Slip Away_

Slip Away by Joel Durham Jr ©2011 Joel Durham Jr, all rights reserved.

All copyrights and trademarks referenced within the pages of this book are properties of their respective owners.

Edited by my awesome sister, Shawn Carstens.

Dedicated to the teacher I'll always remember as Mrs. Mertz.

Thanks to: Emily, Andrew, Jeanne, Mom, Dad, Robin, Gram (rest in peace), Shawn, Billy, Josh, Ben, Liam, Lynn Haller, CMOR, Tommy, Julie, Kurt, Kate, Alex, Deb, and everyone else who offered advice, support, and understanding. Thanks also to David Bowie, from whom I shamelessly stole the title of this book from the song on his album Heathen. I listened to it repeatedly and somehow, though the lyrics have nothing to do with what I wrote, it inspired parts of this story.

Durham / Slip Away / 2

Prologue
My brother Rudy is sinking in Little Badger Lake. The water's clear, so I can see him as he plunges deeper and deeper. His arms are reaching toward me as if I'd dive in after him and haul him to the surface. Air bubbles, little trinkets of the last breath of his life, escape from his gaping mouth. His eyes, bloodshot with alcohol poisoning, are hazy at first. As the water swallows him, they rapidly flutter from shock to realization. The final expression I see, as I gaze downward during the last time I will ever see Rudy's face, is fear. I have no reaction. Decades of acid rain purged many of the Adirondack lakes of life, from the smallest plankton to the fat trout we used to catch when we were young and our parents were alive. It renders some of the lakes clear enough to see straight to the bottom in the shallower areas. Tourists think that's a good

Durham / Slip Away / 3 thing, that the sparkling clarity of the water means it's free of the pollution that goops up their own creeks and rivers. Life, a molecule at a time, is creeping back into Little Badger Lake, but it's still eerily transparent. The sun's high in the sky, piercing the depths of the water. I can see my brother until he finally vanishes into the deepest shadows of the lake where, despite the clarity, light can't penetrate. Now I'm floating alone in our tiny fishing boat in the middle of Little Badger Lake. I have to look around to get my bearings. It's a tiny, but very deep lake-a water-filled dimple in the heart of the mountains. Its surface area is small enough that I can see the shore in detail in every direction. It only takes a second to spot our trailer. I guess it's my trailer now, and my boat, come to think of it. No one else is left in my family. My mom was an only child. My father, well, I don't know much about my father. Then it occurs to me that I don't know what to do next. I idly realize it's warmer out than I expected. So I take off my jacket, fold it neatly, and lay it on the seat that my brother swayed drunkenly upon only a few minutes before. It slowly occurs to my disjointed mind that he's probably still alive. I suppose I owe it to him to wait until he's drowned before I motor back to our--I mean my--patch of shoreline. I light up one of my brother's Winstons and stare off at the pine covered mountains to pass the time. I hear a motor fire up. I know without looking, from the sound of the little engine and the direction it's coming from, that it's Dick Hoof's boat. He's an ancient retiree who lives a few docks down from us--I mean, me. He always smells like compost. He's a blabbermouth. He talks for hours without taking a breath.

Durham / Slip Away / 4 He's motoring right toward me. I'm not nervous. I have very few feelings left, and nervousness isn't among them. I mean, I feel nothing about my brother Rudy, who might be dead by now. I mean, I don't care if anyone saw me toss him in. I mean, I have no fear of accusation or prosecution. The only thing I feel is mild, distant annoyance, because Dick's going to talk my damn ears off. Dick always starts his conversations with an assumption about what you're doing. It's never, "Hey, whatcha up to?" It's always, "Hey, doin' some

work on the yard?" or "Hey, gonna fire up the grill?"
I think of him saying, "Hey, did ya just drown your last living relative

in the lake?"
It doesn't amuse me. My cigarette's down to the filter. For the average smoker, a standard "king" length cigarette takes seven minutes to smoke. The average human being begins to experience brain damage after about four to six minutes bereft of oxygen. I lit up a minute or two after dumping him, and our--my --anchor, into the lake, so my brother has been airless for about ten minutes. The water is fifty degrees. It's not cold enough to force his body into suspended animation. If someone were to haul his carcass to the surface and somehow get his heart beating, I doubt his brain functions would ever kick in again. Dick cuts his motor as he approaches. He tips his floppy fishing hat, decorated generously with hand tied lures, and shouts, "Heya Rory! Doin' some fishin'?"

Durham / Slip Away / 5 I doubt that there is a single fish in this lake. I don't have a pole, a tackle box, anything. I say back, "Nope." As Dick's boat closes on mine, and he grabs the side of my hull and guides the little vessels side by side. "Good day for it, if the urge struck ya," he assures me. "Yeah, yessir, it's a good one. Weatherman said it wasn't gonna get higher'n sixty, but damn if my thermometer didn't say sixtythree. I got me one of them outside thermometers that ya hang outside the window so you can look out and see the temperature. It ain't just a thermometer, neither, it has a, has a, has a one of them things that reads out whether it's gonna rain, a, a," He sputters, sucking on his dentures in a vain attempt to find the word. I say, "A barometer." "Yeah, that's the one! It's got a bar'meter so it says how the weather gonna be. Damn if it ain't better than the weatherman on WLLK. Don't know how that sombitch gets paid, ask me he's tellin the weather in Alaska or somewheres, not here." He guffaws, baring his oversized dentures, staring expectantly at me with his sunken, colorless eyes and waiting for me to appreciate his wit. My mouth smiles. My eyes just stare. It's enough for him. "Now I don't watch the news on the teevee on WOFR," he rambles, as fast as his ancient, withered lungs can push air through his vocal cords. "I think that's channel two. But I don't guess he's much better. Sixty degrees, you believe that? That sombitch on WLLK said sixty degrees. Damn, it feel sixty to you?" I grunt. I imagine I could tell him that I took my jacket off, but that would only encourage him. A feeling of hopelessness is rolling over my consciousness like a wide thunderhead. Dick drones on, but I don't really hear him.

Durham / Slip Away / 6 My brother's heart has probably stopped beating. His stupid war is over. I think of Nikki and wish she could hold me. All I want to do is feel her embrace, bury my face in the fuzzy warmth of her sweater and bawl like a baby. I used to cry a lot. I always did. But now, this moment, I can't. I don't think I'll cry ever again. Dick says, "That motor workin' OK?" My mind flushes itself of the tumble of thoughts that had just been going through it. I blank, I gradually process Dick's utterance, I glance at the little outboard motor and say, "Yep. Cleaned out the carb. Running smooth." "Damn if this sombitch didn't take ten minutes t'start up this morning. Think it's the plug. I thought I bought a whole damn box of 'em, but I looked all through the damn shed, didn't find a damn one. Plenty of plugs for the Ford, not a damn one for the goddamn boat. Finally got the sombitch started, figured I'd head acrost to Werthman's for a new one. Need a couple other parts too. I'd of gone over earlier, but Gerty made me wait so she could make a banana bread for Johnny, seein' as his wife, what's her name, that, uh, Judy?" "Jill." I don't even know what part of me is following the conversation. I'm staring at the pines on the far off hillsides. Imagining myself hanging from one. The Adirondack park is huge, and mostly wilderness. If I trekked deeply enough into the forest, it would be years or, or even decades, before anyone found my swinging body. "Yeah, Jill, poor gal, never remember her name, how long they been married, eight, nine years? So anyways there Gerty made Johnny a blueberry bread or what have you seein' as Jill's still in Saint Anne's. Poor ol' Johnny gotta run the place by hisself, and tourist season startin'' up, he's gonna be run down by August! I offered to help out, but he says he can do it. Stubborn boy, been stubborn as a damn mule since he was a little kneebiter. So's anyway I figure I can give him the business, buy the plugs there even though

Durham / Slip Away / 7 I could drive down to Glens Falls and get 'em for cheaper than Werthman's got 'em, but he ain't got the volume of them big chains. 'Sides, it's a great day to be out on the lake. What brings you out?" I say, "I threw my brother in the lake." I take a long drag on my cigarette. Had I been in a healthier state of mind, I might have seen Dick's reaction as comical. He laughs heartily for a second at the idea of a prank, picturing me tossing Rudy in the drink as a scene from a slapstick film. The very concept of slapstick delighted his vaudevillian mind, regardless of the logistics of the prank itself. Then he looks around. The water is serene except for the ambient ripples around our boats. He looked back at me with confusion, and then concern. His crusty old brain struggles to process puzzlingly conflicting data. I think his head might start to melt. Finally, he says, "You mean just now?" The words come out of my mouth, but I don't know where they come from before that. It's like I'm in someone else's body. "Yep." Then I add, "I tied him to the anchor. He ain't coming up." Dick's jaw drops. He looks down into the water in disbelief. "Well he's, uh, you me--he's--" I look at my watch. "Oh, he's gotta be dead by now." With my thumb and forefinger, I flick my cigarette butt into the lake. It hits the water with a little hiss. Rudy has been down sixteen minutes, give or take. Dick is speechless. He stares agape, maybe still hoping it's some kind of humor. He glances down at the water. When his eyes climb back up to meet mine, they contain real alarm. "You--you killed Rudy?" I simply say, "Yup."

Durham / Slip Away / 8 His gnarled old hand reaches for the pull starter on his outboard. He yanks it, still staring at me, as if I might plunge an ice pick into his back if he turns around. When his motor doesn't fire up, he finally gives in and looks away to fiddle with the choke. Monitoring me with nervous glances, he yanks the pull cord a dozen times, each more frantic than the last, before his motor finally starts up. Then, without a word, he motors away, not toward Werthman's but back to his house. I guess it's just a matter of time before the police show up. I have three Winstons left. My name is Rory Orrick, and I'm a fugitive.

Durham / Slip Away / 9

Chapter One
When I was three years old, my father put a shotgun in his mouth and blew the majority of his head off, or so I've been told. It was a Remington doublebarrel, but he only managed to fire off one side. It was sufficient to accomplish his apparently intended goal. He did the deed in the woods across the street from our trailer. I was too little to understand that he was gone for good. I kept asking my poor mother when Dad would be coming back. I thought he was camping. Mom spent the rest of her life cooking her brain with antidepressants, painkillers, and creative combinations of lowest-dollar alcohol. She built it up to an impressive peak: she swallowed more Librium and Vicodin in a week than most patients ingest in a month. I'm not sure what her physicians had to say about that. Every night after she got home from working as a waitress at the Deer Mountain Inn, she'd haul out this huge jug of blood red wine, or a six pack of Pabst, or a bottle of cheap vodka, and pour and drink, pour and drink. She

Durham / Slip Away / 10 played kids games with me, like Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders, and she read to me and kept me entertained as best she could, fading with each glass or can or swig, and then she'd curl up in Dad's old easy chair.

Mom and that chair. She hugged it and snuggled with it, taking in its scent and feel. When I was little, I figured she just thought it was a comfortable chair. Now I know she was desperately convincing herself that it was my father holding her and telling her that everything was going to be okay. Our meals consisted mostly of leftovers from the kitchen of the Deer Mountain Inn. Rudy, who was eight when Dad blew his noggin off, used to tell me that the owner felt sorry for Mom and let her pick and choose from pots and trays of stuff that would otherwise have been thrown out. That turned out to be the truth. My brother rarely told me the truth when I was young. We ate pretty good for poor kids. Mom would bring home bags--and later Styrofoam – containers,full of honey baked chicken, or half pound burgers, or fatty cuts of prime rib, with sides of baked or mashed potatoes, bean salad, rice pilaf, steak fries, you name it. The Deer Mountain Inn was a pretty decent restaurant. Dad didn't have life insurance. Mom made pretty good tips, though, and managed to keep me and Rudy fed, clothed and sheltered. And I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I keep saying we lived in a trailer, but it wasn't in a trailer park. It was a nice double-wide with a sidewalk and a dirt driveway and a pretty big yard, like a quarter acre, situated on lakefront property. It was a partially wooded lot, lined with old oaks and maples that seemed, in my childhood eyes, to stretch up high enough to tickle the passing clouds.

Durham / Slip Away / 11 The showpiece, though, was a gigantic and almost perfectly symmetric weeping willow. It stood like a hunched old friend in the center of our yard, wide as it was tall. Dad, and later Rudy and I, kept it pruned so the drooping branches gave an average adult just enough headroom to walk beneath it without scraping--unless the wind was blowing, in which case the entire old tree billowed like a dandelion. In a strong storm, its branches seemed to be always on the verge of being whisked away, light as spider silk. So we lived in a trailer, but we sure as hell didn't live in a crowded park full of country white trash. White trash: poor white people who drink beer out of cans, drive rusty pickup trucks, listen to country or classic rock music, hunt, and shoot off illegal fireworks every holiday. It could be debated whether we were white trash. It depends on an individual's criteria for the title. If being poor was all it took, we were definitely white trash. But if white trash meant being uneducated, selfish, smoking, toothmissing, lottery-ticket-buying, boozing yokels who made stupid assumptions based on shock TV segments and didn't give a crap about their appearance, then Rudy was definitely white trash. I don't think I was--I never felt like it, anyway. Mom didn't start out white trash, but she slipped into it as gradually as life returned to the Adirondack lakes. When she was young, she was pretty and almost upscale. By the time she had me, she was raggedy and usually wasted. Whether or not we bore the title of white trash, we grew up without a father, and eventually without a mother either. But whereas Dad was quick and decisive about his suicide, it took Mom a few attempts to get it right. Once when I was five or six I found her in the tub with cuts in her wrists perpendicular to her arms. The water was all red. She looked mad. I asked her what was going on, and she said she spilled her wine. I believed

Durham / Slip Away / 12 her. She angrily got out of the tub, wobbling with intoxication, and gently asked me to leave the room. Nothing more was ever said about it. She had little rows of Band-Aids on her wrists for a few weeks after that, and always wore shirts with long sleeves, tapered tight at the ends. She didn't know that, if you want to kill yourself by cutting your wrists, you don't cut across the visible veins like they do in the movies. You cut deep, between the bones in your forearm, where you can pierce the big, juicy arteries. That'll do it. I know. I know a lot about suicide. I don't remember having an unhappy childhood. Lakeside trailer life with an unstable but unquestionably loving mom was all I knew. It was normal to me. My fractured brain still has a whole, gigantic section dedicated to the storage of precious childhood memories. We had glorious Christmases in which Santa brought me bales of toys and candy. I had special moments with Mom, like when she let me stir the simmering chili or when she took me out in the boat, just the two of us, and we talked about our favorite things. I remember when she'd humor me, letting me think I was helping her put the curlers in her hair. She let me smear the foundation on her cheeks when she "put on her face," as she called it. I remember giggling at that phrase, picturing faceless ladies rising from their beds in the morning and feeling their way to their makeup tables. I remember so distinctly the scent of her imitation perfume that, to this day, when I smell it in a grocery store or a movie theater or some other public place, my head fills with images of my mother. We had great relationships with our neighbors, too. We frequented the Werthman's boating, bait and general convenience store, which was

Durham / Slip Away / 13 reachable by boat or road, and John and Judy were always happy and chatty. Sometimes they gave Rudy and me free lollipops. Dick and Gerty Hoof, who seemed old to me even back then, were constantly stopping by. They both came by boat in the summer, but in the winter Dick came alone in his snowmobile (Gerty refused to get on that fool contraption). She bombarded us with sweet, nutty bread creations. Rudy and I constantly nibbled on banana bread, blueberry bread, pumpkin bread, raisin bread--name a fruit or vegetable and Gerty made a bread out of it. And Dick babbled. Holy fucking shit, did he babble. He'd stand on our back doorstep talking through the screen to Mom for an hour or more. Sometimes he'd keep on going even in the rain, and never seemed to notice or be insulted by not being invited in. Rudy used to tell me that Mom was crazy. I knew he was full of shit, because he beat the crap out of anyone else who called our mother crazy, but it still got me riled when he said it. I'd try to kick his ass, but he was so much bigger I didn't really stand a chance. Rudy knew damn well that I hated it when he insulted Mom. There was nothing worse anyone could say to me than a barb against my mother. I was a little boy. My mommy was all I had, besides Rudy (who was a shiteating bastard his entire life). And she may have been in a prescription drug haze all day and a drunken stupor at night, but she was my mother. In my eyes she was a perfect, magical, infallible lady, a being of light and warmth and comfort that transcended humanity. In my storage bin of childhood memories, there were only a few scraps that featured Dad. My memories of him were faint wisps and notions mostly, but I do have one specific image. I remember him as a burly man with a black beard and a blue flannel shirt, and he swung me up on his shoulders. Then

Durham / Slip Away / 14 he miscalculated our combined height as he walked me into my room, and whacked my head on the doorframe. I screamed, cried and blacked out, and when I came to my mother was kneeling over me, holding a cold, wet cloth on my throbbing forehead and chastising my father, who stood nearby looking sheepishly concerned. This tidbit I don't actually remember; it was told to me by Rudy (who thought until his death that the entire event was hilarious.) When Mom asked how my head felt, I said, "Round." Then I blacked out again and woke up at the doctor's office, with Dr. Richards, the town's general care physician (there was a little sign in the waiting room that said "Cradle to Grave") waving a horrific-smelling white pellet under my nose. Mom and Dad were with me, and Rudy was in the corner too. That ends my only specific memory of my father. Somehow, nevertheless, my heart holds love for him. I don't think he would have killed himself if he got the care he needed--that white trash like us couldn't afford and that gruff, stubborn men wouldn't even consider. Anyway, we never knew why Dad killed himself. He was a shift supervisor at the Foundry Co. paper mill. It wasn't exactly a glamorous line of work, but he had a great reputation as a hard, smart worker and was on solid track for a promotion to foreman.

Durham / Slip Away / 15

Chapter Two

My mind, clouded as it is today, or maybe barren... My mind contains another memory around the time of my father's death. It was a long bus ride; rides on several buses in fact. Mom had to visit Dad's brother Ralph and tell him the news. We couldn't afford a train. We rode Greyhound to Rochester, New York. Ralph was a weird, eccentric guy. He traveled seemingly randomly, working engineering jobs that I didn't understand when I was tiny. The thing

Durham / Slip Away / 16 I remembered was the bus ride. Once we got out of the Adirondacks, there were big, wide open fields, and occasionally flat land, and so few trees--I'd seen places like this in picture books, but never imagined that they were real. There were farms and fields of corn, cows and sheep, gigantic tractors. Rochester seemed huge to me, a vast city with a pair of incredibly tall buildings and dozens of shorter ones. Uncle Ralph was currently contracting for Kodak. One of the tall buildings was the Kodak building, but he wasn't in it; we had to call a taxi (money that Mom really hated to spend) and ride way out to massive complex of industrial and office buildings. I don't remember much about finding Uncle Ralph; we asked security guards and desk clerks where to find him, and nobody had a solid answer. Finally, we discovered the right building and somebody paged him. I remember clearly his reaction. He held mom while she cried. She was barely able to choke out the words. She never got to "dead." She just said, "My husband, your brother, he's, he's," and she broke down. Uncle Ralph held her. But he didn't seem too upset. They talked a lot in the lobby of the building. I was a bored kid. I explored the plants, the seats, the reception desk, and played with my plastic dinosaur that Mom let be bring to amuse myself. Ralph drove us back to the bus station (we couldn't afford to spend the night.).He and Mom hugged before we got on the bus, and he picked me up and told me to be the strong man of the house or some such thing. He was sweaty and smelled like machine oil. We bussed back to Albany, where our car was waiting. But here's the memory that struck me harder than anything else that happened during the trip. As we walked through the Albany bus station, I saw a man sitting alone in one of the generic, unpadded seats. He was pale, almost grey, and he

Durham / Slip Away / 17 was staring forward with the most empty look in his eyes that I'd ever seen. He could have been an empty shell of a human being. His body and face made him appear to be in his early twenties (a grown-up to me at the time), but his expression added years and years. He was an old young man. We had to walk right past him. I had been babbling excitedly to Mom about the bus ride, but I could tell she wasn't in the mood for my banter. She was mad at Uncle Ralph. Apparently, she expected him to come to the Adirondacks for something to do with dad, but he refused, and she was really chapped. As we passed the empty stranger, I stopped talking. I fixated on him, staring as only a three or four year old could stare, and suddenly our eyes met. And for a second, I felt his emptiness. As if he beamed it to me right through our eye contact. I felt old, far older and wiser than three. I was a hundred years old, for a split second. I slowed. Mom grabbed my hand and scolded me for staring at strangers. It's impolite, she said. The moment was broken. She tugged my hand and we moved on toward the exit to the parking lot, and once again I was babbling about cows and giant buildings and big farms without trees. The man and his captivating stare etched itself into my mind forever. It became a part of me, and later in life I would think of it often. My Uncle Ralph died a matter of months later. He was my father's only living relative. I heard sometime, somewhere, it was pills. I don't know for sure.

Durham / Slip Away / 18

Chapter Three
Rudy said--and I think for once he wasn't lying--that Dad and Mom seemed to get along just fine. Plus we were good kids most of the time (me more consistently than Rudy). I was too little to get into much mischief, and Rudy didn't do very many abnormally evil things, at least for an eight year old. He had his obligatory stash of firecrackers, and once he painted the word BALLS in really big blue letters on the bright red firehouse in town, on the side facing the road. Stuff like that. He got scolded, he had to clean up his graffiti and vandalism, but he wasn't malicious or hurtful.

Durham / Slip Away / 19

Of course, the firehouse BALLS accomplishment made him a legend among the local boys. The school wasn't too far down the road from the firehouse so most of the buses passed Rudy's artwork every day for the week it stayed on display, until someone narced on Rudy and he had to paint over it. Funny thing was, Cliff, the volunteer fireman who was charged with the task of supervising Rudy's painting effort, didn't pay attention. Thus, Rudy refrained from repainting the entire wall; he only painted over the blue word he'd created. Since it had been a few years since the fire station had last seen a fresh coat of paint, the wall had faded enough that BALLS was still faintly visible. It stayed that way for years. Some people even started calling it the Balls station. Of course, Rudy was further punished. Dad and Warren, the fire chief, worked out an arrangement in which Rudy spent an hour a day for two weeks doing odd jobs around the firehouse, like washing dishes and emptying trash. His legend, however, long outlived his penance. But that's hardly a thing for a loving father to kill himself over. I was only three or four, but according to Rudy, Mom, and some other townsfolk, life was pretty good back then. Dr. Richards and Nathan Clawson, one of the three New York State Troopers assigned to the nearest barracks and the one who took care of the rare police matters in Little Badger, concluded that something just went wrong in his head. Who knows?

Durham / Slip Away / 20 I spent a lot of time talking to Dr. Richards after Dad died. He was a general physician and a licensed psychological counselor to boot. He constantly assured me that Dad's death wasn't my fault. Dad had something wrong in his mind, Dr. Richards said. Sometimes people's brains don't work right and they do strange things. Some people go nutty and act funny and think people are out to get them. Other people just end their lives. Even though he seemed happy on the outside, Dr. Richards told me, Dad might have been very sad on the inside. I remember one such conversation. I replied, "Like when the truck is all clean but it won't start up?" Dr. Richards smiled and nodded, and said something about children and intuition. In case you haven't picked this up already, Little Badger was a small town. We had three churches, one school, one hardware store, one gas station, one grocery store, a few motels and restaurants for tourists, a bar imaginatively named Thirsty's, and of course Werthman's for all your boating, snowmobiling, and general, random item needs. If you needed anything more than could be found in Little Badger, you had to drive thirty miles to Glens Falls. Everyone in Little Badger knew each other. Everyone knew Dad killed himself. For years afterward, people looked at me with a weird mix of pity, sympathy and uncertainty. When people asked how I was doing, they didn't say it like they did to other folks. It wasn't a meaningless "How ya doin'?" It was more like a concerned-sounding, "How are you doing?" Dr. Richards said that was normal and to expect it. So I did. I didn't milk Dad's death for sympathy, and I wasn't insulted by peoples' clumsy compassion. In fact, I liked it a tiny bit. As a child, it made me feel special, elevated from the rest of the kids in Little Badger.

Durham / Slip Away / 21 For heaven's sake, my dad killed himself. I deserved a little special attention, didn't I? Rudy didn't take Dad's suicide very well. I really think this is where everything started to go wrong for him. Soon after the fact, he started getting in trouble at school. It started off slowly: He'd get detention once a month or so for things like starting food fights or tripping people. Gradually, his rebellious behavior grew to a regular way of life. He started fights constantly, but he didn't shove and wrestle like most kids did in schoolyard brawls. He went berserk. Once, when I was in second grade, which would mean Rudy was in seventh grade and around twelve years old, he got into a recess altercation over something stupid, like the score of an NFL football game or something, with a fair faced blond- haired kid called A.J. Gardner. When A.J. refused to give in regarding whatever the hell they were arguing about, Rudy suddenly got physical and smacked him in the face. A.J. was outraged. "What was that for?" he demanded. "Being such a numbnuts," replied Rudy dismissively. He was already walking away, but the playground denizens were expecting more. Touch football games halted, children descended from the jungle gym, the slide and the swings. A smallish crowd formed around the two boys. "You're crazy!" insisted A.J. The crowd gasped a little. As per the town's perception, that word had special significance with my family. It wasn't to be thrown around lightly. Rudy spun to face A.J. "What are you saying?" "You're crazy!" repeated A.J., more or less dooming himself to weeks of pain. "You just hit me for nothing!"

Durham / Slip Away / 22 "I hit you because you're a numbnuts," said Rudy matter-of-factly. The crowd chuckled and looked to A.J. for a response. "I am not a numbnuts! You're just crazy! Your family is crazy!" he stammered. At that point, he probably suddenly realized he shouldn't be using that word. Rudy became bright red and his eyes squinted. He glanced around the circle of children robotically and quietly said, "Nice comeback." After a perfectly timed beat, he added, "Numbnuts." His audience laughed. A.J. blushed and fumed. He shouted, "Shut up!" which caused Rudy to grin even wider. He owned the crowd. Rudy commanded an air of charisma that I could only dream about. The onlookers laughed harder. Rudy stepped up to him and again slapped his face. A.J. bristled with embarrassment and hatred. He exploded, "You're crazy and your whole family's crazy, and that's why your dad blew his brains out!" A morbid silence fell over the entire playground. Rudy's face transformed into a perfect thousand-yard stare, and he braced his feet shoulder length apart. A.J.'s facial expression changed to fear, and then to uncertain resolve. He stuck out his chin and waited for the consequences. Nobody even so much as breathed. Time stopped. The wind, the trees, the birds, nothing made a sound. At least, by all accounts I heard. Then there was a gradual rhythm. Footsteps, coming from the school. A little girl dared to hiss, "Mrs. Leeds is coming." It was like a trigger. Rudy exploded onto A.J. with the ferocity of a lioness taking down a gazelle. A.J. didn't even have time to raise his arms in defense when he was on the grass--Rudy upon him, pinning him down with a knee on his chest, pounding his face repeatedly. The crowd went wild. Cheering, shouting, praise, panic, the classic fanfare of a schoolyard tussle. But it slowly died down.

Durham / Slip Away / 23 Someone, an older girl, screamed. The other kids stepped back, rippling out ward like a shockwave. The approving roar was replaced by utterances of shock and revulsion, and the shouts of the rotund teacher, Mrs. Leeds, as she waddled into the fray. She stooped to break up the interlocked combatants, but when she recognized the situation, she screamed like a startled toddler. Rudy had his jaws locked on A.J.'s throat. A.J. was flailing and clawing at Rudy's back, and growing weaker by the second. Blood was flowing into the grass.

Durham / Slip Away / 24

Chapter Four
When Dad popped his cranium, I didn't have the capacity to understand death, or the unsettling psychological paradoxes of suicide. I don't mean to blame Rudy. He was old enough to be affected on an emotional level, with far greater fidelity than I was. But I really think that his destructive decline led to Mom's eventual breakdown. She held together when Dad took himself out. From all accounts it was hell on her, but she was strong for her, us, Rudy and me, and kept her head and

Durham / Slip Away / 25 all that stuff. She didn't start to really get, well, unsettling is I guess as good as I can describe it, until Rudy almost killed A.J. at school. Yes, A.J. survived. He was in a hospital at Albany for a long time. Rudy had managed to inflict several deep bites. He crushed A.J.'s larynx, ruptured his esophagus, and tore through a whole bunch of tissue. A.J. suffered some brain damage from blood loss and the fact that he couldn't get air into his lungs. There were so many rumors. Later in life, it was hard for me to sift through them and determine the truth. My family, already in the throes of a stigma, was now an official oddity. The pity that I experienced after Dad bit the big one was gone. Now people stared at me with hints of disgust and revulsion, mistrust and suspicion, on their faces. I know that after A.J. recovered physically, his mental well being was pretty weak. He knew some words, but had to re-learn the alphabet. He couldn't add or subtract or do basic math anymore. His mouth always hung slack, and he usually had a pretty blank look in his eyes. His neck was covered with patches of off-color skin, grafts from other parts of his body. He didn't seem to grasp the concept of hygiene anymore. Some days, his breath stunk from clear across the room. Others, he strode in cloud of earthy body odor that made me think of old Dick across the lake. I felt pretty bad for A.J. When I saw him around school, I tried to be extra nice to him, but other kids usually intervened and led him away from me. It was as if I was the one who tore his throat out. It was my dad who killed himself. It was my brother who went psycho. I, however, became an outcast by proxy. Mom was an outcast because she acted bizarre. Diners in the Deer Mountain Inn started requesting not to be seated at her tables. Her tip income fell off sharply--even when her tables were filled, she was lucky to get a couple of bucks here and there.

Durham / Slip Away / 26 People didn't chit chat with her like they used to. Cashiers at the Grand Union didn't ask how she was. Phyllis, the universal Little Badger hairdresser, spoke to other customers while doing Mom's hair. All she said to mom was, "How ya want it?" And so on. Rudy spent a year in a juvie center downstate. Mom and I visited him once a month. I was expecting it to be like on TV court shows, where we sat on one side of a sheet of plate glass and spoke to him through a phone, but we got to meet him in a waiting room and even go for a walk in a courtyard outside. On one visit, when Mom had scurried off to the ladies room, Rudy said, "Check this out, Roar!" He proceeded to display angry red scabs on his knuckles. "Are those from beating up A.J.?" I asked "Naw. I beat the fuck out of my roommate almost every day." I found that odd. I'd imagined living with someone would cause one to grow close, not violent. I was young and stupid, I guess. I said, "Why?" "The first day I went in, he sucker punched me in front of all the other kids and called me his new bitch." I could see Rudy's eyes beginning to glare, his face reddening with anger. "So now I fucking headlock him, or break his face, or something, and make him tell everyone there that he's my bitch. Every day." The anger vanished from his face--replaced by shameless pride. Rudy finished, quietly, almost to himself: "That motherfucker be my bitch." From that moment on, I swore not to ever end up in juvie hall. I felt uncomfortable just hearing Rudy talk about it. I wished Mom would hurry back. "How come? Can't you just be roommates? You know, I mean, get along?" I said.

Durham / Slip Away / 27 Rudy replied, "That don't work here. There are control issues, Roar. You gotta get on top of the food chain, and that means you gotta show your might. Make sure everyone knows you won't take shit from anyone. "Know what, Roar? I might get in trouble for beating Robert's ass-that's his name--and I might not get time off for good behavior. But there are some tough, mean fuckers in there, and none of them mess with me. Never did. Not once." I wasn't sure how to feel. In fact, I felt like I was going to cry. Before Mom came back from the bathroom, Rudy showed me what he called a tattoo on his bicep, but it was really a just scar. He'd scratched it into his skin with a paperclip. He said he had to do it every night to make sure it wouldn't heal up. He said it got infected and the people in the infirmary made him keep it bandaged up and take pills, but even when the bandages came off it was clearly visible. It was a dollar sign. Time heals all, and over the months after A.J.'s beating people gradually began to accept the Orrick family--meaning Mom and me, back into the Little Badger works. In fact, throughout Rudy's absence, I found myself bonding more closely with my school friends. That doesn't seem natural, does it? Me getting closer to my classmates--at least, a few of them--after my brother gets hauled off for brutalizing one of his. Maybe they feared me and wanted to stay on my good side. Who knows? Every boy needs a best friend to share follies and foibles with, and mine was Len Humphrey. It was actually Len who started our long standing friendship.

Durham / Slip Away / 28 I was sitting alone eating lunch. Then Len was standing there with another kid, a huge boy. I always thought Len was kind of weird, but I'd never spoken directly to him. He was lanky and had the lightest blond hair possible without it being white. The other kid was a chest with meaty arms and legs and a chinless head that grew right out of his torso sans neck; the guy was a huge chunk of beef with eyes. Len stood next to an empty seat and said, "Anyone sitting here?" I said, "Doesn't look like it." He grinned and sat down, plopping his tray in front of him. "I'm Len Humphrey. I've seen you around, well, everyone's seen you around, but I don't think I talked to you before." He held out his hand. I shook it tentatively. I admit it. When I was young, I had a weak handshake. Today it's like a rock. The giant sat next to Len. Len said, "This is Meat. Well, his name is Ricky Timbre, but everyone calls him Meat." In a surprisingly quiet voice, the large person replied to Len, "Everyone meaning you." Len smirked at him. "The name fits. Wear it. Meat." I was taken aback by the sudden, apparent offer of friendship. Silent at first, I finally decided to join in the banter by asking Len, "You actually taunt a guy who could crush you like a soda can?" Meat smiled, but it was a gentle smile. Len said, "I taunt everybody. So what if I get crushed like a soda can? Besides, Meat is on the shy side. Like you. I specialize in reforming shy people. "Listen," said Len quietly. "Meat and I and a few other guys are gonna get together tonight and moon Mrs. Leeds." "Moon her?" I said.

Durham / Slip Away / 29 "Yeah!" whispered Len with quiet enthusiasm. "Her house has got, like, a million motion detector lights outside. We're just gonna go stand in front of her front window with our pants down until she notices us. Then we'll split." "It's gonna be cool," added Meat. Len continued, "Want to join us?" "Geez," I said. "I don't know. Can't we get in trouble?" "Not as much trouble as your brother's in," said Len frankly. For some reason, his comment didn't bother me. I was extremely sensitive about jabs at my family, but Len had this glow about him. He was okay. He continued, "I don't mean anything nasty by this, but you don't seem to have a lot of friends here, and your brother's vampire act didn't help. Come on, moon Mrs. Leeds. You'll meet people and have fun." Len and I became close friends fast. Before long, we were doing things together inside and outside of school. His devil-may-care attitude was much healthier than Rudy's: Len knew when to quit, at least most of the time, and when he taunted people it was usually just for laughs. Len would never tear anyone's throat out. Len and I and sometimes Meat engaged in pranks pretty often. We did stuff like plant trees in the middle of the football field and flush the toilets until they overflowed. Stupid shit like that. But at our age, it was fun. Len and I also spent a lot of time in detention together, which is just as well because it gave Mom plenty of time to get sloshed on pills and booze before I got home. We weren't bullies, and we weren't particularly destructive. We did the kinds of things that mischievous but benign kids in second grade do. We pretended to accidentally slam our open-top desks on our fingers during tests, so the other kids would giggle at our feigned pain.

Durham / Slip Away / 30 Once we stole a kidney that had belonged to a sheep or something from a high school biology room. We stashed it in the far recesses of a desk belonging to a loser named Kyle. Kyle always smelled bad, which was why we didn't like him, and as the kidney scent changed gradually over the weeks from formaldehyde to rotting flesh, other kids thought it was him. He found it eventually. He was so grossed out he vomited onto the floor. Len and I laughed until we couldn't breathe. Calls to our moms followed, but my mom was so hopped up on junk she forgot to punish me or even mention the incident. One winter day during recess, the teachers had slides, extremely low balance beams, obstacle courses and stuff set up in the gym to entertain us. Len and I were sitting idly on some swings. He said in a surprisingly serious tone, "Is your brother crazy?" I shrugged. "I don't know. What makes people go crazy?" "Well, I know lead paint can cause weird things in your brain. Remember when Rick ate the paint off his windowsill?" Please bear in mind, we were eight years old. I thought about it for a few minutes. Then I replied, "No, I don't think Rudy eats paint. At least, I'm pretty sure he doesn't." We drifted on our chain-suspended chairs, pondering paint and sanity. Then Len said, "I know I joked about this, but is your brother a vampire?" That wasn't the first time I'd encountered such speculation. "I don't know," I said. "Wouldn't I be a vampire too, then?" "Why?" "'Cause we're brothers?" "No, vampires turn each other into vampires by sucking blood. But wait, A.J. would be a vampire, too, then, but he's just a retard. Are there retarded vampires?"

Durham / Slip Away / 31 I didn't know too much about vampires, but I knew this: "Wouldn't he have to rise up from a grave?" "No," said Len, "Zombies do that, like in the Thriller video. Vampires sleep in coffins, but they're not buried in graveyards. At least, I don't think." I said, "Wait, they can't be vampires! Rudy and A.J. They go out in the sun." "Oh yeah," said Len. "Then why did your brother bite A.J.'s neck?" "Maybe he's crazy." I slept over Len's house that night. His mom was really sweet to me, considering that my brother was widely viewed as the town loony, and my mom was quickly becoming the town drunk. Len's dad had left them years ago. I never asked for details, but his mom was great. I rode the bus straight to his house. I had to bring a note from my mom giving the bus driver permission to drop me off there. When we arrived, Mrs. Humphrey was on a riding mower fixed with a little plow blade. It was scraping snow off their sidewalk. They had a real house, not a trailer. Our house didn't feature much of a sidewalk; it just had a few flat stones in dirt. She stopped the tractor and got off. "Rory," she said sweetly through fat, sugar plum rosy cheeks. "It's so good to see you! Are you doing okay?" "Doing fine, thanks, ma'am" I said. She grinned at my politeness. Len hollered, "Hi Mom we'll be in my room!" as a single word and hauled me away by the coat sleeve. "You've GOT to see this," he kept saying, hurling his winter outer clothes all over the house as we ran down the hallway. I was a bit neater, carrying my stuff along as I took it off. "Really, Rory, this is awesome!" I couldn't wait. We got to his room, and he scrambled under the bed. He rummaged around for a few minutes, every so often thrusting a box or toy out behind him with the command, "Here, take this."

Durham / Slip Away / 32 Eventually he emerged with a little black bag. He opened it up to reveal one of the most wonderful things I'd ever seen. It looked like a big, fat purple firecracker. It was about the size and shape of a roll of 35mm film. Remember, this was the 1980's and digital wasn't around yet. It had a long wick. "It's an M-80," he said hushedly, in awe of the very presence of the item in his hand. "Wow," I said respectfully. I didn't know what an M-80 was, but I knew it would blow up really loud. And big. My mind took that thought to the next logical step: "I'll bet that'll blow the door right off of a mailbox." Len's eyes brightened. "Bet it would. Wanna try it?” We didn't have to discuss whose mailbox we'd assault. As one, we thought immediately of Mrs. Leeds. She was such a great target. She overreacted to everything. The night we mooned her, not only did she scream but she called the police. Len, Meat, Corey, Billy and I observed with glee from a thicket a few hundred feet away. Once, we used a pin to wedge the nozzle of a can of fart spray so it would spray until it ran out, and we tossed it into her car. When she discovered it, he called the police again. Older kids egged and TP'd her house regularly, and she in turn called the cops on them. The police, who were basically Nathan Clawson and another couple of New York State Troopers, hated her. Once, someone accidentally bumped into her car when it was parked in the street near the drug store. She called the police and made the kid wait until they showed up and filled out an accident report.

Durham / Slip Away / 33 Len and I determined she was crazy, but in a different way than Rudy. There must have been a dozen or more ways people could go crazy. At least. But back to the important M-80. Len and I jittered excitedly until nightfall. Mrs. Humphrey made us real, homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner, and rice crispy squares for dessert. It was cool to eat something that a restaurant hadn't made. It tasted more...sincere. We watched TV. Len had cable, so I got to check out MTV and HBO and all that stuff. Mom, Rudy and I didn't have cable, and being in a low area near a lake meant that broadcast TV just couldn't reach us through the mountains, so we only got two channels. One of them came in snowy. The cable picture was so clear! This was back when MTV showed videos, not crap, and we watched Prince sing about his little red Corvette,, and that dude who wore his sunglasses at night, and the awesome cartoony video by a one-hit band called A-Ha. And later, we were going to detonate an M-80 in Mrs. Leeds' mailbox. Bliss, sheer bliss. Night came. We said goodnight to Len's mom and retired to bed. Len's room was on the ground floor, and his mom's room was upstairs. Sneaking out at around eleven o'clock was a cinch. His mom snored so loud, we knew the second she fell asleep. Like midget cat burglars, we tiptoed to Len's bike. I had to sit on the sissy bar. He peddled through the darkened streets sans brakes (due to the snow), and I remember several times when it seemed like we were going to slip straight into a gully or blast into a tree, which would have been the deaths of us. Finally, we made it to Mrs. Leeds' plastic mailbox. I looked at it closely and hissed, "Uh oh."

Durham / Slip Away / 34 "What?" Len hissed back. "The hinges are metal. Metal is strong, right? Stronger than plastic? The door might not come off." "Well, it'll blow it open at any rate, and it'll be a cool loud boom." I agreed. He produced a Zippo lighter that he'd lifted from a box of his father's stuff left behind, and paused. "This is gonna be cool," he whispered excitedly. Then he lit the fuse, tossed the explosive into the mailbox and closed the door. Barely able to control our giggling excitement, we rode to the same thicket from which we watched the cops arrive at her door after the mooning incident. We waited. And waited. Len started to get impatient. "The fuse went out," he whispered. "No, wait, I can kinda hear it," I hissed. "That's crickets," declared Len. "Dumbass, there's no crickets in the winter. It's going. I can hear it." He said, in a quiet but real non-whispered voice, "I'll go relight it." He started to wriggle out of our cover of leaf-bare stalks. "Wait," I hissed. "What?" he said aloud, annoyed, and spun back to face me. That moment, there was a blinding flash and a whopping sound much louder than anything we'd expected. It was as loud as when a bolt of lightning hits the lake. We both jumped about a foot off the ground. The amazing blast shook the ground, rustled the thicket, and rattled windows several houses away. "Holy fuck," hissed Len. Then the night was silent again--even more silent, because the explosion frightened the night creatures into hiding. After a moment or two of dead silence, we started to hear the sound of rain--but with more of a clattering tone to it than the familiar rain-like dribbling--more like hail. It lasted a few seconds, then stopped.

Durham / Slip Away / 35 Lights started to come on in nearby houses about the tract. We huddled deeper into the woods. I glanced over at Mrs. Leeds' mailbox to survey the damage. There was no sign of the mailbox. But the street was littered with tiny dots, hard to make out from the distance in the dark, but we knew what they were. The M-80, which is a quarter of a stick of dynamite, had blown the mailbox to dust. I said, "We have to go now." Len disagreed. "We have to hide." "If we hide here the police will find us!" Len was more panicked than I'd ever seen him. He leapt to his feet and dragged his bike out of the snow. Without a choice, I followed and we hopped on the bike. He rode like a reckless cowboy on a wild horse and I scrambled keep my tenuous hold on the handlebar. Somehow, without ending our lives in a colossal collision with a tree, Len got us back to his house. We burst back into his window and hit our respective beds (mine was a sleeping bag on Len's floor). We heard footsteps coming down the stairs. "Sleepy!" reminded Len in a hiss. We emerged from the conventional door of his room, rubbing our eyes. "What was that sound?" said Len. "I don't know," said his mom, coming down the stairs. "Sounded like a shotgun, or something exploded off a ways." We stage-yawned, shrugged our shoulders, bid her goodnight again, and retired back into his room, and with the bedroom door closed, we triumphantly got into Len's bed. "That was cooler than..." he hissed excitedly, but finished with, "Uh oh."

Durham / Slip Away / 36 Bright light invaded through the window, white light. It was so intense it lit up the white window dressing (which, admittedly, was wispy thin) and made the room look like it was bathed in unnaturally bleached daylight. Len looked out. "Fuck." "What?" I demanded, and scrambled next to my friend to look through the cold glass. A cop car was cruising slowly up the street toward Len's house. Following the bicycle tire tracks. "Oh god," said Len, when the cop's bright beam shot upward toward his mom's area room (did you mean to say “area room”?). We heard her make a whoop of alarm at the intensity of the beam. "We are so fucked," said Len. I said, "I hope my mom had plenty to drink tonight." We lived it down. In fact, after the obligatory parental meeting, in which Len's mom and my mom got together with Trooper Nathan and he told us, sternly, that explosives were illegal in New York State, and they were illegal to minors in every state. He added more, noting that vandalism isn't something to laugh at, and that (this sucked) we were charged with the duty of shoveling Mrs. Leeds' driveway all winter long in addition to our parents buying her a new mailbox. Plus, worst of all, if we did anything like that again we'd end up in juvie with my brother. That thought sent fear through me like a lightning bolt. Tears. Len, too. Apologies, from both of us as one. After that meeting, life was actually pretty good. Word of our victory spread quickly around the school, and we were heroes. I enjoyed my brief popularity. Brief: Rudy came home.

Durham / Slip Away / 37

When he got back to Little Badger, the townsfolk weren't pleased at all. By this time, Rudy was thirteen. He had to repeat seventh grade; having been in kiddie jail interrupted his education. A.J.'s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gardner, filed some kind of official court document to try to prevent Rudy from being allowed to attend school in the Little Badger system, but the best they could get was a 50-foot restraining order. Rudy violated it the first chance he got. It was recess, again, but this time it was in the middle of winter. Rudy purposely wore a different coat than his usual blue denim fur lined coat. He wore one of Dad's old hunting jackets, which made it easy for him to approach A.J. beneath the notice of Mrs. Leeds. A.J. was still in a remedial program, but he was able to speak clearly and reason and stuff. Sort of. As Rudy marched up to A.J., who was facing the other way and didn't notice his approach, I tried to talk him out of it. Rudy shoved me, and I landed on my butt in the snow. He'd gotten stronger, developed a wiry, steely physique, in juvie. He was much sturdier than his size led folks to believe. He reached A.J. and plopped a hand on his shoulder. The smaller boy spun around. His eyes met Rudy's, and he looked shocked, angry and then scared all in the space of a split second. Rudy clenched his teeth and hissed one word to A.J.: "Sorry." But he said it with a steely look that transformed the true meaning of the word. It was a threat. A threat not to use Rudy's actions against him. Not to sue our family, not to demean us, not to take advantage; to feel lucky that he was alive, and leave it at that. Rudy, my brother, somehow conveyed all that in one word which, by its strict definition, was supposed to be remorseful.

Durham / Slip Away / 38 Then he walked away. That's the first time I realized how dangerous Rudy really was. But he was my brother, and I loved him.

Durham / Slip Away / 39

Chapter Five
The years passed, and the townsfolk gradually forgave Rudy. But they did not forget. A.J. recovered, mostly. He got confused easily, but he could read and write and do math and everything a person needs to do to get by. He had lots of plastic surgeries for his scars and, by and by, his neck started to look pretty close to normal. Of course, A.J.'s parents, the Gardeners, sued the crap out of my mom. She didn't stand a chance in court, and she couldn't afford an attorney, so she

Durham / Slip Away / 40 got some pro bono schmuck who didn't seem to know much about civil law. She was ordered to pay all his hospital fees. The Gardeners didn't sue for pain and suffering or punitive damages or any frivolous bullshit. Other townsfolk thought that was pretty generous of them. There was no way Mom could afford those damages on a waitress's wage, raising two kids, if she lived to be a thousand years old. She got smacked for something like $150,000 off the bat, which I didn't hear from her but from my brother who'd appeared in court, and that didn't count some of the later plastic surgeries. The government powers-that-be saw to it that they garnished her wages with each paycheck. We barely had enough cash to survive on in the first place. The shit was about to hit the fan. We had no money, ever. Her older son was a psycho. Her younger one, well I wasn't much of anything at all. I got average grades. I tried my best to be polite, I wasn't confrontational, I just sort of observed. I tried my very hardest to keep under people's radar. I got in trouble once in a while, but never very seriously. Mom used to say I was either a genius or a vegetable, damned if she could tell which. I was just a kid then. That's all. Today? Today I'm a murderer being pursued by the FBI. Mom tried three times to kill herself before she finally got it right. The first time was the bathtub incident. The second time, I was around ten and Rudy, age fifteen, had just recently gotten home from another stint in juvie jail (he punched a guy in the grocery store for staring at him, broke his jaw and knocked his two front teeth out). Another lawsuit. Mom was in bankruptcy.

Durham / Slip Away / 41 It was late summer, and I don't think school had begun yet, if I recall correctly. Rudy and I had gone out on the lake in the fishing boat. We had short-fuse firecrackers with wax coated wicks, and we were dropping them in the water like depth charges. When they detonated, they blew sprays of water like little, spastic fountains. It was cool. When we got home, we found Mom on the floor of the kitchen. She was supine in a puddle of wine, and her left hand clutched a little plastic bottle of ibuprofen. There was a dozen or so little maroon pills scattered about the floor. Rudy was pretty matter of fact about it. He said, "Well, either she passed out drunk tryin' to be takin' some Motrin for the hangover, or she's dead." I absolutely panicked. "Are you crazy?" I shouted. "We gotta call the ambulance! She can't die!" "Relax," said Rudy. "She'll be fine. Look, Roar, she's breathing." I looked hard, and after a minute I could make out her chest rising and falling. I dropped to my knees and shook her shoulders, calling her to awaken. Rudy yanked me up by my shirt collar. "Hang on," he said, and ran out of the kitchen. He rooted around in a junk drawer in one of the side tables next to the couch, and bounded back into the kitchen with our old, cheap, 35mm camera. "Damn, I hope there's film in it," he said. "This is one of those Kodak moments!" "What are you doing?" I protested, but Rudy snapped a shot. "That's a keeper!" he declared. Then he stepped over her unconscious body to the fridge and said, "Think she left us a beer?" He found a can of Schlitz or something, cracked it open and went to watch TV.

Durham / Slip Away / 42 I couldn't take it anymore. I shook her shoulders until she mumbled and swatted at me. I kept on shaking, and patting her face, calling her repeatedly to awaken. Quick as a shot, Mom sat up. She looked around with a really baffled expression on her face. Then she said under her breath, "Damn it." She looked at the wine, and the ibuprofen, and me. She mussed my hair and slurred, "Mama slipped, honey. I'm okay though. I'm goin' to bed now. There's some veal parm in the fridge for you." She hugged me and kissed me goodnight, and then teetered away toward her bedroom. Her body stunk of alcohol and sweat, and her breath was utterly offensive. I sat on the couch, on the opposite side from Rudy, who was sipping his beer and watching drag racing. I sat there for a while, watching him. He had no concern for Mom, showed no awareness that I even entered the room. He wasn't even reacting to the races, except when someone crashed and he sat forward and said, "Yeah! Look at that!" Finally, I ventured, "I don't think Mom's doing too good." Tears unexpectedly filled my eyes as I spoke. "Yeah," he said, eyes still on the TV, "she's a one-woman nuthouse." He turned and noticed that I was gently crying. His eyes transformed to the thousand-yard stare he learned in juvie. "You know," he said, "I hate it that you're so young and you have to see her like this." "Shouldn't someone tell Dr. Richards or something?" I asked. Rudy's eyes softened. This moment was the only time I ever remember him looking sympathetic. "Don't worry Roar. Mom's gonna sleep this off and tomorrow she'll be fine." I didn't feel reassured. "She looked dead." "She just drank too much is all," said Rudy. "You know how when sometimes we see people stumbling around at the bar in the Inn?"

Durham / Slip Away / 43 "Yeah," I said. "The drunk guys. I know about drunk people." "Well," said Rudy, "sometimes people can get so drunk that they faint. They pass out cold, just like they fell asleep." I knew that too, but I didn't say so because Rudy was rarely this nice to me. It felt good, having a conversation with someone of blood relation. "How come they do that?" I asked, just to keep the rapport growing. "It's from all the booze, like I said--knocks 'em out," replied Rudy. "No, I mean, how come they drink so much booze?" Rudy smiled. "It's fun to get drunk," he said. "It makes you all dizzy and happy, and it helps you forget your worries." As if to punctuate, he chugged down the rest of his beer, crushing the can as he swallowed. I said, "Are you drunk now?" Rudy huffed. "Naw, it takes a lot more than one beer to get you drunk. At least, if you ain't a pussy." "Can I get drunk?" I said. "No way, you're too young," said my 15- year-old brother. "Besides," he said, "we don't have any more beer and Mom drank half the wine and spilled all the rest." "Well, maybe Mom'll get more soon," I said. "Not if she ain't got the money," he said. He suddenly glared at the TV. His grip tightened around the beer can. He said through his teeth, "We never have money." His demeanor suddenly changed. He was no longer my oddly nurturing big brother, but the demon in juvie, telling me about beating his roommate. He scared me. My eyes leapt to the dollar sign scar on his arm and I almost felt the need to mutilate myself. I have no idea why. Mom got up and went to work the next day as if nothing happened, just like every other day. Rudy and I spent the day shooting at frogs with a pellet gun.

Durham / Slip Away / 44 Mom's third suicide attempt would have worked, but the UPS truck's brakes were too good and the driver's reflexes were too sharp. It was a weekday, a few months after the wine and ibuprofen incident, a few weeks week after my ninth birthday (I got a pocket video game--not a Nintendo Game Boy, which had recently been released and had been what I asked for, but an incredibly cheap, shoddy-feeling knockoff with something like 100 games built in, all of which were low budget variations on Space Invaders, Breakout, or Tetris). The streets of Little Badger were wet; it had rained all the night before and was still drizzling that that day. Mom was downtown, as she glamorously called it. More like in town. More like in some podunk unknown nowhereville. Like so many Adirondack villages, Little Beaver's town center consisted of about a half-mile of storefronts. The police report said that Mom walked out of the bank, stepped into traffic and got hit by a UPS truck. She claimed that she hadn't seen the truck coming, and was innocently crossing the street to Tom's General Store. The UPS driver said that he'd seen her standing at the curb with her foot out, so he started to slow down. She stepped out as he approached, and he slammed on the brakes just in time to turn a road pizza incident into a broken hip and a few abrasions. Mrs. Ruth, the principal of the Little Badger all-grade school, rounded Rudy and me up from our respective classrooms and drove us over to the hospital. Mom's head was taped up like a mummy; apparently she'd done a face plant on the pavement. She mumbled at us as best she could through the bandages, said, "Mommy's okay, babies!" As I ran to hug her, Rudy replied, "That's funny, you look like crap." "Well, it's good to see you, too," muffled Mom. She hugged me with one hand and made a little grunt noise when I squeezed her.

Durham / Slip Away / 45 I asked her what happened. She said, "A truck ran over me, baby. It was an accident." Rudy said, "Did it run over you, or did you run into it?" "That's a terrible thing to say," she told him. Mom couldn't walk for six weeks. She was on disability, but that barely covered heat and toiletries. Plus, we lost the steady stream of leftover kitchen food from the Inn. Since deer season was open, Rudy decided that we could hunt for food. One morning he dug into Dad's rifle cabinet and his hunting chest. He found camouflage clothes, safety orange vests, deer calls, cover scent, binoculars, and all kinds of other stuff intended to give man the advantage over deer--as if a firearm weren't enough. Dad had all sorts of firearms: .22 caliber rimfire squirrel baggers, a .30-06 rifle, a few handguns, and of course the Remington double barrel that he used to end his life. Rudy, in a startling display of good taste, decided to leave that one alone. A few mornings later, Rudy got up early. He came home around noon with a big old buck in the bed of the pickup. Dean "Worm" Pierson, a lanky, squirrely, almost slimy friend of Rudy's who struck me as a dope dealer, was with him. Though I was disappointed to see Worm, I went out to greet them. Rudy was grinning. "Once we butcher this, this monster will feed us till Mom's back on her feet!" "Do you know how to butcher a deer?" I asked him. "No, but I think I gutted it okay," he replied, totally nonplussed. I was fascinated, and mortified, by the cooling carcass in the bed of our truck. Worm said, "Old Dick Hoof knows how to carve them up. He's been living on game and buck all his life. You'll need a freezer, though."

Durham / Slip Away / 46 Rudy pondered that for a few moments, and then said, "Want to drive it over with us?" Rudy was sixteen but didn't yet have a license, or even a learner's permit, and everyone in town knew it. Driving out into the woods down a dirt trail was one thing, but in town he was more likely to get noticed. "Do you think we should drive around town?" I asked. Rudy replied with a simple question: "Is Mom awake?" In all honesty, Mom hadn't been awake for more than a few hours a day since the doctor gave her Percocet for her injuries. She ate that crap like M&Ms. "But," I said, "If anyone sees you we might lose the truck. Especially if Trooper Clausen is around." "Fine, Roar, be that way. Look, the lake ain't frozen," said Rudy. "Let's boat it over." Worm hopped into the truck bed to help haul the deer over the open tailgate. Rudy guided the front hoofs toward him. "Grab the rear," he said to me. "This sucker's heavy." I was horrified. I'd never touched a dead thing before, especially one with a massive slit in its belly and a gagging stench billowing out of it. I timidly pulled on one of its ankles. I could feel the stiff tendons below the short, prickly fur. I dropped the leg and stepped back. "Oh, come on," chided Rudy. "Don't be a fucking candy ass." I gingerly picked at its hoof, this time with both hands, but again I was rendered too squeamish to go on. "Damn it," bellowed Rudy. "Here, get used to it!" With a grunt, he lifted the carcass out of the truck bed and hurled it onto me. I was so startled I stumbled backward and collapsed in the dirt, and the deadweight of the deer landed upon me, pinning me to the ground.

Durham / Slip Away / 47 I could faintly hear Rudy and Worm roaring with hysterical laughter as I made retching noises under the corpse. "Get me out!" I bellowed. It evidently fell on deaf ears. As I wiggled out from under it, my efforts were greased by moisture oozing from the slit. I was furious. I stood up and brushed the blood and stray fur and whatever else had coated me off the shoulder and side of my denim jacket. They just laughed. "Come on, pussy boy," he said, grabbing the head end while Worm took the other. They hefted the deer away, toward the side of the trailer. In a huff, I followed him around the house to the boat. Rudy plopped the carcass into our fishing boat, which was tethered to our short, rotting dock, and turned to Worm. "Ain't room for you," he said. Worm flipped him the bird and said, "Well, can I have the keys to your truck?" "Let you drive my rig? You'll wrap it around a phone pole." "Eat my pole, bitch," replied Worm with a smirk. "What the hell else am I gonna do? Wait around here? Stick my dick in your comatose mom?" Rudy tossed him the keys I grit my teeth and burst out, "Leave my mother out of this," The cronies thought my chivalry was hilarious. After more laughter, Worm grabbed his crotch and said, "Don't you mean leave this out of your mother?" Then he lightened up. He said, "Don't take shit so seriously, kid. Chill out, you'll be OK." Then he added, pointing at my brother, "And don't believe his shit about the anal shot, neither. That's a fucking urban legend." "Urban legend," said Rudy, whirling with his arms half out to indicate the tall, majestic trees and the serene lake. "This look 'urban' to you?" With a final display of his middle finger, Worm was gone in our truck.

Durham / Slip Away / 48 Dick heard us motoring up to his dock. He sauntered out of his hand-built house--effectively a log cabin--and shouted, "Doin' a little cold water fishin'?" "Sure!" said Rudy. "Long as the lake ain't frozen!" Dick laughed a choking, wheezing guffaw, and then waved a hello to me. "You bag your first buck, squirt?" He winked at me, indicating the deer. "Are you kidding?" said Rudy. "He couldn't bounce a BB off a bus." I elbowed Rudy in the side and said, "I'm a good shot. I won a trophy." "Yeah," said Rudy. "For an air gun contest. Let's see you bag a deer with a pellet." I said, "I scored higher in my age bracket in that contest than you did in yours." Rudy didn't even let me get my entire comment out. He had turned back to Dick Hoof and said, "You want yourself the rack and any cut of your choice?" Dick wheezed another laugh. He sounded like a tractor full of unleaded instead of diesel. "Lemee guess, you're tryin to swindle me into butchering that buck for free!" "How'd you know?" said Rudy with a you-guessed-it grin. His charisma was legendary. Such was the case with a typical sociopath, but I'm getting ahead of myself. "I ain't even been out huntin' yet this year," said Dick. "Damned if Gerty ain't got me doin' every damn thing around the house and the yard. Hee hee, when I can't sneak away for a smoke. Like she don't know. That woman got the fifth sense when it comes to knowin' what I'm up to. Gettin' some insulation in the attic, she says it's too cold already, and the north winds ain't even started blowin' in yet. Wouldn't ya know, I go to climb up to the crawl space, and the bottom rung of my eight footer breaks out from under me. Just snapped right in two. Damn good thing it wasn't the top rung that broke, I'd be in pieces right now."

Durham / Slip Away / 49 Rudy was waiting patiently. When Dick finally paused, he laughed politely and said, "So that sound like a deal?" "What was?" said the old man. "The rack and a cut, in return for your butchering the carcass for me." "What's that, an eight pointer?" Dick asked. "Damn, that's a good haul. Where'd ya bag it?" "Up across Route 19, across from our house, probably a mile back into the woods." "I can cut it up for ya. You gotta foot me the wrappings, though, I ain't been out to buy them yet. Ain't even been out lookin' for deer yet. Gerty with her lists. First thing I gotta do is mend the ladder. I'll have to reinforce the other rungs, I guess, lessn' they snap themselves. Maybe I'll just replace them all." Rudy had already begun to haul the carcass out of the boat. Dick and Rudy together plopped it onto Dick's dock. "Come on, Roar," said Rudy. I wobbled my way from boat to dock. I don't know which smelled worse, the fleshy putrid aroma wafting from the deer's innards or the unwashed stench of Dick's armpits. The three of us hauled the carcass into a shed (yeah, I sort of helped). The shed was handmade like the house. Dick babbled away about whatever random impulses fired through his brain matter. Dick's property was populated by at least a half dozen sheds--a hunting shed, a meat smokehouse, a boathouse, a tool shed, and so on. They were all in remarkable shape, as was his house. Dick was an obnoxious old guy, but he was one hell of a craftsman. The uninitiated, observing that nearly everything on his property was made and/or maintained by Dick, might regard him as white trash, a poor man living in a shack surviving on canned beer and Twinkies. That describes my family. Not Dick and Gertrude. Dick was a man who simply loved to work with his hands, and through his years he picked up skills as they became

Durham / Slip Away / 50 necessary to enhance his life or repair something. He bought old cars, for instance, not because he couldn't afford a better one but because he knew that, with the right amount of care, they would serve him for years--and tinkering with them in itself was a pleasure. We weren't worried about the carcass rotting, since it was refrigerator temperature outside. We plopped the deer on a table in one of his sheds. Dick flipped the carcass this way and that, and finally said, "Where'd you hit this sucker?" The three of us stood side by side next to the workbench that ran the length of the fifteen-or-so-foot shed. Dick was between us, Rudy on the head side of the deer and me on the ass side, constantly guarding my face from its hind hoofs while Dick explored its anatomy. I said, "Is this what Worm was talking--" but Rudy said, unabashedly, "Shut up, Roar." Dick didn't seem to notice. Then, to Dick, Rudy said, "Huh?" "Where the hell's the entry hole? Where'd you shoot 'im?" "Beats me," said Rudy. "Shoulda been in the back of his head. That's where I was aiming, 'cause I don't care for the trophy. I wanted meat, and I wanted to make a clean kill so I wouldn't have to track a wounded buck for ten damn miles." "His head looks fine," mumbled Dick. I rolled my eyes. "He kinda jumped when I fired," said Rudy. "Maybe the back or something?" Dick said, "I can't find a damn hole." I tried to sound helpful. "I don't see anything near his butt." Dick came over and displaced me to check the hind end. I stepped away from him, more to escape his stench than to give him room.

Durham / Slip Away / 51 I backed into a long-handled tool, and turned to see that the other wall was covered with hanging tools like rakes, shovels, hoes and sickles. Finally, Rudy looked at the deer's rear end and said, "Well I'll be goddamned. See that graze mark?" Dick looked and burst into laughter. They suddenly laughed hysterically. We all spoke at once. Rudy managed to chortle out, "There must have been a split second..." Dick chuckled, "I wonder what he was thinkin'..." And I said, "Why do you make shit like this up?" They didn't hear me. They guffawed for a few more minutes about the improbable, and apparently untrue, demise of the deer. I tuned most of it out, but I remember clearly one thing Rudy said: "I guess if he was queer, he died a happy damn death!" A deal was struck, after Rudy and Dick wrangled about how many cuts of meat the old fellow would receive for his services. He'd have it done in a day. And then, of course, he talked. And talked. By the time we motored back to our own dock the sun was setting over the long, meandering slope of Gray Mountain, which forms the horizon to the west of Little Badger Lake. As we floated along, Rudy mulled over how to obtain a sizeable freezer. I barely heard a word he said. I was thinking about the deer. He mumbled about the possibility of picking parts from a junk yard and rigging something. We might have enough to afford that. But it wouldn't be reliable. The meat might spoil. Rudy flat out refused the idea of visiting the Deer Mountain Inn himself for leftovers. The generous manager, some out-of-towner named John, had, after Mom's "accident," implied that such an arrangement was a

Durham / Slip Away / 52 possibility--but Rudy was too proud to accept it. He said it was akin to begging, that he might as well sit on some random, dirty sidewalk with a sign and a tin can. That's the first time he talked about the Haves and the Have-Nots. "Some folks," he said bitterly, "have more money in the bank for emergencies like this than Mom could make in ten years. "The Haves. They don't need to buy the store brands, they can get name brand stuff. You know how much better Pop Tarts taste than ReadyGood Toaster Pastries? They don't have to buy old used junk cars and hope they don't break down. "When Christmas time comes, all they give a shit about is getting the newest things for their kids before it all sells out, not how much the stuff costs. "Mom can accept their chastity, or charity, or whatever it's called, their hand-outs, all she wants. But I won't." Rudy finished his thought by saying that we may be Have-Nots, but we sure as hell wouldn't act like them. I didn't know how to feel right then.

Durham / Slip Away / 53

Chapter Six

While she was laid up, Mom pretty much stayed on the couch and watched daytime, or nighttime, or late night, or morning TV, or slept in a hazy stupor of pain meds and extremely cheap liquor. All she talked about was stuff she saw on TV, and stuff she needed us to get for her. "Can you believe that gal's gettin' a million bucks a year, just to sit there and look perky and say dumb shit about the news?" is the kind of thing

Durham / Slip Away / 54 she'd say. "She's got that cutsie little smile. Let's see her put in a night hauling plates at the Inn during ski season. She'd earn some of those millions, let me tell you. What she does can't be called work." Or Mom would say: "Grab me a stick of Juicy Fruit, sweetie. The pain pills make my mouth dry." She seemed to take a lot more Percocet than she was supposed to, as least according to the label I read. It caused a problem when she sent me to the General Store for a new prescription. (By that time, she'd hidden the keys to the truck to prevent Rudy or his friends from driving it around sans licenses). A couple problems, in fact. The town was about a third of the way around the lake and a quick trip by boat, but the lake had started to ice over. I took my BMX bike. I didn't follow Route 19, because with all its meandering around slopes and woods, the trip to town is like a mile and a half. By riding trails and rough along the lakeside, I can cut the trip in half. It was cold as hell. I froze, peddling through the woods, only to have the pharmacist, Phil Whitmore, ask me why, with the instructions indicated on the bottle, Mom already needed a new prescription. "I guess her bottle's empty," I told him. "Then your Mom has been taking this too often," he told me. He leaned over the counter and pointed at the prescription. "Look here. See? Four per day as needed, with a quantity of 56. That should get her through two weeks. Now it's only been a week since her last prescription. And this stuff in quantity can really damage her liver." He leaned closer, so close I could smell his tangy aftershave. Whitmore said, "Rory, I'm not allowed to tell anybody about this myself." Then he whispered. "But you should tell Dr. Richards about it." "How come?" I asked innocently. "Because Percocet can be habit forming in some people, and since your mother has been taking so much, she may have a problem without it."

Durham / Slip Away / 55 I said, "Are you going to give me more pills for her?" "I'd prefer if you spoke to Dr. Richards first," he replied. "And, unfortunately, the state also gets suspicious when I dispense too much of any narcotic." I sighed. I didn't know or care about addictions or anything like that, I just knew that mom would be pissed if I didn't have her meds when I got back. But I loved my mother fiercely, and I decided to head over to Dr. Richard's just to be sure. So I slouched out of the General Store, waving forlornly at Gerty Hoof-Dick's wife, who was in line at the front checkout--and hopped back on my bike. Dr. Richard's office was a few storefronts down the road on the opposite side of the street. The wind had picked up, icy. My face chilled during the ride. I rode on over, keeping my bike mainly on the sidewalk to keep out of the slush on the sides of the streets. As I approached the alley between the General Store and next building, which was populated by a barber shop with an insurance agency upstairs, an SUV pulled out in unexpectedly into the crosswalk. Yelling, "Crap!" all the way, I braked as hard as I could, flew over the handlebars, slid across the hood of the SUV and landed in a spectacular somersault on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the alley. I really wasn't hurt that badly. The sidewalk was wet and mildly slushy, and my puffy gray coat absorbed most of the impact. The driver leapt out of the vehicle. She was a middle aged woman, and totally the opposite of my mom. She wore a pantsuit and looked very groomed and professional. Her blond hair was done up smartly and her makeup was understated. "Oh dear! Are you alright?" she asked, gracefully kneeling at my side without messing up her suit. I was on my back and trying to rise.

Durham / Slip Away / 56 "Yeah, I'm okay," I said. Suddenly, the thought of damaging her vehicle jumped into my mind. We didn't have the money to pay for repair. "Oh god. Is your truck OK?" "My truck?" she said. "Oh, honey, don't worry about it. What about you? You're more important than some vehicle." "I'm fine," I said, somewhat certain I wasn't lying. I stood and surveyed the scene. I ran my hands over my head and coat, and found moisture everywhere; I must have rolled. I couldn't find my bike. The driver gently put her hand on my arm. "Let me take you to a doctor," she said. "You should be seen." "Where's my bike?" I said. "It's over here," said a soft, angelic voice. I looked across the hood. There, on the other side of the SUV, stood a small girl whose face shined with more beauty than a thousand waterfalls. I know I was only ten or eleven, but love is love, and I was smitten. I was cold, wet and in pain, and I didn't feel any of it. I was floating on a cushion of clouds, drifting on the sails of gossamer, enchanting, puppy love. She smiled uncomfortably. I realized I'd been staring at her. I looked down and felt myself blush. Missing the byplay altogether, the driver said, "Really, let me take you to a doctor." "I was already going there," I said, and pointed at the office. "It's right over there." "Your bike is wrecked," my new love told me from across the hood of the SUV. I looked at her to reply, but my tongue went numb and all I could do was stare. "Well please," the driver was saying, her voice seeming to come from some far away land, "let's go get you checked out." I stared at the girl. She stared back at me.

Durham / Slip Away / 57 This time, she didn't look so uncomfortable. She looked flattered, in fact. Then she suddenly looked startled. Dizziness overcame me. I remember my chin hitting the hood of the SUV as I collapsed unconscious. Bright, bright light. I was on my back. "There he is." "Oh, thank God. Thank God. Rory, honey? Can you hear me? Can he hear me?" "Slow down, let him get his bearings." The distinctive voices of my mom and Dr. Richards. "Where is she?" I asked. I was shocked by the searing pain in my tongue. I must have bitten it when my chin impacted the hood of the SUV. My nose felt like a warm sponge, only blindingly sore. I smelled latex gloves and that red iodine stuff. My senses were suddenly saturated. Muzak, voices, rubbing alcohol, fluorescent light. Pain in my tongue, head, hands, ribs, knees. "Who, honey, who? The lady who hit you? She's not here. She's filling out a police report. They'll want to talk to you." To the doctor: "Can you tell them to wait until tomorrow?" Warm lips pecked my cheek. "Oh, my poor baby. It's just awful. You'll get better, I promise." I mumbled, "How did you get here, Mom?" "What? Honey, of course I drove." The very thought terrified me. Dr. Richards said, "We should get him to Glens Falls for observation." Alarm. "To the hospital?" said my mom's panicked voice. "Does he need to go to the hospital?"

Durham / Slip Away / 58 "Just for observation overnight. He'll probably spend the whole time in the emergency room--I doubt he'll be admitted. They'll just keep an eye on him. He's got a pretty good concussion." "But nothing's broken. You said nothing's broken." "The only thing I'm worried about is his concussion, and the possibility of internal bleeding, but I really don't think that's a factor." "Internal--oh my god. My poor baby." Mom's hands on my forehead, gently brushing my hair back. I think of the young passenger's face. All I can think of is her angelic face. Paramedics moved me to a stretcher, rolled me through the waiting room and back into the cold, then into an ambulance. We went for a long, rickety ride. A jolly fat lady kept taking my blood pressure. She reassured me that my mom was in the car right behind us. "My mom shouldn't be driving," I said honestly. Then, even though it was hard to talk, I asked "Where is the lady who hit me? Will she be there?" The fat paramedic looked surprised. "I don't think so." I closed my eyes. I saw the girl's face across the hood of the SUV. I saw her face in my mind for years--at least until I was fourteen. The school year was almost over, and the late spring black flies were out in force. Rudy was nineteen, had dropped out of school, and somehow gotten a job in boat maintenance at a dealership about a half hour away in Nettle Spring. Besides in my imagination, I hadn't seen the girl again. I swear on all that's holy, though, I thought about her every damn day since that accident. That's how I discovered masturbation. I'd created a thousand fantasies of the two of us somehow finding each other and spending time together. My favorite, and call me a pansy if you

Durham / Slip Away / 59 must, is us sharing a picnic lunch in a gazebo by a trickling creek. She's in a white lacy dress with a sun hat. Her smile fills me with bubbles. But what finally cured me of thinking of her was finding Mom after school. She was out back. She was lying face down. One of her legs was stiff so that her ankle was about six inches above the ground. I captured the brief glimpse in my brain forever--even though I only looked for a second after the realization set in.

Durham / Slip Away / 60

Chapter Seven

About a year before, a bear wandered into our yard. Until that day, Mom shunned guns. She hated the fact that we kept dad's rifles, but Rudy and I used them to hunt or target shoot occasionally, so she tolerated them. She always figured if any dangerous wildlife came by, she could call Dick. Then one evening after supper we saw a black bear tearing through the trash behind the trailer. Mom was petrified. We told her to just ignore it, it would go away.

Durham / Slip Away / 61 The next day, she made Rudy show her how to load and fire the 30-06. I blame the bear. No, I don't blame the bear. Even if she never learned how to use the rifle, she would have done it eventually, one way or another. She was determined. Her skin was bluish pink. The rifle was right on her chest. As I approached, still twenty feet away, I could see that the back of her head was blown clean off. I screamed, and crouched, and threw up, and fell to the ground. I lay there crying in the fetal position until Rudy got home from work. Police came. Paramedics came. I sat on the couch. I didn't say anything to anyone. Dr. Richards himself came by. They told me to talk, please talk, please tell us how you're doing. They looked for a phone book. All my grandparents were dead. Mom was an only child. Dad's brother Ralph, who Mom and I had visited when I was a tiny boy, was dead by the time I found Mom's corpse. There was nobody left in my entire family except Rudy and me. All I wanted to do was sit on the couch and be alone, and they wouldn't let me. The wrapped me in blankets. They brought me a glass of water. Please take a sip.

Mom's leg was hovering over the grass. Her foot was bare. She was wearing her beige nightgown printed with tiny blue flowers.
They stopped talking to me, but kept talking about me. They said I was catatonic. I'd need treatment. I'd need serious counseling, starting right away. I heard snippets of conversation between troopers, including Nathan Clawson, and paramedics, including that nice fat lady from the ambulance.

Durham / Slip Away / 62 Things like "treating this as a suicide for now," and "looking for his older brother Rudy," and "poor kid, can you imagine? Both parents?" I don't know why I didn't talk. It wasn't like I didn't want to, and I didn't particularly dislike like any of the people milling about my house. Except that the whole place was starting to smell like a hospital with all the damn medical stuff around. I wondered where Rudy was, but I didn't ask. I wondered what would happen to me, but I didn't ask that, either. I don't know why. I just sat on the couch and didn't talk. Not couldn't, not wouldn't, just didn't. For a crazy second, I thought that A.J. Gardner must have done it. The guy whose throat Rudy tore out. But A.J. was, as far as I knew, in Arizona, where his parents moved to escape the harsh winters of the Northeast. I guessed they wouldn't be getting checks garnished from my mom's meager disability payments anymore. Wow, I don't know where thoughts like that come from. I hadn't thought of A.J. since middle school. Eventually, a tiny perky young woman with short, stylish brown hair showed up. She walked in through the front door without knocking. She conferred with the paramedics and the troopers for a few moments, and then she came over and knelt in front of me. "You must be Rory," she said. I didn't respond. She smelled like cinnamon and perfume. Undaunted, she gently announced: "I'm Miss Farris." She held a hand to greet me. Her hands were small. I gave it a halfhearted shake. Still hadn't developed my iron grip yet.

Durham / Slip Away / 63 "I'm a social worker," she said. "If it makes you more comfortable, you can call me Joann. Or just Jo." I didn't call her anything. "The school sent me right away to see how you're doing," she pressed on, "and to decide what to do next. I guess we can assume that you're probably pretty burned out right now, huh?" I just looked at her. That was a weird thing to say, but I didn't hold it against her. I felt sorry for her. What do you say to a kid who just found his mother dead in the back yard?

The rifle lay on her stiff body. If I had hunkered down, I probably could have seen the lake through the hole in her head.
"You don't feel like talking?" said Miss Farris. I answered by not talking. "That's okay," she said. "You've been through something awful. You might not want to talk for hours, or even days. That's perfectly normal. I hope you don't mind if I talk to you, though." I stared through her eye contact at something far away. She said, "You don't mind, do you?" It dawned on me that she was trying to trick me into talking. I couldn't give a shit either way. She put one of her small hands on my knee. She said, "You'll get through this. I promise." Did I believe her? I don't know. I wasn't thinking about Joann Farris. She knelt and looked at me for a few more minutes, then she gracefully fished a little scratch pad from her brown leather handbag. She produced a pen, and jotted something down.

Durham / Slip Away / 64 "You don't mind if I take a few notes, do you?" she asked. I didn't care. I wondered what they were doing with my mom. I stood up and walked past her. She swiftly stored the scratch pad and pen to their place in her bag, and asked, in a weird, way too familiar, hey-we're-pals sort of way, "Where ya going?" I walked toward the back door. A uniformed state Trooper put his hand out and stopped me. He was a very tall man with a cop mustache. He said, in a surprisingly tender but deep voice, "You don't want to go back there." I glimpsed the area where my mom had lain stiff in the lawn. She was gone. The troopers had a big square sectioned off with yellow tape. A few guys in suits, rather than uniforms, were rooting around the area like chickens pecking at seed. The cop gently ushered me away from the back door, so I went back to the couch and sat down. Joann Farris sat next to me. She babbled and yammered, trying to comfort me or something, going on and on about how I have nothing to worry about and that I'll be taken care of. She had a place set up for me to spend the night. They were looking for Rudy, would I know where he might be? There were plenty of counselors who would help me get through my emotions. Emotions. I only had two: shock and fear.

Shock. Of course I was shocked. My mother blew her brains out--she pulled a Dad--while I was in school. Fear. I was terrified. I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next. Some primitive part of my mind was already past the shock. The non-evolved simian chunk of me knew that life would never be the same, that there would

Durham / Slip Away / 65 be permanent changes that Mom and I wouldn't ever again lounge in the living room with Wheel of Fortune on, while she dozed on pills and booze, while I did my homework. I was fourteen years old. I wasn't old enough to be recognized by the government as an adult. Was Rudy even old enough to be my foster parent? Would I be sent to a foster home? An orphanage? Would I end up in a dorm with a bunch of unwanted children, and have to bet my bottom dollar on the next day's weather? Rudy wasn't even around. Eventually, somebody ushered me out to Miss Farris's car. I sat in the back seat. I checked: she had the child safety locks engaged so I couldn't open the doors from the inside. It seemed silly, overprotective. Would I have fled at a red light or something? I honestly wasn't sure. If I did, where would I go? She took me to the emergency room of the Presbyterian Hospital of Glens Falls. I wasn't even allowed to walk in by myself; some orderlies, or nurses' aids, or techs, whatever they're called nowadays, insisted I settle into a wheel chair. As if I had a broken leg. Joann Farris talked to the people at the desk. I was left nearby to ponder the sterile hospital odor, or, when the automatic doors opened, the aroma of ambulance exhaust. There were three other people in the ER waiting room. One was a gigantic black guy with an amazingly blank look in his eyes. A woman next to him, the second person in the waiting room, was helping him hold an ice bag on his head.

Durham / Slip Away / 66 The third person in the waiting room was a thin, pale man, all by himself, wrapped in blankets and trembling like a frightened child. I realized, after I saw him, which I was also trembling like a frightened child. I was a frightened child. When Joann Farris finished hobnobbing with the receptionist, she came over to me and wheeled me over next to a stationary waiting room chair. She sat down next to me. She put one of her little hands on my knee and said, "How ya doin'?" I saw no reason to answer that. She said: "They're going to give you some medicine to help you relax." Her purse started ringing. Cell phones were kind of new back then, and it startled me. I must have jumped, because she said, "It's just a portaphone." After a little hurried digging about, she snatched it out of her purse. It was a gigantic, gray flip-open phone. It would be considered massive next to today's cell phones, but it looked small back then. She talked at length, in a hushed voice, to whoever called her. A boyfriend? She seemed to be making sleeping arrangements. I heard a few phrases, like I did when the paramedics were talking to the cops in my house. "...can't find any family," she was saying. "...just for a couple nights...until the state can place him...been through enough..." I wondered where I would sleep. A thought entered my mind: the school year was winding to a close. "What about finals?" I asked. Joann looked at me with surprise. The voice on the other end of the phone kept babbling. She said, "I'll call you back!" and hung up without waiting for a reply. Then she grabbed my hand and said, "What did you say, honey?"

Durham / Slip Away / 67 "Finals?" I repeated. "Oh, don't you worry. Don't worry. We'll take care of your mother's final concerns." I meant final exams. The sudden burst of concern about them had already evaporated from my muddled brain, though, and I didn't feel motivated enough to explain what I'd really meant to her. Joann Farris wasn't satisfied. "Is that what you meant? Rory, it's okay to tell me." I didn't feel like correcting her. In fact, I felt strongly against it. I conveyed this by staring straight forward, toward the motorized doors that led outside. I wondered how fast Joann was. I pictured leaping from my wheelchair and bolting through those doors, fleeing into the hospital parking lot and beyond. I didn't know what was around there. Would I be able to find a place to hide, to embrace my apparent anonymity? Who would stop me? But I would then be truly alone. And it's a big world, and I was a frightened kid. And my mother--

She must have used a stick to activate the trigger of the long rifle. Blood had trickled from my mommy's head and soaked into the moist ground of our back yard, and coagulated.
But I didn't take off running. I sat in the wheelchair, listless. Eventually an overworked, thin, black nurse hollered my name from a set of double-doors leading deeper into the hospital. Joann was perky to her, and the nurse seemed to force herself to be as friendly as she could in response, but she looked tired and drawn.

Durham / Slip Away / 68 We spent about an hour, Miss Farris and I, in a curtained-off area in the emergency room. They took my pulse and my blood pressure and my temperature. I didn't really care. Eventually a doctor or counselor of some sort, a psychologist or a psychiatrist, came to visit me. She did all the same shit Joann Farris did. She was overly friendly. She touched my hand. She asked questions. I stared through her. She was in a pale blue sweater and peach pants. Her hair was a frazzled mess of strands, a snake's nest of curly wires, some pulled back but many escaping to cover her ears and dangle down over her forehead. "I'm Dr. Anderson. I heard you had a pretty bad day," she said. I thought, no fucking shit. "I'm here to talk to you about it, if you want to talk." I didn't want to talk. "Let's face it," she said, "it's not easy to lose your mother. It's never easy for anyone, but especially at your age." My age. I felt one hundred years old. She continued, "And you must have some concerns about yourself. What's next? Where are you going to live? Who's going to take care of you?" I stared at a little machine on the wall, the little light-up thing doctors use to look in peoples ears and noses. "But you might not even be thinking about that yet. Sometimes, it takes a long time, a few days, or weeks even, to even realize the reality of a loss like this one. Do you feel like you know what's happened today is real?" Blah blah blah. On it went, but I didn't say anything. Dr. Anderson said I wasn't in any real danger, save for the possibility of suicidal ideation, but she couldn't gauge that because I wasn't speaking. She said I wasn't catatonic or in fugue, whatever that could be. I was in shock from a traumatic experience. She gave me a pill, which she suggested might

Durham / Slip Away / 69 make it easier for me to relax. There wasn't much more they could do without the consent of a legal guardian. Joann Farris signed papers. Then it was over. Someone wheeled me out of the hospital, with Joann by my side, and we got back in her car. I never felt the effects of the pills they gave me. I just stayed depressed. Oh yeah, and shocked and frightened. I spent that night in Miss Farris's townhouse in Lake George. I doubt such an arrangement would have been allowed in a more metropolitan area, but country folk tend to be casual. Joann Farris made up her couch for me. I slept in my clothes on light blue sheets stretched to cover overstuffed cushions. She bustled about her modest home, offering me water and sweat pants and the remote control for her television. I didn't feel like watching anything. I noticed that she took a few precautions, I guess to prevent me from hurting myself. She stashed a block of kitchen knives somewhere upstairs. She came back down and grabbed, out of a cupboard, a bunch of little bottles and boxes that contained stuff like cold medicine and aspirin. Either she didn't know I was watching her, or she didn't care. She busily made conversation the whole time. When she was ready for bed, she came and sat next to me for a few minutes. She'd spent the moments prior in the bathroom and smelled like hand cream. She was in a tiny, thin tank top and boxer shorts. Had I not been deeply disturbed by my discovery of my mother, I'd have been incredibly horny. She said: "I know you can talk, but I understand if you don't feel like talking to me. But if you change your mind, I'll be in the bedroom upstairs on the left. The other room has some exercise machines. They're great for

Durham / Slip Away / 70 blowing off stress. I have a cycle, a stair climber and weights. And there are books and magazines on that shelf over there. I like to read before I fall asleep. There's Stephen King, Harry Potter and that kind of stuff. Uh, no real literature. Call me shallow, bestseller girl here." She smiled. She was in great shape. I could see her wiry muscles beneath and around her tank top. She wasn't wearing a bra, and as she bustled around I got a few peeks at her perky breasts. Here is how shocking my mother's death was to me: A young, fit, pretty woman invited me, an adolescent male, to sleep in her house, and even spent a few moments in skimpy clothes with one hand on my knee--and I wasn't even aware of my penis. I sighed. Something in me realized that if I didn't speak sooner or later, I'd end up somewhere that I didn't want to be. An asylum or something. But for some reason I found it oppressively difficult to say anything. I mustered some emotion similar to courage and said, "Thanks." She gasped, and then smiled and patted my knee. "Hey, no problem. It's my pleasure, all the way! You know, just speaking is a big step for you." I said, "Yeah." "Do you want to talk?" she asked me. I shook my head. "Okay," she said, "are you ready to go to sleep?" I honestly said, "Dunno." "Okay," she said again. "That's fine. Listen, if you want to talk, like I said, wake me up." I dishonestly said, "I will."

Durham / Slip Away / 71 Eventually, she went to bed. I rooted through the magazines, which were exclusively female-centric titles like People, Ms., Good Housekeeping, and such. I selected a fairly recent issue of GQ, which I was surprised to find. I flopped it open to a two page ad spread touting shoes or skis or something like that. I stared through a photograph of a grinning, masculine guy with perfect white teeth in a winter hat, holding skis so that they stood on end next to him. I flipped a few pages without really looking at them. There was an article about testicular cancer, and a blurb about dandruff control. It's amazing how certain things become meaningless when something tragic has occurred. I imagine this was how Mom felt when Dad took his head off when I was too little to feel, to understand what that meant. I wondered how long she felt like I was feeling. No wonder she killed herself. I must have fallen asleep, because a very firm knock at the door startled me awake. I couldn't remember where I was. I didn't know what time it was. Wisps of a dream about boating in a pool of spinal fluid evaporated in my head like morning fog burning off Little Badger Lake. Miss Farris hurried down the stairs and opened the door. I suddenly remembered everything. Tears started to fill my eyes--then the emotions vanished again. I looked around and found a clock. The kitchen microwave claimed it was 3:46 AM. Rudy walked in. He saw me and said, "Roar. Roar, I'm so sorry." He sat on the couch next to me and held me. It was weird. I didn't ask where he'd been, but he said, "I was at Thirsty's with a bunch of guys from work. I had no idea. When I saw the house a mess and empty I called the cops. I had to go in for a while. They filled me in and they called around, and they finally gave me this address."

Durham / Slip Away / 72 He was hugging me. It just didn't feel right. Rudy didn't hug. I pushed away. He looked like he'd been crying. Miss Farris, who was standing at the entrance to her living room, said to Rudy, "Do you have anywhere to stay tonight?" "My house, far as I know," said Rudy. She looked surprised. "I don't think...Rory, how would you feel about...do you really want to sleep there?" I waited. She said, "Rudy, how old are you?" "Nineteen," he said. "And you?" He raised his eyebrows. If he meant anything, she missed it. "Well...for now, you're probably Rory's legal guardian. Until the state decides what to do. I was going to take him to Albany tomorrow because we couldn't locate you." "Well, here I am now in the flesh," said Rudy, holding his arms out. "Rory, where do you feel like sleeping?" she asked me. I said, "I don't." Rudy took a couple of steps toward Miss Farris. He said, "Maybe he should stay here tonight." "What about you?" she asked. She started to say something else, but he said, "Oh, I'd love to stay." "I meant...well," she had a sudden weirded-out look on her face. "That really wouldn't be appropriate. Are you--you're not--hitting on me?" "On the day after my mother's death?" said Rudy with exaggerated outrage. "Hey, lady, I'm just trying to figure out what's best for my little bro." He waved his arm toward me. She turned a little to the side and slinked back away from Rudy. "Well, he's welcome to stay here, if the two of you decide that's best. I'll leave you alone to figure that out for yourselves." She retreated up the stairs. Rudy turned to me and, blocking her view with his body, he pointed his thumb at her and gave me a wide mouthed 'she's hot' signal.

Durham / Slip Away / 73 I only stared at him, and felt my jaw drop. Rudy sat on the couch. He said, "Want to head out?" "I'm not sure," I told him. "You believe that shit? I'm your legal guardian." He chuckled. "Want a beer? Hey listen," he added before I could answer, "I joined the Army." My mind didn't register his announcement. I stared at him. I stared more. My brain knew on some level that something important had just been revealed, but it couldn't find a way to make sense in the wasteland that was left of my consciousness.

Durham / Slip Away / 74

Chapter Eight
I moved in with Len Humphrey. His mom was extremely generous. Since I had a sibling who was over 18, I wasn't technically a ward of the state, but Rudy, the bastard that he was, went off to serve Uncle Sam for a few years, leaving me hung out to dry. My trailer was purchased by the state. I didn't understand the legalese that made that happen. They ended up just leaving it there, letting the grass grow up around it. Letting the willow tree droop to the ground.

Durham / Slip Away / 75 Most of the profit of the sale went to A. J.'s parents. The rest was split: Half went to Rudy, and the other half into a trust fund for me. But here's the weird thing: Gradually, life became okay again. Living with Len was good therapy. We spoke often of the glorious mailbox attack. We talked about the kidney ambush. He was patient and understanding. With aching sluggishness, my world filled with sunshine again. But it took a long time. I had to go to a psychiatrist, Dr. Watson, on a regular basis. Once a week at first, then every two weeks. He promised that eventually it would be once a month. He decided that I suffered from clinical depression and put me on a drug, something brand new called Paxil. I had to take a pill every day. It was supposed to make me happy or stable or cure my depression or something. At first, it made it hard to feel anything. But later, I began to feel what I always believed was more or less "normal." Understand, I lacked a benchmark for normality; most of my life was full of fear, despair, and longing. Dr. Watson made me talk about all kinds of stuff that I probably wouldn't have brought up. I'm not a talker. One thing he focused on was my longing. "What do you long for?" He asked. I had to think for a several minutes, glancing occasionally at the brown clock on his wall, before I answered. I fixated on that expensive clock frequently during our sessions. It was oval, elongated perpendicular to the ceiling, and had brass roman numerals to mark the minutes. The hands were also bright metal, and the second hand swept gracefully around its arc.

Durham / Slip Away / 76 It made me think of time gone by. Every second was a second I'd never see again. What freaked me out about the clock is that the Roman numeral for four was IIII, not IV like it should have been. I thought Dr. Watson got some kind of defective clock, but later I noticed in stores that watches and clocks with Roman numerals all had the same erroneous marking. I wondered why, in clocks, imperfection was the norm. What did I long for? I thought, and I pondered, and I mused over it. Dr. Watson waited patiently. He was getting paid by the hour. Finally I said, "Peace." He asked, "What do you think peace would be like?" This time I didn't have to ponder. "Peace, like having a normal family, with a dad who didn't kill himself, and with a mother who didn't drink herself into oblivion every night and then kill herself. And with a brother who thought before he acted. And not to be stared at, like some freak, in Little Badger, wherever I go. That kind of peace. Just a normal life. Look, I don't care what you ask next, you have to admit that I do not lead a normal life." He conceded that point to me. But he said, "Does longing for a normal life, as you put it, help you?" "What do you mean?" He shifted in his leather chair and replied, "The energy you put into wishing that things that have already happened, didn't happen, seems wasted to me. Of course you have to react to change, but you can't dwell on it forever. You can't change the fact that your father's dead, and you can't change that your mother was imperfect. So does wishing things were different for you help you? Does the energy you spend longing have any positive effect?"

Durham / Slip Away / 77 I sat there stunned. I'd never looked at it that way. Finally I said, "What else can I do?" He replied simply, "React, but don't overreact or dwell on negative stimuli. Accept what's been, accept what you can't change, and go on with your life. Spend the energy you use for longing on something more progressive, like enjoying the situation you're in now. You're living with a good friend, as I understand, right? Spend your time in the moment, or working toward a brighter future, not in the past." His words were wise. But they were damn hard to live by. Dr. Watson wasn't the first shrink I saw. The first guy, recommended by Little Badger's own local practitioner, Dr. Richards, was actually a psychologist named Mr. Loaf. I hated him. Since Mr. Loaf couldn't prescribe medications and Dr. Richards could, they were supposed to work together. Mr. Loaf was supposed to talk to me and figure out what I needed, then recommend medicines to Dr. Richards, who would then write the necessary prescriptions. Mr. Loaf had no business being a child psychologist. He was a complete moron. Here's what he would do. We'd go into his office, and he'd slump over in his chair like a fat, old poorly pruned tree. He had gigantic glasses and a little bush of pubic-like hair on his fat head. He'd sink into his poor, overworked chair, and then he'd stare at me with his chin in his hand. We'd stare at each other for a while. Then, finally, he'd ask, "How do you feel?" It was so cliché. So I'd say, "Not bad."

Durham / Slip Away / 78 "Mm-hmm. Is that all?" he'd say. It sounded like a rhetorical question, and it should have been, but he'd stare at me as his giant glasses slid hypnotically down his rotund nose, and wait for me to respond. Our first three sessions--that is, our only three sessions, began this way. The first two sessions, I'd answer something like, "No, I guess not." I was sheepish, intimidated by his impenetrable facade. "Well, what would you like to talk about?" he'd ask, still slumped over like a misshapen marshmallow. I'd reply, "I don't know. What am I supposed to talk about?" "Do you feel that you're 'supposed' to talk about something in particular?" "My mom, I guess." "How do you feel about your mother?" he'd say emotionlessly. "Do you know she's dead?" "I'm fully aware of your situation." "Well, I'm sad." Then he'd stare at me for like five minutes, in his sterile little office. It was just plain weird. By our third meeting, I'd discovered confidentiality. It was a phenomenon that Len shared with me when I told him about how stupid my shrink was. "You know," he said, "you can say anything you want and he can't tell anybody." I'd sort of already known that, but I thought he could share my thoughts with Dr. Richards and Len's mom Mrs. Humphrey, who was my acting legal guardian. "He can't? Then how can he tell Dr. Richards what to give me?" "I don't know," said Len. "But he can't tell anyone what you say in there, or you could sue him. Unless it's like you killed someone, then he'd have to tell the police or something."

Durham / Slip Away / 79 "But if it's not something like that, he can't repeat it?" "Not from what I know," said Len. "Are you positive?" I asked "Yeah, I saw it on Oprah. They talked all about it to this lady who was afraid her shrink was telling stories about her." I pondered this for a moment. "Len, I owe you one," I said. "How come?" "My next appointment with Mr. Loaf is going to be awesome. One of the best moments of my life." "Well that's not saying much." So during my third meeting with Mr. Loaf, I started off with: "We're here to talk about whatever I want, right?" "That's the idea," he said, and sighed like an old maple tree. "And let me get this straight," I continued undaunted, "you can't tell anyone what I say?" He replied, "No, I am bound by law to keep everything we discuss confidential. That means," he added, as if I were a drooling idiot, "everything we say during session stays between you and me." "Everything," I repeated. "Everything," he confirmed. "Your cologne smells like a dog's ass," I said. He moved. His giant caterpillar eyebrows raised, and he managed to maneuver his girth to sit up. "I beg your pardon?" he asked. "Your hair looks like my bush." "This isn't appropriate--" he started.

Durham / Slip Away / 80 I interrupted, "Hold on, I'm not done. You're a fat, stupid fuck. You're an egotistical shithead, too. You sit there and stare at me like you think you're Sigmund Freud, but you're not qualified to spit-shine his skeleton." "This is not constructive," he said. "Oh yeah it is," I insisted. "I've sat here for two hours while you made me feel like a lab rat in a glass cage. You stare at me like I'm a stool specimen under a microscope. So if anything I say makes you feel like shit, then we're even." He tried to be authoritarian, which made me feel sorry for his kids (if he had any). "Now listen," he started. "No," I cut him off, "You're here to listen to me. You remind me of a Weeble, but I bet if you wobbled you would fall down. You have no goddamn right to treat patients who trust your judgment the way you do. Your job isn't to stare at me like you're bored to near death. Your job is to help me deal with my emotions, and instead you make them worse. So get a taste of how it feels. I'm here for an hour, and I'm gonna give you the same kind of shit you've been giving me until my hour's up." He terminated my treatment before my hour was up. I liked Dr. Watson, who was my therapist after Mr. Loaf. Seriously, though, not a single therapy session I've had since was as cathartic as that last one with the appropriately named Mr. Loaf. Dr. Watson was pretty cool. His office had comfortable chairs. He was fat, too, but he wore his tub much more gracefully than Mr. Loaf--think Santa versus Jabba the Hutt. He said that if my parents had sought psychological treatment, they might not have killed themselves. "Suicidal patients," he once told me, "have an illness. Just like a flu or a cold, except the problem is in their brains. There's something not working

Durham / Slip Away / 81 right, and it's releasing too much of the wrong kind of chemical, or not enough of the right kind. "They usually think of suicide as a short-term solution for what seem like overwhelming circumstances. They let the stresses of their lives build up until a major stressor, like a financial conundrum or the loss of a loved one or another major life change simply seems impossible to deal with. "Technically," he said, "they're not looking for a way out of life. They're looking for a way to get past the problems that they're dealing with at the moment." I asked, "Then why did my Mom try over and over again?" He reiterated that she had a problem with the chemicals in her brain, or some such thing. A problem that can be hereditary, which was why it was important that I stay in counseling and take my Paxil. He really stressed that I stay on my meds. He also suggested that I find a physical release, something to do every day or every few days to take my mind off my problems. So I started a paintball team. Northlane Paintball Club was advertising for open play and tournament play, which seemed interesting. I'd been there once or twice, and nothing in the world got my adrenaline rushing like paintball. You're in the middle of a field wearing a big mask and goggles, a colored band on your arm, and a weapon capable of leaving a welt--and a blast of neon, water based paint--on its victim. Northlane had eight competition fields. Some were relatively clear, and others were full of trees. Some were flat, some were sloped, and a couple had a small creek running through them. All of them were dotted with hay bales and blinds, bundles of sticks assembled to provide cover.

Durham / Slip Away / 82 When a paintball game is on, there's nothing like it. Some members of the team defend your flag, and others go after the enemy team's flag; the winner is the team to return the enemy's flag to their own flag post. Or the team that completely annihilates the other team; of course, if you get blasted by paint you're out for the rest of the round. Whether you're defending or attacking, you can feel your heart rate quickening as you duck behind trees and scan for enemies. Your breathing, amplified by your mask, becomes fast and hollow (shallow?). You spot an enemy who doesn't see you, coming toward you, and you relish in your ambush; or you suddenly find yourself fired upon, scrambling for cover and desperately trying to spot your attacker. Dr. Watson wanted me to find a release. I'd found one. When I discussed the idea with Len, he was almost as excited as I was. We started a recruitment campaign in school (basically by asking our friends if they wanted to join). Honestly, Len had more friends in school than I did. Most of my friends started out as his friends. He's got wit and this amazing, magnetic, eccentric personality that attracts people to him. Most of the people that he recruited to the team I didn't really know. I knew Meat, the quiet giant who spoke mostly with his eyes. Another one I knew was Morris, a short fat whiny kid that I didn't really like. Len and I had a minor discussion as to the recruitment of Morris, but it came down to this: To register for tourney play you needed eight people, and we'd only found seven. Morris was giddy as a little pig with excitement at the idea of joining, and Len didn't really mind him. It came down to us needing one more body, and Morris was it. Why did I hate--no, dislike Morris so much? Besides the fact that he constantly whined about virtually anything, (his shirt was too tight, he hated

Durham / Slip Away / 83 playing softball in gym class, he hated The Who, or Led Zeppelin, or David Bowie, or any artist whose song came on a nearby radio tuned to classic rock, he couldn't get enough time in the computer lab...you name it), he was also a backstabbing whore. Once he managed to weasel his way into getting the answers to an upcoming chemistry exam. He promised to make a copy for me, so I didn't study. He "forgot" though, and I ended up failing test. Yes, I deserved to fail for cheating, but the little fucker made a promise and broke it. Another time, Morris, who had a position on the school paper, said he'd let me write a piece on paintball on a freelance basis. I busted my ass, interviewing Ed Ryder, the owner of Northlane, and talking to other teams, one of which included Trooper Clausen's team that consisted mainly of state troopers. I wrote about equipment and safety precautions, then concluded with a thrilling step-by-step walkthrough of a game. When I turned it in, Morris announced that he'd written the article himself. He "forgot" to tell me. He was unlikable. Since I did all the footwork, running back and forth to Northlane for forms and stuff, scheduling practice sessions on open fields, and so on, I became the de-facto team captain. One day Len and I and Nikki, my girlfriend--oh yeah, I should probably mention that I got a girlfriend, too.

Durham / Slip Away / 84

Chapter Nine
I was about fifteen or thereabouts. I had a routine appointment with Dr. Watson. It was a midsummer day, the pavement could easily melt glass, and the air buzzed with black flies--a summer staple of the Adirondack Park. Tourists and residents alike fled to swimming holes, or in lieu of water they collected in movie theaters, shops, and anywhere else that had air conditioning. I spent the morning water skiing with Len and Buckley, a kid from school who had his own boat. I hated Buckley's attitude, but I loved his boat.

Durham / Slip Away / 85 He was one of those totally together guys who did everything right and never experienced an awkward moment. Buckley would say things like, "I've been saving my allowance and doing odd jobs since I was nine years old. Instead of blowing it on game consoles and crap, I saved up for a boat." He was sixteen and had a fairly cool job: He helped run Parbeater Driving Range, and his duties included driving the heavily shielded tractor that used to pick balls up off the vast expanse of grass marked by yardage signs. His paycheck covered his monthly boat payments, which were small due to his "large down payment." He actually became a mild sensation in Little Badger and surrounding areas. Of course, when he was cruising around picking up balls, every golfer on the range tried to drive screamers right into his tractor cage. So Buckley, somehow knowing he wouldn't get in trouble with the club's owner, shouted a few good natured barbs at the golfers. When a golfer missed him, he'd holler something like "That would have been a double bogey on a real course." If somebody smacked his cage, he might shout "You threw that, didn't you? I didn't see any swing!" Golfers liked it. They laughed. The word spread. Buckley connected with people. Something about his boyish-yet-notnaive face, or his radio DJ voice, or his warm body language, or something made him accessible. Kind of like Len--but Len was a sincere wiseass, whereas Buckley was an opportunistic one. All summer long, Tuesday at Parbeater was designated Bash Buckley Day. He'd cruise around in the tractor taunting people as they drove balls at him. Every bucket had a special orange golf ball. If you hit Buckley's tractor with it, you won a free golf club. So Buckley was a likeable guy, and good fortune seemed to follow him. He wore it well, but he had a hankering for bragging about things like Bash

Durham / Slip Away / 86 Buckley Day and his boat, which wasn't a piece of crap like my family's boat was. It was a Gekko Bazooka, a really snappy looking craft with a tower that looked like the roll cage on a dune buggy. Buckley was into wakeboarding. I freely admit that I was, and still am, a water sport wuss. I preferred tubing to anything else, because it didn't require actual skill. Skiing makes my legs hurt. Buckley, Len and I spent a hot summer morning avoiding the ninety degree heat and ninety-nine percent humidity by getting wet. Yes, we water skied (at least, Len did and I tried, but Buckley didn't because he wouldn't let us pilot his boat), and then we anchored and swam for a little while, and finally we strapped on life preservers and floated around like derelicts. We were only just getting to know Buckley, who was a year ahead of us in school, and who always seemed too popular to deal with the urchin grunts like Len and me. Buckley had one of those irresistible personalities that he could activate as needed, and when he turned it on, it just forced people to like him. He cultivated close personal relationships with almost everyone in Little Badger. I have a feeling he could have done the same in Manhattan. He was trying to get a bearing on the relationship between Len and myself. "So, you," he said, drifting about Little Beaver Lake, "you live with Len and his mom?" "Yep," I said. I was floating with my eyes closed, completely relaxed. "So are you two like step brothers?" asked Buckley. "We been bro's for years!" said Len. "Not really," I said. "I'm a ward of the state. Mrs. Humphrey didn't adopt me, but she's my 'acting legal guardian.'" "Okay," said Buckley, absorbing the information. "But you're a minor, right?" "I have a brother who's legally an adult..." I said.

Durham / Slip Away / 87 "Rudy," said Buckley, more to make a mental notation for himself than to inform me of my brother's name. "He got in trouble a lot in school. Juvie and stuff. Is that right?" "Obviously. He's in the Army," I said. "Your parents are no longer with us," said Buckley frankly yet gently. "They blew their brains out," I said. "Damn, man, I'm sorry," said Buckley. "No need to be," I said. "They did what they felt they had to do. Everybody dies, it's just a matter of when. They chose their time. Most of us don't get to do that." I could act Zen about it for an audience, keeping my real feelings inside. I developed this mutation of my personality because the macabre deaths of my parents, when brought up in conversation, make people uneasy. My relaxed reaction tended to soothe them. It didn't work on me, but nobody knew that. Len and Buckley and I floated quietly for a few minutes. Buckley stared at the fluffy cumulus clouds and pondered. "I guess that's a way of looking at it," he said. "It's a pretty healthy way, I guess. It's true, anyway." "I'm pretty realistic about life and death," I told him. "Suicidal parents will do that to you." "That and being a cock-master," said Len to lighten the mood. Buckley raised one eyebrow. "Learn something new every day." "Only for your cock, sugarplum," I told Len. "This is how rumors get started," said Buckley with a joking hint of threat. "Start a rumor," I said, "and we'll make you're part of it." We laughed. We floated. I almost forgot my appointment. "Holy shit," I said. "Speaking of insane people, I gotta go to the shrink."

Durham / Slip Away / 88

So we rode to shore and I biked on over to Dr. Watson's office. It was a 26 mile ride and took about two hours. I arrived sweaty and out of breath. I burst into the waiting room five minutes late. Joyce, the receptionist, smiled at me and said informed me that Dr. Watson would be right with me, and to have a seat. Like any good doctor, Dr. Watson was always behind schedule. Dr. Watson's waiting room wasn't air conditioned. Even with an oscilating fan in the corner, it took me a while to cool down from my hurried arrival. I grabbed a Sports Illustrated. It was a masculine magazine. I usually read Time or something more general, but I was compelled to look manly because the only other occupant of the waiting room was a very attractive girl who looked to be about my age. By my usual modus operandus when in a room with a pretty female stranger, I put an insane amount of effort into not noticing her. I mean, looking like I was absolutely ignoring her in every way. She was mid height and had bubbly light brown hair pulled back in a casual ponytail. Her complexion was light--it almost looked like she should have been blonde by nature--but her hair's roots vouched that its mildly darker color was natural. She had punchy cheekbones that glistened with ambient sweat, and her low cut tee shirt let the world know that her substantial cleavage was moist, too. She was mildly doughy, but far from fat. She might have been carrying an extra five or so pounds. It made her curves more luscious-looking. She was really, really pretty. I had never been on a date before in my life. Besides the odd school crush and adolescent hormone rush (I was an aggressive, almost compulsive masturbator by this point), I hadn't had much interest in a "real" relationship.

Durham / Slip Away / 89 I had no idea how to even approach a girl. If Len wanted her attention, he would have cracked a quip. Buckley would have already engaged her in interesting conversation. All I could do is to do pretend to ignore her, act like I didn't notice her, while checking her out from the corner of my eye over my four-month-old March Madness Edition of Sports Illustrated. I read a few words about Kentucky basketball. Before then, I had never once in my life, even for a moment, thought about Kentucky basketball. The only sport I cared about was paintball, and Sports Illustrated didn't cover Northlane team competitions. I dared a glance directly at her. She was sitting and reading a book, legs crossed, her shorts allowing a risqué view of her upper thighs. I started to get an erection. I cursed my adolescent hormones and shifted my magazine to hide the protrusion. Suddenly, she glanced up and caught me looking. We made eye contact. I'd been staring at her. I was convinced that she would think I was a perverted peeping tom or something. I wanted to disappear. I wanted a sudden earthquake to open a crevasse underneath my chair and swallow me up. She said, in a very friendly voice, "What are you in for?" I paused. My mind raced. What did she say? What was she talking about? Wait. She was inquiring in a hip kind of way as to why I was seeing a shrink. My tongue stumbled over my teeth. I said something like, "Bluhhnn." She smiled and squinted. "What are you going to do with a psychiatrist if you can't talk?" I laughed. Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming need to regain (or just gain) my composure. "I'm, uh...no, it's for...jeez...I'm in for..." Then, something clicked. I could talk. "You name it, I got it. I'm insane." "Oh, you do speak," she said with a sunshine grin. "Sometimes," I said. "What about you? In for, I mean." She winked. "Nothing. I'm just waiting for my mom."

Durham / Slip Away / 90

That shut me right up. I must have looked embarrassed or something. She said: "Don't feel bad. I'm screwed up too. Everybody is. I just don't have the courage to tell a professional about it." I smiled. "I didn't have a choice." She looked a little shocked. I quickly added, "I started seeing a doctor, a shrink, when I was younger, I didn't have the authority to say no. I'm not

that bad. You know, insane, or whatever, I mean, don't worry, I'm not an ax
murderer or anything." She said, "Well that's good." I uttered a comment that I'd coined a few years before, but I was sure somebody famous had once said before me. It always got good responses, and put people at ease. I said: "I'm just a normal guy in a crazy world." "It's the ones who claim they're normal that ya gotta watch out for," she countered without missing a beat. But she had a just-kidding smile on her lips and a sparkle in her eye. I suddenly realized that our time in the waiting room was running out, and I had to ask her out on a date. I was going to ask her out on a date. That scared the shit out of me. "Where do you come from? I'm from Little Badger, and haven't seen you there," I said, and quickly added so that she didn't think I was a sociopath who watched everybody, "It's a tiny town. We all know each other." "Next lake over," she said. "Lake Farthing. I live in Sonora." "Really?" I said. Hope swelled in my heart. There was a narrow but passable creek that connected Little Badger and Farthing, and by car the two were only fifteen minutes apart. I could bike it in half an hour or boat it in twenty minutes. Then, suddenly, words came out of my mouth that I hadn't expected. "Would you like to--"

Durham / Slip Away / 91 The door to Dr. Watson's anteroom opened. The girl--I didn't even get her name--looked up and said, "Hi, Mom." "Hey, Sweetie," said her mother. "Ready?" "Yep," replied the daughter and stood up. My hopes sank. No, they died. They just plain died. But as the two were leaving into the impossibly hot atmosphere, she turned her head back, flipped her hair over her shoulder and winked at me. Joyce, the receptionist, said: "You're up, Rory. Go right in." My heart was still pounding. My fingers were numb. As usual, I shook Dr. Watson's hand (my handshake was getting better, more solid) and sat down in his overstuffed chair. He opened with, as he always did, "So, how have you been doing lately? Anything on your mind?" "Who was that girl?" I said. He smiled. "You know I can't give out that kind of information." "Oh come on. She isn't even your patient!" "Do I sense a wee bit of a crush?" asked Dr. Watson. "No way! A big, overwhelming crush!" "If I were a younger man..." he said, grinning, and added, "and not her mother's psychiatrist, of course." Then we bantered about the usual stuff. Yes, I was taking my medication. The weather was unbearable. Mom and Dad were still dead and it still wasn't my fault. Len and his mom are treating me like royalty. My paintball team was coming together nicely. For some reason, I mentioned to Dr. Watson that I didn't really know some of my teammates that well. That stirred him. "Why not?"

Durham / Slip Away / 92 "I don't know," I said. "I just don't, I, well, I don't feel like getting to know them. Better, I mean. I know what they can do on a paintball field, and that's pretty much what I need to know." "How so?" he asked. "I've never played paintball. What do you mean by 'what they can do?'" "Well, like, an example. I know that Dan can sneak past anybody, so he's good on offense. Meat's a lumbering monster--" "Meat?" he confirmed, with a little smirk. "Yeah, that's what we call him. He's huge. He's a defender. He guards our flag. He's too big and noisy to go forward, unless we do an all-out attack." "And you're trying to get the enemies' flags?" "Just one enemy. One team on one team. Get their flag back to your base and you win. Or take them all out." "By shooting them," he said. "With CO2 propelled balls of water soluble paint," I said. "It's not like you're killing them." "Does it hurt to get hit?" "We wear protective masks, and usually layered clothing," I said. "Except when it's this hot. But if it catches you on bare skin, it leaves a big old knob." "You enjoy paintball quite a bit," he said. "Yeah. It's great. It's cathartic." "How so?" I thought it should be obvious. "It's a great sport, it lets you get your aggressions out without actually hurting anyone." "Much," he added. "Of course." "What can you do on a paintball field," he asked. "What's your specialty?" "I can shoot," I told him. "I'm the most accurate sniper on the team."

Durham / Slip Away / 93 He pondered that for a moment. "And why again," he said, "do you not want to become closer to your teammates?" "I just don't have the interest," I said. "But you like them in general? You get along?" "Oh, yeah, definitely." I replied. "Well, except for Morris. He's a whining shithead." "Why is he on the team?" "We needed another guy to be in the league." He asked point blank, "Have you ever shot Morris?" "No! Well, not in competition. In practice, of course. We play four on four in practice." "Is Morris usually on the other team in practice?" I thought about it, and realized he hit a mark. "Yeah," I said. "I guess he is." I tried to pump Dr. Watson for info about the girl, but he wouldn't give. He made me talk about my feelings about her. But what did I feel? She was a cutie and I felt lust. As I left Joyce made my day. My week, my world. She said, "Rory, hang on. The young lady you were speaking with earlier ran back in. She wanted you to have this." She handed me a folded, pink post-it note. I thanked her nonchalantly, but she smiled knowingly. "Get 'er, Romeo," she said as I left. Joyce looked old, but she was hip. I blushed. Two steps out the door was all I could wait to open it. It said "Nikki," followed by a phone number and a little scribbled heart.

Durham / Slip Away / 94 As I pedaled the long roads and trails homeward, I didn't notice the heat or the humidity. In fact, I felt great. In fact, I felt like a cool, drifting cloud. I stopped at least a dozen times, fished the note out of the back pocket of my cutoff shorts, and just gazed at it. Every time I did, my heart beat hard. Once I even sniffed it. Sadly, she didn't perfume it. In any case, I think I was grinning through the entire bike ride. I burst into the Humphrey house in search of Len. He wasn't around. Mrs. Humphrey was at work. (Nobody in Little Badger locks their doors, so I was never given a key, and never did I need one.) I needed advice, fast. No, not advice. I needed to share my news. I was boiling over with frothy excitement. I wondered how long I should wait before calling. Should I call her right away? Would that look desperate? Should I play cool and call in a day or two, or would she take that as a lack of interest? Then I had a jaw dropping realization: I was doing normal teenager stuff. I was excited about meeting a girl. I had a healthy friendship and played a sport and did stuff like a normal person whose parents were alive. For the first time since I found my mother's stiff corpse in my back yard, I would have honestly said that I felt pretty good. I noticed things, like the feel of the breeze through my hair, the scent of the wildflowers growing out by the street, how the Humphrey house always had the faint smell of caramel. I went out and got the mail. There was a letter from my brother. My mood shattered like a crystal vase. The fear and desolation roared back into my psyche as if they had been covertly following a few feet behind me the whole ride from Dr. Watson's office. Coincidentally, the western horizon had grown black with thunderheads.

Durham / Slip Away / 95

Durham / Slip Away / 96

Chapter Ten

I slumped on the couch. On the coffee table in front of me lay Nikki's note next to Rudy's unopened letter. I felt like I was looking at two doors, one to soft light and one to impenetrable blackness. I hadn't thought about Rudy in months. In the recesses of my mind, he was in a safe place, tucked way in the back, where I stored Mom's empty-headed corpse and the notion, if not the memory, of Dad's final act.

Durham / Slip Away / 97 I sat there and stared at the papers. The magical, nervous feeling surrounding Nikki's note had faded. It was just there, a piece of yellow paper with a scrawled message. I stared at the plain white envelope containing whatever it was that my brother had written to me. I don't know why it bothered me so much. My brother had always been, well, friendly, to me. Sometimes. Most of the time. Whatever. Of course, he abandoned me, but that was just a case of bad timing, wasn't it? But, well, why should I feel so horrible about getting a letter from him? Maybe it was the reminder. The insanity rushing back into my brain. I should call Dr....Sherlock...what's his name? I felt myself falling, every time I looked at the letter...falling over a cliff into a pit of insanity, slipping back into the nothingness it had taken me so long to crawl out of.

It was a beautiful sun drenched day. I'd had a terrific day at school. Then my mother, who kissed my boo boos, who helped me get dressed, who taught me how to tie my shoes and drink milk from a glass instead of a sippy cup, was cold and gray. My mama, who hung my splattered kid art on the refrigerator and hugged me for making it for her, who held me when I was frightened to the point of tears during thunder storms, lay half-soaked in a sticky pool of blood and brains, covered in flies.
I discovered that I was crying out loud, sobbing like a...like a kid who's mommy was all gone. I was kneeling on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, hugging Rudy's letter, crying and crying. I remember saying out loud: "I'm not gonna do this."

Durham / Slip Away / 98 I stood up, filled with sudden unexpected rage. Shouting, convincing myself, I declared aloud, "I will NOT go crazy again! I will NOT go crazy again!" Then I tore open Rudy's letter. Inside was a one-page note on plain white paper, words hand -scrawled in black ink. Knowing Rudy as I did, I knew it took a lot for him to write this much. Indeed, the letter showed signs that it was in the works for some time. The hue of the ink changed periodically, as did the handwriting slightly, as if he'd written it in different intervals with whatever government issue pen was handy at the time. It was crumpled and creased in such a way as one would fold to hold in a pocket. He didn't date it, but my guess would be that the note was in the works for at least a couple of weeks. Rudy wasn't much for writing. It said: Yo Roar! Hows things going. I know its been a long time and you havn't heard from me, I'm so sorry I left when I did, but I heard your in good hands at your friend Lenny's house and I hope your doing good there. To tell you the truth I was pretty tore up about mom and I was'nt thinking strait or I could have probably gotten out of going into service. But enough about that whats done is done and I hope one day you can have it in your heart to forgive me. Army life sucks big hairy balls real hard, its sure not like in the comercals where they show those guys doing all the cool stuff jumping out of helicopters and such. I've only had 1 helicopter ride and I was buckled in. And they don't pay shit here, I get a few bucks a day.

Durham / Slip Away / 99 Fuck, been poor all my life and this aint helping is it. Fuck being poor. Fuck it hard. So anyways, I'm supposed to be thankful I'm serving my cuntry (I spelled it that way on purpuse) and getting to sleep on a cot for free and eat crappy meals. It sucks dick Roar, it's all labor being an enlisted guy. My specialization is a cover support technician or something, but know what that means? I get to fill bags with sand and hump them around. The officers my age are all college fucks who got in thru ROTC and are only hear so they can go to law school for free later. Oh and basic training was the worst hell out of my life save for mom and dads deaths. But some shit here is cool. I got my own M16A2 rifle. That is cool. I like it. I like my rifle, and I'm hella good shot with it. They don't give me ammo exept on the shooting range so I go there alot. I do target practice at least five times a week. We shoot all kinds of things, sometimes in ranges that look like little towns and we shoot at targets, like we're in combat and gotta flush out the enemy. We gotta see if they're friendly or enemy, the targets, before we shoot them. Ha ha once I shot a target that was a lady with a baby because I thought at first it was a rifle, put three rounds in her tits! Well I'm running out of paper + I ain't got much more to say exept being a grunt sucks and I can't wait to get out. I'm fucking sick of college fucks my age who got power over me just for some bullshit paperwork, and like to give me orders just for the fun of seeing me doing it. There gonna get there's someday I tell you. I'll get them back, Roar, you watch, I got plans for the future and you wont believe them. Tell ya when I get back, later! --G.I. Rudy (haha)

Durham / Slip Away / 100 Thank heavens Rudy never saw real combat, as this occurred between Kuwait and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Rudy would have been a determent to any platoon. I wouldn't want him behind me with a machinegun. Anyway, I thought I'd feel better after reading the letter, but I didn't. I felt bad in a different way. I was back in reality, once I folded it up and put it away. It wasn't looming before me anymore. The billowing mass of evil and insanity that surrounded me had dissipated, and I felt firmly grounded in sanity. But the letter scared me. Not in startled way, as if I didn't see it coming, but like this: It filled me with an incorporeal dread, a sense of foreboding. Bad karma. I tucked the letter away in the bottom drawer of my (formerly Len's dad's) dresser, deep beneath my sweat pants and wool socks, as if hiding it there would shield me from its powers. But when I got back to the family room and saw Nikki's note, my heart pitter pattered again. The magic, clouded by the negative power of Rudy's letter, returned. And suddenly I was in lust again, a jittery teenage kid on the verge of his first date. Len got home about twenty minutes later, around five o'clock. Mrs. Humphrey was due back any time. I smacked him playfully on the back of the head. "Where the hell have you been?" "Northlane. Got a new grip for Shirley." Being the paintball nerds that we were, Len, I and our other teammates named our weapons like they did in

Full Metal Jacket.

Durham / Slip Away / 101 My gun was named Bellona, after the Roman goddess of war. I do my research. "Check this out, read it and weep, bitch," I said, handing him my little yellow magical post-it note. He read it over and said, "You wrote that." "Your ass." "Yeah," said Len, "if you'd written it, it would say something like 'Come fuck me, big daddy!' and her name would be Busty Hooters." "When should I call her?" "Slow down!" Len opened up the brown paper bag with the SplatPower SureGrip in it. "Check it out," he said, fingering it in awe. He dashed off to his room to get Shirley. Something like this you have to install straight away. When he got back, he asked, "How'd you meet this...what's her name, Rosie?" "Nikki. I met her in Dr. Watson's waiting room." He rolled his eyes. Bustling away to find a screwdriver, he shouted over his shoulder, "So she's loony like you?" "Nah," I hollered back, lowering my voice as he reentered the room. "Her mom is. Nikki's cute, and she has big boobs." "Score!" shouted Len. "When are you gonna call her?" "That's just it," I said. "When should I?" He pondered this as he dismantled Shirley on the coffee table. He'd never been on a date either, but he asked authoritatively, "Is she a needykinda-call-her-right-away girl, or more like a hands-off-and-be-casual girl?" "I don't know," I said. "I only talked to her for two minutes." Then I related the story. When I finished, he said, "She really winked at you? Was it a tease kind of wink, or a fuck me now in the middle of Main Street kind of wink?" "How the hell should I know?" I asked.

Durham / Slip Away / 102 He replied off topic, raising the reassembled, upgraded Shirley above his head. "This is my rifle. There are many others like it, but this one is mine!" I thought of Rudy's letter, but stayed in the jovial mood. "You're no help," I said. "What do you want me to do?" he said. "I'm not a phone psychic. How about this?" He said in a thickly accented voice, "I see you calling her. I see her...inviting you over for...drinks. When you get there, she's...it's cloudy, but it looks like she's naked on the couch with her legs spread wide waiting for your manly service." I displayed my middle finger to him throughout his dissertation. When he finished, I said, "Why do you have to be such a fucktard?" "It's my major. I study hard," he replied. "I need real advice here," I said, almost desperately. "When do I call her? What do I say?" Len rolled his eyes. "Okay, Romeo," he said, "You call her tonight or tomorrow. You say, 'Hi. Thanks for the note. Wanna go on a date? I'll bring the condoms.' "Look," he added, "She gave you her number. She's interested in you. It doesn't matter when you call her; just don't wait a week." "So I should call tonight?" I said. "Call whenever you want to." He paused, and admired Shirley's new grip. "Yeah, call her this afternoon. What the hell?" Then his mom came home, and talk of girls ended abruptly. We dined on pork chops and egg noodles and a salad full of various, crispy lettuces. Mrs. Humphrey asked the usual non-dysfunctional mom questions. How was your day? When's the next paintball tournament? Oh, really? Who are you playing against? And stuff.

Durham / Slip Away / 103 I was in a different state throughout the meal. My chest would swell with nervous anticipation when the thought of Nikki's note entered my mind, but the giddy joy would cloud over with pale foreboding when my pinball brain bounced to Rudy's letter. I hadn't shared that with Len; its literal words were so non-threatening. He wouldn't sense the foreboding powers emanating from it, like the predictable-yet-disconcerting sine wave wail of a faraway siren. I think Len noticed trouble in my expressions, though. Every now and then, he'd poke me under the table--only when I was pondering my brother's fate. Then my thoughts instantly went back to Nikki, and my heart would leap giddily into my throat.

Durham / Slip Away / 104

Chapter Eleven

So yes, I did call her. Finally, after dinner, on the green GE phone in Len's bedroom, I called the number on the pink post-it note. This was after another hour of waffling and dreading who on the other end might pick up, and praying to any given deity that she'd be the one. And false alarms, many false alarms, in which I'd dial six digits and then hang up and demand to know what I should say, as if Len might have some divine insight.

Durham / Slip Away / 105 He laughed at me. He punched me in the biceps. He goaded me and taunted me as only a best friend could, blasting me with insults like, "She probably gave you the number of a funeral home." or "You're pathetic. You're so far from smoove wit da ladies. If Don Juan farted a big messy fart and you were standing right next to him, you couldn't even pretend it was you." Really, I did call. I dialed the last digit, finally. My heart almost stopped. The phone on the other end rang once, twice, a third time...just as I started to feel frustration and relief in the assumption that nobody was home, someone answered. It was a man's deep voice, but it wasn't intimidating. He pronounced it "Yell-oh?" Feeling as far from 'smoove' as a messy fart, and weathering rib pokes and snickers from Len, I blurted, "Uh, errrruh, hi, is, uh, Nikki, uh, is she, y'know, there?" The person on the other end, who was apparently Nikki's father, sounded pretty hospitable. It went horribly against my visions of a ferocious grizzly monster dad defending his baby girl, a mountain man casually cleaning shotguns while demanding every datum of my existence. All he said, in his deep but friendly voice, was, "She sure is. May I tell her who's calling?" I was stunned speechless. Such a simple question. No grilling, no threats. My mouth moved for a minute, but nothing came out. I finally stuttered, "Rory." He muffled the receiver, but I heard him call to her. "Nik, there's a young man named Rory on the phone!" I stared at Len and gave him a thumbs up. He made thrusting motions with his hips. The wait for her to grab the line was mercifully short. She greeted me with, "Rory, so that's your name."

Durham / Slip Away / 106 I was silent. She sounded so...confident. Not like me. I was sweating, as my best friend stuck his tongue in his cheek and thrust his fist to and from his lips. Nikki said, "Are you there?" "Yeah," I finally erupted. "Yep, uh, my name's Rory. Uh, Nikki, right?" What a fucking idiot. Len burst out laughing. When I kicked him, he went silent but continued to mime hysterics. "Yep," she echoed. "Nikki's the name. Uh-huh." I was starting to feel like a drooling buffoon. "You, uh, left your, uh--" She cut me off. "Are you nervous, Rory?" She made a little giggle. She was enjoying this. "No!" I demanded, and paused and added, "Maybe a little." "Do you need some help?" She asked. I was baffled. "Huh?" "Listen, Rory. Repeat after me, OK?" Lulled to obedience by her charm and candor, I simply said, "Alright." "'It was a pleasure to meet you today.' Say it." With the obedience of a trained lapdog, I did as instructed. I said, "It was a pleasure to meet you today." Len stared at me with his face screwed up, wondering what the hell was going on. Nikki continued, "'I would love to continue our conversation...'" "I would love to continue our conversation," I said. "'...in an evening picnic at Little Badger rec." I echoed her. Then I realized I'd just asked her out. My jaw dropped. Len's jaw dropped. Little Badger Beach and Recreational Area supposedly closed at sunset, but people gathered there in small groups until late in the night. Often, back when I lived in the trailer by the lake, my brother would boat over to the rec, as the world officially referred to it, and I'd see him from afar,

Durham / Slip Away / 107 from our back yard. He'd be gathered around a summer evening bonfire with a gang of his friends, drinking underage. Officially, bonfires weren't legal, but the unspoken rule was as long as they didn't get out of hand, or particularly noisy or destructive, and as long as they were lit on sand and not near the forest, the authorities looked the other way (and, in Nathan Clawson's and a few other troopers' cases, sometimes joined in). I'd been there at night a few times, mostly in paintball team meetings. Never with anyone of the opposite gender. Never on a date. At least, I guessed this was a date. "'I'll bring a blanket,'" she said. I euphorically replied, "Okay." "No, repeat it. You're bringing the blanket." "Oh, sorry," I said. She giggled. I went on, "I'll bring a blanket." "Still repeating now," Nikki said, "'And I'd be delighted if you would bring something to drink.'" I said, trying to inject a little wise-ass into my tone, "Still repeating now and I'd be delighted if you would bring something to drink." "Now you may stop repeating, Rory," she said. "Now you may stop repeating...ha ha!" I replied. Len mouthed, "Don't be smarmy!" She said, "Cute. Would you like to hear my reply?" I was finally starting to get a little more comfortable. I said, "I'd love to hear your reply." Nikki cleared her throat for effect. Then she said, "Why Rory, what a splendid and well worded invitation. But I'm afraid I must refuse: my boyfriend would certainly object." I didn't say anything. My heart shattered fell into little pieces deep in my gullet.

Durham / Slip Away / 108 "I'm kidding!" shouted Nikki. "I don't have a boyfriend!" After a moment of dawning clarity, I sighed a huge breath of relief. Nikki said: "Did I scare you?" "Yes! That was cruel," I said. "Get used to it," she said, "I'm cruel." I could hear a grin in her musical voice. "Nine o'clock?" she asked. "I'd have to be home by eleven." Technically, by rule of Len's mom, I was supposed to be home on weeknights by ten. She was more lenient on weekends, but it was Thursday. But I agreed on the spot without elaborating. I'd figure something out, or just be late and deal with the consequences. "See you there," said Nikki. "Meet me on the north end by the water." We said bye, and she hung up. And the phone call was over. I sat there with the phone still to my ear until the dial tone kicked on. Len shook me. "Are you fucking serious?" he said. I hung up the receiver. After a pause, I said, "Dude, I'm goin' on a date." Len said, "You called the weather line and made that whole thing up." I rolled my eyes. I said, "Nine o'clock at rec." "Tonight?" demanded Len. "Well," I said. I hadn't thought to ask. But of course it was tonight. But she, in all her lyrical speech, hadn't mentioned a night. "Yeah. I guess." "You guess? You set up your first date and you didn't even get which night?" "Yeah, geez, it's tonight," I said, not believing the words dancing from my own mouth. "Well it's eight o'clock," cried Len. "You gotta shower!" "Shower?" I said. "Yeah, I probably should." "Duh! You don't want to show up smelling like Dick Hoof, do you?" "No," I said. "I should shave too, huh?"

Durham / Slip Away / 109 "Who are you trying to kid?" said Len. "You shaved, like, yesterday. You won't need to shave again for a week." "Yeah," I said, dreamily rubbing my cheeks. This is how things happen in my life. My days will be idle and routine for a long time, weeks and months of school and homework and lazy summer vacation and paintball practice, and then suddenly huge changes come in bursts, big-ticket events happening too fast to react to. Suicides, or dates. The loss of my entire family save for my stupid GI brother, or moving in with my best friend. Who wouldn't be in therapy? The sun hunkered down in the western sky, nestling to bed in the foothills, blanketed by evergreens. The air maintained its humidity as its temperature sank to a sticky plateau in the low seventies. The early-to-bedders among the residents and tourists in eastern New York stuck to their sheets, tossing and turning in a fitful attempt to escape the heat, unless they were blessed with air conditioning. With a folded beach blanket tucked under my arm (which Len generously found while I was in the shower), I switched my bike's little halogen headlight on and rode through the moist, pine scented air. For some reason, the wafting smell of the flora was always strongest in the dark. Maybe it's because the lack of light robs the sense of sight of its facilities, offering them to the underrated olfactory system. The rec occupied about a half mile of lakefront property with a parking lot, a playground, a huge picnic area and of course a beach--complete with volleyball courts. I got there a full ten minutes early, so I clicked the headlight off, chained up my bike and stuck to the relative darkness of the shaded pavilion area, which was up in the sprawl of thin, grassy woods overlooking the beach.

Durham / Slip Away / 110 The thunderheads had thankfully evaporated into a thin veil of high cirrus clouds, blanketing the Adirondack Park in its own sticky heat. The bright, nearly full moon pressed its white beams through to dimly illuminate the world and glisten silvery off the lake. As usual, the beach was populated sporadically by small groups of teens and young adults. Most sat facing the water to chat or make out. A bunch of guys off to the left were playing with an extremely cool glowing Frisbee. Not surprisingly, it was easy to catch the scent of marijuana riding the barely-there breeze up from the beach, mingling with the smells of pine and moisture from the little lake. I looked toward the north end, to my right, trying to spot a lone female beach comber. I strolled gradually along the tree line, trying to feel like a stealthy ninja but instead feeling like a nervous, awkward teenager. And was I nervous! My hands were trembling. Twice I dropped the blanket, and once it took me three bumbling attempts to pick it up again. The butterflies had risen up, not satisfied with the confines of my stomach, and taken my entire body by force. I didn't even know what to expect. I'd never been alone - with a girl- at night unchaperoned. So I didn't know what the hell was going to happen. I didn't have a game plan, either. I didn't have any clue what to say, or what not to, or what to try or not try. I didn't even know this girl--other than a pleasant conversation in a waiting room and an awkward phone encounter. But if you'd asked me then, I would have sworn there was a look in her eye in the waiting room, or an incomprehensible, ethereal feeling, some sort of sparkly romantic magic crackling between us. How the hell would I know? How the hell would I know otherwise?

Durham / Slip Away / 111 The glow of headlights flashed past me. I spun and dropped to a crouch, my reflexes honed by paintball, to view the parking lot. A big Ford pickup truck was negotiating its way into a parking spot. I couldn't see the driver. I didn't even know how old she was. Did she have a driver's license? Was she old enough to vote? Did she realize I was a 15-year-old bike riding twerp? I panicked. I saw her shrugging me off, a horny kid, as a master shoves away a little dog set on humping his leg. I had to get a handle on her age. Had we talked about school? As my mind raced, I heard the Ford's door shut. I, the ninja, ducked behind a picnic table. The driver was definitely a woman, and silhouetted by the parking lot's floodlights it very well could have been Nikki. Wearing a tight shirt and shorts, she had a hell of a shapely body. I hoped it was Nikki. She approached the edge of the parking lot and surveyed the park, and plodded off northeast toward the beach. She was carrying a six pack of canned beverages. She walked purposefully, glancing around every few steps. She passed within a dozen yards of me without spotting me. What a master of stealth I was. When her back was completely to me, I slipped out of the cover of my picnic table and fell into step a few dozen feet behind her. My feet made little noise on the sand. We continued like this for a good distance. When she closed to within reliable sight of the north end of the beach and saw it deserted she looked around widely. I, the consummate American ninja, was caught. She stopped. Feeling like a dork, I continued walking to approach her. My heart felt like it was tearing its way through my sternum. To break the silence, I said loudly, "Nikki?"

Durham / Slip Away / 112 "Hey," she said. As I closed the distance, she added, "You been following me?" "I wasn't sure it was you," I replied. "So you've seen a lot of girls walking to the beach alone with a six pack?" she said. I regretted saying this the moment it came out: "Woah, is that beer?" I might as well have been wearing a black Def Leppard tee shirt and carrying a lighter without any cigarettes. A fifteen year old loser. "No, I brought Shirley Temple spritzers," she said, and I didn't need either the waning twilight or piercing moon to see her roll her eyes. But, even as I muttered something stupid like, "Well I couldn't tell in the dark," she offered a good- natured grin and said, "It's Bud and it's cold." She popped one out of its plastic ring and handed it to me. I'd consumed part of one beer in my entire life, and it was under duress from my teasing brother. I was ten or eleven. Mom was in bed, sleeping naturally, I assumed at the time, but now I know she was actually passed out. Rudy found a pair of Pabst Blue Ribbons in the fridge. Grinning, he handed one to me and, for my benefit, popped his open and took a long, slow sip. "Drink up Roar," he demanded. I tried to put it back, but he said, "Dammit kid, you're old enough to be a man now. Drink that damn beer." "But Rudy," I started, but he cut me off. "Drink," he said sternly. "It's a rite of...uh...way. It's a rite of way!" "But I don't--" He bopped the top of my head. "I'm gonna start calling you Whine. You're whining like a baby." He did an exaggerated imitation, flapping his arms desperately and chiming in a falsetto voice, "I don't want beer because I'm a baby and I'm too scared. Wahh!" He finished in his real voice, "Drink it, Whine."

Durham / Slip Away / 113 So I opened the can and timidly ingested a microscopic drop. He wasn't satisfied by my consumption of a few molecules, though. "Drink it like me, like a man," he insisted, and chugged down a sizable mouthful. I was terrified. The smell emanating from the can stirred imagery of old men in tall stools in the bar at Northwood Inn, staring at me with judgmental eyes and smoking cigars and cigarettes; of Mom when she was unable to walk straight and careened off of counters and furniture and mumbled unintelligible things at me while my eyes filled with tears. Free association brought me to a day when I was really little, four or five, and she'd promised to read me three stories before bed. When bedtime came, she could barely walk. Her demeanor frightened me. I reminded her of her promise, and she sighed and lit up a cigarette and invited me to sit on the couch. Instead of reading me The Lorax or Clifford, though, she opened her own book crumpled paperback, something about pirates and maidens in the 1800s, and read that to me instead. It was filled with words like heaving and

manhood and bosom. I felt uncomfortable. She often trailed off and stared out
the window or got up and stumbled toward the kitchen. Eventually she slumped over and fell asleep, leaving me to my own devices. I ran to my bed and pulled the covers up high, and cried until I finally dozed off. As I held the cold can of Bud on the beach, these thoughts ran through my head in a matter of seconds. I felt my mood crumpling and the darkness filling my mind. Sensing my downward spiral, I forced myself to shrug it off. Mustering strength from the depths of my willpower, I twisted my lips into a smile and said, "Thanks! That'll go down nice." She seemed to believe me. She offered a cursory, "Yeah, beer is good," and we walked along a little further toward the water. "This okay?" I asked.

Durham / Slip Away / 114 "Sure," she said, and I spread the blanket. We settled down, and I cracked my beer open and, without hesitating long enough for my thoughts to wander, I took a long, deep gulp. The bitter, malted taste overwhelmed my Coke and Pepsi palette. I fought to hide my grimace and look as casual as I possibly could. I looked up from the sip at Nikki, who was chugging her beer. I waited. She winked over her can and kept going. Finally, she tore it from her lips with a big "ahhhh!" Taken aback--aw hell, I was totally utterly intimidated--I said, "Thirsty?" "You said it. Goes down good," she replied with a wry grin. We sat on the beach and looked at each other. The pale light accented her cute-but-sexy features. I wouldn't label Nikki as model beautiful, but cute and curvaceous she was certainly easy to look at. Her voluptuous (but not excessively overweight) body, her pronounced cheekbones and her bright eyes, flanked by luxurious lashes, all conveyed something I'd not encountered so closely before: sexuality. She looked me over, with a half smile on her face. There I was, skinny and lanky, but in decent shape thanks to paintball. She seemed so confident while I was in a world of swirling emotional turmoil. I sat on a platform of disbelief at my situation, surrounded in a tornado of excitement, doubt, arousal, fear of rejection, and plain old confusion. As if she could see inside me, she said, "Relax, Rory. I won't bite ya." I tried so hard to be cool. "I know," I insisted--and then I folded. "I just get a little...nervous." Then, on a whim, I added, "Especially when I'm alone with a pretty girl." She grinned. "Thank you, that was sweet. And well played! Look, there's nothing to be nervous about. Let's get to know each other."

Durham / Slip Away / 115 "Okay," I said, and then I blurted, "How old are you?" Jesus, I sucked at this. She laughed. "Well, you get right to the point, don't you?" She laughed a couple of musical chuckles, and then looked mockingly serious, like an applicant at a job interview. "I turned sixteen in February." I could feel relief pour into my body like a refreshing torrent of cool water. I'd be sixteen in September. We were only seven months apart. "Cool," I said. "You drove in, so I knew you had your license, but I didn't know if you were sixteen or in college or what." "I just got it a few weeks ago," she grinned. She raised her hands triumphantly and said, "Freedom!" The she fixed me with what I was beginning to believe was her signature look: a half smile, with her head cocked sideways a little and her eyes shining with a piercing stare, daring me to answer her. "Now it's my turn," she said. "How old are you?" Feeling less like an undergrown twerp than I'd expected to when I finally fessed up, I said, "I'll be sixteen this fall." "Ooh, a younger guy," she said, and rubbed her hands together. She gave me a wicked grin. "That means I'm in charge. You have to do whatever I say." My heart almost fell right out of my chest. All I could say was, "Oh yeah?" "Is that your question?" said Nikki. "Because it's your turn." I tried to think, but my brain had abandoned me. "How many brothers and sisters?" I asked, disappointed in the blandness of the question that leapt from my lips. "None," she said. "I'm a spoiled only child. I get anything I want." "Really?" I said. My wit made a brief return. "Was that your Lexus in the parking lot?" "Nope, the Porsche is mine. Now it's my turn, and I get two questions."

Durham / Slip Away / 116 "Two?" I protested. "Uh huh. You asked about my family and then my Porsche. You owe me two." "Oh, okay. Ask away." "Let's see," she said, and put her hand to her button chin. "How many girls have you dated?" I had been afraid of this. I felt uncomfortable with the idea of lying, even to make myself look more suave and sophisticated. But in a small town like Little Badger, it's impossible to hide aspects of your life. Cornered, I said cryptically, "One." "Now my second question," she said gleefully. She took a big sip of her beer. "Does that one include me?" I looked her in the eye, but then looked down for a second. "Yep," I said. She laughed. "I'm your first date! What an honor! Is it everything you hoped for?" And suddenly, at that very moment, the nervousness subsided a great deal. I won't say I wasn't still jittery, but I felt exponentially more comfortable than I had before. She knew my age, she knew it was my first date, and she'd accepted both. I don't know what horrors my mind had anticipated, but I felt like the worst was over and that now I could enjoy myself. So I looked around, and looked over the lake, and I said, "Let's see. It's a warm night. The stars are out, the moon is reflecting off the lake, and I'm on the beach with a beautiful and interesting girl. So far, it's going better than I'd ever expected." She fixed me with a new look that conveyed surprise and satisfaction. Then she smiled again, but more genuinely than before. "Thanks," she said. "I'm glad."

Durham / Slip Away / 117 Nikki said: "Your turn." "How many questions do I get?" She pretended to ponder, and then said, "I lost count. I'll give you two." "Okay..." I replied, and thought. I took timid sip of Budweiser. Already, it was getting easier to drink. I didn't feel the urge to grimace. "Um...is this your first date?" I asked. She grinned, but this time not so pleasantly. "Sorry," she said. "No such luck." "Have you had a boyfriend?" "Oh..." she said, staring out over the water--as if deciding whether to answer. "Okay. Fair enough. I've had one boyfriend, but it didn't last very long because he turned out to be a jerk. And I've been on a few other dates, but nothing serious." For some reason, that filled me with dismay. My fingers tingled with nervousness, and my heart sank. "So, like..." I said, thinking. "You're, like, not, uh, with anyone..." She grinned reassuringly. "Don't worry. I'm free and unattached." After a pause, she said, looking me right in the eye, "I'm available." She slipped her hand over mine--just for a second--as she said it. I couldn't help it. I smiled back. Hell, I grinned like a fucking jack-olantern. "Okay, my turn!" she said. "Tell me about your family." Up and down, up and down, went my feelings. I tried not to show it, but at the mention of my family my heart fell into my toes. Would she want a psycho from a dysfunctional nest of suicidal freaks? God damn it, I just want to be a normal kid! My guard went up. I think she could tell. A look of concern crossed her face, and she said, "You don't have to answer."

Durham / Slip Away / 118 "Well," I said. "I live with my best friend, Len, and his mother. My parents are dead, and my older brother is in the Army." I was sitting cross- legged , with my hands on my knees. Her small, cool fingers slipped over my hand again, this time gripping it and giving it a squeeze. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to bring up a sore subject." I shrugged, forcing myself to stay in the pleasure of the moment. But I held onto her hand. "It's okay, it's part of my life and part of me." "Let's change the subject," she said hurriedly. "Do you want to change the subject?" "No, really," I said, "I don't mind. After all, we met in about the most personal place a guy can be, besides maybe a dressing room." "Well I guess you have a good reason to be there. There's nothing to be ashamed of, seeing a psychiatrist, you know." She was talking quickly. I think she was finally off balance, and in a way it was comforting to know that she wasn't always the totally self-assured person she seemed to be. "Want to know why my mom does?" "No, no, that's her business," I said. Then I squeezed her hand. "Nikki," I said, liking the taste of her name on my tongue, "don't be so worried. I'm fine, and I don't mind talking about my family." That was a big fat lie, but I knew she wouldn't pursue the subject. "How about this," I said. "Let's talk about the mountains. How long have you lived in Sonora?" "We moved up here when I was eight," said Nikki, and she seemed relieved with the change of topic. "Dad's an environmental research engineer or something like that. He takes samples of the air and water and dirt and stuff, and he makes recommendations about how to zone the land and what to build where, and how traffic affects air quality, and stuff like that." "Wow, that sounds cool. Is he, like, a big tree hugger Greenpeace guy?" She laughed. "My dad? Not hardly. He's not liberal...but I guess he's not much of a conservative either. He's a...realist. I mean, he doesn't want the

Durham / Slip Away / 119 Adirondacks strip mined or drilled for oil or anything, and he's sick about the acid rain in the '70's and '80's, but he's not against all development. He's kinda in the middle." "What about you?" she asked. "Are you a tree hugger?" "I'm not very political," I said honestly. "I've always lived in the mountains here, in the Adirondack park, and I like it the way it is, but if there wasn't any development at all we wouldn't live here, would we? The way I see it, as long as nobody wipes out the bears out or starts building strip malls everywhere, the park will take care of itself." "I like how you call the Adirondacks 'the park,'" she said. We were still holding hands. "What about you?" I asked. "Oh, same as you," she said. "I guess I'm a little more liberal than you guys, actually. We moved from New Jersey, in Union City right across from Manhattan, and you could always smell the city and see the haze and stuff, and it was so crowded. Once I got used to it I really started to love it up here. It's so quiet and peaceful, and you can see so many stars! You could hardly see any back home, if ever. I mean, look at that!" She lay on her back on the blanket, and pulled me by the hand down beside her. We looked at blackening sky, now bereft of cloud cover except on the fringes, and it was crowded with stars--so many, so bright, their luminance would have lit the Earth, ever so dimly, had the moon not been so prominent. I turned to look at Nikki. The soft white light shone on her sensuous profile. Then she looked at me, and our eyes met. Once again, my heart started thumping so hard I could feel my pulse in my toes. I realized there was only one thing to do at that moment. As I leaned, her lips parted slightly, and I kissed her softly, and pulled away. She slipped her hand behind my head and pulled me back, and our lips locked harder. Her mouth opened, and for the first time I pressed my tongue

Durham / Slip Away / 120 against another. I wrapped my arms around her, one hand in her hair and the other on the small of her back, and I felt the softness of her breasts pressing against my chest. Our thighs melted together. We kissed, our bodies pressed into each other, and took a breath and kissed again, and again. It was the most exciting and magical moment of my entire life.

Durham / Slip Away / 121

Chapter Twelve
"This," said my brother, pointing at something in the middle of the rifle that I couldn't see, "is the bolt." "This," he barked, his eyes shining with grotesque excitement, "is the chamber." Or some such thing. I don't mind rimfire .22 rifles, but these guns were scary. We were out back behind the trailer. There were two life-sized cardboard cutouts against the old maple, but they were silhouetted against the bright orange light reflected from the lake. Dick Hoof, the smelly old guy from a few docks over, was in a boat in the middle of the lake shouting at us. "This," said Rudy, oblivious, "is the safety. It's useless." The ground was wet, saturated, as if a winter of snow had just melted. My socks were getting soaked. "This," he continued, his voice booming, "is the grunion." "The grunion?" I said. "Are you sure?" "Shut up!" boomed Rudy, clearly changed by his years in the military. "Do you want to learn, Roar? Shut up and drink your beer!"

Durham / Slip Away / 122 I sipped my beer. It was salty. "This," he said, "is the scythe of fire!" He aimed the rifle at one of the cutouts. "See how it's done!" he said. Len went by on water skis, pulled by Buckley. Len yelled, "What are you doing? It's ski time!" Rudy leveled the rifle. "Wait!" I shouted. I had to stop him from firing. I dashed across the lawn sending up a spray of rusty orange water, reaching him even as his finger pulled the trigger. The rifle lurched him back, billowing a wall of sound reminiscent of a collapsing building. A gust of wind from the blast threw me onto my back. Crawling, with tears in my eyes, I whimpered, "Rudy, wait." The flash had blinded me. The world was a bright blue blur. I crawled forward, not sure where I was going, my hands squishing in the sloppy wet grass. I reached out, and a hand grabbed mine. "Rudy?" I said. "I can't see." "It's okay, sweetheart," said a warm, comfortable voice. "Mom?" I said. The haze was lifting from my vision. I looked down. I was holding a hand, and its wrist was cuffed by the familiar lace of Mom's nightgown. I cried with joy! I pulled her hand to draw her closer, to hold her, to let her hold me. The arm ended at the shoulder in a torn, bloody mess. I screamed, but I heard a heart beating through my wails. I looked over. There was Mom, lying on her back, smiling up at Rudy, but her face changed to shock and then horror. Her hand squeezed mine. Then I noticed her chest was eviscerated. Rudy reached in with a long, rusty metal implement, a five foot metal rod, and with maniacal precision touched something next to her still-beating heart. Mom writhed and screamed, and her hand was suddenly crushing mine, while Rudy cackled, "Does that hurt?"

Durham / Slip Away / 123 My hand was going numb. Mom was screaming. Her heart was spurting blood out of her chest this way and that. My vision blurred. I woke up with a shock and leapt to my feet, twisting this way and that. Sleepiness slowly returned me and I stumbled to my knees. I couldn't feel my right hand. "Rory?" Her voice soft and sleepy, Nikki lifted her head and looked up at me. The moon was gone. Only the starlight gave my eyes notice to where I was. Nikki and I had made out for a long time. Then she put her head on my arm and rolled over, and we spooned together, warmed by each others' heat, not caring that the night was humid; we were wrapped in a magical silk of new romance. And then the dream. I was on my knees, covered with sweat, out of breath, my heart speeding. I collapsed on the blanket next to her. "What time is it?" she asked. "I have no idea." "Are you okay?" "Yeah," I said. "My arm fell asleep is all." "We should get home." I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes while the dream evaporated gradually from my consciousness. "Yeah," I said. "I'm in deep shit, I think." "Me too," said Nikki. We stood, and I shook off the blanket and folded it up. I tucked it under my arm, and Nikki leaned against my other one. Still feeling the joy of novelty, through the haze of a disappearing nightmare, I wrapped my arm around her. We strolled gradually to the parking lot. "How'd you get here?" she asked.

Durham / Slip Away / 124 "My--" I paused, suddenly feeling like the younger-brother-twerp again. "Uh, my bike." "I have a pickup. Toss it in the back and I'll give you a ride home." "Take a right." We pulled out of the parking lot. The truck accelerated to speed. I stretched sleepily. Nikki grabbed my hand. "I had a great time," she said. "Me too!" I agreed. She smiled. "Was that an okay first-ever date?" "The best I've ever had," I replied. We rode in silence for a while. I caressed her fingers. "Can we see each other again?" she said. I was surprised by the question. I'd all but assumed we would. I said, "Sure, if Mrs. Humphrey lets me live." "Yeah, my folks too," said Nikki. "But will you call me?" "Of course," I said simply. She gave my wrist a squeeze. She pulled up next to Len's driveway. I looked at her uncertainly. She laughed. "After all that, you'd better kiss me goodnight." After a long kiss, we wished each other luck with our respective guardians and reluctantly bid farewell. I crunched up the gravel driveway, and suddenly turned to Nikki and flagged her down just as she started to pull away. As I ran up to the truck, she got out and came around. "My bike," I said. "Oh, I thought you wanted one last kiss." "That too," I said, and kissed her again. Then I hauled my bike out of the truck and, this time for real, said goodnight.

Durham / Slip Away / 125

And yes, Mrs. Humphrey was waiting for me when I got in. She was sitting in the kitchen, playing solitaire, with a cup of coffee beside her. I walked in sheepishly. She said, "Have a seat." I sat across from her. I glanced at the clock: it was quarter after three. Mrs. Humphrey brushed back her mid-length, brown hair and said, "Well, I'm not gonna give you the 'why did you put me through this' guilt trip. And I'm not going to tell you how worried I've been. You're old enough--and bright enough--to know that I've been very worried." "I'm sorry," I said quietly. "Are you?" she said. "Look, Rory, I know you've been through a lifetime's worth of hell. And there are children--young men, I should say--who have been through similar, I'm not gonna say worse but similar, and turned to drugs, crime, just turned out awful, and I'm proud of you for coping so well. "But they're there, those other boys and girls, they end up on the streets, or dead. And you know what worried me the most? Not that you were in any danger, or that you were going to get hurt, but that you'd given up on yourself, and your life here with us." "Oh, god, Mrs. Humphrey," I exclaimed, crestfallen. "Oh, god, I would never--I swear that's just not, it wouldn't happen. It just wouldn't happen!" "Well, that's good to hear, Rory." She sipped her coffee. Her face looked drawn and haggard, which was adding to my guilt. She was usually bright and perky. "Where were you?" she asked. "I was...on a date," I replied. "Didn't Len tell you?" There was silence. She looked at me, perhaps a little surprised. "A date? And no, Len's kept his stubborn mouth shut. He's been emphatically pleading the fifth." She repeated, "A date?"

Durham / Slip Away / 126 I nodded. "Yep. We didn't--I mean, you know, we just, like, talked for a long time. Then we fell asleep. That was it though, we didn't--uh--" "I know what you're trying to say. I'm glad. That's good that you didn't." She still looked a little surprised, like she wasn't sure what she was trying to say. I felt like I was observing our little scene through a long, sleepy tunnel. I was so tired, and so giddy about the success of my foray, I just wasn't feeling all there. The rich smell of the coffee is all that kept me in the present. Finally, Mrs. Humphrey said, "I'm glad you were on a date. That's healthy, that's a great sign for you. I'm glad that's what it was, Rory." I smiled. She continued, "But when you live in my house, you will have the courtesy to respect my rules. I stuck my neck out for you to keep you from ending up in an orphanage or with a foster family you didn't know. Remember that. "I'm not going to punish you. I'm going to ask you, Rory, not to break my rules again. Have the respect and care for me that I have for you. That's all I ask." I nodded. "I'm sorry. Thank you. I'm sorry. I didn't...I really didn't mean to disrespect you, I swear. I was...caught up in the moment." Then, she surprised me. She said, "So how was your date?" I smiled dreamily. "It was wonderful," I said. Mrs. Humphrey smiled back. "Uh oh," she said. "Looks like I might have to have a different talk with you soon." I felt my face turn instantly crimson. I was completely off guard. She laughed, enjoying my reaction. "That's for another day," she grinned. "Go to bed. I'm sure Lenny's waiting for a full report. Try to get some sleep!"

Durham / Slip Away / 127 I thanked her and apologized again. Len was a lucky kid. I could only imagine growing up with a mother like her. Life is made up of moments, and you forget the things in between. So therapy, dating and paintball, and later school, kept me busy through the summer, into the waning days of September. My junior year in high school was under way, and Nikki's senior, and we spent most of our weekday afternoons doing homework together. When I ponder, I remember a great deal of moments between when I found my mother's stiff corpse and when I turned sixteen. Little moments, like when Mrs. Humphrey told me that would never expect to replace my mother, but she hoped she was doing a good enough job. I loved her for that. I held her and almost cried. Triumphant moments, like when my paintball team, the Suicidal Badgers (morbid humor by Len), took down Clawson's team, the Stinking Badges, which was made up primarily of New York State Troopers. Bigger moments, like when I got my driver's license in Mrs. Humphrey's minivan--after much practice (and necking) in Nikki's old Ford pickup truck. That minivan was huge. Somehow, the only part of the driver's test I choked on was parallel parking, which took two attempts. I passed. Nikki and I continued dating, albeit with far more respect for our curfews. As our relationship progressed, I went through the phases of teenage passion, from giddy sleepless nights and dreamy days to happy familiarity to comfort. Being hormonal teens, we starved for each other when we weren't together, and we started a tradition of me calling her every night before bed. She had her own phone line in her room. I called from the den in Len's house, or the kitchen, depending on which room was more private.

Durham / Slip Away / 128 Len taunted me fiercely, making lovey-dovey-smoochie sounds or fluttering his eyelashes at me, and my response was usually something like, "At least girls talk to me." Parallel to our romance, Nikki and I became friends, too. We thoroughly enjoyed each others' company, and we liked to do things together. We hiked up Blue Mountain, we skated in the ice arena at Lake Placid. And we made out, a lot. With care and understanding, she allowed me to gradually fill her in on the details of what all of Little Badger already knew, the deaths of my parents. It was therapeutic to tell someone other than a highly paid doctor about my life--so much so, in fact, that I found myself becoming more comfortable with my tumultuous childhood. Nikki got along well with my few friends, too. She even toyed with the idea of joining the paintball team. Most of the guys, some of whom I haven't introduced you to because their roles in my life were minor outside of the killing fields of the paintball arena, were all for it. This included Len, Billy, Dan, Jim, and Meat, who, of all people, somehow had a girlfriend of his own. Corey, Doug and Chris could care less either way, but Morris was a dick about it. She'd hardly disrupt the team. We had nine guys. Matches were eighton-eight, so one person had to sit out, unless someone was absent. With another player, said person would have company. A short kid with the shape and stature of a bent twig, Morris was the only one of our group who we really didn't care for. He acted younger than his sixteen years. He sometimes played out Star Trek fantasies on the field, referring to others on the team as "Number One" or "Tuvoc." Other times, he would painstakingly research the battles of Rommel or Napolean and try to translate their tactics to a nine-person paintball team. We, of course, could care less; we were good already.

Durham / Slip Away / 129 I think the root of Morris' problem, though, was his history with women. In a debacle that quickly spread through Little Badger's tiny school district, he quietly asked an attractive young girl named Lorena to a school dance during lunch one afternoon. She turned him down gently; she just wasn't interested in him. Immediately following her refusal, an alarmingly large fly landed on his face and hiked up into his nostril. With a start, he grabbed his nose and squished the fly, and its innards ran out of his nostril over his mouth. Unable to contain herself, Lorena burst into hysterical laughter, apologizing and offering tissues from her purse in between guffaws, but the antics attracted the attention of other students and soon they were surrounded by a circle of curious teens. Morris fled to the bathroom. When the dust settled, the school at large didn't know whether it was more entertained by the fly, or that Morris, the requisite class pariah, actually asked the fetching Lorena out. Unfortunately, Morris took his embarrassment to heart and blamed not just Lorena but all women everywhere. Among men his age, he started referring to women as bitches or cunts, and when somebody went on a date or got a girlfriend, he assailed them with venomous taunts like, "Don't kill yourself when she dumps you," and "She's only going to make you feel like a worm and crush you underneath her foot." It came to a head one Saturday in late September. When, at a team practice, I announced that Nikki, who was relatively athletic and more than capable of contributing to the team, was interested in joining, Morris bristled. "We have too many people already," he demanded. "Why do we need her? Just because she's the captain's girlfriend? What about Meat's girlfriend?" Meat said quietly, "She's not a paintball person."

Durham / Slip Away / 130 "That's not the point," growled Morris. "The point, dickweed," said Len, "is that she's cool, and she wants to play." "But we already have too many men," insisted Morris. "Exactly," said Len. "Too many big sweaty men. Sorry, Meat. Anyway, it'd be nice to have someone on the team who actually puts effort into smelling good." We were standing in the waiting area, a wide, roofless clubhouse stationed off by pressboard walls and filled with rows of picnic tables. We'd just arrived and were preparing our gear on the tables when I introduced the idea. "Morris," I said, "She's really nice and she's quick on her feet. Whether or not I were seeing her, she'd be a great addition to the team. We could use more people because what if two of us get sick or something? Forfeit, right? She wants to join, and she's worthy." "Well then, el kapitan," Morris sneered, and he then issued a declaration: "If she joins, I'm off the team." I heard Len hiss to Meat, "Yes! I hope she joins." But that bit of entertainment didn't stop me. I like to think I'm not one to lose my temper very often. In fact, I do my best to keep it in check. But the sniveling, vindictive little weenie got the best of me. Without even feeling the rage coming, I exploded. I threw down my mask, stomped my foot and said, "Fine. Fine. You know what, Morris? I don't give a fuck if she joins or not. You are off the fucking team!" Morris' jaw fell open like a rusty screen door. I hollered, "Close your mouth before a fly lands in it. And don't look so fucking shocked. You're a petty little weasel, and the only reason you are--

used to be on this team is because we felt sorry for you. You're a pathetic
asshole and nobody likes you, but we tried. Didn't we?" I demanded, addressing the team.

Durham / Slip Away / 131 They stood like statues, eyes wide and mouths agape. I rarely made a scene. The guys were shocked. "Well I tried to like you but you know what? I don't. And you bring it on yourself. Nobody likes an uppity bitch like you. Nobody. Now get that stupid look off your face, and get the fuck off the field. I reserved it for my

team, and you're not welcome here."
I grabbed his backpack and threw it into his chest. He caught it and stared, astonished. "Rory..." he said. He looked small and defeated Still, the words came. I was riding a wave of rage. "Are you still here? What did you not understand? Get the fuck out!" Wordlessly, he turned and walked toward the grass parking lot. I watched him leave, my chest heaving with anger, until his little hatchback car pulled onto the main road. Then I turned. The team was facing me in a loose semicircle. They were silent. "Well?" I said, glaring from one set of eyes to the next. "Let's practice. Meat, Billy, Corey, Dan, you're on red." In the field, I went on offense. I told Len to stay back and guard the flag with Chris. Instead, he followed me. "What was that all about?" he hissed. "Hush," I said. My style was stealth. I was trying to prefect the art of appearing out of nowhere and blasting hapless goons from a flank position. "Don't 'hush' me. That was out of control." "We'll talk about it later." We spotted Corey making his way up the boundary toward our flag and crouched behind a hay bale. "Are you stable?" Len whispered. "What the fuck?" I said in a normal voice. "Jesus, Len, I get pissed off and suddenly I'm insane? I'm not my parents."

Durham / Slip Away / 132 "That wasn't you back there," said Len. I rolled my eyes. "I'm allowed to have a--" The sound of a paintball impacting our hiding place startled me silent. It didn't come from Corey's position; someone was shooting from another angle. Then, another ball streaked over us, this one from Corey. We were pinned and flanked, being fired on from two sides. We hit the dirt. "Nice going, loudmouth," I said. "Don't treat me like Morris or you'll be wearing the back of my hand," retorted Len. He looked very serious. "Don't threaten me," I seethed. "Are you gonna go psycho on me, too?" said Len. I felt the rage returning. I rose to my knees, grabbed the barrel of his gun and pushed the weapon aside. Then I leaned in close to his face. "Do not call me psychotic. Do you understand?" Len looked shocked. "I'm sorry," he said. "That was low." My brain was filling with crimson rage. The woodland sound and underbrush scent evaporated. Searing fire filled my head, and suddenly I was standing. With paintballs rushing past from both threatening positions, I leapt over the hay bales, steadied my aim and took out Corey with a single shot. Crouched, like a beast, mouth open, I spun and spotted Billy about a thirty feet away drawing a bead through the crotch of a tree. He shot repeatedly, walking his ordinance toward me, but I rolled beneath his line of fire, popped up and fired five balls cleanly through the split trunk of his cover. I was in a feral state, moving on instinct. I sensed the world around me somehow beyond my ears and eyes and nose. I continued toward the red flag, alert for Dan and Meat who would be guarding. Teeth clenched, I darted to the nearest boundary of the field, and then turned and followed it toward the enemy flag. Since everything beyond the

Durham / Slip Away / 133 boundary was off limits, I couldn't be attacked from that side--it made it that much easier to spot and defend against an enemy. I saw Meat, and he saw me. Instead of dropping, I charged. He fired, and I shoulder rolled to get down without losing momentum. I came up firing but his massive frame was mostly out of sight (in a position in which a normal man would have been completely hidden), having ducked behind one of the duck blinds that dotted the flag stations. I continued my charge. Meat was between me and the flag; Dan would be on the other side. Meat looked over his blind, and I unleashed a torrent of paint at his mask before he could even raise his gun. While sprinting it was impossible to be accurate. The paintballs exploded upon the wall of bundled sticks that shielded him, but it was enough to get him to duck again. Fifty yards, forty. My legs leapt and danced over the brush and trees, Meat popped his head up again, and without a thought I froze, aimed and fired. It smacked him in his masked forehead. He held up his gun and obediently yelled, "Out." Running desperately, I rushed their fortress. Dan was crouched behind metal 50-gallon drum. I opened fire, the blizzard of paint pounding musically against the drum. Dan couldn't get his head around to aim. I dashed past the flag area, still firing, and leapt upon the barrel. Crouching and breathing heavily, I leveled my paintball gun at his head and said, "Surrender." I sat out, camped in the waiting area, for the rest of the practice. Little by little, my rage subsided and the docile world came back. The team stopped by between rounds to discuss the results. Most of the guys glanced my way but didn't speak. Len didn't even look at me. But Meat, who never let anything get to him, plopped his gigantic hand on my shoulder and said, "How's it going, Blitz?"

Durham / Slip Away / 134 Over time, that nickname would morph into Blitzkrieg and then, come Christmastime, Blitzen. I stripped off my gear and sat and stared, my mind racing to come to terms with its latest turmoil. Never in my life had I felt rage quite like that. I wished Dr. Watson was there. I was glad that Nikki wasn't. I saw her later that day. We went to Candy Creme, an ice cream place in Sonora, one of those places with the yellow fluorescent lights out front where you place your order through a little window and eat outside. We loved Creme, as it was commonly called, and it was going to be closing for the season the following Monday. She could tell something was troubling me. At first, she thought I just needed a bit of cheering. She let me drive her truck and told me a funny story about her Dad attempting to replace a gutter on their house, only to end up warping it beyond repair and calling a professional. My smile must not have looked genuine. We sat at a picnic table, a pair of cheeseburgers and a huge basket of fries and onion rings between us, and she reached across and grabbed my hand. "What's the matter, Ror'?" I shuddered. The sound of the name hit me deep in the brain, like the wail of an alarm clock. "What did you call me?" I asked. "I'm sorry, you don't like that?" she asked. "No, my, uh, my brother calls me Roar." "Oh," she said. "Can I call you Ro-ro?" She flashed me her trademark heart-melting grin. Even in my worn out mood, I couldn't help but smile back. I leaned across the table and kissed her, and said, "If you must." "So what's the matter, Ro-ro?" "Oh...I had a, a sort of, flame out today." She maintained eye contact and took a bite of her burger. She was waiting for me to elaborate, which she knew I would. We'd had talks before.

Durham / Slip Away / 135 Nikki was so healthy mentally. She had such a positive, optimistic outlook, always ready to find the silver lining. Me, I just watched the sky and hoped the clouds would stay away. When they came, I shuttered my windows or shouted at the rain. Am I killing that metaphor? I told her about the fireworks, leaving out the fact that news of her interest in a position on the team set it off. "Wow," she said. To my relief, she didn't show any fear or trepidation. She said, "Are you going to talk to your shrink about it?" "Yeah. I can't wait to, actually." "Did you miss any of your medicine today?" "Nope." "Wow, that's weird." She looked at me sadly. "You must have surprised yourself." "I didn't even feel like I was there," I replied. "It was like I was on automatic." "Well, it sounds like you kicked ass on the field," she grinned. We left it at that. She always had a way of making me feel better. We finished our date like we often did, making out in the cab of her truck. We were parked deep in an old quarry, far from the road. Ever the teenage conundrum: where do you go to be alone? What did teenagers do before cars? My mind wasn't into it, though. I kept breaking off and staring. Finally, Nikki said, "Is there anything else you want to tell me?" I looked down. "I don't know," I said. "I just..." Suddenly, tears welled in my eyes. She saw this and reached over and held me. I couldn't believe what was happening. Out of nowhere, I started sobbing, my face buried in her shoulder.

Durham / Slip Away / 136 Nikki stroked my hair and cooed soothing things into my ear. I never meant to show her this side of me. Outside of my immediate family, only Dr. Watson had seen me cry. But it wouldn't stop. I cried and sobbed and held on to Nikki for dear life. Eventually, the feeling passed. I sat back up and flopped my head back, drained. Nikki magically produced a tissue out of nowhere. "Woah," I said. "Sorry about that." "Oh honey, don't be sorry!" She called me honey. I smiled. "Actually, that felt pretty good." She grinned and gave me the sideways look. "Good!" I looked at her earnestly. "Thank you," I said. "Really. That's more than any high school romance should have to deal with." "Is that what we are?" She asked. "A high school romance?" "Well, I--what would you call it?" "How about a 'relationship?' I'd feel more comfortable with that." I smiled. "Me too! So does that mean, we're, like, boyfriend-girlfriend?" "Do you want me to be your girlfriend?" She asked. I grabbed her hand. "I would be honored to be your girlfriend." She giggled loudly. I stumbled over my tongue. "I mean, you know. I want you to be my official girlfriend, if you'd have me as your boyfriend." "Of course I would," she replied. She grabbed my hand and drew me in and kissed me. I pulled back. "I'm all cry-snotty." "I don't care." She locked her lips on mine. As we mashed our bodies together, her hand slid across my body to find mine. Then, she guided it to her waist, slipped it under her shirt and placed it against her breast.

Durham / Slip Away / 137 I could feel my pulse in my penis as it almost instantly throbbed to fully erect. I felt the fullness of her breasts through her silky bra. Her nipples were hard. I'd only played with her breasts a couple times before, through her outer clothes. Having been invited, I reached around to the back of her shirt to investigate her bra clasp. She laughed. "Fooled you," she whispered. "It's in the front." Then she raised her shirt. I really felt like I was going to ejaculate in my pants. I unclasped her bra and unleashed her full, shapely, firm, young, and perfect breasts. They were big--more than a handful--and firm yet soft. She sighed deeply as I squeezed them, and then shed her top altogether. She pressed her bare breasts against me and tore off my shirt. Crushing her lips against mine, she whispered, "Boyfriend. Want to consummate?" I gasped. I didn't know what consummate meant, but I was pretty sure from the context that it could only mean one thing. "Yeah!" I whispered back against her lips. "I mean, well, you know I'm, it's my first--" "I'm a virgin too," she whispered. Her hand, which had been holding my waist, disappeared, and when it came back it pressed a little square packet into mine. It was a condom. "Damn," I said. "Do you know how to put it on?" she asked. "Uh...it can't be that hard. Putting on the rubber, I mean. The other thing, it's, uh, it's pretty hard." Her fingers tiptoed down my chest, caressed my belly and settled on my jeans. She popped the button and dropped the zipper, and reached in.

Durham / Slip Away / 138 "Yeah," she said. "It sure is." I kicked off my shoes and arched my back, and together we removed my jeans. My boxers tented prominently. She slipped her fingers through the fly and caressed me. I was in a constant state of disbelief. A girl was touching my unit. And then kissing. And, after sliding my boxers down around my knees, sucking. My mind reeled to keep me in touch with reality. It was unbelievable. She raised her head and said, "Do you like that?" I let out a huge breath that I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "Ohhhh, yeah," I replied. She smiled. "It's fun!" she said, and licked it like a popsicle. My right hand gripped the passenger door handle. I felt like I could come any second. I'd read of hints in GQ in the doctor's office. I thought about baseball. Cliché? With one last kiss on the tip, she rose up and slinked out of her pants. And panties. Both naked, we pressed our young bodies together and kissed, our hands exploring each other. Every inch of her skin was a study in disbelief. I was touching the small of her back--naked. Her hips--naked. Where her legs met her smooth bottom--naked. My hand found its way around to the front. She moaned and grabbed me, squeezing, pulling. Her hand receded and I heard tearing. She thrust the condom into my hand and said, "Fuck me." I rolled the condom on with the clumsiness of a beginner. She maneuvered to sit in the passenger seat, moved it back all the way, and spread her legs; I settled in between them on my knees on the floor of the car. I really had to feel around to figure out where to go. It was lower than I'd expected. She reached down and helped me guide it home. As we engaged, she sucked air through her teeth and whispered an ouch. "Are you okay?" I whispered. "Yeah," she said. "It feels good, but it hurts."

Durham / Slip Away / 139 "Can I--what can I do? Want to stop?" In answer, she grabbed my butt and gently pulled me closer. I felt myself slide into her. She grimaced, she moaned. I pulled halfway out, my back bumping the glove box, and thrust gently forward as she squirmed, in pleasure, in pain. I thrust again, and again, and she pulled my mouth to hers, and locked in a passionate kiss I started to gasp: I exploded inside the condom--inside her. Let's be honest: I was sixteen. Like virtually any male that age I'd masturbated thousands of times. Teens masturbate like alcoholics drink: as often as possible, and whenever and wherever they can get away with it. Never in all my masturbatory experience did I come like I came with Nikki. It was clumsy, first-time sex and it was quick, I knew, but she didn't care. Plus it seemed to be hurting her as much as it was pleasuring her. I didn't feel ashamed at the short performance. I pulled out. She sighed and laid back, sprawled, naked, eyes fixed on mine. I collapsed against her, spent. She held me and said, "Was that okay?" I laughed. Panting, I said, "It was...beyond anything I've experienced before." She grabbed me and kissed me. "What about for you?" I said. “Was it too quick?" "It hurt," she said. "But it was...good, too. I mean, really good. To have you inside me." Inside her. I reached down to remove the condom. In the dim light of the radio display, I could see dark streaks on it. She had bled. I tossed it out the window. Nikki said, "Besides, I guess it doesn't hurt as much if we do it often!" My jaw dropped, and she kissed me hard.

Durham / Slip Away / 140 We held our naked bodies together for a little while. I still felt an air of disbelief. It was a surreal ending to an emotional whirlwind of a day, and I was completely drained. In every way possible. I held her, held her as if she were my only anchor to reality. And she held me. And we were close, closer than I'd ever been to anyone in my life. Somewhere in my psyche, I felt an urge to express to her how I felt, but I was too weary, both physically and emotionally, find the words. I couldn't commit. That would be too much, too much for a tumultuous day. Did I love her? Certainly--I loved her for who she was and for being such a pillar of my life. But did I love her? I didn't know. I felt close to her. I knew that we shared something irrevocable, something intimate and personal and special, that we'd both remember for the rest of our lives. I wanted to tell her something, to express the weight of the moment, the feelings rushing through me, but I couldn't. It was a moment I'd give the rest of my life to go back and re-live, another chance to find the right words. I knew the right words. I did love her. And I damn well realized it, and not just because I'd just enjoyed physical relations with her. I loved her with everything I had. I opened my mouth and she looked at me--but the words didn't come out. I kissed her again. And we held each other, and that was that. What a mess I was. What a mess!

Durham / Slip Away / 141

Chapter Thirteen
I made curfew with less than five minutes to spare. The events of the day were swirling in my head. I had no emotions left. My mouth was dry, my mind was racing, my heart was empty. As promised, I called Nikki. We spoke for a few minutes about the wonder we'd just shared. But the call was shorter than usual, and I think she could sense that I wasn't in the mood to talk. And it was very difficult to talk about

that with parents--or guardians--around.

Durham / Slip Away / 142

Len had gotten home a few minutes before me. In silence, we went into his room and prepared for bed. Never had I come to think of it as our room. Despite his and his mother's welcoming arms, I felt like a sleepover guest every night. I was tired of bunking with my friend. I wanted my own space. I felt like a child. Len lay in his bed, I in mine. With a small, long-necked reading light reaching over me from my headboard, I stared through a random page in a Stephen King novel Nikki had given me for my sixteenth birthday. Len finally said, "The guys are a little freaked out." I didn't want to talk about it. I sighed loudly to signify that. "Except Meat," said Len. "He didn't have much to say. Dan's still crapping his pants, though." Someday Len would shut his mouth, but not that night. "You were a killing machine. He couldn't believe when you busted past the flag and owned his ass like that." Staring at my book, I replied tersely, "It was nothing special. I had the element of surprise." "Yeah," Len agreed. He paused a few moments. "You surprised everybody." I flopped my book down. "What should I say, Len? I surprised myself too. I'm sorry I caused a scene." Len was quiet for a few minutes. Finally he offered this olive branch: "At least Morris is off the team." He smiled lightly. "The guys don't mind?" I asked. "That's the one thing they liked about the practice today," replied Len.

Durham / Slip Away / 143 "Good. Len, I'm really not in the right frame of mind to discuss." I was trying to be diplomatic. "I'd be happy to hash things out tomorrow after you and your mom get back from church." "Alright," he sighed. "Fair enough." I raised my book. My mind was blank. The words were meaningless. I wanted to be alone, far away, in a shack on an island. After about ten minutes of sweet silence, Len said: "You smell funny." "I'm not in the mood for--" I started "No," insisted Len. "I'm serious. You smell like hospital gloves." The condom. I'd washed up before bed, but that clinical smell doesn't come off easily. "Latex," I said, and left the rest to him. I could see his wheels turning. Then the light went on. His face exploded in excitement and wonder. "You got--" he shouted, and then regained control of his voice and whispered, "You got laid?" I smiled. "Holy shit!" he hissed. "You scored. You scored? Damn it, were you gonna tell me?" "Today has been a fucked up day, man." "You can say that again. Damn, that's awesome! How was it?" "It was," I said, "well, honestly, it was kind of awkward. But intense. Weird. Wonderful. I'm not..." "You're not in the mood to talk. I know. But you got laid." "I'll give you the color commentary another day, Len. I just need quiet now." Sunday, Len, Nikki and I were going to meet Buckley, who'd offered to take us out for some late season skiing. Buckley rarely bowed low enough to bother with us; he must have had nothing to do. The day was

Durham / Slip Away / 144 uncharacteristically sunny and warm, but I was still out of touch with my brain. My senses were on hold. Colors were dull and listless, scents barely registered. The world was muted. I sleepwalked through a shower, and ate a few spoonfuls of cereal for breakfast. Len kept poking and winking and making little a little circle with his thumb and forefinger and piercing it with his other index finger, but I just didn't have the spirit to share in his mirth. Ironic, since I was the one who'd had the sex. Mrs. Humphrey noticed my mood. Her face showed concern, but unlike her stubborn son she gave me my space. She made polite morning conversation but didn't pry. That was good. I didn't have the energy for anything else. Nikki rolled up in her pickup truck about ten minutes before we expected Buckley. I trudged out to meet her. She smiled at me as I climbed into the passenger side. Then she grabbed me and kissed me intensely. She pushed me back, made strong eye contact and said, "Last night was special." I pulled her close and held her, wordlessly, taking her in, breathing her, enveloping myself in her essence. I wanted to curl up like an infant, wanted her to hold me and rock me and tell me it was going to be alright. But instead she gave me a squeeze and said, "Are you still sad?" "Not sad," I said. "Just..." I trailed off. Nikki disengaged and sat back. Her demeanor had changed completely. She gave me a terse smile and patted my thigh. "Well," she said, "today will be fun. Maybe you'll cheer up." And she opened her door and slid out of the truck. I jumped out my side and went around the hood. "Nikki? I didn't mean to make you sad, too."

Durham / Slip Away / 145 She gave me a smile with her mouth--not her eyes--and said, "I'm not sad. I'm sorry you don't feel good." She continued walking toward the house, her Keds crunching on the gravel. Great. I was alienating everybody. Then a notion trickled into my brain, and when I grasped it I felt like a fool. What a selfish, mean troglodyte I'd just been. I charged to head her off before she reached the door. "Nikki!" I shouted. "Wait!" She stopped on the porch and turned to look at me. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," I said as I approached. Her gaze softened. I grabbed her and squeezed her. "I was selfish," I whispered. "I've not been myself. I'm sorry. Last night was amazing and wonderful. It meant the world to me." At that, she hugged me back and laid her head on my shoulder. We stood like that for a minute. "Thank you," she whispered." Idiot. I was an idiot. But I'd saved myself, this time, and just in time, too--during our embrace, Buckley rolled up. Len and his mother came out. Everyone exchanged pleasantries. Len was wearing a goofier grin than usual, and stealing glances and Nikki's ass, the horny bastard. "Nikki!" said Mrs. Humphrey. "I didn't even know you were here. You're feeling brave enough to put your life in the hands of the boys?" "These guys?" said Nikki with her trademark grin. "Do you think

they're feeling brave enough to handle me?"
"One of us is," Len breathed into my ear. I elbowed his gut. As Mrs. Humphrey wished us good tidings, we made for the vehicles. Buckley hopped out of his truck and approached. "I don't believe we've met," he said to Nikki. "I'm Charles Buckley."

Durham / Slip Away / 146 "Nikki Pierce," she said, and held out her hand. He took it, as a baron takes the offered hand of a queen. Their eye contact lasted a little too long for my taste. Finally, like a toddler jealous of his mommy, I said, "My girlfriend." "Easy, slugger," said Buckley, "we all know." Nikki giggled. Buckley continued, "You've made young Rory here a legend among the Badger High School students." "Oh?" she said. "Yeah," said Len, who was probably in pain from keeping his mouth shut for the past sixty seconds. "Famous for being out of his league." "My thoughts exactly," said Buckley, with less humor, still looking at my girl. Gracefully, she leaned into my side and said, "Well I feel the same way. You guys are flattering me! I'm blushing!" Buckley glanced at me. It was a disapproving look. Maybe I was imagining it, but he looked like someone deciding what to do with a rodent he'd just trapped in his basement. I didn't like it. We drove the short distance to the lake, Len riding with Buckley and, of course, Nikki and I in her truck. "Your friend Charles comes on strongly," she said as we cruised up through the forest. "Buckley, we call him. Yeah," I grumbled. "I guess he does." She gave me a bemused sideways look. "Are you jealous?" "No," I asserted instantly, because every male always denies being jealous. "Oh, Ro-ro," she said. "You can be jealous, it's OK--not that you have anything to be jealous about, though." "I'm not jealous," I insisted, lying. "Oh, oh-kay. You're too manly to be jealous."

Durham / Slip Away / 147 "It's not that," I squirmed, "I just...trust you, is all." She rolled her eyes. "A little jealousy is flattering," she ventured. "I'm sick to death with jealousy," I grinned. "I said a little." "Okay, okay, I was a little jealous." "Oh great," she said. "I finally give it up, and he turns out to be an over possessive psycho." "Hey!" I said, and playfully squeezed her thigh. We laughed and taunted each other all the way to the lake. "Who's first?" said Buckley. "Not me," I replied. I hated water skiing. We were out in the middle of the lake, basking in what might have been the last warm day of the year. There were a few other boats zipping about, and a kid doing tricks on a jet ski. The gentle breeze was pregnant with the moist smell of autumn, reminding the world that the time was coming to pack up the boats and gas up the snowmobiles. I stole a moment to glance over at the north end of the beach, forever a magical place in my life. Farther down the shore, my old trailer stood abandoned and forlorn, grass grown up around it. Perhaps the tale of its last owner drove away potential buyers. Or maybe nobody tried to sell it. I felt like the little spot on beach where my lips first met Nikki's and the eerie place where the trailer sat shadowed beneath gigantic maples and oaks and an old willow tree were polar opposites: pure light versus utter darkness, bliss versus pain, the taste of ice cream on a hot day versus a putrid mouthful of sour milk. Len took the plunge. He stripped off his shirt and shorts, strapped on a life vest, and hopped into the water. "Hey, it's warm," he said. Nikki and I sat in the back.

Durham / Slip Away / 148 "Of course," said Buckley. "It's not a deep lake. The ground will store the heat from the summer until we get a rash of cold days." "Oh, Charles is a scientist," joked Nikki. In a squeaky little girl voice, she said, "Why is the sky blue?" "Refraction." Buckley winked at her. "And please, call me Buckley. Only my more traditional teachers call me Charles." "Even your parents call you Buckley?" she asked him. "Yeah," he said. "It's a family tradition--my father's friends and associates call him Buckley, too." "Is this your parents' boat?" "No, it's mine" he blatantly bragged, and straightened his posture ever so slightly. Nikki intoned a little wow. I rolled my eyes. "I started saving--" "Hey," shouted Len, who was bobbing like a buoy with the tips of the skis in front of him. "Are you gonna pull me or do I have to paddle?" "Let me think about that," said Buckley. He fired the motor, and, blessedly, the conversation stopped. After Len's run, we rolled up to the shallows near the beach. Buckley turned to face me and Nikki. "You want a run?" he asked me. "I think I'll pass," I said. "Oh come on!" said Nikki. "I'm gonna do it and I've only water skied a few times." "I really don't like it," I said. "I'll go for a swim when we're done, but I-" "Let him have his way," Buckley cut me off. He glanced at me disapprovingly. Nikki looked at me. "I'll go, then maybe you can go if you want to." "We'll see," I said. Sopping wet, Len climbed into the boat and wrapped himself in a towel. "Skis are on the beach," he said. Nikki stood and removed her shirt

Durham / Slip Away / 149 and jeans, to reveal her curvaceous body in her blazing red, two-piece suit. When her back was to him, Len widened his eyes comically, looked at me and crammed the heel of his hand in his mouth. Buckley kept his eyes trained on my girlfriend. When she went to step over the side of the boat, he jumped to his feet and said, "May I give you a hand?" "No thanks," said Nikki and leapt gracefully into the shallow water. Len glanced at Buckley and then back at me, and he raised one eyebrow and sneered. He mouthed the word asshole. I nodded. Buckley was okay once. Suddenly, in the presence of a pretty girl, he was a prick. During Nikki's run, Len hunkered next to me and shouted in my ear over the din of the motor--and I think he was trying to ensure Buckley heard. He looked out the back of the boat. Nikki was standing still on the skis, not venturing any tricks or even taking a hand off the grip to wave. "Dude," Len shouted, "She's got a totally hot body!" "Yeah," I said. "I can't believe you nailed her! I'd give my left nut for a chick who looks like that to fondle the right one!" "She's something," I said. Now he raised his voice even more, easily loud enough for Buckley, who seemed be looking back over his shoulder significantly more often than he did while he was towing Len, to hear. "You must really care about her," he shouted. Taking the opportunity, and acting like I didn't think Buckley could hear, I replied, "Damn straight. I'd kick the shit out of anybody who'd mess with our relationship!" Buckley looked directly at me. He screwed up his face, as if confused by something. Then he glanced back at Nikki and his lips curled slowly into a smile.

Durham / Slip Away / 150

I suffered through the rest of the day, fighting off fits of jealousy while Buckley treated Len and me like the kids, and Nikki like his bride. I was grateful when the sun finally tucked itself behind the hills. Anticipating Buckley's end of the day strategy, I checked my wallet. I had just over fifty bucks. More than enough. As we rode to the boat launch, a chill infested the air, and Nikki and I huddled together. Len wrapped himself in wet towels and said something about how he needed a girlfriend. We helped Buckley haul the boat onto his trailer. The four of us stood in a little circle in the parking lot. "It was nice to meet you, Buckley," said Nikki politely. "Thanks for inviting us to ride in your boat." "Yeah," I said. "Thanks. Buddy." Ignoring my sour tone, Buckley said, "The night's still young. I have a fire pit in my back yard. Would you like to come over?" His eyes were on Nikki. "Well actually," I said, "I was going to take my girlfriend to a nice, quiet, romantic dinner." Nikki looked surprised. "Really?" she said. "Yeah," I said. "To celebr--I mean, as a special, well you know, it's sort of a special..." I blinked and nodded my head at her, and she flushed. "That sounds nice," she said, in one of her rare moments of fluster. "Well that's too bad," said Buckley. "But if you had plans...well, enjoy your dinner. We'll have to get together again. Soon." "Yeah. Soon," I said dryly. "Thanks," said Nikki, recovering. Len started to say something, but without even acknowledging him, Buckley hopped into his SUV and hauled his boat away.

Durham / Slip Away / 151 "Uh," said Len. "You think you two lovebirds would mind giving me a ride home before you go out?" I felt good. I felt like I'd handled a confrontational situation in a tactful and clever manner, without overheating. Besides, we really did have reason to celebrate: the busting of two cherries. We went to the Maple Grove Restaurant for dinner--an affordable place for a decent cloth napkin meal. On the way, Nikki said, "You surprised me." I replied, "Well, I felt like an ass about earlier, when you first got to Len's. I wanted to make it up to you." "Well that's gonna take more than hasty dinner plans, mister," she said, but she was grinning. I laid my hand on her thigh and said earnestly, and honestly, "Seriously, Nikki, last night was one of the most special moments in all my life." "Me too," she said, and lay her free hand on top of mine. I added, "Hell, it was the most special moment in my life." Dinner was wonderful, but we ran late and had to hurry home to make curfew. "You know," said Nikki as she pulled over next to Len's driveway, "we could be naughty and get home a little late." I had told her about my conversation with Mrs. Humphrey, and I referenced it. "I want to so badly," I replied, "but I can't let her down." Nikki said, "I understand." We kissed passionately. I came so close, so close to saying curfew be damned. So close. But I liked to think that I was a man of my word, and I couldn't bring myself to forsake Mrs. Humphrey's generosity.

Durham / Slip Away / 152 We kissed again and parted. As I walked up the driveway, it suddenly occurred to me that Nikki didn't say anything about calling her. This I told to Dr. Watson. We were only meeting once every two months now. I told him about the previous weekend, about the rage, about the sex, about the jealousy. "It's been a tumultuous time for you," he said. "You ain't kidding," I said. "Well, you've gone through some serious changes and experienced powerful stressors. How do you feel about how you've handled these situations?" "I, well, I think I did okay." Dr. Watson's office was wholly unremarkable. Old wooden paneling covered the walls two thirds of the way up from the floor; the rest was painted white. He had a brown leather couch, but I didn't lie on it. And that expensive clock. I sat and crossed my legs. "Tell me more about the anger you felt at...Morris. Is that his real name?" "It's Sam Morris, but everybody calls him Morris." "Well, how do you feel about that rage you experienced?" I thought for a few minutes. "It scared me." "You feel afraid of your anger?" asked De. Watson. "Not my anger. I was out of control. I didn't think about anything, I just acted. It was like I was watching the whole thing." "You felt detached?" "No, no. I felt all the emotions--the anger, the rage--but as far as the actions, screaming at Morris, assaulting my teammates--I didn't feel like I

Durham / Slip Away / 153 had any say in the matter. I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't in control. At all. I just acted." "Are you saying you weren't responsible for your actions?" asked the doctor. "No, of course I'm responsible. I'm not trying to shirk the need to take responsibility for, for, well anything. All I'm saying is that the things I did weren't things I thought about doing. I just did them." Dr. Watson said, "Well it sounds to me like you're an adolescent." "Well duh." "Your brain is changing, it's developing chemically," he explained. "The chemicals are acting differently than they did in your childhood. Adolescence is a time of change, and not just in your physical dimensions and your secondary sex characteristics. Strong emotions, powerful sexual urges, and even uninhibited rage are all normal signs of your mind's transformation into adulthood." "So you're saying I flew off the handle because I'm a teenager?" "Well, your manifestation of anger was a bit more powerful than most, but well within the bell curve." "So I'm not dangerous?" I asked. "Let me ask you this. Did you hurt anyone?" "Well, it hurts to get splattered by a paintball, but that's part of the game." "No, what I mean is, did you purposefully cause pain to anyone? Did you fire those paintballs with the sole purpose of hurting your friends?" "No," I said truthfully. "I was, well I was angry, but I didn't shoot anybody after I knew he was out." "Did you strike anyone, or lash out physically?" "No." "Did you get the urge to kill anyone?" "Oh god no!"

Durham / Slip Away / 154 "Well there's no doubt we should work on anger management, but I don't feel that it's necessary to remove you from society," smiled Dr. Watson. I felt better. He tweaked my Paxil dose a little, wrote a scrip, and I faced the long bike trip home. Unlike Buckley, I didn't have a vehicle of my own--or my parents. The team had the paintball field scheduled for practice on Wednesday afternoon. We had one more match coming up the following weekend against some guys representing a bar in Speculator. When I thought about the practice, I got heartburn. I wasn't sure how the team would react. I saw the guys in school, usually one at a time, and they didn't seem to hold my outburst against me. Meat, especially, was predictably laid back, and Dan was actually enthusiastic about discussing my unexpected charge. "I mean really," he said during a break in the algebra class we shared. "I've never seen anything like it. I was watching the boundary, and I heard some shots, right? And the way you do stuff I thought your team would attack from both sides at once, so I figured Meat could hold his side and I hunkered down, right? And then Meat called himself out, and by the time I turned around you were totally in my face! I shit a whole brick wall, man!" "I don't think it would work in competition," I said. "Yeah, but it was cool as hell, 'cept that you were in such a bad mood," he blathered. "But it was like an Arnold movie, right? You were unstoppable. Hey, have you seen Morris?" I had seen Morris. I had two classes with him. He completely ignored me, didn't even acknowledge my presence. But it was to his detriment, since most of the school did the same to him. He was isolated.

Durham / Slip Away / 155 By Wednesday, everything was pretty much back to normal. I was feeling alright with life, having studied with Nikki the prior two evenings. On Tuesday night, her parents went out to dinner, leaving us alone. That was the first time I had sex in a bed. I lasted a lot longer that time, and it seemed to me that Nikki took more pleasure in it than she did the first time. We didn't take any time to lay with each other afterward, though: we washed up and dressed and were decent just in time for her parents' return. I invited her to practice on Wednesday but she declined, citing a major history test on Thursday. So the guys, sans Morris, and I splattered each other for a few hours until we felt ready to take on a real team. We were all cogs in a stone cold killing machine. The match came and went (we beat the crap out of them, and I didn't get shot once), the leaves turned and fell, and by November a light dusting of snow covered the mountains and the forests. My relationship with Nikki grew more and more comfortable, and closer than ever. Even sex became less of a nervous novelty and more of a wonderful, giving experience shared between two young people who cared about each other. As our comfort grew, we gradually cut down on the number of days we spent together each week. We decided mutually, and without fear or jealousy, that a day or two apart out of seven would be a positive thing. Len made a crack that I was finally coming back to him. Amazingly, he went on his first real date in October--but it failed to transition into anything. After that, I regularly accused him of being gay. One Friday night in December, Nikki and I went to Gore Mountain to ski. I was new to the sport, having only skied a few times before--when I was young, my family could only rarely afford lift tickets or equipment rental. Even now, with the Northfield Paintball Club closed for the season, my employment was on hold; I had to rob my meager savings account for the lift

Durham / Slip Away / 156 tickets. Nikki paid for the rentals: she had a steady income stream in the form of an allowance from her father. We took to the trails together, speeding through the light snow and frigid air. I made a regular habit of wiping out, and once Nikki collapsed on top of me and we mashed mouths, oblivious to the folks skiing past. It was a great night. We joked and laughed, happy in each others' company, comfortable, familiar, yet not bored or rutted. During the ride home--I'd actually been able to mooch the minivan for an evening, so I was driving--we parked in what was becoming our special place in the quarry. We made love and lay huddled on one of the bench seats, which we'd covered with a blanket to hide evidence, wrapped in each other's arms, and the moon was bright on the snow outside. I gazed into her eyes. And gazed. And something happened within me, and my world exploded with a new joy. The next day, I said to Len, "We gotta go Christmas shopping." We drove to the mall outside of Glens Falls. I'd checked my bank account and my budget was distressingly tight, but I was too proud to ask Mrs. Humphrey for financial assistance. "What are we looking for?" asked Len as we strolled along the white tiled floor, peering into each store we passed, breathing the distant scent of fried junk from the food court. "I'm not sure. Something special, but that I can afford." "Special how?" said Len. "Special like mushy, like a teddy bear or some cutie froufrou thingie, or special as in--" "I'm gonna tell her I love her," I said. Len stopped. A guy behind us that we didn't know almost crashed into him. He looked at me, agape. "Are you serious?"

Durham / Slip Away / 157 "Yep," I assured my friend. "Something kinda hit me last night. It's more than just a high school puppy love thing, Len. I've fallen in love with her." "That's a big thing to say," he said. "Damn, dude, are you sure about this? This isn't because she stopped putting out and you want her to open up again..." "Our sex life is fabulous," I replied. "Listen to you, mister mature therapy guy," he chided. "Your 'sex life.' Sounds like you're married." Just for his reaction, I said, "Maybe someday." "Now cut that out!" declared Len. We started walking again. He shook his head thoughtfully. "Rory's going for the big L. I guess you'd better get her something special. What's your price cap?" "Thirty five dollars." Len laughed out loud. "Okay, we can rule out the jewelry stores, and the department stores...hell, why don't we go to Hallmark so you can get her a nice card?" "I know it's not a lot, but I was hoping to get some kind of jewelry. I've got to be creative." "You've got to be thrifty. As in, steal something," said Len. I thought for a minute. "Maybe I can get a job and save up a couple paychecks between now and Christmas. Everybody's hiring seasonal help." "That might be your only chance," replied Len. "Who's hiring in Badger?" "Well, you won't want to hear this, but the Deer Mountain Inn has a big sign up for wait staff." "I couldn't do it," I said. "Yeah, I figured," he said. "Um, what about, uh...what the hell else is open after school in Little Badger?"

Durham / Slip Away / 158 "I could always work here," I said. Most of the mall stores had help wanted signs in their entrance-ways. "How would you get here? We've only got one car. You'll probably have to be to work at around five for evening shifts, and Mom works until after that." "Crap," I said. "Well, I've got another two hundred fifty in the bank, but I gotta make it last until Northfield opens in March or April." Our wanderings had led us to Merci, one of the mall's several jewelry shops. "Let's talk to the lady in here," I said. The middle aged saleslady, trying desperately to be polite and encouraging, did her best with my budget. She suggested a pair of earrings. I was leaning more toward a gold necklace or bracelet. They seemed more intimate than earrings. Anybody can buy anybody earrings, but usually only family or loved ones get each other necklaces or especially bracelets. A ring was out of the question, but I secretly hoped that someday it wouldn't be. The lady showed me a gossamer strand of a bracelet, so thin and light that it looked like a good breeze could snap it. "This," she told me, "is forty." "Do you have something...wider?" "Did you have a style in mind?" "Huh?" She educated me on different kinds of chains, and herringbone, and rope, and so on. I didn't like the idea of chains--they symbolized control and force. Rope looked cheesy. I liked the herringbone, but the most inexpensive bracelet they had was eighty five bucks, and it wasn't much thicker than the one she'd shown me earlier. The next thickness up was over a hundred. "I...I have to think about it," I said. She replied, "You can always go with silver."

Durham / Slip Away / 159 At one point, Len, who was browsing the ring section, cracked, "How do poor people get engaged?" Nikki meant a lot to me, and I decided that I could always wrangle the logistics of finding employment later. We walked to the ATM. On the way back to the jewelry store, I veered toward a pretzel shop. While waiting in line, I asked Len "Want anything?" "Nah." "Come on. I'm rich!" "That's all your money," he said. "So what? What's the cost of a pretzel? My treat. What do you want to drink?" "Rory, don't--okay, lemonade." Pretzels and lemonades in hand, we waded through the thickening weekend crowd to Merci. I bought an 18 carat gold herringbone bracelet for two hundred dollars. Len made a half-assed attempt to talk me out of it, but I was determined. As we completed our transaction, I set my empty lemonade cup on the glass counter. "Will you dispose of this for me?" I asked. The lady gave me a funny look, but agreed politely. "You're crazy," said Len. "My girl will love it," I replied. That was all. As Thanksgiving approached, I worried about when to give Nikki the bracelet. I wanted it to coincide with the moment I uttered the three little words. Thus, I decided it wasn't right to make it a Christmas present: the two occasions should be kept distinct. Plus, I loved her right then. I wanted to tell her soon. I wanted to tell her that day. I decided to wait until Thanksgiving break; her parents were

Durham / Slip Away / 160 leaving Friday after Thanksgiving, and we were trying to figure out a way for me to spend the night without going AWOL on Mrs. Humphrey. But my budget was tapped. I didn't have much more than a hundred bucks to my name, and until I figured out the job situation I wouldn't be getting more. I wanted to get Len and Mrs. Humphrey token Christmas gifts, but I had to get something for my love, too. "Len," I said one night in the dark when we were in our beds, "Where can I be going next Saturday night that your mom won't miss me?" "I've been thinking about that," he replied. "Don't you have any aunts or uncles you can visit?" "I may have one uncle somewhere, I think. I don't have anybody to ask." "Well...Mom's pretty cool. What if you lay it out straight?" He couldn't see me rolling my eyes. "'Mrs. Humphrey, I'd like to stay out all night Saturday to sack up with my girlfriend even though we're both under 18 and our sex life is technically illegal.' Yeah, that might work Len." "Well when you put it like that..." "I wish it were summer. We could go camping, a whole bunch of us. She'd be cool with that." "Keep on wishing, Blitzkrieg." "Don't people camp in the winter?" "Only crazy people." "Are we old enough to get a room at a ski resort?" I asked. "What good would that do?" "Well, if you went out too, we could say we're both going, and you could stay there." "That's an expensive night of lovin' for a guy with no money." I sighed. He had me there. "Well, I could put you up at Motel 6 in Glens Falls..."

Durham / Slip Away / 161 "Why the hell would I want to spend the night alone in a Motel 6? And what if Mom tried to call the, you know, ski resort?" I paused. "Damn." Thanksgiving was torture. About a dozen of Len's aunts, uncles, cousins and grandmas and stuff showed up. They all knew my story but didn't see me often enough to become familiar, so they pretty much all treated me with cautious pity. I spent the day wanting to disappear. Come Saturday, I still didn't have a solution for my night out so I went with the old standby: I sneaked out the window after Mrs. Humphrey went to bed. Leaving a set of obvious tracks in the powdery snow, I hoofed it out to the road and hiked about a hundred yards away from Len's driveway, should his mother for some reason look out. There, I shivered and waited for Nikki to pick me up. The bracelet was in my pocket. Len would cover for me. Our story was that Nikki and I planned to go on an early morning sunrise hike. Still, I felt guilty breaking her trust. But I pushed guilt aside. This was going to be a night I'd never forget. Nikki arrived after about ten minutes. I'd been jogging in place to keep from freezing to death. When I climbed into the truck, she gave me a more passionate hello kiss than usual. "Well good evening!" I said. "Hey," was all she said back. She seemed distracted. I sat in silence for a minute. "Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked. "You know we don't have to..." We still hadn't pulled away from the side of the road. She leaned over and hugged me close. Then she kissed me again. When she pulled back, her face was somber. "What's the matter, Nikki?" I asked. "Are you okay, Baby?"

Durham / Slip Away / 162 She nodded. It looked like she was going to cry. "What is it?" I slid over to hold her. But she pushed me back. "Rory," she said, and swallowed hard. "Nikki," I answered, totally uncertain of everything. She closed her eyes and took a really deep breath. Finally, staring straight ahead over her steering wheel, she said, "I don't think we should do this anymore." The silvery taste of fear coated my tongue. My fingertips went numb and my feet ran cold. Through a dry mouth, I said, "Do what? What are we doing?" "I...I'm in my senior year. Next year, I'll be going off to college. I...it'll be easier if we're not so...close." She finally turned her head to make eye contact with me, but dropped her gaze immediately. "What?" My mind froze the moment with disbelief. "What are you saying?" "Ro-ro--Rory. Rory. I'd like to break up." My heart was skipping beats, my palms were sweating. I couldn't fathom what she was saying. My voice trembling, I repeated, "You want to, break--" The words faltered, and then evaporated from my tongue. I sat, suddenly cold, and stared at her. She raised her gaze and finally kept eye contact with me. "Why?" I managed, barely a whisper. "I just, it's too much, too fast...I need time to just be me." She touched my arm. It felt like a stab inflicted with an icy sword. "Rory, you're a great, great person. I mean it. It's me, it's not you." I sat, stricken dumb. I felt the box in my right coat pocket. The irony hit me like a plank. My eyes closed slowly, squeezing out tears. My voice was but a faint croak. "You...can't...why are you..." "It's me," she repeated. "I just need some time to...be me."

Durham / Slip Away / 163 "But," I said, finding my voice suddenly. "But tonight...it's supposed to be...our night...why tonight?" "Rory, I'm sorry." The sky was dark. The moon was covered over by clouds. A gentle snow was falling. These thoughts, these observances, suddenly burst like fireworks into my shattered mind. My hand was unconsciously clenching the handhold on the door. My legs felt weak, like they feel when I get a really bad flu. I realized I was shaking. "I really should go home," she said. "What?" Suddenly I was outraged. "Can't we talk about this? Jesus Christ, you want to dump me and you won't even talk about it?" "Please don't raise your voice," she said. "There's nothing to talk about, Rory. I just want to be by myself for a while." "Well shit!" I shouted. "Well that's just fucking great. Great! Happy fucking Thanksgiving!" She closed her eyes, clamped her mouth. Tightly, she said, "I really should be going now." "Well you'd better be fucking sure about this!" I erupted. "Goddamn it, if you drive away don't expect me to crawl after you!" I flung open the car door, as if I were threatening to leave. "Please don't do anything rash, Rory," she said quietly. "I'm worried about you." That struck me as insane. "You're worried about me? You're fucking dumping me and leaving me on the side of the fucking road and you're

worried about me?"
"I care about you," she said. "You're a great person and you'll always be part of my life. I love you--but I'm just not in love with you anymore." "You love me," I repeated. "How fucking ironic." I raised my hands, threw back my head and roared with mock laughter. I reached into my pocket

Durham / Slip Away / 164 and whipped out the box and tossed it at her. She flinched. "There. There you go, for our special night! That's just what I was gonna say to you tonight. 'I love you.' Well fuck that!" "Take this back," she said and held it out to me. I slapped it away. "No, it's for you! I don't want it. It's yours, with love. With the love I once had for you!" "Then return it to the store! You need the money." I stepped out of the truck and slammed the door, and stood with my back to her. Then, I spun and yelled, "If you don't want it, shove it up your fucking fat ass!" At that, she slammed the truck into drive. When I realized she was leaving, I leapt into bargaining mode. "No wait, I'm sorry! Wait! Nikki, we can work this out!" She started to pull away. "Here," she shouted, and as I watched she rolled her window down a few inches and slipped the bracelet box out. It fell onto the packed snow on the street with a dull thump. "Wait," I yelled, but she accelerated gradually. "Oh, god Nikki!" The tears came, and I fell to my knees. "Nikki, don't leave me! Come back!" Her taillights grew distant, and disappeared around a bend in the road. I sat alone, in the middle of the street, and sobbed. I didn't want to go home, back to Len's house and face him. I wanted to tear the woods down with my bare hands. I wanted to burst into flames and plow through the town, leaving smoldering ruins behind me. I wanted to be a giant and destroy all upon which I walked, crushing houses and cars and trees. I felt like I had the strength to lift a car, to toss a boulder, to wave my hands and create a hurricane. The rage poured in. I was an animal. I crouched and sprang ferociously into the woods and sprinted over brush and fallen trees, through branches and tiny snow drifts. I ran and ran.

Durham / Slip Away / 165

I had an energy reserve that I didn't know was possible. I was still in shape, despite winter's lack of paintball wars, from which I got my only exercise. Yet I tore through the forest at a sprint, and I wasn't getting tired. At some point I'd picked up a big stick, about four feet long and an inch or so thick, and I was hewing at trees and branches as I flashed past. My feet danced over the underbrush and fallen trees with the grace of a comic book hero. I dodged trees expertly. I leapt with perfect timing over low branches. I was grunting and shouting, too. With each blow of my stick, I'd "Hiyaa" like a deranged karate champ, "FUCK you!" I burst through the edge of the woods onto a road, and tore along it, streaking through the night like a mad cheetah. I threw my stick aside and tore off my coat, which was becoming moist with my sweat, and I hurled it into the air without a care of losing it possibly forever. The bitterly cold air didn't faze me, the cruel breeze against my face as I sprinted down the street was inconsequential. I darted past a row of houses, and when they were long behind me I tore back into the forest. Crashing through the underbrush, I was Tarzan, I was a powerful savage warrior without fear or ties to anything or anyone. I blasted out of the far side of the woods on the edge of Fifteenth Lake. There, I skidded to a halt. My heart was racing, I was breathing too fast, the frigid air bit my lungs. I stooped with my hands on my knees, panting, and without warning I vomited between my feet. I straightened up and wiped my mouth, still out of breath. I looked around through the red haze of rage that clouded my vision. I must have been running for a long time. I must have had a subconscious urge to go where I'd ended up. I was only a few minutes away from Nikki's house.

Durham / Slip Away / 166 And then I was walking, but hurriedly, and low to the ground. I could feel the cold through my sweatshirt, but it didn't bother me. All over again I was a ninja, moving through the night with the stealth of a ghost. Left down this street, right on that one. I stuck to the shadows, avoiding the rare streetlights, and always stayed on the balls of my feet. I tried to breath silently, to make no sound at all, to be darkness. It helped that by coincidence, I'd worn a dark blue sweatshirt and jeans. The cloudy sky helped me too; a bright moon would have lit up the snow and made it impossible to hide. I was approaching Nikki's house. I glanced around and darted into the deepest shadow I could find, and then I flashed through a couple of yards and into the yard across the street from hers. I moved as far from the house as I could, staying near the hedged perimeter in case the house had lights activated by motion detectors, like the paranoid Mrs. Leeds from my childhood. At last, I peered through the tree line, across the street, at the big tract yuppie house Nikki called home. Her truck was in the driveway. So was Buckley's SUV. Even the rage was gone. The red filter disappeared from my vision. My whole world was sorrow. I walked home. The cold finally penetrated my sweat soaked clothes and I shivered uncontrollably. Maybe I would succumb to the effects of hypothermia and die right there in the street. I trudged along, tears pouring from my eyes. Not since my mother had taken her own life had I felt so betrayed. My heart was broken so badly I felt physical pain through all of my muscles and joints. My chest felt crushed. It was a different and distinct feeling compared to the physical exhaustion I was experiencing.

Durham / Slip Away / 167 I just wanted to be buried under a hill of snow and left to die, to rot, to be eaten by hungry fauna. I wanted the world to end. I walked along, and then I spotted a big rock on the side of the road. I went over and sat on it. If I stopped moving, maybe hypothermia would claim me. Maybe I would just die. It could have been the medicine, or just that the suicide gene wasn't as strong in me as it was in my parents, but something made me get up and keep walking. I happened upon my coat as I trudged slowly homeward, and I actually welcomed it and put it on. It had become frozen and offered little resistance from the cold at first, but my body heat warmed it up and soon the icy Adirondack night wasn't as bad. That was my outside. Inside, I was a desert. All I felt was remorse and betrayal. I stayed out of the woods for the walk home, so my route wasn't as direct. And I walked slowly, as one might walk in a funeral march. By the time I strode down the mountain road the Humphrey house was on, dawn was showing in the eastern sky. And by the time I reached the driveway, the sun was thinking about peering over the hills. There was a strange car in the driveway, a little red compact pickup truck. Lights were on inside. I walked in the front door, not caring what Mrs. Humphrey might say about my nightlong foray. She heard me enter, and came over to see meet me. "Good heavens, Rory, you look awful. Have you slept?" She asked. I shook my head. I started to move past her to hole up in Len's room, where I would stay forever and ever and never again see the sunlight. She braced my arms. "Rory, there's..." she started to say, but then a haunting voice boomed from the kitchen. "Is that him?"

Durham / Slip Away / 168 A tall form emerged from around the corner, into the entrance way. A horrific grin greeted me. The bombastic voice cried, "Hey, Roar! I'm back!"

Durham / Slip Away / 169

Chapter Fourteen
I woke up, sat up screaming, "Oh, god why did she do this to me?" Then I flopped back down and waited for the dream to vanish in the mists of my mind. Len, startled awake, said: "Dreaming about Nikki?" "No," I said truthfully. "My mom." I looked at the glowing LED's of my clock radio. They said 3:43

Durham / Slip Away / 170 I was confused. I didn't know if it was day or night. My whole body was aching, and my fingertips and toes hurt like dozens of needles were being driven into them. My last moments with Nikki flashed in my head, and then the image of the SUV in her driveway. A feeling reminiscent of nausea welled deep in my gut. I rolled onto my side, curled like a baby, and thought about my mother, and let the depression drag me down. And then, a booming voice. "Hey bro! Damn, man, you been asleep for twenty two hours. Get up!" I felt desolate, but very well rested. Then I was sitting in Len's kitchen. Len, Mrs. Humphrey, and Rudy were there. There was coffee and milk and a box of little chocolate covered donuts. My fingers were bright red and ultra sensitive. I had to touch everything gently, even the donuts, because too much pressure sent bolts of pain through them. I didn't want to talk, or to be there at all. I didn't know what day it was. Apparently, it was either a weekend or a holiday because Mrs. Humphrey didn't show any sign of going to work or prodding us to school. Conversation was tepid and overly polite.

Where are you staying, Rudy? The Browning Motel, ha ha, it's not true what they say about charging by the hour! So the Army wasn't your thing? Nah, too many rules. I finally told them to stuff their shit and it got me a dishonorable discharge.

Durham / Slip Away / 171 Finally, Mrs. Humphrey bit the bullet. "Well, Rory appears to have had an interesting weekend. Is there anything on your mind, Rory?" They looked at me expectantly. I seethed with unexpected hatred toward them all.

My mother's nightgown had a dark circle about the crotch region. Apparently, her bladder let go sometime after she pulled the trigger. All the times she'd been passed out, I'd never seen her wet herself.
"I don't want to talk about it," I said and got up and trundled back to Len's room. They muttered to each other. The visitations came, Len first. "Hey, look, you gotta tell someone what happened." "No I don't." "Rory, this is weird. I thought you'd be in a better mood after an all nighter with Nikki." "You'd think." "Look," he said, and lowered his voice. "I know you're not crazy about your brother--no pun intended--but don't you at least care that he's back?" "More than you know." "Are you gonna tell me what's up, or not?" I didn't answer. I was sitting on the edge of the bed. My toes were tingling with shooting pains, as if they were asleep. My leg muscles were throbbing. "I need some aspirin," I said. I meant it. "Come on, Rory. Did something happen between you and Nikki?" I stood up and slumped off to the bath room. As I passed him in the doorway, I said bitterly, "You could say that."

Durham / Slip Away / 172 I took four aspirin. Then I examined my toes. They were angry red like my fingers, but with white spots on them. My forehead itched, but applying enough pressure to scratch it was torture on my fingers. Suddenly, I realized my bladder was about to burst. I hadn't peed in forever. When I unzipped my pants and removed my penis, I thought of Nikki--the only girl who'd ever touched it. As I stood there peeing, I could barely feel it: The sense of utter rejection seemed to rob my member of any sensation at all. Then, as I zipped, the door shook with a thunderous knock. "Hey, bro, you comin' out?" I didn't answer. I flushed and washed my hands, and when I opened the door, the doorway was filled with Rudy. His chest had gotten much bigger since he joined the army. "I don't want to talk right now, Rudy." "Shit, Roar, it's been three years and, and a few months or something, and you don't want to talk? I know I'm an asshole but we're still brothers!" He wrapped a meaty arm around me and squeezed me. "Bad timing," I said. "Your buddy there thinks your girlfriend dumped you. Is that what's up?" I clenched my teeth. I didn't have to answer him. My loving brother laughed at me. "Is that all? Shit, roll with it, man! Get drunk, get a rebound bitch and be on your way!" I rolled my eyes. Then he said, "You gonna come home?" "What?" Rudy laughed. "I bought our house back! It's ours, man! I just gotta sign some shit and we can move back in!"

Durham / Slip Away / 173 One more horrible surprise would have killed me. Thankfully, that was it--for a little while. The thought of living in the trailer again crashed my network: Once again, my emotions completely turned off. Dazed, I wandered back out into the kitchen. Mrs. Humphrey and Len were sitting there. She rose when she saw me and put her arm around me. "Lenny says there's trouble with Nikki?" I nodded. She said, "Oh dear, I'm so, so sorry." I shrugged. "There's nothing worse than your first breakup. Nothing." I ate a few little donuts. They had no more taste than saliva. Mrs. Humphrey sat back down. She and Len stared at me. She said, "Rory, honey, are you with us?" I nodded. "Do you want to talk to Dr. Watson?" I shook my head. She sat for a moment in troubled silence. Then, the startlingly loud sound of Rudy peeing began emanating from the bathroom. He hadn't closed the door. He punctuated it with a joyful, "Whew!" Mrs. Humphrey blinked a couple times. Len tried to contain himself but couldn't: He covered his mouth with his hand and muffled laughs racked his body. He apologized once or twice. I just sat and stared. I remembered my medication. When Rudy finally emerged triumphantly from the bathroom, I went back in. Rudy jostled me. "Did you forget to wipe?" he asked. I opened the medicine cabinet and, tenderly for my fingers' sake, took out my bottle of Paxil.

Durham / Slip Away / 174 I didn't open it. I stared at it. I shook it. I looked at myself in the mirror. I saw a thin, pale, mop headed boy with the drawn, empty gaze of a much older man. Already, wrinkles were etching their way into the skin around my eyes. I was sixteen years old with crow's feet. The person in the mirror looked like a stranger. I felt like I was making eye contact, as a little boy, with an empty man in a bus station. I looked again at my Paxil. Suddenly, I was filled with bitterness that, at age sixteen, I was bound to medication to keep my mind at ease. I thought of my peers in school, carelessly enjoying their teenage lives, laughing, playing, giving a crap about the outcomes of football games, their biggest worries being who to ask to the prom. How many of them took pills to feel normal? How many of them sat in therapy regularly, where a state fund paid a stranger to listen to their foibles? I opened my Paxil, and dumped it into the toilet. The pills floated. Then I flushed. I watched them go. I licked my lips. With a sudden burst of glee, freedom, I threw my head back and laughed at the ceiling.

Durham / Slip Away / 175

Chapter Fifteen

"People are born with money. People ain't. People are born under circumstances that'll guarantee them money for the rest of their lives. People ain't. But the piss of it is, the ones who don't have fucking trust funds and college funds and all that shit, they don't have a way to work up to the ones that do. They'll be living like trash for all their lives. That's it, man, that's it.

Durham / Slip Away / 176 "Look at us. What did dad leave us? A shitload of debt. And mom? Nothing but the food in the fridge. You'd have been homeless if you were over 18. "The army. They shave your head, give you all the same clothes. Supposed to be treated equally, right? That's bullshit. The people who come in out of college, people who grew up with money, they're bossing you around from day one. Before you even get out of basic. "It's all about money. You got money, you got clout, people listen to ya, people give a fuck about ya. You're broke, well then you're no one. You're lower than dirt. "How many poor people do you think say shit like, 'Do you know who my father is?'"

I read somewhere that hair grows rapidly just after death. I don't know. My mother's stiff legs were covered with black hair. Maybe she'd stopped shaving her legs. Maybe she was that depressed. But I like to think that at the very least, she took care of her hygiene until she died.
My depression was all encompassing. My brother's propaganda floated wantonly through my head, but if my mind was able to grasp the meaning it definitely wasn't happening on a conscious level. I wandered in a cloud of rejection. I didn't talk to anyone unless I had to. There was nothing to say. Even if you've never felt severe clinical depression, it's laughably simple to imagine: Nothing matters. Your job? It doesn't matter. School? Grades? Who cares? Friendships? Not worth the effort.

Durham / Slip Away / 177 Getting out of bed? Purely optional. Keeping appointments with your shrink? Why bother? Pills? Notice I didn't dignify that one with a response. Depression is embracing nothingness, desiring complete lack of stimulation, the longing for oblivion. For peace. Time crawled by. A morning came. Len tried to wake me up. I told him to go away. "Come on, we've got to go to school." "You go." "Get up, Romeo. There are other apples in the orchard." I got up. I wasn't sure when I put on the clothes I was wearing. They would do. I wandered toward the front door. Len cut me off. "Aren't you gonna shower?" "No." He stood there for a minute, and said slowly, "Okay." Then he added, "Well, at least brush your teeth." There seemed to be logic in that. I complied. Len, full of wisdom, also suggested that I put on my coat because it was ten degrees out. I wouldn't have thought of it. But even as I walked toward the closet, it seemed futile. My motivation was gone. But I put on my coat, and we went to our tiny little school. Our graduating class of 36 students was down by six due to illness. I slept through homeroom. I was late for first period because I stood in front of my locker and stared into it for about five minutes. I skipped gym.

Durham / Slip Away / 178 I also skipped lunch--at least, the eating part. Nothing had tasted good in days. In fact, the last time I felt anything at all was the crazed joy of dumping my pills. At Little Badger School, even though it's so small, it's rare for students of different grades to share classes. In fact, most of the students in any class had pretty much the same schedule. But the whole of high school has lunch at the same time, and that's where juniors, sophomores, freshmen and seniors can fraternize with each other. That's where I saw Buckley. The rage I felt caught me by surprise. We were in the cafeteria, walking toward one another from opposite directions. He was carrying a lunch tray and chatting with a pair of male friends. We made eye contact, but didn't acknowledge me. That's what set me off. As we passed each other, I swung for his chin. He flew backwards and his lunch tray crashed to the floor. The cafeteria erupted in laughter and applause until someone shouted fight. Then the laughs changed to shouts as the body of students rose to their feet, craning their necks to get a glimpse of the action. Buckley sat dazed, stroking his chin. Two of his friends closed on me quickly, grabbing me from either side to pull me back, as if I was about to charge Buckley in a rage like Rudy once had A.J. so many years ago. Instead, I didn't resist, and when their guard dropped I elbowed one in the nose and the other in the ribs. Then I did charge Buckley, who was just coming to the realization of what was happening. I kicked his ribs before he could stand up, and dropped my knee upon his chest.

Durham / Slip Away / 179 I was shouting something about how I thought he was my friend, how he stabbed me in the back. I reached down with my left hand and pulled his collar up, so that his head hovered over the cafeteria floor, and then I pounded his face with my right fist. His head bounced up and down, blood flying from his nose and lips. The roars became hushed, and a girl somewhere screamed. Then boys and men were upon me, tearing me away, and as soon as Buckley was out of reach I fell limp. The rage was gone. Once again, nothing mattered. I ignored the horrified and accusatory stares. One of Buckley's buddies was kneeling over him, yelling something venomous at me. A female teacher crouched over Buckley with a pile of towels. Buckley's eyes were rolling and he was muttering incoherently. I was being dragged away by a pair of faculty. Ironically, one turned out to be the gym teacher whose class I'd skipped. The other was the vice principal. Len was following me, asking them questions. They were ignoring him. Then I was in a chair in the principal's office. Mrs. Ruth, the principal, and Mr. Berkeley, the vice principal, were demanding answers to questions and blurting things about Buckley going to the hospital, about what if his parents press charges. I stared through them. They were specters. As it turned out, Buckley was fine; his nose and mouth were beaten bloody and I rung his bell pretty good, but nothing was broken. He never even lost consciousness. Mr. Berkeley called Nathan Clawson to come in and babble warnings at me. He said that I could be arrested and go to jail for assault and battery. School fights were no laughing matter.

Durham / Slip Away / 180 But after the threats and warnings, he hunkered in close. "This isn't like you," he said. "Is everything alright, buddy?" We were pseudo-enemies on the paintball field, but it was a friendly rivalry and he knew me well from the sport. I met his gaze. "I..." I said. "I, it's been, I've been..." And tears started to fill my eyes. I looked away. Nathan put his hand on my shoulder. "Tell you what. You make an appointment with your therapist, okay? It's no secret around this town that you've been through a lifetime of hell. I'll take care of things with the Buckleys, but I want you to stay out of school until you see your doc, okay?" His kindness, genuine, made it harder to choke back my tears. I only nodded and swallowed. "But don't get me wrong. We can take care of it this time. But I don't know what's up between you and Charles Buckley, and I don't care; I don't want you going near him again. None of the bull your brother pulled, hear me? Any more of this kind of stuff and you'll end up in front of a judge." After he left, I was alone in the principal's office for a few minutes. I cried uncontrollably. I found a little box of tissues on Mrs. Ruth's desk and went through half a dozen before I regained my composure. I wanted to be in Dr. Watson's office. No I didn't. I wanted to be in my mother's arms. I walked home to Len's house. With each stride, my emotions subsided. My mood swung from desperate to desolate, and once again I felt nothing. I trudged along the slushy sidewalks to the outskirts of town, wandered down the mountain roads. When I got to Len's house, I wandered into the bedroom, sat on the bed and stared.

Durham / Slip Away / 181 It was just after two in the afternoon. My right hand hurt from where it met Buckley's chin and nose. Once I'd hit the bastard in the mouth and a tooth penetrated my skin, and I had a jagged cut on my middle knuckle. My frostbite hurt more than ever without the earlier adrenaline to make the pain vanish. As I sat there and pondered the events of the day, the weird thing was, I didn't feel jealous. I didn't feel anything at all concerning Nikki. She just wasn't there. And as I let my mind wander, I realized I didn't feel anything about my brother, either. We'd hung out for a little while somewhere, where he spouted his theories about the Haves and the Have-nots, but I turned down his offer to move in to the old house. My thoughts were interrupted. I heard Mrs. Humphrey's distinctive, high-heeled footsteps march purposefully into the house. After a trip to the closet and a stop in the bathroom, she found me in the bedroom. I was still sitting on the edge of "my" bed, staring straight across the room. She walked in and sighed, and sat on the edge of Len's bed facing me. We sat quietly for a few minutes. Finally, she said, "Is there anything you want to tell me?" I stared. "You got a phone call?" "Yes. From Nate Clawson." "Then I assume you know what happened." She rolled her neck, frowning. "I know his version. I'd like to hear yours." I really didn't want to do this. I wanted her to go away and leave me alone to my thoughts, to my oblivion. "I just lost it. I don't really know what happened," I said. She replied, "I guess so. Charles Buckley's parents were pretty upset."

Durham / Slip Away / 182 Of course they were. "Yeah. But I heard he's okay." "That's not the point," she snapped. "The point is, from all accounts, you could have hurt him very badly." "Yeah," I said. What else could I say? "I thought you were friends with Charles," she said. I said: "I was his friend, he wasn't mine." She opened her mouth to talk, and I added, "But that's not it. I don't know why I did what I did. It was wrong. I know that. I just, I don't know." "Did he do something to you?" she asked. I pondered. I didn't feel like discussing details. "He betrayed my friendship," I replied. "By..." she prompted. "It doesn't matter," I said. She sighed. "I can't make you talk to me," she said. "But you'll have to talk to Dr. Watson." "I know." "Do you have an appointment?" "Friday." "So you get the week off." "For the best, I guess." "I want you to call him today," she said sternly. Her tone startled me. It was the tone of a disciplinarian--a tone I hadn't heard since my mother blew her head off. "I'm going in Friday," I replied, annoyed. "I'll talk to him then." "You're going to call him today," she said evenly. She waited for me to take a breath and start to speak a protest, and then she cut me off. "Rory, I am responsible for what you do. By taking you into my house, I've taken the responsibility of your discipline." She paused, and said more gently, "And honestly, considering all you've been through, I'm not sure how to go about it."

Durham / Slip Away / 183 Then she sighed and looked down, dropped her elbows to her knees. Her usually perky face looked dismayed. That moment hung in the air for ages. For a split second, I felt immense regret--suddenly aware from her demeanor that my actions affected her more deeply than I'd originally believed. I had no desire to hurt this innocent lady who'd so valiantly intervened when my life had been shattered, like a glass pane beneath my heavy feet. The thought was reproachable. My stomach knotted with guilt. Looking at her, her pristine face staring at the floor, I wanted to lash out at myself for causing her dismay. I felt my emotions coming back, then. All of them, descending upon me like a hoard of angry ghosts, shadows of an undead soul returning to their master. The choking sorrow of Nikki's sudden departure from my life. The wild foreboding of my brother's return. Guilt, sudden and piercing, over demolishing Buckley. Guilt, at Mrs. Humphrey's pain. Guilt, for flushing my pills, giving up on myself when others cared for me. Crushing, crushing despair over the loss of my mother. Disturbing images flashed through my mind, bitter emotions assailed my brain. I was not, and never would be, the normal kid I wanted to be. I was a dying warlord, gravely wounded from battles of old, suddenly being called to duty. I was a tired doctor, thirty hours on shift, asked to perform another surgery. I was a frightened boy, faced with a decision, to reclaim my psyche at the expense of terrible pain---or to let it all go.

Durham / Slip Away / 184 Rudy said: "I said that once. 'You know who my father is?' In a restaurant. Couldn't get a seat. The fucking maître d' was ignoring us. He knew we didn't have much money. Fucker could smell it. We were dressed our best, but we had to save to eat there. We were surrounded by people who don't think nothing of five hundred dollar meals. Roar, you know I'm a damn good liar. But he didn't even ask. He just said somethin' like, 'Sir, I'm sure your father has no more influence than you do.'" "And the rich people around us looked and covered their mouths, didn't even have the decency to laugh for real before they looked away. Like they couldn't bear to look at the poor people for more than a second. "You know, when churches and charities want to build homeless shelters, people who live near the proposed sites fight to get them to build somewhere else. Feeding poor people lowers property values. "But you know what, Roar? When a shelter gets built, there's more poor people in those neighborhoods than rich ones. They could rise up, man. Rise up and take over, one neighborhood at a time. "One goddamn rich house at a time. "I'm going to the fridge. You want anything?" I sat in the old recliner, in the old living room, in my old trailer. "Get me a beer," I said. I grabbed his pack of Winstons and lit one up. "One more beer and one more smoke, and I'm going to bed."

Durham / Slip Away / 185

Chapter Sixteen
Sure, it was weird. All the furniture was where it used to be. The kitchen was a disgusting mess. A thick layer of dust covered everything in my old room like winter's first snow. I lied to myself as I approached the door. I told myself that I didn't feel anything anymore. There were no emotions, none at all. But my body quaked with squeamish panic as I marched through snow on the overgrown front lawn, a single, heavily stuffed duffel bag over my shoulder.

Durham / Slip Away / 186 The closer I got to the front door, the harder my heart beat. Tears started to fill my eyes. A high level front of morbid anticipation mixed with a rapidly developing depressed association system, causing severe storms in my brain. My body quaked harder with each step toward the door. And then suddenly it swung open, and there stood Rudy with a big stupid grin, beer in hand. "You coming home, bro?" he shouted. As I passed the threshold, feeling ready to throw up at any second, he wrapped his free arm around me in a rough hug. "Yeah," I muttered. "I'm home." I stood there, two steps inside the house, leaning against the weight of my duffel bag, and looked around. Wave after wave of nostalgic memories crashed over me. I couldn't take a step without a startling feeling of remembrance: Every piece of furniture, every picture hanging on the wall, many of which Rudy hadn't dusted, every trinket on the windowsills and end tables, they all tapped old paths in my brain, etched long ago and then forgotten. Rudy stepped back and gave me a few respectful moments of silence. I stepped slowly and heavily toward my room, looking in all directions. After a minute or two, Rudy said, "It's weird being back, bro, I know. I had the same kind of vibe." He whacked my shoulder. "It gets easier. Much easier if you have a couple of beers!" As I trod down the hallway, I said absently, "I'll have a beer." "Great!" boomed Rudy and tromped off toward the kitchen. I pushed my bedroom door open. There it was, exactly as I'd left it years ago when, aided by Paxil, Nathan and the cheerful Miss Farris, I hastily packed for my move to Len's house. My lean cache of toys was still piled in the closet. My bed was unmade, the sheets crumpled exactly where they landed when I got out of bed the morning my mother shot herself.

Durham / Slip Away / 187 It was a time capsule from before my life fell apart. Only the smell had changed: it was mildewed and thick with dust that tickled the back of my throat. I'd have to wash the sheets and vacuum and dust. I wondered if the vacuum cleaner was still in the hall closet, and if it still worked. I dropped my duffel bag. Its impact kicked up a huge haze of dust. Yes, I was home. I went back to the living room. Rudy handed me a cold Bud Light. "So the fridge still works," I said. "Yeah. Everything's in pretty good shape, unless you're hungry. There's not much food. I got some cans of stew and chili and some Pop Tarts,

real Pop Tarts, but that's about it. Oh, and there's bread, I think. And beer."
"I'm not hungry." "That's cool, you're probably kinda messed in the head comin back here, I know. I know the feeling." Rudy stood there awkwardly. He produced a pack of cigarettes and shook one out. Spontaneously, I held out my hand. He looked at it and raised one eyebrow. "What?" he asked, with his unlit cig hanging out of his mouth. "Give me a smoke," I said. "Oh! I thought you wanted me to hold your hand," he laughed. "Damn, bro, you're a smoker?" "Now I am," I said. Rudy gave me a wicked grin. "You never smoked before, have ya?" "How hard can it be to learn?" I mumbled. My hand still outstretched, I gestured with my fingers. Rudy slid another cigarette out of his pack and handed it to me. Then he flipped open a Zippo and lit his smoke, and held the flaming lighter up to my face. "Have at it," he said jovially.

Durham / Slip Away / 188 The cigarette was lighter than I'd imagined. I put the filter between my lips. It felt dry. The scent of unlit tobacco reminded me of freshly tilled soil. I leaned the tip into the flame. "Suck it in," coached Rudy, staring at my face with grinning anticipation. I complied. In a split second, my throat burned, my chest hurt and a wave of nausea racked my gut. My heart started racing and I felt my eyes glaze with tears. I had silently sworn to myself that I wouldn't cough, if only to stave off the scorning laughter of my goonish brother, but I couldn't help it. I tore the cigarette out of my mouth and coughed out a burst of smoke. Sure enough, as he snapped his lighter shut, Rudy guffawed. "How the hell do people do this?" I wheezed. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. Laughing harder, Rudy said: "It gets easier with practice." I looked with trepidation at my cigarette, and back at Rudy. He said, "Have a sip of beer in between drags. They go good together, and it'll make your throat feel better." I sipped my Bud Light and, cautiously, took a tiny puff off my cigarette. I held the smoke in my mouth. I gradually inhaled it. I fought the reflexive urge to cough. Instead, I blew the smoke out through my nostrils and gulped my beer. My mouth tasted terrible, and my airway reeked like an ashtray. Rudy's laughter had subsided. He said, "I'll tell you a secret, Roar. Here's how I broke in my lungs: I got a big pack of cough drops, and every time I had a smoke I'd pop a cough drop at the same time. I don't know why, but it makes it easier, and once I ran out of cough drops I didn't need them anymore." "Cough drops," I said. "Maybe I'll try that. I'm going to the store. Do we have a car?" I don't know why I was so determined to take up smoking.

Durham / Slip Away / 189 "Who do you think owns that Chevy S10?" he asked. I glanced out the window and saw the little, rusty pickup truck that I think used to be red. He walked into the kitchen and grabbed a set of keys off the table. "It's

ours, bro. Get yourself a set of keys made while you're out." He tossed his
keys to me. With my beer in one hand and my cigarette in the other, I let them bounce off my chest and land at my feet. Cautiously, I pulled on the cig again. A cough bubbled out of me, and I gave up and looked around for an ashtray. They were everywhere, on every surface--and, morbidly, some still had some of Mom's old butts in them. Rudy hadn't emptied them all. I crushed out my cigarette. I said to Rudy, "I'll be back." Then a thought hit me: "Shit. Fuck. I don't have any money." Rudy chuckled inwardly. "I was prepared for that," he said. He pulled a lump from his shirt pocket and handed it to me. Cylindrical and heavy, it was a tightly rolled, rubber banded wad of money. I looked at it and then at Rudy, with my jaw agape. I slid the rubber band off of it and unrolled the thick stack of cash. It was comprised entirely of one hundred dollar bills. I flipped through it. There had to be at least three or four thousand dollars. I looked back at Rudy. "Where did you get this?" I asked. "And how could you afford to buy the house? And the truck?" He flopped his meaty hand on my head. "Don't you worry your head about it, kid," he said. "Come on," I replied. "I'm curious. Humor me." "Alright, you can look at this gift horse in the eyes. You see, my bro, the US Army gives ya room, board and mess, and I didn't blow my meager pay on booze and whores like the rest of my so-called buddies. So by the time I was discharged I had a pretty good little savings." "Discharged? You didn't finish your tour. How did--"

Durham / Slip Away / 190 "Later, bro, later. It's a long story, and I got work to do. The propane tank is gonna blow up any minute, and you gotta go to the store." Each day was a little less surreal. I did the cough drop thing and it worked; within a couple of days, I was inhaling like a pro. I completely lacked all motivation. I did manage to haul my bed sheets to the Landry Laundromat, and I dusted and vacuumed my room. I also blew a wad of cash on new clothes: some jeans and cargo pants, a bunch of tee shirts and a handful of casual button downs. I didn't notice until I got home, but everything I bought was grey or black. I made a trip to Len's house, too, to get the rest of my stuff. There wasn't much: some clothes, a couple of jackets, and some miscellaneous odds and ends I'd collected over the years I'd lived there. Mrs. Humphrey was there. She was polite but tight lipped. We'd parted on unhappy terms. Our last conversation, the one that caused me so much guilt, had ended with me saying, "You don't deserve the burden of being my disciplinarian. I'm moving into my old house with my brother." She tried to protest, to say that's not what she was suggesting at all, that I was welcome to stay with her for as long as I wanted, but I ended it. I got up and packed my duffel bag. When I went back for my stuff, she tried tenderly to get me to change my mind. "I didn't mean to imply that you are a burden, Rory," she said, sitting at the table over a cup of coffee. "You've become a member of my family, and you're welcome here." "This isn't my home," I said blankly.

Durham / Slip Away / 191 "It is your home, and has been for years," she insisted. She picked up her mug to take a sip, but hesitated and put it down again. "I've fed you, clothed you, and seen you off to school. I can never be your mother, Rory, but I might be a better guardian than your brother." "He's family," I replied. "He's the only family I've got--" "We're family, practically--" "--left in the world." I didn't let her cut me off. "Besides," I added, "he won't feel the responsibility that you do. If I fuck up, he'll deal with it. He won't lay the guilt on me." I'd never casually sworn in front of her before. It felt strangely good. She rose from her chair. "Is that what I did? I 'laid the guilt on you?' Excuse me for doing what any mother or guardian would, or at least should, and try to steer you in the right direction. You reek of alcohol and cigarettes. Is that what Dr. Watson would prescribe you?" "Dr. Watson," I said coldly, "is irrelevant." She sighed, and sat back down. "It hurts you to see you like this, Rory," she said wearily. "That's why I'm leaving," I replied. "May I get my things?" I spent most of my first week home in the recliner, drinking beer and smoking Winstons. Since the sin tax on smokes was so high that packs cost upwards of five bucks, Rudy took a day trip to a Native American reservation. They sold smokes tax-free. If you could find a shady seller, you could get entire cartons for twelve bucks each in bulk. Rudy bought a gross. In fact, Rudy made a lot of day trips. He spent part of his time puttering around the house and repairing and replacing things that had aged poorly, such as the propane tank and the water heater, and the rest on journeys to heaven knew where. He spent so much time away, he offered to buy me a car so that I'd have transportation. I didn't need it. I had the recliner.

Durham / Slip Away / 192

I spent all day, every day in the recliner. I lived on beer, Pop Tarts and Winstons. Rudy'd had a satellite TV system installed, so I had hundreds of channels to surf through, each of which had to be filled with programming every hour: I watched movies I'd heard about but never seen: Apocalypse

Now, A Clockwork Orange, Taxi Driver. I watched MTV and wondered what
the fuck people my age saw in it. What happened to videos? I learned how to cook gourmet vegetarian meals, how to replace a fuel pump in a Dodge Intrepid, and how to clean a chimney. I saw things I couldn't believe were televised. Programmers must have been desperate just to keep images blasting relentlessly through the ether; I got the idea that virtually anything was considered worthy of broadcast with the single criterion that it was caught on film. One channel aired a chess match between two middle aged foreign guys. It went on for hours. They sat there forever, pondering the board, sometimes standing up, sometimes shifting their weight and stroking their chins. Commentators blathered on, desperately trying to fill the dead air with something, anything, to keep viewers interested. They analyzed moves and strategies and referenced matches that had been played by masters decades and sometimes centuries ago. Talking in hushed voices, they said things like, "It looks like Santov may be attempting to set up a classic Queen's Rook gambit. It will be interesting to see if he relinquishes control of the center of the board, which is key to so many successful strategies. Only the most clever strategists have been able to achieve victory without it, and sometimes even the deliberate, planned process of leaving the all important center to the opponent has dire consequences. But the Queen's Rook gambit has many times over been employed to success. You may recall, in 1961, when Reitzev unexpectedly defeated--wait a minute--it looks like Santov is reaching for his king's bishop..." It was all bullshit. I watched the whole match.

Durham / Slip Away / 193 One channel liked to show guys with big trucks and brown mustaches race through huge fields of mud. Another seemed to specialize in people doing ridiculous things on skateboards or roller blades or snowboards. There were dozens of shopping networks, a bunch of channels that seemed to do nothing but extol the benefits of Christianity, some that showed wild animals from all over the world, even deep under the sea. But no matter what else was on, I always watched Oprah at four o'clock. I loved Oprah. Unlike Jerry Springer and Maury Povich, her show seemed genuine rather than contrived. And Oprah often had people on her show that seemed to have worse lives than me. It was one of the few things that made me feel good. I watched TV, and smoked, and drank, all day. I slept in the recliner with the TV on all night. I got up to get food, to pee, and to answer the ancient phone. I hated getting up, because it was so hard to walk when I was drunk. I continually reminded myself to get a cordless phone the next time I was in town, but I always forgot. On Friday, at about nine in the morning, the phone rang. I stumbled into the kitchen to answer it, lighting a smoke on the way. "Is Rudy Orrick available?" I thought about it for a minute. I didn't know if Rudy was home or not. "I don't know," I said. "Is this Rory?" "Who's this?" "This is Mr. Berkeley." I took a long drag off my cigarette. "From Little Badger High School," he added. "Yeah?" I said. "Rory?"

Durham / Slip Away / 194 "What?" "You haven't been in school in three weeks." I took another drag. I realized that, to my dismay, I'd left my beer in the living room, and the phone cord wouldn't reach. "Are you there, Rory?" "Yeah, what?" "Rory, you've missed fifteen consecutive days of school." "Yeah. I'm, uh, I wasn't supposed to come in, remember?" "Until you saw your psychiatrist, right. But according to his office, you missed your appointment." Another drag. As I spoke, the smoke puffed out of my mouth in little bursts. "Uh, yeah, I was sick. I had--have--the flu." "Is that right?" he said. "Well your legal guardian should have contacted me. But I spoke to her yesterday, and apparently you've had a change of residence?" "I moved back home, yeah." "With your brother, Rudy, correct?" "Yeah." "You're going to have to get that straightened out with the state, you know. Mrs. Humphrey is still listed as your guardian. And your guardian is ultimately responsible for your school attendance." I took another big drag, and set my cigarette on an ashtray shaped like a conch shell. I made my way over to what Rudy and I had dubbed the Pop Tart cupboard. Holding the phone with my shoulder, I grabbed a pack of Frosted Strawberry Pop Tarts. "Do you understand what I've just told you?" said Mr. Berkeley. "Yeah," I said, "and you're full of shit." "Excuse me?" "I'm over sixteen," I said. "School is an option, and I'm, uh, opting out." "Rory--"

Durham / Slip Away / 195 "I'm dropping out," I specified. I was suddenly angry and frustrated at being treated like a child. I'd probably been through more in my life than Mr. Berkeley had been in his. I burst, "And listen to me: I'm my own mama now, you get it? Don't bother Mrs. Humphrey about me ever again. I'm not her kid and she's not my mother, or guardian, or any of that shit. And neither is Rudy. I'm a grown up, I do whatever the fuck I want, and I don't want to go to school. Do we understand each other?" There was a long pause. Finally, Mr. Berkeley said gently, "You don't want to do this, Rory. This isn't like you at all. You're a good student. I understand you're having a very hard time--" The red rage overtook me in a split second. "What do you understand?" I shouted. "Tell me, what the fuck to you understand? You understand your dad blowing his head off when you're a baby? You understand finding your dead mother in your backyard? You've been there, have you? You understand being in therapy before you're even twenty fucking years old? You understand clinical depression? You know what it feels like to--" I was spitting into the mouthpiece. I stopped suddenly. I was out of breath. I stomped back and forth across the kitchen a couple of times, clutching the phone by my side with white knuckles. I hung up. Then I took the remainder of my cigarette back to the recliner, and watched TV. No one else bothered me that morning. By mid afternoon, I was hammered. I discovered that I was a restless drunk, continually looking for something exciting to do to amuse my spinning mind. With a sudden burst of energy, I exploded from the chair and marched purposely to the front window, upon which I pressed my face. It was cold. I looked around. I forgot what I'd gone there for. I slid my head around, making satisfying squeaking sounds with my nose against the glass.

Durham / Slip Away / 196 Due to my lack of hygiene, I left streaks of facial oil all over the window. I tried to wipe it off with my shirt tail, but it only smeared it around. As I wobbled back to my recliner, I remembered why I'd gone to the window in the first place. I spun around and squished my face into the glass again, and looked around for the truck. It was gone. Rudy must have been out on one of his forays again. Maybe, I thought, he's buying more cigarettes! That made me want to smoke, so I made my way back to my chair, slumped and collapsed back into it. I was winded from my adventure to the window. I grabbed my pack of cigarettes from the TV table next to my recliner, but I couldn't find my lighter. I felt around the chair, under my butt and down the cracks in the sides between the arms and the cushion, to no avail. There was only one thing to do. I lurched back out of the chair careened into the kitchen. There, I turned on the front right burner of our electric stove. Eventually, it would become hot enough to light a cigarette--at least, that was my theory. While I was waiting, the doorbell rang. "Wait," I yelled, my cigarette already in my mouth. I tapped my fingers and did a little wobbly dance, wishing the burner would hurry up. The doorbell rang again, followed by a few stiff knocks on the door. "I said fucking wait," I shouted, causing my cigarette to fly out of my mouth. I crouched carefully to pick it up, but fell down anyway. When I finally got back to my feet, the burner was reluctantly starting to glow. I leaned over and pressed the smoke onto it, puffed a few times and it lit! The door shook with thunderous thumps. "Open the fuck up," said somebody whose voice I didn't recognize. I didn't like his tone. A surge of adrenaline sobered me up a little, and I switched off the burner and went to the door.

Durham / Slip Away / 197 Cautiously, I opened it a few inches. An unkempt thirty-ish guy with long black hair and a green jacket glared at me. "Where's Rudy?" he demanded. He was leaning on a narrow, waste-high wooden crate. Without opening the door any wider, I said, "You see his truck out front, dipshit? He's not here." "Dipshit? He better be here, kid," growled the guy. "You gonna let me in or do I gotta freeze my nuts off out here?" "That depends," I replied. My beer muscles made me brave and powerful. "Who the fuck are you?" He rolled his eyes. In a quick motion, he produced a handgun from under his jacket and pointed it directly at my nose. He said, "Open the goddamn door, you little prick." I don't know if it was because I was drunk, or because I was convinced that life wasn't worth living, but the gun didn't scare me. My heart should have jumped right into my throat, but I barely even looked at it. It didn't help that this man looked like Iggy Pop without hair. He was thin as a skeleton and looked entirely malicious. I stepped back and shut the door, and quickly locked it. "Wrong answer, asshole," I shouted through the door. Then I ran to the gun cabinet. Since my return home, I hadn't had the need to handle a shotgun, a rimfire, a handgun, any weapon. The gun cabinet was locked, and I didn't know where the key was. Rudy probably had it. Luckily, it was a more of a decorative cabinet than an actual locker, and I was able to rip it open through sheer force. It was empty.

Durham / Slip Away / 198 Of course it was empty. The last people in this house after Mom died were probably police officers. They weren't going to seal the place up with weapons and live ammunition in it. Swearing to myself, I darted into Rudy's room. I rooted around under his bed and in his closet. I found a .22 rimfire rifle leaning in the corner behind his clothes, but opening the chamber revealed it wasn't loaded. Desperately, I tore through the high shelf in his closet. Then I turned to his desk and started rooting through the drawers. I didn't find bullets. I found bags. Lots of brown paper bags. I opened one up, and then, astonished, opened another, then another and another. Inside each bag was a huge wad of cash. Temporarily forgetting about the chilly, armed man on my doorstep, I looked through other drawers in Rudy's desk. In the middle drawer I discovered an unsealed manila envelope. I slid a small stack of papers out of it. They were informational pamphlets from real estate companies about various tracts of land, some in the Adirondack region and others out west, in places like Texas, Nebraska and Montana. They were big lots: 1200, 1500, 2000 acres and more. My drunkenness had all but left me. I was completely stumped. I pushed the papers back into the envelope and replaced it in the drawer. Then my eyes fell on a box of .22 rounds. I opened it up and filled the rifle's magazine. Rudy's room was in the front of the house. I smeared my face against his window and tried to see the front doorstep. The crate was there, but I couldn't spot the stranger.

Durham / Slip Away / 199 I released the safety on the rifle and approached Rudy's bedroom door. Without much fear or trepidation, I swung into the hallway and aimed the rifle toward the living room. I didn't see anyone. I walked slowly down the hallway, swinging the rifle this way and that. A .22 round wouldn't kill the guy unless I hit him in the head or the heart, but it would probably subdue him enough for me to disarm him. I burst into the living room and did a quick scan. I was alone. I focused on the kitchen doorway next. Then, I heard a familiar hooting laugh. It was coming from the front yard. I crept to the window. Standing back from it, with the rifle brandished in front of me, I saw Rudy leaning against his truck, talking to the stranger like they were old chums. Rudy's typically overstated body language was jovial; he was telling the guy an anecdote with grandiose hand motions, and they both laughed at occasional intervals. I unloaded the .22 rifle and put it back in Rudy's closet, and returned the bullets to the box in his desk drawer. I glanced at the clock next to Rudy's bed, and swore. I was missing Oprah! Some women in the front row were learning how to recover their self esteem while their husbands, exposed as controlling goons, looked sheepish. Oprah was chastising one of the guys--it looked good natured, but there was an underlying air of seriousness. "How often do you tell her she's beautiful?" she asked him. The chubby, balding guy, obviously wishing he were anywhere else, shrugged his shoulders. Oprah indicated the woman, who frankly was not beautiful: she was fat and very wrinkly, and her hair was black, straight and frizzy. "Well?" said Oprah. "How often does he tell you you're beautiful?"

Durham / Slip Away / 200 The woman hesitated, looked sidelong at her husband, and then back at Oprah. The hostess rose and widened her shoulders and said in a don'tmess-with-me tone, "Don't you be afraid here, girl. You're all right in my house." The audience cheered. Then my front door flew open. Rudy had the wooden crate on his shoulder. There was no sign of the stranger. "Hey Roar!" he said. He regarded the television. "Gettin in touch with your feminine side?" he laughed. "Who the hell was that asshole?" I asked him. "Will?" he said. "Oh, don't worry about him. He's all bark, no bite, you know?" "Good thing," I said. "Fucker pointed a gun at me. I almost shot him with your rimfire." He plopped the crate on the floor and disappeared down the hallway. He returned with a wrecking bar. "What's in there? More money?" I asked nonchalantly. Rudy laughed. "In a matter of speaking," he said. "There's something I have to ask you about." "Yep, it's about time. You been in my room, I saw," he said. "You noticed," I said. "You dropped out of school, too," said Rudy. "You're on top of things." "And you're depressed and pissed at the world," he finished. I didn't say anything. "I'm ahead of you bro. I know what's missing. I'm about to give you purpose. You're gonna be alright." He tore the lid off the crate. From it, he pulled a very mean looking assault rifle, and then a second one. He laid one across my lap. "Robin Hood," he said. "Take your bow and arrow.

Durham / Slip Away / 201

Durham / Slip Away / 202

Chapter Seventeen
"Are you fucking insane?" I leapt out of the recliner. At least, I tried to, but the gun was heavier than I thought. I was used to the relative sprightliness of paintball weaponry. To my amazement, Rudy didn't laugh. "That, Roar, is a AR-15, the pre--precesser--pred--an early version of the M16 assault rifle family." "What the hell do I want with it?" I demanded

Durham / Slip Away / 203 He ignored my question. From his rear pocket, he produced a small card. It bore my name, address, and photograph. It was a weapon permit. "What is this? Where did you get this?" "It's yours," said Rudy. "You applied for it, answered all the questions, passed the background check, and all that happy horse shit. Congratulations, you are authorized to own your civilian assault rifle." "I don't want a civilian assault rifle!" "You will. Hell, you were ready to shoot a guy with my .22. Trust me, a .223 would have done a better job." "So this card means what?" "Well, technically, you're allowed to own this thing. Keep the card in your wallet. It might help with any nearby law enforcements. Clausen's probably never seen weapons like this." "Neither have I." I replied. "You're ready for this," said Rudy. "You've wanted it all your life, and you damn well know it. Just like me. "The system in this country ain't workin, Roar. Rich people stay rich and pass it on to their kids, and poor motherfuckers like us pass on their fucked up lives on to their kids, too. The rich kids grow up happy, the poor kids grow up fucked in the head and bitter and full of spite. That ain't gonna change unless someone changes it. "The only thing we did, Roar, to end up growing up poor in this stinkhole with crazy parents is that we were born. Hardly our fault. What can you do about it? You think you can work hard and change anything? You wanna be a middle class slug all your life living from paycheck to paycheck and trying to save up enough for your retirement to keep from living in a roach motel until you die? Because that's the life you're headed for, Roar."

Durham / Slip Away / 204 I rolled my eyes. "How do you know?" I said. "I can go to college. I can get a degree on grants and loans and shit, even though I don't have money, and then I can get a decent job." "'A decent job?'" he chided. "Like what? You'll worry about money your whole life anyway. People are bound by money, Roar, everyone. Even people with 'a decent job.' And the fuck of it is, the only way not to feel the pressure of money is to have more of it than you need!" "So what are you proposing? What are we gonna do about it? What, Rudy, are we gonna overthrow the government and banish money and start a socialist state?" "It all starts with one step, Roar." My head was reeling. I was too drunk to think about this. I realized I never actually had managed to get out of the chair, so with a concerted effort I lifted the weapon off my lap and stood up. My brother was still talking. "Think about it, Roar. We'll start small. Banks. Big business owners. We take the money they don't need. Did you know that relieving a bank of its cash on hand doesn't affect its bottom line? All banks' real money is on paper and invested; the cash is just there for schleps who need McDonald's money. It makes up less than a thousandth of a percent of a bank's actual net worth, and they got insurance for robbin' anyhow." "So we're bank robbers?" "No, we're liberators. We'll take the money and distribute it to people like us. People who otherwise wouldn't get a fair shake. I'm looking into gettin' a few large tracts of land, where we'll set up camps. We'll transport the homeless there and give them a better life." "The homeless? That's your mighty army? You're nuts," I cried, and started to walk to the bathroom.

Durham / Slip Away / 205 "We're both nuts," replied Rudy. "Another fuck-up we've got our parents to thank for." I didn't look back as I headed for the john. I took my rifle with me.

Her head was arched back; if her body were (I'm not a grammar expert but
this feels like subjective tense to me; see http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-subjunctive.htm ) standing, she'd be

looking skyward, or at least at the drooping boughs of the willow tree.
I shook my head and stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. My brother was shouting at me from the living room. "What have you got, Roar? I know about how you beat up that kid. You're a monster! That'll stick with you. People in this shit town already fear us 'cause of our family history--you've alienated us forever!" I looked into the mirror. The eyes staring back at me were stranger's eyes. "You haven't been to school in weeks. My guess is you either dropped out or were kicked out. Which was it? You get expelled? That means they just don't want you, Roar. Nobody wants you--they've given up on you!" His words, his crazy words; there was logic in his words. "Or did you drop out? Did you give up on yourself, Roar? What college are you gonna get into without a high school, uh, diploma? Huh? A technical school? One of those mail order schools you see on TV at night? 'Cause that's what you do all night is watch TV. What kind of job are you gonna get with that kind of experience? You want to be somebody's dick jockey all your life? You want to be a drill press operator or mow lawns?" The eyes staring back at me were sad and confused. Weakly, I said, "There's more to life than a job..."

Durham / Slip Away / 206 "Like what? Love? You know what that feels like. You over that bitch who dumped you yet? You want to go through that again? Or what else, a family? You want to throw more kids into this world with our genes? The suicidal Little Badger weirdo genes? You've had that done to you, Roar, you were thrown into the world with a pre-fucked-up head, and it's just gotten worse. You want to do the same thing to innocent children? Your children? "Can you do that with a clear conscience, Roar?" The eyes staring back at me were my mom's eyes. A glassy blank stare, a crack in her forehead, blood all over her nightgown. A Winston cigarette hanging out of her mouth.

Wait, Mom smoked Kool menthol.
When the fuck had that appeared? The eyes were mine again, an old man, a frightened baby. When had I lit a cigarette? There was a massive rifle slung over my shoulder. "Could you do that to a baby?" I looked into the eyes of a warrior. A stealthy dealer of death on the fields of battle, a force to be reckoned with, feared. "My way could work, Roar. It's worked thousands of times in history. Do you know how many people feel the way we do? That money is all that keeps them from being happy? Think of all the inner city kids, born into a cycle of poverty that's lasted generations. All they need is someone to turn to. Think about all the white middle class men who feel trapped in their jobs, who run on the wheel making just enough money to feed their families and maybe buy a better DVD player someday. Think of all the trailer trash, working for just above minimum wage, thinking if they could only get that government job, work on a road crew, make eighteen bucks an hour, they'd be livin' large. "They're our people Roar! They're ready for a better life! They know damn well that the government and the large corporations will do anything to keep the money in the pockets of the rich. Think of Enron. Think of how

Durham / Slip Away / 207 often Congress votes itself a thirty percent pay raise, while working stiffs beg and pray for a three percent raise. "Fuck, Roar, they know damn well that their government won't do shit for them, that they'll never get far in their pathetic work lives. They're ready, Roar. "They just need somebody to unite them. You and I, we're generals, Roar! You're a general on the paintball field, I know you're damn good at tactics! I have real military training and contacts with Army soldiers who just might throw some real force behind us!" I looked into the mirror and saw Rudy, my bombastic, bumbling brother, made stony by his years of military whatever it was he did, made insane by misfiring neurons and wayward chemicals in his head. I blinked and was staring again at myself, a ruthless beast, a vile creature who would attack those who would take what is his. What was mine. "All they need are leaders. A pair of leaders. History proves it, Roar. When the lower class gets edgy, and strong leaders pop up, things change. There are thousands upon thousands of examples. It's happening today in smaller countries. It happened in Russia, Rome, hell the fucking USA was founded by desperate schleps. Outcasts. They fought a fucking war to be free of cruel overlords. Do you think the people that fought then, in 1776, would approve of where the country they founded has ended up?" I looked into the mirror and saw a warlord, riding high a proud steed with a throng of cheering followers. My heart palpitated, and I faltered. There again was me, just me, plain old me. A teenager who was losing touch with reality. I mean it. I really did lose touch with reality. It's hard to remember what happened for a while after that. I learned how to field strip, clean, load, and fire my AR-15.

Durham / Slip Away / 208 I smoked. I drank. I cried a lot. But more and more, I envisioned myself in front of an army; standing on a rock in a field shouting inspiring words at a crowd of ragged, desperate people armed with branches and stones. And always, always, there was the image of my mother. I saw it all the time now. Rudy spent hours on the phone, and then he'd lecture me. "Don't trust the businessman. If someone drives a BMW, or a Mercedes, he's already too indebted to their side. Our buddies are the people in the rusty old Chevys." Or: "Pay attention to everyone you meet. Imagine their situation. Always be wondering: would they fight for a better life?" Or: "The police are a para--a para--y'know, a, uh, a paradox. A paradox. Cause they're working for the machine, but they themselves are just as trapped in it as anyone. Police salaries suck, and they go through psychological hell on their jobs. They should be on our side, but many are not." It was crazy stuff, but it all made sense. Days tumbled past. I learned everything about the rifle, to completely dismantle it, to clear a jam. I mean, maybe I didn't learn; I don't know if I was paying attention. But Rudy taught me. I just did what he said. In the back yard. Near where Mom died. And he took more trips, sometimes gone for days. He was "preparing" things. He'd need me "soon." I had a few more days to "get my shit together." Soon it would be time to "stop fucking moping around."

Durham / Slip Away / 209 Whatever. It didn't really matter. As long as he left me enough beer to get through his forays, I didn't give a shit. And I still spent my days in the recliner, drinking beer, eating Pop Tarts, smoking, watching cable during the day and Oprah in the afternoon.

Next on Oprah: marriage and money. When the honeymoon is over and the real world sets in, how do couples deal with the stress of making ends meet? The pressures of bills, the mortgage, the car payment, the phone, the utilities, they take their toll on the happiness of a marriage. Why do couples with financial difficulties take their frustration out on each other? We'll talk to couples deep in debt, and we'll learn how to separate love from money.
"Get in the truck, Roar." I didn't even know Rudy was home. He was standing in the doorway with that guy Will, who looked like Iggy Pop. He had a long black ponytail and a sneering grin on his face. "Why?" I said. "We need supplies, and you have to learn where to get them." Oprah was on. I didn't want to. "I don't want to," I said. "Oh, come on Roar! You'll be gone for twenty minutes. You can catch the last half of Oprah," he finished with a snicker, and Will chortled. I sighed and stood up. The room wobbled. Clutching my beer and pocketing my cigarettes, I wandered toward the door. They squeezed me in the center of the cab. As we rode, Rudy discussed a land deal in somewhere like Arizona with Will, who didn't add much but encouraged him with "yeah"s and "cool!"s. Finally, Rudy spoke to me. "You okay to drive, buddy?" "Not probably," I said. "You only gotta drive for a little ways," said Rudy. "But fast."

Durham / Slip Away / 210 It had already been longer than twenty minutes. I wasn't able to recognize the mountain roads we were navigating. We were at least a half hour from home. "What are you guys gonna be doing?" I asked. Right then, Will produced a that nasty looking pistol and popped the clip. He tapped it against the dashboard, reinserted it, and cocked the weapon so that there was a bullet in the chamber. It hit me. "I am not robbing a bank with you crazy fucks," I said. "No you're not," said Iggy Pop, grinning. "You're just driving!" "No. Fucking. Way." I said. "Too late now, Roar," said Rudy seriously. "It's tough the first time, but it gets easier." The thoughts rumbled through my head like an avalanche. I already illegally owned an assault rifle with a faked permit, which Rudy apparently planned to convert into an even deadlier fully automatic weapon. With the moment so close, my thoughts of being a revolutionary leader vanished. I was suddenly just the little drop-out slob I'd always been. My gallant steed, my battlefield inspiration--they were gone. I grabbed the wheel and steered the truck toward the side of the road. Rudy had time to say, "What the fuck are you. . ." before we were on the shoulder. "Let me out," I said with authority I didn't know I had. "You're not getting--" started Will. I noticed that he was holding his gun by the barrel. I snatched it from him with startling speed and pointed it at his head. "How's it feel from this side, motherfucker?" I said. "Rudy, stop the truck, and I mean fucking now. Will, get out." "It's still moving," said Will sheepishly. He obviously wasn't used to being in this situation.

Durham / Slip Away / 211 Rudy was slowing down. "Now," I said, and pressed the weapon hard into his temple. He reached for the door handle, and as soon as he released it I planted my foot on his thigh and thrust him from the vehicle. Rudy was babbling. "Roar, you're never gonna learn if you don't partake, kid. Practice! It won't be so bad." He recognized my conviction and said, as the truck rolled to a halt, "Okay, maybe you're not ready. We'll work on this, buddy, okay?" "Whatever," I said and hopped out. Will was a hundred feet back and limping to catch up. "You know your way home?" asked Rudy. "I'll find it," I said. I popped the clip out of the gun as I'd seen Will do, then I emptied the chamber by cocking it (that much even I knew), and I threw it hard into the woods. "Why the fuck did you do that?" panted Will as he caught up. "I don't trust you," I said simply. "You fucking little wimp! Rudy's a visionary. He doesn't deserve your--" "Lay off my brother!" boomed Rudy from the truck. "You're useless," hissed Will, and climbed into the truck. Rudy actually turned to wave at me with a goofy smile. Then, with a roar of the engine and a spray of roadside gravel, they were off. The bad thing about hitchhiking in the Adirondacks is that, on most of the lonely roads, cars might come along only every hour or so. The good thing is, most of the people in the park are friendly. It didn't take more than a couple of hours to get somebody to stop for a pathetic looking kid, and he was going to pass within ten minutes of Little Badger, albeit on a different route. I didn't mind trekking through the woods though. Then I remembered the money. I offered the guy a fifty if he made a detour. "I'm right on the main road," I said. "That's a lot. Just make it twenty, okay?"

Durham / Slip Away / 212 "I don't have a twenty," I replied. "Just take it. My brother's rich," I added. He didn't have to know it was dirty money. A half hour later, I was home, and back to my routine: TV, beer, smokes. Rudy got home late in the evening and whacked me on the shoulder. "No hard feelings, buddy?" he asked. I glared at him. He'd been out drinking. He was gone so long, I was sure that he'd been in jail. I said, "Don't ever take me to rob a bank again. Or a liquor store, or a convenience store. No robbing. Nothing illegal." "You don't mind living off the money," Rudy observed. "My money comes from you," I replied. "It's not my problem where your money comes from." "It will be," he said cryptically, and went to bed. One day, the phone rang. I didn't answer it. We didn't have an answering machine, and it rang upwards of fifteen times, but my ass stayed firmly in the chair. I smoked. It rang again. I drank my beer and flipped the channels. One channel deep in the hundreds, channel 180-something, filled the screen with a big fat guy in a red shirt. He had a horrible, skuzzy, scraggly beard and beady little eyes. He was answering questions about computers from people who called in. A muffled phone voice would say, "I have a CD, that my friend gave me, and it's a game, and I'd like to go install it, and it says like type in the CD-key, and like I don't know what it's talking about." And in a brash, snorty voice with a horrific, middle northeastern accent, the guy would pontificate forever, even if it was a relatively simple answer. He overpronounced all of his vowels. "Well, yoooou see, thay got yahh, didn't thay. Ha ha he he he! A CD-key is eean (he pronounced "an" is if

Durham / Slip Away / 213 it had a big "eee" in front of it) alphahhhnumeeeric code--a bunch of laaaatters and naaahmbers--" and so on. The phone kept ringing. I flipped. It rang. I smoked. It rang. I drank. Finally, with a string of curses, I got up and stumbled in the general direction of the kitchen. I smacked my face on the corner of the doorway and dropped my beer can, which landed on its bottom and sent a geyser of foam straight into the air. "Ow. Ow! Ow! Fuck, fuck, ouch!" I was screaming. I could taste blood from the inside of my bottom lip, which felt hot and swollen already. The Revolutionary Leader, thwarted by the fearsome Kitchen Wall, a secret agent of the Establishment. The phone kept ringing. I ouched and fucked my way over to it, picked it up and said into the mouthpiece, "What?" "Is this Rory?" The voice was terribly familiar. It sent my brain reeling. I got dizzy and sat down hard on the linoleum floor. "Yeah," I said meekly. "This is Dr. Watson." "I know." My eyes were already full of tears. I held my head with my free hand. "You've missed your last two appointments, Rory, and I checked your records. It looks like you're running low on Paxil and you didn't reschedule. Is everything okay?" "Don't call me again, okay?" I squeaked through my tears. My brother's presence was in my head, warning me not to trust doctors whose money worries are trivial. "Rory, you can't just stop taking Paxil. You have to be weaned off of it, or you could have some pretty bad side effects--" "Shut up!" There was a pause. Then he said: "Things haven't been going very well, have they?"

Durham / Slip Away / 214 "What the fuck do you know?" I demanded, tears streaming down my face. "Well, I've heard from your school's vice principal, Mr. Berkeley, your apparently former guardian, Laura Humphrey, and her son Leonard. They say you've holed up in your old house and--" With a sob, I stood up and said, "You don't call me again, do you hear me?" Then I was shouting. "Leave me alone! I'm fine! I'm fine!" I slammed the phone into its cradle on the wall. Then I punched the wall with all my might, my left hand blasting a hole right through the drywall. I was a steel fighting machine. Except I was sobbing and screaming, "I'm fine! I'm just fucking fine! Goddamn it, there is nothing wrong with me!" I pulled back and punched again, widening the hole, cracking the drywall on the other side, which I knew was reinforced by paneling in the living room. But I punched and punched again, and my knuckles reddened and split. Streaks of blood started to line the hole. With each blow, I screamed, "I'm FINE!" Suddenly my arm burst into the living room. The shattered paneling bit with splintered edges, and a gouge ran up my wrist. My wrist. I had cut my wrist. Deeply, it looked. My mother blew her head off. My father blew his head off. If you want to kill yourself by slashing your wrists, go deep, between the bones, and break the major artery, or you won't die. Don't just cut the veins on the surface, like in movies. Or, just blow your head off.

Durham / Slip Away / 215 A new fear welled up in my belly. Ignoring my blood running freely down my left arm, I walked like a zombie into my bedroom. I reached under the bed and slid out a long case. I opened the case and picked up my AR-15. The fear jumped to my throat. It made me lightheaded. I felt dizzy, dazed---and free? Did I feel free? I think I started to feel free. Dr. Watson would have asked, "What does 'free' feel like?" It felt like joy, like release, like lightness. Peace. But I still felt fear. And the fear exploded when I slid another box out from under my bed, a box of .223 brass encased soft point slugs. I held the rifle in my lap with my bleeding left hand. I pulled a bullet out of the box. The barrel of the rifle was becoming sticky with blood. I reached with the bullet toward the chamber. I felt scared and excited at the same time. Loaded, the weapon was ready to fire. I placed its cold, steely muzzle in my mouth. There was a hint of oil on my tongue. With my good hand, I reached way down for the trigger. I could see why my mom used a stick to reach the trigger of the 30-06. I grabbed a comb off a table and used it to extend my reach. Peace. There would be peace. The pain was all gone.

Durham / Slip Away / 216 But at the last second, fear overtook me. I screamed and dropped the rifle and flew from my room, screeching to a halt in the living room, wondering which way to turn. (A guy on TV was selling mugs with hockey team logos on them.) I ran through the back door. It was brisk--maybe fifty degrees. (Not bad for a March day in the Adirondacks.) I fell to the ground right where Mom had. I clutched at the grass with my bare fingers, and it was cold and a little wet. I threw my head back and glared at the sky through the branches of willow tree, and bellowed, no words, just a long, angry cry of pain.

Durham / Slip Away / 217

Chapter Eighteen
I lay on the cold ground, curled like a baby. I was shaking, chilled through except for my left arm, which was burning like a kindling log. I held up my flaming arm and watched the flickering of torchlight dance in the willow tree's branching web of secrets and shadows. It was night, but the moon burned orange in the sky. The whole world glowed with a strange amber radiance, and the lake reflected it in deep crimson, a gigantic pool of blood.

Durham / Slip Away / 218 I was in a ball on the ground, and I was a child, tiny and fragile, wrapped in my mother's arms. I snuggled, nestled against her chilly body, and I felt safe. But so cold! I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but people kept interrupting me. Nathan Clawson knocked on the door, flanked by Buckley and his mother. They demanded to know why I burned their house down, and Nathan was holding handcuffs. How could I know what they were talking about? I don't burn houses. I break skulls. I leveled my rifle at them and they left in a hurry. I was in the living room. Mom was in the kitchen. A haze of cigarette smoke hung in the air. She was calling me to lunch. She made me a fluffernutter sandwich! I ran to the kitchen! Len and Mrs. Humphrey were there, too. Nikki came in the back door. They all smiled at me. I walked in, grinning, happy, but so cold. I asked Mom why it was so cold, and she said we couldn't afford to turn up the thermostat. Rudy laughed bitterly. The sound came from the living room, loud, shocking, like a gunshot. I whirled on him. He was in the boat, beckoning to me. There was an army of poorly dressed people across the lake, a ragtag bunch of nobodies. They were moaning Rudy's name. Hurry up, Rudy was telling me, they're waiting for me and you're holding me up. I walked across the lawn toward him, but I had to step over Mom's dead body, and I couldn't do it. Her skin was stretched taut over her skeleton and her eyes were sunken in. Her teeth stuck out like prank false teeth, her face little more than a skull. She was still clutching the AR-15 she blew her brains out with. I woke up, again. I was in my bed. My whole left arm was throbbing. Searing pain shot up to my shoulder whenever I moved any joint in that limb.

Durham / Slip Away / 219 I had slept, if you can call it sleep. I dozed in fitful bursts, interrupted by nightmares, and by fits of chills and hot flashes. I needed aspirin or something, but I knew we didn't have any. I didn't know how long I'd been in bed. My body was clammy with sweat. I wondered what woke me up, but not for long. I heard a loud knock on the front door. Slowly, gradually, I got to my feet. The room reeled around me. I stumbled toward the door and clutched at the door frame, catching myself just before I fell. I stood there until I got my bearings. I was freezing! I pulled a gray blanket from my bed and gingerly wrapped it around me the best I could, using my left arm as little as possible. I stunk. A bold, onion scent rose from my carcass. I'd been wearing the same clothes for days, and I couldn't remember the last time I showered. My left hand was caked with dried, crusted blood. The knock again. I tried to shout that I was coming, but my voice wasn't working. All that came out was a pathetic croaking squeak. I hobbled into the living room and made my way to the front door. I reached for the knob, and hesitated. Who could it be that I wanted to see? Len, come to try to convince me to return to school? Dr. Watson? Would he make a house call? Someone from the state? Someone delivering more weaponry for Rudy? I walked over to the TV tray next to my recliner. With the blanket still draped over my shoulder I carefully reached for my cigarettes. Rudy's cigarettes. In Rudy's house. That he probably bought from one bank with money he stole from another one. I wasn't even sure if I had a problem with that. I held the blanket timidly with my left hand, and lit my cigarette. For some reason, I felt the need to look intimidating when I opened the door, and I thought a smoke hanging out of my mouth would do it. But thinking back, a

Durham / Slip Away / 220 sweaty, dirty, sick, sleepy kid wrapped in a blanket would have a hard time looking intimidating. Without an assault rifle. Couldn't do that, though. What if it was Nathan Clawson? With my cigarette hanging from my mouth, I opened the door. There was no one there. I leaned out the door and noticed a familiar pickup truck on the gravel driveway. The driver was turning back toward me, having heard the front door open. It was Nikki. She looked at me and said, "Oh my god." "Look at you," she said, approaching quickly. I stepped back. She hesitated. I wondered if I was going to wake up again. Nikki stood on the doorstep. I stood in the doorway. She said, with her cavalier confidence, "Well? Can I come in?" I flicked my cigarette past her into the moist yard. I stepped back and squeaked through my swollen throat, "Sure." Nikki took a few slow, uncertain steps into the house. She looked around the living room. Her hands were folded in front of her. I said, my voice labored, "It's kind of a mess. I haven't, uh, straightened up in a while." The place was a disaster, in fact. There were beer cans and Pop Tart wrappers all over the floor. Ancient frozen dinners littered a few surfaces, sometimes stacked with ashtrays stuffed with cigarette butts. There were piles of clothes dirty and clean, stacks of plates, paper and plastic. I cleared off a spot on the couch for her. "Have a seat. Uh, if you want. Want a beer?"

Durham / Slip Away / 221 "Sure," she said, and after a hesitation she gingerly sat down, looking as if she feared the couch would eat her. I walked to the kitchen. There, out of sight of Nikki, I let my breath out. My mind was reeling, which seemed to be the norm lately. I spun around, wondering what to think. The bloody hole through the wall startled me; I'd forgotten about it. I could see Nikki's delicious knees through it. I tossed the blanket that had been my wrap onto the little dinette table and opened the fridge. When I grabbed two beers, my left hand hurt so much I dropped the one it was holding. Two of my fingers throbbed with searing pain. The gash that ran up my arm, originating at the back of my hand and almost reaching my elbow, felt like a river of flame. I grabbed both beers with my right hand and stood there for a minute. What did she want? Had she been contacted? Maybe Len or Dr. Watson called her to try to talk me into...into what? What was I doing wrong? I walked out into the living room with the beers, without the blanket wrapping me. She gasped, her hand went to her mouth. "Oh my god, Rory, your arm!" "Yeah, I, uh, fell, or something," I croaked. My throat hurt. I handed her a beer. "You to have that looked at!" she said. "Nah," I said. "I'm okay." "You're pale. God, look at you!" She stood up and reached for my forehead. Without thinking--really, on instinct alone--I ducked and blocked her hand with my working arm. I immediately apologized. "A little paranoid?" she asked. I said, "I'm not sure why I did that." "You need medical attention. Good lord, we can't talk like this." Her hand finally found my head. "You're on fire! That wound is infected." I looked at my arm. It was pretty gory.

Durham / Slip Away / 222 But then I jumped to some sudden, neurotic conclusion. "You're awfully big on getting me to a doctor," I said. "Well look at yourself," she replied. "And look around! You're, Jesus, Rory, you're living in a dump. You smoke. You smoke! What's up with that? You're like all paranoid. What have you been doing?" She stopped. Her face filled with concern. "Are you still taking your Paxil?" "What's that to you?" I demanded. "I care about you," she said. "Oh, so that's why you dumped me without any fucking warning. You're one of them." I immediately regretted saying that. She looked quizzical. "One of whom, Rory?" she asked. I thought about it. What had Rudy said? What did her father do for a living? What was I just thinking? I looked at Nikki. She was a crystalline vision from a long forgotten dream--but was it that long ago? It felt like it. She didn't look natural in my rancid living room. "Why..." I said. My eyes were starting to fill with tears. "Rory, you're not thinking right, are you?" she said cautiously. I noticed that her hair was shorter than when I'd last seen her. It was cut in a cute choppy bob. I said: "You changed your hair. It's...pretty..." The room turned to streaks through my moist eyes. Random thoughts dashed through my mind. I hadn't opened my beer yet. Where was Rudy? I wondered how long I'd been in bed, and why I wasn't hungry.

My mother's stiff body smelled like her cheap perfume and coppery blood.
"Rory?" she said.

Durham / Slip Away / 223 "Yeah." Nikki. She was right there. On my couch, my couch that looked like something you'd find on the side of the road in a trailer park. Our people, the trailer dwellers. I lived in a trailer. But I had lived in a house. I had lived. I couldn't think of a time, a happier time, Len's house, what about the paintball team? "The team," I said. "Rory, are you with me?" "Oh god." Nikki, I was going to say I love you. I took another step, a step toward her. And another. And she held out her arms. And I fell into them, and she didn't even turn up her nose at my unwashed stench, she held me, she held me, and I sobbed into her shoulder. "Help me," I sobbed. "Help me!" "Rory," she whispered. "We'll get help for you." "Oh god," I croaked, as my voice started to give out. "I don't know who I am anymore." She patted my back. "We'll get you some help," she whispered. The pain in my arm intensified. I was colder than ever. I started to tremble, and I was quickly overcome, shaking violently. My knees gave out. "Rory!" shouted Nikki as I almost pulled her to the floor. "Oh god! Okay, I'm going to call--" That was all I heard. There were flashes. People asking me questions. How long ago did I hurt my arm? Was I on any medications? Was I allergic to any medications? Smoke? Drink? Street drugs? Mercifully I could shake my head to one of those three.

Durham / Slip Away / 224 I was on a bed in an ambulance for a second or two. Then I was being wheeled through the cold. There was a thin tube sticking out of my right wrist. Someone was holding an IV bag over me. Then I was in a hallway. People were bustling past. Then I was behind a curtain and a chubby, clean cut man in a green, short sleeve scrub shirt was tapping my right shoulder. I opened my eyes. "There he is," he said. I tried to speak, but all that came out was a tired sigh. "I have to ask you a few questions," said the man. "My name is Carl, I'm your nurse." I nodded weakly. He asked me basic questions, like my name and where I lived, how old I was, and such. Then he asked, "So what happened to your arm?" I thought about what to tell him. Where should I start? I'm off my

medication and I was thinking about killing myself and I punched a hole through my wall.
I strained to speak. "My hand went through some paneling," I wheezed. "Well, that was quite an encounter," he said, raising an eyebrow. "You lost a lot of blood, and it looks like you might have broken your hand. The bad news is we'll need to operate on that wound, it's bad. Bad-bad!" "My arm hurts." I said. "I'll bet!" he chimed. "I'll tell the doctor you're awake and we'll get you something for the pain. If you need anything in the meantime, push the call button." He pulled the curtain open and bustled away. I relaxed as best I could and gradually closed my eyes, but then I sensed a presence near me. I was startled to see Nikki by my side. When I opened my eyes, she said, "Hey." "You..." I didn't know what to say. I thought her visit to my house had been a dream.

Durham / Slip Away / 225 "It's okay," she said. "You'll be okay." "What happened?" "You were in shock," she replied. "And dehydrated, and infected, and some other stuff." "Why are you...here?" I said. She looked around and rolled her eyes. "Well, this isn't exactly the place to talk about it. I'm just glad I came when I did!" "Me too." I wasn't so sure. I wondered if I would have died if I'd just stayed in bed. Then there would have been peace. "God, it hurts," I said. "Where are we?" "You're in a room," replied Nikki. "You're admitted. You were under the knife for two and a half hours. There's some antibiotic in your IV, and pain meds. Do you remember the recovery room?" As I woke up, the pain spiked. "Oh god," I said. "This really hurts." "Do you want me to get the nurse?" she asked. I couldn't talk. The pain was growing by the second and I was unable to speak through it. It felt like thousands of knives and needles were tearing the skin from my arm. I gasped, and went black again.

I stepped through the back door, and there she was, dead as always, stiff as ever, the gentle breeze fluttering her nightgown. My mother. My mommy. She took her own life, she took herself away from me.
My arm didn't hurt anymore. I felt really good, euphoric even. A different nurse came, this one a middle aged, frumpy brunette. "You just missed your girlfriend," she informed me. "My girlfriend?"

Durham / Slip Away / 226 "Yeah, she said to tell you she'd be back in a couple days to take you home." "Tomorrow? What time is it?" "It's after eleven." She squeezed my IV bag, which was almost empty, and started the process of swapping it with another one. "At night?" I said. She laughed. "Unless they put me on the day shift without telling me." "My arm doesn't hurt anymore." "Morphine will do that," she said. "What else did you do?" She replied, "I didn't do anything. But the doctors took a look and put some serious stitching all through your arm. They also found that your third and fourth fingers of your hand were broken, one knuckle shattered." "Wow." "Yeah, wow," she replied. "You've got to watch out for those walls, they sneak right up on you." I rolled my eyes. "They sure do," I said. The morphine kept me drowsy. I slept the rest of the night. The next day, I was startled to see Dr. Watson sitting next to me when I woke up. My heart plowed into my throat. I gasped. "Hi there," he said. "Hi," was all I could think of. "I'll go ahead and assume you're wondering what I'm doing here," he said and smiled. I looked around. Light was billowing in through the window, illuminating the little pale pink room. There was a strong smell of antiseptic coming from my arm, which was wrapped in gauze. My left hand was stiff. Investigation revealed it was in a cast. "How did you know I was here?" I asked.

Durham / Slip Away / 227 "Your doctor contacted me," said Doctor Watson. "He tracked down your medical records and saw the psychological reports, and looked at your arm. It doesn't take a genius to find a connection." "Am I going back on Paxil?" I asked. He shifted in his chair and took a breath. "Well, whether you go back on medication will be up to you. I can't make you take care of yourself; the decision has to be yours." I thought about that. Dr. Watson...was he one of the bad ones? One of the Haves? Of course he was. "But here's something else to consider, Rory," he said. "I can recommend that you be admitted to the mental health wing involuntarily. I'd have grounds to do that if I knew for a fact that you inflicted this injury upon yourself, and that you're refusing treatment. And I think you do need treatment." "Like what?" I said, picturing a rubber room and a straight jacket. "Like a more powerful antidepressant, and perhaps some antipsychotic drugs. And more therapy." "If I refuse, will you have me admitted?" "Frankly, I'm not sure," he said. "But I think you're sensible enough to know that you do need some help. You've done a few things that aren't characteristic of you when you're healthy." "You're...yeah," I said. "You're right." Then the tears started to come again. Dr. Watson passed me a little hospital box of tissues. I grabbed it. I said, "I just want to feel...I want to..." I trailed off. He nodded. "I know," he said, for once in his life. "I want you to make me better." He shook his head. "I can't," he said. "But I can help you make yourself better."

Durham / Slip Away / 228 "Please," I said. "For..." Well, I kept that thought to myself. We talked for a little while. I told him some of what Rudy told me--not about the guns, or the army he wanted to raise--but the stuff about the Haves and the Have-nots, the vicious cycle of poverty and the inability of the poor to escape the lower class. "It sounds like he might need a little help too," Dr. Watson replied. "While there's certainly some truth to what he says, it sounds like he's taking it to the extreme. It's just not true that hard work and a good education can't get you ahead in life. I have a patient who owns several franchises of a popular restaurant, and his parents never made more than twenty thousand dollars a year. One of my professional colleagues grew up in a housing project in Albany, and he's a very successful attending psychiatrist in a private hospital. "More importantly, you're not your job, and you're not your financial worth. Pound for pound, there's as big a percentage of unhappy rich people as poor." With that, he announced that he had to return to his office. That was enough, though. My mind was doing loops trying to make sense of the contradiction between Dr. Watson and my brother. I was tired. Soreness was creeping back into my arm. I dozed through a lot of the day. The next day I was actually awake most of the day and I was being discharged. I finally met my doctor, who told me to take care of my arm and keep it clean, to change the dressing regularly, to take the antibiotic he was prescribing me, and to call if I saw pus or if it started to stink. I'd have to come back to get the cast removed. I was hoping for some good pain medication, but he recommended Tylenol or ibuprofen.

Durham / Slip Away / 229 Then they discharged me, and Nikki showed up just in time. I signed some papers, and a hospital person wheeled me out, down the elevator, to freedom. Worn and weary, I stumbled into Nikki's truck. "So you're gonna live?" she said when we were on the road. "Yeah, thanks to you," I said. She smiled. "Glad I could help." "If you hadn't come over, I might have slept until I bled to death. At least, the doctor said so," I said. She grinned that sexy, melt-in-your-mouth grin. I hadn't seen it in what felt like years. "You owe me your life," she said. "I kind of like that." We rode in silence for a few minutes. Finally, the curiosity bubbled over. "Why did you come?" I asked. She sighed. "A few reasons," she said. "Please don't say that someone called you to get you to try and rescue me." "No," she said, "honestly, that's not it. I had no idea--" "Then what?" I cut her off. I didn't want to hear about rock bottom so soon after the start of my recovery. "Well," she said, and gathered herself. "We...split...on such bad terms, and I wanted to see you. I feel terrible about that night. It was sudden, and I'm sorry I did that to you." "It hurt," I said. "I know, and I'm so sorry," she said. "It, our relationship, was happening so fast, and you were, I never felt so strongly about anyone before you. And it was scary." She paused, and squeezed the steering wheel. "I was nervous. I felt like I needed you so much, I depended on you so much, I felt like that if I lost you, I'd die. I scared myself thinking about that, being so dependent. And with college coming up.

Durham / Slip Away / 230 "That night, I knew that if we slept together, that would be the point of no return. I'd, we'd be, well, so committed. And knowing that it'll end someday, I didn't want to think about the pain." "So you slept with Buckley instead?" I said bitterly. "Who?" she asked. "What are you talking about?" "I saw his car in your driveway," I said. "When?" "That night!" "Whose car?" "Buckley's SUV!" She thought for a few moments. "The only SUV I can think of is my uncle's, Phil's. We borrow it sometimes, he has a bunch of cars. It stays in the driveway for days." Then she scowled. "You followed me home?" she asked. "Well, sort of." I related my running adventures of that evening to her. "Well, I was alone that night. I cried myself to sleep," she said. "So you and Buckley..." "Who the hell is Buckley?" "The guy with the boat, we went out water skiing..." "You mean that asshole who hit on me all day? He was a creep! You think I'd sleep with him?" "Well, not anymore," I said sheepishly. We were silent again for a few minutes. "Well, thanks for, you know, apologizing..." She said, "That's not all I came to see you about." "What else?" "I was thinking, if you're not seeing anybody..." I said, too quickly, "Nope!" "We can, date, again. Slowly. If you want." My heart was suddenly pounding in my chest. "I'd like that," I said.

Durham / Slip Away / 231 She said, "But you've got to get back on your psychotherapy. I don't want you going psycho on me. And shower once in a while. And quit smoking." "Shit," I joked, "any other prerequisites?" She smiled, and then gradually let her expression turn serious again. "So do you forgive me?" "For going psycho on me?" I ribbed. "I guess we're even," she replied. "Yes, I forgive you...but I have a prerequisite before I say yes to dating again." "What?" she said. "The next time you start getting worried about something and you feel like you want to break up..." I paused for effect. "Yes?" she prompted. "Tell me. Talk to me." "I will," she said. "I'm sorry." And for the first time in as long as I could remember, I smiled, and meant it.

Durham / Slip Away / 232

Chapter Nineteen
"You what?" shouted Rudy. I was trying to tell him about my trip to the hospital. He was examining the hole in the wall between the kitchen and the living room. "I just lost it, man," I said. "Well shit, Roar, I can see that!" "I got a hundred and forty seven stitches and two broken fingers." "Nice," he said. "Shit, man, it's a good damn thing I've got some money socked away. That's gonna cost a fortune."

Durham / Slip Away / 233 "I'm on state medical insurance until I'm eighteen," I replied. "You are? Get off that shit. Taking handouts from the government is a sign of believing in it." I rolled my eyes. "Then you'll hate to hear I'm gonna try to get back into school." "What? Why? Jesus, Roar, what's with this shit?" "Because there's no way I'm getting into college if I don't finish high school." "College? Rory!" he bellowed. He never called me Rory. "Where did all this bullshit come from? Don't tell me you went and got what you think is healthy again. You're starting to sound like a drone." He said, pathetically, "What about...about us, man?" "The revolution? Get real, Rudy. You really think we're gonna overthrow the government?" That struck him speechless. He stomped around, waving his arms and muttering half words. Finally, he said, "I'll bet someone said that to George Washington!" "Relax!" I said. "I just want to be happy again, Rudy, that's all." "You will be happy! You'll be saving the world, man! Shit, one cut in your fucking arm and you lose all perspective." "It wasn't the injury to my arm, it's what caused it. I was...I hit bottom," I said. "Sounds like you're still going down," said Rudy. I snapped, "Fuck, don't you get it? I went crazy! I was, I almost killed myself! I almost shot myself with my fucking AR-15. Your AR-15. I don't want it anymore. I don't want to be part of your rebellion or civil war or whatever! I just want to be a, I just..." I took a few deep breaths. Rudy was glaring at me, sneering. "You just want to be a normal kid," he said. "Is that so wrong?" I asked.

Durham / Slip Away / 234 "No. Nope. No," he snapped, with an end-of-conversation tone. He stomped out the back door, heading for the shed. April came. The days got longer, and the sun got warmer, Nikki and I got closer, and Rudy got colder. Mr. Berkeley let me back in school, but I had to do a lot of extra work to catch up. I'd missed almost two months. Two months. I saw Dr. Watson every week. He started me on something called Effexor. I tried to apologize to Buckley, but he wouldn't even acknowledge my presence. I had better luck with Len. He was thrilled that I was back in action. Knowing that my brother was less than stable, he and his mom invited me back into their home, but I turned them down. I didn't know it then, but that could have been the worst decision I ever made. Rudy and I generally avoided each other. He was cold to me, speaking only occasionally and when absolutely necessary. Thankfully, between all the extra schooling I had to do to make up, and spending as much time as I could with Nikki, we didn't cross paths very often. I didn't know if he was still progressing with his plan for world domination or not. He didn't want to hear about my life at all. I tried to talk about how much better the Effexor made me feel, thinking maybe it might inspire him to see a psychological professional, but he scoffed at me. He felt it was a tranquilizer to keep me sedated, engineered dope designed to make me conform to the system. I tried to tell him about Nikki, who made me feel complete--but he sneered. "Women are the biggest mind-fucks of all. You think you'd be fucked up enough to get that gash in your arm if not for Mom? And now this chick

Durham / Slip Away / 235 you're always with--she's probably the one who got you seeing that shrink who's weakening your mind, isn't she? "Of course, it would take a woman to get between us. We were going for something big, Roar. Really big. "And then your little bitch got in the way." I almost punched him in the jaw, but I stopped myself. He only laughed. He got uglier after that. Every time I saw him, he'd sneer and say something about being whipped. "Where's your boss?" he'd ask. "Goin to see your mistress?" Or he'd refer to her as "the bitch that tore what's left of our family apart." Then one day, I came home from school and he was gone. His room was almost empty, the cupboards were open, the truck was gone and the house was locked up. I had to kick the door in because I'd never, ever had a key. Spring gave way into summer. I lived alone at seventeen and somehow the state hadn't found out. I figured I could live on the last stipend I'd received from Rudy until college. I'd amassed about fifteen thousand dollars, and all I had to account for were the phone, utilities and food; the trailer was paid for. I didn't have any credit cards. If I couldn't swing it, I'd move back in with the Humphreys. Everything was still in Rudy's name. I paid with checks from my own account. No questions were asked. Living alone made things really easy for Nikki and me; our sex life had perked back up by May. My arm was healing nicely. There would be a scar from the back of my hand almost to my elbow for the rest of my life. My fingers healed somewhat, but they always, always hurt.

Durham / Slip Away / 236

But that didn't stop me. I was active again, hiking with Nikki, biking wherever I went, and so on. Len had the idea of reuniting the paintball team. We made the phone calls, and everyone was in except Meat, who was out of the country for the summer. We didn't call Morris. One of the coolest paintball days was Family Day. The Northlane crew turned down the pressure in the rental guns so the ball impacts wouldn't hurt (but to my chagrin they weren't as accurate that way), and they invited people of all ages to play. Anyone old enough to walk and carry a weapon was welcome, provided their parents were willing to sign a waiver. The families were randomly assigned teams. Pros like Len and I and our teammates, and Nathan Clawson and his teammates, were split up evenly to keep things fair. We were ringers. It was a terrific time. I didn't get hit once, but still I tried to go easy on the kids. Len called the place a baited field. A thought struck me while I was out hunting the enemy's flag. I saw a kid who couldn't be more than seven or eight, running along after his parents and shouting. His tiny frame, with the oversized face mask and the paintball rifle that was nearly as long as he was tall, charmed me. He was joyously thriving in an event his parents brought him to, probably just for his amusement, and he was filled with love and happiness. I know I was young, and that few relationships make it through college, but I suddenly saw Nikki and me, and a little boy who was ours, doing things together. We'd spend weekends having fun and smiling and laughing, and we'd be a happy and loving family. The family I never had. I kept that thought with me as I rode home on my bike. For the second time in my life, I made up my mind that I was going to tell her that I loved her. I

Durham / Slip Away / 237 wouldn't be making another trip to the mall, and I wouldn't wait for some special night; I would tell her as soon as I saw her. She'd be over sometime in the afternoon. The ride was more than forty minutes by mountain bike, and it wouldn't have been much faster with a motor vehicle. The sky was starting to cloud over, though, and I knew that if I didn't pedal my ass off, it would be a drier ride for a car. I huffed and puffed, and finally came to the road encircling Little Badger Lake. Another mile, and I was riding up to my house. To my delight, I saw Nikki's pickup truck. To my shock, as I rode closer, I saw Rudy's truck next to it. I sighed. I wondered how much crap he'd given her. The poor thing. I hurried to rescue her from his bombastic onslaught. The front door was ajar. I walked in. Rudy was sitting on the living room floor. His eyes were wide. He was surrounded by empty beer cans. He saw me, and his face went pale. "Oh, Roar," he said. I ran to him and knelt. "Are you okay?" He grabbed my hand. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "What?" I said. "So sorry. So sorry. Oh Roar." I stood up. "What? What the hell did you do?" Then my blood ran cold. "Where is Nikki?" "So sorry," he repeated, over and over. I smelled spent gunpowder. With the silvery taste of palpable fear on my tongue, I ran to my room. It was empty. I dashed from room to room--Mom's old room, the bathroom, Rudy's room--all the while shouting at Rudy. I slid to a kneel in front of him and grabbed his neck. "WHERE IS SHE?"

Durham / Slip Away / 238

My mother was lying in the middle of the backyard. I saw her from the back door in the kitchen. Her legs were sticking out, one hovering above the ground stiff. There was a massive hole in her chest in her chest there was no rifle next to her no weapon arms splayed, on her back, blank eyes staring up at the willow tree's branches it wasn't my mother.
It wasn't my mother. For me, the end of all things happened right there. I knelt by her side, felt for her pulse, and there was nothing. Her beautiful hair was languishing in the grass, her bright eyes cold and empty, her full lips parted in a moment of shock frozen on her face forever. Her chest was a gory mess. I thought about crying, but I didn't. I thought about screaming, but no scream was within me. I didn't have any screams or tears. I didn't have any emotions left at all. I walked back into the house. Rudy hadn't moved. I went not to the fridge, but to the cupboard, and retrieved a bottle of bourbon from a collection of liquor he'd amassed. I walked into the living room. He was staring up at me. "So sorry," he said. I dropped the bottle in his lap. "Drink it," I said.

Durham / Slip Away / 239 He looked down, already blindingly drunk, and as if doing it for the first time he manipulated the screw-off cap. He put the bottle to his lips and took a big slug. "I tried," he said. "Could have done it, with you. But they wouldn't listen to me. Nobody, nobody, nobody wants to stand up for theirself." "Drink," I said. He obliged. "I talked to homeless, to whores. They thought I was crazy, I never been good with people Roar, but you are. "I could have done it with you there." "Drink," I said. He took a long sip. "I, I would take it back if I could. It was, I told her to wait outside. I didn't want to see her face. Damnit, bro, she took you from me!" He burst into tears. "Finish it," I said. He took another chug. "It was a spur of the moment thing. I just did it, just, just, aw shit, Roar, I'm so sorry, so sorry!" He drained the bottle. "Stand up," I said. "Come on, Rudy, let's go." He leaned on my shoulder, and I led him outside. The sky had cleared. He stumbled along, through the yard, past poor Nikki. He looked at the corpse and said, "Just like Mom." I said, "I found Mom. Where were you? You didn't see her...wait." "Shit." Oh my god. "You..." I muttered. "She was, she was a waste! She wasn't getting us anywhere. She was hurting you! Every time she drank and passed out, you cried like you were

Durham / Slip Away / 240 stung by a bee! Oh, god, if you could remember when you were a baby, all the times she made you scared, or made you cry..." I didn't even have the capacity for a single, fleeting emotion. I was just sort of surprised. I almost laughed. It all made sense. I just said, "Keep walking." "She was passed out. Again. I just dragged her out." We arrived at the little fishing boat. I still used it from time to time, and had cleaned it up and got it running in the spring. "Mom would have done it herself, you know that, you know that." With my foot I pushed the boat down the yard into the water, and lowered Rudy into it. He collapsed onto his back on the bottom of the boat. I ordered him onto the seat toward the bow. He oozed over to it. Then I walked into the boathouse and grabbed the 80-pound anchor and a length of rope. The whisky was hitting him now. He was slurring heavily. "Are we going for a ride?" he mumbled. "Yeah, Rudy, we're going for a ride. Just a little ride around the lake, okay bro?" "I don't know, I'm awful drunk, the waves'll make me puke probably..." I pushed the boat deeper into the water and climbed in. I sat on the stern bench near the motor. I tied one end of the rope to the anchor. "Put your feet together," I said. He giggled. "These feet?" he asked, lifting and wiggling his feet. He flopped over onto his back on the floor of the boat again. His cigarettes and lighter tumbled out of his pocket. I picked them up and dropped them into my front pocket. I wrapped the rope around his ankles about ten times, and tied a tight knot. "Why are you doing that?" he said. "I don't want you to float," I replied. I pulled the starter. Sitting astern, near the motor, I couldn't hear what he was mumbling as we motored to the middle of the lake.

Durham / Slip Away / 241 He struggled to sit on the front bench. He looked at me, his eyes darting back and forth in standard drunken dizziness. I carefully made my way over to him. I kissed his forehead. Rudy, in a drunken fit of mushiness, grabbed me and gave me a massive hug. "Roar, I love you! Oh, god bro, you're all I got. I love you! I'm sorry! I just wanted you to be my brother!" "I know," I said. "I love you too." The words were meaningless, just things to say to pass the time. I sat low in the boat. "Stand up," I said. Amazingly, he wobbled to his feet. I threw the anchor overboard. Then I said, "Goodbye, Rudy, and shoved him over. And then Dick came. And he left. But the police haven't rolled in yet. I light another cigarette and motor back to the house. I get out and shove the boat away from the shore. It drifts out, back toward the center of the lake. Walking toward the house, I pause and kneel by Nikki, look into her glazed eyes and say, "I love you." I kiss her cold lips. There's only one thing left for me to do.

Durham / Slip Away / 242

Epilogue
An hour and a half later, I park. I go in. The place is pretty much empty. I walk up to the counter. With a hundred dollar bill in hand, I say to the pasty faced lady, "Pick a city in the Midwest." "Pardon me?" she croaks. "Any city," I say. "West of the Mississippi, east of the Rockies, and north of Texas." "You mean like Omaha?" "That's perfect," I say. "One way ticket to Omaha, please."

Durham / Slip Away / 243 She rolls her eyes and says, in a deep, crusty voice, "Whatever you say. You're the boss." She works her computer for a few minutes, and something finally prints out. Then she says, "You change buses in Buffalo, and again in Cleveland and in Chicago. Then it's straight on. The bus leaves in an hour." I'm waiting for that bus now. Someone else's bus just pulled up. A short trickle of people scurried off of it. The last ones to debark were a tiny boy, three or four, and a harried looking woman. As they walk past me, I realize I'm staring, emptily following the boy's eyes as he clutches his mother's hand and stares back at me. Then she scolds him for staring at strangers. I look away. And then, a minute later, I glance after them. But he's forgotten me, and is excitedly talking to his mother about the bus ride. The loudspeaker announces that my bus is boarding, and with no luggage, no bags or backpacks--nothing but a few thousand dirty dollars and the clothes I'm wearing--I board the bus, and I slip away.