The Wooden Sea

When it felt like things couldn’t get any worse I heard the sound of a siren coming up fast behind me. For a molten moment I felt like I had when I was a kid and forever in trouble with the law: All I could think was run–get out of there. Don’t let them catch you! I even considered jumping off the bike and sprinting for cover. But if I was the cop in the car and saw that, I’d wonder gee, how come that fellow on the pink bike is ru

And I guess someone did because the patrol car screamed by me way too fast and straight on down the road. I’m sure whoever was driving was having such a good time playing with the siren and high speed that he didn’t think a second about the sunken-headed man puffing along on a bicycle. Which gave me something new to think/worry about as I took the last few lefts and rights: Where was that car going in such a dangerous hurry? It was departmental policy not to speed in town unless there was real trouble somewhere. What new complication or calamity had just happened?

Luckily there was Tyndall’s big house, and immediately behind it the aqueduct that was another part of the shortcut to the woods if you were on foot or a bike. For the only time since I’d set off from my house I was happy to be riding these wheels. Another five minutes and I would come to the road that led off into the woods. If there was no sign of George I hadn’t a clue of what to do next.

There was no sign of George. I took the road anyway and drove into the forest. If you’d said there was a steep hill ahead that I had to climb, I would have gotten off the bike, turned around, and pushed it home, to hell with the consequences.

I rode slowly on, seeing nothing, growing more confused and disappointed by the foot. Still, when I got to the end of the woods I turned around and came back, looking just as hard as I had before. An old policeman’s instincts die hard. Looking back and forth from one side of the shadowed road to the other and then in among the trees for a sign—any sign that they had come here to bury the body. But how could they do that if they didn’t have a shovel?

“Damn you, George, why didn’t you do what I said? It would have been the easiest way out of this mess.” Which I knew wasn’t really true but it felt good to say it to no one but the trees and Tinkerbell.

Cars flew past. I wobbled/pedaled as close to the side of the road as possible. I didn’t want to be seen but how do you avoid that when you’re in the middle of nowhere riding a pink bicycle? Never once did it cross my rattled mind that the Isuzu boys were in a four-wheel-drive vehicle which—ergo!—meant they could go off the road.

Shortly before I gave up and was begi

“Hey.”

“Hey.” He wouldn’t look at me. “That’s a pretty cool-looking bike. Except it’s pink.”

For one ridiculous second I felt embarrassed and an urgent need to explain. “Well, it’s not mine. It belongs to my wife. Where are the other guys?”

“Back there in the trees.” His voice was sad and quiet. He sighed deeply when he finished the sentence.

“How come you’re out here?”

Looking at the ground he mumbled, “They told me to go home.”

“Can you show me where they are?” I tried not to sound impatient. If I pissed him off now I was in big trouble.

He brightened right up—this was an adult’s invitation to go back into the action. “Yeah, I’ll show you! Are you going to take the bike? How come it’s got such big tires?”

Back when I was his age, things like mountain bikes didn’t exist, so I understood his skepticism.

“It drives better that way; especially in the woods, over rocks and stuff. Hop on—we’ll ride it in and you can show me where they are. Then you can take it for a ride yourself if you like.”

He jumped on, shouting gleefully, “You steer and I’ll be the Dreampilot! I’ll tell you where to go.”

“Okay, Mr. Dreampilot. Hold the shovel.”

I hadn’t seen them because they had driven a good ways into the woods and down into a small ravine that couldn’t be seen from the road. When we reached Floon’s car no one was around, but the body still lay in the trunk—not a good sign.

“Where are they?” Leaning the bike against a tree, I turned in a complete circle but saw nothing.

The boy looked too. “They were looking for a place to bury him before; somewhere under the trees. But they wouldn’t let me come. That Floon guy called me a little pisser.”

Instinctively I touched his head and almost said when I was your age I was a lot more than just a little pisser. But I held back and tried to sound reassuring instead. “Hey, that’s a compliment! I’m a big pisser and proud of it, but that’s only because I’m grown up. Give me the shovel. You want to take the bike now and go for a ride?”

He shook his head. “No, I want to go with you.”

“Okay, come on. We’ll leave the bike here and go find them.”

We walked around for minutes but found nothing and heard nothing. The woods were fragrant and full of leaves and flickering shadows. Soon autumn would arrive and the smells in here would change—they’d become thicker, funkier—things would die, fall, cover the forest floor, and rot. Old wood, old leaves, later on it would snow and all those dark final colors of winter would be covered by the white.

I would never see any of it again. The thought was unbearable. I tried with all my strength to clear it from my mind. We walked on, stopping once in a while to listen for the others.

“Who are you?” the boy asked.

I hesitated, smiled. “I’m you, grown up.”

He studied the ground and thought that one over. “But how can we both be here at the same time?”

“I don’t know. It just happened. I can’t explain it. I guess it’s magic.”

“Okay.” He rocked back on his heels, saw something on the ground, bent to pick up an interesting-looking stick that was lying against a rock. His voice was calm and reasonable when he spoke. As if what I’d said was no big deal. “I knew we were kind of related or something but I didn’t know how. You’re really me when I grow up?”

“Yes. I’m you when you’re forty-seven years old.”

“That’s pretty old. But you look okay. Do you still have a penis?”

That stopped me. “A penis? Well yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Marvin Bruce told me your penis grows back inside your body when you get to be forty.”

Just the name and memory of that ski

“You know Marvin?”

“Sure. He’s a jerk. He probably grew up and became Ke

“Who’s that?”

“Never mind. Let’s go.”

We found them as far into the woods as you could go. Both men were sitting on the ground staring blankly into the distance. Chuck lay asleep on Floon’s left foot. Only George looked up slowly when we approached. The expression on his face said he was trying to wrestle his mind back from a place very far away but having a hard time doing it. Maybe that was why he didn’t appear surprised to see me.

“Fra

“I’m okay. What are you doing? Why are you just sitting? There’s a body in the back of that car. You can’t just leave it there like that.”

“We were about to go back for it. We stopped to rest and then Caz started giving me details about his project. It’s absolutely astounding. You can’t imagine the ramifications of what he’s attempting to do.”