Thin Places Read online

  Just keep pretending you are listening

  she said.

  I nodded.

  Rebecca knew that when she appeared

  when we were in conversation

  I “acted weird”

  not exactly speaking out loud

  but distracted.

  After all, I was seeing someone

  that no one else could see.

  But just then, Mr. Frye was looking at me.

  He’d seen me nod.

  Do you agree then, Declan?

  Frye asked.

  I must have looked puzzled.

  It was a look I often had.

  Are we masters of our own fate?

  Tell him that not everyone is.

  Tell him you have to choose to be master of your own fate.

  I repeated her words verbatim.

  Now Mr. Frye nodded, smiled, and continued to read.

  Rebecca stayed “with me”

  (I knew she was still there)

  but remained silent until the end of class.

  I went to the library and sat way in the back

  at a computer.

  Why did you show me that man and his son?

  I asked.

  Because you needed to see them.

  You needed to see the look on his face.

  I didn’t just see it

  I said.

  I felt it.

  I know you did.

  I needed you to feel his loneliness.

  Why?

  Declan, there’s so much to explain.

  Then explain, please.

  I kept expecting her image to appear in my mind as before.

  But I could not see her.

  And her voice was faint

  like someone had turned down the volume

  on a television.

  Declan, soon I won’t be able to visit you.

  It requires too much energy.

  I need you to come here.

  How?

  Fly, Declan.

  Come soon.

  Please.

  Help me, Jonesy

  Jonesy had been looking for me

  all over the school.

  Declan

  he said

  you look like

  you’ve seen

  a ghost.

  Help me, Jonesy

  I said

  I’m in over my head.

  Mental illness is like that.

  How can I help?

  I explained about what happened in English class.

  He said

  I wish my English classes

  were that interesting.

  She wants me to meet her.

  To go to her.

  Do you have to leave the planet

  and leave your body behind?

  Jonesy was serious, the goof.

  No.

  It’s not like that.

  Where then?

  Where do you need to go?

  I’ve got images in my head

  of where I’m supposed to go.

  Ireland.

  Ireland?

  Jonesy asked

  as a big smile came over his face.

  She’s Irish.

  You’re Irish too

  deep down in your

  inner self.

  What should I do?

  I asked.

  I’m kinda scared.

  And I was.

  I was so far deep into something

  way over my head.

  Scared is good.

  But not enough.

  What then?

  What else?

  You need to be brave.

  Flying to Knocknarea

  No, Rebecca did not mean “fly”

  like jump off roofs

  or grow wings

  or leave my body

  or anything more far-fetched.

  She meant get on a plane and fly there to meet her.

  She never told me where or even exactly how to meet her.

  But I’d seen those images.

  Knocknarea — a mountain

  and the beach

  and the cove

  and what did that man and his son have to do with anything?

  I didn’t know what to make

  of the fact I could not see her now

  and that her once crystal clear voice

  was fading.

  But what scared me even more was this.

  What if I lost her altogether?

  I couldn’t bear that.

  Report Card

  My father was furious.

  My grades which had never been good

  were slipping

  because I was being distracted by Rebecca

  falling in love with her

  and wishing I was with her.

  She was on my mind constantly now.

  One night my mother asked me about “the girl”

  and I was evasive.

  Not that she wouldn’t take me seriously.

  It was just that she might share

  what I said with my father.

  I think I might need to leave school for a while

  I told her.

  Why?

  I just need to.

  I need to go someplace different.

  I want to go stay with Uncle Seamus.

  In Ireland?

  Yes.

  When she said the word, it was like an awakening.

  I heard Rebecca loud and clear then.

  Only two words.

  Yes!

  Please!

  Parental Battleground

  My mother made the case to my father

  about sending me to stay with Seamus

  until the school year was over.

  I could make up the work in the summer

  she said. In summer school.

  She told him I was under too much stress.

  I was alienated from the other kids.

  I needed a break

  for my mental health.

  My father hated the idea.

  He ranted and raved about how Ireland would be bad for me

  how Seamus was a lunatic and a lazy bastard.

  Then an argument began

  unlike any I’d heard from them in my life.

  My father: Jesus, Fiona, the boy needs to grow up. He needs to be responsible for his actions. He needs to think straight and get his life together. You’ve put foolish notions in his head ever since he was a boy. Now this!

  My mother: Yes, Brendan. Now this. He’s unsettled, yes. He is not a great scholar like yourself. He is old enough now to find his place in the world. And that place is not here. We must help him.

  My father: What? By sending him to live with Seamus, a man who can’t tie his own shoes much less hold down a job? A man who whines for the days gone by in a mythical Ireland that never existed? We left that damp, dingy rock to make a life here. A life for us and a life for our son. The answer is final. He is not going.

  My mother said nothing more.

  I heard her stomp off to the bedroom and slam the door.

  I felt the guilt of a son

  who had driven a wedge between

  two loving people who

  did not deserve the grief

  caused by a lovestruck and bewildered son.

  A Turn of Events

  But then something happened.

  At school.

  The following week.

  A kid with a gun.

  A loaded gun.

  He walked into a classroom

  a
nd held the gun

  to a teacher’s head.

  The school went into lockdown.

  I was in the library at the time.

  The librarian, Mrs. Kendish

  locked the doors and told those of us in the room

  to get down on the floor.

  I had been near the windows looking at books

  on mythology.

  Kneeling on the floor, I heard Rebecca’s voice

  Declan

  Don’t be scared.

  I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t scared

  but then I realized her brief presence had suddenly vanished

  and I saw the face of that man again.

  The good news is that no one got shot.

  The police came, and someone talked the kid

  out of hurting anyone.

  I didn’t know him.

  He was new.

  He had that lost look

  the one people said I have sometimes

  the look I’d seen on Jonesy.

  But I saw something else as well

  some kind

  of pain I couldn’t imagine.

  So our school was in the national news

  and I thought it would all

  just go away after the incident

  since no one got hurt.

  But it didn’t.

  Everything about school was different.

  Kids were nervous.

  Teachers were nervous.

  Some parents pulled their kids from school.

  My mom asked me if I felt safe there.

  I lied.

  I said no.

  I said I was scared.

  That I couldn’t quite get back to normal.

  Okay

  she said

  I’m going to talk this over

  with your father.

  A Theory for Everything

  My father the physicist had a theory for everything.

  Why the economy is not good.

  Why atoms behave the way they do.

  Why the universe came into existence.

  Why we don’t get sucked into black holes.

  Why starlings gather in flocks in the yard.

  Why some kids take guns and walk into schools.

  And he had a theory about me:

  one day a light bulb

  would turn on in my head

  and I’d start taking charge of my life.

  My true ability to reason

  and make rational decisions would kick in.

  I would show some effort at school

  and become

  really

  really

  engaged.

  That was his word: engaged.

  But the school thing scared my mom

  and my mom

  in turn

  scared him.

  He became

  convinced

  there was a real chance that his son

  might get shot.

  One crazy kid with a gun

  he said

  inspires a second crazy kid

  with a gun

  and next time

  that kid is going to shoot.

  It was just a theory.

  But

  But, it was his theory

  and my mom bought into it

  and I pretended that I bought into it.

  I want to go somewhere safe

  I said.

  Somewhere where there are

  not so many guns about.

  Ireland

  I said.

  Ireland is the light bulb in my head.

  But it’s more like a spotlight

  I told him

  shining through all the darkness.

  I did not mention Rebecca

  or that I was in love with her

  (whoever, whatever she was).

  Why Ireland?

  he insisted.

  Why can’t it be any place

  other than Ireland?

  Uncle Seamus

  I said.

  He invited me to stay with him.

  Your Uncle Seamus

  is a lunatic

  a true pureblood

  Irish lunatic.

  I don’t care if he is

  your mother’s brother.

  He’s a menace.

  My mom gave my dad a dirty look.

  Do you have a second choice?

  I thought for a few seconds.

  Egypt

  I said.

  I’ll go to Egypt.

  My dad looked at me.

  He’d been watching the news.

  Egypt was going through some nasty violent times.

  His eyes were wide.

  He looked flustered.

  He had a dozen or so theories about the Middle East.

  None of them were pretty.

  He stared at his son

  his more than slightly off-kilter son

  his son who could end up brainwashed

  by his lunatic brother-in-law.

  There was confusion in his eyes

  that I don’t believe I had ever seen

  before.

  And I guess Ireland ultimately

  beat out Egypt

  in some crazy emotional football game

  going on

  in his head.

  My Father’s List of Things to Do and Not to Do in Ireland

  I read it on the plane to Shannon.

  It went like this:

  1. Don’t hang out in pubs.

  2. Don’t believe anything an Irishman tells you.

  (They’re unbelievable liars.)

  3. If anyone asks you your religion, say you are a

  Buddhist.

  4. Don’t tell anyone you have Irish blood.

  5. Convince your Uncle Seamus to get a real job.

  (Playing a fiddle is not and never will be real work.)

  6. Don’t allow yourself to get beguiled by an Irish girl.

  (They can trick you, fool you, and who knows what.)

  Well, my dad had, I guess, become “beguiled” by my mother. Two more opposite personalities could not exist on the planet. My dad considered himself “a hard-nosed realist.” My mom kept amethyst crystals under her pillow. She also gave me a piece of “sacred” Irish jade for good luck to carry with me at all times.

  33,000 Feet

  It was a bumpy ride across the Atlantic at 33,000 feet

  and I was pretty sure it was the jade

  that kept the plane in the air

  until the green green shores of Ireland

  appeared in the airplane window

  and beckoned the plane to land

  safely in Shannon

  where the immigration man

  looked at the picture of me

  on my passport

  and then at me

  and smiled in a funny way

  like he knew something

  I didn’t.

  Like Coming Home

  That’s what it felt like.

  Coming home.

  Like I’d been here before.

  Like I was meant to be here.

  Like I was (pardon the word)

  destined

  to be here.

  I was a boy just off the plane

  on my own

  in Ireland.

  And I felt like anything

  anything

  could happen.

  All I needed to do

  was

  find

  her.

  The Bus
/>   I took the bus

  north through towns with crazy names:

  Ennis, Gort, Galway, Tuam, Knock

  Tobercurry, Knockbeg, Colooney

  and then the city of Sligo.

  The Long Way Home

  Uncle Seamus met me at the bus station in Sligo.

  He’d had a few pints and had been playing fiddle

  in a nearby pub.

  He asked me to drive us home

  and reluctantly I did.

  I’d only driven a few times,

  and the steering wheel was on the

  wrong side of the car.

  As I drove

  poorly and cautiously

  he told tales of his youth

  some true

  some probably not.

  I tried my best to stay on

  the left-hand side of the narrow roads.

  That clutch

  said Seamus

  is quirky as a pheasant in heat.

  White knuckles on my part

  turning on to

  Drumcliff at the base of a mountain

  Benbulben

  then west to Carney

  Cloghboley

  and finally

  Ballyconnell

  Bally Bliss

  I calls it

  my uncle said.

  And suddenly

  there we were

  way out at the westerly edge of Ireland

  at what seemed to be

  the end of the earth.

  First Night in Ireland

  It was a cold stone house

  with wind whistling in the eaves

  and a peat fire

  that smelled so good

  it put me to sleep

  by nine o’clock.

  Not a word or an image

  from Rebecca

  and I wondered if I had made a mistake.

  Connected the dots the wrong way.

  Maybe I should have gone to Egypt.

  Seamus’ words were still in my head:

  In the morning

  we climb Knocknarea

  and pay our respects

  to Queen Maeve.

  Warrior Queen

  Queen Maeve

  Seamus told me

  was an ancient warrior queen

  or goddess perhaps

  who was very rich

  and powerfully sexual

  and one day she stole

  an enormous and strong bull

  from Ulster

  for reasons that may elude us today.

  She was not exactly well liked