hour away. We camped out there for six hours for the much-delayed Atlantic leg. By the time we boarded, Mr. Burden and our class, twelve in all, pretty much staggered down the 747 ’s teeny aisles, buzzing from lack of sleep and grotesque food; all sense of fun had evaporated. Elliot was sick from rye he’d pilfered from the drinks wagon, and I was humming away on anti-nausea pills that made me tired but not sleepy. Somewhere over Ireland, noises and images began to blend together, and I remember everybody’s face having tweed-like dimples from the plane’s seat fabric. Then, over, I suppose, France, Mr. Burden snapped to life as if for a Monday morning gym class and shouted, “Everyone up. We land in one hour.”
* * *
Back to me in the hospital chair watching Jeremy sleep, wondering what he might be seeing in his dreams. I’d fallen asleep trying to guess what sort of guy he really was. Twenty is too young to be a complete adult, but most everything is there in some form or other. I didn’t see track marks on his arms, or tattoos, but … I wondered about his childhood, and … I simply had no idea what to do now that he was in my life.
When the sun came up and he didn’t stir, even amid the bustle of nurses, patients and machines, I left a note for him, giving him explicit directions that he was to call me once he woke up, and then I drove home. I hadn’t thought about my wisdom tooth sockets in hours, but now they felt sore. For the first time in ages, my condo didn’t feel simply bleak. I suppose you could say it now possessed a kind of charged bleakness.
I couldn’t rest or sit down. In spite of my lack of sleep I had vast amounts of energy and began to do all those dopey metaphorical things people do when their lives are somehow new: I opened the curtains, I walked around the place with a green Glad bag pitching out old magazines, I washed the windows and floors. When I was finished, the place was so clean and orderly I thought, I ought to have flowers in here. So, I got in the car and drove to a place in West Van that had some cool white peonies, very late in the season, and drove back along the highway, enjoying the early afternoon of a summer day. If I’d known that sleep deprivation actually gave me energy, I’d have started depriving myself of sleep ages before. I felt great.
Then, on the other side of the highway, eight lanes over, before the Lonsdale on-ramp, I saw what I thought was a black dog walking along the highway’s edge. But it wasn’t. It was Jeremy, crawling westward. Oh dear God.
I slashed across three lanes of traffic and screeched to a stop on the shoulder. Leaping out of the car, I dashed across the median and four more lanes of traffic, shouting Jeremy’s name. He saw me coming, smiled, waved, and kept on crawling.
“What the hell are you doing? Are you insane?”
He didn’t stop, and I had to walk alongside him. He said, “I’m crawling toward the sun. To Horseshoe Bay.”
“What the hell for?”
“Because it’s a light, and after last night I need to follow a light.”
“It’s fifteen miles away—and why are you crawling?”
“It’s humble.”
It was a ridiculous conversation to be having. “If you want to be humble, why not just walk there with your head bowed?” I looked more closely at him; his hands and knees were torn. “Jeremy, you’re cutting yourself all over.” I looked at the concrete—broken pop bottles loomed. “Come on. Stop right now. The cops’ll come and get you and who knows what that’ll lead to.” I was wondering why nobody had stopped to help him, or arrest him.
“I can watch out for myself.”
“Prove it to me by stopping. Jeremy, are you high on something?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Did you get my note?”
“Yup. I was going to call you at the end of my trip.”
“From Horseshoe Bay?”
“It seemed to me to be a manageable goal.”
I continued walking alongside him, cars ripping past us, unfazed
* * *
Back to me in the hospital chair watching Jeremy sleep, wondering what he might be seeing in his dreams. I’d fallen asleep trying to guess what sort of guy he really was. Twenty is too young to be a complete adult, but most everything is there in some form or other. I didn’t see track marks on his arms, or tattoos, but … I wondered about his childhood, and … I simply had no idea what to do now that he was in my life.
When the sun came up and he didn’t stir, even amid the bustle of nurses, patients and machines, I left a note for him, giving him explicit directions that he was to call me once he woke up, and then I drove home. I hadn’t thought about my wisdom tooth sockets in hours, but now they felt sore. For the first time in ages, my condo didn’t feel simply bleak. I suppose you could say it now possessed a kind of charged bleakness.
I couldn’t rest or sit down. In spite of my lack of sleep I had vast amounts of energy and began to do all those dopey metaphorical things people do when their lives are somehow new: I opened the curtains, I walked around the place with a green Glad bag pitching out old magazines, I washed the windows and floors. When I was finished, the place was so clean and orderly I thought, I ought to have flowers in here. So, I got in the car and drove to a place in West Van that had some cool white peonies, very late in the season, and drove back along the highway, enjoying the early afternoon of a summer day. If I’d known that sleep deprivation actually gave me energy, I’d have started depriving myself of sleep ages before. I felt great.
Then, on the other side of the highway, eight lanes over, before the Lonsdale on-ramp, I saw what I thought was a black dog walking along the highway’s edge. But it wasn’t. It was Jeremy, crawling westward. Oh dear God.
I slashed across three lanes of traffic and screeched to a stop on the shoulder. Leaping out of the car, I dashed across the median and four more lanes of traffic, shouting Jeremy’s name. He saw me coming, smiled, waved, and kept on crawling.
“What the hell are you doing? Are you insane?”
He didn’t stop, and I had to walk alongside him. He said, “I’m crawling toward the sun. To Horseshoe Bay.”
“What the hell for?”
“Because it’s a light, and after last night I need to follow a light.”
“It’s fifteen miles away—and why are you crawling?”
“It’s humble.”
It was a ridiculous conversation to be having. “If you want to be humble, why not just walk there with your head bowed?” I looked more closely at him; his hands and knees were torn. “Jeremy, you’re cutting yourself all over.” I looked at the concrete—broken pop bottles loomed. “Come on. Stop right now. The cops’ll come and get you and who knows what that’ll lead to.” I was wondering why nobody had stopped to help him, or arrest him.
“I can watch out for myself.”
“Prove it to me by stopping. Jeremy, are you high on something?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Did you get my note?”
“Yup. I was going to call you at the end of my trip.”
“From Horseshoe Bay?”
“It seemed to me to be a manageable goal.”
I continued walking alongside him, cars ripping past us, unfazed
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