MERIT BADGE: VISION QUEST
Nystrom’s dogs are in a frenzy, insane with rage and ferocity. They snap and snarl and bark, climbing over each other to hurl themselves at the barrier of the fence, the chicken wire creaking and squeaking and bowing under their weight. I’m just inches from the diamond interweaving of its surface, inches from them, their teeth, their thick paws, my face so close to theirs that I can feel the heat and moisture of their breath and smell it.
I barely remember how I got here. It must be way after midnight. There’s a storm brewing, the air charged and tight with it, hot as a fever. I feel feverish too.
I left the school after I punched Danny, walking away like Josh did after hitting Tim. No one stopped me. The sound was surprising, I thought, the splat of my fist hitting his face. Then the amount of blood streaming from his nostrils. He staggered back and crumpled into a ball, holding his nose, crying. I stood there, watching him, trying to figure out why I didn’t feel anything. Then I turned and walked away. Walked out of the school, kept going, walked dizzy and sweating on sidewalks and across yards, aimless. Walked in squared-off circles around blocks, walked and walked, walked until it was getting dark. Then walked home and walked to the back and picked the tent up and threw it into the creek and walked across the bridge and into the woods and into the night.
Above me the clouds thickened like a clenched fist, blotting out the stars, the wind swirling violently through the branches. I pictured a Chinese dragon flying in sinuous circles, bashing his way through the treetops while I followed some mysterious pathway below. Like it wasn’t my mind that was controlling me. A spirit quest, Josh had talked about, a spirit quest, and I wondered if that’s what was happening, if the spirits were guiding me through the forest, guiding me here to face the dogs.
The dogs want to kill me. They want to seize me in those terrible jaws and tear me to pieces, rend my flesh from my bones. Their eyes are wide and savage, and I’ve got my gaze locked on theirs, staring them down, driving them even crazier. It’s raining now. The fence is deforming, bulging outward a bit more each time a dog propels himself against it. I’m aware that the only thing holding it to the fence poles are thin twists of wire that could give way at any moment, and if they do, I’m dead. I should be afraid, but I’m not. I should run, but I don’t. Instead I start laughing.
I laugh at the dogs, laugh at their impotent fury and the insanity of what I’m doing and the insanity of the Quest and the insanity of everything, and then I start barking back at them—ARF ARF ARF! ARF ARF ARF ARF!!!!—kicking at the fence as they catapult themselves at me, desperate to get to me, ARF ARF ARF!!! The rain is falling harder, fat drops splattering, and I punch an open palm at a dog, the sensation of his wet nose and fur and the chicken wire imprinted on my hand. ARF ARF ARF!!! YOU FUCKING DOGS!!! I start kicking and punching at the fence, barking, deranged, my fury matching theirs. ARF ARF ARFF!!! ARF ARF!!! I slam my hands against the fence, back up, throw my body against it in a flying crosscheck over and over again. Then the back door opens and there’s Nystrom, squinting into the darkness: “Hey! Shaddup! Shaddup!” and I laugh harder and turn tail and run back up the slope, weak-kneed with hysterical merriment as the rain starts to pour down.
I run through the trees, still laughing. The rain feels wonderful. I squash and stumble across the marshy area, falling into puddles, tripping over unseen roots, the grass slicing my hands. When I reach the trees I run as fast as I dare, bolts of lightning illuminating the path, and then I trip and fall again and try to get up, but this time something is different. Like someone has pulled a plug, all my energy and feral joy gone in an instant, nothing left but utter exhaustion. I lie there, the rainwater pooling around me.
Push myself to a sitting position, confused. Did I come from there? I’m shivering now, almost as bad as when I came out of the creek.
Up to my feet, reeling, panicked, wanting to run but surrounded by trunks and branches and vines and the whole forest pulling at me, weighing on me, the rain pouring down, lightning, thunder, the dragon writhing through the trees above my head. Stagger forward, moving just to move, bounce off the rough surface of an invisible tree, then another, move ahead, waving hands in front of me, my body hot and cold all at once. I don’t remember where I am. Did I walk here? Is this the woods behind our house? It feels like it goes on forever in every direction, endless. I can see Tim’s frightened expression, and Danny’s face as he folded, bleeding, and see Lesley, and Josh, all of them talking at me at once, and Terri’s dog barking and snapping at me. Are the other dogs following me? Is Nystrom? Did I really do that?
Wait. What happened? I’m not walking anymore. I’m not moving forward, because now I’m on the ground again, the world twirling around me, my heart racing. I have to get up and keep going, but I can’t. I think, I’m going to die here like this. And it doesn’t bother me so much. Everyone is still talking to me all at once, now calling my name, not leaving me in peace. Isaac, Josh is saying. Isaac.
Leave me alone, I think.
Isaac, he says, shouting it at me. Leave me alone, I say, and this time I think I say it out loud, but he won’t leave me alone. He keeps shouting it, he won’t just let me be.
“Leave me alone,” I say again. “Leave me alone.” Screaming it this time: “Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”
I keep repeating it with as much force as I can muster, over and over again, until my voice is cracking and hoarse, and it dwindles until all I have to offer is a harsh whisper to fend him off. “Leave me alone,” I rasp. “Leave me alone.”
Leave me alone.
Why can’t you just leave me alone.
Then I’m flying, the wind scooping me up out of the mud and lifting me through the trees and high into the storm-tossed night. I kick and punch and thrash about, fighting against it, but it won’t let me free. I’m buffeted between the clouds and the lightning and the dragon, and this is how I’ll die, lost forever with no one knowing what happened to me, never finding my body.
Except it’s not the wind, I see now, it’s Josh, and I lash out at him. But he’s immune to my violence, holding me tight as I flail and struggle until I’m too weak to fight anymore. He’s carrying me now, carrying me through the rain and the forest and the darkness. Cradling me like a child. Murmuring to me in a quiet voice to calm me, a voice I’ve never heard before. Saying, It’s okay, Isaac. It’s okay. Come on. Come on, little brother. Come with me. Let’s go home.