I shouldn’t be so hard on her, I suppose. But is it proper for the young to be so disappointing? And Krahe, why can’t he see? I have wished she’d find a boyfriend for herself, wished dearly, and still, such is the engrained denial of class distinction in our country that neither of us thought it strange not to consider Davan Eyke, either to dismiss or encourage such a match. There he was, sullenly enduring his surroundings, winging pebbles at the tormenting birds, but since he was not of the intelligentsia, such as we are, who live on the road, he didn’t occur to us.
This is the sort of family he is from: the Eykes, our closest neighbors. The father is a tinkering, sporadically employed mechanic. The local gas truck was driven by Davan’s mother, until she took over the school bus route. They belong to an Assembly of God church, a scruffy-looking place with the same sort of plastic sign in front that gas stations use to display shifting prices. The two-word mottoes change weekly. God Loves. God Knows. God Sees. In the Eykes’ packed-earth yard, a dog was tied for many years, a lovely creature part German shepherd and part husky; one eye brown and one blue. The dog was never taken off the short chain that bound it to the trunk of a tree. It lived in that tiny radius through all weathers, lived patiently, enduring each dull moment of its life, showing no hint of going mean.
I suppose I am no better than the Eykes. I called the Humane Society once, but when nothing happened and the dog still wound the chain one way and then the other, round and round the tree, I did nothing. Rather than confronting the Eykes, which seemed to me unthinkable since Mr. Eyke not only hauled away the trash but mowed our field, yanked out saplings to prevent the trees from closing in, and lived close enough to call in emergencies, I remained silent. From time to time, I brought the dog a bone as I passed on walks, and felt a certain degree of contempt for the Eykes, as one does for people who could mistreat an animal. Still, I did nothing.
That is one failure I regret, having to do with the Eykes, for all of us on the road were to pay for what was done to that creature. The other failure was the shortsightedness regarding Davan and Kendra.
A turbulence of hormones flows up and down this road. On my walks, I’ve seen the adolescence of each neighbor child hit like a small quake. Except in the wide loop sold off by a lumber company, divided into twelve five-acre parcels, and settled in development style, most of the houses on this road are surrounded by a depth of dark trees and a tangle of undergrowth. No two are within shouting distance. Yet you know, merely waving to the parents whose haunted eyes bore through the windshields of their car. You hear, as new trail bikes and motorbikes rip the quiet, as boom boxes blare from their perches on newly muscled shoulders. The family cars, once so predictable in their routes, buck and raise dust racing up and down the hills. It is a painful time, and one averts one’s eyes from the houses containing it. The very foundations seem less secure. Love falters and blows. Steam rises from the ditches and sensible neighbors ask no questions.
Davan hit like that, a compact, freckled boy who suddenly grew long-jawed and reckless. Elsie says she knew it was the end once he started breaking lawn mowers, slamming them onto the grass and stones so savagely that the blades bent. She quietly got my mower fixed and did not ask him back to cut the grass. I took over that job. Davan’s brown hair grew until it reached his shoulders, and a new beard came in across his chin like streaks of dirt. Frighteningly, Davan walked the road from time to time dressed in camouflage, hugging his father’s crossbow and arrows, with which he transfixed woodchucks. That phase passed and he lapsed into a stupor of anger, which lasted for years and culminated in the damage he did to his father’s new car. It was the most expensive thing his family ever bought, and since he left home soon after, it was clear he was not forgiven.
Kendra, on the other hand, had resolved her adolescence beautifully. After a few stormy junior high school years following her mother’s death, she settled into a pattern of achieving small things with great flair, for as I mentioned she had no talents, and was at most a mediocre student. She gave the impression that she was going places, though, and so she did, though her acceptance into a prestigious college was a mystery to all who knew Kendra. Her teachers, including me, were stymied. Perhaps it was the interview, one woman told my mother. Another was convinced of a mistake in the college computer records.
At night, in raw blue winter darkness, Krahe enters our house via that back screened porch, a door to which he has the key. The back door inside the porch is the only one that unlocks with that key, and I keep things that way for the following reason: should I decide, should I tire, should I have the enlightenment or the self-discipline or the good sense to stop Krahe from coming to me in the night it will be a simple matter. One locksmith’s fee, nothing more. One tossed key. No explanation owed. Though my mother must sense that Krahe’s night visits occur, we do not and have never spoken of it. Her room is downstairs at the other end of the house. We live privately, in many respects, and although this is how we prefer to live, there are times I nearly spill over with my need and wish to confide my feelings.
For when he steps into my room it is to me as though I am waking on a strange and unlikely margin. As though the ocean is set suddenly before me. Landlocked, you forget. Then all of a sudden you are wading hip-high into the surge of waves. In the moment, there is so much meaning, so much hunger in our mouths and skin. I think every time is the last time I will be with him. I am physically amazed. What I like best is the curious, unfolding, confessional quality of sex. I seek it, demand it of him, and for a matter of hours he is bare to me, all candor and desire. How can he lie? He begs things of me. Put your mouth here. We are reversed from our day selves in nakedness. I gain assurance in some switch of roles I do not altogether understand but which I suspect is entirely due to my manufactured scorn. He believes I am invulnerable. I protect myself with every trick I know.
Ravens are the birds I’ll miss most when I die. If only the darkness into which we must look were composed of the black light of their limber intelligence. If only we did not have to die at all. Instead, become ravens. I’ve watched these birds so hard I feel their black feathers split out of my skin. To fly from one tree to another, the raven hangs itself, hawklike, on the air. I hang myself that same way in sleep, between one day and the next. When we’re young, we think we are the only species worth knowing. But the more I come to know people, the better I like ravens. If I have a religious practice, it is the watching of these birds. In this house, open to a wide back field and pond, I am living within their view and territory. Krahe’s family group of birds divided up a few years ago. Once, they numbered eight or more. Now just three live within and around the pine, and six live somewhere in the heavy fringe of woods beyond my field. Two made their nest. Three hatchlings were reared. The other raven was killed by Davan Eyke.
You may wonder how on earth an undisciplined, highly unpleasant, not particularly coordinated youth could catch and kill a raven? They are infernally cautious birds. For instance, having long experience with poisoned carcasses, they do not taste first of dead food, but let the opportunistic blue jays eat their fill. The ravens watch, amused, to see if these bold greedy birds keel over in agony. Only when the jays are seen to survive do the ravens drive them off and settle in to feed. Davan had to use his father’s crossbow to kill the raven. One day when Krahe was gone, Davan sat on the front stoop of his little cottage and waited for the birds to gather in their usual browbeating circle of derision. As they laughed at him, stepping through the branches, he slowly raised the crossbow. They would have vanished at the sight of a gun. But they were unfamiliar with other instruments. They did not know the purpose or the range of the bow. One strayed down too far and Davan’s arrow pierced it completely through. Krahe drove into the yard and saw Davan standing over the bird. Amazingly, it wasn’t dead. In some fascination, Davan was watching it struggle on the shaft of the arrow, the point driven into the earth.