The Illumination_ A Novel - Kevin Brockmeier [36]
One time, Chuck rode in an elevator with glass walls. This was the single best place he had ever lived. He remembered sailing into the enormous blue sky like Superman. Below him, all the people had turned into moving dots. He felt tall and brave and powerful, nothing like himself. The ride lasted three minutes, and then it was over. He still dreamed about it once or twice a week. It was the best and happiest of all his dreams. His other favorite place to live was under the clotheslines. There were two of them, twins, stretching across his backyard. He liked to live between them while the sheets dried. It felt like camping out in an airy white tent. Sometimes he wished he could stay there and never leave.
Mostly, though, Chuck lived either at home or at school. It took him a while to learn the exact rules. Rules were extremely important, and the more exact the better. Rules kept the world from turning into a vicious trap. There were dangers everywhere, a thousand tripwires in the grass. People had to watch their step, even in the sunlight. When he was little, Chuck had rehearsed the rules tirelessly. The house was where he lived when it got dark. He also lived there on weekends, plus during snowy weather. He lived in the school for eight hours a day. He wasn’t allowed to sleep there, only in the house. The school had three separate times: class-, lunch-, and recess-. The house had five: chore-, play-, meal-, bath-, and bed-. Both the school and the house were two stories tall. Both had time-out corners, and both had magnolias around them. They were different from each other in one big way. The school had kids who shouted and knocked Chuck over. In the house there was only him and his parents.
To Chuck, the house resembled a stack of yellow rectangles. The rectangles were bricks, and they glistened after it rained. Though they looked delicious, he wasn’t supposed to taste them. That was another rule, but a hard one to remember. He was a crazy little retard, always licking the house. What was wrong with him that he was so stupid? How many times did he have to be told “no”? Those were the questions his pretend dad hissed at him. There were real dads, and then there were pretend dads. It was only pretend dads who called their kids retards. Chuck’s hair curled softly at the nape of his neck. No real dad would grab a handful and twist it. No real dad would laugh and say, “Indian torture ritual. Go ahead, run and tell your mom, you little twerp.” A real dad would never, ever do such a thing. It seemed obvious as soon as you thought about it.
——
It was easy for Chuck to recognize other people’s pain. When you hit people, or pushed them, something terrible happened. Their bodies changed underneath the skin, straining, tightening like ropes. Cats and dogs and horses reacted exactly the same way. It looked like something inside them was trying to escape. It looked like a ghost wanted out of their bones. The difference was real and physical, not in Chuck’s imagination. He had seen it happen at least a million times. Over the years, he had almost gotten used to it. People confused him usually, but not people who were hurting. So when the light came, he wasn’t surprised one bit. Suddenly, everywhere he looked, people began glowing from their wounds.
This time he wasn’t the only one who noticed it. His teacher saw it, his mom, even his pretend dad. He and his parents were watching TV when it started. There was a gymnastics competition happening on the sports channel. Girls in leotards were tucking and whirling like amazing machines. They