Kristen Keckler
We Were Here
Every few weeks, forty-year-old Frank would randomly remember that he had a boat stored in the group home’s garage among the broken furniture and lawn mower. He’d ask, “Can we take my boat out, Krissy?” Maybe the old canoe offered him a portal into boyhood summers long before he tried to hang himself and injured his brain.
It was a beautiful mid-October day, and as I filled the hosed-off coolers with hotdogs, buns, mustard—all the staples—I noticed, out the kitchen window, my coworkers hoisting the canoe onto the van. We were heading on our annual Skyview Mental Health camping trip, like the ones memorialized in photo albums in the TV room: Frank with a boyish blonde mustache, and my boss, Wendy, hair parted in the middle like the singer Cher.
“Do I have work today?” Frank asked, rubbing his blonde-gray stubble, then checking his Dickie’s pockets for his checkbook-sized planner.
“We’re going camping,” I said, “Taking your boat out!” Due to his spotty short-term memory, he would often forget to show up at Helping Hands, the sheltered workshop he loathed where he stuffed envelopes. Instead, he’d stop by the florist en route, returning home with wilted carnations.
“Oh, right, Pennsylvania!” he said, tapping his forehead.
Only full-time staff worked overnight trips, and this was my first. I was six months into my gig as direct-care staff. I loved camping, wanted to be a part of a big adventure, getting us out of the shabby, Italianate-style home in downtown Ithaca. The house ran like an old grandfather clock, hours ticking away as cigarette butts piled in ashtrays, as staff counted pills and logged symptoms in the “daily notations.”
The doorbell rang. From the smoking-room table where she held court, Kathy chirped, “Someone’s at the door!” My boyfriend, Austin, stood there in his khaki cap. He’d walked over from our apartment to pick up my car—to visit his mom, diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoing chemotherapy.
“Hey, sorry to bother you,” he said, breathless. “Your sunglasses were in the car.”
“Oh, gosh, thanks!” I tucked them in the breast pocket of my flannel. “Send my love to Mom.”
“I will. Have fun. And beware of baby skunks!” he called, inside joke, as he folded his lanky frame into my ’90 Toyota Camry. Two years earlier, he and I spent four months traveling out west in it, bouncing through campgrounds in sixteen states. Living simply, taking in all those forests, mountains, and stars.
“Who was it?” Maureen asked, dragging her small suitcase to the pile. Frank said, “Let me get that for you, babe.” They were our house couple.
“Austin, dropping off my sunglasses.”
“That was thoughtful of him.” Maureen was sweet to me. The folks all liked me and I them. I was a chatterbox, any topic fair game: sports, weather, recipes, astrology. I was twenty-three and pretty in a way that wasn’t show-offy or threatening. I dressed in baggy jeans and thrift store sweaters, didn’t wear makeup (except for lipstick when barhopping). I kept my auburn hair in a short, layered shag—easy to wash and go. Though I wasn’t planning to wash it while camping, you never knew, so I told Maureen, “I packed shampoo and conditioner, in case you need some.”
“I thought about bringing my hair dryer, and said to myself, ‘that’s silly.’ I wouldn’t want to get electrocuted,” she laughed.
~
I drove the Skyview agency van along Route 17, tailing my coworker Nate’s minivan. (Nate’s idea, in case the work van broke down.) Cars passed us on the left, and I giggled at our odd caravan—a Ford Aerostar with tie-dye curtains, gay pride flag hanging from the mirror and hula girl dancing on the dash, trailed by a rusted-out ’85 GMC 12-seater, canoe balanced on top like a massive banana. Some residents had clamored to ride in Nate’s personal vehicle (which he’d dubbed, off the clock, “The Loveship Enterprise”), and I didn’t blame them. Nate had fuzzy seat covers and Beatles tapes galore. Nate took lovebirds Frank and Maureen, and Tim, who was twenty-five and blind. I drove with hyperactive Jesse and catatonic Judith.
The campground at Allegheny State Park was far enough to feel like we were going somewhere and close enough that we could take our time. Judith was in the back, napping with her head against the window, while nineteen-year-old Jesse—decked out in camo and a goofy coon cap—sat up front with me.
“Do you think they’ll be any bears?” he asked. “My cousin once saw a grizzly—it shredded a trash bag like it was effin’ Freddy Krueger!” He paused to chew a mouthful of sandwich. “I wonder if bears like peanut butter?”
“Mmmm. Hope not,” I played along, not minding Jesse’s prattle. A new resident, he was, so far, easygoing. He’d aged out of foster care and was attending GED classes to transition to a Section 8 apartment. He’d replaced twenty-year-old Lexi, who returned to the state hospital in Binghamton. She struggled with anorexia, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, and had been sexually abused by her stepfather. Her arms (draped in sleeves or by her long, dyed-black hair) bore cigarette burns. Upon administering ointment to a fresh, oozing pink circle, when I asked, “Why? You contracted to not self-harm,” she’d shoot me a defiant smirk. “I dunno, OCD? Can I get another Klonopin?”
Lexi’s discharge happened on Nate’s shift. We could hold beds for a month, but after two weeks, her mom carted off her stuff. I’d felt a mix of relief—she was manipulative, needed a professional medical team—and shock. Previously, on my shift, as I detailed in the log, she threatened to kill herself with a plastic bag—triggered by my reminder to drink her Ensure shake. I’d heard the jingling of perfume bottles as she barricaded herself in her room with her nightstand. Trying not to panic, I said: “I’m calling 911 if you don’t open the door on the count of three.”
She had, tossing the bag at me, which hovered like a parachute.
I shook Lexi’s rail-thin image from my mind. People could be disappeared, but you knew they were still out there, somewhere.
I turned up the radio, tuned to Golden Oldies. I was glad to finally be on the road. Camping was something I was good at, and Jesse’s excitement made me feel less selfish, like it wasn’t just something that I was looking forward to.
We arrived by mid-afternoon to air fragrant with pine needles and the sweet mulch of berries and leaves. Nate registered at the visitor center while the rest of us stood around the vans smoking. In the foothills, a lake dropped into the landscape like a puzzle piece. The roped-off swimming area and the sand beach with a volleyball net were both deserted so late in the season.
Nate emerged, waving the cabin key, grinning. Square black eyeglasses framed his round face under a crew cut. Nate, a buddy I met during my barista days, had recommended me for the job. My strength was paperwork and being open to doing almost anything to earn a buck. Nate’s was schmoozing authority figures and snapping to in an emergency. He had five years’ experience, and I, realizing that college hadn’t prepared me for real-life shit—only to read, write, and think—poured over residents’ case files. To try to understand the torture they endured, I consulted the DSMIV. Schizophrenia, bi-polar, borderline personality, schizo-affective, major depression; co-morbidities of cognitive, substance abuse, and eating disorders. It all sucked.
Despite being in Nate’s self-assured orbit, my anxieties lived like fairies among my arm hairs—that a resident would get lost, have a breakdown, or (intentionally or not) hurt themselves. Or we’d fall prey to a woods-savvy serial killer with a fetish for vulnerable folks and their caregivers. While working an overnight shift, I often fell asleep watching True Crime series—staff slept on the TV room futon—waking to a bloodbath when Frank gently rapped at my door, whispering, “Krissy, you forgot to turn off the TV.”
No TV here, but we scored one the newer cabins with a well-equipped kitchen, common room, and two bedrooms. A weathered picnic table sat, slightly tilted, next to the fire pit. After enjoying iced teas and cigarettes on the porch, and discarding the butts responsibly, I took a stroll with Frank and Maureen (my favorites, though I tried not to play favorites), who’d been together for fifteen years and looked out for each other. They assumed their typical pace, of a caboose behind a load of freight. This was how they walked to the convenience store, the pharmacy, and Social Services: cigs burning between their fingers, Maureen hunkered against Frank’s strong shoulder.
“It’s pretty out here,” Maureen said, cheeks flushed. Though fifty, she appeared younger in a white sweatshirt and Keds, her bleached ponytail tied in a pink ribbon.
“Sure is, babe,” Frank said. The wind mussed up his thinning blond hair, and Maureen reached up to smooth it.
“We lucked out with this weather,” I said. A hawk sailed across a ridge, black wings teetering, its tail like a hand-held fan dipped in crimson. We looked.
Maureen had been doing better since Lexi moved out; two people with anorexia under one roof competed over who could eat less. She’d started eating again, but as one symptom improved, another reared its head. Just the other day, she’d confided about her coworkers at the hotel where she was a housekeeper, “They stare at me, whispering. Even though I’ve worked there longer than anyone and do a damn good job!”
“People can be so mean. Cruel,” I said. She needed someone to empathize, to confirm a general truth. “I can have your caseworker talk to your boss?”
“No, I like my boss, don’t want to cause her trouble.” Whether her co-workers were gossiping about her, or she was hearing voices, I’d never know.
~
For dinner—lasagna—I assembled layers of noodles, ricotta, mozzarella, and sauce in a disposable pan. I served it with garlic bread, and we feasted like we hadn’t eaten in a week. Frank and Maureen helped with the dishes, Maureen saying, “Thanks for doing all that cooking, Krissy.” Frank piped in, “She’s a good cook, ain’t she?” I beamed.
As I dried the lasagna knife, though, I wondered if it was the one that Lexi had grabbed from the kitchen on Nate’s shift, screaming, “When I kill myself, y’all will be sorry!” (A few minutes prior, he’d refused her a Klonopin, too soon between doses). He’d grabbed latex gloves and the cordless phone as she ran out the back door, chasing after her.
I wrapped the knife in a dishtowel, stashing it in a padded cooler.
Outside, Jesse had gathered kindling, and I arranged twigs in a teepee pattern like I’d learned from my boyfriend. Nate doused it with lighter fluid and—poof! We whittled sticks to roast marshmallows, and I made s’mores. Jesse talked smack about shooting his own meal, if he had his cousin’s 20 gauge, which riled up blind Tim. “Really? You’d kill an animal and eat it?” Rubbing his scruffy teenage goatee, Jesse lectured about skinning and spit roasting until Nate said, “Okay, pipe down, Rambo,” which sent Timmy into a fit of giggles.
We smoked, watching the fire. It was as if we took the group home smoking room and plopped it in the woods. Tim held his palms close to the fire, feeling the shape of the flames. Judith, a stout woman in her mid-fifties, sat next to me, her expression like a blank sheet of paper, a smudge of chocolate above her lips.
“Did you like the s’mores?” I asked, trying to engage her, and Judith cracked a rare smile.
Maureen hunched over, elbows on her knees, squinting as if at an old, familiar ghost. I recognized this look—unlike others who conversed openly with their voices, Maureen tried to mask her paranoia—and Frank saw too, lifting his eyebrows and patting her shoulder. “How you doin’, babe?”
Silence. Then, “I’m okay, honey.” They repeated this refrain three times before Maureen asked, “Krissy, can I please have a PRN?” Nate nodded toward the cabin, and Maureen followed me inside for her “as-needed” meds, shaking the pills from the envelope I’d packed.
Judith stood by the cabin door, shifting her weight from leg to leg. “Should we go down to the bathrooms?” I asked, and she said, “Yeah.” She rarely spoke unless asked a question. She’d been pulled from school at age thirteen—a young age for psychosis onset—and cared for by her mother until her mother died.
“Grab your toothbrushes,” I called to the group, gathering flashlights. Maureen, Judith, and I brushed our teeth at the metal sinks, and it struck me as familial, intimate. Maureen brushed slowly, forlornly, and Judith frantically, as if someone were going to steal hers.
Back at the cabin, bedtime meds. One by one, they shot their pills down with a dixie cup of water, and we signed the log. By ten, they had all turned in for the night.
Nate added a few logs to the fire, and we cracked open a couple Diet Cokes. A calm euphoria settled over me. Insects were humming like mini-appliances, and the stars were bursting in clusters like a faraway, swirling blizzard.
“You think Maureen’s okay?” I asked, and he said, “Yeah, she’s all over those PRNs every trip,” he said. “They knock her out.”
“That’s why she doesn’t usually take them, because she doesn’t want to be groggy at work.”
Soon, we were singing the praises of the greatest boss in the universe, Wendy.
Nate said, “When I first started, Wendy told me, ‘You need to remember people are not their illnesses, people are people and deserve to be treated with dignity.’” He flicked his butt into the fire. “Seems obvious, but I try to remember that when someone dries their socks in the microwave.”
In the fire’s glow, I traced the hieroglyphics of the many table carvings with my finger, like Tim had earlier. The “S” in S.T. + A.L. felt more like a 5 than an S.
Nate pulled out his Swiss Army knife, flicking the blade. “Wanna leave your mark?” he asked.
“Nah. Though it would be funny to carve ‘We Were Here’ above this heart.” His pocketknife reminded me, so I asked: “The lasagna knife, was that the one Lexi grabbed?”
“Oh, you bet. She picked the biggest one!”
“Were you scared out of your fucking mind?”
“I didn’t have time to think. I was more scared of her hurting herself than me,” he said.
I poked a log, unleashing a small avalanche of embers.
“I’d already called 911, and when I caught up to her, she just stopped. I kept eight feet between us, like to that tree.” he motioned, then mimicked his own not-taking-shit voice. “I said, ‘Please DROP the KNIFE.’”
He paused, lit another smoke, and continued. “For someone so tiny, she threw it with such force. The tip caught the dirt like—like a dart!”
“Then the ambulance showed up.” I’d heard that part in our staff debrief.
“Yep, she was crying but didn’t fight ’em,” he said. “I had to call the mother, what a piece of work.”
“When her mom picked up Lexi’s stuff, her asshole stepdad was waiting in the car,” I said. Nate sighed, disgusted.
We put out the fire and rinsed with my stash of mouthwash, spitting into the smoldering ashes.
~
I woke to the sounds of pans clanking, fat sizzling. I was the last one up—Nate had already brewed coffee and was frying bacon.
After restroom, breakfast, and meds, Nate encouraged me to take a walk, enjoy some alone time. With my water bottle and journal in my hemp bag, I walked briskly, stretching my arms, focusing on the whistling of birds, trying to be present. But my thoughts floated to unpaid bills, to my boyfriend. Austin. Did I still love him? Did he love me?
Maybe. Or maybe what I loved was the memory of the free-spirited couple we were in the beginning. A local, he was the reason I stayed in town after graduating college. I’d assumed that we’d do more camping—he’d love it here—but our schedules never seemed to line up. His mom’s cancer had brought us closer lately—a united front in total crisis mode, like when we both worked at restaurants. He still did, as a line cook. But I was so over restaurant work. The grime, the two-day hangovers, the wicked carpel tunnel syndrome in both wrists. I was happy to cook for my residents, grateful for my job at the home with its bennies and health insurance. For the first time in my adult life, I felt like I had a purpose.
As I approached a boulder, a garter snake slithered out of the brush. For a second, I mistook it for a scrap of garden hose. I climbed atop, the snake long gone. I was being paid to sit in the woods for a few minutes, how lucky was I? I hoped that the residents were having a good time, Maureen, especially—she never went on vacation. I remembered the brownie mix I packed, for dessert tonight. Everyone would love that.
I gulped some ice-cold water, took out my notepad and pen. Jotted “trees, their colors like ripened fruit.” I studied them, bright and intense, almost fixed. But also disintegrating, leaf by leaf. I wondered how long I’d been gone. And though it couldn’t have been long, I packed up my stuff and turned back.
~
We piled in the van to explore the park. Nate drove and we looped slowly, waving at hikers with dogs and families with children. We stopped at the picnic area bordering Red House Lake.
As Nate talked fishing permits with a park Ranger, Tim said, “Wait, a real Ranger!” He turned toward Nate’s voice and asked, “Does he have a gun?”
The Ranger said, “Yes, I do, but don’t worry, I rarely have to use it.”
“Wow, a forest cop,” Tim said, whispering, “Bang. Bang, bang!” He was obsessed with firearms, dogs, and transistor radios.
Nate spread charcoal into a freestanding grill, flipped burgers and dogs, toasting rows of buns. Jesse found some teenagers to play volleyball with. I led Tim, his hand around my elbow, to the shore. He sat cross-legged, skipping stones. He’d been blind since he was four, his sight beaten out of him by his biological mother. I marveled at the way he felt around for ones with the best skipping potential—smooth and flat. He bit his lower lip in concentration. A stone skimmed the surface like a little gray fish, then sunk. He was happy to be hurling rocks without the risk of breaking anything and getting his ass written up. (A few months back, he’d cracked a skylight at the Mental Health building.)
“How many skips?” he demanded, giddily.
“Two,” I said, mesmerized by ripples panning out like radar, and how the rings from the next stone collided with those from the last.
“How many that time?”
“Four.”
Tim hugged his arms to his chest, rocking his body, grinning wildly. “Really? Oh, wow!”
“Really,” I said, though I wasn’t sure.
~
I hadn’t worn a life vest in ages—a strong swimmer, former lifeguard—but rules were rules. The mold-peppered vest fit snugly across my chest. Frank’s hung around his neck like those colonial-era stocks. Maureen sat on the canoe’s middle bench, her child-size vest making her look her 105 pounds. She smoked, ashing into her palm as Nate launched us. Frank and I paddled, but our strokes were out of sync; Frank’s flailed about, splashing rather than scooping. His brain injury, it affected his coordination.
“When I say ‘stroke!’ we row together, okay?” and Frank saluted.
We got into a rhythm. I held my paddle and let Frank navigate for a bit. I scanned the shore: Nate’s white shirt, smoke curling off the grill. Beside us, mallard ducks coasted, their emerald heads gleaming.
The hushing of waterfalls sounded close, too close—I glanced over my shoulder. We were heading straight towards a dam, within ten feet of it, a strong current pulling us like gravity. The water rushed and spat into a vertical drop, swirling into a raging whirlpool below us. I plunged my paddle as a brake: “Hold up!” I shouted over the static.
Frank noticed, calling, “Got it!” We stroked hard in the opposite direction. Maureen, out of it from a morning PRN, squinted at Frank, unfazed. My heart churned like a propeller. I couldn’t help play out the what-ifs: being pulled into the vortex, boat and bodies launched over the edge. We would have crashed, toppled. Maybe drowned! (Or maybe just gotten really, really wet.) I exhaled, brushing the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve.
Soon, we were drifting in the middle of the lake, where we could safely be in the moment, not the one after. A blue heron stood on a log, still as a painting. As I pointed, it dipped its neck in the water. Its wings unfolded like origami, lifting, a fish wiggling from its beak.
~
On the drive back home Sunday, we stopped at the McDonald’s in Hornell where Nate had worked as a teenager—we had petty cash to treat everyone. Nate said something to the cashier, and she squealed and leaned over the counter to hug him, as if claiming him. There were jobs people could leave and return to, as if no time had passed. She gave Nate coupons for free sundaes. Maureen offered hers to Jesse, who was psyched.
No traffic, so we made good time. In the group home’s driveway, folks stumbled out of the vans as if they had awoken from a dream they couldn’t quite remember. We unpacked and socialized with the folks who stayed behind. Kathy was where we left her at the smoking-room table. My coworker, Elsa, marched around with Ziplocs, emptying coolers.
I was looking forward to a hot shower and meeting friends at the bar, once I finished a weekend “daily notation” for each resident. I sat in the office, and instead of my usual minutiae-filled summaries, I wrote the same entry for everyone: “[name] attended the annual camping trip and participated in activities. No incidents to report.” I checked off SM (symptom management) in each column, in case we were short a billable service at the end of the quarter. As I placed the binder into its slot on the desk, I noticed odds and ends—a tattoo magazine, hair scrunchie, charm bracelet—on top of a padded envelope addressed to Lexi in North Carolina, where her grandparents lived. She’d talked about wanting to move there, get away from her mom and stepdad. Could be a fresh start for her, I hoped.
Elsa peeked into the office. “You’ve been driving all day, girlie, come relax!”
So, I poured myself a coffee from the fresh pot she brewed, lit a smoke.
“Were there many ‘leaf peeper’ tourists?” Kathy asked.
Maureen said, “Yeah, a few. We lucked out with the weather, didn’t we, Krissy,” and I nodded, saying, “We should have t-shirts made, We Survived Allegheny!” Maureen thought that would be cute.
A cool breeze rushed in through the screen, a cold front moving in. I could see Nate and Frank untying the canoe to store in the garage, where it would hibernate through, unbeknownst to me then, a winter of unexpected grief. Austin’s mom will die at age fifty-one. Soon after, we will break up; he’ll move out of our apartment. I’ll write some new poems in my journal, a couple I’m proud of. Late spring, I’ll help Frank find a landscaping job he actually likes. By summer, I’ll become, through natural turnover at an entry-level job, one of the group home’s veterans.
Frank ambled in, his cheeks sunburned, and sparked up a Winston. “Thanks for taking my boat out, Krissy,” he said. “I don’t got work today, right?”
“Correct,” I said. “Tomorrow.”
“Did you have a good time, Frank?” Kathy asked.
“As good as I’ve ever had and ever will. I think,” he said, his grin showing the crinkles around his eyes.
Elsa said, “While you guys were gone, I organized the campground brochures. Next time, I’m thinking maybe Pine Barrens, in Jersey. See some ocean.”
And next year, that’s what we’ll do.
Kristen Keckler teaches creative writing at Mercy University in Dobbs Ferry, New York, where she is also faculty editor of the student-run literary magazine, Red Hyacinth: A Journal of Writing and Art. Her work has appeared in L’Esprit Literary Review, The Iowa Review, StorySouth, Free State Review, Vestal Review, The South Dakota Review, and other journals. She loves egrets, whodunnit podcasts, and sea glass.
