Paradox Chapter 10: Simon Returns

For the next several days, it was just me and Hortensia. At a distance I caught sight of workers trimming trees and doing other chores, but had no interaction with them. That first night, before Uncle Si left me alone with the nice Mexican woman, he had warned me to keep my distance from the hired hands.

Hortensia presented me with a shirt and pair of pants she had put together in her sewing shop. Then she took my old clothes, washed them in another antiquated contraption with her normal laundry, and hung them on a clothesline outside to dry. Each day for several days, she would present me with more homemade clothes, until I had pants and shirts for every day of the week. I tried to express my gratitude, which seemed to delight her.

I wondered if she had kids of her own. If so, I sure never caught sight of them around the farm. What lucky kids they would be, to have a mother like her!

She let me read one magazine a day after that first night, but insisted I play outside for most of the sunlight hours. I resumed my daily runs, and practiced the martial arts techniques Uncle Si had taught me, so far, not wanting to forget any of it.

Aside from the orchard workers, the only other person we encountered was a mail deliverer who arrived in the strangest looking delivery van I’d ever seen. The tires were so skinny, they almost belonged on a bicycle. The hood was a tiny, tent-shaped construction of sheet metal, with visible hinges holding the panels together. Other parts of the vehicle appeared to me made of wood!

As fascinated as I was by the mail truck, that’s how fascinated the mail man was with my sneakers.

He delivered a package, a letter, and two more of the fantastic magazines. They were brand new, yet also had dates from 1934.

Hortensia handed him a small stack of letters. They exchanged some pleasant small talk as best they could with her limited knowledge of English. He asked a few questions about me, but I was too preoccupied by the magazines to catch all that was asked and said.

There was a cow on the property, which was milked by one of the workers early every morning. Hortensia separated the cream, curds, and other parts I learned were part of dairy-fresh milk, and processed all of it herself before I had come along. Now she taught me how to churn butter, and make homemade ice cream. Aside from her being a good cook, I learned that one reason her meals tasted so good was the ingredients—like farm-fresh eggs and real butter. (I had grown up never knowing any alternative to margarine, which my mother and I called “butter.”)

Hortensia read a Spanish Bible and prayed every morning. She collected eggs every day; kept the huge house clean; washed and dried the laundry; cooked; washed dishes; sewed; knitted; and kept an eye on me. If my biological family hadn’t been murdered, I might not have felt guilty about wishing she was my mother.

Despite working so hard to keep up the home, she was generally a happy person, and at peace.

I never broke down in a crying fit after that first day, but she continued to lavish affection on me at regular intervals. That affection rapidly became mutual. I addressed her as “Ma’am” a few times, until she told me to call her “Mami” instead. She began to address me as “Pedro,” “Mijo,” and sometimes “Pedrito.”

She also began teaching me Spanish, with reserves of patience I couldn’t even appreciate at the time.

Then, one morning, Breakfast was not ready by the time I woke up.

I dressed and made my way to the kitchen. She wasn’t there, and the primitive stove wasn’t fired up. I began to worry instantly.

Mami?” I called. No answer.

I searched the house, and finally called out for her just outside her bedroom door (which she normally left open; but was closed and locked on this particular morning).

I heard rustling, then some undecipherable response. It was her voice, so relief flooded over me. I hadn’t wanted to let the thoughts take coherent form, but images had flashed through my mind of Mami being murdered by the Erasers.

One hour, Pedrito!” she finally called, from inside her door.

 

I brought in the milk and collected eggs while waiting. I also read a few stories from one of the magazines.

When Mami appeared, she was dressed much like she had been that first night I met her. But there was something different about her. Normally a cheerful person, on this occasion she was practically glowing.

And she was clinging tightly to Uncle Si.

Hey, Sprout,” he greeted me. There was something different about him, too. One difference was that he was smiling. He didn’t do that very often.

The other difference…no, it wasn’t a difference now. The difference had been when he saved me from the Erasers. On that occasion, as weird as it might be, he seemed a little bit taller; more muscular; and his nose and teeth had been perfectly straight. This realization jarred me.

Evidently reading my confusion, he said, “Let’s go talk while Mamita gets breakfast ready.”

I followed him into the room with all the books. He sat in one of the padded chairs, and gestured for me to do likewise. I sat in the one facing him.

Is it really 1934?” I asked. “Or am I crazy?”

He sighed, then shrugged. “You’re not crazy. We’re in the early years of the Great Depression, although…” he waved in a circular pattern, “we’re weathering the financial storm fairly well.”

That car you picked me up in…it was a time machine.”

What car?” he asked, squinting. “Oh. Oh, right. The car you came here in.” He chewed on his lip for a moment, gaze roaming around the ceiling. “‘Time machine’ is kind of a cheesy science fiction term. How you got here was by a process…well, if you want to call the technology by a simple name, then ‘Warp Generator’ is simple enough to say, and it’s a bit more accurate.”

My brain short-circuited. I had so many questions, I couldn’t choose one to ask first.

Tell you what,” he said, leaning back in the chair and putting his feet up, “I’ll give you a brief overview that might answer most of your questions. Then, when you have more, you can ask those, too. And there’s no rush—we got all the time in the world.” He made a face and chuckled at his own remark.

Works for me,” I said.

Alright. So, first of all, the Warp Generator gives a lowly human being the ability to seriously FUBAR reality as we thought we knew it.”

FUBAR?” I asked. “Sorry—I don’t know that word.”

He snapped his fingers. “Oh, that’s right: you still haven’t…” he rolled his eyes and twisted his lips. “Well, anyway, it stands for ‘Fowled Up Beyond All Recognition.’ Jack up. Mess up. Got it?”

I nodded.

Good. So how many dimensions do we exist in?”

You’re asking me?” I replied.

He nodded.

Um, three, I guess.”

That’s not precisely correct,” he said. “We can perceive those three dimensions: height, width and depth. We can also perceive the fourth dimension, which is time. We can perceive time. We can measure it. But we can’t define it. And, until one day in your relative future, we couldn’t break free of its linear limitations. On that day, a group of scientists is gonna figure out how to open portals through dimensions.”

He closed his eyes and, with a pained expression, made horizontal chopping motions with his hands, as if his forearms were scissor blades. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. We perceive four dimensions, but science has determined that more than twice that many exist. And human beings might exist within most or all of them, despite most of us not even realizing…or caring…that they do exist. Follow me?”

I think so,” I said. “Sorry, but it’s confusing.”

He nodded. “It is. And the more you know about it, the more confusing it gets. So I’m trying to keep it simple. The scientists came up with a way to open dimensional portals some time before 1991. Now whoever can access such a portal can do a lot of stuff that shouldn’t be done—and that includes jumping a warp through space and time…which defies the natural limitation. The natural limitation allows linear progression, forward only, in sync with entropy. You with me?”

Um…” I muttered.

Hey, I’m not even gonna get into hyperspace or any of that, so relax. Now we can jump through a warp into the past or future. So, with such a capability, it would be catastrophic if it fell into the wrong hands. Right?”

Right,” I said.

He pointed to himself. “Well, it fell into the wrong hands. Savvy?”

Your hands,” I said. “The wrong hands? Sorry…but you’re identifying yourself as a bad guy?”

He laughed and slapped his leg, saying, “Everything hangs on perspective, doesn’t it? There’s a powerful organization that believes I’m a bad guy. And I admit, I feel kind of like a supervillain sometimes. However, from my point of view, that powerful organization represents ‘the wrong hands’ for the tech to fall into.”

I thought about this for a moment. I hadn’t yet heard of the phrase ‘moral relativism,’ but I certainly had noticed the principle in operation: Everybody assumed they themselves were right about everything. Two people, on opposite sides of any conflict or issue, were both absolutely convinced they were right and the other side wrong. They adjusted their concept of morality to fit their own actions and desires. So, the concept that both Uncle Si and someone else each thought the other was too dangerous to be trusted with a time machine…warp generator…did ring true to me.

If you stray outside your limitations,” he continued, “you’re gonna change something. But, for instance: if someone goes back and kills your great grandparents, 60 years before you were born, you don’t suddenly cease to exist in the here and now…even though you might assume the foundation of your existence would be kicked out from under you. But what does happen, to put it into crude terms, is: it would create a split in the timestream.”

The timestream,” I repeated, numbly.

Right. Time is like a huge river. The current is slow, but can’t be stopped. It can be split and diverted. And, if carefully done, those separate streams can sometimes be looped back into themselves to merge, so that nobody is the wiser.”

So, you’re saying, by going into the past and changing something, an alternate reality is created?”

He laughed triumphantly and clapped his hands. “Yup! I told you you were smart. So in one reality, everything is just like it is in your experience, and progresses from there into the future. But in the other reality, there is no you…never was…because your grandparents were killed and that preempts your conception.”

I follow what you’re saying,” I said, pleased to not be utterly lost. Maybe I wasn’t totally dense, after all.

Good. Now some changes are minor, meaning the split is minor. Only a little creek splits off from the vast river of time, and it hardly makes a difference. In fact, the creek probably merges back into the river soon anyway. I go find some average schmoe somewhere in this year right now; I tell him about the Internet, the moon landings, or electronic fuel injection. What happens? Most likely, he dismisses me as a lunatic and goes on about his business. Nothing really changes, other than he laughs to himself when he remembers the lunatic who pronounced some preposterous technologies of the future. Or maybe I’m a little more convincing, and for whatever reason, he tells somebody else what I told him. So they dismiss him as a lunatic, and that mucks up his life for a little while, but over time he learns to keep his mouth shut about it, and life returns to whatever is normal for him. No noticeable disruption in the timestream, unless somebody is observing that particular guy’s life.”

Observing,” I muttered. “Sorry…but who would be observing?”

He showed me his palm. “Hold on. I’ll get to that. So me getting you into Pee Wee Football…that’s just a minor split, that doesn’t affect hardly anybody, in the big scheme of history. But let’s say I jump a warp back to ancient Rome, and I prevent the assassination of Julius Caesar…”

My mind raced, trying to place that name. I’d read it, somewhere.

“…Now something like that,” he went on, “theoretically might alter the course of world history, in a big way.”

And an alternate reality is created,” I mused, out loud.

He nodded. “I don’t understand all the science, but there’s a Continuum Protection Bureau, which monitors this stuff. They have means to alert them when a major split like that occurs—when alternate realities begin to divert and spread.”

He sighed and licked his lips. “Let me give you a little background: shortly after a method was discovered to access the portals, the scientists organized an expedition to another solar system to mine some minerals and other stuff that’s rare here on Earth.”

You mean they…jumped a warp…to another planet.”

Right. The warps can bridge spatially as well as temporally—distance and/or time. You’ve probably figured out that you’re not in Missouri anymore. You’re in California. But you didn’t drive the entire distance on roads.”

It wasn’t me who drove, as he very well knew, but I didn’t see the point in nitpicking details.

Anyway, the technology was new back then,” he said. “Instead of traveling extraterrestrially, a mistake was made; they wound up elsewhere on Earth, in our historic past, and they really made a mess. It caused a major disruption like what we’re talking about. The CPB was formed shortly after. The Bureau thought they identified how to correct the split, and sent a team back to prevent the disruption, but the second team screwed the pooch and caused another split.”

So now there were two alternate realities,” I said.

He nodded. “Then, some agents from the CPB decided they could live better lives in one of those alternate realities, and they deserted, jumping warps into who-knows-where, and who-knows-when. Some of them were reckless, and caused further splits. One of them decided to desert, jump a warp into Earth’s history, taking a couple warp generators with him—one broken, and one functional. This guy was fairly clever, and used the broken one to reverse-engineer several more, on the down-low. He’s been careful not to cause any major splits, but he’s established several safe havens in various times and places. He’s found that the least conspicuous way to keep the warp generators handy is to conceal them in a vehicle. And he took a minor risk, out of sympathy for his nephew…by protecting him from certain incidents, and trying to teach him some stuff that should help him enjoy a better life.”

I let this sink in for a moment. “It’s you you’re talking about? You deserted, and stole the warp generators?”

Yup. But I’m getting ahead of myself again. After those first couple splits, the CPB hired and trained a Temporal Police Force. One special branch of the TPF is specifically tasked with hunting down unauthorized warp-jumpers, removing them and everyone with an immediate connection to them, then eliminating evidence of their execution…sometimes their very existence, when possible. That branch doesn’t officially exist. I call them the Erasers.”

I recalled flashes of my family’s bodies disappearing into the invisible window—which I guess was just a cloaked cargo van from the future.

They haven’t been able to locate me,” he said. “Obviously…or I would no longer exist in any reality. I haven’t caused any major splits that I know of, or made public the technology we use, so I didn’t think finding and erasing me was a big priority. In fact, I kind of began to assume they were going to leave me alone, if I kept a low profile and didn’t start sharing their secrets with the whole world. Something must have changed, for them to come after you when they did. They discovered our connection, somehow. They wanted to take you out way, way before you ever had a chance to…”

His gaze shifted past me, to the hallway. I turned in the chair and looked. Mami had arrived, bringing breakfast smells with her from the kitchen.

This breakfast was served in the formal dining room. Instead of French Toast, Mami had made chocolate chip banana nut flapjacks. The meal was heavenly. She had added grits, but the high point was definitely the pancakes.

Mami ate with us, sitting close to Uncle Si. She couldn’t seem to stop glancing at him, and smiling at both of us. “I mees you,” she told him, more than once. He grinned back at her. I felt like urging him to repay her affections in kind, but he only rubbed her neck once, then kissed her on the cheek when finished with his food.

When all of us were done, they spoke back-and-forth in Spanish for a while. I could recognize some words, here and there, just from what little Mami had taught me.

After Mami had cleaned the table, and was in the kitchen washing dishes, I tried to restart our conversation from before. “Why?” I asked.

He raised his eyebrows.

Why do they erase people? Why are they trying to reverse the splits?”

He wiped his face with a cloth napkin and said, “Tell me if you’ve heard this old axiom yet: ‘power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely’.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, no.”

Well, there’s something you might as well learn about the filthy rich and filthy powerful, right now: when some dirtbag acquires more wealth and power than he knows what to do with, you’d think he’d be content. He’d spend the rest of his life vacationing in the tropics, playing golf, or whatever. But that’s not what happens. The prick isn’t happy being richer than everyone else—he wants to take everything other people have, too, until he has everything and they have nothing. It makes no sense, I know. But you can bank on it. And he’ll lie, cheat, steal and murder to make it happen. Well, it’s the same way for governments. No matter how much power and control they accumulate…legally and illegally…it will never be enough until they can micromanage every mundane detail of every citizen’s life. They’re not worried in the slightest that splitting streams will result in some space-time catastrophe. What they can’t tolerate is the probability that a lot of deserters will escape their control. The most terrifying catastrophe for a corrupt government is that men might find a place to live free, and find out that it’s much preferable to the safe, regulated Utopia they’ve been programmed to fantasize about. Others will notice them prospering and, unless they can be conditioned to believe individual prosperity is wrong, and that freedom is a hindrance to achieving Utopia, they’ll reject the programming and escape the hive.”

I was confused, and probably looked it.

Uncle Si shrugged. “Well, anyway…there’s more to it than that, but the gist of what I’m saying is this: the shitbags pushing the buttons are drunk on power and constantly lust for more. Losing any degree of control over us pissant serfs is just unacceptable.”

He was right: it made no sense.

Was it you who saved me from the Erasers?” I asked, once again noticing the slight differences in appearance he had between then and now.

After a moment, he said, “Yes and no.”

I considered this for a while, before the meaning came to me. “That was you, but from an alternate reality!”

A version of me, from an alternate timeline,” he specified. “What made you notice?”

Your nose. Your teeth. He seemed a little more…bulgier in the muscles, too.”

His hard face softened. It seemed like he was fighting down a smile. I was sure the answer had pleased him for some reason.

Let’s get back to the study,” he said, rising while dropping his napkin on the table.

I followed him back to the room with all the books, and we resumed our seats there.

He cleared his throat. “There’s no way to sugar-coat this, Sprout: your family is gone and the life you had in St. Louis is gone with it. There’s no going back, and all you’ve got, now, is me.”

I nodded, taking some comfort that his statement indicated he didn’t intend to abandon me.

The CPB knows about you, obviously,” he continued. “I don’t know how much they know, but at the very least they’re now aware of your given name; who your family members were; where you lived, and so on. You need to understand that if the TPF ever finds you, they’ll probably kill you. There’s no reasoning or negotiating with them. They won’t announce themselves; explain themselves; or read you your rights. In the world they come from, individuals don’t have rights, anyway. If they draw a bead on you, you’re done. And if they can catch you completely unaware, all the better. That means they’ll shoot you in the back; slit your throat in your sleep; whatever they need to do.”

The fear from that last day at the trailer park came crawling back. “What do I do?”

Exactly what I tell you,” he said, staring hard at me for a moment before speaking again. “We have to erase Pete Bedauern before the Erasers do it. Meh—it was never a great name anyway. And you have to keep your mouth shut. You can’t tell anybody about who you really are or where you came from. You have to be smart—don’t do or say anything that might cause people to doubt our cover story.”

Um, cover story? Sorry, but I don’t know what our cover story is,” I said, worried I had missed that information, somehow.

I’m working on it. For now, just stay here and don’t interact with anybody until I brief you on the game plan.”

Um, I talked a little with the mail man. He noticed my shoes. I’m sorry.”

What did you tell him?” he asked, voice going flat and cold.

Nothing!” I said. “He asked if Mami was my mother. I just smiled, like a retard. He asked where I got my shoes. I just shrugged.”

He glanced at my feet. “Those sneakers do stand out. Hortensia already ordered you some shoes from the Sears catalog. But I’ll get some for you before they get here. In fact…” He stroked his chin momentarily, with a thoughtful expression. “I think today we’ll all take a trip. I want to give the little lady a night on the town. We can probably find you a shoe store before then, though.”

I’m sorry, but…I don’t have any way to pay you back for the shoes,” I said, then ran my hands over the pants and shirt I was wearing. “Or the clothes Mami made for me.”

I know,” he said. “Don’t sweat it.”

I chewed on my lip a second before pointing my thumb toward the kitchen and asking, “Does she know?”

He glanced in the direction I was pointing, then turned back to me. “No. I’m not sure if I’ll ever try to explain this to her. Don’t you go spilling the beans, either.”

Okay. But she doesn’t already suspect…?”

What? That I’m a time-traveling fugitive from a murderous future shadow regime, jumping warps between alternate realities during the week? No; I’m pretty sure she doesn’t. Did you notice that refrigerator in the kitchen?”

I nodded, confused about how the strange fridge was relevant.

Most people don’t have refrigerators yet,” he said. “They have ice boxes to keep their food in. That particular fridge in there won’t even be manufactured for over a decade. Fully self-contained, electric, and doesn’t use the dangerous gasses that preceded Freon. I brought it in and set it up as a sort of calculated risk—to see how suspicious it would make her. Hortensia thinks it’s the cat’s meow. She’s smart enough to know something is odd, but she doesn’t grill me about it. Maybe she thinks I’m a magician, or the genius who built it, but she doesn’t assume such technology can’t exist yet. Obviously it can exist—she’s got one sitting in her kitchen!”

What about when people come over?” I asked.

We don’t have people over,” he said. “She doesn’t get out much. When she does, she doesn’t toss our business out on the street—that’s part of what makes her a high-caliber mate. I take her to visit her cousins now and then, and that’s enough for her. She’s content here, seeing me once or twice a week. She thinks I’m out keeping tabs on other businesses in addition to the Orange Grove…which is the truth, actually. She’s trustworthy, tight-lipped, loyal to a fault…pretty much the most you could hope for in a woman.”

Then why…? Sorry, but does she know about PJ’s mom?”

He frowned and shook his head as if trying to sling off something clinging to his face. “First of all: quit apologizing all the time. It’s annoying. Never apologize for anything unless there’s damn good reason. And when you’re grateful about something, just say ‘thank-you’ once. Don’t keep saying it over and over, every chance you get.”

My face heated. I was embarrassed and remorseful for doing something that annoyed him, and almost apologized for that before catching myself.

He sighed. “PJ’s mom, and catching your dog that day, those were one-time deals. PJ’s mom wasn’t anything I wanted to do. It was something that was necessary, that’s all. Hortensia doesn’t need to know about it; you don’t need to worry about it anymore; and I don’t want to remember it. Okay? Just let it drop.”

I nodded, stinging a little from what I perceived as a rebuke. It had been none of my business; I just felt protective of Mami.

He rose from the chair and stretched. “So let’s get ready to roll. We’ll get you back on your training, soon. You might need it more than ever, now. Especially the mental part of it, like situational awareness.”

Those businesses you run in different realities,” I mused, aloud, “one of them is The Warrior’s Lair?”

Was,” he said. “I can’t ever go back to those coordinates. That business and most of my customers there…permanently burned. That’s a risk I took.”

I’m sor…”

He cut me off with a stern glare and a vertical palm.

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Paradox Chapter 9: The Orange Grove

We weren’t even on a road, but some huge, shallow bowl-shaped area that extended for miles. Vegetation and even some mountains were visible beyond the edges of this strange flat-bottomed depression, but the ground we sped over was hard-baked bald.

The engine rumbled and growled as we slowed down. With the reduced G-force, I was able to twist sideways, crane my neck around the seat back and peer out the back window.

Nothing seemed to be following us—camouflaged or not.

We lost ’em,” Uncle Si said, visibly relieved. You can relax.“

Who were those Predator people?” I asked, with a throat so dry my tongue didn’t want to move in the correct patterns for speech. “What just happened? Where are we?”

I couldn’t quite identify it, but noticed there was something different about my uncle’s face as he let out a deep breath before answering. “We’re on a dry lake bed. Enjoy the smooth ride, because most of the way tonight is going to be bumpy.”

Dry lake bed? That didn’t make any sense. When did we leave the road? I didn’t remember that, and my eyes had been wide open.

Those ‘Predator people’ were the Erasers,” he added, downshifting while the engine slowed the vehicle.

Erasers?” I repeated.

Think of them as the angels of death,” he said. He downshifted again and our speed continued to fall off. When we reached the edge of the dry lake bed, the car lurched and bucked over rough terrain.

Why couldn’t I see them?”

They were cloaked.”

Cloaked…as in a ‘cloaking device?’ Like Star Trek?”

Not like Star Trek. Not like a stealth bomber, either. You’ll get a chance to see how it works one of these days.”

What’s going on?” I demanded. “What were they doing with Mom and the others?”

Killing them,” he replied, coldly. “And taking the bodies away. They were erasing your family.”

Why?”

He sighed, heavily. “There’s a whole lot of questions I’m not gonna answer just yet. You wouldn’t believe the answers anyway, until you see and experience some stuff first hand.”

Can you tell me where we’re going, at least?”

Uncle Si shrugged. “I’m gonna drop you at a safe house for right now. We should get there in a few hours.”

Drop me? You’re going somewhere else?”

He nodded. “Some stuff I need to do; places to go. You’ll be safe. I’ll make sure of that.”

The car rocked and bounced onto an unpaved road, which Uncle Si followed for many miles, throwing a cloud of dust into the dimming sky.

***

Darkness fell before we reached a paved road, but Uncle Si never removed his shades. We followed that road for hours. At one point, Uncle Si pulled onto the shoulder and steered into a relatively clear path between a line of trees and some lower brush. He turned off the lights but left the engine running before getting out to take a leak. He advised me to do the same. I did.

I must have pissed about a gallon. After the resulting relief, I took notice of how warm and wonderful the air was, even at night.

When Uncle Si finished and zipped up, he walked around the car to open the trunk. He hefted two large steel gas cans out, and began pouring them into the vehicle’s tank.

Need any help?” I asked.

Get that M203 out of the back seat and bring it to me,” he said. “But don’t play with it, point it near me, or put your fingers anywhere near the triggers.”

I didn’t know what an “M203” was, but there could only be one item he was referring to. I crawled in back and got the weapon. It looked futuristic, yet vaguely familiar. My initial impression was that it was a small machinegun with a huge shotgun mounted over-under. But then I didn’t yet know much about modern military weapons. I brought it to him and, one hand still pouring gas, he used his other hand to take the weapon from me and place it inside the cavernous trunk only partially filled with tires, toolboxes and crates.

Thanks,” he said. “We’ll be back on the road in a minute. Make sure you’re in the seat and buckled up by the time I shut this trunk.”

Yes sir.” As I moved back toward the passenger door, I took a longer look at that frightening beast of a car. It was long and straight, with squared-off corners and edges—yet also some graceful, flowing curves back on the rear fenders. Shallow curves, but curves nonetheless.

As I slid into the passenger seat, I realized we hadn’t yet encountered another vehicle since landing in the dry lake bed. Aside from the stars above, there were no other lights visible anywhere.

The trunk shut behind me, Uncle Si slid back behind the wheel, and we were off.

It was a while before we encountered a vehicle, and I was dozing in the seat by then. I remember one pair of headlights growing closer, and passing us on the left. Then I drifted off again.

There were curves and turns, but not many stops. I finally stirred when we left paved road once again. I opened my eyes and looked out the window. We were on a gravel road surrounded by trees. The trees were all roughly the same size, planted in perfect rows, and a uniform distance apart.

Uncle Si rolled down his window, and warm, pleasant air rushed in, with a strong scent of citrus.

The gravel road went on for miles. I checked behind us a couple times, but nothing trailed us except dust.

In time the crude path broadened out into a huge clearing. There was a sprawling, flat-roofed house, barns, sheds, and a building which reminded me of an old-fashioned aircraft hangar.

Uncle Si wheeled around and backed up to one of the huge doors at the end of the hangar. He left the engine running as he got out and stepped around to the back of the car again. He worked at unlocking something, then raised a garage door. It wasn’t a sectional garage door which coiled up above the opening, like what I saw at some people’s houses. This one appeared to be a solid panel of painted plywood, and simply swung up in an arc, out of the way. The beast-car growled low and mellow as he eased it backwards into the dark cave. Once fully inside, he cut the engine and the night fell silent.

Come with me,” my uncle said, opening his door and stepping out. I disembarked to join him. We went outside. He pulled the big swinging door back down and took a minute locking it. He strolled toward the huge, flat-roofed house, and I fell into step behind him.

I followed him to a side door. I heard keys jangle again. He pushed the door open and went inside. I followed. He locked the door behind us and led me along a cool, uncarpeted hallway.

The hallway opened into a large room with some delightful smells which convinced my nose to remind my brain that I hadn’t eaten for quite a while. Allyson’s party never happened, so supper hadn’t, either. Uncle Si flipped a switch, and dull yellow light spread out to reveal we were in a kitchen.

The first thing I noticed was the light bulb itself. The glass of the bulb wasn’t frosted at all. I could clearly see the glowing filament inside that round bubble. Speaking of round, the refrigerator was the oddest looking kitchen appliance I’d seen up until then. There were no corners, really. The vertical sides were flat in between the rounded edges, and the bottom must have been flat. But it had a sort of oval shape when looking at it from the front. The flawless white and chrome finish gave me the impression it was brand new, even though the style seemed older than the appliances filmed in old black-and-white movies. The sink and faucet looked weird, too. I didn’t know anything about house construction (and I’d always lived in trailers up until then), but the walls didn’t seem normal, either. I assumed they were concrete with a rough finish.

Hungry?” Uncle Si asked, opening that strange fridge.

I nodded. He began pulling out food and placing it on the table.

A woman entered the room. She was short—not too much taller than me. She was also dark. Her black hair was braided and pulled back in a big knot atop the back of her head. Her skin was a golden brown. Her eyes were dark brown, but luminous. She wore a robe, and was wrapped in a fringed shawl over that. Her eyelids were puffy, like she’d just awoken, and she seemed surprised by our presence. She said something I didn’t understand.

Si responded, but I didn’t understand that, either.

They talked back and forth, in a language I took to be Spanish. Her words came so fast, it would have been hard to understand her even if I was fluent in Spanish. She looked at me several times as they talked. Finally, Uncle Si addressed me. “This is Hortensia. I call her Mami…you can too, I guess.”

Hello,” I said, meekly.

Hortensia squatted, facing me. She appeared fully awake, now, and smiled at me. “It is eh-so nice to meet chu, Peter,” she said, with a heavy accent. “Please eh-sit down by table. I will make eh-something for you for to eat.”

She warmed up some leftover chicken and potatoes in the oven. (Giving the kitchen another visual once-over, I noticed there was no microwave or coffee maker, either.) I’d never eaten leftovers that tasted so good. Si and Hortensia continued to converse in Spanish while he and I ate. She glanced at me repeatedly, but watched Uncle Si with a curious, if not confused, expression.

After the late meal, Hortensia showed me to a bedroom. “Tonight, chu eh-slip here,” she said, while making the bed with sheets, a pillow and blanket that she took from the room’s closet.

The single bed had a mattress that was a little stiff, but it turned out to be surprisingly comfortable. I slept very well that night—what was left of it.

***

I slept through half of the day, also. It was my nose that woke me. Wonderful food smells wafted into the bedroom. I rose, dressed, and wandered through the house, trying to remember where the kitchen was. Bright sunlight flooded in through windows and stretched throughout the vast interior, allowing me to notice more details than were obvious at night.

Everything about this house was different. There was no carpeting—just hard tiles—though some of the big rooms had thick rugs covering most of the floor. There were no televisions anywhere I could find; no stereos; no clock radios…no clocks at all except for a tall old-fashioned grandfather clock in the same big room as the old-fashioned fireplace. Even stranger—the only telephone I found was a museum piece hanging on the wall, with a cylindrical earpiece connected by a straight cord (not coiled wire) to a big rectangular box of a device, with a bell-shaped protrusion up around where the crude receiver cradle was. The recessed, convex surface inside the flaring protrusion was perforated with a pattern of holes, leading me to assume that the microphone was behind it.

I finally found the kitchen. Hortensia was there, wearing a simple white dress and an apron, with her hair down, but in a net. When she saw me she smiled and greeted me cheerily in Spanish while giving me a hug.

The hug felt good. Despite all my bewilderment over what had happened in the last 24 hours, just that simple, short embrace lifted my spirits. I knew next to nothing about Hortensia, but I liked her.

The breakfast was like one you might order at Denny’s…eggs, bacon, hash browns, and French Toast. But it was much different than food from Denny’s. It was the most delicious meal I’d had, up to that point in my life. Hortensia set two glasses in front of me (real glasses; not plastic cups). One contained water, and the other was filled with orange juice.

She sat down with me, but ate a small plate full of leftovers.

You didn’t make enough for both of us to eat?” I asked, pointing at the plates in front of me.

I had to repeat myself a few times, phrasing it differently, before she understood my question. “I already have breakfast these morning,” she said.

I realized that it was probably lunch time. This woman, who didn’t even know me, had gone through the trouble of cooking a spectacular breakfast for me, with nothing but the crude furnishings of this large, strange kitchen. Not only that, but she seemed to be happy doing so.

Where’s Uncle Si?” I asked.

She frowned. “Que? What?”

Uncle Si,” I said. “Did he already eat?”

Uh…who is these?”

Uncle Si,” I said. “Simon.”

Eh-Simon?” Now she looked even more confused.

I nodded. “Yeah, Simon.”

She stared at me, curiously, for a moment. Then, haltingly, she said, “Eh-Simon is…not…here.”

I remembered he said something about dropping me off, and going to take care of some business somewhere else. That got me thinking about my situation, and what I had recently seen. By the time I finished breakfast, I was remembering the sight of my parents’ bodies, and my little brother’s corpse.

Dead. Just like that. They were gone forever.

I thanked Hortensia sincerely for the meal, but there was a lump in my throat, hot pressure behind my eyes, and my voice was choked. I found my way back to the bedroom where I’d slept, and leaned against the cool, solid wall, trying to fight back the tears.

Hortensia entered within only a few seconds, said, “Oh, Pedrito,” and pulled me into an embrace.

I lost it. I bawled and hiccupped and wailed. Salty fluid poured out of my eyes and snot dribbled out my nose.

Hortensia hugged me tighter and tighter, stroking my hair and my upper back.

My breakdown continued for what must have been an hour or more. She sat on the single bed and pulled me into her lap where she wrapped her arms around me, rocked back and forth, kissed my forehead, and spoke soft words in a soothing tone. There was a soft, warm energy from that woman that radiated into me. My soul absorbed it as I cried my eyes out. She kept me in her comforting embrace until the sobbing stopped, my breathing slowed to normal, and the tears stopped flowing. Still, she rocked me for a while, caressing my face and head.

Finally, my pride returning, I got off her lap and wiped at my face. She produced a white cloth and gently pinched my nose with it, squeezing some of the mucous out into the fabric. Then, having demonstrated its purpose, she indicated I should use it myself. I took it, used a dry part to wipe my face, then blew my nose into it.

Standing, she took my hand and led me out of the bedroom, down the hall and into a bathroom where the sink and tub were also of unusual design. We washed our hands, I washed my face, then she led me back to the kitchen. She sat me down at the table again, pulled a nice-smelling pan from the oven, scooped some of the contents onto a small plate and set it in front of me with a spoon.

Not wanting to talk or think about anything more complicated than using the spoon right then, I took a bite. It was sweet and delicious. I didn’t know what kind of dessert this was, but I was glad to shovel it it my mouth. While I ate, she left the kitchen.

When she returned, she smiled and touched my head again. “Come, Peter,” she said.

I followed her to a different bathroom. In this one, the tub was full of hot water and foamy mounds of soap suds. She mimed washing motions, showed me where the towel was, pointed to my clothes, and indicated that I should pile them in the corner by the door.

After she left, I undressed, dropped the clothes as instructed, and climbed in the tub.

I didn’t care much for baths. I took showers purely out of necessity, but experienced no pleasure from them. But there was nothing else I felt like doing at the moment, so I washed thoroughly, then just sat there soaking.

Hortensia knocked softly, asked something I didn’t understand, then opened the door and gathered up my clothes. “Chu are okay?” she asked.

I nodded. “But those are the only clothes I have…”

Is okay,” she said, and disappeared with my clothes, shutting the door behind her.

I had no other clothes besides what I’d been wearing, so this worried me. I got out of the bath, dried off and wrapped the towel around me before trudging off to find her.

It took some exploring, but I found her in a corner room with a strange contraption on a platform with a chair slid under it. In the room were several baskets of yarn, hundreds of spools of thread, tons of different fabric either folded or in rolls, and a lot of hanging clothes—mostly dresses. As I waked in, she was using a yellow ribbon with tick marks to measure the waistband of my shorts. She smiled briefly when she saw me, but turned serious quickly as she bent down to write something with pencil on a note pad. She took a few more measurements, writing each one down, before handing my shorts and underwear back to me. Then she began measuring my shirt. I retraced my steps to the bathroom and exchanged the towel for the shorts and underwear. When I returned, she had finished with the shirt, and helped me back into it.

Still looking serious, she then used the measuring ribbon directly on me. She held it against my arm, spanned my shoulders with it, stretched it along my leg, around my waist, then measured my overall height. After each measurement, she wrote something. Once all that was complete, she smiled once again and led me to yet another room.

This room had a big mirror against the wall, no rugs, and furniture which included a dark wood chest with several drawers. She had me sit in a chair facing the mirror, then draped a sheet around me, pinning it tight at the back of my neck. She produced scissors and a comb from a drawer in the dark chest, and proceeded to cut my hair with them. Once finished, she joined me in staring at my reflection in the mirror, smiling and making some musical comments in Spanish.

After that she led me outside.

I looked around, remembering the buildings I’d noticed in the dark upon arrival. I also saw that the thousands of trees in perfect straight rows were festooned with oranges. The heat, the smells, and the feel of the air confirmed for me that we were nowhere near St. Louis. I didn’t know where this place was, but the outdoors here was like paradise.

Hortensia mimed instructions to me to bend over and buff my hair with my hands. I did, and a cloud of hair clippings floated down onto the ground. She then gestured for me to take a look around.

I was only too glad to go exploring.

I snooped around every building, then wandered through the orange tree forest. I found a pond, and a creek, but got lost. It’s hard to find landmarks when most everything is so uniform, but I found my way back to the main area before dusk.

The flat-roofed house reminded me of the houses I saw in an old Zorro movie. The walls were thick, made of the same material outside as in. Logs (presumably used to reinforce the flat roof) stuck out from the walls, high up. Above that was a balcony, and behind it, another story of the building. The walls were painted a color that wasn’t pink or orange, but somewhere on that side of the spectrum. It didn’t look bad at all on that house. The porch overhang was supported by ornamental pillars which flared out into scalloped webbing which connected them, forming a decorative, partial wall. You could see through it, and easily step through it, but it did sort of separate the porch from the greater outdoors. There were wavy red tiles all across the top of the porch overhang.

I found Hortensia over in the barnyard area. She carried a bucket in one hand and used the other to sprinkle what looked like corn crumbles on the ground. This was how she lured a flock of chickens inside a large coop, then locked them inside. I marveled at how peaceful and natural the scene was. She grinned when she saw me. “Hello, Peter. Is almost time eh-supper, no?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She reached out her hand and, without thinking about it, I just drifted right under it. Her hand came to rest on my head and she pulled me against her side as we strolled toward the house. There was something powerful about her touch. It was comforting, and welcoming, and made me feel like I was where I belonged. I had never belonged anywhere before.

While she worked in the kitchen, I explored the inside of the house some more.

I noticed something else: although the house obviously had electricity, there weren’t many sockets. And the electrical cords to the lamps and such were different. They weren’t “Siamese” rubber-insulated wires with flat plugs, as I was used to. Some sort of fabric insulation protected a single, thick cable to each electrical device, and the plugs were big, blocky objects, always with three prongs. A few rooms had some sort of electrical device plugged in. There were variations in style, but all of them had large wooden cases—sanded smooth and stained or varnished. There were switches on the side and knobs on the front. Also on the front were inlaid glass windows. Through these windows could be seen a flat background surface with neatly painted marks, a sequence of numbers which seemed vaguely familiar, and a bright colored needle in front of the surface.

After another fantastic meal, Hortensia accompanied me into a room lined with bookshelves. There were two rocking chairs, a wooden desk with a very solid-looking rolling chair, and two padded wingback chairs with foot rests before them. This room had the most electrical sockets of any I’d found in the house, and there was almost a lamp for every chair. Hortensia hummed to herself as she strode to one of the wooden-cased electrical appliances I found so fascinating. She flipped the switch on the side and something began to hum. I noticed something glowing through the vents in the wooden cabinet, and in time the humming was overlapped by distinct voices and other sounds. I made out low, spooky organ music, then a sinister laugh.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” asked a creepy, somewhat nasal voice from a pattern of holes in the wooden cabinet. More sinister laughter, then the same voice answered its own question: “The Shadow knows!” And then he cackled menacingly again.

Hortensia twisted one of the knobs. The box buzzed and whined through a range of frequencies. The needle inside the glass window moved past the painted marks on the background as she turned the dial, and I realized that the big, wooden-cased contraption was a radio. An A.M. radio, judging by all the static and squeaking. She went past a couple stations—one with another voice talking, and one with some music I might have assumed to be country-western, but different. She stopped when she tuned in a different music station.

This music was unlike anything I’d listened to before. It was hard to pick out the individual instruments, except for drums, a clarinet, and maybe a trumpet. The other sounds were from other horns I couldn’t identify. The rhythm was appealing, and the melody had a smooth, flowing sound that was almost seductive. Hortensia danced around the room while she dusted and swept. Several songs played—some slow, some fast; and there was talking in between—though it sounded more like an announcer than a DJ. All the music seemed to feature the same instruments, though the melodies were diverse. However, only about a third of the tunes included singing. I had never heard music on the radio without lyrics being sung, except when passing through a classical station.

Once finished cleaning the room, Hortensia returned to the room where she measured my clothes. I tagged along, at first, to see if there was more strange technology yet to be observed.

There was.

She turned on the radio in that room and tuned it to the same station. Then she sat at the platform with the strange metal contraption. She pulled two pieces of sturdy cloth from atop the adjacent table, both shaped like a pair of pants. She must have cut the pattern while I was out exploring, earlier. She sandwiched them together and set them on the platform. She changed the spool of thread in the contraption, made some adjustments, then began pushing a pedal under the platform with her foot. As she worked the pedal, a pulley turned on the contraption, and a needle plunged up and down through a slot in the platform. She fed the cloth into the thrusting needle, and I realized the contraption was a sewing machine.

Fascinated by the mechanism, I watched it work for a while, really wishing I could take it apart to see the inner workings. But it was Hortensia’s sewing machine, and I wasn’t about to ask her to let me experiment with it.

Are those gonna be pants for me?” I asked.

She stopped pedaling, cocked an eyebrow at me, then stretched one arm toward the doorway, flopping her arm up and down as if shooing a fly away. “Vamanos!

I got the message, and returned to the other room.

The radio was still playing music. I searched the bookshelves. Most of the books were hardbound volumes, but without glossy paper dust jackets. Noticeably absent were paperbacks with illustrated covers. There were non-fiction books with words like “Quantum Mechanics,” “Fractal Resonance,” “Generations,” and “Social Anthropology” in the titles. I thumbed through a few of these, finding nothing that interested me beyond the copyright date on a moderately-worn volume about “Arrested Development” with highlighted text throughout and many dog-eared pages. I flipped to the copyright page. 2025? Must be a typo…or I was wrong about the number following the copyright mark referring to a year? 2025 was so far in the future that the O-Zone layer would be gone by then, and between acid rain and the unfiltered solar radiation, people would die going outside without protective shielding.

I slipped the book back between two others, just as I had found it.

Stacked on a small table near one bookcase were several magazines with glossy, colorful images on the covers. The one on the top had a tough-looking guy in a black trenchcoat, hat, and mask, blasting away with a pistol in each hand. I picked it up, opened it, and flipped through the pages. There were a few black-and-white illustrations sprinkled throughout, and some advertisements for strange products I’d never heard of. But most of it was text…like what you might find in a school reading book…only on gray, randomly-speckled paper—like the paper used in the old paperbacks on the tables at library sales.

I tried reading a little. In two paragraphs, I was hooked. The story I had chosen was about a girl who knew an important secret, but got kidnapped by some dirtbags who were going to kill her. But then this tough vigilante tracked her down, got in a gunfight with the dirtbags…and the story ended with a message that it would continue in the next issue of the magazine. I fully intended to dig through the stack to find that next issue, but made the mistake of taking a peek at the next story instead. This one was about a “Yankee” pilot who lived in South America. He was hired to find a team of scientists who went missing in the jungle…and I couldn’t stop reading, once I’d started.

That story, also, ended with the good guys in danger, but a promise that the story would continue in the next issue. I sat there reading, with the music playing in the background, and before I knew it I had gone through that entire first magazine.

I meant to find the next issue of that title, but a magazine cover with the picture of a warrior wielding a sword caught my eye. I just couldn’t pass that up. Lo and behold, one of the stories in it was about a character I was familiar with: Conan the Barbarian! Unfortunately, it also had a cliffhanger ending.

Hortensia entered the room to check on me when I was still poring through the magazines. Her eyes seemed to twinkle with amusement, and she left me alone again.

The next magazine had a cover featuring a muscular man wearing only a loincloth, brandishing a knife, fighting a leopard.

Before I finished that one, Hortensia returned. After much trial-and-error, she communicated to me that it was my bedtime; I communicated my desire to take one of the magazines to the bedroom, and she reluctantly agreed. She gave me another kiss on the forehead when we parted ways. Inside the room, I found the bed made with fresh sheets and pillowcase.

While reading the last story for the night, I blurted out, “I know this character, too! This is Tarzan!”

Like all the other magazines, this one was in mint condition. The cover wasn’t faded or threadbare in the slightest. There were no wrinkles or fingerprints. The interior pages, also, were as perfect as could be—considering the cheap paper. The binding was still solid, and no pages were brittle. There was no musty smell. In fact, the magazine had that fresh book smell, like it hadn’t come off the printing press that long ago.

I mention all these details because the date on the cover said “April 1934.”

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Paradox Chapter 8: Stumbling Onto a Hit

The way people think and behave doesn’t make logical sense.

Even by this point in my life, I should have just accepted that fact, and expected it. Instead, it surprised, baffled, and frustrated me every time this principle was demonstrated.

Case in point: my father and Allyson. She hated me, and I think she hated him almost as bad. She made no secret of it. And though I didn’t disrespect my father; mouth off to him; lie about him behind his back; or steal from him; I never was much more than chopped liver, so far as he was concerned. But boy, did he make an effort with Allyson—even after breaking it off with Mom. He bent over backwards trying to win love from that evil bitch, when she wasn’t even a blood relation to him. I never did figure that out, and stopped trying.

Anyway, while he occasionally came to visit when I had a birthday, he never missed one of hers—and always brought her a present, as well.

Allyson no longer lived under the same roof as me, thankfully, but Mom arranged a birthday party for her at our house, and of course my father had made time to attend. Mom told me beforehand that he was bringing Abel along with him. Abel was my half-brother (different mother; same father), and a few years younger than me. I was expected to entertain him whenever these awkward reunions took place. Sometimes we got along okay; sometimes not. Whichever way it went, though, his company was sure to be more tolerable than Allyson’s.

When my father pulled up in front of the trailer, with Abel in the car, I figured Allyson would be along in about an hour or so later, and the party would start. I figured if I didn’t go for my run now, I wouldn’t get the chance later.

As I pulled some shorts and a sleeveless shirt on, I heard the knock on the door, then the voices of my parents exchanging barely-civil small talk as my father came inside. I slipped out the back, let Ace out of the kennel, and off we went.

***

I ran farther than normal—not because I felt like running farther that afternoon, but because I wanted to avoid the party for as long as possible. Ace and I ran past the park and into a semi-industrial area for a few miles, then took the scenic route back to the trailer park. About a quarter mile out, I slowed to a walk and stepped out our “cool-down lap” with Ace panting happily beside me.

I had walked every foot of the trailer park a thousand times by then, and didn’t really need to pay attention to find my way back. Uncle Si had been reminding me to be aware of my surroundings all the time, but I slacked off sometimes. On that particular day I wasn’t paying much attention. When our trailer became visible in the gap between two other trailers as we walked, Ace began barking. I snapped out of my daydream and clipped the leash on her choke collar before she could tear off to chase somebody’s cat or something. The first thing I noticed was our trailer rocking around a bit on its foundation. Ace was barking in the direction of our trailer. I didn’t see any cats or another dog.

I followed the line of her sight, and almost missed it. But there it was: some weird visual anomaly right by the trailer—as if invisible prisms or magnifying glasses were passing in front of the scene, warping the light in unnatural patterns. It looked a lot like the scenes in Predator (that Arnold Swarzenegger movie) when the alien hunter uses his high-tech camouflage.

The back door of the trailer swung open and two light-warping anomalies emerged, with a solid, visible object hanging between them. An arm flopped down from the object, and hair trailed from one end.

Hair the same color as Mom’s.

The object disappeared, like it had just been shoved through a window in an invisible wall.

My brain lagged behind the visual input from my eyes, and it hadn’t yet quite registered that the visible object had been my mother’s body. Then my father’s body was transported to the invisible window in similar manner. His body leaked a dark liquid on the ground along the way. Then I recognized Abel’s body, dangling in an upside-down U-shape as if draped limply over a sawhorse, bobbing along through thin air with nothing under him but another distortion of the scenery beyond.

Ace continued to bark. Barking dogs were nothing unusual in my trailer park, but for whatever reason, her barking finally drew attention. Several light distortions made sudden, jerking moves, interacting with each other, it seemed. One of the anomalies seemed to split, and a dark opening appeared within it—like the doorway to a tent. Out of that opening, something long and dark extended, pointing in my direction. I don’t remember the sound it made, but I saw a flash.

I had been pretty slow on the uptake since first coming on the scene, but my instincts came through for me right then. Before my mind processed the word “danger,” it had signaled my body to duck. I dove flat in the weeds. Ace had been slow on the uptake all her life; never very protective or faithful in other classic dog-like ways…so I don’t know exactly what caused her to jump out in front of me in that instant.

A split second later, my poor retarded German Shepherd lay spasming and bleeding profusely on the ground, having taken a bullet, or death ray, or something for me.

My brain was still playing catch-up, but stark terror set in almost instantly. Some nearly-invisible predators had murdered my family, and were now trying to murder me.

There was an ear-splitting roar off to my left. A big, fast, loud vehicle, shaped like a sledgehammer, shot off the street, launching airborne when it hit the curb, ripping the turf asunder with massive tires when it hit the ground in the trailer lot beside me. Snarling like some mechanical beast, it fish-tailed through the lot, flinging clods of turf in twin geysers behind it, before rocking down on its nose, coming to a stop right in front of me—shielding me from whatever it was that just killed my dog. My eyes couldn’t get any wider as the passenger door of that strange machine swung open. Inside the cockpit, I saw Uncle Si leaned over from the driver seat, having just flung the door open. His own eyes were wide behind his shades, and his face pale, as he screamed, “Get in! Now!”

I scrambled to my feet, tripped over Ace’s body, and crashed inside the car in a tangled heap.

Uncle Si opened his own door and stepped outside, pulling some bulky, dark weapon with him. He aimed the weapon toward the trailer. I heard a unique bloop noise, and there was an explosion by Mom’s trailer. A large anomaly which had remained still up to that moment (thus harder to detect) lifted off the ground, transforming into something solid and visible. When it came back to earth with a tremendous smashing sound, it resembled something like a futuristic cargo van with fire and smoke billowing out of several jagged holes.

Before that vehicle hit the ground, I heard what sounded like a machinegun. Uncle Si was firing his weapon again—I could tell by the way it pushed against his shaking arms. Beyond him, I saw one of the smaller, mobile anomalies transform into the figure of a masked, helmeted man wearing a glittering poncho, brandishing some sort of weapon. The figure staggered backwards, then slumped to the side.

The machinegun sound stopped. Uncle Si glanced down at his weapon and yelled, “Son of a blood sucking whore!” He dove back behind the steering wheel, tossed the weapon in the back seat, pulled his door shut, and yanked the shifter into gear. An engine that must have been even more powerful than the one in his Corvette roared bloody murder, and I was pushed back against the seat with such crushing force that my breathing was labored.

I cried out, asking what was going on, but I couldn’t even hear my own words over the tremendous noise of that engine. It only stopped roaring like the end of the world when Uncle Si shifted gears. During one such lull in the din, he yelled, “Buckle up!”

He attached multiple webbing straps to a metal disk that rested over his chest. I was being pushed back against a similar device on the passenger seat. It was behind me, but needed to be in front of me. Straining against the G-force flattening me against the seat, I tried to strap myself in, too.

I was thrown left, then right, as the big, fast machine slung around corners. Uncle Si’s intense gaze shifted from the streets in front, to the rear view mirror, constantly. “Keep down!” he yelled, between shifts. Outside my window I saw sparks and chunks of metal blow out of a traffic light pole and heard the sound of ricochets.

When he hung a hard right that flung me against the safety webbing on my left, I looked out the passenger window. Behind us were several huge anomalies. One of them must have had malfunctioning camouflage, because part of the vehicle was visible. The sucker was really moving. It was black, with windows tinted so dark I couldn’t see inside. I don’t know how many fully camouflaged vehicles were chasing us, but I saw light warping around at least two other ones.

This was the wildest ride I’d ever been on in my life. And then Uncle Si got on the highway.

The big mechanized monster I sat in took off like a rocket. The feel of the incredible speed made more of an impression than the sight of the scenery blurring by. I was still terrified, but strangely also took some comfort in the notion that we were rapidly putting distance between ourselves and whatever was after us.

Uncle Si slammed the shifter into what must have been his highest gear, because he left it there (and I couldn’t imagine moving any faster without shooting into orbit). Then, incredibly, he began fiddling with the stereo.

How could anyone think about music in such circumstances? How could music possibly be heard over the godawful racket of this rolling Doomsday Machine?

Something did blast out of the speakers from behind and to the sides. Before I could really try to recognize what was playing, though, my stomach went queasy. My vision went haywire. Everything I could see seemed to melt into a multicolored collage of blinding lights. Something bizarre happened to my ears—like a force pushing against my eardrums while simultaneously sucking all the overwhelming noise into another room or something.

Then, with a jolt, the sound came back. The blinding lights faded and melted back into discernable shapes and colors. My stomach stabilized.

We were still roaring along at astounding speed…but we were somewhere else, in a different countryside. Wherever we were, it wasn’t anywhere near St. Louis—that was for certain. Not only that, but it was too late in the day. Judging by the sun, it was hours later than it had been just a couple minutes ago, before the…whatever it was…happened.

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Paradox Chapter 7: A Lesson About Leadership

The summer looked to get even better when I started Pee-Wee Football.

Unfortunately, Uncle Si was only an assistant coach of the Bulldogs—the team I wound up on. Mr, Johnson was the head coach, and he had a philosophy that called for letting all the players rotate through every position—even if they sucked at it.

Jay and Rogellio were on the team with me. The three of us, and about half the boys on the team, all wanted to be quarterback. As training camp went on, we all speculated on who would be chosen for what position. But by the time of our first game, Coach Johnson was still sticking to his rotation plan.

We lost 21-0.

The mothers who attended seemed to approve of the rotational approach. Most of the fathers didn’t.

When our second game resulted in a 35-0 loss, the fathers of the players got together and somehow convinced Coach Johnson to take a hike. The first thing Coach Simon Bedauern (“Coach B” as my fellow players called him) did upon taking over, was re-do the try-outs. He already knew who he wanted for linemen. But he lined up all his potential receivers and had them run routes while he himself threw the passes. He ran all of them through routes several times, then sorted out who he wanted for receivers, tight ends, and defensive backs. For running backs he timed their 40 yard dash, then had them sprint and cut right and left by whistle command. Then he asked who still thought they wanted to be a quarterback.

Me and a dozen other boys all raised our hands.

Uncle Si set up a net target at the goal line and had each of us throw from the Ten Yard Line. Most of us hit it from that distance. He moved us back to the Fifteen. We were still mostly good. At the Twenty, about half of us remaining were weeded out. At the Thirty, all but three of us failed to hit the target. Only two boys could throw an accurate pass from the Thirty-Five, and I was one of them.

The other boy was Stan Porter. At the next day’s practice, we were issued the red practice jerseys for quarterbacks.

Despite my history of undervaluing my abilities, I really thought I had the better arm. That’s why I was so disappointed when Stan started at QB for our next game. We won that game 14-10, and I got to play in the Fourth Quarter, but it was still disappointing.

What do you want—sympathy?” I could still hear those words echoing from training at the Warrior’s Lair, and knew I would hear them again if I bellyached. So I didn’t complain. But it must have been obvious, on the ride home, that I was feeling sour.

I had really come to admire Uncle Si, and loved being around him. For a grownup, it seemed he enjoyed my company and took an interest in my thoughts. I talked more with him than I had ever talked with anybody, and usually felt great after spending time with him. But that day there was oppressive silence while he drove. He asked a few questions, but I only gave one or two-word answers.

There’s a reason I made you second string,” he finally said. I’d been wanting an explanation, so this got my attention.

Your arm is a bit stronger,” he said. “You’re a little better at adjusting, and hitting receivers on their routes.”

Then why didn’t I start today?” I exploded.

Part of being a quarterback is leadership, Sprout. And Stan is the better leader.”

I wasn’t even sure what this meant, but I felt insulted anyway.

You’re a loner,” he said. “Nothing wrong with that. But a quarterback can’t be as introspective as you are. He has to be a people-person. More importantly, he has to have a can-do attitude. You don’t have that.”

This pronouncement really stung, coming from him.

What do you mean?” I asked. “What is ‘can-do’ attitude?”

You’ve got to encourage your teammates. Hold them accountable, yes. Push them, yes. But it’s a fine line. You can’t just tell them they suck—even if they do.”

I don’t do that!” I protested.

Actually, Sprout, you do. I guess you don’t notice it, but you don’t cut anybody slack. That’s actually a good thing for combat sports, because you don’t cut yourself slack, either. But it’s not good for team sports.”

His words smarted. I was reeling.

Team sports are tough,” he said. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and it’s hard to put together a group without any weak links. Leading a unit…a team, a group, is a lot like babysitting sometimes. Not everybody is cut out for it.”

I sat fuming silently for a while.

There’s an expression that was popular back in…” he started, but twisted his lips for a moment before finishing his statement, “…where I spent a good part of my life. It went: ‘Either lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.’ You’re the kind who gets the hell out of the way, Sprout. You’re a loner—not a leader. And that’s perfectly alright. You can be a lot more productive in life if you’re not distracted by trying to get a bunch of boneheads to do what they’re supposed to.”

You’re saying I can’t be a leader?” I asked, devastated.

He frowned sadly as he said, “You don’t have the personality for it. You’re too honest, and straightforward, and focused. The kind of guy who others want to follow knows how to bullshit. He’s always concerned about the image he presents to other people. He studies other people constantly, evaluating whether they can be any use to him; and if so, how. Or, if they are competition, he’ll have to sabotage or destroy them, somehow. Your only interest on that field is getting the ball into the end zone, and you don’t see anything beyond that. Stan is always working the team. He builds up his teammates’ egos, as needed…but never quite up to the level his ego is. Everything he says and does is designed to make himself appear to be higher on the ziggurat than everyone else.”

The ziggurat?” I asked, unfamiliar with the word.

The hierarchy,” Uncle Si said. “Okay, look, I’m gonna tell you how men, and boys, look at the world. Well…not that many in this pussified culture around us now; but jocks, and soldiers, pilots, martial artists…certain guys still look at the world this way: life is a big climb up a ziggurat—a stepped-pyramid like the Aztecs, Mayans and Incas built in Latin America. But this ziggurat is invisible—it only exists in the minds of those guys climbing it—but that doesn’t make it less real to them. The goal is to get as high as you can. You have to get there step-by-step, though. How other men perceive you determines which level you’re at. But so do certain accomplishments: an important job; your success with women; and probably how your career is panning out.”

Success with women?” I asked.

He nodded. “It’s not important to you yet, but pretty soon it’s gonna be very important to you. You’ll just have to take my word for that.”

I thought about this invisible ziggurat for a moment, then asked, “So Stan making starting quarterback—that moved him higher than me?”

He nodded again, with a pained expression. “Yeah. But what I’m trying to get across to you is that the ziggurat is irrelevant to you. You’re a loner, and frankly, too intelligent to get obsessed with all that ego-pacifying stuff. Don’t worry about how other guys perceive you. You’ll find out, in time, that none of them are worth impressing anyway.”

After another silent spell, I said, “I have a better arm than Stan. That’s what’s important for a quarterback.”

He sighed and shook his head, looking irritated.

UPDATE:  This book is published! Click here to buy on Amazon.

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Paradox Chapter 6: My Blooding

I took my football everywhere I went. When there were no other boys at the trailer park who wanted to toss it or play a game, I would play with Ace down at the grassy park. She didn’t exactly understand the rules of football, but she could bite down on the pointy end of the ball and run from me. She could also chase and tackle me when I had the ball.

On one of those excursions with Ace, after we played for about an hour, I walked over to the outdoor water fountain for a drink. While leaning over and sucking in the cool water, the football was slapped out of my hand.

I straightened and turned, wiping my mouth. Two black kids stood facing me with belligerent expressions. One of them held my ball.

If I had taken to heart what Uncle Si had told me about always being aware of my surroundings, that wouldn’t have happened.

I approached the kid holding my ball with hands extended for him to give it back. Before I reached him, he threw it to the other kid. This quickly developed into a game of Keep-Away, and I was “it.”

Every time I went after my ball, one would hold it out to tease me before tossing it to his accomplice, smirking. My retarded dog just sat there watching all this, curiously. She had seemed a lot happier to see me each day since I had started running with her in the evenings, but evidently that wasn’t enough for her to stick up for me this time.

I didn’t recognize the boys—maybe because they were in a higher grade; or maybe because they went to a different school.

You want the ball, white boy?” The taller, skinny one taunted, holding it out. “Here ya go.”

I reached for it.

Uh oh, too slow,” he said, tossing it to the stocky boy who was only an inch or two taller than me.

Wha’sa’ matter, Saltine?” the other one jeered. “Why don’tcha’ just get yo mama to buy you another one?”

Realizing I was not gonna get my ball back this way, I stopped chasing it. “Go get your own ball,” I said, voice squeaking. “Give mine back.”

The skinny one’s smirk disappeared and his nostrils flared in rage as he took quick steps toward me. “What you say, mothafucka? I know you ain’t talkin’ to me!”

He got up right in my face, moving his head around as he talked, as if trying to smell different parts of me. I instinctively took a step back to get breathing room, but he stepped forward to close the gap again. It was like he fed on my fear, or something. The more intimidated I was, the bolder he got.

This is our park, mothafucka,” he told me, then pointed across the railroad tracks to where the shabby trailer lots were. “Yo punk cracka’ ass betta’ run the hell up outa’ here befo’ I kick yo ass right now.”

I’m not going anywhere until you give it back,” I said, with a quavering voice that sounded pathetic, even to me. “It ain’t your ball and this ain’t your park.”

What! What the fuck you just say to me?” His spittle splattered my face as he yelled.

I had heard a conversation between Uncle Si and one of the men who trained at The Warrior’s Lair. Uncle Si started out by telling the man that weapons or martial art skills weren’t the most important factor in a fight—the most important factor was your willingness to use them. He went on to say that there comes a point in any confrontation when you know that violence is inevitable. Rather than go through all the insults, pushing and shoving, you might as well just get it over with—and none of that noble nonsense about waiting for the other guy to throw the first punch. If you caught the other guy unprepared, that was his fault.

I flicked out a left jab while slipping my right foot back and assuming the stance I’d been practicing so much for months. It caught him right on the mouth and split his lip, shocking him. But Uncle Si had taught me to always punch in combinations, so before the boy had time for it to register that I hit him, my straight right mashed in his nose. He blinked involuntarily while I nailed him with a double hook that rocked his head back. To my amazement and delight, the skinny kid went down with blood gushing from his nose.

The other boy was in the process of charging me from behind. He had probably sprang into motion when his buddy suffered that first blow, and now he was almost on top of me. I shuffled laterally, pivoted, and fired a third hook down low, catching him hard in the stomach. He grunted and froze in his tracks, his complexion going pale as he wheezed and bent forward at the waist. I stuck my jab in his face once, twice, then unleashed an uppercut that caught him right on the jaw, just as I’d been taught at The Warrior’s Lair.

The stocky boy staggered forward as I sidestepped and landed another jab and a cross for good measure. He fell on his face.

The skinny boy was trying to get up.

I’d also heard Uncle Si talk about the fight scenes in old movies. The telegraphed roundhouse punches in those farfetched scenes were dumb. Even dumber was how the combatants stood still, waiting for a dramatic haymaker to hit them, before it was their turn to throw a counterpunch. But perhaps most idiotic of all: after knocking the villain down with one of those haymakers, the hero would waste energy pulling him up to his feet before hitting him again. It must have seemed gentlemanly or something to audiences a long time ago. But Uncle Si said only a fool would try something like that. He talked about what you should actually do, instead.

I pounced on the boy before he could get up, driving my knees into his armpits, and used his face for a heavy bag, unloading shot after shot with both hands, until his face was a bloody mess.

It’s hard to describe the satisfaction I felt every time my fists connected with his flesh. Feeling that blunt force shock travel from my knuckles up my arms was like a powerful drug. For the first time in my life, I was in control of my circumstances. Nobody could say or insinuate that I was inferior. Especially not that skinny asshole on his back, who I was pounding on.

I climbed off him and looked to see what the other kid was up to.

His mouth was bleeding, too. He had rolled onto his back and was using one leg to scoot himself backwards through the grass, away from me.

I picked up my ball from where it had fell, watching both kids to see what they would do next. Neither of them seemed interested in stealing my ball, anymore.

Then the fear returned. I had just assaulted black kids. I had learned about assault, and racism, from all my teachers ever since First Grade. I didn’t understand why, but if a white person did something to a minority that minorities liked to do to white people, it was wrong and you were in deep, deep trouble.

Of course on TV and in the movies, blacks were always the victims of harassment and assault from white people. Every single time—no exceptions. That was also how politicians and the media looked at race relations, too, even decades after the Civil Rights movement had torn down the Jim Crow laws and made discrimination against minorities almost universally reviled. Reality, however, did not conform to that authorized narrative.

Football under one arm and retarded German Shepherd trotting along behind me, I ran back to Mom’s trailer.

 

It was hard to sleep that night, so scared that any minute the cops would arrive to arrest me for a hate crime.

By morning they still hadn’t come.

The only person I thought I could trust was Uncle Si. When I saw him the next day, I told him what happened.

For a while, as I described the fight, he looked confused. When I finished, he was quiet and thoughtful for a bit before suddenly nodding his head as if he’d just decided something.

How are your hands?” he asked.

Sore,” I said, a little surprised by the question.

He produced ice packs from the freezer in his office fridge and affixed them to my knuckles with training hand wraps.

We’ll make it a short day,” he said. “No bags. Just rope, footwork, and shadow boxing. We’ll see how your hands feel tomorrow—might need to rest them for a few days.”

They didn’t hurt at all at the time,” I said.

Your adrenaline numbed the pain. But a bare-knuckle fight takes its toll on both sides. In a street fight you’re probably not gonna have time to slip on gloves, Sprout. So remember: soft-to-hard; hard-to-soft.”

I don’t think you taught me that,” I said.

The second kid,” he said, “you got him in the stomach. The stomach is soft; the fist is hard—you can use your fist on that target. Hard-to-soft. That’s not what bruised your knuckles. If you’re gonna hit somebody on the jaw without gloves, use the heel of your hand, or your palm. Soft-to-hard. Lucky you got strong bones—some people might have broken their hands.”

He raised both his fists so that the backs of them were to me. “See that?”

I looked closer. One knuckle on his right hand sank in considerably farther than the corresponding knuckle on his left.

I broke that one, and it took several months to heal. Couldn’t do a damn thing with that hand.”

Hard-to-soft; soft-to-hard,” I said. “I got it, Uncle Si. But what about…what if the cops come for me?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think those kids are gonna want to tell anybody what happened.” He sighed. “Of course, if they do, they’re gonna lie about it. They’ll say it was you and a bunch of other guys that jumped them, most likely. That you stole the ball from them, maybe. I still have the receipt, so we can set that part straight. They’ll want to bring race into it, somehow. Say that you and your redneck buddies called them the N-word. You attacked them because they’re black.”

You think so?”

He shrugged. “Like I said: they might not say anything. But if they do, we’ll have to play it by ear. In the old days, we could just say it was self-defense, because it kind of was. Today…well, they’ll say you should have just given them the ball and walked away. That would teach them a more profound lesson than violence ever could. You’d be the more respectable person that way, blah blah blah.”

But you gave me that ball,” I protested. “If I let them take it, it’d be gone for good.”

I’m not saying that’s what I think you should have done,” he said. “And as far as the ball goes, don’t worry about it. If they had managed to steal it, I’d have gotten you a replacement. Okay? But something more important than a football was at stake.”

Huh? What do you mean?”

Uncle Si tapped his index finger against his temple. “Now you know: you’re not a wimp; you’re not a coward; you’re not inferior to other people at all.”

I didn’t know how to accept compliments. Especially from a grownup. “I’m sorry, Uncle Si. I heard you talking to one of your students. About willingness to fight, I mean. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop.”

He watched me closely for a moment before responding. The intensity of his hard eyes could be unnerving, when he had the sunglasses off. “Well, I hope he listened half as good as you did,” my uncle said, with what might have been a tight-lipped smile (it was hard to tell—he was usually so unexpressive). “Don’t apologize. What you did was learn from someone else’s mistakes. That was smart. Not everybody can do that. I had to learn those truths the hard way. So you’re already adopting The Way of the Warrior, and I haven’t really even started teaching you the mental component, yet.”

I wasn’t intending to bring up the guilt I felt for enjoying the euphoric rush while I smashed the one kid’s face in. But like so many other times with Uncle Si, it was like he already knew, anyway.

There’s a couple pitfalls you have to avoid,” he told me. “First, don’t get addicted to the power you felt. Okay? Don’t go looking for fights so you can feel it again. If you have to fight, then fight like hell. But if you don’t have to, then don’t. You’ll be a better man if you try to be peaceable.”

I nodded. “What’s the other thing?”

It’s gonna sound like the same thing I just told you, but it’s not. And that is: don’t get cocky because you know you can win a fight. Overconfidence leads to arrogance; arrogance leads to carelessness; and carelessness leads to defeat.”

I nodded again. I didn’t like arrogant people and never wanted to be one.

It’s fortunate those two didn’t know how to fight as a team,” he went on. “I haven’t taught you anything about dealing with more than one attacker. And you haven’t learned any grappling yet.” He turned thoughtful again, staring into space. “I wouldn’t mind taking a look at that fight…”

I squinted at him, tempted to tell him that was impossible, now that the fight was already over.

“…But it sounds like you did okay,” he concluded. “Go get dressed and get started on your footwork.”

The Warrior’s Lair had a shower in the locker room. He had me use it before leaving that day. Then, instead of driving me home, he took me to a go-kart track. I spent hours racing and playing video games in the arcade. He seemed to derive some sort of enjoyment by letting me play around, so I didn’t feel as guilty about him spending the money as I normally would have. He even played some video games himself.

The summer was off to a great start.

UPDATE:  This book is published! Click here to buy on Amazon.

Click here to buy anywhere else.

Paradox Chapter 5: Shocked Again

The only reason I got to play Little League that one year was because my father went through a guilty phase that motivated him to pay for it. He even bought me a birthday present that year—an outfielder’s glove.

I hadn’t even been all that excited about baseball. But now I was dying to play football on a real team. I couldn’t bear the thought of waiting until junior high before I could play.

I had already begun to acquire a modicum of self-confidence. It started with those first words of encouragement from Uncle Si. He was quickly becoming the most important person in my life.

He wasn’t easy on me. He pushed me, hard, and almost never accepted excuses. Whenever I grumbled about how sore and tired I was, or voiced any other complaint, he would ask, simply: “What do you want—sympathy?”

My complaints froze in my mouth. I examined my motives for bellyaching, and it was true—I had wanted sympathy. When I realized this, I was ashamed. I attacked my training, driven by the anger with myself, and wouldn’t complain again that day.

But Uncle Si was never cruel or insulting. He believed in me. He said as much. And his actions lined up with his words.

Without my newfound confidence, I probably wouldn’t have asked Mom if I could start Pee-Wee Football that summer.

St. Louis was a big enough city, I was sure there must be a program.

I waited until a commercial before asking her, one night.

She fit her casual dismissal seamlessly in between lighting a cigarette and making a phone call, without missing a beat: “Don’t be silly, Pete. Those things cost money.”

Maybe my father was going through another guilty phase. I would have asked him about Pee-Wee, if I had known how to get hold of him.

I was in a melancholy mood when I trudged into The Warrior’s Lair the next day. When Uncle Si saw me he asked, “Everything okay?”

I didn’t want to lie to my uncle, but I didn’t want to complain either, so I said nothing.

Hey, step in the office for a minute,” he said, cheerily. “Need to talk to you.”

I followed him into the office and we took our respective seats.

I couldn’t help but notice how much you’re into football, lately,” he said.

I’d developed a habit of assuming the worst in most situations, especially when in a bad mood, so even as I nodded, I imagined the next thing out of his mouth would be a reprimand for letting it distract me from my training.

I coach in the Pop Warner League,” he said. “Sign-ups are next month. Think you’d like to play?”

I stared at him wide-eyed.

He waved a hand over the desk. “I know your parents won’t pay for it. No big deal. I can take care of it, if you want to play.”

Are you serious?”

He nodded.

Just like that, my mood went from one extreme to the other. I couldn’t stop thanking him, and it took a while before I calmed down.

Oh yeah,” he said, opening a big drawer in the bottom of his desk. “I got something for you.”

He tossed me a brand new football.

I caught it and looked it over. “Seriously?”

Yup,” he said. “Now you don’t have to depend on other boys to bring a ball when you want to play.”

Thanks Uncle Si,” I said, taking grip on the laces. I felt guilty, like I’d been cheating or something. “I don’t get it. You’ve done all this stuff for me…”

And you appreciate it,” he said. “That’s enough.”

He sent me to the locker room to get dressed for training. When I came out, ready to skip rope, he said, “You’ve been coming along pretty good, so far. I want you to keep practicing everything you’ve learned, and this summer we’ll start working in some kicks.”

UPDATE:  This book is published! Click here to buy on Amazon.

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Paradox Chapter 4: The Football Seed Is Planted

Some boys my age were into sports. My father had paid for me to play Little League once a couple years before, and I had a decent fast ball. But I never had more than a passing interest in sports until that one day at the beauty shop.

I had to tag along with Mom on enough shopping trips and visits to places like jewelry stores, and beauty shops, that I was used to twiddling my thumbs in girly places. But on that particular day, I found a magazine in the waiting area that was not the typical crap about clothes, makeup, hairstyles and relationships. It was a special edition of some sports magazine, dedicated entirely to football. I flipped through it while I waited for Mom, casually looking at the photos.

There were pictures of players in action—throwing, catching, running, hitting, tackling…and big dudes on the line of scrimmage locked in Sumo-like combat, grimacing behind their facemasks from the effort of trying to overpower the other man. There were pictures of injured players being carried off the field. There was one picture of a certain player with a black beard, his helmet pushed back up on his head so that his weary eyes peered out under the lowest bar on his facemask. He was sitting on the sidelines, sweat streaking down his face, evidently waiting for his turn to go back out on the field.

The field of battle.

Football players were like modern day knights, I decided; and the game of football was the new chivalry.

This realization impressed me to the point that, from that day, I began to learn about the game.

Mom almost always stayed out late on Friday and Saturday nights, sleeping for most of the day on Saturdays and Sundays. So, with no Allyson to monopolize the TV anymore, I was able to binge on football every weekend. What I saw confirmed my epiphany.

Each game was a battle. Head coaches were the generals, devising the strategy. The quarterbacks were the field commanders, who led the valiant knights against the enemy. The opposing knights employed certain tactics on every play. Some knights were heroes, and some were villains. Some of the teams were even named after historical warriors or badasses. Just in the pros, there were Cowboys, Redskins, Chiefs, Patriots, Buccaneers, Raiders, and Vikings. It was a thrilling, fascinating milleu.

PJ didn’t care much for sports. I began to drift away from him, hanging out, instead, with other boys who loved football. Outside of school, I played catch or a sandlot game whenever there was opportunity. In a very short amount of time I learned and understood the rules.

Prior to this phase of my life, there were times when other boys asked me to do these things, but I had no interest, and sucked at it when I did try. They told me to try throwing with my thumb on the laces, but I still couldn’t launch a spiral.

What a difference motivation makes. In less than a week after taking an interest, I could throw perfect spirals with accuracy. I still couldn’t punt very well, but for my age I had a cannon for an arm.

Soon I was part of “the football gang,” which included Jay, Rogellio, Lamont and Scott.

Football was soon all I could talk about. Uncle Si noticed my obsession, but didn’t have a problem with it as long as I trained hard.

I did train hard.

 

Once Uncle Si was satisfied with my footwork and stance, he taught me defensive skills. This included blocking, “slipping” punches, bobbing, weaving, and the art of simply maneuvering to keep out of range. This part of my training seemed to take forever, but he finally decided I was ready to start learning some offense.

First came the jab, then the cross, then the hook, then the uppercut. He made me practice them until it felt like my arms would fall off. Then he taught me how to put them together in combinations, emphasizing the jab over everything else. He had me practice in the mirror, and corrected mistakes in my form until I maintained good defensive posture even when executing a combination. Then he moved me to the bags.

I still had to skip rope and run my circuit drills, but now most of my training time was spent at the double end bag. This was an inflated bag suspended between one bungee cord above and one below. After you hit it once, it was hard to hit it again because of the way it bounced and oscillated. Thankfully, when Uncle Si saw I was getting too aggravated, he would move me to the heavy bag and let me take out my frustration on it.

In time, I got where I could judge how the double end bag would move, aim and time my punches to hit it repeatedly and consistently. And just as I was mastering it, Uncle Si pulled me off of it. He brought me into the roped-off area. I put my training gloves on, and my mouthpiece in. He wore punch mits. What we did wasn’t exactly sparring. He would catch my punches with the mits, but also take swipes at me I would have to duck or dodge. It was still just western boxing—hands only—but I was finally putting offense and defense together. The next time he had me work the double end bag, he had changed the bungee cords so it didn’t move in the exact same patterns I had grown used to. He did stuff like that a lot; and I assumed the purpose was just to cause me frustration. But what he didn’t tell me (and what I didn’t appreciate at first) was that I was learning to adapt quickly on the fly.

Uncle Si drove me home after training every night, and after Mom got the job at the jewelry store, he had begun feeding me, too. No more hotdogs, or meals composed of potato chips. My diet now consisted of a lot of green vegetables, with mostly beef for my protein.

I didn’t like all the vegetables, but I noticed the difference after just a week. Although I usually passed out from exhaustion after my evening shower, and slept like the dead through the night, I had a lot of energy after breakfast each morning.

That helped make me even better at football. But as that school year wound down, I was overcome with the hunger for real football. Sandlot just wasn’t enough.

UPDATE:  This book is published! Click here to buy on Amazon.

Click here to buy anywhere else.

 

Privateer Episode 6

…Is live on Arkhaven.

Due to my inability to find a dependable artist, this will likely be the last one for a while. (It is all the drama I went through regarding this very subject that caused one of the longest delays in finishing my time-travel novel, BTW.).

Turning the Privateer script into a graphic novel has been like undertaking  a long road trip. After numerous mishaps and setbacks getting the car and driver ready, I finally got gassed up and ventured out–only to have my best driver yet pull over and abandon ship before we even reached the Interstate.

I may end up doing the driving myself.

Anyway, I’m working on getting the doorstop Great American Novel ready for primetime right now. I have a novel-length Honor Triad story I need to finish, but I’m not sure I will before I start pushing that graphic novel boulder to the top of the hill again.

Next time, another chapter from Paradox.

Paradox Chapter 3: Your Most Dangerous Adversary

It’s only natural that, when he heard the term “martial arts,” a young boy would imagine himself breaking boards, executing midair spinning back kicks, and heroically winning fights. My first training session with Uncle Si was not what I assumed it would be.

After school, I showed up at The Warrior’s Lair. I walked in and saw a handful of men, in pairs, working out. Some were using the punching bags, some were practicing throwing each other, and two were in the roped-off area, wearing padded gloves, foot pads, and padded helmets, sparring. While I was busy gawking, something smacked me in the side of the head. I turned to discover the source of the blow.

Uncle Si had crept up and thumped me. I stared at him in confusion. He had workout clothes on. His sunglasses rested atop his head and I could see his eyes clearly.

This lesson normally comes further on in training,” he said, “but you might as well start adapting now: Always be aware of your surroundings, who is within them, what they’re doing, and might be about to do.”

I rubbed my head where it was still stinging from the smack.

Follow me,” he said.

We entered his office. He picked up a bag from the top of his desk and threw it to me. I caught it. He gestured, indicated I should open it. Inside it were a pair of gym shorts and a gym shirt, sweat pants, sweat jacket, a protective cup with jock strap, and a mouthpiece.

You’re not gonna need most of that stuff for a while,” he said. “For now, just put on the shorts and wife-beater.”

You’re…you’re giving me all this?” I asked, disbelievingly.

Yes. You’re welcome. Now go get dressed.”

That first day, Uncle Si wasn’t concerned about anything but my feet, it seemed. He briefly went over a balanced stance, placing my feet roughly shoulder-width apart. He said I needed to learn when my feet were the right distance apart, without looking. Then he taught me how to shuffle. Done right, I learned, the shuffle would keep you balanced and close to your optimum fighting stance at all times. From now on, I wasn’t allowed to walk anywhere except to the rest room. Everywhere else, I had to shuffle.

He ordered me to shuffle after him as he moved around the padded floor, then shuffle back away from him when he advanced. He corrected me when my feet drifted too far apart, or too close together. Then, instead of verbally warning me, he simply knocked me over.

I must admit: I did learn a little faster that way than I would have otherwise.

I had never jumped rope before. I never saw the point. Besides, the only time I ever saw it done, it was black girls doing it in the school yard. Uncle Si taught me to skip rope that day.

He played loud music, so I could keep rhythm with it. I’d never heard music like that. It sounded from another time. But the beat was easy to follow.

He had me trade off between skipping rope and shuffling, until my ankles were sore. Then he introduced me to circuit drills.

The circuit drills were what first caused me to entertain the thought of quitting. I had to shuffle from station to station, completing different exercises at each station. Push-ups at one, sit-ups at another, pull-ups, flutter kicks, bear crawls, jumping jacks (which he called “side-straddle-hops”)… My favorite was the trunk-twister, because it was almost like resting. The station I dreaded more than anything was where I had to do “mountain climbers.” They didn’t look like much to watch, but they absolutely waste a person trying to do them.

Good,” he finally said, after a few hours. “Good work today. Your feet are coming along.”

My feet feel like they’re gonna fall off,” I muttered, “and I haven’t thrown a single kick.”

He tossed me a towel and motioned for me to take a seat. “What do you want–sympathy? Remember: I said what I teach here is a mixture.”

I nodded, sitting down. It felt really good to be off my feet.

I’ve developed a system that takes the best elements from several different disciplines,” he said. “I’m gonna teach them to you in a certain order that makes sense. One of the most important skills in any kind of combat is how to move, tactically. You have to maintain balance at all times. You have to keep yourself in a good position to block or avoid an opponent’s strike, even when you’re on the offensive. And you’ve got to do it right, even when your tank is empty and you want to do nothing more than quit. Understand?”

I think so,” I said, toweling off my face.

Good. Before you take a shower tonight, take Ace with you for some roadwork. You can keep it to just once around the trailer park, and not too fast your first night.”

Roadwork?”

A run.”

A run? You mean jogging?”

A jog for tonight,” he said. “But I’m gonna have you running before long.”

***

I did take Ace for a jog that night. She seemed to enjoy it. It wasn’t much fun for me, though.

Uncle Si continued to emphasize footwork, but my second day, he put me in front of a mirror. By pushing, pulling, prodding and twisting, he positioned me into a stance that didn’t feel natural at all. I already knew where to put my feet, and to keep my knees bent. He also had me tuck my chin down, and cock my fists. My guard was high, so that my knuckles were just below the level of my nose. I could shield my face with minimal adjustment. My elbows were tight against my sides, to protect my ribs, he said. I was twisted slightly at the trunk, so that my shoulders were at an oblique angle to the direction I faced–presenting a smaller target than if I stood square.

Look at that guy in the mirror,” he told me.

I did.

It’s a cliché,” he said, “but in your case, as true as anything ever was: that guy right there can be the most dangerous adversary you’ll ever face.”

Maybe it was a cliché wherever he came from, but it was a novel concept to me. “Myself?” I asked, confused.

Exactly. You’ve been trained to doubt yourself at all times. You’ve been trained to assume you’re in the wrong whenever challenged. You’ve been sold a bill of goods that says, ‘Whatever the situation, I am not good enough to succeed’.”

My jaw dropped and I stared at him.

It’s not all your mother’s fault,” he said. “It’s not even mostly her fault, though she contributes.”

Allyson,” I muttered. As far back as I could remember, my half-sister had taken it as her personal duty to make my life miserable. Eventually the physical torture gave way to verbal abuse…which seemed even worse. She finally left home last year, and I didn’t have to hear her insults and mockery on a daily basis anymore. But some of the things she said still bounced around in my mind.

Allyson hates you,” he confirmed. “You’re not crazy–it’s the truth. You’re right. Your mother will never admit it. Allyson will never admit it. But I’ll tell you the truth, even if nobody else has the balls.”

Why does she?” I asked, searching my memories, as I had for years, for some clue as to the source of her hatred.

Uncle Si rested a hand on my shoulder and said, “Quit looking for a reason to blame yourself. It’s not because of anything you did, or didn’t do. It’s simply because you exist, period.”

He stepped back and sat on the floor. “Have a seat.”

I sat facing him.

There’s a couple factors that contributed. You know what psychology is, right?”

I shrugged, still bewildered. “The way our brains work?”

Kind of. The brain is hardware. Psychology is about software. The way your mind processes data and forms conclusions based on that data.”

I don’t understand,” I said.

The way you think,“ he clarified. ”There’s a few things going on psychologically with your half-sister. One is simple: she was an only child, and all the focus was on her. Then along you came and started getting some of the attention she was used to.“

But that wasn’t my fault!” I protested.

You’re right. It wasn’t. And it’s still not.”

I was speechless. I didn’t know how to handle a grown-up taking my side on any issue.

Also, she resented her parents’ divorce,” he continued. “She fantasized about her father coming back and them being a family again. When your dad came on the scene, that was an obstacle. Then when you were born, the fantasy was shattered completely.”

But I couldn’t help…” I started.

He held his hand up, palm toward me. “I know. It wasn’t your fault. I’m just explaining two of the reasons Allyson hated you from the day you were born. All her ridicule and belittling and accusations and lying are attempts at revenge against you, for events and situations you had no control over.”

I took a good look at Uncle Si, wondering if he was actually a human, or some sort of omniscient being masquerading as my uncle. “How do you know all this?” I asked. “Can you read minds?”

His mouth twitched into a fleeting grin. “I can read yours. Sometimes, anyway.”

That was such a bombshell, I just let it soar by without trying to process it.

But you haven’t been around me, or Mom, or Allyson. I never even met you until the other day.”

Oh, I know all of you,” he said. “We’ve met.”

Why don’t I remember you, then?” I asked.

You don’t remember a lot of stuff. Do you remember the day you learned to walk?”

I frowned and shook my head.

Do you remember your mom and dad together? Happy?”

Again, I shook my head.

Well obviously they were for some period of time, or you wouldn’t be here. Right?”

Huh?” My confusion mounted by the moment.

Never mind,” he said, whipping his head back and forth as if trying to shake something loose. “There’s some things you’re better off not remembering. And now,” he added, cryptically, “let’s hope there are some memories that will never even form in the first place.”

Before I could wonder much about that remark, he changed the subject back. “So, if you know that Allyson hates you, and she wants to see you fail at whatever you do, all because of stuff that’s not your fault…is she a reasonable person?”

No. I guess not.”

She’s not. She’s irrational, and petty. And vindictive. So why would you care what she thinks?”

I guess I shouldn’t…?”

No, not ‘I guess.’ You shouldn’t. Period. She’s a liar. Should you believe what a liar says?”

No,” I said.

That’s right. So take all that stuff Allyson said to poison your mind for all those years and reject it. Get rid of it. Recognize it as false, and refuse to let it affect how you think about yourself.”

I pondered this new information for a while, before mumbling, “But…but…”

He shook his head, closed his eyes, and made a cutting gesture with both hands. “Stop it, Sprout. Listen to me. I don’t hate you. I don’t want you to fail. I have no reason to lie to you about this. Not only is Allyson wrong, but she’s not as smart as you are.”

Of course she is,” I replied, automatically. “She’s six years older than me.”

She is older than you,” he agreed. “But you’re already smarter than her. That’s another reason she hates you.”

Uncle Si, I think maybe you don’t know me as good as you think. I’m not smart. I don’t think I’m even average.”

His face flushed. His mouth didn’t change shape all that much, but he appeared angry.

You listen to me, Pete: you are far above average. Got it? Above. You’re smarter than you know. You think PJ is so smart, with all his experiments and contraptions? What if I told you that you’re smarter than him, too?”

I wouldn’t believe you,” I said.

Well you need to believe me!” he snapped. The other men in The Warrior’s Lair all looked in our direction, wondering what the outburst was all about. Gradually they went back to their activities.

We were both silent for a few long minutes. Uncle Si’s color returned to normal. Finally he sighed and said, “Just think about what I told you.”

He stood, reaching over to tousle my hair. “Get back in the mirror.”

I stood, faced the mirror, and resumed the boxing stance he had taught me.

He pointed at my reflection in the mirror. “This guy is gonna hit you with stuff Allyson told you. He’s gonna hit you with shots that come from stuff Mom’s said and done. He’s gonna hit you with speculations about why your father left, and why he doesn’t spend time with you.”

But that’s me,” I said, as if he were being silly. “That’s a reflection of me you’re pointing at.”

Exactly. Ding ding ding!” He shifted his index finger from the reflection to the source. “You are letting other people tell you what to think about yourself. You’re letting other people, who are more concerned about their own agendas than what’s good for you, decide whether you will succeed or fail.”

That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Even if that’s true, it’s not like I can do something just because I ‘decide’ that I can.”

His smile seemed sad as he said, “Oh yes you can. You’re not just smart. You’re stronger than anybody gives you credit for.”

I’m just average strength,” I said.

First of all, that’s not true either,” he said. “Second, I’m talking about the strength inside you. After hearing all your life how you’re useless, stupid, weak and ugly, and can’t accomplish anything important, you decided to come train here anyway.”

I shrugged, feeling a choking sensation in my throat and wet heat behind my eyes.

I warned you it was going to be hard work. You imagined you would be insulted, embarrassed, humiliated–all the stuff Allyson would do, if I turned out to be like her. Right? You were afraid you would fail–that you wouldn’t be tough enough. You knew you would lose some fights, when it came time to fight here. And you could be seriously hurt.”

He really could read my mind. This was creepy.

He extended his index finger until it touched me right between the eyes. It felt hot–like a panhandle after the pan has been sitting over a stove burner for a while. I flinched.

But you came anyway,” he said. “You were scared, but you came anyway. Even after everyone in your life had reinforced how you should doubt yourself, you came anyway. You didn’t let fear stop you. That means you beat fear, Pete. Not everybody can do that. You proved yourself stronger than fear. You’re a fighter.”

You really believe that?” I asked, barely able to force the words out.

Damn straight,” he said. “I believe you’re a warrior, and that you belong here. Hell, I don’t just believe it–I know it.” He pointed back at my reflection again. “Allyson couldn’t stop you. Your parents couldn’t stop you. Your teachers couldn’t stop you. Not even this guy was able to stop you; and like I said: he’s the toughest opponent you’re gonna face for a long time.”

I looked at my reflection, seeing somebody I had long assumed was stupid, weak, and incompetent.

I’ll tell you something else,” he said, “he doesn’t have to be your enemy. In fact, sometimes he’ll be the only one you can count on. You start listening to me, Sprout.” He looked angry again. “You may not be able to trust what other people tell you, but you can trust me. And if you do, you’ll start to learn what you’re actually capable of.”

 

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