Third Place Winner, 1995 Robert V. Williams
Memorial Prize for Short Fiction

THE LIGHTNING MAN

I first heard the news from the children in my ninth grade history class. The girls coagulated in their cliques and gossiped about it; the boys laughed and made jokes about it, and as I calmed them down to begin my lecture I snatched the cold hard fact from Stacey Hughes. She said simply that the Lightning Man was dead. Few people in town (North Falls, Ohio: population next to nothing) refer to him by his given name.

Two years ago he was simply a man, Derek Langston, in his mid-thirties (about my age), who had a wife and lived in a two bedroom condominium complex at the end of town. There were many versions of the story, but the official account, printed in papers nationwide (and retold by Derek himself on "A.M. Cleveland") was that his wife had insisted he run down to the corner market to buy a quart of milk. He had known the thunderstorm was on it's way, but he went anyway. In the parking lot, as Derek ran for the market through the rain, lightning ripped through the sky and hit his brass belt buckle. Instead of incinerating him, it threw him thirty feet; he landed like a discarded rag doll.

A week later he was released from Cuyahoga County Hospital after treatment for burns and injuries. A colleague who taught in Phoenix told me Derek's story had appeared in their city paper: a four-line paragraph in an article about freak accident survivors of nature. The Cleveland Plain Dealer put Derek on the front page for a week. He had become a town celebrity. He had become the Lightning Man.

I heard the official cause of death that night, after dinner, from my neighbor and close friend, Ray Niles. My wife, Amanda, and I were talking to him out on his front porch. It was one of those humid, early September evenings; it felt as if the heat stuck to you, hung loose from you like a second skin.

"Did you hear how he died?" Ray asked.

"Something," I answered, swatting a mosquito. "My students said something about him dying in the bathtub." A small lie; I actually heard many different versions, but they all involved the bathtub. Ray was the county coroner. I knew he had the definitive explanation. He took a sip of his beer and tipped his chair back, balancing on its hind legs.

"He was electrocuted," Ray said, and smiled at the irony.

"Excuse me?" Amanda joined in.

"His wife found him in the bathtub, with a hair dryer of all things, charred like blackened sea bass."

Amanda dropped her beer.

"Does anyone need a refill before I come out," Teresa, Ray's wife, called from the kitchen.

I looked at my empty bottle. "I'll have a--"

"Scotch," Amanda and I harmonized on the word. I looked at her; she shrugged. "That's what you always have," she said. "You start with a beer, and you follow up with a Scotch. You sip it slow, to last the rest of the night. Every time."

Teresa stepped out on the porch and handed me the apparently predictable drink. She leaned against the rough, wooden porch railing.

"You know, right about now he'd be walking down the road." Teresa hooked her thumb, pointing to the cracked, one-lane stretch of asphalt behind her.

"I never quite understood why he came out here. His house was five miles away," Ray said.

House? I thought. More like a mansion. Three floors, twelve rooms--including a den and a game room, four bathrooms, and a three-car garage. Shortly after the accident, the Lightning Man had struck it rich playing the stock market. He was the richest man in northern Ohio, anyway. With the exception of his house, its furnishings, and the trips he'd take with his wife--to Mexico, Europe, Hawaii--he put his money into the town. He loaned it to townspeople who asked, he developed North Falls Park, and remodeled and expanded the town library. I also wondered what possessed him to walk from one end of town to the other each evening.

"Then you weren't paying close attention," Teresa answered her husband, turning to face the open, weed-infested field beyond the road. "He'd always stop by the big oak tree and look out at the field for an hour. I asked him why, once. He said he was here for the light show." Teresa paused, perhaps waiting for one of us to continue. "The lightning bugs," she went on. "See, there go a few now." She pointed, and I watched pinpoint flashes of light dance across the field in random patterns. "Did you know that the intensity and rate of flashing is specific." Teresa's voice was vacant. I wasn't quite sure who she was speaking to anymore. "It's a mating signal. I used to know that, but I'd forgotten. How could I have forgotten that simple, wonderful thing?"

I looked at Amanda; her eyes closed tight, her teeth clenched so hard the sides of her jawbone stuck out, her beer balanced precariously on her right knee. Ray stopped tipping his chair and stared at his wife's back, saying nothing. I remembered catching lightning bugs in mayonnaise jars when I was a kid. My parents had told me they were just a form of beetle, but I couldn't believe that. Beetles were creepy, crunchy things; lightning bugs illuminate at will, and it had made my night for many of them to crawl on my hands and arms. They were different; I had always wanted to show off that difference in a jar and ended up killing them within a few days.

"He asked me once if I wanted to take a dip in Lake Erie," I said, and sipped my Scotch. "Earlier this year, in the middle of February."

"Jesus Christ," Ray said, laughing.

"What did you tell him?" Teresa asked.

"He told him to come back in six months and he'd consider it," Amanda said. Her tone was flat, her words a bit slurred. I turned in time to watch her finish another beer.

"Amanda--"

"The police think it wasn't accidental," Ray cut in. "I can't come up with any forensic evidence yet, but just between you, me, and the fencepost, they suspect his wife."

"His wife?" Teresa asked. Her fingers drummed the porch railing.

"Sure," Ray said. "Why, look at last year's Founder's Day dance. He danced with two, three different women--excluding his wife. Look at the life he led. He was about to take skydiving lessons, for God's sake."

"C'mon, babe," Amanda said, rising, walking off the porch.

"Hold on a second," I said. "You're saying he had an affair?" I watched Teresa push off the porch rail and slowly walk inside.

"The police think he did."

"Honey," Amanda called from the edge of the open field. She took a few steps; her lower legs disappeared in the weeds, pinpoints of light flashed about her. "Come on," she said.

I took a step toward her, dragging the humid air, standing at the porch's edge. "Honey, why are you walking this way?" I asked. She headed away from our house, not toward it.

"Let's take a walk." I heard the rustling of weeds, and Amanda became a disembodied voice in the field. Light had been all but extinguished; time for those creatures who could to make their own.

"I still have papers to grade. We should just head home. I'm pretty tired."

"Yes. Of course you are." It was as if the voice belonged to the intermittent lights of the field. Taunting me, teasing me. Your wife is here with us. Don't you want her? I approached the edge of the field and Amanda appeared. Her eyes contained none of the sparkle which emanated from the field. I waved to Ray. Amanda kept walking, silently. I swatted a mosquito and followed.

I heard the ugly truth two days later, at the funeral. Because it was on a Saturday, and services were held at the park, most of the town attended. The sky was painted watercolor gray, and I could smell the threatening rain. The forecast, appropriately, called for thunderstorms later in the afternoon. Derek's wife stood near the front of the assembly, off to the left, in between two policemen; her hands clasped in front of her, her wrists bound with handcuffs. The priest got as far as Derek giving what he could to the community, and that was it. Derek's wife ranted for ten minutes. In her ranting, we all learned that the Lightning Man did indeed have affairs, with five different women. This was by his wife's count. She made sure to remind us there may have been more. Amanda began to cry, silently. Standing in front of us, Teresa made a strangled sound as if she were retching, and Ray was a statue.

"Are you one of the five?" I asked later, when we were home again.

"What if I was?" Amanda looked at me; her eyes sparkled in a way they hadn't the other night. "What would you do?"

"What do you mean?"

"We used to go out every night. Why don't we do that anymore? You're too tired to go on a God damn walk, anymore. I don't want to have my social highlight be an outing on the neighbor's porch sipping beer. Derek was like a breath of fresh air." Amanda pushed me and I offered no resistance. "Well?" She hit me in the arm. "Do something. Hit me. Throw something. Yell at me! Say something!"

"Wait a minute; are you still talking hypothetically? Did you have an affair with him, yes or no?"

"No," Amanda answered, and sighed. "Although I suspect Ray received his wake-up call today."

I grabbed her hand and squeezed. "Let's go for a walk," I said. Amanda shook her head and tried to break my grip, but I held tight. "Come on. We can talk for a bit; enjoy the fresh air." She smiled and followed me through the door.

Outside, the rain started as we approached the open field, hand in hand. We forgot to bring umbrellas, and I looked back toward our house. Loud, arguing voices and uneasy silence alternated from inside Ray's home. Suddenly I felt Amanda break free. I turned. She ran for the field; her wet, black hair flying. Within seconds she broke through the weeds. I felt the Lightning Man's presence, pushing me, prodding me toward the field. In the storm, the weeds blew, and sounded like a whisper.

Your wife is alive. Don't you want her?

She was. And I did. Breaking into a run, I followed her into the field.

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