A Ship Made of Paper (41 page)

Then, suddenly, a little stretch where last month’s storm seemed to have done little damage. They walk for three minutes without having to change course. And though they don’t know which direction they are going in, the mere fact of keeping a constant course gives them a bit of encouragement. They are not, after all, in the middle of some vast uncharted wilderness.They are only a hundred miles north of the city. How far can they go without ending up on some stretch of asphalt or in a s h i p m a d e o f pa p e r

someone’s backyard? But then they reach a devastated grove of locusts, the saplings with bark spiked with thorns, like giant, petrified roses.

There are so many of them down on the ground, or leaning against each other in a swoon, that it would have been impossible to get through them or past them even in daylight.

“I think we’ve already been here,” Hampton says.

“Really? What makes you think so?”

In the blindness of the night, Daniel can sense from the quality of the silence that Hampton is glaring at him.

“What makes me think so?” asks Hampton. His voice seems completely unconnected to his feelings; even in anger, it is melodious.

“I think we’re making progress,” Daniel says.

“Well, we’re not, we’re going in circles.”

“Hampton. I’ve been following you. All right?”

“We’re going in circles.”

“Well, you’ve been taking us there.”

“Daniel?”

“What?”

“Can I make a suggestion?”

“Sure. What?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

There is a rock nearby, embedded deeply into the forest floor and covered with moss and lichen. Hampton tries to scale it, hoping to see a break in the woods, but the soles of his shoes are slick, and as soon as he stands on the rock he slips and falls hard onto his hands and knees, and just stays there, with his head down, for several moments.

Daniel goes to his side, touches him softly on the shoulder. “Here,” he says. He puts out his hand. Hampton’s fingers are hard and cold; he grasps Daniel’s hand like a statue come to life. Daniel steps back and pulls Hampton to his feet. It is strange to be touching this man who once had, and is now losing, everything.

“You know,” Hampton says, “even in the dark I can still sort of see you.Your white skin picks up every little bit of light there is.”

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“Yeah?”

“I guess you can’t see me at all, can you?”

Daniel doesn’t want to say no; he just shakes his head. He wonders if Iris’s scent is on him—surely Hampton would recognize it. He moves a little farther away. This great secret life suddenly feels like groceries coming out of a wet paper sack.

“What’s it like being lost out here with a big old African-American man who you basically do not know.”

“What are you talking about, Hampton?”

“Just that. I’m curious. I see white people all the time, but I rarely have the opportunity to ask them certain things. Do you know many black people, Daniel?”

“A few. I used to know more. Out here, it’s more difficult, obviously.”

“But here’s where you are, it’s what you chose, you
moved
here.”

“Not to get away from black people.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“If you want to know the truth, I think my prejudice goes the other way. Black people have something I’ve always wanted.”

“Rhythm?”

“That’s ridiculous.” He backs still farther away, stumbles, rights himself.

“All right. Sorry. What is it we black people have that you’ve always wanted?”

“Family. Community.”

Hampton laughs—a sudden, rude bark of amusement.

“I know how it sounds,” says Daniel. He searches his mind for something to substitute, some innocuous generalization, something admiring of black people that won’t seem too utterly stupid and condescending.

Hampton is silent. He takes a deep breath, a man controlling his temper.

“Is that what you see in Iris?” he finally asks. “Someone in touch with her feelings who can put you in touch with yours?”

So here it is,
thinks Daniel. A kind of exhaustion of strategy begins to overcome him, a growing incapacity to dodge and maneuver.The lies he has told weigh him down, it is as if they were stones with which he has a s h i p m a d e o f pa p e r

filled his pockets. His psychological step is increasingly heavy and unsure. One day, Daniel thinks, Hampton will replay this conversation in his mind and every lie he has told will be vivid and repulsive to him. But, for now, Daniel must stay the course.

“I see everything in Iris,” Daniel says quietly.

“Don’t be deceived by her skin and her hair. She’s as white as the bankers I see down in the city.”

“Let’s not do this here, okay, Hampton? You want to talk about this, I’ll talk about it. But let’s get out of these woods, go someplace where we can sit down.”

“So you’re making the rules?”

“I’m asking.”

Another silence. Daniel hears Hampton exhale.

“Fine. Wait here for a second, all right? I have to urinate.” Even this announcement is made in Hampton’s public speaker’s voice.

There’s a break in the black sky and the platinum moonlight pours down on them. The whites of Hampton’s eyes glitter. His shirt is dirty, his trousers are covered in burrs and black with mud at the knees.

“I’ll wait here,” Daniel says.

Hampton’s footsteps crunch over the dried leaves, fainter and fainter.

Where is he going? Uphill? It’s hard for Daniel to tell which way Hampton is walking, and then, ten seconds later, fifteen at the most, he can’t hear him at all.

Daniel walks a couple of careful, shuffling steps until he feels the hard presence of yet another fallen tree. He crouches down, runs his hands along the bark. No branches, no large knots. He sits carefully on the tree trunk and waits. He cannot continue with these lies—he remembers thinking this, the nearness of this confession is what will come to haunt him. He will remember thinking that the ordering of events, the careful timing of when the truth can be released, all of it is being taken out of his hand.

Hampton’s piss seems to be taking an extraordinarily long time. The cold wind rustles the treetops. A presence of spirits? Who knew? From

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someplace quite near comes the sound of a pack of coyotes, a frenzy of yips and yowls.

Daniel loses patience, stands. “Hampton? You all right?” There is no answer. Even the coyotes are silent, for a moment. Daniel wonders if Hampton has simply decided to ditch him, to abandon him in these ruined woods. A rush of malevolence streaks through him, like a comet with its rock- and ice-strewn brilliance, its searing, filthy light. For a moment, he despises Hampton as much as he had during the very worst nights of longing for Iris, when sleep was impossible and there was no end to the hatred he had for the man who had everything Daniel wanted.

“Hampton?” Daniel says, much louder this time. He hears the slight hysteria in his voice, feels it in his throat. “Hampton? Hampton! Are you there?”

He makes some vague, stumbling effort to find him. Seeing almost nothing, Daniel makes his way up the steep hill. He must grab on to the trees along the way to power himself up. Hadn’t they been on this steep hill before? Isn’t this the one with the sharp drop-off into a pool of black water fifty feet below? Or is this another one just like it?

Daniel scrambles to the top of the hill. His face stings and when he touches it he realizes that he must have gotten hit by a branch. His fingertips are wet. He is bleeding.

“Hampton?” Silence. He feels a wind at his back and turns quickly. He is right on the edge of that fifty-foot drop-off.

A jolt of fear goes through him. He has a vision of Hampton springing up and hitting him on the shoulders with his open hands, and sending him falling off the hill and into the water.

And as soon as that thought occurs, he realizes that is exactly where Hampton is, in that black water below. He has fallen. Those shoes, those pricey, prissy fucking shoes. He is down there, probably facedown in the water.

Daniel stands there, not knowing what to do. Should he skid down and see if he can find Hampton? It seems insane. He might have gone in a s h i p m a d e o f pa p e r

another direction, he might right now be back at the spot at which they’d parted, wondering where Daniel has gone.

The cold wind parts the clouds and moonlight shines down again.

Daniel looks down, sees that he is only a foot from the edge of the hill.

Again he steps back. His heart is leaping up and down inside of him, like a creature trapped in a well. He is suddenly exhausted. He has an overpowering desire to sit down, close his eyes, but forces himself to carefully inch closer to the drop-off.The ground is an impasto of pebble, pine needle, and slippery cold mud.

He gets down on his hands and knees. The clouds are already making their way back to the moon, he has only a few moments of light. He peers down at the pond—and there it is: the unthinkable. Hampton.

Facedown in the water. Arms stretched out before him, jacket balloon-ing, making him look like a hunchback.

Daniel claps his hand over his own eyes, turns away, sits there, draws up his knees, shudders.

Do something.

It seems as if he were paralyzed.

Do something. Now!

If only he had raced down, if only Daniel had taken that steep, plunging run toward the water with total abandon. He was screaming,
Oh my
God, oh my God,
but he was not selfless. He kept his face covered. He slowed down when he lost traction and began to skid. And when his foot caught on an exposed root and he fell to the ground, he stayed there for an extra heartbeat or two, trying to gather his strength. He would remember the clumsy caution of his descent.

When he is nearly down the slope, he loses his footing again. He does not fall but he has to run in an awkward, stiff-legged way to keep his balance.

His momentum takes him into the water, right up to his knees.The cold is like being hit in the shins with a tire iron. Hampton’s form has drifted toward the center of the pond. Daniel calls his name.This time his shout is not stillborn, it blooms in echoes. But there is no reply, no movement.

Daniel takes another step and the bottom of the pond falls away. In-

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stinctively, he rears back, stops himself from going forward, from going under. Panic is upon him, merciless and annihilating. The water rushes into his clothes, it is like the paralyzing sting of an insect, something to render him helpless so he can be consumed. He has never been a strong swimmer, in fact, he can barely swim. There is no chance of his rescuing Hampton, if there was any Hampton left to rescue. Daniel backs up a step, and then another, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the Roman candle.

He crouches at the edge of the pond, jams the base of the Roman candle into the ground.The fuse is plastered to the side of the cardboard cylinder and Daniel has to tease it up with his fingernails, makes it stand straight out so that he can light it. He digs in his front pocket for matches. Quarters fall out, as well as his keys. He finds the matches.They are damp, and the first one doesn’t light. But the second one does. His hands are shaking but he finally gets the flame to the fuse. It sparks up with a sudden, nervous hiss. Someone will see it, someone will come. In the meanwhile, he will try to force himself back into the water, if it is at all possible. The wind is parting the clouds again, the moonlight is starting to come through, a long platinum spoke of it. The fuse burns slowly for the first couple inches, but then accelerates.

He realizes that the candle is pointing right at him, that it is going to fire into his face, and he jerks his head away and quickly pushes the candle forward.

He scrambles up. Then, in the darkness, against all probability: he hears a voice. “Hey, what are you doing?” He looks up at the sound and sees Hampton standing at the top of the hill.

There is an instant when Daniel is almost wild with relief. It is as if he loves Hampton as much as he loves Iris.

The Roman candle ignites, and the first fireball from it rises and flies, making a sound like air being sucked out of a pipe. It launches at a forty-five-degree angle and never reaches the sky. It strikes Hampton and buries itself deep into the softest part of his throat. Hampton just stands in place. There is enough moonlight now to see his expression. He is a s h i p m a d e o f pa p e r

stunned, hurt. His mouth opens. His hand clasps the object in his throat, but he doesn’t appear to be trying to pull it out. It’s almost as if he’s holding it in place. His legs buckle and then they are useless. He sits down, heavily, his head falls forward and then his body tilts to the side.

He topples over and starts to roll.

Daniel runs up the hill, shouting. But even now his progress is im-peded; he looks over his shoulder, back down at the pond. He is still in the grip of the notion that Hampton, another Hampton, the real Hampton, is in the water, he can’t quite shake it. Though now the clouds are moving quickly and the moonlight is streaming down, and Daniel can see what he could not see before—in the water is a partially submerged log, the top half of a tree that has been snapped in two by the storm, its gan-glia of dead branches surrounded by leaves.

[ 15 ]

Six months pass. The spring is winding down, reverting to the insolent, unpredictable nature with which it began, cold one day, warm the next. Though the schools have weeks before closing for summer, the Leyden teenagers are behaving as if their vacations have already begun, prowling the streets beginning in the late afternoon and staying in their packs through the evening. Now it’s about four in the afternoon, a bright, mild day, the sky like a child’s drawing, and Derek Pabst drives his patrol car through Leyden’s small commercial neighborhood, past the Koffee Kup, which seems to serve everyone in town who drives an American car, and then past the Taste of SoHo, where most of the customers drive imports, and then past Windsor Hardware, which has begun stocking more Italian crockery and ornate English fireplace utensils.