The Wild Things (7 page)

“Arooooooooo!”

At that, Max’s mom lunged for him, but Max, sidestepping, was able to elude her grasp. He leaped over the sink and then back down onto the chair. She lunged again and missed. Max cackled. He really was fast! She grabbed at him again, but he was already gone. He jumped down, landed on the floor, and executed a perfect shoulder-roll. Then he got up and fled from the kitchen altogether, laughing hysterically.

When he turned around, though, he found that his mom was still chasing him. That was new. She rarely chased him this far. When they raced through the living room, Gary took notice of the escalating volume and urgency. He put down his glass of wine and got ready to intervene.

Then, in the front hall, a surprising and awful thing happened: Max’s mom caught him.

“Max!” she gasped.

She had his arm firmly in her hand. She had long fingers, deceptively strong, and they dug into Max’s bicep. In her hand all his muscle and sinew turned to soup and he didn’t like it.

“What’s wrong with you?” she screamed. “You see what you’re doing to me?” Her voice was shrill, corkscrewed.

“No,
you’re
doing things!” he countered, sounding meeker than he’d intended. To offset this sign of weakness he thrashed around in her grip. He kicked and squirmed and in the process, he knocked everything off the bench -- the change, the mail, and his delicate blue bird, the one he’d made in art class. It broke and like quail the pieces darted to every corner of the foyer.

This gave them both pause.

They stared at the broken bird.

“See that? You’re out of control!” she said. “There’s no way you’re eating dinner with us. Animal.”

Now, because he was angry at breaking his bird, and angry at having Gary in the house, and angry at having to eat pate and frozen corn and angry about having a witch for a sister, he growled and squirmed and -- the idea flooded him so quickly he couldn’t resist -- leaned down and bit his mom’s arm as hard as he could.

She screamed and dropped him to the floor. She stepped back, still holding her arm. She wailed like a beast, her eyes alive with fear and fury.

Max had never bitten her before. He was scared. His mom was scared. They saw each other anew.

Max turned to see Gary entering the foyer. He was clearly unsure what he was supposed to do.

“Connie, are you okay?” he asked.

“He bit me!” she hissed.

Gary’s eyes bulged. He had no idea what to do or say. The sheer number of things happening was overwhelming him. He opened his mouth and did the best he could: “You can’t let him treat you that way!” he said.

Max’s mom gave him a bewildered look.

“What are you talking about? This is about
me
? What do you want me to do?”

“Something! Something needs to be done!” Gary said, taking a few quick strides toward Max.

“
He’s
not allowed to talk here!” Max yelled, pointing to the frog-eyed man.

Claire stormed into the hall at that second, and seeing Claire and Gary and his mom, everyone looking at him like
he
was the problem -- it sent Max tumbling over the edge. He screamed as loud as he could -- a sound between a howl and a battle cry.

“Why are you doing this to me?” his mom wailed. “This house is chaos with you in it!”

That was it. Max did not have to stand for this, any of this, all of this. He threw open the door and leapt down the porch and into the night.

The air! The moon!

Both opened to him immediately. He felt pulled as if by an outgoing tide. The air and moon together sang a furious and wonderful song:
Come with us, wolf-boy! Let us drink the blood of the earth and gargle it with great aplomb!
Max tore down the street, feeling free, knowing he was part of the wind.
Come, Max! Come to the water and see!
No one could tell that he was crying -- he was running too fast. He left the yard and took to the street.

“Max!”

Stupid Gary was following him, trying to run, huffing mightily. Max ran faster, almost flying, his hands grabbing at the air as he passed all the homes being rebuilt from scratch, the mess of them all. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw that Gary was losing ground. A moment later, the freckled little man had pulled up lame -- he was doubled over, holding his leg. Max kept running, and though his face was wet with tears, he grinned maniacally. He had won. He ran to the cul-de-sac, where the road ended and the trees began.

Max was free of home and mother and Gary and Claire, he had outwitted and outrun them all, but he was not ready to rest. He ran to his lean-to, and sat inside for a few seconds, but was too alive to sit still. He got up and howled. Something about the wind and the configuration of the trees and outcroppings gave his voice more volume; his howl twisted and multiplied in the sky in the most satisfying way. He howled more.

He grabbed the biggest stick he could find and commenced hitting everything he could with it. He swung it around, he stabbed trees and rocks, he whacked branches and relieved them of their snowy burden.

This, he thought, was the only way he wanted to live. He would live from now on here in the woods. All he needed to do, sometime soon, would be to sneak back into the house and get more of his things -- his knives, some matches, some blankets and glue and rope. Then he would build a forest home, high in the trees, and become one with the woods and the animals, learn their languages and with them plot an overthrow of his home, beginning with the decapitation and devouring of Gary.

As he planned his new life, he heard a sound. It wasn’t the wind and it wasn’t the trees. It was a scraping, yearning sound. He paused, his nose and ears pricking up. Again he heard it. It was like bone against bone, though there was a rhythm to it. He followed it toward the water, a hundred yards away. He jogged down the ravine and met the stream that led to the shore. He jumped from rock to rock until he saw the bay’s black glass, cut through the middle by the reflection of the moon.

At the water’s edge, amid the reeds and the softly lapping waves, he saw the source of the noise: a wooden sailboat of average size and painted white. It was tied to a tree and was rubbing against a half-submerged rock.

Max looked around to see if anyone was close. It seemed strange that a boat like this, a sturdy, viable boat, would be unoccupied. He had been coming to this bay for years and had never seen a boat like this, alone and without an owner. There was no sign of anyone near. The boat was his if he wanted it.

He stepped in. There was just a bit of water on the floor, and when he checked the rudder and sail and boom, everything seemed to be in working order.

If he wanted to, he could untie the boat and sail out into the bay. It would be better than just living out his days in the forest. He could sail away, as far as he liked. He might make it somewhere new, somewhere better, and if he didn’t -- if he drowned in the bay or the ocean beyond -- then so be it. His horrible family would have to live forever with the guilt. Either option seemed good.

He reached back toward shore, untied the boat from the tree, and pushed off.

He righted the boat and aimed it toward the center of the bay. He unfurled the sail and steadied the boom. The wind was strong; in no time he was chopping through the bay’s small waves, heading due north.

He had sailed at night only once before, with his father, and even that had been unplanned. They’d gotten stuck out in the bay without wind, and hadn’t brought a paddle. They’d passed the time naming every candy they could remember and playing hangman with a grease marker on the boat’s floor. It occurred to Max at that moment that he didn’t have any of the safety items his father insisted on -- a life preserver, a paddle, a flare gun, a bailing vessel. The boat was empty but for Max.

And he was getting cold. Max was wearing only his wolf suit, and by the time he reached the middle of the bay and the wind began to bite, he realized that it was December, and no more than forty degrees, and it was getting colder the farther out into the lake he ventured. When he’d been running and howling, he hadn’t felt the rip of the winter wind, but now it cut through his fur -- and his T-shirt and underwear, for that’s all he was wearing underneath -- unimpeded.

He wouldn’t be able to sail this way for long. He certainly wouldn’t make it through the night; his teeth were already chattering. So he decided to sail not into the ocean but toward the city, to head to his father’s place downtown. This immediately seemed a better idea all around. He would sail downtown, dock with all the yachts, walk through the city until he found his father’s apartment, and ring the bell.

Wow, he’d be surprised! He knew his father would be proud of him when he arrived. He’d be astounded and impressed and they would live together from then on. All he needed to do was sail north for a few hours and keep his eye on the lights in the distance. He could make out the dim glow of the city on the horizon, and he felt strong again, knowing he would soon be there.

But the city seemed to be getting farther away, not closer. For hours Max held the rudder steady, and the sail had a constant belly full of wind, but as the hours passed, the city grew smaller. According to the compass, Max was sailing directly for it, due north-northwest, and yet the city lights were growing smaller, dimmer.

There was little Max could do. He knew he was sailing straight. But it was as if the bay were extending itself in front of him, adding distance between his boat and his destination. He turned around but saw no sign of the bay he’d left, the forest of his lean-to. He saw nothing of his neighborhood at all. There was only a moon overhead and the rough shimmer on the waves. He had no choice but to continue traveling along his present course, for going any other way made no sense at all.

He hoped that somewhere in the night the bay would become rational again and the city would reappear. He would have to tell his father about this strange elastic stretching of the bay! But soon the city was disappearing altogether. For a while it no more than a twinkle of dwindling lights, and shortly thereafter, it was gone. There was no sign of land in any direction. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but some part of Max acknowledged that in all likelihood, he’d left the bay altogether, and was now in the open sea.

Before Max was even tired, the moon had fallen through the water and the sun had risen to replace it. He’d sailed all night without sleep and was too bewildered to think about rest. Max continued sailing north-northwest, but now saw nothing anywhere at all. Not a fish, not a bird. The wind had slackened and the sea grew wider and broader and more interminable and boring. By his rough calculations he had to be at least seven million miles from where he left off.

Finally, as the sun climbed higher, he was tired enough to sleep. He pulled in the sail, tied it to the mast, rigged the rudder so it would remain true, and fell asleep.

When he awoke, it was night again. The same moon he’d left just hours ago was back. Max sailed through the night, falling asleep again not long after. He felt weak; it had been so long since he’d eaten.

With a shock of recognition, Max was finally sure he was in the open ocean. His compass did not seem to be working, and he hadn’t seen any sign of land or life in days. Where was he going? How long could he survive like this? His mind followed a dozen terrible paths until he realized, with some comfort, that there was nothing he could do, really, about his situation. He could only sail straight and hope for the best.

The following morning brought about the longest day Max had ever known. The length of a day! Alone in his boat, the straight line of ocean unbroken on any side, every minute was a day, one hour was longer than any life ever lived.

His mind ran out of things to think about. He thought of everything he’d ever thought of by midday and then could only start over. He counted all the states: CA, CO, NV, OR, WA, ID, SD, ND, WY, NE, IL, IN, IA, MI, WI, KS, MT … He was stumped at twenty-four. Even so, a record for him. He named all of his classmates, dividing them into the ones he knew, the ones he tolerated, the ones he didn’t know and those he would punch in the head if he had the chance. He named the families on his street, on the next street. He named all of his teachers, past and present, and all of the members of that year’s Brazilian Olympic soccer team.

He named all of his uncles and aunts. Uncles Stuart, Grant, Scotty, Wash and Jeff, Aunts Isabelle, Paulina, Lucy, Juliet. The last time he’d seen them all was at that strange reunion. Where had it been? In some log cabin somewhere, in Colorado or near Colorado. It was on a hill, and the cabin was cramped with people, the smell of pine and soup and venison, and so much beer, so much drinking all the time. There was fishing, and there were games of Twister, and runs through the woods, and then, when it rained, long cramped days and nights in the too-small cabin. Sounds coming from all the rooms, tiny tantrums a dozen a day, so many moods and slights and silences and bursts of almost-violence. And because there weren’t enough beds, almost everyone slept in one room, by the stove, limbs overlapping, so many sounds. It had been fun, and then frightening, and then fun, and finally, thankfully, it was over. He’d slept all twelve hours home in the car.

He loosened a nail on the boat’s bench and removed it. He used it to count the hours (as close as he could approximate) as they passed, marking them as a prisoner would. On the outer rim of the boat he carved his name as big as he could, so any fish or whales or passing ships would know who commanded this vessel:
MAX
, it said, in a way both tidy and slightly menacing.

He tried to draw a map of the world on the boat floor, then drew kodiak bears -- all he could draw was a kodiak bear; his father, a decent draftsman, had taught him this one skill -- and while he was drawing his third kodiak bear, this one eating his own paw, Max decided to calculate exactly how long it had been since his father left.