The Good Luck of Right Now(13)

“I write in my notebook.”

“That’s good. What else?”

“I listen to the birds.”

“And?”

“I used to take care of my mother.”

“Your mother is no longer with us.”

“I know that.”

“So what will you do now? What will we do today?”

I hadn’t a clue, so I just looked at him, hoping he would tell me. But he only focused on his food, and by the time he was done, his white beard was striped like a candy cane with hot sauce.

“God still hasn’t spoken to you yet, has He?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“God can be a bastard like that.”

Father McNamee went into the living room and got down on his knees. He stayed that way for hours. I started to worry that maybe he was dead, because he was still as a rock.

I listened for God’s voice, but all I heard were the birds.

I wondered if maybe I should tell Father McNamee about you, Richard Gere, but for some reason I didn’t—and I’m not going to either.

You are my confidant, Richard Gere, and I’m not about to share my pretending with anyone, because pretending often ends when you allow nonpretenders access to the better, safer worlds you create for yourself.

I’d like for us to be secret friends, Richard Gere.

I think I can learn from both you and Father McNamee, and I’d like to keep those two worlds separate for now. Like church and state. I learned that back in high school in the history class Tara Wilson was also in. Separation of church and state. Not that you are my state, because you are not. And evidently Father McNamee is no longer my church either.

Your admiring fan,

Bartholomew Neil





5


CHARLES J. GUITEAU’S DISSECTED BRAIN




Dear Mr. Richard Gere,

I had the strangest dream last night:

Standing on the Ocean City boardwalk, I watched the sun come up. It was warm, so it must have been summer, but there was no one around for miles and miles, which made me think it wasn’t. The sun heated my face to just the right temperature as waves crashed in the distance and seagulls cried up above and even the metal railing I was leaning against was as warm as a woman’s arm.

I was feeling so at peace in my dream until I heard Mom’s voice yelling, “Richard! Richard, help me! Help me, Richard! I’m going to fall! Help!”

I looked around, but I couldn’t see Mom anywhere—or anyone else either.

“Richard!” she cried. “Help me, please! I can’t hang on! It hurts! It BURNS!”

Finally, I understood she was under the boardwalk.

I looked for stairs to the beach, but I couldn’t find any.

When I looked over the railing, all I saw was the ocean—little bits of sun refracting here and there like a twinkling galaxy.

The beach was gone.

“Richard! Richard! Help me!” she cried.

Even though she was using your name in the dream, I knew she meant me, because of all the pretending we had done before she died.

I dropped to my knees and peered through the cracks in the boardwalk and saw Mom hanging on to a live electrical wire that was sparking and shocking her; beneath her was a large black endless pit. She was young, how she looked when I was a boy—she had long black hair and her face was still smooth and unwrinkled—maybe in my dream she was the same age as I am now.

It didn’t make any sense.

Where was the sand?

Where was the ocean?

“Mom!” I yelled as our eyes locked.

For a brief second I could tell she saw me through the cracks between the boards—her pupils focused and a strange, almost horrified look bloomed on her face.

She let go of the wire and began to fall, shrinking farther and farther away. The whole time she was aging too: I could see her hair turning white and getting shorter, the wrinkles sprouting from her eyes, tunneling through her face, shriveling her hands and arms.

In my dream I screamed, “Mom!”

“Bartholomew?” I heard a man whisper.

When I opened my eyes, Father McNamee was sitting on the edge of my bed, just like Mom used to do when I was a boy.

I blinked at him.

Only the hall light behind him was on—the lights in my room were still out—so his body was silhouetted. It took a second for me to realize I was no longer dreaming.

“You were yelling in your sleep,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“I was having a dream,” I said. I wanted to tell him what I was dreaming about, but it sounded too insane at the time, and it takes me a little bit to remember my dreams after I wake up, so I didn’t say anything.

“I couldn’t sleep either,” Father McNamee said. “You want a sandwich?”

“No, thank you,” I said, because I wasn’t hungry.

“Okay, suit yourself. But maybe you’d want to keep me company while I eat mine?”

“Okay,” I said, and then followed Father McNamee down to the kitchen.

I sat at the table as he made himself a ham and Swiss on rye.

“Do you know anything about the twentieth president of the United States?” he said when he sat down. “James A. Garfield?”

I just stared at his chewing face, trying to wake up fully.