The Heavens Rise Read Online Free PDF

lilt and turned into something you might hear in the South Bronx.) We could fix the clothes with a few trips to Perlis or the Lakeside Mall. But the accent might be hopeless. Or so we thought. At the time, we underestimated how several years surrounded by genteel Uptown drawls would soften the edges of it dramatically.
    Anthem went on to explain how his older brother Charlie had really been named for King Charlemagne, and Merit, his next oldest brother—he had five in all, a figure that astonished Ben and me into deeper silence—thought he’d been named for good character but the rumor in the family was that his mother had just been a fan of Merit Ultra Light cigarettes before the doctors had told her not to smoke during her many pregnancies.
    They were a family of riverboat pilots—the men were, at least—and most of them lived within several blocks of one another near the spot where Avron Drive dead-ended with the Lake Pontchartrain levy. Anthem’s dream was to join the ranks of the New Orleans–Baton Rouge Steamship Pilots Association just like most of his brothers had done, pulling down $300,000 a year piloting massive cargo ships and container vessels up and down the treacherous curves of the Mississippi.
    His father, also a pilot, had died the year before in a car accident and the payout from his life insurance policy had allowed Anthem to transfer to what was arguably the most prestigious private school in all of Louisiana. When Ben revealed that his father was also dead, I could practically feel every muscle in Anthem’s body relax a bit, and the moment of silence we all shared seemed strangely comfortable given the subject of Ben’s admission. The confines of adolescence excused any of us from coming up with some empty, comforting platitude to soothe the pain of a lost parent. Shared pain, unresolved and beating inside each of us like a second heart, formed our initial bond with the strikingly handsome new kid from the wrong part of town.
    After what felt like an appropriate amount of silence, I brought up the idea of a shopping excursion after school, as if it would be as spontaneous and innocuous as a trip to CC’s Coffee House. I can’t remember exactly how I phrased it, but I tried to be diplomatic. Something about getting him some stuff to wear that would make him feel more comfortable. He played dumb; he admitted as much later. But I took the bait.
    Comfortable? Did he look like he was uncomfortable? The jeans fit pretty nice, didn’t they?
    Finally I blurted out something like, You’re not going to win over a bunch of new friends with that shirt, okay?
    He gave us both a big grin and said, Looks like it won you two over just fine .
    It seems inevitable now, that Anthem and I would end up together. But when I remember those first few weeks after we became a trio, I can stillfeel the constant fear that he would leave us, that his imposing physical form would demand that he turn into one of the brutish jocks Ben and I so despised.
    He fell in love with me instead.
    Our first kiss was at a Mardi Gras parade. Several nights before Fat Tuesday, the Krewe of Ares rolled through Uptown, and Ben and I invited Anthem to join us at our regular parade watching spot at Third and St. Charles Avenue, in front of an old florist shop and surrounded by Greek Revival mansions, their front porches crowded with other drunken revelers.
    Ben had stolen a bottle of scotch from his mother’s liquor cabinet and the three of us had been sharing sips out of his secret flask. Anthem took every opportunity to get closer to me as we were jostled by the crowd of parade-goers, their arms shooting skyward as papier-mâché floats rolled past us belching diesel fumes. The masked riders on board tossed handfuls of glittering doubloons and plastic beads into the night and the giant heads of Greek gods and goddesses at the head of each float just missed scraping the thick oak branches overhead. Once he’d found the courage to press