The wedding was held outdoors. An April sky darkened and gusts of wind, like large, unruly hounds, knocked over folding chairs and made off with hats and handkerchiefs. A bright yellow hat went sailing over the lake, cheered on by two small children.

Ada Story said to her husband, “I told Raymond this was not the season for an outdoor wedding.”

Her husband, who was watching a black cloud race toward him as though it had singled him out and intended some mischief to his new summer suit, replied: “I don’t know how you’ve lived this long and missed it, Ada. Our Raymond isn’t interested in traveling the highway of our advice.” Their son did march to his own drum, particularly when he was refusing to take his medication.

Mrs. Story sniffed and lifted her face to the darkening heavens. I hope they hold off, she thought. In case her own mind might misinterpret her thoughts, she added, The rain clouds, I mean. I hope the rain holds off.

All the chairs were filled with the wedding guests now, and there was, really, something exciting in the prospect of so much finery exposed to the elements. The riskiness of life, of all human ventures, was underlined by the first large raindrops and the growl of approaching thunder. The minister’s robes billowed in the winds, and the coming storm seemed intent on editing him, first snatching one piece of paper, then another, and launching them into the air. Reverend Gates displayed considerable dexterity as he darted after his text, and the crowd burst into a flurry of applause when he executed a twisting leap and fetched a loose page that seemed already lost to the lake. No outfielder snagging a bleacher-bound fly ball could have displayed greater style, and since the crowd had no way of knowing that the retrieved paper contained a rather tedious rehash of St. Paul’s thoughts on duty, their enthusiasm was unrestrained.

The Reverend Gates, having regained command of his notes, was giving them the once-over through gold-rimmed spectacles, when a stirring of voices caused him to look up.

A fat man in a tuxedo, perilously perched on a bicycle and pedaling with frantic enterprise, had crested a green hill and was now racing toward the gathering. His speed was disconcerting, but what truly troubled the Reverend Gates was the man’s appearance. He had two heads.

The minister’s rational mind harumphed loudly, but as the cyclist drew rapidly nearer, his two-headedness seemed more undeniable.

In the next instant, Reverend Gates realized that he was looking at a man – now so close that his blue eyes and explosion of brown mustache identified him as the groom, Raymond Story – and a monkey. The monkey, a small, soot-black, frightened mammal, was clutching Raymond’s neck and chattering wildly in the time-honored tradition of a passenger attempting to exert some control over his destiny.

(Excerpt from Zod Wallop by William Browning Spencer)

Zod Wallop is one of my favorite books of all time. It’s the single most engaging piece of fiction I’ve ever read, and remains so each and every time I’ve devoured it. It’s a book about loss and acceptance, innocence and broken people, and a crazy man with a monkey who believes he’s on a holy mission. It’s also about an author afraid of too much truth and withdrawn from human connection because he simply can’t take the harsh reality of personal loss.

In short, it’s one of those books I like talking about at any opportunity. The problem is, few people around me have read it. Most have never even heard of it, other than my carrying on about it. In other words, there’s no one to talk about it with.

If much of my own rhetoric is to be believed, this shouldn’t be a problem. Make your own way! March to your own drumbeat! Don’t go along with the crowd – you do you! Learn to live with who you are! Yay, individuality!

If I’m being honest, I’ve sometimes looked down a bit on folks who watch specific shows or listen to particular music or read certain books just because they’re popular. That’s what’s wrong with modern culture! You’re why the Kardashians happened! Have some dignity, people!

On the other hand, folks who do that get to talk to one another about those shows, that music, and those books. They have a shared Squid Game experience, however tragic I might find that to be. Meanwhile, I’m over here marinating in my own lofty elitism with my far superior music collection and personal library.

Alone.

So there!

Raymond Story cycled down the aisle between the folding chairs and stopped. He dismounted, frowned, and approached Reverend Gates.

“I’ve brought a monkey,” Raymond said, in a matter-of-fact tone that the minister found comforting – for no good reason, really. Raymond looked around, turning in a slow circle, and said, “They can’t influence a monkey.”

The Reverend Gates had known Raymond since the day of Raymond’s birth. The reverend was not, therefore, as unsettled as a stranger might have been under similar circumstances.

“Your mother’s arranged a lovely ceremony,” Reverend Gates said. “All we seem to lack, indeed, is the… ah… bride.” …

A large white van rose up over the hill and bore down on the crowd. Reverend Gates felt his arm clutched tightly and Raymond’s voice boomed in his ear. “Allan has not failed me. We’ll want a short ceremony, Reverend.”

The van spun sideways and lurched to a stop, revealing a blue insignia and the words HARWOOD PSYCHIATRIC emblazoned on its side. The vehicle rested placidly on the grass, and then it began to rock, the sliding door slid open, a ramp lowered to the ground, and someone in a wheelchair, flanked by a half dozen milling shapes, emerged.

“My Queen!” Raymond bellowed, causing the reverend to jump. The sky exploded; the world dimmed under sheets of gray, implacable rain. Umbrellas bloomed.

“Oh dear,” Ada said, as she huddled under her husband’s umbrella. “Wouldn’t you know it.”

She felt her husband’s arm encircle her waist and draw her closer. “It’s only weather,” he said.

Of course, part of the appeal of literature is that it IS company. The right story can be travel, or counsel, or knowledge, or inspiration. When you READ, you’re already talking about the content with at least one other person – the author (or at least the text). You often talk about it with yourself as well. A good book has a way of poking around inside you and making you think about things differently, and maybe feel things differently as well.

One of the primary justifications for including diverse literature in any school curriculum is that fiction promotes empathy. How many people alive in the United States today think and feel as they do about the Holocaust largely because of Anne Frank’s diary or that little boy in the striped pajamas? How many of our perceptions concerning right and wrong in society and government have been shaped by our connections with Boxer in Animal Farm, Piggy in Lord of the Flies, or Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games?

I’d never claim to truly know what it’s like to die from cancer just because I loved The Fault in Our Stars, but it’s given me a far better appreciation for the range of ways in which people respond to severe illnesses. I’ve never been Black or female or gay, but I’m a tiny bit closer to being able to connect with and value those who are because I’ve been allowed to become those things in a small, temporary way when I read.

But it’s not just a better understanding of others we often find between exposition and denouement. Many novels, short stories, and other texts mess with our understanding of ourselves as well.

Generations of young American boys grew up believing they could succeed even during hard times because of Horatio Alger books. Generations of high school girls grew up believing that sex with someone hundreds of years older than themselves AND a vampire couldn’t be THAT bad thanks to Twilight. Books force us to recognize ourselves not only in the heroic, but in the shameful. The broken. The desperate. The angry. They let us root for the protagonist even when relating far more closely to the supportive friend, the bewildered parent, or even the antagonist. Good stories shake up what we think, believe, and feel, leaving the solid bits reaffirmed and the shaky bits, well… shaken.

Good friends know when to encourage you, when to distract you, and when to call you out. Literature often does all three at once.

Which brings me back to Zod Wallop. I won’t try to summarize the plot here (you can look it up easily enough), but suffice it to say that it challenges with reckless abandon the distinctions we make between fantasy and reality, conviction and delusion, individuality and connection. The main characters turn out to be inextricably interwoven into one another’s stories for better or worse – and not all of them are thrilled at the realization. It’s not easy to befriend a madman with a monkey who claims to be on a holy crusade, especially when his mission is driven by your own words, feelings, and values (none of which were intended to mean what he insists they must).

And yet… maybe that’s what it takes to return to reality. Maybe we have to accept the unbearable and embrace the unbelievable to get back to living.

Reverend Gates had ceased congratulating himself on his calm. His own umbrella had been wrenched from his hand by the brutish gale. One of the wedding guests offered him an umbrella.

I’m as wet as I am going to get, Reverend Gates thought, and he dismissed the offer with a wave of his hand. His notes were a sodden lump. His white hair, generally a fine, regal mist, was plastered to his skull. He wondered if he looked as bad as the monkey, which had been transformed into a sort of gigantic sodden spider.

The reverend leaned forward, clutching his Bible, squinting through the deluge. Dim figures were coming down the aisle between the twin fields of umbrellas. A giant in a billowing raincoat emerged from the shadowy curtain of rain. He was pushing a wheelchair that contained a gray, hooded figure. A lovely girl, barefoot and wearing a white, one-piece bathing suit, walked beside the wheelchair, one hand casually resting on the occupant’s cloaked shoulder. She wore a white terry cloth headband into which bright yellow daisies had been tucked. The effect was oddly elegant. She smiled, pushed a strand of black hair from her cheek, and looked up at the minister who, disconcerted by the candor of her gaze, retreated into austerity, motioning them to move forward quickly.

“My beloved approaches,” Raymond said. “Like the sun.”

Reverend Gates glanced at Raymond, whose round face was slick with rain. Raindrops danced on the young man’s rain-glued hair, creating a silver halo. His eyes seemed unusually blue and bright. God, Reverend Gates thought (and not for the first time), had hugged this boy too tightly. …

The past several years have not been great ones for me. We all know the externals – the pandemic and the Trump years and the disappointment of watching friends and family embrace fascism and white supremacy in the name of an unrecognizable Jesus and a mythologized American past. I haven’t had it any worse than anyone else, and I’m sure my life was and still is far easier than many. I am either blessed or lucky, depending on your point of view, and I recognize this daily.

But I haven’t handled things very well. I bailed on most social media not because of my lofty principles, but because I didn’t like who I was when handed that microphone. I’ve drifted away from most of the folks skilled at tolerating me in real life. A spot of unpleasantness a few years ago completely derailed how I thought of myself as a teacher and a colleague, which in turn forced me to realize how heavily I’d been leaning on those elements of my identity to prop up pretty much everything else.

I still believe much of the rhetoric we throw around about the impact teachers can have on students, but those kites need string and someone with a good grip and their feet firmly planted on the ground. That was no longer me.

Things have gradually gotten better, but I don’t think I’ll ever feel about teaching, or being part of a community, or the supposed “calling” behind the profession, the way I used to. At the same time, I’ve probably spent too much energy soaking in the resentment and self-loathing of it all. I don’t believe in avoiding or denying unpleasant emotions or uncomfortable realizations, but that doesn’t mean we have to marinate in darkness forever.

Just ask Wanda Maximoff, amiright?

I think it’s time for me to read Zod Wallop again. It’s not a perfect novel, and it’s certainly not a holy book or a magical cure for anything, but it is a wonderfully manic fantasy which wrestles with the road back from isolation and anger and other very dark places through faith and passion and existential leaps into uncertain possibilities. By taking readers into a world of impossible events and unlikely characters, it circumvents our usual defenses and surprises us with just how much of ourselves we find there. Spencer shakes things up enough that by the time we land at the end, there’s a good chance we’re a bit better off than we were when we started.

Maybe we’re a bit better, period.

If Zod Wallop isn’t the book that does that for you, there are other titles out there. Lots of them. Whatever madness remains to be faced, collectively or personally, none of us have to do so alone. Grab a good book and hold on tight.

Harry listened. And remembered how Amy had giggled. “Daddy, a tree doesn’t grow in a flash,” she had said.

He had read the beginning of this book to her. He remembered now. He had been writing it before Dr. Moore had urged him to write. Yes. He had been telling the story and he had stopped when Amy died.

Harry ran out of the room. The grim hallway was littered with bodies. Some dark, furred thing the size of a large dog snuffled amid the corpses. It heard Harry’s approach and turned, regarding Harry with three small, red eyes. Harry snatched one of the glowing orbs that lighted the hall and threw it at the wall above the creature. The ball exploded with a cascade of arcing light and the creature grunted and lumbered away.

“Harry, wait!”

He turned and saw Jeanne coming toward him, golden, wending her way through the gore of shattered bodies.

“Go back!” Harry shouted.

“No.”

He waited then. She took his arm. “You’re going down to the ocean, aren’t you?”

“I have to,” Harry said.

Jeanne turned him and looked in his eyes. He saw them as he had never seen them before, not fearless – fear was certainly there – but filled with conviction, clear, dark, as luminous and mysterious as the universe itself.

“We have to,” Jeanne said. “We.”