Hey in the house! Dave! Your sheep are in the road again.

David pulled back the short curtain tacked above the trailer window. The thin mustard-colored cotton bespeckled with brown flowers, like most of the things he had pieced together since his wife left with the children, was not something he would have chosen. Not that he noticed the colors. He tried not to notice most of the things about his life now. You’ve got the kids back, he’d tell himself, that’s what matters. And the land here is nice. The twenty-eight acres on which the trailer sat really was beautiful. Two fields divided by a rocky copse of birches stretched away from the paved road that rose toward the mountains. Beyond the fields lay a forest, interrupted at times by bouldered glacial erratics and ridged eskers, between which ran a clear, cold stream where beavers had once taken up residency, damning a small waterfall and creating a wide, muddy pool. The swimmin’ hole David liked to say. Groves of sugar maples and american beech gave way to a rockier terrain of hemlock, bane of ancient wisdom, whose decomposing needles swirled in mountains of foamy ecru along the banks of the stream.

The sheep were still in the road. So much for homesteading. In the winters, snow and ice blanketed the land, echoes of the glaciers that once lay miles thick above. They were gone, the cold remained. Snowplows, attempting to stave off ice formation, saturated the asphalt with crystals of salt. Farmers knew to herd their livestock quickly across the roadways. If they discovered this great river of black streaked with yellow and white was a lickable surface of the salt they craved, they would stop at nothing to return to it. This was David’s dilemma.

Pulling himself up from the brown armchair, whose springs had broken years before, he navigated a path through piles of clothes, shoes, firewood, garbage bags, and books rising like cairns in the small living room. Brushing past stacks of untouched theologians, where the second edition of Raising Sheep the Modern Way mocked him smugly, he shouted to his children.

Sheep are in the road again! Rory heard the screen door slam against the green aluminum siding of the trailer as his father stumbled down the makeshift stairs towards the road. Sliding of the top bunk, he slipped Tevas on his socked feet and gingerly made his way down the hallway herd path between piles of accumulated junk hiding a carpet stained like overripe avocado. Hoarding had not become a household word, but Rory would remember picking his way along that faux wood-paneled trailer of detritus years later when, flipping through the channels, he came across a house tour that took him back to this moment. He assumed that his father behaved this way because they were poor – he could never resist an object on the side of the road that said “free” – but hadn’t they always been poor? When his mother lived with them, it hadn’t been like this.

Sorry, sorry Tom. I know, I know, but it’s the salt you know. I gotta fix the hole in that fence, getting right on it. Rory half-listened to his father as he lifted a flap on the broken skirting that partly lined the gap between the trailer and the ground. He half-filled an empty Maxwell House can with dogfood. If there was one thing the sheep liked more than the salt of the road, it was dogfood. Walking towards the road, he rattled the can. A shamanic rainstick. At its sound, three motley sheep lifted their heads, licked their lips, and scrambled back through a gap in the mesh fence David had hastily cobbled together.

Ok, sorry for the trouble, Tom, hope it won’t happen again. The subaru drove off and Rory dragged an old pallet to block the hole in the fence. David, sighing, went inside to nuke some tuna noodle casserole Rory had made the night before and drink one of the Bud Lights he hid from the kids in the cabinet above the fridge. The sheep were restless, having finished the dogfood, wanting more. They trudged in a tight circle around the trailer, shitting as they walked under grey skies. Over time, their excrement had formed a moat around the trailer. A bleating siege of the beleaguered trailer followed each sojourn to the salty road and dogfood rattle. Soon, Rory would add another layer of pallets to the walk from the front door, above those now sinking into mud and excrement. He did not wonder why that task would fall to him. That is how it was. Tonight he would make grilled cheese for dinner. He listened to the wind, watching the new buds sway on the birch trees, bark stripped bare by deer and sheep over the winter. There were still Kraft singles left over from the missionary lunch at church, and Wonder Bread bought just past expiration. He wondered if his father had remembered to get the tub of Country Crock. Could they use oil instead? Friday they would go to his mother’s. Jean’s parents had rented a small house for her in town, just off Main Street next to the railroad tracks. At their last visit, she said she was going to make baked ziti while she and Rory had laid warm mulch smelling of cocoa around freshly-planted impatiens. This mulch costs more, but I like the smell. The house was small and rattled when the trains passed, and there was no yard to speak of. But it, too, was warm and smelled like cocoa. And Yankee Candle vanilla, which does not really smell like vanilla.

Rory walked through the gathering darkness towards the trailer. The sheep bleated as the sun retreated towards the west and wood smoke began to drift down from the chimney pipe. He did not hate it here, though it was hard. One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it. Someday he would live differently, but here, now, he would enjoy the wind and the smoke and the big dipper glowing steadily in an inkblue sky.

In the motel room at the banks of the St. Lawrence, at the edge of the country, at the precipice of tragedy and transition, Rory could not see the sky. Even if the curtains were not drawn tightly shut, which they were, the windows faced a parking lot where Super 8 - Free Breakfast - Monthly Lets blocked the November sky. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and Rory should have been in school. They all should have been. Steps shuffled outside the door, followed by three short knocks, a pause, three long knocks, and another pause. Rory got up from the bed where he was reading and stepped over his brother and sister, who were crayoning monsters and hearts in their notebooks on the floor.

He stood on his tiptoes to slide the chain out of the latch and heard his mother fumbling for the keycard in her purse.

I said wait to the count of 10, THEN open the door. She whispered this against the door, still searching for her card. She found it, and cracked the door open, sliding along the wall and furtively glancing outside before closing it behind her. She wore a visor usually used when canoeing, and hoped that her sunglasses did not make her conspicuous. She didn’t know what she would do if she was spotted. Her picture was on the news. Next time she would send one of the children to the store, thank god privacy laws didn’t allow the local network to publish their pictures. She just needed more time, gather evidence, prove once and for all what a fucking cunt liar her husband was. Hitting the boys, she had seen the bruises, how dare he. But the final straw. Abusing their daughter. For fucks sake, their own daughter. She was only eight years old. But she knew, she knew it had been going on for years. Years. No one would fucking believe her. But she knew. That’s why she had to take them. She wished to god she had planned it better. Gotten the evidence. But how could she let that keep happening? That god damn social worker. He must be fucking her. Bet she likes that, the kids in the next room. Afternoon fuck. And shit fuck child protective services. Who the fuck were they protecting? Had he paid someone off to get them taken out of the safe house? SAFE HOUSE? They were supposed to be fuckin’ safe. The kids liked it there. They could watch tv, and they played with Janet’s two boys while she and Janet talked in the kitchen, a bag of peas pressed against Janet’s eye to stop the swelling. Jean remembered what that was like. He couldn’t fucking get away with it anymore. But that woman. That fucking woman. Coming to the safe house, telling the kids they were going home in the morning, just when they were getting used to the place after the first week. They were terrified. Couldn’t she fucking see that? They needed more rooms available, was that it? More beat-up women running from their fucked up husbands? So her kids would get thrown out? Back to their abusive father? You don’t want that kids, do you, you are terrified of going back there? Tell her, show her where he touched you. Isn’t that what they say? Show her your bruises, here, see this? Don’t tell me I’m hurting my kids you cunt, you fucking whore. And don’t tell me to calm down, Janet, don’t tell me to fucking calm down. You left, you left. That’s exactly what I’m doing. Fine, we’ll see you in the morning. Nine am sharp you fucking cunt. That’s why . . . that’s why I had, why I had to, why I had to leave. They know that, the kids know that. They’re better off here. Entenmann’s danish in the morning, cheese, apple, plain. The kids love it, they really do. This room is starting to smell. We’ll be okay. We’ll wait it out. We’ll wait, then we’ll go. Across the river, like the underground railroad Rory said. Yes, honey, just like the underground railroad. Feel the moss on the trees and know we’re heading north. Then just get across the river. It’ll freeze. It always freezes. And then just drive, just drive right across. People do it, right? People do it all the time.

Did you get the books from the library? Jean emptied her bag, books and pens, cheerios and lipstick, spilled onto the polyester bedspread.

I can’t go back to the library again for a little while, honey. So this book, it’s about Indians, right, it’s long enough, isn’t it? Rory inspected the book. Six hundred and sixty two pages. A woman with waist-length flowing blonde hair clutched a spear beside a bearded man clad in fur, surveying wooly mammoths marching before a distant shelf of ice. The last entry Rory had in his history notebook, three weeks before, was on the Iroquois confederacy. It would have to do. I don’t want you to fall behind.

Rory stretched out on the double bed. He hated sharing it with his brother. He hated more that he would definitely fall behind. In Ms. Shaver and Ms. Ward’s “alternative program,” seventh and eighth graders took all their subjects together. Everyone was mixed, so it was easy to tell the smart kids and the dumb kids. And there were dumb kids, but they weren’t supposed to call them that. They were special. Rory figured that they chose all the smartest kids in the sixth grade and put them with all the dumbest kids. The ones that needed Ms. Flores to sit with them at lunch and wipe the ranch dressing off their mouth when they stuck their face in the lunch tray. But that was only Sharon. The rest were just, well, dumb. Ms. Shaver would hold both her hands to the sky, her wrists wrapped in hemp bracelets and henna tattoos reaching to her hairy armpits, and remind them all are special when we come together. She taught English and History, where they studied native americans most of the time, or watched Pocahontas. In the next room, separated by an accordion screen, Ms. Ward rolled her eyes during the science lesson in a thirteenth answer to whether she had heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon. But Rory always brought his cafeteria tray to the classroom to eat, and they were always sitting at one of the many round tables and laughing together, so Rory figured they must be friends. Ms. Shaver wouldn’t mind him missing so much school, but Ms. Ward would definitely be angry. He didn’t know what he was going to say. He’d have to be one of the dumb kids now. He took out his notebook.

Title: The Mammoth Hunters

Author: Jean M. Auel

Main characters: Ayla, Jondalar, Ranec

Summary: Not about native americans. Descriptions of animals, and plants, and

About halfway through the book, Rory stopped taking notes. Lying on his stomach on the bed, the book open in front of him, Jean talking to herself in the corner and writing on her hand while his brother and sister played on the floor, Rory felt his pants press tighter against the sheen of the acrylic bedspread. His warm mouth . . . a flush of heat throbbing in his loins . . . his manhood . . . she pushed herself up to him, wanting, and shuddered when he answered with a deep pull . . . his manhood . . . He drew back and plunged deeply . . . He drove in again, and again, with unrestrained abandon . . .

Dinner! Jean opened two bags of potato chips. When Rory rolled over, his pants were wet, staining the bedspread. I’m not hungry. He wasn’t. You have to eat something. What had happened? Later. He didn’t care about the girl Ayla. He wanted to take her place. To be held like that. And his body felt achy thinking about it. Did he pee? He wasn’t scared, like the time he peed in his dark bed when he heard something scratching at the edge of the trailer. He sat on the bed, his butt hiding the stain and holding the large tome carefully over his lap. He would wait until it dried. Just let me finish this chapter.

The next morning, housekeeping was able to clean the room. Did you hear? The police had to break down the door. Sirens and handcuffs. This place is filthy. I mean, look at the stains on this bedspread. Jesus. At least those kids are back home.

Jean screamed as she was handcuffed and put in a squad car. All Rory noticed was the nightsticks swinging at the officer’s sides. And the bulge behind the zipper of the one who took his hand and led him out in the glow of the Super 8.

120th and 1st – Rory checked the cross streets again on his phone. Before him stood a concrete compound, more a prison than a school. How do I get in? He tried what looked like the main doors. Locked. A taxi horn beeped behind him. Bachata played from a window across the street into the August heat while two old men argued in front of the bodega below. Behind the caged windows of the school, nothing stirred.

Lauren said she would be here. A single rusted auburn square on the building read NYC Department of Education. Rory checked his email again. Right time, right place. He sent Lauren a message. I’m here.

Fuck it. It felt good to say it, if only to himself. The word, though omnipresent on his mother’s tongue in childhood, had only recently been allowed into his vocabulary. It was the new Rory. He thought that, now he had left the christian world, he should allow himself some liberties. The students in his masters program swore, drank, and sexed. He liked the idea of it. Preparing to arrive in New York, he watched every episode of Sex and the City, learned to make cocktails, and signed up for an online dating service. Tinder had not been released, and though he had Grindr on his phone, he still felt shame when messaged and messaging men there. Sex and the City had charm and wit, and was, well, straight. Acceptable in part. He was still conflicted. Not with his sexuality, but with his living in the world. He still needed to please, be accepted – by whom, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure he believed in God anymore, wasn’t really sure he ever did. He believed in doing good, or being thought of as doing good, which is not quite the same thing. That he was sure of. At least he thought so.

This is why he felt frustrated. Standing in front of the locked door, ready to begin a surely illustrious career in teaching, doing good for the poor, the oppressed, the whatever-label-seemed-most-worthy-at-the-moment kids. In his bag were supplies – his professors had told him these kinds of schools had no money. In the August heat, the pink shirt he had carefully chosen was dampening under his armpits and around his collar. A bead of sweat meandered down his forehead. Fuck.

He checked his phone again. No message. In his mind, he was stymied before he could even begin. The worst kind of stymieing. A writer with ink, no paper. A baker with yeast, no flour. Fuck.

He felt hungry. Skipping meals was habitual, trying to lose the little bit of belly fat that mocked him when he lifted his shirt to wipe his face during a run. In his mind that roll of fat had become the difference between finding love and being rejected. He did not realize skipping a meal meant he ate much more, and much worse, later in the day. He crossed the street, passing by the arguing men, and entered the bodega, the bell tinkling as the door closed behind him.

A gust of cool air hit him as he walked in. How does this work? He had never been in a bodega before, was not really accustomed to eating out. He had always packed his lunch, or gone hungry. The remains of imposed economy from his youth. A moustachioed hispanic man, kerchiefed and plastic-gloved, stood behind the deli counter below a menu of hoagies, bagels, and chopped cheese. Grilled cheese $1, the cheapest option. Perhaps his favorite food in the world. Years later, when traveling the world, when eating at fine restaurants, he would recall this moment. Bread? the man grunted. Rory surveyed the options. Jewish Rye. Seemed fitting. His mentor for student teaching was Lauren Cohen. The only Cohens he ever knew were also the only Jews that he knew, a middle school teacher in a nearby town. Cheese? the man was becoming impatient. Muenster. It sounded exotic, European. I add red pepper, is good. Aloud, Rory wondered how much extra but the man did not hear.

Rory checked his phone again. Here, in classroom, use entrance by wheelchair ramp.

$1.25 – want something to drink? Rory shook his head and paid, the grilled cheese wrapped in wax paper, sliced, then in aluminum foil and dropped in one of those thin black plastic bags ubiquitously decorating trees throughout the city. Rory hurried back across the street. On the opposite side of the building he found the ramp, and, pushing open the door, was greeted by a seated security guard dwarfing a short formica desk. ID? Who you here for?

Lauren, uh, Urban School for – Yeah, yeah okay. She upstairs. Second floor.

Rory made his way hesitantly up stairs that smelled of bleach and lemon cleaner to the classroom. Lauren was grunting. Hey, hi, Rory, right? Good to meet you! Help me move this desk. The janitors always rearrange after they clean the floors. I hate when students can get behind my desk.

This became evident in the coming months. A large woman, Lauren rarely left her desk, usually there eating her sandwiches on lunch hour that she had Rory fetch from a nearby deli – the Africans do something good to their chicken, don’t ever go to that Arab place. She was proud that her students ran her classroom for her, which meant she barked orders from behind the desk and students distributed worksheets from wire bins beneath the whiteboard. Rory’s great-uncle, a retired city teacher with whom he was staying while he looked for an apartment in the city, had a similar brag. Once I was talking to the principal and the bell rang. Well, I came in the door and there was a student taking attendance with the rest in their seats waiting for me. That’s the kind of classroom you want, son. Obedience. They should always know their place.

Each morning, Rory dutifully wrote the daily To Do on the board. The bell rang. Students filed in with the slow, slumping walk of a conquered people. Don’t forget to put your homework in the Turn-In bin. Pick up a copy of Black Boy from the front of the room. Don’t speak without raising your hand. Read silently. Answer the questions on the worksheet. Return your book, don’t take it home, I’ve lost enough copies. Forty three minutes later, the bell rang again and the ritual recommenced. A liturgical ablution four times each day.

For her fifth class, Honors English 11, Lauren came out from behind her desk. This is the class you want to teach someday, they actually read, she’d say to Rory, try and get yourself some honors classes. This class did not have worksheets, books were taken home, and Lauren led “class discussions” in which she prattled for long periods on the true sense of the text, the meaning that was hidden for her to see. One might even say she was animated. The period would end, and Lauren would settle behind her desk.

At lunch, Rory ate his grilled cheese. It had become an almost spiritual ritual. The warm muenster stringing out from beneath the buttered crunch of the bread, the sweet of roasted red pepper biting through the salt of the fats. Today, the leaves beyond the windows burned orange in the afternoon light. It was a Tuesday, when he attended university seminar at four. He told Lauren he needed to leave at one. He could have said nine. She didn’t care. She preferred when he wasn’t around. He had made some suggestions about worksheet questions. Fine she thought humor him.

Years ago, she was like him too. Had ideas. Wanted to be creative. But each year seemed harder, more tiring. Butter spread over too much bread. She hoped to teach both of the honors classes next year. The 12th grade English teacher was retiring. She could take his honors class, too, then only have a couple of the regulars to deal with. Unless that upstart from the 9th grade team wanted them. He always got what he wanted. Sure, he taught a tech class, sure he ran an afterschool club. She did things, too, you know. She begged donated tickets and organized trips to Broadway shows for her honors classes. That was something. She will email the principal some pictures from the last show of her, her son, and the three kids who actually showed up, remind her how committed she was to the school. Maybe remind her she went to Bard, and though the “honors” students would never get in there, they were lucky to have exposure to such a school through her. Emails, Levi, right – she had to email the specialized schools point person at his middle school. Could she afford private if her son did not get in? She’d be damned if she had to send her son to a school like this. She opened her laptop. Rory? You’re going? Okay, class, say goodbye to Mr. Culcharan and get back to your worksheets. She returned to her emails.

That feeling of freedom that comes when leaving work or school early – when you are getting away with it – elated Rory as he bumped his hip against the pushbar, opening the door and stepping out onto the sidewalk. Fall had come, and with it the amber glow that settles on New York. He had a few hours before seminar, if he went. He would look for an apartment. He had already visited some agencies, been shown some dark holes that were in his price range, plus a hefty commission. He would think outside the box. He was a bit ashamed to admit what he wanted. A Carrie Bradshaw apartment. Not huge, but with light. And in a brownstone. And in a brownstone with stairs leading up to double doors, not the ones remodelled in the 60s, with the staircase knocked down and aluminum door lit by a fluorescent light leading to a rabbit warren of dingy apartments. He had seen those. It had to be near the park, he’d decided. There was something about Central Park, something both satisfyingly natural and comfortingly tame that made him not miss the mountains, the lakes, the paths of gnarled roots where his happiest childhood memories had been. Proximity was important, like living near your gym. If one lives too far, it becomes easier not to go.

He walked down one of the tree-lined streets of the Upper East Side. The buildings here were white, more London townhouse than New York brownstone. Not the East Side. He preferred the West Side, he thought, one of those preferences that you cannot put your finger on a reason why. He walked across the park, along the reservoir where the New York skyline rises and a glittering shock of water piped from the Catskills reservoir dissipates its reflection under a cloudless sky. He paused in the shade of a tree, a london plane. It stretched its dappled arms towards the sky, leaves like burnt paper falling when the wind picked up, embers of the summer. He liked it here.

He had seen an apartment in the Times, listed by Corcoran in the Real Estate section. Their fees were huge, but he was able to figure out online from streetview that, yes, it was on 87th street, near the park. He had screenshot an image of the building. Maybe he could just ring the bell and ask if there was an apartment available? He turned off Central Park West and onto the street, checking the picture on his phone. There it was. Stairs, double doors, all boxes checked. Behind the doors was a row of bronze mailboxes. Nothing indicating an owner, or a caretaker, a super, whatever they are called.

Can I help you? The voice behind startled him. He turned to see a white-haired woman with daring fuchsia lipstick pulling a small handled bag on wheels up the stairs. No, no, thanks though. I am just looking at apartments. Can I help with your bag?

Thank you for asking, but I am managing fine. She grinned. 2a is let, just yesterday. Thought your realtor would have told you. She turned her key in the outside door as Rory held it open. You can call the management company to see if they have any coming up – number’s right there on the wall. They’re never much help to me, but you never know.

Rory thanked her from the steps as the door closed. So building numbers are listed in the entry, interesting. He called the number. No answer. He left a voicemail.

He knew he wanted to live near the park on the west side. Easy enough. That day he called all the numbers inside the entry for the buildings he liked on that street. No calls back. Each day, he walked a different street as the weather got colder, calling numbers. Occasionally he had awkward exchanges with people entering or exiting the building, who are you visiting, ummm, but mostly no one was around. No one ever called back, but a few times he spoke with the owner or manager.

We do have one available, couple just left suddenly. Yeah, one-bedroom. No, studio. How did you get this number anyway?

He thought his approach calling random numbers in doorways might seem unconventional at best, intrepid, uncomfortable at worst, a turnoff for potential landlords. Each time he fibbed. A friend gave it to me, she lives on the block and heard there might be an opening. Julie, maybe you know her? He later employed this technique, for no particularly sane reason, when staying for just one night, all he could afford, at a nice hotel somewhere remote. I wish we could stay longer, but we are staying with friends in the area. Just treating ourselves to one night, but they insist we stay with them. In the end, the fibbing had little effect. Perhaps because, though he had gotten in the habit of lying quite a lot, he wasn’t very good at it. Or perhaps people just didn’t care that much.

After a month of these calls, he found his light-filled apartment on the top floor of a family-owned brownstone just a few hundred yards from that london plane in the park. Original tiger-eye maple woodwork and doors, a skylight in a closet-sized kitchen beneath which he placed a new plant which would grow to obscure its light, and wood parquet floors, which he dutifully kept polished. If he stood on the edge of his bed, on the tips of his toes, he could see the tops of trees. A park view. Below market value, he was told. He made a grilled cheese. Yes, this would do.

Now, to find a man.

Hey in the house! Dave! Your sheep are in the road again.

David pulled back the short curtain tacked above the trailer window. The thin mustard-colored cotton bespeckled with brown flowers, like most of the things he had pieced together since his wife left with the children, was not something he would have chosen. Not that he noticed the colors. He tried not to notice most of the things about his life now. You’ve got the kids back, he’d tell himself, that’s what matters. And the land here is nice. The twenty-eight acres on which the trailer sat really was beautiful. Two fields divided by a rocky copse of birches stretched away from the paved road that rose toward the mountains. Beyond the fields lay a forest, interrupted at times by bouldered glacial erratics and ridged eskers, between which ran a clear, cold stream where beavers had once taken up residency, damning a small waterfall and creating a wide, muddy pool. The swimmin’ hole David liked to say. Groves of sugar maples and american beech gave way to a rockier terrain of hemlock, bane of ancient wisdom, whose decomposing needles swirled in mountains of foamy ecru along the banks of the stream.

The sheep were still in the road. So much for homesteading. In the winters, snow and ice blanketed the land, echoes of the glaciers that once lay miles thick above. They were gone, the cold remained. Snowplows, attempting to stave off ice formation, saturated the asphalt with crystals of salt. Farmers knew to herd their livestock quickly across the roadways. If they discovered this great river of black streaked with yellow and white was a lickable surface of the salt they craved, they would stop at nothing to return to it. This was David’s dilemma.

Pulling himself up from the brown armchair, whose springs had broken years before, he navigated a path through piles of clothes, shoes, firewood, garbage bags, and books rising like cairns in the small living room. Brushing past stacks of untouched theologians, where the second edition of Raising Sheep the Modern Way mocked him smugly, he shouted to his children.

Sheep are in the road again! Rory heard the screen door slam against the green aluminum siding of the trailer as his father stumbled down the makeshift stairs towards the road. Sliding of the top bunk, he slipped Tevas on his socked feet and gingerly made his way down the hallway herd path between piles of accumulated junk hiding a carpet stained like overripe avocado. Hoarding had not become a household word, but Rory would remember picking his way along that faux wood-paneled trailer of detritus years later when, flipping through the channels, he came across a house tour that took him back to this moment. He assumed that his father behaved this way because they were poor – he could never resist an object on the side of the road that said “free” – but hadn’t they always been poor? When his mother lived with them, it hadn’t been like this.

Sorry, sorry Tom. I know, I know, but it’s the salt you know. I gotta fix the hole in that fence, getting right on it. Rory half-listened to his father as he lifted a flap on the broken skirting that partly lined the gap between the trailer and the ground. He half-filled an empty Maxwell House can with dogfood. If there was one thing the sheep liked more than the salt of the road, it was dogfood. Walking towards the road, he rattled the can. A shamanic rainstick. At its sound, three motley sheep lifted their heads, licked their lips, and scrambled back through a gap in the mesh fence David had hastily cobbled together.

Ok, sorry for the trouble, Tom, hope it won’t happen again. The subaru drove off and Rory dragged an old pallet to block the hole in the fence. David, sighing, went inside to nuke some tuna noodle casserole Rory had made the night before and drink one of the Bud Lights he hid from the kids in the cabinet above the fridge. The sheep were restless, having finished the dogfood, wanting more. They trudged in a tight circle around the trailer, shitting as they walked under grey skies. Over time, their excrement had formed a moat around the trailer. A bleating siege of the beleaguered trailer followed each sojourn to the salty road and dogfood rattle. Soon, Rory would add another layer of pallets to the walk from the front door, above those now sinking into mud and excrement. He did not wonder why that task would fall to him. That is how it was. Tonight he would make grilled cheese for dinner. He listened to the wind, watching the new buds sway on the birch trees, bark stripped bare by deer and sheep over the winter. There were still Kraft singles left over from the missionary lunch at church, and Wonder Bread bought just past expiration. He wondered if his father had remembered to get the tub of Country Crock. Could they use oil instead? Friday they would go to his mother’s. Jean’s parents had rented a small house for her in town, just off Main Street next to the railroad tracks. At their last visit, she said she was going to make baked ziti while she and Rory had laid warm mulch smelling of cocoa around freshly-planted impatiens. This mulch costs more, but I like the smell. The house was small and rattled when the trains passed, and there was no yard to speak of. But it, too, was warm and smelled like cocoa. And Yankee Candle vanilla, which does not really smell like vanilla.

Rory walked through the gathering darkness towards the trailer. The sheep bleated as the sun retreated towards the west and wood smoke began to drift down from the chimney pipe. He did not hate it here, though it was hard. One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it. Someday he would live differently, but here, now, he would enjoy the wind and the smoke and the big dipper glowing steadily in an inkblue sky.

In the motel room at the banks of the St. Lawrence, at the edge of the country, at the precipice of tragedy and transition, Rory could not see the sky. Even if the curtains were not drawn tightly shut, which they were, the windows faced a parking lot where Super 8 - Free Breakfast - Monthly Lets blocked the November sky. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and Rory should have been in school. They all should have been. Steps shuffled outside the door, followed by three short knocks, a pause, three long knocks, and another pause. Rory got up from the bed where he was reading and stepped over his brother and sister, who were crayoning monsters and hearts in their notebooks on the floor.

He stood on his tiptoes to slide the chain out of the latch and heard his mother fumbling for the keycard in her purse.

I said wait to the count of 10, THEN open the door. She whispered this against the door, still searching for her card. She found it, and cracked the door open, sliding along the wall and furtively glancing outside before closing it behind her. She wore a visor usually used when canoeing, and hoped that her sunglasses did not make her conspicuous. She didn’t know what she would do if she was spotted. Her picture was on the news. Next time she would send one of the children to the store, thank god privacy laws didn’t allow the local network to publish their pictures. She just needed more time, gather evidence, prove once and for all what a fucking cunt liar her husband was. Hitting the boys, she had seen the bruises, how dare he. But the final straw. Abusing their daughter. For fucks sake, their own daughter. She was only eight years old. But she knew, she knew it had been going on for years. Years. No one would fucking believe her. But she knew. That’s why she had to take them. She wished to god she had planned it better. Gotten the evidence. But how could she let that keep happening? That god damn social worker. He must be fucking her. Bet she likes that, the kids in the next room. Afternoon fuck. And shit fuck child protective services. Who the fuck were they protecting? Had he paid someone off to get them taken out of the safe house? SAFE HOUSE? They were supposed to be fuckin’ safe. The kids liked it there. They could watch tv, and they played with Janet’s two boys while she and Janet talked in the kitchen, a bag of peas pressed against Janet’s eye to stop the swelling. Jean remembered what that was like. He couldn’t fucking get away with it anymore. But that woman. That fucking woman. Coming to the safe house, telling the kids they were going home in the morning, just when they were getting used to the place after the first week. They were terrified. Couldn’t she fucking see that? They needed more rooms available, was that it? More beat-up women running from their fucked up husbands? So her kids would get thrown out? Back to their abusive father? You don’t want that kids, do you, you are terrified of going back there? Tell her, show her where he touched you. Isn’t that what they say? Show her your bruises, here, see this? Don’t tell me I’m hurting my kids you cunt, you fucking whore. And don’t tell me to calm down, Janet, don’t tell me to fucking calm down. You left, you left. That’s exactly what I’m doing. Fine, we’ll see you in the morning. Nine am sharp you fucking cunt. That’s why . . . that’s why I had, why I had to, why I had to leave. They know that, the kids know that. They’re better off here. Entenmann’s danish in the morning, cheese, apple, plain. The kids love it, they really do. This room is starting to smell. We’ll be okay. We’ll wait it out. We’ll wait, then we’ll go. Across the river, like the underground railroad Rory said. Yes, honey, just like the underground railroad. Feel the moss on the trees and know we’re heading north. Then just get across the river. It’ll freeze. It always freezes. And then just drive, just drive right across. People do it, right? People do it all the time.

Did you get the books from the library? Jean emptied her bag, books and pens, cheerios and lipstick, spilled onto the polyester bedspread.

I can’t go back to the library again for a little while, honey. So this book, it’s about Indians, right, it’s long enough, isn’t it? Rory inspected the book. Six hundred and sixty two pages. A woman with waist-length flowing blonde hair clutched a spear beside a bearded man clad in fur, surveying wooly mammoths marching before a distant shelf of ice. The last entry Rory had in his history notebook, three weeks before, was on the Iroquois confederacy. It would have to do. I don’t want you to fall behind.

Rory stretched out on the double bed. He hated sharing it with his brother. He hated more that he would definitely fall behind. In Ms. Shaver and Ms. Ward’s “alternative program,” seventh and eighth graders took all their subjects together. Everyone was mixed, so it was easy to tell the smart kids and the dumb kids. And there were dumb kids, but they weren’t supposed to call them that. They were special. Rory figured that they chose all the smartest kids in the sixth grade and put them with all the dumbest kids. The ones that needed Ms. Flores to sit with them at lunch and wipe the ranch dressing off their mouth when they stuck their face in the lunch tray. But that was only Sharon. The rest were just, well, dumb. Ms. Shaver would hold both her hands to the sky, her wrists wrapped in hemp bracelets and henna tattoos reaching to her hairy armpits, and remind them all are special when we come together. She taught English and History, where they studied native americans most of the time, or watched Pocahontas. In the next room, separated by an accordion screen, Ms. Ward rolled her eyes during the science lesson in a thirteenth answer to whether she had heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon. But Rory always brought his cafeteria tray to the classroom to eat, and they were always sitting at one of the many round tables and laughing together, so Rory figured they must be friends. Ms. Shaver wouldn’t mind him missing so much school, but Ms. Ward would definitely be angry. He didn’t know what he was going to say. He’d have to be one of the dumb kids now. He took out his notebook.

Title: The Mammoth Hunters

Author: Jean M. Auel

Main characters: Ayla, Jondalar, Ranec

Summary: Not about native americans. Descriptions of animals, and plants, and

About halfway through the book, Rory stopped taking notes. Lying on his stomach on the bed, the book open in front of him, Jean talking to herself in the corner and writing on her hand while his brother and sister played on the floor, Rory felt his pants press tighter against the sheen of the acrylic bedspread. His warm mouth . . . a flush of heat throbbing in his loins . . . his manhood . . . she pushed herself up to him, wanting, and shuddered when he answered with a deep pull . . . his manhood . . . He drew back and plunged deeply . . . He drove in again, and again, with unrestrained abandon . . .

Dinner! Jean opened two bags of potato chips. When Rory rolled over, his pants were wet, staining the bedspread. I’m not hungry. He wasn’t. You have to eat something. What had happened? Later. He didn’t care about the girl Ayla. He wanted to take her place. To be held like that. And his body felt achy thinking about it. Did he pee? He wasn’t scared, like the time he peed in his dark bed when he heard something scratching at the edge of the trailer. He sat on the bed, his butt hiding the stain and holding the large tome carefully over his lap. He would wait until it dried. Just let me finish this chapter.

The next morning, housekeeping was able to clean the room. Did you hear? The police had to break down the door. Sirens and handcuffs. This place is filthy. I mean, look at the stains on this bedspread. Jesus. At least those kids are back home.

Jean screamed as she was handcuffed and put in a squad car. All Rory noticed was the nightsticks swinging at the officer’s sides. And the bulge behind the zipper of the one who took his hand and led him out in the glow of the Super 8.

He stood outside the door. Between two fake palms, a poster of shirtless men advertised a party. His bag was at his feet and in the moleskin held open to passersby he had written a message. Men walked by, men he had seen before. They looked at the notebook and then turned away. They opened the glass door painted black and disappeared inside.

Clouds sat low in the grey Parisian sky, the fake palms reaching toward the sun beyond and two men came out to smoke. Grey men in a grey street under a grey sky. At first they did not speak. One glanced over and read the message in the notebook: carte bancaire marche pas – aides-moi avec les frais d'entrée? The man lit a second cigarette and looked away.

“Puis-je te demander quelque chose?” asked the notebook holder.

“You do not speak French well.”

The French, Brodie thought. Only the French speak French well.

“I am sorry, I am not from here.”

“Where are you from?”

“New York.”

“We love New York. I was there last month.”

“It is a great city,” Brodie lied, “I am visiting Paris, but my bank card is not working.”

“I am sorry, I cannot help.”

“I just need 10 euros to enter.”

“Listen, I am a consultant for a bank. There are ways to fix that. There are limits – daily limits, withdrawal limits. Change your limit if you have money in your account. Call your bank, they will sort it out.”

Brodie lied again, “I did, but it is Saturday and my bank is closed.”

“I am sorry, I do not have extra money.”

“Pas grave, merci. J’attendrai un ami.”

“Maybe we will see you inside.”

The men finished their cigarettes uncomfortably and returned through the black door.

Though it was not raining, Brodie felt wet. The paving stones were black with the morning rain, the white Haussmann boulevards washed grey in November light. In his bag, tucked on the inside pocket of the one jacket he owned, was stowed the passport he could not show to reserve a bed in a hostel even if he had money. But he had spent his money.

The next day, his train would leave for Barcelona. Behind the black glass door, the sauna was open until 6am. He had been to gay saunas before. No one asked questions. You pay at the desk. The attendant pushes a towel and key on a velcro bracelet with a pouch holding two condoms. In front of a locker, you take off all of your clothes and wrap the thin towel around your waist. The rest of your life is stowed in the locker. You lock it and velcro the key and condom bracelet around your wrist, or your ankle.

Brodie could stay there all night to wait for his train but he had spent the last of his money on the ticket. It was less expensive, moins cher, said the clerk, to go tomorrow. Fine, he said, counting out the euro bills and coins. The clerk watched him, asking for his name. Brodie gave the name Thomas Anderson and made up a birthday, pretending that his nervous pause in recalling it was due to the inversion of month and day between Europe and America. The clerk looked back at his screen and entered the information. He placed the ticket in an envelope and handed the ticket to Brodie. Bonne journée.

On the grey street outside the sauna, men continued to pass Brodie and enter the sauna. In the gay app open on his phone, their faces soon appeared one meter, four meters, eight meters away. The faces taunted him. It seemed futile to ask like this. It made the men uncomfortable. He picked up his bag and walked towards the metro.

Turning the page in his moleskin, he wrote a new message. Ma carte bancaire ne fonctionne pas. Il me faut seulement 2 euros pour retourne chez moi. He positioned himself with his bag and open notebook between the escalators to the metro in Les Halles where Parisians and tourists, in a steady stream, parted to descend. Most looked at the notebook. Most turned away. A woman with two children reached into her pocket and pulled out a euro. As she passed, she pressed it into Brodie’s open palm. She did not say anything but clutched the small hand of her brown-haired son tighter as she looked away and stepped onto the escalator. A student stepped out of the line behind Brodie and tapped his shoulder. When he turned, she whispered bon chance, gud lucke, and held out two euros in her gloved hand. Brodie nodded and took it. Merci. She stepped onto the escalator.

To maintain the pretense, Brodie closed his notebook and descended. Once the girl had gone. He opened his notebook at the base of the escalators. A man fished in his pocket and handed him two metro tickets. Notebook closed, walk slowly towards metro with bag. When the man was far enough ahead, Brodie turned and ascended the escalators and opened his notebook again.

In thirty minutes, riding up and down the escalators, opening and reopening his book, he had eight metro tickets and nineteen euros. He thought it was damn lucrative and was impressed at his ingenuity in asking for only a little. Others had done this for centuries before, but in this moment Brodie felt inspired, and admired his novelty.

“Je peux aider. Viens avec moi chez le distributeur.”

Brodie looked up from his small reverie. A latin man of twenty something motioned for him to leave his station at the top of the escalator.

“Non, non, désolé. Merci, merci.”

“Distributeur,” the man repeated. “Je peux aider.”

Brodie stared blankly at him. He is offering drugs?

“Parles pas français.”

“Oh, you spick Englesh? Where you frem?”

“New York.”

“I have bin, I have bin. I am in French foreign legion. I am Portugaul. I take you to . . . how you say . . . ATM. Give money. Yes?”

“Ohhh, yes, okay, if you are sure.”

“I want help. We find ATM.”

Brodie followed him. It was a good omen of the Iberian. He was glad now to have chosen to go to Spain. The man found an ATM and withdrew twenty euros.

“I have no change.”

“It is gift. Gooda luck.”

He stepped back into the grey stream coursing down the boulevard and was gone. Brodie placed the euros in his pocket. Thirty nine and some change in forty minutes. Not bad. He felt no guilt in deception. Maybe he once would have, now he did not. He felt he had been wronged. In exchange, he could wrong. In some way, the Portuguese man had wronged him once before. Or someone like him. Brodie had given much. Now, he was justified to take.

He returned to the door between the fake palms. Inside, gay club music pulsed and the lights were low shades of orange, rose, and umber. Neon blue surrounded the desk where Brodie placed the Portuguese man’s euros. With his towel and velcro bracelet, he walked to the locker and stripped.

If there had been one specific moment that changed the course of his life, it might have made more sense. Instead, as with the hewing of the mountain from tens of thousands of tiny droplets, Rory had been cut into a shape at once beautiful and grotesque. It began, as these stories seldom do, with a scene from a book in a Native American longhouse. Or perhaps it began during one of his parents’ fights, the first time he heard the word fag. More likely, it began when a girl – well-meaning bipolar schizophrenic – sang a psalm in the woods with a boy – whose hidden rage was rooted deep – at a christian camp in the Catskills.

Time’s up! These are army showers – not much hot water! Out, out! The man, bellowing along the makeshift wooden row of shower stalls, could have been in the army. Rory watched as his shadow passed outside the gap below the door and over his own bare feet, drops of cold water earnestly clinging as he coaxed the thin towel to dry himself. The shadow paused with a guttural chortle Second warning, don’t make me come in! and then moved on. Slipping into a pair of neon green swimtrunks and flipflops squishy with soapy water, Rory unlatched the hook and eyelatch that loosely held the door shut. He brushed past camp counselor Tim, glancing up at the black man’s coarse hair and stern but smiling eyes. Get going then! Rory managed a meagre smile and made his way toward the group of tents clustered at the end of the field.

Every year, the family returned to that camp where their mother and father had met in the early eighties. Since then, spaceships and nuclear plants had exploded, a wall in Europe had fallen, computers connected the world, and sinful men in iniquitous cities were judged by a plague from God. Rory knew little of any of these happenings. Theirs was a community intentionally shielded from the world, called out to be separate. Little in the twentieth century, in the nineteenth or even the eighteenth, had done much to change this stance, and these devout hoped to continue the traditions their Scottish forebears began in the seventeenth century well beyond the twenty-first. Like the little city of tents perched at the edge of a green field just a few miles from Woodstock, they would band together for christ’s crown and covenant to resist the world’s temptations.

Rory unzipped the tent, the smell of warm nylon and flannel greeting him as he quietly took a tin bowl from beside his straightened pillow. His brother murmured in his sleep while his sister scrunched deeper into the womb of her sleeping bag. He would pick blueberries before they awoke. They could eat them together with the oatmeal cooked over the small camp stove before the day’s activities of bible lessons, skit-making, and paper-plate with pipe-cleaner crafts began. Yes, Rory thought, the berries will be good.

He liked to wake up early, before the noise of siblings and parents vanquished the sounds of birds and wind. Large trees surrounded their house at home, beside cornfields and cowpastures, and in the mornings the wind made its sounds and brought its smells – trembling of poplar leaves, rustling of corn husks, onomatopoeic chickadees, and a musky underlay of manure. He always slept with his window open – even in winter, if only slightly – and the sun woke him.

It was the early mornings he liked best. In the nights, when the children were thought to be asleep, his parents began their ritualistic arguments. What the fuck, David? Jean, stop swearing and just calm down. I will swear if I goddamn want to. You are always spending money on these fucking lowlifes that you find. Never on us, and with me so goddamn sick. Who is this new one – this Chucky? What kind of fucking name is that? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a fag – that’s right – a fag. Jean, would you knock it off? Knock it off, fucking knock it off? What you want me to leave so you can fuck your new fag boyfriend Chucky? Jean, I don’t know how to even respond when you are like this. You know what David? You make me sick, you make me fuckin’ – I don’t want him in the house, I bet he would like to get his hands on our boys – they’re all like that, those fags, perverts, touching little boys and giving them disease. I bet you’d like to see that! Jean, I am warning you . . . Yeah, you, you and your boyfriend Chucky would like to touch, I bet you would not even stop with the boys – if you do something to our little girl – Jean I said shut your –

The fights always ended the same way. A loud thud, Jean falling back cowering, spitting in rage. David turning away, angry and ashamed. Most nights he slept in his study, a room in the basement with one small window in a well full of moldy leaves. The shelves were lined with the Westminster Catechism, the complete works of John Knox, the collected sermons of . . . . biographies of Calvin. The tomes were leather with gilt writing, faded over years of handling, though not by him. They had belonged to Jean’s cousins, but they imbued a sense of history and honor in the dark basement room of a rural pastor. It was here he wrote his sermons, usually something about grace, about righteousness, an attempt perhaps to soften the rigidity of his congregation. Or to atone for his own anger, anger at the woman he had chosen as a wife, anger at the life he now lead but had never desired, anger at his drunken father for beating his own mother and thrusting them all into the arms of a church to which they never really felt they belonged.

North of the mountains of New York State, beyond the city, the Catskills, and the Adirondacks, he preached his sermons in a white clapboard church to about thirty adults and countless children. In the midst of hayfields, pickups, tractors and vans parked weekly on the muddy ground around the church. High-heeled women Sunday-dressed climbed down into the rutted earth and made their way slowly to the wooden doors. Their husbands gathered outside, remarking on milk and meal prices, as their children raced and scrambled around the white church. Inside, mothers suckled new babies in the nursery as the congregation assembled. David sat behind the pulpit, beneath a blue and gilt banner, the only adornment in the room. At eleven precisely, he welcomed with a prayer, and Jean rose to lead the singing, her shaky soprano and sure hand beating the rhythm of the psalm. No instruments, voices only singing words written by a shepherd boy thousands of years before.

Rory ate a handful of cheerios. Jean poured them from a ziploc bag to keep her children occupied. Still, at times during the long sermon one or another squawking child or squalling baby had to be taken out and spanked. An obedience silence was demanded, a stoicism not unlike the Scots who refused allegiance to the king and signed a covenant to God. They were the inheritance of the people of Israel. The Jews had killed Jesus. The Catholics given into sin. The rest of the churches worshipped the idols of emotion or ecumenicism. Only they, in the mud-rutted fields of a new continent, were the chosen people of their god.

Not all, though, could counted among the righteous. Ladies with faux-pearl earrings cast wary glances at each other. Who was truly chosen, a part of the elect? What sins in their congregation must be laid bare to reveal the righteous? Sideways looks landed often on Jean. She had a temper, they knew it. Poor David, being burdened with such a wife. Still, it was his cross to bear. But the children, they were to be pitied the most. What went on in the parsonage, they wondered. What did that woman do to them? They didn’t look properly bathed this week. Is Rory scratching his head? The woman in the pew behind them pulled her own son closer to her breast, fearing some infection.

Another week, another night, another argument, another thud. Wake up, Rory, fucking wake up. Jean hissed in the dark I have your sister, get your brother. We are leaving. She continued her hissing whisper, upper lip quivering, inner monologue surfacing. This is the last time. And if he thinks he can bring another slutty fag into my house he has got another thing coming . . .

Mother and children crept down the wooden staircase. Rory was terrified. His younger brother, unsure if this was adventure or nightmare, followed excitedly. The front door strained on its hinge, the rusted hydraulic shrieking into Jean’s mind as she slowly pushed it open. The sun had not entirely disappeared when they reached the cornfield. A dim light came from David’s basement window and Jean sighed relief. Now she ran ahead, clutching her daughter tightly. Rory and his brother struggled after her, feet sticking in the warm furrows of mud between the corn, grown higher than expected in mid July. The summer moon stood sentry in a dim blue sky, streaked red by the setting sun. A drooping leaf of a corn stalk brushed by his brown-eyed face, coarse edge grazing pink cheek.

Mommy, don’t go fast he whispered, as he grasped the arm of his blue-eyed brother whose tiny feet struggled in the mud. She continued ahead, resolute and unhearing. My shoe’s stucked, his little brother whined. Rory turned his eyes imploringly to the back of his mother’s skirt, then dropped to his knees beside his brother, a bare foot slipped from a loosely velcroed shoe, which sunk deeper into the mud. Forget the fuckin’ shoe his mother wheezed.

They ran deeper into the field. At the opposite edge was Alice’s farmhouse, where she lived with her brother. The farm had been inherited – neither had married, so they dutifully occupied the place of their parents, the farm, the house, and the third pew on the left side of the white clapboard church. Jean told stories about Alice that the children loved to hear. That she had been a spy during the war, that she had faked a marriage to a Japanese man to steal state secrets, that she still hid top secret files in the root cellar of her old farmhouse, that she may have been a double agent and is now in hiding. His brother believed every word – Rory knew not to trust everything his mother said.

A yellow fluorescence bathed the front porch of the grey shingled house. Rory loved this house. Like all houses he knew, spartan, but this one cleaner than most. No children. Alice kept an orange tree in the front parlour, which blossomed in the winter from which she harvested small, bitter oranges. Now, as every summer, it was relocated to the front porch so it might enjoy what sun there was. Whether or not the stories of Alice were true, the orange tree was exotic. It does not belong here Rory often thought. But somehow it still grows. He was in awe of it and when Alice would babysit, as she often did when Jean had an episode or went to the hospital, Rory would sit in front of it, allowing himself to softly finger the silky, creased leaves that lay open like a book.

Jean and her children spilled out of the cornfield and onto the drive. The motion triggered the cold, white light above the barn doors, and Alice emerged on the porch, wiping her hands on a gingham apron and peering apprehensively into the settling darkness.

Jean, what in heaven’s­­ – Alice, Alice listen, I have the children here, I’m leaving, I’m leaving him Alice. I can’t do it – listen to – hear him one more – he hit, hit me and god knows what – the children, what he may –

Jean, Jean listen, try and be calm and breathe. Why don’t you sit for a spell here on the porch, Don will be back from milking in the barn in a few moments and we can talk this all . . .

Fuck, Alice, fuck, I can’t be fuckin’ calm and he, he is –

Jean, for heaven’s sake, the childr –

I’m sorry, god will forgive me Alice, he will, I just, I just need you to let us stay here for the night until I can figure out what – he will find us, he will take us back – but we can hide here, you can say we weren’t here, I know, he will come and if he doesn’t find us –

I cannot lie, Jean, I think it best if –

No, goddamn it, no! She grabbed Rory by his wrist and dragged him onto the porch. We have to hide, now.

Pushing past Alice and grabbing the screen door, she pushed Rory into the kitchen. It smelled of fresh tomatoes, their stalks woody and their skin tight, warm bread baking in the oven, and the pine soap that Alice used to clean the hardwood floors. Rory thought the world could not be so bad filled with such smells.

His mother pushed aside the braided rug in the center of the kitchen floor. Beneath it was the door to the root cellar, a door as old as the wide maple floor boards, an iron ring inset to pull it up and open. It had always seemed to Rory like the portal to a great galley, beneath which sailors sat rowing in calm weather and clutching their swaying hammocks amidst storms. When Alice had opened it once he was disappointed to discover a small cellar, where drying herbs hung from the floorbeams above and Alice’s pickles, jams, and empty jars lined the walls above wooden bins for a winter’s provision of potatoes and beets.

Get down hissed Jean to the children. Rory climbed the short ladder to the earthen floor and waited for his brother to join him. Alice was aghast.

Is this really necessar –

Please, Alice, please! For the love of God! Jean said as she climbed down the ladder. Outside, the crunch of gravel sounded a vehicle coming up the driveway, a white caravan, the moon illuminating the plastic wood trimming the sides. Its lights bobbed and flashed as it drove quickly over the potholes in the drive toward Alice’s house, its headlights catching the crazed whites of Jean’s eyes as she pulled the door to the cellar shut.

When we were happy, my family and I went camping. Quiet mountains rose from lakes cut only by ripples of trout, bass, perch. Red coolers with white lids piled in the back of a white caravan, plastic wood trimmed the sides. Canoes were strapped to the roof and the sliding door pulled shut.

I sip a dry martini. It sweats down the rim as the Montenegran bartender pours the last icy drops into the glass. Perfect, he says. I almost believe him. I look back down to my copy of the New Yorker. I used to like reading the Talk of the Town with its small humour. Not now.

Caroline glances from her iPad. Hitting play on her fourth episode of Game of Thrones, she pretends no one notices. Her noise-cancelling headphones are in. They are large. She has a glass of pinot and the orecchiette, a regular.

It's four in the afternoon. Sun warms the pavement outside the bar, filtered through parchment leaves of London Planes. Thank you, I tell Nick. He nods his head, wiping a towel against the glass in his hand. We perish each alone.

The students had sat in silence. You. Are. Disgusting. I hope your father hates you, he said. he fuck-ass hates you. I glanced across the room at my co-teacher, Drew. Drunk, I had tried to kiss him the night before. The corner of his lips lingered on mine for a moment before he turned away, his shadow of scruff grazing my cheek. It had happened before as drinks after work turned into long, incestuous nights of talk and teasing. Drew's head was down now, staring icily at the clipboard in his hand while the student continued . . . I hate dumb-ass gay cock-suckas. You Can Not. Tell. Me. What. To. Do. You hear me fag? Do you hear what I am telling you, you sick, disgusting, cock-suckin' faggot? Do you hear me?

He leaned in closer to my face. I bet you, you fuckin' want my dick, don't you faggot. Don't, don't you look at Drew, what? He yo faggot cock-suckin' friend? You wanna suck his cock too? Pervert. Dick-ass pervert. Father-hates-you-dick-ass pervert.

He continued until a grey-badged security guard appeared at the door, radio squawking. A passing student had gone to the principal, telling her that Luis was goin' black on Rory, who then radioed for security to meet at the classroom. Agent Shirley, dredl-shaped and three hundred pounds, met her at the door.

...fuckin' dick-head cock-suckin'. Fuck no, Imma not leavin' this room. You goin' have to fucking Pull. Me. Out. These teachers have their faggot mouths so far down my fucking cock I'm 'bout to explode. Nah, nah, stop, stop having them leave. They know, these niggas know, they know what I am talking about. What you doin'? Fuck ya'll niggas! They tell you to move an you move? . . . ok, ok, you serious. I'm goin', see, I'm gone. These lame-ass niggas can go on back to their faggot teachers. Learn cock-suckin' from pros, bitches. Get you fuckin' nigga hands off me, bitch.

I take another sip. The lemon twist spins in the glass. I set it back on the paper coaster. I set him off. I'm sure of it. One re-direction too many, one wrong look in his direction, before or after glances at Drew. They say memories sit on the neural pathways of our brains. Synapses form, memories take shape. New stimuli finds its way onto some existing path, bushwackers stumbling across deer paths in a vast forest. I had somehow disturbed one of his trauma-rutted paths. He responded the way he knew how. It was not, in most respects, his fault.

I feel the corners of my eyes moisten. I do not want to cry in this bar. I would cry for Luis, sure. He was pitiable. But I never cry for the students. Never. These tears were not for him. They were for the silence of my father. In his rage, Luis stumbled onto one of my pathways, one I had hedged in behind and before, one I had feared to tread.

We had often taken that path to the lake. Six cars sat in the dirt carpark, the brown earth pressed firm. A cerulean sky opened above and a wind passed through the treetops, brushing past maples, beeches, and glittering aspen on its way ahead of us to the lake. I slid the rusted door of the caravan open as Ben, an auburn-coated golden retriever, bounded out and into the woods. Ben my father commanded get back here. Obediently, he dug his front paws firmly into the ground as the force of his tail spun him round and he raced back to the carpark. The path to the lake struck off to the right, rutted with puddles and treeroots. Ben scampered ahead as father, mother, sister, brother disappeared down the path behind him.