I understood exactly what he meant. We all made our A, B, or C selections based on some personal and even unconscious bias. I wanted her to receive a book on artistry because I wanted her to have a path I had missed. A path I respected. A path that I didn’t honor in my life. In some way, I wanted to live vicariously through this kid. But my path might not have been the right path for her. Fate knew more about this kid than we did. I started to think that the joke, again, was on us. It dawned on me that we didn’t really pick the book the kid found. It occurred to me that Thurgood Marshall probably never even found a book in the street. This was just another exercise to get us to think about our truth. Our core. Fate was going to pick the book all along. He just let us feel as though we had something to do with it. There was a chance that the whole scene was faked. Maybe Fate was also the sum of my experiences viewed through a different lens. Holy shit, was I Fate, too? Was Fate also made in my image, just as I had considered God? He looked right at me as I thought through this possibility, and he nodded ever so slightly. Mad respect, Fate. Mad respect.
“Want to vote some more?” he asked excitedly in his animated way. Of course, they all did. I’m not sure if anyone else had figured out that they had nothing to do with the actual outcomes, but they were thrilled to continue. Maybe I needed to give them more credit. Maybe they all knew just like I did, and it was like watching professional wrestling. It wasn’t real, but you couldn’t stop watching. I wanted to watch more. I wanted to vote more. If for no other reason than to get a deeper glimpse into my own truth. I wanted to learn more about my truth and biases.
But first, I really had to pee.
I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to get up, but this was one of those “even-though-the-fasten-seatbelt-sign-is-on-I-have-to-get-up” kind of moments. If you ask, the flight attendants won’t tell you it’s okay, but it’s clear they’d rather you get up now than clean up later.
As I left my seat, I had a flashback to my college days of walking out of lectures halfway through class. It always made me anxious and nervous. Like I was breaking some rule, or worse, disrespecting the professor. Blondie jumped down from her chair without a hint of anxiety, and we walked to the top of the amphitheater stairs.
When we got to the last step, the house was gone. In its place, we found a long, dirt path that framed the top row of seats and continued into darkness beyond either side of the theater. There were no signs pointing to any restrooms. At this point, following the path into the darkness was a no-brainer. It had to lead somewhere. I was so afraid to follow paths like this in life—be it metaphorically or literally—might as well have a go at it now. I looked at Blondie, and with a shrug of my shoulders, we went right.
I had always described my bouts of sadness—okay, let’s call a spade a spade: my depression—as “going dark.” I described the feelings as skipping along without a care in the world and then falling into a deep well without a hint of warning. As though someone left a manhole cover off. I liked to pretend that I didn’t know why it happened. But for me, it wasn’t a chemical problem. It was an authenticity problem. I wasn’t living whole, and the further I got from living whole, the further I ran from contentment, the darker I became. Still, I pretended that I didn’t know why it happened. Timmy used to mock me for that. “Right, Shirl, you have no idea why. Shut the fuck up.” He was the king of tough love. The thing is, I knew I had an authenticity problem. I just didn’t know why.
I wrote a suicide note once. Twenty pages. It was maybe the single best thing I ever actually wrote because it was the most honest. I always gave it to my therapists to read. It didn’t matter if they read it the day after I wrote it or fifteen years later; I was still stuck in the same place. In the same fear. In the same cycle. The more I ignored it, the more I sabotaged myself. And the more I did that, the longer the past became. The longer the past got, the more I struggled to overcome, and the darker life felt. It wasn’t hard to figure out.
This path felt like it had the makings of falling through a hole into the darkness I used to experience. But I wasn’t scared. Walking this path into the unknown was completely invigorating. “Where are we going, Blondie? Where’s the damn bathroom?!” Wait. Strange. I didn’t even feel like I had to go anymore. Why would someone need to pee in heaven anyway?
I could still hear Fate’s movie presentation in the background. The same way I used to hear a band playing its encore when I was already in the parking lot to beat the traffic. It was a dull echo punctuated by the roar of the crowd. My eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and I saw a weird light up ahead. It wasn’t a point of light, like a bulb. It looked like a long, thin line. Then, two thin lines that created an L shape. I couldn’t figure out what it was. I couldn’t figure out how far away it was. I wondered if Blondie saw it.
As we got closer, the “L” grew bigger and became something like a U and then a rectangle. Before long, we were standing in front of a door. The light on the inside created the glowing rectangle through the cracks in the frame. I knocked and waited, but nobody answered. Blindly, I slid my hand around, looking for a doorknob, but found nothing. How would we get in? Because she’s smarter than I am, Blondie simply nosed the door open.
The boy.
The boy I was sitting next to at dinner and the one who bolted out of the dining room and sat unmoved by the fireworks show. That boy now sat just as still at a desk, staring into a mirror.
I tried again. “Oh, hey. Sorry. Didn’t know that anyone was in here. I’m Erik. We sat next to each—” This time, he turned to look at me. It was the first time he acknowledged my presence. I was forty-nine. He was maybe fifteen. Not going to lie, the kid’s stare scared the shit out of me. His eyes were vacant. I continued to stand in the doorway. Blondie let out a little whimper, a cry, walked into the room, and curled up at his feet. Why did she do that? He kept staring at me. Through me.
“Did you like the fireworks show?”
Nothing.
“What did you have for dinner? My ribs were pretty good.”
Nothing.
“Do you—did you have a dog? She seems to like you.”
Nothing.
“Her name is Blondie.”
Nothing.
“Did you stick around for the movie?”
Nothing.
“How did you vote?”
Nothing.
This kid was a fucking tough audience. I felt unnerved. What was the point of turning around and looking at me if he had nothing to say? His expression was just so . . . blank. Completely blank. I was feeling judged. I was feeling defensive. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and made a complete ass out of myself. Slowly, I said, “DO. YOU. SPEAK. ENGLISH?”
Fuck. Did I really just do that? What a dick. It was so easy to fall into that old pattern. I felt defensive. I made it about me, and I went on the attack. Idiot. I was so disappointed in myself. Just as I was about to apologize, Blondie’s ears perked up, and I heard a noise behind me. Someone had cleared their throat. I jumped and turned to see what was going on and . . .
Oh. My. God.
The boy wasn’t looking at me. He wasn’t looking through me. He was looking past me.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” said Fate, flanked by two angels with black wings.
I had never seen black wings on angels. I didn’t know there were black wings. What the fuck is up with the black wings?
I tried desperately to come up with an excuse, any excuse, for why I was in this random room with this random, mute kid and my dog. I tried the standard clichéd movie excuse for being in the wrong room. “I was looking for the men’s room.”
Fate wasn’t having it. Black-winged angels apparently didn’t have the necessary facial muscles to smile or laugh.
“Sorry. I’ll just head back to the amphitheater. My bad. Let’s go, Blondie.”
Fate and his hench angels intervened. “It’s not quite that simple now. You’re going to need to come with us.”
Seriously? Was I in a mafia movie? Was James Gandolfini here? I felt like I must be on Candid Camera: Heaven. I tried to keep joking. “Where to? Principal’s office?”
Again. Not so amused.
Fate closed the door, and we disappeared back into the darkness. My heart tried desperately to leap out of my chest via my throat. I fought the urge to completely freak out and fall back into Question Land. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t keep one out of my mind: Am I getting kicked out of heaven? Okay, two. I couldn’t keep two out of my mind: Am I going to hell?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
