Sky Lantern by Matt Mikalatos

Author:Matt Mikalatos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books

15

Tooele

WE HAD DRIVEN OUT FROM Salt Lake City as the sun was setting. Steph texted her aunt to see if she was around, and we thought we’d go see Tooele, the town where she had grown up. We rolled past the Great Salt Lake, both of us laughing at the terrible smell. We passed a copper refinery, too. Historically, the two biggest employers in Tooele had been that copper mine and a chemical weapons disposal plant, which got rid of chemical weapons like mustard gas, sarin, and VX. It was a suburb for a reason, a liminal town on the edge of habitability. It was the last outpost of the desert. It was the borderland between life and death.

Late that night, long after dark, we went by the Tooele cemetery. Steph wasn’t sure we would be able to find her dad’s grave in the dark. She grinned. “You don’t think there will be zombies, right?” She was pulling on her coat. Although it had been warm in the daytime, the temperature had dropped as fast as the sun.

“Zombies? No reason to be afraid of zombies. If it’s werewolves, we’re going to have a problem. I don’t do werewolves.”

I told her to be careful as we stepped onto the uneven grass field, because she was wearing heels. “Boots,” she clarified. “I’m wearing boots.” Then she made a joke about breaking her leg. I told her to be careful because I would, I swear, leave her for the werewolves.

We couldn’t find the grave at first, and Steph held her phone up at face level, a small light in the darkness, and started to chant, “Where are you Dad? Where aaaaarrrrre youuuuu?”

We passed several tombstones belonging to her family. They had lived in the town, one way or another, for three generations. I was struck by how young and recent some of the dead were. The family didn’t have much of a choice when they first came here, many decades ago. There was a part of town called Tortilla Flats where Hispanics, Latinos, Mexicans, and anyone who spoke Spanish or had dark skin had been forced to live. That was home for them. We had driven through the neighborhood and Steph pointed out the window at her grandparents’ most recent house, and then the houses where her mom and dad had grown up and eventually met each other—just a few small houses between them.

We found her dad’s tombstone. Steph’s name was written on the back, and the names of her brothers, too. It was startling to see that. There was space reserved for her there. A small black rectangle was attached to the back, evidence of his service in the Army. Her dad’s tombstone included his name and the dates of his life on the front with his photo in the upper right corner. Engraved across the bottom half was a picture of him riding his motorcycle.

I took a few pictures of the gravestone and Steph there beside it. We didn’t hear a voice or feel his presence, or at least I didn’t.

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