Too Much and Not Enough

Guess what: Carlos lied. We didn’t move for another three weeks. During which time, Carlos kept saying that he never lied; he just couldn’t.

When I laughed, because everybody lies, but Carlos probably holds the world’s record—he acted hurt. Like, “So that’s what you think of me.”

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

He blamed it on the workmen, and that’s probably half-true. It’s plausible, at least. Either way, I couldn’t change things. But now? It’s happening.

Today’s the day!

Linden Street’s finished.  Carlos has been there since dawn, waiting to give us the grand tour.

“Tick tock,” Maggie says.  Wearing chiffon pants and a goofy green hat, she taps her feet and raps her knuckles. “What’s with you, Malcolm? Why can’t you hurry?”  She’s swatting her leg, waving me through.  “Good-bye hotel room, good-bye view.”  The door slams behind us.

“Jesus. Man,” I say. “At last.”

And even before we’re out of the building, I can tell this afternoon is one of those days when everything seems too saturated with color and grace.  Silken breezes flit through the station wagon’s open windows.  Gentle, tree-filtered light imbues the world. Tooling along Lake Shore Drive, I feel extraneous to so much beauty.  Blue blue blue sky and a patchwork of green, marked by red- and gold-edged leaves fluttering in the air. The outside world seems too real to be real.  Everything outside the car—outside of me—is more pulsating alive than I could ever be.

In my heart, I’m pleading, God! All right, I give up! I admit You exist!  Now can You please ease up? Turn the intensity down a notch before it kills me?

Without thinking I say to Maggie, “Earthly beauty is so. . .

“What?” She turns down the music, but I shake my head, and turn it back up.  It’s too hard to say out loud.

The earthly beauty of everything is staggering.  The day, the world, the whole set-up is unbelievably gorgeous.  I wouldn’t trade this afternoon for anything.

Except, well . . . I get lost in the vastness pretty fast.  Within minutes every glimmer, every soft-focused transformation lodges a painful, blinking pressure behind my eyes. The swirl and throb of the scenes unfolding bring on a shudder that turns to a sob.  Everything is just too way much and simultaneously, way not enough!

The world is cold and empty, bereft of meaning. God is Nowhere and Nothing, a Necessity to keep any half-rational species from killing itself. And—at the same time!—a particle of dust in a sunbeam, a branch in the wind, puddle on the pavement is microcosms of God’s. . . what?  Love, I guess.

Why is it the flimsiest “Manifestation Of Something I Might Be Able To Believe In” tears me apart?  Sunshine, hydrangeas, and back-lit, just-turning copper beeches feel like the heel of a boot on my neck. Songs on the radio, Maggie’s patter, we’re almost home—blood in my mouth, gasoline in my eyes.  And yet—ecstatic bliss!  Terrible, terrible joy! I just don’t know how to manage it, let alone express it.

I’m weeping and shaking and Maggie says maybe I better pull over. Hand on my shoulder, she says, “The end of summer really gets to me too.”

Sniffling, bobbing my head, I try to shake it off. “Maggie, I’m fine.  It’s nothing.”

But secretly? My God! Home! Home! Home!

I want it so much my eyes fill, my arms ache! We’re so close! I want it so bad!  The scene through the windshield becomes a blur, and I can’t breathe. To keep myself in one piece, I deliberately fantasize about sabotage.  I concentrate on an urge to litter—to toss huge non-biodegradable banana peels in the path of all the other bright, sleek machines speeding along with us. Maggie tips her head, holding on to her hat.  Her teeth shine. Her skin gleams. Another transforming occasion, another occurrence of Beauty and Light and I swear I’m going to die. How much are we supposed to take?

(Click here to read the next excerpt.)