Truly Like Lightning

by David Duchovny

“Ah, but that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? It’s hot and cold. It’s the numinous aura around a narcissistic personality.”

  “Narcissistic?”

  “Yes, but in the best way, the Greek way. ‘Gracious accommodation, yet commanding impersonality.’ Oh, you’re taking this the wrong way. I guess the answer to that … life is unfair. Moses did everything asked of him and ended up dying in the desert. David was an adulterer who liked young women and God gave him everything. David had charisma, Moses didn’t. The ‘gift of grace’ in Greek, or ‘favor freely given.’ Even God is a sucker for ‘it.’” He noticed the dazed look on Mary’s face and made a motion like he was smoothing down a dress that had flown up too high, like the famous Marilyn Monroe image. “Oh, I’m sorry, is my Camille Paglia showing?”

  What Bartholomew said had so many personal tangents available to Mary that she momentarily could not think straight. Had Pearl been speaking to this man about religion? Had she been speaking to this man about Bronson? He was saying Pearl was chosen somehow. By God? By Bronson? Had there been a difference to Pearl? Was he saying that Bronson gave her this gift? He was standing there now like he had nowhere in the world to go, and it was already a few minutes before curtain. All Mary could muster was “Yes, but what is ‘it’?”

  Bartholomew leaned in. Mary could smell sweet cocktails on his breath. Like so many in the Program, she could separate out ingredients forensically like a drug-sniffing dog—white wine and cassis—he’s a kir royale man. Sure, he must be nervous on opening night. He stage whispered like it was a secret, “She makes gold out of pain. Someone objectified her early and she’s used to being an object. Not pointing fingers, Mom. She loves letting us look at her. Like all the great ones. Marilyn. Judy. Bathsheba. Something is broken in her and she lets us see. That a woman that beautiful has so much masculine pain, it makes us all human and touch the unfairness of life together.”

  “Jesus,” Mary nearly gasped. Bartholomew winked, and for such a heavyset man, fairly glided away from them back toward the stage.

  “Who’s that fat faggot?” Hyrum asked.

  “Hyrum … not cool, dude. Not cool,” Deuce gently but firmly admonished his brother.

  “Yeah, Hyrum,” Mary agreed. “Not cool at all.”

  “Shit, my bad,” Hyrum said. “By the way, Mom, It is a horror movie about a clown.”

  It was 7:28 now. The curtain was about to go up and their row was filled. Mary wasn’t gonna make it to the bathroom in time to take the edge off without making a spectacle. Maybe at intermission, she consoled herself. The lights went down and the overture, the high school band playing the Bernstein score live, started up its theme. Mary sat down and took a deep, calming breath.

  When intermission came, it felt like an interruption. Mary didn’t want the show to stop, even for a moment, and she didn’t want it to ever end. Her cheeks were wet with an hour’s worth of tears. That man had been right. Pearl was … Pearl was … Pearl was beyond her description. Her voice, her carriage, her poise. But more than that, Mary saw another figure onstage tonight through Pearl’s Maria—Jackie. She couldn’t believe it at first, thought she must be projecting, but then it became clear. Through some magical alchemy Pearl was channeling Jackie tonight—the mannerisms, the tone, the laugh—and it was perfect. Mary was stunned.

  “Wow,” Deuce said. “She’s really good.”

  Even Hyrum had to agree. “Bitch can sing.”

  “Hyrum, please stop talking like that!”

  “Bitch got pipes?” he offered as an alternative and a joke. Deuce laughed.

  Mary smiled. “No, no, you’re right,” she agreed. “He’s right: when you’re right, you’re right—bitch can sing.”

  Even as proud as she was, Mary still needed her bump. Any extreme jangled her—too low, and she needed to medicate, too high, and she needed to medicate—she felt safe only in the middle. Trouble is, in Rancho Cucamonga, she needed help up into the middle; this was the first time in a while she’d needed help coming down into the middle. “I gotta pee, boys,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  On her way to the bathroom, Mary got stopped by Janet Bergram. “Oh my god!” Janet said. “Your daughter is incandescent.” Mary was surprised to see her here, but Janet seemed more comfortable now associating with the Powerses in public, like a friend of the family. She felt a certain stake in their success, and pride. With her deep connections throughout the school system but relative anonymity in Rancho Cucamonga, she had her ways of keeping tabs on the children sub rosa. Whatever was going to happen with the land was beside the point for her; whatever the conflicting motivations behind the wager, they had clearly made a good move just for these kids.

  She was proud. “Thank you.”

  “But what I really wanna talk about is Deuce.”

  “Okay. But, I have to pee, like forty minutes ago.”

  “Me, too. I’ll come with.”

  Fuck. “Okay,” Mary said.

  Janet continued on the walk, “What Deuce did today was amazing.” She crowed.

  “What did Deuce do today?”

  “You’re kidding, right? He didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “No? That makes him even more awesome.”

  “We really haven’t been alone today.”

  “He got the union vote. They passed it. Your seventeen-year-old son unionized a fast-food franchise.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow is right. And though it’s a testament to the passion and education you and your husband and wife, sorry, gave him meeting the opportunities we’ve given him, that’s not how we are going to spin it. We are going to claim it as a success story for Rancho Cucamonga High School, and we are going to attract attention, positive attention, that is then going to trickle down to all the public schools in the area. If you agree that that’s okay.”

  “Sure, doesn’t really matter who gets credit. Bronson couldn’t give a fuck. I’m just happy for Deuce, and the union folks too, of course.”

  “I’m so stoked!” Janet said as they entered the bathroom and went to separate stalls. “Doesn’t matter, really, who wins the bet anymore, this is win-win all around. I never trusted those folks from Santa Monica, Praetorian, and now we don’t even need them. I mean, if they wanna claim some credit too, and start spending money in the area, that’s cool, but I’m kind of of a mind of … let’s move away from them.”

  She raised her voice over the sound of serial flushing. “How are you doing?” Janet asked, right as Mary was able to put the Adderall into her mouth.

  She dry-swallowed. “Fine, I’m okay. I mean, it’s a big adjustment obviously, every day brings a new challenge.”

  “Have you thought about what you want to do next year? It’s coming up fast. Where you want to live? Oh, dammit, and I forgot to tell you, duh, why I stopped you—Harvard, Yale, and Princeton all got in touch with the admissions office here and literally begged to have Deuce apply. Berkeley, too, if he wants to stay on this coast. Some of them don’t split twins, so Pearl could go too, if you wanted to go that route.”

  Mary flushed. “It’s all so much,” she said. “So much to handle.”

  They met up again at the line of mirrors. Janet could see Mary’d been crying, and she knew why, and smiled. “Nothing like knowing your babies are okay, is there? How’s Hyrum? Sorry I’ve been so busy with my caseload.” They heard the announcement to please get back to their seats.

  “Hyrum is fine,” Mary answered. “Doing some stupid ‘boy’ stuff to fit in, but he’ll come around.”

  By the time the curtain went down on a shattered Maria, the crowd rose as one in a spontaneous standing ovation. The production was uneven at best; Bernardo had chosen to speak with a Castilian lisp and Baby John seemed the oldest person onstage and sported a five o’clock shadow by the second act, but Pearl had elevated the entire evening to a level these suburban high school parents had never beheld.

  Mary wished Yalulah and Bro’ had b
een there to witness. And Jackie. But especially Bro’. The kids were who they were because of him, his vision, and his rebellion, but it had taken his letting go for them to be fully themselves. It was his presence that they needed back then to steady them, and to goad them on, as much as they needed his absence now to free them. But still, she wanted him to feel this fierce pride. All Mary could think of was to get to that young girl right now, hug her, kiss her, and hold her tight.

  “Deuce, will you keep an eye on Hyrum? I’m gonna go tell Pearl she was great.”

  “Sure, tell her ‘not too bad’ from me,” Deuce said, smiling with genuine fraternal pride.

  Backstage, Mary found Pearl embracing a few other players, and then lingering extra long and kissing one on the mouth. She’d never met this boy who played Tony. She’d heard his name—“we’re rehearsing at Josue’s house, Tony’s house,” etc.—but that was it, and Pearl had never brought it up in any other context.

  “Mom!” Pearl came running over when she saw her. “I want you to meet my boyfriend. Josue, this is Mary, my mom, we call her Mother Mary.”

  “Like the Beatles song?” Josue asked.

  “You’re learning,” Pearl said, with a sweet smile.

  Josue extended his hand. Mary shook it, and then pulled him in and kissed his cheek. Pearl put her arm around him and looked at her mom. Pearl was apologizing—for everything, her rebellion, the vaping, the drugs, the attitude, and even though she had no need to, apologizing to Mary for Bronson. Now her arm was around her young man, dark peach fuzz on his upper lip, but she kept her eyes on Mary.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Josue,” Mary managed to get out before giving in to a huge sob.

  “Oh God, Mom,” Pearl said, hugging her. She whispered in her ear, “I love you, Mommy, and I’m sorry.” Mary had been longing to hear those words for months. The simple words had a physically percussive effect on her, forcing everything out of her heart and filling it back up.

  Mary sobbed in her daughter’s ear, “You don’t have to go back, baby.”

  Now Pearl was crying, too. “You don’t have to go back either, Mom.”

  “Oh, Jeez,” Josue said, looking away from the crying women.

  From across the room, Bartholomew saw the tears and heard the sobs, and shouted over joyfully, “I hate to say I told you so but I told you so! Didn’t I? I told you so!”

  Out in the auditorium, well-wishers also besieged Deuce. Folks congratulating him about his sister or folks who’d heard about the union vote or had read about him and wanted to pat him on the back, touch him like a religious icon in the making. Even the offensive offensive lineman who had given him his nasty nickname came up asking forgiveness and slapped him again, on the back this time.

  Hyrum was bored and easily slipped away unnoticed and out into the parking lot.

  31.

  AS SOON AS HE COULD, Hyrum ripped off his tie, removed his jacket, and unbuttoned his shirt. He could breathe again. Just having the top of a button-down shirt buttoned felt like a strangling turtleneck to him. In a stream of people, he headed toward where he thought Mary had parked. But this wasn’t his school, and he kind of got turned around. Couldn’t see their car anywhere. Figured he’d orient himself and walk home. He headed for a dark back corner of the lot that looked familiar to him.

  In the thirty minutes since the play ended, the parking lot had pretty much emptied, but still no sign of Mary, Deuce, or Pearl. A group of about five or six kids spotted Hyrum walking the edge of the lot, lit up by the lamps; they came ambling over, menacing. Hyrum didn’t know them. They looked like high schoolers.

  “That him?” one of the unfamiliar boys asked. “That the Mormon faggot?”

  In response, Hyrum made an exaggerated show of how boring this line of inquiry was for him. “Nigga, please,” he whispered, and kept walking.

  “Who you callin’ nigga, nigga?” The boy stepped up.

  “Sorry. Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing,” Hyrum said, hoping they’d just go away. He wasn’t scared, but he wasn’t about to fight six bigger guys.

  One of the boys pulled out his phone and started filming. “You right you ‘sorry,’ sorry bitch-ass nigga. Mitt Romney, Opie-lookin’ motherfucker.” All the other kids hooted and laughed derisively.

  Hyrum nodded, and said, “Good one, Lollipop.”

  But the leader, who Hyrum could see up close was probably Mexican, had a little starter mustache, and was easily fifteen or sixteen and a lot bigger than him, maybe 200 pounds, wouldn’t stop. “And your sister, she be blowin’ the football team, cuz. That’s Mormon shit right there, they can’t fuck, but they can suck.”

  Hyrum bristled at the mention of Pearl. “‘Play it cool, boy, real cool.’” Hyrum quoted the play, trying to be funny and defuse. It had the opposite effect.

  The big kid didn’t feel he was being taken seriously enough; he kept at it. “She suck good, too. That’s why she sing so good, all that dick relax her throat. She suck my dick, but my dick too big, she choke on that motherfuckin’ brown mamba.”

  Hyrum turned to walk away, but the kid moved around to get in his face again. “What, faggot? Where you goin’? You got dick to suck like your sister, pendejo? You got a date, faggot? Mormon, ass-fucking, inbred fuck. You wanna suck my dick, too?”

  “That’s an intriguing offer, but no thank you,” Hyrum said. Hyrum’s cool infuriated the other kid. He turned to walk away again. The other kid ran around to get in his face again.

  “Turn your back on me again,” he threatened, “I’ll fuck that ass if that’s what you want, little faggot.” The kid started pantomiming fellatio and making elaborate choking sounds in Hyrum’s face.

  Hyrum was breathing hard now—the stuff about Pearl really angered him—and he muttered, “Shut the fuck up, clown.”

  The kid punched him in the nose. The kid was strong. He bitch-slapped Hyrum across the face. Hyrum tasted his own blood. Hyrum was dizzy, but he lunged at the other boy, tying him up; and Hyrum could fight, he could wrassle and he could throw a good punch with either hand. Bronson had taught him well in the many self-defense disciplines that a stuntman must pick up over the years. Even though he was outweighed by almost 100 pounds, Hyrum held his own. The other kids gleefully circled the two combatants.

  Hyrum and the boy fell hard to the ground a couple times but came back up swinging, both bloodied, neither willing to give in. The bigger boy tried to use his weight to pin Hyrum down and do some ground-and-pound, but Hyrum was as lithe and slippery as an eel, and managed to wriggle free to square up time and again. His father had taught him that if he got into a fight, to tell the other guy he was gonna kill him. Of course, he wasn’t going to kill him, but his dad said that this would scare the shit out of the other guy, weaken him, make him quit. Make him think twice about fighting a killer, a guy who would stop at nothing to survive. Remembering all that, Hyrum looked over at the other boy as they both tried to catch their breath, and cursed him, “Die, Lamanite.”

  The big kid looked quizzically at Hyrum. He was tiring, getting frustrated, Hyrum knew he could outlast him, the older boy was a little heavy and soft, he now knew from grappling with him. The bigger boy hadn’t expected a long fight like this from an eleven-year-old. He wanted this over. He wanted to quit, but he’d never live that down. Hyrum saw that fatigue segue to desperation as the kid put his head down from five yards away and charged for a final takedown. This was what Bronson had told him would happen. At some point, Bronson would say, when a man fatigues he will become foolish and desperate and charge you head down, blind like a bull, and that’s when you wait, you wait and hit him coming in with an uppercut or a hook, use his momentum against him, makes your punch like the punch of two men.

  Hyrum saw the dark hair, the lowered head charging at him, and he bent his knees and coiled, turning his whole body to the left. Then he uncoiled, unleashing a low left hook flush to the temple that dropped the onrushing bigger boy. On the way down, with his own momentum still plungin
g forward, the kid smacked his head on the edge of a raised cement wheel stop with a sickening crack. And he didn’t get up. Facedown, kissing concrete, lights out. Fight over. His body stretched out in a kind of rictus, eyes closed and neck arched over the wheel stop like he was sleeping on a pillow. KO’d.

  All the boys were hooting and hollering, a couple laughing to see their buddy starched like that by a little kid, trying to film his fluttering eyes and rigid spasms. It had been a good fight. Another boy got in Hyrum’s face. Hyrum assumed his fighting stance again. This kid smiled and raised his hands in mock surrender. “Walk away now, little man, you won,” he said. “You slept him. We good. Tough-ass little man.”

  There was still no sign of his family, but Hyrum had to get out of there, so he started the walk home. He wished he’d made that decision earlier. He hadn’t wanted a fight, but the fight had found him. It wasn’t that far a walk, maybe ten minutes once he knew where he was, but Hyrum was already too far away to hear by the time one of the boys back in the parking lot yelled, “Oh shit! He ain’t breathing! Why ain’t he breathing?! He ain’t breathing! Help!” The boy kept yelling, “He ain’t breathing!”

  PART III

  BLOOD ATONEMENT

  Man may commit certain grievous sins—according to his light and knowledge—that will place him beyond the reach of the atoning blood of Christ.

  —JOSEPH FIELDING SMITH, 1954

  32.

  JOHN LENNON WAS ALIVE in Mary’s dreams last night. She’d gone to bed happier than she’d been in months, and could recall nothing from her sleep but that familiar, beloved, martyred, nasal tenor. She opened her eyes and still he was singing right there in her furnished bedroom in Rancho Cucamonga—“Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try / No hell below us, above us only sky.” This was no dream. It was her phone; a snippet of “Imagine” was her ringtone. Somebody had been calling her nonstop for hours. Her first conscious thought was “Bronson is dead.” The next time it rang, she answered.