Outside In (20 page)

I angle into the woods. The weeds at the edge are thick, seizing my ankles as if waiting for a command to release me. A fallen tree lies ahead. I rub my hand along the bark, still able to feel life in the tree. “We all have our time, don’t we, old friend? Why did
it happen for you? In the middle of all these trees, completely safe, how did you fall?” I look around at the other trees. “Why didn’t you protect him?” But as I sit on the fallen trunk, I feel no sadness. “You lived your life, huh, old timer? There’s nothing to be sad about as long as you lived your life.”

I place both feet on the tree and lean back on my hands. The neighboring trees conceal the sky. I recline and allow my hands to dangle. All the trees are so different, yet all so majestic. Each could meet the same fate as this one tomorrow.

A weeping willow stands twenty yards away. I approach. Sorrow penetrates. Faces appear in the leaves, gloomy, tired, old faces. “Why so sad?” I say.

A message comes back to me:
Don’t be like us. Don’t get trapped
.

I stare into the leaves. Is this really happening? The faces linger. I offer a response. “Who are you? How did you get trapped?”

No answer, just more pain and sadness.

I ask, “What happened?”

Again there’s no answer. I peer deeper into the leaves, attempting to extract an answer with my desperate pleading. With each step, their warning presses more strongly. I reach for one of the faces, but it disappears.

You can’t help us, but help yourself. Don’t end up like us
.

My hands touch the trunk. It is cold and dry. I try to picture the faces again but see only leaves.

A breeze on my back urges me forward. Lights filter through the brush ahead. My trek is ending. I question whether to turn around and go back. A few more steps land me in a parking lot. Still confused, I follow the side of the building in front of me. Around the corner, the back of Kelley’s Restaurant is a familiar sight. I must’ve walked through the center of the island.

The stones compress under my feet, grinding and crunching together. The parking lot is empty. The dinner rush ended hours
ago, but the late-night crowd hasn’t arrived yet. A friendly face sits alone at the end of the bar.

Feeling more social now, I go in for a drink. “Hey, Caldwell, mind if I join you?”

“Pull up a stool,” he says. “What’ll you have?”

“Whatever you’re drinking. Bud? That’s fine with me.”

His tone and cadence provide instant comfort. “Out by yourself tonight?”

“Just walking around the island.” The beer is thick and grainy, but the cold liquid soothes my throat. “Caldwell, excuse me if I seem out of it tonight, but I’m kind of in another place. I ate something to enhance my mood.”

“Ah, there’s a little fungus among us. Man, it’s been a lot of years since I’ve done that.”

“I’ve got more. That is, if you want to, or maybe some other time. Uh, you know what I mean.”

“Thanks, but I just stick to alcohol anymore,” he says. “I noticed you guys been partying pretty hard this summer up in the barn.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Let’s just say I know the signs, and I see things and hear people talking. Just be careful.”

I press the cold beer to my forehead. “I know I’m fucked up right now, but the weirdest thing happened to me on the way here. Actually, it’s not the first time something like this has happened. I hear things when I’m around the island, like someone or something is trying to communicate with me. I felt it the first night I was here. Something reached out to me as if to say, ‘Welcome.’ I know it sounds crazy, but it’s like there are voices in the wind, faces in the trees.”

Caldwell smiles. “Its water speaks and wind shows; what is possible, no one knows.”

“It freaks me out,” I admit. “Just now I was in the woods
behind Kelley’s and saw this weeping willow tree. When I looked closely at it, I saw faces. They were tired, old, sad faces, and they were warning me. The other trees looked so vibrant, but the willow seemed tired. It was like it was filled with souls that had lived unfulfilled lives. I could feel them urging me not to end up like that.”

“The world communicates subtly. Most people don’t hear or see the signs because they’re so wrapped up in their day-to-day lives. We have to keep ourselves open. That’s what I think drugs do for you initially. They open new passageways, so we perceive our surroundings differently and are receptive to new messages. Notice I said ‘at first.’”

“Which drugs did you do?” I ask.

“What didn’t I do? Pretty common story, I guess. I started with pot and alcohol and moved to coke and pills, eventually dabbling in some heroin. It didn’t matter after a while—anything to give me a buzz. At first I only partied with my band mates. It was a bonding thing, almost a ritual. We partied only on Saturdays because we never had gigs on Sundays and would carry on well into Sunday morning. Sometimes we’d keep going all through Sunday to Monday, then sleep all day Monday and be ready to play Tuesday night. Eventually we started drifting apart. Our only friends were people who we did drugs with, and our Saturday nights began to occur on Friday, then Thursday, and so on. Before I knew it, the drugs completely took over. One night I was at a party, looked around, and didn’t even know any of the people there.”

I try to picture Caldwell as he describes himself. I just can’t imagine him out of control. I say, “My thing is that I get bored. The majority of my life is so tedious and methodical. If I’m going to trudge along and go through the motions, I might as well do it with a buzz.”

“Don’t let yourself get bored. Exist to question; question your existence.”

The words flowing from his mouth are like an IV pumping life directly into me. “Do you have any regrets?”

“My life ain’t over, so if I did have some, I still have time to fix it. Each decision I made to get to this point in my life was made independently of others. Sure, other factors influence choices, but the bottom line is that individuals have the power to choose. At any given moment, a person can make a change.”

“Why is it we only realize that after something bad happens?”

He laughs. “That’s a whole other bottle of vodka. I’m still working on that one.”

“Let me know when you figure it out.” I drain the last of my beer. “I should probably head back. I got an early day tomorrow. Going up to Cleveland for the day. See you when I return.”

Caldwell tips his beer at me. “Watch out for those trees on the way home.”

Three passengers exiting a cab stop me in the parking lot.

“Where the hell you been?” Astrid asks. “We’ve been riding from place to place looking for you for over an hour.”

“Sorry, I just drifted away and ended up here. Been talking to Caldwell.”

“No big deal,” Cinch says. “We made a game of it. We each took turns picking the place we thought you’d be. The only one I feel sorry for is the cab driver. I think this is the only place we haven’t been.”

I say, “I wandered through the woods behind here for a while then stumbled into Kelley’s parking lot, so I went in for a drink. I was pretty fucked up. How do you guys feel?”

“I’m coming down now,” Stein says, “but for a while I couldn’t even talk. That’s why we left the Round House.”

Cinch says, “In for a drink?”

I shake my head. “I’m not into this scene. I want to get up early tomorrow.”

Astrid says, “You really are unbelievable. You know that?”

Eyes widening, Cinch steps back and motions toward the bar. “We’re going to go inside and let you guys get back to your evening.”

“Our evening ended when he took off on his own. I’m done.” Astrid walks toward the entrance. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

I go after her. “Hold on a second. You’re mad at me?”

“Not mad. Just disappointed.”

“But I was fucked up. We all were.”

Her eyes narrow. “You were the only one who left.”

She was the one who pushed for this. I was happy to keep things as friends. I say, “I told you I was going through a tough time.”

“That’s why I’m not mad. We tried. It didn’t work. Move on.”

I soften my tone. “But what about the monument? I know you felt something.”

“I’m tired of talking. Just go home. You have a full day tomorrow. When you get back we’ll just act like it never happened.”

“But—”

She turns and walks into Kelley’s. I step to go after her.

Cinch, still lingering in the wake of the drama, intercepts my pursuit. “Just give it some time. She’ll come around.”

I turn back toward Stein and Cinch and shrug. “I guess it was bound to happen eventually. Better sooner than later.”

Cinch pulls me close. “You still cool about the trip?”

Now I’m glad I’m leaving. I say, “Absolutely. It’s time for me to do my share. We’re partners, remember?”

Cinch kisses my cheek. “Three thousand dollars and a hundred miles isn’t a simple hand-off.”

“I’m just getting off the island for a day. Hold down the fort. I’ll be back before you know it.”

His tone is one I’ve never heard him use. The words are sharp, the speech direct: “Remember, it’s just shit. You made the right choice that one night. We can always replace money.”

I KEEP SAYING TWO THINGS DURING MY NIGHT IN CLEVELAND: ONE IS A QUESTION, THE OTHER AN ANSWER
. I promised I wouldn’t put myself in a position where I stayed up all night, but as the hours tick by, I keep asking, “What’s another hour?” Then once that hour passes and Cinch’s guy Van puts down two more lines, I say the other thing: “Okay, one more, but that’s it because I need some sleep before I head back to the island.”

At five a.m. I break the cycle. I have to sleep. Van directs me to a beat-up mattress in the basement. I close my eyes. The floorboards above me creak from the pacing of the people not ready to give up yet. My brain won’t switch off. I am so amped that it will be hours before I go down. There’s no sense in lying here. I can be back on the island by noon.

To at least simulate a division between yesterday and today, I shower and stash the purpose of my trip in the trunk of my car. It’s almost seven thirty. I’ll just blend in with the morning commuters. No one will suspect anything.

I pass each town and each landmark along Route 2, trying to remember what I thought during my first trip to the island six weeks ago—anything to keep my mind off the three ounces of cocaine and the fifty hits of ecstasy I have in my trunk. Unfortunately I can’t think of much else.

When I first met Van on Monday, his dilapidated appearance astounded me. His face was puffy, his mood erratic. He seemed like a person who was trapped inside a costume, and the people around him were indentured puppets. Desperation pervaded everyone’s actions; partying had plainly lost its appeal, but they still kept pushing harder. At times I sensed them struggling to escape the macabre play they had cast themselves in, but in the next instant they would surrender and again assume their assigned roles.

Van told me that he made one trip a week out of town, usually for three days, to get a kilo, and then he would return to sell it and party until it was gone. When I arrived he still had half remaining from his last trip.

Looks like Caldwell was right about the slow decay of a person too wrapped up in the scene. Van had been up for two days straight when I saw him; he was going on three when I left. I felt the sadness in him right away but chose to ignore it. Initially I thought that maybe my perception was distorted because I’d never met a big dealer like him before, but now, driving back, I know it was because I was afraid to confront him. I was afraid that if I said the wrong thing, he might cut me off and I would have to go back empty-handed.

Van is on his deathbed. He might not be dying from anything specific, but he is dying because he has quit living, and I contributed to his death. I might not have pulled the trigger, but I pushed the gun closer so that he could do it himself.

My excitement to deliver the payload overpowers the regret
and fatigue I am feeling. Miles quickly turn to minutes, and minutes become hours. I’m almost home. It seems like I’ve been away a week. The anticipation, the risk, the lack of sleep, all make each minute of the twenty-four hours memorable.

Once safely at the dock I lower the windows, lean my seat back, and listen to the water splash against the rocks, waiting for the horn to signal that my boat has arrived.