by John Marco
The street was filled with the sounds of weapons firing and confused shouts. Dust rose where dozens of bullets hit the street. As I expected, everyone looked at me, and no one even noticed a lone, camo-clad soldier who crept hurriedly along one side.
I just hoped Jeremy would not get clipped by a stray bullet or ricochet.
Me? I just kept strutting and high stepping along. I even waved at one of the snipers. He was so shocked he stopped firing.
My soldier, my boy, was past now and running down the street toward the roadblock. Men in uniforms like his poured out, weapons ready, but the bad guys were still concentrating on me. They swarmed around Jeremy, and the tank’s guns rotated to point down the street.
When I saw he was safe, I began to let go. It was getting hard to stay in this world now. I had been visible much longer than even most exits called for. Then I saw him stop and turn just short of the sand bags.
I think he knew I would not be back. Jeremy waved, and even from so far away I could see that smile. He was smiling his smile, and it felt good. I waved back.
Then, knowing Jeremy was safe again, I could not resist any more. Even as I began to disappear, there was one last thing I wanted to share again. I started doing our silly dance.
Dancing, I said my last good bye to the fading sound of my boy’s laughter.
WHETHER ’TIS NOBLER IN THE MIND
Fiona Patton
THE unopened government envelope lay accusingly in the center of the dining room table. The large and expensive gift basket sat no less accusingly beside it. George Prescott stood, studiously ignoring them both as he watched the driver of the red minivan that had just delivered the gift basket back up his driveway, trying to avoid the fence posts and cedar trees to either side. The unexpected early December snowstorm that had blown in the night before had hidden most of the potholes, and George winced as the van dropped into the largest of them with a heavy thud. He’d meant to get a load of gravel brought in since he’d moved to the county nearly two years ago, but it’d kept slipping his mind.
“Oh, well, as we seem to be here to stay, there’s always next spring, eh, Lucky?”
The tiny, brown chihuahua tucked in the crook of George’s arm sneezed at the sound of his name, then lifted itself up, propping one tiny paw on his shoulder so that it could see out the window.
“Of course,” George added, eyeing the gift basket with a resentful expression, “there’ll be just as many opportunities to forget it. Maybe I can ask Brandon and Fred to see to it.”
Outside, as if on cue, the minivan screeched to a sudden halt as a dark blue Buick shot into the driveway, narrowly missing its side view mirror. George heard the van’s driver shout a profanity as the Buick swerved around the pothole and stopped beside his dilapidated drive shed with a spray of snow and gravel.
His young cousins, Brandon and Fred Geoffries, emerged from the car a moment later. Each lit a cigarette, Fred answered the driver’s gesture with one of his own, then both men ambled up the crumbling concrete steps of George’s 19th-century farmhouse.
George watched them approach with a certain amount of grudging admiration.
Both men had the Geoffries’ lean, rangy build and dark blond hair and wore ball caps, lineman’s jackets, and jeans paled almost white stuffed into scuffed old work boots. They carried themselves with a confidence and an air of competence that made it easy to forget that neither brother was over the age of twenty-four.
Lucky began to bark an hysterical welcome, and George quickly set him down before he leaped out of his arms.
“Go on, then,” he said with an indulgent smile. “Go and meet them.”
The dog took off like a shot, and George eyed his laptop sadly.
“So much for my quiet day of writing,” he noted.
Moments later, Fred appeared, the still smoldering cigarette stub tucked behind his left ear and Lucky tucked under one arm. Brandon paused a moment to toss his own cigarette into a snowbank and bang his boots on the side of the house before entering behind him. After setting Lucky onto the floor, Fred glared out the window.
“Hey George, why the hell hasn’t Jesse come by to plow you out yet?”
“My paper sent it.”
George waved in the general direction of the dining room table as the two men whistled at the sight of the gift basket.
“Your Torawna tabloid, you mean,” Fred snickered.
“Yes, my Toronto tabloid. They must have received my letter of resignation.”
Brandon glanced over at the card affixed to the handle with a gold and burgundy ribbon that read “Happy Retirement! Good luck in your new life!” “Looks like,” he said in a neutral voice, “bout time you left that piece-a-shit rag, anyway.”
“I suppose.”
Fred tipped the brim of his orange Mill Valley Propane cap up to peer through the bright polka-dot wrapping paper. “Whoa. There’s a whole lot of fancy shit in here, George. Aren’t you gonna open it?”
“I was going to do it later.”
“Why later?”
“Well, I . . .” George sighed. “No reason, really.” He reached for a pair of scissors with a resigned expression as Fred headed for the kitchen to get them each a beer.
“What the hell is all this shit anyway, George?” Fred demanded once the contents of the basket had been spread out across the table. Lifting a jar of brownish paste up to the light, he peered at it suspiciously. “Onion jam? You gotta be kidding.”
“It’s caramelized onion comfit,” George answered primly, lifting it from Fred’s hand. “And no one invited you to comment. Or to try it either for that matter.”
“I’ll try the maple beer whatever-it-is,” Brandon offered.
“Pate. And don’t give me that look,” George snapped. “I know very well that you know what pate is. And I hadn’t planned on opening any of it right now.”
Brandon glanced over at the government envelope still laying on the table. “That’s not all you haven’t opened,” he observed.
George’s face grew pink. “Yes, well, not as such, no, not yet.”
“Your birthday was last week.”
“I’m fully aware of when my birthday was, thank you.”
“When’d it come?”
“The day before yesterday.”
Fred glanced from the envelope to George’s expression and back again. “So what’s the big problem,” he demanded, popping a strawberry-wine bonbon into his mouth. “It’s money, ain’t it?”
“It’s a check, yes,” George allowed. “An old age pension check.”
Fred let out a loud bark of laughter. “Right. The Holy Grail of governments handouts. Can I touch it, George? Please. Is it made of gold?”
“No you can’t touch it, and it’s not a handout,” George snarled at him. “I earned every penny of that in fifty years of hard work and sacrifice.”
Fred laughed again. “Yeah, yeah, I know, that’s what all the old timers say.”
“Them that don’t throw stuff at you for making the joke,” Brand added.
“Only Auntie Maude.” Fred cracked the lid on the jar of pate and offered a bit to Lucky on the tip of his finger. “It’s money,” he said bluntly, jerking his head at the envelope. “Money’s money. Fuckin’ cash it and go buy a Stairmaster or something if you’re worried about getting old. Hey, pup, the food, not the finger!”
Lucky licked his chops unrepentantly and stared up at Fred, pointedly waiting for more.
“I’m not worried about getting old,” George answered, lifting the dog out of reach. “I’m just having a little trouble with the idea of being old.”
“Beats the alternative.”
“I’m sure it does. Still . . .”
“You talked to Art an’ Lloyd at yer birthday party, didn’t you?” Brandon asked, opening a box of English crackers and retrieving the heavy silver plated cheese knife from the depths of the basket.
“Yes . . .”
“Well, maybe you should talk to ’em a
gain. Pass the . . .” He glanced around the table with the air of a connoisseur. “Danish brie, will ya?”
George handed it over with a querulous expression. “What are you doing here, anyway?” he asked.
Fred grinned at him through a mouthful of hazelnut paste and crackers. “Saw yer cousin Jerrold in town. He sent us.”
“Oh.”
Ever since he’d been welcomed back into the south county’s sprawling four-family community he was relatedto, George Prescott had struggled to come to some kind of logical terms with their unique abilities and their nonchalant acceptance of them without any proper explanation. Brandon, Fred and the rest of the Geoffries could cast illusions so powerful that even they couldn’t see through them; Frawst, like Brandon’s girlfriend Cheryl, could levitate people, beer cans, or even the heaviest farm machinery; Akormans could make any engine stand up and do tricks without a drop of gasoline to power them; and Mynakers, like George’s grandmother, Dorothy, and his cousin, Jerrold, had the Sight.
“So Jerrold told you to come over and mooch off my gift basket?” he demanded.
Brandon shrugged. “More’r less.”
“Remind me to thank him.”
As the sound of Jesse Frawst’s four-wheeler announced the arrival of their young cousin to plow out the driveway, Lucky began to bark again, and George just shook his head.
Most of the less exotic items in the basket had been polished off when their meal was interrupted by the sound of another car navigating the driveway’s potholes. Lucky began to bark at once, nearly throwing himself from George’s lap as a battered, old, white Pontiac pulled up behind Brandon’s Buick.
“I seem to be very popular today,” George groused. “I’m never going to get any writing done at this rate.”
“It’s Danny,” Brandon answered. Then, as two six-year-old girls spilled out from the back seat, he nodded. “An’ Rose an’ Molly. It’s chocolate buyin’ time. They touched me up yesterday.”
“Touched you up?”
“To the tune of ten bars. They’re like a swarm of locusts all on their own, them two.”
“They hit me an’ Lisa up for six,” Fred added. “Looks like it’s your turn to eat shitty chocolate for the cause, George.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Count yerself lucky,” Brandon continued, then rolled his eyes as Lucky turned to yap at him indignantly. “Last year it was Christmas cakes, an’ I nearly went broke before they were done.”
George glanced back at the chipped chihuahua mug sitting by his laptop where he kept his money for when the families’ children come selling things with another sigh and went to open the door before Lucky barked himself into a seizure.
Daniel Geoffries was a tall, lean man in his late forties, thick, dark hair peppered with grey. He shook George’s hand around the huge cardboard box he was carrying, accepted the offer of a beer from Fred, then dropped onto the couch beside the dining room table with a tired sigh. Lucky had already thrown himself into the arms of the quieter of the two girls and was now snuggled down into the crook of her elbow while the other girl launched into her sales pitch.
“It’s high-quality chocolate with only the finest almond bits made right here in Canada, and all the proceeds go to supporting our local soccer club. How many can I interest you in, Uncle George?”
The girl gave George a penetrating stare, and he was surprised to see that her wide, blue eyes did not go dark the way the rest of the families’ usually did when they wanted to emphasis a point with one metaphysical ability or another.
Daniel chuckled at George’s nonplussed expression.
“That there’s Molly,” he said. “An’ this here’s Rose,” he added, indicating the other girl who had perched herself on the edge of the couch, Lucky still held gently in her arms. The dog looked as if he’d fallen asleep, and George smiled at him fondly.
“You don’t really have to buy any if you don’t want to,” Daniel continued, “but to be honest, the sooner we get ‘em sold the sooner I can get home to my own supper.”
“And it’s for a very good cause,” Molly added emphatically. “Soccer promotes team work, physical fitness, and settling disputes peacefully. And every bar is wrapped in a seasonal, decorative sleeve that makes it an excellent Christmas present for those hard to buy relatives on your list.”
“Well, I suppose I could buy a bar or two,” George offered, wilting under the pressure of both her and Rose’s expectant expressions. “How many do you have left?”
Once Daniel and the girls had left, George eyed the two dozen bars of chocolate with a glum look. “Well, I suppose I can always take them to Wanda’s bingo night,” he said morosely.
Brandon snorted. “She won’t thank you,” he observed. “That girlfriend of yours told me she was trying to lose weight before Christmas. Better just throw ’em in the freezer; they’ll keep.”
“Hell, stuff each one in a candle holder,” Fred added sarcastically, “there’s enough wax mixed in to that high-quality chocolate to light up a room.”
“Hm.” Unwrapping one absently, George sat down before his laptop and, opening a file marked Family Tree, began to scroll down. “That little Molly is certainly a pistol,” he noted. “Let’s see, Daniel Geoffries. I don’t seem to have him listed.”
“He’s one of Uncle Albert’s,” Fred supplied, opening another bar. “He and Tanya married right outta high school. They work together up at the cement plant.”
“Tanya . . . ?”
“Geoffries. Lloyd’s daughter.”
“That would make them first cousins, yes?”
“Yep. Sammy was born right after the wedding.”
George was typing madly. “Sammy?”
“Samuel Albert, their first.”
“Right after?”
“Damn near right after.”
“You know how it goes,” Brandon supplied.
“Slowed down a bit after that,” Fred continued. “They had Baby-Danny about three years later. Course, he don’t care much for the baby name these days, but he’s gonna be stuck with it forever. Old people’ve got memories like steel traps for that sorta thing. Don’tcha, George?”
“Shut up.”
“Rose now, she was kind of a surprise,” Brandon added, glancing at the screen over George’s shoulder. “Tanya thought she was all done with babying. That’s Mackenzie Rose Geoffries,” he expanded. “She’s a quiet kid; kinda lonely, I guess, with both her brothers already grown up and gone an’ no kids her age livin’ nearby. That was, until Molly came along about a year ago.”
“So Molly’s a cousin?”
“Not exactly,” Fred laughed.
George sighed, expecting another tale of complicated family genetics and relationships to muddle up his filing system. A number of the four families’ children had been conceived while their parents had been on a break from each other—at least two in every generation from what he could sort out—and more had been born either out of wedlock or very nearly out. His friend and cousin Art Akorman had once said that the families only married when the oldest was able to serve as flower girl or ring bearer. But somehow they all knew how they were related, and so George paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard expectantly, as the two brothers exchanged a glance.
“Molly’s imaginary, George,” Brandon said solemnly. “Rose is a Geoffries after all.”
The phone rang the next morning just as George had managed to almost sort out how he was going to input this latest surprise into the family tree file. With a faint groan, he stood, lifted Lucky out of the dog bed beside his laptop, and headed for the kitchen. He had planned to have a phone jack put into the dining room but had somehow never gotten around to it. Like the load of gravel, he supposed.
“Yes, it’s official,” he sighed. “I am old and dotty.”
Pulling the ancient rotary phone from the top of the fridge, he winced as it crackled loudly in his ear— technology was very uncertain in this end of the county. On most days he counte
d himself lucky that his laptop worked.
“Hello?”
“Hey George.” Thanks to the Geoffries ability, Fred’s voice came through loud and clear. “I need you to do me a favor.”
“Thanks for taking us around selling, Uncle George,” Molly said brightly as she and Rose settled into the back of his SUV with Lucky, dressed in a tiny, red Santa suit for the season, seated on Rose’s lap. “Dad’s on double shift today, an’ we’re real close to selling out.”
As George maneuvered out of Daniel and Tanya’s narrow driveway, he eyed the three large boxes looming over the back cargo area with alarm. “You’re very welcome, Molly. Um, how many boxes have you sold already?”
“Ten an’ a half. Whoever sells the most bars wins a bike, an’ we’re just two bars behind Caitlin Frawst, an’ she cheats ’cause her mom takes ’em to work with her.”
“I see. So, who haven’t you sold any to yet?”
Rose pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of her overlarge ski jacket, and the two girls and Lucky bent over it while George tried hard not to stare through Molly. He’d thought he’d gotten used to the Geoffries illusions, but this was the first time he’d ever had a conversation with one. That a child as young as Rose could maintain such a high level of clarity was amazing.
“There’s Grandpa Art an’ Gramma Janet,” Molly read out loud. “Great Auntie Maude, Uncle Kevin an’ Auntie Bev, an’ Great Uncle Charlie an’ Great Auntie Peggy. Oh, an’ Grandpa Albert says he’ll buy a couple more if we come by after Jeopardy. We woulda had Uncle Randy an’ Aunt Carol, but Cody’s sellin’ too. But those should do for today.”
“Yes, I’m sure they will,” George allowed. Most of the people on Molly’s list were either middle aged or elderly and all of them would be expecting them to visit for a time. They’d be lucky to be finished by midnight.
“Let’s try Grandpa Art an’ Gramma Janet first,” Molly said, breaking into his mournful reverie. “Gramma Janet always makes oatmeal cookies on Saturday mornings.”
“Oh.” George brightened at once. “That’s right, she does.”