Empire of Light

by Michael Bible

  * * *

  —

  MRS. EVERHART TAUGHT our class about the poets of war. Wilfred Owen died not much older than me. We read his poem about mustard gas in the trenches and how this dead guy’s face was like a devil’s sick of sin. It haunted me, kept me up at night. I couldn’t sleep and I read in my anthropology books about shamans who claimed time was an irrelevant construct. No matter what we choose today, they said, we will change our pasts in our future minds. Next, I read about strange illnesses on foreign continents. A disease that made happily married men get up and leave their houses. They’d walk to another town and start new families. I closed the book and turned out the light, but I still couldn’t sleep. I remembered a day from my youth. I was at the top of a Ferris wheel with a woman who fostered me for only a weekend. I was maybe five or six. She had shocking red hair and being close to her was everything I ever wanted in the world. I sang her a song I’d learned in school because she was scared of heights. Brown paper packages tied up with string, I sang. These are a few of my favorite things. She bought me peach ice cream and held me up so I could see the square dancers.

  I fell into a deep sleep and dreamed of her.

  The next day after school I went over to Molly’s house. It was her idea to go through her mom’s closet. We found a shoebox of pictures. Some showed Molly’s father in his army uniform in the desert. There was one of her mother painted head to toe with green makeup. It was for a costume party before Molly was born. They were drinking cocktails and laughing like people who thought their lives would be that way forever. Molly put them back in the shoebox and closed it.

  I’m going to take a nap, she said.

  I heard her crying as I closed the door behind me. Back at home I called Charlie and he invited me to his trailer, a few blocks away from school. He collected replica samurai swords and built a Tesla coil in his driveway. There were old synthesizers and VHS tapes stacked waist high of his band’s old shows. He said they opened for Little Boots Johnson once. I nodded but I’d never even heard of Little Boots Johnson. Charlie rolled a joint and handed it to me and I took a big hit.

  I was a hell of a sight in my glory days, he said. Then I got old and the only gig I could get was playing a piano on a cruise ship. It’s a big world out there.

  I passed the joint back to him.

  Ever think of skipping town again, I asked.

  Not anymore, he said. I’m all skipped out.

  Clouds formed prisms in the distance. I searched for signs of movement on the horizon. A too-quiet quiet fell over the country. You could almost hear the fish swimming in the river. The smell of dandelions mixed with blood filled the air. A mirage of a belly dancer slid across the horizon. We rode on.

  * * *

  —

  ONE SATURDAY NIGHT me and Molly went to the Starlight Diner to drink black coffee and play chess. This was where the old men came night after night to lie about their youthful exploits. A jukebox played sad songs about bad women and Jesus Christ. The parking lot across the street was full of rich kids from our high school. Boys with big tires on their trucks flirting with girls wearing crosses dangling between their breasts. Just like their fathers and mothers probably had in this same parking lot before them, which they’d done just like their parents before them, and so on back to before this was even a parking lot and just a dirt road to somewhere better. I saw Miles leaning on his yellow car.

  I know that kid, I said.

  Who, Molly said. Miles Armstrong? The quarterback?

  Yeah, I said. We drove to the lake one time.

  He’s an asshole, she said. His family is big shit in this town.

  How do you know he’s an asshole, I asked.

  Look at him, she said.

  Miles was surrounded by a group of girls hanging on his every word. The moonlight made their shadows dance on the building behind them. I stood up from the booth and walked toward the door of the diner.

  Where are you going, Molly asked.

  I’m gonna say hi, I said.

  You can’t go over there, she said.

  Why not, I said.

  Because, she said, you can’t.

  I walked out the door.

  Miles Armstrong, I yelled.

  The girls standing with him turned and gave me the evil eye. Miles smiled.

  Wanna drink some coffee, I asked.

  There was a long pause and I wasn’t sure if I had offended the whole order of the universe or something. Everyone looked at me and back to Miles. Then, without saying a word, he walked across the street. He walked inside the Starlight and slid into the booth next to Molly. I sat on the other side.

  You must be Maloney’s neighbor, he said to Molly. I’ve heard a lot about you.

  She blushed.

  Thanks, she said.

  Some of the old men in the diner came over to our booth and shook Miles’ hand.

  Can’t wait to see you throw a million touchdowns on Friday night, one of them said.

  I’ll do my best, sir, Miles said.

  The men walked back over to their table talking about what they would do if they were his age.

  You’re a celebrity around here, Molly said.

  Big fish, Miles said. Small pond.

  Getting into any trouble tonight, I asked him.

  I’m tired of the parking lot, he said. You guys want to drive around?

  Molly looked at me.

  Yeah, I said. Mind if I drive?

  He threw me the keys.

  We drove all night and listened to the old country station as we took laps around the lake, Molly squeezed between us. A few miles out of town Miles told me to turn down an old dirt road. After a few minutes of nothing we could see a makeshift shack on the edge of the woods.

  What is this place, Molly asked.

  A secret, Miles said.

  We parked and walked inside. It was full of people. Someone was making ribs on a grill out back and there was a bar made from sawhorses and plywood serving beer from a big cooler for a dollar. Music blasted over a dirt dance floor ringed by Christmas lights. It was packed with people of all shapes and sizes dancing in every variation. Men with women, men with men, women with women. Black and white, old and young. I realized this was the place where the lonely and mistreated people in town came to be together. They all turned as we walked in. A massive woman walked up to us, she seemed to be in charge.

  I’m Queen Rita, she said. Who the fuck are you?

  Miles took out a wad of cash from his pocket.

  I’m Miles, he said. Was hoping to show my friends here a good time.

  The woman took his money, all of it, and stuffed it in her bra.

  Your friends drink beer, she asked.

  Yeah, Miles said.

  They smoke weed, she asked.

  Miles nodded.

  Y’all the cops, she asked us.

  No, we said in unison.

  Good, she said. Then we gonna have fun tonight.

  The sunshine moved into the country, along the sand. Forever was tired and I sang him a lullaby. I was intimate with Princess in a canoe. There were eels up ahead.

  They’re electric, said Princess. Everything is here.

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT NIGHT I rode with Molly in her dad’s old Buick. We parked out by the old fort from the French and Indian War and got in the backseat together (it was the size of a living room sofa) and curled up. Dolly Parton was singing “I Will Always Love You” on the radio. Molly got out a quilt and wrapped it over her tan legs. Up in the sky the stars radiated. We made out and she put her feet over mine and they disappeared into the darkness. The night surrounded us like a vapor. In the distance we could hear the thunder of the marching band. The first home game of the season

  It’s like all this town cares about is that Goddamn football game, she said.

  Bunch of nonsense, I said.

  There was a pause as one song faded into the next.

  I’ve never actually seen a
game, Molly said.

  Maybe we could watch from the hill, I said. No one will see us.

  We drove to the hill overlooking the stadium and watched Miles score touchdown after touchdown. The crowd screamed like a fever had come over them. The boys on the field crushed themselves against each other, sacrificing their bodies to the gods of sport. When the game ended they hoisted Miles over their heads and tore down the goalposts and dragged them into the center of town. The home team’s fans fought the away team’s fans. The moon was indifferent in the sky.

  Forever tapped his hoof twelve times to tell us how many nuns were on the hillside. These were beautiful, indecent nuns. They had taken a vow of nudity and scamp food. We smoke-signaled them and they arrived at our campfire, breasts out to the wild night.

  * * *

  —

  ONE SATURDAY THERE was a lake party for Molly’s church youth group and Mrs. Everhart asked me to join. We listened to doo-wop on the radio in the car. I watched the countryside out the window. When we got to the lake there were dozens of smiling Christians eating burgers and doing trust falls. Me and Molly jumped in the water and swam to a floating dock in the middle of the lake.

  Did you know, I said, that monks from the upper regions of Spain believe there are ten thousand vibrating versions of the universe?

  Where do you get this stuff, she said.

  She wore a peach-colored bathing suit. The light off the lake was supernatural. Fish bit at my toes. We felt a wave and saw a long wooden motorboat coming our way. It was Miles. He was wearing a captain’s hat, drinking a cocktail. He pulled beside us.

  Right on time, Molly said.

  We rode around the lake and he took us to his secret cove and dropped anchor. Me and Molly sat in the back and she leaned in close to me. Miles played the Beach Boys on the radio and fixed us rum and Cokes. He joined us in the back and we smoked cigarettes and looked out at the water and did exactly nothing. The waves slapped against the hull of the boat. I felt a deep desire for the world to stay unchanged.

  We all dived in the water together and floated there as the sun dropped magenta into the water. Then Miles drove the boat back to the floating dock. Later the Christians sang songs around the campfire and Molly put a blanket over our legs and touched me underneath. In the car on the way back home she fell asleep on my shoulder.

  When I got to Frank’s he wasn’t in the basement working on his model like normal. The kitchen light was on. I walked inside and he was sitting at the table. A single bare bulb swung above him. There were dishes overflowing in the sink.

  You want to explain this, he said.

  Explain what, I asked.

  This, he said.

  On the kitchen table was my cigar box of weed.

  It’s medicinal, I said. None of your business.

  I grabbed the box.

  He stood up and slapped me. The box fell to the floor and I grabbed my face. He took off his belt and wrapped it around his fist like he’d done it a million times.

  You’re going to learn, he said. I mean to keep a Christian home.

  He grabbed my neck and bent me over the table and started whipping me. The force of each blow was quick and deep. The buckle cut into my skin. Between licks I could turn a little to see his face, so red with anger. He hit me again and again until I was blind with pain. I felt him forcing me down to my knees.

  Pray, he shouted. Pray for forgiveness.

  Dear Jesus, I said. Forgive this man. He knows not what he does.

  He beat me all night for that one.

  Forever shed a tear. I warmed up on guitar. Princess’s dress was torn and she wore the marks of great adventure. Forever came to the edge of the pool and smelled the water and walked away.

  Princess sighed.

  Every human, she said, spends half an hour as a single cell.

  * * *

  —

  I LAID AWAKE that night in pain and thought of running away. I thought of my time out west. There was the night I slept at Bing Crosby’s old mansion in Hollywood. This was back when I was sleeping on couches, living off kindness. My friend, a singer, was dating an actress and the studio put her up in Bing’s old place while she filmed a movie. They slept in the big house, I slept in the pool house. I tossed and turned and woke to the actress and her personal trainer doing jumping jacks by the pool at six a.m. I got a cab to the train station downtown and with the last of my cash bought a ticket on the Sunset Limited to New Orleans and rode two days and two nights among the quiet seekers of the world. Through the deserts and canyons to bayous and rivers and finally the Gulf of Mexico. It was America the Beautiful out the window during daylight hours and endless stars at night. You told time by what state you were in. Is it dinner yet, you’d ask the porter. Not till we reach Arizona, he’d say. A whole day and night was spent moving through Texas. Near El Paso, the track ran parallel to the Mexican border, a thin line separated poverty from plenty. Mexican kids played soccer with a makeshift ball of rags on one side and a brand new high school football stadium in Texas on the other, less than a mile apart. The wind blew tumbleweeds that had no respect for international law. I spent a few hours reading in the observation car. Then drank coffee with two Catholic priests. This was a vacation for them, traveling all around the country on the rails. Somewhere in East Texas a woman got on the train. She had short hair like a New Wave movie starlet. She was reading a spy novel in the bar car. A lanky guy came up to her. He had tattoos and an old Polaroid camera around his neck. She talked with him and they ordered drinks. Then a few miles outside of New Orleans, the last stop, she came and sat next to me.

  Do me a favor, she said. Pretend like you know me.

  The tattooed guy walked down the aisle and smiled awkwardly at her.

  That guy’s a loser, she said. Told him I knew you. Hope that’s OK.

  Sure, I said.

  She said she’d been traveling in Mexico. A year before she’d sold all her things and quit her job, bought a VW Bus and drove it to the jungle, and met a man there and lived like a goddess on coconuts and rum. But there was a fire at her house. The man wasn’t who he said he was. She tried to drive back to America but the VW quit on her before she got to the border. So she flew to Houston and got a train ticket to New Orleans and here she was. She was thinking of getting an office job again.

  The sunset was as purple as a bruise when we pulled into New Orleans. I stood on the platform with the woman from the train and she asked me if I wanted to go to the French Quarter, she had rented a room there. I said sure and as we passed the bars on Bourbon Street I stopped and bought a hurricane daiquiri. She said she didn’t drink anymore and later when I tried to kiss her she said she didn’t do that anymore either. What she really needed, she told me, was to feel dangerous again.

  Forever bowed his head. We rode down beside the silver, frozen river. The night was Zorn’s shadow, the stars were his suit of armor, the moon was his glass eye. Princess touched me and my heart opened like a slow-blossoming lotus in the sun.

  * * *

  —

  THAT WEEKEND I asked Molly to the prison rodeo. We laughed at the big hats and belt buckles. The cowboys were convicts riding for their freedom. They played musical chairs while a bull rushed around them sending them flying like rag dolls. The last man standing went home a free man. Then the broncos came out. One horse kicked wildly in the sawdust and broke a leg. Two clowns held up a giant quilt to shield the audience as they put a bullet in his head. Molly was beside me but she could’ve been a million miles away. She wore a rhinestone denim jacket. Her hair in pigtails. She smoked a cigarette down to the filter.

  In India the cow is sacred, I said. They let them lie in the street and block traffic.

  Everyone knows that one, Molly said. I want to go home.

  But don’t you want to see who wins their freedom, I asked.

  It’s not the same without Miles here, she said. And you know it.

  I didn’t know what to say. We walked back to the ol
d Buick in the parking lot and rode home through town with the windows down in silence. The streets were empty and grey.

  Back at Frank’s, the light was on in the basement. I went to the kitchen and made a sandwich and took it to my room. I heard Frank climb the stairs. He knocked on my door and opened it. He stood at the threshold, but didn’t come in. He was drunk. I could smell it. The stars seemed to drift inside my window from ten thousand light-years away. I wasn’t sure what to do. I sat without moving. Frank was deep in thought as if he was working and reworking a long speech. Finally, he spoke, but it was as though his original thought had drifted from his mind, the prepared speech gone, and a new topic entered in its place and it vanished too.

  Well, good night, he said.

  Good night, I said.

  Out beyond the dunes was a city of electricity. Helicopters hovered above the gates. There were spirals of neon in all shapes. The buildings pulsed. Everything was iridescent, nothing natural. Even the wind was full of static and noise. Forever shivered. Princess wiped her nose. I whistled a hymn.

  I was waiting for Charlie near the gym one day after school and Mrs. Everhart stopped to chat. Her hair was chestnut falling over her red dress. Her eyes held a vast and incredible sadness. They had seen unspeakable horrors. I’d read that trauma was carried through the bloodline. I wondered if Molly ever felt her mother’s pain.

  Mrs. Everhart, I said. Sometimes I wonder about Molly.

  She leaned in close to me, smelling of lavender perfume, and touched my shoulder. There was a sweetness that reminded me of the redheaded woman on the Ferris wheel all those years ago. That way-up feeling in a place so far away. Behind Mrs. Everhart the clouds above the football stadium looked like an invading armada. A dark malaise washed over me. I felt truly trapped in that town. I longed for the rumble of the train under my feet.