Future Imperfect

by K Ryer Breese

  The darkness.

  The exit.

  My eyes open again to night and stars.

  I know immediately it’s the future. Same waxy sheen. Black-light blues. I’m guessing it’s soon, though. Maybe weeks away. I’m not focused on anything, not expecting anything but darkness.

  I’m on a beach. Maybe the north end of the Cherry Creek Reservoir.

  I get the fact that it’s the same place the gruff old man on the phone mentioned.

  The obscene phone caller, maybe he wasn’t just a nut.

  I’m thinking now that maybe I should be worried.

  Should have been stressing earlier.

  Could it be he knew what would happen?

  The smell is strong. Strong like a marsh. Still, I can smell the rubber on the tennis courts above the reek of water. And I home in on it like the million moths that crash through the night to the phosphorus light of the courts. I follow the rise and fall of the water. Just the sand. The soft collapse of the lake. The wind in the reeds. The buzz of insects. The moon is only a sliver, just a scythe.

  What’s really weird is that I don’t feel like me.

  I mean that my skin is mine. The muscles, the weight of me, it’s all the same. But inside, I’m angrier than I’ve ever been in my life. I’m seething. Furious.

  My hands are fists. I’m walking to the tennis courts.

  And then I’m not.

  Like in a movie, there’s a jump cut. Like the reels got mixed up or the projector skipped. Suddenly I’m not walking to the tennis courts but kneeling in the sand, my knees in the cold water of the reservoir, and my hands, well, my hands are around Jimi’s neck. His face is under the water. His arms are thrashing. His legs kicking. But I’m bearing down hard. My arms out straight, locked. My fingers, they’re white from blood loss. Jimi’s face, it’s white too. His eyes are so bugged out.

  There is surprisingly little noise. Just the kick of him in the sand.

  Very little noise until he goes slack. His arms drop. His face stops contorting.

  Me, I’m still raging.

  I’m shaking. I’m so furious, so pulsing with hate, that I throw my head back and howl into the night like some kind of animal. I try to walk away and just fall over facing the lake. It’s as if there was never anyone else here but me. Just the hum of the lights, the buzz of the insects, and the slow lap of the lake. Jimi’s feet sticking up out of the water.

  It’s weird, but I’m not surprised when the guy in the Mexican wrestling mask gives me a hand, helps me up. Jimi’s dad, he’s wearing a tuxedo and his mask is white. He helps me up, pats me on the back, and says, “You tried.”

  I’m still shaking, ask, “Tried what?”

  “To stop this. Storm’s here, Ade. It’s begun, you are almost ready.”

  “Do you know the guy I just drowned? Is that what this is about?”

  The luchador nods slowly. Says, “You don’t know the half of it.”

  And then the vision ends.

  Back to black and then white and then the now.

  The road comes into focus first. The trees. The streetlights swaying.

  Mom and I, we’re still on the road. Car idling. It’s late enough that no one else is nearby. We’ve hit a tree and the only sound is the steady drip of fluid from under the car and the hazard lights tick ticking. My body is vibrating from the high of the Buzz. And even though it’s a weak Buzz, it’s been so long I’m really feeling it.

  Mom, next to me, is fine. Her head still bowed in prayer, hands still clasped.

  The front of the car is dinged, but the tree, a thin pine, got the worst of it.

  I tell Mom that we’re okay. I tell her to open her eyes. I say, “Look.”

  She does it slowly, looks out into the darkness at the skinny tree I’ve made a mess of, and then over at me. She smiles, tears beading her eyelashes, and runs her hand through my hair. It comes back to her slick. Dark.

  Mom says, “You’re bleeding.”

  “I don’t feel it. Probably old.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll get it fixed. Are you-”

  I say, “I’m fine.”

  She says, “I’m okay too.”

  I say, “Let’s just drive home.”

  Before leaving I inspect the damage and find only a few scrapes, one busted headlight, and the bumper split. Not bad. Getting back in the car is difficult because my legs are shaky. My body’s jittery with the Buzz though the infusion is slight. I put the car in reverse and as we back out into the street most of the tree comes with us. We drag this teenage fir tree down half a block before it’s cut loose.

  At every intersection, every red light, I see snippets of the vision. I hear the phelgmy chuckle of the obscene phone caller, the guy who predicted this. Him telling me to avoid the reservoir. That sends so many little quakes down my spine that I look like I’m spasming for a few blocks. And, of course, I see Jimi’s face in every streetlight. His eyes in every pair of taillights.

  And every time I hit the gas my stomach goes up like we’re on a log ride.

  The way home, the night around us is pretty much silent, outside of the scraping of the bumper on the asphalt. Close to home there are a few scattered dog barks under the near-constant hum of the streetlamps, but I only hear the muffled screams of Jimi going under. Sometimes so loud, I jump.

  When we pull in the driveway, the freaks on the porch notice and run over, but I gun the car and slip into the garage before they’re onto us. Nice thing we have a fast garage door.

  Again my mom says nothing about them.

  But getting out of the car, Mom asks, “Did you talk to baby Jesus?”

  “No, Mom.” My heart is thudding and my head swimming still from the Buzz. It’s been a while since I’ve felt it this strong. It’s overwhelming. Like when I first tried chew and almost puked from the jolt of it.

  “What did He tell you?”

  “Nothing, Mom. I didn’t talk to baby Jesus.”

  I realize I’m shaking. Goose bumps pebble my skin.

  Mom puts her hand on my thigh and squeezes it. Just like I do when I’m mothering her. And she sighs and mumbles, “It’s fine to be humble. All comes out in the wash.”

  I kiss her on the forehead before she creeps inside the house. She’s still crying when I leave. She just lets me know that she’s so proud of me for being who I am. For sticking to my guns. For my faith.

  I hit the garage door button, pray I don’t hit anyone, and then jam the car into reverse and peel out. I’m guessing, just based on the sound of tires squealing, that the neighbors are all calling the cops.

  A block away I call Vauxhall.

  My voice, it’s shaking. Breaking.

  She mentions that she’s out with Jimi, that they’re at Twist and Shout, and she asks if maybe I can meet them in front of East, just on the lawn there. She asks me if it’s okay that Jimi’s around.

  And I say, “I’m guessing he’s going to want to know this anyway.”

  THREE

  Jimi’s leaning against a statue.

  Something like a column in the middle of a fountain, only there’s no water in it. He’s leaning there as though he’s taking a break from filming. Lighting a cigarette and exhaling so slowly that the smoke just makes a cloud around his face. Of course, he’s got cowboy boots on and sunglasses and the neon lights are reflected in them as though he painted them there.

  When I see Jimi, as I’m walking over across Colfax, all I can think is: Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if I killed this dude.

  I mean, the guy’s a dick. Would anyone other than Vaux really mind?

  Vauxhall comes walking over to me, she’s dressed in black, has a sweater on. She hugs me and then looks in my eyes like she can read me. And she can, whatever she sees it makes her bottom lip quiver. That quiver, I’ve got to admit it makes me feel good. She’s scared. She’s worried. She cares.

  Vaux asks what happened.

  I say, “Something very bad.”

  Running her f
ingers along the bruise on my forehead she asks, “What’d you see?”

  “Death.”

  Jimi strolls over leisurely. He flicks his cigarette over his shoulder and then takes his sunglasses off and folds them slowly, carefully, and puts them in the front pocket of his jeans. Then he cracks his knuckles, this fucker. He says, “Hey, Ade. I can see you’ve been busy.”

  “Jimi,” I say. “I just saw your dad again.”

  He isn’t fazed. “Ah, and how’s Poppa Ministry?”

  “He seems fine.”

  Jimi smiles. “Vauxhall’s told me that you’ve been seeing him. That he’s been way out and close in. He’s spooked, Ade. He’s onto me. To us. I have a feeling that the Ministry family massacre will be going down soon.”

  “Sooner than you think,” I say. “I saw you drown.”

  “Drown?” Jimi chokes. “Did you say drown?”

  “Yes.”

  Vauxhall’s mouth is hanging open. She’s shaking her head.

  Jimi shrugs. “How?”

  “I kill you.”

  And Jimi busts out laughing. Taking in deep gulps of the night air. The sound of his laughter is surprisingly loud. It’s what you hear in a theater in surround. I’m surprised there aren’t cars screeching to a standstill. Doubled over in pain, his laughter is nearly violent. And it takes him a long while to regain his composure.

  After clearing his throat and snorting back snot, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, Jimi says, “You kill me?”

  What I feel is anger. Not like any anger I’ve felt before. It comes racing up from my gut like it’s on fire, like I’ve just gargled down battery acid. My skin is buzzing, becoming unfocused on me. I want to gnash my teeth like an animal.

  Vauxhall can see it in me. She can read it the way you can read the dangerous movements of a dog or a snake. She says, “When, Ade? When does this happen?”

  “A few weeks from now. Maybe sooner.”

  “Where?” Jimi asks, hands up.

  “Reservoir. Cherry Creek, I’m guessing.”

  Wiping his forehead, Jimi says, “And my dad was there, huh?”

  “He was.”

  “And I’m guessing he didn’t try and stop you?”

  “He didn’t.”

  Jimi looks at Vauxhall. He says, “Not going to happen.”

  “What I see always happens, Jimi. Always,” I say.

  Jimi does a farmer blow into the grass at his feet and then puts an arm around Vauxhall’s shoulder, says, “If that were true, Ade, then I doubt I’d have had visions of me banging your girl here for the rest of the year.”

  Vauxhall looks appalled, her mouth drops open, and she pushes Jimi away.

  I close my eyes tight, the rage is so intense.

  My body vibrates like a flame.

  It’s so unnatural, like I’ve had plastic surgery or something.

  Jimi guffaws hard again. Eyes tear up again. He says, to me, “You, Ade, live in the shadows. You’re so removed from the real world that you wouldn’t even know what it is to really-”

  And he stops short because I tackle him. The two of us go crashing into the fountain, the cold, dead-leaf-choked water spilling over the side in sloshing waves. I’m on top of him, pushing my fists into his face, into his stomach. I’m hitting his shoulders, hitting his forehead, his eyes. And I’m kicking. With every molecule of my body I’m trying to beat him into the concrete of the fountain.

  I’m not doing this for long. Jimi gets his legs under me and kicks me back, out of the water, out of the fountain, and I fall back hard on the sidewalk, my breath rushing out in one big dying-fish gasp.

  Vauxhall’s not at my side immediately. She’s standing there in shock.

  Jimi pulls himself up, rancid water and decaying leaves falling off him like he’s some swamp monster stepping out of the bayou. He steps over to me. Breathing hard, his chest rising and falling so heavily, he looks at me and then wipes his nose with the back of his hand. He says, sounding so tired, “You’re exactly what I expected, Ade.”

  Then he turns and leaves.

  Vauxhall, before she follows him, she comes over to me and leans down and puts her hand on my forehead and asks, “Is this what happens when you quit?”

  She doesn’t let me answer. She says, “You need to try. You need to change the future. I know you’ve tried it before and it went bad, but you can’t do this. Not to Jimi. Not to yourself. Change the future, Ade. For me.”

  “Everything I’m doing is for you, Vauxhall.”

  She is crying when she kisses me. It is very tender like a flower petal.

  And Vauxhall’s only there a moment; her beautiful face is the moon just for a blink, so soft and so perfect. And then she’s gone too.

  By the time I get up off the sidewalk, my clothes are already starting to dry. On Colfax, there are only a few cars going by and most of them are cop cars or taxicabs. The winos have come out. The hookers as well. By the time I get up off the sidewalk, the sun is only a few hours away from breaking in.

  Limping back to my car, my cell rings. The number’s unlisted.

  I answer.

  The voice on the other end is familiar, sickeningly so. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

  It’s the obscene phone caller. The gravel-voiced old man.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Who are you?”

  “Not one person. There are many of us.”

  I’m at my car. Pause before getting in. “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t change what you saw, Ade. You know that by now. Surely you know that much. Don’t even try it.”

  “My mom set you up to this?”

  Gravel voice laughs. “That’s rich, Ade. Average life of a scryer, right?”

  And he hangs up.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ONE

  Dear Professor Susan Graham-

  Thank you again for your replies to my letters. I realize they might come off as a bit nutty. I really appreciate your taking the time to help me.

  To throw something new in the mix: How about alternate realities?

  Parallel universes?

  See, I’m asking because there was a show on television last night, one of the educational cable channels, about how some physicists think that our world is all Swiss-cheesed through and through with alternate realities. The show mentioned something about infinite numbers of parallel universes where anything, and everything, I guess, happens. You agree with that? Also the show said there was no way to prove this idea. Like, ever.

  I’m going back to the whole changing-the-future thing and I’m thinking, Hey, this parallel universe idea sounds like it could work just fine. I mean, if you try and change the future here, who’s to say it doesn’t change in another, closely related universe? Or maybe the original vision wasn’t of this universe in the first place? Or maybe I have no clue what I’m talking about.

  What do you think?

  Again, thanks so much for your time on this. I know that my physics teacher is already super excited about the idea and I’m sure I’ll get an A. Just sure of it. And, who knows, but maybe someday I’ll actually meet someone who can see the future and I’ll have some advice? Kidding, of course.

  Thank you,

  Ade Patience

  TWO

  I’m standing in a parking garage.

  My jeans are still a bit wet but nothing major. Nothing embarrassing.

  I find a leaf, orange, in my hair.

  When I left the house after a five-hour nap I told my mom I’d be out even later than usual. I told her that something important came up and it will probably change a lot about the way I do things, about the way I’m living my life. I said, “And by the way, I’ve stopped trying to see the future. I’m going clean for love.”

  My mom, she was kind of sleeping at the time. She yawned and mumbled something about me “taking good care” and “being a blessing” and then fell back into her pillow and let loose with a volley of lazy kisses. I know that in the morning, when it’s sunk in, then
she’ll freak. The Revelation Book, she won’t give it up easy.

  I’ve been in this garage more times than I can count.

  It’s next to Paris on the Platte, this old café, and the garage is dark and gnarly and the walls of it are covered in a thick suit of soot like the place had been on fire for a few decades before the snows put it out. Not where I want to be waiting.

  Especially since I’m on my knees behind an old Subaru.

  Luckily, I’m not waiting long.

  Belle shows up in her ride and steps out in a cloud of pot smoke. She’s dressed sexily. The boots, the short skirt, the unbuttoned blouse. Her hair’s all tasseled out. Teased and then sprayed still. Incredibly, she doesn’t see me.

  Why I’m in the garage, hunkered down behind a car, is ’cause I realized something last time I spoke with the old man. He used the word “scryer.” I looked it up on my cell, it means a seer or like a fortune-teller.

  Fact is: I find it very odd that both Belle and the old dude used the same random word. And why I’m in the garage is to follow Belle and make sure that when she took off at the end of the summer she didn’t actually find more people with abilities like mine. If she did, I need to talk to them pronto.

  Belle walks over to a door I never noticed before.

  This door, it’s on the back of one of the buildings that sit up right against the parking garage, only it doesn’t look like a door to a warehouse or an office building. It looks like someone’s front door with a little wavy glass window and a knocker on it. The knocker is a skull.

  Oh, and there’s a symbol painted on the door in white paint. It’s like a crosshatch sort of thing and kind of looks like a hand if it were painted by a child or someone with very little time and education.

  Belle takes the knocker, raps it twice, and then steps back.

  Then she lights a smoke.

  She’s almost smoked the cigarette down to the filter when the door opens. A hand reaches out and summons her in. It’s connected to an arm in a leather coat and the coat’s wrapped around the skinny body of a guy. Front of the leather coat, in white paint, reads CHARLIE. Charlie slaps a tattooed hand down on Belle’s shoulder. Smiles at her big with silver-capped teeth. Says, “Good to see you again.”