The Smaller Evil Read online

  Arman took a sip of ice water. Saw the old man was still staring at him.

  “How’s the, uh, food?” he asked.

  “You know, I think I recognize you,” the old man said.

  “You do?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Well, I’ve been here since yesterday,” Arman said. “So I guess that makes sense.”

  “No, that’s not it. I know you from somewhere else.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  The old man scrunched up his face. “Or maybe you just look like someone.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  “Where are you from anyway?”

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to ask me that.”

  “I just want to figure out where I know you from, kid. I don’t need your autobiography.”

  “I’m from Santa Cruz,” Arman said quickly. “You?”

  “Oakland. Sat on the bench as a superior court judge there for twenty-five years.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “It is. It’s actually how I first met Beauregard.”

  “You met him at the courthouse?”

  “Yup.”

  “So he was a judge?”

  “Definitely not. I wasn’t even a judge back then. But when I met him, he was only eighteen.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know, I’m sure I recognize you.”

  Arman squirmed under the weight of the old man’s gaze. He tried changing the subject by tipping his head toward the group on the other side of the table. Their discussion had grown even more heated, the debate having moved on from moral relativism to group dynamics and someone or something called a Bion.

  “So what’s that all about?” Arman asked.

  “Bunch of idiots,” muttered the old man.

  “Yeah?”

  “Absolutely. They should know better. Goddamn waste of time, arguing over all that philosophical crap. There’s no point debating the nature of existence in a place like this. None.”

  “There’s not?”

  “Oh no. It’s a sign of stagnation. That’s what Wilfred Bion really said. Most people don’t want to change. No matter what they say or the more they say it. I taught Beau that a long time ago. That if you aren’t moving forward, you’re falling toward irrelevancy. And talking’s not moving, you know.”

  “But Beau wants to move forward?”

  “Indeed. He gets pushback, though, from people like these fools, people who don’t have his vision. They fear irrelevancy, but they want to be comfortable, so they tell themselves they’re doing something important by doing nothing. Pure arrogance. Frighteningly so.”

  “Frightening?”

  The old man nodded. Leaned closer. “Mark my words, son, when arrogance and fear are used to cover self-deception, that’s the most dangerous sort of lie there is.”

  • • •

  Dr. Gary walked over to Arman as the meal ended. Dishes were being cleared and people were starting to leave.

  “Didn’t think I’d see you here,” he said, putting his hands on the back of Arman’s chair. The old man beside Arman gave the doctor a startled look, then got up. Left without saying a word.

  Arman stared after him. Wished he could leave, too. Dr. Gary reminded Arman of teachers he’d had back in elementary school, the ones who demanded nothing of him in terms of education or learning; only that he listen to their boring personal stories and not ask questions they didn’t want to answer. Not to mention, Arman hated the way it felt to have someone looming over him. Like he was a mouse stuck between a cat’s paws.

  “I didn’t want to miss anything,” he said finally.

  “Can I take that to mean you’re still interested in us?” Dr. Gary asked. “In the things we have to teach?”

  “I’ve always been interested. That’s why I came here in the first place.”

  “But you also said you tried to leave this morning.”

  Arman twisted his neck to look up at him. “So you believe me now? About what happened?”

  Dr. Gary squeezed his shoulder, then came around to sit in the chair the old man had vacated. “I only believe in what I have evidence of, Arman. That’s the reason my faith points inward these days, much to the disappointment of my Baptist mother. But it’s also why I believe you when you say you wanted to leave.”

  Um, was that sentiment meant to be reassuring? Arman thought it was about the most patronizing thing he’d heard in a while. Like telling a kid you believed he wanted to win a race when he’d come in dead last. Like he didn’t already know he was a loser.

  “I was scared,” he said after a moment. “That’s why I left. I wanted to be here, but I didn’t think I deserved to be.”

  “And now?”

  Arman racked his brain for the most noncommittal answer. “Now I want to try. I want to get better.”

  The doctor smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. Tell me, did you sleep? Your brain can’t heal without it.”

  “A little bit.”

  “How do you feel now?”

  “I still have a headache. And my stomach kind of hurts. I can’t eat.”

  “Your stomach?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, here.” Dr. Gary produced a bottle of pills from a leather bag he carried. “Take two more of these painkillers, and I’ll go get you some ginger tea and plain toast from the kitchen. That’ll help your stomach, okay?”

  “Okay.” Arman fumbled with the lid for a moment, shook the pills out, then went to hand the bottle back.

  “Keep it,” Dr. Gary said. “That way you can take them as needed.”

  Arman shrugged and slid the bottle into his shirt pocket. He pointed at the dwindling crowd as they trickled from the dining room to go who knew where. “Tonight’s not another long hike in the dark is it?”

  “Long? No. Tonight’s Vespers.”

  “What’s Vespers?”

  “Oh, I think you’ll like it.”

  “Do I have to go?”

  “You said you didn’t want to miss anything.”

  That felt less like an answer and more like a threat.

  “When’s Containment?” he asked impulsively.

  Dr. Gary cocked his head. “Where did you hear about Containment? Did Virgil say something?”

  Arman hedged. “I think someone mentioned it at dinner.”

  “I bet they did. Well, focus on tonight. You understand? When you’re done with your tea, just walk up to the meadow. You’ll find us. We start in ten minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  “One more thing, Arman,” Dr. Gary said.

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t be late.”

  22

  BY THE TIME ARMAN DRAINED the last of his tea, he was starting to feel better. His stomach calmed, and the pulse of pain inside his skull eased to a faint throbbing. He was alone in the dining hall by this point, so he picked up his empty mug and plate full of crumbs. Walked back toward the kitchen and slowly opened the swinging door.

  He poked his head in. Much to his disappointment, the cook wasn’t there. Instead he found the same workers from earlier still buzzing around. They were washing dishes, wiping down counters.

  “Where should I put these?” he asked, holding up the mug and plate.

  One of the workers pointed at the counter. Arman set the items down.

  And left.

  • • •

  Arriving in the meadow, where Dr. Gary had told him to go, Arman stared in disbelief. The entire field had been transformed. In the very center stood a giant white tent. Gauzy and ethereal, with long strands of twinkling amber globes lining the structure both inside and out, there was a warmth to the sight that Arman found appealing. Nostalgic with a hint of formality. It reminded him of a wedding. Or a
n inauguration.

  Or some other sort of ceremony.

  He walked to the tent’s entrance. The flaps were pulled back and knotted with ivy. Baskets of wildflowers and loose petals lined the dirt path leading inward and it was as if he were meant to imagine the tent had sprouted from the earth, wholly organic. Music poured from beneath the looming canopy, something frenetic and dissonant yet utterly enthralling. It plucked his nerves and filled Arman with the most dire sense of longing.

  “What are you waiting for?” a voice asked.

  Arman turned his head. The dark-haired woman stood in the shadows, just a few feet away, and she watched him, arms folded. There were small lines etched around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. As if the mere sight of him was making her crack.

  “I’m not waiting for anything,” he replied.

  “Aren’t you, though?” She took a step toward him. “You don’t fool me, Arman.”

  “I don’t?”

  “I know how you got here. I know what you did. But you’re not going to get what you came for.”

  “What did I come here for?”

  She kept her steely gaze on him. “Everyone has to earn what they’ve been given. It’s one of our basic principles.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he said, before ducking into the tent and scooting away from her scowling face.

  Inside, people were seated on creaking rows of wood benches, all facing the back wall. That was where an empty lectern stood, flanked by more baskets of flowers and a burning candelabra. Everything smelled strongly of incense.

  Everything felt gravely important.

  Normally, walking through a crowded space and having to find a spot to insert himself was the type of activity that made Arman’s hands sweat and his throat close up. But the pills he’d taken dulled his anxiety to the point where he was able to stroll the tent, searching for an empty seat without wanting to bolt. It was as if his tendency to overthink had been tied up and shoved away in some remote part of his brain; it was still there, but it wasn’t controlling him. Not completely.

  After a moment, Arman spied Kira’s long braids on the end of a bench about two-thirds of the way toward the back and made his way over.

  “Hey,” he said softly, squeezing past people to settle beside her. His body tingled at their closeness, at the way his arm brushed against hers.

  “Oh, hey,” she said. Then she wrinkled her nose: “You smell funny.”

  “What do I smell like?”

  “Like booze,” she said. “Or barf.”

  At this Arman laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “Thank you. That’s very flattering.”

  “What happened to your head?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “You haven’t seen Dale around, have you?”

  “Not since before dinner.”

  Kira glanced over her shoulder. Chewed a fingernail. “He’d better not be late.”

  Arman shrugged. In his mind, that train had already left the station; the tent’s flaps were being unknotted—the lights dimmed, the music turned down. Whatever was going to happen was happening now.

  But then there he was.

  Dale poked his head through the tent’s entrance and tried walking in, only he was stopped by someone. Arman strained to look. Was it that Brian guy, the one who’d been a dick to him earlier? He couldn’t tell, but whoever it was gave Dale a hard time. His face went all red and he raised his voice. Then the person talking to him put a hand on his chest. Pushed him out of the tent.

  Arman stared at Kira. “What was that all about?”

  “Shh!” she said.

  “Well, aren’t you going to help him?”

  She pinched his arm. “Shut it, already. Otherwise that bitch is going to yell at us.”

  What bitch? The dark-haired woman? Arman snapped around to face forward and sat up straight. He definitely didn’t want to deal with her.

  But when he looked, it was Mari who’d stepped up to the lectern.

  SO LONG TO ANSWER.

  The girl is the first to finish answering your questionnaire. She walks over and hands it to you with an air of accomplishment. A breathless pause. She’s completed a task for you, and she wants you to tell her that she’s good enough.

  You will, of course. But that’s not to say you always do. You have standards and you make it a point to stick to them. No one who’s too pushy, too sappy, too righteous, too horny. These are qualities you don’t like.

  These are people you can’t sway.

  The girl sits across from you. She’s eager because she’s sure of herself. But you take your time. You look carefully at her answers. This is in part for show, but it’s also because you’re interested. What she’s written down is what she wants you to know.

  You find yourself wanting to listen.

  By the answers she’s marked, she’s telling you a lot of things, all at once: that she can’t sleep, she can’t eat, that she’s lost purpose in life. And you know that what she’s really saying is “I’m depressed,” and “I want help.”

  But there are others things she’s saying. There are deeper truths that you hear.

  Truths like:

  “I’m tired.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “I want you to nourish me.”

  And this, this, is what you’ve been waiting for. These are the needs you knew she had.

  These are the truths you so long to answer.

  23

  “GOOD EVENING,” MARI SAID TO the crowd.

  “Good evening,” everyone said back.

  “I hope you’re all proud of the work you did today. I know it wasn’t easy, but change never is. It’s why only the strong ever do it. It’s why we’re proud of you, too.”

  Arman shifted in his seat. He hadn’t done any of the work she was talking about. In fact, he’d purposely tried to run away so that he wouldn’t have to do it, a fact that didn’t make him feel very strong or proud.

  “Tonight,” Mari continued, “is Vespers, which is the time we’ll take to pause and reflect on one of the most powerful emotions in human experience. We’re going to explore the ways in which it can impact our sense of the world, our sense of others, and of ourselves, as well as the ways we can control it, rather than being controlled. Do you understand?”

  Everyone nodded. Arman included.

  “Good. But before we begin, I want you to take a look at who’s sitting next to you.”

  Kira looked at Arman, and Arman looked at her.

  “Now ask yourself, did you know this person from before you came here? Do they know anything about your Before Life and the person you were then? If so, I’d like for you to stand up and switch seats.” Mari paused. “Do it. Right now. The strongest bonds are the ones we build together.”

  Arman gazed at Kira with a hypnotic dreaminess. What did he really know about her? He knew she was hot in ways that could make him feel uncomfortable. That she was smart in ways that could make him feel hopeless. That her father not wanting her to date Dale had been enough to drive her here, but that she must care for her father enough that his opinion mattered to her in the first place. That was it.

  He didn’t know much about her at all.

  But Kira hopped up to move. Before Arman had a chance to ask her to stay. He didn’t mind, though. He watched her go the way a stone might watch the rain come down, which was to say with a deep sense of fatalism.

  A few other people shifted around as well. And Dale had returned. Arman spotted him sitting hunched in the very last row with a dark expression on his face. Arman couldn’t imagine what the penalty was for being late, but it didn’t look good.

  When the moving was done, Mari picked the microphone back up. Cleared her throat.

  “Close your eyes,” she told them.

  • • •

 
“Now I want you to think back to a time in your life, anytime, it could be recent, it could be from your childhood, whatever comes to mind. But I want you to think of a time when you felt ashamed. Not embarrassed. Or self-conscious. Or regretful. But ashamed. That’s the emotion you need to tap into right now. And remember, we talked about this earlier, shame comes from the outside. From others. That’s what makes it toxic. Insidiously so. It’s designed to trick you, to suppress your natural process of self-evaluation. The sole purpose of shame is to make you submit to the will of others.

  “Once you have your moment, I want you to go over every detail of this event. Replay it in your mind’s eye, like you’re watching a movie. Try to remember everything that was happening at the time. Use all your senses. Taste. Smell. Touch. And while you’re doing this, I want you to pinpoint the precise moment you felt the shame. I want you to remember exactly what it was you were doing and whose judgment you were internalizing.”

  Arman took a deep breath. The moment that sprang to his mind was surprising only in that he didn’t reject it outright and choose something easier. But Arman did what he was instructed to.

  He remembered.

  Everything.

  He was fourteen when it happened. He’d been sent to stay with his father and his father’s parents up in Marin for the entire week of Thanksgiving break. Even after he’d asked not to go. Even after he’d begged. But his mother made such a stink, Arman suspected his grandparents had paid her off. Or else she’d paid them.

  And it wasn’t that he didn’t like his grandparents. The elder Dukoffs were nice enough, in the way nice strangers could be. They sent him cards for his birthday and sometimes money. But Arman wasn’t going for them. He was going for his father, who was fresh out of prison on drug charges. And he wasn’t going because his dad wanted to see him or anything but because his grandparents thought Arman could fix his father.

  He couldn’t, of course. But he was forced to endure hours alone with his dad, who skipped out on his NA meetings every day to sit in the garden of his parents’ enormous hillside house and chain-smoke.