Thomas Pierce - Hall of Small Mammals - Stories

“Okay,” Flynn says.

“You sure you want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, here it goes. Let the mind enter itself. Let the dark burn bright. ”

They’re walking back to the sweat lodge. Flynn is quiet.

“It’s okay,” John Price says. “I have no idea what it means either. My kid definitely doesn’t. Probably doesn’t mean anything. You know the guy who founded the Grasshoppers did time in prison, right? He also wrote fantasy books. That’s how he made all his money.”

“What was he in jail for?”

“Tax evasion, maybe. I can’t remember. Something very white-collar. This was way back. In the fifties. Before he came up with this Grasshoppers idea. You probably know this already, but in the beginning the group had a strong flower-power element. Very antiestablishment. Very get-in-touch-with-your-inner-self. You can tell from the pledge. That bit about finding your way around walls? All the beads and the rules and the levels, that got added later, along with all the membership fees.”

They emerge from the woods, and the fathers have stretched a black tarp over the skeletal sapling frame. Henri is still tapping on his drum. They spread the grasses across the interior and then stand back to admire their construction. The camp director takes a photograph for the Grasshopper newsletter.

The sweat lodge sign-up sheet is posted now in the dining hall and at lunch Flynn schedules time for him and his son. Ryan returns from the leather-working class with a bead and a new friend. The boy’s name is Trevor. His face is freckled, his hair red and wild. They find seats together in the dining hall. Both boys are sporting the moccasins they made in class, the thin leather tight around their feet. They don’t talk to each other, only sit and slurp up spaghetti casserole. Flynn asks Trevor about his father, if he’ll be joining them for the meal. Trevor shrugs.

Does Trevor like being a Grasshopper?

“Sometimes,” he says.

What does Trevor’s father do for a living?

“He flies airplanes. He’s a pilot.”

“I’ll bet you get to fly all the time, then, huh?”

“Definitely.”

The camp director concludes the meal with his usual announcements: thank you to all the fathers who helped build the sweat lodge; the snake problem has been resolved, and the lake is open for swimming again; and would the fathers who smoke kindly stop dropping the butts off the edge of the porch?

Trevor’s father, a skinny man with blue jeans sagging, finds them after lunch.

“There you are,” he says to his son.

“I hear you’re a pilot,” Flynn says, and introduces himself.

The man gazes down at Flynn’s feet for what feels like a long time. “ You’ve got me confused,” he says, and then walks ahead toward the tents with his son.

• • •

The sweat lodge fits ten father-son pairs at a time. Thick steam rises from the rocks at its center. The hot coals beneath glow orange in the darkness. As instructed, Flynn sits cross-legged next to his son, both of them shirtless, dressed in swim trunks. If anyone feels faint, Henri warns them from the door, they should come outside and drink some water. Flynn can feel the trickles of sweat traveling down his back and his arms. He’s swaying a little. His son stares wide-eyed at the rocks, then at the door, shifting restlessly.

Flynn wonders what his son might be thinking. About fire again? Does the steam remind him of smoke? He’s made a friend and earned a bead. Is it belonging he feels? If he painted a picture, what colors would he choose? If he wrote a song, would the key be major or minor? Flynn worries he’s failed the boy. Could Ryan be ashamed of him? Does he wish Flynn had more money? That he flew airplanes? Flynn feels like he is in an airplane now, the air rumbling all around him, a bumpy takeoff. He can feel himself rising — or, maybe, falling.

Flynn opens his eyes. He’s outside again, in the sunlight. Three faces hover above him. They put the water to his lips, and he drinks. Flynn passed out in the sweat lodge, but he’s okay. He just needed some air. He should have had more water.

Henri is there. “Go someplace interesting?”

As Flynn guzzles down an entire canteen of water, Ryan sits nearby on a stump, drawing shapes in the dirt with his finger.

“You should probably lay down for a while,” someone says.

Flynn nods and stands to go, his legs like two iron bars hinged at his hips, but somehow he gets them swinging. He’s moving down the trail, and thankfully so is Ryan, though he lags a few feet behind until they reach the tent. The air inside the tent is hot and sticky, so hot that Flynn throws the door up over the rain-fly to let in the breeze. He slides across his sleeping bag on his belly, not bothering to take off his shoes, his toes in the grass just outside the door. In the distance he can hear a stereo and laughter, and closer by, just outside the tent, his son’s voice, his words like stones skipped across the water, such little soft bursts. He’s talking to someone.

“No, he’s not dead,” Ryan says. “Just tired.”

“Someone said he was dead.” It’s Trevor.

“Nope.”

“You still got that cell phone? Let’s call something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I’m starving. Nothing good to eat here.”

“There’s no one to call,” Ryan says. “This is all there is. Besides, just a few more days left.”

“I’m never coming back,” Trevor says, his voice mousy and distant. They’re walking away from the tent together.

Exhausted, Flynn closes his eyes and lets his body sink. He sleeps.

When he comes to, it’s morning. He unzips the tent door. Pale sunlight slips into the tent. Flynn is still in his swim trunks, though his shoes have been removed and placed under the rain-fly. The entire camp is quiet, and he flips to find Ryan’s owlish eyes on him, hardly blinking. In his arms is Mookie the bear.

“You missed dinner,” the boy reports.

“Who’d you eat with?”

“Trevor.”

“Sorry I missed it,” he says.

• • •

Flynn spends the day in a daze. He digs his emergency smokes out of the glove compartment. The lighter is dead, but in his pocket he discovers the yellow matchbook, the one he took from Ryan on the front lawn. In plain black letters on the cover it says Big Fixin’s , which is a diner they used to go to when Ryan was little. Flynn blows through half a pack on the dining hall porch while Ryan is off at archery and then smokes a few more while Ryan’s at the low-ropes course.

Aimlessly, Flynn walks the perimeter of camp, exploring its boundaries. He finds a tennis court, cracked and full of puddles. Somewhere high up in the trees he hears bees. A thin path through the woods takes him to the back of the director’s cabin. Flynn smells the cigar smoke before he sees the men on the back deck.

“Who’s out there?” the camp director yells.

Flynn emerges from behind the trees with a wave. “It’s me,” he says, “I was just exploring.”

Bill Tierney is there, along with a few other men. They’re holding glasses with a light brown liquid. Scotch. Flynn can almost taste it.

“Come on up here,” Bill Tierney says.

Flynn climbs the steps. He feels like a kid called to the principal’s office.

Tierney offers him a drink, and Flynn says no, thanks.

“Come on, just one drink.”

“I can’t,” Flynn says. “What I mean is, I don’t anymore.”

“I see, I see,” Tierney says, and brushes a pine needle from his puffy hair. “We were just talking about Vince’s son”—he pats one of the other men on the back—“who’s up for his Second Truth Bead tonight. At the bonfire.”