by IGMS
I didn't respond.
"Job, you see, was a man who took himself too serious." Old Scratch stood up. "He deserved a little pranking. Everyone does, I reckon."
And the Devil went off down the street, laughing and carrying on.
Elmer was heaving, still out of breath, still in the pastor's arms. I reached a hand to help him up. He looked at me, a glower fit to skin cats.
"Elmer," I said, "you done what no one else could do, and for that you got . . . well, you got my admiration, son."
"No one else could do." Elmer laughed and shook his head. "Truth ain't much of an apology, Mayor."
"Well, damn, Elmer . . ." I exhaled. "I'm real sorry, and I truly mean it."
Elmer took my hand and got up, looking down at me.
"I'm real sorry," I repeated, quietly. There was an awful lot of ground for those three words to cover. Miles and miles and years and years.
Elmer exhaled. "S'pose you are. Well, thanks." He didn't stick his hand out or give me a smile or nothing, he just tromped off, stretching out his sore arms. I watched him go, and I wondered whether King David and Samson was so ornery. Reckon so.
Folk still don't change much around here. Elmer quit his job at the general store. Few years later, I heard he'd been stabbed and left in a ditch. Crazy enough, he lived. Takes a lot to kill a boy that big. He became a minister after that. God's still a God of miracles.
Bill Weaver fell down a well he was digging on his property. Nobody said nothing about it.
I retired from the mayor's office after Rich Evans died. Not much fun without him around. Susie lives in town with Jon, but Reese -- well, she only answers her phone once in a while. I met her husband once, a funny little Mexican boy with glasses and a gut. I was real polite, but I reckon he'd heard the story of Elmer, cause he wasn't. Maybe she'll warm up once she gives me grandkids.
It's beyond me or anyone to say, but I reckon the Lord and the Devil still get together over beers and a wager, like they did for old Job. Both of them got a real nasty sense of humor.
Go Home, And Be With Your Families
by Steven R. Stewart
Artwork by Anna Repp
* * *
Herb walked past his phone's charging station on his way to refill his Crown and Coke. The little red light in the corner of the phone's screen was still blinking. Herb had vaguely hoped that it would disappear if he ignored it long enough. He shut his eyes, counted to three, and reopened them. The light hadn't gone away, and neither had the voicemail message it indicated. He knew who the message was from. It was from Triela, his 16 year-old daughter, and that made it stressful territory.
Without meaning to, Herb walked to the marble counter where the phone sat charging, leaned on his hands and said, "Voicemail." It was probably the alcohol that made him do it. The phone screen lit up, and after the pretty, sterile voice was done advertising the mobile carrier Herb was already with, Triela's voice came on.
"Dad," she said. "Hi. You haven't called me in three weeks. Nobody is that busy, not even you. I understand you're probably worried by now that I'm going to do the bitchy daughter thing and ream you for ignoring me for almost a month, or that Mom has finally succeeded in turning me against you, or that I'm going to be mad that I had to find out about May from Pat."
May was Herb's new fiancé that neither Triela nor Herb's ex-wife knew about. Pat was Herb's agent. And now Pat was going to get fired. Or killed.
"I'm actually happy for you," Triela's voice continued. "She sounds like a cool chick. And Mom and I don't want you to be alone forever. Okay, maybe Mom does. The point is, you should have told me. I'm not okay here, Dad. I sound okay because I'm trying to communicate rationally with you right now, because I think that's what you need, but I'm actually really pissed. And I've made a decision. Kind of a big one, so I need you to listen. This is the last message I'm going to leave you. The ball's in your court. It's up to you to show me you still . . . you know."
The message paused for a moment, and Herb wondered if maybe she had gotten cut off. He started to take another drink but stopped when the message continued. Triela was crying.
"Speaking of balls, Dad, just grow some and call me. You're the biggest coward I've ever met, and if you're incapable of returning a simple phone call, then I don't need you in my life." Another pause. An angry sigh. "And for the record, it wasn't easy to make this call either."
Beep.
"To delete this message, say 'delete'," the pretty, sterile voice said. "To save it in your archives, say, 'save.'"
Herb downed the rest of his Crown and Coke and stared at the white tile of the kitchen floor. He couldn't call Triela. For one thing, the message was already days old. And besides, what would he say? That he was sorry for allowing his marriage to implode -- and Triela's sense of stability along with it? That he was sorry for pursuing his dream instead of staying in the Midwest and doing radio for the rest of his life? There wasn't anything to say. She had him pegged.
"Are you still there?" the phone asked.
"Delete," Herb said.
"Message deleted." Triela could call him a coward all she wanted. She could even be right, but he wouldn't call her back this time. He had tried the family thing, and it hadn't worked. Maybe things would go better with May. There was an old song Herb used to like that said, "I'd like to say that I'm a faithful man, but it may not be true." It wasn't true then, even if he had thought it was, and maybe it wasn't true now. But however things went with May, Herb had to stop hurting Triela.
Herb had a painful thought then, a vision of Triela when she was about three, sitting on his lap at the computer as he tried to record samples for his voice-acting portfolio. She bounced up and down on his knee, pointing at the different colored bars on the monitor and saying, "Daddy's recordin'. Daddy's makin' samples." She had said "samples" like it was two words. "Sammmm-pulls!" And she had messed up every other recording by talking or squealing or kicking the desk, but Herb hadn't minded at all. Even when things were hard, Triela had been a joy.
Herb shook the image from his head and practically ran to the cupboard for a refill.
"Next unheard message," the phone said.
Herb took a drink, felt the warmth spread into his stomach and up into his brain. The image of three-year-old Triela blurred and finally faded.
"Herb, this is Pat."
Herb smiled and angrily shook his head. Herb had some words for good old Pat for letting it slip that Herb was engaged again.
"Call me, buddy," Pat's voice said. "This is big."
And that was the whole message. The pretty, sterile voice came on and dated the message, 1:45 p.m. March 8th, 2020. An hour ago, when Herb had still been asleep.
Sunday was Herb's day off, but Pat had sounded excited. And Pat had that L.A. agent poker face. He never sounded excited, even when things really were exciting. Curiosity overcoming his anger, Herb picked up the phone and said, "Pat." The phone began to ring.
Herb had worked in radio before moving the family to Los Angeles in 2009 so he could concentrate on doing voice-over work. Once on the west coast, he voiced mostly anime and video games franchises, occasionally working on foreign films or narrating NatGeo specials. But Herb didn't find his true calling until 2014, when the first ETTV shows were purchased from SETI.
When the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute launched its HArV-E3 satellite in December 2012, it began receiving alien signals almost immediately. And not just radio signals, but television as well. Once filtered and corrected, the picture proved quite clear. On the morning of January 21, 2013, a handful of SETI employees gathered in a dimly-lit conference room. Huddled together, tearful, cursing under their breath, sometimes hugging, sometimes laughing out loud, they were the first human beings ever to set eyes on an alien race.
Not only were we not alone, we had brothers. They were like us. Smaller, because of the high gravity of their larger planet. Paler, with larger eyes, because of dim conditions caused by heavy cl
oud cover in the upper atmosphere. But they smiled like us. And hugged like us. They grew vegetables, and went to church, and fell in love.
In the early television shows, the aliens wore dramatic face paint to emphasize their expressions on camera. One analyst drew a parallel to Japanese Kabuki theater, the name stuck, and the aliens became the Kabuki. It wasn't until the later shows, the ones that reached SETI in mid 2015, that the makeup became more subtle. And the variety of programming began to broaden.
At first SETI kept all this a secret from the general public, though they brought in dozens of linguists and social scientists and television historians to make sense of the incredible content that was arriving, day after day, hour after hour. The very fact that the Kabuki were so similar to us, not just biologically but technologically, gave a lot of credence to the idea that life was seeded, and even tended, on Earth and planets like it.
The stream of content continued. Advertisements for cereal. Newscasts. "Feed the Children"-like commercials. Nature shows with animals and plants vaguely familiar -- bird, dog, fish, tree -- yet different enough to ignite our imaginations. There were even baseball games. As it turned out, America's pastime was quite literally a gift from God -- or his equivalent. But the Kabuki's outfielders were better. The analysts had had a good laugh over that one.
That's when SETI started approaching the media companies. TimeWarner was the first to bite, and a handful of other mega-companies quickly followed suit. Six months and one announcement later, the media world exploded.
Herb's career had exploded with it, and if Pat was even half-right about the deal the execs were offering him, Herb would be set for the next five years -- if the Los Angeles traffic ever let up and allowed Herb to get to the meeting. Herb scanned for an alternate route, but his GPS's Darth Vader voice calmly informed him that no alternate routes were possible. Herb lit a cigarette and tried not to look at his watch or the translucent GPS display on his windshield. He'd get there when he got there. No sense in farming ulcers.
The new TimeWarner building was huge, looking like something out of the Jetson's. Or maybe Dubai. Herb had only been here a handful of times, and he always managed to get lost. This time, Herb chose the right elevator on the first try, a glass one so fast it made his ears pop. When the doors opened, Herb walked, working his jaw and trying to yawn, down the hall. The receptionist waved him in.
Pat was there at the marble table waiting for him. Pat was the kind of man who would have looked good with glasses, but Pat would never wear glasses purely for fashion reasons, so his eyes remained beady, dull. Even so, there was no mistaking the expression in them: there might as well have been dollar signs.
Herb didn't recognize the other two men in the room. But then Herb had never even been on this floor.
"Have a seat, buddy," an exec in a short-sleeved, black shirt told him. The man had full tattoo sleeves complete with swirling koi fish and a samurai. "You want a drink." It wasn't a question.
"Hell, yes, I do," Herb said. "Crown and Coke. It's been tasting good recently."
"Old school, I like it," the other man said. This guy had a slick suit and a shark's smile. After a moment at the extensive mini-bar, the man returned with a Crown and Coke -- with lime, fancy fancy -- and set it down in front of Herb. "Dig in, champ. Service with a smile."
Herb sipped the drink. The lime didn't add much, just killed the fizz and muddied up the flavor.
"Well, we're not going to give you the song and dance," the man with the tattoos said. "Our casting director is pissed enough that we wanted to give you the news ourselves. But this is bigger than one role, am I right?" He shot a knowing grin at the man with the shark smile.
"What Spence is trying to say," Shark-Man said, "is that we don't want to waste your time."
"Truth," Spence -- the tattoo guy -- said. "So here you go, Herb. I'll bottom line it for you. Our test audiences love you. The public loves you. And on a personal note, we love you. Am I right?" Shark-Man nodded. "You've got a great voice, that perfect blend of vulnerability, strength, awkward humor, and baritone sexiness."
"Uh, thanks."
"But more important than what we think is this: People are really starting to associate you with Mato. More than any of the other guys who do his roles."
Mato was one of the best-known alien actors. He was taller than most Kabuki, and his hair grew in a shaggy lion's mane around his head. He would have looked forbidding if not for his eyes. Mato had kind, strong eyes. Fatherly eyes.
Mato was something of a hero in his own culture. He had been a pilot in a world war against an army of human sized, termite-like invaders that had threatened the very existence of the Kabuki. The winged termites had been deadly opponents, both agile and fearless. But Mato made a name for himself by being that much quicker, that much fiercer in the skies. He began his acting career shortly after his discharge, working on films based on the war he had just finished fighting. He was an instant success and became so beloved that one Kabuki politician even called him "Son of the World."
Herb had done several of Mato's roles. That was the odd thing about ETTV - not only were you portraying a character, you were portraying the actor portraying that character. And all that with only your voice as a tool. It was challenging, but Herb's fondness for Mato made portraying him, even in the simplest scene, deeply fulfilling. Mato was the reason Herb made the transition to doing ETTV almost exclusively. Because it was more than just fondness. When Herb was playing Mato, he saw a better version of himself than he could glimpse any other way.
Herb said, "Thank you, but I know for a fact that Jason Hubert has a lot of fans." Jason Hubert was another actor who did a lot of Mato's roles.
"Hubert is trash compared to you," Spence said. "Nice guy, but it's true."
"I've always thought so," Pat said and gave Herb a thumbs up.
"The point is," Shark-Man said, "the company has acquired the rest of Mato's work; past, present, and future. And there is an upcoming show that the SETI guys say the Kabuki have -- or had, depends on how you look at it -- slotted for five years. It's called 'We Family,' and we should have the premiere ready to dub in a week. It's solid stuff. Neo-Nostalgia in vitro."
Herb wasn't sure he knew what that meant.
"This is a tricky business," Spence said. "Getting these shows on tap like this is stressful. You never know when the flow is going to stop. We like things we can count on. And now that we have all the rights and assurances, we want to settle on one actor for all future roles."
"That actor," Shark-Man said, "is you, my friend."
Whoa. That meant --
Herb would be playing all of Mato's roles from now on.
The realization hit Herb hard, and he almost choked on an ice cube. Pat looked at him and grinned wildly, as if to say, See? Aren't I the best agent in the universe?
"Wow," Herb said, coughing. He didn't know how to put into words what he was feeling. It was the bittersweet realization that he had just achieved everything he had set out to achieve in the voice-acting world, and more. After this, everything was extra.
"I know," Spence said, nodding. "It's a huge opportunity and a lot to take in. But we're happy to have you on board."
Spence and Shark-Man extended their hands to shake. Vaguely pleased, a little numb, and feeling like his life was on fast-forward, Herb shook them.
After dark, at a bar down the street, Herb bought Pat a drink.
"I'd love those guys if I didn't hate them so much," Herb said.
"What is this?" Pat said. "You should be wanting to have their executive babies right now. You're set for life, man. You're Captain Kirk. You're Luke Skywalker. Because they picked you."
Herb took a long drink. He wished he could smoke in here. Where could you smoke, if not in a bar?
"Exactly," Herb said. "They were too nice, like give-me-diabetes nice. I'm not used to suits cuddling up to me."
"Get used to it. I could."
Herb ordered a wheat beer. There was a lemo
n floating in it. Couldn't anyone drink alcohol in this city without citrus?
Herb picked out the lemon and took a sip. "I just miss the hunger, Pat. I lost it somewhere."
"I think that's why you got into the game in the first place," Pat said. "You thrive on instability."
Herb thought about that. Was that why he'd relocated -- then lost -- his family, ditched the radio job, and moved out here without any guarantees?
"No," Herb said. "That isn't why I did it. I got into voice acting because I could act. I didn't have to --" Herb stopped talking. He didn't want to finish that thought, not out loud.
When Herb was doing voice-over work, he could hide his face, hide his voice behind accents and over-enunciation. He could lose himself. And when he lost himself, he could forget how he had, not even dramatically, but slowly and systematically, squeezed himself out of his marriage. By putting all the things he cared about in his office, away from the rest of the house. By being cold and calm in their arguments, not offering anything of himself, not even giving Rebecca -- his ex-wife -- the opportunity to change him with the things she said. The sex died. The love faded. Even civility became out of the question when the contempt crept in. So he and Rebecca did the logical thing. The divorce was finalized on Herb's 35th birthday.
Triela became his whole family after that, and she had been enough, for a while. Until she got old enough to be disappointed in him, to make faces that reminded Herb so much of Rebecca. And Herb began to pull away from her too.
So, yes, it felt good to leave all that behind and pretend you were somebody else, somebody strong, somebody like Mato.
Herb liked Pat, but he didn't trust him. Not enough to share all that.
"Escape," Pat said. "I get it."
"Damn right, it was escape," Herb said. "And when ETTV rolled around, it became more than that. You know the auto-translation technology in the new Google phones? Everybody's talking to each other in whatever language they want, and they're still getting the meaning dead wrong. They're still not communicating. And how about the fact that half the US population has emo-chips in their brains for 4-D TV?"