A Lite Too Bright

by Samuel Miller

  “We have to tell people you’re alive,” I said finally, to myself as much as to him.

  A smile flickered across his lips, then disappeared.

  “My parents will forgive you,” I said, looking forward at stained-glass Jesus, speaking to him. “I know they will, I think they’ll just—they’ll be happy you’re alive. Everyone will just be happy you’re alive,” I assured him, as though nothing had ever been more important. “People will want to interview you, but you don’t have to do any of that if you don’t want to. And, and my dad’s trying to do the stupid rerelease of the book, but you can stop that, right away, if you want. And I guess you’ll probably have to address the whole Great Purpose thing; I’m not sure if you’re aware but there’s a whole group of people that are, like, worshipping you. And they’re chasing me now, but they won’t be anymore once they find out that you’re—I’ve got so many people for you to meet, too, you never got to meet Kaitlin. We started dating right after you died, or we thought you died, but she knows all about you, or even Mara, this girl—and Henry, I met him, he, he’ll be so excited. He’s been going to the train every single day, just to look for—”

  “Would you like to pray with me, Arthur?”

  I fell silent. He’d ignored me. He hadn’t heard a word I’d said, or if he had, he didn’t want to acknowledge them.

  “I’m, uh . . .” I was too disappointed to calculate a polite response. “No. No, I want to talk to you.”

  The edges of his lips curled upward in a smile. “What’s the difference?”

  “Grandpa, please. We have to tell people you’re alive. People need to know. I’m going to get my friend Mara, she’s right outside—”

  “No mortal has ever seen God,” he said deliberately, ignoring me again. “Not one, not even in the Bible. And yet millions, millions of people believe in him. Do you know why that is?”

  I sigh. “Because people walk by faith, not by—”

  “Because people don’t want to see God, Arthur. They think they do; they say they do. But deep down, they know they can’t. They can’t, because they know that seeing God would ruin God, because he could never be all they wanted Him to be. If they could see him, then he would be the truth. He would be a fact. And if you tell someone the fact, then you kill the fiction. Truth is the enemy of the mystery.

  “So it’s better if people don’t see him. Better for him to exist invisibly. That way, they can just trust their own belief that someone’s protecting them. That’s why everybody likes the mystery. They want the mystery. They want to live inside the stories they tell themselves about the world. The truth is always much, much uglier. The truth is, everyone dies. In the mystery, everyone lives forever. The truth is, we’re all tiny, and meaningless. In the mystery, we get to pretend we’re not.” He paused and shook his head. “People don’t want to see God, because anything they can see is temporary. The unseen, the mystery . . . that’s eternal.”

  From nowhere, rushing down through the still air molecules in the church, I felt a wave of inconsolable, unplaceable sadness, staring at him unmoving across the aisle from me. I’d spent the last five years—my entire life, really—wondering where he was and wishing he was there. Now he was here, right in front of me, thinking and breathing and speaking in complete sentences, but he was absent. He was more hollow than ever before.

  “Did you leave clues for me to find you?” I asked, words catching in my throat.

  He didn’t answer, and tears pushed at the inside corners of my eyes.

  “Did you want me to find you?”

  He ignored the question again, now looking away from me.

  “Was this a plan? The poem in the bird book and the clues to get me here? Or was that a mistake?” I was almost shouting at him, but the words ran over and off his skin like water. “Did I ruin your plan to fade away into nothing until we forgot you? Did I?” I stood up. “Tell me, because if you want me to leave you alone, I will.”

  Somewhere above us, a bell for the church sounded, softly.

  “Tell me.” His voice returned. “What is it you’re looking for?”

  Just like every picture in my head, he was blank and impassive, unquestioning and unquestioned. It was the third time he’d asked exactly that, automatically and without context. He wasn’t better, or cured, or even faking an illness. It was a reset.

  “Do you remember me, Grandpa?” I pleaded, but he gave me nothing. “Please, I just want answers. Please.”

  He shifted in his seat to face me, and both eyes opened. “Is that why you robbed Jack?”

  My stomach tightened as the question echoed. “What do you, what do you mean? How did, Grandpa, I didn’t, I didn’t—”

  “Is that why you ran away?” I couldn’t look away from him. His eyes were colorless and cold. “Is that why you’re not going back? Lying to your father and putting him through hell?” His voice boomed through the church.

  “Wait. How, how did you know I—”

  “Is that why you tried to hit her, Arthur?”

  All of the breath I was clinging to shot out of me.

  He stood, no longer mortal, towering over me with the size and strength of five men, his presence filling the church, the edges of his body blurring into the smoke, swirling around me and trapping me in, choking me. I fell to my knees before him, gasping for breath, while all around him, tiny Bibles rose from the pews, like a storm poised to roll over me.

  “Answer me, Arthur!” he boomed. “What is it you’re looking for?”

  “I don’t know,” I gasped, voice wet from tears. “I just need to know why.”

  The Bibles fell, and the wind stopped, and my grandfather’s human form became clear, retreating back to the pew where he’d been sitting. I collapsed to the floor, the breath rushing back into my lungs.

  “You need it too much,” he said.

  I looked up from the floor. “What?”

  The pitch of his voice shifted, sliding upward as he spoke and morphing with the voice that never left my head.

  “You need me too much.” And the sanctuary fell silent.

  Behind my eyelids, colors swirled. The adrenaline that had crested tumbled back down and I felt empty, and alone. It was all fake, I could tell now, but I could still see my hatred, bright red in every corner of my vision. Hatred for my grandpa, hatred for where I was, hatred of myself.

  When I opened my eyes, there was an older man standing in front of me. He was wearing a jet-black robe, a white collar around his neck, and his gray hair was perfectly parted. He spoke quietly, like he didn’t want to disturb the room around us.

  “Arthur? Arthur Pullman, right?”

  I blinked, trying to see more clearly who he was.

  “It’s okay, you—you don’t know me,” he said, his eyes chasing back and forth, his head twisting slightly to look behind him to the door. “I’m Father Stephenson; this is my church that you’re . . . lying in.”

  “How did you know my name?” I asked, sitting up.

  Again, he glanced back toward the door, and for the first time, the sound of Chicago permeated the church walls—sirens.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, Arthur, but people know that you’re missing. People are looking for you, and I . . . You must forgive me.”

  The sirens got louder.

  5.

  I TORE OUT of the church as fast as my legs would allow, blinded by every terrifying thought in my head like an overwhelming stream of light, too bright to make out any of its sources, and spilled onto the street.

  I couldn’t feel any of it.

  An insignificant blur, brown hair and a cigarette, waited—“Arthur, did you hear the”—but my body tore past it; everything about the world was violent; the color, the light, the noise, all of it was strobing inside my head, forcing my senses to throb—what is it you’re looking for?—my body sent its energy to the weakness that surrounded it, sharing it with the too-bright world and the too-close man on the sidewalk—“
Hey, buddy, what the fuck?”—but the world needed it, and my body was past it, moving faster and faster down the street, too fast to know what it was moving toward. I could see water rushing in the windows of the car, hear the beeps of the warning lights, see the exhaust climbing, and hear my father screaming.

  City blocks flew by like lines on the sidewalk, but my eyes saw none of it. It was all infinite light, extending impossibly in every direction. People shouting behind it—you need me too much—sirens screaming around me, but my body was too far away now to be touched, flying forward and ahead of me, my eyes found the words at the end of my tunnel of noise and sound and lights—CHICAGO TRIBUNE. Voices, trying to pull my body backward—“Arthur, what in the hell are you doing?”—brown hair and a cigarette, small and frail and superior, chiding me, observing my weakness—“Stop! Arthur! Please!”—looking through my skin and into my chest where it knew it had control over me.

  “Don’t touch me,” my voice reacted, but the words weren’t mine. “Get out of my way.”

  Hundreds of horrible voices echoed over the blinding light, blowing out my senses—just don’t do anything you’ll regret—and from the top window my body could feel Sal’s wicked eyes, mocking me over shitty coffee—please, go bother someone else!—and my left hand throbbed, animal instinct pushing its rage further and further to impulse, onto the body that wasn’t mine anymore, through the door, and straight to the desk—“Excuse me, sir, what is it you’re looking for?”—every person in the room was faceless, a blur of skin and color and identity that would never matter, but my body registered the intense heat of their judgment against my skin. My ring tightened; my left hand burned.

  “Get me Sal Hamilton, now,” my voice snarled.

  Exploding out of the nothingness around my body was a horrible, wicked shriek I remembered—you always do this! This is how you manipulate people!—brown hair and pale skin, radiating outward white-hot light—when you get angry, it’s like there this little switch in you that flips and you go crazy!—and then more laughter, this time male, Mason behind her—she told me it was okay—his hands all over her—I’m sorry, Arthur—and another male, taller and angrier—you’ve got a name to protect—and—I didn’t think he would rob us. The stares all around me grew more intense, my skin could feel it.

  “I don’t need anything!” My body fought its way back across the room, stumbling away from the desk, gripping its head to stop the light, hand burning, face exploding.

  There were hands on me now, tall men in uniforms—“Sir, please lower your voice”—black like Kaitlin’s wall, holding my body down—you need me too much!—and their faces were Kaitlin’s, the walls of the building around them getting closer, determined to not let me escape. What is it you’re looking for?—my grandfather’s voice, his face now floating on one of the warm bodies of black cloth around me, taunting me, shouting, over and over on an infinite loop—you need me too much!—and my body fought the words back, every ounce of heat and energy and despair, my arms swung and the ring on my left hand burned and they aimed at the wall behind where Kaitlin stood—

  and I felt my body go limp,

  and then, finally, I felt nothing at all.

  6.

  may 3, the 2010.

  arthur in stone gray walls

  with nothing,

  surrounded by nothing

  the curse of

  feeling everything

  is that you’re painfully aware

  when you feel nothing.

  —arthur louis pullman

  7.

  “ARTHUR PULLMAN?”

  “Mmm.”

  “You’re Arthur Pullman?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m here to inform you that your father has requested that, in lieu of further time in holding, you complete a psychiatric evaluation, upon which the terms of your release will be conditioned. Now, seeing as you are eighteen, you do have the right to refuse his suggestion and remain in the cell, but—and I’m speaking of my own volition here—I’d strongly suggest that you do as he requested and complete the evaluation.”

  “Why?”

  The uniformed officer standing in the cell door in front of me shrugged. “Chairs are more comfortable in there.”

  I followed. I’d never been in a police station before, let alone a cell. They were terrible, built to convince you of your guilt. He led me down a series of hallways, through an oak door, to a room with two high-backed chairs, an oriental rug, and a coffee table with a plastic green plant. The illusion of comfort, rule number one in the Book of Therapeutic Bullshit.

  I couldn’t feel anything. It wasn’t a temporary flash of numbness, or an overwhelming light, or a moment of my body taking control and operating on instinct; it was a complete and total nothing. No want, no fear, no purpose, no hope, no sadness, no happiness, nowhere to go and no reason to be there, no desperate truth or longing for answers; just a plain white emptiness where everything else used to be. I tested myself.

  Arthur, your hand is healed! UCLA wants you to start practice Monday! “I guess that’s fine.”

  Arthur, your grandfather is actually alive, he’s waiting to talk to you. “That’s very interesting.”

  Arthur, Kaitlin fucked Mason again. “Huh . . . huh.”

  I had become a plastic human being.

  The door opened and a copy of Dr. Sandoval, this one female, and black, came through the door and sat in the chair adjacent to mine. She opened a folder on her lap and read silently. If I cared, I’d have read it upside down. Instead, I stared at the plant.

  “Arthur Pullman,” she announced.

  Our eyes met, and I noticed another similarity with Dr. Sandoval, maybe the most noticeable—inhuman detachment in her eyes. I’d imagine it was the kind of look that only developed after years and years of looking too closely at people. It would be hard to still have faith in the species.

  She leaned forward, looking me up and down, like she was checking to see if there was anything about me that wasn’t in the folder. She must have decided there wasn’t. “Tell me about your dreams.”

  “My dreams?”

  She nodded.

  “What about them?”

  She reopened the folder. “Your therapist at home, Dr. Sandoval, said you described them as ‘driving your car off a cliff, crashing into the water, and drowning.’ Is that right?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want her to know anything. I couldn’t let her have that power over me. I knew how she would use it.

  “What about your hand?” she asked.

  “What about it?

  “You’re wearing a cast.”

  “I broke it.”

  “How?”

  “By breaking it.”

  “Yeah, I got that part, and I’m asking how?”

  After a moment of silence, she began speaking quickly. “A psychiatric evaluation such as this exists for me to make a determination, on behalf of the state, as to whether or not I believe that you can be released from the jail here without further risk of violence, either to yourself or to others. I make this determination based solely on what I observe. There is no second opinion, there is no appeals process, and, at this point, you’ve consented, so bail doesn’t really do anything for you unless I say you’re ready to leave.” She slapped the folder. “You’re not hiding anything from anyone here. This thing tells me everything I need to know. So tell me, Arthur Louis Pullman, how is it that you broke your hand?”

  “I thought you had, you said you already, already had all of the answers in your, your little . . . folder.” My voice was dry.

  “I want you to tell me. Unless, of course”—she found a section in the folder with her finger—“‘Arthur broke his hand punching a wall forcefully. The punch was thrown at Kaitlin Lewis, his girlfriend at the time.’” She looked up. “Is that really all there is to it?”

  I sat still, feeling none of it. “I guess that’s all.”

  “Why were you mad?”

  “Nothing.”
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  “Nothing?”

  “It was stupid. Sometimes I get mad.” I quickly added, “Back then. But not anymore.”

  She leaned toward me and said, as if she understood, “Is that why you tried to hit her?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “What’s that on your finger?” She noticed my thumb was twisting around my ring finger. “Let me see it.”

  Reluctantly, I set the ring on the table in front of us.

  “A ring, huh?” She picked it up and rubbed the silver in front of me, smoothed over from having spun on my finger so many times. “It’s nice,” she observed, checking back on my face for a reaction but logging zero results.

  “You know . . .” She set it back on the table. “I handle a lot of domestic violence cases in here,” she said. “It’s the most common kind of case I’m called in for. You start to recognize patterns, between these guys, and the most noticeable one is that they never seem to get why what they did might not be okay. It’s always like they had to do it, like they were provoked, or they were just doing what anybody would’ve done. Some of them, they go so far as to think they’re doing her a favor. ‘At least now she knows not to be such a bitch,’ that kind of thing.”

  “So?”

  “So, none of those guys would blame it on themselves getting mad,” she said, leaning in. “So I guess my question is, why hit the wall?”

  “I guess I was mad.”

  “Takes a lot of force to break your hand. I’m going to bet,” she said, nodding to the ring, “it wasn’t your hand you were trying to break.”

  My eyes found the ring, still perfectly intact on the table in front of me and in every dream.

  “When’d she give this to you?”

  I swallowed. “Two years ago.”

  “And then she cheated on you.”

  I didn’t say anything for a long moment.

  She held up the folder. “She admitted to you that she had three other active sexual partners. One of them was your best friend, Mason Cromwell.” I could still feel her watching my face. “Three active sexual partners is a lot for a girl with a boyfriend. Did you not know that?”