The Hard Way Back to Heaven. Karl Dehmelt

under a green skater’s cap.

      “I know you can hear me, dammit! Take your earphones out and talk to me!”

      The kids sitting nearest to Alex laugh. Alex relents and pivots around in his seat. Kenny’s eyes hold a friendly combination of mischief and cordiality. For his academic shortcomings, Kenny excels in personality. Alex wasn’t born with such apprehension; it’s something he’s learned.

      In the seat across from Kenny sits a fellow freshman named Leigh Meyers. Her brown hair runs down to just below her shoulders, framing her face and accenting her electric blue eyes from any distance. She’s effortlessly pretty. Alex remembers on the first day of sixth grade trying to find the bus at the back of the middle school for the first time. After debating whether to miss the bus or talk to her, he’d walked up to her and asked her if he’d found the right place. She’d smiled at him and confirmed his directions. Since then, they’ve talked infrequently. He doesn’t consider many people friends.

      Deciding to comply, he removes his buds and asks, “What do you want, Kenny?”

      “Let me see your schedule!”

      “What?”

      Snickers come from the back of the bus. “Are you deaf or something?”

      Alex already has his backpack open. “No!”

      “Then let me see your schedule, dammit!”

      Reaching into the pocket on his bag, Alex pulls out the folded sheet of paper listing his classes. Alex enjoys school to the point where he can completely discard everything related to his education at a moment’s notice. He doesn’t laugh as much as the other kids, and he doesn’t mind talking to his teachers. He is conducive to interaction in a different way: quiet, benevolent, never threatening. If he has a problem, he either pushes it down or talks through a solution.

      Kenny walks up and snatches the schedule from Alex, parading to the back of the bus. Alex listens as Kenny and Leigh sprout off comments about teachers and classes they’ve survived. Such is the role of the older students in high school: to pave the way for those yet to come without failing. Alex looks around as the two older kids soundtrack his ears. He sees Peter Morgan, the Sophomore, with his own I-Pod in at the back; Sam Edwards, the girl who lived up the street, with her mystery novel, all representatives of a mold he can potentially try to fit. He tries, and he talks, and he listens, but even after Kenny and Leigh are done with the schedule and hand it back to him, he puts his ear buds back in place and considers the miracles of modern medicine.

      His father will be waiting for him when he gets home. Rumors around his family are that his mother will have to go back to work at the New Life facility in Quakertown; Alex taps into the secret feeds of the adults. The whispers and the messages do not escape the ears of Alex. Life means not to reveal itself to people in shouts and declarations, but instead in the vitality hidden to the casual senses.

      When Alex’s mother is either upset or angry, he avoids talking to her. The way Leigh says hello to him sometimes makes him feel better if he’s having a bad day. Kenny’s jokes thin the density of the air when Alex’s skies darken.

      Alex feels as if the world is a big tapestry, with only a few hands painting the canvas. As the bus pulls onto his road, barreling down the steep hill past the home of the retired science teachers with their swans and the small lake, Alex feels as if the path he walks on in life is going to divert, just as his mp3 player shifts into “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins.

      He exits the bus with the schedule the kids inspected clutched in his hand. He doesn’t wave.

      —

      The masks are strange.

      Quarantine is not a comforting word to Alex. His father is mostly restricted to the back of the house for his waking hours. When he ventures out, he has to wear a medical mask whose foreign design provides protection from airborne disease. Alex doesn’t know how to say the full name of the disease they think his father has, so he just calls it TB. Anytime he tries to spell ‘tuberculosis’, he always puts a ‘u’ where the ‘e’ should be, just like when Michael coughs, his body puts blood mixed with mucus where there should be pure phlegm.

      Lauren and Michael are losing money. The disease is forcing Michael to operate from his dining room office with shorter hours. The routine is shattered, and among the pieces, with a Cheshire grin, sits the bloated cat known as fear. Lauren knows nobody else can see the creature. The animal must have crashed through the skylight in the middle of the hearth room, plummeting from the black shingles of the McGregor roof to the floor. She tries to keep the animal away, but the hidden nature of the disease permeating the bleb inside her husband’s chest hinges on a phone call from Dr. Fost. She wears the mask and avoids looking in the mirror as much as possible. She walks around the house as if she is paddling a boat, sloshing at her ankles with the ripples from each stroke she cuts through the river of uncertainty.

      Alex walks through the front door as his father, mask and all, sits at the table in the dining room, absorbed by his computer. Michael coughs as Alex sets his heavy bag down next to the chairs in the hearth room. Walking over to his father, Alex stands on the edge of the mat placed on the floor to protect the carpet from the wheels of the chairs.

      “Hey, Alex.” Michael stifles another cough.

      “Hey, Dad. Did we hear from the doctor yet?”

      “No, Dr. Fost hasn’t called. I don’t really expect him to until tomorrow, at least.”

      “It’s been over a week since the bronchoscopy, right?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Aren’t you supposed to be quarantined?’

      Michael wheezes a laugh.

      “Yeah, I guess I am. I have to keep working, though; none of the other guys have what could be TB.” Michael shifts back towards the computer.

      “Why do they think it’s TB?”

      “Well, the symptoms, plus the cells they scraped off the part of my lung, all pretty much point one way. It could be something else; they don’t have 100% certainty yet.”

      “I wish we could know one way or the other, that’s all.”

      “I know, Alex. So do I. So does your mother.”

      Lauren shifts in from the kitchen, a soft smile on her face. Alex notices the stubs of her fingernails are jagged. She’s wearing a plain tee shirt, her hair naturally tussled.

      “Hi, mom.”

      “Hey. How was school?”

      Alex’s mind relaxes. He won’t be gaining much more vital information from this conversation; everything seems stable.

      “It was alright. Neil wanted to know if I could go to his house later, we have this science project to deal with.”

      “Is Mrs. Pock alright with it?”

      “Yeah, as far as I know.”

      “And what about Mr. Pock?”

      “Mom, I have no idea. He asked me at school.”

      Lauren places her hand on her son’s shoulder, as if to steady herself.

      “I don’t think you should be going over there with this whole TB business going on.”

      “What?” Michael looks up from his laptop, accompanied by a cough.

      “You might be contagious, Mike. We don’t want to be going and infecting Alex’s friends.”

      “I wouldn’t be going down there with him, I’d be staying here working. We sent him to school, so I don’t see why he can’t go down the street.”

      “What if the Pocks get sick? We’d be blamed for starting a practical epidemic because we didn’t listen to the quarantine order! You should be in bed.” Lauren’s smile has evaporated like water tossed on top of the wood stove in the hearth