David Vann - Legend of a Suicide

I fucked up, he said. He was squatting beside the pit and rocking. I really fucked up this time. And then he remembered Roy’s mother again, Elizabeth. He would have to tell her. He would have to tell her and everyone else, but he wouldn’t be able to tell them everything, he knew. He wouldn’t tell about handing Roy the pistol. And then he was sobbing uncontrollably again, like some other force ripping through his body, and he wanted it to end but also didn’t want it to end since it at least filled time, but after a while, after it was fully light out, the crying did stop abruptly and he was left there again by the pit looking down at Roy and wondering what to do. Roy’s mother would have to see him. He couldn’t just bury him out here. She would want to have a funeral and she’d have to know what had happened. He’d have to tell her. And Tracy.

Oh God, he said. He would have to tell Tracy that her big brother was dead. She would have to see him too. He wondered for a moment if there’d be some way of putting Roy’s face back together a little, but then he saw right away that that was crazy.

He reached down into the pit and pulled Roy out, then hefted him up again and carried him back to the cabin. He was heavy and cold and stiff, bent up weirdly now from being in the pit, and he was covered with dirt. There was dirt all in the head part. He didn’t want to look at it, but he kept glancing over and worrying. None of this would look good.

Jim laid his son back down in the cabin, in the main room, then sat against the far wall and watched him. He didn’t know what to do. He knew he had to do something soon, but he had no idea what.

Okay, he finally said. I have to tell them. I have to let his mother know. And he went to the radio but then saw that he had destroyed it and remembered that he had destroyed the VHF as well. Goddamnit, he yelled at the top of his voice and kicked the set again. And then he started crying again, mid-yell. It could start any time, had a will of its own, and it didn’t make him feel any better, as crying is supposed to. It was a terrible kind of crying that only hurt and made everything seem increasingly unbearable and though it filled time it seemed each time that it might not end. It was to be avoided, so when he could get his eyes clear enough to see he went out to the boat, which they had tied behind the cabin, and went back in for the pump and the outboard and life jackets, flares, oars, horn, bilge pump, spare gas can, everything, and carried it all out onto the beach and carried the boat out too and pumped it up there and mounted the engine and put all the stuff in. Then he went back for Roy.

Roy was still propped oddly against the wall, still stiff. The side that had his face was showing, but the skin was all yellow and bluish like a bloated fish and Jim threw up again and had to walk around outside, wishing he could just never go back into the cabin, saying, That’s my son in there.

When he returned, he looked again at Roy and looked away and wondered how he’d carry him. He couldn’t just dump him in the boat like that. He thought of garbage bags but then was weeping and shouting again, He’s not fucking garbage. So when he calmed again he laid out a sleeping bag and rolled Roy onto it and zipped it up and drew the drawstring at the top. He picked Roy up over his shoulder and carried him out to the boat.

Okay, he said. This is going to work. We’re going to find someone, and they’re going to help us. He went back to the cabin for some food and water but when he got there he couldn’t remember what he had come for, so he just closed the door and returned to the boat.

He had inflated the boat too far away from the water, so he unloaded Roy and the gas cans and then dragged the boat to the edge of the water, then reloaded the cans and Roy. When he finally pushed off, it was afternoon, not very smart, he realized now, but he pulled the starter cord and pushed the choke back in when it coughed to life and then he put it in gear and they were heading out. The water was very calm in their inlet and the sky gray, the air heavy and wet. He tried to get up on a plane, but they were too loaded down, so he throttled back to a slow five or six knots as they cleared the point, Jim shivering a bit in the wind and his son wrapped up in the sleeping bag.

They were exposed beyond the point to a cold breeze up the channel and small wind waves that splashed a little into the boat.

This isn’t real good, Jim said to his son. We’re not doing the smartest thing here. But he kept going and then began to wonder where he was going. I don’t know, he said aloud. Maybe to wherever those houses are. But that’s twenty miles or something. That’s not close. We need a boat to find us.

And then he was thinking again of Roy’s mother, of her face when she would hear about this and her face when she’d heard about all the other things, when he told her he was sleeping with Gloria, for instance. After they moved and tried to make things work and he had been what she’d wanted for a whole month, thirty days exactly of being considerate and affectionate and trying not to think of other women, she came to him in bed smiling and happy and he wanted only for her never to touch him again. He told her he’d just been acting the past month, that it wasn’t him, and her face then and her face when they told their children they were getting divorced, and now this. This couldn’t even be compared to the other things. This isn’t just a thing, he said out loud, sobbing, and then he couldn’t see to steer and they curved all over the channel and lurched and took on water until he could get himself under control again.

And Tracy. She would hate him. All her life. Along with her mother. Everyone. And they’d be right. And what would Rhoda say? She would know exactly whose fault this all was.

The boat steered badly and the current was pushing them sideways. Jim tried again to get on a plane, but the nose only pushed into the air and wouldn’t come down, so he throttled back again. Everything was gray and cold and completely empty. There were no other boats, no houses, anywhere. By the time he was halfway across the channel to the next island, it was late in the afternoon and he was shivering uncontrollably and worrying about running out of gas and worrying what Roy would look like when he finally got there and whom he’d have to talk with first.

He stopped twice to pump out the water and continued on toward the shore, wanting finally only to make that and not worrying if they went farther today. He was so cold he was numb and had trouble thinking. He’d think, I wonder how far, and then his brain would stop for a while and then he’d wonder again how far to the shore and finally he realized this was hypothermia setting in, that if he didn’t get to shore and get warm he would be in trouble. And he wondered why he hadn’t brought more clothing and something to sleep in and some food. He was hungry.

When he made shore, it was close to sunset and Roy was soaked and they still hadn’t seen anyone. Jim went for wood while Roy stayed with the boat and Jim wanted to make a fire and he piled up the sticks he had found but all the wood was wet and he didn’t have any matches, so he cried. Then he went back to the boat and said Sorry to Roy as he dumped him out of the sleeping bag onto the beach and got into the wet bag himself and tried to get warm and woke again in darkness and was still cold but also somehow still alive. I got lucky, he thought, but then he thought of Roy and got out of the bag to go find him, frightened now that Roy had been picked at or even dragged away by something, but when he found him nearby he still seemed pretty much like how he’d been, though it was hard to tell for sure because he didn’t have a flashlight and Roy only had half a head. That sounded funny and Jim laughed for a second, then started weeping again. Oh Roy, he said. What are we gonna do?