Telemachus Rising Read online

  I didn't count out loud. Counting out loud is what you do when you're bluffing. Counting out loud is what you do when you're putting on a show. Counting out loud is what you do when you're not serious, but you're trying to convince someone else you're the one in charge. I got to five and turned for the door. It was still standing open. I walked outside without any hurry, down the steps and along the walk I'd just salted. I crossed toward my car and pressed the button to pop the trunk. Muffled by the distance, I heard a chair scrape suddenly across the kitchen floor as I weighed the gas can in my hand. I was walking toward that shitty little red car when I caught the asshole in my peripheral vision, running through the snow across the lawn. He reached our mutual destination before I did, where he fumbled with his keys. He just managed to fit one in the door lock and slammed the door shut behind him as he climbed in. The engine turned and he was in reverse before I even got there. The tires squealed on the icy pavement as his car shot down the driveway like a rocket.

  I watched him go without a word. When the tail end of his car swung out of sight, I turned back to my own vehicle and set the gas can back where it went in the trunk. I slammed the lid and headed back toward the house, along the walk and up the front stairs. The door was still standing open. I crossed the threshold and flung the box of matches through a doorway off to one side. My mother was still sitting in the kitchen. I went into the bathroom where I'd replaced the sink and had only finished mopping up water about five minutes earlier. There was my phone on the counter, right where I knew I'd left it. I dropped it into my back pocket and walked back toward the front door. I grabbed the handle and pulled it shut behind me as I left.

  SIRENS

  I felt the steering wheel vibrate under my fingertips as I sat there waiting. It was already dark. We'd be driving all night.

  The urge to leave town hit me early that morning. It was like that sometimes. Out of nowhere, I'd get this claustrophobic feeling, like I had to get out. Like I wanted to be anywhere else but where I was. I really had to go. I didn't just want to get away, I needed to get away.

  That's something incredible about taking a road trip in America. You can get in your car and drive until you're someplace that doesn't even resemble home. You can drive until the weather changes – not just into or out of a weather front – you can actually drive into a different climate zone. You can drive until you feel the difference in your relative distance from the sun. That's amazing.

  This time, I needed a break from my life. I needed to get away from the hospital. I needed to get away from my responsibilities. I needed to be completely irresponsible for a little while. I needed to go somewhere else, where no one knew or cared who I was, where no one expected anything of me.

  “Hey!” She looked beautiful climbing into the car. She always looked beautiful. “I'm glad you're coming.”

  “I'm glad you invited me.”

  I pulled out of her apartment complex's parking lot and turned the wheel toward the highway.

  “So where are we going again?”

  “Copper Harbor.”

  “And where is that, exactly?”

  “All the way at the top of the Keweenaw Peninsula – about as far north as you can go and still be in Michigan.”

  “Awesome. Why Copper Harbor?”

  “Well...I felt like a road trip, but I only wanted to be gone for about 24 hours and I didn't really want to go to a city. I looked at the map and didn't see anything south that caught my eye, so I thought I'd go north. As soon as I saw Copper Harbor, I was sold!”

  “I love northern Michigan.”

  “Yeah? You go there often?”

  “My family used to go to Higgins Lake every summer. I love it up there.”

  “We would go up to Leelanau when I was little. I liked it more as a kid than when I was a teenager. When I was young I'd just stay outside all day, but when I got older it was too much family time without enough going on.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. It never really bothered me, though.”

  “Lucky girl.”

  “So how far is it, really?”

  “I don't know...five hundred miles? A little more? I figure with stops for food and gas it'll take about 24 hours round trip. I just want to see the sun come up, maybe take a few pictures. We should be able to hang out for a couple hours and still make it back on time.”

  “Cool. I think I'm supposed to work tomorrow night.”

  “Alright. We'll see how long it takes us one way. I'll get you back on time.”

  We hit the on ramp to the freeway north, and I got a rush of excitement as I floored the gas.

  “You know, I've heard that Copper Harbor is so far north, you can see the northern lights the right time of the year.”

  “I've always wanted to see the northern lights! That's definitely on my bucket list. That and going to Alaska.”

  “Really. Have you traveled much?”

  “Not as much as I'd like to. I went to Mexico for spring break last year. I'm doing a study abroad in Italy this summer.”

  “Wow...that's planned pretty far in advance.”

  “Yeah, it's being offered through another school, so I had to have the application stuff in way early.”

  “Sounds fun. You speak Italian?”

  “No, but you don't have to.”

  “What are you going to study?”

  “They have a bunch of interdisciplinary classes you can take...government something or other, Renaissance art...I don't know. It's gonna be sweet.”

  I laughed.

  “Sounds like it! I'm kind of jealous.”

  “I'll bring you a souvenir. Is there anywhere you want to go?”

  “I guess I haven't really thought about it. Italy would be cool. I'd like to go to Japan someday. Maybe Russia. Australia? I don't know, places that are different from here.”

  “Have you ever been out of the country?”

  “I've been to Canada plenty of times, but I don't know if that counts. I've been to almost all the states!”

  “That's cool. I haven't really traveled in the U.S.”

  “Well soon you'll be able to cross Copper Harbor off your list!”

  She smiled.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “What else is on this bucket list of yours, besides Alaska and the aurora borealis, since that's pretty much two birds with one stone?”

  “Oooh...let me think. I actually have it written down at home.”

  “You have a real, on-paper bucket list?”

  “Absolutely! If it wasn't on paper, I'd never do it.”

  “Huh. Alright, well tell me the ones you can think of off hand.”

  “Hmm...well I want to go sky diving, for one.”

  “Me too! That'll be on my list. What about bungee jumping?”

  “Nope. No way. Not bungee jumping.”

  “Why's that?”

  “Call me crazy, but jumping out of a plane seems way safer than bungee jumping.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “I don't know. I guess I figure that you have to really know what you're doing to run a skydiving company, but anybody can tie a rubber band to a bridge. What if the cord breaks? What if they hook you up wrong? What if it stretches too far and you smash into the ground?”

  “What if your parachute fails and you smash into the ground?”

  “Yeah, well if I die skydiving, at least that's an awesome way to go.”

  I didn't say it, but I thought she kind of had a point there.

  “I mean, if you're in a skydiving accident, that's it. You're dead. Game over. If you hit the ground bungee jumping, you might just be paralyzed or brain damaged forever. No thanks. Not for me.”

  “Alright, alright. What else is on this list?”

  “I want to ride in a submarine.”

  “You want to ride in a submarine. How are you going to pull that one off?”

  “I don't know. I just want to ride in a submarine.”

  I cracked up.

&n
bsp; “What? What's wrong with wanting to ride in a submarine?”

  “Nothing's wrong with wanting to ride in a submarine! It's just funny.”

  “Shut up! I'm not telling you any more.”

  “You know, I bet there are places that do commercial submarine rides.”

  She turned in her seat to face me.

  “Think so?”

  “Absolutely! Haven't you looked into it?”

  “No. I'm not dying.”

  “Isn't the idea to do this stuff before you die?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then don't you kind of have to do it when you're not dying?”

  “I guess so. I just figure I've got time. I'm bound to run into a submarine one of these days.”

  “In Michigan?”

  “Never know. What about you? What do you want to do before you die?”

  “I don't have a bucket list.”

  “Oh come on, think of something.”

  “But I don't have anything...”

  “I've got one left. You tell me one thing you want to do, and I'll tell you my last one. But it's got to be something good!”

  I thought for a minute.

  “Huh. Okay. Last summer I drove to Arizona to visit some family.”

  “You drove to Arizona? Isn't that kind of far to drive?”

  “Yeah, it's about two thousand miles. Anyway, while I was there I went to the state fair. So I pay my money to park, and I go through the front gates. And I'm checking things out, sort of getting the lay of the land, trying to figure out where I might want to eat later, when a hundred yards away, I see an elephant.”

  “An elephant.”

  “Yeah, an elephant. With a saddle. The second I see it, I want to ride it. You have no idea. My mouth dropped open. I literally gasped. I really wanted to ride that elephant. Bad. So I make a beeline for the elephant, but when I get there, there's a huge line.”

  “Well that's no big deal.”

  “Of course not. Who cares if there's a line. But get this, when I get up to the line, it's all kids.”

  “Ooh.”

  “Yeah, and not just kids, like...kids, kids. We're talking five year olds, here. Kindergarteners. Every single one. I wasn't even sure if adults were allowed to ride the elephant. So I talked myself out of it. I moved on. I looked at some antique tractors, checked out the farm pavilion...you know, state fair stuff. I didn't play any games, but by the time I went on a few of the carnival rides they had set up, I was about ready to go. I start walking toward the exit, but that's when I realize the elephant is on my way out of the park. I've got another shot! Who cares if most of the people in line are kids? If I want to ride the elephant, I'm gonna ride the elephant.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I couldn't do it.”

  “What?”

  “I couldn't do it. I got back to the elephant and it was still all little kids. I totally chickened out. I blew it. That was my one shot, and I blew it. Where am I going to find another elephant to ride?”

  “Just go to the state fair again!”

  “It was the Arizona state fair. I might never make it out there again.”

  “They might have elephants at other fairs. Maybe that one elephant goes to all of them.”

  “Yeah, maybe. But I still feel like it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I missed it.”

  “Man, that's too bad.”

  “What can I say? Bucket list.”

  I sighed. We rode in silence for a couple miles.

  “Hey – you said if I came up with a good one, you'd tell me yours. What was it?”

  She looked out the window into the dark.

  “I want to have sex in a public place.”

  I nodded and gave a little grin.

  “Okay.”

  She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye and grinned back. I switched on the radio and we took turns scanning the stations for songs we recognized. We drove for a while like that without talking. It was nice.

  “What do you think happens when you die?”

  I hadn't told her about my dad. I wondered if she still would've asked if she had known. It made me realize that we didn't know each other all that well. We'd seen each other a couple times since the party, and we'd been messaging, but still... Either way, I wasn't sure how to answer.

  “I don't know. What brought that up?”

  “Bucket lists.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “I guess that depends on whether you think people have souls or not.”

  “So what do you think?!”

  “Do we have to talk about this?”

  She seemed a little miffed.

  “Fine, you don't have to answer.”

  I felt bad for bringing the mood down.

  “I don't know what happens when we die. I want to believe there's something more, but there isn't any scientific reason to believe that you're more than just your brain.”

  “That's rough.”

  “Depressing, right? Maybe there's more. There's so much we don't know about how the brain works, who's to say the part that's you doesn't still exist on some level.”

  “Doesn't sound like you're very religious.”

  “I was raised religious, I just... What about you? What do you think?”

  “I like the idea of reincarnation, but I don't believe in it.”

  “What do you believe in?”

  “I think good people go to heaven, but I don't believe you sprout wings or walk around on clouds or anything. I think bad people just die.”

  “No hell?”

  “Not existing is bad enough. Besides, I don't really believe in the devil. I don't think people need a supernatural excuse to make bad decisions.”

  I nodded, and a few more miles of pavement passed beneath us before I spoke again.

  “I don't know if I believe it, but there is an idea I've been kicking around lately.”

  “Let's hear it.”

  “Time is relative, right? So right now, today, is no more or less real than tomorrow or yesterday. It's just a matter of perspective. If that's true, then why does today seem so much more important than tomorrow, and why does tomorrow seem so much more important than yesterday? Yesterday feels like it's dead and gone, but tomorrow is still full of promise. Our perception of time is all messed up. Sometimes it feels like time flies, and other times it feels like it drags. And when you're really familiar with something, whether it's driving a usual route home, or cooking a meal, or hitting a baseball, you magically have more time to think while you're doing it than before you knew what you were doing. I barely have time to blink when a major league pitcher throws the ball, but a professional ballplayer has time to see it leave the pitcher's hand, judge how fast it's going, predict where it will cross the plate, start a swing, and adjust that swing to intercept the path of the ball. Their eyes don't see any faster than mine do. Light doesn't travel any faster for them than it does for me.”

  “You totally lost me.”

  “Sorry. What I'm trying to say is, time itself is different from the way we perceive it. Maybe our brains are limited. We can only take in so much information all at once, so time moves at a certain speed. When we're really familiar with something, we can filter and use the information better, so time slows down. Same thing if we're really bored and our brains don't have much information to process. Time slows down. We have extra processing power left over to notice other things. If we're more than just our bodies, then dying would set us free from our brains' limitations. We'd be able to experience time the way it really is, not the way we perceive it now, as human beings.”

  “Um...wow.”

  “It makes sense in my head, I'm just not explaining it very well.”

  “No, I think I see what you're getting at, it just sounds kind of unnecessarily complicated.'

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Honestly? It sounds like you picked a conclusion an
d then found a way to justify it.”

  “Fair enough. I don't even know if I believe it, it's just something I've been thinking about. I guess I kind of like it.”

  “At least it's something different.”

  We both went quiet again and let the radio fill the silence. I continued trying to organize my thoughts so I could explain myself more clearly, but I kept getting tangled up in the reasoning. Maybe she was right about me starting with the conclusion and working my way backward. It didn't really matter, though. I didn't know what the right answer was, and neither did anybody else.

  “You know -”

  I looked over when she didn't seem to respond. Her head was resting against the window. I must've been thinking to myself longer than I'd realized. It was well past midnight and she was sound asleep. I'd miss the conversation, but good for her. It was nice having her asleep next to me. She looked pretty, half curled up in the seat the way she was. She didn't wake up when we reached the bridge, even though it was all lit up.

  The Mackinac Bridge is long – one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. There's an open grate section in the middle. During the day, you can see the water underneath you. It makes it easier to imagine going over the edge. In fact, they offer a service for people who are too nervous to drive across – they'll drive your car over the bridge for you. It's understandable, too. A woman actually did blow off once. That's not an urban legend, that really happened. She had this tiny compact car and went right over the side. Dead. It was my first time crossing at night, so the drive was unnerving in a different way. The whole bridge is five miles long and over five hundred feet high, but it seems even bigger because of the context. There's nothing on the far side.

  My wheels hit solid ground in the upper peninsula, and in minutes we were surrounded by trees. They cut the woods back from the road to keep people from hitting deer so often, but the trees still swallow you up. There's nothing in the upper peninsula. I knew that going in, but it felt different driving out into the wilderness in the dark. I shut off the radio and drove in silence. There weren't as many stations to choose from anyway.