Season of Fools
By Christopher Locke

There was a moose in our driveway. A big one. And not only that, but it had just plowed antler-first into the back of our SUV, lifting the vehicle off the ground.

So as you could imagine, I was pretty excited. Clutching a purple towel around the waist, my face half covered in shaving cream and me wiping steam from the window to get a better view, I franticly looked for my own private version of When Animals Attack.

“Where is it,” I asked. “Where did it go?”

After a few moments of stringing me along, my wife and four-year-old daughter started to laugh, quite pleased with themselves. “April Fool’s!” they shouted. I smirked and felt the tension drain from my face.

I can’t remember the last time I actually fell for an April Fool’s joke. I mean, besides for simpletons and pre-schoolers, how thick can you be to not see it coming? It’s like waking up Christmas morning and wondering aloud what all these presents are doing under the tree. But at the same time, it felt good to be absolutely duped, and by my daughter no less. I always believed she couldn’t understand a lie, let alone conspire to commit one. But when I had asked her that morning where the moose went, she actually pointed in the direction of the road, saying I just missed it.

Our daughter Grace was so taken by this duplicit behavior by her mother, (and that she got to be a part of it), that she wanted to continue the charade through breakfast. In the kitchen, she ran between my wife and I, whispering little tricks that we should play on the other. With her hand against my left ear, she eagerly suggested: “Tell Mama that the cereal is full of ants.” And even before I got to respond to that, she was back over at her mother’s side, giggling. “Let’s tell Papa that there are rainbow caterpillars in the tissue box.” I never bothered to ask what exactly rainbow caterpillars were, content to revel in her obvious joy.

That contentment lasted throughout day, as I went to work at the Academy and taught English, deciphered transcripts, and assigned grades. Even as I listened to various staff dump their frustrations all over my office floor on how they were overworked and under-appreciated, I remained upbeat.

After getting off the phone with one parent who did not understand academics, (she wanted me to let her son graduate two months early: “But we’re vacationing in Bali graduation month!”), I thought how my daughter referred to April Fool’s Day as “Season of Fools”. We don’t know where she got that, but she’s always had a knack for turning a phrase. The summer before, we were in the midst of a torrent heat wave and Grace spent one long, hot Saturday jumping in and out of her little rubber pool. Finally, after the sun dropped below the trees, she peeled off her bathing suit before diving back in and proclaimed quite proudly that she was “Naked as a snake.” I liked that.

“A season of fools,” I said out loud, smiling, leaning back at my desk. I checked the clock. It was almost time to go home.

That’s when the phone rang. And that’s when my wife told me, rather calmly, that I should come home right away. When I asked why, she paused, took a breath, and then started to cry. For a brief moment, I thought she was pulling my leg again, but then came the news that told me otherwise: she said I was needed because Grace was missing, that she went out to play twenty minutes ago and was no longer in the yard. “I can’t find her anywhere, Chris. Please come home, ok?” She was trying to sound brave, but what was implicit in her voice, what caused immediate dread to unravel in my chest, was the word my wife was thinking but wouldn’t say. Even now, it causes me to sit up at night, restless and unable to sleep. It is a word parents should not have to use when speaking about one of their children; it is the word vanished.

I don’t remember putting the phone back in its cradle. I stood up, picked up my coat and walked in great strides towards the office door. I was diamond-point focused. A student, Josephine, was outside my door waiting to see me. She had been gone all week on a home visit and wanted to surprise me. I steamed right by.

“Gracie’s missing,” was all I could say.

“Chris, what was…what did you say?” she asked, her smile half-crooked. Josephine was the same student who spent one evening burning all the letters she received from her ex-boyfriend’s mother who refused to believe that her son had been abusive towards Josephine. I remember watching her ignite each letter, then poke stoically at the pile as it turned orange, gray, then soft black.

As I got to my car, a light rain started to fall. I could feel panic nudging the back of my throat. I blew out a breath, sat in the car, and turned the key. Focus, focus, I thought.

I couldn’t drive fast enough. Rain was running the windshield with lazy fingers, picking up its pace as I hit 55 on a 35 m.p.h. road. I drove by a field that was radiant with early spring, buds in the trees tonguing from their juices. I saw my first robin as it hopped like a toy across some new grass.

When I turned the corner, I ran up behind the wake of a plodding truck; an open bed semi carrying palettes stacked eight feet high. The truck was barely going 20 miles per hour. I pounded on the steering wheel, cursed, then pounded again. My mind fluttered with images of Grace face down in a pond, or broken across a rock. I saw Grace climbing into someone’s beat up Cheverolet, the door closing greedily behind her. I made a small sound with my mouth and then gripped the wheel tighter, desperate to hang on.

Growing up, I had a fascination with garbage trucks. I loved how their back ends crushed pile after pile of shimmering waste. To watch those bitter scraps of rank twist in their own effluvium and then burst in a watery grind felt, somehow, victorious. In my mind, the whole process was a pitched battle of good versus evil, with the outcome never in doubt.

I owned two toy garbage trucks, small things really, and it just wasn’t the same flattening old leaves and twigs in the back of their plastic ends. A church-friend of my dad’s, who happened to be a big shot County Commissioner with many favors owed him, brought me to the largest waste disposal company in Northern New Hampshire for a personal tour. I got to see all the monstrous beauties up close, touch their paint-chipped sides and have my photo taken while sitting in the driver’s seat. My mom still has the old 8x10. Unlike most kids who are artificially handed dominion over things much more powerful than they, I did not relish playing the part of proud owner, and actually looked quite shy and passive staring into the camera’s eye.

But it was my obsession with these beasts that precipitated my stroll down the driveway one warm, summer day. I had spotted a garbage truck and wanted to get a closer look. As it pulled away, I continued following it farther down the loose dirt road and then eventually out to a nearby highway. I was five years old. I had never walked so far by myself and it felt good to feel the sun on my arms and face as I strode.

On the highway, cars and trucks raced by at lightning speeds, but strangely, I wasn’t afraid. It was only when the massive eighteen-wheelers rumbled past that I needed to take action, putting my hands to my ears and waiting for their deafening roars to subside. I had no idea where I was going anymore, the garbage truck long gone.

When the police car pulled up behind me, it was the crunching gravel I heard first. The man introduced himself as an officer and asked where I was going. I said I didn’t know. I sat next to him in the front seat and stared back at his German Shepard. “My dad has a dog like this,” I said. The officer smiled and, after another one of those loud trucks screamed by, pulled back out onto the highway and towards the station.
Locke—4 “Season…”

Two officers sat me at a desk and asked why I was walking alone on the highway. Figuring I needed an answer, I told them because my parents ‘put me to bed while the clouds were still out’. It never crossed my mind to mention the garbage truck. One of the officers got me a cold root beer while another listened to me explain where I lived. One of my parents, I’m not sure which, eventually came to pick me up. In a matter of minutes I was back in my neighborhood, playing. At that age, I was incapable of understanding what happened, but did know I should have been in a lot of trouble for what I did. That’s why it seemed strange to me that my parents were so quiet about the whole affair. I was not spanked or sent to my room. I was allowed to go out and play with the neighborhood kids. But I played hesitantly, feeling I didn’t deserve the freedom.

Later, as the sky streaked purple and red, a boy who’s name I don’t recall took me to an old barn. Inside, he showed me four kittens huddled inside a dry shoebox. The kittens were shaking. I picked one up and held it to my cheek. It felt warm in my hands. We took the kittens outside and brought them to a basketball hoop in front of my parents’ house. Without discussing it, we tossed the kittens up and through the netless rim. We didn’t laugh or smile as we did this. Did one of us try and catch them? My mother came out onto the porch and yelled at us, demanding I come in. As I crossed the threshold, she grabbed my ear and twisted. After that, I don’t remember much else but I do recall how I felt; I felt relieved.

The semi stacked with wooden pallets seemed to be mocking me. Black exhaust filtered through my vents. I screamed obscenities as I looked for a way to pass. Each minute stuck behind the truck caused my terrible visions to grow more pronounced and definitive. It had been nine minutes since I spoke with my wife. Unless something had changed, Gracie was missing now for almost thirty minutes.

I know what you’re thinking: what’s thirty minutes, right? It’s the length of a sitcom; the average time required to make a pot of brown rice; the time needed to adequately shave, shower, and dress if you don’t want to be late for work. It’s ephemeral and only 1/48th of your day. It’s nothing.

But thirty minutes is also twenty-nine minutes more than you need to snap a bone, or inhale a lungful of water, or climb into a strange car. Thirty minutes? How about thirty seconds to shake your world to its foundation, strip it raw to the core, then strip that as well. Each second I was stuck behind that truck was actually one second too long. One second, incidentally, was the length of time silence lived between heartbeats inside a man’s chest.

The truck hissed in a fume of air brakes as it descended the final hill. Rolling up to the stop sign, it paused and idled calmly as if unsure where to go. Come on, come on, I thought. My fingers drummed the wheel. A blinker flashed: left, same direction as me. Damn it. I pulled my hand down my face. The thing fouled the air one last time and then took…a right. Sweet Jesus I can’t believe it, the bastard’s going right!

So I drove, I sailed; I slammed my car into third gear and hit a puddle, scattering it like dimes.

I turned onto my dirt road, my green Saab bouncing over small ditches and potholes. They are the same potholes Grace rummaged through last summer, looking for rocks and small stones. We were on our way to the dam and needed something to throw in the water. “Is this big enough,” she had asked, holding one up for my inspection. “Hmm, we might want to save that,” I said, turning the quartz over in my hand. “It’s a treasure.”

After that, she looked exclusively for quartz. Even after we assembled a small pile of tar to chuck into the water, she only tossed them half-heartedly, afraid one might be a treasure I never heard of. When I reassured her with my pocket full of quartz, she relaxed enough to play our favorite game, Boston Red Sox.

“Ok, now stand sideways facing the river,” I said. “And show me your mean pitcher face.” Grace scowled. “Now plunk the guy on the butt,” I said. Gracie threw the tar into the water while laughing. “Plunk him on the butt, plunk him on the butt,” she repeated. We went through our whole pile that way.

As we walked home, we shared a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. Tall weeds crowded either side of the road like people waiting for a train and the blue sky above was flawless. Grace asked me to carry her and I did. We were then quiet for a while.

“Papa,” Gracie began, “Are you the strongest Papa in the world?” I lifted her a bit higher, slightly over my head, then back against my chest. We smiled at each other.

“Why, do I seem strong?”

“Yes, you’re very strong.” She squeezed the back of my neck emphatically.

“Well, sometimes I’m the strongest,” I told her. “And sometimes I don’t feel strong at all.”

We walked on a bit longer without saying anything until Grace whispered in my ear: “Papa, you’re my, you’re my…” and then just put her head on my shoulder and breathed warm air on my neck.

When we got home we went to her room and emptied my pocket of all the quartz. She put it in a special box for treasures. I went downstairs, opened a beer and drained half in a long, steady pull. Sweat was dampening my back and stomach. I looked out the glass doors facing the yard and thought “I’m her what?” I finished my drink and took a seat at the counter, content not to know.

As I finally turned onto my driveway, I could see a black pickup parked next to the house. I was confused. Is this the police? Is it someone who’s volunteered to help look for Grace? But when I parked the car, got out, and made my way over to the porch I understood: it was our neighbor Ivan. After that, everything happened quickly: I glanced at Ivan, then my wife Lisa crumpled and sitting on the deck, and then—breath catching in my throat—Gracie wrapped in her arms. Lisa was sobbing, shaking. Gracie looked embarrassed, her hair slightly matted and wet. The rain had stopped and everything was slick and gray, almost silver.

I turned back to Ivan, who looked as confused as I felt. He was making his way slowly towards his truck, walking backwards, as if he just stumbled across a bear and wanted to get the hell out of there before he disturbed it. Ivan always reminded me of a cartoon. He is a small, bent man of about 79 and wears thick Clark Kent glasses. He’s worked all his life and owns a logging company next to our house; he is out there literally every day. I’ll see him in his red flannel in the lumberyard and wave as I drive by, or it’ll be him behind the wheel of some massive earthmover sputtering down the road. He doesn’t take any crap and is what I think of when some friend out West asks me to explain what exactly a Yankee is.

“Ivan, thank you,” was all I could manage.

He lifted one of his hands up in my direction, the fingers chaffed and crooked from all his years of labor, and nodded, his face still a mask of bewilderment.

I turned to Lisa and Grace and got down on the deck with them. I could feel my jeans growing wet with rain. It made me feel alive. I wrapped my arms around them both and kissed Gracie on the cheek, the head, her eye.

She started crying.

“Oh, Gracie, we were so worried,” I said softly.

“I didn’t mean to,” Gracie choked.

I looked to Lisa; she was wrecked, tears streaming freely, her face splotchy and red.

“I didn’t mean to,” was all Gracie could say.

Gracie had gone looking for rocks. She was playing in the yard on her swing set, doing her best Cirque de Solei around the bars when she decided she needed some rocks. So, she went looking in the driveway, then the end of the driveway, then up the road itself. She wanted to find some new treasures she could put in her special box in her room. She had walked about 7/10 of a mile. Pretty impressive for a four year old.

Ivan found her at the end of our road near the mailboxes. He was in his pickup and saw Grace bent over and reaching for something. He saddled his truck up alongside Grace, who was right next to the busy main road. People generally cruised by doing forty miles per hour; Gracie would never have had a chance. Ivan rolled down the window and asked what she was doing way out here by herself. She told him she was looking for rocks. He asked if she wanted a ride home and she said yes.

After we got Gracie in and dried off, and the three of us stopped weeping, we all sat on the futon couch together.

“It was my fault,” Lisa said. “I should have been more aware. But I checked. I checked. I saw her on her swing, like she is all the time, you know? Happy and playing. So I went to
the bathroom. And when I finished and went looking for her, she wasn’t there. I looked for her. I called her.”

Even as I tried to calm Lisa, tell her it was nobody’s fault, that Gracie never wanders off alone so why would we think she’d start now, Lisa continued, she had to. It became a type of exorcism.

I held Lisa’s face in my hands, told her it was alright.

“Chris, I went in the woods, calling her name. Everything was silent.” Lisa was crying again as she looked me in the eyes. “I couldn’t hear anything, I couldn’t see her. So I ran. I ran through the woods, screaming for her. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t run and breathe at the same time. She wouldn’t answer.”

I held my wife. I held her and held Grace, too. I said it was ok. We rocked on the couch. Gracie was between us with her head on Lisa’s breast. Three pieces of quartz filled Gracie’s pocket like three rare and beautiful diamonds.

When you think you’ve lost a child, inside your head you become very small. I don’t just mean metaphorically—you’ve actually turned small and incredibly helpless: small bones, small hands and feet, small spine and lungs. You feel that at any moment something will crush you. And in some ways, something maybe will; something is preparing to squelch all life out of you and your small limbs and small heart.

The other day, I asked Gracie if she remembered what ‘Season of Fools’ was. She was planting pea pods and carrots in little ceramic pots with Lisa’s help. The days were growing longer and everything outside began to smell fertile and alive.

“Uh-huh,” she said, clearly concentrating on sprinkling the soil. “Will Season of Fools come next year?” she asked while looking down at her seeds.

I wanted to say yes, then no, then yes again. I looked over at Lisa, who was reaching for another packet. It was then I realized the best answer was not answering at all, and I instead reached over to help, gently pressing the soil down with my fingers, touching Gracie’s small hands.