Empire of Light

by Michael Bible

  Just give her some time, Mrs. Everhart said.

  She looked at me. In her eyes I could see the deaths she’d witnessed and the one that haunted her most, her husband’s. I wondered if death haunted her like it haunted me. If it had the same contours, the same weight. She seemed so at peace here in this town where nothing seemed to move and everyone followed along with everyone else. The town loved Mrs. Everhart’s story, a tale of patriotic romance and perseverance that was retold on national holidays and at veterans’ meet ups and from the pulpit on Valentine’s Day. Star-crossed lovers find each other in war. It was so much for Molly to live up to, the product of such an incredible love. The reality was much different. Molly told me her mother drank and took all manner of prescription drugs. She didn’t want to ruin the town’s dream. Mrs. Everhart’s eyes were dark as she touched my shoulder again.

  You and Frank should come to dinner sometime, she said.

  I’d love that, I said.

  She walked away. I sat there thinking about her and the faraway place she was from. I wanted so bad to be away from this place and anywhere like it. I wanted to find the vast openness where there was no electric light for miles, where the night sky would reveal the deeper galaxies. Then Charlie got off work and we went to his trailer and got dulled out. We listened to his old records.

  Got any good stories, I asked.

  Stories, he said. How come I got to tell all the stories? Why don’t you tell a story for a change?

  OK, I said. Let’s see. The nomadic peoples of Eastern Icelandia worship horses in the constellations. Their lead rider is a peasant girl who fights the crusaders while pregnant with the king.

  What the hell kind of story is that, he said.

  An anthropological story, I said.

  I only like true stories, he said. Is that a true story?

  You’re telling me you never lie when you tell stories, I said.

  Of course I lie, he said. But only when I’m telling the truth.

  The bull’s nose ring was bedazzled with pink jewels. He drank water from the river and bowed to us. The edge of the city glowed behind him. We watched patiently. He was graceful with his power, a vegetarian. I huddled behind a palm tree with my horse and my princess.

  * * *

  —

  THEN A CURIOUS thing happened in the middle of Miles’ game. He threw a pass that wobbled to the ground in the second half. Me and Molly were watching from the hill. Miles walked to his coach on the sideline, shaking his head. The coach was furious, pointing toward the field. Miles turned and started walking away from him. I’ve tried many times to understand what happened in his mind at that moment. Maybe he was sick of the pressure or maybe he just thought it was a gorgeous night and he didn’t feel like being crushed anymore. He started to walk faster away from the sideline. At first it seemed he was simply going back to the locker room, but he wasn’t. He was walking toward our car on the hill. The crowd erupted, confused. The away team cheering, the home team booing.

  What the hell is he doing, I asked Molly.

  I don’t know, she said.

  I could see a figure walking behind him, it was Miles’ dad yelling something to him. He’d come down from the bleachers. Miles never slowed his pace, never turned around. He kept coming toward us. The roars from the crowd were deafening. It was as if Achilles had left the battlefield. He walked up the hill and got in the backseat of Molly’s car.

  What’s up, Miles said.

  He sat there like we were going on a Sunday drive. Like it was normal. His helmet was still on.

  Y’all want to go back to Queen Rita’s, he said. I’ve been dying to dance ever since last time.

  Don’t you have a game to finish, Molly said.

  I don’t think they’re gonna let me play anymore, he said, looking down at the field.

  Why not, I asked.

  Because I quit, he said.

  Quit, Molly said.

  Yeah, he said. And not just the team. I quit school. Everything. I don’t have it in me anymore.

  Are you OK, Molly said. Like do you feel OK?

  Miles laughed a strange little laugh.

  I feel great, he said. Never better.

  I looked down at the angry crowd.

  Can we get out of here, I said. I’m afraid they’ll kill us.

  Molly drove away and we went to Queen Rita’s and danced all night. Everyone in the place passed around Miles’ helmet and drank beer from it. People made toasts to Miles’ defection. He finally took his shoulder pads off and threw them in the fire. Everyone howled with delight. There was a band that night. Some crazy funk outfit from New Orleans. The lights went low and they played a slow song and the three of us swayed together on the dance floor and Molly kissed me. One of the back-up dancers from the band took to Miles and they went to the bathroom together for a good half hour. Queen Rita brought out the good weed and moonshine from her personal stash. An epic night. At some point we stumbled outside, just the three of us, and smoked a cigarette.

  I can’t go home now, Miles said. My father will be out of his mind.

  I wish we could stay here forever, Molly said.

  Me too, I said.

  Me three, Miles said.

  But as the night wore on we had to make a decision. We couldn’t take him to Molly’s, her mom was a teacher, too many questions. Frank was a team booster and would surely call his dad. So we decided to take him to Charlie’s trailer. Molly drove and I knocked on his door. It was four a.m., but sure enough Charlie was awake making an omelet watching reruns of The Dick Cavett Show.

  What the hell, he asked.

  I need a favor, I said.

  What kind of favor, he asked.

  I got Miles Armstrong in the car, I said. He needs a place to stay.

  You brought the quarterback here, he said.

  Yeah, I said. Is that OK?

  You’re gonna be the death of me, he said. Bring him inside.

  We brought Miles inside, still drunk in his jersey, carrying his helmet. He fell on the couch. Charlie put on a pot of coffee. Molly got Miles’ cleats off, stripped him down to his jockstrap, and put a blanket over him. Charlie got him some fresh clothes.

  What time is it, Miles mumbled.

  Late, I said. I mean early.

  Where am I, he asked.

  At Charlie West’s house, Molly said.

  The janitor, he asked.

  You’re gonna stay with me, Charlie said.

  I love all of you, Miles said. Am I allowed to say that?

  He fell asleep.

  Forever blasted through the darkness. Princess wore purple flowers in her hair, a figure eight tattooed across her heart. I watched for the northern lights, the Southern Cross, the dippers, big and little—scooping blackness into blackness. Stars upon stars upon stars upon stars.

  * * *

  —

  BACK AT FRANK’S I was restless. I laid awake and remembered the summer I turned fifteen. I lived in a stunt pilot’s house in Tennessee. I met a college girl studying photography at a farmer’s market and when I told her I was homeless she invited me to stay with her for a while. She was house-sitting for the stunt pilot who was famous for his spins. They said he would take it up to some insane altitude and let the plane stall and spin wildly toward the earth and at the last minute pull up before he crashed into the ground. He’d designed his house to be in the sky. It was four stories with windows for walls and a grand courtyard overgrown with ivy. The photographer spent her mornings sunbathing on the back porch while I wrote bad poetry upstairs. We talked feverishly in the afternoons about how hard the world was and how we’d like to soften it a bit on the strength of our strangeness. We were like a couple in every way except when her boyfriend came home at night. A handsome law-school type. One night her boyfriend brought mushrooms home and we all tripped on the roof. No one said a word for hours, then suddenly I saw a tiny prop airplane above us start spinning toward the earth. It was tumbling fast and he wasn’t pulling up. I be
came convinced the stunt pilot was going to die but the photographer and her boyfriend couldn’t see the plane. They said it was the mushrooms playing tricks on me. When I looked back to the sky I could still see the plane. They went to bed but I stayed up alone on the roof all night and watched the pilot cheat death. Was he doing it just for me?

  I still couldn’t sleep. Miles’ sudden departure from the civilized world had thrown a wrench in my thinking. I got up to get a glass of water and could hear Frank downstairs crying for his dead wife. I wanted so bad to escape. I wanted time to run backward until I was no longer anything anymore. My whole life seemed like one long mistake. My parents, whoever they were, hadn’t known me long enough to love or hate me. For the first time in a long time I thought about them. What terrible situation made them give me up? Was it purely selfish? Or was it some other reason, something I could never imagine if I spent a thousand nights awake dreaming up their lives and failures. But I indulged myself. I believed they were explorers who were simply addicted to finding new places and had no time to raise a child. But as soon as I was old enough to go with them, they would find me. I pictured myself sailing with them to wild islands and climbing snowcapped mountains. One day, I thought, they’ll come for me. We’d become a world-famous family of adventurers. Then I heard Frank weeping again and reality intruded back in. I picked up my book and read about tribes in Madagascar who believe time is a long flowing river that ends in a great ocean too vast for human understanding. I closed my eyes and dreamed of spinning toward the earth.

  The city up ahead summoned me with light. The great love of Zorn was worshiped there. Forever made his way to the grass of the oasis.

  My mouth tastes of fire, Princess said. Which way is home?

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT MONDAY at school Miles’ disappearance was already legend. Gossip became truth and was embellished with each new telling until in short order Miles became a mysterious folk hero. Some kids called him a traitor to the team and the town, corrupted by the counterculture. But most talked of him as someone who got away clean. There was discussion of some kind of walkout on his behalf, protesting his unfair treatment, a mutiny against generalized authority. Groups of teachers huddled in hallways and as I passed they whispered Miles’ name. I saw Molly after third period.

  What do we say, I asked. People are going to start asking us questions.

  Tell them the truth, she said. They’ll never believe it.

  At lunch I walked over to Charlie’s trailer. Miles was on the roof. He was wearing one of Charlie’s old flannel shirts, smoking his French cigarettes. The trees around the trailer were golden and their leaves fell around him like he was inside a shaken snow globe.

  They’re all wondering about you at school, I yelled up to him.

  Let ’em wonder, he said. You want a beer?

  It’s noon, I said.

  He took a sip of his and looked out over the yard. I struggled for something to say. All I had were rumors.

  They say you ran away to Canada to play pro football, I said. Some people think you’re going to kill yourself.

  Maybe I will, he said.

  I didn’t know which thing he was responding to. His steel-blue eyes had dimmed a little with his drunkenness and the day was soggy and strange. He wanted me to climb up to the roof with him. To see the world from up there. I said I was fine right where I was. Then he began saying something, it started as a murmur and grew louder. A kind of chant but it was more like he was singing a song without a tune. It came from deep within him. Suddenly I saw the icy hill again in a flash. The woman in the wrecked car. The snowball reversed back into my hands and back into Bird’s hands and back into the ground and then the ice melted away and everything bloomed into spring. Miles sang from the roof again and I could hear then what he was saying. It was the same line over and over.

  The wind is your brother, he sang. The wind is your brother.

  What does that mean, I said.

  The wind is your brother, he sang louder. The wind is your brother!

  Then he hushed and closed his eyes and spread his arms and jumped out, dived really, from the roof into the grass. He laid flat without moving. I ran to him and saw he was still breathing.

  Are you OK, I asked.

  Fine, he said. Bit my tongue.

  He spit a little blood out. I got him to his feet and back inside Charlie’s trailer and put a bag of frozen peas on his face and laid him down on the couch. There was a knock at the door. It was Molly.

  What happened to you, she asked.

  He jumped off the roof, I said.

  Will you grab me a beer, Miles asked.

  Maybe you should rest, Molly said.

  He closed his eyes.

  I’m gonna rest, he said.

  Me and Molly sat there and made sure Miles was going to be OK. The fall had made things so beautiful I was envious of death. I looked at Molly across the room. Her belly was exposed above her blue jeans, showing her dagger birthmark. I wanted nothing more than to take her away from the rowdy calamity of life. I could not wait to grow up and have the world in front of me, to ramble as I pleased. She looked at me and smiled. I scanned her body from her toes to her eyes. Miles began to snore on the couch. I walked over to kiss her and she turned her head and I caught her cheek.

  Where’s Charlie, she asked.

  Cleaning up the school, I said.

  She took my hand and led me to the back bedroom of the trailer and laid me down. She removed her clothes and stood at the foot of the bed. She walked back and forth unashamed of her nakedness, proud of it. The afternoon light was crimson through the blinds and the light crossed her body in stripes. Her honeysuckle perfume made me woozy. I had never known anything like her. The way she moved. Deliberate and careful. She was the stuff of delirium. She climbed on top of me and took off my belt and tied me up with it. Then undressed me and we made love slowly and carefully and she finished with a long moan that seemed to echo out into the town and through the whole state and country and world.

  Afterward I could hear the school day ending on campus just a few blocks away. Charlie would be home soon. I got dressed and went into the living room. Miles was gone. Then I could hear a commotion on the roof. I walked outside and saw Miles up there in his sunglasses drinking beer. This time he’d brought up a folding chair. It was like he’d found a little spot where happiness existed for him. Molly came out of the trailer, groggy and half dressed. We stood there looking up at Miles as he began to rant.

  I’ve come to discover, he said. There’s an increasing unimportance to all things that do not involve sitting in this chair.

  Molly shook her head. Yellow leaves fell from the trees.

  How long are you going to stay up there, Molly yelled to him.

  As long as it takes, Miles said.

  I sang on top of the dunes. There was a dry tiny riverbed that crisscrossed the valley and lead to gates of gold. A message in a bottle rolled in the sand, picking up light from a day moon. Princess wept. She stood up and removed her clothes.

  If this is all you want, she said, then take it.

  * * *

  —

  WHEN I GOT back to Frank’s house he was sitting in the kitchen in his underwear. Outside was high twilight. The night was filling the yard with darkness but the sky was as radiant as noon. I was upside down and sideways. Miles seemed to live now on the other side of the divide. Each day was another step into madness or enlightenment. All I could think about was Molly. Frank started talking but I was still tangled with her. Frank wanted to know if I was somehow mixed up in Miles quitting the team. He thought everyone under the age of thirty was on drugs and was thinking that perhaps he should never have given me a second chance after he found my weed.

  People told me, he said. Foster children can bring a bad element, but I fought for you.

  He began to tear up a little. His body was thick and pale in the awful kitchen light. He was a lost man in a lost town. I trie
d to escape the room in my mind by thinking of Molly. I thought of her body in Charlie’s trailer. I felt sometimes like I’d been hanging on to the world by my fingertips and Molly had reached out and grabbed me. I closed my eyes and was lost in her honeysuckle. Frank pounded his fist on the table.

  I just hope to God, he said, that you are not involved in this Miles Armstrong business.

  What business, I asked.

  It’s not Christian behavior, Frank said. Leaving behind his team and school.

  I didn’t say anything for a while and sat looking at the swinging bulb above us. I was thinking about Miles and the lake and how the clouds were like torn cotton across the sun.

  What if he was sick of it, I said.

  Sick of what, Frank asked.

  Of all the insti­tutio­naliza­tion, I said.

  Frank leaned back in his chair and let the word fill the room.

  Now just where the hell did you get a word like that, he asked. In my day a boy could get smacked in the face for talking that way.

  All I’m saying is maybe he wanted to be free of the corners, I said. There’s a reason why prisons and schools are built at right angles.

  Frank gave me a look of indignation.

  Cigarettes appeared from a drawer though I had never known him to smoke before.

  You think you’re pretty smart, he said. ’Cause you read books.

  He looked at me as if an old, sad truth was washing over him. An ancient lesson he had suffered long to learn and had to tell me now even though I would misunderstand it. He handed me a cigarette.

  Have I ever told you about my wife, he asked.

  I shook my head. He lit our cigarettes with a long wooden match.

  She wanted more than anything to have a child, he said. But Jesus had other plans.

  Sorry, I said.

  Don’t be, he said. It was God’s will.

  Out the kitchen window I could see the twilight fading into darkness. The streetlights popped on and filled the neighborhood with that eerie amber glow. Frank smoked his cigarette without talking, blowing smoke rings out the open screen door.