Christian Kiefer - The Animals

Half a mile before the rescue he took a dirt turnout that expanded onto a brief patch of gravel partially hidden by trees and brambles and beyond which lay a small clearing surrounded by forest. Near the center of that circle, he drew the truck to a stop and waited for Rick’s car to appear. Then he opened the door and stepped out. Even now, so close to the end of it, he could feel his gut turning as if run through with an iron rod. The earth covered with dry tamarack needles the color of toast.

Then Rick was out of the car, standing there in his thin coat. What the fuck is this? he said.

Just someplace out of the way.

Don’t try anything, Rick said. This is bullshit. As if to underscore the statement, he pulled his jacket open to reveal a pistol handle extending from the front of his jeans.

Look, Bill said, you want to do it in town, with everyone watching? ’Cause we can go back to the parking lot if you’d rather do it there.

You’re stalling, Rick said. You’d better have what I came up here for.

I have it. He dropped the tailgate and hopped up onto the bed of the truck and pulled the plastic tarp free. The safe looked smaller than it had in the closet, a squat iron box not more than two feet on a side, its thick black paint shining.

What is this? Rick said. The rancor in his voice was replaced by something like bewilderment now.

What’s it look like? Bill knelt next to the box, pulling it forward a few feet clear of the cab and then stepping in behind to shove it the length of the bed.

I told you not to fuck around, Rick said at last.

I’m not. Bill was panting now but he had managed to get the safe to the tailgate and he stepped down onto the forest floor again. I never opened it, he said.

What the fuck you mean you never opened it?

He shrugged, his fingertips momentarily slipping into the tops of his jean pockets and then returning to hang loose at his sides.

Seriously? Rick said. He looked from the safe to Bill and then repeated that simple motion.

Seriously.

There was a pause and then Rick said, I don’t get it.

There’s nothing to get. Just put it in your car and go. You can have the whole thing. Whatever’s in there.

Rick stared at the safe. No, man, I don’t get it, he said. You never opened it?

I never did. I’m just trying to do what’s right.

What’s right? I should fucking shoot you. That’s what’s right. Why didn’t you open it, you fucking idiot?

I don’t know. I just didn’t.

My mom fucking died, man. God-fucking-dammit. You stupid asshole.

How different he looked and yet how much the same.

It’s like you just turned your back on everyone who gave a shit about you, Rick said.

I had to start over.

Rick looked at the safe again and shook his head. Put it in the trunk, he said.

Grab the other side.

Fucking asshole. You don’t know what I had to do to survive in there. Some of those guys would kill you for a pack of smokes. So you’ve got to kill them first. Do you understand what I’m telling you?

Come and help me.

I already tried that and look how it worked out, Rick said but a moment later he came to the safe and they lifted it together. Rick was so close to him now, separated only by the two feet of that heavy iron box. How old he looked. His skin gray.

When they reached the car, Rick pulled open the hatchback with one hand and they lowered the safe, the little Honda’s suspension heaving with the added weight. Then they both stepped back from the car. Bill was panting from the exertion, his hands on his knees. You got fat and out of shape, Rick said.

I guess so.

You know, I came up here thinking that if I saw you it might make sense to me. What you did. Who you are. All the fucking lies you told me. My mom. All the shit I did in prison. Everything.

Bill straightened and looked up at him, this broken man with his cane who returned his gaze with an unwavering stare, and Bill felt a shiver run through him as if that gaze were physical contact, a silver wire sparking against his flesh. He shook his head.

Yeah, you don’t know shit. You just ran away and never looked back.

I made a life for myself.

Is that what you did? Because it seems more like you ran away and hid in the forest like a pussy.

It was silent for a long time. Bill looked at the dead needles that littered the ground at his feet. How’d you even find me? he said.

Shit, man, Rick said and there was actual mirth in his voice now, it’s not like you moved to Paris, France. You weren’t in Reno. You weren’t in Battle Mountain. So where else would you go?

If you knew where I was, then why didn’t you turn me in?

Because I don’t fucking do that. Take care of your people. You think that was a fucking joke to me? That was the only thing that mattered. But you fucked it up. And you fucking killed my mom.

Bill had begun to quake inside, as if a faint flutter of panic had entered him and now flapped against his ribs. I didn’t kill your mom, he said. That’s ridiculous.

Same as, Rick said.

The quiet settled over them, two men in a clearing beside a road periodically sounding with the long hiss of a passing car.

I don’t know what else to say, Bill said at last. He hoped his voice was steady. Now that the safe was out of his life, he wanted more than anything to simply drive away and be done with it, but he lingered. I’m sorry, man, he said. I don’t know what else to say about it. You’re right. I left all of it behind and never looked back.

Goddamn right you did. So what am I supposed to do now?

Exactly the same thing.

Oh, is that right?

Yeah, Bill said. You’ve got the safe. That’s what you came here for, isn’t it?

Fuck you. I know what you’re doing. I’ve seen that weird little zoo. That’s what you care about now? Those fucking zoo animals?

Yeah, he said, that’s what I care about. There was a tremble in his voice now. He did not expect Rick to have seen the rescue and perhaps he was bluffing but the thought of it filled him with a thread of cold sharp air. What do you want from me, Rick? he said.

You’re living a goddamn lie up here. Bill Reed. That’s the icing on the cake right there. Bill fucking Reed.

I’ve changed, Bill said.

Now that’s the first thing you’ve said all day that made any sense.

Go home, Rick, Bill said. Or go find yourself a new place to make into a home. You’re free. Go do something with it. I did.

Yeah, Rick said. Easy for you to say. He looked out into the trees for a moment as if in thought and then, without another word, he stepped into his car and pulled the door closed behind him. A moment later the engine chugged and the little Honda turned out onto the asphalt of the highway and was gone.

He did not know how long he stood there in the clearing, watching the empty space the car had vacated, watching the trees and the white cloud of his breath. His heart seemed wrong somehow, beating much too fast, his breath coming in hollow rasps that he could neither slow nor stop. The metallic taste of adrenaline on his tongue.

HE RETURNED to the damp, dilapidated travel trailer he had inherited from his uncle and made himself a sandwich and then sat eating it at the tiny table, his eyes staring in the direction of the window but seeing nothing there, not the glass nor the trees beyond. Instead, he could see only Rick, his face so much older than he had expected. How time curls back on you, returns so completely that it is as if geography itself is the loop, all your choices rendered only moments in a chain of possibility that leads one to the next, the lit fuses pulling forward over the years and each tinderbox drawn by your own sense that you have chosen them and by so choosing are adhered. This no different. For twelve years he had wondered what would happen when Rick came out of prison at last, what payment would be exacted, hoping without cause or reason that his friend would have come to terms with what happened, that he might have been forgiven, but then he knew that this was unlikely to be the case, for he did not even forgive himself and he knew that Rick did not forget such things; he had not when they had been children and he certainly would not now. His rage was the same, as was his movement, his carriage and his bearing, the look in his eyes, and the occasional flash of his smile. Grayer and more haggard but otherwise the same.