Los Angeles #2
But then the demon trolls themselves attacked.
Most of the preplanned pyrotechnics were used: fire spurting out of the ground, bolts of lightning shooting across the sky.
This battle was tougher, longer (too long, Lilly thought), and by the end of it the heroes were exhausted, not yet victorious.
There was a brief pause. Bodies of the enemy littered the ground.
Kip turned toward Prion, breathing heavily but smiling.
He was opening his mouth to deliver some witty banter when a long claw burst out of the ground and impaled him.
Someone in the audience shrieked. Kip fell over, his head splitting against a rock. He died instantly.
The rest of the film was perfunctory. Kip’s death rallied the Council, who defeated the Final Big Monsters and returned, triumphant, to the valley they protected.
There was a brief stinger setting up future installments right as the film ended—a hooded figure, who Lilly knew was supposed to be the Necromancer, walking among the corpses of the demon trolls.
And then the credits rolled and the audience clapped.
Glenn and Lilly sat still until the lights went up.
“I thought you were very good,” Lilly said to him.
Glenn nodded and did not respond. Glenn had the vacant expression he held whenever he was thinking very hard. It was the same expression he had when thinking about nothing at all.
Everyone was buzzing as they walked out of the theater, snippets of “How interesting!” and “So engaging!” and “Enchanting!” No one mentioned that they had seen a man die onscreen.
Jules and Clint stood in the lobby mobbed by well-wishers, people trying to get to the Great Men behind the production.
“You wanna skip the after-party?” Glenn asked Lilly, looking blankly at the crowd. “Just head back to the hotel?”
“You should still go,” Lilly said. “I might go see my parents.”
“Aren’t we going to see them tomorrow?”
“No, I think I want to go tonight.”
“Are you … ready for them?”
“Yes. Go on. Call a cab for Jules. He looks like he needs one.” Glenn nodded but didn’t speak. “Are you all right?” Lilly asked. “Or would you rather come with me?”
“No, no,” Glenn said. He shook his head, and the long gaze he’d held since coming out of the theater vanished. “No, go see them. I’ll look after Jules and make sure he doesn’t drink too much at the party.”
Glenn laughed softly, and Lilly squeezed his hand. It was truly impossible to tell if he was upset or not.
Lilly didn’t want to take a cab and risk talking to a stranger, so she spent the next hour hopping on and off buses until she made her way out to Pasadena. She walked the last few blocks to the house with the yellow door, a screen still missing from the first-floor window, and knocked.
Her mother said nothing at first when she opened the door. Lilly realized her mother and Glenn shared the same blank expression.
“I thought you were coming tomorrow?”
Lilly stretched open her arms. “Surprise!”
“I don’t have any food for you.”
“I already ate.”
There was a long pause. “Well, come in I guess.”
Lilly shuffled into the house. It still smelled of stale bread and burnt eggs. The kitchen had several empty boxes of takeout scattered across the counter, and the table was piled with unread mail, mostly coupons and flyers. A mess.
Her mother rubbed her hands and looked her over. “You should have called. I’m not ready.”
“Ready for what, Mom? I just wanted to see you.”
“Well, we’re watching the news now. You can visit but your father can’t hear if you talk.”
“I’ll sit then.”
They walked past the kitchen and into the family room. Lilly’s father was sitting on a recliner, the television turned to whatever right-wing pundit was their current favorite. The volume was deafeningly loud. An angry man on the TV complained about liberals burning down cities.
Lilly and her mother sat down on the couch. Her father looked very thin. “You saw the postman?” he asked instead of a hello. “Did you get the mail?”
“Um, no,” Lilly said. “I just took the bus here.”
“You need to get the mail before they steal it.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant. Lilly tapped her fingers on the edge of the couch.
Her father didn’t move his eyes away from the screen.
Her mother rubbed her arms but kept looking forward.
The pundit played a clip of a congressman speaking on the House floor, then a commercial for hearing aids began. Lilly leaned forward.
“Hiya, Dad. How’ve you been?”
“Where’s my soup?”
“Did you want soup? I was just—”
“Lisa, I asked for my soup!”
“I’m not Mom, I’m Lilly.”
“This is ridiculous!” He slammed his hand down on the side table. Lilly looked over at her mother, who turned away back to the kitchen. Lilly followed.
“I’m sorry, Lilly,” her mom said, holding back tears, “but this is the way he is. It’s worse at night, the doctors say—”
“The doctors? Mom, what’s wrong?”
“It’s a form of dementia. Crosfolt, uh, Jacob—”
“Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease?”
“Yes, that’s it. It progresses very quickly, the doctor said. There’s nothing you can do about it, just try to make it easy on him. Watching the news makes him less agitated.”
“That was less agitated? Jesus, Mom, when were you going to tell me?”
“I wanted to tell you in person, so I was waiting until tomorrow.”
“You should have called me.”
“Why? What would you have done? There’s nothing to do.”
“I’m a neuroscientist!”
“The doctor says there’s nothing to do.”
Lilly knew that was right. Creutzfeldt–Jakob moved fast and there was no way to stop it. Her father would be dead in a year.
She walked back into the living room and sat near him. He was watching the screen, unaware that Lilly was even beside him. She reached out and laid her hand on his arm.
“Hey, Dad. It’s Lilly. I wanted to stop by and say hello.”
He turned to her and smiled. “How’s school, honey? You did your English homework already?”
“Yes, I finished it. School’s good, Dad. It’s real good.”
“Don’t forget to tell your mother to get the mail. The Mexicans will steal it.”
Lilly sighed. Her father’s brain, what was left of it, was still his, and the racism and aggressive ignorance was not, she had to admit, anything new.
But the idea that whatever was left of her father, the remaining and functioning synapses, was literally dissolving in front of her made Lilly surprisingly sad.
It wasn’t as if her parents ever had particularly deep or interesting thoughts about the world, but at least she could always imagine that her father had a meaningful inner life she just didn’t have access to.
“He talks about Iraq a lot,” her mother said when they were back in the kitchen. “His own childhood is confused. Sometimes he thinks I’m his mother. But he’ll start talking about the war and that’s still clear.”
“The most important things go last,” Lilly said.
“Is that true?”
“No,” Lilly said. “But it sounds nice. I think I dreamed about this.”
“About your father?”
“Yes. He was yelling about something.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in that kind of thing?”
“I don’t.”
“Will you still come tomorrow?” her mother asked.
“Well, I—”
“Because I’d rather not cook anything, you know, if you’re not coming.”
“Do you want me to come?”
“Doesn’t matter to me either way. I’d just rather not cook.”
“I won’t come then.”
“All right.”
“I fly back the day after next. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Keep me in the loop about Dad?”
“There won’t be a funeral. He never wanted one.”
“Mom, please. Just keep me informed.”
“I’m just saying. We’re not even going to sit shiva. He doesn’t want any of it. Don’t worry about flying back when it happens.”
“Of course I’m going to be here.” Lilly said this and knew it was a lie.
She went to say goodbye to her father, but he was still focused on the television. The pundit was on a rant again and he had leaned forward in his chair to listen closer. She hugged him and he didn’t move.
“I’m going to get the mail now, Dad.”
“I said I wanted soup.”
“I’ll get that, too.”
Lilly’s father didn’t say anything else.
As she walked to the bus stop, Lilly texted Glenn.
Well, I saw them.
It took several minutes for Glenn to text her back with a picture of him and Jules at the after-party, smiling with their arms wrapped around each other. The picture was a selfie, and off-center. They were drunk.
Come join us!
She wouldn’t tell him about her dad. Or maybe she would. He would feel bad, and that would make Lilly feel a little better. She let her fingers hover over her phone for a long time before she wrote back.
I see you’re finding ways to forget about Kip.
Glenn’s next text came back quickly. What the fuck, Lilly. Why would you say that? Do you even know that I’m …
She stopped reading, but Glenn was still texting out angry, half-coherent messages when Lilly finally turned her phone off.
She thought back to a pathology class she took in graduate school, about diseases of the brain, and thought about what it felt like to be the person whose mind was warping and shutting down.
But she knew that after a certain point it didn’t feel like anything, that the disease itself took away your ability to be aware, to even know that you were sick, or alive.
An image of Kip falling and hitting the rock flashed before her, and she began to cry.
She sat at the bus stop and waited for nearly an hour, with nothing to look at except the stars, barely visible through the Los Angeles haze.