Turtles All the Way Down

  "It lives here," I said. "We're the invaders." We kept walking. The only light in the world seemed to be the yellow beams of headlamps and flashlights--it was almost like everyone down there had become beams of light, bouncing along the tunnel in little groups.

  --

  Ahead of us, I saw headlamps turning to the left, into a square side tunnel, about eight feet high. We jumped over the trickling creek, past a sign that read, A PICKETT ENGINEERING PROJECT, and into the concrete side tunnel.

  You could only see the artwork by the light of headlamps and flashlights, so the paintings and photographs lining the walls seemed to come in and out of focus. To see all of Mychal's picture, you had to stand against the opposite wall of the tunnel. It really was an amazing artwork--Prisoner 101 looked as real as anyone, but he was made from pieces of the one hundred mugshots Mychal had found of men convicted of murder and then exonerated. Even up close, I couldn't tell that Prisoner 101 wasn't real.

  The rest of the art was cool, too--big abstract paintings of hard-edged geometric shapes, an assemblage of old wooden chairs precariously stacked to the ceiling, a huge photograph of a kid jumping on a trampoline alone in a vast harvested cornfield--but Mychal's was my favorite, and not just because I knew him.

  After a while, we heard a clamor of voices approach, and the gallery became crowded. Someone had set up a stereo, and music began reverberating through the tunnel. Plastic cups were passed around, and then bottles of wine, and the place got louder and louder, and even though it was freezing down there, I started to feel sweaty, so I asked Daisy if she wanted to go for a walk.

  "A walk?"

  "Yeah, just, I don't know, down the tunnel or something."

  "You want to go for a walk down the tunnel."

  "Yeah. I mean, we don't have to."

  She pointed into the darkness beyond the reach of our headlamps. "You're proposing that we just walk into that void."

  "Not for like a mile or anything. Just to see what there is to see."

  Daisy sighed. "Yeah, okay. Let's go for a walk."

  --

  It only took a minute for the air to feel crisper. The tunnel ahead of us was pitch-black, and it curved in a long, slow arc away from the party until we couldn't see the light from it anymore. We could still hear the music and the people talking over it, but it felt distant, like a party you drive past.

  "I don't understand how you can be so inhumanly calm down here, fifteen feet below downtown Indianapolis, ankle deep in rat shit, but you have a panic attack when you think your finger is infected."

  "I don't know," I said. "This just isn't scary."

  "It objectively is," she said.

  I reached up and clicked off my headlamp. "Turn off your light," I said.

  "Hell, no."

  "Turn it off. Nothing bad will happen." She clicked off her light, and the world went dark. I felt my eyes trying to adjust, but there was no light to adjust to. "Now you can't see the walls, right? Can't see the rats. Spin around a few times and you won't know which way is in and which way is out. This is scary. Now imagine if we couldn't talk, if we couldn't hear each other's breathing. Imagine if we had no sense of touch, so even if we were standing next to each other, we'd never know it.

  "Imagine you're trying to find someone, or even you're trying to find yourself, but you have no senses, no way to know where the walls are, which way is forward or backward, what is water and what is air. You're senseless and shapeless--you feel like you can only describe what you are by identifying what you're not, and you're floating around in a body with no control. You don't get to decide who you like or where you live or when you eat or what you fear. You're just stuck in there, totally alone, in this darkness. That's scary. This," I said, and turned on the flashlight. "This is control. This is power. There may be rats and spiders and whatever the hell. But we shine the light on them, not the other way around. We know where the walls are, which way is in and which way is out. This," I said, turning off my light again, "is what I feel like when I'm scared. This"--I turned the flashlight back on--"is a walk in the fucking park."

  We walked for a while in silence. "It's that bad?" she asked finally.

  "Sometimes," I said.

  "But then your flashlight starts working again," she said.

  "So far."

  --

  As we kept walking, through the tunnel, the music behind us growing fainter, Daisy calmed down a bit. "I'm thinking of killing off Ayala," she said. "Would you take that personally?"

  "Nah," I said. "I was just starting to like her, though."

  "Did you read the most recent one?"

  "The one where they go to Ryloth to deliver power converters? I loved the scene where Rey and Ayala are waiting for that dude in a bar, and they're just talking. I like your action scenes and everything, but the just talking is my favorite. Also, I liked that I got to hook up with a Twi'lek. Or, Ayala did, I guess. Your writing makes me feel like it's real, like I'm really there."

  "Thanks," she said. "Now you're making me think maybe I shouldn't kill her."

  "I don't mind if you kill her. Just make her die a hero."

  "Oh, of course. She has to. I was thinking I'd make it some Rogue One-style sacrifice for the common good. If that sounds okay?"

  "Works for me," I told her.

  "God, is the smell getting worse?" she asked.

  "It's not getting better," I acknowledged. It smelled more like rotting garbage and unflushed toilets, and as we passed an offshoot to the tunnel, Daisy said she wanted to turn around, but in the distance ahead of us I could see a pinprick of gray light, and I wanted to see what was at the end.

  As we walked, the sounds of the city grew slowly louder and the smell improved because we were close to open air. The gray light grew larger until we reached the edge of the tunnel. It was open and unfinished--the tiny trickle of water that was supposed to be diverted from the White River was instead dripping down into it, two stories below us.

  I looked up. It was past ten o'clock, but I'd never seen the city look so blindingly bright. I could see everything: the green moss on the boulders in the river below; the golden frothy bubbles at the base of the waterfall; the trees in the distance bent over the water like the roof of a chapel; the power lines sagging across the river below us; a great silver grain mill absurdly still in the moonlight; neon Speedway and Chase Bank signs in the distance.

  Indianapolis is so flat you can never really look down on it; it's not a town with million-dollar views. But now I had one, in the most unexpected place, the city stretching out below and beyond me, and it took a minute before I remembered that this was nighttime, that this silver-lit landscape is what passed, aboveground, for darkness.

  Daisy surprised me by sitting down, her legs dangling over the concrete edge. I sat down on the other side of the trickle of water, and we looked at the same scene together for a long time.

  We went out to the meadow that night, talking about college and kissing and religion and art, and I didn't feel like I was watching a movie of our conversation. I was having it. I could listen to her, and I knew she was listening to me.

  "I wonder if they'll ever finish this thing," Daisy said at one point.

  "I kind of hope not," I said. "I mean, I'm all for clean water, but I kind of want to be able to come here again in like ten or twenty years or something. Like, instead of going to my high school reunion, I want to be here." With you, I wanted to say.

  "Yeah," she said. "Keep Pogue's Run filthy, because the view from the unfinished water treatment tunnel is spectacular. Thanks, Russell Pickett, for your corruption and incompetence."

  "Pogue's Run," I mumbled. "Wait, where does Pogue's Run start? Where is its mouth?"

  "The mouth of a river is where it ends, not where it begins. This is the mouth." I watched her realize it. "Pogue's Run. Holy shit, Holmesy. We're in the jogger's mouth."

  I stood up. I felt for some reason like Pickett might be right behind us, like he might push us off the edge
of his tunnel and into the river below. "Now I'm a little freaked out," I said.

  "What are we gonna do?"

  "Nothing," I said. "Nothing. We're gonna turn around, walk back to the party, hang out with fancy art people, and get home by curfew." I started walking back toward the distant music. "I'll tell Davis, so he knows. We let him decide whether to tell Noah. Other than that, we don't say a word."

  "All right," she said, hustling to catch up to me. "I mean, is he down here right now?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I don't think it's for us to know."

  "Right," she said. "How could he have been down here this whole time, though?" I had a guess, but didn't say anything. "God, that smell . . ." she said, her voice trailing off as she said it.

  --

  You'd think solving mysteries would bring you closure, that closing the loop would comfort and quiet your mind. But it never does. The truth always disappoints. As we circulated around the gallery, looking for Mychal, I didn't feel like I'd found the solid nesting doll or anything. Nothing had been fixed, not really. It was like the zoologist said about science: You never really find answers, just new and deeper questions.

  We finally found Mychal leaning against the wall opposite his photograph, talking to two older women. Daisy cut in and took his hand. "I hate to break up this party," she said, "but this famous artist has a curfew."

  Mychal laughed, and the three of us made our way out of the tunnel, into the silver-bright parking lot, and then into Mychal's minivan. The moment my door slid shut, he said, "That was the best night of my life thank you for being there oh my God that was just the best thing that's ever happened to me I feel like I might be an artist, like a proper one. That was so, so amazing. Did you guys have fun?"

  "Tell us all about it," Daisy said, not exactly answering his question.

  --

  When I got home, Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a mug of tea. "What is that smell?" she asked.

  "Sewage, body odor, mold--a mix of things."

  "I'm worried, Aza. I'm worried you're losing your connection to reality."

  "I'm not," I said. "I'm just tired."

  "Tonight, you're gonna stay up and talk to me."

  "About what?"

  "About where you were, what you were doing, who you were doing it with. About your life."

  So I told her. I told her that Daisy and Mychal and I had attended a one-night art show beneath downtown, and that Daisy and I had walked to the end of Pickett's unfinished tunnel, and I told her about going out to the meadow, and I told her about the jogger's mouth, about thinking Pickett was maybe down there, about the stench.

  "You're going to tell Davis?" she asked.

  "Yeah."

  "But not the police?"

  "No," I said. "If I tell the police, and he is dead down there, Davis and Noah's house won't even be theirs anymore. It'll be owned by a tuatara."

  "A tua-what-a?"

  "A tuatara. It looks like a lizard, but it isn't a lizard. Descended from the dinosaurs. They live for like a hundred and fifty years, and Pickett's will leaves everything to his pet tuatara. The house, the business, everything."

  "The madness of wealth," my mother mumbled. "Sometimes you think you're spending money, but all along the money's spending you." She glanced down at her cup of tea, and then back up to me. "But only if you worship it. You serve whatever you worship."

  "So we gotta be careful what we worship," I said. She smiled, then shooed me off to the shower. As I stood underneath the water, I wondered what I'd worship as I got older, and how that would end up bending the arc of my life this way or that. I was still at the beginning. I could still be anybody.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, a Saturday, feeling truly rested, frozen rain plinking against my bedroom window. Indianapolis winters rarely feature the sort of beautiful snow that you can ski and sled in; our usual winter precipitation is a conglomeration called "wintry mix," involving ice pellets, frozen rain, and wind.

  It wasn't even that cold--maybe thirty-five--but the wind was howling outside. I got up, dressed, ate some cereal, took a pill, and watched a bit of TV with Mom. I spent the morning procrastinating--I'd pull out my phone, start to text him, and then put it away. Then pull it out again, but no. Not yet. It never seemed like the right time. But of course, it never is the right time.

  --

  I remember after my dad died, for a while, it was both true and not true in my mind. For weeks, really, I could conjure him into being. I'd imagine him walking in, soaked in sweat, having finished mowing the lawn, and he'd try to hug me but I'd squirm out from his arms because even then sweat freaked me out.

  Or I'd be in my room, lying on my stomach, reading a book, and I'd look over at the closed door and imagine him opening it, and then he would be in the room with me, and I'd be looking up at him as he knelt down to kiss the top of my head.

  And then it became harder to summon him, to smell his smell, to feel him lifting me up. My father died suddenly, but also across the years. He was still dying, really--which meant I guess that he was still living, too.

  People always talk like there's a bright line between imagination and memory, but there isn't, at least not for me. I remember what I've imagined and imagine what I remember.

  --

  I finally texted Davis just after noon: We need to talk. Can you come over to my house today?

  He replied, Nobody's here to look after Noah. Can you come over here?

  I need to talk to you alone, I wrote. I wanted Davis to have the choice whether or not to tell his brother.

  I can be there at five thirty.

  Thanks. See you then.

  --

  The day moved agonizingly slowly. I tried reading, texting Daisy, and watching TV, but nothing would make the time speed up. I wasn't sure whether life would be better frozen in this moment, or on the other side of the moment that was coming.

  By four forty-five, I was reading in the living room while Mom paid bills. "Davis is coming over in a little bit," I told her.

  "Okay. I've got a couple errands to run. You need anything at the grocery store?"

  I shook my head.

  "You feeling anxious?"

  "Is there any way we can make a deal where I tell you when I have a mental health concern instead of you asking?"

  "It's impossible for me not to worry, baby."

  "I know, but it's also impossible not to feel the weight of that worry like a boulder on my chest."

  "I'll try."

  "Thanks, Mom. I love you."

  "I love you, too. So much."

  --

  I scrolled through my endless TV options, none of them particularly compelling, until I heard Davis's knock--soft and unsteady--on the door.

  "Hey," I said, and hugged him.

  "Hey," he said. I motioned to the couch for him to sit down. "How've you been?"

  "Listen," I said. "Davis, your dad. I know where the jogger's mouth is. It's the mouth of Pogue's Run, where the company had that unfinished project."

  He winced, then nodded. "You're sure?"

  "Pretty sure," I said. "I think he might be down there. Daisy and I were there last night, and . . ."

  "Did you see him?"

  I shook my head. "No. But the run's mouth, the jogger's mouth. It makes sense."

  "It's just a note from his phone, though. You think he's just been down there this whole time? Hiding in a sewer?"

  "Maybe," I said. "But . . . well, I don't know."

  "But?"

  "I don't want to worry you, but there was a bad smell. A really bad smell down there."

  "That could've been anything," he said. But I could see the fear on his face.

  "I know, yeah, totally, it could be anything."

  "I never thought . . . I never let myself think--" And then his voice caught. The cry that finally came out of him felt like the sky ripping open. He sort of fell into me, and I held him on the couch. Felt his rib ca
ge heave. It wasn't only Noah who missed his father. "Oh God, he's dead, isn't he?"

  "You don't know that," I said. But he kind of did. There was a reason there had been no trail and no communication: He'd been gone all along.

  He lay down and I lay down with him, the two of us barely fitting on the musty couch. He kept saying what do I do, what do I do, his head on my shoulder. I wondered whether it was a mistake to tell him. What do I do? He asked it again and again, pleading.

  "You keep going," I told him. "You've got seven years. No matter what actually happened, he'll be legally alive for seven years, and you'll have the house and everything. That's a long time to build a new life, Davis. Seven years ago, you and I hadn't even met, you know?"

  "We've got nobody now," he mumbled. I wished I could tell him that he had me, that he could count on me, but he couldn't.

  "You have your brother," I said.

  That made him split open again, and we cuddled together for a long time, until Mom came home with the groceries. Davis and I both jumped to a seating position, even though we hadn't been doing anything.

  "Sorry to interrupt," Mom said.

  "I was just headed out," Davis said.

  "You don't have to," Mom and I said simultaneously.

  "I kinda do," he said. He leaned over and hugged me with one arm. "Thank you," he whispered, although I wasn't sure I'd done him any favors.

  Davis stopped at the doorway for a second, looked back at Mom and me in what must have seemed to him like domestic bliss. I thought he might say something, but he just waved, shyly and awkwardly, and disappeared out the front door.

  --

  It was a quiet night in the Holmes household. Could've been any night, really. I worked on a paper about the Civil War for history class. Outside, the day--which had never been particularly bright--dissolved into darkness. I told Mom I was going to sleep, changed into pajamas, brushed my teeth, changed the Band-Aid over the scab on my fingertip, crawled into bed, and texted Davis. Hi.

  When he didn't reply, I wrote Daisy. Talked to Davis.

  Her: How'd it go?

  Me: Not great.

  Her: Want me to come over?

  Me: Yeah.

  Her: On my way.

  --

  An hour later, Daisy and I were lying next to each other on my bed, computers on our stomachs. I was reading the new Ayala story. Every time I giggled at something, she'd say, "What's funny?" and I'd tell her. After I finished it, we just lay there, in bed together, staring up at the ceiling.