{"id":58757,"date":"2021-07-04T00:48:54","date_gmt":"2021-07-04T06:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=58757"},"modified":"2021-07-08T18:51:33","modified_gmt":"2021-07-09T00:51:33","slug":"the-only-truth-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/the-only-truth-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Only Truth in the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Welcome to our Independence Day issue of READ LOCAL First, our monthly celebration of Utah-related poets and writers. Today, we proudly introduce Jeremy Spencer Rees.<\/p>\n

Rees, a Texas native, recently finished his undergraduate degree in Utah. In the final year of his undergrad he was awarded second place in the Utah Original Writing Competition for his story collection, This Will Be on the Exam<\/em>. His fiction has appeared in Cleaning Up Glitter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He now lives and writes in Seattle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

The Only Truth in the World<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I can remember my father mentioning God exactly twice in my life. The first instance came just after going fishing early one spring morning. We were quiet driving back from the lake. The sun was well up on the other side of the mountains by then, but as tight to the east wall of the valley as we were we hadn\u2019t seen it yet. As my father drove I was captivated by the view of the canyon. The staircase cliffs of its south wall were narrowly catching their first rays which outlined them brightly. The air above the peak to the north was filled with the early morning light, silhouetting the formation. Rays split through the canyon, and from the hill we drove down we could see trees\u2019 leaves catching them. As we paused at an intersection my father joined me in taking it in.<\/h4>\n

\u201cIf there is a god, there it is.\u201d<\/h4>\n

I didn\u2019t respond to this. When my parents had married they were both devout Christians, and my mother still took me to church each Sunday. The two seemed to avoid talking about religion with each other, at least when I was around, and I followed suit. I never asked my father about his loss of faith, and my mother would only say that some people suffer more than they deserve but that my father was a good man.<\/h4>\n

My other memory of him saying anything about God was on a camping trip we\u2019d gone on with his brother and this uncle\u2019s son. My uncle Rick was rarely mentioned during my childhood, at least to me, but I knew who he was. My father\u2019s best friend growing up, even the best man at his wedding. But then something happened, and for years he didn\u2019t speak to anyone in the family. Even legally changed his last name. Whenever my parents talked about it there was always a hole between these two halves of the story, hurried skipping-overs. \u201cOne thing led to another.\u201d \u201cHe somehow got certain ideas about how the family felt about him.\u201d I was too young then to wonder about the details hiding behind these generalities.<\/h4>\n

But it was the summer before I entered high school that I met him. In early July my father had come home from work seeming unsettled and had said to my mother, \u201cI got a call from Rick today.\u201d<\/h4>\n

She hadn\u2019t known who he was referring to, he was such a non-character in our lives. \u201cRick who?\u201d Then, realizing, \u201cOh, your brother? Really?\u201d<\/h4>\n

They hadn\u2019t talked about the conversation, at least not right then. It was the next week that they told my younger sisters and me that Rick was hoping to reconnect with the family. \u201cYou may remember he has a son just a year older than you,\u201d my father told me. \u201cRick wants the four of us to go camping together next week. Apparently it has to coincide with the new moon. And he\u2019s moving out of state in a few weeks, so we don\u2019t have much time.\u201d<\/h4>\n

I wasn\u2019t really one for camping, and when I did go it was with friends, not my dad. But I was interested to meet this broken branch from the family tree, and a few days before the trip my mother pulled me aside and made clear to me how much restoring this relationship meant to my father, so I wouldn\u2019t dare coming up with an excuse to skip even if I\u2019d wanted to.<\/h4>\n

Rick and his son, Tyler, lived at the south end of the valley, and we were heading out that direction for the night, so my father and I met them at their house where we all piled into Rick\u2019s truck, a decade-old \u201888 Ford. I suppose I should have realized that they lived nearby when we planned the camping trip, but it wasn\u2019t until we arrived at their house that I felt how strange itwas that this absent uncle had been living less than an hour away all along. My uncle Rick had gone camping at the place before, so he did the driving.<\/h4>\n

Rick spoke almost exclusively, maybe forcefully, to me and my father during the drive. He learned for the first time that my sisters existed. Rick hadn\u2019t had any more kids himself. He asked my father all about his wife and career, offering short, token answers to the reflected questions. He seemed to pride himself on the details he remembered from so long ago. \u201cHow\u2019s your mother-in-law doing? I remember she had something\u2014 Her kidneys or something were\u2014\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cShe died.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cOh. Well.\u201d A drumbeat on the steering wheel substituted for a response. When he turned the conversation on me I felt backed into my seat by how excitedly he interrogated me. He needed to know everything about me, as if it would be on the exam. When I mentioned the trombone, he asked, \u201cAre you gonna join the school\u2019s band?\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cAuditions are next week. I might not do it, though. I don\u2019t like marching.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cWell I\u2019d recommend sticking with it. I never did band myself, but my son stopped a few years ago and regretted it.\u201d Always \u201cmy son\u201d, and pausing like he forgot the name. Tyler, across from me in the back seat, remained silent. \u201cYou need those extracurriculars, you know. Mostly for the social aspect, is what I mean, but I guess for getting into college, too. Scholarships and all. Have you got your eye on a major yet?\u201d<\/h4>\n

I nodded. \u201cAccounting.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cAh, chip off the old block. I think my son\u2019s got a business club at his school. Isn\u2019t there one, son?\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cProbably.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cHm, thought you told me there was. Well anyway, you oughta see if they\u2019ve got one at yours. Sure to meet a good group of kids.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cHey Rick, you know your engine light\u2019s on?\u201d my father asked from shotgun.<\/h4>\n

\u201cI know, I know, Ol.\u201d I had never heard my dad\u2019s name, Oliver, abbreviated before meeting Rick. \u201cMy mechanic says it\u2019s fine, just a wiring problem with the light itself.\u201d Seeing my dad\u2019s suspicious side-eye persist, he added, \u201cOh, come on, I\u2019m serious. I\u2019m just not gonna pay two hundred bucks to get a single light fixed. This thing runs fine.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re sure,\u201d my father said, not sounding very convinced.<\/h4>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my problem, not yours, anyway, huh?\u201d<\/h4>\n

As we passed the final town along the highway, with a half hour left before our destination, I saw why the road was called the loneliest in the country. It ran as a straight line up to the horizon, not another car in sight, the broad swaths of desert on either side entirely untouched by mankind. The land was home to only short desert brush poking up at intervals, and even these grew thin and then disappeared as we approached the lakebed off the highway. Only the sun hovering over the horizon kept us company, and that too left us within an hour of our arrival.<\/h4>\n

There was no real campsite. If there had been any specific cue indicating the place where Rick had veered sharply off the highway, it was invisible to me. After putting some distance between us and the highway, Rick stopped the truck and said, \u201cThis is it.\u201d There was no brush here. The ground was salty and cracked where our feet fell. In spring the lake would cover this area too, but now it was only a puddle we could spot just under the horizon to the south.<\/h4>\n

My father and I had brought a tent contrary to Rick\u2019s instructions, just in case, but we didn\u2019t set it up. There was nothing out here to be protected from. We laid a tarp down and unrolled our four sleeping bags over it. We ate our dinner out of a cooler, seated on the truck\u2019s lowered tailgate. The salty desert floor stretched out before us. The highway was out of sight. You would wonder why on earth anyone would want to camp there until the sun went down and the night sky revealed itself to us.<\/h4>\n

There was no light pollution here or even a moon to light the sky, leaving the stars\u2019 brilliance unadulterated. The desert sky held no clouds to get in the way, and the lack of anything taller than two feet for miles around allowed the lights to stretch cleanly down to the horizon in every direction. As they appeared, our quartet\u2019s conversation faded away, and we all craned our necks in silence for what may as well have been eternity.<\/h4>\n

#<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Tyler and I had gotten restless hanging around the truck and were stretching our legs with a walk toward the lake, or what remained of it this time of year. We had been able to locate it by where the dark of the earth opened up to mirror the lights above. In the dim red light of the lamp by the truck we could narrowly see Rick setting up his telescope for some photography, shrinking away behind us. We hadn\u2019t brought a flashlight. The ground was smooth enough that we didn\u2019t need to watch our step, and the stars gave enough light anyway.<\/h4>\n

We reached the edge of the lake and had double the night sky with the mirror before us. It spread wider than a few football fields, but given how smooth both the ground and the water\u2019s surface were I couldn\u2019t imagine it was more than a few inches deep at any point. The universalinstinct of all boys by a body of water drew our eyes to the ground, searching for rocks to skip. Of course there were none.<\/h4>\n

We had walked in silence, and after a bit of time here by the water we both turned to speak at the same moment, but each stopped for the other after releasing just a syllable.<\/h4>\n

\u201cYou go first,\u201d Tyler said.<\/h4>\n

I dismissed the comment I was going to make with a wave of my hand. \u201cNo, you.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cI was just gonna ask if you remember my family at all. From when we were younger.\u201d I felt this was quite the opener for having essentially only met Tyler that afternoon, but the nature of our meeting each other made me feel it was okay to skip the social fluff for reasons that disappeared if you looked too close at them.<\/h4>\n

\u201cOh. No, I don\u2019t think I do,\u201d I said. \u201cAlthough my parents say we had met when we were real young. Like, toddlers I guess. Do you remember the family?\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cJust a very vague memory of a family reunion. I can picture the cabin we rented from just one angle, a glimpse of Grandpa playing checkers with one of the uncles. One night falling asleep watching Superman<\/em> with some of the cousins. Hell, maybe you were one of them.\u201d<\/h4>\n

I furrowed my brow but couldn\u2019t find the memory. \u201cMaybe, can\u2019t remember.\u201d In the next moment\u2019s silence I wondered whether it would be okay to ask for the side of the story Tyler\u2019d heard behind Rick\u2019s estrangement, but he began talking before I could decide.<\/h4>\n

\u201cYou know, it might\u2019ve actually been a reunion on my mom\u2019s side anyway.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cAh,\u201d I nodded. \u201cYou\u2019ve still been in touch with them?\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cYeah, they all live out in Washington, so we only see them maybe every other year, but they\u2019re great.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s good.\u201d This point seemed an easy one to segue from into Rick\u2019s falling out with my father\u2019s family, but I decided to lighten the conversation before I could make the mistake of letting the question out. \u201cSo, your dad mentioned you\u2019re a Nuggets fan?\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cUgh, unfortunately.\u201d<\/h4>\n

We laughed and then bonded a while over the suffering the team caused its followers. \u201cMy dad says they\u2019re just an exercise in character building. \u2018Loyalty is a virtue\u2019 and all.\u201d This conversation took place entirely beside the ghost of the lake, our hands in pockets and feet remaining fixed to the ground, having nowhere to go. As the conversation fell away back into silence, I noticed for the first time how much the air had cooled since the sun\u2019s setting. The drop wasn\u2019t quite enough to shiver over, just enough to be sharp against your skin and keep you entirely awake, which I was grateful for. It was how the lights overhead deserved to be seen. I craned my neck and had just found Cassiopeia\u2019s W when Tyler remarked, \u201cMan, fuck this place.\u201d<\/h4>\n

I turned a startled face to him. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t tell me you aren\u2019t bored out of your mind. I\u2019m sorry this is your first impression of my dad. He\u2019s got this weird obsession with this place, but I don\u2019t get it. Why come out here camping at a lake without any lake, nowhere to hike, not so much as a single tree to climb or rock to throw or animal to protect your food from. Nothing.\u201d<\/h4>\n

The strength of his feeling on the matter made me not want to make a defense on the basis of the place\u2019s beauty, so I remarked, distancing myself, \u201cWell, he\u2019s got that telescope. Need to be out here for that.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cI mean, sure, but he doesn\u2019t need to drag us along, too, or much less to stay out here until morning. Like,\u201d he gestured upward, \u201cthey\u2019re nice and all, but give me ten, maybe fifteen minutes and I think I\u2019ve had my fill.\u201d<\/h4>\n

I only nodded, not wanting to push back any more, then said after a moment, \u201cWanna head back to the truck? I\u2019m getting hungry again.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cYeah, let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/h4>\n

#<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Rick stood in the bed of the truck aiming his telescope when we returned. It was clearly an impressive telescope, as large around as a thin man, weighing nearly fifty pounds with the camera attached. The automated mount followed objects across the sky for long exposures. The whole setup had cost four figures. It was wired to Rick\u2019s Micron laptop, and he was calibrating the scope to the sky from there.<\/h4>\n

He had been into astrophotography for a few years now. After he started his camera taking a twenty-minute exposure of a moon of Mars, Rick gathered us around the laptop and walked us through his album of photos with pride. A few galaxies I\u2019d never heard the names of, nebulae, most of the planets. Even on the laptop\u2019s dim, pixelated screen, the shots were impressive. \u201cThey\u2019ll only get better with this new CCD camera I just got,\u201d Rick assured us.<\/h4>\n

Seeing the details of the photos multiplied the wonder we felt as we lay awake on our sleeping bags. It was an hour later, and Rick was taking a third shot at the same moon\u2014he needed one shot with each of three different color filters, he explained\u2014when Tyler asked, \u201cYou guys think there\u2019s any life out there?\u201d<\/h4>\n

After a pensively quiet moment I said, \u201cI\u2019d bet there is. If only because of probability, you know, mathematically. Given the enormity of it all. I don\u2019t know about intelligent life, but some microorganisms, maybe plants, sure.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cTo me,\u201d my father said, \u201cthe interesting part of that question is the implication that there\u2019s something momentous separating life from non-life. If it\u2019s all just burning hydrogen and rocks smashing into each other, or if there is some of what we decided to call \u2018life\u2019, what difference does it make? It\u2019s still the universe doing its thing, moving forward. Happening.\u201d<\/h4>\n

We were silent. The comment kind of took the fun out of the hypothetical. I brought it back by asking, \u201cAnd you, Rick?\u201d<\/h4>\n

Rick was sitting in the truck\u2019s bed with a thermos of coffee. He said, \u201cI\u2019d guess there\u2019s something out there.\u201d He stared pensively at his coffee. \u201cI guess I\u2019ve never told you this story, Ol. It happened after, well\u2014\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cRight.\u201d<\/h4>\n

A nod. \u201cBut I don\u2019t want to bore you with all the details or get you thinking I\u2019ve turned into some downright whackjob.\u201d Even as he said this he leaned forward in his seat with the way some people have of really occupying a space, the body language equivalent of clearing one\u2019s throat. Lying on our sleeping pads, Tyler turned to me and rolled his eyes. Not this again.<\/em> \u201cI had a strange experience when I was younger. I\u2019m not going to say it was definitely aliens or anything, but\u2014<\/h4>\n

\u201cWell, I was in grad school at the time. It was the middle of the week, I was up studying in my room. I finish that up, get into my pajamas, go to the kitchen to get a drink. The time was 11:20. All the lights were off. I could always navigate the place in the dark just fine, and I keptthem off whenever I was just passing through. I remember the living room window\u2019s blinds were open.<\/h4>\n

\u201cAnyway as I\u2019m heading to the kitchen, this bright blue light from behind me kind of\u2026 pulses and then fades away real quick. Like this.\u201d He traced the light\u2019s intensity in the air with his hand. Moving up slowly and rapidly dropping.<\/h4>\n

Tyler jumped in, \u201cIt was just a car outside, Dad. Isn\u2019t that long exposure done yet?\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cLet everyone decide that for themselves, son. Of course I realized that might\u2019ve been what the light was\u2014the blinds were open and all\u2014but that just couldn\u2019t sit right with me. Something about the light\u2019s angle or feel. It couldn\u2019t\u2019ve been that.<\/h4>\n

\u201cBut I shrug it off and go into the kitchen. I open the fridge and the light doesn\u2019t come on. Now, this townhouse was old\u2014it felt like every other day we were flipping circuit breakers\u2014so I didn\u2019t think much of it. But I go over to our furnace room and open up the box to see every one<\/em> of the place\u2019s breakers were tripped.\u201d<\/h4>\n

My father began to say something, but Rick raised his hands defensively. \u201cAnd I know, I know, you can explain that away, too. But like I said, I\u2019m not positive it was anything\u2014\u201d Quivering fingers in the air stood in for an adjective. \u201cI\u2019m just observing. And that\u2019s not all, either. I get some water and head back to my bathroom to brush my teeth. Now a few of the neighbors\u2019 dogs had started barking, and by the time I finish brushing my teeth every dog for blocks around is barking and whining and howling something awful. Not just their usual chattin\u2019 with each other. You\u2019d think every one of them had a murderer in their backyard. But I finish brushing my teeth and check my watch as I\u2019m going to get back in bed, and it\u2019s now 12:47, an hour and a half<\/em> later than when I\u2019d stopped studying. I would swear up and down it\u2019d only been a few minutes. All that time just disappeared.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Rick paused and spat onto the ground beside the truck. \u201cAnd, well, that was it, really. I lay in bed for who knows how long that night, unable to sleep. Just listening to the dogs carry on for hours. The barking kept waking Tyler up and Donna, too. None of us could hardly fall asleep until it felt like the sun would be up any minute. And of course, I know none of that even counts as evidence of, you know, anything non-human. But damned if I\u2019ve seen anything like it since.\u201d<\/h4>\n

A silence fell on our group. I don\u2019t remember how it ended or whether it didn\u2019t end at all and we all drifted to sleep. But I know Rick\u2019s telescope and camera and collection of photos were different now. From then on something gray and borderless hung over my mind whenever I thought of him out there in the desert, obsessively taking his deep, long looks into the sky.<\/h4>\n

#<\/strong><\/h4>\n

My father woke us all up in the morning. We had a no-cook breakfast and packed our things back up before the sun was well off the ground. The drive back to the valley was pleasant, the reverent silence of the stargazing replaced with amiable conversation.<\/h4>\n

At Rick\u2019s place my father and I moved our things to our car. We said goodbye\u2014so simply that I all but forgot there had been a fifteen-year grudge between these two\u2014and continued our drive back home. We rode in silence. I was more asleep than awake, and when my father spoke I came back and was surprised to see we were already nearly home. He had asked, \u201cSon, how do you really feel about God?\u201d<\/h4>\n

I told him.<\/h4>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad,\u201d he said, and the matter was dropped there.<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to our Independence Day issue of READ LOCAL First, our monthly celebration of Utah-related poets and writers. Today, we proudly introduce Jeremy Spencer Rees. Rees, a Texas native, recently finished his undergraduate degree in Utah. In the final year of his undergrad he was awarded second place […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":58758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,2513],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-arts","category-read-local-first"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/JeremySpencerRees-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 18:10:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58757"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58805,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58757\/revisions\/58805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}