Michael Christie - If I Fall, If I Die

Before long, Jonah drifted off near the stove, his head propped by his skateboard and neatly folded jacket, his breath precise and easy. During the Wheezing Man’s patchy sleep and fugues of muttering incoherence, sometimes his eyes would bolt open and fix blankly upon Will as he called out strange names. He murmured of birds and ghosts, of cables and wires binding him, of ships and trains, of blood and water, of people being hurt, healed, and hurt again. Will lay there, remembering all the times he’d coached his mother down from the panicked summits of Mount Black Lagoon, the times he’d found her babbling on the floor in Venice, baffled with terror, her nightgown soaked in her own urine, and he detected the familiar tenor of her voice in the Wheezing Man’s raving, a sound that was oddly comforting. He thought then about his Outside life — how vividly he could conjure all that had happened so far, how at night his dreams were dazzling carnivals and his days lasted years — and felt so lucky that he nearly exploded. Even if his mother was right and the Outside was unthinkably dangerous, he was desperately in love with all of it.

After a while, Will gave up on listening and let the man’s words flood over him. And as Will’s own eyes drooped, he felt as though he could be just as easily thinking these things himself, the man’s pained dreams tinting his own like paint upon his palette, now sitting so far away in New York.

The boys woke in the chilled morning, the Wheezing Man still chloroformed with sleep.

They loaded the stove silently and lit it. Parched, they considered drinking from Will’s water bottle, the same one the man had sipped from and refused the previous night, but decided against it because of AIDS. Jonah stood watch while Will examined the man’s things but found nothing he could imagine had been Marcus’s.

Eventually, his eyes shot open and he struggled upright. “I reckon I can commence smoking tobacco again,” he said when he noted the coals flickering in the stove. He tried to stand, then looked down at his legs and seemed surprised by them. “Some specter put a crushing on me a doctor wouldn’t forget,” he said.

“It was the Butler who beat you,” Will said, approaching him cautiously. “Because you helped Marcus, and he thinks you know where he is, right?”

Some kind of confusion took him when he saw Will’s face. He managed to nod.

“Do you know where Marcus is now?” Will said, speaking slowly.

The Wheezing Man shook his head. “Met Aurelius scurrying around this structure. Exploring, he termed it. Took a shining to him. Sheltered him for a spell. Gave him some tribulations. Hauling, shoveling. Paid him staunchly for it. One day he said he had a thing to accomplish. Promised to resurface before he set out. But since then been no word. No dissertation. Nothing,” he said before shutting his eyes and murmuring incoherently into his pillow.

“So he could come back anytime?” Will said excitedly. “But what if the Butler finds you here? You’re helpless.”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t survey this little dwelling. His wolves drop the scent over that bridge and the ashes in the boiler. That doesn’t mean you boys shouldn’t vacate.”

“His bleeding has stopped. And he doesn’t have a concussion,” Jonah said.

“Do you have food? If we leave you?” asked Will.

The Wheezing Man glanced at the window near the birdfeeders. “I’ll do fine,” he said. “But what’d keep me propped up, boys, would be some unblighted for my substrates.”

“Un … blighted?” said Will.

“Lakes aren’t all one water,” he said, dragging himself up over to the window. “This cove is all taint. Solely rats and sicknesses imbibe themselves here. You boys trample up the shore to where the factories and the wharves discontinue. There you fetch me some unblighted.”

Will looked at Jonah and Jonah shook his head.

“Okay,” said Will.

“And then we’re gone,” said Jonah. “There’s a science test this afternoon, and I need to go over my notes.”

Back Outside at the foot of the towering elevator, the boys halted beside a rusted-out car near the shore, in which, judging by the blankets and cardboard pad, people were recently camped. Beside the car the lake water foamed slightly with a rainbowish film.

“Let’s just use this,” Jonah said, dipping the bucket the Wheezing Man gave them.

“I think he meant pure, Jonah.”

“You think he can taste it?”

“You think he can’t?”

“Whatever,” said Jonah, dumping the liquid from the bucket.

The boys continued down the shoreline, lowering their gazes when they passed a mean-looking man hanging a slippery skinned animal from a leafless tree, then an Indian couple locked unconscious in each other’s arms beneath a torn tarp propped up by some old skis stuck in the dirt.

When they returned to the elevator an hour later with water from at least a mile up the shore, the man was asleep. They set the bucket beside him and left.

Will approached his house from the creek and snuck in through the back door. His stomach stewing with hunger, he tiptoed into Paris to fix a snack. At the table sat his mother, both palms pressed against a steaming mug of tea, beside her Constable MacVicar.

“And look who it is,” said the constable, as though speaking to a girl who’d had her birthday party canceled. “Out for some overnight mischief, like I said.”

Slowly his mother looked up from her mug, her face blanched and drained. “Is that you, Will?” she said, her voice croaky. “You’re here?” For the first time Will noticed white strands surfacing in her hair. But her eyes were still leaf-green, and he resisted another sudden boyish urge to crash into her arms.

“In the flesh,” said the constable. “And where were you, Will?”

“Jonah’s,” said Will. “We fell asleep watching horror movies. Sorry, Mom.”

“Jonah Turtle?” asked the constable, quickly.

“Yeah,” said Will. “His phone wasn’t working, so I couldn’t call.”

“Okay,” MacVicar said, perturbed for a second, before he reattained composure. “Well, you’re fine now. Home. Safe. That’s what matters.” He clapped. “Anyway, Diane, I’d better be going. See me to the door, Will.”

After the constable pulled on his zippered boots, he set a big hand on Will’s shoulder. “I want you to steer clear of that Indian boy, Jonah. That Turtle family is no good. I know you’ve been riding those boards of yours around downtown, trespassing and damaging property—”

Will kicked into his best surprised routine, “What do you mean?”

“Save the act. That boy’s dangerous, son. A magnet for calamity. Most Indians don’t know how to conduct themselves in a city. Jonah and that Marcus are cut from the same cloth. You need to make sure you don’t turn yourself into one of those kids I haven’t much interest in finding.”

Then he gestured gravely to the kitchen. “That woman in there has had enough distress in her life,” he said. “She doesn’t deserve any more grief from you. Look, I know you lied to me in my office. Your mother hasn’t left this place for years. But if she slips any further down, I’ll have to ask Social Services to step in, Will. And I don’t want that. Which means your job is to prevent me from making that call. Do I make myself clear?”

Will mumbled something to get him out the door, then retreated to New York. He lay on top of his comforter on his back, his room darkened by blankets he’d plastered over his windows, studying the ghostly pages torn from Thrasher that wallpapered his room as completely as they did his imagination.