North Fork (5 page)

Okay. I admit I have thoughts about weird stuff. And sometimes when I'm really pissed, I imagine having the balls to do something extreme, maybe strap a bomb to myself like someone in Iraq or Afghanistan. But they're not kidding. They—the cops I mean—think I hurt her or worse, even though they don't know what happened, or even
if
anything happened. They actually think I could have... As if I'd do something like that to her.

I watch the news. Sometimes I even read newspapers. It's not like I thought it up myself. You can't turn on the TV without those guys blaring at you about how a bunch of people got blown up by some fanatic trying to help Allah get even with infidels. What
I think it's really about is just being so totally pissed off that life gets blurry for you and you can't sit still and take it anymore, so you pop.

My life is blurry a lot and I get really pissed off at unfairness and the stupidity of some people, like my asshole stepdad. Talk about someone who. . . It would do him good to know fear. And the principal too. They're both full of bull. You'll notice I didn't use the word “shit” here. I would have—I use profanity a lot—but I don't want to put you off, and that word bothers some people. Plus, it doesn't really make my story more accurate, and accuracy is important to me, like when I called my stepdad an asshole. I know that word bothers people too, but it's accurate. He really is one.

Anyway, when they are yelling at me, most of the time I probably deserve it, but it makes my head spin. I get this clutchy, tight feeling around my heart and just want to fade out, become invisible, disappear, but I can't and I have to stand or sit there pretending to listen, so I imagine things, like what if I had a bomb strapped under my clothes like those Arab guys who probably feel the same way. What if I could yell back, or better yet, just open my coat or shirt and watch his (my stepdad's) eyes take it in, and his mouth stop.

I always end it there because if you play it out, it's not so good. I'm not an idiot. I know that bombs kill innocent people, kids like my little half-sister, Tristan. It's on the news every day. I couldn't really do it. I don't believe in an afterlife like the Muslims or Christians. I don't believe in anything, so the only reward would be the immediate result which would include my being vaporized too, and I'm not sure that that's a reward, even though I spend a lot of time wishing I could disappear.

But I could never hurt her. She wasn't having much fun either. It's true—she wasn't, even though she never let on to anyone. On the surface, she seemed to have it all together, perfect grades
and everything. The teachers all loved her, but I could sense something about her, like she was scared to let go and breathe. I wish I could talk to her now, but I'm stuck in here and she's gone. They think she's dead and when I let that thought in, let it touch me, certain moments come into my head, and reliving them seems more real than sitting here in this dump. Moments with her, just talking or not talking, maybe just sitting by the river watching stuff float by in the current, or sitting up on Sugarloaf, the Olympic Mountains in the background, with the turkey buzzards from the San Juans soaring above that little lake. I'm discovering, now that I'm locked in this room with nothing to do but think about how she might actually be dead, that it was in those moments that the tight feeling that's always around my heart would relax a little, and I could forget for a second or two that life is a mean joke.

The room they've got me in is really barren. It's made of cinder blocks and painted pale yellow, which is supposed to be calming or something and is a little better than the usual government-building puke green. But the paint is old and you can tell where people have written on the walls. They've cleaned off the ink, probably with that white-board cleaning stuff I've used to clean the writing off of desks as part of detention at school.

If you look carefully, you can still see the pen-point indentation of letters forming words that, if you wanted to spend the time, you might be able to read. I've got nothing but time here, but I'm not interested in wasting it on that. There's a book we read in Smith's class called Huckleberry Finn with this character, Tom Sawyer, who helps Huck try to free this slave guy. If Tom was here, he would imagine mysterious messages in the writing and be disappointed in me, but I think he was kind of a jerk. I have a hard time thinking of the life of anyone who was also stuck in this room as anything but pathetic.

They're afraid I'll commit suicide, which is kind of weird considering what they think I did. If I was them, I would want the guy who did it to check out. It would save everyone a lot of trouble and money. Of course, as you might imagine from what you know about me, I've thought about it—suicide—and if I was determined enough, which I'm not, I could do it in spite of them, but they have made it hard. There's nothing on the ceiling to hang from except the sprinklers, and if you hung anything heavy from them, it would set off the fire alarm. That would be funny, if
you could do it without getting caught, or if it was like the music adding drama to your departure, like on TV, but they'd be in here in seconds to cut you down and then they'd make you feel even more wretched and pitiful than you already feel.

They sure as hell don't want me alive because they love me and would miss me. My life has value to them because they don't know what happened to Kristen and they think I might be able to tell them. They give me books, my schoolwork, paper and a pen to write with, and someone looks in on me from time to time. I'm pretty good at checking out of my body into my imagination, so the slowness of time passing hasn't become excruciating yet, and I want to know what happened to her too.

That night she disappeared, while I was walking toward town and deciding not to go home, they think Kristen picked me up after she dropped Natalie off at the Shell. They think I got her to go to the river with me, which actually did happen, but not that night. They've been to the river and found where I hid my camping stuff and there was some hair that they think matches hers on this fleece I keep there. It does match hers—in fact, it is hers—because she wore the fleece the night she was there. The socks they found are hers too, and so is the blood on them, but there's a good explanation. They just don't believe it.

The night Kristen was driving away from the Shell toward wherever she vanished to, I was walking on the side of the road in the dark, remembering the night the week before when she actually did pick me up. I was dreaming that she was with me again. I know she's too good for me and suspect that, even though she was nice to me, nothing would likely have come of it because if it's good and you want it, it'll never happen, even though there were moments that gave me hope. The dream was nice and helped me avoid thinking about Harold, and it made the long walk out to the trail over the dike go a lot faster.

I quit trying to hitch a ride when I decided not to go into town.
The road out to the dike passes through a lot of farmland, then over a wooded ridge. There isn't much traffic, and on the night Kristen disappeared, only a few cars passed me. Sometimes I play this game with cars, watching and listening for them so I can drop down in the tall grass or find some way to get out of sight before they see me. It only works when there's somewhere beside the road to hide. I started doing it when I was younger and used to sneak out of the house at night. It's still kind of a fun game, and never knowing when Harold or my mom will drive by gives it purpose, but when I hide, I lose the chance that I might get picked up by someone from school and get a ride or have something good happen, like the night Kristen went to the river with me.

The night she disappeared, I was hoping she might show up again, but I knew Harold was still home and I figured he would be really pissed that I skipped out without finishing all his stupid jobs. If he gets mad enough, sometimes he comes looking for me, so I hid from the cars and nobody saw that I was alone. Bad move.

It's a long walk from the highway to the trail on the dike, and when I was hiding from Harold, Kristen couldn't magically appear again like I was fantasizing, but I walk fast and, when it's not raining, I like the night. Even so, I was beat when I got there. The stars were out and there was enough of a moon so that, even without my headlamp, I could follow the narrow trail through the tall grass and low brush that grows on the dike.

I can see pretty well in the dark and it doesn't scare me. Instead, it makes me feel safe, and I like the challenge, but I have this cool quartz headlamp, like a miner's light only better because it's tiny and nearly weightless. It puts out a lot of light, the batteries last a long time, and it's secured to your forehead by an elastic headband. I ordered it from one of those cheap camping gear catalogues, and packed it around with me to use on nights like that one. They have it now as evidence, along with all my other gear from the river.

I didn't need the light that night until it got really dark under the trees that grow between the dike and the river, but then it was safe to use it because you're shielded and can't be seen from any of the farmhouses nearby. I knew if Harold found out about the river place, it would be ruined for me. I held the light in my hand like a flashlight. I know the trail so well I only need to flick it on long enough to orient myself and keep from tripping or running into a tree. When the light is on, I feel like a target because I know how visible it makes me in the night.

You can sense the river nearby like it's alive. You can smell it too, and you're close enough to the bay to get the smell of the salt marsh when the tide is out and the miles of mud flats in Skagit Bay are exposed. The night Kristen was with me, I left the light on the whole time after we got over the dike. It was worth the risk. She walked close to me and held onto my arm, making it hard for me to walk on the narrow trail, so I took hold of her hand and led her. Her hand was warm and trusting. I couldn't have described it like that right then, but it was trust, and it surprised me in the same way I was surprised when she waited after class that first day and talked to me.

That was one surprising night and I hang onto every detail of the memory so I can relive it in my mind. Just like on the night she disappeared, I was walking along the Valley Road, which is the shortest way and the way I always go. It's good that it has very little traffic because the shoulders are so narrow it can be hard to get out of the way when cars go by. A set of headlights passed going the opposite direction, and I didn't pay much attention, looking away to avoid the glare. Then a few minutes later a car came up from behind and slowed to walking speed beside me. It kind of spooked me, and I expected it to be Harold or my mom, even though that night I thought Harold was on the boat, which is why I wasn't hiding from cars.

It can get lonely walking late at night, and I go off into my head
fantasizing about things a lot. I was having a lot of imaginary conversations with Kristen in my head, sort of practicing, hoping I could keep from driving her away. Since I'd had a few unspoiled experiences with her, I was thinking we might be developing a friendship or something. Then this car pulls up, and there she is in the shadowy warm glow of dash lights inviting me in. It was kind of like stepping into a spaceship or something from a different dimension. I mean, how often do your dreams come true? At first I couldn't talk, so I felt kind of stupid. It felt unreal, even though I had been in her car before. It smells like vanilla, and though it was a hand-me-down from her mom, it was nice. The high point of our relationship before that night was hiking up this little mountain by Anacortes together. It was a good day. Of course, she drove then too.

When I imagine being with her, my heart gets all thumpity, but for some reason when I'm actually with her, it seems almost normal. So when she asked where I was going that was worth walking that far alone, I told her and showed her where the trail was so she could drop me there. Instead, she pulled the car off the road and switched the engine off. The next thing I knew, we were on the trail in the dark together, and I was floating through what felt like the smoke of a dream connected to substance only by what I now know was the trust that passed from her hand into mine.

The fire pit and the campsite are close to a bend in the river, and when the river isn't threatening its banks, there is a beach with a sand bar. There are no farmhouse lights visible on the opposite side of the river where the high dike rises straight up from the water. The campsite is well protected from view, and even if someone saw the light or the fire, they probably wouldn't think much of it. When the salmon are running, there are many places along the river where people camp. The danger is that someone will think I'm a poacher, or will just get curious, and
Harold will find out. That night I wasn't thinking about that.

I showed her my stash of camping gear that I keep hidden in a hollowed-out place under this big old rotting log that's covered by salal. It even grows out of the top of the log. It's a perfect hiding spot where no one is likely to walk, but even if you went right by it in the day time, unless you were looking for something, you wouldn't see the two plastic five-gallon buckets that have my tent and sleeping bag in them. The buckets are dark blue and used to have Chevron hydraulic oil in them. Harold brings them home from the tugboat. These particular ones still had the lids, so I pried them off and scrubbed the insides with laundry soap. The lids are a little hard to get off, but a screwdriver helps, so I keep a cheap one under the log too. You can put the lids back on easily enough, like on Tupperware. The bad part is if you have to put the stuff away damp, it doesn't dry out and starts to mildew. The gear was all pretty cheap. I bought it on sale at Fred Meyer, so if I had to replace it, it wouldn't be that bad, and like I said, it's all evidence now, so it doesn't matter anyway.