Michael Christie - If I Fall, If I Die

“Doesn’t sound fair,” she said, doubting Theodore would’ve approved of such a scheme.

“Oh, come on,” Whalen said. “Those poor people are starving up there on those reserves. They’re grateful for the opportunity. And the extra work is doing Charlie good. When he’s gone, we’ll finally be able to walk down the street together.” Whalen had always been more leery than she had of Charlie discovering their relationship and had always kept a strict policy of using only notes stuffed into her letterbox to set their next meeting. After Whalen disappeared the night Charlie died, Diane often wondered whether the secrecy was more a convenient excuse than it was born of any real concern for her brother.

The last night she saw her brother alive, she watched him ready himself for work after inhaling his dinner. He said the ice was coming earlier in November than it ever had, and with it came a frantic rush to load the season’s last lakeboat before it was ice-locked until spring. She followed him to the door, thinking how after many years at Pool 6 he still looked so unlike other men his age, already bent and puffy with alcohol saturation, fights, and accidents. Other than his lungs, Charlie remained curiously unmarred by life — his eyes shining like polished copper above his sleek, crooked mouth.

She thanked him for all his hard work and passed him the sandwiches she’d packed. “You and Whalen better hurry if you want that boat loaded before the freeze” was the last thing she ever said to her brother.

How foolish she’d been to think he would stand as the exception to the Cardiels’ tragic legacy — that he’d escape their oversized helping of accident and woe. So in some sense, she hadn’t lied when she’d offered up Will’s spotty immunization record as proof his heart was malformed. It was a metaphor, truer than any fact she could ever teach him. Because the truth was that every second of every life was lethally dangerous. Especially in Thunder Bay. Especially for the Cardiels. Especially for Will.

And to anyone who would disagree, her only defense would be: What is raising a child except lying? It begins with the first shhhh … everything is going to be … and only gets worse from there.

“Want to go for a walk?”

Jonah. Eye-level with the window in New York. The Outside, embodied, peering in.

Will had been up late painting while his mother read mysteries in San Francisco. When he’d heard feet scraping on the shingles, Will’s murmuring heart had spasmed and nearly quit. He’d been convinced it was the Bald Man — his best guess for who’d left the boot prints in his yard — and was about to take a T-ball swing at his face with the fire poker when he recognized the voice.

“Now?” Will said, watching liquid waves of heat flee into the night.

“Sure, now,” said Jonah, eyes darting sidelong, his face caramel-smooth in the low light. “I need your help.”

“I can’t …,” Will said, one hand over his heart, the other setting the poker down discreetly on his desk.

“Why not?”

“I’m … uh … I’m painting,” he stammered. “For an exhibit.”

“Your masterpieces?” asked Jonah with a smirk, nodding at Will’s color-smeared canvases.

Will’s heart nearly drowned. “They’re only paintings,” he mumbled. “My stupid paintings.”

Jonah shrugged. “They’re cool,” he said, almost smiling. “Must be fun to go big like that on real canvases — those things aren’t cheap. Anyway, that’s all right. I thought you were brave from the way you bowled over that wolf. But I guess not. Anyway, I’m meeting Marcus tonight. I heard from that weird girl Angela you were looking for him, and I need someone to watch my back, so …”

Will’s heart knocked. “Marcus? You know where he is? You found him?”

“More like he found me. Anyway, sorry to disturb your creativity. See ya around, Will.”

“Wait,” Will said, more childishly than he’d planned. “Stay right there.”

Will tiptoed from his studio and opened his mother’s door with a soft puff, the air inside San Francisco creamy with her scent. She was plunged in sleep, her Relaxation Headphones on, a rare placid expression spread over her face. Will lifted her headphones, uncovering the distant whoosh of water, like a toilet running somewhere, and set them on her nightstand. Sleeping with them was new, and he didn’t know if this was a good sign or not. He stood watching her, fingering his forehead and kneading the scars on his thigh, his souvenirs of the Outside and now the only evidence he’d ever left the house. And here tonight was the only chance he’d ever get to find his friend. He’d made a promise to stay Inside and be her guardian, but maybe finding Marcus would be the best way to protect her. To prove that the Outside wasn’t nearly as dangerous as she believed. That it couldn’t swallow a boy whole. Besides, he’d never promised to stay home, only that he’d be careful. He’d make tonight a low-impact Adventure. “A walk,” just as Jonah had suggested.

They could’ve snuck out the front door, but Jonah seemed intent on coaxing Will onto the roof. The boys managed to disconnect the screen, then detach the window from its track. Will trailed Jonah along the nut-tighteningly high roofline, to where they could jump to the metal shed where Will had met Marcus and shimmy down. Including ice sliding, it was easily the most dangerous stunt Will had ever performed in his entire life, and surviving it broiled him with joy.

Outside, a set of fast clouds raked the stars. Though nearly spring, cold was still stringent in the air, the dead grass hairbrush-stiff with frost, and dwindling continents of snow lingered on the boulevards that edged the bare street. Somehow the snow made the night not as dark, like a day that had misfired. As they walked recklessly in the center of the empty road, Jonah pressed his skateboard against his hip, making no attempt to ride it. The skull graphics on the underside of the board resembled Jonah’s drawings, and Will lost himself for a moment in the detail.

“I never got the chance to say thanks for saving me. Again,” Will said. “I can’t believe you killed it. A wolf .”

Jonah nodded. “Felt bad when I stomped him, but he was done the second he bit you. Were you scared?”

Will kept his eyes forward and weighed his answer. He was unsure if Jonah knew about the Black Lagoon, or if he’d ever faced anything like it himself. Will doubted it. Like Marcus, Jonah seemed perfectly tuned for fearlessness. “Yes,” Will said carefully.

Jonah spit plentifully on the ground. “That’s a good thing,” he said.

“Were you?” Will said, still unsure if he’d said the right thing.

“Sure, but I just hate wolves more than I like you,” Jonah said, a smile breaching on his lips. After some walking and mental arithmetic, Will concluded that this also added up to Jonah liking him in some measure. Who knew, thought Will, with the warmest gutsensation he’d had so far Outside, all he had to do was get mauled by a wolf to make another friend.

“Why don’t you like wolves?” Will asked after a while.

“They don’t think,” said Jonah. “Plus they steal from my brothers’ traps. Plus they run together and attack weak things. They’re as bad as men.”

“Your brothers trap? Like animals?”

“Muskrat, beaver, marten — little stuff like that.”

“Do you go with them?” Will asked, floored by the idea.

“No. I’m allergic to fur,” Jonah said. “And I like the city better. More concrete,” he said, patting his skateboard.