distorted, as if I were looking at her through a pool of water. Her voice was
high in pitch, cheerful. It told me to imagine myself, whole and healthy,
protected by a white bubble. Inside the bubble I was to place all the objects I
loved, all the colors that made me feel at peace. I envisioned the bubble; I
imagined myself at its center, able to stand, to run. Behind me was a Mormon
temple, and Kamikaze, Luke’s old goat, long dead. A green glow lighted
everything.
“Imagine the bubble for a few hours every day,” she said, “and you will
heal.” She patted my arm and I heard the door close behind her.
I imagined the bubble every morning, afternoon and night, but my neck
remained immobile. Slowly, over the course of a month, I got used to the
headaches. I learned how to stand, then how to walk. I used my eyes to stay
upright; if I closed them even for a moment, the world would shift and I
would fall. I went back to work—to Randy’s and occasionally to the
junkyard. And every night I fell asleep imagining that green bubble.
During the month I was in bed I heard another voice. I remembered it but it
was no longer familiar to me. It had been six years since that impish laugh
had echoed down the hall.
It belonged to my brother Shawn, who’d quarreled with my father at
seventeen and run off to work odd jobs, mostly trucking and welding. He’d
come home because Dad had asked for his help. From my bed, I’d heard
Shawn say that he would only stay until Dad could put together a real crew.
This was just a favor, he said, until Dad could get back on his feet.
It was odd finding him in the house, this brother who was nearly a stranger
to me. People in town seemed to know him better than I did. I’d heard rumors
about him at Worm Creek. People said he was trouble, a bully, a bad egg, that
he was always hunting or being hunted by hooligans from Utah or even
further afield. People said he carried a gun, either concealed on his body or
strapped to his big black motorcycle. Once someone said that Shawn wasn’t
really bad, that he only got into brawls because he had a reputation for being
unbeatable—for knowing all there was to know about martial arts, for
fighting like a man who feels no pain—so every strung-out wannabe in the
valley thought he could make a name for himself by besting him. It wasn’t
Shawn’s fault, really. As I listened to these rumors, he came alive in my mind
as more legend than flesh.