Colonel Crystal's Parallel Universe

by Hufferd, James;

  Colonel Crystal’s Parallel Universe

  Copyright © 2018/2019 James Hufferd

  Published by:

  Trine Day LLC

  PO Box 577

  Walterville, OR 97489

  1-800-556-2012

  www.TrineDay.com

  publisher@TrineDay.net

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019933149

  Hufferd, James

  –1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Epub (ISBN-13) 978-1-63424-169-4

  Mobi (ISBN-13) 978-1-63424-170-0

  Print (ISBN-13) 978-1-63424-168-7

  1. Fiction. I. Hufferd, James, II. Title

  First Edition

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the USA

  Distribution to the Trade by:

  Independent Publishers Group (IPG)

  814 North Franklin Street

  Chicago, Illinois 60610

  312.337.0747

  www.ipgbook.com

  – To Peace and Tax activists –

  May the twain unite to beget a world of good!

  All events portrayed in this novel are fictitious. All persons portrayed, as well as all institutions, specified are (with one single exception), products of the author’s imagination. The same cannot, unfortunately, be truthfully said regarding the situational background portrayed, nor, in all probability, the leading character of the novel’s personal notions about what’s gone quite plainly haywire in this country & how to fix it.

  Table of Contents

  cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Ace Flyboy Goes Native

  The Berserker Baron of Steinhatchee

  Too Many Damned Wars

  More Facets, Deeper Thoughts

  A Different Trajectory

  The Woman Thang

  The Berserker’s “Familiar Entities”

  Reveries of an Attack

  Bereft of Reprisal

  Versus the Swamp Bug

  Poly-tics = Many Small Irritating Beasts

  Emergence Eludes

  So, Dream On, Officer, Sir!

  A Looming Object

  Realizations

  The Lecturer

  Fever Dreams

  A Return

  PTSD

  Montmoracy in Steinhatchee

  Prelude to Insubordination Most Foul

  Maximum Creativity – Opposing the Official Line

  Plotting the Unsinkable

  Malignant Myths That Have Become General Operating Assumptions:

  Pending Moves

  Felicia

  Felicia’s Return

  And the Beat Goes On

  Idyllic Days

  Falls The Hammer

  Navigating Very Thin Ice

  Roosting Chickens

  Bummer Dreams

  The Vow

  Doubts Rush In

  Dueling Damsels

  Personal Stuff

  Of Being Misled

  Adversity at the AIS Special Forum

  Cruel Aftermath

  Firmed Conviction

  Repercussions Cometh

  Drifting In and Out

  Dreams, Myths, and Honchos

  Constable Buddy Mack

  Tom Posey

  What Sort of a Codicil?

  Shift of Focus

  So, What Is the Purpose Again?

  Twilight’s Last Gleaming

  Way of Reckoning

  Correction

  Uneasy Aftermath

  Drastic Fallout

  Writing on the Wall

  Slams Down The Hammer

  Contents

  Landmarks

  I

  Ace Flyboy Goes Native

  Subpoenaed ex-Colonel A. A. Crystal was trying his utmost to be reasonable. “My question is, why can’t we ratchet back exclusively to a legitimate mission for our armed forces, to let our nation and the world breathe free, unshackled?”

  This time, his interrogator, Dr. Kiffin, an enlisted man the colonel was unfamiliar with attached to the Psych Unit at the base, growled, “I’ll ask the questions. Such matters are not for you to decide or crusade for. I am obliged to tell you this: unless you are willing, Mr. Alva A. Crystal, to recant and renounce your idiotic campaign, or whatever it is you care to call it…”

  “…I will lose my pension. Is that about right?”

  “Well, you could… if you’re lucky.”

  Colonel Crystal, ordered next to report forthwith to Tyndale U.S. Air Force Base’s “Radiation Unit”, was handed on his much-delayed return to the Psych Unit an “Affidavit of Agreement” and a pen and, unobserved, signed it and marked the second box – “Decline.”

  * * *

  The resolved ex-Colonel’s sweeping vision, beyond the scale of a small town, had become clear. On fire, he studied the pastor, Jonah Jules’s, face intently as he spoke for signs of assent.

  “I’m convinced,” he said, “that, even if perhaps a dozen or a score of American lives are or have been saved that would otherwise be lost, by our trillions-of-dollars of violent and massively terrorizing, deadly and deadening, unasked-for worldwide infestation of American power decade after decade – which I seriously doubt, by the way – the hundreds of thousands eventually untold millions of human lives lost and wrecked past salvaging in the process, make it manifestly not worth it.” Jonah’s resistance to his argument was shredded.

  * * *

  Whoosh! Bam! Argh!! Hon. Dr. Alva A. Crystal, retired Air Force Colonel from the Middle East wars, traumatized and turned peace activist, or “peacenik”, awoke with a raucous and disconcerting start, as always, at 7:01 on the dot that early December morning, in his secluded combination retirement and work compound, at Steinhatchee, on Gulf-side north Florida’s “forgotten coast," still badly shaken by another spate of half-remembered, appalling PTSD-fueled dreams. With his wife, Felicia, off again at her ailing mother’s side in Charlotte, one particular, horrifying dream that had him working in an observatory, a place he’d never actually been, had left its mark for the fourth time in as many nights.

  An hour later, after the poached egg, fruit, and a biscuit their maid Ludmilla served him on a silver tray, he faced his de facto “staff”, all sitting side-by-side on the hammock, birds on a wire, for about six-point-five seconds there in his so-called “conference room," a big sun porch screened on three sides jutting toward the Gulf breezes looking out on a field of tall, green snake grass dotted with numerous mangroves and a cypress knee or two next to the water. Still, he dearly loved the three. And they did do some helpful things, like run errands, respond sometimes to ideas. But couldn’t connect to his real-life adopted passion: the mega-crisis of U.S. military deployment and mission.

  There was Kit, an over-grown local kid, with a rather thin but distinguishing handlebar mustache. There was Fred, the average-size, above-average IQ, fair-haired high school quarterback a few years back, now between computer repair jobs, who’d skipped college because it didn’t pay for his advanced pro-fishing gear. And then there was the whiz-kid, though curiously a bit shiftless, Rensselaer-grad nephew, Colby Gilibray, down from Rochester since two years ago, when he had first come to spend a summer. Colonel Crystal sent the first two off in Colby’s late-model red Buick on an errand to deliver a short translation from Spanish to his wife’s friend, Mrs. Alice Ferris, twelve miles distant in Cross City, and to get copies of daily newspapers.

  The Colonel stretched his long frame halfway across the table and spoke, in a lowered voice, to his kith, kin and prospective understudy, as though someone might be eavesdropping: “Colby, you won’t believe what came across the transom th
is morning.” Colby Edward, his elder sister Margaret’s only son, vaguely chastised by half-acknowledged earlier brushes with the authorities over minor amounts of drugs, was uncharacteristically all ears.

  “You know who Will Goldsby is?” “Well, yeah. Sure…”

  “I’ve personally heard this morning from one of his handlers, or I should say ‘attendants’, a Mr. Conrad Lawrence, a lawyer I met once at a Knicks game, sending out a sort of APB to certain of us want-to-be and a few real detectives, as it were, insisting that Goldsby is an innocent man – a playboy, sure (in his words), even more than possibly a rascal. But, really, an innocent man. And an absolutely great, world-changing man – at least to listen to him – who’s being socked with accusations to destroy his reputation and legacy, see? Or that’s what he said.”

  “But, his people would say that, wouldn’t they?” the equally tall, strapping boy-man surprisingly shot back. “I mean what else are they going to say, with all that’s come out? But…”

  Colonel Crystal raised his hand, signaling for his nephew to desist. “Please. I wasn’t going to ask what you think of Will Goldsby or his accusers,” he said. “Because, everybody in the world is thinking that, all thinking the same thing – that he’s a dirty, sniveling ogre. You know why?”

  Colby drew a blank.

  “Because we’re supposed to think that. That’s the way the media works. But think about this. The media has spent a lot of time and precious breath, and spilt a whole lot of ink, hours of air time, steadily, for three or four weeks now, to make sure you do think that. Now, why would they decide to go to all that trouble and expense for such a venture?”

  “To titillate the public.”

  “There’s that. But why would they need to convince anybody that he’s guilty, if it really was such an open-and-shut, obvious situation? Of course, that’s what anyone would think after the number they’ve done on him. Why would thirteen, or is it twenty-plus, women, even a lot more than that by now, maybe as many as fifty, all come up with nearly identical stories accusing this supposed arch-scamp, Goldsby, of drugging and raping them, if it wasn’t true? Ah! Good question, eh? If it wasn’t true at least in a few or most, of the instances? At least, that’s what we’re supposed to think. And maybe it really is true.”

  The ex-colonel, who seemed to have morphed from an old, retired guy into a vital, earnest man, due to some attention from a celebrity’s handler, had a most disconcerting way of staring straight through a person.

  “I thought your passion was something about military deployment and mission, how it could be stood down and contained, to unshackle the world or something.”

  “Well yes, actually…”

  “But back to Will Goldsby for just a moment. Yes, it could be true,” he conceded. “In fact, it seems like it probably is. In fact, it could all be exactly as they allege.” “Could be?” Colby muttered, inheriting his estranged, erstwhile dad’s infuriating habit of not suffering fools – even his uncle and host – gladly. “And just how, pray tell, couldn’t or wouldn’t it be true – guilty as alleged so overwhelmingly?” “Well . . . somebody might have made it, let us say, very attractive for them all to say that, that he did all that, if it’s not completely true from evidence. Sweetened it a little bit, let’s say, to bring down someone uppity. Just maybe.”

  “No, Alva,” Colby responded surprisingly. “Why can’t you stick to that new anti-military stuff you’ve been spouting? I think I kind of agree on that, though it’s probably not practicable. They probably won’t listen to a retired guy. Look, about that Will Goldsby thing – those women all said pretty much the same thing, didn’t they? He drugged ‘em, and he raped ‘em. Weren’t you telling me about Occam’s razor, or whatever it is? By the way, who’s this ‘Occam’? Why do you make it all so hard?”

  “But, on the other hand,” Colonel Crystal demurred, “do you even know, really, what – who – this man Goldsby is, Colby? What he means in the greater scheme of things? I’m not sure you’re old enough to remember that. But it does matter, you know that?”

  “I’ve seen more than a couple of re-runs of it. Yeah, I know those accusations don’t line up with his on-air big, nice, soft personality very well. But surely, you’re not completely taken in by that, are you, Unc?” “No, it’s not that, not really that… Maybe he did do it. He probably did, I agree. But…”

  “I suppose you think that O.J. didn’t do it, too?

  “You do remember that, right? Well, not according to a very persuasive book by a man named William C. Dear, who I don’t take for a complete nut, and who seems to know, he didn’t – his opinion, for a reason you’d never think of. And remember, the jury wasn’t convinced.”

  “So, what exactly did this memo you got, from Will Goldsby’s ‘handler’ – as you put it – say?”

  Colonel Alva gazed out the window, over the sheen of salt marsh to the Gulf. “Well, he reminded us that every accused individual needs and deserves a fair and thorough investigation. For our sake even more than his. Everyone. That’s the American way, or supposed to be... And his people are at a loss, because he tells them… He tells his wife, Camie, that he vaguely remembers some of the women, from his younger days, before he was married, I think. But he says he’s sure he wouldn’t and didn’t do that.”

  Colonel Crystal paused, then, “You know, you’re probably right, Colby,” he said again. “He most likely did that stuff, or something like it. But, again, think – why would he do such things? It wasn’t a joke, I can tell you that. And he wouldn’t have needed to. I’m sure he could have gotten all the women he could handle anyway, you know? Or so they’re saying – Conny Lawrence, my contact, says. they want some of us in a known circle of self-described, would-be detectives, or what they’re calling us ‘detective lights’, to consider investigating who could be responsible for bringing out all this stuff.”

  “Alva, here we go again,” Colby objected. “Why are you so unwilling to accept the obvious?”

  “Obvious, I don’t know. Let’s say ‘apparent’. Because, it is something that matters. Or else, no deceptions would ever be mounted in the first place, and you know that the world is full of them, don’t you? Let me tell you something. My motto is, never accept anything spoon-fed by anyone who’s proven unworthy of your trust. And you trust the justice system? It’s true, they may well be exploiting something that actually did happen, in this case, at least. But, never, ever swallow anything from public media or the powers that be untested, either by you or by someone smart you know you can trust. I don’t know Goldsby, but I’m afraid I do know the powers that be. All too well.”

  Colby stepped out to look for his returning Buick, with Kit in his feathered Marlins cap behind the wheel, leaving his uncle with a pained expression, eyes closed, sighing, shaking his own head. “Ask yourself this: Why does Goldsby even need a ‘handler’? Do you need a ‘handler’?”

  Later, only an hour or so late, Colonel Alva Crystal laid back and had a fleeting dream in which peasants’ roadside bombs had magically turned into mini-nukes and his whole squadron of trained pilots in F-16’s was mysteriously blown out of the sky by vastly superior weapons fired from some invisible air or ground locations, and then instantly replaced by untold numbers of same sent out from headquarters over his most impassioned, tearful objection. And this morphed into another equally troubling dream in which Felicia, his absent wife, having arrived home, overheard his latest conversation with Colby and delivered her own verdict coolly as she exited the sitting room: “Alva, you’re a dolt.”

  Alva followed behind, immediately entering the solarium, to behold an ever-smiling, chuckling Will Goldsby there already, leaning far forward over Felicia. Who, instantly transfixed in awe, was bent over backward, supine and open-mouthed, resembling a bird. The ex-Colonel, transfixed himself, could only ogle and gasp.

  II

  The Berserker Baron of Steinhatchee

  Once again just after noon that same day, as on nearly every day for months
, Colonel Crystal, a highly-unconventional fellow in his assessments, but a man with at least a bit of flair remaining personally, reclined for half an hour on his comfortably soft old saffron sofa, his legs extended and elevated and feet resting on the high arm, and slept immediately like a baby. For such was his most cherished personal daytime talent. Within less than a minute, he found himself ascending steep metal steps again, into the same unidentified mountain-top observatory as always and entering via its ovular metal hatch. As was customary, he mounted a high, free-standing stool to peer into an enormous telescope eye-piece, to scan a cloudless deep-azure darkening sky. And, as always of late, his expansive fish-eye view suddenly came to be dominated by a distinct invasive sunlit, spherical object approaching rapidly, growing bigger each successive day, starting, it seemed, months before, beginning the size of a bb or a gnat, then a dime, and now appearing the mind-wrenching size of a beach ball through the giant lens, growing steadily bigger as it continued its approach.

  And again, today, he called for his silent lab mate, a gentle man named Harold, to come have a look. And, as always before, this mysterious, stoic co-worker came over reluctantly and crawled out onto what they called the “wind stool” to have a look, declaring again immediately, without the least irritation, that he couldn’t see a thing. And Colonel Crystal also, as always, didn’t curse or yell at him, call him a blockhead or anything of the kind, but merely cast around frantically for someone else to “come take a look!” And once again despaired, realizing there was no one else present.

  Awakening, shaking and sweating, close to tears of frustration, he realized only by stages, as always, that it had only been a dream. Only a dream… Only a…

  Yet he remained tense inside, his stomach gathered into an uncomfortable clench.

  “What could this mean?” he whispered loudly, fairly whimpering to himself, fully back within the lonely privacy of his Florida compound again. “Why would I dream about such a thing, over and over and over and… Every time, the meteor, or whatever it is, races closer, looks like it’s about to obliterate the earth! And no one else on earth knows. So, there’s never any chance of corroboration or explanation, anything like that.. Never.” It had begun to seem the planet depended on him and him alone – to do what?