MARCH 2020 91think, Maybe I should just
60-miles-an-hour into that tree.
Right? You’ve all been there.”
L laughs.
Everyone looks at L. No
one says a thing.
The night after the woods,
J fell into bed at nine. The artist
and her posse were probably just
waking up, ready to begin their
bacchanals. Fire and costumes
and sex. Dancing, touching,
making something new from the
possessions of the dispossessed.
Is that wild? J wondered. Cit-
ies in decline? Postapocalypse?
Humans behaving badly with
lots of drugs? That doesn’t really
seem wild, but maybe J would
enjoy smearing her cheeks with
odd colors and sneaking into
her neighbors’ houses at night
to steal their belongings and
have sex with multiple partners,
sometimes even multiple part-
ners at the same time on a pile
of stolen loot.
It was wild growing
humans inside her body. That
was the most wildness J ever
felt. And a posse of kids is wild.
The other night J’s 4-year-old
said, “Mama, my vagina’s sing-
ing.” And J asked, “What’s it
singing about?” Her daughter
didn’t miss a beat. “Pee.”
Still, J is worried that wild
mostly has nothing to do with
humans, especially the grown-
up ones.
“The woods didn’t feel
dangerous,” J says. “I liked it
in the woods.”
“You really weren’t scared?”
“No. I even shut off my
light and stood in the dark.”
“What?”
“Not me. No way.”
“Everything felt soft. The
trees were black. The sky had
some blue left, like a painting,
and it got quiet. People gave up
and went home. People stopped
calling for her. I mean, it’s not
like she’s the sort of woman
who’d come just because some-
one called her anyway.”
“How do you know?”
J shrugs.
“Where were the kids?”
“At the field. They were
fine. They had a ball.”
“How do you know? You
were in the woods.”
J smiles. “It got quieter
the farther I went, and I liked
it even more.” J looks like a
person who’s telling a joke or
a scary story, a person who
knows something but won’tsay it plainly. “I was like a girl
with an excellent hiding place.
You know that feeling?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“Does she have children?”
“Everyone asks that ques-
tion. Why does that matter?”
“It changes things. If her
kids were there. If her kids
were looking for her.”
“She should behave because
she’s a mother?”
“She should be brave
because she’s a mother.”
“Walking into the woods is
not brave?”
“J.”“I really just want to know.
I’m asking for real.”
“Does she have a husband?”
“I don’t know. We never
found the woman.”
“What?”
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know. Eventually I
made my way back to the fields.
My kids were in the car. They
didn’t even notice I’d been gone
so long. We were the last to
leave. Then there was no news
about the woman, nothing in
the papers. So I don’t know.”
“Did you imagine her?”
“Do 10, 12 people have the
same dream?”“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you just didn’t see
her leave.”
“Maybe. I was distracted.”
“By what?”
“Well, after a while, I could
see in the dark.”
“What’d you see?”
“Nothing much. The dark.”
J stops talking for a minute.
“Anyway, enough. That’s
it. That’s all that happened.
Eventually I walked out of the
woods.”
“ ‘Enough’? You’re the one
who keeps bringing it up.” P
really is angry.
“I guess I wonder if she’s
still there.”“You can go back.”
“Also, I’m jealous thinking
that she might still be there.”
“Jealous? She’d be dead.”
“The woods are better off
without us in them.”
“Well, that night I thought
I might belong there. Or I
wanted to belong there.”
“You can’t live in the woods.
It rains. It snows. No coffee.
The woods don’t want you.”
“But I felt something there.”
“Ah, you were scared.”
“No. Something—sorry—
divine.”
“Divine like good?”
“No. Divine like God.”
The liberal mothers who
hate religion look pained.
“Jesus, J.”
“Not him.” She smiles.
“I just mean, holy crap. You
felt God in the woods? What
the fuck, girl?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what?”
J shrugs. “I felt unhuman.
After a while, I lay down.”
“On the ground?”
“The soil was so soft. I dug
my fingers into it and it was like
plugging into a socket. It was
electrical. I don’t know what’s
underneath that ground—
microbes, mushrooms. But
something crazy’s there.”
“What do you mean
un human?”
“What’d the mushroom
say, J?”
“Is that a joke?”
“I wondered how long
before a body would disinte-
grate.”
“I’m a real fungi. Get it?” K
belches. Some mothers giggle.
Some don’t.
“You know D started
micro dosing?”
“Everyone’s started micro-
dosing.”
“It wouldn’t take long for a
body to become forest again,”
J says.We’ve all been there. Right?
Late for something; no food
in the house; tired, bratty kids;
and you think, Maybe I
should just 60-miles-an-hour
into that tree.