Emit

by Jack Beal

  Which version of the story is the real one? What actually happened back in the summer of 1947?

  Digging through the remains of my most deep-rooted recollections, I conjure up the day of the Independence Day Fair. I see myself sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for Dad to come back from work. I recall wiping that disgusting glob of corned beef goo from my elbow when a thunderous noise pummels through the silence. I see myself climbing onto the sink and peering out of the kitchen window in time to watch a pillar of smoke rise up into the sky. The facts fall into place. Only, the story doesn’t go quite how I remember.

  It’s the Fourth of July, and I’m six years and a day old. I’ve been stuck inside all day long because my next-door neighbor, Willy Sawyer, is a total fathead and won’t let me play. I’m angry at Dad for not buying me the German P-38 Souvenir Pistol I asked for. He ruins everything. Sometimes I wish he’d never come home from the war, at all.

  The day drags on and on. When the sound of tires comes screeching into the driveway, it’s one of those spanking new Buicks. Dad’s not there to yell at the man for driving too fast. It’s only me.

  The man approaches me, holding out his hand. “Hi, Robbie. My name is Mr. Bristol. I’m your daddy’s boss. Is he home?”

  “No, he left for the mine early this morning.” I pick at the shovel’s handle.

  “The mine?”

  “Yeah. The Red Cloud Mine, where Daddy works.”

  A wary look skips across his face. Clearing his throat, it disappears. “Ok, son,” he says, standing up. Turning his back, he saunters over to the shiny new Buick and opens the door. “When your dad gets home, tell him to give me a call,” he cries out. Then, without so much as a goodbye, he gets in the car and drives away.

  I go back into the kitchen. My stomach’s churning from hunger, but I don’t want to spoil my appetite for the pie-eating contest, so I sit down and wait.

  But Dad never comes.

  A loud knocking on the door brings me back to. I must have fallen asleep right there at the kitchen table. A glob of meat-goo is now stuck on my cheek. Wiping it into my sleeve, I go to open the door.

  It’s Mr. Bristol, again. He tells me I need to come with him.

  Sliding into the passenger seat, I grin from ear to ear. I’ve never been in a Buick before! After parking in an unpaved lot, we start down a sandy path. The sun is sweltering. Mr. Bristol walks in the shade as I jump from one puddle of light to the next. At the end of the palm-lined path, we climb the stairs and enter an enormous building. Motioning for me to follow, Mr. Bristol winds through the labyrinth of hallways. When we stop at the last room on the left, I stand up on my tip-toes to peek through the window. My dad is lying stock-still on an operating table, surrounded by a group of tall, blue men. As Mr. Bristol pushes open the door, one of the men turns around. He doesn’t bother removing the blue gloves and mask to talk to us.

  “Thank goodness you got here in time.”

  The man leads me to the cushioned table. Dad opens his eyes and, in a great show of effort, turns his head toward me. “Hey there, Chief.”

  I’ve never seen my father look so powerless. I’m scared. “Can we go home now?”

  “I’m sorry, Robbie. That’s not going to be possible for me.” His voice is shaky. “I want you to be strong for me, okay? Remember to be brave and always to do what is right, even if it isn’t always what’s easy.”

  I’m trying not to understand. “You’re not leaving me, are you, Dad?”

  For the first time, I watch his eyes fill with tears. With a moan, Dad peels an arm off of the operating table. “Give me your hand.” Placing something cold in my palm, he continues. “Your mother gave this to me and now I’m giving it to you. All you need to do is turn it back, and it’ll be like I’m still here.”

  I fold my fingers over the antique silver pocket watch. I’m trembling so hard I can’t speak.

  “Sometimes the past isn’t as far away as it seems. Sometimes it’s not too late to go back and make things right.” His voice is brittle, his words, spaced. “All…you…have…to…do…”

  As Dad’s eyes drift closed, it’s my voice that finishes for him, “…is dig.”

  Mr. Bristol and I drive back to Corona in silence. When we get back to the house, I plop down on the stoop and throw the pocket watch across the porch. “I don’t want this stupid piece of junk! I want my dad back!”

  Mr. Bristol retrieves the watch and tucks it in his pocket before coming back and taking a seat next to me. “I know, I know,” he consoles. “Your dad was a special man. A real hero.”

  “I know,” I sniffle. “He had all these shiny badges.”

  Mr. Bristol shakes his head. “I’m talking about after the war, son. After his service, your dad came to work for me at the US Engineer Force. Do you know what that is?” When I shake my head, he continues. “The people that work at USEF are kind of like superheroes. They work to protect us from the biggest danger imaginable. Do you know what that is?”

  “Nazis?” I stab.

  “Nope. Try again.”

  “Aliens?” I say in a whisper.

  “Even more dangerous.”

  “I don’t know. I give up.”

  Mr. Bristol clears his throat. “It’s ourselves.”

  “Ourselves? But how?”

  “Well, you see, the planet we live on has its own ecosystem. That means it knows how to function all by itself. But lately, we humans keep meddling with things. And all our meddling is throwing the ecosystem off-balance. Good old Mother Earth isn’t taking to the idea very well.”

  “You mean the Earth is mad at us?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Can’t we say we’re sorry?”

  “Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. If we want to make things better, we need to start protecting our planet. That’s exactly what your dad was working to do.”

  With a shallow breath, I draw a withered finger across the tablet’s screen. The year is 1953.

  May 22, 1953. UFO CRASHES IN KINGMAN ARIZONA. People of Kingman Arizona claim the government has covered up the biggest UFO crash since Roswell, New Mexico. Government officials deny extra-terrestrial involvement but offer no other explanation for the UFO that locals say, “disappeared overnight.”

  The same night I showed up again, as if out of thin air. The night Sheriff O’Ryan took me back to his place and let me borrow some of Debbie’s clothes. It was the night before they’d let me go back to my house for the last time. The night before they’d take me to the orphanage.

  Summer Edition, 1953. WORLD OUTSIDE: The Robertson Panel. Part of the government’s highly guarded secret group of studies conducted on UFO sightings, the Robertson Panel, has come together once again to investigate alien sightings across the US. Our reporters managed to get in touch with Archibald Clyde, member of the Robertson Panel. But when questioned as to the nature of the Panel’s findings, Clyde refused to comment, saying he lacked the permission to speak about such classified information. Here at WORLD OUTSIDE, we take that as unequivocal proof the government is hiding sensitive information about extraterrestrial presence…

  I can almost hear Father Tinney’s ear-jarring voice, feel the fear pulsing through my veins, smell the smoke filling the room. I remember being frozen in my tracks until my mother’s voice fell over me, urging me to be strong. It is when we are most afraid that we accomplish the most remarkable of things.

  Scrolling forward, a photograph leaves my pulse pounding up in my ears. As I peer down at the wall of skulls staring blankly out at me, I remember sneaking Debbie into St. Joseph’s and down into the catacombs.

  Debbie O’Ryan. The same Debbie
O’Ryan that gave me breakfast cereal and introduced me to Cliffy the Clown. But which one is the real one?

  Unless…

  I swallow hard, not wanting to believe the thought circling my mind. Both of them are.

  I think back to creeping down those rickety old stairs, finding candles, and inching through those bone-laid walls. I remember being paralyzed, devoured in fear, and Debbie telling me it would all be okay. “It is when we are most afraid that we accomplish the most remarkable of things,” she said.

  But…

  I want to say it’s impossible, but I can’t. The pieces fall eerily into place. I remember dropping the match and watching the fire spread from bed to bed. As Father Tinney raced up the stairs to see where the smoke was coming from, we escaped through the back door. There, in the high grass behind the orphanage, I spied the little boy with the T-shaped shovel running for the open road. He’d go on to hitch a ride with a man who went by the name of Mr. Clyde. Archibald Clyde. That little boy was me.

  The caption under the wall of bones reads Bet She’arāyim, Israel. I want to say it’s impossible, that the place in the picture is at Saint Joseph of Cupertino’s in New Mexico. But I’m starting to know better. The article is crying out in black and white.

  ARCHAEOLOGISTS MAKE AN IMPLAUSABLE DISCOVERY IN ISRAEL. Recent excavations in Israel have led archaeologists to come to an incredible if not mysterious conclusion: human tradition concerning the departed transcends both space and time. During a dig conducted in the Haifa District, at Bet She’arāyim, the Dwelling of the Two Gates, archaeologists discovered catacombs bearing identical traits to crypts across the planet. World-renowned archaeologist Pat Johnson explains, “We used to believe funeral customs varied greatly between locations, cultures and religions. Now we’re not so sure. Our newest discoveries suggest a link between the way humans tend to their dead that transcends not only space, but also time. Second century Egyptian catacombs bear the exact likeness to those built in Ukraine, some seventeen centuries later. The big question now has become, is there something bigger connecting us at a conscious level…and if so, what?”

  The hairs on my arms stand up straight. The Dwelling of the Two Gates. The strange anomalies. The government coverups. The UFO sightings.

  Bracing myself, I dig further. August 24, 1953. DOOMSDAY CLOCK SET TO TWO MINUTES UNTIL MIDNIGHT. After the Soviet Union’s recent testing of its very own 400 kiloton H-Bomb, the pendulum of the clock of doom swings closer than it’s ever been to total disaster. Commanding General and Chief of the US Engineer Force, Lieutenant Montgomery Bristol, urges Americans to open their eyes: “These new bombs are not only dangerous for our people, but also for our planet. The Doomsday Clock warns that in but a few ticks of the minute’s hand, life as we know it can be changed forevermore. The only way to turn back the hands of time is by looking to the future and working together. If not, we risk walking blindly directly into a war that could leave us, like the lost civilizations of antiquity, as cryptic marks engraved upon a wall.”

  Time spins forward, carrying me along with it.

  The Corona Times. ONE OF OUR OWN, ROBERT FLYNN, SELECTED AS MEMBER OF MERCURY 8. April 10, 1959. Early yesterday NASA formally announced the eight men chosen to embark on the forthcoming US Manned Spaceflight Missions; among them, Corona-born Robbie Flynn. In honor of his accomplishment, the Corona Civic Association has invited the young astronaut home for a celebration in his honor. “We hope he’ll come,” Robbie’s childhood friend, William Sawyer explains, “It’s been an eternity since we’ve last seen him.”

  I remember the celebration, the singing and the pie. I’ll never forget Willy pulling me to the side, eyes wide. “You’re not considering going, are you? Don’t you know how dangerous it is?”

  I try to find the words to console him, but they rest blocked in my throat.

  “It’s time,” the taxi driver cries, pointing at his watch.

  My hands grow sweaty as the reporter for the Corona Times makes an announcement through a foam-tipped microphone. “History in the making. You are watching Robbie Flynn embark for the mission!”

  April 27, 1959. 8 MERCURY ASTRONAUTS BEGIN 3-MONTH TRAINING. Members of NASA’s Mercury Program are being educated in environmental science, astronautics, aviation and plan development. Astronauts are expected to be fully prepared for space flight at the culmination of this period…

  June 30, 1959. ORIGINAL 8 UNDERGO INSUFFERABLE TESTS OF STRENGTH. With its sunshine, barbecues, and Independence Day Parades, July is a month Americans wish wouldn’t end. But this year, eight Americans wish it’d be over with already. Members of NASA’s Mercury 8 will spend the month contending with various tests of disorientation and survival at Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. At MASTIF, the multiple-axis space test inertia facility, astronauts will be subjected to space-flight simulation, where each will have to react to potentially dire situations while simultaneously being spun around as if in space. Once accomplished, astronauts will move on to face the dreaded Centrifuge Test, where they will have to endure elevated gravitational pulls without losing consciousness…

  The article was written only days before my 18th birthday. But as I slide to the next page, it’s not without grasping there’s a lot more than just my childhood I’ll be leaving behind.

  “We are all bound up together.”

  ~Frances E. W. Harper

  TWENTY TWO

  TANGLED IN THE MIDDLE

  1960-1989

  Regardless of whether I’m ready for them, the events of years long since passed roll across the screen. The waves are seismic, shaking the world I thought I knew into that which it really is. When the rumblings of an elapsed past lie crumbling at my feet, the year is 1965.

  January 19, 1965. MERCURY 8 BEGINS SIMULATION TESTS IN HAWAII. In preparation of lunar landings anticipated later this year, Astronaut Group 1 has landed in the Aloha State for geological excavation of lava-flow surfaces believed to resemble those present on the moon.

  The memories surge back, red and hot. They carry me from the crater’s bowed edge to the Fire Pit of Halemaumau. The place the world was born. But not just any world. My world.

  It was like the Big Bang. My world was dark and empty. Then, in a split second, everything changed forever. There she was. The moment I laid eyes on Hai’kela, I knew she was the one. It couldn’t be any other way. She had to be mine.

  I didn’t have a ring. But I had something else. Sliding the pocket watch into her hand I dropped down to one knee. “This pocket watch has been in my family since before anyone can remember. Now it’s yours.”

  She opened it up and peered inside before asking, “Is it true?”

  “Yes! Come with me!”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “If what you say is true, it doesn’t make a difference. I’ll come once Gemini has ruled the night.”

  “Okay,” I said, motioning to the pocket watch. “Until then, all you need to do is turn it back, and it’ll be like I’m still here.”

  Time skips forward in a jumble of headlines.

  February 17, 1965. ASTRONAUTS ANDERS, ARMSTRONG, BAKER AND FLYNN PREPARE FOR GEMINI FLIGHT. February 20, 1965. NASA LUNAR PROBE, RANGER 8, CRASHES INTO MOON’S SURFACE. March 18, 1965. FIRST MAN WALKS IN SPACE.

  When a different kind of headline catches my eye, I begin reading.

  March 21, 1965. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. LEADS MARCH FROM SELMA TO MONTGOMERY WEARING A HAWAIIAN LEI? Yes, you saw it right. Civil Rights Leader and Peaceful Activist, Martin Luther King Jr. led this emblematic march wearing an emblem of his own, a plumeria flower necklace symbolizing peace and love. King Jr., who visited Hawaii several times in hopes of learning ways to
ensure peaceful integration amongst races, was sent the flowers by the Hawaiian people as proof of their support…

  My mind wanders back to standing at the brim of the fire pit. “Hazel?” she said, tucking the white plumeria behind her ear. “That’s what Martin calls me.”

  “Martin?” I asked.

  “A reverend from the mainland who comes to learn from my father. He says things are bad for his people and he is looking for peaceful ways of change. He says some people try to fight through hateful means, but we never should. After all, it’s like what Frances Ellen Watkins Harper once said: We are all bound up together.”

  “Bound up together? What do you mean?”

  “Regardless of our differences, we’re really all the same. The more we hurt each other, the more we end up hurting ourselves.”

  All these years later, I’m starting to realize how right she was. Not wanting to think about it, I turn back to the tablet and read.

  June 29, 1965. ORIGINAL 8 IN FINAL PHASE OF GEOLOGY TRAINING. Members of the NASA team are in their third and final phase of lunar training. Deserted in the vast expanses of Katmai, Alaska in the Valley of the 10,000 Smokes, astronauts will work in pairs to achieve missions including traversing difficult terrains, gathering samples, and concisely communicating their findings. Shortly after, astronauts will be sent to Iceland for the culmination of geology training…

  July 20, 1965. AFTER RECENT GEMINI TOURS, TWO MERCURY ASTRONAUTS RECOUNT BEING IN SPACE. After examining some of the common downfalls of time spent in space (namely facial bloating, diminished eyesight, limb numbness and leg muscle deterioration), we asked astronauts Baker and Flynn to share their personal feelings about being far from the blue planet.

  “What I noticed straight away was the smell of outer space. It’s like nothing I’ve ever smelled before, making it difficult to describe…but if I had to, I’d say it smells sharp and tinny, like gunpowder,” reports Alby Baker.