We Are the Light(36)

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling like a little boy with two fists full of candy.

Then Bobby said pretty much all the cops in town would jump to get some positive press—given that the collective is being rather tough on the police these days—especially since Eli assured him that everyone would admire the men and women in blue for not taking themselves too seriously while participating in the making of Majestic’s first feature film.

When Bobby expressed concern regarding our movie’s depiction of local cops, I was surprised to learn that Eli had told him so much about the plot. Then I felt a great need to reassure Bobby, who had been so kind to me.

“No one in our movie is good or bad,” I said, and then went on to explain that even the monster isn’t either-or but both-and. It felt important to make sure Bobby understood there is no good-bad splitting in our cinematic universe. Just true depictions of whole people, each with both a shadow and a light side. When he nodded back at me, I added that the story is deeply rooted in Jungian psychology and is a tribute to you, Karl. Well, my contribution is anyway. Does that make you proud?

Bobby smiled politely and thanked me for staying away from your house, because he hadn’t caught me walking past it recently. And then we all sipped our cold, sweaty glasses of tea in silence for a minute or so before Bobby said he had to keep patrolling the streets of Majestic. He excused himself, putting his cap back on in the process.

Jill went back to the Cup Of Spoons and I went out to the tent, only I didn’t talk to Eli about what he had said to Bobby or even our attaching the entire local police force to The Majestic Prince of Monsters. Instead, I lay down next to Eli and said, “Do you want to talk about your mom?”

When he didn’t answer, I started talking about my own mother, telling him many of the things I have already told you in analysis and also in these letters. I didn’t look over at Eli’s face because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep talking if I did, but I could feel him listening, drinking in all I had to say. And there was something deep within my soul that assured me I was nurturing the boy—saying exactly what he needed to hear at that moment—and, ultimately, making Eli feel less alone.

When I finished, Eli said, “Why don’t they love us? Our moms?”

“You can’t give what you don’t have,” I said, and then we just lay there under the heavy truth of that statement.

Then Eli said, “Other kids have loving moms. Most people seem to have at least decent moms. Were we just unlucky?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that one, so I kept quiet.

“Mom used to make Jacob wear a dress and lipstick when we were kids. Only in the house, where no one else could see. As punishment,” Eli said in a way that let me know his mother had, of course, done similar things to him. Then he said, “I’m not like Jacob,” but there seemed to be a question hidden in the spaces between the words.

So I answered that unspoken question, saying, “No, you’re the exact opposite of Jacob. His shadow.”

I could tell Eli didn’t know what I meant by shadow, because he didn’t have the benefit of talking with you for two hours every Friday night for fourteen months. But since he didn’t ask for an explanation, I didn’t offer one.

Eventually, we transitioned to Darcy’s office and started watermarking scripts, which took us a surprisingly long time as we had to individualize dozens of copies and my old laptop became glitchy. But that business kept our minds off the heavy topics of dark mothers and homicidal brothers. And before we knew it Jill was back with a pesto pasta dish and we were all gathered around the dining room table digging in.

After dinner, we realized that we didn’t have enough paper, so we had to wait until the morning to get supplies. Next we ran out of ink. Then we realized we needed manila envelopes, so we were running back and forth to the office-supplies store for the better part of two days. Once we finished everything, we assigned each Survivor a manila envelope, on which we wrote their name, before stuffing inside the corresponding watermarked pages.

You should have already received a copy of the script watermarked with your full name. It’s not that I don’t trust you with our intellectual property—I obviously do, especially given all I’ve already told you—but I can’t go playing favorites in the film world, which is much different from and squarely outside of our analytic container. No one will be able to accuse me of nepotism, I assure you of that. Since you haven’t contacted me yet, I’m assuming you haven’t actually read the script. I’m pretty sure it would have motivated you to finally reach out. Especially since I was moved by the creative Muses to write one of the roles with you specifically in mind. I’m also pretty sure you’ll know which that is once you get around to reading. (Hint: it’s the father figure’s Jungian analyst.) We aim to cast ASAP, as we’d like to premiere this before summer ends, if only to speed along the healing that the town of Majestic so desperately needs.

I hope you didn’t mind me hand delivering the script, sliding it through the mail slot in your front door. I didn’t look in your windows and won’t ever again. Promise. Eli and I don’t want to risk our work being delivered to the wrong addresses or getting lost in the mail altogether. We hand delivered all of the other watermarked scripts as well, so you didn’t get special treatment, nor was I using this as an excuse to spy on you or anything creepy like that.