Of course I combed my hair. It was normally brown, but now black, as the moisture and slicking gel had darkened it. Not only that but she should have taken note of my pale face, the contrast was unbearable. Being a nine year old, I believed dressing old fashioned to be mostly uncomfortable. I didn’t enjoy wearing the suit she had chosen. It was too old, and my eyes too big; I was straight out of the Adams Family. You could argue I appeared cute, but deathly ill could have been equally as accurate.

            “Ok, get in the car then.”

            Having passed inspection, I quickly raced to the sport utility vehicle, obtaining my seat of choice. My competition, Kim, was still under Mom’s microscope. Kim was my younger sister; she always wore strange eye shadows and long dresses. Observing them now from the quiet interior of the car, I watched them walk through the blistering wind, Mom and Wednesday ⁽¹⁾. They were in disarray, and as I watched my sister’s freakish hair blow across her face, I knew she hated it out there.

            Then we waited for dad, as my mom’s temper slowly rose.

            “What’s he doing in there?”

            
            Then suddenly, just as her fingers would reach toward the horn, he’d come running out of the house, big smile, blazer flowing in the wind.

            “Alright! Everybody ready to go? Wait I need a beer.” Dad would always drink and drive.

            My mom was poised to explode in a verbal fury, but his quick leave of absence allowed for her frustrations to boil over. Sighing, she’d let it all go.

            “Should we take the Blue Route or the Schuylkill? And what were you doing in there?” Mom says.

            “Just turn on 1060, I was brushing my teeth.” Dad always brushed his teeth before getting in the car. I would slowly learn that these things were not customary among the populations of the world.

            And we were off, listening to some commercials, waiting for the traffic report. Kim always turned the car lights on immediately so she could draw in her coloring books, but dad’s ship would not be flown with the cabin lights on. He’d tell her to “turn those lights out,” so instead of drawing, we were playing card games in the back seat. However just as we realized that no legitimate card game could ever be played on the slippery leather space between our seats, dad interjected,

            “This is going to be your first wedding!”

            Dad was a good father, he actively enjoyed every part of our childhood. He taught us to find interest in the spectacular. We enjoyed museums, national parks, and history channel documentaries, unlike the spoiled little monsters who found these things boring. Then, as children who generalized things they had not experienced, we’d talk about the wedding, and ask hopeful questions.

            “Will there be a giant ice sculpture with Aunt Sharon’s head on it?!”

            “Maybe...”

            Mom would never say no, because she wouldn’t want to limit our imaginations. Thus, we naturally assumed the wedding would take place in Cinderella’s castle, and Lumière ⁽²⁾, the talking candlestick, would be there.

            “Crack-crash.” The sound of a distant lightning bolt halted our visualizations of the wedding.

            “Did you see that?!” My dad finds severe weather very exciting, as do I. However, peering over the steering wheel, with his head wedged sideways between the windshield and dashboard, may have been an overreaction.

            A storm had begun. “Plink...plink,” started the rain drops, until a million “plinks” and “splashes” could be heard striking the metal plates of the car roof. The size of each drop increased exponentially until we had all realized that this was no storm for the faint of heart. In addition to the rain, a steady rumble of thunder began to roll about our ear drums like the ominous rocketing of artillery. Flashes were now lighting up the horizon like fireflies along a tree line, as we slowed to a turtle’s pace in the limited visibility. The black of night was no aid to my father.

            “I can’t see anything, I have to slow down.” He said, somewhat talking to himself.

            He knew we’d be arriving a little late, so in a way I suppose he felt responsible. But we all blamed the weather; he didn’t have to say that. He never took risks with us in the car. His tone of voice revealed his own fear of the conditions. That fear grew in all of us, as we watched his every shift of the wheel. He was steady and careful, as he used to be when flying. He understood that everything could go wrong in a second, so his attention was meticulous, but at the same time, comforting.

            We sailed along the Schuylkill Expressway’s plateaus, above the suburban towns of Philadelphia, dodging the lightning, like a Skytrain ⁽³⁾ above Normandy. I started to zone out, starring out into the distance, paying attention only to the cloudy night, as we passed over a dark valley town. Through the walls of water, a distorted streak of gray emerged from the cloudy ceiling. It floated down upon the town, growing in width, and branching like the roots of a tree, until its lowest vein glowed a bright white and its tip had softly touched the steep crown of an old Victorian home. Obscured by the distance, a brighter flash emerged from the point of contact, and the home arose in flame like the phosphorus of a match. The glow expanded slowly, until it had reached its extent, when it thus retreated inward until only the deep orange glow of carbon remained, smoldering like a spent fire. It then vanished softly as we drove on in silence, my head turned toward the rear window. We all had seen it. The planets of probability had aligned, if not only for a moment, so as to allow us this great sight on our otherwise mundane path to the city.

            For the first time in all my life, I realized the beauty in that which was dark. Perhaps it had taken the great light of this flash, but I thought not of the danger, nor the consequence of a blazing home filled with people, but only the artistic value. It had been beautiful, like the work of a great artist. However, this time I was viewing that which any artist would have viewed prior to his masterpiece. I knew then that I could never forget this godly art of chance, and I never have.

            “Can you believe that?!”

            As my dad had loved the cabins of Valley Forge National Park, the command modules of the Air and Space museum, and the cascades of Niagara Falls, this unholy bolt was no exception.

            “Are they ok?!” demanded Kim.

            “I’m sure they’re fine...”

            My mother wasn’t about to explain how this surgical curse of the gods had destroyed a family of people, as one may have concluded. We had only caught a glimpse of the sight, and the lack of any post incinerating flames insures me now, that all was well. At the time however, I believed my mother to be hiding the truth to console my sister. I thought those poor souls had been fried to a crisp like chicken tenders. Yet still I was able to escape the dark nature of the moment, if only to operate highly and appreciate the beauty. In that way, it was a mark upon my soul, removing ethical alignment from true beauty. I no longer allowed for the moral nature of a happening to lay waste to its exquisite aesthetic value.

            The idea separated me from my family to a degree, as they still do not look upon darkness lightly. But in a second sense, the thought brought me closer to them, in that our love of the magnificent was closer than ever. I still wonder if we could ever agree on the beauty of dark things. While their bright nature would seem to steer them away from dark subject matter, I believe they too may have the same lurking feelings as I watch them read the shadowy novels of Grisham and Steven King. And although we may all secretly enjoy these dark arts, we are no more inclined to the unethical treatment of society’s beings, as it is merely a manner of enjoying that which is beautiful.

            “The directions say to park right across the street.”

            “What, that slum operation on the corner?” Dad trusts only finer establishments.

            The car rolled to a stop as we came to the gate of a cracked and overgrown parking lot that perhaps was formerly an empty lot, filled with unkempt grass and trash bags, but now paved by the work of no professional. The scruffy man in this tiny booth looked up from his analog television, and laid his wrists over the tiny window’s edge.

            “If you’re here for the wedding, overnight parking is twenty, or you can pay the normal rate, three an hour.”

            I looked across the street at the assumed site of the wedding. A duo of red balloons had been attached to the gothic facade of this seven story mansion. And although wedged between two commercial apartment buildings, this old structure had withstood time, and a growth of vines had crawled upon its sides, echoing the House of Usher. Its twin doors were open wide, glowing of yellow light within, like the mouth of a great monster. Sinister was the gothic site.

            Had that lightning bolt not struck, I’d be worried just as Kim was. Not tonight though, tonight we’d learn that faulty old Otis elevators were nothing to be afraid of.

1. Wednesday, a character from “The Adam’s Family.” Typically she had long black hair, a black dress, and a nature that was gothic, morbid, and sadistic.

2. Lumière, a character from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”