Chewed Out…

        An even blast of infernal cold sliced through Keith Arevel, made easy work of spandex and polyester layers, and made him feel as though he’d been slapped across the face. Occasionally, when the sun felt like reaching out to him with a warm caress, things were comfortable, but truth be told, nothing was comfortable about this time of day. The clear evening skies sucked all of the heat out of the atmosphere, almost freezing the air right when day broke. But the cold he almost couldn’t tolerate would soon not be an issue. Before long, temperate air currents would prevail, his grogginess would fade, and his front wheel would stop thumping every washboard that had manifested itself in the gravel road. His head turned back in the direction of town, and he could see its streetlights shutting themselves off one by one as dawn reached them.

        Keith had left when it was still dark; his previous liquid consumption had him going about every three hours that night. Fortunately, the frequency of his trips hadn’t made his parents aware of his waking. They didn’t think it strange when, the night before, Keith had gone to the kitchen sink and consumed glass after glass of water. His wake-up ritual had been derived from the pages of Field and Stream. Roughly quoted it said, “When an Indian wanted to wake up early he drank water before he went to bed; the earlier he wished to awake, the more water he drank.” He was sure they never read the magazine; Jefferson subscribed to it, but seemed only to bring it in with the rest of the mail, toss it on the living room table, and never gave it a second thought. By chance Keith had found the blurb in one issue, hidden in a side bar; it worked as promised.

        The gravel road he was riding on gave way to a rutted double track. A cattle guard announced the alteration in condition. An old corral post near by had a roughly painted sign tacked to it. It read, “Property of the West Fork Cattle Co., No Trespassing…” The “Violators Will be Prosecuted” portion had faded from existence about a year ago, as the range cattle enjoyed a good rub on the lower part of the sign’s textured surface. It didn’t matter though, the West Forkers wouldn’t be out this direction, it was too early and a Sunday. He rumbled over the guard with good speed and soon hit the first bend in the double track, which sent the road slithering up the side of a ravine. The ravine’s reason for existence was clearly audible; its cool waters playfully gurgled about amongst rocks and the roots of aspen trees that sparsely lined both banks. The aspen leaves were restless in the wind’s still icy gasp, and the dew began to make them shimmer like fishing lures cranked up from the depths of a lake.

        Keith was sweating now, and the breezes felt good. The steep bulldozed road caused him shift low and spin fitfully in his smallest chain ring. He glanced up towards the sky to find the sun still low on the horizon, then rolled his wrist to peer at his watch. They would be up by now and know he was gone. He could almost feel the presence of his mother, her soft footsteps making haste across the floorboards toward the head of his bed. Her jaw would be drawn up tight, she would say his slumber would make them late, that he needed to get up. Then she would rummage through the closet finding his slacks, tie, and dress shirt. Carefully she would lay them on the foot of the bed, and if he still hadn’t moved she would clasp his shoulders, her eyes would grow larger, and she would gently shake him. “Up!” she would say. A cool pile of pancakes would await him down stairs. Keith always took his breakfast slow, steeling a look at the rest of them, their prayer books in hand, quoting and pondering scripture before they even left the house.

        The grade leveled a bit and veered away from the creek. He had been cranking along, studying his watch so frequently that hardly a minute went by he didn’t notice. Finally the crest was in sight. He quit pedaling, let the bike coast to a stop, and then looked back down the ravine and onto the flat from whence he had come. The town now shone brightly in the sun, the taller brick buildings and water towers jetted up in various places, accenting the towns appearance, casting shadows on the homes around them, and he could see the giant “L” made from white stones on the ridge opposite him.

        Keith snatched the plastic tube protruding from his hydration pack, shoved it in his mouth, and began sucking large bursts of water in-between heavy inhalations of sage scented air. He followed roads with his eyes, tracing them into the country in order to pick out the roof of his home, then back towards the high school, and on down to the strip, where he tried to pick out which fast food chain was which. He traced back towards the center of town, towards the steeple where they would soon be congregating.

        After his breakfast was eaten, he would drift into the living room. Jefferson and his mother would look him up and down; she would grab hold of his arm, and turn him to face her so that she could straighten and smooth out his tie. Even now Keith could smell her. She wore the same perfume every Sunday; it was a strong unnatural scent, almost like paint thinner. Sometimes a good whiff would singe his nostrils and make him wrinkle his nose. She would pretend not to notice, smile, and say, “Well…then I guess were all ready.” They would all file out to the car; his two stepsisters were always eager, but he lagged behind, followed closely by his mother. Jefferson always stayed behind to secure the door before coming to start the engine.

        They would drive right through town, taking the most direct route. He never felt it until they were close, no more than a block away, sometimes pulling up into the parking lot. Then slowly the estrangement came, starting somewhere betwixt his middle abdominal muscles and gnawing its way outward as if it was chewing a giant hole right through the center of his body. It made his throat crisp up, his hands leave damp marks on the front of his pants, and his legs feel weak like he had just managed a thousand feet of pedaling.

        His mother and sisters would trot in eagerly and take their seats. He would be escorted by Jefferson, who took great care to see that he shook the hand of the pastor, dressed in his somber vestments always awaiting them in the foyer. Once inside, Keith sat down next to the stepsisters, and Jefferson would follow him sitting next to the aisle. He would watch as familiar faces from the town began to fill the room. They all moseyed in slowly like cattle making way to water, eventually packing all the pews. Most of them were still, staring forward, waiting for the pastor. The sweat would form about his brow and trickle down his sides from his underarms. He wanted to be gone; the crowded building made things uncomfortable; there was no air, no room to draw a breath. Jefferson’s family crowded against him, hemming him in. He always hoped what was eating at him would finish the job and let him vanish.

        Then it would start, the preacher would appear in front of them upon the pulpit and begin his sermon. Soon they would be turning the pages of their Bibles to where ever the pastor called attention. Often Keith would forget his book intentionally; he would stash it in his room so his mother couldn’t find it when she went after his clothes in the morning. Other times he’d leave it in the car or set it on the coffee table in the front room before leaving home. It was a method of silent protest Keith’s parents knew this and they fought it but often failed, caught-up in earlier discussions about the Lord’s graces to pay mind to this detail. Even if he didn’t bring it there was always one in front of him, on the shelf attached to the next pew. When the preaching started, his father would elbow him, and Keith would reluctantly snatch up the book, leaf through its translucent pages, wrinkling them with moist fingers.

        The sermon would piece onward, the preacher shifting his tone. He would howl and smash his fist against the pulpit, then quietly look up, and speak in a metaphors Keith couldn’t find reason to justify. The pastor often talked of the polar opposites, light and dark, and from the darkness he described, he drew a since of the evil uncertainty, of wilderness. It reminded Keith of the over used metaphor often contained within the lyrics of Christian rock tunes his sisters forced the stereo to blare. He didn’t understand. They were caught behind the sturdy doors of the church, the doors the morning refused to penetrate, cut off from the sun and the sage hills Keith felt such a part of. He was always impatient for the massive wooden barriers to spring open so he could go back to his light. A light the congregation found irritating when they stepped from the dimness of the church. When the sun shone toward their eyes they often tried to rub it away. The god they believed in wasn’t one he knew.

        Keith turned from his vantage point and hoped astride his cycle, then began following the road along the spine of the ridge before it dropped off down the other side, at which point he jettisoned off on a well-used cow path. The path continued to follow the pitch and flow of the crest. It eventually lead him upward, and the biting taste of pines began to flow in and out of his mouth. Soon the cow path wound its way through small stands of the trees. Creatures began to appear; he could see a turkey vulture circling about over the hills in front of him, riding a thermal that took it out into the valley below, and a kestrel that found its perch on top of a snag. The soft grunt of a porcupine made him look to the edge of the trail in time to see it waddle off into the cheat grasses. The trail fell off into a saddle. As he descended, he noticed the black backs of the range stock who swung their heads up and brought their ears forward. Seconds later three of them bolted, and the air was forced out of their nostrils like blasts from a steam valve. Others he hadn’t noticed trampled away as well; the vibrations of their hoof beats and the squealing of their snorts seemed to surround him. They smashed in all directions, their sounds and bodies disappearing down the ridges fading into the trees and sage.

        Stopping, he saw the sun had since increased its elevation and was well above the horizon. The service would be over now, and maybe they were on their way to brunch; perhaps they might come out in search of him! No, they knew what he was doing; simple observations would tell them. Still amongst all his feelings, a fear of uncertainty was laden on him. It was useless he thought, a part of him he didn’t need, but one that wouldn’t leave. What would they do? He had never skipped a service with them unless he was convincingly ill.

        He tried to fake it once and was caught. His mother was distraught, and she had paced around the living room, making fierce gestures with her hands, almost yelling at his father who responded by stripping him of television privileges for a week and delivering a half-hearted spanking. Keith was only seven then, but he remembered. His father had taken him into the garage with a large, dark, wooden stirring spoon, his mother’s preferred weapon. When they were out of sight, his father set the spoon on his wooden workbench, and swatted him several times with open palm just enough so that a convincing amount of tears left their red traces. Then the man sent him away, into the house. Keith burst inside and scrambled up the staircase on all fours screaming for effect. His mother had briefly turned from the kitchen sink shooting him an angry glare as she noted his theatrics and then turned back, continuing to peel something he couldn’t see. Keith had slammed the door to his room and went to the window in time to see his dad leaving the garage. He saw the spoon, shattered in two, but why? He had since realized that the broken spoon was meant to soothe the dramatic rage of his mother. He could think of many times when his father was able to trick her and calm her fervent fits of anger, thus keeping things in the house reasonably quiet.

        Keith’s visits to his father’s were always quiet. His home was tucked away in the greenery of the North Carolina hills, just out of Ashville, not to far from the University. He was a professor there, teaching freshman comp courses and riding bikes on the side. When Keith visited, they would get up in the mornings while the humidity wasn’t at its climax, and his father would fill them both with oatmeal. Then they’d ride, up the windy single tracks and through the trees with all of the green surrounding them, hugging them, and keeping secrets until they reached the top. Wisps of mist would rise up from the living stumps covered with leaves and greens of every kind. The soils emitted their richly organic flavor, and through the canopy the sky would become so large and blue that it squished against the tops of the trees. It seemed if they stretched, they could reach into it and push it upward, back where it belonged.

        Then they would break out of the green shroud of forest, its views revealed to them with the hills and mountains spanned out before their vista, the city glistening in the sun. Space was theirs, it was silent, and it embraced them.

        As far as Keith new his father didn’t go to service, he seemed to lose interest when he and Keith’s mother had separated. On Sunday mornings when Keith visited, there were no ties to mess with, no slacks or shirt to keep from being wrinkled. Cold stacks of pancakes were replaced with the steaming bowls of oats. The familiar strangeness of the parking lots, the pews, and the suffocation that bound it all together was gone. There was no book of verse to forget, no chant, no song to sing, no prayer, no pastor to try and avoid. He and the old man would sit on the terrace, sip black coffee, take in the sunrise, and watch traffic echo by on surfaced roads below them.                

        Sounds of a jet awakened him from his meditative thoughts, he looked up, saw its contrails wafting in a matchless blue, and heard its hollowness growling through the sky. The cow path twisted down the ridge, away from the town, and into the nearly barren valley below. He turned his handle bar around, jumped into his pedals, and coasted slowly down the steep path in the direction of its vacancy. The descent was mellow at first, but it soon became sketchy. It took unpredictable dips and dives down in between various benches, leveling off on top of some, then plummeting downward from others.

        The trail demanded all his focus. In places he had to stretch his body backward, and the knobs on the rear tire bumped against his lycra shorts. He had to endure it to keep the wheel from coming up behind him and sending him tumbling into the brush. He could barely reach the break levers, and his digits were stretching to try and wrap around them. A little squeeze would hopefully slow him. A large one would throw him into a skid, or over the bars. Sage whipped him, grabbed at clothes, tried to snatch the handle bar, and nearly ripped the sunglasses off his face. It wasn’t long before the right combination of obstacles came together. He piled into a rock near the bottom of the third steep pitch. The force was great enough to cause his front tube to rupture; the result sent him sprawling through the sage. Off the narrow foot of land he went, tearing through one bush, then another like a car plowing down a steep embankment. Branches raked through him, tore clothing, and left little red lacerations all over his body. For a second it seemed as though he would never stop, nothing was stable, everything he grabbed came apart in his hands. Panic filled him. He thrashed out with it trying to stop, but it was impossible. The earth was flying by him. Then the dusty base of the hill rushed to him, smacking his body, bursting the wind from his chest. He couldn’t breath and lay rolling about in a shattered heap, clutching the most prevalent sores about his face left from the bushes.

        The air rapidly refilled his lungs. When he could stand, he noticed his bike tangled in the sagebrush nearly thirty yards away. He would’ve made it all the way if he’d missed the rock! A glance down allowed him to witness blood oozing slowly from his kneecap. The wound had been slightly blocked by the dust it had gathered when he came to the abrupt halt. He shook both arms and legs, noting no sharp pains; he simply throbbed from all of the cuts and impacts. He felt what could have been water on his forehead, reached up to wipe it away, and found his glove stained a dark purple afterward. Another cut was dripping just below his helmet. He clasped his head wound and slowly began hiking up the hill for his bike. Part way up he turned, innocently looking back, and a motion manifested itself, a few hundred yards away from the base of the ridge on the valley floor.

        An animal was struggling; it would lay low for a while then lash upward again in a sudden motion as if it was trying to yank itself free of something. He glanced up the hill, the bike would stay put, and this creature would not. Turning back, he found the struggle continued; he staggered down the hillside and slowly approached the movement. Grunts and growls, followed by an occasional whimper, rolled their way through the vegetation toward him. Step after step brought him closer to the source of the subtle commotion.

        A twig cracked under his foot, and he shot a gaze upward in the direction of the sounds, coming from a clearing in the sage directly to his left. It stopped abruptly, eyes immediately focused on him. They were bright yellow; their haunting glow pierced his gawking stare. Several high-pitched yaps shattered the silence as the coyote lunged away towards the opposite side of the clearing. It was trying to escape, trying to run from him. He jumped when it did; his legs began to shake, and he quickly placed his hands on his knees to stop them. How foolish, he thought, it can’t get at me, it's trapped. The animal reached down and savagely bit at the steel jaws holding it place, looked back up at him, and growled. It looked as if it expanded in size, and its face twisted into a defiant snarl.

        Keith noticed the blood; it had contaminated the animal’s teeth with an awful hue of red. It was all over the coyote's muzzle and fur, matting it down in places. It covered the ground, spattered on the nearby grass, and coated the jaws of the trap. He could see blood steadily pouring from the snared leg on which the animal chewed. It would rapidly pulled back from its work at times, whimpering with pain. When it delved in to free itself, he could hear the dull tapping of teeth on bone, and could see its mouth fill with blood as if the animal were drinking from an artesian well. He wanted to approach it to try to let it out, but he knew if he got near, the animal would lash out and trap part of him in its jaws. The crunching wouldn’t stop. He continued to watch with morbid fascination. He had heard of animals doing this, chewing their way out. He had never imagined the blood or the pain, both of which were shown to him now. Once in a history book he had read a note about a man who amputated his own limb during the Civil War using a pocketknife. This looked even more destructive.

        With a giant crackling comparable to limbs being ripped from a large tree, the coyote yelped and sprung from the jaws of steel. Then the creature stumbled away out of the clearing, lapping the blood still dripping from what was left of the leg.

        Keith edged towards the trap. The amputated foot was lifelessly clamped in its jaws. He could see a cross section of the bone, the outer coating, the marrow inside; it was white, almost reflecting the sunlight. Veins and arteries ceased leaching their crimson fluid, and the blood was drying in the heat of the day, attracting flies, which would soon consume what the creature left. The sickening and bitter taste of blood was in his mouth as he looked over the scene. He could picture the animal, frantically struggling at first, hoping to get away with out too much trial, hoping things wouldn’t be difficult. When he looked into its eyes, he saw the struggle, the horribly rigid flashes of pain, the prolonged and desperate panic, the mess of leaving a captured part of itself once attached so firmly.

        Insects landed on him now, and scavengers hung above. They smelled the blood and the now worthless limb. It would be picked at until the flesh was removed, and the bones left would be thrown away by the ranchers when they came to check the trap’s condition. Keith turned from it and walked back towards the ridge and the bike. It would be late when he returned; he had a flat to fix and a long ride home. They would be waiting, furious, and rattling off all of the punishments they planned to inflict. It would be painful and uncertain, messy at times, but he had already begun to chew.