The Shakespeare Incident

by Jonathan Miller

  It was a largely Hispanic crowd with a few Anglo cowboys. Everyone mixed together. This town sure wasn’t racist. She stopped at the back of the crowd so she could be alone.

  And yet she felt strangely at home here. She shouldn’t be such a snob; these were good people, and while she was a quarter Korean, she was also a quarter Latinx. She noticed that a few people smiled at her. One nice grandmother offered her a clear plastic glass of cold horchata that was beyond refreshing.

  “You look like someone from around here,” the grandmother said, surrounded by a pack of adorable kids.

  “I have some kin,” Denise said, but didn’t say anything more.

  “Are you moving here?” the grandmother asked.

  “We’ll see.”

  The station shelter had a few people cramped inside next to the shade of one wall to escape the heat. On the tracks, there was Amtrak train headed to LA that was being searched by Federal agents.

  Two young Asian men were taken off the train in handcuffs, while another officer carried a suitcase with an evidence tag on it.

  “We didn’t know anything about what was in the suitcase,” one young man said.

  The other young man was crying.

  Not a good day to be Asian in Lordsburg. The crying man caught her eye. She nodded with empathy. He nodded back.

  The unmarked car with Fed plates drove away, the two men in the back, apparently in custody. The coast clear, so to speak, a crowd now gathered around the tracks. Right at the edge of the crowd, an overweight young man sat on a picnic blanket on the rocky dirt. The man wore a big pink sombrero that was so big and so pink that it was clearly worn ironically. The man and his sombrero took up most of the blanket; the remaining corner held a keg, which he had already tapped. Was he going to drink it all himself?

  The man pointed at Denise as she walked by. She gave him a wide berth.

  “Hey baby que paso?” he said to her. Then, she realized that he had on headphones and was humming a popular tune. “I thought I was your only vato.”

  There was something about the man in the pink sombrero. He now danced like a baby elephant, singing the song out loud between gulps from the keg. Despite the surging crowd, no one stepped on his blanket as if it had a forcefield.

  “It’s just Pedro being Pedro,” someone said, walking by, but the way they said his name it sounded more like Petro. Nearby people actually clapped in rhythm for him, and while the man had his headphones on under the pink sombrero, Denise swore she could hear the late Freddy Fender.

  The crowd was growing impatient. The Upbound Train was already parked behind the Amtrak to LA and would have to wait for the first train to leave. The Amtrak was delayed because the authorities were still searching the train for contraband.

  Behind the Amtrak train, the Upbound Train looked like one of those Shinkansen bullet trains from Japan. It could go into orbit if it wasn’t stuck on the tracks. On the side were the words: UPWARD BOUND GO BIG RED!

  “Big Red’s around back!” someone muttered, as if the colonel was a rock star. A few people headed toward the caboose. Denise followed them, looking forward to meeting Rita.

  Sheriff Diamond was personally handling security at the caboose. He looked at her with daggers, especially after she was pushed forward by the crunch of people behind her. Denise grew uncomfortable. Perhaps she’d just wave at Rita and then sneak out, but the crowd made that impossible.

  Moments later, Big Red Herring herself came out and waved to the crowd. Big Red was indeed bigger and redder in person—well over six feet, maybe six three in her rattlesnake cowboy boots. Her hair might as well be on fire, her face sunburnt.

  “Go Big Red! Go Big Red!” The crowd was in a rhythmic chant. Denise couldn’t get a read on this ginger force of nature; there was too much going on in the crowd. She grew more uneasy with every chant.

  Big Red called for her granddaughter to come out and join her. Time for a photo op for Big Red Instagram. Unfortunately, the poor girl was clearly shy and kept her head down.

  While Denise was short and awkward, Rita was tall and awkward. She had red hair like her grandmother and mother, but there was something about the girl that was different. She was far darker than her grandmother, but not Latinx. Rayne had never said who the girl’s father was. Denise didn’t want to guess; people were always wrong about her ethnicity and she didn’t want to make the same mistake with this girl.

  Denise was only a few feet away and made eye contact with the tall girl. “Lovely Rita, Meter Maid?”

  “Auntie Denise!” the girl yelled. “You’re here, you’re really here.”

  Suddenly Big Red pulled the girl back into the train as if Denise was a shooter. Denise sensed a sudden influx of bad energy as the crowd pushed forward even more. What was happening? The winds were blowing in constantly shifting directions, almost at random. The crowd pushed Denise right up to the caboose.

  “She’s over there!” She turned and recognized Fally and the rest of the Groundlings. She shouldn’t have been surprised. This was their hometown, and this was the biggest party in years.

  They were no longer in suits but sported dirty white tank tops in the heat. Maybe their tattoos of snakes and demons were moving, or perhaps it was just the light. She swore there was a flying saucer above her, but it was the pink sombrero of the dancing man that had been caught in the wind.

  “By the caboose,” Fally said. “She’s over there.”

  Denise looked around for the Sheriff, he should protect her, right? But he had gone inside the caboose to protect the candidate.

  Denise thought of escaping by sliding under the train, but if the train jerked, she could die instantly. She ducked down and pushed her way through the crowd to the far side of the caboose. Through the right-side caboose window, Rita saw her. Denise froze, and gave a guilty wave.

  Thankfully, Rita waved. Her window was open. “Auntie Denise?”

  “Just call me Denise,” she replied. “Glad to finally meet you in the flesh after all these years. I knew you before you were born.”

  “You always say that. Do I look different than you expected?”

  “Kinda,” Denise said with a smile. “You’re much taller than me.”

  “Who’s that dear?” Big Red said from the other side of the train.

  “Just an old friend,” Rita said, as if covering for Denise.

  “I didn’t know you had old friends,” Big Red said. “Stay here, I better go back out.”

  There definitely was some jostling from the crowd behind the caboose, and the crowd was getting rowdy with the “Go Big Red!” chant.

  “You really better come out here,” the sheriff said to Big Red. “They’ll listen to you.”

  Big Red left Rita alone, and returned out to the rear of the caboose with the sheriff. Denise heard footsteps on the other side of the caboose. She bent over and saw the feet of a group of people walking slowly along the caboose around the rear of the crowd. Were the Groundlings coming after her anyway?

  After nodding at Rita, Denise ran around the train and then cut between the gap of the Amtrak train. She heard more footsteps.

  She was sure someone had seen her from behind the train, but before she could look, she heard a voice in her head. It sounded like Rita’s. “Run, Auntie!”

  “Next time, Rita,” Denise thought back. She started running south away from the train through the outskirts of the crowd.

  “She’s getting away,” Fally shouted.

  “They’re coming from your right,” a voice said. It took Denise a moment to realize it really was Rita, and the voice was in her head. “You should go down that alley.”

  Denise ran towards the bank and saw and alley. She ducked down the alley. “The newspaper building door is unlocked,” the voice said.

  Denise cut across and saw a broken door to the newspaper building, the
Lordsburg Liberal. She opened the door and ducked inside. She pushed the door back into place, so it appeared to be closed.

  “Be quiet, they’re coming,” the voice said.

  Denise sat in silence for a few moments. She heard some heavy footsteps race by her.

  She waited a full minute; she could hear her heartbeat. “Coast is clear,” the voice said. “For now.”

  She glanced out the broken door, whoever was chasing her wasn’t visible. “Go around the back side of the courthouse just to be sure,” the voice said.

  She did a long lap around the courthouse and then got back on Shakespeare street. She then cut over to the hotel. Just as she made it to the Holiday Comfort door, she heard the train whistle blow. The whistle stop tour was apparently over.

  “You should be safe now, Auntie,” the voice said. “They’re driving out of town. Wish we had more time to talk. But the train is moving away, and I lose my range.”

  “I really wish we could talk,” Denise thought back.

  There was no answer. Denise heard the rumbling on the train tracks even though she was far away. Denise looked toward the tracks. The crowd was coming clearing from the train station, so she would have safety in numbers.

  She walked briskly to the hotel and was pleasantly surprised that Jane Dark pulled up in a white state car holding some dry cleaning in plastic wraps. Where did one have to go to have a blazer dry-cleaned in this neck of the woods?

  Jane Dark looked over at the panting Denise. “Can you give me a hand with my dry-cleaning?”

  Denise smiled. Nothing was going to happen to her now. “Gladly.”

  Chapter 19

  Monday, July 13 through Friday, July 17

  It was Monday, time for the work week. She had a week to kill before the arraignment, assuming the Grand Jury indicted Denny on Friday. Over the next few days, Denise got into what she called the Hidalgo groove after the name of the county. Since there was nothing more to do at Holiday Comfort after breakfast—the holiday was over, and it was no longer comfortable—Denise spent each morning visiting Denny at Hidalgo County Detention Center.

  The small jail was now packed with detainees on immigration holds so Denise had to wait for a while for a visiting room to open up. Even worse, the visiting room now had a large video apparatus the size of a gas pump, with the screen itself barely the size of a computer screen. It was taller than she was. There wasn’t enough room for her to sit down, so she had to stand.

  On Monday, Denise convinced Denny not to testify at Friday’s grand jury. “I want to tell my side of the story,” he said. “About them aliens.”

  “I can’t protect you at the grand jury,” she said. “It’s an exceptionally low standard of proof and you can’t have a lawyer with you when you testify. But we will try to get you out at arraignment next week.”

  “You better promise that you will get me out at arraignment.”

  “I promise. I guess.”

  But had she made a promise she couldn’t keep?

  She learned more about her brother to help fight harder for him. While he was vague about his earliest years with Nastia, he was more forthcoming when they talked about middle and high school which he’d spent in Lordsburg. They had a lively discussion about small town sports, class elections and the big controversy over the yearbook photo where he appeared to be holding a beer. He also told her that he was a frequent letter writer to the local paper.

  “I’ll check those out sometime,” she said.

  “Wish we all knew each other. We could have been a family,” he said repeatedly. That became his mantra.

  “I would have liked that,” she replied by rote.

  Maybe they did have a lot in common. They liked the same music and computer games, and even the Laser Geisha TV show.

  “I love that Laser Geisha Pink the best,” he told her. “She’s a bad ass.”

  She didn’t tell him that during a psychotic break, their mother had once actually claimed to be Laser Geisha Pink for real.

  On Tuesday, the discussion took a detour to fill in the blanks of his youth. He had spent most of his life as a foster child. First, with Nastia and the occasional sojourn with Fally. After Nastia cut him loose as she got locked, he became the ward of the Dunsinane’s, Cordelia’s family, at New Shakespeare Ranch.

  Denise had been part of the family (kinda) when she had lived with her grandmother, and then Luna. Denny was more of a hired hand with the Dunsinanes. He knew how to shoe a horse and castrate a bull. Denise could picture the forbidden romance between him and Cordelia—she would watch him work and then sneak into his converted bedroom in the barn.

  “How about you, did you have a boyfriend in high school?” Denny asked Denise.

  “Not even.”

  Then things took a darker turn as they continued talking about his Lordsburg days. She could sense his growing unease talking about his childhood. Clearly, he had been physically abused, both by Fally and Cordelia’s father. She didn’t want to ask if it got worse than that.

  The big video apparatus behind vibrated, turning on by itself. She feared that it would crush her against the glass. She wasn’t sure if Denny was doing this inadvertently, or she was causing the vibrations from her own pain at hearing his story. It was probably her imagination, but she cut the meeting off early that day.

  On Wednesday, it was time to turn the page and discuss life after graduation. They talked about his military service starting at eighteen. “Did you go overseas?” she asked him.

  “I never left New Mexico. After basic, I worked at White Sands Missile Range.”

  “Who did you work for?”

  He was vague on which service he actually served with. There were Air Force bases nearby, but the Army operated White Sands. Denny described almost washing out on a Section 8—being declared mentally unfit for duty—but somehow ended up at something called the “Syrinx launch site” within the vastness of White Sands Missile Range.

  Denise had trouble following him after that. His talk about the grails made utterly no sense. First, they were a mental portal to another dimension where the aliens lived. The next minute, the grails were created here on earth by the Chinese to find psychics or something like that.

  When he talked about life after the military (still not clear which branch), he was a regular small-town vet with PTSD who got into drugs. He never had a chance for rehab. He did love Cordelia and hoped to marry her. He talked about getting off drugs and hopefully getting into a treatment program.

  “With the right meds, I could be normal again,” he said.

  “I think so too.”

  By the end of every visit, he would talk about meeting his “real mom,” and he might as well be five years old. He wiped a tear away and actually said the word “mommy.”

  When Thursday came, she tried to focus again on the case at hand. “Are you sure you don’t remember what happened?”

  “I have no recollection of anything,” he said again and again. He pronounced it like a foreign word that he was trying to learn phonetically.

  He did say one thing that disturbed her. “I was really angry before it started. I was angry at the town; angry at the cops, and I was angry that Cordelia said you didn’t exist. But I don’t recollect anything after that.”

  Anger was not a good thing as it showed he might have been in his right mind when this all went down.

  “Hopefully nothing will happen, because the grand jury won’t give me a true bill or whatever,” he said.

  “Hopefully.”

  * * *

  In the afternoons that week, she traded calls with Rayne Herring. Rayne was glad that Denise had met Rita, even briefly. Apparently meeting the poor girl was indeed a quid pro quo. “She was so happy to see you,” Rayne said. “I didn’t even have to put her in detention this week.”

  Rayne didn’t mention
that Rita had said anything about the chase and their psychic conversations. Denise figured it was best not to bring that up, especially now that Rayne was more than happy to dig through Denny’s past, free of charge. “I don’t think the conflict I had is that important anymore.”

  Denise wasn’t sure what conflict Rayne was talking about, she was concerned with the legality of Denny’s adoption. According to Rayne, Nastia had indeed sent the paperwork to their mother who had indeed signed away all rights to Denny, thinking that Denny was dead, and this was some attempt to scam some money if Denny got into trouble that would make Jen Song responsible. When he was finally adopted by the Dunsinanes, notice had been published in the Lordsburg Liberal, which wasn’t ever online. Jen probably never knew that her son was really alive.

  “It’s sad,” Rayne said.

  “I wish I had known him growing up,” Denise said. “I could have saved him.”

  * * *

  Denise spent that Friday outside the courthouse, waiting to see what the grand jury would do with Denny’s case. She waited patiently on a bench in the shade to see whether they would true bill or not true bill.

  As she waited for the answer, she tried again to resolve her status to practice law. Hikaru had told her that everything was in order, but via text he revealed that he hadn’t actually spoken to an actual human; he had only received an electronic signature via email from a Korean corporate email address. Denise tried that email, but it bounced back—NO LONGER IN SERVICE

  Denise called all of her mom’s numbers again, but they were still disconnected. She shoved the phone back in her pocket. It rang. She recognized a Korean prefix on the number. Could it be her mom? There was no one on the other end when she picked up.

  What was going on?

  She checked every number she had of other Korean contacts, but none matched. She did have a number for her cousin Susie Song the famous golfer.