Wild Awake

relax, I need to find Skunk .
    “Is the computer working okay?” says my dad.
    “They have Sunrise Pilates on our ship,” says my mom.
    I am not sure how to decode this. Surely we must be talking about something bigger than computer viruses and ambiguously spiritual exercise regimens. There must be something buried deeper, a subtext I’ve been too thick to parse.
    “I’m dying,” I say carefully, trying to load each word with as many layers of meaning as I can.
    “All right,” says my mom. “Go take a nap.”

chapter thirty-three
    When I answer my ringing cell phone on Saturday morning at four a.m., Skunk’s voice whispers, “The Way that can be experienced is not true.”
    I hold the phone close to my face and whisper, “The world that can be constructed is not real.”
    I hear the crackle of a radio in the background. Sometimes Skunk tunes one or more of his radios to static when he’s feeling paranoid. I spread my legs out on the kitchen floor, where I am sitting and organizing the cleaning supplies, soaps and detergents and powders and sprays.
    “Hi, Kiri.”
    “Hi, Skunk. Are you listening to the radio?”
    Pause. “Yes.”
    “How many radios?”
    Pause. “Three.”
    “Is this a three-radio alert?”
    Pause.
    “I was worried you were in a mental hospital. I called all the mental hospitals asking if they had you. I was afraid your aunt Martine had brought you in for not going to bed when she wanted. She seemed like kind of a, excuse me, bitch.”
    There’s a very long pause. Skunk says quietly, “I was in a hospital. Not this time. Six months ago. I had a thing. That’s why she’s so afraid.”
    This time, it’s my turn to pause. “Afraid of what, Skunk?”
    “Afraid it will happen again.”
    “The Thing?”
    “The Thing.”
    Pause. “Where did you go this time?”
    Pause. “Guess.”
    “Not a mental hospital.”
    “No.”
    “Um.” Pause. “Um.” Think. “Lucky Foo’s.”
    “No.”
    “Montreal.”
    “No.”
    Pause.
    Pause. “Give up?”
    Skunk’s voice is very quiet. I picture him sitting on the floor in the radio temple with his hand cupped around the phone, trying to hide the sound from his aunt Martine. Maybe he’s using the radio static as a foil. Wouldn’t Aunt Martine hear the radio static and take him to a mental hospital?
    “Skunk?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Are you sure your aunt’s sleeping right now?”
    Pause. Static. “Yes.”
    “Okay.” Pause. “Are you smoking a cigarette?”
    Pause. “Yes.”
    Pause. “Be careful.”
    Static.
    Pause. “I went to the marshlands.”
    “What?”
    Pause. “I went to the marshlands.”
    “You are a friend of marshlands.”
    “Yes.”
    Static. I pick up one of the brightly colored bottles on the floor in front of me and inspect it.
    “Which do you think is more trustworthy, Windex or Toilet Duck?”
    Pause. “Windex.”
    “Why?”
    Pause. “You should never trust a duck.”
    “Oh.”
    “Especially not a toilet duck.”
    I peer at the label on the bottle in my hand. “They write too much on these things.”
    “People like to know how things work.”
    “Hm. But why all the science? Why the diagrams about breaking down bacteria? Why not something else? Why not say Toilet Duck works by channeling the spirit of ducks? Why all the crap about chemistry?”
    Radio static. I hear Skunk exhale his cigarette smoke.
    “People like to think everything can be explained by chemistry.”
    “Yeah, but toilets?”
    Skunk laughs. I silently award myself one point for cheering him up.
    “Are you burning incense?” I ask him.
    Pause. “Yes.”
    It’s amazing how well you can get to know a person if you actually pay attention. People are like cities: We all have alleys and gardens and secret rooftops and places where daisies sprout between the sidewalk cracks, but most of the time all we let each other see is a postcard glimpse of a floodlit statue or a skyline. Love lets you find those hidden places in another person, even the ones they didn’t know were there, even the ones they wouldn’t have thought to call beautiful themselves. I decide to test my knowledge of all things Skunk.
    “Are you wearing your ‘Sed Interdum’ T-shirt?”
    Pause. “Yes.”
    “Are you wearing white socks?”
    Pause. “No.”
    “Are you wearing no socks?”
    Pause. “Yes.”
    “Are you sitting on the floor?”
    Pause. “Yes.”
    “Are you afraid of your aunt Martine?”
    Pause. “Yes.”
    “Are you afraid she’ll kick you out if