The Blue (The Complete Novel) (21 page)

Chapter 20

I freeze in my tracks, expecting the next rumble, the sign that the split has clawed all the way through the water-belly of this decaying monster. But the next sound never comes. I lift the stove and carry it with me into the darkened stomach of the plane. Something comes through the stale air—the smell of the body, I think at first, and it comes into my mind that I need to figure out what to do now. Cut the body up or move him enough to get access to the raft. Voley follows me, not wanting to stay out on the chilly floe by himself in the gloom. Slow waves slap against the distant shelf of the floe, and my mind wanders to the ice bridge. I wonder if it’s fallen into the sea yet. No, I would have heard the splash. And it’s cooler at night. Tonight might be my last chance to work. Tomorrow, everything will go into the sea. Sleep means death.  

I set the stove down on one of the seats and look back at the crushed cockpit. Just poking through the shaded black are the fingers of a hand. Still visible. One of the pilots. Maybe they thought they’d really land this thing. But they had to crash her too steep so they wouldn’t slide off the edge of Plane Floe and land in the sea. And their corpses and the metal corpse of the plane is all that’s left of that last desperate attempt. For a moment, as my eyes return to the clean square of flesh I’ve carved out, I think of who these men were. The husbands and brothers of the woman on the radio. And it comes into me that I’m glad they didn’t ask for something—a wallet, a piece of clothing, something to remember them by. It’s enough to have the raft and no memories. I squat down and without another moment of thinking, and feeling as if the food has already worked through my body, restoring some new energy to me, I stab the knife in. I push everything human out of my mind. There is nothing to the cuts that’s any different than the march through the snow. It’s just a rhythm. And I work, up and down, noticing with a solid thrust that digs in a few inches that my side hasn’t been hurting at all over the last few hours. And my leg seems to have scabbed over enough that there’s no more bare nerves exposed to the air. I almost want to go to the first aid kit, piled on the ice just twenty feet away, and find out if one of the bottles was antibiotics. But I’m too nervous about the next rumbling sound, and instead, fall into the motion of cutting, wiggling, and pulling. I talk to Voley as I carve my way through the next hunk of meat.

            “What do you think, boy?” I say. He gets as close as he can until my elbow smacks him as I bring down the knife. “Sorry.” He backs up and finds a spot to nestle in, just against the back of my leg.

            “I think we have one hell of a shot,” I say, hoping he’s still with me. But I don’t need him to move or make a noise. I know he’s with me all the way. Just us. An unstoppable team against the wild expanse of the canvas sea. And without a doubt in my mind that we’ll see the woman and her Visitor’s City and her gas-powered boat, I place the clean piece of meat on the seat opposite from the stove and start cutting all over again.

By the time I get three more pieces, I feel like I’m completely out of energy. Still, my mind feels like it won’t shut up. Going through the questions I still need to ask the woman. The frustrations that Russell doesn’t know what’s happening to me. And finally, I get up and leave the plane.

            The night air feels like the perfect temperature when it pushes across my face. I walk over the ice, eyes glued to the ground, finding the fracture line in the dark at the nose of the plane. I tell Voley to stay back, and from the twisted door of the plane he listens. He just stops and sits and stares at me. And then, before I go on, he turns and heads back into the plane. I don’t bother to stop him. It’s better he keeps eating the body than follows me out where I’m going.

My steps are careful and measured, and before long, I feel the pain come back. Like it was an illusion that everything was healed and better. At first it starts in my calf, and then, it’s as if the pain there rides up my thigh and connects to my ribs. A quick, painful stab that hits whenever I press weight on the right leg. But I follow the fracture and watch it grow, trying to see down into the black depths. I stop for breath and glance up. The sky is a uniform coat of steel, except for the wide strip of beautiful stars overhead. And the air smells so clean and cools my sweat. Then I level my glance and stare off at the sea. In the night I can barely make out the tiny spikes of other icebergs, small and scattered across the quiet ocean. I wonder how far it is in the direction I’m going until I reach the edge of the floe. If it will jump up on me in the dark and I’ll slip right off. Still, for whatever reason, I feel like I need to make one last round. Like the whale is out there waiting for me, protecting me, and I have to say hi. Tell him about the perilous journey we’re about to embark on. It comes into my mind that we’ll have no oars, no sails. Nothing to steer by. And no reason to steer. Just drifting. To hoard as much as we can and make our last drift. The battered hope of finding something, anything. Of getting somewhere, anywhere.

            For a moment my mind settles into a cloudy future where there’s no Russell and no anyone I’ll know. And how it will have to be enough, even if we make it somewhere, for it to be just Voley and me. For us to be the only ones in the world who know the stories of the lives that brought us this far. And it seems like I could never do it. I’ve left pieces of my heart here and there, and there won’t be enough left to survive. And it feels like it wouldn’t be worth it—it would be too hard. To go on and know that he’s forgotten and no one will ever know or care about him. Even if I told the story. Who would listen? Maybe they would smile and nod, like I deserve the respect of their attention. And probably they would give it to me. No one is untouched by the rain. The ice. We’re all in it together. So they’d listen. At least until I’m done talking.

            But if we’re all in it together, then why is everyone so far apart? And before I can reach some answer, something to satisfy my gnawing need to make it so that everything makes sense somehow, I stumble on a pocket of ice. Just down to my knees, but it soaks my legs over again. I want to run back and put on the fresh clothes waiting for me, and crawl on top of the pilot stove, but I don’t. I just keep walking. By the time I look back again, the plane is tiny, and Voley is nowhere in sight. Fear seizes me and I want to go check on him. It’s the knee-jerk reaction, that there might be face eaters. That the seal might be stalking us. Back from the dead. But there is absolutely nothing out here. And as I come upon the shelf finally, and see the black sea rolling forever beyond it, I realize how truly alone we are. There are still a few dots of the small bergs, but nothing else. How long will it stay open for us? I ask. It’s directed to Poseidon. Keep it open, will you? And then I’m done asking favors for the night. I just get down again to catch my breath and wait for the pain to subside and scoop up some of the wettest ice I can find. Slowly I drink it and watch the dead night.

            It’s so peaceful and quiet. For a second, it almost feels like leaving here will be like leaving Blue City all over again. Leaving Nuke Town. Leaving Philadelphia. Leaving every place where there’s a moment of safety and food and warmth and stillness. It’s come back to haunt me every time. Why would we ever leave somewhere that had those qualities? Yet we’ve done it over and over again. Looking for something permanent in a world that wants nothing to do with permanence. My eyes settle on the stars again. And it dawns on me that they must be permanent. Even if the mountains and the seas change, those things up there must be permanent. And just like Russell used to say, I hear him say again now in my head, that we are the stars. Just the same stuff. Only no one knows, no one
really
knows it. And because no one knows it, everything is so serious and urgent and important all the time.

When I feel like I could lie down and fall right to sleep, I know it’s time to get back to the plane. I turn around and keep my eyes glued to the ice, watching for sink holes and fracture lines. I hear the trickling of the water as it melts into the fissures. Slowly eating up the foundation of this temporary home. The small flicker of the stove light hits against the windows of the plane and I follow it all the way back without stopping once. When I get back inside the skeleton of the plane, Voley isn’t eating the body like I thought he would be. He’s just lying on the ground, looking up at me. And then, when I look to collect the pieces of the meat I left on the seats, they’re gone.

            Everything in me wants to scream. I want to take it out on him, and for a moment, I slip. “Damn it boy!” I yell. And he lowers his head close against the floor of the plane. But I know it’s not his fault. I remind myself over and over again that it’s my fault—that I practically set him up to eat them. That it was all my fault for telling him to stay behind and then leaving it out. My own stupid fault. But I have no energy to open up the other leg. Because that’s the last thing I knew before I went for my walk—that the right leg was done. I hit the bone and the tough stuff I couldn’t cut through anymore, and I’d have to open up the pants on the other side. But there’s nothing in me that will get me to lift the blade again tonight. So praying that the ice holds for just one more sunrise, I tell Voley it’s time for bed. We’ll get the raft out in the morning. I can’t keep my eyes open boy, I say. And then I just grab the stove, letting my anger slide away, and head out to the wing.

He follows behind me, sulking, until I change the tone in my voice. I tell him he’s a good boy. You did nothing wrong boy, I say. I say it a few times, and then go over to pet him again. He licks my hand and together we go to the metal table. I drag some unburnt strips of clothing and lay them as a blanket on the metal and we lie together without another word.

            I’m half-tempted to turn the radio back on, and start asking the million questions that have come up since I last talked to the woman. But each one I want to ask will only hurt me. Make me wish I was there and not here. So I convince myself that I can just fall asleep for an hour. And then make up for the time I’ve lost. Get more food cut out and get the raft free. Plenty of time to do it before everything goes down. Staring up at the sky with my hands running over Voley’s stomach, I hum for him. Silent night. And it’s me putting him to bed now, I realize, like Russell used to do for me. By the time I’m done, singing through the entire song three times, knowing none of the words but getting the melody down exactly, just as it’s been etched onto my heart, I can’t keep my eyelids open anymore. And pulling him closer to me, just enough so he won’t get upset and try to find his own space somewhere else on the wing, we push in against the stove. Still going strong. And then, my mind is finally done and I fall asleep.

Chapter 21

The brightness and the heat wake me up. It’s like the sun is boring in right through my eyelids to my brain. I crane my neck and open my eyes to see the bright white ice and realize I’ve slept too long. Come on boy, I say.  And before I get up I lean over and press the button on the radio in. The yellow screen lights up but nothing comes through the air but static. Voley looks around like he’s content and would rather keep sleeping, but I tell him again it’s time to go. I click the button on the receiver and say hello. Then, for a long moment I wait, thinking the communication was all a dream, and maybe so was the floor compartment under the man. When I’m about convinced no one was ever there, and it was a dream, I try again, a little more desperately. Still no reply. I put the receiver down and let the static roll on. My eyes trace the blue scar in the sky, dazzlingly bright. And then, I hang my head and follow the ice back to the plane. The top layer of the iceberg is almost all slush. Time to make new cuts.

As I enter the cocoon of metal and see the rays of light wafting over the seats and onto the center aisle, and see the completely carved out thigh, I have to look away. It’s like eating the meat had been a dream too, something I’d pushed out of my head until the sight of my own handiwork. But looking at it in the glaring stream of the sun forces guilt back into my consciousness. And I decide that I’m not going to keep digging—not right now. I want to see the raft with my own eyes.

            Leaning down, I grab each of the man’s boots and wrap them under my arm, snug against my chest. Voley pokes his head in for a moment and then wanders off to survey the ice. I yell to him to be careful and stay close. I say it as firmly as I can, but I don’t want to waste any more time. Not with the cracks opening up underneath of us. I have to pull.

Leaning back and tugging all in one motion, I manage to pull the body another few inches. I breathe in deeply, letting my muscles reset, and then do it again. By the time he’s down another two feet I have to wipe a film of sweat from dripping into my eyes. Some of it slips through my gloved fingers and burns, reminding me of just how hot it is inside the metal cage.

            Rationing my energy and going out for water a few times, and taking one trip to check on the supply pile on the wing, I finally get the body moved enough to clear the space on the floor. I’m so excited to open the door that I almost trip over the man’s head. There it is—the circular handle sitting flush against the floor panel. I kneel down and lift it up but nothing happens. It’s like the thing is locked in place. I try and try again, but it won’t give. I’m almost ready to run back to the radio in a panic, accusing the void of tricking me, a last desperate and soulless trick of pure cruelty, but it dawns on me—try twisting. The metal circle twists in the sunlight, clicks, and then slides up easily. Right away, before the light catches the dark underneath, I see the white. The door comes up so fast that it almost slams back down, but there it is—a white barrel with strings coiled around it. It looks like an impossibly hard shell of plastic and I have no idea how I’ll turn it into a raft. I tug it loose after freeing the straps holding it down and roll its surprising weight over the body, out the plane aisle, and onto the open ice. At first I leave it be and look around for Voley, but there he is, lying back down on the plane wing. Disinterested in walking through the slush surface anymore. Maybe still satisfied from his meal. For a moment I just want to join him, and cherish this place as long as I can. To die here just like this, instead of going voluntarily once more into the hell out there. But I can’t help but keep working on the raft. There’s got to be an easy to way to get into the barrel. I look for handles or latches but don’t find any that open. And then, on the corner, I see the sign on a little sticker. It’s two men pulling the strings of the barrel from opposite ends. Right away I look to the curled broken steel of the engine, something I could tie one end around. And then, in the next minute, I have it tied securely.