HE WILL BE THERE
A dark, twisted tale that begins when the narrator decides to pay a visit to his brother. On the way to his car, down the street, he spots a house on fire, with long flames leaning out of scorched, broken windows. Although the smoky air makes his eyes water—which, in turn, makes the sky look the color of clotted blood—he gives no thought to his neighbors, who might have been severely injured or burned alive in the blaze. We should keep the narrator’s reaction in mind as we continue reading, especially in the final section of this Michael Cisco story.
“My brother Lewis lived alone in a slovenly apartment, which was incongruously small for the monumentally immense building that housed it. I had helped him move his few things there after he was released from the hospital, but for all that, his apartment resembled a hospital room, smelled like a hospital room, and the building looked as if it might have been a hospital in the past.”
Vintage Michael Cisco: so many telling details in so few words. To live as a slob in such a matchbox apartment—one resembling a hospital room, complete with its hospital smell—suggests that Lewis spent time in a psychiatric facility. This is quickly confirmed, in an understated way, when the narrator observes that his brother is pale and lean and looks like a hazy photograph, like “an expatriate scoured clean and blank by very foreign places.”
It isn’t a stretch to imagine Lewis as a U.S. Army veteran, traumatized in a warzone in Iraq or Afghanistan, then hospitalized on his return home—and later released not because he was healthy, but because the Army said his treatment time was up. We would do well to remember a seldom publicized fact: seventeen U.S. veterans commit suicide every single day.
Since Lewis was reading Eusebius the last time he visited, the narrator asks him about it. Facing the window, his back to his brother, Lewis informs him that his religious practices have changed. When the narrator inquires what he means, Lewis replies in a voice that “elbowed its way in between the random noises the other apartments made.” Such strain suggests that speech for Lewis has become not so much a natural act as a violent intrusion. He then states, “I've discovered a series of hand gestures,” begins an elaborate demonstration, and concludes by saying, “If you sat with them long enough, everything else would follow—come to you, right at your kitchen table.”
An observant brother with a sense of responsibility and a degree of compassion would take all this as an alarm bell, symptomatic of a deep psychological fracture requiring immediate help. But no—the narrator’s response is bizarre in the extreme: he opens his mouth, positions his arms like a chicken, and begins to wail. Lewis watches him with rapt, shocked attention. When he finally stops, he tells Lewis about hearing a strange sound during his last visit to the family graveyard plot. His wailing, he explains, reproduced that sound.
The oddness continues. The narrator hands Lewis a copy of The King in Yellow and asks him to read it. He admits to us (but not to Lewis) that this is the real reason for his visit today. While the narrator putters in the kitchen, Lewis reads, and finally says, “I think this is a little beyond me, Bill.”
So we now know the narrator’s name is Bill. Anyway, Bill tells us that he and Lewis decide to go to the city together. When they’re down on the subway platform, Lewis buys a lighter and some hard lemon candy. A lighter? Why would Lewis purchase a cigarette lighter if he doesn’t smoke? Brother Bill doesn’t even bother to ask.
Once on the subway, Bill looks out the dark window but can only see their reflection—he and Lewis sitting in the subway car, “Our eyes were four holes in a canted row.” Then something truly disturbing happens. A large Black man in a suit, carrying a zippered Bible, takes a seat near the brothers. Lewis nudges Bill, nods toward the man, and says “Uoht,” in a humorous voice. The brothers share a chuckle.
This brief exchange signals a profound shift in the brothers. Michael Cisco subtly conveys how Lewis and Bill now believe they are united through an esoteric spiritual knowledge, initiates in some hidden cosmic order. This is reinforced when the brothers walk the city streets, imagining people peering at them in an exceptional, coded way—until finally, “A trance unfolded and made us walk without pausing, trailing through the streets as if the city was the shipwreck over which we drifted.”
How dangerous can individuals become when they believe they possess superior, esoteric knowledge revealed through a religious text or through their own practices? We need only recall Marshall Applewhite and Heaven’s Gate, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, and Jim Jones and Jonestown. And if those same individuals are deeply psychologically disturbed, the danger increases exponentially.
What happens the next morning, in the concluding section of the story, when Bill leads Lewis back to his car and the brothers kidnap a boy near a schoolyard, is for each reader to discover. He Will Be There counts as one of the most riveting, disturbing tales I’ve ever encountered.
Note: He Will Be There is included in Michael Cisco’s short story collection Secret Hours, published by Mythos Books.
“My brother Lewis lived alone in a slovenly apartment, which was incongruously small for the monumentally immense building that housed it. I had helped him move his few things there after he was released from the hospital, but for all that, his apartment resembled a hospital room, smelled like a hospital room, and the building looked as if it might have been a hospital in the past.”
Vintage Michael Cisco: so many telling details in so few words. To live as a slob in such a matchbox apartment—one resembling a hospital room, complete with its hospital smell—suggests that Lewis spent time in a psychiatric facility. This is quickly confirmed, in an understated way, when the narrator observes that his brother is pale and lean and looks like a hazy photograph, like “an expatriate scoured clean and blank by very foreign places.”
It isn’t a stretch to imagine Lewis as a U.S. Army veteran, traumatized in a warzone in Iraq or Afghanistan, then hospitalized on his return home—and later released not because he was healthy, but because the Army said his treatment time was up. We would do well to remember a seldom publicized fact: seventeen U.S. veterans commit suicide every single day.
Since Lewis was reading Eusebius the last time he visited, the narrator asks him about it. Facing the window, his back to his brother, Lewis informs him that his religious practices have changed. When the narrator inquires what he means, Lewis replies in a voice that “elbowed its way in between the random noises the other apartments made.” Such strain suggests that speech for Lewis has become not so much a natural act as a violent intrusion. He then states, “I've discovered a series of hand gestures,” begins an elaborate demonstration, and concludes by saying, “If you sat with them long enough, everything else would follow—come to you, right at your kitchen table.”
An observant brother with a sense of responsibility and a degree of compassion would take all this as an alarm bell, symptomatic of a deep psychological fracture requiring immediate help. But no—the narrator’s response is bizarre in the extreme: he opens his mouth, positions his arms like a chicken, and begins to wail. Lewis watches him with rapt, shocked attention. When he finally stops, he tells Lewis about hearing a strange sound during his last visit to the family graveyard plot. His wailing, he explains, reproduced that sound.
The oddness continues. The narrator hands Lewis a copy of The King in Yellow and asks him to read it. He admits to us (but not to Lewis) that this is the real reason for his visit today. While the narrator putters in the kitchen, Lewis reads, and finally says, “I think this is a little beyond me, Bill.”
So we now know the narrator’s name is Bill. Anyway, Bill tells us that he and Lewis decide to go to the city together. When they’re down on the subway platform, Lewis buys a lighter and some hard lemon candy. A lighter? Why would Lewis purchase a cigarette lighter if he doesn’t smoke? Brother Bill doesn’t even bother to ask.
Once on the subway, Bill looks out the dark window but can only see their reflection—he and Lewis sitting in the subway car, “Our eyes were four holes in a canted row.” Then something truly disturbing happens. A large Black man in a suit, carrying a zippered Bible, takes a seat near the brothers. Lewis nudges Bill, nods toward the man, and says “Uoht,” in a humorous voice. The brothers share a chuckle.
This brief exchange signals a profound shift in the brothers. Michael Cisco subtly conveys how Lewis and Bill now believe they are united through an esoteric spiritual knowledge, initiates in some hidden cosmic order. This is reinforced when the brothers walk the city streets, imagining people peering at them in an exceptional, coded way—until finally, “A trance unfolded and made us walk without pausing, trailing through the streets as if the city was the shipwreck over which we drifted.”
How dangerous can individuals become when they believe they possess superior, esoteric knowledge revealed through a religious text or through their own practices? We need only recall Marshall Applewhite and Heaven’s Gate, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, and Jim Jones and Jonestown. And if those same individuals are deeply psychologically disturbed, the danger increases exponentially.
What happens the next morning, in the concluding section of the story, when Bill leads Lewis back to his car and the brothers kidnap a boy near a schoolyard, is for each reader to discover. He Will Be There counts as one of the most riveting, disturbing tales I’ve ever encountered.
Note: He Will Be There is included in Michael Cisco’s short story collection Secret Hours, published by Mythos Books.
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