Quabbin - 11. Chapter 11

After Cameron and Kevin left, I went home and slept. Dad would never ask questions, not even something as dumb as, “You want dinner?” but I knew there’d be something to eat when I got up. I woke after he’d gone to bed, so it must’ve been past eleven. I’d just expected to nap and planned to call Carrie, especially since I hadn’t spoken with her the night before. Though Mark was back now, at least for a couple of days, and I was sure Carrie would rather be with him.

I ate what Dad had left me, probably pork chops. He could cook fairly well, in a narrow range, as long as it was meat and something green -- oh, yeah, and potatoes. He didn’t like rice, ‘cause he couldn’t get it right, and didn’t understand pasta. For him, there was only spaghetti and macaroni, and he’d rather make potatoes. Lunch was always sandwiches, often from leftovers. Breakfast was mainly those fried eggs, though sometimes scrambled, or oatmeal in the winter. I ate as much as I wanted, and, as long as I never asked for anything, he was fine.

After the chops, I took a couple of cans of Coke and headed to my car. Then I ducked back upstairs and dug way into my closet, as quietly as I could. My room was down the hall from Dad’s, but every squeak seemed to carry.

The closet had never really been mine, even after I was the last one using the room. Things Ted and Ron hadn’t worn for fifteen years hung on the second of the two long rods, and behind that was more storage space. But along with the shoes and tennis racquets, and next to a baseball bat which fell loudly as I tried to catch it, was my guitar.

Dane had given it to me for graduation, just before my nineteenth birthday. Actually, it was a combination graduation and birthday present, and maybe a dozen of my friends had chipped in. The guitar was handmade, by a guy in Montague with a national reputation.

“I’ll never be up to this,” I’d tried to joke. It was just so beautiful. “My old guitar makes me sound so much better than I am.”

“Just say ‘Thanks,’ Jim,” Dane had told me. So I did.

Then I’d barely played it. That summer, around the pool. And three weeks at Tulane. “You gonna play that, every night?” my freshman roommate had asked.

Not there, obviously. So I sometimes played out in the quad, or in the music practice rooms. After the accident, the guitar was carefully shipped home, then stored in my closet. But by the time my hands were working again, Dane and I had split, and I couldn’t go near the thing.

“Be good for your fingers,” everyone had insisted. “Great therapy.”

“Not that guitar. Where’s my old one?”

“You gave it to Allie.” He was one of the neighbor’s kids.

But even during my trip, I’d been wanting to play again, and that weird Venice dream made me curious if I still could. Plus, Eileen Kohler had said something about Dylan.

Everything was in the case, though I wouldn’t need that at the reservoir. The less I carried, the easier it was to hike. There’s a long history to the Quabbin reservoir, and a short one of my family’s tie to it. But so much of both seemed hard.

The reservoir went back to the 30's, when politicians dammed the river to get water for Boston. There was a land grab, and corruption, but it’s more than I want to tell. Our family history is simpler: so far, the place has killed two of us.

It’s about a half-hour’s drive, sometimes longer in the dark, or shorter without traffic. Then, at night, you need to walk, when the park’s technically closed.

That’s a big technicality, though it’s not like I’m the only one ever trespassing. Since the reservoir covers several dozen square miles, it’s not like anyone can patrol it all. I’ve never been caught, but even when friends of mine have, they’ve mainly been sent home. Occasionally, there’s been a fine.

There used to be one place I’d go -- well, once I started driving. The first time, I didn’t even have my license. It was right after Mom died, and I don’t think I had a fight with anyone -- I’m not a big fighter -- but it was late, and I couldn’t sleep, and I needed to be out of the house. I’d started walking -- I used to do that around Amherst -- first downtown, then through the cemetery, finally past Emily Dickinson’s grave. It’s not that I liked poetry, or Emily Dickinson, and it’s not that there was anything special about her grave. It was just there.

Anyway, I’d started to walk, then circled the block and went home and took the keys to Mom’s car -- they were hanging useless in the kitchen. I’d learned to drive when I was maybe twelve -- again, it was something cute Ted and Ron taught me. But I’d never driven alone.

That was no problem. It was all empty back roads. At the reservoir, there was a place my family went to picnic. You couldn’t swim at Quabbin -- they didn’t want the water getting dirty for Boston. But you could sail, and row, and for a while we had an old canoe we’d tie on Dad’s car. Mom didn’t die anywhere near the picnic area, but that’s where I remembered her most, so that’s where I always headed.

Then Maddie died there, almost like she was trying to ruin everyone’s fun, though I think she chose the place ‘cause of Mom, too. After that, I found somewhere else.

In the dark, you had to know where you were going. I’d tried using a compass once, but it didn’t work as well as my senses. I’d just park off the highway, head into the woods, and keep walking till I hit the water.

I never really got to the same place, and, coming back, I always ended up on a different part of the road. The trick was remembering where I’d parked my car compared to what I saw when I first came out. But after walking the road for a couple of years, half the time in the wrong direction, I figured things out.

My friends always knew where I went. If I was especially out of it in class, they’d all joke, “Jim’s been to the reservoir again.” Someone who didn’t know us, overhearing, probably figured I’d gone there to hook up, but I never had. And Dane had only been there with me once, at least, late at night. We’d all been there plenty during the day.

That one night was on my mother’s birthday, and I’d just gone there to say “Hi.” But though Dane and I had stood at the water’s edge, holding each other, I hadn’t really wanted to kiss him, and I don’t think he liked that much.

“You don’t treat Mom’s grave the same way you do Quabbin,” my sister Carol once told me. “When I think about Mom, I go to the cemetery.”

“Mom’s dead, there,” I’d said. “She’s not, at the reservoir.” It was one thing Maddie and I agreed on.

I had to be careful, hiking with the guitar, ‘cause I didn’t want it scratched, and, by the time I reached the water, the cold Coke cans had soaked through the back pockets of my jeans. “Being uncomfortable never killed anyone,” Dad used to say, when the eight of us were crushed in the car. Once we got bigger, we’d take two cars.

After tuning the guitar, I tried to play. My fingers were in pretty bad shape -- I knew that from using the computer. I’d learned to type in high school, but after the accident, I’d mainly used three fingers and a thumb, and my brain had half-forgotten where my smaller fingers were. I started with chords, then scales and exercises, then the first waltz I’d ever learned. Why a nine-year-old would learn a dippy waltz with all the good music around was beyond me. I think it was just the next thing in my book.

I didn’t take lessons at first, and I’m not sure why I started playing. I’ll bet -- and this is a pretty big bet -- that Ann did. I can’t see it being Ted or Ron, the 80’s not being a big time for guitars, especially acoustic. Oh, wait, I know why the guitar was in the house -- it was Dad’s, from college. He never learned any more than chords, and, in old photos, always had this dumb Kingston Trio look. So I’m not sure if that was Mom’s proof that he was or wasn’t a drip.

I took lessons once I started getting good. Amherst was an easy place to find people who played, some of them still wishing it was the 60’s. My first teacher was from church, so, at first, I was part of her youth group. I quit that fast enough, then still mostly played 60’s stuff. Not political songs. My friends didn’t get them, though I could riff on “Here’s to the state of Richard Nixon” and get laughs. “Here’s to the dress of Ms. Lewinsky.” I played love songs for Dane -- old English ballads, or Irish, or Welsh. There weren’t a lot of Polish folk songs, at least not that I could find, though I’d asked my grandparents. And I could always get Dane with “Mary Hamilton.”

“That’s so sad,” he’d say, and soon his head would be on my chest.

“How do you do that?” the guys would ask, though it’s not like I was the only one sleeping around. “Teach us! Teach us!”

Saturday morning, I played till the sky started getting light. By then, I was almost playing like a ten-year-old -- not bad for a guy a month from his twenty-second birthday. I used to look forward to birthdays, when there were still people around I wanted to spend them with. This year, I’ll probably end up with Ann, her husband Mike, and their boys. Carol would come down. And maybe Dad. But it’s not like I could sleep with any of them.

I finally headed into “Mary Hamilton,” I guess knowing I’d been going there all night long. It’s not the hardest song to play, and I was doing all right, softly singing along, until almost the end. “For if you’d had a mind to save my life, you’d never have shamed me here.”

Save my life? My life? Was that really a consideration? This was new.

I looked around and thought I knew exactly why Maddie had chosen the reservoir. I’d been there for maybe five hours. I’d been playing -- sometimes even singing -- in the dark, and no one had bothered me. Possibly no one had even heard. It wasn’t exactly quiet, not with all the forest sounds, but it sure was peaceful. I could die, and no one would notice for days.

It was time to get the hell out.