He should want to bring water to his mother. That should be as basic a need in him as this need to drink or the need to breathe. And yet it was missing. He felt nothing. And that was worth exploring. How could he feel nothing?
Galen sucked at the tubing, suckled at a kind of tit, closing his eyes and humming as he felt the water. Philosophy was meant to do this. Philosophy was meant to make it possible to not bring your own mother a drink of water as she was dying of thirst. And religion was meant to make you believe that what you’d done or not done was good, and right, so it was even more powerful. But what Galen was feeling, or not feeling, was something beyond philosophy or religion, because those were still systems of attachment. What he was feeling was peace, simply peace, and that was the effect of detachment. You could never feel or see detachment itself but only its sign, this flood of peace. Or maybe flood was too active a thought. The important thing was the knowledge, or awareness, that there was no such thing as his mother to be attached to. Then there was no one to bring water to. This was truth.
Galen rose and felt ready to complete the task of nailing the boards. He looked at his injured hand, dirty and dark now, red-brown, and he thought maybe he’d never clean it. He’d let it just be whatever it was going to be. It still hurt, but not as sharply as before. It felt stiff.
He strode over to the pile for a new piece of wood, the sun pressing down, and was squinting so much in the glare his eyes were hardly open. The ground burning his feet. The feet were a problem. He didn’t know how he’d get through the day with bare feet. He tried to just ignore the pain, tried to make his feet not a part of him.
He was dizzy, too, from lack of food, but he liked this dizziness. He could use it to get past everything else. He dragged a six-foot board over to the shed wall and aligned it, tapped a nail carefully, drove it in and raised the other end, tapped and drove another nail.
I have a new plan, his mother said.
I don’t want to hear your plan.
This is a good one. You’ll like this one. Her voice was only a whisper from somewhere in the darkness of the shed.
Galen needed to drive a nail into every vertical plank, so that they were all connected. Each horizontal board a seat belt with a dozen nails. It would take some time.
I have a different checkbook, she said. One as executor of the trust.
I’m not interested.
It doesn’t have any limit for amount.
Please shut up.
Galen, you could have a million dollars, more than a million. You could withdraw it all, or maybe leave me just a little bit, and then you could go away, and when you’re safely away, you could call the police or fire department and have them come rescue me.
Galen tried to focus on the hammering. The sun merciless, a fire on his back, and his feet damaged. Damn it, he said. I can’t focus. Why the fuck didn’t we use some of that money? I can’t believe you.
I didn’t want you to go.
What?
I didn’t want you to leave me. I didn’t want you to go to college. That was all. I wasn’t trying to keep the money to myself. I just didn’t want to lose you, Galen.
You’re sick.
I love you, Galen.
You’re crazy. Stop talking to me.
I only wanted the best for you, Galen. I’ve always loved you.
Shut up.
And you can take everything now. You can have whatever life you want.
Galen hated all of this. And his feet were burning. He couldn’t just stand here. So he hopped around to the shaded side. Ow, he said, and he sat in the dirt and touched one foot with his good hand and could feel how hot and tender the skin had become.
You’ll have so much money you can do whatever you want, she whispered. She had followed him to this side. You’ll never have to work. You can buy a house somewhere.
Shut up! he screamed. His throat blown out, head dizzy, lost again. She had kept him from living his life. She had done the same to Helen and Jennifer. She had lied to everyone for years. He wanted to take the hammer to her head.
You could go to Mexico.
Damn it! he yelled. Shut the fuck up! You’re trying to destroy me.
I’m trying to live. I’m trying to not die in here.
Galen struggled to recover that sense of peace he had felt lying next to the irrigation, drinking the water. How could that leave so quickly? He was like a Ping-Pong ball, bouncing back and forth.
He needed shoes. He wasn’t going to be able to focus and get the boards done without shoes. So he hopped into the orchard, trying to keep his feet from touching the burning dirt, and found his shoes in a furrow alongside his shorts. He sat and tied the shoes as quickly as possible, the tender skin of his butt burning.
Okay, he said, standing up. I’m ready. No more distraction. The bottoms of his feet still hurt inside the shoes. The soles really had burned, damaged. It was amazing to him that humans had survived at all. We needed tougher feet, and more hair, or even hard shells, some sort of covering.
He dragged another board, squinting in the glare, and raised and hammered it against the shed as the sun roasted his back. The sweat appearing almost instantly everywhere, the air a coffin, close and thick and unbreathable. He pulled another piece of wood, and another, and found a nice rhythm, finally. The nails hot in his fingers, his mangled hand alive in pain.
He was so dizzy with hunger, he didn’t try to find the meditation. He tried only to hang on and remain upright. Just lifting each board and setting the nail and tapping in carefully, then driving. Whenever the burning on his back and shoulders and neck seemed desperate, he reached into the fresh dirt loose from his shoveling and covered himself with it, the sweat making a kind of mud paste that would protect him.
His mother destroying him and claiming to love him, same as Helen with Jennifer. Though Helen actually fought for Jennifer. He could believe Helen. She seemed possible. His mother did not seem possible.
Galen made good progress. The sun high overhead, no shadows or shade anywhere, his eyes burned, the world gone white, and finally he walked around to the spigot near the fig tree and opened it wide, drank deeply in desperate gulps, the water hot at first but then cool, and he knelt down in front of the blast, dipped and rolled in the grass before it and let it cool and clean him, this aerated stream the color of glass, the color of light itself, with the power to stop the burning. He was alert again, revived, and he lay there only a few feet from the shed on his belly with the water cascading on his back and his hand stinging, thinking of his mother who could not reach the water. All this water so close to her. He let it run and run, closed his eyes and thought about just taking a nap, right here, under the water, but he was fully in the sun, and he knew he was burning far worse now, even though he couldn’t feel it.
So he rose to his feet, turned off the spigot, and walked back to the closest furrows, the loose dirt, to lift great handfuls over his head and shower in the dirt while he was still wet, while it all would stick and cover and protect.
Water, he heard his mother whisper. She was close to him, only a few feet away behind the wall. Looking at him from between the slats, probably, but he couldn’t see her.
No water, he said. No water. Do you think Helen really beats Jennifer? Do you think she actually punches her or kicks her or anything?
She would never do that.
Never mind. I forgot who I was talking with, the denier of all. Nothing ever happened.
My sister would never beat her daughter.
Yeah yeah, he said. Your voice sounds a little dry. He tromped away, around to the other side for his hammer and a new board. He would finish this task. He was so hungry he felt folded in half, even his ribs and spine aching for it, but food could be put off for a long time. He knew that from experience. His own form of denial. Food wasn’t necessary at all. He could go weeks without it if he wanted. Only the first couple days were hard. The hunger was not real. It was a false sign.