The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy (digital ebook reader txt) 📕

“Thank you, Randy,” I said. “Thank you, Peter.”

“Should we do something?” Peter aimed the question at Dyson.

“It’s too late tonight,” I said.

Unpleased, Peter and Randy returned to the night.

I collapsed on the couch. “I feel so awful,” I said. “His skull? Jesus. We should’ve lied about how many people we had. We should’ve given fake names. He wasn’t checking I.D.”

Dyson sat on the armrest with his feet on the cushion. “We did what we had to do to get what we wanted,” he said, without inflection.

“I didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” I said.

“Do you really mean that?” he asked.

“Don’t treat me like some kind of sociopath.”

“Because people keep getting hurt around you,” he said.

I sat up, angled away from him. I had never wanted to hit anyone until then. “That’s the cruelest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“There’s nothing cruel about a statement of fact.”

“You act like I wanted Lucas Devry to die.”

“Is that what I said?”

“Of course that’s not what you said,” I told him. “But it is what you meant.”

“Don’t assume you know what I mean.”

“I have to, Dyson, because you never say what you mean. You’ve never said it. Since we were kids I’ve had to decode what you’re telling me. I’m sick of it.”

“Arguing won’t help either of us,” he said. He stood and walked to the ladder.

“And I’m tired of you bailing when things get difficult.”

“Good night,” he said, and climbed up to bed.

I stayed on the couch stewing and intermittently napping with Barney shelled on my lap. I couldn’t tell whether the distance I felt between me and Dyson was a new development or if it had always been there and was only now beginning to widen. I couldn’t tell whether I meant what I’d said: Had I spent years untangling a truer meaning from his words? Like most things, this was accurate and a lie. Yes, I often assumed some deeper meaning beneath Dyson’s words. But that didn’t mean I recognized what he wouldn’t tell me. Most interpretations are false, I tried to assure myself. Perhaps it was an objective fact: people were getting hurt around me. Even so, Dyson must’ve known how that fact, objective or not, would wound me. He couldn’t not. And that alone seemed proof of what I did not want to admit to myself. We were growing apart. We barely knew each other. Nonetheless, I was here, in his cabin, as if our friendship were fully intact.

In the morning, before running, Dyson delivered a speech blaming Art for Leon’s arrest. The men stood in a horseshoe formation facing us. I stood with my hands clasped behind my back, acutely aware of how deliberately Peter was focused on Dyson.

“Flemings,” said Dyson, “fire chief in that backwoods turd of a town, came here to embarrass us. He came here because he’s stuck in the past that you all came to escape. He’s trapped in a world that doesn’t value love or community. He’s envious of us. He’s unwilling to work on himself—he wants only to hurt other people because, for him, hurting people is how you make it in life. Art is the problem we’re trying to fix in ourselves.

“Don’t for a second think that means Leon was innocent. Leon kept an important secret from us. He didn’t disclose his man horde involvement. First thing I asked you men, before I booked your plane tickets: Have you ever been in a horde? Leon? He lied to me. He lied to all of us. He put us in danger.”

The men grunted. They nodded. They clapped. “Fuck Leon! Fuck Leon!” Hughie Mintz chanted, hand pumping overhead.

Dyson veered in the other direction. “But Leon wanted to get better. The right way, by learning to discard the person he’d been. He came here to do what you’re doing. For Flemings that wasn’t enough. He couldn’t stand that Leon, and men like you, cared enough to work on yourselves—he wanted to send us a message. Don’t think this wasn’t a threat. Don’t think it was not an attack on our way of living.” He stepped forward. We closed the circle around him.

“You’re probably thinking I’m paranoid,” he said. “But I’m no paranoiac. I know how this works. Sasha and I didn’t choose to do this on a whim. We built The Atmosphere as a refuge because men like you needed someplace safe to get better. We studied the rises and falls of groups like ours and you know what always preceded their falls? The r word.”

“Racism!” Gerry shouted, always the eager student.

“Regulations,” said Dyson. “The communities were regulated out of existence. Their progressive efforts were sabotaged by draconian regulations. Rajneeshpuram. The Peoples Temple. The Eleven Tribes of the Sun.”

“Weren’t those cults?” asked Dr. Mapplethorpe.

“They are now,” said Dyson. “Because outside forces launched vilification campaigns. Those groups had their problems, sure, but the problems you’re worried about, their cultish qualities, arose as necessary protections against outside attacks.”

“What are you suggesting?” asked Randy.

“I’m not suggesting anything,” Dyson said. “I’m insisting you all work harder and faster. I’m insisting you be honest with me. Because we’re about to enter Phase Two of your training. Reconciliation. And we can’t afford to lose anyone else to some dumb regulation or law.”

Dyson hadn’t mentioned Phase Two before then—he hadn’t mentioned any phases. As far as I knew, The Atmosphere was free of phases, built on a continuous incline instead of the ladders and steps that defined the problematic cults that preceded ours.

After his speech, I pulled him aside to ask how to prep for Phase Two. I spoke in a chummy and diplomatic tone to hide my anger. I was tired of feeling trapped behind a wall, with him and the men trading secrets on the other side.

“You don’t need to prepare anything.” He patted my shoulder. “Reconciliation is between me and the men.”

“I came here under the condition you would tell me everything.”

“Everyone thinks they want to know everything