The Cave Dwellers, Christina McDowell [ap literature book list .TXT] 📗

tree has fully grown—and even if cut down, its roots stay gripping the soil underground. It is only in the erosion of itself that one can see its nasty tentacles—how many, how far, how wide they have spread.

Meredith lights another cigarette and crosses to the lead-lined Edwardian liquor cabinet, opening it to a display of inherited and magnificently mismatched decanters of single malt scotch, sherry, and gin. She takes a glass and pours herself a shot of gin. She shoots it, squinting her eyes, then slams the glass down next to an ancient bottle of Schnapps with a gold leaf floating in it. Curbing her impulse to call the psychic medium again, she takes a drag of her cigarette and flips on the nightly news.

“… In breaking news, in the early hours of the morning the FBI arrested chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Edward Montgomery, who had recently been nominated by the president to become the next secretary of defense.… It is believed that the president will not pardon him. General Montgomery’s son William has also been under fire for a recent video, which went viral last week, showing him and several high school friends mocking US torture methods and using derogatory language on-camera. Some of those individuals were planning to attend elite universities in the fall next year, but it has been reported that those letters of acceptance have been rescinded.…”

Meredith stands riveted in front of the television screen, smoke climbing from the end of her cigarette like a slithering snake.

Bunny bursts through the front door, setting off the alarm; she grunts as she punches in 0007. Billy isn’t answering his cell phone or responding to her texts.

“Bunny?” Meredith calls, not taking her eyes off the television screen—at a loss for words, her world imploding with scandal.

Bunny steps onto the Persian rug, preparing to confront her mother about the news Anthony showed her in the paper. She turns to the television screen, attention caught.

“Have you spoken to him?” Meredith asks.

“Oh my God.” Bunny bolts for the front door. She races to her bike resting on the side of the garage. It’ll be faster at this hour to ride her bike over the Q Street Bridge to get to Billy’s house.

The temperature dropping, the icy wind burns Bunny’s pale cheeks. She pedals faster and calls Marty from her cell, but he’s not answering either. He had texted her while she was with Anthony, asking if she’d spoken to Billy; irritated, assuming it was about their breakup, she’d ignored it. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t—maybe it was about everything.

Bunny’s cycled this route a million times, but only now does its history seem to follow her: the muscular buffalo statues at the edge of the bridge, the Civil War hero atop his bucking horse, the stone faces of Kicking Bear, the Native American warrior who led the Ghost Dance ritual, lining the bridge.

Crippled expressions of looming gargoyles taunt her as Bunny reaches the grass of the Haitian Embassy where she hides her bike. She runs across the double yellow lines of Massachusetts Avenue and into the brick driveway of Billy’s mansion. Out of breath, she lifts the front door knocker—a brass ring inside of a lion’s mouth: bam-bam-bam. “BILLY!” she screams.

There is only silence.

She runs to the side of the house, where overgrown ivy has weaved itself through wrought iron gates. She stumbles upon a garter snake shedding its skin in the middle of the brick path; startled, she leaps, then trips and flies forward, skidding her soft palms into the ground. Bunny gathers herself and wipes her bloody palms at the chilling sight of the snake escaping its dead skin, but it is still a snake, and watches it slither back into the cold dirt. She looks up to her favorite gargoyle perched beside Billy’s bedroom window—his mouth open wide, his sharp fangs hanging like knives—“BILLY!” she screams into the sky, then goes to unlatch the gate.

Upon entering the back garden she screams his name one last time as she approaches his hanging body. His swollen eyelids are red from broken capillaries and pregnant with trapped tears; his head hangs peacefully over the rope around his neck—his teenage angst, his fears, his rage, his shame, his love, all gone. He hangs from the back limestone balcony of his father’s office below a stained glass window.

Bunny grabs his legs and swoops them into her arms, grunting with unleashed tears as she tries to lift them higher on her tippy-toes to make the rope loose around his neck, his knees pressed against her bulging cheek, but she’s not tall enough. … “SOMEONE HELP ME!!!” His body sways around her. She lowers herself, trying to gather his feet in her arms, but her arms are too weak. “SOMEONE HEELLLLPPPP!!!!”

A security guard appears, panic-stricken as he runs to Bunny’s aid and sees Billy’s blue body dangling from the balcony. He calls 911, says something into his radio that Bunny can’t understand, and bolts for the back garden of the embassy next door. He comes back dragging a patio chair and places it next to Billy’s body, then climbs on top of it, lifting Billy’s torso with his left hand, attempting to cut the rope with his right. Bunny looks up and sees Billy’s recent tattoo in the light, the one he never showed her, below his quiet heart, an unfinished circle.

As the security guard briefs the 911 operator, Bunny collapses into a parallel universe, her heart slamming as she hunches over in prayer position, rocking back and forth, “… Please… please.…please…” curling her back, she roars again and again and again “… Please… please… please…” she gasps for air and Billy’s body is taken away, red lights and blue uniforms surround her as she kicks her arms and legs, flailing, “Get away from me.” Bunny falls to her side, bringing her knees to her chest, heaving and screaming in between blinding grunts.