The Truth Commission (21 page)

Willing the World Right Side Up

I finally clicked on the links Roberta Heller II sent and I felt the world flip upside down.

In Memory of Jackson Reid, Animator and Award-Winning Instructor

W
ith heavy hearts the CIAD community said good-bye to one of its most talented and beloved instructors on Thursday. Jackson Reid passed away March 24 in a tragic hiking accident.

He joined the CIAD faculty in 2010 when he was twenty-six years old. He'd established himself as an artist through his contributions to film, television, and graphic novels, including the blockbuster film
Zeus and the Small Ones
and his cult comic series,
Silt Gets in My Eyes
. He brought that same spirit of passion and innovation to his work with students.

His celebration of life was held at the Comica Galleria and was attended by his family, friends, students, and many of the most influential people in the animation and entertainment world.

Good-bye, J. R. You will be missed.

I stared at the article, which had been published in CIAD's online student newspaper.

He'd
died
. In a hiking accident. The article was accompanied by a photo of a man with a broad smile. His was the face I'd seen in my sister's drawings. He sat on the steps of a building, surrounded by students. They were all grinning. Except one.

I peered more closely.

My sister was in the third row. Her face was impassive in the shadow cast by a tall guy sitting in front of her.

It took me a minute or two to realize that I was barely breathing. I thought of the last drawing in her book. The one of the man falling.

The conclusion was too awful to consider. It was too awful to avoid. Had the teacher, this Jackson Reid person, jumped off a cliff because he felt bad about what he'd done to my sister? Has she
pushed him
?

Then I remembered Roberta's message.
I can't believe he did what she said he did.

I clicked on the second link.

It was a clip from a cable newscast. The announcer, a polished young Asian-American woman, spoke into the camera.

“Today students and faculty from the California Institute of Art and Design held a celebration of life for well-known artist Jackson Reid.

“Fans and industry leaders crowded CIAD's theatre to say good-bye to popular instructor and top animation artist Jackson Reid. Gordon Holbeck, head of Animation Nation, told the capacity crowd that Reid was one of the most talented animators in California. CIAD President Marjorie Philiponi spoke about Reid's commitment to teaching.

“Jackson Reid is survived by his husband, Todd Gursky, an agent at William Morris Endeavor; his sister, Lindy; and his parents.”

A wedding photo flashed on-screen of two men in suits with their arms around each other. Blue sky. White party tents. Flowers. One was Jackson Reid. The other, presumably, was his husband.

The announcer went on to show clips of Jackson Reid's work from film and television and screen shots of his books.

I could barely focus.
Husband?

I clicked the windows closed and shut my computer. Then I let myself slide onto the floor and sat with my back against my bed, willing the world to straighten.

Explain That to a Non-Pale

I'm aware it's not groundbreaking news, but allow me to badly paraphrase a little writer I like to call Leo Tolstoy: all happy families are the same (boring) and all unhappy families are unique (and best viewed from the safe distance of fiction).
111
I would give Mr. Tolstoy the assist and add that all deeply weird and secretive families are baffling to outsiders.

It's nearly impossible to explain to a non-Pale how it is that none of us ever said anything to Keira about the fact that her entire fortune rested on our backs, since she turned us into comic-book characters. We never objected, which is sort of the same as agreeing.

How do members of families survive any number of strange situations? Usually, someone in the family knows the truth, but doesn't say anything. Sometimes, everyone is aware that little Gina has a drug problem and can't be trusted not to sell all the home electronics, but they hope she'll just grow out of it. Sometimes Dad comes home from work and confesses he accidentally slept with a nineteen-year-old checkout girl, and then Mom and Dad tell the kids they're probably going to split up because of the affair. The kids don't know what an affair is, so Mom and Dad explain it. But then Dad gets a job in a new grocery store and never sees the girl again, and Mom acts hard done-by for the rest of her life, and life goes on. Families work around the fact that sometimes members hate each other and only stick around for the free food and shelter. Families are
too
adaptable, if you ask me.

That said, there was no way I could make myself forget what Keira had told me about her teacher. Why would a happily married
gay
man rape her? I know sexual assault is an act of violence rather than lust, but he didn't sound like a violent guy. What about the picture she'd drawn of him falling? I felt sick at the thought of what that might mean.

The last time I felt that awful was the morning five years ago when I saw the first panel that featured Diana's sister, Flounder. The illustration of the girl who was me but not me. I'd rushed to the bathroom mirror and stared at myself. And just as quickly looked away, because the Flounder's main character trait is that she stares all the time.
112
If you've read the Chronicles, images of Flounder staring, fish-eyed, in close-up will be etched into your mind. Reflected in her dull, wet gaze is all manner of unpleasant refracted reality. Were my eyes really that bulgy? Did they really look like they'd migrated from elsewhere on my head? Was my affect that flat? Could I seriously not protect myself from people who meant me harm, even if they were 100 percent overt about their terrible intentions?

In the first Chronicle, Diana describes Flounder as being “like the worst pet imaginable.” Adjectives used include “dim-witted,” “charmless,” and “barely house-trained.” Diana tells the reader that Flounder has no redeeming qualities of wit or talent or personality. She's just this annoyance that everyone else has to stop themselves from kicking at when she drags herself under-foot.

Worse, the secrets that I'd shared with my sister were all there in the first Chronicle. Betrayals by peers. Fears. The boy I thought was cute who didn't notice me. Small things. Precious things. They all looked ridiculous on the page. It was the worst betrayal possible. And no one said anything—not even my parents, who should have. But, as I said, it's hard to explain all this to a non-Pale.

I am lucky enough to live in a small island town and go to an art school where everyone is too busy doing their own art to worry about how I'm represented in someone else's. The odd student has tried to do some meta-type stuff: i.e., use me in their art, but it never went anywhere. My guess is that Dusk fixed their wagons.

But in the larger world, I will always have a taint of the Flounder about me. My parents and I will continue to be profiled against our will on fan sites. My relationship with the truth will always be, as Holden Caulfield might have put it, “touchy as hell.”
113

Who knows how long I would have stared at my computer screen, absorbed in these thoughts, if the phone hadn't jangled loudly.

“Is this Normandy?” I recognized Brian's voice.

“Yes.”

“You might want to check out the new row houses on Fitzwilliam. Near Prideaux. I think we found it. I talked to a guy.”

“Is this Brian?”

“Meet you there.”

The phone went dead.

I called Neil, who called Dusk. They pulled up twenty minutes later, and Dusk gave me a hug when she got out. She pushed the Mazda's passenger seat forward in order to get in the back.

“No, you don't need to do that,” I said lamely. “Your legs are longer.” But I got in the front seat anyway.

I felt like my voice was being projected from above, and that the light around us was being manufactured by a team of technicians to make it as unreal as possible.

“You okay?” asked Neil, and his voice seemed to be making its way across a great distance.

“Go to Fitzwilliam. Near Prideaux,” I said.

The sense of manufactured reality persisted until we turned onto Fitzwilliam and I saw it: a row of smart, two-story town houses with a high-end contemporary feel, thanks to red corrugated-tin siding and large windows and clean lines.

I knew instinctively we were in the right place. The other buildings on the short block were older heritage homes, Craftsman-style bungalows, and the like. My sister's taste for old things begins and ends with vehicles and barns and bikes. She's never been a big fan of old houses.

Neil sensed it, too. He slowed down and pulled over.

“I'll go check for her car,” said Dusk.

I sat rigid in the front seat and leaned forward to let her out.

“It's okay,” said Neil, taking my hand.

We watched Dusk trot down the sidewalk and behind the six connected houses, where the off-street parking was located. She was back almost immediately.

“She's here. At least, her car is.”

Silence for a long beat.

“Norm? What do you want to do?” asked Neil.

Oceanic noises roared in my ears.

My friends waited.

Then things snapped into focus, the roaring stopped, and I came back to myself.

“We'll watch until she leaves. Then we'll go inside and see what she's been up to.”

Each of My Nerves Is Having Its Own Nervous Breakdown

We waited until 1:00 in the morning. Then Neil's dad and Dusk's parents insisted they get home. Aimee Danes showed up in her BMW and I got in. Brian Forbes was in the backseat.

He handed forward a bag of sour Jujubes without a word.

Aimee Danes and Brian Forbes were good company. They did a little light bantering, but didn't get annoying or pushy. Clearly, they were each used to pulling all-nighters.

“This stressing you out?” Aimee asked.

I shrugged. “Numb” was the best description for how I felt.

“Each of my nerves is having its own nervous breakdown,” said Brian. “But that's standard.”

Dusk came back a couple of hours before dawn.
114
Neil sat beside her. We'd texted throughout the night, so I knew they'd been awake almost as long as us, but they looked much better than I felt. I was nearly cross-eyed with exhaustion.

Dusk was standing at the driver's-side door trying to convince me to go home and sleep for a few hours when the noise of a car starting in the parking lot made us all turn to look.

My sister's Crown Vic makes a distinctive growling sound.

“That's her,” I whispered.

Dusk crouched down out of sight.

I put my hood up and stared through slitted eyes at the white Crown Victoria as it moved slowly out of the back parking lot along the side of the building. Keira's curly head was barely visible over the steering wheel.

All this effort for someone who only weighs a hundred pounds,
I thought nonsensically.

I knew Keira wouldn't recognize my friends' cars. I doubted she'd recognize their faces, either, especially if she'd been up all night writing and drawing.

When the car's taillights had disappeared around the corner, Dusk stood. Outside, the veil of night was fading almost imperceptibly.

“So?” she said.

“I'm going to check it out,” I told them.

Number Six

Each of the units had a front entrance with a tiny street-level patio in front, and each had a back exit. The trick was to figure out which of the six row houses was my sister's. Lights had shone behind the blinds in three of the units during the night.

I walked past the tiny patios and assessed the furnishings and décor. One had neatly trimmed boxwoods in matching fake antique pots. One had a bentwood loveseat and prettily faded cushions. A plaque hung on Number Three's front door. It read:
I
LOVE
MY
BOSTON
TERRIER
. Number Four had a small wrought-iron table set out front with an ashtray on it. Number Five, which had lights visible behind the blinds, had a patio empty of decoration and furniture. That one was a possibility. Number Six, whose lights were also on, had nothing on the little patio, but there was a strange shape beside the front door.

I looked around to make sure no one was watching, opened the latch to Number Six's front gate, and let myself in. The knee-height object was a small statue of a semi-naked woman with branching horns like bony wings coming out of her head. Her hair looked like snakes and she was scaly and also beautiful.

I tried to move her but couldn't. She was too heavy.

This was my sister's unit.

It was 5:30 a.m. and I was about to do my first-ever break and enter.

I hurried back to the street, and my friends poured out of their cars.

“We have to get in,” I said.

While the rest of us kept watch, Brian examined the lock.

“I hope there's no alarm,” I said.

“Me too,” he muttered. “That would do wonders for my relationship with my probation officer.” He took a thin piece of metal from his pocket and got to work. I could hear our collective breathing fall into a rhythm.

After the door clicked open, he stood back to let me do the honors.

I grasped the handle and tried to collect myself.

“This is freaking me out,” said Dusk.

She wasn't alone. The thought that my closet-dwelling sister had a second existence in a fancy new town house made a certain amount of sense. After all, she
was
into alternate universes.

“What if we walk right in on some strange family?” asked Neil.

“We'll tell them we're doing a school project,” said Aimee blithely. “Art kids get up to the damnedest things.”

“Like breaking into houses,” said Neil.

“How'd you learn to do this?” I asked Brian, who'd picked the lock in under three minutes.

“Metal shop. I was doing these metal installations. Got interested in locking mechanisms. My final project was going to be an exploded-view lock and directions for picking it. I might still do that. If I'm not in jail for breaking into this place.”

Aimee punched him lightly in the shoulder.

I blew out a long breath and turned the handle.

No alarm sounded.

“Are we in the right place?” asked Neil.

I looked around. There was nothing in the main room. No furniture. No rugs. It was bone white and completely empty.

We were in the right place.