Remember the Future

by Delafosse, Bryant

Rudy started out, revealing Maddy wiping down the table just behind him. She glanced over her shoulder at Grant.

  “Refill?”

  “No thank you,” Grant replied, rising and staring down at the two lonely wadded bills on the table slowly opening like dirty flowers. He sighed and drew his wallet from his pocket.

  Maddy sidled closer. “You have to excuse me, but did that man just threaten you?”

  Grant studied her for the first time and finally smiled disarmingly. The young woman was actually quite striking, he decided. She didn’t seem to fit this depressing little coffee shop.

  Maddy smiled back, the tension on her face lifting somewhat.

  Grant chuckled and gave a shake of his head as he removed a single bill from his wallet and slid it across the table, his hand hesitating a moment before releasing it. “Nah, he was just having fun with me.” He started away, then paused at Maddy’s side. Without looking up at her, he murmured, “Don’t ask to see the other player’s cards unless you know the stakes.”

  Maddy watched as Grant left the coffee shop. She turned to the table and gasped at the hundred dollar bill on the table between the two crumbled dollar bills. Setting her satchel on the table, she unzipped it, revealing the contents, a disorganized pile of multi-denominational cash and tossed the hundred-dollar tip in with the others.

  The well-dressed cashier paused just behind her, running a tube of gloss across her lips in the reflection of the mirrored glass over the booth. “How did your first table go?” she asked.

  An anxious expression appeared on Maddy’s face as she zipped up the bag. Tucking the satchel back into the crook of her arm, she slowly untied her apron. “I’m afraid I have to go now,” she said, sincerely apologetic, handing the cashier her neatly-folded apron.

  The woman stared at Maddy in disbelief as she walked out of the empty coffee shop. “One table? Seriously?”

  7

  When Grant arrived at the second floor landing of his apartment, little Justin was sitting out on the front stoop of his apartment under the shelter of the roof, his bare feet dangling out into the pouring rain and scissoring back and forth with the enthusiasm only a seven-year-old could muster.

  “Hi Justin,” Grant murmured under his breath. Oblivious to the current climactic conditions, he was dripping wet, a soggy cigarette dangled from his lips.

  Justin clambered up and padded over to Grant. “Hey, Mr. Fred! Did those cops ever find out who busted into your place?”

  “Oh, they were old friends of mine,” Grant replied. “Don’t worry about it. They won’t bother anyone else.”

  Justin stared up at the cigarette as Grant opened his unlocked door, a puddle forming on his ratty welcome mat—one which the same “friends” had felt fit to slash into slivers. “Hey, I didn’t know you smoked too.”

  Grant looked down at Justin with confusion before reaching up and retrieving the drooping white stick from his mouth. “This? I used to smoke a long, long time ago,” he answered. “But I quit.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my wife asked me to.”

  Standing at the threshold to his apartment, Grant sighed and turned instead to the railing. He tossed the cigarette out into the night and held his left hand out into the rain, watching as the rain washed over the band of white gold on his second finger.

  “You were married, Mr. Fred?” Justin asked.

  “I am.”

  “What happened?” Justin asked, taking a position next to Grant at the railing.

  “She died.”

  “Was it the cancer?”

  Grant peered down at Justin. “What do you know about that?”

  “My Paw Paw died from it,” Justin replied. “He got so tired that mama said that it was better that he just go ahead and went to sleep forever.”

  Grant withdrew his hand and shook off the rainwater, bringing it to his breast and buffing the ring against his shirt gently. “I figure that I was the one who brought the cancer to my wife,” Grant told him. “I was the weak one.”

  Justin seemed to consider this then said, “My MeeMaw says that if you ain’t got the strength to get over the hill, you get trapped in the shadows where the sun can’t find you. Is that what’s happening to you?”

  Grant stared down at Justin, his mind blanking on a sufficient answer.

  “Hey, Justin!” A hefty black woman stood at the door to the apartment next door, her brow knotted in frustration. “Get yo ass inside fore you catch yo death!” She gave Grant a glare of warning.

  In return, Grant gave her a friendly nod and a slight smile.

  She gave him a grunt and disappeared back inside.

  “Sounds like your Mee Maw is a very smart woman, Justin. You listen to her.”

  Justin nodded and gave Grant a parting wave before returning to his apartment.

  8

  A uniformed airport security guard shook Maddy awake in her seat. “Excuse me, ma’am.”

  Maddy, though disoriented from sleep, straightened immediately out of sheer instinct and found the floor with her feet in preparation to flee.

  An imposing security guard, with a scowl honed from years of doing the same job well and enjoying the ego boost that came with intimidation, stood over her chair in the terminal. Just behind her, several airport female workers watched the scene with morbid interest.

  “It’s been reported to me that you’ve been asleep here for most of the night and concern has been expressed if perhaps you may have missed your boarding call,” he said flatly as if reading a memorized speech. “May I please see your ticket, ma’am?”

  Maddy patted herself down and rose from her seat, nearly tripping over the satchel at her feet. She retrieved a mangled ticket from the inside of her wrinkled green jacket. She slapped it to the security guard’s chest roughly and scanned the airport concourse like a scared animal. “What time is it?”

  “Quarter to six, ma’am.”

  “Oh God,” she snapped. “I never meant to sleep that long.”

  The security guard nodded back to the airport workers behind him, as if to say, False alarm, folks. There will be no bloodletting this morning.

  “Yes, ma’am. This ticket was for last night. These ladies behind me can help you re-schedule your flight,” the guard said instead, his eyes already scanning the adjacent waiting areas for other possible victims.

  “No, that’s okay. I just need to orient myself first,” Maddy murmured in obvious confusion. She started away then turned and took the ticket back from the guard as an afterthought.

  When she was sure that the guard was out of sight, she tossed the ticket in the nearest trash. She had purchased the ticket to Dallas-Fort Worth with cash knowing that she would never actually board the plane, but thinking that using her own name might throw them off her trail. Who knows? Maybe it had actually bought her some time.

  She realized now only in retrospect that she had needed the ticket for that exchange with the security guard. She had only really sought a public place to stay for the night and the airport was obviously the most convenient.

  Stepping to the nearest restroom wash basin, she set the bag on the floor securely beneath her feet and splashed several handfuls of cold water on her tired face.

  She silently chastised herself. Focus! Wake up! Remember. White Toyota. Dent on left side of rear bumper. Jazz Fest sticker on back windshield. Jazz Fest.

  “How cool is that, right?” She looked up suddenly in the mirror, realizing that she had said the last bit out loud. In the last stall, she saw two dusty sneakers dangling below the door. Snatching her bag off the floor, she rushed outside.

  Maddy lowered her head and marched onward. She couldn’t afford to jump at shadows. When the real threat appeared, she had to be prepared to react. She must trust her instincts and push the fear aside.

  Fear equaled sloppy. Sloppy equaled dead.

  9

  Inside the busy confines of the Bush International air traffic control tower, men and women sat at rows o
f stations and advised hundreds of pilots in the skies above Houston, Texas.

  Carl Simmons removed his headset as Grant sat down at the board adjacent to his. “Hey, Frederickson, I heard a rumor you were actually going on an honest-to-goodness vacation. Is this true?”

  “Yeah, I’m afraid so,” Grant replied with an uncertain smile.

  “Man, I can’t remember the last time you even missed a day.”

  Grant swallowed awkwardly. “Actually, it’s been about a year.”

  Half-listening, Carl rose from his seat and made a quick circular motion above his head. As he did about ten controllers rose as well from their own stations. They all turned to Grant, and in unison, clasped their hands together over their respective heads in a show of victory before returning to their seats.

  Grant stared in awed confusion and looked at Carl, who chuckled at his reaction. “Yeah, I know. Kinda sappy. We just wanted to let you know how much we appreciate you around here, man.”

  Grant smiled at the faces around him and turned with embarrassment back to his station. “Wow,” he whispered to himself.

  “Yeah, well, secretly we’re all jealous and hate you,” Carl snapped with the hint of a smirk, turning back to his own station. “So, take your time off and don’t leave us holding the bag here for you too long.”

  10

  When the Blank Men entered Bush International, Maddy sat in one of the automated inter-terminal trains that ran around the clock deep within the bowels of the airport. She had only meant to ride it once around, but instead found herself there for most of the day falling into the deep meditative state that she had been practicing lately. In this way, she had actually been able to discover the level and section of the garage where the white Toyota with the dented bumper was currently parked.

  She had been in this state when the feeling broke through like a pulsing alarm.

  Glancing at her watch and finding that nearly two hours had passed, she rose immediately from her seat like a sentry spotting a threat on the horizon, grabbed her bag from the floor, and disembarked at the next stop.

  The underground passage below the terminal was narrow and dimly lit, which only added to the claustrophobia. Glancing back behind, she found both the corridor and the tracks on either side empty. She had to find a dense crowd and get lost inside, quick. From experience, she knew that there was safety only in numbers.

  She increased her pace until she arrived at the next stairwell and started up to the ground level.

  A single man in a grey suit stood alone at the top of the stairs, his back to her.

  No, she calmed herself. She could feel the messiness of his mind. The conflict. The confusion. The anxiety. This one was clearly a traveler preoccupied with the near future.

  She climbed the stairs past him then stopped.

  A single non-descript man in what appeared to be a black raincoat stood facing her about fifty yards away at the entrance to the terminal, his face in shadow.

  A Blank Man.

  No thoughts. No emotions.

  No arc into the future. No trailing past.

  A blank spot on her radar.

  Here we go, she told herself, seating herself fully in the reality of the moment--no longer looking to the future or the past.

  Maddy turned and started back downstairs, dashing down the narrow corridor in the opposite direction as an automated tram flanked her on one side. She had to get to the next intersection and get upstairs before the other man.

  Too late!

  Just ahead, she could see him rushing down the stairs from the level above, the black tail of his raincoat trailing behind him like a dragon’s tail as he headed down toward her. He had anticipated her direction and was attempting to cut her off. Now he would expect her to turn back and head in the opposite direction.

  She increased her speed instead and blew through the passage between the two sets of steps, committing to take the next available stairwell up to the ground floor of the terminal.

  Taking one quick glance behind, she found the suited man stopped in the corridor, speaking into a cell phone.

  Making it to the next stairwell, Maddy took the steps two at a time to the terminal above.

  She emerged from the lower level and started down the enormous nearly empty concourse that formed a bridge between terminals. The stark dying rays of the evening sun cast broad lines across the floor from the transparent roof lattice above, drawing long web-like fingers on the floor around her.

  Just ahead two pairs of pedestrian platforms moved in opposite directions down either side of the corridor, moving passengers quickly through the length of the long concourse to their destinations.

  Feeling suddenly vulnerable, Maddy glanced back behind her and noticed several small groups approaching.

  Dropping to one knee and setting her bag down beside her, she pretended to tie her shoe. She waited until the first group was reasonably close before rising. Gradually, she slowed her rate until the group had overtaken her then fell into step just behind and slightly ahead of the second group.

  The fifty yard long concourse began to fill with people. She assumed that a plane must have just de-boarded.

  Stepping onto the moving platform to her right just behind the large group she was following, Maddy took a moment to discreetly glance over her shoulder.

  The Blank Man on the cell phone had emerged from the lower level and had started down the platform about twenty yards behind her, pushing roughly past travelers in his way.

  She looked up. Just ahead, a second suited man waited at the end of the moving platform, cell phone held down beside the long tail of his raincoat like a sidearm.

  A second one.

  Maddy stopped walking. The man behind her also stopped.

  Making eye contact with a random man in military camouflage approaching on the opposite moving platform to her left, Maddy bolted forward again, waving erratically at him.

  “Help, sir! I’m being attacked,” she yelled to him as all surrounding eyes turned in her direction.

  The second Blank Man stepped casually onto the opposite platform moving toward her.

  Maddy slipped over the short dividing wall between the moving platforms with the help of the confused soldier, then leapt the short outer wall to the solid floor of the concourse and broke into a run toward the entrance to the next terminal.

  The two Blank Men continued down the opposite platforms at a casual pace as the soldier and surrounding travelers watched Maddy disappear from view into the crowd ahead.

  11

  At the end of his shift, Grant walked to the station of everyone he felt he knew reasonably well and shook their hands, saving Carl Simmons at the neighboring station for last.

  Giving him a firm handshake, the other man studied Grant’s face with a bemused expression. “Why do I feel like your retiring instead of just going on vacation?”

  Grant tried not to look awkward as he considered. “You never know,” he responded. “Maybe I’ll get used to the lifestyle and decide to stay on permanent vacation.”

  “What? Did you go and win the lottery on us?”

  Grant gave a dark chuckle. “I wish,” he replied, thinking instead: If only money could solve this problem.

  Carl gave him one last nod then turned back to his station. “Yeah, if either of us could retire at our age, we’d have done it by now, right? Have a good time, man!”

  Grant started out, taking one last look back before he headed out to the elevator.

  12

  No one approached Grant in the airport as he made his way to the garage. Down in the belly of the underground garage, he watched every shadow and listened attentively for footsteps coming from behind in the darkness but no one materialized.

  All day, his mind had been replaying one of the last things Rudy had said to him: “You’ve got twenty-four hours, Frederickson. Choose how you want to spend it.”

  He could have spent the day somewhere other than work, but oddly enough, he had st
ill felt a duty to his co-workers and to all the anonymous passengers on all those planes that depended on people like him.

  Grant found his Toyota parked in the usual spot, tail-end first in the far right hand row. He opened the unlocked door and cranked his engine.

  The knock on his window brought him to attention.

  In that split second, he thought: If this is it, I’m ready to go and I’m going to meet this thing head-on.

  Slowly, he turned to look his destiny in the eye.

  The girl stood at his passenger side window with a wide-eyed panicky look on her face. After a moment, she produced a hundred dollar bill and pressed it wordlessly against the window with an open palm.

  “Maddy,” he recalled in a murmur.

  Grant instantly recognized her from the coffee shop even before she proceeded to press her nametag next to the hundred he had given her.

  He had completely forgotten that he had given her the last of his cash. At the coffee shop after he had done the thing, he had felt instantly free and unburdened, almost as if he had removed the last of the piece of ballast that had kept him from floating away.

  In an odd way, seeing his money again brought back the heaviness of reality. Life and its responsibilities seemed to settle back onto his shoulders like a backpack, and he felt a sudden urge to shake this person off and continue to look for the man who had made a date to kill him.

  After a few moments of consideration, Grant leaned over and cranked the window down by hand.

  “Hi,” she said, apologetically. “I saw you get off the elevator and… I’m having a little trouble and I need a huge favor.”

  Just behind her a black Mercedes slid into view and stopped. The driver watched from the darkness of the cab.

  Maddy looked behind her and quickly shuffled into the car seat before Grant had responded. “Please, I’m being followed.”

  The cab light in the Mercedes lit up. Sitting in the driver’s seat, Rudy nodded across at Grant.

  “It’s not you that’s in danger,” Grant told her.