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The Facing Bench (excerpt) I stand in the end zone of the Bala Cynwyd Middle School football field, biting my fingernails. The field slopes to my left, toward the metal bleachers, away from the red brick school buildings. Most of the grass is torn up with cleat marks. My dress shoes are smeared with mud. A small boy stands in front of me wearing black shorts and a red t-shirt. He kicks a soccer ball, lets it roll for a couple of seconds, and chases after it. I watch him and sweat. I think about my father’s recent weight loss and the fact that he has disconnected every phone in our house. The sky is blue and cloudless. It’s mid-July, the most humid time of the year, and I’m having trouble breathing the warm air. I imagine it sticking to my chest and lungs and I feel lethargic. Ten blocks east of the middle school, mourners are arriving at my brother’s funeral. We’re expecting a considerable turnout even though it’s the peak of summer vacation. The boy, blonde and wiry, walks to the side of the field and begins kicking the ball into a chain-link fence. I wander over and study his form. I observe the spot where his foot makes contact with the ball, the follow-through of his leg, and the dull thud it produces. “You should practice with your left foot, too,” I tell him. He doesn’t say anything. “Just think about it,” I say, eyeing the black-and-white pattern on the soccer ball. My tie is choking me—I tied it too tightly in my rush to leave the house. I bring my hands to my neck and loosen the knot as cars pass on the nearby road. I wonder how many of the cars are headed for the funeral and whether the neighborhood always seems this deserted. The kid stares at me. This is the most encouragement I’ve received from him and I decide to capitalize on it. “What position do you play?” I ask. “Left midfield.” “Exactly. You’ll need a good left foot to play there.” “I do have a good left foot.” He spits on the ground, offended. “Prove it,” I tell him. He nods and backs away from the ball. He waits for a moment and then charges. His left foot connects and the ball sails high into the air before hitting the fence. “Pretty good,” I say. “How old are you?” he asks, smiling. He’s pleased with the compliment. “Eighteen.” “What’s your name?” “Eben Dobbins.” “What a weird name.” I almost ask him whether he’s referring to my first name or my last name, but I don’t. His attention returns to the soccer ball. A few minutes later he becomes bored, or maybe he tires himself out. Either way it’s clear that he’s finished. Without saying goodbye he picks up his ball and walks away. His route takes him through the heart of the campus, and I watch him until he disappears behind the school’s gymnasium. I stare two hundred feet ahead at the light brown outline of a baseball diamond. The arc of the diamond lurks beneath the random clumps of grass and cuts across the football field. I’m standing more or less in center field. I remember playing soccer here on Thanksgiving when I was eleven or twelve, my fingers and toes frozen to the point of immobility, but the memory doesn’t stick in my head. I struggle to focus on anything—the fence, the sky, the trees, the wrinkles on my shirt—and I wish the scene would blur together, and time would pass, and I could just go home. I return to my car. The drive to the funeral lasts ten minutes because it’s impossible to find parking. Every street I pass looks the same. They all have names like “Winding Way” and “Orchard Way” and “Hardie Way” and weave through each another at multiple locations. I spend most of the ride playing around with the air conditioning and checking out the size of the houses. Bala Cynwyd is directly west of Philadelphia. Most of the rich neighborhoods are west of Philadelphia because the suburbs have started to stretch farther and farther into the countryside. Any day now the strain will prove too much, and it will all have to snap, swinging the rich people back into the city. Or so claims my half-sister, Megan, who took some urban studies classes in college. Brad liked to argue with her. He had this theory about suburban sprawl, that it could never be stopped, and that the three of us needed to start buying up properties in Kansas. I park in front of a white-and-gray stucco house and shut off the engine. Cars continue to pour into the streets, mostly convertibles and SUVs. More beads of sweat form on my stomach, my armpits, and my forehead. I check my appearance in the car window. I’m nervous that I’ll sweat through my collared shirt. Earlier today I decided against wearing my black suit, the one I wore to my mother’s funeral two years ago, because I never had it cleaned. There’s no sidewalk on Meeting House Lane, only an endless streak of parked cars, and I walk down the middle of the road, on top of the wide yellow lines. Walking on the yellow lines in the middle of a street makes me feel important. “Isn’t this fucked up?” Two boys are walking close behind and they obviously have no idea who I am. I shoot them a backwards glance. They look the same age as me, and it’s strange that I don’t know them. “It’s like my first funeral,” the other boy says. “I mean, for someone other than my grandmother. I’m kind of excited.” I try not to hold his words against him, because I know I’d probably feel the same way, but I don’t try for long. I slow down and let the boys pass. A black car eases up behind me and I consider stepping off the road until I notice most of the grass is covered with dog shit. The driver honks his horn and passes me on the right. I replay the kids’ dialogue in my head, dwelling on the words “funeral” and “excited.” When I think about their exchange I want to smash the nearest mailbox with an aluminum bat. Block by block, the street becomes more inundated with people. I can hear snippets of their conversation unfolding around me, although I keep my distance. “I think he got shot in the stomach,” someone says nearby. “No, it was the head.” I walk faster. The entrance to the funeral is packed with men in dark suits and women in black dresses. The Merion Meeting House stands at the edge of a residential area, bordering the town’s central road, Montgomery Avenue. The house itself is a simple yellow building, small and pale. I can’t imagine it’ll be able to hold all of these people. The property also contains a cemetery enclosed by stone walls, a paved driveway, and two abandoned stables. Simple flower arrangements are draped over the cemetery walls. When I was twelve, my friends and I invaded the cemetery at midnight, unlit cigarettes dangling from our mouths. We chased each other around the tombstones until I tripped and sprained my ankle. It was too far to limp home—I live in Villanova—and my friends had to drag me four blocks to the nearest pharmacy, where we bought ice and an ankle wrap. That night is still the first thing I think about when I see the meeting house. “Let’s get going,” a mother shouts at her son. She pulls him by the elbow, her flabby arms twitching. Like most of the other people she looks familiar but is impossible to place. It doesn’t help that I’m avoiding eye contact. I won’t be able to escape from everyone, but I’m going to give it my best shot. A middle-aged couple spots me and the woman shakes her head in a slow and pronounced manner. The man is probably a partner at my father’s law firm—he has the look and feel. The couple approaches to talk but I pretend to wave at someone else and break away from the general flow of mourners. I can see Megan, my half-sister, trapped in a crowd of people. She points to the meeting house and gestures for them to move inside. I decide to catch up with her later. Quaker funerals are uncommon events on the Main Line and when they do happen they still fail to draw any local attention. But, to put it bluntly, my dad’s more connected than most Quakers, and my brother is richer than most dead soldiers. I was shocked when my dad said we were going to hold a Meeting for Worship for Brad, especially considering the circumstances of his death. I told him that it was an unnecessary gesture. He didn’t listen. He said the meeting was important to him, no matter how painful it would be. At least we didn’t have a viewing; I’ve only been to one viewing my life, for a distant relative, and I remember shuddering at the corpse’s artificial smile. The U.S. military held a separate ceremony a week earlier at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. They had this elaborate set of traditions, complete with soldiers, gun salutes, and the folding of the flag. The scene gave me chills and then made me feel guilty for getting chills. “Make sure you turn off your cell phone,” a tan and short-haired woman with a husky voice says to her husband. He’s about twice her size. He responds that she better put out her goddamn cigarette. I examine the yellow-and-blue sign on the corner of the intersection, right near the road: “Merion Friends’ Meeting. Continuously used since its erection in 1695 by Quakers. This meeting house is thought to have been visited by William Penn. Welsh carpenters are believed responsible for its highly unusual cruciform architecture.” I’ve been here a thousand times but have never bothered to read the sign. At the bottom of the paragraph, in big bold font, the words are signed by the “Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.” From my position I fail to see anything distinct about the architecture other than a relatively new paint job. I walk around the perimeter of the funeral, my head down, searching for other historical markers. In front of the driveway is a more faded sign, black with yellow lettering, recounting the schedule for weekly meetings and declaring that “All are cordially invited to attend.” A couple of yards away a more recent poster proclaims, “War is not the answer.” They probably should have taken that one down, I think. At least for today. It’s time to get my shit together. I make sure my shirt is tucked in, my tie straight, and my collar down. I tap my shoes against the stone steps until the grass falls aside. A gray-haired woman, already in tears, brushes past me. The lines on her face are sharp as pen marks, the veins in her neck sinewy and discolored. My father calls me to his side. He looks like an adult-version of Brad. He’s tall, lean, and has a visible collar bone that runs the length of his shoulders. It’s obvious he used to be an athlete—there’s something both awkward and assured about his body posture. In his past life, before the tragedies and the loss, he was gentle and confident. Recently I’ve felt strange in his presence. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I know this will be an upsetting day.” His voice is soft. I don’t think I’m supposed to respond. I feel a hand on my shoulder and I turn around, relieved to see Megan. “The service in Arlington was quite enough for me,” she says. “I’m not sure I can make it through another funeral.” “I came because I heard there was going to be free food,” I say. She smiles. The shape of her lips isn’t improved by lipstick; the gradual curves are lost in a great mass of red. She’s the only one in the family with dark hair and it almost matches the color of her dress. It seems appropriate. Megan is a twenty-four-year-old graduate student. She studies astrophysics at the University of Pennsylvania and is much smarter than me. Her company is always reassuring. “Do you want to go inside?” I ask. She shakes her head, grabs my hand, and leads me toward Montgomery. We weave in and out of the crowd, moving farther and farther away from the meeting house. Before long we’re standing on the border of a different property. Megan opens her handbag and takes out a joint. “Are you serious?” “Dead serious, Eben.” She produces a blue lighter. We smoke together, passing the joint back and forth without saying much. Occasionally we duck into the bushes when somebody passes. I don’t inhale the smoke except when Megan watches me closely. I’ve never smoked a joint before, and I do my best not to cough hysterically, but it’s difficult. We’ve burned through half of the joint when a small man dressed for the funeral walks close to us, yelling into his cell phone. He starts pacing in circles, but I can’t make out his words or decide if I know him. He pulls a pen from his pocket and places it behind his ear. “Isn’t that one of the reporters?” Megan whispers as we return to our hiding spot beneath the thickest cluster of branches and leaves. “I remember him because he’s so ugly.” Last week, the Philadelphia Daily News ran many articles about our family, the worst of which was entitled “Brad Dobbins: Why did he go?” Like most sensationalist pieces, it was overly simplified, generic, and utterly reliant on second-hand information. I’m not sure if this is the guy who wrote the article, but I start to mentally associate him with it. Each member of my family reacted to the news coverage in a different way: my father gave the reporters countless quotes, but refused to read the papers or watch television; Megan provided them with cryptic comments like “Brad was both complex and divine” and only read the most gossipy features; and I said nothing to any of the news outlets yet compulsively read every single article, even the small ones listed in the local papers. The man turns off his cell phone and heads in the direction of the funeral. We stop crouching and stretch our legs. This is only the second time I’ve ever seen Megan smoke weed. I don’t feel guilty about what we’re doing because I’m fairly certain Brad would approve, or at least not disapprove. “Dad wants you to talk today,” Megan says. “I have trouble being around him. It’s been pretty awkward,” I say. She hands me the joint and I almost drop it. My hands have been unnaturally shaky ever since I was a little kid. “There’s nobody left in the house except me. And I don’t want to be there, either.” “I meant, Eben, that Dad wants you to stand up and say something today. From the facing bench.” I hand her the joint without having smoked it, processing this new piece of information. “That’s bullshit,” I say. She exhales a mouthful of smoke. “Maybe not so much bullshit as wishful thinking.” I stare back at the widening crowd, the groups of scattered mourners, the younger kids chasing each other around the trees, and tell myself that the meeting will be starting soon. “He knows it’s not supposed to work that way,” I say. It’s not supposed to work that way. Meeting for Worship is about spontaneity and the spirit of God moving you to speak. You’re not meant to come in with an agenda, a prepared speech, or anything at all. I’m pretty sure these principles hold up under every circumstance, even extreme ones. “I think he meant it more in this general, ambiguous way,” Megan says. “I think it was something like ‘it would be very nice if Eben spoke about Brad today.’ I assured him I’d give you the proper encouragement.” “It’s not like he’s going to say anything himself.” “Of course not.” “Then you say something.” “I plan on it. But the meeting’s going to last a long time, and I’m sure most people would rather have you talk about Brad than some random strangers who met him five years ago.” I’ve never spoken in a Meeting for Worship. I guess the spirit has never adequately moved me. Even when I was little, when the other kids were talking about bicycles and things their pets ate and crapped out, I remained silent. I see no reason why my streak should be broken today. When Megan is satisfied we toss the joint aside and wander around the premises, allowing time for the drug to enter our bloodstreams. We stop when we reach the entrance to the General Wayne Inn. The inn is boarded up and deserted, but its window sills and shutters are still painted in vibrant red and green shades. The porch is cracked and the word “Inn” hangs precariously above the entrance. “This is a national landmark,” Megan says, already acting stoned. “And it’s also haunted.” Ten years ago the General Wayne Inn was the site of a murder-suicide. Even before that, there were rumors of strange sounds and the ghosts of British Redcoats. I wipe my forehead and tell Megan we should get going. She asks whether her clothes and hair smell like smoke and I say no even though I don’t move my head close enough to check. We walk down the sidewalk and I worry that we’re late. I increase the pace but Megan doesn’t keep up. She isn’t overweight, but she carries herself like an overweight person—most of the time her back is hunched over. “Do you want to know about the Earth’s constantly changing view of our solar system?” she asks, out of breath. “Enlighten me,” I respond. “But I’ll only listen if you walk faster.” She appears to make more of an effort, pumping her legs and grunting, but the general pace remains the same. Her words, however, burst forth in a rapid flow. “Gradually, bit by bit, the Earth is raising itself out of a cloud of dust. In hundreds of thousands of years we’ll be able to see everything—the sky, the stars, the other galaxies—with much more clarity. In other words, the view from where we’re standing right now, or anywhere else on the globe, will turn from nice-but-tame to spectacular.” “I don’t think you’re walking fast enough,” I say. My father doesn’t change facial expressions when he spots us shoving our way past adults and children to reach the entrance. But as we approach he slows us down for a thorough inspection. He brushes residual ash from my shirt, sniffs the air, and examines our bloodshot eyes. “I hope you’ll be able to maintain your self-control in there,” he says. A half-smile forms on his lips and then vanishes. He knows our behavior was inappropriate but I think he understands. He ushers me inside, saying he’ll be in shortly. The meeting room is packed. We were trying to keep the meeting relatively private but we should’ve realized that word would spread. What I first notice, apart from the sobs and heavy breathing, is the lack of air conditioning. I can see rows of sweaty bodies collected on bare wooden benches, and feel the outside humidity seeping into the meeting house, mingling with the sweat and dust. It’s almost unbearable. I hastily examine some of the faces in the room. I can’t tell whether the tissues and handkerchiefs are busy wiping away tears or sweat. Although the outside of the meeting house seems modern, the inside remains the same as it was hundreds of years ago. There are no stained glass windows, no fancy altars, no gaudy sculptures. The dusty walls are made of stone and the floorboards creak with every step. It feels like an hour before we reach the front of the room. “Jesus Christ,” I mumble to no one in particular. I’m not ready for any part of this event. I sit down on the facing bench, a solitary pew that stands apart from the rest, partly because it’s elevated on a slight platform, but mainly because it’s rotated to face the congregation. In the past, the facing bench was where the eldest or most vocal members of the meeting house were seated. I lean forward and experience the first effects of the joint: a pressure on my chest, but also a lightness. I want to yell at Megan for making me smoke, except she’s stranded at the left end of the bench. Two people separate us—my mother’s aunt, Phyllis, and a Quaker member of the meeting house. Phyllis looks dead. There’s no other way to describe her. Her eyes are shut and her skin is a chalky white. She doesn’t move. The Quaker has this reassuring smile on his face. He’s not any higher up the spiritual ladder than any other Quaker member, but today he has a special role. His job is to designate the beginning and end of the worship. Like always, the meeting will end with a handshake. The last benches become full, and the late-arrivals have to stand in the back. My father walks down the central aisle and takes his seat next to me. The Quaker nods his head in quiet acknowledgement. He places his hands on his lap and the meeting house turns dead silent. It’s not until this moment, when I truly open my eyes and allow the blurry black dots to transform into actual people, that I realize they’re all here. Everyone in my life. Everyone I’ve ever known or cared about. I’ve been blocking it out for the most part, but here they are right in front of me, exhibiting pathetic stares, crying pathetic tears, and mouthing pathetic reassurances. I see my ex-friends, my ex-girlfriends, my ex-teachers, my ex-teammates. I feel like it’s my own funeral and everyone has forgotten to tell me, until I see Brad’s ex-friends, his ex-girlfriends, and the rest of his ex-acquaintances. What the hell do I have to say to these people? Just thinking about speaking in front of them makes me feel sick. I fiddle with the button on my shirt and count the number of people in the meeting house. But I quit at eighty-three. Outside, a cloud bank has formed in the sky, blocking most of the sunlight from entering the room. Slowly, everything becomes shadowy and dark. I’m not sure why now, when I should be mourning, I struggle to think of anything at all. I wish Megan could move and sit next to me. In the silence I imagine I can hear my own heartbeat. I put my hand on my wrist to check my pulse because it gives me something to do. I can’t believe I’m at another funeral. Some days, especially during the summer when I’m at home, it feels like my mother never existed. I’m guessing it’ll be the same with Brad. I’m unable to recount any key moments from my mother’s services. She was raised Catholic and we didn’t hold a public Meeting for Worship. But there’s no contrast, really, between the two funerals. At my mother’s funeral, I remember believing that I was sinking into the ground, minute by minute, and I had to grasp onto objects for support. Right now, I feel like I’m not even in my own body, but in the body of these other people, and I’m staring back at my own face, and I’m somehow disappointed. The Quaker stands up. He welcomes everyone to the meeting and explains the ground rules. Anyone can speak, he says, if he or she feels moved. Otherwise the meeting will be conducted in absolute silence. People perk up, excited by this act of speech. But the Quaker sits down and the silence returns. For a few minutes I distract myself by watching the uncomfortable movements. The tapping of feet. The glancing at watches. The coughing fits. Most of these people have never sat in deliberate silence like this. They must be in agony. Phyllis stands up, although it takes her nearly a minute to do so. I can smell her familiar odor from where I’m sitting. She always smells like Maine. Like her cramped, mildewy house in Maine. “I don’t want to dwell on the end of Brad’s life, because I don’t think I have the strength,” she says. “And I don’t want to talk about his childhood, because others can do that better than I can. I want to talk about his talent for speech, his talent for connecting with people…” I tune her out. I should be listening, but I can’t. Brad hated Phyllis. “When you’re young,” he once explained to me at a Thanksgiving dinner, “you view all of your relatives through a magical lens. Sure, you may not like some of them, and you may find them annoying, but they get this sort of free pass. You judge them, but you don’t really judge them.” Then he lowered his voice. “It wasn’t until I turned eighteen that I realized Aunt Phyllis is an almost completely terrible human being. And I don’t care how old she is.” He had never elaborated on this opinion. “There is nothing more awful than outliving your child,” Phyllis says. These words shift the focus of her talk—a bit unfairly, I think—onto my father. “Especially on the heels of an earlier tragedy. And I want Mark to know we love and support him.” My father remains a statue. His shoulders have become more defined and less distinguished with his recent weight loss. His hair is light blonde. The color gives his features a mild tone; it’s often hard for people to believe he can be intense and competitive. He’s also much stronger than he looks: he used to spend his weekends working in our backyard, lugging rocks up from the bottom of the hill behind my house to build pathways through the woods. He plotted out the new trails in his head before he ever touched a twig, saying he liked the intellectual challenge. He’s always loved random projects and hobbies. His weight loss began a month or two before Brad died. He ceased lifting weights or eating anything that wasn’t green. But his new diet had been the least of my concerns at the time. “I know Brad is happy right now, happy to be in heaven,” Phyllis says over the once attentive, now restless crowd. Phyllis is the only person in our extended family who believes in hell. Most Quakers find the idea of hell to be inconceivable and offensive, but Aunt Phyllis is no longer a Quaker. She once told me that if I ever stole anything I’d end up in hell alongside the child prostitutes and heroin addicts. I rub my eyelids because they’re itching. I keep pressing until my retinas hurt. Phyllis’ voice drones on. After a while I lose feeling in my eyes and I drop my hands down to my knees and drift off. I can feel my father’s shoulder brushing against me, and it’s the only thing keeping me awake. It would be nice to sleep this funeral away. But I’m positive that half of the crowd is looking directly at me, monitoring my behavior, so I open my eyes and focus on Phyllis’ body. Her ears are peeling and unsymmetrical and there is an odd dark speck on her neck. When she finally sits down I think I can spot, just for a second, a self-satisfied expression radiate from her face. Soon enough I’m focusing on the body of every person in the room, making it into a game. Sometimes I search the benches for the most attractive women and imagine what it must feel like to caress their legs, to fondle their breasts. Other times I’m more scientific, breaking the crowd down into different sub-groupings based on age, race, and gender. The body posture of the people in the back, the ones forced to stand, is the most interesting. Mostly because I can squint my eyes and shape them into any form I want. I didn’t bring a watch because I didn’t want the temptation to examine my wrist every five seconds. My thoughts wander as waves of speakers leap from their seats and fail to say anything interesting. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, especially Brad’s closest friends, but it’s too frustrating. Everything comes out as a cliché. Brad’s old girlfriend, Jennifer, rises from the left side of the room. Her dress is way too elegant for the occasion. She’s put on some weight in recent years. I’ve never cared for her because she’s never paid any attention to me. It must be weird for her. To know that someone you’ve had sex with is now dead. Jesus Christ, I need to relax. An unknown energy pulses through my body. I’m so restless I can barely stand it. I want to shout something inappropriate, to break the soundless barrier that’s keeping me trapped. I drum my hands on my kneecaps until I feel hot and sweaty. Brad was killed in Fallujah, I think. I couldn’t find Fallujah on a map if you pressed a gun to my head. But I don’t continue this train of thought. Instead, I do something that is never done at a Meeting for Worship. I leave the facing bench to go to the bathroom. The bathroom is at the bottom of a small staircase, hidden from view in the back of the meeting house. To get there I have to walk past the entire room. Self-consciously, hands in front of my face, I move down the side aisle until I reach the stairs. They sound hollow beneath my feet. The door won’t respond at first, and I turn the handle repeatedly before it opens. Inside the bathroom, I turn on the faucet and let the water splash against the sink. When the bowl is half-filled I dunk my head into the water face first, hoping this will cool me off and make me less high. I hold my breath for a couple of seconds and then open my mouth. The water tastes metallic and warm. I withdraw my head from the sink and almost shout in surprise. A well-dressed man has entered the confined bathroom. The lighting in the room isn’t great and it’s hard for me to make out his features. “Hello, Eben,” he says. He moves to the urinal, awkwardly shuffling past me, but continues talking. “Today must be hard for you,” he says. I grunt in response. We share a moment of uneasy silence that is ended by the sound of his urine. I have to bite on my lip to keep myself from laughing. For some reason everything seems hilarious. He finishes quickly and pauses to stand beneath the light, as if on purpose. He is much older than I thought. His hair is graying and his teeth are yellow. A faint scar runs from his eyebrow to his chin, across the entire right side of his face. I feel like I’m hallucinating. He places his hands in the sink, into the water I already dunked my face in, and washes them off. I’m about to leave when he speaks again. “I’m writing a piece about the tragedy for a magazine. I’m not sure if you know this, but your brother killed two enemy soldiers in Iraq.” He turns from the mirror and we make uncomfortable eye contact. His expression is dead serious, like he’s asking me for a response. And I give him one: I laugh. Great bursts of unnatural laughter. I can’t control myself and don’t want to. Nothing makes sense. Tears form in my eyes and I continue to laugh, hoping no one in the meeting room can hear me, while the man stands there, saying nothing. I take deep breaths. Without another word I leave the bathroom and return to the Meeting for Worship. Whispers greet my return. They probably see the water on my face, my red eyes, and assume that I was crying. Or they heard me laughing. I sit down and breathe in the silence. Before I can stop I think about the closing seconds of Brad’s life. About the moment the bullet struck his head. I try to remember how long it takes for death to register in a brain that has been pierced by metal. Even in an instantaneous death there must be a few milliseconds of consciousness before darkness. I wipe the tears in my eyes, then think of the man in the bathroom. I can imagine most things about Brad, I can even imagine him dying. But I can’t imagine him killing two other human beings. Megan rises from her seat. She doesn’t look high, depressed, or hysterical. She’s completely composed. “I want to tell you all how much I hate myself,” she says. “I hate myself for sitting here, still wondering why Brad agreed to join the Army. I hate myself for still being alive when Brad is dead. And I hate myself for still believing in God, and believing there is a divine Inner Light in all of us. Because if I truly believe that everyone in the world is holy, it makes me a hypocrite to have supported Brad’s decision to leave.” I don’t need to glance up to know what’s going on. More arms crossing. More leg shifting. More unnecessary coughing. Maybe I’ll stand up and tell them I don’t care what they’ve heard, my brother didn’t kill anybody. Or maybe I’ll tell them about the year he taught Quakerism to first-grade children. Maybe I’ll tell them that he played sweeper on our high school soccer team, or that he ate cereal every day for breakfast. Maybe this matters to everyone, not just me. The room feels brighter all of a sudden, light everywhere, rays of sun piercing everything. I once listened to a radio show where they brought three of the most unfortunate men in the world into the studio. They had the audience vote about who was the most pitiful. The winner had lost his parents to cancer, his brother and sister to a plane crash, and his best friend to a motorcycling accident. His prize was a gift certificate to a health spa and a basket of fruit. So I guess I have it better than some people. I hear Phyllis’s breathing. It’s so heavy it sounds like she’s snoring. When I woke up yesterday morning I’d forgotten Brad was dead. I’ve been told this kind of occurrence isn’t uncommon, but it had never happened to me. I brushed my teeth, changed clothes, poured myself milk, and watched twenty minutes of television before I remembered. Then I completely lost it. I turned the television on mute and remained seated on the couch. More often, the knowledge that he’s dead will hit me in the middle of the night when I’m half-conscious or still asleep. Every few nights I talk to him in my dreams. The scariest part is that I know he’s dead, even when I’m dreaming. We’ll be in the middle of a conversation, talking about nothing in particular, when this new awareness dawns on me and causes me to look at him strangely. And I’ll tell him he’s dead, and he’ll flash me a wide smile, and tell me he knows he’s dead, too. Sometimes we’ll even laugh about it. But then I’ll turn hysterical, and I’ll fall to my knees and beg him not to be dead. I usually awake in my hallway, on the staircase, or the bathroom floor—I have a bad habit of sleepwalking. When I awake my shirt is always soaked from the mixture of tears and sweat. I had never cried in my sleep until Brad died. Say something you piece of shit, I repeat to myself over and over again. My palms are sweaty and a sudden urgency is sweeping through my limbs. There can’t be much time left in the meeting. I can sense my father’s presence, and I’m suddenly haunted by the words of my Quaker school teacher, carefully arranged to appeal to eight-year-old children: “How does one know the spirit is moving him?” he used to ask us. “Simple. You feel it in your stomach, which flops around inside you. You feel it in your hands, which twitter constantly like you wouldn’t believe. And lastly, you feel it in your heart, because if you don’t feel it there, then what’s the point of speaking?” I look at the spooky faces in the room. They stare back at me. It’s weird to know the rest of my life will be viewed through the lens of tragedy. At home, out to dinner, sitting in a movie theater, park, or fast food restaurant, those who know me will know I’ve been through this and will try to analyze me. Fuck. I have nothing to say to any of them. I don’t even feel high anymore. There is a sudden rustle in the crowd. The Quaker has shaken hands with my father, but I’m stuck in place. Now my father sticks out his arm to shake my hand. The other people follow our example and the room explodes with movement: everyone’s stretching and talking and patting each other on the back. Some people are even smiling.
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