I swallowed hard, because Elizabeth was invoking fairy-tale language, Richard Gere, just like Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman.
Synchronicity.
Unus mundus.
O-fucking-kay,” Max said and went on to tell the story about how his sister was walking along the “Dela-fucking-ware River” one summer evening when over the water she saw a “white fucking ball of energy” that seemed to pulse and radiate—“like the most beautiful fucking star you have ever seen had floated down to earth gently as a fucking dandelion seed dancing in the fucking wind.”
It was so “fucking mesmerizing” that she followed it thoughtlessly for hours, completely captivated by its beauty, but she never really seemed to get any closer to it—no matter how fast she walked, the “giant fucking orb of light” remained the same distance away from her. She walked for what seemed like an eternity without getting tired or thirsty. And then suddenly—“FUCKING POOF!”—she found herself at the exact place where she had first seen the bright light, as if she hadn’t been walking at all. She looked at her “fucking cell phone” and realized that no time had passed. In fact, she was pretty sure it was five or so minutes before she had seen the light—which is when she suspected that she might be going “fucking crazy.”
She couldn’t sleep that night. Elizabeth kept trying to remember what had happened during that space of time when she followed the beautiful light in the sky, but the more she tried to remember, the more it receded into the dark forgotten part of her mind—almost like “a fucking dream” that is vivid in the morning, but completely forgotten by “fucking lunch.” Try as she might, Elizabeth couldn’t recall any of the details, and yet she suspected that so much more had happened to her than simply seeing a “fucking light in the fucking sky.”
She became so anxious, the tightness in her chest became unbearable; Elizabeth began to worry that she was having a heart attack.
The next day she went to the emergency room, and after a few tests that proved nothing was wrong with her heart or her circulatory system, she took the medical advice she was given. She checked herself into a mental health facility, where they gave her medicine and bed rest and “fucking mandatory singing classes,” and therapists conversed with her in “great fucking detail” about her childhood, teen years, and adulthood too.
After a few weeks in the mental health facility, she began to remember what really happened.
On that fated night she was pulled up into a UFO by a “fucking tractor beam” of sorts that teleported her from the river walk up into an all-white educational mind laboratory. There were space men with “elongated fucking heads” and “shiny black fucking eyes” and “tiny fucking bodies”—their arms and legs were thin as pepperoni sticks and their skin was lime green and spotted like that of “fucking frogs.”
She was strapped down to an operating table by “ropes made of fucking electricity,” and even though they experimented on her, she didn’t feel any pain and was not afraid at the time. The aliens’ mouths didn’t move, but she heard their voices in her head, which were deep and “fucking sonorous.” They said, “This will all be over soon. There is no use struggling. Just relax. We’re doing this for the good of your species. You are what’s known as a ‘scientific hero’ where we come from, because your brief discomfort will result in many great advancements that will benefit millions all over the galaxy. Do not worry. You will be returned to your planet shortly.”
Max added a “What the fuck, hey?” here while opening his eyes extra wide and nodding enthusiastically.
I looked over at Elizabeth, and she seemed to be studying my reaction to the story, but when she caught my eye, she shrugged, which seemed odd.
Because she had missed so many weeks of work and hadn’t bothered to tell her boss she was in a hospital recovering from “alien fucking abduction,” her job at an advertising firm was no longer waiting for her, so she began to live off her savings and volunteer at the library, because she “always fucking loved stories.”
That’s also when I moved here from fucking Worcester, hey!” Max said.
Elizabeth looked at me from behind that brown curtain of hair and said, “Crazy story, huh?”
Back in Mom’s kitchen, I said to Father McNamee, “And that’s when Max invited me to go to Cat Parliament with them in Ottawa. And Elizabeth said she didn’t care if I went with them or not. What do you think it means, my having this experience and your already having the passports?”
I have no idea,” Father McNamee said. “But I want to meet these people. God doesn’t do coincidences. You can bet your ass.”
The next day I took Father McNamee to Max and Elizabeth’s apartment. He told them about Saint Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal and how he had planned on introducing me to my father at the very spot where Father McNamee first heard his calling to become a priest, back when he was a teenager. He explained very simply that God had ceased speaking to him and he believed that reuniting me with my father would please God and get Him speaking again. “Perhaps we should travel together,” Father McNamee said.
We’re not really religious,” Elizabeth explained, which was kind of awkward, because you could tell she and Max thought Father McNamee was absolutely crazy. “We’re just going to see Cat Parliament, because Max loves cats. It’s in Ottawa. Not Montreal.”
Cat Fucking Parliament!” Max interjected.
Perhaps sensing he was losing the battle, Father McNamee said, “Well, I have money to finance the trip,” which surprised me, “and if you allow us to travel with you to Ottawa, and if you’ll travel to Montreal with us—the cities are only two and a half hours apart by car—I’ll share that money with you.”
How much money?” Elizabeth said.
Enough to pay for the car rental, gas, hotels, and food for all four of us,” Father said.
Why would you pay for all that?” Elizabeth said.
You’re friends of Bartholomew. He likes you both very much. That’s enough for me.”
I’m not his friend,” Elizabeth said. “We just met yesterday.”
He’s my fucking friend,” Max said. “And higher numbers of people decrease the chance of alien abduction, Elizabeth. It’s a proven fucking fact. Plus we’re fucking broke. You said you didn’t even fucking know if we had enough money to make it.”
Elizabeth looked up at the ceiling of their living room and swallowed several times.
Call it a hunch,” Father McNamee said, “but I really think this is meant to be. And I do believe that Max and Bartholomew have already made up their minds. Don’t you think it could be fun?”
Fuck yeah!” Max said.
It’s your birthday,” Elizabeth said to Max. “It’s your present.”
And then somehow—astonishingly—it was settled.
This morning we loaded up a Ford Focus rental car and headed north.
Elizabeth and Father McNamee took turns driving, because Max and I don’t have driving licenses.
Like we were children and he was giving us a bedtime story, Father McNamee told us about the life of Saint Brother André Bessette, who was an orphan at the age of twelve, frail and often sick, uneducated, but a big believer in the power of Saint Joseph. Many came to believe that Brother André had healing powers, but Brother André always denied this—and even became incensed whenever people suggested he could work miracles. He said Saint Joseph worked the miracles. And yet, with the hope of being healed, people from all over still come to the oratory he built. “His heart is on display,” Father McNamee said. “I was inspired by this story when I was young—still am.”
His real heart?” Elizabeth asked from behind her hair, completely ignoring Father’s point.
Yes.”
What the fuck, hey?” Max said and then gritted his teeth.
It was stolen in the seventies, but then recovered.”
Why would someone steal his heart?” I asked.
I really have no idea,” Father McNamee said.
How did they get it back?” Elizabeth asked.
If I remember correctly, they found it in a basement,” Father McNamee said.
Elizabeth remained silent in the front seat, hiding behind her hair, as I watched her in the side mirror, although I thought I heard her sigh quietly.
No one said anything for a long time.
We just drove north—all four of us looking out the windows at the dirty snow plowed and pushed up on the side of the highway, until we ended up tired and in great need of food and rest.
And that’s how I ended up writing you from a motel parking lot in upstate Vermont, my breath silver in the air, and my hand red with cold.
I’m fingering my new crystal, looking up at the sky searching for hovering orbs of light, but I haven’t seen one yet.
Max gave me the tektite crystal at dinner. We ate at a diner called Green Mountains Food. He reached across the booth and put it around my neck for protection, as Elvis’s “Don’t Be Cruel” played on the jukebox.
Elizabeth said that tektite formed when larger meteorites crashed into Earth’s surface millions of years ago, according to scientists.
So this fucker,” Max said, drawing disapproving stares from the surrounding diner patrons, “connects you to what’s beyond Earth’s fucking atmosphere, because it’s been in contact with the great fucking unknown above.” He pointed up and said, “Fucking impact theory. The meteors struck Earth so fucking hard, materials flew all the way up into fucking space and then rained down on our fucking planet like returning rock astronauts.”
Max pounded the table with his fists to simulate the impact of meteors striking Earth.
And the connection to fucking space means fucking protection,” Max said, waving his plump index finger at me. “Fucking trust me. I know about these things—much more than your average fucking Joe.”
I could tell that Max needed to pretend that this was true and that maybe Elizabeth was playing along—and so I quickly nodded and patted the shiny bronze-colored rock hanging around my neck.
What the fuck, hey?” Max said, nodding. “Fucking protection.”
I nodded back my agreement (or at least my acquiescence) at Max.
Then we ate dinner silently—but together, like a family. I couldn’t tell you the last time I ate dinner with more than two other people. Maybe it was after those teenagers broke into our house, trashed everything, and went to the bathroom on our beds.
It felt comforting, just having people around me—like being wrapped in a warm blanket with a cup of hot chocolate in your hands during a fierce winter night.
I wish you were there, Richard Gere. You would have really enjoyed the meal—well, the sharing of food, at least.
Communion?” I said to Father McNamee when he snuck a sip from his whiskey flask.
Indeed.” He smiled at Max and Elizabeth.
And then it was just the sound of knives and forks on white plates and oldies music playing softly in the background and other patrons talking about the weather and local politics and sports and gossip and the quality of the food they were consuming.
Father McNamee kept humming “Don’t Be Cruel” even after the song was over—he hummed it all the way to the motel as he drove the Ford Focus and is probably still humming it in our room as he lies in bed.
In our motel room, before I came out here to write you, Richard Gere, Father McNamee said my mom used to love Elvis, and she even saw him perform once before I was born.
He said “Don’t Be Cruel” was one of her favorite songs.
I never knew that.
Your admiring fan,
Bartholomew Neil