Under-Heaven Page 3

  “Well, guess I’ll just have to use this one,” his father announced pulling out a mug with a cartoon of a large-chested naked lady on the side. Not remembering ever seeing it before, Jesse guessed it had come from the top shelf that he could not reach—even after climbing onto the counter.

  “When your mom finds my cup we can put this one back!” His father slammed it down on the counter with a simultaneous whack and sharp clink. Glazed eyes stared at the broken handle.

  “Glad it wasn’t my cup,” he said, grabbing both pieces and shoving them way down into the trashcan. “Your mother didn’t like that cup anyway. ‘Made her feel bad about her tiny boobs.”

  Jesse knew talking like that wasn’t nice, so he didn’t mention that he liked his mom’s boobs; they were soft and snuggly whenever he fell asleep in her lap.

  Having no choice but to wait for the argument that was inevitably coming, Jesse dropped the game onto the kitchen table. Apparently forgetting the need for a cup, his father turned on the kitchen faucet and scooped several handfuls of water to his lips. The way he slurped might have been funny if Jesse hadn’t been staring at the twigs and bits of dried leaves that covered the back of his father’s green jacket. There were even small clumps of dirt or animal doo-doo tangled in the back of his father’s long, stringy hair. Had he been sleeping in the park? The thought of his dad living out in the cold made Jesse want to cry.

  “Everything okay?” his mom called out.

  “Everything’s fine,” his father said, winking at Jesse. “We men are just waiting for our lady to get out here.”

  The bathroom door slammed shut.

  “Go on, set the game up,” his father said, spinning a chair around and settling down backwards on its seat. Jesse suddenly realized his father’s hands were shaking. Blood trickled down from one of his nostrils.

  What was wrong with him?

  Jesse didn’t dare to say anything but he couldn’t stop staring as the whiskers of his dad’s upper lip began to stain red. His father sniffled and wiped the back of his hand under his nose.

  “What the hell!” He pushed back from the table and rushed over to the sink. He tried to wipe the blood from his face, but when he glanced back at Jesse the red had spread to his lips and beard.

  “I’ll go get mom!”

  “No!” his father yelled. Then more calmly, “Everything’s okay. It’s just a little nose bleed.” He yanked a half-dozen paper towels off the roll and blotted his face.

  Jesse was terrified by the bright red stains that bloomed all over the white material. His father wiped several more times then held the clump of towels under his nose. Jesse could still see red patches in the whiskers around his mouth and chin.

  “I have to go,” his dad said, his voice muffled by the bloody towels. “Tell your mom I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stay for the game. It’s a work thing. She’ll understand.” His father rushed to the door and opened it. “I love you, Jess.”

  Without another word, his father slipped out the door and stumbled down the stairs. Jesse heard the outside door open and shut. Normally, he would have raced to his mother’s room to watch his father get into his truck and drive off, but he knew it would be really bad if his mother found out what really happened. So, instead, Jesse pushed a chair over to the sink, climbed up to shut the faucet off, then pulled out a handful of clean paper towels and began to wipe the stainless steel basin.

  His lips quivered and tears started to fall as the towels began to turn red.

  4

  In Fear of Memories

  I had been in that strange place for two weeks and almost daily had flashes of memories that churned my emotions like ocean waves breaking against a rocky shore. I was tormented by recollections of children teasing me and throwing things at me, but they were nothing compared to the reoccurring memory of a bearded man whose breath smelled like chewing tobacco and whose powerful visage left me gasping in terror.

  How could I ever make sense of these bits and pieces of my life when I was too frightened to hold any one image in my mind long enough to understand? Just thinking about the man with a bulldog thick neck and arms like tree limbs sent chills sweeping up and down my spine. Each time I envisioned him, it was as though my imaginary monster reaching a clawed hand through prison bars for me.

  Nerves already frayed to the breaking point, I didn’t know how much more I could take. As much as I feared answers, I resigned myself to finding out more. Though Grandma Clara usually wore some version of a nurse’s outfit, the one she wore that day was longer than usual with a high frilly collar and lacey cuffs. It made her look both elegant and professional, which seemed proper given what I had to talk to her about.

  “Is this Heaven?” I asked.

  “No, Nate.”

  “Then where?”

  “There are many names, but I like the term Under-Heaven.”

  “How did I die?”

  “I don’t think that’s for me to say.” Her eyes squinted in sympathy.

  “Why?”

  “Because you already know.”

  My monster rocked viciously back and forth. It was like all the terrible people from my past, or what I thought was my past, wrapped into one horrifying body, and it wanted out. The key to its cage was in my hand again. As though it was scalding hot, I dropped it and forced the vision away.

  “Why don’t I remember?” I asked. Just voicing the question made my chest tighten and my throat constrict.

  “You will, little one,” she said. “But it has to be at your own pace.”

  “I hate not knowing, but I’m also terrified of what I might learn.”

  Grandma Clara drew me into a tight embrace. “I’m so sorry I can’t help you with this.”

  “It’s not fair,” I said, pushing her away. “I have to get this over with.” Even as the words left my lips, I knew it was a lie. I knew I didn’t have the courage to face that monster, and I doubted I ever would.

  “You have to choose your own timing, Nate. That’s part of growing as a soul. I have faith you’ll remember when the time is right.”

  I closed my eyes and was suddenly overcome with the image of my mother. I hadn’t realized before then how much she looked like my grandmother only younger. My body clenched at the sight of her tear-filled eyes.

  Why were you crying, Mom?

  What a horrible past I must have had! I stared at my grandmother.

  “Why do you even come here if you don’t want to help me?”

  “Oh, Nate, I—”

  I didn’t hear what she said next because I was already racing out of my house, down the stairs and onto the white cobblestone road. I skirted the fountain pool and bolted to the other side of the circle. My mind was filled with a sense of terror as I sprinted between two houses on the furthest side of my circular neighborhood. Like my own backyard, the grass was beautifully manicured and bordered with every manner of lovely blossoms. And, like my own back yard, beyond the grass and flowers rose the ever-present, billowing white clouds.

  Sliding to a stop, I fell to my knees and stared at the edge of what I now realized was a trap. Under-Heaven was my own personal prison. Though I desperately wanted to disappear into that wall of white and somehow escape the mean children and the terrifying man with tobacco breath that kept trying to pry their way into my mind, I sensed that to enter that border of whiteness a second time would make everything about my new life horrifyingly clear.

  My monster shook with anticipation. It wanted me to know!

  Why couldn’t this all be a dream? Why couldn’t things return to the way they were?

  Were?

  I knew nothing about my past. How could I crave the return of a time I couldn’t even remember? And how could I be too frightened to face my memories but yearn for them at the same time?

  Claws raked across steel bars.

  I winced. No matter how deeply I searched inside myself, I couldn’t find the strength to overcome my fear. I couldn’t face my past. Not now, not ever!r />
  I tried to concentrate on the grass, the flowers, but the vision of that prison door remained stuck in my head. Huge claws were now scraping loudly across the steel mesh that covered the prison window. That monster—and that man—would soon be free!

  A part of me knew that only by facing my fears could I find peace, but I was no more capable of facing that monster than I was of pretending my new neighborhood was anything other than what it was: a prison. I was stuck here in the sameness of Under-Heaven much the way my own memories were trapped inside the jail inside my mind.

  The monster is me, I thought, making the crazy connection. But if that’s true, why can’t I find the courage to face myself?

  Even though I didn’t have an answer, I knew I was right. I pressed my hands to either side of my head and squeezed, but the terrible thought wouldn’t stop.

  I am the monster.

  I shook my head, clamped my eyes shut and willed myself to see only darkness, but that prison shone like a beacon in my thoughts. The iron door was shaking and violent thumps left large protruding dents. I yanked my eyes open and screamed, but my monster’s piercing howl overwhelmed my own strangled cries.

  I am the monster.

  I am the monster!

  Every mind has its limits, and mine had just been reached. As my conscious mind collapsed, so too did my muscles. I fell limp to the grass and wept. I wept for everything that had been lost and forgotten. I wept for the fear that enveloped me every day. Mostly, though, I wept in frustration at my own cowardice.

  Tears came from a very deep well and ran for a long time.

  I am the monster…I am the monster…I am the monster…

  It seemed like an eternity before that damning phrase slowed and finally stopped its relentless march through my mind. Sometime during that period, I sensed a hand reach out from the clouds and gently stroke my hair, but when I looked there was nothing but swirling whiteness.

  Exhausted and confused, I finally got to my feet and returned to my prim little home.

  Grandma Clara was already gone.

  5

  Mental Doors Can Crack

  I had been in Under-Heaven for over a month when my routine was suddenly changed. I woke earlier than usual one morning at the sound of my grandmother coming in through the back door.

  “Today we’re going to begin your first lesson,” she called from the living room.

  “Lesson?” I said with a yawn, rolling out of bed.

  Rather than explain, she passed my door and went into the kitchen. I followed to find her sitting at the table, removing a deck of cards from one of the many pockets in her nurse’s outfit. I settled into the seat beside her and watched as she dealt out seven cards to each of us.

  “Do you know how to play Rummy?” she asked.

  Once again, I found myself at a loss as to how my memory worked. Though I remembered only snippets of mostly terrifying people from my past, I immediately remembered how to play rummy. We played several hands, of which I won one, but when we changed games to Fish I won three out of four. It was her turn to deal but after shuffling the deck she placed it face-down on the table and looked quizzically at me.

  “Why is it,” she asked, “that it’s okay to keep secrets playing Rummy but not when you’re playing Fish?”

  Suspecting this was part of the day’s lesson, I explained that in Rummy the rules allowed you to keep your hand a secret, but in Fish the rules say when someone asks you for a card you have to give it up.

  “So not all secrets are bad?” she asked.

  “I guess not,” I said.

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “A secret is okay if the rules allow it, I guess.”

  “What about if a person keeps secrets from himself?” she asked.

  So that’s what she was trying to get at. The monster immediately began banging on its prison door.

  I flinched.

  “I’m too scared,” I told her. “I can’t.”

  “But in your case, who’s making the rules?”

  I was starting to lose the logic of her card game analogy. The sheer terror I felt at what might be hiding inside my head rendered all logic null and void. I could barely breathe when I thought about that man, forget think rationally.

  “Nate, who makes the rules about your memories?”

  “I guess I do,” I said grudgingly.

  Grandma Clara dealt out another Rummy hand.

  “That’s it?” I said. “That’s all there is to the lesson?”

  She smiled warmly. “No. I still have to teach you how to let your grandmother win more often.” And she went on to teach me that lesson pretty well.

  As the days passed, lessons became a regular part of our routine; though not all of them were as much fun as playing cards, I found myself keeping something from each of my grandmother’s teachings. It helped that the subjects varied each day. Sometimes we talked about seemingly random events in history; other times the discussion would be about Under-Heaven; and yet other times her past would be our focus, but inevitably all of our lessons swirled back to questions about morality. Surprisingly, as much as we talked about right and wrong, my grandmother never preached; she simply engaged me in conversations that illustrated how every person was responsible for his or her actions.

  Oddly, her lessons also made me yearn to take responsibility for my own actions, but how when I couldn’t even remember them? I began to feel as though I had an obligation to remember, but wanting to remember and being brave enough to actually do it were two entirely different things. It was true that scattered images of ocean waves and boats began to join my brief memories of people, but they came and went so quickly that I had no idea what any of them meant. I only knew those fleeting snippets caused my stomach to clench and my mind to swirl with fear. It should have come as no surprise that my monster was about to get its first claw through my prison door.

  It was the end of a day and my grandmother had been teaching me from about John D. Rockefeller, an oil tycoon accused of corporate tyranny in the late-1800s and early-1900s. People said he crushed all the competition then overcharged for his products. However, later in life, after gifting huge sums of money to colleges, hospitals and museums, he became known as the world’s most charitable person. Though he had hurt a lot of people in business, he seemed to have helped even more with his charity. She made me promise not to pass judgment about what he had done, but instead asked me to think about what I might have done differently had I been in his place.

  As I followed her out into the backyard, I was still thinking about whether it would be okay to hurt one person as long as I helped ten other people. I waved as she strolled toward the misty barrier at the edge of my new world and smiled just before she was swallowed up by the swirling whiteness. Turning back to my house, I was halfway convinced that maybe it would be okay for someone to inflict pain on one person as long as they helped others, but what if that person that hurt was Vicky—

  Vicky! I had a sister!

  I suppose it was the shock of it that sent me tripping face-first onto my back porch. Though bones don’t break in Under-Heaven, mental doors can crack…

  I’d been a pretty typical kid, I think. I hadn’t liked fourth grade very much and was happy on that last day of school when I was able to run home. I ran nonstop all the way back to my house, which was tucked up a woodsy, dirt road that ran off from Burgess Street. It was a long run but my feet were flying so fast I imagined I was The Flash and that the neighbors never even saw me pass. Okay, so old Mr. Kipswitch did wave at me from his porch rocker, but everyone knew he had supernaturally sharp eyes. I think I could have outrun my dog Whiskey that day as I soared into my yard. I was anxious to see the energetic hairball who my mother kept fenced out back until I got home.

  Whiskey and I were nearly inseparable, and if it weren’t for my parents insisting I go to school, we would never have been apart. He was a golden retriever and my best friend. My parents used to say we grew up toget
her, but I knew the truth: I grew up with Whiskey’s help. He had always been the wiser of the two of us. I couldn’t even count the times he had stepped between me and some trouble I had been about to get into, and it turned out that he’d have his paws full that summer as well. I raced past my father’s rusty, red 1928 Ford pickup, leapt over one of my mother’s flower patches and careened up the stairs into the house. I stopped short.

  Unusual for this time of day, my father was propped at the edge of his favorite rocking chair, his fingers weaving strands of heavy twine into a dilapidated old lobster trap that sat like broken furniture in the middle of the floor. I wondered why he wasn’t still out to sea. That morning, like every morning, Whiskey and I watched from the hill above our house as the Miss Kane sail out of the harbor. The Miss Kane was my father’s boat, named after his third grade teacher. My mother said it was because he’d always had a crush on the woman, but my father insisted it was only because she had inspired him to work hard in school.

  “Did Miss Kane break down?” I asked.

  “No, son, I just had something to take care of. That’s all.”

  My father was dressed in a blue button-up shirt, which seemed odd for him at any time but especially unusual on such a warm day. Normally, around the house, and even out on his boat, he wore tee shirts. He reached over and switched off the knob to our three-foot-tall cabinet radio. “Ma Perkins” went silent.

  “Whiskey’s out back,” I said, hoping to be excused.

  My father said nothing at first as his practiced fingers returned to weaving new twine into the vandal-ravaged netting. I knew it could take him up to two hours to mend a single trap, and I also knew that even then it would be one of the saddest-looking lobster pots in use off the coast of Maine. His mishmashes of wood and netting patches, though effective, didn’t look especially nice. Most of my father’s traps had been salvaged from the dump or purchased from the wives of unsuspecting lobstermen. Stiff competition for the shrinking lobster populations meant most lobstermen would never knowingly allow a single trap to pass onto a competitor, especially not one from out-of-state.