“Hey, where are you going?” she called after him as he walked toward the rail fence a ways off.
He didn’t answer her, so she tried me. “Where do you think he’s going, Fielding?”
“I don’t know.”
The moon was enough to see him standing at one of the fence posts. When he stepped away we saw a small light flickering at the top of the post.
“Oh.” She gasped. “Where’d he get that fire from? Fielding?”
“I don’t know.” I moved closer to her and felt the ground until I found her hand.
“Fielding, don’t.” She quickly pulled her hand away.
I didn’t look at her, nor she at me. Our eyes merely followed his figure moving down along the fence, his back to us as he counted off thirteen consecutive posts that lit in tiny flickering flames.
As he walked back toward us, I helped Dresden stand, her grip tight on my arm as she put her weight on her good leg. She was the first to let go. I only did when I heard Sal stepping closer.
“You like your candles?” He wrapped his arms around her.
“How’d you do it?” I looked at his hands for a lighter or some matches.
“Fire comes easy to me.” He winked before kissing her cheek and asking her if she was ready to blow out her candles and make a wish.
She closed her eyes and made her wish, but on exhale the lights still flickered in the distance.
“Deeper breath,” Sal whispered in her ear, his lips brushing her cheek. “When I say.”
She waited and when he squeezed her arm, her exhale carried across the pasture to the fence, where the flames lay down into the night.
There would be no answer then as to how he’d done it. At that moment, he was the one hugging the birthday girl while I stared off into the dark night.
“This will be a happy diary day.” She nuzzled into his neck. “I think The Little Prince will be my book of choice. Yes, the Little Prince who came from the sky.”
“I’ve read that. Doesn’t the prince leave a rose behind?” He held her tighter.
“I’ll only circle the words that say he takes her with him.”
* * *
By the time we left the pasture, the horses were lying down. The moon, still full in the sky, provided light for our walk back through the wooded hills, which sounded like crickets and looked like fireflies.
I again thought of Elohim, as I meandered around the trees, cupping my hands up around one of the fireflies and holding it in my palms like a jar. I could feel its tiny legs crawling on the underside of my fingers as my hands closed in around it. Feeling its space getting smaller and smaller, the firefly took to flight, softly tapping against my skin but not finding the exit.
Its flying got more and more frantic the smaller I made its space. I wondered what it was thinking as its body flattened between the contact of my palms. Did it plead for its life in its own bug-speak?
Please don’t kill me, there’s still summer left. There was a tree, that one over there, that I have yet to fly to the top of. I really wanted to see what the leaves are like up there. Please don’t kill me. There’s a star, way up there, I wanted to see if I could reach. I probably can’t reach it, but still I want to try. Please don’t kill me. I’m not finished yet.
When I opened my hands, the bug’s squished abdomen was bleeding what was left of its luciferase enzymes, which had been smeared onto my palms. Yellow like the blood of the chimney swift eggs. But not yellow for long, as it was slowly losing its illumination until all I had in my hand was something I could not take back.
“Hey, what’s that?”
Dresden was standing under one of the trees, pointing to the yellow orb up in its branches. By that time, we were in the hills closer to town.
“I can’t believe it. A balloon for my birthday. Isn’t that something?”
“I’ll get it for you.” Sal was already halfway up the trunk.
I brushed the firefly’s death from my hand and wiped that once-illuminated glow onto my jeans shorts as I stepped through the trees closer to Dresden and the tree Sal was climbing.
“I climb too,” I whispered to her over the hoot of an owl.
She sighed, almost irritated. “You’re not the one climbing now.”
I stepped farther away from her and watched Sal. He was an all right climber, though he had difficulty with a few of the limbs. Nearer to the balloon, he reached out toward its string but was still too far away. A step here and a stretch there brought him closer until he had the string in his hand.
The thing about branches is there isn’t much warning when one is about to break. It doesn’t groan, it doesn’t say, Look out below. It simply breaks, and sometimes you don’t have time to get out of its way. Sometimes it falls right on your head.
It was an everything bad sound. Think of all the bad sounds. A dropped glass. A 3 A.M. phone call. Hands slipping off the edge of a cliff. That branch and Dresden’s head made all those sounds and more.
I didn’t see the blood at first, not until I fell down by her side. I asked her if she was okay, but she said nothing. I said, “Move, Dresden. Goddamn you, please move.”
I could hear Sal grunting down through the limbs, landing on the ground behind me with a thud. He still held the balloon, so tightly, his nails were digging around the string into the other side of his palm.
I stood and wiped my eyes on my arm. “I’m gonna get help. Are you listenin’? Sal?” I shook his shoulders because all he saw was her. “Don’t be here when I get back.”
He finally brought his eyes up to mine. I couldn’t see his irises or pupils. The water was too deep.
“Go home, Sal. Pretend you were there all along. If they know you were here, climbin’ that tree, they won’t believe it was an accident. Not with what happened earlier with Alvernine. No matter what I say as a witness, they’ll say you hurt Dresden on purpose. So go. I’ll say it was just me walkin’ her home. We were under the tree. A branch fell. Simple as that. Okay?”
His hand ate down the string until the yellow balloon was at his chest. There, he pressed his nails into it until it popped.
I shut my eyes. “Please, Sal, say you’ll go.”
“I’ll go,” he whispered, still holding onto the string, the yellow remains of the balloon dangling at the end of it.
I opened my eyes and looked one last time down at Dresden, at the blood pooling on the ground behind her head. And then I ran. I ran as fast as I could, the fireflies lighting the way.
21
… moping melancholy,
And moon-struck madness
—MILTON, PARADISE LOST 11:485–486
MADNESS. THE COMPASSING violin when in our head, the directionless chaos when out of it. Isn’t that what madness is, after all? Clarity to the beholder, insanity to the witnessing world. My God, what madness this world has witnessed. What beautiful, chaotic madness.
Did I tell you that the other night me and the boy went out into the saguaros? That’s the closest thing we got to woods around this trailer park. I asked him to bring the jam jar, the one we found on the side of the road. The jam was gone and the glass was clean as we strolled through the cactuses.
“Mr. Bliss? I don’t think there’s any fireflies out here. I’ve never seen any. Are you sure you did?”
“I never said I saw any. I just asked you if you wanted to go catch some.”
I stopped beneath a particularly big saguaro, not all of its large arms growing up but rather twisting and crossing in front of each other. I looked at the boy, who was peering into the empty jar.
“I guess you can’t imagine everything in the dark. Especially not fireflies.” I squinted past the saguaros, into the deep darkness. “Listen, kid. You need to stay away from me.”
“Mr. Bliss, why?”
Because I would be no good for him. I was becoming his Elohim. He was becoming my Fielding. I did say to myself if I went out there with the boy and we saw a firefly, just one, I said to myself I’ll try again
. I would go forth in this world, finding instances of niceness and not turn from them. Niceness like the boy. Just one damn firefly, and I’ll be his friend and he will be mine.
Life would be all right to happen.
All its comedy and humor and joy I would let live and live with me in the fresh air and in the yard I would let the light color yellow. If only there was one firefly, if only. What was it Sal said about hope? It’s just a beautiful instance in the myth of another chance. Yes, a myth it is.
I know the boy won’t realize until he’s older, maybe not ever, but I’m doing him a favor. Getting him out of my life is keeping him outside the abyss. Without him, I will stay lonely in this long way, with both ends of forever pinning me to the flames. But he deserves better than to be used as the ladder out of hell.
“You make me sick. You irritate the good goddamn out of me, and I don’t care if your piece-of-shit dad is dead or if you and that bitch you call a mom are sad. I don’t give a fuck about you or your little insignificant life. You hear me?”
I stared at the cactus’ thorns. They gave me inspiration.
“I hate you and I want you out of my life. And if you don’t stay out of it, I’ll burn your trailer down while you and your mom and that damn ugly mutt are sleeping.”
I took out the match I had in my pocket and lit it just for scare. I kept it burning all the while he ran away, the jar having been dropped and broken against the ground. I held the match until the flame ate down and burnt the tips of my fingers. I know that’s the last I’ll see of him. I know that’s the last of the wings.
Did I say I went to a psychiatrist once? I suppose she came to me. I was somewhere in my fifties. I woke and there she was, sitting on the edge of my bed. She asked why I’d want to do a thing like that. Then she laid her hand on the bandages on my chest as I watched the cop pacing outside.
“It was an accident.” I brushed her hand away.
“I see.” She went to look out the window. “And the suicide note?”
I watched the nurse check the IV. “That wasn’t a suicide note.”
The nurse left while the psychiatrist leaned back onto the windowsill to face me as she asked, “No?”
“I just wrote I was leaving, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“It was just a note for my girlfriend, letting her know I was leaving for the grocery store.”
“You signed your full name. Do you always sign notes to your girlfriend like that? Fielding Bliss?”
The cop was now standing in the doorway.
“Am I under arrest?”
The badge folded his arms.
“He wants to know where you got the gun?” She tilted her head at me. “It wasn’t registered, Mr. Bliss.”
“I don’t know where it came from. It came from a grandfather clock, but I don’t know where before that.”
She gestured for the cop to leave. Once he did, she closed the door. “I am to evaluate you, Mr. Bliss. Make sure you are no longer a danger to yourself or others.”
“Do we have to now?”
“You’ve been here for several days.”
“Have I?”
“Why would you shoot yourself in the chest, Mr. Bliss?”
She came to my bedside again and gently sat down. Her fingers slowly ran through the graying sides of my hair, softly tucking it behind my ear. I thought she looked as Dresden might’ve looked when she got older. A freckled thirtysomething with eyes like light. Her red hair was tied back, but the shorter strands stuck out around her face, in an almost rounded and even frizz, like the tufts of a dandelion seed head. I thought if I blew those wispy strands, they might blow away just like the seeds. So I tried, blowing lightly toward the ones over her ear. They slightly moved, while she kept her head so very still, as if she didn’t want me to stop.
“What are you doing?” She asked me so quietly, the question almost didn’t exist.
“Giving you some wind. Seeing if I can’t blow you away.”
“Do you want to blow me away?” I liked the way she whispered things.
“No.”
She turned her head away, but I saw her smile before she did.
“You look like a garden.” I reached out to the roses on her sweater. “Who found me?”
“The neighbor heard the shot.”
“I’ve always hated my neighbors.”
“So close to your heart.” She felt the bandage again. “Doctor said just a little more to the left, and you’d not be here. People who choose suicide usually choose their wrists or pills or rope. A gun is so violent, isn’t it?”
“I knew someone who was shot once.”
“In the chest?”
I nodded. She nodded with me.
“And that is why you shot yourself, Mr. Bliss?”
“I suppose I just wanted to see for myself … what it felt like.”
“And now that you know, you won’t be trying it again, I hope?”
I laid my hand on hers. It was warm and nice. I’d go to bed with her for a whole year, but never love her and she’d cry because of it.
I’d never love any of those women, really. Never like Sal loved Dresden.
Dresden. I thought maybe a really bad concussion. I thought all she would have to do was to stay in bed for a few days. Of all falling things, who knew a tree branch could take so much?
I did as I told Sal I would. I told the sheriff and Dad and anyone else who asked that I alone walked Dresden home. That on the way, a branch fell. Sal wasn’t there, I swore. He was already far from there. Of course, there were those who didn’t believe me. It didn’t help that Alvernine was telling her side of the story.
When asked about the various bruises on Dresden’s body, Alvernine said it must’ve been the branch. The coroner determined the bruises were received prior to the branch and not a direct result of it. Alvernine was charged. She pleaded guilty and received three to five years.
On the wall of her cell, she taped photos of Dresden. She called that wall her rose garden. Within the first year of her sentence, they would find her hanging in front of that garden, slowly asphyxiated by a noose of sheets.
In the days following Dresden’s death, Sal had yet to speak. It was as if he had to pull the strength together. He became the boy with the pain in the chest. I wonder what he did that night I told him to leave the woods. Did he go straight home and hide away under the pillows and cushions of the window bed? That was how I found him. Trying to become just another pillow, another cushion, another thing of stuffing that didn’t have to feel a broken heart.
I pulled the cushions and pillows off him one at a time. Found him flat, pressed down from fingertips to heart. Looking at me with his eyes that said, Cover me back. Please, just cover me back up.
Pillow by pillow, I did.
Dad tried. He went to the window but didn’t touch the pillows or cushions. He reached over them and touched the glass instead.
“Things will be all right.” He didn’t sound so sure as his sweaty fingers smudged the glass. He began to rattle on about his court cases because that’s all he had. I shut my eyes. I was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall.
The cases sounded like walking through a cornfield. I’m sure they did to Sal too. Walking the tight rows, the tall stalks. So tall, they’re mountains in fields and you’re climbing through. Swish, swish. The sound of trying to make it through so many things in your way. Swish, swish. Unable to touch and unable not to be touched. Each corn leaf sharp at the edge. Slapping your arms. Your legs. Hitting your face.
Just when you get away from one, you’ve got another leaf already there. Another one after that. Everywhere you look, more of the same, all around you. The leaves cut little nicks, carving you one slice at a time. The jungle of the Midwest. Swish, swish. You shut your eyes to protect them from all the sharp and all the slicing. You have to walk blind. Listening to only the sound. Swish, swish. Feeling the pollen from the tassels falling down. Light particles but heavy enoug
h to start to bury you. Swish, swish. That’s what Dad and his cases sounded like. Swish, swish.
He left the room. Maybe he didn’t even see me sitting over there. He didn’t look. He just left, a case still falling from his lips.
Later, Mom came in with her spray bottle of vinegar and a rag. She found a cushion Sal wasn’t under and leaned down into it with her knee as she reached over and began to spray the glass.
“You know, they call these picture windas.” Wipe, wipe, wipe. Squeak, squeak. “I call it my on the way winda. I always look out it, every mornin’ on my way downstairs. I just stand there in the hall and peek in over your sleepin’ heads and look out. And then I move on.
“I hope this is just on your way too, Sal. We’ve got to keep movin’, don’t we? Sometimes things happen, bad things, on the way, but we’ve got to keep movin’. If we don’t, we won’t get to the next thing, and it could really be somethin’. It could be the best something of our lives.”
The room smelled like vinegar long after she left. When Grand came in, he remarked about the smell.
He stood at the edge of the pillows and cushions.
“I bet Dad was ramblin’ off about cases.” He glanced down at the cushions, at the slight movement under them. “He used to do that to me when I was in Little League and lost a game. Here he’d come and start talkin’ about So-and-So v. So-and-So. I guess he don’t know what else to do for loss. Whether it’s a ball game or a girl. A girl.”
He laid his sweating hands on the pane. “Sometimes I wanna break this winda out, don’t you? Just break it out. It’s the only winda in the whole house that don’t open. Just a big square of glass. Out. Out.” He pressed on the glass. The cushions moved again and Grand dropped his hands. “Get better, Sal. You can help me break it out one day.”
He patted the pillows. They didn’t move again. On his way out, he looked down, his blue eyes seeming to be the only color for miles around that dark room. He’d been the only one to notice me. He kneeled and squeezed my shoulder. I wanted desperately to wrap my arms around him, but he stood before I got the nerve.
After he left, I went to the window bed. I reached in under the pillows and cushions until I found Sal’s arm, which wasn’t as thin as when he’d first arrived. The same could be said for the rest of him. Mom’s meals had done him good, though he never seemed to eat the meat. I think maybe he was the only true vegetarian.