Waters That Divide
I maybe would have been more familiar with the roads if I was out there more often. But to be fair, half the time they could barely be called roads. Really more like wide walking paths. When it wasn’t ball-busting washboard, it was rutted out from runoff. Overgrown on both sides, always imperceptibly being taken back by the forest it was scalped from. Every corner was a blind one; the posted speed limit was a dare. Driving during the day was a crap shoot. At night? Forget it. Going over the speed limit bought you a one-way ticket to somewhere you didn’t want to be.
I should have been glad for them. They wanted to slow down after retirement, live the rest of their lives at their own speed without neighbors twenty feet away. Cedar benches next to babbling brooks and songbirds at the window. All that jazz. I mean, I get it. But did it have to be on the side of a mountain surrounded by ten other mountains? Twenty miles of dirt to go five as the crow flies? A trip that feels like it requires preparation equal to Orellana’s the first time he took a machete to the misty Amazonian vastness.
Heavy clouds masked the moon. There wasn’t any light to be had other than what weakly spilled from my foggy headlights. I knew the way well enough. There weren’t any turns to make other than the one off the highway, and the one into their driveway a half hour later. There wasn’t any reception to be had for a GPS, anyhow. The wind was beginning to pick up. It whistled through the trees and made of them a formless, undulating mass. Tall pines leaned this way and that, keeping time with some atmospheric orchestra that had a rocky peak as its conductor.
I knew better than to be driving as fast as I was. I was tired from the trip, tired from having my brains bounced to bits. Ready to be done with it. And yet, there I was. Being an impatient dumbass. I came around a corner, and there was a deer squarely in the middle of the road. Not walking, not eating something, all by himself. Like he was just waiting for me. Rather than swerving, I tried to brake just hard enough, but my lizard brain mental math was wrong. The back tires of my car lost traction and slid to the outer edge of the road. The rest of the car followed, and we started flipping. All I could think to do was cross my arms against my chest and close my eyes against the chaos.
Everything became still and I opened my eyes. The car had ended up on its side, leaning against some trees. The roof had caved in and the glass had turned to spiderwebs. I managed to get out of my seatbelt and push the door open. The trees moaned against the weight of the car, which was creaking and steaming. I hastened to climb out before they gave way and I became a human pancake in the valley, some untold depth below. I stood and looked myself over, unable to find any blood or note any considerable pain. The car was a crumpled mess. Already ten years old, it was then good for nothing but a junkyard.
There was a chill in the wind, so I decided to take the risk and climb back in the car to fetch my jacket. It was full of many other things from traveling and just being generally too lazy to clean it out, but none of it seemed worth saving for the moment. I told myself I’d come back for it all whenever a tow truck was able to make it out there, but I knew it wasn’t true. Just a bunch of shit into the trashcan of convenience. I took my phone out of my pocket and found that it was intact, but still without reception. I tried 911 anyhow, to no avail. So I resigned myself to doing the only thing I could: start walking.
I couldn’t remember how far I’d driven, and therefore how much further I had yet to go. I figured it was at least five miles, but I had little faith in the figure. Every bend looked like the last one, every tree a carbon copy of every other one. Endless dirt that only came into existence at the edge of my pocket flashlight’s beam, and folded back into nothing behind me.
I realized at some point that the wind had entirely disappeared, and remaining in the wake of its roar was complete silence. I was left with nothing but the frustration of my own self-imposed predicament. They say hindsight is always 20/20. Of course I was driving too fast. I knew it then, but there I was, doing it anyway. I could already see my parents, my father shaking his head, and my mother taking a little zeal in saying “I told you so.” I figured the shaming was worth a bed under a roof. I tried to leave the issue of a completely fucked car for later. I mainly just wanted to get off the road, away from whatever lurked behind boulders and trees. It was bear country, after all.
I found myself staring through the trees, though there was nothing to see. One burled and barked pillar after another, cloaked in shadow and gradually disappearing into the night. They witnessed my shameful stride, shoes rapidly becoming covered in dirt and dust.
A glint off the edge of the road caught my eye. It was a light, but I couldn't tell what it was coming from or how far away it lay. It was only visible in a half-foot space between two trees at eye level. At any other declination, it was lost to black space.
I figured I didn't have much to lose by following it. I felt that surely some soul was near to it who could direct me out of the limbo I was growing weary of. I stepped off the road, the ground much steeper than I anticipated. Half was loose rock, and the other half was slick with heavy, recent rain. Heavy layers of leaves made it impossible to tell if solid ground was just beneath, or some ankle-breaking depth further.
My flashlight was only ever aimed at my feet or my hands, constantly searching for a minimally-mossy branch to grab. Occasionally I would stop and seek out the faraway light. After what seemed like an hour, I was out of breath and sweating, beads of it were running down my temples and the middle of my chest. I sat down to collect myself. It did cross my mind to turn around and go back, but getting lost felt like a certainty, and doing it uphill would ensure it happened immediately. The light still seemed no brighter to me. Unsure of what to make of it, and having already decided to press on, I stood up and continued my controlled stumbling.
It wasn’t long before the flashlight began to give out, its already feeble luminance flickering and growing weaker still. I was only saved by the appearance of a bright moon. My eyes adjusted well enough, and so i retired the flashlight to my pocket. Between thoughts filled with crashed cars and the subsequent debts incurred, I found myself nearly enjoying the traipse, the supreme silence and stillness. The deepest of slumberings by rooted giants. I realized the light was not a light, but a small fire. The realization felt nothing short of a soul-saving deliverance. The ache of the miles nearly left my bones, and so I quickened my pace.
A few minutes passed and I came upon the fire, a surprisingly small thing given how much light it gave off. A tarnished green mass of copper tubes and containers sat next to it, which I took to be a still of some sort. I stepped close enough to feel the warmth of the flames, and looked around. I saw no one, no sign of life. Nothing other than the fire suggested anyone had been there in fifty years, when the contraption was still boiling, churning, condensing. I found the whole situation strange. It eventually occurred to me that someone had been there, but had been probably scared into hiding by my trodding. I decided to call out, and, upon doing so, waited for some kind of reply.
A reply never came, but a simply-dressed man took a single step out of the shadow and into the fire’s light. I didn’t hear him walk up, and his sudden appearance made me jump.
“Sorry, young man. Didn’t mean to scare ye.” He raised his hands, and then slid them into his pockets. There was an aspect of him which was strange, but not unsettling. Some kind of familiarity in the face of a stranger. Perhaps it was because of the fire’s uneven light, but I couldn’t tell if he was 35 or 95.
“Where were you? I didn’t hear you walk up.”
The man gestured behind himself. “I was just beyond.” He pointed to a tree stump next to me which I hadn’t previously noticed. “Have a seat. Say. What you doing all the way out here at this hour? Or at all?
I sat down, rubbed my eyes, and ran a hand through my hair. “I wrecked my car on the road up there. Was on my way to go see my parents. I started walking down the road, but saw your fire and figured there might be someone nearby.” I pointed to the still. “That yours?”
“This ole still? Naw. Belonged to a man named Barry who found hisself on the bad side of a lawman, something like forty years ago. Ain’t made a drop of hooch since, and likely ne’er will again. Seein’ as how don’t nobody know it’s here.”
I found my manners in the warmth that slowly found my toes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. I’m Matthew.” I stood, pulled a hand out of my jacket pocket and extended it, but he didn’t shake it.
“Matthew, is it? Good name. Biblical. I’ve been called many things. But you can call me Charlie.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Charlie.” I sat back down and looked intently at him. Charlie stared into the coals and seemed to take notice of nothing other than their imperceptible diminishment. The ebb and flow of the wind, a nearby hooting owl, the leaves that floated down from the unseen above. None of it caught an ounce of his attention. His face was entirely unreadable. I couldn’t tell if he was lost in thought, or if he’d witnessed it all a million times before, perhaps witnessed everything there was to lay eyes upon. His eyes were dark waters. Maybe six inches of unknown, maybe six miles to its depth. I wanted to ask him what he was doing out there, seemingly for no reason at all, but I knew the answer couldn’t be a simple one. I was afraid of its potential.
I was thankful for Charlie and his fire, but it wasn’t where I wanted to spend the rest of my night. “Charlie, how does a man get out of this valley?”
“Only way out is down there,” He pointed to his left, further down the mountain. “Gotta cross the river. Too deep and fast and cold to swim across. I got a little boat.”
“River? I never knew there was a river down there. Huh.”
“That there is. And it’s the only way to get out of this place.” He raised his eyes to meet mine. “Go ahead and ask it.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Don’t pretend to be ignorant. The question. I can’t give you the answer unless you ask it of me.”
“-Uh.”
“Ask.”
“Okay. What on earth are you doing out here, miles from anything or anyone else?”
A sad smile came to Charlie’s face. “My son. I’m here to meet you.”
“I don’t understand.” I didn’t take him to be a jokester. He seemed quite serious.
“Your heart’s in denial, is all. Still thinkin’ it’s clingin’ to this world.”
“I..I..” There was a stone in my gut and it was growing heavier.
“Let me show you.” He withdrew a hand from his pocket and held it out. “Take my hand.”
I paused, but then obliged. As my skin touched his, the fire and trees dissolved and mixed until their grains came into another alignment. Charlie pulled his hand away and we were standing on the road, looking down at my crashed car. I looked at Charlie, who nodded and pointed at the car. “Look inside.”
I took a few steps down the slope and looked at the car from the side. A branch had lanced the windshield just above the steering wheel. The driver’s side window was covered in dew. I pushed it away and came face to face with myself. My eyes were closed, and the branch had penetrated the center of my chest. I reeled backwards and fell.
Charlie was still. “Your heart’d be poundin’ outta your chest, but you don’t got neither anymore.”
It all dissolved again, and we were back by the fire. I sat down. “You’re Charon, aren’t you?”
“I also been known by that name, yeah.”
“I don’t remember dying at all. Not even for a second.”
“Then you should count yourself lucky. I wait for people sometimes hours, days.”
I gazed up at him. His hands were back in his pockets, statue-esque again. “There’s no going back, is there?”
“Afraid not, son.”
“There was still so much I wanted to do. Needed to do.”
“And doing them sooner rather than later is what the old timers tried to beat into your head since you were a child, no?”
“Yeah.”
“Well. Now you know what every mystic and philosopher and religious man desires to have knowledge of. And the price is that you can’t share it with ‘em.”
I nodded. “I guess it’s time then, isn’t it?”
“I reckon so. Can’t wait much longer.”
“Que sera, sera.”
Charlie tilted his head. “Brando said the same thing. So did the Queen, I recollect.” He began walking down the slope. I stood and followed his silent steps. It was then I realized he was barefoot. We came upon the river in less than a minute. Despite its waters churning and crashing, there was only silence. Charlie had a small, motor-less aluminum boat.
“I imagine you still require a toll.”
“Yes, iff’n you can pay.”
I produced the contents of my pockets. There was my flashflight, cell phone, a five dollar bill, half-empty pack of cigarettes, and a small lighter. I drew the bill from the pile and offered it to him. He shook his head.
“Naw.” He looked at the other items, and picked up the flashlight. Charlie pressed its power button, and from it emanated a light beam stronger than a car’s headlight. He pressed the button again and grunted in satisfaction. “I accept this as payment.” He gestured to the boat, half floating in the black, ethereal waters. “Git on in, son.” I obeyed his request.
Charlie produced a pole with which to guide the boat. “You got time enough for one more question from me. Make it quick and make it count.”
My mind ran to my Grandfather, who had died a little over a year ago after a lengthy fight with cancer. “My grandfather. My father’s father. What was he like?”
Charlie smiled out of one corner of his mouth. “That man was expectin’ me. Had a deck of cards and a big gold coin in his pockets. Insisted we play a game before I sent him on.”
I had remembered the tattered Bicycle deck he kept together with an old rubber band. It had never been far away. He had approached life the same way, as merely a game of successive decisions that depended on the previous one. And he had always seemed satisfied with his hand, even in the end when his hands didn’t have the strength to hold the cards they were dealt. It made me smile. “Did he win?”
“Naw. But it was close.” Charlie produced a long pole with which to push the boat. He thrusted it deftly into the water until it struck bottom, and we left the bank. He brought the deck of cards out from a hidden pocket. “And I took these as my payment.” He flipped the entire deck into the air, each card reflecting the moonlight, before catching them again with the same hand.
I pushed tears from my eyes and looked down the river.