The Rest Is Illusion Read online

  Sunday broke open another new week, and Wilder rested from the previous day’s therapy. His first day’s therapy was very simple stuff, but also very difficult. Just lifting a leg sent his quadriceps and hamstrings into tremors and caused him to sweat profusely.

  It will get easier, they all promised.

  Wilder came from the session feeling as if he hadn’t accomplished a thing. Dee, though, said it was progress. What’s more, she said it with a glint of joy in her eyes that made Wilder want to try harder.

  The Sunday church bells clanged down the street. Families were headed to the good intentions of their structured faiths on the avenues below. The last sultry vestiges of summer clung to the outside of the hospital. Inside, it was air-conditioned cool. It had been a week since he’d come to, and still the Rawls family had not been reunited. Dee no longer saw fit to explain away his parents’ absence. She sensed it was for the best they didn’t show up anyway.

  Wilder sat alone, upright in his bed. The wilted, browning roses dropped petals. A half-clouded sun cast peaks of brightness into the room. It was silent. The television turned off. He still couldn’t hear without whisper and echo, but he was told that too would heal in time.

  Smiling, Dee walked in briskly, with hands clasped together. “Mr. Rawls,” she addressed him playfully, “you have a visitor. Your florist is here with some fresh roses.”

  As she stepped aside to let the visitor through, Wilder’s mouth dropped and his eyes welled with tears. Tony Votts stood at the foot of the bed, holding five bright red roses. He was a picture of vigor and beauty, dressed in a white shirt, khakis, and a blue blazer. His hair was no longer clipped short but was grown to a respectable length and cut neatly at the ears. Tony nodded at Wilder. There was a force field, an invisible glass, that needed to be broken before they could say anything to each other.

  “Let me put these in some water,” Dee said as she took the flowers from Tony. “I’ll be right back.”

  A large tear trickled down Wilder’s cheek and merged with his scar, traveling to the corner of his mouth. His lip quivered wildly.

  Tony finally broke through the barrier. “It’s about time you joined the rest of us,” he said. He didn’t seem angry, nor did he seem happy. He seemed to be deciding how he felt as each second passed. A half smile creased his face. “We’ve got some things to talk about,” he said. “I’ve got some things I need to say.”

  Dee came back into the room with a fresh vase and water for the new roses. She collected the old petals and stems, gave Wilder her trademark quick wink, then left the room again. Tony waited for her departure to begin speaking.

  TONY IMAGINED the scenario to be just, if not very inventive. There would be no clever plans. He would simply walk into Wilder’s hospital room as he lay in his coma and trip a switch or something. Unplug some desperately needed machine or light a match near an oxygen tank. He had seen it done in countless films. It looked unproblematic.

  Can it be that easy? Things like that happen, right?

  Tony ran over the scene innumerable times in his mind in the days following the “accident” that had killed Dash. It would be a simple matter of finding the right moment to do it, he told himself in a half-crazed need for closure. The aftershocks and implications of his proposed action never occurred to him. All he considered was the searing glare of injustice at first, a call to the modern Furies.

  With the intent to rectify matters, Tony drove to the hospital one Sunday and walked in wearing the look of a grief-stricken friend. He had even snatched some flowers from a vendor along the way.

  The excitement in him sharpened as he was led to Wilder’s room. His heart reached ecstatic bursts of speed, and he marveled at his own boldness at expressing his inner rage. Later, when the wrath had subsided from his vision, he wondered if he really could have gone through with it. Am I capable of such a thing?

  But he would never know the answer. As he entered the room and the nurse pulled back the stiff blue curtain that hid the bed, Tony shifted his emotional tense. He was still angry and hurt, but a whisper of pity blew over every other thought he had. That was something he never believed he would, or could, feel toward Wilder.

  Tony wanted to be raging, to scream and hop and curse, then take a pillow and smother Wilder. But not just smother him—press the pillow so hard into his face, it would crush Wilder’s bones. Yet all Tony could do was stand and almost sob at the hopelessness that lay in front of him, the ugly bruised and scarred face and limp body of Wilder Rawls.

  He put the flowers down on the bed and left the room. He had envisioned his visit to Wilder would be the end. Closure. He had thought he’d be able to put Wilder and what he had done out of his mind forever. But that didn’t happen. Instead, Tony found a need to return again the next Sunday, then the Sunday after that. Soon it became a weekly ritual, a needed purging or cleansing like a bath or washing hands. And slowly, the nauseating call of fury and justice began to dissipate.

  Another Sunday came round, and Tony picked up five roses from a local grocery store. Good luck comes in odd numbers, he was always told. He headed to the hospital with his boyfriend, Mitch, Jeff Buckley’s Grace in the CD player, and the five roses in Mitch’s lap. Tony had said he could make the trip alone, but Mitch had offered to come anyway. Tony said sure, but he was a bit skeptical. He didn’t know if Mitch offered to go out of affection for him or jealousy, but the topic was better left for another time.

  They walked into the hospital, each with his own distinguished swagger. Tony still possessed the self-assured stride the years of being Mr. All-American had afforded him. It was a walk that guaranteed immediate attention from people-watchers.

  Mitch handed the roses to Tony in the waiting area.

  “I’ll wait here, babe,” he said in that quiet hospital fashion that automatically assumes control in medical facilities. Mitch’s drawl accented the sweetness of the phrase.

  Tony nodded and took the flowers, then leaned and kissed his boyfriend lightly on the cheek. He could feel Mitch watching him as he walked away, taking in the essence of his sex even there. Being desired so openly by another “dude” was still new and exciting to Tony. The freedom was exhilarating.

  Tony found looking Wilder in the eyes once again to be a surreal experience. He wasn’t prepared for it. In truth, he had thought Wilder would never awaken. Maybe he’d even hoped it. But Wilder was awake. And it was Wilder, but it wasn’t.

  Wilder’s eyes still looked calculating and indifferent, but some new feeling had been added. A budding kind of knowledge. Tony was not primed for the battering and converging of emotions he would feel at the sight of Wilder Rawls. Anger, sympathy, hate, grief, pity—they were all present in that moment, each taking turns jabbing at Tony’s psyche like a delirious carousel. Each emotion grabbed for the golden ring, but each failed to win control by just a hair.

  Tony was sure his confusion must have been unsettling to Wilder as well. But then, that may be no less than he deserves.

  Tony stopped staring at Wilder as the nurse took the flowers, left the room, then came back again with fresh water. A delicate wisp of a woman. The same nurse who had thanked Tony on a previous visit for calling on Wilder so religiously. She had explained Wilder had no others to come and see him.

  “Everyone should have someone who cares,” she had said, “no matter what they have done.”

  Tony didn’t tell her his first intentions had been less than admirable. That he had wanted to harm Wilder. Yet, as he stood there, he couldn’t stop watching how the tears on Wilder’s face dripped from his chin and clung to his scar. Eyes that had once seemed merciless and hateful were now red and contemplative, almost penitent. Tony was moved despite himself.

  “I’ve got some things I need to say.” But he did not really know how to start. The right words itched at his insides. He tried to relax, looking out the window, then back to Wilder. How does one tear down and build up at the same time?

  Wilder flinched and blinked
as Tony left his stance at the end of the bed and walked to the bedside.

  “You need to hear some things,” Tony finally began. His voice was sedate but severe. “Things you might not be aware of. You might not care to hear them. Hell, you might not care, period. I don’t recall you ever really listening to what anybody else said. But you can’t move right now, so you are going to hear every fucking word that comes out of my mouth.” Wilder’s eyes were wide as sand dollars as he looked up at Tony.

  “You see,” Tony began. “I wanted to kill you. God, I wanted to hate you so much. It should have been so easy. The easiest thing in the world! I mean, after all the shit you pulled. After what you did, I thought it would be easy to hate someone who had no regard for any other being on the fucking planet. But I was wrong.”

  Tony sat down on the bed. “When I first came here, when I was going to kill you, I saw you here in this bed and… something happened. I felt pity for you. You looked like a human being. A sick college kid in need of help. Imagine that.” He bit his bottom lip.

  The sounds of the hospital echoed in the hallway outside. Tony heard a doctor paged over the loudspeaker. “Dash died, it was your fault, and I still could not muster up an adequate amount of hate to make you pay. Why is that, Wilder? But then, maybe I’m asking the wrong guy. You would have to possess emotions to answer that question, and we all know that you—” Tony stopped short as he caught the look of puzzlement in Wilder’s eyes. “Oh, didn’t you know? When you wrapped my Corvette around that old tree, you killed Dash. He was sitting up on a limb. The crash sent him into the air. He died the instant he hit earth.”

  Wilder’s mouth opened. His brow furrowed.

  “Don’t try that. You’re not that guy,” Tony sneered as he rose from the bed and walked around to the window. “You will never be able to convince me there is anything but self-concern in your expression. I think you shit your heart out as a baby. All you’ve got now is a messy black cavern.”

  Tony gazed out the window, watching memories rather than the daily happenings of the people on the streets. The hot sun came through the glass onto his face.

  “I loved him, Wilder,” Tony said, almost more to himself. An audible thought. “I was beginning to, anyway. I loved him, and you killed him. Do you see that? That bonds us somehow. I’m not sure how, but we are cemented together now. And it pisses me off that I have a conscience, because right now—” He turned to look at Wilder. “—I would give anything to know that you don’t. Then I would be able to take that pillow and crush out your last breath.” His teeth were bared and gritted. Tony swallowed hard and turned back to the sun.

  “The nurse has probably told you that Mommy and Daddy Rawls have not been coming to see you,” Tony said. “There’s a reason for it other than indifference to you. Your dad is in trouble. It seems his lying and manipulating has finally caught up with him too. Apparently, he was being investigated for over a year. He’s looking at hard time, Wilder. Might never see the light of day. Your family fortune is gone. And your sweet mother has become a media whore. She’s everywhere now. I’m not kidding, I saw her on Oprah.”

  Tony returned to the side of the bed, taking slow steps and looking at the hospital floor. The tile was a mishmash of tiny dots, brown and gray and white and beige, like millions of atoms caught and suspended by a giant, hardcover case.

  He leaned into Wilder and spoke quietly, “Don’t be like your parents. Be better. It’s possible you’re made of more pleasant stuff. You have a second chance here, Wilder. Become better… at something. Preferably at being a man. You’re a terrible person, but in the end, you’re only a mediocre bad guy.”

  Tony noticed Wilder trying to hide the scar. Pity draped Tony’s anger and contempt once again. He pulled back from Wilder, suddenly not wanting to be the cause of his discomfort.

  “Nobody’s perfect. Clichéd, but true. It’s the imperfections that make us interesting and beautiful.” He touched Wilder’s shoulder with his fingertips. “They keep us honest. They remind us who we really are. They speak of our own suffering. And through our suffering, we can more easily empathize with the grief and suffering of others.” Tony turned hesitantly and walked to the door.

  “Learn from this, Wilder…. Please?” Tony pleaded at the door. Wilder did not look at him. He stared at his own legs stretched out in front of him. Tony sighed helplessly and left the room.

  He heard the busy and sterile sound of the hospital as he walked down the atom-speckled floor to Mitch. He felt better after purging. The poisonous venom had at last been expelled. He’d emptied out a nastiness that had been leaking for months. Tony felt at ease and on the edge of a tear, a whole stream of tears. He never had to think of Wilder again. Never had to, but he knew he would. Forgiveness was never a quick and absolute thing. It would take time.

  Tony knew he would be back again next week with another handful of roses. He still didn’t like Wilder; he never would. But the nurse was right. Everyone should have somebody who shows a measure of concern for them. And Tony believed it slightly possible—slightly—that Wilder could be persuaded to live more in tune with a deeper and more honest persona than the one his parents had. So the visits would continue because Tony understood that better people were made from the compassion of those who knew better.

  Mitch was all muscles and tight clothes in the waiting area. Tony embraced him, kissing him deeply. He could feel the blood rise in them both.

  Blood as red as passion, as thick as truth.

  Existential Epilogue

  LIKE BREATHING, it was artless. Truly, it was the greatest thing Dash had ever known, and the easiest thing he could ever remember doing. It was as if he had possessed the power all along, but was only now told, Go! Fly….

  His feet left the arm of the old tree for the final time, and he soared without the aid of wings, strings, or engine. He never so much as grazed the earth. Dash glided past laws of physics concerning light, speed, and sound. He left stringent definitions behind in the separating mists. It was easy to do once he was certain it was the thing to be done, once he had given up all the images of a more confining existence.

  That was all but a learning experience, he thought. A schooling to prepare for this.

  As he streamed higher in the sky, he thought he felt a smile stretch across his face. But then, he knew how silly that thought was: the idea that he still had flesh and blood, the idea that it was of any use at all now. No. He knew better. He had all the tone and appearance of invisible breeze. Still, he felt like he was smiling.

  The expanse of the river valley unfolded below him as he went higher. The river went on its peaceful course like a great empress walking the world in slow, majestic, shimmering strides. She glittered in liquid finery.

  And then, as Dash was admiring the water, something even more dazzling occurred. Lights began to sparkle and play from the banks on either side of the great water. They looked like stars nestled in the trees along the hills and the shores. One by one, they began to float into the sky. Some settled beside him, climbing at the same speed he did, guiding him. Others flew more quickly and disappeared above into the darker blue. Some burst and separated into millions of tinier lights, then fell back down into the trees or the river. It was like a fireworks show he had somehow stumbled into. More large torches and flares, earth stars, seemed hurled into the sky around him at different angles and various speeds.

  Dash sailed higher still until the light blue sky turned a darker, sleepier color. The earth stars still guided him, and the beams of light coming from them held onto him like hands, showing him along a path through the sky. He looked to the earth below and saw he was much higher now. There was curvature to the world. Peering more intently, he could no longer see the river or the valley. Instead, he saw the roots and threads of the world. How they connected everything, everyone. A long yellow one connected to a red one, then blue, then green. Connecting all types of people. All types of places and animals. And then Dash noticed the sparkling light
s were moving along these paths as well, skimming the surfaces of the roots and threads. The light is everywhere.

  Before he got there, before the doors to knowing were opened to him, Dash saw, in one grand instant, all the perfect moments of his life. All the learning experiences, all the conquered hills and finished journeys. Every last piece of time in his sojourn that had been assigned to happen and that he had come through a better being for having lived.

  Then he realized what it was all about. He knew every beautiful moment, every flash of the “warm fuzzies,” was nothing more than God running up his spine. That the world, far from being the materials of humanity, was constructed by thoughts. The mind was the only true thing.

  At last, the doors flung open and the earth stars led him in.

  And he felt joy! Joyful inner penetration!

  How amazing, he thought, to be this! How amazing to have lived that!

  And he marveled at how amazing it was to see forever, to see love in form, and to have been, if just for a brief and lovely time, Dashel Yarnsbrook.

  Welcome, Dashel. This is all for you!

  More from Eric Arvin

  Fiction writer Logan Brandish is perfectly happy in his peaceful small-town routine with his best friend, his cat, and his boyfriend—until he meets the editor of his next book, the handsome Brock Kimble, and the lazy quiet of everyday living goes flying out the window. Faced with real passion for the first time, Logan becomes restless and agitated, and soon his life and his new manuscript—a work in progress he’d always thought would be completed—are in a shambles.

  But as Logan is learning, you can’t always get what you want…. at least not right away. To take his mind off the mess, he takes a trip, but even the beautiful Italian, um, scenery can’t keep his thoughts from his erstwhile editor for long. Logan just might have to admit there are some things you can’t run from.