The Stranger in the Lifeboat(20)

I actually laughed. “Why? If I were God, I would have given up on me long ago.”

“But you are not,” he said, “and I never will.”

He crossed his fingers in front of his lips. “Did you know that when I created this world, I made two Heavens?”

“When you created this world,” I mocked.

“Yes,” he continued. “Two Heavens.” He pointed. “Above and below. At certain moments, you can see between them.”

Little Alice was staring at his face. Why she idolizes him so, I can’t say. I don’t imagine she understands anything he’s talking about.

“Just stop, OK?” I said. “Can’t you see we’re slowly dying here?”

“People are slowly dying everywhere,” he said. “They are also continuously living. Every moment they draw breath, they can find the glory I put here on Earth, if they look for it.”

I turned toward the dark-blue ocean.

“To be honest,” I said, “this feels more like Hell.”

“I assure you it is not.”

“I guess you would know, huh?”

“Yes.”

I paused.

“Is there a Hell?”

“Not the way you imagine it.”

“Then what happens to bad people when they die?”

“Why, Benjamin?” he asked, leaning forward. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

I glared at him.

“Get away from me,” I said.





Six





Sea





It is time I wrote about Dobby. You need to know. The world needs to know. I will start by saying I am unaware of what happened to him—though I imagine he is dead along with the others. We did not speak that last night on the Galaxy, not after I told him “I won’t do it.” He was furious. He felt I betrayed him. Inasmuch as he thought I shared his rage, I understand that.

But it was his idea to blow up the Galaxy, Annabelle. Not mine. Had he not arrived on my doorstep last summer, shortly after you left me, I would have gone along my way, quietly bearing my resentments.

Dobby was more actuated. As a boy, he argued with our schoolteachers, fought the local bullies, led the rest of us kids down dirt paths on our bicycles, always speeding ahead, taking the turns first. He was a rebel in a boy’s medium T-shirt, loud, unruly, his dark hair mussed, his brow often furrowed and his lower lip hanging down, as if constantly being scolded by someone. He and his mother came to Boston two years after we did, after Dobby’s father, my uncle, passed away back in Ireland. I was nine. Dobby was eleven. I remember overhearing his mother telling mine, “That one runs with the devil in his shoes.”

But Dobby was smart. Incredibly smart. He read all the time, borrowed books from the library and read them as he ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He was the reason I took to reading, Annabelle, and writing. I wanted to be more like him. We had little competitions, like who could come up with the most shocking ghost story. He always won. He had a better imagination. He also burned for justice before I knew what the word meant.

I remember once, when he was fourteen, Dobby terrorized these four older kids who were throwing stones at a stray cat. He grabbed some metal trash can lids and hurled them at those kids, all the while screaming “This is how big a stone feels to a cat, assholes!” When they scattered, he gathered that cat into his arms and became a different person, tender and patient. “You’re all right now, you’re safe,” he whispered.

No one in my little world acted like that. How I looked up to him! He was only two years my senior, but at that age, two years defines the leader and the follower. He would greet me with a wink and an exaggerated “What’s uppp, Ben-ji?” It always brought a smile to my face, a sense that I was connected to someone who would rise above our poor little neighborhood. We were just kids back then. But I idolized him. And those you idolize as a child can hold sway over you years later, even when you should know better.



“These people are pigs, Benji,” Dobby said, when he first read about the Galaxy voyage in a newspaper. I was scrambling eggs in the Boston apartment we’d been sharing since he’d showed up broke and drunk and singing “Bella Ciao” in my doorway. I had not seen him in several years. The hair at his temples had turned gray.

“They think they can gather like lords of the planet, decide what’s good for the rest of us.”

“Yes, well,” I said.

“I can’t believe you’re working this clown show.”

“It’s Jason Lambert’s boat. I work on it. What am I supposed to do?”

“Aren’t you disgusted by that guy? He says he wants to change the world. But look at how he treats you.”

“Yes, cousin,” I sighed.

“Why don’t you do something about it?”

I looked up.

“What are you talking about?”

“I have a friend …” His voice trailed off. He grabbed the newspaper again, found a paragraph, and read it silently. Then he looked me straight in the eye. His expression was dead calm.

“Benji,” he said, “do you trust me?”

“Yes, cousin.”

He grinned. “Then we’re going to change the world.”