The Light on the Horizon

3

In the morning, Lewis was standing by the front door all dressed for school, his book bag at his feet. He turned and looked at me as I came down the stairs.

"The bus hasn't come."

"That's because it's Saturday, stupid." I went into the kitchen to get myself something to eat. Lewis followed me in there.

"It can't be Saturday. I saw Mr. Branigan leave for work a little while ago. That means it isn't Saturday, but the bus hasn't come. We have to go to school. Robbie, we have to go to school!!"

"Why?"

Outside, the sun was shining and the wind was shaking the red and yellow leaves on the maples out behind the house like little hands waving. I felt like waving back.

"We have to go to school," Lewis said again, looking worriedly over his shoulder in the direction of the street. "But the bus hasn't come."

"Then walk. You'll get there eventually."

Lewis just stood there staring at me. Then he picked up his book bag and went outside. After a few minutes, I heard the sound of the basketball hitting the backboard. Thock-thock. Thock-thock. Thock-swish-thock.

It occurred to me that I really didn't know what day it was. I tried hard to remember, but I couldn't.

That night, Lewis went out to call Cole in for dinner. But then he didn't come back.

When I finally went out to see what the hold up was, I found both of them by the fence at the bottom of the yard staring out across the open fields and the trees in the distance at this strange light on the horizon. I went down to stand next to them. Although, I really didn't want to.

It wasn't like the light from a sunset - the sun had gone down hours before - it was more like the lights from a big highway. A really big highway. Or like the floodlights at a stadium when they get turned on for a night game. But colder. Like a thin strip of white neon hugging the black edges of roofs and trees in the distance.

All three of us stood there together in the darkness for the longest time, holding onto the slats of the fence and watching.

"Can you hear it?," Cole whispered. "It's singing."

We watched TV all night again and part of the next morning, and then Lewis went out to practice and Cole disappeared somewhere, and I went up to my room and pulled out one of the magazines with naked women in it I'd stolen from behind the counter at the quickie-mart when the cashier wasn't looking.

If Dad knew that, he'd kill me. And then he'd do it again just to make sure I was good and dead. And then he'd take the magazines and keep them all for himself and not tell Mom anything.

It felt really strange laying there with my pants down in broad daylight with the sunlight coming in from the windows and the door standing wide open so that anybody could see that I was doing something you'd go to Hell for. Every little while I froze and listened hard for sounds of footsteps approaching. I couldn't help it.

After a while I felt stupid being so careful in an empty house and started screaming and moaning at the top of my lungs and thrashing around, but then the magazine fell off the bed and I had to stop for a minute to pick it up. And then I felt even more stupid because I couldn't find the page again, so I quit.

Nothing happened. Nobody appeared in the doorway to yell at me. Nobody appeared to ask me if I wasn't ashamed of myself.

I could hear the thock-thock of the basketball outside, but that was all.

And then it occurred to me.

Dad and Mom really weren't here anymore. And that meant . . . that meant. . . I could do whatever I wanted.

Lewis was still worried. And then he started seeing things.

"No, it's right there. Next to the mail box. Can't you see it? It's right there," Lewis thrust his skinny little arm towards the street.

"I don't see anything."

"Sometimes it's there and sometimes it isn't, but right now it is. Robbie! Don't you see it?" Lewis' voice was starting to take on a panicked tone.

I squinted my eyes up and took a good, hard look. There was a vague shimmer in the place he was pointing at -- but that could have been anything.

"I don't see anything."

"How can you not see it!"

"Because I don't."

"It's right there! There's a square sign right there!" He jabbed his finger again in the direction of the street.

"A square sign."

"Yes!"

"What square sign?"

"I don't know! I can't read it."

"Can't read it? What grade are you in again?"

"It's not clear enough to read, you dumbhead! Like I said, sometimes it's there and sometimes it isn't! But it's never quite enough there to read!" He was almost shaking, he was so determined to force me to see whatever it was.

"You're imagining things.

"Robbie, no I'm not! There's. . .! "

"Go shoot your hoops, Lewis. Just go and shoot your hoops and leave me alone."