Middlesex

She screamed, theatrically. Leaning back like someone on a rope tow, she was pulled unsteadily into the trees. I paused, too, peering in, waiting for Jerome to do the same. He didn’t, though. Instead he stepped straight into the swamp and then slowly melted below the knees. “Quicksand!” he cried. “Help me! I’m sinking! Please somebody help . . . glub glub glub glub glub.” Up ahead, already invisible, Rex and the Object were laughing.

The cedar swamp was an ancient place. No logging had ever been done here. The ground wasn’t suitable for houses. The trees had been alive for hundreds of years and when they fell over they fell over for good. Here in the cedar swamp verticality wasn’t an essential property of trees. Many cedars were standing straight up but many were leaning over. Still others had fallen against nearby trees, or crashed to the ground, popping up root systems. There was a graveyard feeling: everywhere the gray skeletons of trees. The moonlight filtering in lit up silver puddles and sprays of cobweb. It glanced off the Object’s red hair as she moved and darted ahead of me.

We made a clumsy, yahoo progress through the swamp. Rex imitated animal sounds that sounded like no animal. Beer cans dinged in his backpack. Our deracinated feet stomped along in the mud.

After twenty minutes we found it: a one-room shack made of unpainted boards. The roof wasn’t much taller than I was. The circular flashlight beam showed tar paper covering the narrow door.

“It’s locked. Fuck,” said Rex.

“Let’s try the window,” Jerome suggested. They disappeared, leaving the Object and me alone. I looked at her. For the first time since I’d arrived she really looked at me. There was just enough moonlight to accomplish this silent exchange between our eyes.

“It’s dark out here,” I said.

“I know it,” said the Object.

There was a crash behind the shack, followed by laughter. The Object took a step closer to me. “What are they doing in there?”

“I don’t know.”

Suddenly the small window of the shack lit up. The boys had lit a Coleman lantern inside. Next the front door opened and Rex stepped out. He was smiling like a salesman. “Got a guy here wants to meet you.” At which point he held up a mousetrap dangling the jellied mouse.

The Object screamed. “Rex!” She jumped back and held on to me. “Take it away!”

Rex dangled it some more, laughing, and then tossed it into the woods. “Okay, okay. Don’t have a shit fit.” He went back inside.

The Object was still clinging to me.

“Maybe we should go back,” I ventured.

“Do you think you know the way? I’m totally lost.”

“I can find it.”

She turned and looked into the black woods. She was thinking about it. But then Rex reappeared in the doorway. “Come on in,” he said. “Check it out.”

And now it was too late. The Object let go of me. Throwing the red scarf of her hair over her shoulder, she ducked through the low threshold into the hunting shack.

Inside were two cots with Hudson’s Bay blankets. They stood at either end of the small space separated by a crude kitchen with a camp stove. Empty bourbon bottles lined the windowsill. The walls were covered with yellowed clippings from the local paper, angling competitions, soap box derbies. There was also a taxidermied pike, jaws agape. Low on kerosene, the lantern sputtered. The light was butter-colored, the ripple of smoke greasing the air. It was opium den light, which was appropriate, because already Rex had plucked a joint from his pocket and was lighting it with a safety match.

Rex was on one cot, Jerome on the other. Casually the Object sat down next to Rex. I stood in the middle of the floor, hunching. I could feel Jerome watching me. I pretended to examine the shack but then turned, expecting to meet his gaze. This didn’t happen, however. Jerome’s eyes were focused on my chest. On my falsies. He liked me already. Now here was an added attraction, like a bonus for good intentions.

Maybe I should have been pleased by the trance he was in. But my revenge fantasy had already gone bust. My heart wasn’t in it. Still, having no alternative, I went ahead and sat beside Jerome. Across the shack Rex Reese had the joint in his mouth.

Rex was wearing shorts and a monogrammed shirt, ripped at the shoulder, showing tanned skin. There was a red mark on his flamenco dancer’s neck: a bug bite, a fading hickey. He closed his eyes to inhale deeply, his long eyelashes coming together. The hair on his head was as thick and oiled as an otter’s pelt. Finally he opened his eyes and passed the joint to the Object.

To my surprise she took it. As though it were one of her beloved Tareytons, she put it between her lips and inhaled.

“Won’t that make you paranoid?” I said.

“No.”

“I thought you told me pot always makes you paranoid.”

“Not when I’m out in nature,” said the Object. She gave me a hard look. Then she took another toke.