Russell Banks - Lost Memory of Skin

Don’t worry, Kid, it’s not my kind of material. Besides, as long as you and I and Gloria know what really happened out there at the canal, it doesn’t matter if no one else knows.

Yeah, but we don’t. We don’t know what really happened out there.

We know what we believe, Kid. That’s all anyone gets in this life.

Yeah. Sure. The Kid gives the Writer a small wave and hefts his backpack onto his shoulders. He lifts his duffel off the ground and steps with care over the guardrail as if about to trespass. Slowly he makes his way down the steep slope and disappears from the Writer’s sight into the heavy wet shadows beneath the Causeway.

For a few moments the Writer sits in the car trying to imagine the life the Kid will lead down there. Then he gives up trying — not his kind of material — puts the Town Car in gear, makes a quick U-turn and enters the flow of traffic heading toward Calusa and drives away.

FROM THE HEAPS OF TRASH PILED BY THE water’s edge the Kid like a shipwrecked sailor scavenges a batch of two-by-fours and a sopped sheet of paint-stained polyethylene. In bright sunlight a dozen or so feet above the high-tide line he props the two-by-fours into an upside-down conical frame, ties the poles together at the top with a piece of found wire, and covers the frame with the plastic sheeting. Two hours later he’s built himself an eight-foot-tall rainproof teepee with a wide view of the Bay and the skyscrapers of downtown Calusa. Sweet.

He stashes his belongings inside his teepee, then stands outside it for a moment in the late-afternoon breeze and admires his work. Things could be worse than they are, he notes. A ragged ridge of pink-edged clouds has moved in from the east. The sunset should be awesome. He scans the concrete islet to see if there’s anything else worth salvaging — a plastic cooler or some cooking utensils, maybe a bucket to use for a toilet. Finding nothing useful he glances into the darker recesses of the Causeway for the first time and realizes that he’s being watched. Probably has been watched from the beginning. He’s not as alone on his island as he thought.

It’s Paco. Senor On-Your-Own. Still the bodybuilder, still wearing his muscle shirt and nylon gym shorts, his Harley on its kickstand parked off to one side, his old weight bench on the other, some kind of junk wood and wallboard shanty behind him. Wherever Paco fled when the hurricane hit it must have been deemed illegal once the storm passed out to sea. The dude had nowhere else to go.

By way of greeting him Paco slowly lifts and folds his ham-size arms across his chest and nods his heavy head twice. The Kid nods back. Having adjusted his sight to the darkness back there he can make out now a few more shadowy figures lurking amid what appears to be the beginnings of a resettlement, one that’s modeled on the old settlement but a lesser more dilapidated version — a collection of hovels that he initially thought was just trash and tide- and storm-tossed wreckage heaped up against the inner supports of the Causeway. It’s the squalid remnants of the old colony. And the remnants of the colonists.

Coming forward from the gloom is P.C. wearing a crooked smile of recognition although he’s not exactly welcoming the Kid with open arms and beyond P.C. stands the Greek holding a large adjustable wrench in his hand and behind him are a half-dozen other impassive men — among them red-haired Ginger, the goofball Froot Loop and finally in his navy blue lawyer’s suit and stained white shirt and loosened tie there stands the Shyster. They all regard the Kid with an expression mingling welcome with suspicion that to the Kid signifies a reluctant acceptance of his presence among them. It’s as if thanks to the chaos of the hurricane the men living under the Causeway pulled off a mass jailbreak, but then one by one each man was hunted down in most cases probably by no one other than himself, captured by himself and returned by himself to his cell. They gaze almost mournfully out of the shadows at him, as if his return is the final proof of their collective defeat. As if their last hope after the storm was that he alone of the original settlers, the last of the lost colonists and the first, the youngest and the scrappiest, had somehow permanently escaped. And now by coming back to the Causeway he’s let them down. Of all the settlers the Kid was the one thought most likely to survive above the Causeway among normal people. And if the Kid is back it’s certain that those who haven’t yet returned will soon be caught and brought back too — by the police or their parole officers or caseworkers. Or if not caught and returned by the authorities, they like the Kid will catch and bring themselves back here on their own. There’s no escape from under the Causeway.

No one steps forward to greet him; no one says anything.

Wussup, Paco, the Kid finally says.

You pitch your tent too far out in the light, man. They can see you from the highway.

P.C. says, New rules, Kid. We can’t stay here unless no one can see us. So you better take down your tent and move it and your shit all the way inside like the rest of us.

The Kid squints and looks past the group into the jumbled damp darkness that surrounds them. No way, man. You guys’re like fucking bats scared of the light living inside a wall. I ain’t moving in there.

The Shyster says, We don’t have much of a choice, Kid. And they don’t either.

“They”? Who’re “they”?

The police. The authorities. The upholders of the law. And those who make the law, the frightened citizens of Calusa.

Yeah, well, fuck them. And besides, scumbag, I don’t want you living next to me. I don’t even want you talking to me, man. Suddenly the Kid’s heart is pounding and he’s breathing rapidly and hard. He spits on the ground to calm himself, looks straight at the Shyster, focuses his mind and in a voice barely above a whisper he says, Big Daddy.

The Shyster raises his eyebrows as if surprised by hurt feelings. Or in mockery of surprise. Or both. You’re judging me? Really, Kid? You think you’re better than I am? Sorry to break it to you, but no matter what we’re guilty of, we’re all down here for the same reason. That includes you.

The Kid turns away and starts back to his teepee. At the entrance flap he stops, spins on his heels and calls back to the Shyster, I seen your e-mails, man! I know what you did! You and Doctor Hoo!

Ah! So you have my briefcase. I wondered where it ended up. Better you, I suppose, than the police.

You want it back? You can have it. The e-mails make me want to puke, man. They’re so dirty they make everything they touch dirty. I thought I’d seen dirt before but nothing comes close to the e-mails between you and Doctor Hoo. Nothing. Too bad you didn’t fucking drown yourself like he did.

Drown? Again the Shyster raises his eyebrows as if in mock surprise. It’s his default facial expression. Poor old Doctor Hoo is certainly dead, which turned out to be a problem for me. But he didn’t drown.

Yeah? How’d the fucker die, then?

Oh, he shot himself in the head. Right after I was arrested, unfortunately. Nearly two years ago. Before my trial. You might as well burn those papers, Kid. I don’t know why I kept them. They’re of no use to anyone now, not even to me. They were part of my defense, which obviously didn’t work, and ended up in the trial transcript. I would like the briefcase back, however. And my Bible.

What’re you telling me? The Kid has made his way back to the Shyster and stands close enough to him now to see the man’s nearly black pupils — they’re opaque. Nothing visible on the other side. Like the eyes of a snake. What d’you mean, they were part of your defense?