Unstoppable Moses

by Author Tyler James Smith

  Something clicked with Michael. He pointed, bobbing his finger up and down in thought. “Yeah, I remember something about that. Happened a few suburbs south of the city. Something about burning nativity scenes or Mohammed or Buddha. Something. I remember my aunt being pissed about it.”

  “Mine too,” Faisal said, staring into his coffee while the memories articulated themselves in his head. “Yeah, my aunt and uncle called the house and said that they were burning Jesus over in Guthrie.”

  “It wasn’t just any Jesus,” I said. “It was Rock ’n’ Roll Jesus. Bought on special order. We stole him from a prie … sorry, minister’s yard.”

  “That was you?” Michael asked.

  “And my cousin, Charlie. They televised the whole courtroom drama on and off for about six months after. They called it a hate crime at first.”

  “Shit,” Matty said. “I do remember something about that. But I never watched the courtroom stuff. I don’t remember hearing about your cousin though.”

  “Yeah—yeah yeah yeah, there were two, I remember that,” Michael said, still scanning his archived memories. “But the other one got shot. He died— Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “He didn’t die,” I said.

  “Wait, no, I remember watching some of the coverage when I was in the waiting room. When I was getting stitches,” Faisal said to his friends, as if to verify the story. “There was the cop that … did it. And was giving his testimony. I remember him saying that he ‘pulled his service revolver and fired a single shot, hitting the suspect in the head.’”

  “Why do you remember that?” Michael asked him.

  “Because it was fucked up. I remember thinking how fucked up it was that this guy shot an unarmed kid in the head. I kept watching and waiting for them to say the kid had a weapon or something but they never did. He didn’t die?”

  “You didn’t see him in court because he was still at St. Anne’s.” I raked my hand through my hair. “That was before they moved him to Golden Hills. A long-term care facility. He’s in a coma.”

  It didn’t take long for the news to get bored with our story. By the time the facts had come out they’d lost their shine and luster and people’d stopped watching. They didn’t want to watch my Aunt Mar cry about her son. People were a lot less interested in seeing Charlie laid up in a hospital bed with half of his hair shaved off and a ragged, zipper-shaped line of thick stitches along the side of his head. Not after the facts came out. Not after they stopped calling it a hate crime.

  They especially didn’t want to watch after it came out that it was a prank.

  It’s not that I didn’t try to make them see us. They just wouldn’t. And they didn’t see a lot of things and they certainly never saw his eyes. I know because I tried to get them to film it and show it, but they didn’t want to and neither did Aunt Mar. I just wanted one shot—one shot that showed the scar and the tubes and Charlie’s eyes that you could only see if you pulled his eyelids up. His right eye is a milked-over, foggy placeholder; an eye not of a storm but in it. But his other eye, his left eye, is still so goddamn clear like it sees miles further than any other eye in the world.

  I took another searing mouthful of the beverage. For a campground out in the middle of Nowheresville, Michigan, they had good coffee and blisteringly intense hot sauce.

  “I didn’t know the whole thing was supposed to burn. Charlie did. Charlie set it up. We had different ideas about what it meant to bring people together.”

  “Your cousin tried to burn a bowling alley down?”

  “No. Not the bowling alley. That part was an accident, I think.”

  “And you didn’t know?” Michael asked.

  I felt that familiar twisting in my guts. The feeling that was equal parts hurt pride and fruitless, pathetic anger. “No, I didn’t know. He even asked me if it smelled funny when we were on the roof that night. Wanted to see if I could smell the lighter fluid he was spraying on the pallets. Other than that, though, I think it was an accident. This is more of a community service situation for me than a team-building weekend.”

  “That’s fucked up,” Faisal said. “Why didn’t he tell you?” he asked, knowing my story and asking about Charlie instead of saying he would pray for me.

  “Because that was how he was. That was how we were.”

  “But the Jesus thing, that was on purpose?” Matty asked.

  I answered the question I had the answer to: “It wasn’t just Jesus. It was Jesus, Buddha, Vishnu, Lou Reed, and a Pakistani flag. Everyone always thinks it was just Jesus.”

  “Wait,” Matty said. “If it was an accident and he was the one who rigged it, why are you here?” She asked the question I always thought she would, and instead of venom, there was only honest curiosity.

  “I was still trespassing and I was the one driving the car. Test made it pretty clear that they wouldn’t have let me around kids if I was a felon.”

  “The cop shouldn’t have shot him,” Matty said, angry for me.

  “Officer Alan Powell,” I said. Faisal snapped a look at me like he recognized the name. I cleared my throat. “I don’t think he meant to. Charlie stood up when he was supposed to be on the ground.”

  “That’s bullshit. That’s what they always say.”

  “Nah, he did. He had his gun on me. And, honestly, I’m pretty sure he was about to shoot me. So Charlie stood up. I think he was just scared. I think the situation got way worse than he’d planned it to.”

  “He still shouldn’t have shot him,” Matty said.

  It was hard not to smile when I said the outlandish sentence: “We were standing in front of a bowling alley engulfed in flames with a bunch of religious idols melting behind us to Guns ’n’ Roses,” but the words still came out shaky. “And the guy that shot him … he’s ruined.”

  “They fired him?” Michael said.

  “No, not at all. The department was very supportive. Lots of other officers saying, ‘You did what you had to do’ and ‘It was an impossible choice.’”

  “Wait. What was his name again?”

  “Alan Powell.”

  “Al Powell? Like R—”

  “Like in Die Hard. Trust me, Charlie’d laugh too. Not that this Officer Powell looked anything like Reginald VelJohnson.”

  “I mean, hey, a coma’s not so bad, right?” Michael said. Matty bored holes through him with her look. “I mean, considering the—” He swallowed. “Sorry.”

  “It’s not that kind of coma,” I said. “He’s a three on the Glasgow scale—he’s not going to wake up, and eventually his parents’ll have to make a decision about life support.”

  “I’m really sorry,” Michael said.

  And I said, “I’m not.” And I said, “The worst part of it was when they told me that he wasn’t going to wake up, there was a part of me that felt numb and there was part of me that was happy.” And I said the word again, from the deep hot center of my chest: “Happy. How fucked up is that? Part of me was happy. And ever since, I haven’t been sure I’m a human being with a beating heart because how could I be happy that my cousin was never going to wake up?” The words flew out of me like scattered black birds against a brilliant sky. “That’s what fucked me up the most. But this? Lump? This hurts so much.”

  Whether it was the drink or the honesty or the night catching up to me or the new ghosts I’d be carrying with me, I felt my drums beating and I knew they weren’t mechanical. In the middle of my chest, the muscle kept hammering away, loud and constant and human.

  Like maybe the machine wasn’t a machine at all.

  Like maybe the mechanism to hurt and feel wasn’t broken and never was.

  Another sip and the door opened. Test stepped in. Despite the cold weather and his huge coat, he was still wearing shorts.

  “Anyway. Matty: you asked about my life story. That’s it—that’s the one.” I stood up as Test got closer.

  “Moses,” he said as he walked over to us.

  We’re always in the a
ftermath of the storm. We’re always staggering from one disaster to the next. And at the same time, we are the storms in other people’s lives. We are the disasters that lay waste to cities and anticipated apocalypses.

  But we are also so much more.

  I used to think that happy endings were just prologues for tragedy; that if you kept your eyes open for long enough, you’d see the tapered line where the shining moment ended and the grimy, black downfall began. And it’s true: happy endings always precede tragedy.

  But tragedy inevitably precedes hope. That’s just gravity. The same way the fall always follows the float. What comes up will inevitably come down; the big secret is that what falls will always rise again. It’s all a spiral.

  Charlie ended my life when I was eight, but he started it too.

  Someday, I will be new again. I’ll be new until I’m not.

  And then I’ll fall.

  And I’ll rise.

  Then fall.

  Then rise again.

  Faisal’s face contorted when the crosswind wafted over my cup. “What the hell are you drinking?”

  “Home recipe. Nothing you’d want to drink. I’ll see you guys. Let’s meet up in the city when we’re all back.”

  They nodded back at me like that was the most obvious thing in the world.

  I stepped out into the lamp-lit night. A world that kept on existing beyond every angle of your pain’s perimeter.

  “Taxi’s GPS was acting up—they called asking for last-minute directions. They’ll be here in fifteen,” Test said. “Might be a good time to get your bags.”

  FIFTY-THREE: EVULSION

  “MOSES!” MICHAEL SAID, calling from behind me while jogging. He caught up and smiled one of those sad funeral-smiles. One of those everything-is-fucked kind of smiles. “Where’re you going?”

  “Barn.”

  “Oh,” he said. He was keeping up with me even though I hadn’t invited him to come along. But I was hoping he would. I was banking on it.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Yep.”

  We were quiet for a stretch. The moon was bright enough that we could see how the trees around us were covered in names carved into their wood. The names were from always: ones that, according to their dates, were only carved a few months ago, right next to the ones that had long since turned into the trees’ scar tissues. There were enough names carved into enough trees that, statistically, many of them were long since dead.

  I didn’t say anything because I was looking at the trees that were living testaments to the dead and that got so dense and complete that, as far as I could tell, they had to go on forever. And because I knew that the more I didn’t say, the harder he’d insist on trying to help.

  I told myself to think of Charlie. Even if I hated him sometimes, he wasn’t always wrong. I could grieve for Lump’s pain like a real, live person, but I could be like Charlie when I needed to be.

  I just had to hold it together for a few minutes longer.

  “That’s okay. Not being all right,” Michael said. He was keeping pace even though I was walking fast and with my hands shoved in my pockets and answering with single-syllable words. “So hey, Moses…” he said.

  He stopped and expected me to stop too.

  We were deep enough in the woods that nobody could hear us, but not so deep that we were lost. We were somewhere between the children and the adults and the winding gravel was dusted with snow.

  Some of the names carved into the trees were higher up than others. They were high enough that when the trees were in full color or filled with green leaves or red buds they’d be invisible. It was only when the trees died for the season—when the leaves all fell away and the wood went gray and all the color dissipated—that the birds packing the branches and the nests tucked safely away in the highest parts of the ancient trees became visible. I stopped and turned toward him.

  “How’re you and Matty doing?”

  “We broke up,” he said, the way you’d expect someone to report on the weather. Like he was a machine. They were finally dealing with their apocalypse. “She’s on the fence about it, but we broke up.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket and shook one out.

  “You smoke?” I said.

  “I’m mourning my relationship,” Michael said over his cigarette and behind his cupped hand. He took a long pull, burning a quarter of the goddamn thing down in one go. He held the cloud in behind puffed cheeks for a few seconds, nodding. And then bent at the knees and coughed until he almost threw up.

  “When did you have time to buy cigarettes to start this new habit?” I felt like Test. I felt like a parent. I felt like Charlie.

  “I bought them off a kid.” He sounded like he expected me to laugh or give him a high five.

  “One of the Buddies sold you a pack of Pall Malls?”

  “No. One of Bryce’s shit-ass little friends.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked him. Except I knew. I was all too familiar with playing the asshole. More than that, I was familiar with other people doing it too.

  “Jesus, this is awful.” He spit a thick wad of phlegm into the gravel.

  “What are you doing?” I asked again.

  “Fucking up. I should have bought menthols,” he said, coughing.

  “Menthols aren’t the reason you’re fucking up.”

  He brought the cigarette to his lips again. “I know.” And he said it like me. Like someone who thought the best course of action was to give the hungry crowd exactly what they wanted. He’d be the asshole he assumed Matty thought he was. The worst parts of Moses Hill and Charlie Baltimore mixed together.

  What I didn’t say:

  “Remember I told you about the guy that shot Charlie? Powell? And how wrecked he was by what happened? During his deposition he told everyone how he put his gun to his head every night since the night we’d burned the bowling alley and all the gods down. He’d press the gun into his forehead, right above his eyebrow—which he thought was metaphorically resonant because it’s where he shot my cousin, who was also supposedly my other half. He said he tried to pull the trigger for three months and that he wanted the same dice roll he gave Charlie: coma, brain death, or miracle. He turned in his resignation papers after he pulled the trigger and found that the safety was on even though he swears he turned it off. My point is, the life he’d had before was gone and, in its place, he found something new. But that something new had a price tag.”

  What I did say:

  “You take another drag of that and I’m going to kick your ass.” He smiled at me but I kept staring at him; he cupped one hand and tried to start a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. “I’m not kidding. There’s no bluff clause or joke here; if you put that fucking thing in your mouth I’m punching your goddamn teeth out of your head.”

  The smile faded and his face changed. Sometimes people burn bridges because, after all, at least a burning bridge makes light for everyone else.

  “It isn’t up to you,” he said, snatching the Pall Mall out of his mouth and pointing at me with the two fingers holding the cigarette.

  “This is though.”

  “What I do isn’t up to you. That choice isn’t yours,” he said, and placed the cigarette back between his lips.

  My nerves still echoed with Evulsion. Powell had paid the price for his something-new, and so had I. Sometimes the world needs to be given something to come back from. Give them a fight they can win and they’ll be warriors. Give them the end of the world and they’ll make love. Give them the brink and they’ll fight it.

  I head-butted him through the cigarette.

  No one in the history of head butts expects the head butt.

  He reeled back and grabbed the side of his face like someone had just extinguished a lit cigarette with a flying head butt to his face. I launched myself forward again, going for the tackle.

  In my head, Charlie was telling me
to make sure Michael’s trajectory was headed in the right direction. To keep him from paying the price for his new, battered life.

  I’m not sure what happened next because I was staring up at the sky, the wind knocked clean out of me.

  “The fuck is wrong with you?” he asked me. He had me straddled with my arms held down with his knees. Even after everything, part of me expected his hands to go to my throat; to match his handprints to where Charlie’s brother had almost crushed my windpipe. He swiped an arm across his face and left a smeared line of blood up his sleeve. His eyes were wide; his eyes were open.

  My head was swimming, but I started laughing because I hadn’t expected him to be that fast and because he still hadn’t done anything other than defend himself. I could taste the blood on my teeth. My breath kept hitching and I choked on the air but that made me laugh harder.

  I was Moses. I was Charlie. I was both halves evolved into someone new. The best parts of Moses Hill and Charlie Baltimore mixed together.

  Hopefully.

  “You’re crazy. You’re actually crazy,” he said, pulling his hands back.

  Get them mad and they’ll realize how much they care. Give them something they can triumph over. Give them a transformation they don’t even realize is happening.

  “Hey,” I said, cutting the laughter off. “She can do better than you. You don’t deserve her.” I smiled. I relaxed. I didn’t struggle.

  Give them a choice where the only possible outcome is a life made better: go left, become the beautiful, human animal; go right, be the gleaming hero. Rig the game. Stack the deck. Make them pay attention.

  He leaned into my face and didn’t say anything for a moment. He pulled me closer by my jacket. He would hit me and Matty would leave him behind because she’d see Dalton in him; neither one of them would know he was baited into it and she’d leave and his heart would break but someday, a lifetime from now, I knew he’d find a version of himself built from the flaming wreck.

  Or he’d unclench his fists. He’d let the blood drip from his face and fall wherever it was going to fall and let me be the villain. He’d walk away, not weak for bleeding but stronger because of it. Every drop of unavenged blood would bring him closer to the person he thought he should be.