by Jerry
Music blared from the area in front of the security check. Everyone turned their attention to see the source of this sudden noise. Kentaro leaned over the tray containing Saito’s phone and switched the phone with his own. He stepped away from the conveyor belt, and turned to look along with everyone else at Akimoto, a middle-aged man waving a music player and dancing to the theme song of a samurai TV series. The show had been popular 30 years ago and told the story of a rogue samurai that exacts revenge on those that had wronged him.
A security official hurried over. Akimoto switched off the music, bowed to the stunned onlookers and calmly walked away.
Saito collected the phone from the tray and slipped it into his pocket without a second glance. Saito would think it was strange the battery was gone, but it would take him a while to realise he had the wrong phone. After he charged the phone and switched it on, he would discover the home screen’s wallpaper was a photo from Tsukiji fish market. A table full of mackerel.
Kentaro reached for his shoes, then realised Saito’s wife was staring at him.
Kentaro was a creature of habit. After he lost his shoes he had returned to the same store and bought another pair exactly the same. They were common enough shoes; he hadn’t counted on them being recognised.
Saito’s wife must have noticed that her husband knew Kentaro. She glanced in the direction her husband had gone. He had stomped away from the security check, not bothering to wait for her. She reached forward and took one of Kentaro’s shoes from the tray. She turned the shoe over and inspected the size.
Kentaro felt faint. He had come so close, only to get caught like this.
Saito’s wife replaced the shoe in the tray. “I am so useless,” she said. She smiled at Kentaro and then walked away.
Kentaro slipped on his shoes and stared after Saito’s wife. She caught up to Saito, but didn’t try to stop her husband. Instead, she glanced back and smiled at Kentaro, then guided her husband towards a gift shop.
Kentaro explained to a security official that he couldn’t take his flight because of an emergency at home. Since he didn’t have checked-in baggage, he was allowed to return to the airport’s unsecure area.
He activated Saito’s phone and swiped the same pattern he had seen Saito do. The phone’s home screen appeared. He powered on his laptop and logged onto the Mizutomo web site using Saito’s account details. He requested a money transfer and Saito’s phone buzzed. A message appeared with the confirmation code. The money was his!
He didn’t know how long it took Saito to work out what had happened, but by then it was too late. Kentaro moved the money through a series of offshore bank accounts and he and his mother fled Japan on fake passports.
Kentaro agonised over whether to go ahead with the memory restoration. Was it his choice to make? He asked his mother, but she didn’t understand what he meant. It wasn’t just about memories; it was about making her whole again. The memory that he had gone to prison was a small price to pay for restoring the person his mother used to be.
She underwent the procedure in Cuba. It was a gradual process, but eventually her memories started coming back. This brought the joy of recognising her son and the sadness of remembering the death of her husband and sister.
They moved to a small Caribbean island. It was difficult at first, because neither of them spoke anything but Japanese, but he loved learning and English and French were his latest projects.
Kentaro wheeled his mother to the front of their beach house’s veranda. “Would you like anything to drink?” he asked.
His mother shook her head. “Come and sit next to me.”
The afternoon was too hot for his liking, but she thrived in the heat. She would happily sit for hours watching the waves rolling in.
“It is so nice to spend time together after so long apart,” his mother said. “And it is so lovely here. We were lucky Toshiba gave you such a good retirement bonus.”
“They were very generous.” Kentaro knew his mother remembered his years in prison, but she preferred to believe her own version of the past.
“Do you think we could have ramen for dinner?” she asked.
He squeezed her hand. “Whatever you like.”
2015
GOD HAS LEFT THE BUILDING
Todd Colby
Steven Spielberg was the one guy everyone was dead set to get a snapshot of with them. And he obliged, done gone and went to Washington for the once in a lifetime photo op. That photo was plastered all over the damn place, cover of Time magazine to boot. Even stuck up on the wall at Martha’s, the local watering hole (known for its eggs & brains special) that is just about the heart of Jackson Pines, which is just about the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Well, that, and of course, our local church.
The day them creatures came down from wherever they did come from happened to be my fifteenth anniversary on the force, which included me, Sheriff Hanckley—he’d been Sheriff longer than I been alive—and Deputy Bob. The two of us used to hang out together at Jackson Pines High School. We were known as the “terror twins”—Floyd and Bob, real troublemakers and prank pullers. Kind of funny then that we became the law. Real damn funny.
That day in late August, melting hot one too—I remember as clear as the first time Rebecca and me . . . well, don’tcha make me spell it out for ya’—I guess it’s like when they say everyone who was around when Kennedy had his head blown apart, knows exactly where they was—so it was when space creatures arrived for the first time. I was headed out to the Winthrop Ranch to see old Bill Winthrop about a charity auction we had coming up (his wife baked the best peach muffins in the county, if you asked me) and Bob comes on the police radio spewing some nonsense about space creatures. Naturally, knowing his history of being a prankster, I thought he was putting one over on me. Either that or he’d been dipping into the hootch, but Bob didn’t partake of such stuff. Not anymore, anyways. Once I got at the ranch, old Bill grabs me and sticks me in front of the television. His furniture looked like it came from the Salvation Army, but he had a nice new flat screen television sitting in the family room. Sure as shit, on CNN, there’s live pictures of the real ugly dark creatures with long string-bean arms, like they part person, part fish, ‘cause they had what seemed like gills on scaly faces. Didn’t much look like E.T. to me. But they did have them big black freaky eyes.
They said their spacecraft broke, that’s why they landed just outside Detroit. No way the military was able to cover it up, in broad daylight as it happened, jus’ beside a shopping area, across from a McDonald’s and a pawn shop.
Life in Jackson Pines went on as it always did. Even after them creatures met with top science brains of all kinds and shared with them their advanced smarts of the stars and galaxies and all that—how the universe existence is vibrational, whatever that all means—and explained how they traveled by warping space and a bunch of other stuff I, nor probably anyone else in Jackson Pines, not even the smartest kid at the high school, could understand. There were no cases of mass hysteria, no one leaping off buildings, no one saying the end of the world had arrived. The church-going folk still attended church on Sunday mornings, still prayed, still baptized their kids. A few other folks stood outside the White House with signs that read: “Prayer is our only hope.” Some folks didn’t believe what the space creatures said no matter what. Some others believed. Others didn’t care one way or the other. They were too busy trying to make a living during a recession, raising kids, scraping up dog shit off their lawns.
In Jackson Pines, the autumn pumpkin festival was a big party thrown every October. For a town in the Appalachian Mountains with a population of a scant four thousand, two hundred and fifty-three, it was a big deal. The top fiddlers and bluegrass musicians came from all over to play and for us dance and eat real home-cooked food. The barbecue pork on a bun with a side of corn muffins was a particular favorite.
Carson, my younger kin by three years, was there. He was looking mighty glum, like someone jus�
� stole his best gal. He was real quiet anyway, a serious type who planned on studying to be a priest. Me, I wasn’t all that keen on the religious stuff. Of course, I went to church every Sunday, mainly ‘cause my lady would give me a right whipping if I didn’t and, as the law in town, if I didn’t . . . well, you know, appearances and all that. Carson was taking the whole alien thing hard with some of what they said.
It was time for big brother to step in. I poured a cup of homemade lemonade and put it up to his face.
He brushed me aside. “No, thank you, Floyd.”
I tried to talk sense to him. “Standing there looking like a deer that just got pumped full of buckshot ain’t gonna do you any good. Take it. it’ll make you feel better. I know how much you like Millie’s lemonade.”
Carson slowly took the red plastic cup in his thin fingers. “Anyone who is among the living has hope that even a live dog is better off than a dead lion.” He loved to quote the Bible, that was for sure, ever since he was little. He added, “I am not so sure about that.”
“You gonna start with that again?”
“What if it is true,” my lil’ brother raised his voice, above the sweet sounds of the Conner Mountain Boys, which consisted of Joe Sr. on banjo, Joe Jr. on fiddle and Joe the Third, age 11, strumming a guitar, “and why shouldn’t it be? You heard with your own ears what they said. They said their knowledge of the Universe didn’t include what we call God, or a divine entity, or the Lord. That our whole of religion made no sense.”
“They didn’t say there ain’t no God,” I tried to reason, as I lit up a cigarette. Yeah, I know, shitty habit and me being the law, ain’t a good role model thing to do. I am trying to quit.
“Didn’t them creatures? They done told everything about creation to the science brains. And, the science brains declared the truth about the universe was finally revealed to man. It was by nature they told, not some God. Case closed, Floyd.” His left eye twitched, always a sign of my brother being major upset, like the time he was eleven and I stole his bike and took it down to the lake for the day.
Carson gestured to my cigarette. Here we go again. Ever since he quit, he was always on my ass about my habit. Like having a second wife. Nagging in stereo. But, he caused me damn near fall of my chair—that is, if I was resting on one—when he shamelessly said, “You got one I can bum off ya’ ?”
I was too stunned to say a thing, so I just handed him a smoke. Lit it too. Not really knowing what I was supposed to say, I blurted out the first thing I could think of. “Who says them creatures know everything?”
“They know enough to come all the way here,” Carson calmly said, taking a drag. “That means they’re way smarter than us. Good enough for me.”
“Little brother, why don’t we enjoy the festivities? Worry about that heavier shit for some other time?”
“That’s one of your shortcomings, Floyd. You always want to put everything off for some other time.”
My brother could toss a zinger out, not real good ones that hurt though. “Well, here’s one thing I ain’t putting off. I’m going to get myself some of that delicious barbecue pork. I suggest you do the same.” I walked away. I could see he was in a unchanging gloomy way. No sense me getting all depressed too.
“Mr. Floyd Platt, you march down there right this minute and do what you said you promised!”
Rebecca was upset because I promised mother that I would help her clean out the garage. I was supposed to haul decades worth of junk down to the dump, and I never seemed to get around to it. Carson was right about me putting things off. I can’t deny it. That’s who I am. It was Saturday, week after the pumpkin festival, my day off, and I just wanted to lay around in my bathrobe, watch some good ole TV.
“Why can’t Carson do it? Hell, he’s the one living there.”
Rebecca wasn’t impressed by my argument. “Because she asked you. And let’s face it, you’re stronger.”
“Can’t argue with the truth,” I said as I poured myself a hot cup of coffee for the road.
“You’re not going out like that, are you?” she alluded to my well-worn, but endlessly comfortable favorite bathrobe.
“No, dear,” was all I could muster, still not fully awake. I grabbed a Hostess cupcake off the counter. The cream filling would feel real good going down with my coffee.
“Doctor said you should be eating healthier. That don’t look like healthy food to me.”
Lucky bastard, that Bob. Single and vowed to stay that way. One of us had good sense.
I knew what to expect. There was a reason no one parked a vehicle inside the two-car garage since The Gipper was in the White House. Rusted toys, bicycles, rotting furniture, spare parts for things long forgotten and obsolete, files of ancient tax returns, receipts, coupons decades expired, and that river of magazines—countless issues of Country Living, Life, Popular Mechanics—all housed in tall, filthy, spider-web encrusted cardboard moving boxes, hardly enough room for the two of us to even breathe in there. Why do folks let this shit accumulate, I always wondered. Sooner or later, it all goes to the dump.
“Maybe I should hold on to this,” Mother said, placing a seventy-three year old wrinkled hand on a particularly nasty baby stroller.
“Are you trying to tell me something. Mother?”
“Don’t get smart,” she grinned. “Perhaps one of our neighbors could use it. There are a lot of young families in the neighborhood, you know.”
“For what? So they can give their kid some kind of infection?” I didn’t think mother was a hoarder, but sometimes I wondered.
“Or, when one of my sons gets around to making me a grandma,” she added.
“Key word—sons. Why isn’t your other one here helping out?”
“You’re stronger, Floyd,” she pointed out. “Been that way since the two of you were wee high.” She opened a box to pull from it yellowed magazines.
“Speaking of which,” I said as I casually tossed the offensive stroller out of the garage, “where is Mr. Happy?”
“He said he needed to take a stroll to collect his thoughts,” she sighed. “Then he was going to see if Doc White was in. Carson has been having difficulty falling asleep. Thought maybe the doc could give him something to help.” She placed a stack of Country Life magazines on the side.
“What about you, mother? You called them creatures ‘demons in disguise’.”
“At first, I thought they were. But, I have to admit, those Sizolagians have done a bit of good.” Mrs. Hall grabbed another large stack of magazines, to put them aside. “They showed doctors how to cure disease. Farmers how to grow better crops. All them poorer peoples with the flies buzzing ‘round them how to clean their water. Maybe they ain’t so bad after all.”
“What about what they say about religion?” I pressed.
“I don’t think they’re right ‘bout everything. Poor things don’t know ‘bout the Good Book. After all, they weren’t created in the Lord’s image, like we were.”
“I’m worried about Carson. Last week, he even bummed a cigarette off me.”
“He’ll be fine,” mother smiled re-assuredly in the way only a mother can, placing aside a stack of faded Field & Streams. “If you are worried, you can talk with Pastor Williams.”
That’s like saying you ain’t scared of flying, but you not getting on an airplane. She was worried high noon. Call it a son’s gut feeling. More pressing matter, I eyed the vile magazines, “You can’t be serious.”
She simply smiled, patted the Country Life’s like they were a beloved family pet. “They have really good recipes.” Never mind that she not once used them to whip up anything.
I glanced at the other pile. “Have long have you been hiding your secret love of fishing?” I asked.
“These were your father’s and you know how much he loved his Field & Stream.”
“Dad’s been gone five years,” I pointed out.
“I couldn’t bear to part with them.” It was an argument I wouldn’t win.
Rebecca jabbed her elbow sharp in my side—damn, that hurt. Woman has no mercy. Staying awake during Sunday service was a chore. The singing, readings, prayers and especially—especially!—the sermons. I ain’t saying their no good, but they sure can cure one of insomnia, though they are spoken with much enthusiasm for the subject, like a coach giving a pep talk. Pastor Williams had been there longer than I’d been alive. Everyone in Jackson Pines knew and respected him. Fact is, he wrote the recommendation letter for Carson to attend the seminary school he was going to start in just a few weeks. If Jackson Pines didn’t have a mayor already, Pastor Williams would have easily been elected.
After more wifely kidney jabs, services over and done with, I paid him a visit. His door was wide open.
“Pastor Williams, you got a few minutes?”
He looked up from where he was placing books back on a shelf. “For you, Floyd, always.” He smiled. “I take it you’re here to discuss the upcoming Policeman’s Charity Softball game.”
“No, that’s not the reason. But,we sure do appreciate all you’ve done to help in organizing it.”
“Always a worthy cause. Is the Foley boy pitching again?” The wise man sat down behind his impressive desk.
“I hope so. He’s got the best arm in the county.”
“Sure does. It just may keep him out of the damn coal mines. Good on him if it does. What then can I do you for, Floyd?”
“It’s Carson. If you haven’t noticed, he’s been real down in the dumps lately,” I began. “Even having second thoughts about seminary school.”
Pastor Williams leaned back, the glare of the overhead florescent lights jovially bouncing off his expansive bald pate. He looked me square in the eye; I believed the words he would speak would be ones of wisdom that only his years of accumulated knowledge could produce. Instead, he blurted out, “Bullshit.”