This Book Does Not Exist (24 page)

I have completely lost sight of the war. I can’t even hear it. Somehow the highway to East Cleveland is empty, free from traffic and combat. Everywhere I look I foresee elements of danger appearing over the horizon – a tank, a plane, an explosion, a sniper, a stream of refugees, a battalion of foot soldiers – anything that will end the intermission.

I breathe, managing the moment, and reflect on how I escaped the parking lot. The obvious answer is chance. I got lucky. The bullet that rocked my dashboard could have just as easily torn through my skull. Yet, knowing what I do about the other world, I’m not so sure anything that happens inside of it should be attributed to randomness or an arcane concept like fate. That the layout of the troops was almost exactly like how I imagined it startled me. And, impossibly, I navigated the parking lot without being able to see out of my front windshield. Was that luck, or was it something else? I imagined the layout… And then I saw it. I wanted to make it out of the parking lot. I believed I could… And then I did. I thought about things and then they happened…

It is 1:09 AM. I’m passing the suburb of Rocky River, which is a few minutes away from the West 25
^th
Street exit and Tremont, where
The Deer Hunter
church, St. Theodosius, is located.

This is too easy, I think.

I crest over a hill.

I am not at all surprised to see tanks on the other side.

There are two lines of tanks twenty or thirty deep on each side of the highway, positioned to fire at anything that runs the gauntlet between them.

I stop my car.

Unless I want to drive halfway around the state just to approach East Cleveland from another direction, this is the only route to
the Door
.

I don’t let myself think anymore. I switch to the gas pedal and jam it all the way to the floor. My car skids, then speeds forward. I start to say the prayer to St. Michael: “St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our defense against the wickedness…”

The first shell explodes against the pavement behind me.

The impact reverberates through my skeleton, shaking my hands off the steering wheel. The car twists. I slap my hands back on the wheel, trying to regain control. Flying chunks of highway jut into the air like scraps from a falling asteroid. One after another, a series of shells boom out, and I enunciate the prayer to St. Michael, bracing for the worst while heading right at the tanks on the near side of the highway. At the last second, I swerve. My path straightens. My car is so close to the tanks that they would need to make their turrets go vertical in order to hit me directly, and I don’t think they can.

More shells crush the earth. A black storm cloud of projectiles and debris
raises
over my car. The tanks on the opposite side of the highway must be aiming short, unwilling to risk destroying their counterparts. This can be the only reason why I haven’t been blown apart – and then suddenly the road starts to slant. Gravity forces me against the driver’s side door and the rear of my car drops like it just fell off the edge of a precipice. The tires
hitch,
catch on something, and the back end shoots up into the air. My guts roll. My head slams into the horn and I lose my grip on everything. The car keeps going forward – my foot is still on the gas – and the front end grinds into the concrete. Words from the prayer – “cast into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls” – act as a break in the tempest, and I come to the conclusion I cannot by any means hit the brakes or the car will flip, and at this high of a speed I will not survive. I ease up on the gas instead, and the rear wheels smack the pavement. I think I’m safe but then the car starts to spin, and I grab for anything I can get a hold of like I’m loose inside of a soaring
frisbee
. The back end of the car surges into the wall alongside the edge of the bridge. The collision stretches the limits of my seat belt – my head just misses the steering wheel – and then the car slams to a stop. As I look through the spider web that used to be my window, my heart beats out of my chest.

I made it past the tanks.

I open the door. It bangs against the side of the bridge. I squeeze through the gap, bashing my chest into the door to do so. Since I’m a walking ache already, the additional pain is irrelevant.

From what I can make out in the darkness, my car has met its end. The front half is mangled. Smoke floods through cracks in the hood, and the rear wheels have been ripped sideways. They are either no longer part of the axle or the axle is no longer part of the car, I can’t tell.
 

While the upended world resettles, the
thickly curdled air sifts. A rolling set of creaks announces the movement. Behind me, the highway has caved in and collapsed. The
tanks have gone with it, now just sprinkles on top of a landfill of rubble. In the rock, I spy two soldiers, alive and moving. Indians, I think. I try to run, but my legs are as agile as broken stilts; I’ll have to walk as quickly as I can.

I check my phone for news. Nothing seems to have improved. If anything, the number of odes to loved ones, especially to ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends, on
Facebook
and Twitter has increased, as if the sense we are all doomed has grown more pervasive. If Naomi is caught in this incident, enmeshed in World War 3, and she hasn’t called or texted to say something similar to me…

I leave the tanks and the soldiers in the dust. I cycle back through the thoughts I had as I was driving over the hill. Similar to how I accurately predicted the layout of the troops surrounding the motel, I guessed there might be tanks – and there were. Another coincidence? Or did my thoughts have something to do with it? If my memories and my imagination are taken by
the Door
and sculpted into concrete scenarios, then it’s conceivable that I could use my mind to influence what happens here in the other world.

As long as I control my thoughts.

What Geppetto hinted at on top of the World Trade Center finally hits me. He asked if I considered what being there when the plane crashed would be like. He provoked me to have that thought and then, right after I did, the jet struck the tower – much sooner than it was supposed to. And before that he said, “Or you could do this,” and then jumped off the building…
To safety.
He was illustrating that the impossible is possible in the other world as long as you believe in it. He survived the leap because he trusted he would. He controlled the outcome with his thoughts.

That’s how I get out of this.

I’ve made the final discovery.

The exit for Tremont is a few hundred feet away. I get an idea. I text Naomi:

Naomi

Jul 29 1:49 AM

I hope St Theodosius is

protecting
you from the

war
…

Initially, I wrote, “Are you at St. Theodosius?” but before sending the message, I re-phrased it to assert she was there. I plant an image of Naomi safely hiding at St. Theodosius in my mind’s eye.
The Deer Hunter
is my primary frame of reference for what the church looks like. Scenes from the movie mix in. I try to force them out. My fear of World War 3 is resurgent. The scenario I want to imagine – Naomi and I reuniting at the church – is corrupted with soldiers and machine guns and bombs and murder.

My phone vibrates.

Naomi

Jul 29 1:50 AM

How did you know that?

I’m hiding but they’re coming

Don’t know how long I can
lats

I tell her I’m close. I’ll be there. I tell her not to go.

I can make it. I think these words. Gradually, I begin to say them.

Eventually, I start to run.

Tremont has been flattened, as if an army of tornados carried every structure, vehicle, and resident into the jaws of annihilation.

Everything, that is,
except
for a single building. A green dome, the same color that inexpensive gold stains skin, rests atop three sandstone stories.

St. Theodosius remains.

If I’ve done everything right, as I believe I have, Naomi should be inside.

I make it to the front of the cathedral and crack open the doors.

Through the partial opening, I can see that the inside of the church is littered with people.

I pull back, letting the doors swing closed. I thought I’d find Naomi here alone. Why is that not the case? Who are these people? She said “they” were coming. By “they” I presume she meant soldiers…

I inch the doors open again, careful to do so quietly. The people in the crowd are filed into the pews in an organized manner, formally dressed in contemporary suits and dresses. Everyone is silent. Unless they’re engaged in an elaborate attempt at subterfuge, these men, women, and children aren’t dangerous – they’re just average members of the community, come together, perhaps, to seek communion and faith in the face of ongoing devastation.

But why are they so dressed up?

I waft into the church. Even after all these years, its appearance – as seen
in
The Deer Hunter
– has been preserved. The altar is decorated with standing oil paintings of Orthodox figures, layered next to and above one another, leading up to the ceiling, where oil-painted angels frolic. A dazzling crystal chandelier dangles at the center of the space, flanked by stained glass skylights and accented by golden molding that runs up the walls.

Something in here is off. I was wrong about the purpose of the gathering. Besides the formality of the clothing, the demeanor of the room is inconsistent with the presence of war. These people are oblivious to the devastation. I can see it on their faces. Just as disconcerting, their dispositions seem to be split, abnormally, into two distinct categories; the typical kaleidoscope of emotions found in a roomful of people is absent.
The first category reminds me of the cheerfulness witnessed at weddings. This emotion is far less prevalent, however, than the other, which is of the sort that consumes whole crowds at funerals. I could accept this aura of grief as a reaction to the war if
it were not accompanied by so many droplets of elation
. There is nothing to celebrate about World War 3.

As I walk down the aisle, towards the bulk of the churchgoers, watching for Naomi’s face, the only way for me to describe what I encounter is a distortion of the natural order of the world. Or, rather, a
further
distortion of the world…

I think I’ve walked into an incident within an incident.

I continue moving, cautious of this being a trap but choosing to believe Naomi was at St. Theodosius when she said she was and that the texts I received were truly from her.

I scour the room. A woman leaves her pew near the altar. She is wearing a black veil, sheer enough to see through. She comes towards me. As her already slow gait stalls even further, I
think I recognize her face.
She stops as far away from me as I can jump and looks morosely into my eyes
.

The woman is Naomi’s mother.

Her teeth gnash. Becoming irate, she takes off her shoe and pounds it into the floor as words lash out of her mouth. “My stupid daughter! My stupid daughter! My stupid daughter!”

I attempt to cut through the vitriol with a measured response. “It’s okay, Mrs. Price… Is she here? Naomi, Mrs. Price. Where’s your daughter?”

Standing crooked on one heel, she throws
down her shoe and cracks back at me.
“Late for your wedding, you irresponsible man.
You selfish, weak little boy.
My stupid daughter is late for her own pitiful wedding.”

“Our wedding? You’re angry because she’s late to our
wedding
?”