The Light

by Francis CoCo

  “But dad, something has to be wrong, I mean, for you to pass out and she said you can’t breathe...”

  “For Chrissakes, I can breathe,” he said, annoyed.

  “You know what it is?” he said, lightheartedly, “It’s that I’ve done too much, that’s all… this retirement, well, I’m supposed to be retired, but I haven’t retired at all, - in fact, I’ve been doing more than I’ve ever done, and that’s what’s the matter- not my heart- I just need to slow down.”

  I started to argue, but then he said, “Hey, did you pick up the magazine? The one with my cartoon? Did you see it?”

  I laughed, “Yeah, dad, I saw it.”

  I had gone to the Border’s book store in Deerhedge not long before and picked up the issue with my dad’s cartoon. It was a drawing of a Missing Cat poster. The poster said, Missing Cat – Neutered Male- Black Gold Stripes- Clipped Ear, and then there was a hand drawn picture of a cat with one pointy ear and the other ear with the tip cut off- clipped. It was cute. I was proud of him for getting it published.

  “Hey, Paige,” he said, thoughtfully, “I don’t want you to come home. Really, I don’t. If things change, if something is wrong with me, I’ll tell you. I promise. But for now, it would make me feel funny- if everyone started to act like something was wrong with me, if everyone ran home to stand around waiting on bad news. Do you know what I mean?”

  I did. I nodded (even though he couldn’t see me) and said, “Okay. But, if it turns out that...”

  “I’ll call and tell you to get on the first flight home.”

  We were quiet for a minute and then he said, “So, how are things in Minnesota? You don’t talk much about it. What’s happening there?”

  What’s happening? A lot is happening! I thought. But I just said, “Oh, not much, same ole’, same ole’, you know.”

  I’d told my sister about the Light, when we’d first seen it. I didn’t tell her we went back and I didn’t tell her any of the things that had happened since. I don’t even think she thought much about our encounter. I think she’d forgotten about it, or, at least, she didn’t realize that it was as big a deal as it was. I’d made her swear not to tell a soul.

  “Are you dating anyone?” my dad asked, “is that what’s keeping you there?”

  “No, I’m not dating anyone,” I said, feeling embarrassed. I don’t know why I got embarrassed over such a question. I just did, when it came to discussing guys with my father.

  “So, I guess Teresa’s told you about her new beau...”

  “No, she didn’t. She’s dating someone?”

  She hadn’t said a word to me. But then again, we weren’t especially close. There were times where we seemed to be closer than other times, but, for some reason, she and I had never really connected. Probably because we’d always been so different.

  “She didn’t tell you about Mike? Really? I’m surprised, things are getting pretty serious...”

  Just then my phone beeped- another call coming through- I was going to ignore it, but my dad heard it as it cut him off while he was speaking and he said, “Oh, you got a call coming in! Why don’t you gimme a call later on this week...”

  “Oh no, dad, don’t worry about it, I’ll call whoever it is back-”

  “No, I’ve gotta go anyway, gotta get me something to eat! I think your mother’s trying to starve me- I haven’t had a bite since breakfast...”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Love you honey,” he said, “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay, then,” I said, as he hung up.

  I clicked the line over. It was Angela.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “I swear,” she said, “if we didn’t have the worst fucking luck, we would have no luck at all...”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Hef got hit by a car today,” she said.

  “Oh no! Is he okay?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh shit. Oh shit. I can’t believe it. Max loved that cat.”

  “He’s devastated.”

  “But, I didn’t even know that Hef went outside, I thought he was an indoor cat...”

  “He used to go out, back a few years ago when Max first got him, but he’d gotten accustomed to staying inside, but, for whatever reason, today, Max said he just darted out the door and ran across the road and some truck-”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said, squinting my eyes and putting my hand to my forehead, not wanting to think about it. Poor Hef. He was such a good cat. A big fat baby. He was always rolling around on his back, putting his paws up in the air and frollicking around.

  “Oh my God,” I said.

  “Max feels guilty- because he had the door open and was messing with something on the porch- he wasn’t paying attention... I’m about to go over to his house, he’s been at the vet’s… I just wanted to let you know.”

  “Do you want me to meet you at his house?”

  “No. You don’t have to.”

  “I’ll call him tomorrow,” I said, “will you just please tell him how sorry I am? I’m so fucking sorry.”

  “I know. I’ll tell him.”

  We hung up and I fell back onto the chair in my living room. Poor Max. His mother and now his cat. Not to mention all these bizarre dreams and visions.

  I thought about Brian. What had happened to him? I guess I’d never really know. I would always have to accept what the medical examiner said even though it made no sense. It couldn’t have anything to do with all of this, could it? Maybe Brian saw the Light? Or something equally as terrifying? But, could you die from fright? I’d certainly felt like I might die from fright that second night. Or maybe, I was just losing it altogether- and starting to equate everything I didn’t understand to this, thing we’d seen. Sometimes it was just too much. Too much to understand, too much to figure out.

  Chapter 14

  We had a little over two months until time to go to Arizona. It was the longest two months of my life. There was this anticipation that hung in the air, so strong, that it was just about unbearable. During those two months nothing happened. Max had no more dreams, the shadows were gone, the dog didn’t come back. Everything was as normal and as still and as quiet as it had been before our seeing the Light. The world- our world, was still and peaceful and calm. On the surface anyway.

  Even though Max didn’t have any dreams during that time, we still spent quite a bit of time talking about the dreams he had had. One night in particular stands out.

  We’d been at Max house- the three of us- we were discussing our upcoming trip to Arizona, debating the Earth being flat (Angela wasn’t buying it at all) and we got on the subject of the dreams.

  Angela said, “What about suffering? Have you asked him about suffering?”

  “Suffering?” Max said, “do you mean, have I asked him why people suffer?”

  “Yeah, because that makes no sense to me,”

  “I didn’t specifically ask him that- you don’t really ask him questions- more like, he tells me things or shows me things, but I do remember him once telling me that everyone and everything suffers. He said, everything gets old and dies.”

  “Yeah, but, why?”

  Max looked at her. “It’s all part of your path- part of the larger picture,” he said.

  “When my grandmother was dying, she laid in the hospital for a good week- unable to eat or drink- writhing on the bed. She couldn’t speak- she was terrified- you could tell. He tongue turned to petrified wood because she was so thirsty- I mean, of course they were giving her fluids intravenously, but, her tongue- my God, it was awful. She was in pain. It was fucked up.”

  “I don’t know,” Max said softly, “You’re asking the wrong person. My mother burned to death. I can’t tell you why- I don’t know why. It’s just the way it is.”

  “I think God was sleeping the day he was supposed to figure out how we went out of this world- he was sleeping on the job, on that day,” said Angela. Her voice was shaking. She w
ouldn’t say it, but I knew she was probably also thinking about her father dying a slow death from cancer. She swore she hated him but, I knew she didn’t and I knew that was what she was thinking. By all accounts, he’d gone out pretty horrifically as well.

  “There’s this lady who came in the bar the other night,” Max said, leaning back in his chair and resting his ankle on his knee, “and she was telling me that she wanted to give me some plants… she wanted to know if I’d take some because, she had so many that they were sucking up the oxygen in her living room...”

  He stopped talking and looked at Angela.

  “Yeah? So?” she said.

  “So- everything takes from everything else. I guess the cold reality is, that everything in this world suffers- everything dies. The only thing you can do is to learn to be happy now- in your skin.”

  “When did you turn into such a goddamn hippie?” Angela said, getting up and going over to sit in Max’s lap. She hugged him and kissed the top of his head. Max reached up and rubbed his chin, where his new beard was coming in and smiled up at Angela.

  “The next time you’re talking to the Light, you need to tell him to have a word with the man upstairs- tell him to alleviate pain, alleviate suffering,” she said.

  “You have to feel pain,” Max said, “it serves a purpose- otherwise, we’d go around cutting off our fingers.”

  “You know what I mean,” Angela said.

  “Things are the way they are,” Max said, “they’ve always been this way, it’s just the way life works.”

  _____

  One night, sometime around the end of May, I was sleeping and was awoken to fire trucks roaring through town in the middle of the night. It was so loud- it sounded like there had to be at least three or four of them.

  I sat up in bed and listened. Whatever was on fire, was close. I got up and looked at the clock on my nightstand- it was almost two o’clock in the morning. The firetrucks wailed loudly outside. What was on fire? My God, it sounded like whatever it was was on my street.

  I turned on my lamp and went to my closet and pulled out some pants and a sweater. I hurriedly got dressed and grabbed my purse and went out to my car.

  Once outside, I could see the sky lit up bright and black - smoke billowing up in big black and gray puffs. Whatever was on fire looked to be downtown. The air was thick with the smell of something burning, a charred, awful smell.

  I had to see what it was. I got in my car and drove towards the scene.

  Once I got near downtown, I saw the firetrucks, saw people standing around- their faces lit up from the blaze, and I saw what it was that was on fire: it was Dagwood’s, the diner that we always ate at. The cute little downtown diner where we commonly had breakfast- one of the first places Brian had taken me to when he’d introduced me to this small town where he’d grown up. It was a red hot inferno. All you could see was the foundation – what looked like a concrete slab and black sticks and poles sticking up from the ground, in the red and orange blaze. Dagwood’s was burning to the ground.

  I pulled over and parked and watched as the firemen scrambled to put the fire out. A few people stood around, watching. One lady was crying. I don’t know if she was the owner or, if maybe she was crying because Dagwood’s was such a staple in the community. Dagwood’s had been there for probably fifty or sixty years. It had been such a cute restaurant. Going there always felt like you were stepping back in time. What a shame to watch it burn.

  Feeling sad, I turned and went back home.

  Chapter 15

  “Are we ready?” Max said, shutting the trunk of the car and coming around to the driver’s side door. He stood for a minute before opening it, staring across the top of the car, at me and Angela.

  We all got in and once in the car, Angela said, “I feel so strange- excited but, so scared.”

  Max glanced at me in the back seat. I smiled and nodded and said, “Me too. I’m scared but… this could be amazing...”

  Max started the car, “I hope so,” he said, putting it in reverse and pulling out of the driveway, “I’m terrified but, what if something spectacular happens? What if we find out the secrets of the Universe, or...”

  “Or, what happens when we die!” Angela said, excitedly, “If you meet with some deity, I hope you ask that! Ask what happens when we die!”

  “I’ve already been told that, I told you, we just talked about this not long ago, we return to the Cosmos to help the masses stay together… we’re all a part of this, this Universe, that’s where we go when we die...”

  “Oh right,” Angela said, considering this. She seemed a little bummed. I don’t think that’s what she wanted to happen when she died- to reincarnate. She had been upset when Max originally relayed this dream to us, she’d said, “What if I come back as some ugly fat dude who lives in his mother’s basement?” and Max had laughed and said, “Well, I guess if that happens you’ll have to go on a diet and get a job and move out of your mother’s house.” He’d also then told us that in the dream, he’d been told that a man would always come back as a man and a woman would always be a woman. You would not change gender. You would not come back as a dog or a cow or a bird- a human was always a human.

  “I don’t want to be hanging in the Cosmos, unable to talk or feel anyone – or go anywhere- I don’t want to hang in the cosmos forever,” Angela said, looking out the window.

  Max laughed, “You won’t mind it, when you’re there. You’ll just be going home. That’s where you were before you came here, you just don’t remember.”

  “But, I’ll reincarnate before that?”

  “That’s what he said, yes, unless this is your last life and then, you won’t.”

  “How many times? Did he say?”

  “It might be five times, it could just be once, it all depends on how strong your energy is.”

  “So, I’m like a light bulb or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  “But what will I do, up in the Cosmos? Just hang around?”

  “You’ll be around your loved ones, you won’t be able to touch them but you’ll feel them, and you’ll speak telepathically.”

  “I’ll be having the biggest panic attack of my life, if I’m hanging in the Cosmos, with no body, unable to speak or go anywhere, up in space. Good God.”

  Max laughed, “No you won’t.”

  “You seem so calm about all of this,” Angela said, looking over at him while she dragged on her cigarette, “why are you all of a sudden okay with everything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I mean, why are we on our way to Kingman, Arizona like it’s no big deal? Why do you have no problem with all these things you’ve been told, don’t you question them? Don’t you think that maybe this Light or voice or whatever is telling you these things might be lying to you?”

  Max was quiet for a minute and then he said, “No. I do not think he is lying. I know that he is telling the truth.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t explain it. It’s a feeling you have when you’re talking to him. He is not lying. I know that what he’s saying is the truth. I trust him.”

  “Well,” I said, piping in from the back seat, “I don’t mean to be a party poop, but, you have to remember that, The Devil is a liar because the truth is not in him.”

  “Oh my God,” Max said, meeting my eyes in the rear view mirror, “don’t start that shit.”

  _____

  We pulled into Kingman sometime around six thirty in the evening. We’d spent almost two days driving, we hadn’t even stopped at a motel along the way. Max had just pulled over at a rest stop and we’d slept in the car for a few hours and then I’d taken over and driven the rest of the way. It had been a nice trip, we’d listened to music, talked a lot, slept a lot but, even though we didn’t acknowledge it, a heaviness hung in the air- the heaviness that would not go way- not until all of this was over. Not until we knew why Max had been summoned to this strange mountain. And not
only that, but, why only Max? Why not me and Angela? All three of us had seen the Light. All three of us had been there. So, why did Max seem to be the focal point?

  Maybe it was Max, all along. Maybe Angela and I just happened to be bystanders to an encounter meant only for Max.

  Whatever it was, whatever it meant, I just hoped that nothing happened to him. I hoped nothing happened to any of us, but I wasn’t particularly worried about me and Angela. We would be at the hotel, safe and sound. It was Max who was going into the woods alone- hiking up some mountain to meet God-knows-what, without even taking his cell phone.

  How would we explain it if something happened to him? What would we say to the police if we had to call them? What if he didn’t come back? How could we explain to anyone that we’d come to Kingman, a town we had no reason to be in, a town we’d never even heard of before, to send our friend off into the woods, alone?

  _____

  “We’ll check into the hotel and then come back to get food,” I said, pulling up to the Arizona Inn.

  “This is where we’re staying?” said Angela, leaning forward in her seat.

  “Well, it looks affordable,” I said, meekly.

  “Do they even have a pool?” said Angela.

  “A pool? What do we care about a pool? We didn’t come here to swim- we’re here for something much bigger...”

  I’d forgotten how much of a diva she could be. The hotel looked pretty charming to me – perfect for something off Route 66- very Sal and Dean.

  “We don’t know how long we’ll be here,” said Angela, “We might want to lay out by the pool while we wait for Max...”

  I looked over at Max. He shrugged and said, “I saw a sign for a Quality Inn back there, if that sounds any better.”

  “Yes, please,” Angela said pushing back into her seat.

  Quality Inn? I thought. Where’s the charm in that? But I didn’t say anything. I just pulled back onto the main road and drove in the direction Max pointed me until we’d made it to the Quality Inn.