Being Henry David - By Cal Armistead Page 0,37

that their lives are over forever and I’m screwing up mine. They touch my hair and pull at my shirt.

Stop it. I try to swat at their fingers, turn away from their cold breath on my face, but I can’t move. Go away. Still can’t move, can’t speak, can’t shout, until at last, I can.

“Get away from me!” Hear my own voice at last, feel my body writhe.

“Shhh. Hank, it’s okay, you’re all right.” Somehow, Thomas is here. Thank God. Thomas. Is here.

“Thomas, make them stop, make them go away.”

“There’s nobody here, Hank, you’re just imagining it. You’re burning up with fever, buddy.” He has a cell phone in his hand and puts it to his ear. “Help will be here before you know it.”

I grab the phone, jab blindly at the Off button, throw it across the room, and scream at Thomas, begging him not to call anyone.

“Jesus, Hank. Calm down. You need help.”

But I’m begging, shouting at him like a mental patient. “Don’t call, please don’t call anybody, you don’t understand. Can’t let them find me.”

“Hank, look at me, open your eyes. Why can’t I call someone to help you?”

“My sister.”

“Your sister, Hank?”

“My sister needs me, I need to go to her. And I can’t help her if I’m in jail.”

Thomas rears back. “Jail? What are you talking about, Hank?”

“If you call somebody, they’re going to lock me up. Please. I beg you, please, Thomas. Please.”

My body heaves with sobs but I’m aware of this from a distance, like I see myself from the ceiling, or maybe I’m one of the statue heads back up on its pedestal, intact and hiding the ugliness inside, looking down and seeing the truth. I’m just a lost boy who has done something too terrible to remember, a trespasser into a world where I don’t belong.

Thomas goes quiet, but finally says, “Look, Hank, you can’t stay here. The library is opening soon. I’ll take you to my house and we’ll figure this out. Okay?”

I thank Thomas over and over and he helps me to my feet, wraps one of my arms around his neck and helps me walk outside to his motorcycle. He asks if I’m strong enough to hold on and I say yes, just don’t call the cops. We get on the bike and I lean against his wide back trying so hard not to pass out or fall off. And we ride for five minutes or fifty minutes or maybe it’s five hours and finally we’re at his house and he helps me to his couch and that’s all I know.

9

I am under water. At the bottom of Walden Pond, buried in muck, weighed down by pockets full of rocks. Can’t make my way to the surface, but it’s okay because it’s quiet here. Peaceful. Maybe I’ll stay forever.

Now and then I sense people around me, trying to help me, trying to pull me to the surface. They touch my burning face and poke at my side, the place where Simon’s knife sliced through my skin, and I scream, but the pond muffles the sound, keeps everything so quiet. It’s okay to give in to the quiet. I am safe. Don’t have to think about anything, not now. Don’t have to remember. Just rest. The remembering can come later. The facing up to things can wait.

Henry stays with me every minute in my underwater sleep, sits on a white rock with his hair floating in the current, and talks to me. He looks a little older than the last time I saw him in a dream. Last time he was clean-shaven, but now he has long sideburns that connect to a full dark beard. Henry helps me pass the time by quoting passages of Walden and tests my own twisted memory by having me quote some back. He tells me things about myself. But only the ones I can handle right now, he says. Just little things, like I was obsessed with Legos when I was a kid and my favorite birthday cake was yellow with chocolate frosting. My best friend’s name in kindergarten was Silas. But when I ask him to tell me my name, he won’t answer. Give it time, he says, just give it all a little time. So I do.

Now and then, a phrase floats in and out of my thoughts. Old King Cole was a merry old soul and a merry old soul was he. I think it’s a song or a poem or