by J. D. Barker
“A job doing what?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Careful with that guy. I never trusted him.”
“Yes, Mom.”
There was something I wanted to ask Dunk about, a subject I avoided for over a decade. Stella brought it up again last night, said we needed to know the answer if Dunk was going to be around our children. “Can I ask you something?”
“I don’t need a prom date, and you’ve already got a lovely lady at home.”
“I’m serious.”
“I am, too.”
“Pickford, he said your mother was Penelope Maudlin. One of the people who got the shot along with our parents. You’ve never talked about her.”
“Nothing to talk about.”
“Do you remember her?”
Dunk pursed his lips and looked down at the counter. “Nope.”
“Not at all?”
He shook his head. “It was always just me and Pops. Until you showed me that old yearbook, I had never even seen a photo of her. Pops didn’t keep none of that stuff. I figured it hurt him to talk about it, so we never did.”
“One minute!” the guard shouted.
I leaned in closer toward the glass and lowered my voice. “She got the shot, but your father didn’t.”
Dunk leaned back in his chair, a big grin filling his lips. “And you’re wondering if I can do something? Like you, Stella, Darby, or that Pickford guy?”
“I’m only asking, because if it’s something dangerous and you’re going to be around the kids, we’d like to know.” That came out wrong, and I tried to backtrack. “We’re not worried you would ever do anything to hurt them. We know you wouldn’t. It’s just, if you can do something, we’d like to know what it is.”
“Jack Thatch, the boy who couldn’t die, and his faithful sidekick, Dunk.” He grinned. “There’s a comic book in there for sure.”
“Can you do something?”
“Time’s up!” the guard shouted. “Disconnect all calls and exit here to the left. Have a pleasant evening.”
“Dunk?” I said into the receiver.
Dunk smiled and hung up the phone on his side.
He got to his feet, his bulky body balanced on that silly pink cane.
I tilted my head and frowned. Then I hung up the phone.
Dunk’s eyes grew wide, and he grinned. He held up his index finger.
I watched as he touched the receiver on his side of the cubicle, just a tap.
All the pay phones behind me began to ring at the same time.
I turned to look at them.
One of the guards picked one up, said hello, shrugged, and hung up again. The phone continued to ring.
When I turned back to Dunk, I caught a flash of his orange jumpsuit as he left the room and disappeared down the hallway toward his cell, the heavy metal door swinging shut behind him.
August 8, 2020
Forty-Four Years Old
1
The little boy peered over the back of the booth in his parents’ favorite restaurant, in his parents’ favorite California seaside town. He twisted and squirmed, until his mother finally gave up and let him stand on the bench seat and look out over the back into the next booth, at the man sitting in that booth.
“What happened to your face?” the boy asked.
Not polite at all. Not the kind of thing you ask a complete stranger. Particularly when you have the remnants of macaroni and cheese all over your own face.
The man looked up from the menu. He had decided on the catch-of-the-day, and smiled. The shear act of such a thing seemed painful, tugging at his ruined skin in such a way that must have hurt. If it did, though, he didn’t acknowledge it.
The man pointed at the ruined side of his face and shrugged. Then, with a series of complex hand gestures, he answered the boy in what was known as ASL, or American Sign Language.
The boy bit at his lower lip and frowned.
He didn’t understand.
The uneducated youth.
Today’s children knew only video games, social networks, and streaming media. Gone were the days someone opened a book and took the time to learn something new, to better themselves, to achieve a greater intellect through enlightenment. Perhaps if education awarded points, the younger generation would consider dusting off a book. If they could easily level up with a cheat code stolen off the Internet, they may take interest.
The man held up a finger. He dug his smartphone from the pocket of his windbreaker, draped over the empty seat beside him.
He opened an app, typed a message, and held the device near the boy’s little macaroni-and-cheese covered head as he hit the PLAY button.
A human-sounding voice read the text aloud with near-perfect intonation and pitch, nearly indiscernible from a real voice. “I am a beautiful man.”
The boy thought about this for a second, then nodded.
Log 08/08/2020—
Subjects “D” and “C” —
Audio/video recording.
REBOOT INITIATED
—Charter Observation Team – 412
From the Author
This was a book I needed to write. After completing the 4MK series, such a dark series, something light was required to scrub out some of the hard to reach places of my brain. I had fun writing 4MK, but there were many moments when I pushed my MacBook across the desk, sat back, and said, “Holy fuck, did that really just come out of my head?”
I’m not one to usually talk about process, but I’m among friends here, right? In the writing world, I’m known as a pantser. I don’t outline. In On Writing, Stephen King pointed out that if he doesn’t know where the story is going, there’s no way a reader will figure it out, and I firmly agree with that thought. There is nothing wrong with outlines. Some of the most successful authors in the world use detailed outlines. More power to them. I doubt I ever will. This book started with nothing more than a title and that opening paragraph from Jack at age 22—our first glimpse at Stella and what was to come. From there, I simply held on and tried to keep up as Jack told me about his incredible life and those in it.
Jack told a big story.
Have you ever noticed, some books are just big?
Not necessarily in length (although this is my longest novel to date) but in scope. A story can feel big. My previous books have all taken place over a short period of time, days, hours…I have a yet-to-be-seen-publicly novella that takes place over the course of a single minute. In order to properly tell Jack and Stella’s story, I knew I would find myself spanning decades. I found this not only challenging, but delightfully fun. It gave me the opportunity to explore character growth far beyond anything I’ve done before, it allowed me to get close to each and every person in this book, watch them grow, and, in some cases, hold their hand in death.
I won’t lie, I cried for Jo. I cried for Gerdy.
I think some of those tears hit the page and left a mark.
I longed for one more burger at Krendal’s, and some of that comes back every time I drive down Brownsville Road in Brentwood, PA, and pass the place where that diner stood in Jack’s world.
That reminds me—
If you live in the Pittsburgh area, you may find I took liberties with the geographic locations of various streets, buildings, and businesses. Rest assured, this isn’t because I can’t read a map (although Pittsburgh streets can be challenging), this is because my family and I have lived in Brentwood, Carnegie, and Pittsburgh proper, and I simply wanted to give a little shout-out to all those wonderful places in this book. That can’t happen without making a change here or there, nothing too crazy, but enough to cause your GPS to run hot. While some of the locations exist only in the author’s mind, others are real and can be visited, the Carrie Blast Furnaces being one of my personal favorites.
Nobody in Pittsburgh makes a pizza better than Mineo’s.
Nobody.
Keener’s Hardware is the place to go when you need a shovel, pickax, and a heavy-duty
flashlight to complete your late-night dig kit. If you’re lucky, Harold Keener may be at the counter. If not, his son will surely be there.
Clearly, Great Expectations by Dickens was an enormous inspiration when writing this book. I first read the novel at nine years old. Like most of my books back then, I picked it up at a garage sale for a heavily negotiated price of twenty-five cents. It was a hardcover, horribly worn, with a detailed map of the UK on the inside flap. Oh boy, did I have a crush on Estella. Ms. Havisham did a number on me, right along with little Pip. I suppose, because I read it at such an impressionable age, the story stuck with me over the years. I often find myself reaching for a classic novel after finishing up a few modern-day tales. They’re like comfort food to me, with Great Expectations being one I’ve revisited more than most. If you haven’t read the novel, I strongly suggest you pick up a copy and give it a shot. You’ll find a story unmatched by most.
I like to think I left Jack, Stella, Dalton, and little Clara in a good place. Cammie, Preacher, and Darby, too. Even Dunk, hopefully walking the straight and narrow now. I often find it hard to say good-bye after spending time with the people I love. I grow curious, wondering where they went after we said our good-byes. Perhaps one day I’ll ask them. Who knows? Maybe they’ll be willing to share.
jd
Pittsburgh, PA