The Emerald Light in the Air Read Online Free

witch in the Scottish play, I thought, or one of those modern descendants of crones on heaths, the living dead who climb from graves in horror movies. She was intensely drunk, of course. To Billy—she was looking mostly at the boy, though presumably Carol was thinking of me, or maybe neither Billy nor me—she said, “Look at you. You make me sick. You’re like your father. He does whatever he wants with people. He’s a shit. There’s no love in this family.”
    Then she reeled away across the green. Billy and I watched Carol lurch around a corner and disappear behind Lunbeck Hall; then we turned, flustered and embarrassed, two men sharing a burden of humiliation, and walked together in the opposite direction. Rain was in our faces and our hands were buried in our pockets. Wind and water forced our eyes downward. Our shoes squished. Puddles were everywhere.
    It was Billy who spoke first. “I doubt if I could run like that if I’d just barfed.”
    This comment made me like young Valentine immensely. I told him, “You should have played Puck.”
    This was said not so much to avoid the subject of Carol, her outburst and her vomiting, as to assuage feelings of guilt and shame by making an offering of some kind, however small and meaningless. Billy replied, in the right spirit, “Demetrius rocks.”
    â€œI’m glad you feel that way, Billy. Do you have any more of that good, strong dope?” I asked, dripping.
    â€œNo, sir. Not on me.”
    â€œThat’s too bad.” For reasons I could not name, I went on: “When I was younger, I figured I’d grow up and get married and have children. But now years have gone by, and I’m not young.”
    â€œThat’s cool,” said Billy. And he said, “Anyway, you shouldn’t marry someone with a drinking problem.”
    â€œYou’re right about that.”
    â€œMr. Barry?”
    â€œReg.”
    â€œReg, do you think she knows about my father?”
    â€œKnows what? She wasn’t talking about your father. She thought I was your father, and you were our son that we never had, and you were growing up to be like me.”
    â€œThat’s crazy.”
    â€œYes,” I agreed. But it was true that I’d had the same notion as Carol. “See you tomorrow, Billy.”
    â€œLater, Reg.”
    Rehearsal, however, was not to be, not the next day, or the day after that, or the afternoon following. The storm worsened over the course of the first night, causing trees to fall on power lines, disabling phones and cutting off electricity to homes and college buildings. Classes were canceled. By morning of the second day, Tuesday, the thunder and lightning had stopped, though the sky remained gray, pouring heavy rain. The country around here is veined with creeks; these grew into deep, fast-moving rivers. The college, safe on high ground, operated minimally on generators. A party spirit prevailed. New couples would subsequently date their union to the week of the flash flood. The disaster occurred on Thursday, when natural dams in the nearby hills gave way, releasing torrents of water derived primarily from melted winter snow. The water crashed down into the valleys, washing away roads, trees, cars, and about twenty people. The National Guard and the International Red Cross landed helicopters on the Wm. T. Barry Gymnasium parking lot. Student volunteers collected cast-off clothing, canned food, blankets, etc. A short time later, it was learned that Harrison P. Mackay, a chemistry professor with forty years at the college, had been a flood casualty. The professor, not well known to me except as a red-faced personage wearing a bow tie, was found lodged in an embankment near the town of Chesterford. An emergency meeting of deans and the president convened; sadness was expressed and a few important memories were recalled. After the meeting, President Farnham took me aside and said,