Fenton had problems. Nobody could argue otherwise. He lacked ambition and he smoked a lot of pot. When Fenton was alone and when he smoked pot, he was not nervous. Take away either of these variables, and he was quite nervous indeed. It had always been this way. When he was a kid, he couldn’t talk without pacing. He would look to the ground, thinking about what he should say, and the second he started speaking, at the sound of his own voice, he would begin to walk in circles. His mother used to grab his hands before asking him a question so that he would stay still when he answered her. It made him feel like he was going to explode.
But in spite of his nature and his habits, as a grown man, Fenton had found a way to be happy. He was in love and he had a job. Each day, he got up, put on his coveralls, and walked out into the sunshine. Or into the rain or sleet or snow, depending on the season. He smoked a joint as he walked to the depot and got into a truck. He cut grass, raked leaves, flooded rinks, plowed the streets. Some days, he washed windows or picked up litter from the side of the road with a spike at the end of a wooden pole. He was almost always outside, and he was almost always alone. All of this was good.
Until the spells started again.
Last week, for example, he was cutting grass. It was bright mid-morning, and he was driving the tractor across the wide green expanse of St. Lawrence Park. He headed slowly toward the river, turned to the right, and rode along the bank, getting as close as possible to the rocky shore, then turned to the right again toward the town. He was riding up and down over gentle hills, turning right and right again in diminishing rectangles around the park, making semi-circular detours around trees, leaving dark green lines of cuttings on the bright green grass. The air smelled of grass, brine, sunlight, and soil. He was alone and his heart was happy.
Fenton turned off the mower and stepped down from the tractor. A giant laker was edging into view from the west. A long red-and-white ship against the grey-blue water and the clear blue sky. Black smokestack high at the stern. Fenton leaned on his rake and watched the big boat go by, feeling the thrum of the engine pulsing through the earth under his feet. It had taken ten, maybe fifteen minutes for the ship to pass out of sight. He watched the blunt, cut-off stern of the boat as it moved away, the sun in his eyes. Like a factory on the water, his mother used to say. That working on boats was just like working in a factory, only on the water. Fenton didn’t think this could be true. Not entirely. Not when you could walk out onto the deck and smell the water, see the cities and towns go by. Houses and farms and forests all crowded up to the very edge of the land. Dogs in yards, cows in fields like specks. You couldn’t see or smell anything in a factory except the factory. He knew that from experience.
Dragging his rake across the grass, Fenton felt it beginning. Maybe it was the vibration of the ship that brought it on. He didn’t know why the spells came, but he knew that if one came, others were likely to follow. One after another, day after day until they went away for a month or two.
Here it was. He could see it and he could hear it. There was a high sound like the breezy summer air had crystallized and was ringing like a million tiny bells. The edges of things glittered and sparked and magnified. He could see everything in a sharp, sparkling light. The cut end of each blade of grass, the grain of the wood of the rake handle, the web of tiny diamond-shaped lines on the backs of his hands. This was it.
Fenton’s knees buckled and he fell onto the grass. He was out.
When he woke up, there would be a sharp pain in his head. He would have trouble with numbers for a few days. Nothing would sound right. And he would long to get it back, that dreamy, spacy feeling that knocked him out cold.
It was as though the universe had allowed him to step out of the stream of time for a moment, to be suspended and let it all flow past him. Every time it happened, it came as a great relief.