Page 32 of Be Not Far From Me

Because I need it more than he does.

I take some other things, too.

Davey’s shoes are way too big, something I find out after going through the process of taking them off him. His pack has a few things that are helpful to me; a Swiss Army knife, a canteen, and a tarp. I recognize the first two. I’ve held them before, Davey showing me how to always cut away from myself with the knife, my eyes lingering a little too long on his mouth when he took a drink from the canteen. They’re not mine now, not really. They’re Davey’s, on loan to me for as long as it takes.

I think about staying one more night. It’d be a few more hours with something between me and the sky, a little bit more time with someone that means something to me, even if I’m not quite clear on exactly what that is. But in the end, I decide that the tent can’t do anything for me that the tarp won’t, and what’s left lying in there isn’t Davey. Not really. Davey’s gone and was never mine to begin with, so I might as well put on a hard face and point it in whatever direction feels best and get on with it.

I do two things before I go.

I found a bandanna deep in Davey’s backpack, one that was bought new and still had creases from being folded in a perfect square, though it’s spent two years wedged between a camp frying pan and an extra pair of jeans. I tie a stone in the corner for weight and toss it wildly five times before it snags on a branch about twenty feet up, a bright blistering red among all the green. The breeze catches it and it unfolds, factory-pressed corners finally loosed.

I ease myself down with shaky arms and give Davey’s pack a critical look. The straps are so rotted I don’t think it’ll last more than a few miles and I’m so weak I doubt I can carry more than what I already have. The last thing I do is zip the tent again, making sure Davey won’t be bothered any more. My hand lingers on the closed flap, like maybe I should say something that isn’t swearing.

“I’ll come back for you, Davey Beet,” I tell him.

And even though he’s past saving, I imagine there’s some comfort in those words.

I used to pretend to be asleep, just so Dad would carry me.

When I was a kid I thought we spent a lot of time in the woods because we were outdoorsy people, but as I got older I realized that the woods are also free—and so was a lot of the other stuff we did for fun. Other kids would go bowling or to the zoo, but Dad always offered up options like the library, the park, or fishing with worms we dug up ourselves, never taking the easy way of buying some at the gas station.

We walked everywhere too, me following Dad with my pole leaned back against my shoulder, worn-out sneakers pounding along the cracked sidewalk as I waved at my friends hanging out at the pool, bodies warm in the sun, their summer passes allowing them that luxury. And if I’m being honest, I wasn’t all that jealous. Because those kids at the pool and the bowling alley, they didn’t have their dads with them, holding their hands when they crossed the street or showing them how to bait a hook. I never needed anything more and didn’t really start wanting it until I got older.

Dad’s friends were the same kind of people, happy to drink cheap beer and sit in aluminum folding chairs on the front lawn while us kids chased each other, the littler ones wearing clothes the bigger ones had grown out of. Our games were made of mud and sticks, rocks and dirt. And we were happy.

I’d nod off, content in someone else’s house, a scratched DVD playing while my sweaty cheek stuck to a cheap leather couch, a bowl of suckers someone had nicked from the dentist’s office sitting on the floor.

The adults always followed a pattern; soft chuckles as they warmed up that led into bursts of loud laughter as the beer made jokes funnier, the speaker more clever. People would show up and the noise would swell, becoming a wall of sound with no individual words, just spikes of hilarity. That would fade, sharp slaps of the screen door opening and closing as people came and went, the population of the kids dwindling as their parents left.

The host always offered to let the remaining ones stay, have their parents come get them in the morning. That was my cue to fake sleep, head tipped back, hands open and loose, encouraging a bit of drool to slip out of my mouth. I knew Dad would never leave me; he always felt better if I was home with him, what was left of our family safe under one roof, even if it did leak. So I’d wait for him to come, struggling to keep my body in an approximation of sleep when I was so tense, hoping he’d fall for it.

Maybe he knew I was faking it every time, or maybe he’d had so many beers I didn’t need to try so hard. Either way, it didn’t matter. Dad always scooped me up, strong arms tight around me, beard scratching against my cheeks, still sticky with sucker, popcorn butter, or the last swig of juice that I’d missed my mouth with. And even though I’d stayed awake all night waiting for the moment for Dad to come and get me, I always fell asleep on the walk back home, safe and happy with him.

I left Davey behind with a few hours of sunlight left, afraid to stay much longer or else I might lose the determination to leave. His tent is a mile or so behind me when I stop to examine my foot. I did a number on it when I decided to go crazy in the storm, losing my plastic bag as I ran. The scab that had started to form was torn off at some point, and I managed to nick off a little more of exposed bone in the process. But Davey had some antibiotic creams and extra socks rolled together in his pack, which I lifted from him along with the knife and canteen.

Now that I’m far enough away from the tent that I won’t consider lingering I find some running water to check out the slice in my leg, which doesn’t look good but won’t kill me. I clean my foot too, wincing at the coldness of it. I’m still swollen, still hurting, still nowhere near what I’d call healing. The antibiotic cream is a startling white out here among all this dirt. It feels good going on, a hell of a lot better than the sock, even though I ease it on over the wound.

I sling my foot back and test my weight against a new walking stick I found. The only good thing I have to say about it is that it rubs in all new places as I go, leaving the old ones alone. I take inventory, touching each thing as I do. My fireboard and broken whiskey bottle top I couldn’t quite part with dangle from my belt loops, flint and Davey’s knife in my pocket, a reassuring bulge, parts of my dead foot still hanging in a sandwich bag. His tarp is folded neatly and tucked into the back of my jeans, filling the empty space my shrinking body has left behind. My blanket is tied around my throat, what’s left of Davey’s hat clinging around my ears.

I’m moving.

But Lord do I wish there was someone to carry me.

Day Thirteen

The next day dawns warm, humidity plastering my hair to my head and sending rivulets of sweat to trickle down my side before I’ve even limped from my camp to the creek. I stick my whole head in the water, running my fingers through my hair as I do, the closest thing to clean that I can get. My fingers find something and I pop back up for air, creek water running down all sides of me, pooling in my bra. I keep my thumb and forefinger pinched tight as I sit down on the bank to give a good tug, and the tick comes off in my palm.

It’s fat like a grape, skin mottled and stretched as it’s fed on me for I don’t know how long. A while, guessing by the size of it. It’s so full of my blood that its body has covered its legs, so that it’s only a hungry head and a too-full belly. It’s warm against my hand, like a cooked bean, and I pop it in my mouth, crunching down. My own blood fills my mouth, slick and coppery.

I slip down onto my stomach, ribs pressing hard against sharp stones. Davey Beet could pull fish out of a creek like reaching into a cooler for a beer, nothing to it. He’d tried to teach me, but I’d never been able, only coming close once when I managed to knock a smallmouth onto the bank and it had flipped and flopped between us, making me screech and him laugh until the poor thing found the water again and left us behind with a splash.

I couldn’t do it then, but I wasn’t dying then, either. And today there’s no chance of me being distracted by Davey’s freckled arm close to mine, or how his hands glided smooth and slow under the water. I know the fate of those hands, and how that arm looks now. The only place my mind wanders as I wait for an unwary fish to pass by is if I’m going to end up looking the same, and how soon.

Nevertheless, I’m too anxious with the first two fish that pass under my hand, wiggling my fingers along with the current. I twitch the wrong way at the wrong moment and they split, sensing that something’s off. It’s not until I’m warm from the sun, sweat running down in between my shoulder blades and half-asleep myself that I feel one brush up against my palm.

I move fast, clenching my fist tight and jerking my arm out of the water. I’m not smooth like Davey, pulling it up and out with confidence. It’s more like I just toss a whole bunch of water along with a fish up onto the shore, but the result is the same—a white-bellied trout tossing on the rocks, gills opening and closing as it drowns in air.

I’ve got a knife and a piece of tin and I can sure as hell make a fire, but all those thoughts are human and logical, and they pass like a quick rainstorm. A larger part of my mind is desperate and half-wild, fishing like a bear, and eating like one too.