by J. C. Geiger
“Sound check!” Thomas said.
“Don’t we need that guy?” Charity asked, pointing to the man in the truck.
“Forget about that guy,” Thomas said. “This is for us. And for Leo. This is critically important. This is everything.”
“Okay,” Griff said.
“Okay,” Charity said.
“Listen carefully. Now, Griff,” Thomas said, miming his instructions. “I clap three times. Then you send one giant, mother-loving chord out there. A big one. Way out past the breakers. All the way to Atlantis.”
“Happy to,” Griff said.
“Right after the claps,” Thomas said. “No waiting.”
“I got it,” Griff said.
Griff raised his hands over the keys. Thomas raised his hands to the microphone, looking nervous. He clapped once.
The sound boomed over land and sea. A large wave labored toward shore.
Thomas clapped a second time. A third.
Before Griff’s fingers could drop, the wave crashed—HOOM!
The lighthouse exploded with color. A flash of white, swallowed by blazing blues and purples, greens and golds. Their faces glowed.
“Ah, Griff,” Thomas said. “I think he beat you to it.”
The man in the vest got out. He clapped. Colors danced over his face and the white truck. He reached inside and honked, clapping again.
The three friends drifted together on stage. They held each other. Swayed the way a bridge sways so it doesn’t break. The song came to them just as it had that night in the ocean, growing stronger with touch. Their energy turned to music and their music reached for words they’d all heard once before and still remembered:
Out here on the water—I sing the ocean song—
Out here on the water—we know we won’t be long—
The final lines of the chorus came just in time. Maybe they’d heard the lyrics in the Paths, or out on the Skip. A whisper from the ocean, or a ghost. Later, they decided the end had been there all along, just waiting for them to find the words:
Be the lighthouse.
Be the lighthouse.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A WRITER MIGHT CHOOSE TO LIVE AND WRESTLE WITH A CHALLENGING project for years, which means innocent bystanders must then live and wrestle with a challenging writer. As Rachel Carson wrote—“In nature, nothing exists alone.” If you have helped me to become a better writer or a better person, you’ve effectively done both. I am grateful for you all. To name just a few:
Endless gratitude to Emily—teacher, mother, wife, and fearless first reader. She’d make a hell of a Pacific lighthouse keeper, but prefers Midwestern lakes. Thank you, Tobias and Sahalie, for your story-themed LEGO creations, enthusiastic applause of finished drafts, and for lending your dad to this story.
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for instilling the foundational love and support that gives me the confidence to make questionable choices, such as being a full-time writer and living near a fault line.
Thanks to Teacher Deb and Teacher Chris, who quietly live their lessons every day, but will pause to clarify and make large signs for those of us who need assistance.
Thank you, George and Paula Saunders and Mary Karr, for giving me what felt like an MFA in life, love, and writing on Patmos. You were so brilliant I threw my book away and started over. A special, full-throated howl at the moon for Flaminia, Katie, Sofie, Karl, Alina, Thaddeus, and Teresa, who will read poetry and sing and dance and swim without ever once being asked. I love you always.
Thank you, Jenny, Dan, Satchel, and Weezie for giving us a safe harbor to howl from. And the Oregon Arts Commission and Oregon Community Foundation for the Career Opportunity Grant, which helped me find my way to the island.
Thank you, Charlie Ruff and Robin Bernardi—you are living, breathing doors to magic, and introduced me to the Oregon Country Fair and Culture Jam. I’m grateful to have never recovered. Thank you, Andy, for housing the bookmobile, and building a people-powered engine for turning dreams into reality. Thank you, Simon, for finding us on the Paths.
Thanks to David Wimbish and The Collection, who caused me (twice) to travel thousands of miles just to see them perform, and Matt Hopper for writing “False Alarm” and playing the finest “Harvest Moon” I’ve ever heard. Thanks to Blind Pilot for stirring my first imaginings of this book, and to Israel Nebeker for leaving the window open to synchronicity.
Thank you to the wonderful Rotem Moscovich for cutting the dock lines and dropping the sails on this project and Heather Crowley for helping it along. Great Big Thanks to Abby Ranger, who blazed through piles of supposed eloquence to the bones of a real, living story. Your editorial letters should be framed and bowed to. Thank you, Alvina Ling, Ruqayyah Daud, Victoria Stapleton, Liz Kossnar, and Hannah Milton for welcoming me with kindness and grace to my new home at Little, Brown as if I’d been here all along.
Agent Sara Crowe—let it be said—has struck a mythic balance between kindness and efficiency which could be studied and turned into a spiritual philosophy. Big thanks to you and all the Pips!
Thank you to SCBWI, who helped open the door to publication, and the Mudflat Heathens of Western Washington—one of the finest, dirtiest, most eloquent and profane groups I’ve ever run across. You’re writers to the bone.
Thanks to Hunter Noack for saying “yes” when I asked him to wear a burlap suit and play his Steinway in the desert, and to Thomas Lauderdale for his irrepressible brilliance and contagious generosity. You both stretch the world wider than it would otherwise be.
Thank you, Bob Malmquist, for gathering a lifetime of radio knowledge and sharing it with me one sunny afternoon in Nebraska. SubWatch wouldn’t be the same without you.
Thank you, Tamathy, for reading piles of manuscripts and treating each one like something special. You are a true master of art and story, and I learn from you always.
Thank you, Anna, for doing a late read and giving wonderful advice and feeling everything that was there.
Much gratitude to pianist and composer Alexander Schwarzkopf, whose mind could set a piano on fire just by thinking about it. Thank you for your insight on musical semantics, Liszt lore, and helping me strike the right tone.
Thanks to the friends and family of the Kesey Farm Project—Shannon, Jay, Sunshine, Sheryl, Kate & Kate—for your endless generosity and willingness to plow toward dreams with spark and grit—it’s lovely to know you.
Thank you to the ALA, the ABA, and PNWBA for your support of the road trip and everything after, and to the many friends I met along the way. Thanks to Bruce Springsteen and AC/DC, who taught me it’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.
Thanks to the vibrant communities of the Pacific Coast and the kindnesses you’ve shown me over the years, including my friends in Crescent City and SeaQuake Brewing for some great pints and a tour of your emergency response facilities. What a blast! Thanks to everyone who ever dug a posthole for a tsunami evacuation sign, recorded a PSA, braided a paracord, tested a siren, or handed out a pamphlet on disaster preparedness. The science is real.
To any writer who has stolen my breath or made me leap up and curse aloud at the quality of their prose—Tobias Wolff, Toni Morrison, Rachel Carson, Mary Karr, L. Lamar Wilson, George Saunders, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Laini Taylor, Ray Bradbury, Hanif Abdurraqib, Tim O’Brien, John Steinbeck, Natalie Babbit—thank you for showing me how it’s done.
And, finally, I wish to thank John Engman for giving the profound gift of his poetry to the world, whether or not he knew anyone was listening. We were listening. Someone is always listening. Thank you, artists, for trusting this is true.
Shine the light. Bring the noise. The world needs you always.
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J. C. GEIGER
(jcgeiger.com) survived an earthquake on the Mouth of Hell volcano in Nicaragua, learned to drive stick shift on a bookmobile, and once fell asleep while running. He also writes fiction. He is a GrandSLAM Story Champion at The Moth, and his work has appeared on stage at The Second City and No Shame Theatre. His debut novel, Wildman, was named by Bank Street as a Best YA Book of the Year. J. C. lives about 60 miles from the Oregon coast and makes the trip as often as he can.
From The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson Copyright © 1950 by Rachel L. Carson. Reprinted by permission of Frances Collin, Trustee u-w- Rachel Carson.
From “3 Rounds and a Sound” by Israel Nebeker. Copyright © 2008 by Israel Nebeker. Reprinted by permission of Israel Nebeker.
Ken Kesey quote used with permission from the Kesey family.
From “How to Write Poetry With Your Clothes On,” Keeping Still, Mountain. Copyright © 1983 by John Engman. Reprinted by permission of Carol Loken.