The Two Worlds of Billy Callahan

by Richard Friedman

  “I get it. Thanks, I’ll take your words under advisement. I’ll be in touch with the firm in Colorado at some point next week. Please thank the rest of the team.”

  “My partners are the ones who should be thanking you. Your fee will cover my ante all night at our next card game. Goodbye.”

  “Click.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The new car scent lingered in the Ford TR-12. The doors on the sporty model opened automatically with the flip of a switch.

  “Hop in, Billy. You and I are headed west.”

  Billy tossed his solitary piece of luggage on the back seat of the car. They headed west to Greg’s hi-rise condo in Chicago. In a few days, Billy would grant his first national television interview.

  The six hour ride to the windy city was short on talk, heavy on Billy staring out the window, as the world passed by.

  “You surprised me at the entrance to the Hannah Pavilion with those court papers. I had no idea what was going on. When they shoved me into the ambulance I was furious. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me while you were driving to get me. I was screaming for those guys to open the door and let me out. I didn’t have a plan. Where would I have gone? All I know is that I wanted out of that truck. Three hours later, I’m sitting outside, trying to stay calm, and I see you pull up in this beautiful car.”

  “I couldn’t abandon you at another long-term health facility. You need friends, and let’s face it…you don’t have many of them. My son Ballard isn’t speaking to his best friend, so maybe if he sees me helping you out, maybe he’ll appreciate how special friendships can be.”

  The car cruised on the highway, the ride to Chicago void of people or animals.

  “I remember a drive in Israel we took once. My dad and I were heading to a dig site. I wondered what people were fighting about? So much desolate land,” said Billy.

  “Maybe if you disappear for another half century, I’ll be able to tell you that it worked out okay.” cracked Greg.

  “Do you think I should go back there.”

  “To Israel? Are you crazy?”

  “Thanks…you say it, too?” said Billy.

  “People tend to ask you that question often. Don’t take it personally. What I meant was going to Israel could bring back troubled memories, and I don’t know, maybe send you back into that funk of yours.”

  Billy shook his head emphatically. “Not a chance. The teacher told me he was finished with me and he never lied. I’ve been released.”

  “If you want to go to Israel, we can talk about that later on. Mr. Cohen and I were talking about these interviews you are requesting. The lady in Chicago will ask you tough questions. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

  “I’ve been ready to tell my story for years and years. I have my voice back and I’m not going to be shy about using it. You helped me with my vocabulary, and I’m not doing half bad. People must hear what I have to say. I have an important job. It might be the most important interview ever recorded!”

  “Whoa, you gotta dial it down a notch or two. That’s too much pressure this soon. You can’t expect to come out of nowhere and reshape the world in seven minutes.”

  Billy disagreed with his friend, “I must make them understand. Don’t you get how huge this is? We’re not alone in the universe. That means we’re not wasting our time trying to make contact with aliens. I’ve already talked with them. How cool it that? You’re best buddies with the only person in the world who has talked to aliens.”

  “This Chicago interview worries me. I should cancel it and wait until you get your legs under you. I smell a trap. That network is best known for gossip news and telling the public about the latest celebrity that’s going in, or coming out of rehab.”

  “Don’t cancel that interview! You’re a great agent. Some people will ask easy questions. I have to be prepared to answer the tough questions too.”

  “I’m not your agent! You can’t tell people that. Agents get money from their clients and I’m not getting a dime from you. I don’t want anything from you. I’ve got to spend two weeks here in Chicago for business, then we’ll go to my house in Durango.”

  “Fine, I won’t call you my agent. You did save my life, what’s left of it anyway. I could never express how much it means to me to get this chance. Pull over!” yelled Billy.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Pull over, and stop the car!”

  Greg eased the car to a stop, “Do you mind telling me what’s wrong?”

  Billy bounded out of the car. Cars whizzed by at 75 miles per hour.

  Greg yelled at his friend, “Hey, get back in here! Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  Death was the last thing on Billy’s mind, “Will you look at it! It’s beautiful. What a sight,” he said.

  Billy gazed at the city. The twinkling of the lights from a thousand buildings in the night sky filled his view.

  “All those city lights remind me of when the teacher took me on a tour of the largest city and —”. He stopped himself short, recalling Greg’s suggestion to speak less about the past and more about his future. “Thanks, we can go now,” Billy climbed back in the car and within thirty minutes the two entered the underground parking lot at Greg’s condominium.

  CHAPTER 23

  September 25, 2060 - Chicago, Illinois

  Billy stood on the balcony appreciating the sunrise from the 45th floor of the hi-rise.

  “Thinking about jumping?” asked Greg.

  “Not today. Possibly tomorrow, let’s see how that interview goes,” said Billy, “I won’t let my supporters down.”

  “Truthfully Billy, you don’t have any supporters, at least not yet. Most people have never heard of you until this week. You’re old, old news. If you had awakened forty years ago, your peers would have remembered you. Your dad’s television show has been off the air for decades. We’ll see how the world reacts to what you have to say. I’d speculate you’re in for disappointment. I wouldn’t raise your hopes too high.”

  “I’m on a mission. You worry too much. Once you see what I’ve seen, a little interview can’t hurt. It’ll be fine. I’ve had a lifetime to prepare for this. I can handle it.”

  The two grabbed a cup of coffee, a first for Billy, and they ate toast and jelly on the balcony. Traffic noises from horns, squeaking pad brakes from taxi cabs and buses wafted up to them.

  At half past eleven the buzzer snapped Greg from his crossword puzzle.

  He pressed the button on the intercom, and heard a woman voice.

  “Hi, this is Gretchen Sampson from One-on-One Chicago. We’re early, but I thought —”

  “I’ll buzz you in.” said Greg. He held the button for three seconds, long enough for the crew to enter the lobby. The hostess, Gretchen Sampson, her cameraman, and sound technician followed close behind.

  Greg opened the door and the blonde Sampson took his breath away. He’d seen her on the broadcasts, but her beauty overwhelmed him. He stared at her. She tucked her long hair behind her right ear.

  “Mr. Miller?”

  No answer.

  Her crew chuckled.

  He blushed, “Oh, sorry, forgive me, come in.”

  She batted her eye-lashes. Her womanly charms were working. She figured this to be easy pickings. She’d get the crazy man to appear ridiculous on national television, and reap the rewards back at the station on Monday.

  “Thank you. Mr. Miller, this is my crew. Jimmy, we call him Jims, and that handsome fellow is Mort. When he’s not filming for me, he tosses wooden barrels in the backyard for a workout.” Greg glanced at Mort’s thick chest, and escorted them to the living room. He left to get Billy, who was resting in the guest bedroom.

  Gretchen and her crew worked without talking, setting up the interview site; fluffing the cushions on the couch, checking for proper lighting and microphone placement. Gretchen scanned her notes and Greg came back in the room with Billy walking two steps behind.

  Greg proudly announced to t
he room, “It’s my pleasure to introduce you to Billy Callahan, the oldest man in the world.”

  The intro surprised Billy, and he turned his attention away from the woman to Greg. “That’s a cool nickname. That’s what I call an introduction. I’m the oldest man in the world! It’s kind of catchy, what do you think?”

  Sampson moved closer, and reached for his hand.

  “I’m Gretchen, this is Jims, and Mort, harmless creatures, and they make my job easier. It’s a pleasure to meet you, and I’ll call you whatever you want.”

  His hands were ice cold. The chill caught her off-guard. Weak blood flow to his extremities had given Billy this permanent condition. “You can call me Billy. That’s fine.

  “Thanks for seeing us on such short notice. We usually don’t do remote interviews on a Saturday, but the boss insisted. She glanced at her crew. “Are we ready boys?”

  Her team gave her the thumbs up and they found their positions.

  “Come sit next to me. It looks better on television if we sit close,” as she patted the seat cushion with her hand. She applied a small amount of makeup to his face.

  “It’ll help you look better on the screen,” she said.

  Billy sat on the end of the three-cushion leather couch. Gretchen sat next to him and glanced at her notes.

  “You smell nice,” said Billy.

  Gretchen grinned, flushed a bit, but didn’t take the comment as a come on.

  “Thanks,” was all she said. She cleared her throat and signaled her crew to begin filming.

  Greg interrupted before the camera light clicked on.

  “Miss Sampson? Where do you want me to sit?”

  “Please stay out of the line of sight of the camera, but you can sit wherever you please.”

  She motioned for her crew to start filming.

  “Good morning Chicago! This is Gretchen Sampson reporting from the 45th floor of the Michelson condominium complex here in Chicago. Mr. Billy Callahan is our guest. Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you no doubt have heard of him. Billy claims that during the horrendous “Negev Monster” earthquake of 2012, he was incased in a crevasse and a machine of some kind took over his brain, leaving him incapacitated to the outside world, but all the while he witnessed the first landing of people here on Earth, even prior to dinosaurs roaming the earth. That’s quite a story Mr. Callahan. Did I provide an accurate description in my introduction?”

  “I disagree with the ‘Billy claims’ part of your sentence. I do understand that people are hesitant to believe me.”

  “You must admit that the idea of people living here before the dinosaurs is a stretch to accept as factual. There is documentation that you never moved from your bed without the help of a staff member, yet you claim to have traveled the world. That previous world, as you describe it.”

  “It’s not the first time people were compelled to take a fresh look at the facts. History is full of such cases. I’ve studied a lot since my awakening. Medical practitioners used to think ‘bleeding the sickness out of people’ was the right thing to do. Today those doctors would go to jail.”

  “Claiming to be taken back in time millions of years while every spec of evidence proves that you were lying in a bed is much harder to believe,” said Sampson.

  A long silence followed. Greg paced in the background. This was the moment why his attorney warned him to be careful. Not a great way to start his new public life.

  “It’s not for me to prove it to anybody. I was there and I saw what happened. My friend Greg made me watch an old movie from the 1970’s. The name of the movie was “Oh God,” starring George Burns and John Denver. Are you familiar with it?”

  “My passion for movies doesn’t go back that far. Was it filmed in black and white?”

  “No,” Billy continued. “The point I was trying to make is that in the movie, John Denver is this regular man that is visited by God. Nobody believes him. God urges him to spread the word that he exists and people should restore their faith in him.”

  “Are you saying you were visited by God?”

  Greg cringed as he envisioned spiritual leaders condemning Billy as a blasphemer. That would seal his fate for sure.

  Billy tried to make his point. “I don’t know what force allowed me to witness what I saw. If we understood we are not alone in this universe I think we’d be more considerate to each other. Who knows, maybe the tall people are planning on coming back to help us solve our problems?”

  Simpson pressed the issue, “People are interested in your experience with that ‘orb’ you referred to in your statement. Do you think it’s still in Israel? People have been searching for the Ark of the Covenant for thousands of years. Are you physically up for a return trip to Israel?”

  “My dad assumed the Ark is in Axum, Ethiopia, in the interior of Mount Zion church. What’s the point of continuing searching for something if you already know where it is? As I said Ms. Sampson, I know what I saw. There’s an awful lot of desert out there. As you can tell, I’m not a kid anymore. I haven’t thought about digging up the Negev desert again. But it’s there somewhere, sitting under a pile of rocks. If anyone wants to find it, go ahead, but if you grab it, you’re going to miss New Year Eve for the next fifty or sixty years!”

  Greg surged with confidence as Billy rallied from the tough line of questioning.

  Sampson kept driving at him, “Let’s move on to another question. What is the main thing you want people to know about the other people that lived on Earth?”

  Billy paused before he answered. He missed her intended sarcasm. She was messing with him and everyone knew it but Billy.

  “Those people made the same mistakes that we’re making with the planet; Pollution, poisoning the air and water, and killing each other about stupid stuff. I see the same things happenings again. What a disaster. Eventually their world collapsed and the people died. I saw little kids vaporized with a weapon that fired laser beams. That’s not something you ever forget. It’s not fun seeing a body disappear right in front of your eyes.”

  The reporter was smitten with the old man.

  “Billy, I believe you. You’ve given us a lot to swallow. If all the people left Earth, how did we get here?”

  “The teacher didn’t tell me that part. There was talk of the planet being uninhabitable for millions of years. My father believed man evolved into the Homo sapiens we are today. Lots of people believe we developed from microorganisms from the ocean. Most people think God put us here. People will believe what they want. The teacher told me that it’s not too late to save mankind, but we have to stop killing each other and polluting the planet. People say we have to save the planet, but the planet will survive…We’re the ones that aren’t going to make it. The planet was here all those millions of years ago and it’ll be here long after we’re gone.”

  Greg saw his buddy begin to sweat under the heat from the lights. He hoped that the interview would end quickly.

  Gretchen went in for the kill, “So your teacher was a diehard environmentalist. Was he a Democrat?”

  Billy didn’t understand the questions and more silence filled the room. Sampson let him off the hook with another question. “Tell me Mr. Callahan, what was the first thing you requested to eat once you reawakened?”

  He laughed. It was a nervous laugh.

  Billy attempted to bring the discussion back to the problems the teacher warned him about, but Sampson had none of it. “Miss Sampson, I want to talk about the first man on the earth. His name was Hardugus and he—”

  “We’ll get to him if we have time, but our viewers want to know, did you order a pizza? Or go to McDonalds for an order of french fries and chocolate shake?”

  Greg buried his head in his hands, realizing that his friend would be a laughingstock to millions of people watching the interview. It went viral within minutes and most viewers dismissed Billy as a fraud and a fool.

  Under his breath, Greg said to himself, “This was a horrific idea.”

/>   The camera zoomed in tight on Billy. Mort focused the camera lens on the sweat cascading down the sides of Billy’s head. Sampson sensed the interview was deteriorating.

  Billy skipped her question, and out of confusion, blurted out another response that made him look foolish.

  “I do recall traveling in the space ship with the man in charge of directing the ship around Earth’s orbit. He was eating some type of frozen dessert.”

  Sampson was pleased. The crazy man performed as hoped and the interview would be a ratings bonanza. “There you have it Chicago, while Billy was flying in lower earth orbit, they didn’t have the FAA to tell pilots when they could eat. Thank you for taking a few minutes with us today to discuss your ordeal, Mr. Callahan. On behalf of all Chicagoans, we’re glad you’re back. Try some of our famous deep-dish pizza. This has been Gretchen Sampson for One -on- One Chicago. Let’s head back to studio for a news update with Ryan “The Jet” Webster.”

  “Cut!” shouted Jims.

  “That’s what you call an interview? That was a hatchet job!” yelled Greg.

  The blonde didn’t bat her eyelashes at him now. Her assignment was complete. She didn’t have the decency to respond to his question.

  “We’ll be on our way now. Thank you both for your time. I think it was perfect. Bye now.”

  And with that, the crew and the blonde collected their equipment in record time and were gone.

  Greg followed them to door, closed it, leaned back against it and let out a sigh, “That didn’t go exactly as planned.”

  Billy put his hands on his friends back, “Don’t worry. I’m sure a few people out there will believe me. The teacher said this wouldn’t be easy.”

  “I think we’ll pass on interviews for a while. Let’s lay low. Let’s keep you out of the limelight until further notice. Mr. Cohen tried to warn me. We’re not media savvy.”

  “The teacher told me we don’t have much time. And in case you didn’t notice, I’m not that young anymore,” said Billy.