Chris Adrian: A Better Angel

“There you are,” she said. “You want to come up and watch a movie?” I said I did. She came downstairs and let me in, and led me by the hand through her darkened house, past her mom’s bedroom and her sister’s bedroom, careful not even to step on the light that seeped from underneath their doors.

“The party was last week,” she said, when we were in her room.

“I know,” I said.

“Well, better late.” She sat me down on her bed, turned off her television, and then fiddled with her computer. “You want some popcorn?”

“No, thanks.”

“Good. It wouldn’t be appropriate. I got this for my birthday.” She held up a digital projector, turning it from side to side. “It’s better than just the screen. I’d do it downstairs if my mom and the little rodent weren’t at home. You can make the picture really big in the living room. And you can do this thing where, when one of them jumps, then you jump, too, from off of the stairs. Except you land on the couch, right? Not that you would need to. Here we go.”

She pressed a button and a whole section of her wall became a harsh digital-blue rectangle, and then a softer-blue rectangle of sky, and then the camera swung down to show a man talking silently at a café table, sipping at his coffee and waving his hand to punctuate his silent exclamations. The towers were clearly visible behind him.

“I always watch it from the beginning,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s fine,” I said, and I took her hand. She pulled it away.

“Hey, pay attention. This is your education, not mine. I’ve been educated.”

“Do you watch it every night?” She shrugged.

“That’s Antonin,” she said, pointing at the man. “That’s his name. I found that out.” The plane flew in behind him, and the explosion seemed to blossom into the whole room. Cindy startled and took my hand back. “Here we go,” she said. We sat and watched, Cindy biting her lips and squeezing my hand. “Now,” she said, standing up just before the second plane hit. “That one never surprises me. Are you feeling anything? Are you remembering anything?”

“Like what?”

“You know. Memories. Reasons. Your father.”

“No,” I said. “Come here.”

“You can’t see their faces,” she said. “Even on the living room wall. When they jump you can’t see their faces. I thought if I could project it against the side of the house, then maybe. Maybe if you saw a face, then you would know who you are.”

“I know who I am,” I said. “I know what I want.”

“You’re the same as always,” she said, shaking her head. “Wait a minute. Take off your shirt. Just your shirt. I didn’t say your pants. Anyway.” She picked up the projector and turned it away from the wall so it shined on me, and, stepping closer while she focused it, she made a rectangle just the size of my chest. I closed my eyes and tried to feel the heat from the fire. “How about now?”

“No,” I said.

“Goddamn.” She faced the projector into the mirror, but when I tried to look at it, it was too bright. Then she took off her own shirt, and stood where the images would shine on her. “See?” she said. Now people were jumping, and I saw them fall from her face, disappearing in the black space above her shoulder to rush past her ribs. “Do you see? When you do it this way, then you can almost feel what they were feeling. Isn’t it horrible? Doesn’t it make you remember why you did it?” I walked over and did something that seemed so much the opposite of what I had done with Paul. I held her from the front, and there was nothing tender in it, and it made me feel like everything was wrong, and going to be wrong.

The projector shined above her bed. When she lay down the light passed over her, but I could feel the towers on my back when I was on her, and when she sat on top of me I could see them reaching up her body, and then suddenly reaching down as the first one fell. We rolled on her bed, and I felt like the projector was wrapping us in light, even as darkness reached in between to enfold us, too, uncoiling from out of the mirror and from the window and from under the bed. It filled up my head, so all I saw was light flashing in the boundless dark. Cindy went away, and the whole world went away, and even the sadness I’d felt, not just since my father died but every day of my life — that went away, too. I heard a voice that said, “There you are. There you are.”

“There,” Cindy was saying, when I opened my eyes. “There you are. It’s hard. It’s really hard, being the son of the Devil, but you’ll get used to it. People get used to anything.” I stayed where I was, pressing my face into her shoulder, crying, not just because I was sad but because I finally knew who I was, and believed it, grateful and happy for the ruin I had just done, for the ruin I had brought and the ruin I would bring, every catastrophe more beloved to me than the next, thinking that even though I wasn’t looking at them on the wall I could see the buildings in my mind— O father, let them burn their heat is as perfect as my glee —lit up like birthday candles to celebrate the first day of my life.

Many thanks to the editors whose careful attention greatly improved these individual stories: Cressida Leyshon, Eli Horowitz, Tom Chiarella, Tyler Cabot, Michael Ray, Don Lee, Lois Rosenthal, Lee Montgomery, and Ben George; and especially to Eric Chinski, Eric Simonoff, and Stephanie Paulsell, whose generous investment of time and effort improved the collection as a whole.