The High Heaven, page 28
Teeter’s was the only comment on the old stream—Dairy Queen?!!! lolololol
The pigeons stirred. Izzy loaded what papers she wanted to save into the only file cabinet not covered in rust. The folder labeled LESSER LIGHT she set aside to take home. For some reason she felt it belonged with the growing book. Then she bounced the file cabinet downstairs on a dolly and wheeled it out to the hospital van. The van, having been pressed into service for the morgue during the pandemic, reeked still of suffering.
Izzy rolled down the windows as she drove to Other Space.
—
In her storage unit was only this—wreckage from a spaceship.
The unit was huge, big enough for two RVs. It had a massive rolling door. The captain’s chair from the shuttle Columbia sat at the center, alone. Izzy rolled the file cabinet in next to it. The flickering fluorescents of Other Space Storage stirred the headache at her temples, made her eyes throb. The chair’s harnesses were torn and singed. Ripped wires protruded everywhere. The base was blown out from where the ejection chute had deployed. As Izzy sat, the whole thing rocked back unsteadily.
Her first years in New Orleans she’d come to Other Space every few months, would roll open the door and sit in the chair a few hours at a time, a way to meditate about the life she’d survived without needing to ponder any specifics. But, like many storage units eventually, this one hadn’t been opened in years. The chair might have disappeared, for all she knew. But it hadn’t, and she was glad. Addressing the troubles of others—or, often, failing to address their troubles—had dominated Izzy’s life for so long that now, only a half hour retired, she felt unexpectedly renewed, both because she could devote meaningful time to the moonless, but also because she had the energy and clarity to pause now and process her own self.
On the drive over she’d begun rehearsing a new stream about how the moon was like a dimmer on the sun. There is this constant massive explosion of a star yet we’re able to stare at the face-melting plasma flares of it comfortably through its reflection off this rock that orbits us. The moon, she thought, is like a protective lens for eyeballing unfathomable power without totally giggling your brain. Here I am, your path to fathom the unfathomable, says the moon. Maybe what the moonless had lost was the ability or will for ecstatic contemplation of the kind that got so many poets and philosophers staring up at the moon in the first place. As Izzy sat in the chair of the wrecked spaceship, her mind wandered from that stream. What she could not stop pondering was scorpions. Back at the Gently place, she’d learned to shoot by blasting those bugs glowing in the moonlight. She was not eager to hold a gun again. Why were the scorpions coming to her now? Or was she thinking of Oliver? He had taught her about the moon as a way to see what one cannot bear to look at directly. He had taught her to say, to think, One time the moon …
Izzy propped the Galaxy on the file cabinet and hit the button. She circled the chair. On a jagged piece of its frame, she ripped a hole in the coverall’s left leg, dug her fingers in there, tore until the leg of the pants was mostly gone. She balanced and twisted awkwardly until her bare thigh was up next to the camera, her rapture scar there in the lens of the Galaxy. The scar was so much lighter than the rest of her skin, almost translucent. With age it had spread some and become not wrinkled but ridged, seemed to ripple in a way that reminded her of the wind-sculpted dunes at White Sands.
Izzy streamed—
This is the scar I’ve had longest. I am this scar, in a way. I hardly think about how it got there. I do think about all that’s happened since. A scar about everything after. But I guess you cannot learn to love the scar unless you’ve first learned to heal the wound.
She sat, threads hanging. Awash in the fluorescents of Other Space, Izzy lost track of time. The red LIVE button pulsed. For a long while, she stared at it, thinking of Oliver and the red light of that old radio tower that had so tormented him.
Izzy streamed—
One time the moon was a child hiking up a mountain in the wind. It was like an exodus from La Luz. Ascending in cult denims. The moon followed Brother Heel from the farm up the canyon. He told the moon she was extraterrestrial static trapped in flesh coops, told the moon her dead mother was static too. But none of us could die forever, he said. There was singing. All of Radio Bible Study sang. The moon’s hands were red. It was like a chorus line hiking through mesquite and yucca, gathering dry needles of jack pine. Atop the mountain they made a bonfire. Smoke in the moon’s eyes. The smoke coiled deep into the irises of the moon. Heel said the moon’s mother would join us soon. Said there were angels in spaceships from heaven. Then barks. Shouting. A helicopter whirled. Shots rang out. Like a tractor beam some searchlight hit Brother Heel holding the radio high like to God. The moon sang loud until her little body shook. Primal hymn of wails. The moon could not make her eyes turn off. Brother Heel reared big like sucked into the sky. Arms outstretched as wings. Home again home again jiggety-jog. Into the fire sprayed the whole back, the whole insides of his bald head. It was like uncapped. Like blossoming. Like his heart pumped out through his neck. The group scattered. The moon was alone. A canine chased the moon and the teeth of the canine sank into the moon’s thigh. The wound. The moon felt, the moon thought, the moon remembers Brother Heel falling into the fire. There he goes. He is ash rising in the night and my eyes would not turn off and I choked on the smoke of him as I ran.
Three
DAWN. MARDI GRAS. Zulu would be readying to roll over on Claiborne Avenue—the Tramps and Black Masking Indians and so many marching bands. She and Eli always got up early for a good spot on Orleans Avenue where they could usually catch a coconut. They descended into Holy Ground for coffee. The Galaxy buzzed. There was a comment on her latest stream. It was Teeter—La Luz??? LAND OF ENCHANTMENT! U at nasty NOG?
A sour of drinkers left over from last night still hunched at the bar. Izzy sat with them, stared at her phone. Eli said, We gotta go, baby. Won’t be no spots left.
You go on, said Izzy. There’s something else I need to do.
On Mardi Gras morning? And retired? Come on.
Teeter’s back, said Izzy.
He smiled big in disappointment. No worries. When it came to the moonless, he had learned not to agitate the situation. Especially when it was about Teeter. Both Izzy and Teeter had grown up at the bottom of New Mexico, maybe that was it. Southern New Mexico might as well be Mars, as far as Eli was concerned. He was vaguely interested in it but didn’t foresee himself getting there anytime soon. And it was not a place Izzy discussed much, unless she was talking about Teeter. When Teeter was around, meaning out of jail or off drugs for a while, she was all Izzy talked about. Teeter this, Teeter that, everything about the moonless. So Eli handed over hot coffee and said, No worries. I’ll try and get us a coconut. He walked out alone. Izzy went back upstairs to change.
She’d worn Eli’s coveralls in the last stream and thought if she had them on again, she might be easier for Teeter to spot in the crowds. Izzy cut the coveralls off at the right thigh to match the damage she’d done the previous day. Now she was dressed again like she’d been thirty years ago, the silhouette she recognized from back when she was Teeter’s age. How had Izzy managed to live so long and what for? What had she been doing at thirty-three? Those were lost years, somewhere between Abel and SeaWorld, broken hearts and sobriety. She’d not felt lost in a long time. She headed toward NOG and Teeter.
A flow of humanity moved down through the Crescent City toward the Quarter. Izzy walked against the flow. There was no guarantee Teeter was at the old hospital right at this moment. But a feeling that she might be there persisted. Izzy circumambulated the graffiti-covered ruins for a half hour until, legs hanging from a fourth-story hole that was once a bank of windows, shaking glittery wings and a halo, there was Teeter, dressed like Cupid.
Come down, yelled Izzy.
Come up, yelled Teeter.
The EMERGE doors were closed so Izzy ducked through a hole in the chain-link, found a side door too rusted and warped to lock, then made her way into the abandoned maternity ward where domestic touches like rocking chairs and cribs deteriorated under fuzzy mold. Izzy went up a dark staircase, following the sound of Teeter singing, until she got to the fourth story and out on the ledge where Teeter dangled her legs.
Home again home again jiggety-jog, sang Teeter. Ever since you said that on stream, it’s been stuck in my brain. Also, what the hell are you wearing? I’m Cupid, obviously, but what are you? Some kind of redneck astronaut?
Yeah. Don’t let me fall. Izzy grabbed Teeter’s arm for balance as she sat.
Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day, said Teeter, so I’m just living in the future. I won’t sleep, you know, meaning I won’t change clothes. Might as well wear what I’m gonna wear tomorrow, which is this. You like it? It’s gonna be weird to wear tomorrow because, you know, always Ash Wednesday right after Mardi Gras. Ash Valentine’s this year. Time’s all fucked up. Starting Lent on Valentine’s? My mother would shit herself. She would have never let me walk into San Albino wearing this. But in this city a priest will give me ashes even if I’m butt naked. Anyway, do you like my halo or naw?
Yeah, said Izzy. It’s cool.
Cool.
The costume was cheap but on Teeter it was sort of mythic. She was five years out of the army and muscular still despite all the trouble with pills, being in and out of jails and halfway houses. She was short which made her muscles seem bigger. She kept her dark hair in a ponytail wrapped loose in a bun like a messy homage to what had been mandated while in uniform. In the army she’d been a communications engineer and was too smart for whatever she was doing now but she was often on the brink of a bad decision just to rock the boat some, which was maybe how she got the nickname Teeter. Today her words were in a hurry, like she was on something speedier than usual or on a manic swing or both. Though, on the whole, she appeared better than Izzy might have guessed. Her halo floated perfectly level.
It’s good to see you, said Izzy.
I don’t like coming here. A bunch of white ladies with paperwork never change anything, said Teeter. But I don’t mind you. You’re from New Mexico at least.
Did you see any of my messages?
What do you think?
Well, I’m retired. That was the message. Your case transfers to a different social worker.
Great.
But I’m starting a private group. Just for moonless. None of them are really responding to me yet. Like you they’re all a little … scattered.
Just the moonless?
Yeah.
Plus you.
Right. The moonless and me.
I wanted to talk about that actually. I saw your stream where you said moonless. It’s a good name. It got me thinking about it. Like before you gave it a cool name, I just chalked it up to mental illness. Anxiety. But, moonless! Like, whoa. So, I’ve been studying. Getting books and everything. Like you do. Guess what? A lot of people, for, like, a long time, have been writing about the moon. Maybe it’s in the top five most common topics in the history of the world? Fucking. Killing. Sun. Moon. God. Wild, right?
You always treated it like a joke.
Yeah. Your last stream was real though. Like, raw. Talking about your scar. Really made me think. You’re good at that. It’s, like, mesmerizing when you look right in the camera.
I just rambled some. Too personal, I guess.
Teeter shrugged. Her wings trembled. I just got to thinking, you know, what if we’re not wrong.
I never said you were wrong.
Or crazy or sick or whatever.
You’re not.
I know.
Alright.
So everyone should know, said Teeter. Like, maybe it’s good news, being moonless.
Crowds moved down the bayou and up the greenway and over the parkway, slowly feeding into each other as Cupid and the astronaut looked on from atop NOG.
Anyway, said Teeter, wanna feed the strays?
—
They climbed down and came out through the chain-link and went to the Honda Civic where Teeter slept lately. She put up a shade she had for a privacy curtain on the windshield and came around to the trunk which she banged on a few times until it popped open. Inside was a fifty-pound bag of cat food.
Get that stroller from the back seat, said Teeter. Got it at Goodwill for five bucks. That way we can bring the whole bag.
Izzy had to move piles of library books to get the stroller out. Teeter heaved the bag of cat food into the stroller, buckled it in like a lumpy baby. Feeding strays around Mid-City was something Izzy liked to do. A few years back, she’d streamed about how all the cats disappear on Mardi Gras when humans take to crawling the streets in drunken throngs, about how some Mardi Gras she’d like to go around just feeding all the probably terrified strays to let them know it was not the end of the world. Teeter must have watched all her streams, going way back in her Archive of Lives. That was just like Teeter. All or nothing.
They set out, Izzy pushing the stroller. Teeter picked up discarded go-cups and, with a pocketknife pulled from her skirt, cut them into makeshift bowls then scooped food from the bag and set them behind a bush or dumpster or under a stoop. At first, there was not a cat to be seen. But slowly, in the stroller’s wake, strays ventured out to feed.
Up the parkway and they paused on the overpass to Gert Town. Though it was morning, a sliver of moon rose over the river.
Look, said Izzy. Clair de Terre.
Izzy couldn’t remember if she’d ever asked Teeter or the others about the moon in daylight. She’d assumed it made no difference. Many days, though, the full rock was there like a dim stamp of approval on blue skies, a little crescent brighter than the rest, as if the stamp had been over inked on one edge, or maybe the stamper, in a hurry to get all the skies of all the worlds approved, hadn’t stamped this one hard enough. Young moon with old moon in her arms, is how the poets liked to describe the phenomenon. The crescent of it shone from sunlight but the outline was dimmer because the sunlight it reflected first bounced off Earth. In the brighter crescent, we see the sun. In the dimmer part, we see ourselves reflecting the sun—Clair de Terre.
Can you see it? said Izzy.
What do you think? said Teeter. Like maybe that extra reflection changes something? Sorry. It’s just … I use the showers at the gym but I like the toilets at the library. The philosophy shelves are by the shitter. For whatever obvious reason. I saw this fancy fat book called Natural Magick so I grabbed it. Have you read Giambattista? Giambattista was like Shakespeare and Galileo and maybe Merlin smashed into one. Like he had curandera vibes but not really because he was a rich Italian Renaissance bro.
They were halfway through the bag of food already. One stray had jumped into the stroller to ride. Izzy and Teeter doubled back and went with the flow of humanity taking Lafitte Greenway toward the Quarter.
I feel like I’m about to drop some important moon knowledge, said Teeter, like the way you do. It’s like I need to get it out. Do you want me to say this on your stream? Or is that weird? Like with doctor-patient confidentiality or whatever? For me to be in your stream?
No. I mean, yeah. It’s a good idea.
Izzy pulled the Galaxy from her coveralls and turned the camera on Teeter who took the reins of the stroller. Izzy hit the red button.
Teeter streamed—
Okay so this dude is writing about how to hide messages in eggs, how to float a table with no legs, how to stir a witches’ brew, how fat from rabbits makes oil for lamps with light that arouses all of womankind, without fail, torrentially. These are not all good ideas, you know? Wait. Pause. Stop the stream. Should I tell them I can’t see the moon? Never mind. They’ll figure it out. Like I’m telling them maybe the moon is a conspiracy. Oh, we should definitely make that the title of the stream. Anyway. Giambattista. Dude invented the first, best camera obscura. But he maybe invented the telescope too? Lots of people invented the telescope all at once. Like in cycles the world yearns together to see further. Like we’ve cycled back to another moonshot like you keep talking about. He dabbled in demonology and alchemy but that got him dragged to account by the Inquisition. Then he wrote plays. Everything he did or wrote was about eyes, vision, our limits in perceiving anything. He was desperate for ways to see beyond what we normally see. His plays, like, invented stagecraft. Special effects. Mirrors and smoke and everything. And now they stash his book by the shitter. Maybe he would be fine being forgot? Easier to imagine what’s forgotten, right? Dude was all about lenses and mirrors and light and drugs, anything for bridging reality and imagination. Nature is the great magician … all of her wonders are created out of delight in her own shows. He wrote that. Good, right?
Teeter paused. While walking and streaming, she had ceased putting out the food. A few strays now trotted alongside them. Izzy turned the Galaxy on the strays as she repeated what Teeter had just said—all of her wonders are created out of delight in her own shows—then focused again on Teeter.
If how we perceive reality changes because of drugs or mirrors or performances, then what the fuck does that mean about reality? Zoom in. This is my point. Our dude envisioned a giant mirror to project words onto the moon. A mirror as big as a building. And we would, like, hold gigantic signs with big words and the mirror would reflect the big words onto the moon. The moon like a screen. What the fuck? Just like a man. To the moon he says, Here are some things I would like you to share, on my behalf, with all of humanity!
Izzy was pinched deep into Teeter’s face. The wings of her eyeliner were perfect even as the wings of her costume drooped. Izzy pinched out, looked around. They were in Tremé now. Their following of strays had increased. Another jumped into the stroller, pawed the bag of food. A few revelers stopped to get pics of cats in a baby stroller but most everybody flowed onward to Prieur Street. Many walked by in groups not boisterously but quietly.
Giambattista was monstrous, of course. Believed a person’s morality was determined by their appearance. But he did save witches from burning at the stake. I respect that. He proved their conjuring of demons was just hallucinogenic roots in their witches’ brew and then told the pope it was all from their minds on drugs and not from, well, fornicating with Satan or whatever. Which, the pope would prefer Satan not get laid, you know? Cameras and telescopes and hallucinogens. Holy Trinity. Are you still streaming? Let’s take this dude’s giant mirror and project an exact image of the moon onto the moon. It’s perfect, no? A video, even. You know Nam June Paik? He did this art installation in the sixties called Moon Is the Oldest TV. I saw it online. That’s the whole idea, Izzy. A stream of the moon on the moon coming and going exactly as it does. Some people see the moon. Some people see the stream. But nobody is moonless. Or … maybe … and this is the conspiracy I promised … the moon has been a stream this whole time and some of us recently got disconnected.
