Deer Paths of Memory

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.