We Are the Light(72)

I didn’t sleep much that evening.

Phineas and I had an emergency session first thing in the morning, the majority of which he spent staring deep into my eyes and sending his healing energy into me, which may sound very strange to some of you, and I get it, but once you make that sort of connection with your Jungian analyst, there is simply no better fortification. At the end of our analytic hour, Phineas said he was proud of me for finally facing perhaps the biggest of my own personal dragons, which is when I said, “I haven’t faced the Majestic Theater dragon just yet.”

“But that’s exactly the miracle of today, Lucas,” Phineas said, “because you really have faced the Majestic Theater dragon already. In a million different ways. And you’re still very much alive and getting better every single day.”

Before I knew it, I was seated in the Majestic Theater’s Grand Viewing Room, right next to the spot where my Darcy was murdered. A quick flutter of panic hit my chest when the lights went down, so I reminded myself that Jill and Bobby and Mark and Tony and Phineas and Isaiah and Bess were standing guard in the lobby along with Robin Withers, Jon Bunting, DeSean Priest, David Fleming, Julia Wilco, Tracy Farrow, Jesus Gomez, Laxman Anand, Betsy Bush, Dan Gentile, Audrey Hartlove, Ernie Baum, Chrissy Williams, Carlton Porter, and even the current governor of Pennsylvania, Sandra Coyle. We were all going to watch our monster movie afterward, which would be the first time I would see it, because of my breakdown the night of the premiere and my subsequent self-imposed ban on movie watching.

Then the screen became illuminated.

The first image I saw was a headshot of the creature Eli and I had created, under which was written: A Feathered Monster Production. Then I saw Eli up there on the big screen. He had filled out a little and was sporting a thin goatee that made him look like a neo-beatnik of sorts, but it was still our boy and my heart got a little bigger as soon as I laid eyes on him.

Looking directly into the camera lens, Eli began talking about how his brother, Jacob, had walked into a movie theater and killed seventeen people, one of whom happened to be the wife of a man who was providing Eli with mental health assistance at his high school. Then he said, “Rather than tell you how Mr. Lucas Goodgame responded to his wife’s murder, please allow me to show you.”

I started to really worry here about Eli’s handling of the fact that I had killed his brother.

That’s when the swelling emotional music started to play and up on the movie screen Eli’s orange tent began to illuminate my backyard. That first image was enough to transport me out of my current reality and send me time-traveling back to my time with Eli, back when he was Jackie Paper and I was Puff, the Magic Dragon. I was no longer in the Majestic Theater but in a fantasy that Eli had crafted for me, mostly using footage he had taken with his phone. Maybe this was my cherry lane. Eli narrated over the music, explaining much of what I have already told you in these letters.

And there was footage of thimble-fingered Eli and me sewing feathers onto the wetsuit; and the two of us chucking the Frisbee back and forth in my backyard—which is when I realized that Jill must have sent him footage she had taken with her phone—and me reading Jungian books in the orange tent; and Jill cooking in the kitchen; and the three of us licking massive ice-cream cones at We All Scream For Ice Cream; and Jill and me swinging in Darcy’s hammock. And then Eli’s in the library closet filming—through the door crack—parts of Other Lucas’s speech; and suddenly everyone’s goofing around in our costumes in front of Arlene and River’s Wardrobe Mobile; and then we’re all on set and people are putting on makeup; and I’m rehearsing my lines diligently; and Eli is in his monster costume hugging me; and then I’m playing Frisbee with the monster—which is when I realize that Eli must have had someone else shooting video on set because there are all these shots of me watching Eli directing and acting. And I have such a proud, concerned look on my face. It almost looks like I’m making sure Eli is okay and being treated fairly. And I’m maybe even doing what a good father might. Eli had included footage of all the cast parties Mark and Tony threw. And I’m surprised by how much I’m smiling on-screen. I had sort of come to believe that I had been miserable and selfish the whole time, and yet Eli’s video depicts the exact opposite.

At the end of his short film, Eli narrates over a shot of my house. “And to think, I almost didn’t set up my tent in this man’s backyard,” he says, just as the front door opens. I step outside with a big warm smile on my face and wave to Eli. I don’t remember doing that in real life and I can’t place the footage in any sort of mental time line. I start to worry that this is the part where he’ll get around to talking about my killing his brother, but—shockingly—the film ends without Eli mentioning that very ugly fact.

When the lights came back on, I covered my face because I’d been crying for the past fifteen minutes. It took me a bit to get myself together and I was grateful when everyone continued to wait in the lobby, giving me space. After what felt like ten or so minutes, my phone began to ring and when I hit the video-chat button Eli and I were suddenly staring into each other’s eyes for the first time in almost four years.

“I can tell from those tears that you absolutely hated it,” he said, and then flashed a strong, confident smile, which immediately announced that Eli was no longer a boy.

I couldn’t get too many words out, but Eli made it okay by doing all the talking himself, mostly telling me about the prize he had won and all the contacts he had already made, and sharing all of the good things he had created for himself out there in California.