Excerpt from The Fireflies
There is the sky. There is the night. There is the moon. When the moon is new there is the brilliance of the stars and the fog of the Milky Way. There is The Berkshires at sunset, adorned by the voices of crickets, frogs and owls, offering a taste of what it might be like to not be human. I like that idea. I like it a lot. I think if I were another species, I would be an owl soaring across a black tree line, lit by the moonlight. My eyes see in the dark, and my ears are attuned to the sounds of the forest.
In the evening, the forest is energetic. It speaks to me. It knows my language. The dragonfly and hummingbird hover above a field of goldenrod. Their wings create a breeze that push the scent of the meadow through my nostrils. I smell a mouse. I smell dinner. I swoop down low and fast and fill my belly. It's almost like riding a bike which, as a human with no actual wings, I take to daily. I swoop down long steep hills, my head tucked close to the handlebars, taking in the breath of life. It may not fill my stomach, but it fills my soul.
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I settled in the town of Lee, which was not nearly as quaint as Stockbridge, but had more and cheaper restaurants, and a home I could afford. I rented a house near a pond, and I got a job setting silverware and washing dishes at a fancy restaurant in Lenox. At first, I earned $10 an hour and one delicious meal a day. It was mindless work, which was exactly what I wanted and needed. Over time, I got lucky and eventually moved on to dishwasher, busboy, waiter, host, and manager. The owner of the restaurant was a woman named Gwen. She was fifty something, short, plump, and endowed with a sweet Southern lilt in her voice that charmed the pants off the wealthy customers who came to The Berkshires to walk the hills, swim the lakes, and catch a glimpse of the stars at night.
Belle liked to flirt with the men and rarely spoke to the women. Her eyes were pretty and her smile was warm, and for a fancy restaurant she made you feel as if you were in your mother’s kitchen for a home-cooked meal. She teased the men who dined at her restaurant, often sliding her arm through theirs, or squeezing their hands or patting them on the bottoms, (at least the bottoms she knew the best). “I’ve got the perfect table for you tonight. Right by the window. You hear that,” she would say as if she were about to pronounce your ascension to heaven. “It’s a great horned owl! And a bullfrog! A bull, just like you!” she’d say with a twinkle in her eye. And she would sit her men down, and she would treat them right and they would always come back for more because their wives never minded, not one bit. No one was threatened by a short, plump flirt.
Life in Lee was pretty good. I worked my job six days a week. I rode my bike nearly as much and walked the hills and swam the lakes just like the wealthy customers whom Belle effortlessly charmed. I was nearly at peace. The disaster was behind me, and my memories of Charlene were lovely and kind. I thought of her often and tried hard not to be angry or sad from her loss or my inability to understand the cruelty of the world. I focused on her warmth and strength. Despite the tragic end to her life, she was forever an advocate of the good in all of us.
Charlene enjoyed telling the truth and calling me out. As a former athlete, she knew how to be tough, but she was also fair. She also liked to swear, which could be sexy in the right kind of woman, which Charlene certainly was. A week after she found me on the sand and brought me to her apartment, when her desire to know more outweighed her natural sense of empathy, she said, “First, you are going to tell me what the fuck happened. Then you are going to tell me how the fuck I can help you.” I was still in shock. She had been kind, but kindness had its limits when information wasn’t forthcoming. She needed a new approach. She wanted data, my data. She was tender for sure, but formidable too. At 6 foot 2 she had a couple inches on me. When she leaned over me as I sat nearly comatose in one of the soft chairs in her apartment, she presented an intimidating threat to my new sense of security.
She grabbed my hands, locked her eyes on mine and began to squeeze. I could feel her determination, her physical strength, and her need to unravel my puzzle. Maybe I was just a little frightened or maybe the sudden shift in her demeanor was more than I could handle, but whatever it was, and for whatever the reason, I let the river flow.
I said very little during those first seven days. Thank you for the coffee. Where’s the bathroom? I like the color of your hair. The sky is very pretty tonight.
And from Charlene: It’s okay honey. The bathroom is over there. I also like my coffee black. Do you want to tell me now? Are you going to tell me now? Maybe you’ll tell me now. I made you some muffins.
I really didn’t want to tell her anything, but as the days passed and my head began to sort itself out, it seemed only fair for me to tell her what she wanted to know. So, when she pressured me to talk, it was easy to acquiesce.
Of course, she knew about the explosion. Who didn’t? It’s not every day a plane explodes in the skies above Newark, New Jersey. But she didn’t know about my life, my wives, my job, my love of sweet fresh corn and peaches so moist that each bite is just slightly orgasmic. And she certainly didn’t know about my epiphany, the one that hadn’t happened yet.
The explosion in Newark battered the sky with a cocktail of flesh and steel. The sight of it filled my eyes with terror and my nose with the scent of incineration. The flames screamed out, I am death. And when they did, I wanted to scream back but I couldn’t. I was the passive observer, numb and frightened. I was one of those people who let things happen when they know they should not, – a beggar falling off a curb – an elderly person crossing the road, stuck in traffic, confused and lost - and me, just walking, just moving along, oblivious to human misfortune. What could I do anyway? And would it even matter? My act of kindness in the enormity of the universe was less than negligible. So, I told her everything. How could I not? She was going to crush my hands and set my eyes on fire. Yet I knew she would be a comfort too. There was safety in her home and arms, and it was the least I could do for the kindness she brought me.
She was a good listener. When there was nothing more to say, she took me once again in her great big arms and held me close, whispering over and over again, “It’s okay baby. Everything will be fine.” And it was. And then she died and I left her dead body in Key West. Perhaps, it was unforgivable. I don’t know. I was sad and lonely and miserable at my core, but staying in Key West was not the answer. In The Berkshires, I rode my bike and washed the dishes of the wealthy diners in Lenox, where a mighty and unseen God would lead me finally to Julia. I’m an awful person; I know it. But hallelujah for the horrors that put us on our journey. I always had hope. I still had hope.
It was Thursday. The Berkshire clouds floated across the landscape like an endless wave of freshly picked cotton. The air was fresh and like all good children on Thursday, I was on my way. The sound of my wheels on the pavement, and the sound of the smooth revolution of the bicycle chain, and the wind against my face, and the sun against my back, and the freedom to think about trees, and mountains, and fucking, and pizza, and childhood, and parents, and life, and death, frogs and cattails, and anything I want or nothing at all, was as close to perfect as perfect might be.
I felt terrific. I was 30 miles into a 45-mile ride, and my legs were still strong, still pumping with ease and strength, even as I climbed one of the steeper and longer Berkshire hills, an 8% incline over a mile and a half. The challenge was going up, the reward was going down. I feared two things only on my bike: a blowout going downhill at 40 miles an hour and a driver in a parked car, opening the car door just as I am about to pass.
As always, I kept my eyes on the road, occasionally looking in the mirror for any traffic coming up behind me. There was none. Halfway down the hill, I moved from the side of the road to the middle of the lane. I checked the speedometer, 44 miles an hour. Fast. Fun. Scary. I lifted my torso up from its aerodynamic position, knowing that being upright would slow me down enough to shift my anxiety to joy. As I did, I checked the mirror again. Still nothing.
And that’s when she came from nowhere. Not a person, but a deer running across the road, not just in front of me but right into me as if it was her purpose to tell me to get the fuck out of the way. She plowed into me like a running back afraid to drop the ball. She lowered her head and struck me in the ribs, sending me and the bike soaring through the air. In my very brief flight, still clipped into the pedals while doing a 180-degree turn, I saw the deer regain its stride as if I was no more than a minor distraction on its way to a lovely lunch of leaves and berries.
I hit the ground hard and continued to spin, pain shooting through my hips and legs. My shorts tore open and as I slid across the road the black heartless pavement removed large pieces of flesh from my left shoulder and leg. Breathing was difficult. Seconds later I lay motionless on the ground. I was alive and conscious, and relieved that a car was not coming in the opposite direction since I had landed on the other side of the road. I moved my fingers, and I moved my toes. That was good. I opened my eyes which had instinctively closed when I hit the ground. Okay, it wasn’t a car – another good sign. When cars and cyclists collide, cars get scratched and cyclists die. But what the fuck!
I wasn’t on the ground for long, before I felt a hand on my back and a voice that said, “Holy shit! I saw the whole thing. Are you okay?” From my position on the ground, all I could see was an ankle and leather sandals not far from my face. Tattooed just above the ankle bone was a small red and yellow butterfly. It was still hard for me to breathe, but I said, “Yes, I think so.” The voice said, “Can you get up?” I was clipped into the bike and lying on my side made it hard for me to unclip. “You have to help me with my shoes,” I said. “I’m stuck.”
The voice got my shoe and my feet out of the clips, and I pulled myself across the ground and away from the bike. Slowly, I stood up. A few cars passed. A hawk floated in the distance before landing in a tree. I picked up the bike and looked at the woman that belonged to the voice. I couldn’t believe what I saw.
“That was nuts,” she said standing in front of me, another sort of rescuer, this time swathed in the fertile hills of The Berkshires. The hand that had been on my back now rested on her hip, and the space between her body and her arm created a perfect triangle for light to pass. I looked through the triangle, but all I could see was blue sky. I saw too that her face was covered with freckles, but the most striking feature of all was that which could not be seen. Her right arm was akimbo, but her left arm was missing. It was her, the girl from the International House of Tacos, and this time she wasn’t walking away.
—From The Fireflies, Serving House Books (May 2026)