Joyce Oates - Sourland

After a half-mile or so the woodchip path ended. Now the path was mud-rutted and treacherous. This was a hiking trail but only sporadically marked. Or maybe real hikers knew how to use the trail, as the daddy did not. For several times the daddy lost the trail, Tod had to point out to him the little blue triangles on trees that let you know where the trail was. Tod hoped his father would become discouraged and turn back with one of his harassed-daddy jokes but he said only, “Your mother will be damned impressed by us! Taking the back way like Che in the jungle.”

Tod asked who was Che in the jungle? but the daddy ignored him.

Ever deeper the daddy and Tod hiked into the woods. Though the air was chilly and the trail overgrown with brambles the daddy walked with his suede jacket open and his face was flushed, ruddy. Still the daddy’s eyes were quick-darting like an animal’s and Tod wondered if the daddy was looking for someone, or if someone was looking for the daddy. Since he’d passed Tod and his father on the woodchip path the spike-haired boy had not reappeared so far as Tod knew.

The daddy was saying this was a shortcut. The daddy was saying things wear out, wear down. The daddy was saying that the human will is a pitiful vessel to withstand the tidal waves of the non-human will. Tod had no idea what the daddy meant but he was grateful that the daddy’s tone wasn’t angry or accusing, it was more as if the daddy was reciting facts commonplace and banal and of the sort the daddy might be expected to confer onto the son as in an ancient ritual of enlightenment, erasure. Tod remembered how before his birthday a few weeks ago — before the downsizing and before the change in our schedules — even the daddy had been restless and distracted watching TV news with the remote control in his hand switching among three or four channels — sometimes too the daddy prowled through the house in the night while the mommy slept and Tod slept and Tod was wakened to see the daddy leaning over his bed — at first thinking it was a scary thing in a dream then it was the daddy’s face dark in the shadows — the daddy’s face was soft-crinkling with pain so exquisite it couldn’t have been named and the daddy whispered Love you! Whoever you are, whoever sent you to us.

By us the child knew that the daddy was referring not just to himself but to the mommy as well. But it was rare, the daddy spoke of us.

They were passing overturned trash cans. Sad to see here in the woods trash spilled across the trail. Beer cans, Styrofoam containers. There was a single rotted jogging shoe, that scared Tod making him think there was a human foot inside. There was a smell as of something dead and rotted. The daddy must have smelled this smell for he shuddered and laughed saying, “All shortcuts entail risks. Have faith, son!”

The thought came to Tod like a tiny bird pecking at his skull He will leave you here. He is taking you here to leave you.

In the sky — that they could see, for only part of the sky was visible now — clouds had turned heavy and sullen like a face suffused with blood. Steadily the day was becoming colder — it didn’t seem like April now. Tod was tired trying to keep up with the daddy pulling him along the path but didn’t dare try to pull his hand free. The daddy seemed not to know how hard and how tight he was gripping Tod and in such a way that the child’s arm felt as if it might be pulled out of its socket.

Not-knowing was the scary thing. At four years of age so much is not-knowing like crossing a stream of rushing water on just rocks — this, Tod had seen on TV — a boy only a little older than Tod fleeing a black bear — in Alaska — having to put his trust in these rocks, to save him — a desperate boy — Tod had shut his eyes not wanting to see the boy fall into the stream and the black bear catching and devouring him…Magdalena had quickly switched channels.

“Here! Here we are.”

In triumph the daddy pulled Tod into a clearing — it was a large open space, in the forest — they were entering the open space from the rear — an outdoor amphitheater with a crude stone stage and six rows of stone benches lifting in a semi-circle. The daddy had seemed to know that this was here, he was very pleased to have found it. On the stone benches moss grew in leprous patches and here and there were ugly red graffiti-scrawls like those on the restroom walls. On the stage lay broken tree limbs and other debris. The outdoor theater was in poor repair as if it were centuries old and long abandoned yet still the daddy seemed pleased and excited and in a burst of sudden energy bounded up onto the stage as if his name had been called.

“Hello — hello — hel- lo ! Thank you thank you !”

Quivering with gratitude — unless it was in mockery of gratitude — the daddy smiled out at the (invisible) audience lifting his hands as if to quell a wave of deafening applause.

“I hope I have not made you good people wait impatiently.”

More applause! — the daddy lifted his hands as if overcome with emotion. His expression was both apologetic and eager.

“You say you want — who? Li’l dude? My son Tod Falmouth — you’re awaiting him ?”

Tod giggled wildly, this was so silly! Empty stone benches in the ruin of an outdoor theater and the daddy’s loud voice echoing. Out of shyness Tod hadn’t followed his father out onto the stage. In public places the son did not entirely trust the daddy for the daddy frequently teased the son, exposed him to the eyes of strangers as the butt of jokes the son did not comprehend. Strange and disconcerting to Tod to hear his name uttered in this way. No one in sight — empty stone benches — yet Tod felt embarrassed, the daddy spoke in that bright loud TV voice.

The daddy turned to Tod now, beckoning.

“Son! Come join Daddy onstage! These good people demand it.”

Tod shook his head no. How silly this was! — yet a sickish sensation stirred in the pit of his belly as if in the ruin of the old theater there was yet an audience, staring at him. They were not so welcoming as the daddy seemed to think. Their blurred eyes sought him out where he was hiding amid rubble at the foot of the stage.

In his sparkly mood the daddy wasn’t at all intimidated by the buzzing audience. As Tod stared in astonishment the daddy began to dance — tap-dance — flailing his arms in a comical fashion. The daddy continued to address the audience in a familiar way as if they were all old friends. The daddy’s silky thinning dust-colored hair was disheveled in the wind and his face was unusually warm, ruddy. The daddy looked so eager, and so happy! — as Tod hadn’t seen his father in a long time.

After a few minutes the tap-dancing ceased. The daddy stopped to catch his breath — a new mood was summoned. Advancing to the very edge of the stage the daddy clasped his hands to his chest and spoke in a grave voice: “‘Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound;… I grow. I prosper: Now, gods, stand up for bastards!”p>

Tod laughed as if he’d been roughly tickled — bastard was one of the bad words. Yet the daddy pronounced bastard happily, like the words of a song.

Another time the daddy paused to wait out the applause of the audience. Then with a dramatic flourish the daddy rubbed his face as if erasing its features to begin again, with a look now of grief. His voice thickened as if he were about to cry. “‘All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, At one fell swoop?’”p>

Hearing these utterly perplexing words Tod became frightened. He had no idea why his father was speaking of chickens but by the tone of his father’s voice he understood that something very bad had happened to the chickens.