Caterpillars

Past midnight, Eli, flat on his back in a shallow California creek and stoned (very stoned), at last knew what everyone meant when they said, "He went downhill." How easy it had been, effortless, really—all he had done was slide down the steep and dusty bank. Cool water trickled gently under and around him. And now that he was here, now that he'd hit bottom, it didn't feel as sad as people led you to believe.

Above him redwoods jutted into blue-black sky. White stars decorated the highest branches of the trees. An owl called. Eli hooted in reply. He heard a rustle and swoosh as the owl flew off. His ass and legs were going numb, but he didn't feel cold until he crawled out of the creek. Then he began shaking so hard he could hardly walk.

He didn't want to go home to where his mother might be waiting up for him. Instead he squelched his way through the park to the Little League shed, which had been there since he was a child, and where they stored paper cups, mustard and ketchup packets, tiny boxes of juice. The door was padlocked, the window wasn't. He scrambled in, attempted to dry himself with a wad of paper towels, ate two granola bars he found in a drawer, wrapped himself in a fleece jacket from the lost-and-found box, and buried himself in a pile of tarps. He dozed.

The earth is our mother, yes, but who says she likes you. Eli cringed as he snored. Why would she? Strewing plastic and radioactivity every which way. Poisoning water and air. People are the dirtiest animals of all. Eli kicked and swung, fighting a monster with the face of a president and a mind as sticky as glue.

The sky was pale indigo when he woke; sadness bloomed in his chest. He wanted to stay in the dream a little longer, a place where his legs and arms worked perfectly.

He was twenty-six and no longer allowed to drive. Motorcycle accident, brain injury, five-week coma. The doctors had explained the fragility of his skull, the damage to his frontal lobe. "Cottage-cheese brain" they called it, what happens when soft things hit hard objects at high speed. Now he was supposed to wear a helmet outside. His mother bought him a black one. He never wore it. His lopsided face was bad enough. No matter how hard he tried, his smiles were always only halfway there.

He shoved a juice box into his jeans and struggled out the window, trying not to land on his weak leg. (Some things are actually easier when you're high.) He climbed up the bleachers until he reached the highest bench, sat, and punctured the juice box with its sharp little straw. He sipped and watched as the sky became milky and light. A fuzzy black caterpillar inched along the bench toward him. It reached his thigh, paused, and began climbing his jeans. Eli picked it up and the caterpillar curled into a ball. At college, he'd studied the ecology of oak moths; now he could scarcely follow a newspaper article. He'd become as useless as a dirty plastic bag.

He cupped the caterpillar and made a wish. What he wanted was for something good to happen. Just one small thing would do. Because otherwise the earth might as well swallow him up.

________

He headed home through the park, pausing in a secluded spot to relieve himself against a redwood stump. If he was lucky, his mother would have already left for work. Some mornings, dogs and joggers ran briskly through the trees, but today everything was quiet. Light fell in furry gold beams through branches, the stagnant creek was pocked with water bugs, beer bottles floated in the shallows. He kicked a bottle, making a bet with himself that it would spin at least three times.

Behind him, he heard a sigh, and turned.

Among the trees was a young woman, naked. What the hell? She wasn't even...