Fallen Land (38 page)

T
HERE WERE NO RECRIMINATIONS
OR
chastisement, just a sickening array of sympathetic looks and quiet words, people who understood
the difficulty of moving to a new city
. Play dates were offered and Denise scribbled the name of her son’s counselor on a paper napkin, while her husband Mike caught Nathaniel’s eye, nodded in Azar’s direction, and shrugged, as if to say,
should we do something about this, man?
Nathaniel pretended not to understand but began to wonder himself if something ought to be done, especially now that he and a fellow EKK employee were conscious of each other’s knowledge of whatever this situation might be. Meanwhile, the party continued as if nothing had happened at all, and for this Nathaniel found himself both grateful and outraged.

As the hours after the party have passed, he wishes that someone
had
made a big deal of it so his son would get the message that you can’t just be a creep who walks all over other people without there being consequences. At home, in private, he has suggested to Julia that Copley face some kind of punishment, although it is difficult to know what. They do not spank, they do not allow him to watch television more than half an hour a week, and he seems happiest when left alone in his room, so sending him there is hardly going to discipline him.

“Talk to him, that would be more productive,” Julia says.

“On my own.”

“No, I’ll talk to him, too.”

“Together.”

“Fine, okay. Together. But not here. I don’t want him to feel cornered or ambushed. Let’s take a walk.”

“A walk?”

“In the woods.”

I
T IS THE FIRST TIME
Nathaniel has been out the back gate and into the wooded portion of their property, which extends all the way to the sign marking the boundary with the nature reserve. Walking naturally again, Copley takes the lead, waiting only for his father to unlock the gate with a key and lock it again behind them. Julia has proposed exploring the trails that lead all the way to the river and Demon Point.

“I’ve been here before,” Copley says. His voice is cocky and boastful in a way that enrages Nathaniel. “There are stairs and a chimney. There used to be some houses here. Louise told me.”

The woods look all but virgin, the trees tall and dense, others fallen and overgrown with ivy, gripped by decay: trees that are inmates in a prison reserve, growing up and out, some of them dying within, collapsing, decomposing, never escaping to freedom, but perhaps giving rise to positive regenerative growth, production of new life and materials on which others will feed. They walk for five minutes to the limit of their property and cross into the reserve. Copley runs ahead until Julia calls him back, telling him to stay close.

“Why?”

“For safety.”

“But it’s safe,” Copley says.

“And because we want to talk to you about what happened earlier.” Julia puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder, drawing him between the two of them. Why does Copley always have to be in the middle? Why can’t he stand to one side? Gripping the boy’s shoulders, Nathaniel moves his son over so that he and Julia can walk together, hand in hand, while his right hand steers Copley by the back of the neck. He can feel Julia flinch at the suddenness of the shift, and her hand squeezes his, not cooperative or soothing but itself a kind of punishment, pinching and chastising, making it clear, as if he had any doubt whatsoever, on whose side she really stands.

“What about earlier?” Copley squirms out of his father’s grip and walks a few feet to one side.

“The way you kicked the other kids.”

“I didn’t kick them. I was just walking. They were in my way.”

“But sweetheart,” Julia says, still not taking a firm enough line, “you can’t do that to other people. They were playing a game and you made a decision not to play. You can’t just go wrecking other people’s fun because you’re not a part of it.”

“That’s not what I was doing,” Copley shouts, his body doubling over, one of his feet stamping the ground.

“Then what
were
you doing?”

“I don’t
know
.”

Nathaniel feels his patience slip. “That’s not good enough, Copley,” he says, his chest swelling as the old pressures build up inside. “You have to know what the hell you’re doing in the world.”

“Nathaniel—”

“You know what happens to kids like you,” he says, grabbing Copley by the shoulders and spinning him round. He leans over and points at Copley’s chest, has a vision of his father doing the same thing to him, on some trail in the Berkshires, in the buzzing humidity of Mount Greylock. “You’ve taken the first steps on the wrong road. You’re getting in trouble at school, you’re making messes at home, you’re lying to your parents, now you’re hurting other kids. Pretty soon you’ll get into more serious trouble at school, you’ll fall in with the wrong crowd, you’ll disobey us, we’ll punish you, you’ll revolt, you’ll get into trouble with the law and they’ll send you to juvenile detention where older kids will do very bad things to you, things you cannot begin to imagine.”

“Nathaniel, that’s enough!” Julia shouts.

He ignores her, index finger thumping his son’s chest.

“If you’re lucky you’ll just
barely
finish high school but you can forget about college because you’ll have such a bad record that no college will admit you. You’ll work menial jobs, you’ll have more brushes with the law, you’ll probably start doing drugs. And then one day, you’ll either get busted for drugs or busted for doing something to support your drug habit, and then you’ll go to prison, and for the rest of your life, nothing will ever be the same. Your life will be prison, whether you’re inside its walls or outside, you’ll be thinking about prison the whole time, about going back in, about getting out, about how far you can push the system before it sends you to the hole. Your life will be nothing, and you’ll ruin not just your own life, but our lives as well. You will be a gear in a big machine instead of one of the people running the machine. People like us, like your mother and me and the families we come from, we’re the people who run the machine. We’re at the top, pushing the levers. We’re not the gears. You are not going to be a gear.”

Bewilderment floods Copley’s face, and then there is a sudden torrent of tears and redness, the boy wailing, running to his mother, who embraces him and looks at Nathaniel with such hatred and fear that he knows he has done the right thing, the only action that could possibly be taken.

“What’s a
gear
?” Copley sobs.

W
ALKING IN SILENCE
THEY PASS
family groups, couples in sneakers and jeans and windbreakers, outdoorsy teens in hiking boots with rucksacks. It takes them half an hour to reach Demon Point, climbing a steady path upward through woods until they arrive at a clearing where the yellowish earth is bare and muddy. A sign from the State Parks Department describes the composition of the soil, the balance of clay, sand, and silt, and the landscape visible from the Point, the river basin, the floodplain, the distant hills, the invisible mountains far to the west. Standing near the edge of compressed soil, they look down on the broad river spreading out of its banks, covering farmland for miles, trees poking out from black water, the whole region like a vast swamp except for the steadiness of the current, traveling south and east, broken cottonwood branches and whole trunks of trees caught up in its flow. Imagine all the drowned and displaced animals, the unnamed and forgotten, the homeless sleeping in hollows, unmissed by anyone. When the waters recede there will be bodies.

The boy and his mother solidify their position, separating themselves from him, standing to one side. Although feeling nothing but anger toward his son, Nathaniel fears what life without his wife would possibly mean.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he says, “I was just trying to make you see how serious it is.”

The boy turns away and Julia glares at Nathaniel, her eyes wet, and he mouths it again, his apology, reaching out for her. She shakes her head, wipes her eyes, snaps her body away from him. Other people are watching. He hates to be noticed. They turn around, falling back into their usual order, Copley leading Julia, with Nathaniel at the rear.

Copley insists on looking for the ruined chimney and stairs. They wander for half an hour through trees but can find no trace of either—proof, Nathaniel knows, that the boy is a liar: lies revealed by facts, by empirical evidence.

Light drains out, distances shorten, the visible world closes in, amber leaves darken except where the last sun flames them into gold. As they leave the reserve Nathaniel tries again to pull Julia and Copley closer to his body, feeling as though, at last, some understanding has been reached and their lives will return to the even and regular course that was their character for so many years, but then Julia pulls away once again, taking Copley with her. There are instants, flashes, even in the course of this walk, when he thinks that his and Julia’s lives would have been happier without Copley, that they should simply have carried on childless, focusing only on each other, and that, if by some accident they were childless again, they might start over afresh, newly happy. Grief would mark the transition. He would grieve for his son if he died, for the boy he used to be rather than the monster he has become.

Their rubber-soled shoes make no sound on the compacted earth where fallen leaves have already been ground to dust by the passage of other feet. Nathaniel looks at the path stretching from the sign at the perimeter of the reserve and leading into the heart of their property. Someone else has been walking here—perhaps only Louise, but possibly others as well. It would be worth extending the fence, enclosing the part of the woods belonging to them, posting
NO TRESPASSING
signs; if people are accessing his property, he could be liable for any illegal activity that might be occurring, even without his knowledge.

The broad tall man steps out of a triangular clump of firs, looking as startled as they are. There is a staggered, collective intake of breath, a yelp from Copley, and a deep bellow from the man, who wears a suit of green camouflage and carries a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. The man is at least a foot taller than Nathaniel; he is lean and muscular, his skin tanned, hair dark and glossy, cuts on his face and bandages on his hands.

“Man, you scared us,” Nathaniel says, trying to smile.

“You scared
me
,” says the man.

“Huh. What are you doing back here?”

“I was hunting.” The man steps to one side, revealing the carcass of a deer, collapsed on the leaves, eyes wide and staring. The ground is a mess of blood and entrails. Nathaniel feels a loosening of the ligaments in his legs, a hot flush rushing through his calves and thighs, as though he is standing without protection, buffeted by wind, on the edge of Demon Point.

“I can see that. I guess you didn’t realize you were on private property.” Nathaniel keeps smiling as his voice skews high and queer.

“No, I didn’t. I thought I was still on reserve land.”

Nathaniel laughs. “No, no. I’m afraid the reserve ends a ways back there, near the sign. You can’t miss it.”

“I guess I’ll just take my kill, if you don’t mind, and be on my way.”

“That’s fine. No harm done. I’ve been meaning to put up a sign.”

The man nods and smirks.

Nathaniel feels Copley reach out and clasp his hand. He’s so relieved by the contact that he squeezes back, trying to be reassuring, all the while knowing that this man with his gun and knife—the blade flashes at the man’s trim waist, blood smeared on the camouflage pants—could bring down the three of them in an instant. He decides that they should stay there, standing and waiting, watching while the man hoists the carcass onto his shoulder, and stomps away in the direction of the reserve. When the man is out of sight the woods are silent except for the screaming of jays.

“I think that was the man,” Copley whispers when they are safe in the backyard with the gate locked behind them.

“What man?” Julia asks.

“The giant. The man in the basement.”

“For goodness’ sake stop pretending, Copley,” Nathaniel shouts. All the fantasy, the giants, the ruined houses in the forest, stairs leading underground, it is all so exhausting. “It’s not funny to make things up. That man could have been dangerous.”

“I
know
,” Copley whines. “That’s what I’ve been
telling
you.”

T
HE PARTY AT
B
RANDON
AND
Azar’s is still going on, music coming from inside the house, the back doors open, spreading a foreign beat through the neighborhood, which Nathaniel knows is against the Dolores Woods bylaws.

The call takes less than two minutes. A woman answers, directs him to give the name—if known—and address of the individual to be reported, as well as a physical description, the nature of the offense, and any other pertinent information. Closed in his study, Nathaniel speaks his neighbor’s first name into the receiver, gives the address next door, describes Azar’s appearance, mentions that he is widely rumored to be an illegal alien who has outstayed his tourist visa, and that he lives with another man and a small child who are, apparently, American citizens.

“And they’re not implicated?” the woman asks.

“The other man isn’t, I don’t think. He’s as American as you or me. The girl I don’t know about.”

As soon as he puts down the phone, realizing he knows nothing of substance about the men next door, a sickness rises in his stomach.

L
OUISE RETURNS AFTER DINNER
LOOKING
shaken. Her hair is untidy from being under the hood of her windbreaker, her skin gray, upper lip cracked. After Julia puts Copley to bed, they sit with Louise in the kitchen and offer her a drink, which she declines. She would prefer a cup of tea.

“Because of the flooding I parked near your office, Nathaniel, and took the bus downtown to meet my friend for lunch,” she says, trying to catch her breath. “Before we reached my stop, the bus was pulled over by an unmarked car. These two men in uniforms got on, but they weren’t police, and then I noticed they were from your company, Nathaniel. I thought they were just checking people’s tickets but they made the bus driver lock the door of the bus. They told everyone to produce some form of photo identification that proved our right to be in the country. I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a joke and I laughed before I knew what was good for me. One of them came right over and asked for my driver’s license and I reached into my purse to get my billfold and discovered I’d taken out all the cards and left them in my other purse. I just had cash and my bus pass. Other people were showing their IDs to the other man and then he got to this Mexican-looking fellow at the back who didn’t have an ID and the man in the uniform got on his phone and called for backup. I don’t know who he called but another car arrived and two other men got onboard and all this time I’m scrambling through my purse trying to find something to prove I’m as American as I sound. They took the Mexican and put plastic ties around his hands and shoved him in the back of that car and I thought I was in for it too but finally I said to the men, listen, I work for Mr. Noailles, who’s a big shot at EKK. They looked skeptical but I begged them to phone you. There wasn’t any answer so I asked them to phone the company and check to see if there
was
a Mr. Noailles and they did and that was the only reason they let me go. I was so upset I got off the bus at the next stop and walked back to the car.”