom's always been the type to let problems solve themselves."

"I was a problem?"

"Not to me. We were all glad when Peggy came along, though. She could handle you pretty well, we thought."

He was right about that. "What about Margie--she have to see Dr. Fay, too?"

"I don't know. Divide-and-conquer sometimes works best when nobody knows what's going on."

"We need to get this train moving," I said. "I mean it." My leg was shaking and I could not stop it.

"A couple hundred people are thinking the same thing. Mark said he saw a little scuffle in the dining car. Nerves are frayed."

I wanted to say something about how I'd come to understand why an animal would chew its mouth bloody when it's trapped in a cage even when there's isn't a chance of escape, even when it knows there's no chance of escape.

"You know," Steven said as he set his hand on my vibrating knee and pushed downward, "we weren't afraid that you were crazy, but that you were determined to make yourself so. You just need to calm down, now. This will all be good."

Part of me knew he was right.

"Let me see the notebook," he said as he reclined his seat.

I handed him the Rhodia.

"You read the entire thing?"

"Not even close," I said.

"It's story time. Listen to this. Some guy named Kominski wrote it. It's part of something longer."

While he lit the candles, she took two painted masks from the wall, placing one on each of their faces. She pulled back the drapes, opened the window, and looked out at the night framing a full moon.

Together, they lifted up the television and gently pushed it out of the third floor window onto the street below.

It took a long while to hit bottom.

The crash and the following silence would stay with them like an unemployed relative--for a long time.

Without a word, they took off the masks, then each other's clothes piece by piece, letting them drop to the floor. Bathed in the moonlight, they danced together slowly, their mouths drinking the elixir of love, their hands gripping and kneading whatever was available.

He closed the Rhodia and handed it back. "I wonder what that's about."

"It's about love," I said.

"Yeah," Steven said, "but isn't everything?"