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The Cold Inside
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So it’s 1974 and I'm seventeen and I'm a caricature:
the angry young white rural male.
Summer is worst. I've no idea why. You would think that
the school year would be worst, with its routine stupidity.
But it's summer when I could puke up my scorn, it's
so twisted in my guts. A-yup.
I always carry a knife, a folding knife with a four-inch
blade. It's a Buck knife, a well-made knife. I understand
how knives can fascinate people, the way some people
are fascinated by snakes. But I'm not fascinated by
knives or snakes. I carry a knife because it's useful.
I hike in the woods a lot, and even camp and have built
some shelters and spent some days and nights in them.
This is the first time I've written a story. If you
call this a story. I just want to get something out.
I'm thinking it's more a journal. Maybe I'll start a
movement. Yeah: therapeutic journals to keep angry young
men from axe-murdering their biology teachers, or joining
the marines on a whim.
I'm supposed to register for the draft. Selective service.
Have you ever in your fucking life heard anything so
perfectly named? They select the guys in jeans and flannel
shirts with knives in sheaths on their wide leather
belts so the guys in khakis and sweaters who seem to
sweat cologne and genuinely look up to the school's
guidance counselors can go to college and someday select
the guys in jeans and flannel shirts and you get the
idea.
In the theater we call "society", my friends,
costume is character.
Don't worry, from here on I'll be a lot less philosophic,
sophomoric, moronic. Right.
Doesn't matter where in this country you grow up, it's
all the same movie, different costumes. But the good
thing about growing up in Maine? It's within striking
distance of Canada. They come selecting me, I'm gone.
Yeah. I'll leave a note. Carefully written, or maybe
even typed. But what would it say? Fuck you, of course.
Stupid. And I promised not to be moronic, didn't I?
Okay. So I'm an angry young man and I've got a motorcycle.
What a joke! Want a bigger joke? It's just a little
Honda 360 older than I am. Sure, it'll go 80mph but
when you whine it out it sounds like a snot-nosed seven-year-old
complaining that you changed the television channel
during his favorite after-school cartoon. A-yup.
Here's the thing: I'm zinging down I-95, no helmet,
with a friend, Chris, on the seat behind me and we're
on our way to a house party in Old Saybrooke and it's
the middle of a warm summer Saturday afternoon and as
we're zooming along I see two guys ahead up on an overpass
and I know, know instantly, what they are doing.
They're tossing rocks at cars.
I see them see me. They light up with joy, the fucks:
a motorcycle! I know what's coming. But I'm doing seventy
and Chris is on the back, oblivious to it all, and did
I mention how uptight I always am?
There are cars all around me and I've got to stay off
the oil strip in the center of the lane. Really, all
I can do is try to guess which side of my lane those
two shits on the overpass are going to throw the stones
on. Even as I' m dealing with all this I 'm watching
them gleefully hopping up to the railing, their hands
balled up with dirt and stones. And believe it or not,
my mind goes off and wonders, did they bring a supply
of stones to the overpass, or are they just scooping
up whatever is along the road?
Keep in mind, this is all taking two seconds to happen.
No exaggeration. Count it: One one-thousand. Two one-thousand.
Bam.
They throw their handfuls of stones and dirt across
the whole lane so it wouldn't have mattered if I eased
right or left. And I mean they threw it hard. They weren't
intending to miss.
At that speed it's over in a split second. I see the
flume of gray sand at the same instant I feel it scrape
into my face. I don't see any stones, but one hits me
on the left shoulder and I hear some hit on the bike's
metal and off the fender of the car in the lane beside
us. The sound reminds me of when I plink cans with my
twenty-two rifle. I go cold.
I go cold. I can feel the warm of the sun and smell
the hot tar of the highway and even hear that small
roar of the wind in the trees that is always there if
you listen close for it. But all that is separate far
away. And it's not like I'm shivering cold. Maybe cool
is the better word. It's like how cold water is up in
the woods when you step into a stream, but because it's
so liquid, and coursing by so fast, even though your
barefoot is instantly numb, it just feels cool. Just
feels cool, but if you stood in that water fifteen minutes
they'd have to amputate your toes. A-yup.
Chris never saw any of it coming. He yells, "What
the fuck!" as I try to keep us from falling. It's
not easy when you see a big hit coming straight for
your face and all you can do—no, check that—
the best thing you can do, is to keep the bike straight
and duck your face as the small rocks and sand smacks
into you. "What the fuck!" Chris yells again,
but this time he has enough sense to not put any body
english into it. I keep the bike from wobbling. I could
yell back to Chris an explanation of what just happened,
but you know that cool I mentioned? It's in me, and
I feel like I don't want to say another word the rest
of my life. But even with that, I can feel Chris put
together what just happened. And for confirmation, I
feel his weight shift as he leans backward to give the
finger to the two shits on the overpass and yell his
curses as loud as he can. I know his anger isn't anything.
Not like mine. Some guys, you can tell they're talking
themselves out of being angry the way they swear—like
reciting a list. Fuck this, shit that, your mother this,
your sister that. It's almost like a prayer, a mantra,
or something. What's the word? A litany? They recite
a litany, a list. And when you get to know some guys
well you get to know their list.
I glanced in my right rearview mirror and saw the two
guys up on the overpass and I swear it was like a cartoon:
the taller guy was pointing at us and seemed to be doing
a belly-laugh and the shorter one seemed to be slapping
him on the back. A fucking cartoon. A-yup.
And all of this took place in two seconds. One one thousand.
Two one thousand. No exaggeration.
A quarter mile along the highway, after a long bend
with trees I knew were covering us, even if the two
shits were still watching, I shot down the exit.
"Hey. Where you going?" Chris asked, his hands
coming onto my back to brace himself as I braked hard
for the stop sign at the end of the exit ramp.
I didn't want to even say one word. I just wanted to
be silent.
But Chris figured it out. "Fuck it. They aren't
going to be there, waiting for the cops or someone to
kick their asses. Let's just go to the party."
I didn't answer. I knew they would be there, right there
on the bridge. They were that stupid.
Maybe 90 seconds later, after I doubled back on the
side roads, we rode across the overpass and the two
dumb shits were still there, leaned over the railings
and staring down onto the traffic and not even aware
of us or some cars passing behind them. This may sound
strange, but I knew in advance that it would be just
like that. I had seen everything that was going to happen
in my mind. And it was all playing out that exact way.
I drove around a bend and pulled over onto a gravel
driveway. I gunned the bike up close to a stone wall,
between two big trees and turned it off, put the key
in my pocket.
I took my knife from its sheath on my belt and unfolded
its blade and checked the lock so the blade wouldn't
fold back on my hand.
"What are you doing?" Chris said, his voice
too loud, as if the engine were still running.
I put the knife like that, opened, into the right front
pocket of my jeans, my hand on it. And started walking,
both hands in my jeans pockets, looking like I was out
for a stroll. A-yup.
"Oh. Fuck." Chris said. He jogged up beside
me. "Oh. Fuck."
"You got a knife?" I asked. Of course I knew
he did, right in the black sheath on his wide leather
belt. You see what I mean about costumes? It was like
Chris and I wore uniforms: regulation tan work boots,
jeans, black tee shirts under flannel shirts, folding
knives in sheathes on wide leather belts. We were expected
to.
"Yeah."
"I'm not going to cut them," I said. And I
didn't even care to look to see if Chris was coming
or getting his knife out or what. I was ready to take
on both the dumb fucks.
We were a joke. But that coolness was still on me. We
came around the bend, walking on the same side of the
road as the two goons on the bridge were standing, still
leaning over the rails. I was careful not to look directly
at them. They were talking, the way friends do, casually,
leaned close together. The dumb fucks didn't notice
us.
"I'll take the big one," I said to Chris.
"I'm not going to cut him." I don't know why
I said it again. Maybe I was trying to make it true
by saying it out loud.
"Fucking assholes," Chris said. I knew that
Chris was now going up the scale of his mantra, to get
himself psyched, angry.
And the rest just played out like a dream, like a script
for a bad movie. Worse, like fucking television.
I grabbed the big one. He was my age, but bigger than
me by four or five inches. I spun him around with my
left hand by grabbing his arm. As he came around to
face me, I moved my left hand onto his chest and grabbed
a wad of shirt. Flannel shirt, of course.
I spun him back against the railing and had my knife
at his throat. Simple. Like I'd been training to do
it all my life. I remember the few soft black whiskers
on his chin, like he wasn't a regular shaver yet.
"Big fucking joke dropping stones on people?"
I said it like a question. My left hand had a bunch
of his shirt and my right had the knife tight up under
his chin, my knuckles the only thing keeping the cutting
edge from his throat.
It was the first, and so far, the only time I ever saw
terror in someone. I've been afraid, and I've seen people
afraid. This guy was terrified; he thought I was about
to slit his throat.
And here's the thing: I hated it. I hated seeing that
look on his face. I hated that I was causing that look.
I felt uglier than I've ever felt. Under this cool deepness
separating me from this big dumb shit and the rest of
the world, I felt ugly as sin.
I was aware, right then, of hearing Chris echoing my
words to the smaller goon. "Big fucking joke dropping
shit on people?" Chris's voice broke on the word
'people'.
The ugly feeling deepened. I suspect I was embarrassed.
I would rather have been playing out this scene on my
own. My rage was private.
"Answer," I told the guy I was holding. My
voice sounded like I was a teacher, and him a dull student.
I really shouldn't have sounded so casual, so indifferent,
distant. But there was this vast separation, this distance.
"Not a joke," he said. His body shook once,
and for a second I thought he was trying to break free.
But he was only breathing, gasping for air after speaking.
"Not a joke," he said again.
And that's when I saw him change. Maybe he realized
I wasn't going to cut him. Maybe he was just embarrassed
that a guy half a foot shorter than him was pinning
him to the rails. Maybe he was getting angry. I saw
the defiance come into his face. And that was all I
needed.
I closed my hand tight on the handle of my knife, making
a fist with the handle inside and the blade turned toward
him. I punched his face. He could see the knife and
my fist smashing right into his face and he couldn't
do anything but watch it coming because if he moved
he could get cut bad.
His defiance evaporated. I thought he was going to cry.
His eyes got small and wet. He tried to pull away but
I yanked him back, my left hand tight on a bunch of
his shirt. I kept the blade right in front of his face.
I smashed my fist into his face three times. Hard, and
careful of my aim, and careful to keep the blade edge
toward him. Punch. Get set. Punch. Get set. Punch. I
was aware of scuffling at my side and knew that the
guy Chris had pinned had gotten loose. But he didn't
come to help his big friend, no, he ran away, down the
sidewalk of the bridge, swearing at Chris and me, but
running until he was on the road before stopping, turning.
He yelled back at me, "Let him go!"
I think I may have smiled then.
I smashed my fist into the face one more time. Then
I used my left hand to push him away, spin him around,
away from me. And in some twisted inspiration, as his
back was turned I kicked him in his ass. The force of
it knocked him forward and he almost fell sprawled face
down on the sidewalk, but managed to get his hands down
to break his fall. He came up in a dead run toward his
friend. I wanted to laugh. I had to be laughing, inside.
Guys were always talking about "kicking someone’s'
ass". I always thought the expression stupid. And
here I was, kicking someone's ass. I was a fucking cartoon.
I wasn't laughing at him. I was laughing at me. But
I was laughing silent. It was all so stupid. I felt
I could have punched my fist right through the concrete
wall of the bridge. A cartoon.
My victim stopped running after twenty feet or so. He
kept walking away from us, but he started threatening
me, swearing at me. I walked toward him. I saw the smear
of blood from his nose down into the collar of his shirt.
The blood looked thick and also watery at the same time.
Maybe I was smiling. I know I wasn't serious. I could
have done anything. Nothing mattered to me. I wasn't
angry at him. I could have happily smashed his face
a dozen more times. He walked faster, away, and worked
through his list of curses, and I was in serious danger
of laughing out loud at all of us.
I crossed the street to be on the side where my bike
was parked. I walked fast enough so I would get there
before my enemy saw the bike and maybe had a chance
to damage it.
That I didn't respond to his sudden bravery, his taunts
and threats, made him scream more, harder, higher. I
wanted to laugh at the way he would scream at me, but
was careful to stay on the opposite side of the road
from me.
I stared at him and said nothing. Which means I said
"fuck you", the way it should be said.
I got back to my bike, started it up. Chris got on behind
me. I turned the bike around and accelerated smoothly,
back the way we had come. I saw in my rearview mirror
that once we were turned, the two goons grabbed rocks
from the roadside and threw them.
"Miserable dumb fucks," I muttered.
But I felt ugly. I felt ridiculous. It was like the
cool in me had become cold, freezing cold. It was like
my body was telling me to step out of the cold stream
right now or they were going to have to amputate my
feet. It was that cold. I wanted to be in the woods,
wanted to be sitting on a rock near a fast stream, hearing
the soft roar of the wind in the pine trees and knowing
that I wouldn't see anyone, wouldn’t see another
person, so long as I stayed still, and quiet, right
there on the rock by the stream rushing past me.