Ripples Through Time (9 page)

The memory hits me like a punch in the gut, leaving me
breathless and weak. I can still feel the emotions, the shame. It’s like a wet
blanket wrapped around my soul. What I wouldn’t do to go back and fix…

Useless thoughts,
I decide.
Weak thoughts from a
weak man.

I’m always weak these days, but usually physically. It takes
something extra to break me down mentally as well. My eyes slip closed and I
force the pain in my chest to leave me alone. It’s not unlike a heart attack.

Or, I should clarify, not unlike my first heart
attack. 

I smile and nearly laugh: no one should ever have to clarify
which heart attack they are referring to.

I feel my left hand shaking against the table and wrap my
right around the wrist to steady it. The cold metal of the watch buckled there
is a painful reminder of how cruel life can be. Mikey’s watch is a pentagon
shaped piece of work. Silver lines the edges and white Roman Numerals count the
time over a black background. The glass is scratched in a few places where my
carelessness got the better of me. Two turn dials flank the face on either
side.

It’s a simple watch, unlike the new beasts today. I saw a
commercial for a watch that tells the time, links to satellites for GPS,
programs five alarms, and is powered by kinetic energy when you move. Never
have to charge it, just move around and it’ll always work.

If it could make toast too I think I’d buy it.

Come to think of it, if I did buy that watch, then with how
little I move it’d be dead in a week.

Mikey’s watch was a
watch
. It did what it promised,
and it did it well. I’ve had it repaired twice since it was placed in my care,
and other than those times and showering it never came off my wrist. The second
time I repaired it was ten years ago after a particularly vicious rain storm.
Even my pockets got too soaked to spare the watch from complete harm. 

The first time I repaired it was the day I heard Mikey died.

I shudder involuntarily at the memory. I think the hardest
thing was how…ordinary it was. There was no fanfare at his death. No glory. No
trumpets. Just a box. A box with my closest friend tucked inside.

One of his war buddies told me what happened sometime after
the funeral. Come to think of it, we shared a bottle of smooth Tennessee
whiskey at a bar when he told me. The last bottle I ever drank. 

God I miss it.

Thing was, Mikey didn’t even die in Vietnam. No medals
because the military didn’t want to admit where he was when he got shot. Charlie
had trouble getting troops past our outposts without turning into Swiss cheese.
So they used the Cambodian border, leaving Vietnam and skirting around the
Americans in neutral territory, then coming and hitting them from behind. Since
we weren’t at war with Cambodia, we couldn’t stop them. At least not
officially. 

Mikey’s unit was ordered to cross the border and find them. All
but four died.

Mikey didn’t even die in Vietnam. 

It was all bullshit, the buddy slurred after the fifth
drink. We were both crying by then. And I believed him, that it was bullshit. We
bombed them, he said. The Cambodians. The whole war we were bombing them and
not telling anyone. Bombed the shit out of them for letting Charlie get the
jump on us through their country. Or even just for the fun of it. Operation
Menu. 

I heard once that people think America caused the Khmer
Rouge and the deaths of one in five Cambodians during their genocide because of
those bombings.

I don’t give it much thought, to be honest. What I do think
is that Mikey died in a place he didn’t know for a cause he didn’t believe
in...

…and if bombing them twice as hard would have brought Mikey
home safe…

Mellie always told me that attitude was warmongering. How
could I be willing to wish other people dead if it would bring my friend back?
Trading one life for another. 

Warmongering. What the hell kind of word is that? I don’t like
war. I’m not dumb. I know that everyone loses. I lost Mikey. He was sent home
in a box, forgotten and neglected. There wasn’t even a family to come home to,
except me and Mellie.

And I don’t really wish anyone dead, either. If those
Cambodians could live and be happy I’d be thrilled as a peach. But I knew
Mikey. I never knew any of them. And if there was any way…ever…that I could say
sorry…

“Calvin?” Edward asks. His voice is quiet. I look up and
he’s staring at me, concerned.

“What?”

“You just…” he says, trailing off and waving his hand.

“…look like shit?” I offer. He gets a charge out of that,
chuckling. But he still looks concerned.

“Yeah. That’s a good enough way to put it.”

I rub my eyes and find that they’re wet. Guess the old ducts
work after all.

“That’s when I stopped drinking,” I say.

“After Mikey went to war?”

I forgot that I wasn’t speaking out loud. He missed half the
conversation. Though I guess it’s not really a conversation if I’m not talking,
is it?

“No,” I say. “Not when Mikey went to war. When he didn’t
come back.”

He hesitates. “Oh.”

“I knew then what drinking really cost me. Rock bottom.
Describes it pretty well. When you realize that it doesn’t matter if you drink
yourself to death because you might as well be dead.”

My hand closes around the watch again.

“I never even said goodbye.”

My chest aches but I fight the emotion. I haven’t felt like
this in years. Probably twenty some, to be honest. I came to terms with Mikey’s
death and my pathetic part in it a long time ago. I hated myself, and without
my wife at my side I never would have gotten past it. Mikey looked up to me
like a brother. And I let him die too drunk to even say goodbye.

But that’s not what’s making me hurt so much. No, I know
that the pain I’m feeling has nothing to do with Mikey.

It’s about Mellie.

She can’t really be gone…

Can she?

Even on my worst of days I always knew she would be there. Only
one time in my life did I wonder if I would come home to an empty house after I
married Mellie. And not empty like I had to make myself dinner.

She was gone for two months when her mom died, taking care
of her and her father up until the end, and I didn’t starve (though peanut
butter and Jelly gets old, even when it’s Jiffy peanut butter and Concord
grape). I mean empty like I knew she wasn’t coming back. Was never coming back.

Like this.

And it hurts.

It hurts like hell.

“I can’t do this, Edward,” I say, barely whispering.

“Do what?”

“Keep going.”

He is silent.

“There’s no reason to get out of bed. No reason to get
dressed. To eat. The world has lost its importance.”

“Then find a reason,” Edward says. “Find something.”

I shake my head. “There’s no point.”

“There’s 
always 
a point,” Edward says,
anger in his eyes. “I hate seeing you like this. I 
hate
 seeing
you quit.”

“This isn’t quitting,” I say. “It’s being honest. I’m
eighty-one years old. I’ve only ever loved one woman, and she’s gone. There’s
nothing left.”

The anger fades from his eyes. He leans back in his chair
and closes his eyes. “Eighty-five,” he says

“Eh?”

“You’re eighty-five years old.”

We stare at each other for a long second, and I feel a smile
on my lips. And then suddenly I burst out laughing. He follows along, laughing
too, but probably just to be polite.

I don’t know why it’s funny, but I can’t stop. It hurts, in
my chest, but it also feels good. Pain can be good.

It takes me a clean thirty seconds to finally settle back
down, and when I do it ends in a coughing fit.

“Eighty-five,” I say. “I never thought I’d make 
sixty
-five.”

“Well you did.”

“Doesn’t change anything.”

“You’re right,” Edward says. “It doesn’t. You have a lot to
live for.”

I shake my head.

“Read more books.”

“Most writers are terrible,” I say. “They just rehash the
same old story again and again.”

“Watch more movies.”

“Same problem,” I say. “Only worse. The last movie I watched
might as well have been from the sixties. Boy meets girl. They fall in love.
Boy beds girl. Girl pops out kid.”

“They usually leave the last two out of the movie,” Edward
says, chuckling. “But I see what you mean.”

“It’s a waste.”

“Then find something.”

“There’s nothing,” I say.

“There’s always something,” replies Edward. “And if you
think there isn’t, you just aren’t looking hard enough.”

I scowl at him, but he isn’t done yet:

“How do you think Bethany would feel without you even
talking to her about it?”

“I don’t care how she feels about it,” I reply. “It isn’t
her decision, it’s mine.”

“Then you’re being a selfish-bastard,” Edward says, leaning
back in his chair and crossing his arms. “Pardon my saying so, but it’s true. She’s
your daughter.”

“She’ll try to talk me out of it,” I say. “Just like you’re
doing. She always was hard headed. Even as a little kid.”

“Like her father.”

I snort. True enough, I suppose.

“And what about Jason?” he asks. “How could you even think
about doing this to him?”

That hurts worse, actually. I find myself staring at the
table, shame creeping in. He’s right. Beth grew up like me, but Jason took
after his mom. He’s more emotional, less able to tune pain and hurt out.

I figured out with Jason that you can’t raise all kids the
same. When Beth faced a problem she would just butt her head against it until
it went away. If I yelled at her, she just worked harder and got pissed at me.

Jason was never that way. If I yelled at him he’d just close
up. He would bottle things inside himself, tuck the pain away. Never talk about
it until it came spilling out. He was always more likely to hurt himself than
anyone else.

I’m proud of him. The man he’s become is someone I’m proud
to know. Proud to be a part of his life. He had a rough go of it. Turned into a
fine man, but his journey there was harder than most.

Not telling Bethany my plans doesn’t really bother me. She’d
just get pissed, probably curse my name for a while, but she’d use her anger to
get over it. I’m not sure she’d forgive me, but she’d come to terms.

Not telling Jason, though, would be like stabbing a knife in
his stomach and twisting the blade.

Come to think of it, that’s probably why I called Bethany
this morning instead of Jason. I can handle people being pissed at me. That’s
no problem at all. It’s the hurt I can’t stand.

“Jason always was an emotional kid,” I say, leaning back
into my chair.

“Do you remember that time,” Edward asks, the hint of a
smile growing on his lips, “when your family came over for dinner? You were at
work, or the track, or something. And my mom was trying to be nice to Emily, so
she asked her to bring the kids over. I was nine, maybe ten years old.”

“No,” I say, “but Mellie was fit to be tied when she got
home. She wouldn’t breathe a word about what happened whenever I asked. Last
time she ever wanted to go back to your house, though.”

Edward laughs. “Last time my mom ever invited her,” he says.
“Want me to tell you about it?”

“I see what you’re trying to do,” I say. “You want to remind
me of my family and make me think about them.”

“So what if I am?”

“It won’t change anything,” I say.  And I believe it.

I think.

He smiles as innocently as possible. “Then why not humor
me?”

I can’t help but snort again. “Fine…”

1972 -
Jason Greenwood

“I was there, just a fly on the wall when your kids and
wife came over,” Edward says. “I loved my sister, completely. I mean, of course
I did, but we rarely had visitors because of her. I was excited having Jason
and Richard over.”

“You didn’t mind what she was?”

“She wasn’t anything,” Edward says defensively, and I
know I’ve offended him. “She was just a sweet girl who had a tough row to hoe.
Push comes to shove, I wouldn’t trade her for anyone.”

I’m not sure I believe him. Edward is a good kid, but he
always seemed embarrassed by his sister.  Hell, I was embarrassed by her, which
was my fault and not hers. I just didn’t know how to be around people like her,
and when I was growing up you just…weren’t.

Different times.

“Yeah,” I say. “I never really got used to her.”

“Is that why you never really came around?”

“That,” I say, “and other reasons. I was selfish, and I
didn’t really know what I was missing out on. Mellie wouldn’t tell me what
happened that night, so I never really got the details.”

“Then let me fill you in…”

Jason Greenwood sat staring at the blank piece of paper. He
hadn’t actually written anything yet, but that was of no consequence. He had
ideas. Too many ideas, actually, to settle on anything in particular. He just
had to pick a starting point, and the pen in his hand would do the rest.

Currently that pen was tapping his chin as he concentrated,
elbow resting on the corner of his desk and tongue protruding from the right
corner of his mouth. If his sister Beth saw him right now she’d probably laugh.
She always did when he was focused on something, but Jason didn’t mind much
anymore.

Worrying about stuff like that was for little kids. He used
to be bothered by it, when he was little, but now he was ten and becoming a
man. Men were thick skinned, his dad said, and they didn’t really mind it when
their little sisters laughed at them.

But his dad didn’t really understand Jason. He wasn’t
normal. He wasn’t one of those boring kids that got up in the morning and went
to school just to play. He was going to be famous one day, someone that
everyone respected. Like Hemingway. Or—if he got to pick—then like Isaac
Asimov. He’d just finished reading the Foundation, and that settled it. He was
going to be a writer.

He had good ideas. Fantastic ones, actually. But the problem
was, when the stories left his imagination and went down to the paper, they
lost something: their essence. He would think of a scene, and he could actually
see
it playing out like cinema, but once it was on paper it became
bland. Or worse, cliché.

But sometimes that wasn’t bad. Cliché wasn’t always
avoidable. Sometimes cliché helped a story along. He wasn’t going to stop
writing just because his ideas weren’t original. He would just have to
write
better
than the stories that made the concept common. He just had
to find a good beginning, and work from there.

Jason lowered the pen to the sheet of paper and scribbled
out a quick sentence:
The planet was the fifth from the sun, smaller than
the others, but capable of sustaining life.
Then he gently tapped the
paper. It was a decent opening sentence, but not as remarkable as he’d hoped. Maybe
he could wow the readers with the next sentence.

The problem was, no more ideas would come to mind. It seemed
so easy when Asimov wrote, describing a planet down to the most basic details
with barely any effort. But when Jason saw the planet in his mind, all he saw
was a big floating ball in space. Did it have cities? He couldn’t decide. Maybe
it was a pristine planet, untouched by humans, and his characters would find
and turn it into a new home for humanity.

But what characters? Where were they
now,
when the
story started? What were they doing? He had some ideas of things they
would
do,
but he didn’t know how to get them there.

He heard Beth shout something in the hall. Probably arguing
with mom. A door slammed shut.

Maybe he was wrong to start with the planet. Maybe he should
start with the main character. Jason scratched out that first line and scrawled
beneath it:
Captain Jason Mallister stood outside the (insert ship name
here). It was a medium sized vessel, fast and well-armed. The hull was made of
a titanium alloy that kept it space worthy and protected the crew inside. Captain
Jason liked his ship, and he was a good pilot. He took his watch out of his pocket
and opened the lid, checking the time but also looking at the picture of his
beautiful wife.

When Jason set his pen down this time he was happier. He
wasn’t sure why he decided to name the main character after himself—was that
too arrogant?—but it was still good. He liked that the guy had a wife. That
made him normal and believable. At least Jason thought it did.

He was just about to pick up the pen to add another
paragraph when the bedroom door opened. “Go away Rickie, I’m working,” he said.

“Not Rickie,” his mom said, “and you told me you were going
to—Jason what…what is all…Oh God.”

He turned sheepishly in his chair, sliding it across the
hard-wood floor. He knew he was in trouble, and he knew exactly why. Wadded up
sheets of paper littered the floor all over the room. Dozens, maybe more. His
mom stood in the doorway, one hand covering her mouth in what he decided was
exaggerated shock. She knew he was going to use the paper, so she couldn’t be
that
surprised.

“What is all of this?” she asked.

“I’m working, and I didn’t need those pages anymore. They
weren’t any good.”

She bent down and picked one off the ground. “This page is
half blank, and the back hasn’t even been touched.”

“I didn’t want to—“

“You can’t waste paper, Jason.”

“I’m not
wasting
it—“

“Do you know how hard your father works to get this paper
for you? And that desk?”

Jason looked at the floor, suddenly abashed. “I just…I…I’m
sorry,” Jason said. Guilt flooded him when he thought about what she said. He
rarely ever saw his father, and even then it was only the short breaks between
shifts. Calvin Greenwood worked two jobs to support the family, and they were
still struggling to get by.

And he knew how expensive paper was. He hadn’t been
intentionally wasting it, he just didn’t think about it.
All
good
authors tossed used sheets away when they didn’t need them. It was always about
the next idea, and the one after. He climbed out of his chair and started
picking up the sheets, un-wadding them and smoothing them out. “This one is
still…I suppose I could use it some more.”

His mom sighed. “We can put these in the stove for now so
your dad doesn’t see them, but you have to use more of the paper. Don’t waste
it. We can’t afford to keep buying more.”

He nodded. “I’m working on my new book. I think later there
are going to be giant river monsters, but at the beginning they don’t know
about them. The crew is going to find them when they land on a small planet to
explore.”

“Do you have much finished?” his mom asked.

“Some, but not a lot. I’m still trying to figure out the
details. And I keep starting, but it’s not as good as I want it to be.”

“Well let me see what you have done.”

Jason panicked. “I uh…no…um…what I have done so far…it’s not
finished yet to be read. And I don’t want to let anyone read it until it’s
ready.”

Emily smiled. “Well okay then, but I want you to know that
I’m always here for you if you ever need me. And your father too. We would love
to read it.”

“As soon as it’s ready I’ll give it to you. You’ll be the
first,” Jason said. He doubted his father would ever read it. It wasn’t a
secret that Calvin wasn’t very good at reading. Plus, he didn’t have time. “And
I’ll clean up the yard like I said I would. I just forgot when I was busy and
all.”

“Okay,” Emily said. She gave him a hug. “And you can’t lock
your brother out of the room. It’s his room too.”

“But he never shuts up! He just wants to go on, and on, and
on, and he always reads over my shoulder and tells me I’m stupid.”

“He said he tried to apologize and you locked him out.”

Jason didn’t reply. It was all true, so there was no use
arguing. But that didn’t change the fact that he didn’t like having his brother
around. Rickie was just mean. He was bigger than Jason, stronger and more
developed, and he liked to show it.

Especially since both of them knew that Jason was smarter. Jason
didn’t even try to point it out, but other people did. They said Rickie had a
reading problem like his father, while Jason was writing the next great
American novel.

“I’ll let him back in, mom,” Jason said finally. She smiled
again and told him that his father would be home later and they would have
dinner in an hour.

Jason turned back to his work, picking up the pen and
settling his tongue back between his lips.

“Still working?”

“Yeah, Rickie, I’m still working,” Jason said in his best
patronizing tone, refusing to turn in his chair. Rickie had come in a few
minutes ago to change his clothes—he’d been outside playing baseball—and as far
as Jason was concerned, it should have been obvious that he was still writing.

“How far are you?”

Jason had just finished his fourth paragraph, but he wasn’t
sure where to go next. Captain Mallister had boarded his ship now and they were
flying, but he wasn’t sure where they were flying to. And Jason didn’t really
care right now anyway. He was hungry, and he could smell chicken roasting in
the kitchen.

He set his pen down and went with his standby answer: “A
little ways into it.”

“Do you have the first chapter done?”

“No.”

“Almost?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Well when you’re done, I want to read it.”

“Yeah right.”

“No, I’m serious,” Rick said. “I can critique it. Help make
it better.”

Jason was mildly offended, despite being aware that any
critique
should
be helpful. “You can barely read,” he shot back, then
instantly regretted it. He was expecting an angry response, but what he saw
instead was hurt.

“I was just offering,” Rick mumbled, suddenly busy with his
dresser. Toy dinosaurs stood on the top. They used to collect them, but neither
of them had added to the collection in years.

Jason wondered if he should apologize. He decided not to. “Yeah,
okay,” he said. He did, however, add: “thanks.”

“I think dinner is about ready,” Rick said. “I’m starving.”

“Me too. How was practice?”

“Good. We have a game on Saturday. Are you going to play
next year?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” Jason replied. The answer, they both
knew, was ‘no’. Jason was too small to be considered for any sports teams, and
he didn’t see any purpose in trying out for the baseball team if he was never
going to get to play.

And sports were dumb anyway. Repetitively catching or
throwing a ball around proved nothing except that a person had general motor
skills. Why did people always want to compete against each other when they
could just as easily work together to do something really great? Like go out in
space.

Or…

Sports…

In space…

Jason turned frantically back to the half-filled sheet of
paper and began scribbling, hoping to nail the idea down before it slipped
away. He felt his brother come up behind him and lean over his shoulder, but he
ignored him.

He just kept scribbling, needing to get this new idea out. Once
it was on paper he could examine it. It might work, it might not. All that
mattered was getting it down.

These flashes of inspiration, the ones that had him climbing
out of bed at three in the morning to write something down, were a blessing and
a curse. He was terrified of forgetting something. Once he had a good idea, he
rarely forgot it, but that wasn’t the point. If he did forget, it would be a
tragedy.

“Space smugglers?” Rickie asked once he’d finished reading.

“What?” Jason replied, distracted.

“They are space smugglers?”

“Pirates,” Jason said absently.

“Space pirates? That’s cool. What’s nitrous di-oxide?”

“I don’t know,” Jason said.

“Then…how do you know they are using it for fuel?”

“That’s the cool part about science fiction. I don’t
have
to know. I can just write it, and since no one else knows they just take me
at my word.”

“I get it,” Rickie said. It was clear that he didn’t. “What
are you working on now?”

“In a minute,” Jason said. He continued scribbling, jotting
the next few words to finish his sentence. A couple paragraphs, total, was all
the new addition amounted to. At least for now. He could work on it, expand it,
and it could become something else in the story. But for now he had the idea.

Jason turned his chair around. “Sorry, what were you
saying?”

“Your story is about space pirates?”

“My novel, and yes. Space pirates.”

“What part did you just add?” Rickie asked, leaning forward
again. Jason hated, hated,
hated
when people read things he’d
just
written. It had come out of his head, no refining, no editing, nothing. There
might be glaring errors, omissions, and when people pointed those out it felt
like a personal attack. They always expected perfection for something that
could never be perfect.

But he didn’t shove Rickie away. He was proud of these
lines. The best ones, he knew, were the ones that came from inspiration rather
than effort.

“’Motor Ball?’” Rickie asked finally.