Neil Allen fiction short story Out Back
Into the Moody Woods by Gloria E. Moses, Pastel on Paper, 13″ x 8″.
Out Back
by Neil Allen
He’d grown used to the feeling of pine needles poking the bottoms of his feet, but his callouses still weren’t thick enough to protect him from everything. Stray rocks were always an issue, and he still choked down a curse each time he felt the sharp scales of a pinecone underfoot. His soles were covered in cuts, each one a bright red tally mark, making it easy for him to count every misstep he’d made since coming into the forest. He’d been awake for less than an hour, and already he’d added a few more to the total.
He took longer than usual to rouse himself today. He had not slept at all. It was the sharp pangs rumbling through his belly that kept him awake through the first half of the night. He had spent the second half howling in response to the baby’s forlorn wails sounding from beyond the trees. It was a cry so miserable that it caused him to forget the pain in his own stomach. At least until the sun came up and all was quiet again.
If his stomach had growled less angrily, he might still be lying inside his tent, trying to make up for the rest he lost. But as he made his way to the part of the woods where he took his morning squats, he found he was glad to be up and moving. The chill of the morning air against his naked body did more to invigorate him than any cup of coffee ever had.
After digging his hole, but before lowering himself, he took a moment to raise his arms up high and sniff under each one in turn. The pride he felt at his own stench was plain in his expression, even through the tattered veil of hair that hung over his eyes. He had no mirror, but could study the dirt caked within the creases of his palms and happily know he no longer resembled the man he used to be.
A layer of filth clung to him like a second skin. Gone was the belly that commercials and storefront mannequins had made him feel so ashamed of. It had flattened fast and was now inverted. His beard was long and cemented together in places from all the times he ran his sap-lacquered fingers through it, its length his only way of measuring how long it had been since he had given himself back to nature, as he believed all men should.
His one companion was the rifle he carried everywhere he went. He used it even now, to support his weight while he relieved himself. As a gun, it wasn’t all that dangerous anymore. He had fired off most the bullets on his first day simply to practice his aim. By the time he remembered he had no means of procuring more ammo, only a single bullet remained. He wasted that one on the first squirrel he saw. It was a good shot, but the poor creature was blown to pieces so small there was no point in gathering them up to cook. The rifle became less weapon than walking stick, though he supposed he could use it as a club if a coyote wandered by and decided to pick a fight.
He had adapted to his woodland lifestyle as gracefully as a wolf pup. He didn’t miss showering. He didn’t miss brushing his teeth. Sleeping on the ground was easier than he’d thought it would be. He had even taken to wiping with leaves faster than expected.
After doing just this, he stood and stretched, then went to check his traps. They were empty again, and the bait was missing. When he returned to his tent, he stood over the stone circle where he made his fires. Nothing was left from the night before save a scattering of dying embers.
Secretly, he believed that this was what the stars were, that the whole universe had once been set alight. God had smothered the flames just before they made it far enough to scorch the Earth, then walked away, leaving the surviving embers unattended. All of humanity was simply left waiting for one of those sparks in the sky to catch. The intergalactic fire would reignite, and this time, humanity would be burned to ash. All thanks to Divine negligence.
He liked this religion he’d dreamed up for himself because it helped him feel powerful every night as he stoked the flames and inhaled their smoke. He liked it twice as much because he was allowed to feel merciful each morning when he pissed on what remained. Just as he did now.
Using the butt of his rifle, he pushed the wet twigs and grass out of the stone circle. He would gather the tinder for tonight’s fire later. His lack of sleep was catching up with him. He sat with his back against the nearest tree, closed his eyes, and drifted away listening to birdsong. He wasn’t sure if he truly fell asleep or not before the sound of snapping twigs and disgruntled mumbling made him open his eyes.
Her last visit had been so long ago he had started to believe she wasn’t coming back, that she had finally given up on him. He wasn’t that lucky.
She was always so adamant about using his name. He could already hear her saying it again and again, like it hadn’t been the first thing he surrendered. He had dropped it on the kitchen counter beside his wallet and keys. Out here, he needed his name like he needed credit card debt, or a mortgage, but she insisted things like these could not so easily be left behind.
♦ ♦ ♦
Tamara walked through the woods with a brown paper bag in one hand, and a folder fat with papers in the other. She found Wayne sitting at his camp where he usually was. She knew it made him mad whenever she called it his camp—he said it sounded too civilized—but she didn’t care anymore, and she couldn’t remember the word he preferred.
For all his wild talk, Wayne didn’t move around a lot. As much as he hated talking to her, Tamara thought he would make more of an effort to stay out of sight, though she supposed the woods behind their house were too small to keep anyone hidden for long.
He didn’t stand up when she approached him, so Tamara crouched down. She needed him to know she was serious, but mostly Tamara wanted to look into his eyes and see if her husband was still somewhere inside. He was. Right there on the surface, where she expected. All these months, and Wayne hadn’t changed a bit. He was only pretending like he had. Maybe he really had fooled himself. If so, then Tamara felt at least a little sorry for him, because he was the only one falling for it.
He smelled awful. Tamara had to wrangle control over each individual muscle in her face to keep from flinching. She couldn’t permit so much as a single nostril to twitch. Wayne would enjoy her disgust, treat it as a kind of victory, then tell her she didn’t understand.
She saw the rifle lying beside him and didn’t spare it a second glance. She knew it was empty. She had listened as he unloaded each bullet. The first shot had made her panic. It was the morning after he’d run away and she thought he had killed himself. But several more echoes followed, and she had to beg the neighbors not to call the police. Now she wished she hadn’t been so persuasive. Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to make the call, and it would have saved her a lot of trouble.
Just as she was about to speak, Tamara caught Wayne eyeing the bag she had brought with her. She handed it over. He looked inside, then dropped it casually, like he didn’t care if the sandwich she made him spilled out onto the dirt. She could tell from looking at him that he was starving.
“Thank you,” was all he said.
“You kept the baby up all night with your howling,” she told him. She didn’t know why she still tried to make her voice so stern. She didn’t know why she bothered complaining at all. Nothing she did could make him feel remorse. These days, he was incapable of feeling anything other than self-righteousness.
Wayne grinned and said, “He might only be a baby, but me and the boy feel the same aches.” He thumped his chest with his fist, “The same absence. He was crying out for what he instinctually knows is missing. I cried back in solidarity.”
Tamara shook her head, exhausted by the dead ends their conversations always led to. “He wasn’t crying out for you,” she said. “He wasn’t crying for the moon, or the heart of the forest, or whatever else you’ve made up. He was just crying. And what do you mean, solidarity? Isn’t the baby why you started living out here in the first place?”
Wayne raised a corner of his upper lip in a snarl, showing off a few of his teeth. That’s what he always did when he didn’t like what she had to say. He never actually bit her, though. The man couldn’t commit.
“I don’t want to argue,” Tamara said before things could escalate further. “I just came to ask you to sign a few things.” She offered him the folder full of papers. A ballpoint pen was hooked on its spine.
Wayne hid his teeth back behind his lip and studied the folder suspiciously, like he was being asked to put his fingers in a live mousetrap, “What’s inside?”
Tamara hung her head, already knowing how this would go, “Legal papers mostly.”
“You and your laws,” Wayne said with a smirk. “I both pity and envy you for taking comfort in such things.”
Tamara sighed. She thrust the folder at him. “Will you sign the papers or not?”
“What would be the point, when my signature no longer holds any meaning? When will you accept that I have removed myself from society? The rules that govern you, no longer govern me.”
“It would make my life a lot easier if you signed them.”
“What are they for anyway? Specifically. Not that it matters.”
“Divorce.” She said plainly, then held up her hand to stop him from speaking before he could start. “Don’t look surprised. This was coming way before you ran out here to play Tarzan.”
“Looks like a lot of papers just to end a marriage,” Wayne noted.
“Well, there’s some in here for the bank, too. You think we owed a lot of money before you stopped going to work? You have no idea.” She took a beat to let that sink in, or bounce right off of him. Tamara could never tell how her words found him these days. She all but whispered the last of her news, as if speaking the words quietly would lessen their impact, “I’m selling the house.”
Wayne stood up. “You can’t do that!”
Tamara stood up with him, slowly. She said, “Your signature would make it a lot simpler.”
“Where are you going?”
Tamara fought back a laugh “Like I would tell you that.”
“And you’re taking the baby? My son?”
“Why? All of a sudden you can’t stand to be away from him?”
“You can’t.”
“Good luck stopping me.”
Wayne was growling now. It was exactly what Tamara had wanted to avoid. Wayne was impossible to talk to when he got like this. That was no exaggeration either. He went nonverbal every time he got too worked up.
“Please,” Tamara continued calmly. “I’m not asking you to come home anymore. I’m not even asking you to sacrifice anything you haven’t already turned away from. I’m only asking you to help me one last time. Please, Wayne.”
Tamara squeezed her eyes tight and cursed. She knew she’d made a mistake by saying his name. Hearing it only made him growl louder.
“Fine!” she shouted and threw the folder down. Several of the papers fell out to blanket the ground. “But damn it, put some clothes on. You know there are other houses nearby. You’re lucky one of the neighbor kids hasn’t seen you yet. How funny will you find the law then?”
Wayne bared his teeth and started barking. The veins in his neck bulged as he carried on like a mad dog. It was a strange noise to hear coming from a human throat, but there was no mistaking what he was going for. Tamara rolled her eyes and left him with his acre and a half of trees for good.
♦ ♦ ♦
He barked until his throat burned, barely able to restrain the feral beast he kept imprisoned within. He had to tap into the deepest reserves of his willpower just to calm down and stop from chasing after her. If he wasn’t careful, that inner beast would burst free, and he might never regain his waning notions of self that kept him so loosely tied to humanity.
He grabbed her useless papers from the ground to shred and crumple as many as he could before his fingers grew tired. When he finished, he dropped to his knees and tore open the brown paper bag she’d given him. He ripped into the sandwich with his teeth like it was the fresh carcass of some lesser animal he had tracked and killed himself. He chewed with his mouth open. Saliva-soaked pieces of bread and turkey and cheddar flew forth. He only ate half, and saved the rest for later.
He lay in his tent sulking for the rest of the day. He didn’t move until the sun set, and the cold of night forced him to crawl out and build another fire. It wasn’t easy to collect the tinder he needed in the dark. He tripped over roots and stumbled even where the ground was flat. Still, he managed to gather enough, and although the flames were meager, the heat returned some of the vitality she and her papers had taken from him. He replayed the morning’s scene in his mind as he snapped twigs in half and tossed them into the fire.
The house could go. Tear it down for all he cared. Built by the hands of other men, its walls had done nothing but constrain him and cut him off from a truer way of living. It was the other part of her plan that was unforgivable. By taking the baby away, she was robbing him of his own blood. She might as well cut open his wrists and leave with whatever spilled out.
She always acted like he didn’t care about the boy. So many times, she had accused him of abandonment, when he’d simply been biding his time. The plan had always been to go back for the child once it was old enough, but it was only an infant, barely a man in the making. Its bones were still fusing together. Its marrow hadn’t yet settled. Exposing such a soft, pudgy thing to the harsh weathers of the outdoors would be cruel. He couldn’t be expected to guide a child still unable to walk, or stand upright.
Over and over he had explained this, but it was easier for her to call him crazy than to listen. Simpler to purposefully mislabel his enlightenment with terms like psychosis and nervous breakdown. By taking him away, she was denying the boy a later rite of passage, shackling him to a lifetime of car payments and student loans.
He could not allow her to do this.
By his own estimation, it was midnight when he crept through the woods, rifle in hand, and crossed the border back into his old life. He took a moment to stand in the center of the lawn he had once been so proud of. He turned slowly and examined the neighbors’ yards as well. He took a deep breath. Their grass was shorter than his. Not so long ago, this would have bothered him. He was glad he had let go of such meaningless trifles.
When he first began his new life, she told him she would leave the door unlocked in case he decided to return, but when he turned the knob, the door wouldn’t open. In the three months he’d been gone, she had apparently given up hope he would come back. Or perhaps she had started to worry he might try.
He recalled a window with broken locks, the one he always said he would fix but never got around to. The glass and the screen both slid up smoothly. He tossed his rifle in first, then followed after it. The window was at chest height, so it was awkward to climb through, but he was nimble enough to manage.
He skulked silently through the hallways. Familiar though they were, his memories of them seemed from another lifetime. Inside, the air felt thick, like it was getting stuck in his throat. His legs were less stable on the soft carpet than they were on the root-strewn ground of the forest. When he reached the nursery, the door was already open a crack. A nightlight cast playful shadows on the walls.
He tiptoed across the room and stood over the crib. He had never seen the child sleeping so soundly. Even before he had traded his gentle touch for the grit necessary to survive the wild, he had been unable to lift the child without waking it. The thought of trying again instilled a great fear inside him, but if he was to rescue the boy from the doomed path all civilized men walk, then he had to try.
The lights flicked on, just as he was about to set down his rifle and lean it against the crib.
♦ ♦ ♦
“What are you doing here?” Tamara asked. She never slept anymore. If it wasn’t the baby crying that kept her up, then it was one of the overdue payments Wayne had saddled her with when he disappeared out back. She had been doing nothing but lying awake in bed when she spotted Wayne on the baby monitor. She had watched him for a while, wondering what the hell he was up to, before finally deciding she should go see for herself.
When Wayne turned to face her, his eyes darted back and forth like cornered prey. It was the first time she’d ever seen him look truly wild. Right away, Tamara realized he had come to kidnap their child and raise him up as a fellow ape or something. It was almost funny.
“Go ahead, take him,” she said. “It would be what, the second time you’ve held your son? Maybe the third?”
Wayne raised his rifle high over his head like he was going to swing it at her. “You can’t take him away from here,” he hissed. “You’re robbing him of his birthright.”
Tamara ignored him and stepped across the room. She approached Wayne slowly, cautiously. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her, but she didn’t want to accidentally startle him or chase him off. Not yet.
Wayne bared his teeth, but Tamara held a finger to her lips and stopped him from growling or barking or making whatever other nonsense sound he was planning to make. Three footsteps later they were standing side-by-side, looking down at their son, just like the day they’d brought him home. Wayne didn’t look any less frightened now than he had then.
Tamara reached into the crib and picked up her son. He shifted slightly in her arms, but he didn’t wake up. “Put down the gun,” she whispered. “Put it down and you can have him.”
Very carefully, very quietly, Wayne propped the gun against the crib at an angle. He watched it until he was sure it wouldn’t fall, then turned back to Tamara. He gaped at her in disbelief, but Tamara was as serious as ever, and she gave him a look that let him know it.
She handed their son to him willingly.
Wayne trembled as he clutched the baby to his chest. Tamara was just glad he didn’t drop him. She tried not to think about all the germs crawling around on Wayne’s hands that were making the journey over to their son. Hopefully no ticks or fleas fell out of his beard and onto the baby’s delicate skin.
She watched Wayne for about a minute, surprised by the tender look on his face. He stared at the baby, unblinking, as if he finally realized how many precious moments he’d already missed and could never get back.
Tamara reached her hand towards them in what looked like a gentle gesture, and for a moment, they almost resembled a normal, loving family. It lasted until Tamara pinched the fat of the baby’s calf between her thumb and finger. She must have accidentally got him with her nails, because he really started to howl.
The baby thrashed wildly, arms and legs lashing out all over. He squirmed so much he almost shook himself free of Wayne’s arms. All the while, his mouth was open as wide as it could go, pushing out an unbroken, high-pitched scream. It was like a siren blaring a warning of certain death, stoking panic all the way back in the primal corners of the brain.
A few seconds of crying was all Wayne could take before he started panting like he couldn’t catch his breath. He held his own mouth open to join in the screaming, but lacked the oxygen to make a sound. He looked ready to drop down and run away on all fours. Maybe he would have if the baby hadn’t been in his arms.
“Give him here,” Tamara said. “I’ll help.” But Wayne was paralyzed. She had to take the baby herself. Once she had him, she bounced him lightly and cooed in his ear, and told him how much his mommy loved him. Ten minutes passed before his cry died down into a whimper.
Wayne watched her the whole time without speaking a word. He lifted his hand once, like he wanted to do something helpful with it, but slowly drew it back to hang uselessly at his side.
Tamara wanted to berate him, to say to his face all the horrible names she thought up when she was by herself, but she’d done all that before and it hadn’t helped her any. There was nothing to do other than stand aside and wait for Wayne to leave.
He shuffled off without his gun. Maybe that meant something, but probably not. She only knew she would be thankful if, in the future, there came a day she didn’t waste half her time wondering if Wayne was still skipping naked through the woods behind the house.
It took her the rest of the night to rock her baby back to sleep.
♦ ♦ ♦
His fire was dying when he returned. He hugged himself. Shivering, he reached down and tossed some brush into the fire’s center. It surged for a moment, then shrank and burned weaker than before. The fading embers taunted him, a representation of his own failures, and suddenly he could not stand to see the fire go out completely.
He did not own much, but he took everything he had accumulated over the last three months and tossed it into the stone circle. His collection of crumpled brown paper bags, the shredded pieces of paper she had brought him. Everything. He even lifted his own tent and set it atop the growing flames. In minutes, the fire climbed up its sides, eating away at the canvas.
The burning scraps of his life were lifted into the air by the rising fire, sent to drift aimlessly and land wherever they might. Most burned away harmlessly. Only one spark managed to take hold of an old, dried leaf.
He put his back to the spreading flames and walked away, indifferent to the heat.
Neil Allen is a writer and a flight attendant living in Chicago. He has served as an assistant fiction editor for Nashville Review. Neil’s work has appeared issues of Marathon Literary Review and Wrath-Bearing Tree.
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