The Relapse Door

"It's not garbage!" Tom insisted. "About fifty years from now, there's gonna be an environmental apocalypse, and it'll be hundreds of years before most people can live here again. I've seen what it looks like after the apocalypse, and I've seen what it's like hundreds of years from now when they've reclaimed the land. And Jim, it's beautiful! Everyone gets along so much better, no hate and fear anymore, and you should see how horny all the women are, man. You'd love it, I'm telling you!"

"Christ al-fuckin'mighty, Tom!" Jim shouted loud enough to draw the attention of his lady friend, who had come outside for a smoke. She peeked around the edge of the building, and Tom wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed that they didn't have their dicks out.

"You guys havin' a quickie back there or what?"

"Darla," Jim called to her. "Do me a favor." He zipped up his jeans and walked back out to meet her, pulling his car keys out of his pocket as he did. "My best friend here is off the rails, seriously, he's gone bananas. Do me a favor and drive him home. I have to settle the bill in there and say good night to the guys, then I'll be home too. I can't deal with him just now.

"She's drunk, Jim!" Tom said. "She shouldn't be driving anyone home!"

"It's not very far and I trust her more drunk than you sober right now, Mister Time Traveler. Seriously, Tom, we need to talk. I'll see you later." Jim banged back in the door, and Darla grabbed Tom with a surprisingly strong grip and led him to the car. Tom was resigned. He tried to talk Darla into letting him drive, but she had her orders.

Tom comforted himself with the thought that Jim was right, it was a short drive. Darla weaved across the median a couple of times on the brief jaunt, took a wide right turn coming onto their block and let out a rebellious whoop as she did, but she managed to get the car into their backyard with no damage or blood. Tom had one last idea for saving the day. "Margarethe, that you?" he asked her.

"Who?" Darla snapped. "You know me, Tom, Darla from the bar, you've seen me in there before with Jim."

"Darcie?" Tim asked with a last reed of hope.

"No, Darla! Jim's right, you are nuts. I hope he can get you the help you need."

"Christ, some people just won't learn," Tom said in despair. At least Jim would be home soon. It wasn't over yet, not as long as Tom could still hope to talk to him. They had all night yet if need be. As he got out of the car and watched her stagger to the back door, he had an idea. "Yeah, Darla, I have seen you before. In the bar. Now you tell me, did I seem crazy then?"

"No," Darla admitted. "But it can hit suddenly. Especially with guys who work out in the woods. Some of them go out there and never even come back!"

"I know why that happens!" Tom exclaimed. "That's what I was trying to tell Jim. You know, you could come too if you're pure of heart." Then immediately he knew that was a mistake.

As if to prove his point, Darla burst out laughing. "Oooohhkay, Tom, first thing you need is to sleep off whatever you were smoking in there!" She fumbled with the key and opened the back door, and staggered up the stairs to their apartment on the second floor.

"I know it sounds crazy," Tom said, "But I can prove it to the both of you. You just have to come with me tomorrow, out in the forest, and I'll show you!"

"Follow you out in the forest. Uh-huh, right, Mister Tree Hugger. Think I haven't heard what you think of your job, you ungrateful liberal hypocrite?! We've all been waitin' for you to snap, warnin' Jim about it, and he's always sayin' 'I know, but he's my best buddy from way back,' blah blah blah, but now he finally sees through you. Bout time, frankly!" She opened the apartment door and, with no further niceties, announced "I'm goin' to shower while we wait for Jim. All that smoke in the bar. Don't come in here while I'm changin'."

Darla emerged a moment later wrapped in a towel and said nothing as she walked to the bathroom. Tom stood in the middle of the living room, too nervous to sit down, waiting for Jim and formulating a next move. As promised, Jim was home in a few minutes. As soon as he had shut the door, he asked calmly, "Where's Darla?"

"In the shower," Tom said. "And I had an idea in the car. You don't believe me, you can both come out to the forest with me and I can prove it to you."

"Oh, Tom!" Jim looked disgusted. "I know you've always had your hangups about logging, but enough is enough. You've got to stop this shit, man, STOP IT! You're scaring people who care about you, man."

"Look, Jim, I know it sounds crazy. I'm not stupid, I know how ridiculous it sounds. But I wouldn't lie to you, you know that!"

"Tom, whatever the hell got into you when you took that fall, get the fuck over it! You're my bro and all that, but enough of this is enough!"

"Would I lie to you?!" Tom snapped. "You, of all people?" He was all out of ideas and strategies; there was only one option left. He hadn't touched it in fifteen years, but now it was a matter of life and death as far as he was concerned. "Jim. I kept your secret, man, you know that. The big secret. Why would I throw that kind of respect away?!"

"What secret?" asked Darla, appearing in the doorway in Tom's bathrobe.

"Tom!" Jim was furious. "You keep your mouth shut about that. You ain't told nobody in fifteen years, you ain't gonna humiliate me with that in front of her!"

"Humiliate you?" Darla looked equal parts tipsy and amused now. She sprawled on the couch, but quickly remembered to cross her legs. "This sounds juicy."

"No!" Jim told her. "Nothing. He's making shit up."

"C'mon, Jim," Tom teased. "She's a woman, surely she's got an embarrassing pee story of her own. Hell, everybody probably does."

"Fuckin'!" Jim punched his fist against the wall. "Tom, if you go there..."

"No, he's right, Jim," Darla chirped. "Actually I just peed in your shower. Beer goes right through me, you know, and I figured Nature Boy here would appreciate me saving the water I'd have wasted flushing the toilet anyway."

Jim flopped down angrily at the other end of the couch. "No, worse than that. Much worse. A real friend would keep this secret."

"And I have, for fifteen years," Tom reminded him. "Still am, aren't I? Sorry, Darla, but if he doesn't want to share with you, I respect that. All I'm asking is for you to respect me too here, Jim."

Darla was disappointed. "Aw, c'mon, Jim, he's right. Everybody's got a humiliating story even their friends don't know if we can help it. I once got my period in English class while I was givin' a book report at the front of the room with a male teacher and I was wearin' bright blue pants. Whatever he's got on you, it ain't that bad, is it?"

Jim sighed. "Yeah, I guess. Fifth grade, field day, we'd been outside on the playground all day and there were refreshments. Kool-aid. I drank a lot of it, way too much, and the teachers wouldn't let us back in the school to go to the bathroom. Ten minutes to final bell and then we could go back inside, and I'm sitting on the sidelines with Tom. We're supposed to be watching the soccer game but instead I'm counting seconds until I can pee. Tom's figured out what's going on, I guess --"

"I had to go too," Tom interrupted. "Just not as bad."

"Yeah," Jim continued. "Anyway, I didn't make it. Eleven years old and I piss myself in public. Any second now somebody's gonna see what happened and I'll be the laughingstock of the whole school. So Tom here, before that can happen, he grabs the nearest pitcher of the Kool-aid and 'accidentally' spills it in my lap."

Darla was laughing. She flashed an admiring look at Tom but did not interrupt Jim.

"A teacher sees Tom do that and she's pretty sure it wasn't really an accident -- which, you know, it wasn't -- and she comes over and just starts screaming at him. A couple of other teachers come over with towels and they help me dry off, and somebody finds a clean pair of shorts for me to change into. Nobody ever knew what really happened."

"Did you get in trouble?" Darla asked Tom.

"Three nights' detention and a note my mother had to sign. And she smacked me around a little after she read it."

"But even then, he never told anybody," Jim said with fond respect. "And he never cashed in on it, not till tonight."

"Now doesn't that tell you how serious I am?" Tom asked. "That's sacred, man, I wouldn't bring it up -- especially not in front of another person -- if it weren't something I was totally serious about!"

"Man, it's not that I don't believe you!" Jim said, standing up with his fists clenched in frustration. "It's...I just don't think you're thinking straight, Tom! What you're telling me, guy, it can't be true. I'd figure it was just you hitting your head out there in the woods this morning, but it's more than that. Ever since we came up here you've always had this idea that by cutting down a few trees you were destroying the world or something. Everybody knows that!"

"He's right," Darla added gently, "Everybody's heard you say somethin' about spoilin' the environment and like, dude, we just want to make a livin' here!"

"Yeah!" Jim continued. "And I mean, I think something snapped in you out there yesterday. Maybe that's even why you had your accident in the first place, I don't know. Could've been a cry for help. You're my bro, man, and I want to help you. But I ain't buyin' into this garbage you're telling us all of a sudden." Jim turned to go into his bedroom, and Darla stood and followed. Just before he entered the bedroom, he turned around and gave Tom one last look. "This weekend, man, why don't we buy you a bus ticket back home? You don't belong here, anybody can see that now."

Tom gaped dejectedly at his dearest friend, at a loss for words.

Before shutting the door behind them, Darla looked back at Tom as well. "Sorry, but I think he's right. Besides, I know better than to come between any guy and his best buddy. I know how you think, bros before hoes and all that, and the girl always ends up tossed aside like a sack of garbage. Not me, Tom." And she shut the door.

In the movies, Jim would have reemerged a few minutes later and they'd have been off to save the day. Tom couldn't resist waiting for that. He waited twenty minutes or more in the silent living room, but the only sign of life were Darla's playful moans as the two of them had their fun behind the door. While he waited, Tom saw a seemingly endless slideshow of his and Jim's stories from over the years flashing before him, from second grade all the way through the wilder nights in Mascawad; and his hope for his friend remained undying in the face of everything. But eventually he had to admit that hope was frustrated and exhausted. If Tom was to save his friend from the inevitable, it would have to be against Jim's will. And Tom had never been any good at standing up to Jim when his mind was made up.

Tom didn't know how he might next try to save Jim from himself, but in the meantime there was a bigger problem anyway. After finally giving up and retiring to his bed, Tom lay awake and formulated a Plan B. He also struggled to keep the rock from settling in his heart as he recalled Jim's obstinacy, thinking all the while that maybe it was for the best if he did let it settle. After all, in the morning he would have to do one other thing that went against all he believed in. Those beautiful woods -- they'd be gone in a few decades no matter what he did, he reminded himself. But it wasn't enough.

With something approaching a plausible plan formed in his mind, Tom set his alarm clock for five o'clock -- an hour before they normally got up -- and set it under his pillow so it wouldn't wake Jim or Darla. He had a feeling he wouldn't need the alarm, for he could not see himself getting a wink of sleep that night. But he couldn't risk it. It proved to be a good move. Somewhere between the beer, the serene images of life with Margarethe that awaited him should he succeed, and an undying sense that he would somehow win Jim over at the last minute, Tom did ultimately fall asleep.

The alarm clock did its job perfectly, waking him at the appointed hour without making enough noise to rouse anyone else, and Tom sat up with his heart racing. He tiptoed to the closet and pulled out fresh clothes for the day, then pulled them on as quietly as possible. Emerging from his room fully dressed except for his boots, he picked them up and set them carefully by the apartment door, where they would be easy to grab up quickly. Then he unlocked the door and opened it a crack. The hallway was mercifully silent. Tom crept silently across the living room floor, remembering to avoid the loose board near the kitchen door, and ever so slowly turned Jim's doorknob.

Jim was dead to the world, on his side and facing away from the door. Darla was wrapped around him from behind, her naked back exposed in the gloom, but there was no time for Tom to concern himself with that. Holding his breath, he leaned over toward Jim's dresser and picked up his car keys, gripping them tightly as soon as they were off the surface so they wouldn't jangle. His mission accomplished, Tom exhaled silently and turned to make a break for it.

He was nearly to the apartment door when he heard Darla's groggy call. "Tom? What the hell?"

There was no time to look back, or to do anything else but run for it. Tom grabbed up his boots and stormed barefoot down the hall and the stairs. He banged out through the front door and tore around the house to the driveway. The next bang of the door came as Tom was fumbling to get the keys in the car door. "Tom!" It was Jim, and he screamed something else at Tom but he didn't hear it, as he had by then managed to get the door open and the key in the ignition and his foot on the clutch and the engine turning over in what seemed like no time at all. He jammed the car into gear and was tearing around the house and off towards the road even before he had shut the door.

Jim was standing in the yard, a towel wrapped around him, still screaming at Tom. "You're a dead man!" was Tom's best guess as to the last thing Jim shouted before Tom had gained the firm grip of the road with the car's old tires and was racing off toward 103.

There was no sign yet of the sun, and in his rush Tom hadn't even turned on the headlights. This he did as soon as he turned the corner of the last side street before 103 and realized he couldn't see the turnoff. To his relief, there was no sign of anyone or anything between him and the open road, so he jammed the shift into fourth gear and took the left turn onto the highway without slowing down and with only the most cursory of glances to see that there were no other cars in the vicinity. There weren't, so Tom soon had the car up to 85 miles an hour in what he guessed was a 35MPH zone. What are the cops going to do, he thought haughtily, jump through the door after me? Can't wait to see what Margarethe will do to them then!

He made the trek back to the turnoff in less than ten minutes (he seemed to recall it had been nearly half an hour on that first and last drive with Jim). When he finally slowed down to make the turn onto the narrow, rude trail, he could hear sirens in the distance. He turned off the headlights and whispered a prayer that he would somehow be able to stay on the darkened trail until he got to the clearing. Only the barest outlines of the trees were visible, so Tom did his best to pay attention to the sensation of the tires in the mud -- if it got too bumpy, he knew he was off the trail. This served him well enough that he only veered far astray once. That one misstep resulted in shearing off the driver's side rearview mirror on a tree, so Tom jerked the wheel hard right and slid back into the ruts.

Tom knew he'd made the clearing when the pitch black outside gave way to a dark gray with just a bit of real visibility. At that point he steered the car into the ditch on the right, and backed it up into the middle of the trail to block it off. That would at least buy him a few seconds against the police. Tom opened the door and stumbled out into the clearing, then made to shut the door until he remembered that it would hardly matter who saw the dome light in there once the cops got this far. There was no one in sight yet, but the sirens were getting louder. They had lights on their cars; it wouldn't take long at all to find the trail.

The first thing Tom needed was a rock. There were plenty of those, but most of them were frozen into the earth. After a few futile attempts, he found one at the foot of the trailer -- probably dug out of the ground to put the trailer there. Tom picked it up and made a mad rush for the trailer door. He whacked at the window with the rock. Shards of glass flew everywhere, but most of them flew inside the trailer and Tom got away with only one mild gash on his arm. With no time to worry about that, Tom reached in and opened the door, and grabbed at all the keys on the pegboard above the foreman's desk. One set would be for the backhoe. To his horror he realized he hadn't brought any matches from home; then to his immense relief he recalled that the foreman was a smoker. Tom picked up the rock he'd used to smash the window, and swung at the foreman's desk drawer with it. He was prepared to batter the top right off the desk; but as it turned out only two whacks were enough to bend the metal far enough in for Tom to yank open the drawer and find three lighters. He took all three in case one of them was out of gas.

The sirens seemed to be just beyond the nearest trees now, but Tom didn't see any flashing lights yet. There was time, if he could get the backhoe started. The first rays of sunlight were appearing over the trees, and it was now light enough for Tom to notice drops of blood from his arm on the white snow. It didn't hurt much in the cold, or maybe it was just that his mind was elsewhere. Like on escaping to the door. He climbed up to the cab of the backhoe, pulling himself up in one graceful intense motion. Still no sign of being discovered, but this thing would only move so fast. If he could get it started. The first keys were much too big, so Tom looked through his collection for smaller ones. Choosing the smallest, he tried the first key on the ring; it fit but wouldn't turn. The second one worked, but the engine made only a loud coughing report without starting up.

Tom thought he saw a flash of red and blue. He turned around in panic, and tried the key again, also jamming his foot down what he guessed was the gas pedal. False alarm -- for the moment -- and to his joy the engine roared to life. Tom fumbled with the shift and clutch and somehow got the machine to lurch forward.

He was off, smashing low-hanging branches this way and that and crushing a sapling here and there, steering through the bigger trees like a maze, following his own crusty footsteps from the day before. A tight squeeze here and there was always overcome by Tom simply gunning the gas to smash his way past the trees, several of which he damaged along the way. In his panic-addled state of mind, this bothered him when he knew full well how silly all that was. Jim was, at least, finally off his mind.

He was nearly to the gorge and Margarethe's ribbon when he saw the first real flashing lights. Not siren lights -- he guessed the cop cars had been stuck somewhere between here and the clearing, but flashlights, carried by officers on foot who were now gaining on him on foot. "Halt!" came the first call, followed quickly by more including "Stop or I'll shoot!"

No one did shoot, though, and Tom made it to the hilltop with the ribbon still tied to the tree. He leapt out of the cab and rolled safely into the snowbank below, the icy sensation offering a pleasant sting against the cut on his arm. "Freeze!" came a call from what sounded like no more than ten feet behind the backhoe.