Lightfall by Paul Monette Page B

unhearing. “This is where it happened.” He made a gesture, hands outstretched as if to flare a cape, that took in the whole of the cliff that edged the park.
    How funny, thought Michael, lazily peering over the brink. The boy was intent on the land, while he was mad to sail. Between them, they took in everything. Though he could not even fathom what he meant by wanting Joey—it was something unearthly bright and pure, and it straddled day and night—he knew the world would ever after run to the motions of what they dreamed.
    He looked over happily, even as Joey climbed up onto the balustrade. It was barely half a foot wide. The wind did capers, billowing out his shirt so he teetered backward. Michael had no fear. If the larger rule of Fate had brought them back together, no mere freak like an accident could touch them on the heights. He probably ought to jump up there himself. They could dance on the razor’s edge till the sun went down.
    As if to beckon him, Joey turned with a perfect smile. He held up his hands like someone about to cup a butterfly.
    â€œMichael,” he said, as soft as a brother, “it’s all so easy. You’ll see—they want to go this way.”
    And he clapped his hands and stepped out into the noonday air. There was one last glint of his frozen smile as he dropped out of sight like a stone. A cry ballooned in Michael’s mouth. It spilled like blood, in a rising wall, as he leaned far over the parapet and watched. About halfway down, the sea wind blew the falling boy against the cliff, where he dangled on a jagged point for the space of a breath, then hurtled and bounced through a string of vaulting somersaults. The splash when he hit the water was so small, the harbor barely shrugged.
    Michael’s was the only scream. The whole way down, the boy was silent as the ripples that briefly ringed his landing. In a moment there was nothing there at all. Bent double and half in the air himself, roaring with all he’d lost, Michael staggered back and down the steps, lunging away from the lighthouse tower. He wept to feel the ground beneath his feet. He did not stop till he’d gained the circle of grave and weathered stones, where he fell to his knees and shook with grief.
    It was several minutes before he realized: they all went about their business as if nothing had transpired. Ten feet away, the rangers joked in their boots and khakis, strung in a circle all their own. Children seemed to be everywhere—whole teams of them, sides all chosen, as if the school in Orick had declared a sudden holiday. The oaf with the kite, showing off for his girl, did a pratfall over one of the sacred stones, missing Michael by an inch. A carnival air was on the place. Deliberately, it almost seemed, they made a point of acting happy. One notch higher and they would have sung a chorus.
    Death wasn’t good enough for them, Michael thought in a sudden twist of fury. He wanted them debased. The tears streamed down his face, but no one saw. He’d never cared for anyone before—never given himself away the way he had this morning. The rest of the village would pay for that. They’d die when he was ready. Beg for it, even.
    Killing had always been a purely casual thing, like flicking away a speck of lint. Now it came like a true vocation. He went on sobbing freely, loud enough to drown out all the laughing. He seemed to understand that these were the first and last tears he would ever need. He dug his nails in his cheeks and moaned. He knew he should have killed Joey right at the start. Somehow, the killing he had not bothered with had set his heart to ticking. Just to make it stop again, he would have to drown the world.

IV
    IT WAS Thursday afternoon in Houston. The sky was yellow-gray as it mulled over whether or not to fling a storm. From the swaybacked mansion on Montrose Avenue, once an oilman’s dream of baronial splendor, the air was alive with