for me has been “Diddy Mouse,” which he told me meant “twin.” That, at least, is was what it meant to Josh. In the last few months before he died, Josh had some fun with my given name too, sometimes calling me ‘Tom-Tom,’ saying I would be the Spirit’s drum.
If my delay in this information makes you suspicious, excellent. It’s smart to be skeptical. Something as basic to your wellbeing as water, administered the wrong way, say in a blinding fog, or the bath into which you pass out from having too much drink—can kill you. It’s wise to be suspicious. If you are, you know that I am too close to my brother to tell his story with the detachment you can trust. Better that you get it through the somewhat surprised eyes and ears of one who is just as new to Josh King as you. Hence the tale of Arnold Mikesh. Hence my role as reporter and stage manager. I talked Mikesh into being the star witness of this account. Eventually that meant going over the whole sequence of events that Josh’s accident started in motion. This involved some very long talks. The first began outside what most residents in Decorah call “the cop shop.”
Surprised by my parking lot introduction, Mikesh was flustered as he returned my shake with the grip of his beefy hand. “I’m sorry . . . sorry about your brother dying.”
Mikesh is more at home with empty hallways and feeding cattle than small talk. Not comfortable in this kind of conversation, he was distracted, studying me, trying to imagine what my brother might have looked like when standing and chatting, realizing that even though we were not identical (which we are not) the resemblance was strong.
“Thanks.”
I didn’t know where to begin, myself. A phone call in the night. A long, slow drive from Des Moines. I sat in the back, next to my mother Maria, with our friend Simon at the wheel. In this strangely formal, but necessary arrangement we drove north, white fog in the headlights. Stumbling around our brains were questions with a hand out for answers that remained short on offer. At our destination was a quiet hospital room where Josh’s broken body lay beneath a green sheet, folded back at his groin for the three of us to identify him. Blood had been washed from him, but the crown of rips in his scalp where he broke through the windshield glass were the same raw color as the stew beef in a supermarket meat counter. His abdomen was torn, and ringed round with a purple bruise where the roof and dashboard had clamped him like a vise. And all I could wonder, as I stood and stared at the battered remains of my brother, was what I would next make of my life.
“You were there. You know what we had to look at,” I told Mikesh.
“It was a bad accident.”
“I wanted to thank you for what you did. You probably were not the first person to drive by. No one else stopped.”
“It was quiet the whole time I was out there. There weren’t a lot of people on the road. I was violating a travel advisory even getting into my truck.” Mikesh was thinking about Paul Fox’s questions, the sheriff’s attempt to place him at the scene at the time of the crash. The quiet of that road did make him the only current suspect if you were looking for one. But standing there on the asphalt, looking at Arnold Mikesh’s square, vulnerable face, I didn’t suspect him of anything criminal. Not for a heartbeat.
“I’m sure that’s true. My brother wasn’t good with directions. He might have been coming to Decorah. We don’t know. He rarely drove. I’ll have to admit to you that he wasn’t very good at keeping his mind on the road. He ended up not watching his speed, making mistakes.” Josh’s list of mishaps was long: a mailbox knocked sideways, missed turnoffs, driving on the wrong side of the centerline, passengers white-knuckled on a curve. By the time I was working with him, we always arranged to have someone else at the wheel if Josh needed a car. He was not born to drive. With age, his distraction and helplessness behind the wheel got worse instead of better.
“As for this journey last night, we didn’t know he was gone. The call from the authorities woke us. Nobody knew Josh was away or why he would have left. All the way here we kept wondering how we let Josh slip away before dinner without any of us knowing he was gone. We each felt part of the blame.
“But I heard from the deputy that my brother was still alive when you got to him, that you talked to him.” I hoped Mikesh could dispel the mystery. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear what he said. Could I get you a cup of coffee?”
Mikesh and I walked to a place just up the hill, on the corner of Decorah’s main business street. The college kids with their laptops were away on break, so the coffee shop was nearly empty. Coming in from the damp, the warmth, the strong smell of freshly ground dark roast, and the roar of the espresso steamer felt good. Near the counter four women more Mikesh’s age than mine were leaning over their lattes, catching up on the week, their eyes checking us over when we entered. A pair of retirement-aged men sat at one of the booths. I got two filter coffees and we took a table at the far back.
“I’m sure you don’t like to think about it, but it would mean a lot to me, and to the people around Josh, to know how he died.”
In the last few months before the accident, my brother talked quite a bit about his death. Josh was attuned to a world whose existence I often questioned. He said plenty that I let pass unconsidered. The sudden prospect of a future without him left me clutching for any words of his that I had missed.
“I can see that.” Mikesh wondered who the “people around Josh” might be: somber Christians, women in trippy flowered dresses, or Latino meth runners. So far, in Arnold Mikesh’s short introduction to the world of Joshua King, the reports were contradictory.
Mikesh needed encouragement. “According to the deputy, he was still able to speak. Did he say anything I could relay to his Shekinah followers?”
“Who?”
“Shekinah. That’s the name of the group Josh led.”
“What’s the word again?”
“‘Shekinah.’ It means ‘where the Spirit dwells’ or ‘Spirit in you.’”
Mikesh squinted in concentration. “I think that was one of the last words your brother said. The word, it started with that “shh” sound. ‘Shekinah, take my spirit.’ I’ll bet those were his last words.” Mikesh felt tired, thinking of Josh dying with this antique word, like a well-worn rosary, on his lips.
Mikesh told me what he remembered: Josh’s attention to the light, his feeling alone, “join in infinity,” “comfort my mother.” I had him go through it all. Did he remember the tune Josh was singing, did Josh say anything about where he was going? Did he show any emotion? We were talking about my twin brother, the person to whose body I conformed even before we were born.
“Do you know anything about Shekinah, Arnie?”
Mikesh shook his head. “I didn’t know enough about it to recognize your brother when I was trying to help him last night, or the word he was trying to say, if that’s any indication. He asked for my name, but he didn’t live long enough to tell me his.”
“People will tell you that my brother started something that was all about him, that he was the whole show.” Mikesh recalled Seegmiller’s words: Josh as kingpin in a cult of drug runners. “But I don’t believe that. My brother was pointing to something within him but more important, something beyond himself, something that he believed includes you.”
I sat at a coffee shop table trying to explain my brother, while he lay dead in a hospital room down the road. The image of that fought with others: Josh’s face animated with the message he carried, Josh’s
