Kate Schatz - PJ Harveys Rid of Me: A Story

Mary

Tie yourself to me, she whispered, without turning around, as I snuck up from behind. My boots scraping in the dirt, sweat running into my eye, the salt stinging me, my heart thudding, my dry mouth hanging open, tasting the electricity between us. No one else.

She said it again: Tie yourself to me. It was no longer a whisper: the words were sure, though slightly slurred. It was the first time Id heard her voiceI wanted it in my ear forever. My arms fell to my side, the rope limp in my clenched left hand, its short fibers pricking me. I stared down at her black silk head and wanted to howl with joy. She had come.

* * *

When I left it all Id headed straight to the highwayits the only way out of that townand made my way to the woods. Those dark forbidden woods. Id been plotting my escape for so long, staring out that little window at the black sea the forest makes. The trees moving in the far-off wind like waves, birds swooping down and up like fish leaping toward the sun. For five long years I was so good and patient. Every few months I was allowed to walk unsupervised, for an hour or so, around a patch of grass surrounded by a weak fenceI could have done it, couldve bent the flimsy metal, thrown my body over the top and ran. But I didnt. I waited.

* * *

On the day of my release he came and picked me up in his long black car and took me to the house. I spent several days there, back in that room, yet another cell. When the coast was finally clear I made my escapeI took his truck and drove it to a body of water on the edge of the city, near the highways entrance. It rolled in without much splash and went down fast beneath the inky water. I crept backward from the water through some brush and scruffy trees. When I reached the road I paused at the green metal sign with the white arrow pointing toward the highway that juts out like a long and broken arm. I glared at the gun-colored city. The big fat moon lit the house on the hill that I had just left. I closed my eyes and pictured her sleeping: cheeks flushed, black braids tangled. I tried one last time to enter her dreams. Youre going to follow, I whispered. Youre going to leave too. Please. As the words left my lips I imagined them dropping to the ground, forming sweet ripe apples, a trail of golden breadcrumbs. I turned my back and headed out.

Between there and here is a wide swath of nothing: something like a desert, a dead midway, a blank buffer between a town and a forest, just a dried-earth no-mans land. The trucks used to run steady on this road, like salmon on a rich current, but now its just a dry, cracked riverbed. No one comes in, and no one really goes outand when they do, no one knows where to. I kept looking over my shoulder; nothing behind me but what I just passed. I walked and I walked and I ran at some points and I stumbled over rocks, cans, abandoned mufflers and the farther I got from the city the darker it became and the moon was my only light and I could just make out the white line running down the middle of the road and the silhouettes and shapes of trees and in the waving distance those woods.

I collapsed under a single ailing tree, among the asphalt and dust and the shit coming up through the cracks, the lonely things trying to live their own way. The mountains and trees were so black I couldnt tell whether they were at the tips of my fingers or the ends of the earth. And I told myself: Im headed to the place where Ill find everything, the place where Ill be believed. Where I can live again, eyes wide to a far black sky, feet inches off the earth below. The sleep came in waves. My eyes flipped open every so often, expecting to see the old peeling walls of my room, the leathery faces of men swimming above me. In one dream I sat high above him on a throne in a tree holding a golden crown to my head, legs tied to the trunk, swaying in the wind, laughing.

In the morning I woke up dusty, aching like hell, and bug-bitten. Id made it far, though, and the trees clung tight together, green and brown and black, holding fast and strong, towering giants with thin spires so high up. They blanketed the mountain, they rose from every square foot of earth, they teemed with the life I knew was inside. I shivered. A hawk rose from deep within the forest and soared straight up, his wings thick sails, and he circled and circled and found what he neededthen shot back down, gone, into a heart I couldnt see.

I went in. To the woods. No path or trail or planI just went. Blind and thrashing through, pulled by some force that kept me going, and I was scared and thrilled and scratched and thenI found it.

I found it.

I stumbled into a clearing and there it was. The surrounding trees seemed to be leaning back, giving it space, letting the light in, allowing a thick mist to rise up around it. I went to it, touched it, rubbed the walls. Got slivers in my fingers, my palms. Home. It was real. Waiting for me.

I worked all day and night cleaning it up, getting it ready. Then I found my way back to the highway so that Id be out in the open in case she came looking. About a mile out of the woods I stumbled into a dim roadside bar that I swear wasnt there before. I thought it was an apparition at first, but it was real. Had I missed it in the dark? I mustve gone right by it, too focused on my trek to see it. I pulled my hat low and slid on in. It was empty: just dust-covered vinyl booths, ancient liquor bottles cobwebbed together. A man sat behind the bar, wearing a red satin jacket with the words BIG LONELY embroidered across the back. It seemed to me the perfect phrase.

I staked my claim in a corner booth where I ate popcorn and cheese fries, peanuts and ancient candy from the rusted dispenser. I drank glasses of gin but tasted nothingjust my nervous heart and bitter hunger. Sometimes I went outside and walked the highway up and down, pacing and pacing and searching. For some sign, some thing. The city sat far and sad in one distance, the mountains large and dark in the other. Here, it was just leafless trees, like sticks stuck in the ground, broken bottles and cardboard scraps and the dirty arm of a doll whose body was missing. I wanted to rip the trees from their earth, gnaw on the roots, suck in the dirt until I swallowed something molten. My feet hurt. I kept on. I had to believe that shed show up.

* * *

On the third day I lifted my head from a nap on the table and saw a figure in my periphery, headed toward the bathroom. It was just a flash: long braids whipping around, thin neck, shoulder blades, big T-shirt, jeans, those blue shoes. Her hand quickly gripping the doorframe as she disappeared. It was enough, thoughmy body tightened and my heart froze and I was about to yell but I stayed still. Is it her? Could it be? It is her. Yes. I sat and trembled and waited for her to emerge but after a while my patience gave out.

I knocked. Silence. Some bird somewhere cried, a wind blew through the bar and the glasses clinked. I turned the handleit wasnt locked. Bathroom empty, window open. That wind blowing in dust and the smell of the ground outside. I looked out the window, scanning the packed dirt, the dry flora. There. She sat straight-backed on a large flat rock, inches from the highway, a small purse next to her, hands folded in her lap, knees and feet together. Waiting. Her head was turned the slightest bit and I saw itthose braids, that face. Her.

Do you know what it feels like to be in one of these moments? When the thing youve wanted so bad sits before you, within your reach? A wave of nausea and terror sweeps over you, your heart seizes and your skin tightens, the muscles in your jaw pulse and you become acutely aware of the back of your neck. Its your moment. My gut burned, and I had to act. I grabbed my backpack and slipped out the back door. I crept around the building like a spy: back flush against the wall, head still, eyes darting, foot over foot, aware of the sound that each crushed leaf made. I reached the corner and peeked around.