ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KEVIN KEATING’s stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Story South’s Million Writers Award, and the Ben Hoffer/Best New Writing Award. His essays and fiction have appeared in a number of literary journals, including Identity Theory, The Stickman Review, Mad Hatter’s Review, Underground Voices, Smokebox, Fringe, Perigee, Megaera, Plum Ruby Review, Fiction Warehouse, Fifth Street Review, Juked, and many others.

Lethe

By Kevin Keating


Page 4


4

 

After driving aimlessly through the city streets, Garrett returned to his townhouse and stood in the backyard where he gazed at the downtown skyline and, only because there was nothing better close at hand, drank the warm beer inside the cooler, one after another, hoping for some kind of alleviation from the monotony of life.  More than peace of mind, more than simple tranquility, he wanted live music and strong cocktails and the lovely scent of hashish in the cool evening air, he wanted the satiric barbs and ironic conversation of the rarefied social circle that he once courted, he wanted someone to run naked from the house with a lampshade on his head, but that was all finished now, it was in the past.  Tonight he was adrift on an immense ocean of solitude.  Still he continued to wish for something to happen. 

There was a break in the clouds and he walked over to the pool to see how the moon looked in the green water and thought he saw small translucent fish skimming the surface, but he discovered that someone had strapped down the tarp and had gathered up the wet leaves and put them into large plastic bags.  The deck chairs had been stacked neatly in a corner, the grill wheeled into the garage, the wind chimes wrapped in newspaper and placed beside the back door. 
Near the edge of pool, smiling defiantly at him, sat a fair-haired little boy.

“Hey!” Garrett shouted, prepared to chase him off.  Neighborhood punks, they were everywhere, an infestation of feral kids dressed in rags, parentless most of them, in and out of foster homes, detention centers, orphanages.  They roamed the streets late at night armed with rocks and sticks and long strings of firecrackers, setting out to destroy things that weren’t theirs and never would be.  During one of his parties, Garrett caught a few of them going through his guests’ cars, stealing loose change and tossing stink bombs under the seats.  The police were useless in these circumstances, citizens had to take matters into their own hands, so Garrett chased after them, hurtling over box hedges and scaling a chain-link fence, nearly breaking his neck in the process.  He fell flat on his back, and the kids pelted him with crushed beer cans before they finally dashed down a dark alley.    

Hoping to avoid another footrace, Garrett now decided on a different approach.  He spoke softly to this boy, coaxingly, as though to an unfamiliar dog, but every time he tried to get a little closer, the boy moved farther away.

“Wait a minute.  I just want to talk, that’s all.  You did this, didn’t you?  You put the cover on the pool?”

The boy laughed, his face bright and glowing, strange for someone so small and sickly looking, so pale and weak and thin that he seemed to hover over the pool.  Garrett followed him, straining with the effort of it, his legs cumbersome and heavy.  They went around and around like that, one of them carried aloft by the winds, the other weighed down by gravity.  It took several minutes before Garrett recognized the boy, and by that time Big Ben Cowley was standing on the patio in a flannel robe and slippers and watching Garrett with concern. 

“Hey, there,” said Ben.  “Mind if I ask what you’re doing?”

Garrett caught his breath and pointed.  “My stepson.  I forgot that he was dead.”

“Your stepson…”  Ben seemed doubtful.

“He came back.  They can do that, the spirits of dead children.  They can tell you all about the future, warn you about an imminent catastrophe, tantalize you with hints of the hereafter.  Or, I don’t know, maybe he came back to annoy me.  He was always good at that.” 

Ben put an arm around Garrett’s shoulder.  “Some rest, buddy, that’s what you need.  You’re exhausted.”

“You’d think a human body would float, right?  But it doesn’t.  It sinks.  Even a fifty-pound boy will sink.  Right to the bottom.  Like a stone.  It’s hard to see someone at the bottom of a swimming pool.  You don’t notice, not right away.  It’s not my fault.  I had guests to entertain, a famous poet, some musicians, a painter I think.  His mother should have been keeping an eye on him, not me.  I’m not his father.  She really turned into a lush those last months we were together.  Embarrassing really.  But I’m still willing to take her back.  She should be grateful.”

“Best not to think about those things,” Ben advised him. “Try not to think so much.”

Garrett smiled.  “That’s just what the sages teach.  Don’t think.  Don’t think about anything.  Discard from your brain every safe and familiar face.  That’s the key to a happy life.  The world is an illusion, a dream, a hallucination.  A man can liberate himself by creating a vacuum inside his skull.  With just a little practice, a man can learn to control his breathing and heart rate and, in time, even his mind.  Like a swimmer.  A macabre show of subconscious athleticism, true, but it’s been proven to work.” 

“We should get you inside now,” said Ben.  “Storm’s on the way, and you can’t stay out here forever, can you.”

Garrett nodded.  He beckoned the little boy to follow but the boy had already vanished.  No doubt he would return to swim again and again in the slow, meandering river of Garrett’s memory, a thing that flowed in one direction only, constant and with maddening predictability toward its final destination, far from its mysterious and hidden source.



Published July 2008