Calvin (13 page)

*   *   *

Spaceman Spiff looks out over the frozen wasteland of Planet Erie. It has been well named, he thinks wryly. He and his fellow astronaut are doomed, of course, stranded as they are on this cold ball of rock and ice, hurtling through the blackness of space. They have contacted the father ship. All hope is not lost. But did the captain get the message? Will he think it worth it to interrupt his own mission to rescue them? They will be declared heroes for the cause of space exploration, and people will speculate about how long it took them to die.

But Spiff doesn't give up that easily. Eventually the father ship will come to this planet, and won't the captain be surprised to find they have conquered the elements and survived against all odds. Spiff looks at his female sub-officer. She is a good astronaut—uncomplaining, forging ahead in the hopes of finding shelter. Wouldn't the captain be surprised to find they had not only survived, but procreated—their firstborn the first citizen of Planet Erie …

Susie: Why are you looking at me like that?

Wye r oo lookin ah meh like tha?

Me: Oh, nothing.

Bill, I wanted to live, and most of all I wanted Susie to live, and that's what I was thinking about when I heard the most horrible sound in the world: the sound of Susie crying.

Me: Susie?

Susie (sniff):

Me: Susie?

Susie: Are you kidding me?

Ah oo ki-ing me?

Susie: Where is the shore? We should be able to see the land by now. We're going to die out here on this horrible lake!

Me: Well, the lake itself isn't horrible—

Susie: Don't you talk to me!

Me: I just—

Susie: Don't! Don't you talk to me ever again! I'm not speaking to you, you understand? Ever, ever again. That's what you get for killing me.

Me: Susie, I'm not going to let you die.

Susie: Let me?
Let me?
I'll tell you what, you don't
let me
do anything. I don't need your permission to do anything, including dying.

Me:

Susie (gasping a little):

Me: Is there a correct response to what you just said?

She stood still.

Susie: I can't move now.

I put my arms around her.

Yeti's mate laid her head on his shoulder and some primeval feeling he could not articulate filled his being. He would do this. He would get her to safety, to the civilization of man.

It was all his fault, after all.

All his fault all his fault all his fault—

 

We weren't freezing with all our juices in us. We were freeze-drying, freeze-squeezing. The lake was squeezing all the life out of us. I melted more water with my hands, but it only gave her a slurp or two. My hands were big toothaches, throbbing.

Hobbes: My paws hurt. I'm thirsty.

When you are in the middle of a flat, frozen lake, Bill, it looks like you are in the exact center of a perfect circle. Which is awesome in a way because it's like the world really does revolve around you, like you're at the center of all meaning. But then it gets kind of freaky, because no matter how long and hard you move, you can't get out of the middle of that circle. No matter where you are, you're at the epicenter of the known universe, and it follows you wherever you go, even if it's the stupidest universe you could come up with.

Hobbes: I'm hungry. My paws hurt.

The sun was getting lower on the horizon again. My legs were setting, too. Soon it would be night and that would be it for my legs. Susie took slow, shuffling steps. I was colder again.

Suddenly she stopped and shrieked.

Susie: Calvin! Lights!

I almost tripped over my dead feet.

Maybe they were stars …

But no, they were lights, distant and tiny, but lights for sure.

Susie: Land! We made it! I thought we were going to die.

I knew things looked a lot closer than they really were on the lake, but I didn't say anything.

Susie: Oh.

Me: Oh?

She whimpered.

Susie: I think I peed my snow pants.

Me: Okay. It's okay, Susie.

Susie: I didn't mean to.

Me: Yeah, it would be different if you meant to.

Susie: It was warm for a minute.

Hobbes: Can we not go into the details?

Susie: But now it's cold.

And then, Bill, she started shivering.

She was shivering, and every Boy Scout there ever was knew that was bad.

You couldn't escape the reality of shivering.

And right then, Bill, Hobbes walked into my full view—a massive eight-foot tiger with a head the size of a basketball and paws the size of cereal bowls and all his muscles rumbling and popping under his fur. I could see every bit of him now, orange against the white ice and snow and a black Rorschach test on his head. He was as real as Susie, or maybe Susie was as real as him, or maybe nothing was real including me, and I turned slowly around in a circle and came back to Hobbes and Susie, who had sat down.

Me: No, Susie, you can't sit down.

Susie: I'm sleepy.

Me: No. No sleep.

Susie (so softly I could barely hear her): Is this what it feels like to lose your mind, Calvin? Like your brain is filled with a hundred thoughts at once and none of them go together and you don't know if what you're seeing and hearing is for sure? Is that what it's like?

Me: Yeah, Susie. A lot like that. Come on.

I pulled her to her feet, but her knees started bending.

Susie: I'm sorry, Calvin, I can't.

Me: I'll carry you.

Susie: No. I have to walk.

Me: Yeah. You do. Come on.

Susie: In a minute.

She folded down.

Hobbes: Make her mad.

Me: Go away.

Hobbes: Make her chase you.

Me: I—

I stopped.

I bent down and picked up a handful of snow and chucked it at her.

Hobbes: That's it!

Thwap!

Susie: Calvin!

She tried to scream it, but only this shrill pathetic sound came out.

I hit her with another one.

Thwap!

Hobbes: That'll get her up!

Susie: Calvin, what are you doing? Stop it, you freak!

She had put consonants on the ends of all her words.

Me: Snowball fight! Snowball fight! Whoever wins gets to be the boss.

Susie: You do that again, and I'll—

Me: You'll what? You'll what?

I chucked another snowball.
Thwap!

She stood up like an old woman and picked up some snow and slowly formed it into a snowball.

Susie: This!

I tried to dance around a bit, but I was so stiff I moved like a robot.

Susie: This is for bringing me on this stupid frozen lake—

I dodged and the snowball sailed past me. She bent down again.

Her pitch came faster this time and it caught my leg.

Thwap!
I got her again.

Me: You'll have to chase me!

She made a huge snowball.

I plodded in the direction of the lights. She started to stumble after me. She waddled like a baby in a big swollen diaper. We both half screamed and half laughed this dry wheezy laugh, and then I slipped and fell on my backside and she threw the snowball right in my face and said I'm going to pummel you, you jerk, and she swung her arms at me for a while and I held her off at arm's length and then she stopped and breathed hard a minute and finally she said let's go.

*   *   *

I thought we could do it, Bill. Maybe the lights weren't all that far away.

It turns out they were.

 

The wind had blown the ice bare ahead of us, so the going was a bit easier for a while. Then Susie started shivering again.

Hobbes was padding along just ahead of us, not speaking, not looking back at us, and I could see all of him now, all the time. He slunk and weaved in front of me, putting his nose to the ice as if he smelled something under there.

Me: I figured something out, Hobbes. You might always be true about me. I can't control you, I can't make you go away. But you know what? If I can't control you, you can't control me either. That's all I need to know.

Hobbes: You, me, me, you. You can't separate us. Listen to me. Maybe lots of people have a tiger, but they don't know about it. I can help you.

Me: I never wanted to hurt her.

Susie: Calvin, what? What?

Her voice was small and dry, like her throat had almost closed up.

Her face was really peaceful.

Susie: Calvin, I'm so sleepy …

She stopped and stood there with her eyes closed.

I picked her up and slung her arm around my shoulders, and she wasn't even heavy, not even a bit heavy.

Me: Don't disappear on me, Susie. Just stay awake, okay, Susie? Even if I can only have the dream of you, I'll take it.

She didn't answer.

And that's when Jenny Greenteeth crawled out.

 

First her hands, Bill, big and purple with long curly fingernails. Then her head with kelp for hair and fish eyes for eyes, lidless and glassy, and inside her black mouth her teeth furred with green moss.

Hobbes growled.

She crawled out, big and whole.

Jenny: I drowned, but I forgot to die.

Stupendous Man carried the helpless damsel, Susie, in his impossibly muscular arms. If she knew he thought of her as a helpless damsel … He walked away from Jenny Greenteeth, but he could hear her following, hear her sloshing along behind him, slosh, slosh, slosh, her dripping skirts dragging on the ice. She kept up with him. She wasn't going to go away. Stupendous Man was going to have to turn around and face her.

Me: Can't we work this out? Can you please just leave us alone?

Jenny: It's warm under the water. Come down.

Me: No, thank you.

Jenny: Why is there a tiger?

Me: Why is there a ghost?

Jenny: I died.

Me: I'm sorry to hear that.

Jenny: The girl is dying.

Me: No.

Jenny: She'll be warmer under the water.

She followed us, but she didn't come any closer, keeping her ice-rimmed eyes on Hobbes. Her eyes clicked when she blinked.

Click. Click.

Jenny: First you're cold, and then you're not cold, and then you're warm and you dream—

Me: You're not real. You're not here. Leave us alone.

Jenny: I'm true.

Me: You're not. I'm making you up.

Jenny: Yes, you made me. I'm made. I'm here.

Me: You have to go now.

The lake was a big drum and the drum was thumping and booming and vibrating at a register just below hearing.

Stupendous Man kept walking, the damsel in his arms
.
The ice had started to crack behind him … Stop stop stop.

Jenny: Lots of monsters under the ice.

Click.

Me:

Jenny: What happened to you?

Click. Click.

Me:

Jenny: Lots of monsters under the ice.

Stupendous Man put the damsel down. Even with his unspeakable strength, he couldn't carry his whole world in his arms forever
.

Me: Hobbes! Who's stronger? You or Jenny?

Hobbes: Me. I was always going to save you.

Me: I know.

Hobbes: That was always the point.

Me: Yeah.

Hobbes: We're buddies, right? I know where the ice is good. Just follow me.

Me: Between you and Jenny Greenteeth, Hobbes—who's stronger?

Hobbes: Not much to her.

Me: Please, Hobbes.

Slowly Hobbes turned toward Jenny. He growled and leaped away behind me. I lifted Susie up again and walked.

I could hear Hobbes snarling.

Me: Lots of monsters under the ice, Susie. But that's okay—Hobbes can take care of them.

Susie: Mmm …

I heard an unearthly screeching sound, like metal grinding on metal.

Susie: Wassat…?

Me: You heard that, Susie?

Jenny Greenteeth wailed and Hobbes roared and it echoed over the empty lake.

Jenny glubbed and Hobbes yowled. It filled up the whole sky, that yowl.

Susie: The ice is breaking up—

Me: No, Susie, that's Hobbes driving Jenny back down under the ice.

Susie: That's the ice screaming.

Then Hobbes was in front of us again, licking his chops covered in green sauce.

Hobbes: Like I said, not much to her.

And then I put Susie on her feet, Bill, and we stood beside each other and stared at the lights on the shore and I couldn't remember if they were stars or if they were some other thing my mind was inventing, and Hobbes stood with me, and I loved him, and Susie, too, and I cried because I loved me, too, and I'd forgotten that, if I'd ever known it, forgotten, just like I'd forgotten if they were stars or lights.

Then Susie went down.

 

Susie was lying beside me, curled on the ice like a baby, like the lake had a baby and just left it there, not even in a basket or on a doorstep, just left its blue baby there sleeping. I saw cracks in the ice, and this time they weren't going away.

Where were you, Bill? That's what I kept thinking: Where are you? You would have known we were late, really late. I didn't remember being mad since I was six years old, but right then I was so mad I stood up and started shouting—at the lake, at the sky, at you, Bill. Especially you.

Me: Why all the secrecy? All the mystery? Why don't you show yourself? Why don't you answer fan mail? Would it hurt once in a while? Here's a news flash: you're famous! Your creations inspire lifelong loyalty! It's too late! Why couldn't you have cared enough to worry about us, to be here?

I sat down on the ice beside her. The sun was almost sitting on the lake, and it was getting cold again, but I couldn't carry Susie anymore, and I couldn't leave her.

Then Hobbes sat beside us like a big furry furnace, and I felt warm. I felt warm except for my face where my tears were turning into slush. Sitting there, I realized something important, Bill.