Calvin (7 page)

Susie: How far do you think we've gone?

I knew we weren't doing five K an hour, and I was worried we weren't even doing four.

Me: I'm sure there will be a sign soon to let us know how far we've come.

Susie: Clever.

Me: My brain I offer to the gods.

Susie: What makes you think they want it?

Me: What makes you think I want it?

Calvin the human furnace moves forward on his mission to cross the arctic lake. The human furnace and his companion are tiny hot spots in a wasteland of frozen cold. Together they trudge, partners in their dark destiny, willing to share in the glory of success or the ignominious fate of defeat.

Me: Trudge, trudge.

Me: Trudge, trudge.

Me: Trudge, trudge.

Susie: You're driving me crazy.

Me: Welcome to my world.

Susie: I know we're trudging, I don't need the voice-over.

*   *   *

We trudged and I didn't say the word
trudge
once. Susie took over the compass because I kept forgetting to look at it.

Hobbes: I know why you did this. You did it on purpose knowing that I'm a jungle animal and I don't like the cold. You want me to freeze to death.

Me: That would be a bonus.

Hobbes: Why do you want to get rid of me? I'm your friend.

Me: Are you sure you're my friend?

Hobbes: I've never eaten you. Doesn't that prove my undying friendship? I'm here to protect you, and to make sure you don't give up on winning the Change the World Lottery.

Me: You're not protecting me. You're the thing I need protecting against.

Hobbes: I could help you with Susie. I've got a way with the babes.

Me: We're on a hike, not a date.

Susie: You got that right. Other guys take me to the movies.

Me: Let's remember I didn't ask you on this date.

Susie: That was very gallant of you to say.

Me: But I'm glad you came.

She stopped.

Susie: You are? You admit it?

Me: It's easy to admit things to a figment of your imagination.

She laughed.

That was a bad sign. The real Susie would have punched me in the arm.

Susie (frowning, looking down): Calvin, I'm sorry.

Me: You should be. What are you sorry for?

Susie: For ditching you to hang out with other people.

Me: Oh that.

Susie: Turns out they were boring.

Me: Even the guys you dated?

Susie: Especially them.

Me: And I'm not? Boring?

Susie: No. Sometimes I wish you were a bit more boring.

Hobbes: You are boring. You keep telling me to go away. When did you get so boring?

Me (to Hobbes): I can't play my life away. There's this thing called growing up. It's essential for functioning in the adult world.

Hobbes: The adult world is highly overrated.

Me: It's the only one I know of for people over a certain age.

Hobbes: We could have our own world.

Me: Bill Watterson is in the adult world and I—

Hobbes: Bill Shmill. Also highly overrated. Why do you keep talking about him like he's the creator of the known universe?

Me: Hey! You wouldn't exist without him.

Hobbes: Remember what it feels like to wake up on a summer morning and not think about anything except going outside and sitting under a tree? You've forgotten. I bet Bill has, too. Instead of a heart you'll have an iPhone. Instead of a brain you'll have pings that tell you what has to be done that day and that minute. You'll never sit in a tree house again, or build a snow fort. You'll rake and shovel walks, instead. But it doesn't have to be that way, ol' buddy …

Me: Susie—

Susie: Oh, you're talking to me now? Please, don't let me interrupt what must be a scintillating conversation—

Me: Do you know what the default network in your brain is?

Susie: Yes, I know what the default network is.

Me: You do?

Susie: Of course I don't! I'm normal! Normal people don't know all this stuff about their brains.

Me: So the default network consists of three main regions: the medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex, and the parietal cortex.

Susie: Sounds like a fabric for fitness wear.

Me: All these parts of our brain talk to each other, like social networking. The medial prefrontal helps us imagine ourselves as individuals and also the thoughts and feelings of others. Animals have trouble with that—this is a thing that makes us human.

Hobbes: Hey!

Susie: Can you imagine my thoughts and feelings right now?

Me (ignoring her): All those brain bits give you this sense of yourself, like you're the star in the movie of your life. But people who have schizophrenia, their medial prefrontals go on strike—malfunction, malfunction. We're thinking, all right, but we don't know where the thoughts are coming from, so it feels like someone is putting thoughts in our heads, or someone is reading our minds.

Susie: You are so weird.

She stopped suddenly and sat on the sled.

Susie: I have to sit.

I sat beside her. I reached into the duffel bag and pulled out two granola bars. We peeled the wrappers off and ate slowly. I threw a piece behind me for Hobbes.

Susie: What are you doing?

Me: Feeding Hobbes.

Susie: That's a waste of food.

Hobbes: That's a matter of opinion.

Susie was staring out over the lake.

Me: You okay?

Susie: It's beautiful, really, isn't it.

Me (stomping the ice): What, this old thing?

She didn't smile.

Susie: This emptiness. I bet we're the only ones who have come this far. It's been this beautiful and strange on the lake every winter forever, and nobody knew about it and nobody cared and it still went on being beautiful. Just because.

Sometimes Susie was hard to figure out, but she just went on being beautiful and strange forever. I had watched her around the kids at school, and she was never like this with them, never raw like she'd bleed if you touched her.

Susie: Doesn't it make you feel kind of awesome that the world is beautiful for no other apparent reason than that it is? Like beauty has its own secret reason. It doesn't need human eyes to notice. It just wants to be glorious and unbelievable.

Me: You're unbelievable.

Susie had been breaking off bits of her granola bar and eating them as if her hands were part of her digestive system before teeth. After a minute she looked at me.

Susie: You're not following that up with a sarcastic comment?

Me: No.

Susie: That was a major step forward in our relationship.

I didn't answer because the word
relationship
was pinging around in my skull.

Susie: Do you ever wonder what life is all about, Calvin? Yeah, I know you do. You're one of the few guys I personally know who stop to wonder about that. For me—I don't know what it's all about, but I've decided maybe that's the cool thing about it. Life lets you decide for yourself. I mean, it would be awful if it wasn't up to us, wouldn't it? If life said, this is what I'm about and don't go getting any ideas of your own?

Me: So have you had any ideas?

She nodded.

Susie: As weird as it sounds, I got an idea a long time ago that you were one of the things my life was about.

Me: When you say you, do you mean me?

Susie (ignoring me): I didn't know what that would mean. Maybe it would be just something I felt and wouldn't add up to anything. Maybe I'd just, you know, keep newspaper articles about you in an album if you became famous. Or maybe if you became a starving artist I'd have to send you money in unmarked envelopes. But then you got sick and I thought maybe it meant that I was supposed to be there for you, or—or help in some way.

We were quiet for a while.

Me: You're wrong about us being the only ones who have ever seen this. Walter Lick walked across the lake in the winter of 1912, Gene Heuser in 1963, and Dave Voelker in 1978. Who knows if there's been anyone since.

Susie: Did they live?

Me: Barely.

Susie: Barely is better than nothing.

We finished our granola bars and got walking.

*   *   *

I felt like I could walk to the moon, Bill. I was on this hike with a girl who could see something beautiful on a vast, empty, eerie, frozen lake. Underneath the ice it was dark and cold and mysterious, but all she saw was the beauty and awesomeness of it.

I actually almost forgot about Hobbes for a while, and then he was there again.

Hobbes: Thanks.

Me: For what?

Hobbes: For nothing.

Me: What?

Hobbes: How come I only get one bite of granola bar? Don't let me get too hungry.

 

It was getting darker, and I was about to suggest we set up the tent, when we came to the cars.

I dropped the sled handle.

Me: I'm hallucinating again. Still.

Susie: It's catching.

Me: What are you seeing?

Susie: Cars … nine of them. And a truck.

Me: A car lot in the middle of Nowhere, Lake Erie.

Susie: That's what I see.

Me: Do you see any people?

She shook her head.

Me: Me neither.

We both stared, and the cars stared back.

Susie walked right up to an old GMC, pulled on the door handle, and it opened easily.

She grinned.

I went around to the other side and slid in shotgun.

Susie: This one is mine. Go find your own.

I checked out a couple of rusted and banged-up cars before I saw a really beat-up old Mustang with the backseat ripped out. I whistled and slipped into the driver's seat.

After a bit Susie got into the Mustang beside me.

Me: Hey, I thought you had your own.

Susie: I'm just visiting.

I gripped the steering wheel and stared out the windshield, grinning my face off. Susie grinned back.

Me: Sooz, do you believe in God?

Susie: It's easier when he just gave us free cars.

Me: Yeah, and even easier when he gives you keys!

Susie: What?

I turned the ignition. It whined for a long time and then it came to life.

I tore away and she screamed and laughed and I pressed the gas pedal to the floor and we zoomed away over the ice and fishtailed and made donuts and came back and zoomed around a few minutes more until it ran out of what must have been the tablespoon of gas that was left in it.

Susie: This lake is freaky.

Me: Yeah. But in a good way, right?

She grinned.

Me: Vroom, vroom … vrooooommmm!

Susie: (gasp)

Me: What?

Susie (whispering): I know why they left the cars. They're dumping them!

Me: Well, they're not selling them, that's for sure.

Susie: Calvin—remember what Orvil said? About how they treat the lake? I bet people drive cars out here where nobody will see and leave them on the ice so they'll sink to the bottom of the lake when spring comes. Maybe they know where the weak spots on the ice are, or where the ice breaks up early. Come on!

We got out of the Mustang. We had to walk a ways north to get our sled, and then we started heading south across the lake again.

Hobbes: What a waste.

Me: They could have donated them.

Susie: To the poor.

Me: To poor teenagers.

She looked around at the empty white lake.

Susie: How can they do that to our lake?

Me: It's our lake now, is it?

Susie: It's ours because we know it this way.

Me: Bill wouldn't have been impressed if we'd driven across the lake.

Susie: He won't be impressed that you're walking across it either.

She stopped and looked back. It was dark enough now that the cars seemed ghostly from where we were.

Susie: We made that up.

Me: If we did, it was a good one.

*   *   *

I didn't want to put the tent too close to the cars, so we walked a little farther.

We'd just rounded another snow dune when we saw a light up ahead, floating in the dusk like a square moon.

Me: Is that real?

Susie: As real as my right arm.

This did not reassure me.

It was an island, a really small island.

With a little cabin on it.

Smoke drifted out of the pipe chimney. A fire was going in that cabin.

I thought we would reach it in a couple of minutes, but it was farther than it seemed. We got out our flashlight and twenty minutes later we scrambled up the rocks on the shore of the island, dragging the sled behind us.

A huge man opened the door. His beard covered almost all of his face except his lips, his upper cheeks and eyes, and his forehead. Those were covered by bushy eyebrows and a mane of curly gray head hair. He looked like a big gray bear with human eyes.

Hobbes: Yeti?

Man: I thought I was seeing things.

Me: I know the feeling.

Man: I thought I must be seeing things because no way would two kids be out for a stroll this far into the lake, and at night.

He sounded angry. He took a step toward us, onto the wooden box that served as a front stoop. Susie and I backed up.

Man: I thought, they got a sled. They turned right when they should've turned left, those two. They want a hill, not a lake, those two. You know the difference between a hill and a lake, boy?

Me: We—

Man (his voice getting louder): Then I see one of you is a boy and one of you is a girl, and no way should a girl be in the middle of this lake.

Susie scowled at him.

Man: So I'm thinking that the boy should be the one held responsible for the girl being out in the middle of the big, very big lake.

Susie and I glanced at each other and started to leave.

Man: Git in here!

Me: Thanks, but no, sir. We have to be getting on our way, sir.

Man: You stay out then. Come on, girl, I've got a fire, and I'm not near as scary as I seem. Come on, this house isn't made of candy and I'm not going to stuff you into the oven.