Empty Heaven, page 23
“Okay, I’m gonna be a werewolf,” Alex said. He had found a latex mask that was about what you would expect. “I’m gonna buy some clothes too, like a flannel for a wolfman look. Darian, is that okay?”
“I would challenge you to try to make a dent in my available credit,” I said, and gave him one of my cards.
“All of this shit is too big,” Jasper said, waving around a full-body Godzilla costume. “Who is this for? A giant?”
“I think that’s just for an average-sized adult man,” I said, and Jasper sighed.
“Whatever,” he said, and then went over to the kids’ section.
I found a costume called Scary Scarecrow, complete with a mask that looked like a fanged, demonic version of the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, and grabbed it for KJ. Then I got myself a spooky latex clown mask, which came with a bloodstained puffy onesie that had pom-pom buttons down the front. Senovak was terrified of clowns—I think it was the only thing he was scared of. He couldn’t even look at ads with Ronald McDonald in them.
And then Jasper was standing in front of me. He had pulled a Spider-Man costume over his clothes. Or, sorry—it was a knockoff costume called Spider-Kid. It fit him perfectly, even the headpiece. It was probably made for twelve-year-olds.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Jasper said.
“You look soooooo adorable,” I said, and Spider-Kid flipped me off with both hands.
When we went back to the car with costumes and candy, KJ was asleep. Red tendrils waved around her face in the air like they were caught in underwater currents. But I sat close to her anyway.
“KJ?” I whispered as we took the dark back roads toward the Frost Library. Alex and Jasper were talking up front. Jasper was going through the CD case he’d rescued from the remains of the PDA.
“YES?” KJ asked without opening her eyes.
“Are you listening?” I said, keeping my voice low.
“WE ARE ALWAYS LISTENING TO YOU, D,” KJ said. Her eyes slitted open, but then fell shut again. Outside, the woods rolled by in blackness. The moon was covered by clouds. The streets we took were coated in a layer of brown leaves. The air smelled sharp when I cracked the window.
“I love you in your ruins,” I said. KJ smiled without opening her eyes, and leaned her head against my shoulder.
“WE KNOW,” she said.
“Good,” I said, and stroked the hair behind her ear. But she was asleep.
I had no idea that KJ had just spoken to me for the last time. I never heard her talk again, for all the rest of that endless Halloween.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Monday, October 30, 2000
We stopped to change into our Halloween costumes at a convenience store about twenty minutes from the Amherst campus, and in the bright lights of the parking lot I got a really good look at KJ. She was still in her Cold Falls uniform, red cloak draped over her shoulders, and her eyes were closed. The sinews of Good Arcturus framed her head. They moved in unison, as if a wind was blowing—but one that I couldn’t feel.
“KJ? Wake up. Time to put on your second ensemble of the day,” I said. I touched her shoulder while Jasper and Alex stood outside, using the side of the car as a shield while they changed. KJ’s eyes flew open when I spoke, but she didn’t answer me.
“You in there?” I asked. I leaned over her. “KJ?”
KJ looked up at me, and opened her mouth, like she was going to reply. But when her lips parted, the humming buzz in the air intensified. Her mouth was filled with red strands. They spilled over her lips and crept down her face like running ink. It looked like a forest of spiderwebs.
“Oh, okay,” I said. I tried not to let my horror show on my face, though I leaned back almost against the car door without realizing it.
And far away, in the back of my head, I heard a voice. The deepest, darkest, loveliest, most soothing voice in the entire universe. It sounded like a radio dial being adjusted in my head: faint, staticky, but there.
WE ARE HERE, D.
“That’s good,” I said. “I thought I lost you.”
I scooted back toward her. To show her that I wasn’t afraid. After a second, she leaned her head against my shoulder, and red strings brushed against my right temple. The whole moment felt weirdly fragile. I could definitely start crying any second.
“Are you ready to party?” I asked. KJ looked at me. I could feel her head tilt toward the side of my face, anyway.
“The party at Amherst College,” I clarified. “I got you the Scary Scarecrow costume.”
HOW… APT…
Alex and Jasper climbed back in, fully werewolfed and Spider-Kidded.
“Looking great,” I said. “Especially you, Mister Werewolf Lumberjack.”
“Awoooooo,” Alex said behind his mask. Then he pulled it off. “I kinda can’t wear it to drive.”
I guided KJ out with me onto the hidden swath of pavement behind the car like she was an invalid. But once we were out there she started getting into her Scary Scarecrow outfit right away. A light rain began to fall, emphasizing the bitter late-October cold.
Finally, KJ pulled her mask over her face and turned around. I examined her.
“You look very creepy,” I said.
There was that voice again in my head.
THANK YOU, it said.
“How are you—” I started to ask her how the hell she was doing that, but then my cell phone started ringing. I picked it up. “Hey, Dan,” I said.
“Darian. How are you?”
“Half in a clown suit,” I said. “We’re going to a Halloween party.”
“Ugh,” Senovak said, his voice rife with clown-hatred. “Glad I’m not there to see it. Where is this Halloween party?”
“Cold Falls Prep,” I said.
“Fine. Do not do anything stupid,” Senovak said. “Make good choices.”
“I always do,” I said. We just both kind of let the absurdity of that claim hang in the air for a second.
“Right. So I’ll be back tomorrow,” Senovak said. “Tuesday morning.”
“Okay,” I said. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay,” Senovak said. There was a tiny pause, then he added: “Lonely. The funeral was today. Ironically, Linus would have been able to make this whole situation much easier to deal with.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. If anything but what was happening had been happening, I would have gone and kept him company. He sounded like he could use it.
“Have to run,” Senovak said. “But you will call me if anything goes awry at this party, right?”
“Yes, I promise. See you tomorrow,” I said, and hung up. I climbed into the car feeling about as miserable as it was possible to feel in a clown suit.
The rain intensified minute by minute, and the car sliced through icy sheets of water all the way to Amherst. Leaves tumbled down in the storm, coating the streets. The drumming of the rain was loud on the car, and Spider-Kid cranked the radio up. He left it on an alternative station and started rifling through the album of CDs.
“I can’t believe none of these broke. Where’s my Swell Maps CD? I swear I put it in here,” Jasper said.
“What album is it?” Alex asked.
“A Trip to Marineville,” Jasper said.
“I think that’s one of the ones I took out and left at the house to make room,” Alex admitted.
“Oh, you fucker,” Jasper said.
“I think I put Tidal in there over the summer,” I said.
“Fiona Apple? No fucking way,” Jasper said.
On the radio, the DJ started doing her between-sets bit.
“Got some great things coming up for you this Mischief Night, during our indie movie soundtrack appreciation episode, here on 104.1, central New England’s home for alternative rock. Kicking it off with ‘Empty Heaven,’ the breakout track from 1997’s surprise Best Picture winner, Still Life with Bleach. Dex Coffin got a posthumous Oscar nom with this one, but it lost out on Best Original Song to ‘You Must Love Me,’ from Evita. Bad call, Academy Awards dudes—”
“Oh, keep it,” Alex said, and Jasper nodded and cranked up the volume.
The thing about Dexter was that of course they all liked his music. He was a mash of influences in the same way that Army of Dolly was, only executed a million times more brilliantly: the driving, staticky industrial I made this in my basement sound of Skinny Puppy or Nine Inch Nails, sad singer-songwriter lyrics that spoke to universal truths in the vein of Joni Mitchell, and the willingness to stretch his weird, amazing voice out to do anything it needed to do a la Bowie or Nina Simone. Sprinkle in some grunge aesthetics and they were all hooked, just like the enthused reviewers from Spin and Rolling Stone and everyone’s cool older siblings.
And me. I remembered how exciting it had been to meet one of my musical idols, someone whose dad was a friend of my dad. Because Dex Coffin actually came from money, even though the narrative of his life that had been popularized after he died spoke a lot about him being a poor couch-surfing drug addict like Kurt Cobain or something.
Actually, I want to take part of that back. Dexter’s lyrics didn’t actually speak to universal truths. They just pretended to, and people put their own interpretations on that.
The intro, with the drum machine beat and the heavily modified sample of Dexter’s own piano playing, started. He’d worked on that piano composition in front of me for hours. I could play the original piece myself, by heart. I could picture the lights on the two Akai S1000 samplers he’d used for mixing. My palms were sweaty inside my clown gloves. I had somehow always avoided listening to his music with my friends, in all our years of listening to music together. Then Dexter started singing:
I hope we die at the same time
And we’re born again
(Again again again)
But only if it means something
Otherwise I’ll take the static—
I could stand it, I decided. No matter how nauseous it made me. I’d heard it enough fucking times to stand it. My piano playing was probably even in there somewhere, layered in with the innumerable other recordings that gave the track its messy, miserable, otherworldly, driving, night-clubby, weepy, angry sound.
But then Jasper turned the volume up even more, so that he could sing along without drowning it out and ruining our experience. He was polite about music-listening like that, unfortunately for me.
And I love you you you you you
And everything else in this poor universe
“This poor universe, even when I sleepwalk,” Dexter sang. Jasper sang along with him.
And your billion years of silence,
your entropy, your tired talk
Your pearly gates,
(Oh, this poor universe)
I hope we never leave it—
I was not going to throw up. If I was quiet enough and small enough and still enough, they wouldn’t notice anything. We were almost at the college. I curled my hands in my lap.
STOP PLAYING THAT, came a voice in my head. I looked up sharply. I saw Jasper and Alex look around, too, like someone had whispered in their ears.
“What?” Jasper yelled over the music.
“Stop playing that song?” Alex asked. “What?”
“No way! Eat my entire ass!” Jasper said, and went to turn it up louder.
KJ reached out with one hand. A few threads emerged from under her fingernails. The radio got deafeningly loud for a second and then exploded into a wall of static that made us all flinch and cover our ears while she sat there calmly in her scarecrow costume.
Then the dial twisted and the music turned off completely.
“Ahhhh!” Alex said, and swerved the car a little before recovering.
“Uh, what the fuck?!” Jasper said, whirling around in his seat.
“I guess KJ didn’t want to hear that song?” Alex said.
“Listen, fuck you, you stupid straw man,” Jasper said. “I want you out of KJ’s body, dipshit! My best friend loves this album, you bitch—”
The voice in our heads was loud now. I saw Jasper register it.
SHE DOES NOT. IT WAS MADE BY SOMEONE WHO CAUSED HER GRIEVOUS HARM.
“How can I hear her right now? Guys? And what are you talking about?” Jasper said—but then, he glanced over at me.
And I must’ve been giving something away with my expression. Something pretty significant. Because Jasper shut his mouth super fast and looked at me like he’d been smacked hard across the face with a dead fish.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about—” I started to deny everything, but it was too little too late.
“What… Dex Coffin? You knew Dex Coffin?” Jasper asked.
“No,” I said immediately.
YES, said the voice in our heads.
“Yes,” I amended. “Just for a few years. He was my… my instructor.”
“Your instructor,” Jasper repeated. “Darian. When did you meet him?”
“When I was almost eleven,” I said. Couldn’t meet his piercing eyes. I still felt like puking.
“Rocks around us,” Jasper said, in a tone of detached horror. “What the fuck. What the fuck, Darian, what the fuck!”
“Oh my god. Stop,” I said.
“What are we inferring right now?” Alex asked.
“I think Dex Coffin is a pedophile,” Jasper said in that same horrified voice, “a fucking child molester.”
“Isn’t he dead?” Alex asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“That’s disgusting,” Alex said. “I always liked his tunes. Guess he’s another one for the trash compactor of history.”
“I can’t fucking believe it,” Jasper said. “Darian—”
“Jas,” Alex said mildly, “why don’t we leave Darian alone for a few minutes, okay?”
Jasper snapped his mouth shut.
“Good,” Alex said. “Here we are, guys.”
He pulled into the Frost Library parking lot. It was packed full of cars. Outside, I could see a bunch of costumed adults smoking, taking shelter from the rain under an overhang near the door. Alex guided the car around to the back, where we (and the big door bungeed onto our car) would be less visible.
I was kind of at a loss for what to do. I looked through my bag, rifling my crap, and pulled out a lip balm. My hands were stupidly shaking, and I dropped the cap.
“Shit,” I said. I felt like I was going to cry over a dropped lip balm cap.
KJ leaned forward and grabbed the cap. She placed it neatly back on the lip balm.
“Thanks,” I said. “For the cap. Not for outing me about the Dexter thing.”
KJ just regarded me silently. If she was making an expression, I couldn’t tell.
Then we had to get inside. For all of my fear that the members of the faculty would be super on guard against Amherst students trying to sneak in, the front doors to the library were unchaperoned. One of the cigarette-smoking professors, someone dressed as a ladybug, waved at KJ as we walked in, trying to look inconspicuous.
“Lydia! Come out here after you get a drink!” she said, and KJ nodded silently in her scarecrow mask.
The inside of the library was probably mid-century boring, normally, but tonight it was beautiful. The reception desk was covered by a solid wall of orange balloons. Fake jack-o’-lantern lights with glowing faces grinned at us from the stairway and a huge line of costumed adults flowed outward from the bar. I thought of stopping off to get a vodka cranberry, but being buzzed would not help me now.
Music was blasting loud enough to cover any weird buzzing sounds emanating from KJ: as I listened, “Human Fly” by The Cramps bled into Siouxsie and the Banshees’ “Spellbound.” People were dancing—I saw a cowboy dancing with Ghostface from Scream—and faculty members sat on the sofas and chairs that were pushed against the walls. Orange bulbs threw streamers of light across bookshelves.
“We’ll start at the top,” Jasper said. “Check every door. Work our way down.”
We went up the stairs in a line, the thump of the music and the laughter of drunk people following us. On the mezzanine there were more people, but they were lodged deep into party conversations, and nobody asked us any questions or even gave us lingering looks.
We climbed all the way to the fourth floor, then skirted the perimeter of a dark and endless world of silent computer labs and faculty offices. The sounds of the party vanished behind dense concrete walls. I didn’t know if security patrolled up here, but it felt like we were miles away from everyone.
There was a locked special archives area, but it looked like it had only one door, and it was not our door. I took off one clown glove and held my amethyst, waiting for any hint of a burn.
“Let’s go down,” Jasper said, and we descended to floor three, where the stacks were. Now I could hear the party a little, but it was so soft that it became a phantom whisper just slightly resembling music and laughter. Rain pelted against the narrow windows, and emergency exit lights lit up aisle after narrow aisle. It smelled like books and carpet.
“This is an amazing library,” Alex whispered, his voice coming out really muffled through the mask. “Look at that! A map room? A periodicals room?”
“That door looks pretty old,” Jasper said. There were lots of antique architectural flares mixed in with the boring concrete of it all—windows and doors and stained glass and even light fixtures. Reclaimed from the old hall that had once stood there, I hoped.
I waved my amethyst in front of the door, but nothing happened. I was looking for a green one—I was almost certain the door was going to be green, like the one on the chapel at Cold Falls… and the one hanging off the ruins of Empty Heaven.
“There!” Jasper said, and I saw a room at the extreme end of the huge floor. A room with an old archway worked into new concrete. A room with a very old-looking green door. A room with a big computer-paper note tacked on the wall next to it:
