After Silence

He laughed in my face, his spit hit my cheek. “You’re so scared you’re fucking crazy, man! So whacked… Protect you? Save you, criminal? Kidnapper! You and that goddamned Lily! Save you? Know what I want to do to you both? This, fucker, this!” He stuck the gun in the air and shot it three times very fast. The pain in my face was hot and pumping but I had to keep clear because within this moment was the answer. I needed to wipe snot from my nose and chin, but I was afraid he’d take it wrong and think I was trying something. I had to talk to him, tell him what I understood now; understood after seven wrong years.

“Wipe your face, man. Go ahead, do it, for Christ’s sake. I don’t care. I’m not going to shoot you, yet.”

Hands shaking, I tried wiping but couldn’t do it right. Disgusted, he jerked my shirt out of my pants and pushed it up across my face. “Come on, come on, get it off.” While I did, he started talking again. “Listen to me, and listen really good, because what I’m go

“I can’t—”

“Look at me, Max!”

I raised my head from the shirt and saw—myself. No Lincoln, myself. This was because I knew now.

“All along you and Lily playing God, thinking: It’s okay we stole him ‘cause we’re go

My face on him changed back to his face, Lincoln’s face. Teenage Lincoln’s face, so full of hatred for me. I had to tell him what I knew. Had to tell it to him exactly and well so he’d understand and know why it had all happened the way it had. Why Lily took him, why I had gone along with it, why we’d ended up here… How it was out of all our hands.

“Lincoln, can I—can I talk?”

“What?”

“Lincoln, you are my Guardian Angel. Do you understand? That’s why it happened. That’s why we’re here. Why Lily took you, why I met her in the first place.”

“What are you talking about? What the hell are you saying? What do you mean, ‘Guardian Angel’?”

“That’s what you are! Angels can come, but you have to deserve them. But I ruined you by not saying anything to Lily back then. See? I kept you from your real parents because I wanted you and your mother so much. I made you live the lie your whole life. I’m so much worse than her. As soon as I found out what she’d done, I should have fixed it. Taken you back to your real family so you could’ve lived the life you were supposed to.”

His face was dismay and confusion but that line went straight into him. He reared back and stuck the gun in my face. “Yes! You should have taken me home! You should have let me live my real life! Do you know what it was like last night, reading those papers? Suddenly knowing your whole life has been one big fucking fake? Finding about you two and who I really was all those years. All those years you pretended to be my parents? All this—all this stuff at once. Why did I even have to know? Why couldn’t I just have lived and not ever found out? My whole life, all you two thought about were yourselves!”

“Lincoln, you’re right. Everything you said is right, but listen to me. Let me explain this. It’ll help, I swear.

“Even if you and I had never met, you were born my Guardian Angel. Isn’t that beautiful? And it’s the truth; there really are angels. If you let them be and don’t kill them! But no, I met Lily and that was my end. Because the moment I discovered what she’d done with you, I was supposed to make it right again. You’re right—that was my test, my trial. I had one chance to truly deserve you, but my greed ruined it. Thou shalt not steal. I knew that. Thou shalt not covet. That’s why it’s all gone bad. It’s my fault. I ruined us all. You were such a terrific little boy before I found out, but once I did and did nothing… That’s how you were supposed to be your whole life. But I poisoned you. All the blood’s on my hands.” He looked at me with lightning bolts of pure energy and hate flashing, black, flashing across his eyes… He swung the gun across and hit me on the nose.

“This is no fucking cartoon, Max! I’m not fucking ‘Paper Clip’! Stop talking shit! That crazy fucking shit! I’m not your cartoon. I’m not an angel! Why don’t you say the truth! Why don’t you say the truth for once in my life!”

I think I could have stopped his arm the next time, reached out fast and blocked it, but I didn’t. He hit me again on the cheek, on the throat, on the top of the head. I wanted to lift my arms to keep him away, keep him off, but there was no strength. He hit me again and again until I blacked out. The last thing I remember was he kept saying “Daddy” as he beat me with all his might.

“There once was a very great magician who, having grown old, decided to work his greatest magic by turning a mouse into a beautiful woman. After he had finished his masterpiece, he felt that because she was so exquisite, he had to find her the most powerful being in the world for a husband. After much thought, he went to the sun and asked him to marry this woman. The sun was touched by the offer, but said no because ‘there is someone stronger than me—the cloud, who covers me when I shine.’ The magician thanked him for his honesty and went to the cloud with the same offer. Much to his surprise, the cloud said no too because there was someone even stronger than him—the mountain, whose ragged peaks stop the cloud’s movement across the sky. Shaking his head, the magician went next to the mountain but again heard no. ‘There’s one stronger than even me,’ he said. ‘It is the mouse, because he can burrow into my side as often as he pleases and I am powerless to stop him.’ So at last the magician went home and sadly turned the beautiful young girl back into a mouse so that she could take another mouse for a husband. All things return to their origin.”

Finky Linky sang his crazy goodbye song and the show ended. Lincoln turned to me and squinted a disbelieving eye. “A mouse is not the greatest thing in the world. It’s not greater than the sun!”

I could feel a great father-son moral lesson coming on here. I took a deep breath and was about to begin, but when I opened my mouth nothing came out. I could move my jaws and lips but there was no voice in me, not a peep. I cleared my throat but even that made no sound. I tried again. Nothing. Rubbing my neck, I nodded at him. He was waiting for an answer but his quizzical expression asked if I was playing a joke on him. He began to smile. I tried harder to talk but couldn’t. My silence began to scare me. I pushed him off my lap and sat up straighter. I tried again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. I began to panic.

I woke up.

The dream was a recurring one I had had over the years and it would have gotten worse as it invariably did if the pain hadn’t woken me. I was conscious but there was only pain. My eyes were all right. I opened them and was not surprised to see an unknown white room around me. After a time it made sense that this was a hospital room. My face felt huge and hot. When I put a tentative hand up and touched it, pain barked back at me to stay away, leave it alone or it would really get me. I said okay, okay, I’ll be careful. But I had to know how bad the damage was. I had to know what was there. This pain became a dog in my mind, growling in a corner of this big white room, ready to attack the moment I did the wrong thing. As gently as possible, I touched my face and felt a battlefield of cuts, bruises, swelling. Once sure that was all, there was no more, I slid the hand down and over as much of my body as I could reach and prayed thanks when I felt no casts or heavy bandages. He’d done my face. That must have been enough for him.