Matthew Stokoe - Empty Mile

I put the disk back in its place on the bookshelf and turned off the TV. Marla and I left the cabin immediately. We drove to my house without saying anything to each other beyond a breathed “Jesus Christ…” or the occasional, disbelieving “Fuuuuck”- each of us silenced by the dreadful weight of the knowledge we had just acquired.

The kitchen had trapped the warmth of the afternoon and when we got back I opened the windows and the back door and poured cold soda into glasses and we sat at the table and stared out at the green-gold blur of the garden.

When Marla spoke her voice was flat and final. “It was our fault she killed herself.”

“You don’t kill yourself just because you see a video of your husband watching people have sex.”

“But it obviously pushed her over the edge. If I had said no she’d still be alive.”

“She might not be.”

“I shouldn’t have done it.”

“There were two of us there, it wasn’t just you.”

Marla shook her head sadly. “Yes, it was. You would have said yes to anything. And I knew it.”

“So it was a stupid thing to do, but we didn’t know it was going to be filmed. And we sure as hell didn’t know Patricia would ever see it. You can’t talk yourself into thinking we killed her. If anyone’s to blame it’s Bill.”

“You think he shot it?”

“Who else? He chose the place. He could have easily put the camera in a tree beforehand and started it with a remote. Value for money. He gets to watch us and he gets the movie too.”

“But to give it to Pat? He’s not that far gone.”

“Maybe she found it by accident.”

“He’d have to be a complete moron to leave something like that lying around.”

We were quiet for a while and I thought about Pat watching the video, lying there on her bed as her husband masturbated over two people squirming on the ground, waiting for the Halcion and the whiskey to take hold and end the dreadful knowledge of the distance that separated her from a man she must still have loved. And I thought about Bill too, of the sickening guilt he must have felt when he saw what she’d been watching.

And then it struck me. “Bill didn’t make the video. He thinks we did.”

“What?”

“That’s why he freaked out in front of the Black Cat. Not because he felt guilty about watching us screw, but because he thinks we set him up to be filmed. And he probably thinks we gave the disk to Pat as well.”

Marla groaned. “You are fucking kidding.”

“But if it wasn’t him, and we know it wasn’t us, then who was it?”

Marla looked blank and didn’t say anything.

“I’m thinking Gareth,” I said.

“Why?”

“He hates Bill because when they bought the cabins Bill told them a new road up to the lake was a done deal-”

“-And it never happened. Yeah, I’ve heard the story.”

“So he has a reason to want to hurt him. What I can’t figure out, though, is how he would have known where to put the camera. And when to start it. I mean, it was Bill who took us to that place.”

Marla was silent for a long time then she said, “You know what I’d like to do, Johnny? What I’d really, really like to do? I’d like to forget the whole thing in the forest ever happened.”

She got up then and said she was tired and was going upstairs to lie down for a while. When she’d gone I sat by myself on the kitchen step and stared out at the garden and thought about how changed Marla was. When I’d come back to Oakridge she had been older, of course. The loneliness and the life she’d suffered had taken its toll on her youth. But there had still been a spark to her, a feeling that she was still young, that life could begin again. Now, though, it seemed she had none of that left, that she was so worn down by living it was beyond her to even care about the truth behind the death of a woman she’d been friendly with.

Toward the end of the day Marla and I went out to Empty Mile to pick up Stan. The clear brightness of the sky had softened by then and the curving blades of the long grass in the meadow were burnished where the late sun touched them.

Stan and Rosie lay on their backs in the middle of the meadow staring up at the sky, holding hands. Rosie had made a ring of field daisies and Stan wore it on his head like a crown. I stood with Marla beside the pickup watching them for a moment, reluctant to intrude on their time together.

That afternoon, in contrast to the hell that life back in town seemed bent on becoming, this land with its trees, its birdsong, and its protecting rock wall gave the illusion of somewhere to escape to. And as I looked over it, reveling in its peace, it occurred to me that the answer to at least one of my problems was staring me in the face.

The cabin that came with the property had three bedrooms, a large central room that was both kitchen and living room, a rainwater tank, a septic system in the ground, and electricity. Water, power, shelter. Room enough for the three of us, easily. And best of all, the money we would otherwise have had to spend on rent could be ploughed back into Plantasaurus. It wouldn’t be enough to save the business from the impact of Jeremy Tripp’s rival company but it would keep Stan’s dream alive a little longer. And for Marla and me it was the right thing to do. Our relationship would not progress beyond the fragile reconnection we had so far established until we started living with each other again.

I raised the subject as the three of us drove back to Oakridge. Five days later Stan and I had sold the things we weren’t taking with us in a yard sale and moved into the cabin. Marla would join us the following week.

The first few days we were at the cabin I kept Stan as busy as I could. There was Plantasaurus to take care of during the day and in the evenings we had our cleaning, unpacking, and arranging of furniture to occupy us. Although he was withdrawn and quiet early on, by the end of the three days it took us to get the cabin into some sort of shape it seemed that he was coming to terms with his new surroundings, something that was helped enormously by the fact that he was now so close to Rosie.

Shortly before we’d left the house on Taylor Street two items had been delivered to it. One was a small gift basket with a card identifying it as having been sent by Rolf Kortekas, my father’s boss at the real estate office, expressing his regret at our “situation.” The other, by regular mail, was a business envelope addressed to my father. I’d opened it expecting a bill of some sort but had found instead a letter from a company called Minco Inc. in Burton.

Dear Mr. Richardson,

We note that you have not collected the samples you submitted on May 11 to this laboratory. We thank you for your payment, which was received May 30, and trust our analysis was satisfactory. However, it is not our policy to hold samples longer than ninety days and we would be obliged if you could collect them at your earliest convenience. Alternatively, we would be happy to deliver them to you for a small charge.

Kind regards,

Reginald Singh, Compositional Analyst Minco Inc.

I had no idea what samples Reginald Singh was referring to, or why my father might have submitted them to a “Compositional Analyst,” but once we’d finished settling into the cabin I felt the need to follow up on the letter. The pattern of life around me had become so complex that I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to unravel even the smallest part of it. So, on our fourth morning at Empty Mile I called the number on the letterhead and asked if I could collect the samples for my father. No problem as long as I brought some ID with me.