The Inverted Forest (30 page)

But at night the implications of a parked vehicle were different. Or seemed different.

The van’s interior light had been turned on. There were lines of shadowed movement playing out on the rear windows, and though these windows were too thickly coated in road dust to see through, Wyatt could, by putting his hand against the rear quarter panel of the Kindermann Forest van, feel a tension uncoiling in the vehicle’s undercarriage, a faint indication, maybe, of the gentle movements taking place within.

All his life he’d been taught to knock softly and wait. This seemed to be an occasion in which the usual rules could be overlooked. He put his shoulder against the van’s sliding side door. His fingers closed around the latch. A few ounces of pressure and the latch unclicked. With a dry, grating screech the van door was swung open.

In his imaginings, in his vision of the world as it ought to be, he’d pieced together a half-vivid notion of what it would be like to love Evie Hicks. He knew, for instance, that they’d live together. They’d share an apartment in Jefferson City. Wyatt would work at the Salvation Army depot all day, and when he came home, he and Evie would have dinner and watch television and then, as if signaling a new juncture in their evening together, Evie would rise from the couch and go to the bedroom. There she’d dress in a nightgown and wait for him sitting upright on their bed. A few minutes later Wyatt would ease into the room and sit down beside her. (Would they be married? He wasn’t at all sure. Maybe they would be, though the details of their engagement and wedding were nearly impossible to bring into focus.)
He’d turn down the bedroom lights, and then he’d reach across and put his hand on the underside of her full breast and hold it there for a long while, feeling the soft weight of it through the cotton of her nightgown. This act, which seemed to him enormously crucial and complicated, would inspire long minutes of intense happiness, hours of happiness. In the world as it ought to be, Evie would be aware enough to welcome the steady pressure of his hand and perhaps to feel a similar gladness.

But this, of course, was impossible. It was stupid even to dream this way—stupid and hurtful and unfair. Because there’d be no responding tenderness from Evie Hicks. Everything he might do to Evie—in the name of love or in the spirit of things far crueler—would be done against her will.

For proof of this all he needed to do was look inside the Kindermann Forest camp van.

There, within the shell of the van, under the coppery glow of the dome light, she’d been stripped naked and then put back under the harness of her seat belt. What he could see of her at first glance, her bare shoulders and arms and naked breasts—one flattened beneath a belt, one dangling free—was terrible and astonishing. Her knees were pinkly callused from all the crawling she did. Dark hair sprouted from the hollows beneath her armpits. A naked adult woman—or at least a naked Evie Hicks—was a pale and loosely formed creature.

This was an unexpected discovery, truly. He would have stood gawking at her in dumb wonder were it not for another remarkable sight: Christopher Waterhouse kneeling before Evie on the floor of the van. He’d pressed the side of his face adoringly against her thigh and slid his hands beneath her naked bottom. He was trying, it seemed, to raise her up straighter in her seat, to lift her hips and open wide her legs, which were flexing languidly, as if she were stirring in her sleep.
Once her legs were parted, he embraced Evie in a sudden, thrusting hug, writhed against her just a few moments—and stopped. Then he went back to the difficult business of raising Evie up in her seat and adjusting her flailing legs. How very calm, how very
patient,
his efforts appeared to be. Clearly he knew that the van door had been pushed open and that a person, an observer, was standing behind him. And yet his first craning look up at Wyatt revealed nothing in the way of shame or surprise. The only thing he seemed to want from Wyatt was a nodding admission that what was being done here—this raising and parting of Evie Hicks’s legs—was a complicated and worthwhile endeavor.

“Stop it,” Wyatt said in a hushed and unweighty voice. “Stop what you’re doing. Right now.”

It was enough to provoke in Christopher Waterhouse the slow stirrings of a second reaction: he blinked his eyes wetly and let his arms and shoulders go slack. Then he pulled his hands out from beneath Evie Hicks and began to crawl, awkwardly, out of the van. He lowered one foot on the grassy floor of the clearing, then the other. He raised himself up to full height. “Wyatt,” he said. “Wyatt. We were having trouble here. We were having an
emergency.
” As he said this, he reached down and hoisted up his blue jeans and underwear, which were bundled around his thighs.

“An emergency?”

“She was choking on something. A piece of cracker or some candy. She was making an awful sound, Wyatt. I had to pull the van over and get her shirt off to pound on her back. So I could find out where the problem was.”

To Wyatt it seemed that his first duty was to imagine such a thing: Evie choking, Christopher pulling the van over and crawling back to assist her, removing her T-shirt . . . but also her bra, her pants, her underwear, even her shoes and socks. These articles of clothing had been lined up on the van seat beside Evie, and the sight of her clothing,
especially its neat arrangement, made him feel as if he’d been slapped powerfully by a cold hand. Slapped and slapped again. Only an idiot, only a retarded person, would believe such an excuse.

“I had to get her calmed down, Wyatt. She was acting wild. She was pulling off her—”

“She
wasn’t,
” Wyatt insisted. His hand was clenched around the van door latch. He let go and gripped Christopher Waterhouse by the shoulder with an equal prying strength.

“Hey, hey there . . . easy, Wyatt.”

“Don’t say things you know aren’t true.”

There was a fraught and astonished silence, in which it was possible to watch, moment by moment, a deep blush of appreciation bloom across Christopher’s face.
Don’t say things you know aren’t true.
Yes, clearly, he understood the wisdom of this command. He admired Wyatt so very much. But this didn’t keep Christopher Waterhouse from narrowing his eyes in concentration. Quietly, and after a prolonged deliberation, he said, “You have to understand, Wyatt. She doesn’t mind what’s happening.”

It was hard to make sense of this.
She didn’t mind
. But mind what exactly? The choking on a piece of candy? The argument that was taking place in her presence? These notions tangled and untangled themselves in Wyatt’s mind. “What are you saying?” he asked.

“She likes it well enough. Being in the van. Having her clothes off. That’s the truest thing I can tell you, Wyatt. Go ahead, take a look at her. A close look even. She doesn’t mind.”

Inside the van, Evie Hicks had ceased the slow pedaling of her legs and was slumped back against the seat. Her head was tipped toward the passenger window. True enough, there was nothing in the languid arrangement of her naked body that signaled a sense of alarm or unease. Her legs were half-parted. Her left hand, clumsy and unshy in its movements, flitted about—over her breasts and round belly, between her legs—and scratched where it pleased.

“Go ahead and sit inside the van with her awhile,” Christopher Waterhouse said.

“No, no. I’m not going to—”

“She’s not embarrassed. Why the hell should you be? Just talk to her, for Christ’s sake. Say a few words. Put her at ease.”

Wyatt stood rooted before the open door, his mind working furiously and arriving at nothing that resembled a coherent idea.

“Jesus, Wyatt,”
Christopher exclaimed, not a curse or a cry of frustration, but an expression of fondness and wonder. “Think of it, man. Here’s a chance to sit in a van and talk with a pretty naked girl. A girl who’s not embarrassed. A girl who doesn’t mind.”

He could have withstood other tactics. But this warm cajoling from Christopher Waterhouse, so knowing and friendly, had an unraveling effect on Wyatt’s defenses. He let go of Christopher’s shoulder and braced himself inside the door of the van.

“How many chances like this are you going to have in your life?” Christopher Waterhouse asked. “A guy like you. With your condition. Just sit and talk for a minute or two. She already knows you’re a gentleman, Wyatt.”

Accordingly, Wyatt hoisted himself into the van, his head tucked low, his considerable weight rocking the vehicle on its chassis. The cramped interior of the van made him feel like a lurching giant. He squeezed past Evie Hicks. He sat beside her on the first bench, on top of her mounded clothing. At the same time Christopher Waterhouse began drawing the van door shut, a slow, whining pull, until it clicked into place and he double-tapped the van door window to let Wyatt know that his and Evie’s privacy was now complete.

It was quiet enough inside the van to hear the bending of the springs in the bench, the swish of Evie Hicks’s bare feet on the matted floor. There were movements outside as well. Christopher Waterhouse was climbing the embankment and padding noisily atop the thick gravel of County Road H. It seemed to Wyatt there was nothing
else to do but lean a bit closer and examine the shadowed profile of Evie’s face—the tendrils of brown hair that framed her ear and jawline. Beautiful hair. An entirely beautiful cheek and ear.

“Evie,” he said. “Evie Hicks.” He didn’t expect an answer. “Evie,” he said, more for his own encouragement. Then he reached out and with trembling fingertips touched very gently the underside of her breast. “Evie,” he said tenderly. No spoken reply to this, but in her languid posture he sensed an unmistakable shift, a tightening of her bare limbs, an awareness, a turning away.

He took back his hand. Were Evie not present, he might have shouted at the top of his lungs, might have howled in shame. If he was alone, then surely he’d have clawed at the van upholstery with his bare hands or used his powerful legs to kick at the benches until they were bent down or snapped free from their moorings. He’d have made a wasteland of the van interior. As it was, he crawled forward to the door, swung it open, and stepped outside.

He found Christopher Waterhouse walking along the chalky white shoulder of County Road H. Christopher had traveled only a few dozen yards, and at the sound of Wyatt’s swift approach, he turned and began what might have been an elaborate explanation. “I thought I’d leave you—” He’d half-raised his arms, and this allowed Wyatt to grasp him snugly around the chest and squeeze with all the urgent feeling he’d denied himself moments earlier in the van.

A rush of air escaped from Christopher’s lungs. There was a snapping of delicate internal bones. He managed to swing out an arm and club Wyatt in the face. It hardly mattered. What did Wyatt know about fistfights? All his adult working life he’d grappled with large and dangerously heavy furniture. He tightened his arms around Christopher Waterhouse and again squeezed with all his might.

There was more soft popping along Christopher’s rib cage and
then a ragged and terrible series of breaths. “Uhhh, uhhh, uhhh,” he cried. Released, he collapsed onto the chalky roadbed. His mouth moved, his lips formed breathy sounds. Wyatt had to bend down close to hear what was being said. “God damn you, Wyatt,” Christopher moaned.

It wasn’t hard to drag Christopher Waterhouse by the ankle across the gravelly surface of County Road H. He moaned and flailed his arms weakly, but there was nothing he could do to stop the journey he was on—across the roadbed, down the small embankment, back into the center of the clearing beside the Kindermann Forest camp van. By then he’d gone pale in the face. His particular agony was, for Wyatt, infuriating to watch: the way he strained for a single shallow breath, and then the cost of that breath, which made him shudder and writhe in agony.

Wyatt knelt down beside him and reached for whatever was handy: a big clump of grass, it turned out, which he pried from the earth. He held it inches from Christopher’s face.

“You . . .” Christopher said, gasping, “ugly . . . fucking . . . re—”

Wyatt drove the clump of dirt and roots into Christopher’s mouth, into his nose, into his clenched eyes. What a fit Christopher Waterhouse threw, twisting and retching and wagging his head violently back and forth. He raked at Wyatt’s face with his clawed hands. The only way to stop this, it seemed, was to turn him onto his stomach and press his head down hard into the earth, to crawl onto his back, as a wrestler might, and hold his choking face to the ground.