“Did what?”
“We took you there and. .” She grimaced. “And they electrocuted you.”
“I’m sorry, you what?”
She took his hand. “Oh, Ray Ray, I didn’t think it would actually work! We were just there to — I don’t even know. But it did! It did work! I mean, it made you look how you are now, but it also gave you everything else. Your epilepsy. Your hair. Everything.” She was losing it again. “And it was all. . all my idea. It was all my fault. . Oh, my sweet. My sweet. I’m such a bad person. I’m wicked. I’m such a wicked, selfish person.”
He was trying to understand. He no longer cared if she was falling apart or not. This was his life. This was about him. “I still don’t get it,” he said. “They electrocuted me? How?”
Hearing the hardness in his tone, she took a gulp of air and tried to bring herself back. “Your father, he would be—”
“My father?”
“Kermin would’ve been able to explain it much better than I could, but they connected you to this machine, like a pulse generator. . This is what made me think of it, after all these years. And they zapped your skin. . I didn’t understand it all. But look, that’s the point—there was nothing wrong with you.”
“I was black.”
“You were perfect, honey. Kermin said this, he kept saying that you were just fine as you were, but I didn’t listen to him. I wasn’t listening to anyone. I told you, I got totally crazy with this idea that there was an answer that could make everything better, and then that answer became this thing that we did to you.” She paused. “I was terrified of being a failure. Of being a mother who couldn’t take care of you. Of anyone. And so I did this thing that was exactly the thing I didn’t want to do. That’s always been my problem: I figure out what’s exactly the worst thing to do, the thing that will ruin everything else, and then that’s what I do. It’s cowardice, is what it is. And after doing what I did to you. . for many years, I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. I hated myself so much, it hurt just to get up in the morning. But your father. . he always stuck by me. Even when I couldn’t bear living another day. He told me we still had you. And it was true. We had you. We have you. Oh.”
She reached out for him, but Radar got up, the clippings spilling across the floor. He went over to the bed and fell backwards onto the comforter. Breathing. Trying to let it settle. He stared up at the ceiling, recognizing the same pattern of cracks from his childhood. The cracks resembled a wounded whale. The whale had been wounded for many years. He could hear his mother sniffling on the floor below.
“So,” he said slowly. “So. . I was born black? Like actually black.”
“No,” she said. “You were born dark. Very dark. But that’s the point, honey: You’re weren’t black. You weren’t anything. You’re Radar! My Radar. You’ve always been my Radar. You’re perfect.”
He lay there, hearing her words drift over him. But instead of feeling a great and terrible anger, as he had first expected he might feel, he was filled with a terrific sense of lightness, as if his whole body were lifting off the ground.
“I’m black!” he whispered to the wounded whale.
“No,” Charlene cried. She came up to him on the bed. “You aren’t black.”
“I’m black!”
“You are not black, honey. That’s not what I meant to say. I meant to apologize. I meant to say that I’m sorry. . I’m so incredibly, incredibly sorry for what I did. I’ve managed to live, but only because I had to. I don’t think I can forgive myself. And. . and I don’t expect you to forgive me, either. But just know I love you. I’ve always loved you,” she said. “I can’t imagine my life without you.”
Radar saw himself lying in the bed, saw the two of them in this little dim room surrounded by a great, dark city. As if every moment in his life had merely been a prelude to this moment. All at once, the world felt right. Knowable.
“I just didn’t want it to be a secret anymore,” he heard her say. “It all seems so pointless now. What was I trying to do?”
“It’s not pointless, Mom,” he said. He sat up. His arms felt limber. He felt as if he could scale a mountain. He reached for her wet face and kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you.”
She looked bewildered. “You aren’t mad?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I feel like I was asleep. And now I’m awake.”
She studied him. “I could’ve so easily killed you,” she said. “Oh, I can’t even think about it.”
“I’m not dead.”
She nodded, biting her lip. “I know.”
“I’m alive.” He felt alive. More alive than he’d ever been before.
“I know.”
“Mom.”
He hugged her, and she fell into him. They were like this for some time, listening to the hollow click of the record player, the scents of lily around them, and then he broke their embrace.
“Listen, I’m going to go find him. I promise I’ll come back, okay?”
“I don’t think you’ll find him.”
“I will. I’ll be back in a couple of hours, I promise. Just stay here and don’t go anywhere.”
“You’ll be careful?” she said. “You want to take my car?”
As soon as she said it, she winced. Radar had never gotten a license because of his epilepsy.
“Thanks, but I’ll bike,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I forgot.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s probably easier to bike at this point anyway. They’ll never find me.”
He reached into his backpack. “Here. Here’s a flashlight. And I’ll light some more candles.”
“It’s okay. I can do it.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve managed this long. I can fend off the beasts for one more night.” She picked up the figurine and placed it on the bedside table, next to the sniffing bottles. “He’ll protect me.”
Radar gathered up the folder, aware again of the hole still looming in the floor.
“Can I keep this for a little bit?”
“Of course. It’s yours. I’ve been saving it for you.”
He went over and placed a hand on her shoulder. She took hold of it.
“Come back, please,” she said. “Don’t leave me alone.”
“Mom.”
“You promise you don’t hate me?” she whispered.
“I wouldn’t change a thing,” he said. “Not one thing.”
7
Out on Forest Street, Radar emerged into a darkness he did not recognize. He realized he had never seen his neighborhood in such a state, released from the angular confines of the streetlights. Above, he could see stars, stars that had never been there before. But no: they had always been there; they had just been hidden by a scrim of light. To see the stars, you must be able to first see the night.
“Hello,” he whispered heavenward. “Welcome to New Jersey.” And when he said this, he knew he was actually talking to himself.
To the east, a faint, withered glow. So. The city had already gotten its power back, while they were left to suffer in the dark. But what a dark it was. A dark beyond reproach. The kind of dark that was, is, and always will be.