Darkheart

The Present: Guys & Dolls

How deceptive a lake was, especially on a warm, sunny day. It shimmered serenely, insensible to anything else around it, undulating in all its warm watery ribbons. It looked welcoming, friendly, even--threatened little of the thalassaphobic tremors of the ocean. The blues . . . so blue! The cobalt waters stretched forever toward a horizon that blurred so seamlessly with the sky that one could hardly find beginnings and ends. Kevin almost preferred the grays of winter. At least then, the lake looked closer to what it was: a cold, indiscriminate entity, profound and incomprehensible, inattentive to the safety of whatever entered its body. A lake was neither willing nor unwilling, hostile nor inhospitable. It moved senselessly, a thing blind and aimless, a brute force relentless and imperturbable, and any small outsider seeking solace within its perceived refreshment risked more than he knew.

All those years ago, that kid that'd ended up in pieces . . . he'd surely underestimated the lake.

But the natural world--or at least, what humans perceived to be the natural world--was none of it friendly. That was certain.

Kevin walked the paved path that ran along the lakefront. It hadn't been there when he was young, when he'd grown up in Port Killdeer, and even though the town could've benefited from a lot more change, this one thing was a surprising improvement. He'd roamed to the lakefront, the public pier, but rather than go down it he'd turned left and crossed the grass toward a few of the old pavilions. From there, he'd discovered a path for walkers and bikers that extended as far as he could see toward the marina, the breaker wall, the towers and steam columns of the soy sauce factory way in the distance (on any day when the wind blew just right, the odor from that factory made its way to Port Killdeer; that corn-nutty smell was linked to many of Kevin's memories).

The grass around the walkway was a bit long and swayed in the breeze that came in off the water. Every so often a biker or a jogger would pass Kevin, and he'd step aside as was polite, though he returned no greetings. While he was pleased to have the path, there was also something about it that deepened his despondency. He'd spent the last fifteen years under the curse of knowledge, aware that Port Killdeer didn't have any understanding of what it actually was, and yet being away had (in spite of his pessimism) paradoxically given him a bit of hope that somehow his hometown would reveal itself, that he'd return to find the entire place as defeated as he was, because if they knew . . . there was no way they'd be wasting time and energy making bike paths.

But the path was there, and he was benefiting from it, from just being alone and clearing his head. Seeing his brother again hadn't been terrible. Mike, though not particularly old, had aged considerably since Kevin had seen him last, presenting more as a fifty-year-old than the thirty-four he was. Years of continuous hard living and assholery had dulled his senses, too, so when Kevin had arrived at his childhood home, Mike had seemed startled but, after the initial shock, indifferent, which to Kevin was a massive relief. He'd expected argument, blame, anger . . . maybe even a physical altercation. Instead, he'd received a shrug and a look at Mike's back as he'd turned into the house, leaving the door open for Kevin. And the experience had improved when Mike had told him their father was gone. According to Mike, Don O'Connor had "married some loose woman come through town one summer" and soon after disappeared. So, all things considered, returning hadn't as of yet been too painful.

The only real problem was that Kevin had no idea what to do with himself. It'd been hardly twenty-four hours since he'd gotten back, since Heather had dropped him at his place. He'd almost wanted to ask her to come with him, as ridiculous as he knew that was, but once he'd seen the state of Mike, realized his dad wasn't there, it'd been fine. Still, wandering through the rooms of that building had been like wandering through a less sanguine version of his youth, where his present self already knew the story of his past self, knew that it didn't get better, it only got worse. Had he known where things would go, that leaving wouldn't actually mean getting away, he'd probably have killed himself before getting in his acquaintance's car and heading out.