Paul Clayton - Crossing Over

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said, damn it. Without us to protect her, how long do you think she’d last in this new… situation? Look, I’m sorry, but this is the way it is.”

Marie turned away from him, saying nothing.

Mike woke at dawn. He got out of the sleeping rack and put his coat on. Marie raised her head to look at him.

“I’m going to see if I can find somebody to take me to the barn store,” he said. “I want to hunt for something to make a stove out of.”

Marie lay her head back down. “Do what you want. I don’t care.”

Mike left, stung by her reply. At the barn hardware, he saw a table heaped high with flexible metal tubing. Nearby were packaged rolls of heat-resistant tape. The thought came to him again and he mentally slapped it away, muttering aloud, “No, don’t go there.”

Mike and Marie continued to drift further apart. The days grew short and the weather alternated between snow and freezing rain. Despite his angry estrangement from Marie, he worried about her and Elly even more. They both had been taken over by the cold and were miserable, coughing frequently. Rumors came through the encampment about distant battles and international intrigue over the border and the refugee situation. Mike busied himself a couple hours a day going further and further into the woods to gather branches for firewood. He managed to fashion a crude stove, but despite his best efforts, it leaked smoke into the camper and they could only run it for twenty minutes or so before it began to bother them.

Mike and Marie spoke about mundane matters, but she still seemed to harbor resentment toward him. He couldn’t help dwelling on it, forever wondering if there was anything he could do to bring her out of it. Short of getting them all safely across the border and into a more livable situation, he couldn’t come up with anything. If he could heat the camper, however, it would alleviate Marie’s and Elly’s discomfort. But there was no propane to be had anywhere. Raza must have been right about the refineries having been blown up. Fortunately a gasoline truck came through the encampment on a weekly basis, selling gas by the gallon. He queued with the others with his red, plastic five-gallon can in hand.

Mike sat in the cab of the truck, the engine running, “to charge the batteries,” he’d tell Marie. But he enjoyed listening to the radio, and guiltily luxuriated in the heat. The big V-6 wasted a lot of heat. If only he could get the right materials, he might be able to capture it and route it into and through the camper. That would improve their lives greatly. But there was always the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning. Hardly a week went by without a report of someone in the encampment dying that way. Some said it was accidental, others suicide. But all seemed to agree—going unconscious and drifting off—it didn’t seem like such a bad way to go. They’d even coined a name for it—camper-cide.

Mike looked out at the trees and the other campers. He pounded his fist on the dash, cracking the vinyl padding. “God! Please. I fucking give up. I can’t fix this. Only you can!” Teeth clenched, face pinched, he felt like a child pleading to his father, on the verge of tears. The truck’s engine ticked steadily, the heater’s blower whirred monotonously. Slowly his anger and frustration subsided and he found himself feeling foolish and weak. What if Marie were to come out of the camper and see him like this, or Elly? He turned off the engine and walked out into the woods.

Late one afternoon Mike sat inside the camper, reading at the table. Marie lay up in their sleeping rack listening to music through her headphones. Elly had been reading one of her Disney books and now slept.

“Her cold isn’t getting any better,” Marie said out of the blue.

Mike looked up. She had taken her earphones off.

“I know,” he said, at a loss for anything further to say. He had no hope, nothing to offer her. They looked at each other and this time she didn’t look away. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Maybe we should just pull up stakes and hit the road,” he said, “throw the dice one more time. Go south, east, whatever, and see where we land.”

She shook her head as tears spilled down her face. “No. You know we can’t do that.” She sobbed softly. “What are we going to do, Honey?”

He climbed up beside her and held her. They pulled the quilt up over themselves and made love slowly. Afterward Marie slept. As he lay on his back and looked up at the ceiling, he again thought of his scheme. If he could just meter a tenth of the exhaust coming out of the Ford’s engine, into the camper, maybe that would be enough to warm it up and help Marie and Elly sleep. But if carbon monoxide got in, well, it would be the end of all worry and pain. In the anemic light of the camper, a part of him didn’t have a problem with that. He knew such thoughts were despicable, even evil, but they kept coming back.

Marie cried softly in the dimness of the camper. She’d had a dream, so real she’d broken out in tears when dawning consciousness tore her away. Most of the details faded quickly, but the warm house, a table set with good, hot food, and the absence of fear, lingered.

She turned her head. Mike had gone out. She heard a noise outside—someone nailing boards together. She raised her head to look down at Elly. She lay under a mound of blankets and coats, still sleeping, something she did a lot of now. Her beautiful, little girl, grown up, but still her little girl. A car drove slowly by outside, then the usual cold quiet settled back down. Marie couldn’t believe they were still stuck here. Mike had lost hope, it seemed. He kept moving, but he and they went nowhere. There had to be something they could do.

She sat up and pulled the covers off. “Elly, wake up!”

Elly stirred slightly, but said nothing.

“Elly,” Marie said sharply. “Get up.”

One of the coats slid off Elly and onto the floor of the camper as she sat up, blinking her eyes in the dim light. “What?” she said in annoyance.

“We’re going out.”

“Where?”

“We’ll go up to the used clothing lady, and then I want to go talk to Mister Raza about something.”

“Okay. Could we try and find some honey or sugar, and nuts too? Maybe we could make a cake like Carlene did.”

“Yeah. We’ll see. Get dressed. We’ll have something to eat when we get back.”

Later Marie and Elly wandered through the tables of dented and rusted canned goods, assorted chipped plates, cups, flatware, can openers, pots, pans, moldy paperbacks, CDs. Occasionally they ducked under clotheslines hung with shirts, pants, bras and socks. A block away the steel and glass of the Canadian Border Station took distinct, gleaming shape in the morning sunlight.

Marie turned to see where Elly had gone. It was time to go up and talk to Raza. About ten feet away, a young man had his back to her as he talked with an older woman who held out a folded-up coat to him. There was something familiar about his build and bearing. He turned slightly, not seeing her, and there was no doubt in her mind.

Marie felt someone tugging her arm. It was Elly.

“Mom, it’s him!”

Mike walked back through the encampment with a sack full of things he’d gotten at the barn hardware—heat-resistant tape, copper tubing, an antique soldering iron. He’d hitched a ride over and back. He was at the end of his rope. They were down to less than three hundred dollars and with the increasing food and fuel prices that would only last them another week or two. Then what? What would happen to Marie and Elly if someone shot him like they did the man four spots down the line the other night? What would happen to him and Marie if Elly’s cough got into her lungs? Marie wouldn’t survive it. And what would happen to Elly if they were no longer around to take care of and protect her? He had thought of nothing else for weeks. The weight of the tubing and material in his sack gave him some comfort. He still had agency.