To widen my perspective, I crack open the lobby door and peek outside. The Anti-American forces are across the street, near the newly arrived military vehicles but further down. Mortar shells are launched northeast of the motel while simultaneously covering a small advancing squadron is covered with machine gun fire. The Americans fan out behind and around the building – they’re being shot at and hit – as stray civilians recklessly try to abandon the combat zone. The distances and placements of the various entities are about what I expected based on the sounds. It amazes me that I got it right.
With the Americans clearly on the defensive, I anticipate more movement from the opposition – and sure enough five soldiers from the Anti-American forces jog across the parking lot. They are close. I can see their battle-scarred faces.
I wait. Based on the attack patterns, a break in the symphony of war should be coming right about now.
It comes.
I run-
THE WAR ZONE
-into the cloud of debris and ash and I keep my head down and go go go towards my Mazda, pounding the remote unlock button on my key chain so many times that the car may never lock again. I hear four or five different languages shout, and feet stomp, and a plane flies overhead. Gunfire comes at me. I swerve because I’ve read that that’s what you’re supposed to do if someone shoots at you, and I reach and grab the handle on my car door, popping it open as bullets sweep the truck in front of me. I get in my car and lock it as if that matters. I battle my quaking hands to get the key in the ignition and the engine started and there’s more gunfire. But my car starts and I back up and spin the wheel despite not being able to see anything through the post-destruction particles that have taken over the air. I think I remember the outlay of the parking lot. I’m thankful for that but unthankful for the onrushing foreign voices and the clattering of boots on the pavement. I can’t see. I really can’t. And the mortars and the machine guns and their residual impact on property and infrastructure are so loud, so much louder than they were two minutes ago, that I can’t think, and I’m pretty sure I run over at least one man while my car is lacerated by bullets. I drive with my head below the steering wheel since I can’t see anyway and I turn the car and I think I’m on the street and I wait to barrel into a tank or a Hummer or a helicopter or something that will put a stop to all of this but it doesn’t happen, not now, not yet. I flick the switch on my windshield wipers just as bullets demolish my back window and blow a gaping hole in my dashboard. The wipers tick upwards and some of the ash clears away in favor of blood and grey matter and flesh. I spray fluid on the window and turn the wipers up to high and most importantly I lift my eyes above the steering wheel. There is open road ahead, and it is the most precious thing I have ever seen. Waiting for more gunfire, I bury my foot into the gas pedal. I know it will come at some point, but it doesn’t come now and for the first time in a long time I smile and actually mean it.
THE HILL ON THE HIGHWAY
I have completely lost sight of the war. I can’t even hear it. Somehow the highway to East Cleveland is empty, free from traffic and combat. Everywhere I look I foresee elements of danger appearing over the horizon – a tank, a plane, an explosion, a sniper, a stream of refugees, a battalion of foot soldiers – anything that will end the intermission.
I breathe, managing the moment, and reflect on how I escaped the parking lot. The obvious answer is chance. I got lucky. The bullet that rocked my dashboard could have just as easily torn through my skull. Yet, knowing what I do about the other world, I’m not so sure anything that happens inside of it should be attributed to randomness or an arcane concept like fate. That the layout of the troops was almost exactly like how I imagined it startled me. And, impossibly, I navigated the parking lot without being able to see out of my front windshield. Was that luck, or was it something else? I imagined the layout… And then I saw it. I wanted to make it out of the parking lot. I believed I could… And then I did. I thought about things and then they happened…
It is 1:09 AM. I’m passing the suburb of Rocky River, which is a few minutes away from the West 25th Street exit and Tremont, where The Deer Hunter church, St. Theodosius, is located.
This is too easy, I think.
I crest over a hill.
I am not at all surprised to see tanks on the other side.
THE TANKS
There are two lines of tanks twenty or thirty deep on each side of the highway, positioned to fire at anything that runs the gauntlet between them.
I stop my car.
Unless I want to drive halfway around the state just to approach East Cleveland from another direction, this is the only route to the Door.
I don’t let myself think anymore. I switch to the gas pedal and jam it all the way to the floor. My car skids, then speeds forward. I start to say the prayer to St. Michael: “St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our defense against the wickedness…”
The first shell explodes against the pavement behind me.
The impact reverberates through my skeleton, shaking my hands off the steering wheel. The car twists. I slap my hands back on the wheel, trying to regain control. Flying chunks of highway jut into the air like scraps from a falling asteroid. One after another, a series of shells boom out, and I enunciate the prayer to St. Michael, bracing for the worst while heading right at the tanks on the near side of the highway. At the last second, I swerve. My path straightens. My car is so close to the tanks that they would need to make their turrets go vertical in order to hit me directly, and I don’t think they can.
More shells crush the earth. A black storm cloud of projectiles and debris raises over my car. The tanks on the opposite side of the highway must be aiming short, unwilling to risk destroying their counterparts. This can be the only reason why I haven’t been blown apart – and then suddenly the road starts to slant. Gravity forces me against the driver’s side door and the rear of my car drops like it just fell off the edge of a precipice. The tires hitch, catch on something, and the back end shoots up into the air. My guts roll. My head slams into the horn and I lose my grip on everything. The car keeps going forward – my foot is still on the gas – and the front end grinds into the concrete. Words from the prayer – “cast into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls” – act as a break in the tempest, and I come to the conclusion I cannot by any means hit the brakes or the car will flip, and at this high of a speed I will not survive. I ease up on the gas instead, and the rear wheels smack the pavement. I think I’m safe but then the car starts to spin, and I grab for anything I can get a hold of like I’m loose inside of a soaring frisbee. The back end of the car surges into the wall alongside the edge of the bridge. The collision stretches the limits of my seat belt – my head just misses the steering wheel – and then the car slams to a stop. As I look through the spider web that used to be my window, my heart beats out of my chest.
I made it past the tanks.
AFTER THE CRASH, THE FINAL DISCOVERY
I open the door. It bangs against the side of the bridge. I squeeze through the gap, bashing my chest into the door to do so. Since I’m a walking ache already, the additional pain is irrelevant.
From what I can make out in the darkness, my car has met its end. The front half is mangled. Smoke floods through cracks in the hood, and the rear wheels have been ripped sideways. They are either no longer part of the axle or the axle is no longer part of the car, I can’t tell.
While the upended world resettles, the thickly curdled air sifts. A rolling set of creaks announces the movement. Behind me, the highway has caved in and collapsed. The tanks have gone with it, now just sprinkles on top of a landfill of rubble. In the rock, I spy two soldiers, alive and moving. Indians, I think. I try to run, but my legs are as agile as broken stilts; I’ll have to walk as quickly as I can.
I check my phone for news. Nothing seems to have improved. If anything, the number of odes to loved ones, especially to ex-
boyfriends and ex-girlfriends, on Facebook and Twitter has increased, as if the sense we are all doomed has grown more pervasive. If Naomi is caught in this incident, enmeshed in World War 3, and she hasn’t called or texted to say something similar to me…
I leave the tanks and the soldiers in the dust. I cycle back through the thoughts I had as I was driving over the hill. Similar to how I accurately predicted the layout of the troops surrounding the motel, I guessed there might be tanks – and there were. Another coincidence? Or did my thoughts have something to do with it? If my memories and my imagination are taken by the Door and sculpted into concrete scenarios, then it’s conceivable that I could use my mind to influence what happens here in the other world.
As long as I control my thoughts.
What Geppetto hinted at on top of the World Trade Center finally hits me. He asked if I considered what being there when the plane crashed would be like. He provoked me to have that thought and then, right after I did, the jet struck the tower – much sooner than it was supposed to. And before that he said, “Or you could do this,” and then jumped off the building… To safety. He was illustrating that the impossible is possible in the other world as long as you believe in it. He survived the leap because he trusted he would. He controlled the outcome with his thoughts.
That’s how I get out of this.
I’ve made the final discovery.
The exit for Tremont is a few hundred feet away. I get an idea. I text Naomi:
Naomi
Jul 29 1:49 AM
I hope St Theodosius is
protecting you from the
war…
Initially, I wrote, “Are you at St. Theodosius?” but before sending the message, I re-phrased it to assert she was there. I plant an image of Naomi safely hiding at St. Theodosius in my mind’s eye. The Deer Hunter is my primary frame of reference for what the church looks like. Scenes from the movie mix in. I try to force them out. My fear of World War 3 is resurgent. The scenario I want to imagine – Naomi and I reuniting at the church – is corrupted with soldiers and machine guns and bombs and murder.
My phone vibrates.
Naomi
Jul 29 1:50 AM
How did you know that?
I’m hiding but they’re coming
Don’t know how long I can lats
I tell her I’m close. I’ll be there. I tell her not to go.
I can make it. I think these words. Gradually, I begin to say them.
Eventually, I start to run.
THE DEER HUNTER CHURCH
Tremont has been flattened, as if an army of tornados carried every structure, vehicle, and resident into the jaws of annihilation.
Everything, that is, except for a single building. A green dome, the same color that inexpensive gold stains skin, rests atop three sandstone stories.
St. Theodosius remains.
If I’ve done everything right, as I believe I have, Naomi should be inside.
I make it to the front of the cathedral and crack open the doors.
Through the partial opening, I can see that the inside of the church is littered with people.
I pull back, letting the doors swing closed. I thought I’d find Naomi here alone. Why is that not the case? Who are these people? She said “they” were coming. By “they” I presume she meant soldiers…
I inch the doors open again, careful to do so quietly. The people in the crowd are filed into the pews in an organized manner, formally dressed in contemporary suits and dresses. Everyone is silent. Unless they’re engaged in an elaborate attempt at subterfuge, these men, women, and children aren’t dangerous – they’re just average members of the community, come together, perhaps, to seek communion and faith in the face of ongoing devastation.
But why are they so dressed up?
I waft into the church. Even after all these years, its appearance – as seen in The Deer Hunter – has been preserved. The altar is decorated with standing oil paintings of Orthodox figures, layered next to and above one another, leading up to the ceiling, where oil-painted angels frolic. A dazzling crystal chandelier dangles at the center of the space, flanked by stained glass skylights and accented by golden molding that runs up the walls.
Something in here is off. I was wrong about the purpose of the gathering. Besides the formality of the clothing, the demeanor of the room is inconsistent with the presence of war. These people are oblivious to the devastation. I can see it on their faces. Just as disconcerting, their dispositions seem to be split, abnormally, into two distinct categories; the typical kaleidoscope of emotions found in a roomful of people is absent. The first category reminds me of the cheerfulness witnessed at weddings. This emotion is far less prevalent, however, than the other, which is of the sort that consumes whole crowds at funerals. I could accept this aura of grief as a reaction to the war if it were not accompanied by so many droplets of elation. There is nothing to celebrate about World War 3.
As I walk down the aisle, towards the bulk of the churchgoers, watching for Naomi’s face, the only way for me to describe what I encounter is a distortion of the natural order of the world. Or, rather, a further distortion of the world…
I think I’ve walked into an incident within an incident.
I continue moving, cautious of this being a trap but choosing to believe Naomi was at St. Theodosius when she said she was and that the texts I received were truly from her.
I scour the room. A woman leaves her pew near the altar. She is wearing a black veil, sheer enough to see through. She comes towards me. As her already slow gait stalls even further, I think I recognize her face. She stops as far away from me as I can jump and looks morosely into my eyes.
The woman is Naomi’s mother.
NAOMI’S MOTHER
Her teeth gnash. Becoming irate, she takes off her shoe and pounds it into the floor as words lash out of her mouth. “My stupid daughter! My stupid daughter! My stupid daughter!”
I attempt to cut through the vitriol with a measured response. “It’s okay, Mrs. Price… Is she here? Naomi, Mrs. Price. Where’s your daughter?”
Standing crooked on one heel, she throws down her shoe and cracks back at me. “Late for your wedding, you irresponsible man. You selfish, weak little boy. My stupid daughter is late for her own pitiful wedding.”
“Our wedding? You’re angry because she’s late to our wedding?”
“Naomi was here, and she left. She was supposed to come back. Maybe she isn’t coming. Maybe she acquired some sense. We can only pray as much, you puny child.”
The despondent-looking wedding guests jeer. Attendees on the opposite side of the issue counteract the derision by clapping, but their numbers are small, and their volume is soft. Hostility overwhelms support. The cheers are drowned all the way out.
I parse through the shouts of hatred: “You’re wrong for each other… You didn’t move when you could have… You put your career first… It’s too late… The world has changed… You can’t retreat from what’s happened… You can’t go back after the Door…”
“We’ll start fresh,” I shout back. “We’ll learn from this.” To Naomi’s mother, I say, “I don’t know whose idea it was for a wedding, but now is not the right time for this…”
She laughs at me. Everyone laughs at me. “Too soon for this?” Mrs. Price snarls. “It’ll never happen. It should never happen. My daughter is smarter now. She left. She’s gone. She’s never coming back to this stupid church, or to you. You and your pathetic, confused self…”
“I’m going to find her,” I pronounce, and then I walk up the aisle and out of the church.
A PHONE RINGS IN THE OTHER WORLD
Standing in front of St. Theodosius, seeing nothing but a wasteland ahead of me, I walk sideways and call Naomi. Twice it rings… I think about what to say if she answers… When she answers. “She’s going to answer,” I say. The phone rings a third time, a fourth… I close my eyes and brace myself. I don’t doubt. I hope.
She pic
ks up.
“Mike…”
“You answered.”
“I did?”
She’s being funny. Even in the middle of a war zone, she’s making me laugh. I’m reminded of Joey Danko staggering on top of the movie theater and the first time we met.
“Tell me you’re here. On the other side of the church.”
My speech is shaky. I’m pacing. I’m tense.
“Which side of the church are you on?” she asks.
“I’m at the front.”
“Then yeah, I am on the other side.”
NAOMI
I shoot along the side of St. Theodosius, picturing her high cheekbones, her round eyes, her typically sly smile, the curtain of brown hair that sweeps across her forehead, and as I turn the corner, I see her. I really, truly see her balled up against the side of the building. I say her name, and I run to her. She doesn’t stand to meet me. I bend down. I put my hands on her. I feel her shoulders and our eyes connect.
“I found you. I really did. I found you.”
Naomi doesn’t speak. She isn’t smiling. Her eyes examine my face, my neck, my arms. She touches my cheek.
“Is it actually you? I mean, really. Is it really you?”
“It’s me. It is.”
“Then I think I found you as much as you found me.”
Finally, she smiles, and she stands, and I rise with her. She holds me. I put my arms around her and ease her head into my chest
“Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure,” she says. “I’m tired.”
“I want to kiss you. Can I kiss you?”
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