Amor Fati

Brandon was watching the Falcons play the Packers on "Monday Night Football," and the game had just gone into over-time when his wife Judy stood in front of the TV to block his view.

“What’re you? Crazy?” Brandon knocked his bowl of popcorn over on the shag carpet he hadn’t vacuumed in months. “It's Monday Night Football.”

“It’s Halloween,” Judy remonstrated. “Darcey’s not answering her phone.” His wife was wearing her usual professorial couture -- tweed blazer, black turtleneck, khakis, brogans, as though she were fall itself. Her glasses were foggy, and her cheeks were ruddy, as though she’d been crying. “Darcey always answers her phone, even on Halloween.”

“Maybe she took it off the hook.” Brandon bent over his beer belly to pick up the kernels of popcorn, pulling hairs off the hulls and putting them back in the bowl. Between Judy’s knees he saw a black man in a Falcon uniform racing toward the Green Bay end zone.

“She wouldn’t take her phone off the hook on Halloween, Mr. Know-it-all.” Judy had this unflinching habit of saying things that made Brandon look stupid. The guys at the radio station had noticed this and told him he should do something about it. But Brandon had gotten so used to it in the ten years he’d been married that he didn’t pay it any mind. Besides, Judy was too smart for him to intimidate. She taught English composition part-time at the community college in Ashland. Darcey had begun teaching there, too. Philosophy, he thought Judy had said.

“Maybe she’s got company and doesn’t want to be disturbed,” Brandon said. Behind his wife the player who’d been running toward the end zone was being interviewed on TV.

Judy titlted her head, and her face flushed. A wing of her auburn hair fell on her shoulder. Behind the glasses her eyebrows arched like the wings of an eagle swooping down on helpless prey. “Come on,” she said, snatching up the car keys from the kitchen table. Without looking back, she walked right out the back door of their double-wide trailer and into the crisp October night. A car door slammed outside.

Brandon pulled himself up, snapped the last three buttons on his blue plastic windbreaker, turning everything off on his way to the door. He left the porch light on so they could see when they got back. Outside, he noticed his wife was sitting in the driver’s side of their ’77 orange Pinto. She started the engine, gunned it, her eyes transfixed on the windshield. She didn’t even wait for Brandon to close the passenger door, just pulled out of the gravel drive and into the night.

Darkness swirled around and behind them as they sped down Route 60 toward Darcey’s house. A full moon seemed to lead the way. The occasional trick-or-treater zipped past them like a zombie in fast motion, and Brandon remembered that it was Halloween, the night of the dead.

“What’s the hurry?” he asked Judy, who by now must have been doing about sixty on a road too curvy for fifty.

“You’ll see.” She took a broad bend at full throttle, and Brandon heard the beer in his belly lurch. As though she sensed his queasiness, Judy told him to turn the radio on.

Brandon didn’t like to listen to the radio. It reminded him of work. But something had to get his mind off the road, so he clicked the knob. The radio got only AM stations, so the signal faded up with static before it cleared.

“You’re listening to WGLC,” Derek, the night DJ, whispered through the speakers. Brandon didn’t like Derek’s Dramamine delivery, thought it was too slow, devoid of personality. He also didn’t like how Derek stepped on the post at the start of a song, talking even when the singer had begun crooning.

“Caleb Meyer,” a song by Gillian Welch, came on the air, and Gillian’s sharp, nasal twang pierced the darkness between the couple.

Judy sang along, really belting out the lyrics. She knew the words to everything, even before they left her tongue.

Judy stopped singing. A serious expression came over her, again that kind of weird discovery that had screwed up her face in the trailer. The Pinto shot through the night like a rocket.

When Judy and Brandon were younger, they used to think they’d be somebody. They’d met at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, where they enrolled in classes like Introduction to Philosophy, Music Appreciation, Survey of American Literature since 1865. They bought books they rarely read and listened to NPR all day. They went to wine parties, where they’d eat spare ribs and pass out on the floors of their hosts. Brandon used to play guitar, always spoke about starting a band, and Judy was going to write a novel. Although they were poor, they were happy, with their whole lives ahead of them; they’d have every choice in the world.

But after they crossed the threshold of thirty, the energy had left the wine, and if they were going to be somebody they should have started in their twenties. There comes a time when that move to New York gets trapped beneath a rubble of bills, and grass needs cutting on Saturdays. They’d always been afraid of living an epilogue in the middle of their lives, and without realizing it or refusing to acknowledge it to each other, they’d already died inside. Brandon retired his guitar case to the bedroom closet, and Judy sold her typewriter before it became obsolete. He took a part-time job at her father’s radio station in Kenova, while she completed her master’s degree and taught English composition whenever the college needed her. Against Brandon’s will, Judy’s parents bought them a trailer with a satellite dish, so Brandon spent most of his evenings guzzling beer on the couch, falling asleep with the TV on. His life was turning into a John Waters movie.

There were times, too, when Brandon felt as though Judy no longer loved him, that she had tired of his bulky presence on the couch. She always had something to complain about. The rooms weren’t clean enough, there were too many dishes in the sink, the toilet hadn’t been scrubbed. Sometimes she just kicked his fat ass out, throwing up in his face the fact that the trailer had been a gift from her parents.

On those occasions, Brandon would walk to a bar down the road and would stagger back home after hours, snoozing in the back of the Pinto until at last she relented, tapping on the car window to rouse him. While he watched TV, she’d hole herself up in their bedroom, flipping through romance magazines or whispering on the phone to some unknown listener. At any rate, she’d always hang up the minute Brandon set foot in the room.

Anymore, though, Brandon didn’t like living this way. Talking to a sleeping town in the early morning hours, watching TV till late at night, eating and drinking to pass the time in between -- It was no good. He still thought he had something to offer the world, whatever it may be. Lately, he’d taken to playing his guitar when Judy wasn’t home. Chords rushed back to him as though he were riding a bike for the first time in twenty years. His hands hadn’t forgotten them. Before he knew it, he’d composed a few songs. They must have been waiting all this time for him to let them out, like sweet, fermented wine.

If only he could find a way out of the double-wide for good, to stop living this double life. But it wasn’t that easy. On his hourly salary he’d have to move back to his parents’ house, where he wasn’t allowed to drink beer. His father was a Baptist minister, and his mother was a nurse at the general hospital. Although they lived just down the road in Kenova, Brandon rarely visited them, but when he did, he swore he’d catch a trace of shame in their eyes. His quiet life of desperation was becoming more desperate. As a result, he’d become one of those men who was mad all the time without really knowing why.

“We’re here.” Judy was pulling into the long gravel driveway that led back to Darcey’s house in the woods.

Before they died, Darcey’s parents had willed their hunting lodge to their only child. Brandon had heard rumors, though, that Darcey had a sibling, an older half-brother from her father’s previous marriage. One of the rumors had it that the brother had done some time in Moundsville for murder. Another held that he’d loved his sister romantically and had to be sent away. Now he was back, and he wanted the lodge, which he felt was his birthright. He’d probably do anything to get it back, like kill again. But if Darcey had a big brother she never mentioned him, always side-stepped the issue if it happened to come up.

After both of her parents had passed away, Darcey inherited eighty-four acres of sprawling land and a one-storey house with no indoor plumbing. There was an outhouse around back, and Darcey had installed a water cooler in the kitchen. In the few years she’d been living out here, she’d managed to hack out of the rhododendrons these intricate trails that ran all over the property, including one that ended at a pond, for which she’d built a pier for diving. She’d also tied a hammock between a couple of sturdy pines for daydreaming.

Not far from the pond, about a couple hundred yards or so, another trail ended at the edge of a cliff with a 350-feet descent. At the base of the cliff was a tiny stream that slowly wended its way through the forested valley below. Boulders lay scattered around the basin from when the stream used to be a river a million years ago.

Darcey forbade anyone from going near the cliff, especially at night. Anyone who fell off that cliff, she said, would never return to talk about it. But sometimes at night when the moon was full, after he and Judy had sampled some of Darcey’s homegrown, Brandon would leave them lying in the hammock together to make his way toward the edge of the cliff. Moonlight on the chasm below made the world look eerie and surreal, smooth almost, like a William Bailey painting would. Sitting on the edge of the cliff, Brandon would dangle his legs out into the void before him, listening to the barely perceptible tinkling of the stream below.

There were times when he wondered what it would feel like to jump, his body weightless and suspended for just a few seconds before gravity had its way with him, coaxing him down to the boulders below, his bones crashing like balsa wood against their silent strength. He’d ponder the meaning of death and how it had sneaked into the world. What did it feel like? When would it find him? Could he meet it halfway, save it the time of wearing him down slowly, or should he make a stand against it to the very end? These were some of the questions he’d ask himself while he sat on the edge of the world.

Come to think of it, Judy had been coming out to Darcey’s a lot lately. She told Brandon that they worked on projects for their classes or sat around and graded papers. But sometimes she came home late when Brandon was asleep on the couch. Sometimes she didn’t come home at all. A man could waste his time worrying about what his wife was up to, but Brandon wasn’t even sure he cared anymore. Judy didn’t want to have kids, and Brandon couldn’t remember the last time they’d had sex. For that matter, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen his own penis.

“Her car’s here.” Judy had a faraway look in her eyes, as though she didn’t understand what was going on.

The only light on in the house was in the kitchen. Plastic spooks spun from the eaves. Brandon and Judy got out and crunched across the driveway to the front door, which opened into the kitchen. She led the way in, easing the door back as she inched through the threshold. “Darcey? Honey? It’s me and Brandon. Everything okay?”

Silence. The unnatural kind you get when there's nothing alive in the house. A musty sweetness clung to the air, like the smell of overripe tomatoes. A clean claw hammer lay on the table.

Brandon and Judy stood there looking at each other, not knowing what to do. If Darcey’s car was parked in the drive, then that meant she must be home. Her place was about as remote as a person could get before encountering wilderness.

Brandon walked over to the doorway that led from the kitchen to the rest of the house. Actually, the rest of the house was nothing more than a big, smoke-stained room with a pot-bellied stove, a couple of wooden armchairs, and a futon Darcey slept on. She’d taken the kitchen door off its frame years ago. Doors, she said, were too restricting. “Look!” she was fond of saying. “A door. You open it, and you’re free.”

The room beyond the doorway was partially lit by light from the kitchen. To his right, Brandon noticed a picture of Judy and Darcey hanging on the wall. In it they had their arms around each other’s waist, smiling all gung-ho for the camera. They were wearing T-shirts and jeans, and behind them stretched the hammock. Judy’s hair was slicked back like a biker's, while Darcey’s remained short-cropped and spiked at the front. Through Darcey’s T-shirt Brandon saw her nipples showing, and he wondered why someone as sexy as Darcey wasn’t married. He’d never seen this picture before. It must have been taken recently, but he didn’t know who’d shot it. The photographer’s shadow trickled from the bottom of the frame, the large silhouette of a man.

Beyond the pot-bellied stove the light dropped off. The area where the futon lay was too dark to be seen. For some reason, Brandon was afraid to cross the threshold. The hair on the back of his thick neck bristled, and his meaty palms started to sweat. It seemed as though something sinister lay in wait back there, a mystery he’d stumble into but would never get up from. He turned around and shrugged his round shoulders at Judy, who was leaning against the sink. She whispered, “Well, go on.”

“You go,” he whispered back.

She heaved a big sigh as she pushed herself away from the porcelain lip. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She marched to the doorway but stopped. Across the darkness was a chasm of uncertainty neither of them wanted to cross. “Darcey?” she called. “You asleep or something?” Then, trying her good-natured laugh: “Got company?”

Still no answer.

“I’m calling the police,” Judy said.

A phone with a long cord hung on the wall by the refrigerator. Judy took the receiver down and started dialing. Then she patted it against the palm of her hand, pressed it to her ear, and returned it to the cradle. “I don’t believe this,” she said.

Brandon felt perspiration on his upper lip. “What about the pond?”

“Don’t be silly,” Judy chided. “It’s too cold to stay outside.”

“We’re talking about Darcey here. "Remember last year when she disguised herself as a Christmas tree, and we were forever looking for her in the snow?”

“But she would have seen us pull up.”

“Maybe she’s trying to scare us,” he offered. “It is Halloween, you know.”

“I’ll kill her if that’s what she’s up to,” she said, trudging back outside. Brandon followed her out, leaving the light on in the kitchen and closing the door behind him.

Taking a path to the pond, they crossed a vacant cornfield, where mist enshrouded and released them like lovers’ hands. An old scarecrow Darcey had set up years ago dangled from the cross she’d nailed it to. Years of being exposed to the elements had reduced it to a clump of drab clothing and a sagging stuffed head. Mist was also coming off the surface of the pond, eerily candescent in the moonlight. Except for a pair of old work gloves, the hammock was empty.

“How about the cliff?” Brandon suggested.

“That’s absurd,” Judy retorted. “You know how Darcey feels about that place.”

“Which is why she’d be out there on a night like this. I bet she's got a fire going.

“Let’s just get the police,” she said.

“So they can find the homegrown?” Now it was Brandon’s turn to make sense. For the first time in his life he realized he could actually be right about something, and the thought brought a slight smile to his lips. When he saw her looking at him, he offered a compromise. “If she’s not at the cliff we’ll drive into town and call the cops. Okay?”

Judy sighed and threw up her hands. “Lay on, Macduff.”

They moved on toward the bluff. The only light they had to guide them up the trail came from the moon, which turned the night into a negative image of itself. In an interesting role reversal, Brandon led the way, while Judy brought up the rear, their breath leaving a trail behind them. She placed her hand on his shoulder for guidance, and he couldn’t recall the last time she’d touched him. He stopped and turned around, wanting to hold her. He thought to ask her who’d snapped the picture by the hammock. He also wanted to confront her about the state of their marriage. But he reckoned it wasn’t a good time. She waved him on, so they continued hiking.

The path began to narrow as they neared the cliff, and they had to push their way through the rhododendrons. An owl clattered out of the bushes, scaring them both. Brandon’s big brown eyes followed the silent bird’s silhouette across the bright night sky, watched it waft across the face of the moon. Before realizing it, he found himself standing near the edge of the cliff. Judy stood a few yards away, facing him. The creek tinkled in the valley below.

Something crackled in the rhododendrons at the base of trail. This time Judy didn’t flinch. Across the field Brandon saw the chrome bumper of his Pinto gleaming in the moonlight. The kitchen light had been turned off. The scarecrow was gone. Another crackle in the bushes, closer this time, heavy. Judy remained perfectly still.

He knew then that their marriage was over, that it had been for a long time. He also became aware of his own mortality. The only thing worth saving now was himself. He could make a run for it, could go tearing through the corn stubble while his lungs caught on fire. But Judy had the car keys, and even if he made it to the driveway there was no guarantee he’d reach the road. The only way out lay 350 feet below, where his body could go undiscovered for years, like a used cigarette butt. If the body were found, the coroner would rule it a suicide.

Judy took a step toward him. The crackle in the thicket was just a few yards away. Brandon heard the heavy tread of footsteps on the trail, followed by a lighter one. A dark shape emerged from the bushes, wielding a hammer. When the man rose to his full height, Brandon recognized the shadow from the picture, as if the night had chiseled him out of itself. The scarecrow behind him was Darcey. Her hood was pulled back, and her pale skin glowed in the darkness. Brandon looked at Judy, but her face was a dark disk against the moonlit sky. They began to approach him, the man with his hammer raised, while Darcey and Judy joined hands.

Brandon backed up so that his heels were suspended over the edge of the cliff, like a diver’s. The only things keeping him alive were the balls of his feet.

“Who said it?” he asked Darcey. “Neitzsche? Didn’t he say, ‘Amor fati?' ‘Love what is?’”

She nodded, but Brandon could tell by the lear on her lips that she wasn’t in the mood to discuss philosophy. Dirt crumbled beneath his feet as they were almost upon him.

“God bless you,” he said to them. “God bless you all.”

Chris Wood's writing has appeared in Poet, Bohemian Bridge, Now & Then, The Melic Review (www.melicreview.com), Aphelion, Doll World, Songs of Innocence, The Dream People (www.angelfire.com), and Concho River Review. Although he hails from West Virginia, he currently resides in Albany, Georgia, where he is the education and youth director at Theatre Albany.

E-mail: woodc31@hotmail.com

Visit Aphelion's Lettercolumn and voice your opinion of this story.

Return to the Aphelion main page.