This is Not the End

by Jesse Jordan

  Knowing and having, however, are very different things. James had the backstory; in fact, the longer he had it, the more it grew. As he read and reread it, the characters grew history and depth. Eliza was a rich girl from Philadelphia whose parents disowned her when she joined the military, Erik had been a closeted homosexual, Eliza once almost killed another girl in a fight when she was younger, Erik was afraid of the dark now, and on and on. But still, James did not have the story. What he had were plans—and fantasies, of course; he had them too.

  His fantasies outside of the comic were simple. The book is discovered and he is given carte blanche. The youngest artist/writer in Marvel (or DC; that’s fine too) history. Fearless comes out and the comic community goes mad. How could someone this young be this good? How could he be so insightful? How could his characters be so fully realized, so expertly imagined? He pictured himself sitting in that same auditorium in the Harold Washington Library, only this time he’s up on the stage. He pictured the adoring fans who drove from all over the Midwest to see him. People crowd into the space, whispering and pointing. They look from the comic to James, then down and back again. “How can it be?”

  Then they all come by—Nick and Ileana and Colin and LaMarcus and Jess and all of their friends, Ms. Adderley and Mr. Gere and Mom and Dad—they all come. The whole town comes, one by one, and they see Fearless, and they see him. They finally get it. They can see him now. And then Dorian comes, and as she flips through the comic, she starts to cry because she can see the characters for who they really are, and she wipes away the tears and smiles, and—making a little joke of it—she asks James to sign her copy. And he does, and he’s not sure what he writes, but he writes something great and cool, and she looks at him—sees him—like she’s supposed to.

  5. The Possibilities of the Violin (rejoin)

  The next day was a Friday—the first toxic-hot morning since last summer—and it felt to James that it should be a monumental day. But it wasn’t. It was an odd day, made more so by its conventionality.

  Is something going to happen now?

  James felt like he was existing in two places at once. There was the James walking to school, going through the halls, eating lunch, and sitting in class. But that James was empty. It was as if he’d sent a copy of himself. The other James had retreated to a dark room inside to be alone and think. And that’s what he did, though it seemed to go nowhere. Every course of thought led to the same logical conclusion: It’s true. But whatever part of him graded the answers refused to accept that, and so he was sent back to redo the problem once more.

  He avoided Ezra that day, though how intentional that was, it’s hard to say. Twice—the only times that he remembered Ezra’s words in an opportune moment—he tried the trick from the day before.19 Just like Ezra said. He pictured himself as that man from the stage—No, not “that man.” Me. It’s me—pictured himself as happy and confident, and he smiled.20 And while it did work both times, it took quite a lot of effort. It was difficult to hold on to happiness and confidence, though it did seem to be getting easier the more he did it.

  The final bell rang at 2:50. James would’ve sworn he’d only been in the building an hour or so, but he grabbed his bag and merged into the highway of exiting children all the same.

  A black Escalade turned left onto Wisconsin Avenue just as James stepped out the front doors, and for the first time in hours, he snapped back into the present. It’s probably just a normal Escalade. The world’s full of them.

  Or, it could be THEM.

  Though who THEY were, James had no idea.

  He took the bus home anyway. It seemed somehow safer than walking, being in the cocoon of the bus, under the purview of institutions and adults, under School District 77 and Russ the bus driver.21

  When James got off the bus, he fully expected to see another Escalade, but the street was empty except for a decade-old Chevy picking up some girl he didn’t know. The quiet, tree-lined street seemed to mock his paranoia as he walked home or, rather, as he began to walk. He found it impossible to stop checking. (What’s that? What’s that sound? What if one of the Escalades came around the corner right now?) He couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him, and so his walk became a trot, trot to jog, and then a full sprint down the last half block and up the front stairs. He slammed the door behind himself and looked out at the world, full now of horrors he’d never even imagined.

  19. He couldn’t help but think of it as a trick. James, like most people, tended to treat the opinions of those who disliked him as rock-solid insight.

  20. The first time he smiled at Ileana Soto, which he would have never had the courage to do outside of his current fugue state. Ileana looked over at Ceasar (Almedina, who she’d been seeing for the last month or so), and when she was sure he wasn’t looking, she smiled back.

  The other smile was directed at a blonde freshman that James didn’t know. He was pretty sure her name was Rachel or Raquel or something. She reacted to his smile by giggling and rushing off toward her friends. James wondered what she’d say when she got there.

  21. Though tangential to this tale, Russell Lawrence Zoller, it bears noting, has stories enough to fill his own book. What the children on the bus and the parents loading and unloading them never saw was the smattering of tattoos that hid beneath his clothes: illustrations that called back to his time with Special Forces, specifically 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (Delta Force) by way of the 75th Ranger Regiment. After an unfortunate series of events at the end of his active career (possible PTSD-related late-onset mood disorder, as well as blossoming addictions to alcohol and Vicodin) resulted in a quiet discharge, he began a wandering sort of period, working first for a private security contractor, then training Garamba National Park rangers in the Democratic Republic of Congo for their war against poachers, followed by a stint working as a glorified bodyguard for a Greek billionaire, and then the teensiest little stretch doing transport security for some multinational interests smuggling heroin out of Afghanistan.

  Now, here he was back in his hometown of Stone Grove, taking care of his ill mother at the end of her life; just watching the wheels go ’round. He spent most of his time, when he wasn’t caring for her, drinking at Moon’s Pub, trying to figure out where he was supposed to go from here. He’d started driving the buses a couple months ago, and he liked it just fine. He found it calming and thought of it as a sort of vacation from himself. Every vacation, though, is temporary by definition, and in almost six months his mother will be dead, and two months after that he’ll be gone. In fact, exactly one year after this day when James decides to take the bus, Russ the bus driver will be in bed with an assistant to the president of the Deutsche Bundesbank, embroiled in a plot to make counterfeit Euros.

  6. The Homunculus

  Gray dirt—is it dirt? Gray sand? Small hills in the distance swaying in the fog. Smog? It’s wet and shimmering and, and I’m in some kind of valley, the same everywhere, as if I’m surrounded by photocopies. No, not everywhere. There, up ahead . . . dark, and I’m moving towards it. Not walking. Like I’m being pulled. As I get closer I notice the ground sloping in—and I see it. It’s a hole—no, no, not a hole—a Pit. Like a wound in the ground. No edges—the ground just flows into it. Even before I can see down, I know it’s deep. It’s still pulling me, like it’s got its own gravity. How big is it? How deep?

  Scrape-thump. Scraaaape-thump. Scrape-thump.

  I see his head first, and I try to run away but something’s holding me there. He’s coming up from the Pit, so that I see him a bit at a time. His head is bald—huge—bigger than any I’ve ever seen. Tiny eyes, close to the nose, which is bent down so far I can’t see the nostrils—oh, god! His arms and chest! His arms are the size of a normal man’s waist, and his chest is like the front of a car. He’s naked and fat, and his skin glistens as if wet. He drips as he clears the top of the Pit and stands there. His feet grip the ground like a bird’s, but it seems to flow ar
ound the talons. He’s got to be thirteen or fourteen feet tall, and his hands—those monstrous fingers tapering to a point, spotted with something . . . meat? His hands hang at my eye level, and though some part of me is screaming to turn and run, I stand where I am and watch this thing breathe.

  His little, dark mouth opens. “I am Leviathan. I am waiting for you.”

  “What?”

  “I am Leviathan. I am waiting for the One.”

  “Am I . . . ?”

  “I am to allow no one but the One to enter. I am Leviathan, and I am waiting for you.”

  “Why?”

  “I do not understand your question.”

  For a second, I can’t think how to continue. “Who told you that I was the One?”

  “I do not understand. You are the One. I am Leviathan.”

  “Yes, okay, I get that you’re Leviathan. How do you know that I’m the One?”

  He’s confused. Not annoyed or angry, though; just confused. Patient. “I know you are the One because you are the One. I am Leviathan, and I am to allow only the One to enter. I stop all others. You are allowed to enter. You are the One.”

  “Okay, uh, nobody told you I was the One, so . . . how about, do you remember when you were told that you were supposed to guard this place and only let me—I mean, the One—in?”

  “I do not understand.”

  “When did you get your orders?”

  “What is when?”

  “What is when?”

  “Yes.”

  “When. Not now. Some other time. Y’know, if not now, then when?”

  “I am now.”

  I stare at this monster. The liquid doesn’t seem to dry on him, as if it is him. I’m not afraid anymore, just aggravated. It feels like I’m trying to argue with the wind.

  Suddenly, he turns. He’s amazingly quick for his mass, and his feet chew up the ground as he walks. “Here,” he says, and I’m standing next to him. “I am Leviathan, and you are the One. I am to allow the One passage, and the One is to descend these steps.”

  I look down, and for an instant, I think my heart has hardened in my chest. I can’t breathe. It’s like standing at the edge of space and looking down at your house. We’re at the edge of the Pit, and now I can see it’s at least two or three football fields across. There, at my feet, is a small ledge, which leads to a thin, vertical staircase. It rings the Pit as it descends. It has no railing, no visible support of any kind, except for the side of the Pit.

  “If you do not descend, then you are not the One,” the giant says, and I look up at him. “If you are not the One, then you cannot descend. If the One cannot descend, then I serve no purpose. I am not Leviathan.”

  I look down again. The steps eventually disappear into darkness. Swallowed. The word repeats in my head.

  “I am Leviathan,” he says, “and you must descend the steps.”

  James became aware that he was awake at 3:54 a.m. The dream remained vivid in his mind, even down to the mildew-and-blood-iron smell of the giant. He lay in bed and watched the dream as it replayed, losing clarity each time. Then, sometime around 4:30, the dream receded enough that he became conscious of himself, awake in his dark room.

  The room looked different. For a moment he saw it as if it were already a memory. He could see himself looking back as an older man, and in that moment, an illusion of security which he’d never even realized existed was gone, and he recognized that this was just a room. It was like a thousand others and held no intrinsic value. It would appear in his memories as the chrysalis of his adolescence, but that’s only because it happened to be his room. He could’ve had any of a thousand other rooms and the feelings would’ve been exactly the same.

  This realization felt somehow profound to James. It seemed to hint at something else—some greater, more valuable understanding just out of his reach—but the more he thought about it, the thinner the threads became. Within a few minutes, the thought had lost its potency and drifted into memory itself. A few minutes after that, he was asleep again.

  Days melted. James chased sleep at night, unable to slow his mind, and filled the days with clipped naps, from which he awoke like a guard on duty. Snippets of the dream replayed: thin, stone steps descending and circling, disappearing into darkness. Real-life vertigo.

  Time passed in such a blur that at one point, James just sort of noticed he was at school. Apparently, another week had started. Apparently, it was Tuesday already.

  James and Ezra saw each other in the halls and at lunch, but while they made eye contact and one or the other occasionally nodded, neither made any further attempt at communication.

  One thought repeated in James’s head as the days piled up: If I accept what he says, then what?

  What now?

  Dorian Delaney lived in the complete opposite direction of James. Every day, when school ended, James would watch as she walked away, bouncing and energetic. Often she was lost in a cloud of other girls, individuals reporting back to the group with the day’s reconnaissance. What was learned about this guy or that couple, which teacher was a bitch, which one was a freak, who said who was a slut, what said slut said in response, et cetera, et cetera. Of course, the group allowed that all nations protected their own personal sensitive data; no confessions were required. James watched them with fascination.

  Dorian enjoyed the group—that was obvious—but she didn’t seem as needy of it, or as scared of it, as the rest of them did. If a natural group didn’t form quickly and organically, she didn’t wait forever or go off looking for companionship. She would simply cut off her waiting with a decisive flip of her hair and walk home alone.

  James had been waiting for just such an opportunity, and that Friday his chance arose. It was a true end-of-the-school-year kind of day, hot and humid and sun-wrapped, but with the singular charity of a strong, cool breeze. It felt like the first day of summer, and in many ways, this day would be the beginning of James’s summer.

  As soon as she began to stroll home, he made after her. White shoes, pale skin, abbreviated jean shorts, white sleeveless blouse—he trailed with purpose, throwing in a few seconds of jogging every couple of yards, careful not to run.

  James caught up to her by the end of the block with an offhand, “Hey, Dorian.” He’d rehearsed a story about an errand that necessitated his walking this direction, but since Dorian didn’t question it—she just smiled and asked how he was—he let it go.

  “Good,” he said. “Good. You?”

  “I’m awesome.”

  “Awesome?”

  “Practice was cancelled this afternoon. I seriously can’t tell you the last time I just, like, had a whole afternoon to myself to do whatever I want.” Her red hair was pulled back from her bright face in a tight ponytail that bobbed with each step. It was beautiful, and James felt his adoration growing each time it bounced. He was happy; doubly happy that she was happy. “You know what I think I’m gonna do?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She smiled to herself, enjoying some private triumph. “I’m gonna lay out in the backyard and tan. Then I’m gonna make lemonade and cook a pizza and just sit in front of the TV.”

  “That’s wonderful,” he said, feeling the awkward formality of it even as it left his mouth.

  Dorian half smiled and checked him out of the corner of her eye. “Yeah,” she said.

  He had to speak. Every nanosecond he allowed to pass was just another filled only with his awkwardness, his missteps. It was imperative that he move the conversation. Say something. But nothing came to him, and so they walked in silence for another half block and she sipped from her water bottle22 as if covering for him like an actor who’s forgotten his lines, until a thought finally floated to the surface.

  “I, uh, when I was heading to English today,” James began, “I heard this girl—she’s a junior, I think. April, I think. A tall, like, dark-haired girl . . .”

  “Yeah, I know her. What about her?” Dorian’s look was equal parts
expectant and pensive.

  “She said she was in Mr. Llewellyn’s class today—she was wearing a short dress thing I guess, and she said he knocked a pen off his desk on purpose and then, when he leaned over to pick it up, he tried to look up her skirt.”

  “Oh my god, he’s such a perv!” In her affronted agitation, she seemed to turn toward James and speed up at the same time. At once she launched into a diatribe about Mr. Llewellyn, and as she walked, her lips animated each word and her hands held the ideas out in front of James before shoving them aside. He peeped the muscles of her calf as she moved a half step ahead, and followed the leg up. “No one knows, ’cause maybe he was doing pervy stuff forever. But like ten years ago, he had this student—I think she was Japanese or Chinese or something—she was a real quiet girl, I guess. But he had her stay after school—not like a trouble thing, just like an extra-credit smart-girl thing, and I don’t think he raped her but he definitely did something. I mean, she agreed to it, you know? He, like, fingered her or made her give him a blow job or something. Anyway, I guess it kept going on and became like a regular thing. But she wrote about it in her diary and her mom found it and confronted her and called the cops. So Mr. Llewellyn got arrested and put on suspension, but the girl stole her diary back and burnt it and refused to say anything, so the cops had to let him go. Her parents moved her away, and the school had to take him back. So now he’s, like, more careful about it, but he’s still a total perv.”23