A Lite Too Bright Read online

  I turned back to face her. “Sue, I, I know you don’t, you don’t really know who I am, or I’m not who you think I am . . . but I know that you knew my grandfather, and . . . and I, I think we both know he deserves better than what he got. And I don’t know where your son or your husband went, b-but I’m gonna go figure it out. For me, and for you now, too. And I know you don’t understand what I’m saying now, and even when I come back here you’re not going to understand it . . . but you deserve answers. We both do. So I’m gonna go get them.”

  She didn’t react. Her face stayed frozen, an empty silence I knew well. I hung my head and pushed open the door.

  “Arthur.”

  Her voice didn’t crack. I paused, ready for her to tell me one last time that I was a week late.

  But she didn’t.

  She pushed herself to her feet and glided across the room. Her face was focused and intense and purposeful, staring straight into me like she meant it. For a moment, I’d have sworn she knew everything: who I was, where I was going, what I was looking for. She grabbed me by my sweatshirt and looked straight into my eyes.

  “Go on now,” she whispered. “Go get him back.”

  11.

  I HELD MY breath as the cab sped across town. The train was scheduled to depart in eighteen minutes, and the next train for Green River wouldn’t be for another day, which meant twenty-four more hours in Elko. I couldn’t keep up with my lie to my auntie Karen.

  I tried to piece my grandfather’s story together, but it felt like I knew less than I had before, and I couldn’t fully form the questions in my head; they were clouded by the image of Sue Kopek crying on her living room floor.

  There’s a popular thought experiment called Schrödinger’s cat, where a physicist—who was probably also a sociopath—put a regular cat into a box, treated it with radiation, then showed people and said that until the box was opened, the cat was both alive and dead.

  We hit four red lights, one after another. Nine minutes until the train left.

  His point was, if you don’t see it, then you can’t know, and if you can’t know, then nothing is true, so everything is true. It makes sense—truth is subjective; there’s no such thing as “reality,” only what we think we know to be reality.

  But the real value of any thought experiment, the real question he was asking, I think, is: What if it was your cat? Would you open the box? If you don’t, you maintain the possibility that the cat could still be alive. If you do, and you confirm the cat’s dead, then you’re the one who killed the cat. Would you rather live with miserable truth, or blissful ignorance?

  I asked if the cab could go faster, and the driver told me I didn’t want to fuck with the cops in Elko, boss. Seven minutes to the train.

  My brain went back to the still frame of Sue, collapsed on the floor of her abandoned home, her life in ruins around her. When I arrived in Elko, she was waiting happily, certain that her husband and son would be home soon. I was the one who had made her painfully aware they wouldn’t be. Whether she would forget it soon or not, I had forced her to remember that she was all alone. I opened the box. I killed her cat.

  The train became visible, resting on the tracks, as we crested the hill before the station. It was scheduled to leave in two minutes.

  I imagined it was me. Would I want to know? I wouldn’t, I decided. I’m okay with feeling unresolved, or confused, because there’s no way that’s as bad as feeling miserable. I’d frame the box and eat breakfast every day with my maybe-cat. Even if it was fake, I’d want to live in the world that I made for myself.

  We entered the parking lot the moment my phone switched over to 7:45 p.m.

  The train began to shake with activity. “Fuck! Just drop me here!” I shouted at the driver, a hundred yards from the doors, where the attendants were pulling in the stepping stools. I launched myself from the cab but my shirt was jerked backward.

  “Hey!” the driver shouted. “You’ve gotta pay me, asshole.”

  I fumbled with my card, the whistle of the train blowing, my fingers shaking, the world spinning dangerously fast. “Alright,” he said to the authorizing screen. “Go.”

  I sprinted recklessly across the open concrete toward the platform, my backpack swinging clumsily behind me and slamming against my back with every step. I tore across the asphalt to where the train whistle was sounding.

  “Wait!” I tried to shout, but it was too late. No one was listening. The coach door slammed in front of me.

  I reached the concrete as the brakes released, the train settling backward before starting to move. Amtrak had a strict policy of never reopening the doors once they’d shut. I knew it because they reminded us every time we stepped out of the train.

  I pounded the window in front of me, hoping the impact would jar it loose or pop the handle. It didn’t. “Wait! Open the door!” My reflection in the window disappeared as the train moved forward.

  I kept up with it, pounding the glass all along the way. It started with a walk, the train lazily dragging itself out of the station at five miles per hour. I leapt from the platform to keep up, weeds and brush whipping against my legs as my jog became a run, the train picking up speed too quickly. The window was just above my eye level and I had to jump to see inside. Still I pounded, cast and hand against the glass, screaming from outside the train, “Someone open this! Don’t leave me here!”

  Out of the bathroom door, the girl with the beanie from last night’s train passed in front of the window. Either I was imagining her, or she’d somehow changed trains on the same schedule I had. I gave the window one hard smack to grab her attention, and she turned and leapt backward, panic on her face. I jumped and motioned toward the window release, my eyes begging her to open it.

  She stood for a moment, still. “Please,” I mouthed as I jumped again, fatigue beginning to push down on me. I must have looked adequately desperate, because when I jumped again, she was throwing her body into the bright red emergency lever that released the window.

  Her tiny frame was pushing upward as hard as she could, but the lever wouldn’t budge. I waved, but she couldn’t see me; the train moved too quickly, fifteen, twenty miles per hour. I pounded and jumped, and the girl looked up at me, her face froze in confusion. Frantically, I motioned, Down! Down!

  The realization hit her, squarely, like a cast against a window. In one motion, she grabbed the red lever and yanked it down toward the floor. The window swung open, warm air from inside the train rushing out. A surge of adrenaline burned hot in my blood and shot through my body. I launched myself at the train, clutching the metal bar above the window with my right hand and pulling upward into the square frame. From the shoulder, I swung my useless left arm around into it and felt the nerve endings explode with pain as she grabbed it and pulled. I ran my legs up the side, transferring my weight over the window ledge, and with one final push off the siding, my balance shifted, and I toppled into the train car, landing with a thud.

  Part Three.

  Green River.

  1.

  THE GIRL WITH the beanie shoved me off and ran to slam the window closed, the red lever clicking back into place, and spun on me. But before she could open her mouth, another door swung open and an Amtrak attendant burst in.

  “What the hell was that!” He painted the walls around us with saliva. “Which one of you opened that window?”

  My left hand was burning from bracing my fall to the ground. The razor-sharp edges of my nerves—hundreds of them—tickled the inside of my skin, sending waves of pain down each of my fingers and up my arms.

  “Somebody start talking!” But neither of us did. “You know, I can kick both of you off this train.”

  The attendant looked at me, the girl looked at the attendant, and I closed my eyes, counting the seconds until I passed out.

  “There was a man,” she offered slowly, word by word. “He was trying . . . to smoke a cigarette, and . . . we told him . . . that he should leave.”

  “
Some man conveniently left you two standing here while he made a break for it?” The attendant made a show of sniffing the air. “Does smell a bit like cigarettes, doesn’t it, buddy?”

  I looked away, shy and scared and screaming inside with pain. This was not my moment to be courageous and take the fall for her. This was my moment to huddle on the floor.

  “Are we sure it wasn’t you who opened the window to smoke?” he spat at her.

  On the ground, her purse was open, and I made a quick decision.

  She shook her head. “No, no, it . . . wasn’t me. I don’t do that stuff.” Again, she spoke slowly, driving home every consonant with an Indian tilt.

  “You don’t smoke cigarettes?” Her eyes flickered to her bag, and the attendant’s followed. “So if I check this purse here, I won’t find any cigarettes? Or something else?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  He snatched the bag. “I’d hate to find some evidence that you were lying.”

  We both held our breath as he rifled through it. I tried to catch her eye but she was focused on the search and seizure, breathing heavily through her nose. A few items popped out and fell to the floor as he dug—some eye makeup, a few tampons, a book called Compassion.

  After turning the bag over, the attendant held it back to her. The blood behind his face was starting to saturate his cheeks. “What’d you do with them?”

  I found my voice. “She, uh, she clearly wasn’t the one smoking, so unless you want me to, to tell someone about your illegal search of her personal property, I’d stop harassing her.”

  He got the message. He could only hold on to her gaze for a few seconds before stepping backward. “If I find out it was either of you who opened that window,” he warned us, “I’m going to enjoy kicking both of you off this train.” He left us in silence.

  It was a long minute before we spoke, both of us expecting the attendant to burst back in.

  But he didn’t. My heart settled to a normal pace for the first time in fifteen minutes. When we finally made eye contact, she was the first to speak.

  “Well?” Something about her voice was very different.

  “Well, uh, what?”

  “You just jump onto a moving train, then?” It had completely transformed. It was light, quick, proper, and dripping with a beautifully British accent. I smiled. She hadn’t wanted to seem recognizable, so she’d disguised the most unique trait she had: her accent. “Are you here to rob us? Or are you just an idiot?”

  I couldn’t tell if it was a joke, or real anger, or even some form of aggressive pity, but she wasn’t smiling. “No. I just . . . really, really hate Nevada.”

  “Well, you’re a bit dramatic, if you ask me,” she said, her eyes now scanning the floor. “And you nearly got me thrown off the train, if not for a fucking miracle . . . I have no idea what—”

  “What happened to your cigarettes?” I asked, pulling them from behind my back.

  Her mouth bent to an almost-smile. “Well, that was clever. Thank you.”

  My chest warmed up. I wished Kaitlin could have seen this conversation now. After four years with her, talking to other girls had become impossibly foreign, but here I was, making it look easy.

  I studied the floor with her, afraid the eye contact would ruin it. “I’m not the one who faked an accent. That was smart.”

  I saw her reflection in the window, smiling for the first time. “What’s your name?”

  “Arthur.” I extended my non-broken hand.

  “Hello, Arthur. Mara.” She accepted my hand and I held hers for a moment too long. “What happened to your hand?”

  “Oh, um, an accident.”

  “‘Oh, um’—very cryptic,” she said, and without warning, she dropped my hand. “Well, Arthur. It was very nice meeting you, but please don’t do that to me again.”

  “What, uh—” My mouth sputtered into a sentence before my brain could catch up. I wanted to say something to keep the conversation going, but I knew the cause was already lost. It would need to be something interesting, something about her, something observational, something smart—

  “You know cigarettes are gonna kill you, right?”

  Mara was already somewhere else. Of course she was. I slumped up into the nearly empty coach cabin, moving slowly so it didn’t seem like I was chasing after her.

  Kaitlin was right on cue.

  “You should warn her.” Her tiny frame slouched against the seat next to me, pretending not to care.

  I smiled a little, because I could tell that she did care. “Warn her about what?”

  She ignored the question, examining her fingernails. “Do you even know what you’re looking for?”

  “Yes.” I reclined in my seat. “Green River.”

  “Great. And when you get there?”

  My stomach twisted. She was right; the train stopped in Green River at 4:00 a.m., and I didn’t even have a starting place, but I ignored it. “What do you mean, I should warn her?”

  “It’s nothing. I’m just saying, to be fair to her.”

  “Warn her about what?”

  “About you.”

  “About me what?”

  “Everything.”

  “What do you—”

  “That you’re not stable. That you have pretend conversations with people. That you get angry and your little switch flips and you go crazy. That you tried—”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Yes, it is. All of that is true. You’re just too embarrassed to admit it.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter! I’m never going to see her again. Does that make you happy?”

  The seat was empty.

  2.

  april 28, the 2010.

  engine groan,

  stars & invisible mountains in

  infanite darkness,

  i can see nothing so i hear everything.

  arthur

  wheels skid & scream & callide

  just as thay have for dacades

  the natural world whistles

  as it has for centuries.

  hard blue seat

  gray plastic

  i try to sleep, the only true piece

  but you burn behind my eyes

  i know i won’t find piece until i find you.

  or you find me.

  i ask where we are,

  & no one can answer

  stop asking, thay say.

  so i wander

  train shakes gray plastic

  & step by step,

  i teach myself again how to walk,

  walking for lite,

  searching for you.

  —arthur louis pullman

  3.

  INCOMING CALL: DAD.

  “Hey, buddy, your uncle Tim called. He said you were going out and camping, by Donner? Which is great, Arty, it really . . . it really is. But . . . look, they said they haven’t seen you since Monday. That’s almost two days, and we’re really . . . we’re supposed to be keeping a better eye on you than that. And it would be one thing if Tim was with you, but I don’t think I can be comfortable with you spending another night camping with these people I don’t know. It’s almost nine already, and—and I don’t know, Arty. I’m trying to give you your space here, and if camping’s making you happy then I’m happy, but—I just can’t be comfortable with it.”

  “They’re really great people, Dad,” I said, whispering into the phone. “They’re all church people. And they’re all A’s fans, too.”

  “That’s great. And I’m glad you had your night with them, but two nights is too many with people I don’t know.”

  I knew that I should feel panicked, so far from where I said I was and moving so fast in the opposite direction, and a good son would be remorseful, especially after listening to him tie himself in knots trying to sound calm and reasonable, but all I felt was annoyed.

  “I can’t spend my whole adult life with just people you know, Dad.”

  He was silent for a long minute. “Can
I at least talk to the counselor or leader or whatever?”

  “He’s asleep. They have to be up early for a worship service.”

  “On a Thursday?”

  “They’re really religious.”

  He paused again. “Okay, buddy. I have to ask. Is this—this whole camping-by-the-lake thing—does it have anything to do with our conversation the other night? I know we got a little carried away, and I don’t—I don’t want you thinking I don’t respect your opinion.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’m over it.”

  “You understand why this money will be—”

  “Dad, I don’t want to talk about this again.”

  “I know, but I still don’t like this implication that I’m somehow a danger to your grandfather, or that you have some kind of moral high ground—”

  “Dad. Please.”

  “Arthur, we have to—” I heard him change his mind. “I want to give you all of the freedom in the world, Arthur, but you and I both understand why that can’t exactly happen. I want you to do what you want, but . . . I don’t know that we can count on you to make those kinds of decisions right now.”

  I let the line be silent for sixty seconds, counting trees that passed out the window.

  “Okay, buddy.” He gave up. “If this is going to help you feel good about things, then okay. But this is your last night camping, alright? Tomorrow morning, you go straight back to the cabin and you spend some time with your auntie and uncle, okay?”

  “Sure thing, Dad.” I hung up.

  I leaned back into my seat—that was it; the end of the rope, the 0:00 point of the lie.

  If I turned around in Green River, I might be able to make it back in time to keep my lie intact. But what did I have to go back to, anyway? My laundry list of huge misses? My bedroom full of photos of people who had all moved on with their lives and were too scared of me to bring me with them? A best friend I couldn’t speak to anymore? A girlfriend who I legally couldn’t see? A year of nothing, no college, no girlfriend, no tennis, just my dad, silently pitying me? At least the train kept me away from that, but the train wouldn’t last. Eventually we’d reach the end of the tracks, and that world would catch up to this one. Unless I could find a reason to keep moving forward, every moment was just delaying the inevitable collapse.