The Atmospherians

by Alex McElroy

  I was charmed by his enthusiasm. With a laugh, I asked, “What would you call me?”

  He leaned over the table and took my hands in his, circled his thumbs in my palms. “This is tough because, as you said, I hardly know you. I don’t even know where you’re from. But based on our evening so far—and what an amazing evening—I think I’d call you… Sasha.”

  “Shut up.” I yanked my hands free. “You had to have known.”

  He swore he didn’t—and he maintained this through the end of the relationship, committed to fabricating a profound sense of insight and mystery. In time, I would find his stubbornness obstructive; like a skyscraper blocking the sun. But that evening, I felt the first splash of attraction. I wanted him; I wanted him to want me back.

  Later that night, on the steps of my building, he gave me a syrupy kiss at once passionate and reserved. He seemed above the kiss, as if I weren’t worth a fully committed make out. I invited him inside, planning to sleep with him and move on.

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “You’re assuming a lot,” I said, feeling stung. I hadn’t been refused like this in years.

  “It’s not an assumption.” He spun on his heels and skipped into the lamplit night.

  The next morning, he sent me a link to his first album, Dayes and Days, a plaintive four-track EP about former lovers and sunsets. My fascination with Blake lunged toward love with every repeated listen. Love came easily to me. Normally, I tried lovers on like dresses. But Blake was different. Something about him clawed into me—he didn’t want me. And I found myself frustrated by every text that wasn’t from him, angry at every hour apart.

  He became my boyfriend. I, his girlfriend. And as his girlfriend I discovered that, more than a girlfriend, he wanted an audience. He not only absorbed me into that role; he made me feel special for filling it. He praised himself constantly, quoted his lyrics in conversation, often in support of something I had said, and after meals we would amble through the streets as he tested out lyrics, singing softly enough so only I heard. These walks gave me the feeling of slipping inside the world’s most fragile glass box, a box, I believed, he had created solely for me.

  Around him, I tended to blend. It’s like this with men who imagine futures for themselves. They arrive driving a car. Get in, they say. I wanted to see where it took me. Not because I wasn’t ambitious. ABANDON thrived over the course of our relationship, becoming more popular than I had ever predicted, and I wanted it to grow even bigger—yet the future we envisioned was his. It left little room for what I wanted, and I loved him enough to pretend this wasn’t a problem. At his shows, I stood near the bar—as if I were Dyson in an ad for Blake’s life—excited that the man at the center of everyone’s attention would come home with me. I let this dynamic continue because I believed I knew the person no one else knew: the vulnerable person hidden inside the musician perched on tipping stools.

  What I loved about loving a performer was believing they never truly performed in front of me. I believed in two intertwined but separate Blakes: Blake Dayes the musician conflicted with the authentic Blake I loved. The Blake I loved offstage was goofy and weepy, prone to puns, sensitive to fluorescent lighting, a fan of obstacle-based game shows, an eager and talentless cook, an unglum lover. A human. And around him, I freed my true self: giggly and gullible, a lounger, insecure, a late sleeper who woke to bedsheets wet by sweat, ticklish, cold-toed, an unintentional killer of plants, pessimistic, exhausted, alone. What a pleasure to know someone so secretly. I assumed he felt the same way about me.

  In the final month of our relationship—though I didn’t know it was the final month then—Blake surprised me by booking us a posh cabin on the outskirts of my hometown. “I want to see where you’re from,” he told me. I assured him there was nothing to see. “Then show me nothing.” He wanted to spend the weekend with me alone—not with “my fans”—so we left our phones in the city.

  Ditching my phone and the people inside it meant confronting the feelings I normally buried through work. Driving along the winding country roads to my hometown felt like riding a tongue into a mouth: This trip would end with both of us swallowed, dissolved in the belly of my childhood. Blake crooned cartoonishly to mock the top 40 hits on the radio. He considered these musicians beneath him, sellouts, but his envy was so obvious to me, and I felt closer to him—and distracted from my dread—by seeing into the feelings he’d never admit to.

  By the time we made it to town, though, my eyes were dewy and red. I had no family around, no lovers to fear running into. My mother had moved to Virginia to live with an ex; she had promptly dumped him but remained in the South. But the last time I’d returned home, during my first year of college, Dyson was at his sickest—I feared I might dissolve into guilt on our trip.

  “There’s still time to go back,” I said as we rolled into a gas station.

  “I’ve come all this way to see the famous nothing,” Blake said, playing the part of a tourist. He kissed my ear, playing the part of my boyfriend. “I’m here to see what made you.”

  “I made me,” I said.

  “Then you’re the first landmark.” He pulled a disposable camera from his coat pocket and snapped a photo of me in profile, my mouth curled in amusement.

  It was late autumn, cold enough for parkas and hats. The leaves had already fallen and what remained of the trees were the broken fingers of branches. The air smelled of hot tires and pennies. We went for a walk down Main Street—once the center of town, home to a hair salon and a toy shop and a used army surplus store—now home to a former hair salon and a former toy shop and a former used army surplus store and piles of wet wood scraps on the sidewalk. The front window of the salon had been shattered. No one cared enough to cardboard over the hole. “This isn’t a place to return to,” I said. “It’s a place to escape.”

  “Deep,” he said with a smile. He loved to tease my self-importance.

  A dollar store had replaced the old firehouse. The library had burned down. Bees had taken over the Dairy Queen. The post office had packed its suitcase and left in the night. All the pizza places remained pizza places but were empty, their open signs impatiently flickering. The cemetery had doubled in size (Lesterton prided itself on having the cheapest plots in the state). My mother’s day spa was now a kennel for exotic pets. The supermarket where Dyson stocked up for purges had become a retirement home. The elderly roamed the lot, clicking their canes.

  I brought Blake to the only remaining landmark in town: the river behind the high school where everyone hooked up after class. We used to spread out behind the trees on the banks of the river, becoming adults, the sound of the rushing water muffling the awkward silence of teenagers fucking. Sometimes Dyson slipped out here to throw up after lunch. But runoff from a nearby M&M plant had been tainting the water for decades, the town had recently learned, and the river had been diverted away from the school. Make Out Creek was reduced to a flaky-mudded riverbed.

  “This town is so embarrassing,” I said. My fear of returning home had flattened into shame. “Everything here used to be something else.”

  And then Blake unleashed the wisest and kindest thing anyone had ever said to me, the wisest and kindest thing that anyone had said to anyone, ever: “Everything in this town used to hurt you, you mean.”

  My love for him leaped through the ceiling. “That’s exactly what I mean,” I said, and stretched up for a kiss.

  We drove straight to the cabin—a luxurious cherrywood A-frame outfitted with flat-screen TVs and bay windows and a fireplace and Jacuzzi and a pair of espresso machines in the kitchen—and fucked without shutting the door. Over the weekend, Blake drafted new songs while I hiked or scripted future live streams for my followers. I spent entire mornings in a recliner at the window, sipping coffee, as Blake strummed his guitar. We shared sprawling dinners and laughed and fucked until the morning sun was glossing the windows. For the first time in years, I drank and smoked and relaxed in complete disregard of AB
ANDON. That was the public Sasha’s responsibility. The authentic Sasha, the Sasha having a romantic weekend with her lover—the authentic Blake—deserved to enjoy herself, and that meant living as decadently as she pleased.

  Sunday afternoon, before leaving, I lounged on a moose-skin rug in front of the fireplace as Blake performed the song he’d been writing all weekend. “The True You” was about our weekend together: from Main Street to our talk at the riverbed to the smoking and fucking and drinking and eating. Blake had never written a song about me before, and though I loved the attention he paid me and the care that had gone into the song, I made him promise to never release it. I worried my followers would ditch me if they knew I’d been cheating on ABANDON.

  “I love that you want to keep this for us,” Blake said. The fire crackled behind him. He kissed my forehead, my eyebrows, the bridge of my nose, my chin, my neck, each cheek, each ear, and finally my mouth. “This will be ours for as long as I love you,” he said. A contract masquerading as devotion.

  This wasn’t the last time we kissed, but it’s the kiss I return to when I want to think fondly of our relationship. A month after the trip, Lucas Devry took his life. Blake dumped me. He accused me of sabotaging his career. I was a fraud, he insisted, a starfucker who had never deserved him. Our ending was not a breakup but a heave. He considered himself a plane taking flight; I was the weight he needed to cut to lift off.

  Two weeks into my exile, Blake released “The You I Knew,” a vindictive rewrite of “The True You” about a woman who hides her authentic self from her sensitive boyfriend. In describing our weekend together, he exposed the Sasha I showed only to him: who didn’t adhere to the demands she made on her clients. My few remaining followers bailed.

  The you I knew, he sang, Was never the true you. A song for idiots. A song for anyone who’d ever been hurt. A song I played on repeat to torture myself. I never lied to Blake once throughout our relationship—and I normally lied to my boyfriends, often out of boredom. But Blake never bored me. He may’ve been the first boyfriend I actually loved. I’d shown him parts of myself I’d never shown anyone. But he was too conceited to notice.

  what the men needed to know

  Your pain won’t impress anyone.

  The people your pain does impress aren’t worth impressing.

  Crying is worth it.

  Talking is worth it.

  Walls are not for punching.

  Windows are not for punching.

  Women and children and most other men are not for punching.

  Top Gun is a terrible movie.

  The Godfather is boring.

  Be more like Peter.

  No, you could not have gone pro if your knee didn’t give out in high school.

  Doors are not for slamming.

  Mugs are not for throwing.

  You’re only trying to make people fear you because you’re scared of yourself.

  the difficulties of manhood: a questionnaire

  Do you find it difficult being a man in this world? I find it impossible.

  Way harder than being a woman.

  It’s just gettin’ harder.

  There used to be a time when it was okay to be manly.

  Choose one of the following that best describes you: Patriotic

  Virtuous

  Committed

  Athletic

  Ambitious

  Selective

  Passionate

  Enlightened

  Collegiate

  Youthful

  Helpful

  Driven

  Intellectual

  Choose one of the following that best describes you: Unemployed.

  Underemployed.

  Jobless.

  Seething with rage over the difficulty of being a man.

  Men’s problems are not discussed often enough in the media. Strongly Agree.

  Agree.

  Somewhat Agree.

  Don’t Disagree.

  Strongly Don’t Disagree.

  Many communities (churches, men’s groups, poker clubs, Proud Boys) promise to help men with their issues but fail to deliver. Absolutely.

  Makes sense.

  No doubt.

  I’ve been saying this for years.

  What type of support do you most expect from a community? Job training.

  Housing.

  Meals of an appropriate size.

  Physical and emotional detoxification.

  Core issues for men include (select all that apply): Unreasonable expectations for how much food should be eaten.

  Unreasonable expectations for financial status.

  Unreasonable expectations for physical fitness.

  Unreasonable expectations for emotional intelligence.

  Unreasonable expectations for romantic relationships.

  Unreasonable expectations for parental duties.

  Unreasonable expectations for intellectual intelligence.

  Unreasonable expectations for employment.

  Unreasonable expectations.

  I’m still so mad at my father. Strongly Agree.

  Agree.

  Somewhat Agree.

  Don’t Disagree.

  Strongly Don’t Disagree.

  If I go missing people will look for me True.

  False.

  If you answered “True” for the previous question, please discontinue completing this form.

  Despite the failures of past communities, there is a community out there for me. True.

  Very True.

  Communities foster the following positive outcomes: Self-Confidence.

  Emotional Growth.

  Networking.

  Wealth.

  Communities are sometimes referred to as cults. This is _______ (select one answer): Unfair.

  Unconscionable.

  Shortsighted.

  Prejudiced.

  What credentials do you expect from the leader of a community? Honorable discharge from the armed forces.

  Certificate of Excellence bestowed by the Sussex County Community College School of Performative Drama.

  Four-year degree.

  Trial by fire.

  My father never said “sorry.” It’s why I am how I am. Strongly Agree.

  Agree.

  Somewhat Agree.

  Don’t Disagree.

  Strongly Don’t Disagree.

  The following phrase best describes me: I am at risk of joining a man horde.

  I am not not at risk of joining a man horde.

  It is likely I will join a man horde if I continue on my current path.

  It is unlikely I am unlikely to join a man horde if I continue on my current path.

  The problem with being a man is that you’re always expected to stand in the spotlight. Absolutely.

  Undoubtedly.

  Absolutely.

  I’m learning so much.

  Everything you’ve ever been told about being a man is a lie. Strongly Agree.

  Agree.

  Somewhat Agree.

  Don’t Disagree.

  Strongly Don’t Disagree.

  How important is food in your life? I’m sick of picking meat from my molars.

  I only eat microwave meals.

  Food just gets you in trouble.

  I’ve considered giving it up.

  Please list your favorite foods ____

  It’s so hard for men in this world. True.

  Very True.

  If a friendly, encouraging leader named Dyson possessing a Certificate of Excellence from the Sussex County Community College School of Performative Drama started a group called The Atmosphere at an abandoned summer camp in New Jersey for men to receive job training, coping skills, emotional support, housing, appropriately sized meals, and strategies for living safely out of the spotlight, if this was a place where you were free to be your truest self, where your earnings could support a community that values and admires you, what would you say? Sign me up.

  How do I join?
/>   That’s what I need.

  Can I start today?

  The Atmosphere is your family now. The Atmosphere is my family now.

  The Atmosphere is my family now.

  The Atmosphere is my family now.

  The Atmosphere is my family now.

  twenty

  FOUR WEEKS AFTER the men arrived, Dyson mailed a letter to the news station that covered the Hertz Shirts incident. Inside was a single document: a questionnaire titled “The Difficulties of Manhood.” Dyson created the document in secret and mailed it in secret; he knew I wouldn’t approve of bringing unneeded attention to us. But he was adamant about correcting the false narrative that I was running The Atmosphere.

  “I want to keep your name out of the press,” he said as he set up the cabin’s hot spot following the lecture. The station planned to run a story about us on the ten o’clock news.

  “Are you trying to save my reputation or establish yours?”

  “You always think the worst of me,” he said.

  “Not always,” I said, but apologized nonetheless. It was true that I was losing confidence in him. The pressure of running a cult was eroding our friendship. We sniped. We griped. We willfully disengaged from the sort of conversations we had once considered essential to the success of The Atmosphere. At night, I no longer asked him how the lecture had gone; he no longer asked what the men and I discussed during PIEs. Most nights, when he returned after the lecture, we tuned each other out over movies, pretending the day hadn’t happened. Rather than try to regain the openness he and I once shared, I began to imagine opening up to Peter instead, assuming it would be easier to create something new than recover what I was losing with Dyson.