Lois Metzger - A Trick of the Light

In group the next morning, Miranda can’t stop talking about the movie.

Miranda: “It got me thinking. I’m my mom’s portrait.”

Richard: “How so?”

Miranda: “My mom’s terrified of gaining weight. So it happens to me—that way, magically, it doesn’t happen to her. Ha, which gives me a great idea for a remake, y’all. A guy can eat and eat and stay thin, and his portrait gets fat for him. It could be called The Eating Disorder of Dorian Gray .”

Some other girl: “I wish I had a portrait that could reach my IBW for me.”

IBW—Ideal Body Weight. A little eating-disorder-clinic humor. It shocks me, how much the other girls like Miranda now. They tell her how beautiful her hair is, and how much they like her eyes, which are brown with yellow in them. She’s repellant is what she is.

And Mike can’t get rid of her at the drawing table.

He’s been working on his two-headed Cyclops again, drawing in a ridged back and hairy legs, and carefully placing white dots in the eyes to indicate reflected light, something Tamio showed him how to do. But I’m sure he’ll throw the picture away before going home.

Miranda: “He’s awesome.”

Mike: “Um… thanks.”

Miranda: “Can he think two thoughts at the same time?”

Mike: “Huh?”

Miranda: “Well, he’s got two heads. So maybe one head can look up and admire the moon, and the other head can think about his lonely childhood.”

Mike: “His—what?”

Miranda: “I mean, look at him. He’s a two-headed Cyclops among all the one-headed Cyclopses. He’s a mutant in a race of mutants.”

That’s just about the dumbest thing I ever heard, but Mike is actually thinking about it.

Mike: “I guess if he has two heads, he’d have two voices… if he could talk, that is. Cyclopses usually just roar.”

Miranda: “Two heads, two voices, two personalities; why not? They could be super close; they could hate each other. Whatever you want—he’s your creature.”

Mike: “You said ‘creature.’ You didn’t say ‘monster.’”

Miranda: “So?”

Mike: “That’s what Ray Harryhausen always called them. He said the word ‘monster’ always made him think of Dracula.”

Miranda: “Who’s Ray Harryhausen?”

Amber never wanted to hear about Ray Harryhausen, and rightly so.

Mike: “Never mind.”

Miranda: “No, go ahead. I’m interested.”

I most certainly am not, and can barely listen as Mike talks … and talks … about how Harryhausen learned the craft of stop-motion animation from Willis O’Brien, the creator of King Kong. From the way Mike describes O’Brien, you’d think he cured cancer. Mike talks about how stop-motion can take a lifeless object and give it what Harryhausen called the “breath of life.” How time-consuming it is: 24 adjustments to an object for just one second of film, which means 1,440 adjustments for one minute of film and 86,400 adjustments for one hour (yes, he has these numbers in his head). The adjustments are so small, Mike tells her, the eye can’t see each one, but together they create movement.

Mike: “Harryhausen invented all kinds of strange, dreamlike creatures—giant bees, flying harpies, fire-breathing dragons. He called them ‘creatures from the mind.’ But he always secretly hoped they were real. Except I know for a fact: creatures from the mind are real.”

This is such a waste of time.

Mike: “Harryhausen always tried to give his creations a mind and a soul. He wants people to feel bad when they die.”

Miranda: “I feel bad when King Kong dies.”

Mike: “Me, too. Every time.”

I’m almost dead with boredom by the time the conversation ends.

Finally, it’s Mike’s last night. He did what he had to do, and now he is allowed to go. He has reached 90 percent of his IBW. All that Ensure, all that food—Mike can’t bear to think about it. He misses what he used to see when he looked in the mirror, the tightness of his skin, the clean lines of his body.

You’re leaving, returning to your real life.

I was never really here, Mike thinks.

Mike sees Nina, for the first time in a long time. She’s walking slowly down the hall, wheeling an IV pole attached to her arm. She has on the same kind of slippers that Mike used to see on Grandma Celia.

Mike walks over to her.

Nina: [whispers]

Mike: “What?” He leans in, close.

Nina smiles. Her teeth are gross, he thinks, and her breath is awful.

Nina: “Skin is soft, muscle is hard.”

Mike: “Huh?”

Nina: “And bone is best.”

Mike: “What are you saying?”

Nina: “Skin is soft, muscle is hard, bone is best.”

Mike stares after her as she continues down the hall.

I don’t want to end up like that, he thinks.

She is her own person, and you are your own person.

I don’t ever want to come back here.

Not a problem. No one will know what you’re doing. You’ll be so careful.

I thought I was careful before—

You’ll be even more careful.

Although going home presents some challenges. Mike is made aware that his mom will eat weekday breakfasts and dinners with him, and will take him to school and pick him up. Mike’s dad will take over weekend lunches and dinners. In school he’ll have lunch with Mr. Clayton in the physics lab. Mike is embarrassed by the fact that if he goes to the bathroom after lunch, Mr. Clayton has to go with him, to make sure he’s not throwing up.

I don’t do that, Mike thinks. I’ve never done that.

And once Mr. Clayton realizes it, he’ll leave you alone. Soon enough they’ll all get busy and you’ll be on your own again.

After Christmas break, Mike has to go to therapy three times a week and family therapy once a week.

Where you’ll tell them what they want to hear.

Mike thinks about how a special internist will weigh him once a week.

Remember the paperweights? The water loading?

Mike wonders if this special internist knows all the tricks.

There are always new tricks.

I’m not allowed to exercise. I can only take slow walks.

You can run when no one’s looking.

If I break the rules, I come back. Darpana said it happens a lot. I could end up like Nina—

That’s not going to happen. This place is history. That means the fat girl, too.

Miranda gave Mike her email and, after she gets home, wants him to write her.

You won’t.

I promised, he thinks.

I don’t remember him making any such promise. In any case, I tell him:

Promises in a place like this don’t mean anything.

Mike packs his drawing of the Cyclops. I don’t know why, and frankly at this point I don’t care.

Mike’s mom picks him up in a Lincoln Town Car from a car service. It’s an improvement over the ambulance. Mike settles into the cushiony backseat.

Mom: “You look good.”

Mike is surprised she can see. Her eyes are all wet.

As they drive away, Mike notices that the cut on his finger is all closed up. The scar is thin and faint, like a life line in the wrong place.

IT’S GOOD TO BE HOME, BUT FRUSTRATING. MIKE HAS no privacy. It’s like in the hospital except now it’s his mom watching him. Even now she’s right outside the door as he unpacks.

I can’t work out, Mike thinks. How can I look in the mirror when there’s a pair of eyes on me?

She has to sleep sometime, doesn’t she? The middle of the night—the perfect time to get back on track.

In the meantime, she wants to watch a DVD with Mike—a Ray Harryhausen movie, something she’s never done before. So they watch Jason and the Argonauts . Mighty Joe Young sits in Mike’s lap and purrs like a jackhammer.