“Let him,” I say.
At home, Mom looks up from her desk, where she is attempting to go over ledgers and bank statements. “How was dinner?”
Before anyone else can answer, I give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, which—since we’re not a family that likes to show affection—leaves her looking alarmed. “I’m going out.”
“Be safe, Theodore.”
“I love you too, Mom.” This throws her even more, and before she can start crying, I am out the door to the garage, climbing into Little Bastard. I feel better once the engine has started. I hold up my hands and they’re shaking, because my hands, like the rest of me, would like to kill my father. Ever since I was ten and he sent Mom to the hospital with a busted chin, and then a year later when it was my turn.
With the garage door still closed, I sit, hands on the wheel, thinking how easy it would be to just keep sitting here.
I close my eyes.
I lean back.
I rest my hands on my lap.
I don’t feel much, except maybe a little sleepy. But that could just be me and the dark, slow-churning vortex that’s always there, in me and around me, to some degree.
The rate of car exhaust suicides in the States has declined since the mid-sixties, when emission controls were introduced. In England, where emission controls barely exist, that rate has doubled.
I am very calm, as if I’m in science class conducting an experiment. The rumble of the engine is a kind of lullaby. I force my mind to go blank, like I do on the rare occasions I try to sleep. Instead of thinking, I picture a body of water and me on my back floating, still and peaceful, no movement except my heart beating in my chest. When they find me, I’ll just look like I’m sleeping.
In 2013, a man in Pennsylvania committed suicide via carbon monoxide, but when his family tried to rescue him, they were overcome by the fumes and every single one of them died before rescue crews could save them.
I think of my mom and Decca and Kate, and then I hit the opener, and up goes the door, and out I go into the wild blue yonder. For the first mile or so, I feel high and excited, like I just ran into a burning building and saved lives, like I’m some sort of hero.
But then a voice in me says, You’re no hero. You’re a coward. You only saved them from yourself.
* * *
When things got bad a couple months ago, I drove to French Lick, which sounds a helluva lot sexier than it is. The original name was Salt Spring, and it’s famous for its casino, fancy spa and resort, basketball player Larry Bird, and healing springs.
In November I went to French Lick and drank the water and waited for it to fix the dark, slow churning of my mind, and for a few hours I actually felt better, but that might have been because I was so hydrated. I spent the night in Little Bastard, and when I woke the next morning, dull and dead feeling, I found one of the guys who worked there and said to him, “Maybe I drank the wrong water.”
He looked over his right shoulder, then his left, like someone in a movie, and then he leaned in and said, “Where you want to go is Mudlavia.”
At first I thought he was high. I mean, Mudlavia? But then he said, “That up there’s the real deal. Al Capone and the Dillinger gang always went there after some sort of heist. Nothing much left of it now except ruins—it burned down in 1920—but them waters flow strong as ever. Whenever I get an ache in my joints, that’s where I go.”
I didn’t go then, because by the time I returned from French Lick, I was tapped out and that was it, and there was no more traveling anywhere for a long while. But Mudlavia is where I’m headed now. Since this is serious personal business and not a wandering, I don’t bring Violet.
It takes about two and a half hours to get to Kramer, Indiana, population thirty. The terrain is prettier here than in Bartlett—hills and valleys and miles of trees, everything snow covered, like something out of Norman Rockwell.
For the actual resort, I’m picturing a place along the lines of Middle Earth, but what I find is acres of thin brown trees and ruins. It’s all crumbling buildings and graffiti-covered walls overgrown with weeds and ivy. Even in winter, you can tell nature is on a mission to take it back.
I pick my way through what used to be the hotel—the kitchen, hallways, guest rooms. The place is grim and creepy, and it leaves me sad. The walls still standing are tagged with paint.
Protect the penis.
Insanity please.
Fuck all you who may see this.
This does not feel like a healing place. Back outside, I tramp through leaves and dirt and snow to find the springs. I’m not sure exactly where they are, and it takes standing still and listening before I go in the right direction.
I prepare to be disappointed. Instead, I break through the trees to find myself on the banks of a rushing stream. The water is alive and not frozen over, the trees here fuller than the others, as if the water is feeding them. I follow the creek bed until the embankment grows into rock walls, and then I wade right into the middle, feeling the water push past my ankles. I crouch down and form a cup with my palms. I drink. It’s cold and fresh and tastes faintly of mud. When it doesn’t kill me, I drink again. I fill the water bottle I brought with me and then wedge it into the muddy bottom so it doesn’t float away. I lie down flat on my back in the middle of the stream and let the water cover me.
As I walk into the house, Kate is on her way out, already lighting a cigarette. As direct as Kate is, she doesn’t want either of my parents to know she smokes. Usually she waits till she’s safely in her car and down the street.
She says, “Were you with that girl of yours?”
“How do you know there’s a girl?”
“I can read the signs. Name?”
“Violet Markey.”
“The sister.”
“Yeah.”
“Do we get to meet her?”
“Probably not.”
“Smart.” She takes a long drag on the cigarette. “Decca’s upset. Sometimes I think this Josh Raymond situation is hardest on her since they’re practically the same age.” She blows three perfect smoke rings. “Do you ever wonder?”
“Wonder what?”
“If he’s Dad’s?”
“Yeah, except he’s so small.”
“You were small till ninth grade and look at you now, beanstalk.”
Kate heads down the walk and I head in, and as I’m shutting the door, she calls, “Hey, Theo?” I turn and she’s standing beside her car, nothing but an outline against the night. “Just be careful with that heart of yours.”