The Atmospherians

by Alex McElroy

  “Peter Minston,” he said, at the foot of the steps, then apologized. Peter was the Momma’s Boy. The outlier, according to Dyson, the man who wouldn’t benefit from our teaching. Dyson described him as “already a very good man.” There were no redder flags.

  “Sorry for what?” I asked him.

  “Thank you, I meant.” He shuffled to join the others.

  Soon all the men stood slumped shoulder to shoulder. Their faces were paunchy and meatish, harboring wispy beards. They resembled a row of plucked chickens left to rot in the sun. A few men let out meek, childish burps; farts escaped irregularly.

  Even after reading the dossier, I spent the last few days assuming their presence would clear up my remaining questions, would make their decisions appear obvious, but in person, they baffled me even more. People without hope require direction, according to Dyson. But this wasn’t what hopelessness looked like. I had seen hopelessness before, in messages from my clients: the women put into panics by ads, the women desperate to look completely unlike themselves, the women who sought admiration and love by amending their faces with hundreds of toxic creams and solutions: The Nuclear Options, I’d called them. These men didn’t know desperation. They knew inconvenience, annoyance, frustration. They were not hopeless, and perhaps they didn’t need to be. Even more than direction, hopelessness required convincing.

  Dyson descended the steps. He wore light blue jeans with a black turtleneck, plus a pair of round wire-rimmed reading glasses. The outfit—the costume—was my idea. No cult leader led in a vacuum. You needed to meet the needs of the culture, and the era of Jim Jones and L. Ron had ended. We were living in the aftermath of Jobs and Wozniak, of Zuckerberg, Jack. Now our leaders were innovators, disruptors, and self-styled geniuses. The part had to be played.

  “Welcome,” said Dyson. “To the life you’ve always desired and needed. Welcome to your future. Welcome to hope. Welcome to unconditional love. Welcome to The Atmosphere.”

  When no one reacted, I wildly clapped until the men followed my lead.

  Dyson told the men to hold their applause. He paced along the side of the bus, hands clasped at his back. “The world, as we have discussed, is ill. It is terminal. On its deathbed. Very few people acknowledge this sickness. They’d rather pretend their lives are peachy and bright than accept that something is wrong. Even fewer people do something about it.” He pointed at the men. “But not you. You twelve men refuse to sit back and watch as the world devolves. In a world of alienation and pain you men have chosen to build a community no one wants you to build. I admire the effort you put in by coming here. You’re all brave motherfuckers.”

  Eleven of the men pumped their fists, hollered, stomped their feet in the dirt.

  Peter clapped politely.

  “You’ve all already completed the most difficult part—committing to a change. You have committed, but now you must act. You must work with us and work with yourselves if you want to find your place in the world. Because things aren’t gonna get better from dreaming and wanting. Things will stay exactly the same if you don’t put in the work. I bet some of you are thinking, That sounds easy, Dyson. We know this, Dyson. After all, you came here to work.”

  “Hell, yeah!” Randy shouted.

  I gave him a throat-cut gesture.

  “Let me warn you now, though: Some of you will want to quit as soon as we start. You’ll want to run back to your draining, familiar lives because, compared to The Atmosphere, those lives will seem freer and easier. And it’s true. Those lives are easier—albeit empty of meaning and purpose. So know this: if you want an easier, empty life you’re welcome to leave whenever you like.” He pointed to the driveway. “There’s the way out. Use it at your convenience. Because there’s only one person keeping you here. It’s not me and it’s not Sasha.” He cracked a premeditated smile, then pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and buried it into one of the bus’s back tires. The air wheezed free. The men gasped fishily. “It’s you. You’re the only one keeping you here. No one leaves until everyone’s better. If you don’t like it here, work on yourself, help the others work on themselves. And if resenting me makes you work harder I invite your resentment. Sasha welcomes your resentment.”

  I didn’t.

  “We’re not making you work because we’re sadistic or cruel. We’re doing it because we care about you. No one has ever cared about you the way we will. More than a program, The Atmosphere is a family. We are your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your daughter, your son, your cat, your parrot, your fish. There is no alternative to The Atmosphere. You have lived the alternative. And what has it gotten you? Depression. Doubt. Fear. Unemployment. Poverty. Debt. You’ve been overlooked. Abandoned. Why? Because you’ve lived difficult lives. Made some mistakes. Who in the world hasn’t made some mistakes?

  “But you’re people, dammit. You deserve a home where your skills are respected, where your skills are enhanced. Where you can be free to love yourselves for once in your lives. And that place is here: at The Atmosphere. You’re necessary here. You’re needed. You’re loved. It’s a crime the world tells you you’re useless. You suck; you’re worthless; you never amounted to anything; you’re an imbecile; you’re a stain on society; you’ve never earned anything in your life; the only thing you deserve is a kick in the dick; go jump out of a plane, swallow a mug of thumbtacks; you’re timid and weak; you’re fragile; you’re shit—please go die and quit being a problem. That. Ends. Today.”

  I substituted myself for the men when hearing these words. I was necessary, important. For too long I had suffered under the weight of groundless harassment. I slipped into a trance of enthusiastic bitterness, flinging snowballs of blame at Cassandra and Blake and Lucas Devry.

  Dyson repeated my name—“Sasha! Sasha!”—to haul me back to the moment. It was time to destroy the phones. Each man received a phone that didn’t belong to him. “On my signal,” said Dyson, “throw the phone against the broad side of the bus. Be careful you don’t hit the windows.” They were so amped from the speech, they threw as soon as we stepped out of the way. They retrieved the phones, threw them again and retrieved them and threw them again. Dyson kicked the phones into a pile. I hauled over the hose and laid the end on top of the phones, letting the water soak through the cracked screens.

  Dyson inhaled dramatically, nostrils piping. “Now we can really get started.” He led them into the barn. The men seated themselves around the picnic table.

  Dyson and I commanded from the head. “Why are you here?” he asked.

  Peter raised his hand.

  Dyson said, “I know why you’re here. You’re here because nothing has worked. You’ve spent your lives chasing specters and fantasies. You’ve ruined your bodies, broken your backs, repressed every emotion. For what? To become real men? What did it get you? Your friends resent you. Your wives left you. Your kids never answer your calls. Your kids never text you. Your kids never remember your birthdays.

  “But don’t misunderstand me. Don’t think I’m any better. I’m the sickest man in this camp. I spent my entire career trying to be other people. Imagine. Dyson Layne? Not good enough. Never. Always suppressing myself to be someone else. Like all of you, I would’ve happily traded my life for anyone else’s. Then one day it hit me: I don’t know what I want in this life. I don’t know what I love. I don’t even know what I fear. I had no clue who I was.

  “Every day men like you are expected to be people you aren’t. You try to be men who might impress your fathers, men from comic books, action movies, professional athletes, the men who bring home new women every night. But we aren’t those men. You know why? Those men. Have never. Existed. We need to accept that. Because we’re making ourselves sick, depressed, lonely, obese, violent. How many of you have hurt people—emotionally, physically—because you couldn’t handle your feelings?”

  A few men raised their hands.

  “If you want to lie to yourselves find someplace else to live. You won’t be
doing it here.”

  Most of the remaining men lifted their arms. I raised mine in a show of solidarity—to make them think we were equally culpable, though our situations hardly compared.

  “I see we have a saint among us,” said Dyson. “Saint Dent. Care to tell us how you did it, how you managed to hurt no one in your life?”

  “I don’t find the exercise useful,” Randy said.

  “We all want to believe we’re good people, that we’ve done nothing wrong. But if things were all pretty and bright, you wouldn’t be here, would you?”

  The men chuckled anxiously.

  “I am not a bad man,” Randy said.

  “Well, you’re certainly not a good man,” said Dyson.

  “What makes a good man?” Randy asked.

  “Maybe someone who respects and protects his family.”

  “That’s the type of thing people say when they want me to hit ’em.”

  “I assure you I don’t,” Dyson said.

  “Just because I’m flawed doesn’t mean I’m not good.”

  “You have the potential to become good, Randy. All of you do. But your flaws are holding you back. Your flaws are why you’re searching for work and for love and respect. And this—what you’re doing right now. This stubbornness, Randy, it shows me you’re not ready to change. You’re clinging to some false image of yourself. Maybe you’re proud of who you were. Me? I admit that I hate who I was before we all met. And I should hate who I was. I was irascible, selfish, cruel, and empty. I am disgusted by that person. And soon you’ll be disgusted by the men you were before coming here. Those men were toxic. They infected you.”

  It was, I think, his attention to words like toxic and sick and infection that led to accusations of premeditation—not to mention Dyson’s issues with food. But he used the words metaphorically to mark the transition between their past and future selves. There was no better way to convince someone to change than to make them believe they were sick.

  Dyson said, “We’ve planned a meal for you all. The first of many to come. While I’m cooking I want you to reflect on something you’ll work on while you’re here. Something born out of a past mistake. Do so in silence. You’ll be expected to share before eating.”

  The men chattered and grumbled.

  “In silence means silence,” I said.

  Dyson retreated into the kitchen. I stood at the fence, watching the men, too busy to warn him about the generator, the food—no need to warn him, I assured myself. The men whispered and sighed. “In silence means silence,” I reminded the men. “In silence means silence.”

  Their faces flickered with shame.

  “In silence means silence.”

  And remorse.

  “In silence means silence.”

  Maybe resentment, I worried.

  “Who’s hungry?” asked Dyson. He carried a wide ceramic serving tray loaded with medallions of pork. I set a Styrofoam plate and utensils in front of each man. Dyson followed with an enormous bowl of potato salad. He wanted to feed them something familiar, food you might find at a family reunion. “This recipe was my father’s favorite,” he said, as he set down the bowl. “Normally Family Dinners will be served later on Sundays, at seven, but we want to make sure you’re fed after such a long day.” I’d been against calling the meals Family Dinners. These men weren’t our family. Best-case scenario, they were our students—more accurately: our crosses to bear. But he insisted on the language of family to ensure the men felt welcomed and loved. I didn’t like it. I didn’t argue, however. There was no use. Beneath his pursuit to reform these men and make society safer, beneath everything Dyson pursued, was a deeper, ongoing, and largely unconscious pursuit to replace—rather, perfect—his actual family.

  He forked a slice of pork onto each man’s plate. I scooped potato salad beside it. We returned to the head of the table. “Gerry,” said Dyson. “In one word tell us what you plan to work on during your time at The Atmosphere?”

  “One word?” Gerry asked.

  “One word,” I said.

  He bit his lip, eyeing the table. “Experience,” he said.

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

  “Excellent,” Dyson said. “Leon. One word describing what you plan to work on during your time here.”

  Leon thought for a while. “Experience?” he said, unsure if it counted.

  “Perhaps pick a new one,” I said. “Something more personal.”

  “Very good,” said Dyson. “Dr. Mapplethorpe: How about you?”

  “Experience.”

  Experience of what?! I wanted to shout. Experience didn’t mean anything. And I resented Dyson for letting the men get away with repeating their nonsense responses.

  “And you, Randy?”

  “Experience.”

  “Peter?”

  “Experience.”

  “William?”

  “Experience.”

  “Lawrence?”

  “Experience.”

  “Mack?”

  “Experience.”

  “David?”

  “Experience.”

  “Hughie?”

  “Experience.”

  “Benjamin?”

  “Experience.”

  “Kevin?”

  “Experience.”

  Dyson gave the men permission to eat and to speak and they ate and spoke like it had been months since they’d done either one. They cracked jokes and patted shoulders, released warm, bellowing laughs as they scooped seconds and thirds of pork and potato salad onto their crusted plates. Dyson circled the table carrying a two-liter jug of cheap red wine. He sat with the men and lifted the jug to their lips for a sip. He praised their heroic thirst. I leaned against the fence with my hands clenched. I seethed over their responses. Experience! Experience what?! Of what?! If it felt like a family, then it was not like any family I would ever be permitted to join. The meal was supposed to last forty-five minutes—we planned the day to the second—but at the half-hour mark I cleared my throat: “Family Dinner has ended! You must all return to the cabins for scheduled afternoon naps.”

  “What are we, babies?” asked Randy.

  Dyson shushed him. “I must’ve lost track of time with all the excitement—too much excitement. We need to conserve energy for tonight’s lecture.”

  The men complained about the size of the sheds and the size of their cots and how many cots there were in their sheds. “There’s no room to move in here,” Gerry said at the door.

  “It’s not a living room,” I said. “It’s a room for sleeping. And leaving. Use it to sleep and to leave and you’ll be okay.”

  “There will be opportunities to expand your living conditions,” said Dyson. “Put in the work and you won’t be cramped very long.”

  The men split up six to a shed.

  * * *

  Back in the barn, Dyson suggested we celebrate our success.

  “What success?” I asked.

  “The men are here. They’ve accepted the rules. Family Dinner couldn’t have gone any better.” This impulse to celebrate the most trivial accomplishments had sabotaged his acting career. He might have earned a gig in a spot for a chain restaurant, then gone out drinking, thinking he’d made it, thinking that speaking roles were right around the corner. Then he would sleep through a call from his agent the next morning and miss an audition.

  “For all we know they’re plotting our murders right now,” I said.

  He retrieved a bottle of bourbon and two glasses from the pantry and poured a fat finger into each glass. “Better to die drunk than sober,” he said.

  I laughed and accepted my glass.

  “To The Atmosphere!” he said.

  “To experience,” I muttered.

  “Go easy on ’em,” he said. “We have to be kind.”

  “I didn’t become a cult leader to be kind,” I said.

  “There are so many things they still don’t know. About how to behave, how to treat women, how to treat othe
r men. They’re like children.”

  “Except they’re adults.”

  “You understand.”

  We clinked, emptied our glasses. The drink freed a storm of coughs from my chest. It was stupid to drink under so much pressure, with so much responsibility and so many men outside, but it was no less stupid than being here in the first place. The stupidity of drinking, at least, distracted me from the danger outside. We nodded at each other. He poured again.

  I was the first one to hear the men screaming for help from inside the sheds. Outside, men sat slumped on the ground shouting about being sick, or getting sick, threatening to throw up on the cots. Two men tumbled down their shed’s steps, spewing food as they fell. Men zigged across the lawn with their hands capping their mouths.

  “Everyone’s sick!” Randy screamed. His neck was drenched in red liquid.

  “Where do we go?” another one shouted.

  Dyson moseyed out of the barn as if the clearing were empty.

  I ran to him. “The men are dying,” I told him.

  “No one’s dying,” he told me. I don’t think I had ever seen such clarity and confidence in his face. Nothing of what was happening behind me surprised him. “It’s probably food poisoning. The generator must’ve shut off overnight.” He lifted his right arm and snapped until all the men were looking at him. “Atmospherians,” he said. “If you want relief, follow me behind the barn.”

  They trailed us to the trough, their cheeks expanded to melon-sized swells. A few men were bent perpendicular. One threw up into his elbow. Red liquid wormed through another man’s lips—neon in color, too bright for blood, I thought—the cheap wine marking its return.