Marisha Pessl - Night Film

He stubbed the cigarette out on the coffee table and tossed it on top of the other butts, sitting back against the couch.

“Ashley didn’t say anything to anyone for ten weeks ?” I asked.

“Well, she did. But nothing more than the bare bones of conversation. Everyone broke down at some point, had their fifteen-minute Shawshank Redemption where they howled at the sky. The hiking, the counselors, voyeuristic fucks, they made you dredge up all this shit from your past. Everyone broke. Half of it was real and half of it was to get them off your back. Everyone took their Oscar-nominated turn, howling about parents, how all they wanted was to be loved. Except Ashley. She never cried, never complained. Not once. ”

“Did she ever mention her family?”

“No.”

“What about her father?”

“Nothing. She was like the Sphinx. That’s what we called her.”

“So that was it ?” I asked.

He shook his head, clearing his throat. “Three weeks into the hike, Orlando, the fat Asian kid, was a mess. He was so sunburned he had blisters all over his face, which the counselors dealt with by handing him a bottle of calamine lotion. Crusty pink shit all over his face, crying all the time, he looked like a leper. So one night Joshua slips him one of the pills of X, a gift, you know, to lift his spirits. He must have taken it when we started out the next morning, because at nine A.M. suddenly Orlando was out of his goddamn mind, hugging people, telling them they were beautiful, eyes dilated, shuffling his feet like he was John Travolta in a twist contest. At one point we lost him, had to backtrack, and found him twirling around a field, smiling at the sky. Hawk Feather, the head counselor, went apeshit.”

“Hawk Feather?” I repeated.

He smirked. “The counselors insisted we address each other with Native American tribe names even though most of us were white, fat, and about as of the earth as a Big Mac. Hawk Feather, one a’ these tightly wound Christian assholes, he hauled Orlando away, demanding to know what he was on and where he got the drugs. Orlando was so ripped all he did was laugh and say, ‘It’s just a little Tylenol,’ over and over. ‘It’s just Tylenol.’ ”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Hopper smiled, too, though the amusement quickly left his face.

“That night, everyone was scared shitless,” he went on, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “We didn’t want to know what Hawk Feather was gonna do to Orlando or the rest of us on his mission to find out who’d smuggled in the X. That night, Hawk Feather announces if someone doesn’t come forward to explain who brought the ecstasy he was gonna make our lives hell. Everyone was scared. No one said a word. But I knew it was just a matter of time before someone ratted out Joshua. Suddenly, though, this low voice announces, ‘It was me.’ We all turn around. No one could believe it.”

He fell silent, still amazed, even now.

“It was Ashley,” I said, when he didn’t continue.

He glanced at me, his face solemn. “Yeah. At first, Hawk Feather didn’t believe her. She’d had all this preferential treatment. But then she produces the second pill of X, which somehow she stole from Joshua’s hiking boot. She says she’ll accept whatever punishment he had in mind.” He shook his head. “Hawk Feather went ballistic. He grabbed her, hauled her away from the campsite. He ended up taking her to some far-off site in the middle of nowhere and made her sleep there by herself in just her sleeping bag, totally alone. She wasn’t allowed to come back in the morning till he went and got her.”

“No one challenged this guy?” I asked. “What about the other counselors?”

He shrugged. “They were afraid of him. We were beyond civilization. It was like laws didn’t exist.” He reached forward and snatched the pack of Marlboros off the table, tapping out another cigarette.

“The other part of her punishment was putting up all of our tents and collecting firewood. We weren’t allowed to help. When she was slow, Hawk Feather would scream at her. She’d just stare him down with this look on her face, like she couldn’t care less, like she was so much stronger than him, which only made him more pissed. Finally, he let up. One of the other counselors warned him he was going too far. So, after the seven nights of sleeping on her own, she was allowed to join the rest of us at the campsite.”

He smiled, an unreadable look on his face. He then shook his head and lit the cigarette, exhaling.

“The first night she’s back we all wake up at three in the morning because Hawk Feather is screaming like he’s being stabbed. He runs out of his tent in nothing but his underwear, this fat fuck stammering like a child, crying that there’s a rattlesnake in his sleeping bag. Everyone thought it was a joke, that he’d had a nightmare. But one of the female counselors, Four Crows, she went and got it, unzipped it right in front of us, shaking it out. Sure enough, a rattlesnake, five feet long, fell onto the ground and whipped right across the campsite, disappearing into the dark. Hawk Feather, white as a sheet, about to piss his pants, turned and stared right at Ashley. And she stared back. He didn’t say a fuckin’ word, but I know he believed she put it in there. We all did.”

He fell silent for a moment, gazing out into the room.

“After that, he left us alone. And Orlando?” He paused, swallowing. “He made it. His sunburn healed. He stopped crying. He became, like, this hero. ” He sniffed, wiping his nose. “When we finally made it back to base camp, we were supposed to have one night all together where we held hands and marveled at our accomplishments — which was more like thanking God we hadn’t died. ’cause that was the thing, the whole time, death was a possibility. Like, it was always waiting for us beyond the rocks. And the person that prevented it was Ashley.”

I couldn’t see his expression — he was now staring at the floor, hair in his eyes. “About an hour before dinner,” he went on, “I looked out the cabin window and saw her climbing into a black SUV. She was leaving early. I was disappointed. I’d wanted to try and talk to her. But it was too late. A driver collected her stuff, put it in the back, and they drove off. It was the last time I saw her.”

He lifted his head, staring at me challengingly, yet saying nothing.

“You never heard from her again?”

He shook his head, pointing the cigarette at the envelope in my hand.

“Not until that. ”

“How do you know she sent it?”

“It’s her handwriting. And the return address is where …” He shrugged. “I thought she was messing with my head. I broke in a couple of nights ago, wondering if there was some kind of message or sign in there. But I haven’t found anything.”

I held up the monkey. “What’s the significance?”

“I’ve never seen it before. I told you.” He stubbed out his cigarette.

“You have no theory as to why she’d send it?”

He glared at me. “I was kinda hoping you would. You’re the reporter.”

The red mud encrusting the stuffed animal looked like the kind found out west, certainly throughout Utah, which made me wonder if perhaps it had belonged to one of the kids at the camp — maybe Hopper himself. But he looked more apt to carry around a worn-out copy of On the Road as a security blanket.

It was helpful, his insight into Ashley’s character. It had allowed her to come briefly into focus, revealing her to be a kind of ferocious avenging angel, a persona entirely in keeping with the way she played music. I couldn’t fathom why she mailed Hopper the monkey on the day she died — if it had been she.