Christopher Conlon - Savaging the Dark

In any case, we’ll be long gone. I don’t know where. I get in the car, start the engine. Connor is silent, curled up horizontally in the back seat. I pull out of the driveway and head down the mountain road, the headlights ghostlike before us. I drive for what seems like a long time on a little paved road until finally I see lighted signs up ahead directing me to go left in order to get to the freeway. I do. I drive a long time again, finally see signs of life, street lights, fast-food restaurants, a sign telling me that the exit for Route 76 is a half-mile ahead. When I get there I take, for no particular reason, the fork that directs us west. The sun is coming up now, behind the car, shining long shadows before us. I drive.

In the rear view mirror I can see that Connor’s eyes are open, but he doesn’t move. He simply lies there curled up in a fetal position. After a while I realize that he’s put his thumb into his mouth and he’s sucking it.

I ask him to sit up as we approach a McDonald’s drive-thru, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t react. I end up pulling to the side of the road, reaching to the seat behind and physically propping him up. I don’t have to tell him to stay quiet. He’s not spoken in hours. His eyes are glassy. I pull up, order some breakfast sandwiches, get coffee for myself and orange juice for him, pay cash, pull away without incident. I take my own items and place the bag with Connor’s food behind me, between the seats.

“Connor? Here’s your breakfast. Have something to eat, sweetheart.”

I’m suddenly ravenous, virtually inhale the little muffin sandwich I’ve purchased for myself, slurp down the coffee with no sweetener or cream, scalding my mouth as I do it. I see in the rear view mirror that Connor has made no motion toward the bag, no motion of any kind.

“Honey? Your breakfast. You need to eat something.”

As we pull onto the freeway again I wince as I see a state trooper’s vehicle move up behind us. I slow, but not too much. I try not to act suspicious. Absurdly it crosses my mind that I could get in trouble for Connor not wearing his seat belt. After a minute or two the trooper pulls into the next lane, passes us.

I find myself growing concerned about the car we’re in, the fact that any attentive policeman who pulls up behind us need do no more than read the license number to end everything for us. A movie memory touches my mind and I say, “Hey Connor, remember in Psycho, when the lady switches cars? After she’s run away with the money, before she gets to the Bates Motel? Do you think we should do that? It might be safer.” He doesn’t respond. But then it occurs to me that any car dealer today is likely to give me much more trouble about the ownership of the vehicle than California Charlie gave Marion in Psycho. I have my i.d. and the car’s registration slip but not the title—that’s back home in a file drawer. No, I realize, it will never work. A woman with a virtually comatose young boy in tow trying to sell a car out of state without a title certificate? Anyway, the dealer would no doubt do some sort of routine check on the license number as soon as I said I wanted to sell the car. No. Completely out of the question.

I keep driving, staying to the interstate, speeding but only moderately, staying with most of the traffic. Driving too slow, after all, would be as conspicuous as driving too fast. Hours go by, we pass into Ohio. The traffic signs look slightly different but otherwise it’s the same, just a wide ribbon of road endlessly churning under the car.

At last Connor speaks. “Where are we?” he says.

“Hey,” I say chirpily, “you’re back, huh? With me again? We’re in Ohio, sweetheart. We passed a place called Wheeling a while back.”

“Where’s that?”

“Well, it’s in Ohio. Other than that I don’t know.”

I glance at him in the mirror. He’s looking out the side window now, eyes dull, face pale. My hope that he was returning to normal was premature. Connor looks bad, as if all color had been drained from his face by some sort of vampire. The apple glow is long gone, unimaginable on this sallow husk of a child. He doesn’t ask why we’re in Ohio or where we’re going. He just stares uninterestedly out at the passing landscape.

“Where’s Kylie?” he says at last.

I frown, look at him.

“She’s not with us now, Connor.”

After a while he says, “Oh.” He doesn’t speak again for hours.

We stop at another McDonald’s for food and a bathroom. Connor doesn’t want to get out of the car so I pull at him, force him up gently, encourage him. “C’mon, sweetheart, c’mon, time for a bathroom break.”

“I don’t want a bathroom break.”

“Well, I do. C’mon. I want you to go in and use the bathroom.”

He’s passive about it, allows himself to be supported by my arm. We step into the McDonald’s. I’m worried about leaving him alone in the men’s room—I wonder if he’ll come back out—when I see a Godsend: one of those so-called “family” restrooms. I hustle him into it, lock the door behind us. If anyone wonders why I’m in the bathroom with a boy this age I’ll tell them he’s a special-needs child—God knows he’s acting like one. There’s a toilet, a sink, a baby-changing station. He allows me to pull his pants down, aim him at the bowl: “C’mon, sweetheart, time to go pee.” He doesn’t, he just stands there. After a while his body starts to shake. I try to comfort him but his shaking only seems to grow worse. Finally I arrange his clothes again, then use the toilet myself; Connor stares at me the whole time but doesn’t seem to actually see me. I wash my hands, open the door for us to step out, lay on supportive mother-talk: “Okay, sweetheart? Feel better now? Are you ready to get some food? Are you hungry? What do you think you want, honey?” He says nothing. I hold him close. His skin is cold. I get us more food, keep up the talk as I move us to the car. This time I put him in the front seat. I buckle his seat belt for him and we pull quickly back out onto the freeway.

We drive, drive for hours. I play the radio for a while but then shut it off. Connor eats nothing, drinks nothing. I can’t tell if he’s shaking now. Still ravenous, I end up eating his Big Mac for him once it’s gone cold and gluey. I watch the road-ribbon unfurl, unfurl. The sun skates across the sky and soon it’s growing dark.

Somewhere near the Indiana border I pull off the interstate and drive for a while on some little access road until I come upon a nondescript little town, hardly anything at all. But there’s a motel, “Big Ben’s.” It’s like any little motel in the middle of nowhere, interchangeable with dozens of others Connor and I have stayed in, just as the McDonalds’ we’ve been stopping at are interchangeable, as the miles of freeway we’ve crossed are interchangeable. A large-bellied man is behind the counter—Big Ben, I assume—and I sign us in while Connor waits in the car. “You’re in luck,” says the man who is probably Big Ben. “I can give you our suite. No extra charge.”

I thank him, ask about food, he directs me to some vending machines outside the office, I push in change and pull handles to get us cookies, candy bars, potato chips, sodas. I pull the car around to the side of the building, nearer the room Big Ben has given us, but also farther from the road. I back into the space so that no one from the street can see the car’s license plate. I guide Connor into the room. It’s like guiding a blind boy. Part of me wants to slip sunglasses over his blank, wide-staring eyes.

The “suite” turns out to be two somewhat rundown rooms with two beds—a queen-sized in the main room and a narrow double in the smaller side room. There’s a TV with, as the sign outside proudly proclaims, “Free Cable!” The rooms smell vaguely moldy. But the bathroom is clean enough, and includes a small tub. After I’m done investigating I return to the main room and find Connor sitting on the big bed, unresponsive. I feel his forehead. He’s frighteningly cold. It occurs to me that he’s in shock, some kind of shock, has been for many hours now. I try to remember my first aid training.