Thomas and Niko in the City of Trees

Chapter 20 - The End

A cross stands watch over this town. It actually looks kind of majestic up there on that flat rock if you don't think too much about the undertones. A lot of people have tried to have it taken down over the years. I get it. Better to represent none than only one, and all that. But here's the thing: You get up there and look at it really close, and what you see is a pathetic old metal structure, all rusty and beaten-in. And the side that faces the city is made of these narrow plastic panels that the light shines through, turned yellow and brittle by the sun. You'd think they would have bothered to bury a cable underground to power it, but instead a thin, droopy wire runs over from a nearby utility pole. The whole thing lights up okay at night, but there's always a stubborn fluorescent bulb flickering and buzzing more than the rest.

Not everything holds up to close inspection, is what I'm trying to say. I bet that's true of most towering monuments to faith in this world—just to be fair to the old cross. I haven't seen any of the others yet, so I can't be too sure, but I do have plans to travel the world sometime. Maybe one day, I'll come back and let you know whether I was right or wrong.

Table Rock is the name of the place where the cross was put up. You can see the whole city from up there. You can stick around and watch the sun go down. It's a popular destination for locals and visitors alike, but still a fairly chill place for Thomas to take me on that last night. Anyway, that's what he does. Without telling me where we're going, he drives us up through all those old foothills neighborhoods. Neither one of us is saying much. Even when I catch on as to where we're going, I stay quiet, because the silence just feels like part of the moment, and I don't want to mess it up.

He does look over at me quite a bit. He takes my hand for a few seconds at one point, then lets go. He's my best friend in the whole world. No matter what happens to us this fall, I don't think that will ever change.

We get up there and he parks the car. We walk over the edge and sit with our legs dangling fifty feet over a sea of brush. The sun is low, but it's still hot as hell.

Thomas is laughing quietly to himself.

I look over at him. "What?"

"I don't know, man," he says, "I was just thinking." He takes in a long breath, lets it out. "I guess it's not such a dumb town after all."

"No," I say. "Not really."

We're both laughing now.

We sit there for a long time before he speaks up again. He stumbles at first, clears his throat. "I was thinking about what you used to tell me about my mom, after she died. How I'd see her again one day."

Immediately, I know what he's referring to. Let me make one thing clear right now: I don't have too many thoughts on the afterlife. Thomas's mom is the only person close to me who has ever passed away. At the time, I entered this sort of self-preservation mode where I just kept telling myself I would see her again, somewhere in the vast reaches of space and time. It was all I could seem to do in order to keep moving from one moment to the next. Maybe you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, in the months after her death, when Thomas cried every night and reported feeling a pain worse than being ripped apart, I promised him the same thing. "You'll see her again," I kept hearing myself say. "I don't know how, or where it's going to be, but I promise you it'll happen." It was a belief I took on hastily, out of necessity, but in the years since, I've never bothered to replace it with something more logical. So I guess, if you want to get right down to the heart of the matter, it's still the way I feel.

"I remember that," I tell him.

He looks at me. "Is it weird that I sort of think of you and me the same way?"