scrytch: go run with the rats

by Darren Bauler

Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 17:48:26 -0600 (CST)

first time i was probably seven, maybe eight, spending a few days with my brother and my neighbor tony at his dad's cabin, out on the mississippi river. out walking around on the ice, watching fishermen in their shacks, kicking a hockey puck around with our feet until it slid into an ice fishing hole and went under. then we were kinda bored so we hung out by the boathouses and i got this idea to go walking by where the ice was kinda thin, i don't know why, i mean i knew it was stupid but i did it anyway. so i did. and i heard the ice start to crack and headed back and then the next thing i knew i was under the water. i clawed up and my hands touched the ice. and i knew i couldn't breathe btu i tried and the water poured in my lungs, cold and black and heavy and and i moved over where i thought the hole was and i was wrong and i kinda was sure i was dead then and a hand grabbed me and pulled me up on the ice. my dad looked at me and said "man. sometimes you are just bone stupid."

the second time, well first i was in the navy for a few years and was gonna go off to college and i actually did for a year and a half, and i probably could have done better but sometimes things you know, they happen, and i had to come back to town, did me some fucking around and getting in trouble and told a couple high school girls i had to leave school to help my dad with the bills and got one of 'em pregnant. so we got married and i settled down a little and we got half a duplex out by the school, which i thought was funny but i don't think she did. so me and lynn-anne (that's her name) tried to get new jobs because we were gonna start having adult bills soon but that didn't work out so well but i didn't worry too much about it because we were gonna have a baby which (and i'll be straight-up here) kinda scared me some for a while but i kinda liked it after i got used to it. my cousin john and my old neighbor tony both had kids and it didn't slow them down any and they seemed pretty happy most of the time, really. so i was gonna be a dad, and i was pretty happy.

so one night lynn-anne got to screaming and we got in the car and headed to st. joseph and they took her in and strapped her down and asked me if i wanted to watch and i wasn't sure but i thought, well, i didn't think anything at all but it was like something in my head made a choice for me and i said sure. so for a loooooooong time i'm standing there trying to think of something helpful to do and telling her to breathe or something and getting coffee when the doc told me it would be a while yet. but soon they told her to push and push and push and she did and soon the baby was out.

i'm not proud of what i thought when i saw the baby, but it's what i thought anyway. i thought it looked like it was made out of wood. it was tiny and small and dried and didn't have any of the chucky stuff you see in the movies and it didn't move. my wife just had a little wood statue is what i thought. and the docs looked at each other, and my wife was listening to hear the kid, and i felt something cold and black and heavy in my lungs again. i backed out into the hall and i looked down and there were little drops of blood on the things they covered my shoes with. and i think for a little while there i stopped breathing.

the third time wasn't much later after that, when she was out of the hospital and wouldn't go to work and just sat around drinking vodka and watching tv all day, and we were both drinking by ourselves, i'd sit in the kitchen and watch the wall for a while and try not to listen to the sounds she made. we did a lot of yelling then too. it was kinda bad. it was probably about two one morning when i heard her in teh other room, and i got up and turned on the light and she was packing all the things we bought for the baby in a couple grogery bags and i asked her what she was doing. she told me she was gonna take 'em back to the store and get our money back because it's not fair that they can do that to us. well she said her but you know what i mean. and i tell her to settle down some and come back to bed but she just keeps doing it and i take her by the wrists and she pushes me back and i kinda fell and hit the wall and i don't wanna say this either but it's true i wanted to hit her. i didn't but i wanted to a lot. and she just walks out and gets in the car and drives off and i think good, fine, and i go back to bed.

about an hour later i get a call. don't ever answer a call at three in the morning, it's never anything you wat to hear. she was driving down the interstate kinda by where my old house was and she swerved off into the ditch and drove along down in the ditch until she hit a concrete pylon.

after they said their final words her family gathered around the coffin and they held hands and i noticed they didn't ask me to join them so i went home. and that night i drank and drank until we were out of vodka and then i darank whiskey until we were out of that and then i drank some old peppermint schnapps until we were out of that and then i went to bed, and i had a dream she was standing there at the foot of the bed and she was saying things, but i couldn't hear her. so i got up and i went over and looked at her and i don't think i was asleep now and i still couldn't hear her so i got up close enough to remember what lynn-anne smelled like and she said "don't let go. don't let go."

and now the sun has probably come up and i should be driving to work but i'm laying here, and i'm thinking about her but i can't remember what her face looks like. i'm trying to look at her, i'm trying, but i can't remember. and there's something black and cold and heavy in my lungs, but i barely even notice it now, and i know it's never going away.