A Lite Too Bright

by Samuel Miller

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  It was cold outside, the kind that grips every part of your body and doesn’t let go. I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up over my head and walked up the broken concrete walkway. Branches from the willow tree flung upward in front of me in the wind, like they were trying to hide the house.

  The closer I got, the surer I was that it was deserted. No human could live like this. The windows were haphazardly boarded, and there were tree branches and remnants of old storms across the lawn. I wondered if this was the same house that my grandfather had found. I wondered if he’d even made it this far.

  A few stray drops of rain found my face as I reached the door. I pulled open the outer screen and knocked.

  “What is it you’re looking for?” Mason’s voice cut through the wind.

  “Some kind of clue.”

  “In there?” Mason covered his eyes to look through the window. “Here’s an important what if—what if she died in there?”

  “She didn’t die in there.”

  “You think the person who lived here didn’t die in this house? You know if she is dead, you’re the first suspect.”

  “I’d be able to smell it.” I tried knocking again, slamming on the front door as hard as I could, but nothing happened.

  “What if you find her, and you accidentally spit or come or something and your DNA is on—”

  “How would I accidentally come?”

  “Maybe she was super hot—”

  “Jesus, Mason.”

  “Still,” he said, leaning against the siding. There was a ring on his left hand, and he rapped it against the old wood. “Will you at least tell me what brought you here?”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “Arthur, I understand why you’re—”

  “Then good.”

  “But we’ve known each other ten years, and that was one—”

  “Mason. We’re fine.”

  I tried knocking again, slamming on the front door as hard as I could, but nothing happened.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

  I knocked again, even harder, almost breaking the wood.

  Mason watched. “I think . . . you’re expecting too much.”

  “I’m not expecting anything.” The handle was barely clinging to chipped wood around it, and without much effort, it clicked and let the door fall open.

  “I’m sorry, Arthur.” No sound came from inside the house, but the wind outside threatened to pull up several boards from the porch around me.

  I ignored him. The air inside was stale, like it had been circulating inside for years. It was dark, but the moonlight showed rough outlines of what waited inside.

  It was full of clutter. There were at least thirty old wooden chairs, haphazardly set around the room. Paintings were spread at random, and a table in the back was piled high with junk. Behind that were dozens of boxes. I motioned inside to no one. “Look, it’s a junk house. People throw their trash in here because they know eventually the city will deal with it. No dead people.”

  But the wind didn’t answer.

  I went to slam the door, but before I did, I froze, noticing something on my hand. The hair was sticking up, ever so slightly. Small goose bumps were forming. The air inside the house was warm. I leaned my whole body inside to confirm. It was at least twenty degrees warmer. Someone was keeping the heat on.

  I slipped in the door.

  It felt like diving into a cave, the only light a narrow beam coming from my cell phone flashlight. There were two tables pushed against the back wall, behind the clusters of chairs, with a dozen boxes piled on top of them. I opened one—it was old records: Led Zeppelin; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; Simon & Garfunkel. They looked used, like someone had bought them for their record player, not just decorative living room props. Another box contained clothes, old, tough fabrics of dresses and dress shirts that I couldn’t imagine anyone wearing. There was another box of plain cloth T-shirts, with old designs for businesses, like THE WATERING HOLE and BIG RAY’S SALOON. Yet another was small paintings and a collection of horseshoes. Several boxes were filled entirely to the brim with books.

  I wandered through an open doorway into a kitchen. The clutter wasn’t just confined to the living room—the whole house seemed full. The kitchen table was covered with appliances: old microwaves and blenders and the occasional power tool. Turning to the far window, my flashlight found another stack of books, and on the very top was a shiny new hardcover with a colored pencil sketch of a wooden shack, set against a gray-purple sky and light green corn. The title text was in light red along the bottom: A World Away by Arthur Louis Pullman.

  I reached for it and behind me, someone laughed.

  I spun around.

  “Mason?” I called out tentatively, shooting the flashlight around the kitchen.

  “Kaitlin?” But the house said nothing.

  I backed into the hallway. I couldn’t see any light, but over the sound of my own breathing, I thought I heard muffled laughter.

  I snuck my way down the hallway, shining a light into every open door. There was a bathroom that was so rusted over, the sink had collapsed into itself. In a hallway closet, there were no clothes, but an enormous stack of Chicago Tribunes that must have dated back forty years. I picked one up, and in the address section in the bottom right corner, it read: Susanne Kopek, 17 Church Street, Elko, Nevada. I swallowed hard and placed it back on the top of the pile.

  As I neared the end of the hallway, the laughter got louder. I could hear it: not just one person, a group of people.

  “Kaitlin, don’t do this to me,” I called again to the silence of another hallway.

  I waited. At the end, there was flickering light coming out from under the only door.

  The reality of finding someone, or multiple someones, caught up to me. What if it wasn’t Sue Kopek?

  I inched toward the door. There was a clock hanging in the hallway; its ticking was the loudest noise in my ears. I synchronized myself with it: tick-tick-tick-step, tick-tick-tick-step. I reached the door and clicked the handle open.

  The smell rushed out, like a refrigerator of spoiled food. The laughter was coming from a small, old television set in the corner, the kind that received its signal from a built-in antenna, and on the screen, a black-and-white program was fading in and out of static. As I pushed the door open farther, I noticed the small windows were covered in tinfoil, blocking any potential light from reaching the room. There was a rotting chest of drawers, a bed with a floral spread on top, and an old woman in a nightgown gingerly sliding down off it.

  Her frail body tensed when she heard the door. She didn’t turn around, her face glued to the far wall, her body halfway between the bed and the floor. One of her bony hands clutched the bedspread.

  “Sue?” I asked.

  She turned. Her face was wrinkled in confusion. She stared at me for a few seconds as if I was a ghost, and then, abruptly, the confusion melted. She had to cough a few times before she could produce words, but when she did, her voice was delicate:

  “Oh, heavens, it’s just you. Hello, Arthur.”

  6.

  May 2, 2010

  Dear Journal,

  My grandpa still hasn’t come home and it’s been five days. I think my parents have decided that he’s probably dead. But I still jump every time I hear the phone.

  I have to walk through the garage and the backyard to get to the kitchen, so I don’t have to see his room or his chair in the living room.

  I thought about praying, or at least reading his favorite part of the Bible, but I couldn’t find it.

  I had a dream last night where he came home and said, “Just kidding! I was testing you, and you passed. I don’t even have early-onset Alzheimer’s or dementia or any neurodegenerative diseases! I’m just your same old regular grandpa. What time do the A’s play?”

  But I know he wouldn’t. He would come home and say, “Who are you? What is it you’re looking for?” and
I’d tell him, and he’d say, “Arthur, that’s a great name,” and then twenty seconds later, he’d ask me again, “Who are you? What is it you’re looking for?”

  I think my biggest fear is that we’ll never find out what happened, and then people will just forget he’s even missing, and in five years my dad will say, “Hey, remember Grandpa?” and everyone will go, “Oh yeah, whatever happened to him?” and I won’t remember him either.

  At least people will still read his book for another—well, people actually don’t even really read books anymore. Hopefully it gets made into a movie, and hopefully they make it 3D.

  That’s all for now. More later,

  Arthur Louis Pullman the Third

  7.

  FOR A MOMENT, I couldn’t form words. My heart slowed to a near stop, and every beat felt too loud in my chest, shattering the stale air in the room.

  I could tell it had been a long time since Sue Kopek—if this was Sue Kopek—had left her bed. She tried several times to prepare herself to drop to the floor, but her body disagreed.

  “Stupid feet,” I heard her mutter.

  “How do you know who I am?”

  In the low light, I couldn’t read her expression exactly, but it didn’t look like fear or surprise.

  “You boys were supposed to be back last week,” she said, her voice parched and dry.

  “Me? What boys?”

  She didn’t react to the question. Instead, she looked around the room, her voice fluttering. “Tell me, where’s Orlo? And Jeffery?”

  “I don’t—I don’t know who those people are.”

  “Well, heavens.” She watched her hands run across the sheets. “You said you were all coming back together. I thought you were going to be late.”

  “Who was supposed to be coming back with, with who?” I asked. I stepped farther into the room and felt woozy in its warmth. “Late for what?”

  A floorboard creaked under my sneaker, and Sue’s eyes shot up from her hand to my face. Her eyes were wide. “Oh heavens, it’s just you! Hello, Arthur.”

  “Yeah, I, I know. I’m sorry, how do you know me?”

  “You boys were supposed to be back last week,” she said. “Tell me, where’s Orlo? And Jeffery?”

  I took several quick steps back, hoping to escape the room’s warm and warped reality. “Who do you think is here with me?” I asked.

  She shrugged, and again she was distracted by the roses and carnations sewn into her bedsheets. It reminded me of Kaitlin’s drunken nonchalance, the way she pretended to care about something else when she couldn’t be bothered to answer a question.

  “How do you know who I am?” I asked again, more insistently.

  She looked up as if she couldn’t believe that I existed. “Well, heavens, Arthur. You boys were supposed to be back last week.”

  Outside, we heard a crack of thunder, followed by a slow, building drum line of raindrops on the roof. There was almost nothing in the room, beyond a small TV set, a bed, and a large pile of ceramic trays, the kind that charity organizations used to bring meals to the elderly.

  “Tell me, where’s Orlo? And Jeffery?” she asked for the third time. Her voice was soft and whimsical, and she lay back against the headboard, her head rolling around gently.

  “I don’t—I don’t know who Orlo is. Or Jeffery.”

  “Arthur.”

  “Yes?”

  She froze and swallowed before speaking. “You boys were supposed to be back last week.”

  “Sue.”

  Her eyes stayed fixed on me. “Yes?”

  “Who do you think is with me?”

  She didn’t respond, so I took a step toward her.

  “Who do you think I am?”

  Her hand clutched the sheet.

  “How do we know each other?”

  I took another step.

  “I—I need to go to sleep, I’m sorry, Arthur,” she said, and her body slid down, disappearing underneath the blanket.

  “Sue, I need you—”

  “You know where the upstairs room is.”

  She pulled the blanket up, trying to escape me beneath her covers.

  “Sue, tell me how you know who I am!” The frustration of ten hours on the train poured out.

  I watched her face shift like the rounded ridge of a puzzle piece snapping into place. I was close enough now to recognize the look: unbothered, vacant, with more questions than answers. There was a perpetual surprise written into her eyebrows and the tops of her cheeks.

  It was the same look my grandfather used to give me every time he lost track of a conversation and started over. My father called it “the reset.” It was the worst, most crippling progression of Alzheimer’s.

  Old age was getting the best of Sue Kopek’s brain, and her resets were dangerously close.

  “Tell me,” she asked. “Where’s Orlo? Or Jeffery?”

  I nodded, swallowing the cocktail of pity and frustration. “I don’t know Orlo, Sue, but I need you to tell me who he is.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” she whispered, and turned over to face the far wall.

  “Sue, please,” I pleaded to the back of her head. “My, my grandfather passed away, a few years ago, his name was Arthur Louis Pullman, and I think he came here, during the last week he was alive, and I’m just trying to understand why. Please, if you hear me at all, tell me how you knew that I was his grandson. Tell me why you wrote him a letter.”

  I stared at her in silence, but she didn’t respond or roll over. If she ever had answers for me, they were long forgotten.

  I turned to make my way upstairs. As I reached the door, her voice stopped me. “Arthur?” It was frail, cracking in the middle of my name.

  “Yeah?”

  “Please take his napkin. I don’t need it anymore.”

  “Whose napkin? Orlo?”

  “Please take it.” She nodded toward the bedside table. “I don’t need it anymore.” I had to squint to see it, but on her bedside table was a crumpled-up used tissue.

  I shuddered at her attachment and continued out the door.

  As it clicked shut, I remembered the cabdriver. I ran back outside, flinging the door open and launching myself out into the pouring rain. I was drenched by the time I hit the end of the porch, my hair washed and my hoodie soaked through and clinging to my body. The cab was gone.

  There were no signs of life within walking distance, and if I was going to make the train back, I had three hours to walk it, through the bitter-cold rain. I slouched back into Sue Kopek’s abandoned mansion.

  In the living room, I found a cotton dress in one of the boxes that I used to dry my hair, then collapsed onto one of the couches. The splattering of rain against the old roof melted into white background noise and it was quiet in the house. Off the vaulted ceilings and through the crowded hallways, I could hear the echoes of Sue’s voice.

  Oh, it’s just you, Arthur.

  Sue Kopek must have thought I was my grandfather. It didn’t matter that I didn’t look like him, that he was an old man and I was a teenager; if her Alzheimer’s was forcing her to relive a moment in which she was waiting for Arthur and I walked through the door, I was Arthur. Alzheimer’s did that—skewed the details to make every moment feel like reliving a memory. To Sue, I had become a character in those memories that had become her reality.

  But as I ran the cotton dress through my hair once more to dry it, I realized what that meant: I was my grandfather. If I could figure out what she was reliving, I could figure out what my grandfather was doing here, and what happened that was so significant that it had frozen her in time.

  I began to pick back through the house. I remembered the copy of A World Away on the kitchen table. It was still glossy and new, and the binding was rigid, like most books before they’re read. I flipped through a few pages and they stuck together in chunks. Whoever received this book had set it down and never touched it again. I opened to the dedication page, hoping there would be an inscription, but there was n
othing. Just the book’s original dedication:

  for great purpose.—A.L.P.

  I sighed. Another meaningless abstraction from the great Arthur Louis Fucking Pullman.

  I climbed carefully to the second floor and pushed doors open at random. Sue had mentioned a room upstairs, but most of the rooms were empty. I tried to use one of the toilets, but there was no water in it.

  At the end of hallway, there was one door left open, a shallow light streaming out of it from the moon.

  I crept toward it, aware of how terrifyingly large this house was in the middle of the night. The old light fixtures and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling were covered in cobwebs. Candleholders jutted into the middle of the hallway, holding more wax than candle.

  I peeked around the corner. The window was covered in splatters, the residue of large raindrops, hundreds more streaking it every minute. It was the only bedroom, other than Sue’s, that wasn’t empty. There was a single mattress, directly in the center of the hardwood floor, with a blanket and pillow on top.

  Next to the mattress, cleanly gathered, was a pile of tiny, ripped shards of paper.

  My grandfather had been here.

  My brain kicked into overdrive. This was exactly what my father had described in his funeral speech, five years ago. Shreds of paper my grandfather left behind. I overturned the mattress and rifled through the pillow and blanket. There was nothing.

  I tried to think, but my brain was clouded with exhaustion and frustration. The paper was left behind to be discovered, like he wanted me to know he was writing, like he’d left a clue. I ran back through the kitchen and dug into the boxes of books and loose paper, searching for something with my grandfather’s scrawl.

  I thought about the first poem, the “you” that he had been writing toward. Was it Sue Kopek? If it was, he would have been writing for her, and likely would have left it for her. It made sense, if that’s who he was writing to, but the only things I’d seen in Sue’s room were the television, the trays of old food, and—

  The napkin. She had made such a big deal about the napkin, his napkin.