The sun was rising and pine trees were just beginning to separate from each other when from over the lake came the high rending cry of a red-tailed hawk. It circled the house twice and landed on a branch above the deck, just as a garter snake slimmed under the kitchen’s screen door where it was dented at the bottom and fringed with rust.
Opening his eyes on the sofa, Adam’s first thought was that he was cold. The blanket he’d pulled around himself last night had slipped to the floor, exposing his bare legs and arms. But he felt something besides cold and sat up. After further inquiry, he determined that once again he felt “different,” and at last, in the thin light of morning, he knew why.
All that had happened over the past few weeks had become a nightmare from which he had finally awakened. A dream that vanished as soon as he did not think of it. Fantasy. Meanwhile, this cottage by the lake, the old woman asleep in her chair, the sofa where he was sitting, were facts. Provable, physical facts.
His hand, for instance, held up to the light, was a fact. His T-shirt, worn now for three days and smelling like old cheese, was a fact. His fingers could move back and forth; the shirt needed laundering; the sofa felt like it was stuffed with wads of damp dryer lint. All facts. Everything else was not. College, Q-tip, exams, Ashley, That Night. Untouchable. Illusions.
“The past does not exist,” he murmured aloud, recalling something someone had said, maybe in Lit Core. Pretentious. But still.
Outside the windows, the deck was empty except for the Adirondack chair and the bird feeder, toppled beside it, and Freddy’s old towel, soaked from last night’s storm. His grandmother was faintly snoring, chin on her chest, glasses askew. On his way back from the bathroom, he stopped to settle the blanket over her.
She opened her eyes. Her mouth had a bluish cast.
“You should get in bed,” he said.
“Coffee,” she croaked.
“I don’t know how to make coffee.” He tugged at the collar of his T-shirt. “I need to go out and look for Freddy.”
It felt both momentous and utterly ordinary, hearing “I” come out of his mouth. An amazing commonplace. The way it might feel to say “my wife” for the first time after getting married. I, I, I. He turned the syllable over and over, noting its similarity to ay, yi yi. You again, he thought, marveling.
His grandmother looked at him dully.
“All right,” he sighed. “Coffee. I guess I’ll figure it out.”
In the kitchen he located a large red can of coffee and the electric percolator. Feeling keenly alert, he removed the percolator’s lid and peered into its blackened interior. The laws of physics dictate that boiling water creates bubbles, which gravity compels to rise—in this case most likely through the greasy tube connected to a greasy metal basket. If he put coffee into the basket, poured water into the pot, and turned on the percolator, boiling water should eventually be forced upward through the tube to saturate the coffee grounds. Coffee would be the result.
He would have liked to share these deductions with someone, but no one was there. He plugged in the pot. How much coffee should go into the basket? Though he’d watched his mother make coffee hundreds of times, he’d never actually paid attention, nor had he ever asked how it was done. At ten tablespoons of coffee, the basket was full. After filling the pot halfway with water and clamping on the lid, he pressed the switch on the percolator. No light. A bird flew past the kitchen window. Wet pine needles shimmered.
Then he did hear something: a low huh, huh, huh?
Hoping it might be Freddy, he opened the door and looked through the screen. In the driveway stood a bulky, bald-headed turkey. Oily black feathers, scaly pterodactyl feet. Telescoping its long skinny bare neck, the creature glanced at the driveway as if deciding whether to cross or wait for the light, and then pecked at a bit of gravel.
At the edge of the driveway appeared a female, smaller, brownish, hesitant, followed by a hurrying bumble of gray fluff. As Adam watched, the big turkey puffed itself up, fanning its wide black tail, a red scrotum-like sac ballooning below its beak. Then it strutted off into the woods with a bossy huh? huh? huh? the other two hastening after it.
Mansplainer, a voice whispered in his ear.
“I am not,” he said.
Just then the coffee started to perk. At the same moment, he realized he was already bored by the first person and that something was slithering across his bare foot.