The Light Years

by Chris Rush

  “Well, good. Then listen to me. It’s not really safe here. It’s okay tonight while I’m around, but…” She asked if I had anywhere to go.

  I told her about my sister in Tucson.

  “Good—go see your sister. You don’t belong here. You’re a good kid, I can tell. I’m a mother and it’s my job to say it—you need to go home. You hear me?”

  * * *

  KURT CORNERED ME. “What did you say to that bitch last night?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Get in the van,” he said. “Get in the fucking van!”

  We weren’t going anywhere—Kurt just wanted a private place to bully me. Inside, he pushed me against the door and said he needed some of my money—Now.

  “No,” I said—but when he pushed me harder, I said, “Okay, stop.” I gave him one of my dad’s hundred-dollar bills.

  “Will you at least give me a ride to the highway?”

  “Fuck you.”

  * * *

  I CALLED MY SISTER from a pay phone and told her things had changed. I was hitchhiking to Tucson.

  “Hitching’s really easy,” she said. “It shouldn’t take more than a day. Call me as soon as you get here. We’ll have tamales!”

  10.

  Blackout

  STANDING AT THE ON-RAMP to Interstate 25, I held up my shaky little sign.

  In blue magic marker: TUCSON!

  Three hundred miles to go.

  At ten in the morning, it was already a hundred degrees, but I felt energized, full of coffee from my little restaurant. Also, I hadn’t done any dope, even a puff of pot, for nearly two weeks. The cars and trucks zoomed by quickly; the sixteen-wheelers made me nervous—the way the ground shook beneath my feet. But in less than five minutes a white pickup pulled over. The two guys in front didn’t smile when I approached the window. Both had black hair and identical mustaches. Maybe they were brothers.

  In my most cheerful voice, I said, “I’m headed to Tucson!”

  Without a word, the guy in the passenger seat pointed to the back with his thumb. The bed of the old Chevy was loaded with engine parts. I climbed up and crouched against the cab with my backpack, trying not to get grease on my clothes. I had on my best T-shirt, white with flowers on the front.

  The smell of motor oil was intense.

  We lurched onto the interstate. It was very windy in the back but the hot air was fresh, and the mountains were beautiful. I watched a black bird soar across the sky.

  That’s the last thing I remember.

  11.

  Marjorie

  FOR A LONG TIME, I’m tied up in the dark, screaming.

  When the lights come on, I see that I’m in an empty room. A man in white clothing tells me to calm down. But I start screaming again.

  The darkness returns.

  * * *

  WHEN I WAKE, my throat is raw—and coursing through the rest of my body is the most remarkable pain. But even more remarkable is the fact that my mother is there in the room, whispering to me. After some consideration, I decide she is real. “Chris,” she says, “everything is okay. You’re safe now.”

  When I look down, I see that I’m naked and that there’s a tube in my dick. Leather straps are holding me down. The tiles in the room are gleaming like water. I see blood and bandages.

  Then my mother’s gone. I’m screaming again.

  I fall into a hole I spend the rest of the night trying to climb out of.

  * * *

  “WHERE AM I?” I say when the light returns.

  Plainly, my mother says, “Albuquerque.”

  I thought I left Albuquerque.

  Mom explains that the hospital had called her the day before. She got on a plane. “I just arrived last night. Chris, I don’t understand what happened. Do you?” Doctors come in and examine me. They, too, ask me if I remember anything.

  Nothing.

  They shine a light in my eyes. When they touch my body, I cry. They take my mother into the hallway. I’m gone again.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY, I wake up in another room—blindingly bright, high above the city. I can see the upper floors of office buildings outside my window. It’s frightening to be so high up, but at least there are no longer straps on my bed. I can move my arms and legs—though just barely.

  Mom says, “Good morning, darling. How do you feel?”

  She gives me some water. I drink it with a straw and croak, “I’m awake.”

  A doctor removes my catheter. It hurts like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Afterward, Mom helps me walk to the bathroom and holds me up so I can pee. Again, the unreal pain. But the worst thing is seeing myself in the mirror. Everything is ruined. I do not understand my face.

  Tired. I’m so tired. Back in bed, I only want to sleep, but Mom can’t help herself. “Why in God’s name did you hitchhike? Donna told me. And I looked in your wallet. It’s full of money!”

  Is Mom mad at me? I close my eyes.

  * * *

  I’M CONFUSED. There’s an old woman in the room. At first, I think it’s Loey, my grandmother. But she’s dead and the face is wrong. This woman looks like a person who’s lived a hundred years in the sun. She has dark skin, elaborately wrinkled, and pale blue eyes.

  “Chris, hello, I’m Marjorie Forsyth. I’m the one who found you in the desert. I’m so glad you’re all right. You scared my sister and me to death. We’ve been so concerned, haven’t slept a wink for days.”

  She touches my hand and I apologize. “I don’t remember you.”

  Mom is suddenly there. She takes over. “Thank you for coming by, Ms. Forsyth. I’m sorry to put you to so much trouble. But can you please explain what happened?”

  A dark look comes over Marjorie’s face. She hesitates a long time before speaking.

  “Mrs. Rush, maybe we should do this later?” She looks at me, concerned.

  But Mother is impatient. “Please, just tell me.”

  “All right,” Marjorie says, pausing as my mother gets her a chair.

  “We live in the area—my sister Kate and I—and we were driving home from our shopping day in town. County Road Six, about twenty miles from the freeway. Not a lot of traffic out there, just locals. Well, we saw a white pickup truck moving quite fast, and there was a boy in the back of the truck, standing up and—”

  She turns to me at this point; I can feel my lips quivering.

  “You were waving your arms and yelling, though we couldn’t hear you. Kate thought maybe you were calling out to us. We knew something was terribly wrong. You threw your bag out of the truck.”

  Marjorie is crying now; she takes a moment to compose herself. “And then we saw the truck speed up, it was just flying—and oh my Lord, you jumped, you just … such a horrible thing to see!”

  She dabs at her eyes with a tissue. “The truck took off as fast as it could. And we pulled over, we found you in the dirt, just covered with blood. At first, we thought you were dead, but then you started moaning. I stayed with you the whole time while my sister went to call an ambulance…”

  My mother is crying now, too.

  “I was just soaked in your blood,” Marjorie says. “And, of course, we stayed at the hospital as long as we could. The doctor promised us you would live, praise God. We were so grateful. You’re just a baby.”

  For some reason, I feel ashamed. I want to hide my head under the blanket.

  “Thank you for coming,” my mother says—a dismal tone in her voice.

  “Of course,” Marjorie says, standing. “Please know that I’ve given a whole report to the police. They’ll try to find those men.”

  “Why don’t I walk you to your car?” Mother suggests.

  Before she goes, Marjorie takes my hand. She asks me if I know how to pray.

  I tell her yes, and she says, “You keep on praying.”

  * * *

  WHEN MOTHER COMES back into the room, she sits in the chair where Marjorie told her story. She’s quiet for a long time.

&nbs
p; “You were doing drugs, weren’t you?” she finally says.

  “No,” I tell her.

  “Don’t deny it. We found marijuana in your bedroom.”

  “Mom, I haven’t had any drugs in weeks.”

  “Oh, in weeks!”

  “Mom, really, I wasn’t on anything when this happened.”

  “Well, why else would you jump from the back of a truck?”

  I open my mouth to say something, but Mother holds up her hand.

  “You should rest, Chris.” And then: “We’ll send that woman some roses.”

  * * *

  FIVE DAYS LATER, I was released with a severe concussion, lacerations, but no broken bones. A miracle, the doctors said. Seeing my bent backpack and bloody clothes by the door of our motel, I couldn’t stop crying.

  Mom threw it all away. She ordered us grilled cheese sandwiches from the motel café and we ate them in our room, watching soap operas. There were two beds, but that night Mom let me sleep next to her, as if I were still her baby.

  The next day, wearing new jeans and a white oxford, I sat beside my mother on a plane to Tucson. It was a great relief to be leaving Albuquerque, but even from ten thousand feet I could see the gray dirt where I’d been left for dead.

  At the gate in Tucson, my sister and Vinnie were waiting, unprepared for the horror show of my face. When Donna saw me, she ran into my mother’s arms, hysterical.

  Once everyone calmed down, Vinnie whispered to me, “You are fucked up, man. Here.” He slipped me a joint.

  * * *

  THOUGH WE SAW Donna every day, Mom had no interest in staying at my sister’s tiny bungalow. We took a room at a luxury resort near the University of Arizona. There was a big swimming pool and a fancy restaurant.

  I was in pain, but was glad to be with Mom. But whenever we were alone, she could only talk about Donna.

  “Your poor sister. She could have had anything in the world and this is where she ends up—the Inferno. And Vinnie—pretending he’s Jesus. What he needs is a job.”

  “Mom, he’s a Catholic, like us. Don’t be mean.”

  My head was throbbing from the concussion. “Mom, did you ever send flowers to Ms. Forsyth?”

  “I did. I sent her a mountain.”

  Seeing my opportunity, I said, “Mom, why do you think that truck went faster after I stood up?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I reminded her of all Marjorie had told us.

  “Who?”

  “Ms. Forsyth. It’s just totally bizarre,” I continued. “If someone stands up in a truck, you slow down. You don’t go eighty miles an hour. I mean, I must have had a reason to jump.”

  “I think you’re all mixed up, honey. The doctors told me you were delirious when you were brought in.”

  “Yeah, that’s called a head injury.”

  * * *

  LATER, AFTER I’D GONE to bed, I overheard her talking to Donna on the phone: “I spoke to the police. Evidently, your brother went a little crazy. ‘A psychotic episode brought on by drugs’ is what the police told me. Best not to bring it up and upset him again. He’s a bit unstable right now.” I couldn’t understand why she was making things up.

  I was so mad that she kept insisting I’d been “on drugs” that I refused to have breakfast with her the following morning. Instead, I went outside and smoked the joint Vinnie had given me.

  * * *

  ON A BLINDINGLY bright morning, Mom and I drove out to the San Xavier Mission, a Tucson tourist attraction. The church, hundreds of years old, was a sort of haunted house, the interior encrusted with centuries of soot and wax. Worm-eaten statues, dead as fence posts, loomed above Indian women mumbling rosaries in the dark. In a corner, I found a statue of San Xavier, his cloak covered with handwritten prayers. I read the ones in English. Please, San Xavier, let me walk again! San Xavier, heal my husband! San Xavier, my son is at war. Please protect him!

  Pinned to a ratty blanket below the saint’s feet were hundreds of tiny metal charms—arms and legs and eyes, even donkeys and pigs. People prayed for so many different reasons.

  My amnesia after the accident frightened me—so I prayed to have my memory restored. As soon as I asked, I knew it was a mistake. I prayed again, telling San Xavier that I’d rather not know.

  Just make me better. Make the headaches go away.

  In the gloom, I watched my mother lighting a candle and imagined it was for me. On her head was a silk scarf and big black sunglasses to hide any tears. Her piety made me feel safe. I loved her again—the glamorous woman praying in pink.

  I understood why she had to believe that drugs had caused the accident. She didn’t want anyone to blame her for what had happened—to think that she’d put a child in danger by letting him go off alone with a stranger. It was better to say I’d gone crazy.

  I walked across the church and took her hand.

  She said, “Your brothers will wring my neck if I don’t bring them souvenirs.”

  At a curio shop downtown, Mom and I wandered past endless Arizona clichés: bolo ties, cowboy hats, kachina dolls floating like spacemen across the wall. In wooden cases, silver jewelry was stacked up, cheap as candy.

  “I have no idea what to get your brothers. Who knows what they like.”

  I knew exactly, and knowing made me miss them. I told Mom what she needed: A drum for Mike. A geode for Steve. A tomahawk for Danny.

  We gathered up the loot.

  “Mom, I want a tomahawk, too.”

  “Why?”

  “To defend myself.” Shaking one of the axes, I growled—perhaps a bit too loudly. Mom frowned, and I put down the toy. Instead, she bought me turquoise beads, slipping them over my head like a halo. “That’s better.”

  She bought a matching strand for Donna, as if we were twins.

  That afternoon my sister joined us, and we all went to the corner store for ice cream. Slurping our cones in the sun, she said, “Faster, before everything melts.”

  Still emerging from shock, I didn’t want to be alone for more than a few minutes. Without Mom and Donna, I worried I might fade away forever.

  * * *

  BY SEEMINGLY MIRACULOUS means, my bruises and cuts began to heal. I walked with a slight limp, but at least I could find my face again in the mirror. The headaches came less frequently.

  After two weeks in Tucson, Mom said it was time to leave.

  I asked her if I could stay with Donna a little longer.

  “You’ve just spent two weeks with your sister.”

  “I still miss her.”

  “And you don’t miss me?”

  I told her, of course I did.

  “Then fine, you can stay.”

  12.

  Sixteen Kilos

  DONNA AND VINNIE’S BUNGALOW had one bedroom and one bathroom. It was the size of a doghouse. But I was overjoyed to sleep on the lumpy couch, to never be more than a few feet from Donna’s door.

  I started having nightmares. I’d had bad dreams my whole life—but these were worse. No longer just monsters and devils, but now a new kind of dread—humans. I was running from people who were somehow more frightening, and more plausible, than monsters.

  Always, I was running.

  Before she left, Mother had set an appointment for me with a Tucson neurologist, but somehow Donna and I spaced out on the date. My sister said she’d take me to see her chiropractor instead.

  “What about my stitches?”

  “Oh, Vinnie can do it.”

  One morning, after breakfast, I asked Donna if we could visit Valentine and Jo. Donna said, “Sure, I have an errand out there anyway. Gotta pick up product for my next run.”

  * * *

  ON A HUNDRED-DEGREE afternoon, my sister and I drove through saguaro forests, down miles of dirt roads into the deep desert. I thought of the gray dirt of Albuquerque and started to feel uneasy. A metal gate blocked our path—then opened magically just as we approached. On a small rise, a white building came into view, g
leaming like a crystal in the sun. A pregnant Jo was waiting for us outside. She kissed me gently on my Frankenstein face. “Oh, Chris.” I knew she wanted to cry, but I laughed to show her I was all right.

  We went inside through an air-conditioned garage stacked with hundreds of huge candles—red, purple, and green. Jo explained, “We manufacture these. Aren’t they fantastic? We use essential oils, mostly patchouli.”

  I whispered to Donna, “They sell candles?”

  She winked at me. “Uh-huh.”

  As we walked past a huge indoor pool under a glass dome, I wondered if Valentine was now richer than my father. Jo led us through a maze of rooms and terraces until we found Valentine, standing before a wall of windows. A desert moonscape rose up behind him. It was like a scene in a science-fiction movie.

  From across galaxies: A reunion!

  Valentine kissed my sister and shook my hand. In the stark light, he appraised my injuries. “Next time, pick a fight you can win, okay? You upset your sister very much.”

  After waiting all summer to see him, I was too shy to speak. Valentine was as handsome as ever, in a white shirt and jeans, a silver concho belt strung on his thin waist. All around him was product, being readied for shipment. Slabs of hash, bricks of reefer, yellow pills in plastic bags …

  He saw me staring. “People gotta get high—right, brother?”

  “Yeah, for sure.”

  Donna and Jo floated away in their gauzy dresses, arm in arm. They’d known each other since they were little girls in New Jersey—and now they were women, living on the moon.

  Valentine said, “Did you know I used to sell fireworks when I was a kid?”