The dining room floorboards groaned and sagged beneath Steve’s weight, a weary testament to the burdens he carried. As he made his way to the window, he felt the subtle decline beneath his feet, mirroring the gradual erosion of his life.
Outside, the relentless downpour obscured the mighty Klamath River, its turbulent waves whipped into blotchy whitecaps by the unyielding wind. The vast expanse was swallowed by darkness, revealing only foamy speckles in the muted glow of a distant street lamp.
In the feeble light, Steve observed the rain’s hypnotic dance, its rhythmic drumming on the roof echoing the ceaseless rhythm of his troubles. A bitter smirk played on his lips as memories of the mudslide that ousted Doc Freeman from his home resurfaced.
Leaning closer to the window, Steve marveled at the luminous, shiny mud, seemingly determined to consume the Freeman residence. His yard had vanished beneath the slush, much like the semblance of normalcy that had disappeared from his life.
Entering the back bedroom, memories of family struggles flooded Steve’s mind. Two miracles and one son named Adam had marked his marriage. Then came Henry, the real miracle, followed by a tragedy that shook their foundation.
The night Doc Freeman arrived wasn’t to offer solace but to announce a property dispute lawsuit. The ensuing mudslide claimed not just Adam but also threatened to devour the very structure of their home.
Deputy Lloyd interrupted Steve’s reflections, urging him to abandon the condemned dwelling. Despite the rain and the impending collapse, Steve lingered, haunted by memories of loss, betrayal, and a marriage that had unraveled.
“Steve, you gotta get outta there,” Lloyd shouted from below. “Your place has been condemned. I can’t have you staying in that house any longer.”
“I just came to gather a few things together, Deputy,” Steve explained.
“There was a padlock on the door,” Lloyd shouted over the falling rain. “I ought to arrest you for breaking in.”
“Breaking into my own house? I just came to get a few things,” Steve argued. “I’ll be out of here soon enough.”
“Well, okay then,” Lloyd said, his concern etched in the lines of his face.
He didn’t relish standing in the rain, so he poured hot coffee from a thermos, wished Steve well, and drove off.
Steve extinguished the offending lantern. From now on, he would have to remain in the dark.
The floor shuddered as another foot or two of dirt slid from beneath the house. Steve stood on the precipice and stomped on the floor.
“Go then! Slide like a snake into the river!” he cried out. “And take the Freeman place with you, too!”
The rising river battered against the boat launch. The Klamath, once thought tamed by dams, now rebelled against human control. The rain persisted, challenging the notion that ‘they’ had been wrong.
Steve felt his way to the railing and climbed the stairs to his bedroom. The odd sensation of walking at a slant intensified in the second story.
The roof had parted in places, and water pooled on the floor. Yet, the only puddles were against the wall, and the bending, straining floorboards provided runoff.
As Steve entered his silent home, he noted the absence of his wife. Her perpetual errands and endless chores left the house quieter than usual. Even the radio chatter failed to disturb the oppressive quiet.
Rarely ascending to the bedroom until bedtime, Steve felt an unsettling quality as even the Klamath, a distant murmur normally, seemed flat and quiet. Seeking solace, he headed upstairs for a shower, a ritual to calm his frayed nerves.
An outside observer would not have been surprised by the letter Steve found on his wife’s pillow. They would have foreseen it.
Yet, Steve took her departure hard. Constant battles, fueled by Adam’s death, had left scars, and they had battled each other to navigate the almost unbearable unfairness.
The lengthy letter held a single line that crushed Steve.
“When you have loved someone for a long time, and then it all falls apart, love gets turned upside-down,” she had written. “The underside of love becomes hate.”
Hate. Regardless of its delivery, the word lingered, refusing to fade away.
Just before midnight, Lloyd returned for one more look. He shined his spotlight on the window where he had seen Steve standing.
Lloyd wasn’t about to enter a house destined to crumble in the mud before morning, so he called out to Steve, who remained silent till the man left.
“This ain’t none of your business, Lloyd,” Steve shouted, watching the deputy drive away.
“I’ll be your alibi,” he added. “You can tell them how valiantly you tried.”
Steve remembered that he had not eaten all day. Pulling a cheese sandwich from his pocket, he nibbled small bites without tasting.
A million fingers of water relentlessly pulled at the helpless foundation. The house groaned and creaked.
Steve laughed to remember the initial slide that pushed through Freeman’s bedroom window.
“I wonder what it’s like to wake up to something like that,” he whispered. “I could hear his swearing, clear as a bell, clean up here.”
Descending to the kitchen, Steve went to the dinner table and flung his medicine bottles out the broken door frame and into the mud.
“When a man is so afraid of losing his mind that he checks himself into the hospital…” Steve overheard an orderly telling a nurse in the hallway. “We didn’t have much choice. Did you see the shape he was in when he got here? He doesn’t know where he is half the time? And what he says makes precious little sense.”
Steve was sick for a long time. Not a sickness that could be understood or discussed. No bowl of soup or hot water bottle could cure this ailment. Not a cancer or pneumonia to blame, just life.
For months after returning home, Steve did not dream. The jarring deficiency weighed heavily. He had never felt so out of control.
Attempting to write, he couldn’t hold the pen. Embarrassed by the slips of his pen, ashamed, his illness became evident through every errant mark.
His thoughts spiraled out of control. Wild, dangerous, frightening, black thoughts came and went as they fucking pleased.
Pills became his solace, pills to sleep, pills to eat. Those meant to propel him into the morning only rendered him heavy and indifferent. They robbed him of weight and then burdened him with it.
Sometimes, he could not concentrate. Moments of his life were lost, like reading every other sentence in a novel. Pieces, but not from the same puzzle.
Steve went to the hall closet, struggling to open the door. With the house leaning toward the Klamath, the door swollen was wedged tight.
Exerting all his might, Steve pulled at the doorknob. The door broke free, sending the doorknob crashing through the Sheetrock as the door swung wide.
Without bothering to examine the cavity in the wall, Steve took a scrapbook from the shelf and felt his way to his chair. He sat down with the black scrapbook in his lap.
Though he couldn’t see it in the dark, he could hold it.
The rain continued to fall, an hourglass of gravel steadily releasing its contents onto the roof. Lights from a distant vehicle illuminated the white whitecaps on the river.
Another sliver of the foundation crumbled, and as the old house creaked, Steve stood up to stomp.
Had Steve retained his old sense of self or held onto his tenuous tether of sanity, he would have perceived his activities differently. Had he been able to stand apart and look at himself engaged in such tomfoolery with older, healthier eyes, he would have laughed out loud at the sight of it.
But with the rain persisting, whitecaps whipping up, and Freeman in the Surf Hotel in Crescent City, Steve never felt the final slip as the Klamath River claimed what remained of him.
He was already sliding, and he had been for months. It was all part of the same nightmare.
The Old Blog in the Desert 