Chapter Eleven
ELEVEN
“The worst has happened,” announces Silas the next morning.
You’re all huddled together near a crackling fire, started hours ago with nothing but birch bark and a flint.
Your campsite is on a sandy landing with a view east through some white pines toward a sherbet-colored sunrise.
You’re so unused to views like this, they don’t quite seem real yet.
Like someone could flip a switch and it would all disappear.
You’re wedged between Will and Diana, who has yet to speak to you this morning.
Breakfast is “Cowboy Casserole,” a meal made entirely of canned beans, BBQ sauce, and bacon.
“Who knew cowboys were so into diabetes and heart disease?” says Fran.
But no one is complaining. It’s food. And it’s warm. And as the amber light from the rising sun warms your skin, you are gradually thawing after a cold, damp night. In fact, all of this might actually be pleasant if it weren’t for the fact that you all almost drowned yesterday.
“It’s over,” he continues. “Nothing else that we do is going to be worse than what we did yesterday. And guess what? You all made it. You’re here. You just got a little wet and scared, but you’re still here.”
“I hit a rock,” says Troy through a mouthful of beans.
“Okay. That wasn’t ideal,” says Silas. “But you made it here too. And actually, you did a pretty amazing job holding on to that rock. You were like a barnacle on that thing, brother!”
“I would like to officially announce that I pissed myself,” says Fran.
Everyone stops eating for a moment and stares at her.
“Just now?!” says Troy.
“No!” she says. “No. While I was in the water after the rapids! I peed in the river. From fear.”
“Perfectly normal response,” says Silas.
“Cool,” she says. “I’ll remember that. Peeing in a river is normal.”
It’s quiet then, and there’s only the sound of spoons scraping against campware, and the pop of trapped steam bursting out of some newly added firewood. Meanwhile, you wait for the protest.
Last night, everyone went to bed still too shocked to get mad.
But now that your basic needs have been met, you expect to hear at least one person say they won’t go on.
Troy, for sure. Maybe Fran. Even Will. But instead, everyone just eats, squinting into the sun.
You can almost see the fight leaching out of the group as they shovel overly sweet beans into their mouths.
“Today should be relatively smooth paddling,” Silas says. “No rapids. But we have a fair amount of river to cover to get to our next lake and stay on schedule. So let’s finish up and get our packs in the boats!”
Silas stands up then, and for a single moment, he seems unsteady on his feet.
Only a couple of you notice as he reaches out for a tree and then seems to get his balance.
It all unfolds so quickly, and then he just keeps walking as if nothing happened.
Eventually, you do the same, watching him all the while.
And though you all seem a little hesitant to start paddling again, finally everyone gets in their boats and pushes off from the shore.
The day that follows is punishing. It starts off okay—you and Fran even manage a rhythm of sorts—but the pain begins after an hour or so.
A pinch in your shoulders that moves in a circuit up your neck and down your back.
By late afternoon, the temperature has risen and your body is one giant inflammation.
It feels like every muscle you have has been stretched like Silly Putty and smushed back into a pulsing, amorphous ball.
By the time you finally find the trailhead in the early evening, your crew is looking rough.
Your canoes crunch over the smooth stones beneath the clear lake water and nestle against the wet gritty sand of the shoreline.
The campsite is up a small hill, and a stand of shedding birch trees grows diagonally out over the water.
You all take long drinks from your water bottles and slump out of your boats.
Silas, sweaty and red like the rest of you, sits you in a circle at the top of the hill. You expect him to build a fire and maybe start some dinner, but he doesn’t. What he does is slowly take the baseball hat off his head and toss it on the ground near you, where it skids into the dirt.
Everyone examines the hat. It’s the first time he’s taken it off, and he looks different without it.
Older and younger at the same time. But you don’t have much time to study him because next he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small bundle of yellow minipencils held together with a rubber band.
He also grabs some scraps of paper. He passes the pencils around and waits patiently until you all have one.
Then he starts writing in slow, careful script.
When he’s done, he folds the tiny sheet in two and gives the paper a little flick.
It lands squarely in the hat.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says. “Welcome to Fear in a Hat.”
Fran stands up straight, cracking her back.
“Fear in a what?” she says.
“Hat,” says Silas. “Fear in a Hat. That’s the name of the activity.”
He scratches at his hat hair. Then, finally, he sets about starting the evening’s fire, laying out his tools like a surgeon.
“It’s a little cheesy,” he says. “I’m not going to lie. But it’s a way to get us talking about our anxiety. Basically, you write down a fear and toss it in the hat. Then I read them anonymously. The idea here is that we get used to sharing and maybe we feel a little less alone in all this.”
He spreads out his tinder and strikes at his flint.
Then he watches while each of you jots a word or two on your paper.
Everyone, that is, except you. You get as far as holding your pencil, but then you just kind of stare at the paper.
And eventually you fold it in half and place it, blank, in Silas’s hat without making eye contact. The timer sounds the moment you let go.
“Okay,” he says, scooping up the hat. “Moment of truth. I’m just going to grab one here.”
He closes his eyes and reaches into his worn ball cap.
You can feel your pulse accelerating. You’re afraid that he’s going to pick your blank paper and know it was you.
And then you’ll have to make it right by revealing something.
You look around and see the same tensed eyes and tight mouths that must mirror the look on your own tired face.
The ridiculous fact of the matter is: You are all afraid of Fear in a Hat.
“And it looks like I have…”
He pauses a moment for dramatic effect. Then:
“Sushi.”
“Sushi?” says Will immediately. “What is this stupid game, man?”
“Will,” says Silas, “that’s not helpful, brother. We have to be respectful of people’s fears here. Okay? We don’t need to editorialize.”
Silas starts reaching in the hat for another fear, but just when his hand goes in, a voice stops him.
“Wait a second.”
It’s Fran.
“No more comments,” says Silas. “I think it’s best if we keep going. Don’t spend too long on each one.”
“No,” says Fran. “That one’s mine. I wrote sushi, and I was wondering if I could say something about it.”
Everyone’s quiet.
“We don’t have to do that tonight,” says Silas.
But Fran looks insistent. For the first time since you’ve seen her, she isn’t wearing a hoodie, and it’s like seeing a turtle without its shell. But it’s also harder to ignore her when she’s not hiding.
“All right,” says Silas finally. “If you want to talk, then I want to listen.”
“Okay,” she says. “Thanks.”
She waves some smoke from her eyes and adjusts her legs. She looks right at Will.
“I get that it’s weird, okay?”
Will looks down at his boots.
“It’s raw fish. It’s not going to hurt me. I understand that. But … my parents are divorced.”
She stops, and for a moment, you think that’s her entire explanation. Her parents are divorced, so she’s afraid of sushi. But you hold your tongue, and eventually she starts in again.
“And when they were together, they never wanted to go out to eat. We didn’t have a ton of extra money, so that was part of it. But it’s also because they couldn’t stand each other and they knew they would have to sit five feet apart all night if they went to a restaurant.
“So, on my birthday last year, of course they both want to take me to dinner. Separately. And because it’s still a big deal to go out for me, I do this dumb thing and I say yes to both of them.
Like somehow if I say yes twice, their yeses will combine and we’ll actually just go out as a family like we used to.
“Of course, this would never happen because they are children. It’s got to be two dinners. Two separate dinners. I know this deep inside, but I stupidly tell them both to take me on my actual birthday, so I can feel like I’m with both of them.”
She laughs then, but it’s not a happy laugh. It’s a laugh of defeat. A laugh at the power of self-sabotage.
“You probably see where this is going. My birthday arrives, and my mom takes me to this BBQ place we like, and we’re having so much fun, I actually forget and eat, like, thirty pork ribs.
We have a contest to see who can eat the most and whose face can get the messiest. But then when it’s time to go, it suddenly hits me: Oh no, the second dinner!
And sure enough, when we get home there’s my dad waiting in the driveway.
“And I’m too embarrassed to tell him what I did.
Instead, I just go to another dinner with him.
He takes me to this sushi restaurant, and he orders this giant platter while I’m in the bathroom.
Then when it shows up, I already feel so full that just looking at it is making me feel nauseous.
And my dad always hated wasting food when I was growing up, so I feel like I’m going to have to eat it anyway.
But it looks so bad. A buffet of misery.
And when I reach for the first piece with my chopsticks, everything just shuts down.
“I can’t move my arm any farther. And then I have the worst panic attack I’ve ever had.
I run back to the bathroom, and my dad doesn’t understand why I won’t come out.
And eventually, a female sushi chef has to come in and get me, and she brings a single tampon.
She’s holding it like a baton. And man, I wish that a single tampon would solve everything.
But it’s slightly more complicated than that.
I open my mouth to tell her, but nothing comes out, so instead, I just take the tampon and start crying.
Then I’m in the bathroom, crying, and holding a tampon.
And that’s why I never want to see a piece of sushi again. ”
She brushes the hair out of her eyes and looks into the fire.
And it takes a second for you all to realize she’s done.
You don’t quite know what to do with the feeling that’s lingering.
It was just a simple story about a restaurant, but you’ve actually never heard someone tell one like it.
About the way a simple thing can go so wrong because of the anxiety.
And how that feeling can hold you hostage.
It’s a story that could easily have been yours.
“Is anyone going to say something?” asks Fran.
Silas adjusts the hat on his lap. He looks uncomfortable all of a sudden. Distracted again, but this time it’s like there’s a restlessness. There’s a tapping sound, and you realize it’s coming from his foot. People are just starting to notice it, when someone finally speaks.
“Yes!” says Diana. “I am.”
Fran looks surprised to hear from her. Diana stands up, and with a sleeping bag draped over her shoulders, she looks like royalty, or maybe some benevolent deity. Her face glows from the bottom up.
“Okay…,” says Fran.
Diana walks around the fire until she gets to where Fran is sitting. Then she looks her in the eye, and says:
“Thank you.”
It’s clear that Fran doesn’t know what to say, so she just smiles. Diana doesn’t move. Something has happened, though you can’t say what it is at first. Even Will looks somewhat chastened and contemplative.
“Yeah, thanks,” says Troy, the fire glowing in his smudged glasses.
Someone has been vulnerable.
Maybe it’s as simple as that. For a moment, you feel like you could say something if you had to.
Maybe not about Sean yet, but just about your anxiety.
About how hard it has been, and the shame spiral that won’t stop tugging at you every morning when you wake up.
You wonder if other people are feeling this small moment of relief.
It’s a kind of lightness. Which makes it all the more strange when Silas empties that hat, puts it back on his head, and says:
“I think that’s enough for tonight.”
It’s an odd reaction, particularly given that he’s been talking about how you all have to risk intimacy, how he wants everyone to be honest with one another. It doesn’t make sense that he would cut things off right now.
“Why?” says Troy. “We didn’t get to my fear yet.”
“We have a long day tomorrow,” he says.
You only see Silas’s face once more before he puts out the fire, and you see it in the brightest light of the glow.
There’s a sheen of sweat where there wasn’t before.
He closes his eyes, and a drop slides off his right eyebrow and into the flames.
And before anyone else asks a question, he tips a canteen upside down and pours cold water onto the blaze.
The hissing sound is deafening as the water hits the coals, and the smoke is white as a cloud.
You watch for him once it has faded a bit, but he’s already walking to his tent, and the world has gone dark.