Journal (31 page)

Mom
put her hand on Petra’s chest and gently rubbed it back and forth, talking to
her quiet, I guess trying to calm her down, but Petra would have nothing to do
with it.  She pushed mom’s hand away and tried to get out of the car.  It was
like she was panicked or something.  I never saw her act like that before, even
with all the stuff that has happened to us and her along the way.

Mom
asked if she had ever been stung before.  Petra shook her head no and yelled, “Stop
talking to me,” but you couldn’t make out the
me
part hardly at all.  It
sounded like it was lost in her breath, kind of like running out of water
before the glass is filled.

I
think it was because she was having trouble breathing that she was acting like that,
getting mad at mom.  I guess that would make just about anyone panic.  I know
it would me.  It seemed like her breathing troubles kept getting worse, too. 
She haddon’t know whytif this wheezing noise coming from her throat at one point.  It was really
bad sounding, and I guess that’s when I thought things were past help.  Don’t
get me wrong, I wanted to help her, I really did, but I didn’t know what to
do.  I don’t think Alan knew what to do, either.  We both just kind of turned
it over to mom this time, who restrained Petra in the seat.

In
response to a question from Alan, mom said that she thought it was Anaphylactic
Shock (I had to look that one up).  She said she had seen it once a long time ago
when a neighborhood boy had an “allergic reaction to some peanuts he ate.”  She
explained that there is a medicine that is injected that helps with the
symptoms, but of course we didn’t have any of that.

I
asked her, “So, what do we do?”

She
just looked at me and said the same thing as before, “It’s going to be okay.” 
But it was that tone again; like it wasn’t going to be okay, and she knew it
wasn’t, and she was just saying that to make Petra’s less worried.

After
only a few more minutes, Petra’s eyes were almost completely closed up from the
swelling.  Her breathing was more of a struggle, too.  So Alan asked if maybe
we should lay her down.  Mom said no, that laying her down would just make it
harder for her to breathe.  She then asked me to wet something that she could
press to Petra’s face.  I’m guessing she thought the cool water might help with
the swelling.

I
went to the back of the car and got one of the pieces of blanket that Alan had
cut and poured some water on it.  I was just screwing the top back on the water
jug when I heard Alan say, “I don’t think she’s breathing.”  I looked up and
saw that mom was holding Petra upright in the seat and at the same time holding
her head back a little so her mouth was open.  I remember thinking at that very
moment that there was nothing we could do that was going to save her.  As far
as her living went, we were just watchers.  She was either going to make it on
her own or she wasn’t.

I
went back over there and mom told me in this dead, calm voice to “get in the
back and hold her head.”

I
did it quick, and I saw mom put her ear to Petra’s mouth, listening I guess or
maybe trying to feel her breath.  After that, without saying anymore, mom
pinched Petra’s nose with one hand, put her mouth over Petra’s mouth, and
started blowing air into her.

I
don’t think this was working the way it was supposed to because it seemed that
the breaths mom was giving her weren’t getting all the way in.  By that I mean her
chest didn’t seem as if it was going up and down like it was supposed to.  But
mom kept at it, and after maybe a couple of minutes, she first checked Petra’s
neck and then her wrist for a beat.  She did this for a long time, moving her
fingers around as if she was having trouble finding it.  When she finally gave
up, I heard her swear.  “Shit!”  That’s what she said, and she also told us Petra’s
heart had stopped.  Mom doesn’t swear too much.

After
that, she pulled Petra from the car like she weighed nothing at all, and put
her flat, on her back, on the ground.  At the same tithat’s what I didwotme, she told Alan to push
down on Petra’s chest and returned to giving, or I should say trying to give,
Petra some air.  Alan went right to it, and they both kept on for several
minutes, I guess, at least ten.  Long enough anyway they were getting tired. 
Sweat was actually dripping off the tip of Alan’s nose, down onto his hands.

As
for me, I was just standing there like a mushroom, watching all this happen and
feeling totally useless.  Then the weirdest feeling came over me.  It was
almost like I wasn’t even there anymore, but instead maybe somewhere off to the
side, looking at all this through a window or something.  I wasn’t part of it. 
I was also perfectly calm, not even breathing fast, or biting down, or anything
like that.  It was a very strange feeling.  Alan described the same kind of thing
happening to him after he put Michael Bass to rest, so I didn’t think I was
losing it or anything.  It was just weird is all and I wanted to say it.

After
a while, I saw mom stop and check Petra for a pulse again, and like before, she
went to both her neck and wrist.  She put her hand on Alan’s shoulder after
that and told him that Petra was gone.

He
didn’t do nothing at first.  He just, you know, kind of stared for maybe for the
count of three or four, with his hands on her chest still but not pushing down. 
After that, he went right back to what he was doing before, pushing on her
chest as if he didn’t hear what mom said or maybe didn’t understand her.  At
that point mom sat back on her heels just watching him.  After a time, she sort
of leaned over and wrapped her arms around Alan’s body and rested her head on
his back until he finally gave up.

“Are
you sure?” he asked, with his eyes never leaving Petra’s face.  I’m pretty certain
he was crying when he said it, too.  It sounded like it, anyway.  Even though
mom told him “I’m sure,” he still felt Petra’s wrist.

While
he was doing all this, Mom just rubbed his back and held on to him.

After
a bit, Alan leaned back, folded his legs out from under him and just sat there
on the ground, Indian style, with his head down, next to her body.

For
a long time everyone was real quiet, especially Alan.  He didn’t even move.  He
was completely turned in on himself.  At first, I thought maybe he was mad or
something.  I remember even wondering if he was angry at me for just standing
there and not doing anything to help, even if there was no help to be given. 
But I decided it wasn’t like that at all.  He was angry all right, but he was
angry at the way things were, not at me.  See, I know Alan good enough to see
he’s the kind of guy who has his mind set on how things should be and Petra
dying didn’t fit with his ideas, and that made him mad, or sad, or
what-have-you.

Don’t
get me wrong.  Alan’s good people.  I’m not saying otherwise.  However, good people
who believe that the world should be this way instead of that, always get a sad
heart when bad things happen.  As I see it, that’s not the way the world is.  The
world is just the world; a place where we hang out for a time and then we don’t
anymore.  There is no meaning to life as some people claim.  People don’t have
a purpose.  There is no big powerful force after the rain had stopped22itout there somewhere saying what
should or shouldn’t be.  The only meaning to life is the meaning that people
make up to explain what they don’t want to face; that we live and we die, and
that our life and our death only really, truly matter to us.  Things just go
along the same, good and bad, with us or without us.

I
don’t say this stuff to take anything away from Alan or even from mom for that
matter.  She’s a little bit that way as well.  They’re both nice people, and I
can count on them to do what needs to be done, the same as they can count on
me.  It’s just that they believe in something bigger than themselves, than all
of us, and this something is supposed to make things good, so they will always feel
down when life doesn’t work out the way they believe it’s supposed to.  I guess,
too, when things turn out good, they’ll thank someone or something that doesn’t
exist.

As
far as Petra dying, I believe that death only means the end of life.  I loved Petra for sure, but she’s dead now because an insect stung her into shock, and we will go
on without her.  Simple as that.  If we get all depressed about it, or as some
do, kill ourselves, we’re just being stupid and doing it for no good reason.

Man,
just listen to me.  I’m starting to sound like Alan now, thinking too hard
about stuff.  I should just get back to it.

After
a little while, we wrapped Petra’s body up in one of the blankets, fixed it
with a length of rope, and loaded it in the back of the car.  We did that
because Alan insisted that we bury her in Woburn since she had wanted so badly
to reach the “safe place”.  Mom and I didn’t say otherwise, so that’s what we
did, and off we went again.

As
you might think, we were still pretty quiet after that.  I guess everyone was
just sort of figuring things out, probably about Petra and probably about dying
because you can’t help but wonder if you’ll be next after something like that
happens.  You know, what it will be like when it happens to you?  Will you be
scared?  Do you just stop thinking and then no more?  Those were my thoughts
anyway.

About
that — man just listen to me, I’ve got to stop talking about this stuff — I’m not
really afraid to die I guess, but I just don’t want to.  From what I’ve seen
it’s usually over pretty fast and, if it hurts, in the big picture the hurt
doesn’t last too long.  It’s just something everyone has to go through.  Once
you’re dead, you’re dead and there’s nothing to feel or think about.  I suppose
that’s all there is to it and all I’m going to say about it anymore.

So
we drove on toward the west after that.  I think mom was driving at this
point.  She’s a pretty good driver.  After fifteen or twenty minutes, could
have been more I guess, we came to this road to our left that went in the
direction we wanted to go, south.  Like I said before, it was one of those
minor roads that didn’t show on our map, so we talked about it a little and
decided to take a chance on it instead of sticking with the for sure but longer
way of getting there.

About
five miles into it, this little two lane road turned into a one lane road. 
Pretty soon after that, it became just a trail you could hardly even see,
cutting have only
been my imagination6it across some pretty rough land with lots of ups and downs and other things
in the way.  In fact, the only reason you could tell it kept going at all was
because animals were using it to get from one place to another, so they wore
down the weeds.

We
might still have been able to keep going.  The little car was built solid.  The
trouble was, for all we knew there could have been a river or canyon or
something up ahead that would have stopped us dead cold, wasting even more time
than we already had.

As
you might guess, all this brought us down low.  So we pretty much decided that
from then on we’d stick to the roads we knew for sure would get us to Woburn.

Around
we turned and drove back the way we came, again pretty much keeping our
thoughts to ourselves.  I tried to think of something to say or a question to
ask that would get Alan and mom out of their moods, but everything I thought of
seemed like a stupid thing to talk about.  So I didn’t say anything, and nobody
talked much after that.

When
we got within sight of our turnoff, mom all of a sudden stepped hard on the
brakes, slid a couple of feet and shut the engine off.  I was in the bed of our
car with my feet hanging over the back, so it put me on my back like one of
those roly-poly bugs you sometimes see, wondering what the hell just happened. 
As soon as I sat myself up again, I got my answer.  I heard an engine, a loud
one, like the one we heard when mom and I were searching for Petra and Alan
after they fell out of the boat.  It didn’t seem too far away, either, maybe
half a mile or so.  Even though noise can sound like it’s coming from one way,
but turn out to be coming from another, we all pretty much thought it was
coming from the west.  What really sucked about that was, west was the
direction we wanted to go.

Once
I started thinking about what all this meant, I felt like somebody had just
knifed my tires, if you know what I mean.  In other words, here I had been thinking
we’d just cruise right on into Woburn like some kind of heroes on parade, and
now it was looking like we were going to be back to running, and hiding, and
sneaking around.

I
mean isn’t that how you’d feel if you were me?  Wouldn’t you be thinking like maybe
you’d stepped in a big pile of bad luck, back there at the farm, and it’s been
stuck to your shoes ever since.  I know I’m sounding like a cry baby here, but
it’s true.  Think about it; the shootings, my falling, all of us practically
starving, the boat accident, and the worst thing of all, Petra dying from a
stupid wasp sting, and now this.  But what are you going to do, huh?

I
started swearing to myself then.  If we’d done the smart thing in the first
place and went the way we knew for sure would get us to Woburn, instead of
taking a chance on a shortcut, we would have already been past whoever it was
out there making all that noise.

As
we sat there, I guess trying to figure out what to do next, you could hear the
sound getting farther and farther away.  That helped a little bit.  At least we
didn’t have to go sneaking off into the bushes right away.  We had a little bit
of time to talk it out, which is what we did.