lost river page two
“Keep your voices down. Let’s hear what he’s saying,” Derek said, his own voice
lost, someone else’s, as soon as it crossed his lips. There was a momentary dip in the
volume.
“Thank you. Now, kids, I don’t want you to worry, but if a drop of water falls on you and
it’s cold, that’s called a cave kiss. If it’s warm, it’s called a bat kiss.”
“Oooh, gross. Are there really bats in here?”
“Yes, and if you follow my flashlight, you’ll see one right now.”
“Is he going to suck our blood?”
“No, that’s only in the movies. Bats are shy creatures. They help control the insect
population.”
“I’d like to take some of them bats to my house to eat lady bugs.”
“Do you have a lot of lady bugs?” the guide asked.
“They infestate our house all the time, expecially in the spring.”
Lucy raised her voice, “Mr. Thompson says they ain’t lady bugs. Don’t you, Mr.
Thompson? They’re Mexican bean beetles. Ladybugs are red, and these are yellow,
and they have exactly 16 black dots on their back.”
A wave of déjà vu washed over him—Cecily sitting beside him on the hard metal seat,
her arm reaching behind him and her fingers playing his ribs. “Isn’t that right, Derek?”
she was saying, trying to get him to talk. He could even smell her hair, a hint of
rosemary cutting through the damp cave air.
In truth, that last night she’d been so high she didn’t know who she was, kept saying,
“What’s my name? I can’t remember,” then laughing and chanting “fuck me, whoever I
am,” moving from Derek to Josh to whoever else had shown up, back to Derek. At some
point, she disappeared, probably passed out or ranting in the woods, then returned
towards morning when everyone had finally crashed. Down in the basement, she stuffed
Sudafed backings and empty containers of acetone, toluene, and Coleman fuel, into a
trash bag. Leaving a trail of lighter fluid, she had almost reached the top of the stairs.
The explosion knocked her out of the basement and toppled her into the kitchen. Derek
woke with burning lungs when he heard the scream of a cat cornered in the next room.
He watched it leap through one flame into another. Fire slapped the doorway, and
beyond, the kitchen careened away. He lurched forward, saw her sleeping, legs
cockeyed and her head bent to her shoulder and wedged between the floor and the
bottom of the cabinet. The kitchen was already beginning to fold into the basement, as
he pulled her out. Once outside, he saw a shadow moving in the living room, where Josh
had sealed himself, after doing loud things with Cecily that Derek had run from, ready to
kill Josh or himself or Cecily.
He staggered to the window and threw a brick. It bounced off, then a small hole
appeared and a crack. Sucked out of the sudden opening of air, smoke rushed to fill the
window, dark brown and gray, swirling, before the window shattered, and Derek fell
back. When he came to, his face felt on fire, but when he ran his fingers over his cheek,
they came away with blood and a shard of glass. He put both hands to his face, felt the
rough edges of a dozen pieces of glass, realized he was seeing out of only one eye. He
must have been unconscious for only a moment, because although the smoke had
cleared from the window, in its place a row of orange flames was just beginning to
dance. The room where Josh wavered, a smoky shadow, had devoured him. Behind
Derek, Cecily slept under the tree, her face flickering orange, and beyond, the sound of
sirens poured over the hills. A voice—hers, his, no one’s—sent him back to the woods,
run, run.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back at school, Lucy ran up to him, something clenched in her fist. He was standing next
to the line of buses waiting to take the children home.
“Here you go, Mr. Thompson, I got this for you.”
She opened her hand and turned a jagged piece of scuffed and glittering mineral onto
his outstretched palm. He thanked her and slipped it into his shirt pocket, then hurried to
the back of the line to keep two boys from shoving their way into a fistfight. He clenched
his teeth. “Now why do you two want to go and spoil a nice day, huh?” His voice, louder
and harsher than he’d intended, surprised the children. “He started it,” they both
insisted, but climbed meekly into the bus, Derek on their heels. He got them seated, one
in back, one in the middle, and was moving back to the front of the bus, when he heard
Lucy’s voice.
“I’m going to marry Mr. Thompson some day when I get old enough.”
“How old do you have to be?” asked her seatmate.
“I’ll be sixteen and he’ll be twenty-five. That’s how old he is, I know, because I saw a
birthday card on his desk, and it said ‘Happy 25th Birthday.’”
“When you turn sixteen he’ll be forty-two or something. You can’t just freeze him till you
get old enough, Lucy. That’s retarded.”
She looked out the window, then turned back, her face lit. “Then we’ll move to Iran. Mr.
Thompson says that they lowered the marriage age down to nine.”
She caught his eyes and blushed so deeply that her brown skin took on a rosy glow
across her cheekbones. She turned to the window. He pretended not to notice.
Pulling onto Morgantown Road from the Natcher Parkway, he caught up with one of the
buses as it turned on its flashers. He waited behind the red blinking lights and extended
stop sign and looked around. It was a bright day, a stunning contrast to the darkness of
the cave, where he had—what, lost it? He shrugged it off, but the feeling of suffocation
was still fresh, and he again felt the impulse to gag. He pulled down the visor and lifted
his head so he could see the skinny legs of three girls pile out. They ran across the
road and raced up a long, paved driveway that led to a house and barn, tucked behind
a row of houses that sat closer to the road. They were older girls than his students,
longer limbed, faster, louder (well, maybe not that). He saw the driver in the gray
Mustang facing the bus in the next lane duck his head for a moment, then a fourth girl,
moving slowly, stepped across the yellow line, her arms hugging a book to her chest.
Even before he saw the Mustang leap forward and fling her back toward the bus, his
hand was on the door handle. The bus driver and the Mustang driver met him at her
side.
“Oh, sweet Jesus, I didn’t see her.”
Derek knelt beside Lucy as he pulled his cell phone off his belt, his fingers fumbling with
the 9-1-1. She watched him, her eyes darting from him to the knees of the other two.
“Where’s my mommy?”
He looked toward the house, where the three older girls had headed. Beyond them, the
front door of their house flew open and a large woman bolted down the steps. The girls
looked at her, then back toward the bus. One of them ran toward her. The other two
dropped their book bags and galloped to the bus.
“She’s coming, you just sit tight.”
The driver danced from foot to foot and clutched his hands under his armpits. “Is she
going to be okay?” Derek felt a wave of pity for him, though the bus driver snarled,
“She’d be a lot better if you hadn’ta run into her.”
Lucy tried to look past Derek, toward home. “Mommy,” she cried, and it seemed to
Derek that her voice had thinned.
When Mrs. Jackson fell to her knees beside Lucy, Derek leaned back to give them room.
“I can’t sit up. But it don’t hurt.”
Lucy’s mother looked around as though trying to decide which of the three men could
answer the unspoken question in her face. “There’s an ambulance on the way,” Derek
said. “I’ll be glad to go with her, if you want, or if you need someone to stay with your
other girls.”
The three girls clustered behind their mother. One of them leaned over and began
patting Lucy’s head.
The boy wiped his eyes. Mrs. Jackson looked up at him.
“You do this to my child?”
“I don’t know how it happened. I was changing a CD and the car just jumped.”
“You’re in deep shit,” the bus driver muttered. Behind him, the children had all piled to
the side of the bus and were staring out the windows. One boy called out, “It’s that guy’s
fault in the gray car,” and Derek held his finger up to his lips.
Mrs. Jackson turned back to Lucy and gently felt along her legs. “I don’t think these are
broke. I don’t think this is. Squeeze my hands, Lucy,” she ordered. Lucy shrank under
her bulk.
“You say you can’t sit up, Lucy?”
“What?” she seemed not to understand the question. She struggled with her tongue,
then said, “I swam to the deep end, where the bats live, Ma, but the river was lost. And
the ceiling was falling but Mr. Thompson held it up.”
“Where’d the car hit her?” She looked up at the boy.
“Her back,” he said.
“Well, then, we won’t try to move you, sugar. Those EMS folks will do that. You cold or
anything?” Lucy looked at her wide-eyed, not answering.
“I’ve got a blanket in my trunk,” the boy said. When he returned, he knelt down and
handed it to the mother.
Lucy’s skin seemed ashen, Derek thought. She stared at him and he smiled, but her
expression didn’t change. Her eyes had thickened, then they rolled back and her legs
started to shake.
“Oh, baby, what you go and do that for? Lucy! Lucy!”
Mrs. Jackson lowered her body over her, warming her or holding her still, Derek couldn’t
tell. He looked away as sirens screamed, and a police car came to a stop beside them,
then the ambulance.
lost, someone else’s, as soon as it crossed his lips. There was a momentary dip in the
volume.
“Thank you. Now, kids, I don’t want you to worry, but if a drop of water falls on you and
it’s cold, that’s called a cave kiss. If it’s warm, it’s called a bat kiss.”
“Oooh, gross. Are there really bats in here?”
“Yes, and if you follow my flashlight, you’ll see one right now.”
“Is he going to suck our blood?”
“No, that’s only in the movies. Bats are shy creatures. They help control the insect
population.”
“I’d like to take some of them bats to my house to eat lady bugs.”
“Do you have a lot of lady bugs?” the guide asked.
“They infestate our house all the time, expecially in the spring.”
Lucy raised her voice, “Mr. Thompson says they ain’t lady bugs. Don’t you, Mr.
Thompson? They’re Mexican bean beetles. Ladybugs are red, and these are yellow,
and they have exactly 16 black dots on their back.”
A wave of déjà vu washed over him—Cecily sitting beside him on the hard metal seat,
her arm reaching behind him and her fingers playing his ribs. “Isn’t that right, Derek?”
she was saying, trying to get him to talk. He could even smell her hair, a hint of
rosemary cutting through the damp cave air.
In truth, that last night she’d been so high she didn’t know who she was, kept saying,
“What’s my name? I can’t remember,” then laughing and chanting “fuck me, whoever I
am,” moving from Derek to Josh to whoever else had shown up, back to Derek. At some
point, she disappeared, probably passed out or ranting in the woods, then returned
towards morning when everyone had finally crashed. Down in the basement, she stuffed
Sudafed backings and empty containers of acetone, toluene, and Coleman fuel, into a
trash bag. Leaving a trail of lighter fluid, she had almost reached the top of the stairs.
The explosion knocked her out of the basement and toppled her into the kitchen. Derek
woke with burning lungs when he heard the scream of a cat cornered in the next room.
He watched it leap through one flame into another. Fire slapped the doorway, and
beyond, the kitchen careened away. He lurched forward, saw her sleeping, legs
cockeyed and her head bent to her shoulder and wedged between the floor and the
bottom of the cabinet. The kitchen was already beginning to fold into the basement, as
he pulled her out. Once outside, he saw a shadow moving in the living room, where Josh
had sealed himself, after doing loud things with Cecily that Derek had run from, ready to
kill Josh or himself or Cecily.
He staggered to the window and threw a brick. It bounced off, then a small hole
appeared and a crack. Sucked out of the sudden opening of air, smoke rushed to fill the
window, dark brown and gray, swirling, before the window shattered, and Derek fell
back. When he came to, his face felt on fire, but when he ran his fingers over his cheek,
they came away with blood and a shard of glass. He put both hands to his face, felt the
rough edges of a dozen pieces of glass, realized he was seeing out of only one eye. He
must have been unconscious for only a moment, because although the smoke had
cleared from the window, in its place a row of orange flames was just beginning to
dance. The room where Josh wavered, a smoky shadow, had devoured him. Behind
Derek, Cecily slept under the tree, her face flickering orange, and beyond, the sound of
sirens poured over the hills. A voice—hers, his, no one’s—sent him back to the woods,
run, run.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back at school, Lucy ran up to him, something clenched in her fist. He was standing next
to the line of buses waiting to take the children home.
“Here you go, Mr. Thompson, I got this for you.”
She opened her hand and turned a jagged piece of scuffed and glittering mineral onto
his outstretched palm. He thanked her and slipped it into his shirt pocket, then hurried to
the back of the line to keep two boys from shoving their way into a fistfight. He clenched
his teeth. “Now why do you two want to go and spoil a nice day, huh?” His voice, louder
and harsher than he’d intended, surprised the children. “He started it,” they both
insisted, but climbed meekly into the bus, Derek on their heels. He got them seated, one
in back, one in the middle, and was moving back to the front of the bus, when he heard
Lucy’s voice.
“I’m going to marry Mr. Thompson some day when I get old enough.”
“How old do you have to be?” asked her seatmate.
“I’ll be sixteen and he’ll be twenty-five. That’s how old he is, I know, because I saw a
birthday card on his desk, and it said ‘Happy 25th Birthday.’”
“When you turn sixteen he’ll be forty-two or something. You can’t just freeze him till you
get old enough, Lucy. That’s retarded.”
She looked out the window, then turned back, her face lit. “Then we’ll move to Iran. Mr.
Thompson says that they lowered the marriage age down to nine.”
She caught his eyes and blushed so deeply that her brown skin took on a rosy glow
across her cheekbones. She turned to the window. He pretended not to notice.
Pulling onto Morgantown Road from the Natcher Parkway, he caught up with one of the
buses as it turned on its flashers. He waited behind the red blinking lights and extended
stop sign and looked around. It was a bright day, a stunning contrast to the darkness of
the cave, where he had—what, lost it? He shrugged it off, but the feeling of suffocation
was still fresh, and he again felt the impulse to gag. He pulled down the visor and lifted
his head so he could see the skinny legs of three girls pile out. They ran across the
road and raced up a long, paved driveway that led to a house and barn, tucked behind
a row of houses that sat closer to the road. They were older girls than his students,
longer limbed, faster, louder (well, maybe not that). He saw the driver in the gray
Mustang facing the bus in the next lane duck his head for a moment, then a fourth girl,
moving slowly, stepped across the yellow line, her arms hugging a book to her chest.
Even before he saw the Mustang leap forward and fling her back toward the bus, his
hand was on the door handle. The bus driver and the Mustang driver met him at her
side.
“Oh, sweet Jesus, I didn’t see her.”
Derek knelt beside Lucy as he pulled his cell phone off his belt, his fingers fumbling with
the 9-1-1. She watched him, her eyes darting from him to the knees of the other two.
“Where’s my mommy?”
He looked toward the house, where the three older girls had headed. Beyond them, the
front door of their house flew open and a large woman bolted down the steps. The girls
looked at her, then back toward the bus. One of them ran toward her. The other two
dropped their book bags and galloped to the bus.
“She’s coming, you just sit tight.”
The driver danced from foot to foot and clutched his hands under his armpits. “Is she
going to be okay?” Derek felt a wave of pity for him, though the bus driver snarled,
“She’d be a lot better if you hadn’ta run into her.”
Lucy tried to look past Derek, toward home. “Mommy,” she cried, and it seemed to
Derek that her voice had thinned.
When Mrs. Jackson fell to her knees beside Lucy, Derek leaned back to give them room.
“I can’t sit up. But it don’t hurt.”
Lucy’s mother looked around as though trying to decide which of the three men could
answer the unspoken question in her face. “There’s an ambulance on the way,” Derek
said. “I’ll be glad to go with her, if you want, or if you need someone to stay with your
other girls.”
The three girls clustered behind their mother. One of them leaned over and began
patting Lucy’s head.
The boy wiped his eyes. Mrs. Jackson looked up at him.
“You do this to my child?”
“I don’t know how it happened. I was changing a CD and the car just jumped.”
“You’re in deep shit,” the bus driver muttered. Behind him, the children had all piled to
the side of the bus and were staring out the windows. One boy called out, “It’s that guy’s
fault in the gray car,” and Derek held his finger up to his lips.
Mrs. Jackson turned back to Lucy and gently felt along her legs. “I don’t think these are
broke. I don’t think this is. Squeeze my hands, Lucy,” she ordered. Lucy shrank under
her bulk.
“You say you can’t sit up, Lucy?”
“What?” she seemed not to understand the question. She struggled with her tongue,
then said, “I swam to the deep end, where the bats live, Ma, but the river was lost. And
the ceiling was falling but Mr. Thompson held it up.”
“Where’d the car hit her?” She looked up at the boy.
“Her back,” he said.
“Well, then, we won’t try to move you, sugar. Those EMS folks will do that. You cold or
anything?” Lucy looked at her wide-eyed, not answering.
“I’ve got a blanket in my trunk,” the boy said. When he returned, he knelt down and
handed it to the mother.
Lucy’s skin seemed ashen, Derek thought. She stared at him and he smiled, but her
expression didn’t change. Her eyes had thickened, then they rolled back and her legs
started to shake.
“Oh, baby, what you go and do that for? Lucy! Lucy!”
Mrs. Jackson lowered her body over her, warming her or holding her still, Derek couldn’t
tell. He looked away as sirens screamed, and a police car came to a stop beside them,
then the ambulance.