The First

by Glen Kenner

  The man to my right, a black guy in his forties, makes a sound. Kind of a sucking sound, just under his breath. Kingsley keeps talking.

  -He died the same day as Jack Dempsey. Jonathan has a few stories about his friend Jack. Right Jonathan?

  I glance at Kingsley and look away. The men around the table have no idea who Jack Dempsey is, just as someday their grandchildren won’t recognize the names of Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson.

  -Anyway, before he died, long before, when he was 26 years old, and just out of the Army having spent three years on the ground in Europe, including the Battle of the Bulge, he finished night school, that I paid for, night school for African-American students, and having been graduated with a degree in accounting, he married a beautiful woman that sang like you wouldn’t believe. She was in her church choir and sang at weddings and parties for black folks all over the city. They had three children, all girls. The oldest died in 1950 from tuberculosis. Only three years old. It was terrible. I paid for the funeral. The other two girls did well in school and I made sure they went to college. One graduated and moved to Hollywood and eventually became a screenwriter. The other girl graduated with a degree in accounting like her daddy and, so, I hired her. You wouldn’t believe… well, you would Jonathan. I almost forgot who I was talking to. At any rate, you would have thought I hired Satan. If I hadn’t owned the building by the time, the landlord would have thrown me out into the street. A black woman working in a professional capacity in the most prestigious real estate development company in Manhattan! I actually lost a few clients! It was 1973 but it felt like 1873. Anyway. She married and took a little time off to raise a family. Mr Samuels here…

  Kingsley points to the man to my right who I just knew was part of this dry story.

  -Is her oldest child, born in 1975 when his mother, Gladys, was just 23. Sorry Mr Samuels to give away your age. Believe me, you wear it well. Gladys, by the way, still works for us. She manages a team of fourteen accountants.

  Everyone around the table is leaning in, soaking in every word. Not me. Not so much.

  -No, no, Mr Kingsley. I have never heard that story about my grandfather. I only knew that he started working for you when he was a boy. I loved him and my grandmother very much. Thank you for that story. Thank you for that. You don’t know how much I appreciate that. You…

  He looks around at his colleagues and I think his eyes are watering up.

  -You have been incredibly kind to me and my family for a very long time. Thank you.

  I push my chair away from the table and begin to stand up.

  -Well, that was touching. It truly was, though Kingsley, I think we all would agree, is an incredibly boring story teller.

  I pat Mr Samuels’ arm.

  -At any rate, I have to go. My food has settled and, no offence to Mr Samuels and his ancestors, my attention has waned.

  Kingsley nearly explodes out of his chair.

  -Jonathan, I am making a goddamn point here! Sit back down and-

  Oops. He just fucked up and he knows it. He just ordered me around like he does the generations of people that have worked for him. Slaved for him.

  -You’re lucky that there are so many witnesses here, Kingsley.

  I grab the bottle of wine, flip him off, and walk away.

  He shoots around me and stands in the doorway leading outside.

  -Jonathan, let me apologize. I did not mean to take that tone of voice. I just want…

  I’m not slowing down and I’m pretty sure that worries him. He raises one hand up a bit defensively.

  -I just want to make a point. I know what I am doing. I have thought this through. I know the long-term play. Please please please, for God’s sake, listen to me.

  He has backed up enough that the door is open almost half way. The air is much cooler now, probably in the high 70s. There’s a breeze. It’s not a bad night for a walk. But I live 20 miles away.

  Fuck. I did not think this through. And I am still so bloated. And maybe buzzed.

  Kingsley, you fuckhead, you’ve got however long it takes to drive me back to my truck in U City. And if you mention New York, or the Mets-

  There’s no reason he would mention the Mets. I am buzzed.

  -I will punch you in the face, repeatedly, until I either puke or pass out. Got it?

  We walk up to the limo, still parked by the door. Luca appears again out of nowhere and opens my door. Another waiter gets Kingsley’s door for him on the other side and off we go. I had wanted to say something witty but not insulting to Luca about the delicious meal. But nothing came to me without the word fuck in it, so I kept my mouth shut and simply nodded my head.

  Inside the limo, Kingsley turns to me.

  -Jonathan, the reason I want you on board is that you are quite literally the most famous First in the country. In the world, I suppose. Yes, in the world. Do you realize that?

  I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

  -The internet has changed everything, Jonathan. There’s the internet that you know. YouTube videos and Facebook posts of people at their favorite Mexican restaurants. And email. Pornography. Pictures of cats. But there’s another internet. The darkweb, it’s called. A hidden part of the internet that most people don’t know about and even fewer ever see. There you can buy anything. Drugs. Any kind of drugs. Guns of any kind. Flamethrowers, if you want. Tanks. You name it. And people. You can buy people. Slaves, really. Regular old slaves but also sex slaves. Women, girls, boys, whatever else. And of course you can hire hitmen. Assassins. All of this is hidden away using technology that makes it impossible to find for anyone who’s not welcome to access it. Well, I set up a board, kind of a chat room, for Firsts on the darknet where it was safe. I did this almost 15 years ago. I assure you there are no illegal dealings going on. Anyone who solicits or requests something like I just described? They’re out. Banned for life. There are, as of today, a few hours ago when I checked, 1,172 members. All Firsts, all verified. Firsts from all over. You wouldn’t believe it. Well, yes you would. But The Father has traveled extensively. At any rate, I browse through the boards personally once in a while. Firsts swap stories, not unlike the History Keepers, though the History Keepers at least attempt to verify their stories before adding them to the History. Who knows what stories on the boards are actually true. But my point is that you are the subject of a lot of stories. Yes, it’s the pre-St Louis you. Your time in… uh… back East. But also stories about London. Lots of stories about Rome. Turkey. Greece. All of the Middle East and Africa. Australia! You’ve never been to Australia, have you?

  I don’t answer.

  -Anyway, if you get on board with the changes that I’m putting in place, the technology and so on, others will too. They trust you. Jonathan, they idolize you. All you have to do is pop onto the boards once in a while, you’ll be verified and so they’ll know it’s you, and show up at some dinners that we host throughout the year around the country. Some in Europe. Asia. You get the picture. Just show up, say a few words, enjoy yourself. Enjoy the food and wine. Everyone will get on board, we’ll get the technology out there to help like I explained in the restaurant, and you, Jonathan, will easily earn the huge paycheck I’m more than happy to pay you.

  -Paycheck?

  Shit, I just showed interested. Broke the cardinal rule of ignoring people just to get a free dinner and ride.

  -I don’t need a paycheck. I’m fine.

  -Jonathan, it’s me. Alright? I knew your finances in New York and I know them here. I know how fine you are. You have sixteen thousand, two hundred and eight dollars in the bank. That’s your business account. Your personal account is close to being overdrawn. Your banking history shows that you’ve been overdrawn three times in the past two years. So you’re going to want to deposit some money quickly. Or, you say yes to me right now, that you’re on board, and I’ll put your first paycheck in there. I’ll wire it tonight.

  Something isn’t right about this. I’m surprised by the inte
rest in me on the internet. But I knew I was known. Maurice mentions it once in a while when we get together. He knows much more of my history than I’ve ever let on. But I don’t trust Kingsley. I didn’t trust him in New York, not for all of that time, and I don’t trust him now. He’s another whim of Mother Nature. A few people are straight-up good, most are like me and are capable of good and bad, and a few rare people are just all bad. It really is that simple. Kingsley is one of the rarest of the rare.

  -Sorry, Kingsley. I’m out. I appreciate you thinking of me. I appreciate the food, the stories and so on, but I’m going to pass.

  With that I look out the heavily tinted windows to see where we are. We must have gone the long way without getting on the highway because the car never got up to 60 or 70 miles an hour. But where are we? And then, just like that, I see the river. Mother fuck. The river.

  -Kingsley, where the fuck are you taking me? We’re down on the riverfront, somewhere north of the Arch. You better-

  He opens up that tablet again with it’s gold K on the cover and plays a video and puts it in my face. The video shows a man walking across a room in the background. In the foreground is a monitor. When the guy gets within range of the camera feeding the monitor, he shows up, clear as life but now with a reddish glowing outline around him. But also it’s sort of surrounding him. It’s kind of opaque. It’s there but I can still see his facial features and details about this clothing and so on. He keeps walking, disappears from the monitor’s screen but still on the video in the background and a woman’s voice tells him to turn around and come back. He does. She tells him to stop and he does, dead center on the monitor. He’s got that glow. She tells him to do some jumping jacks. He does. The glow stays on him. Then she calls out for everyone else. Maybe a dozen people come into the room. Men, women, some children. There’s a really fat guy, a small elderly woman. A tall dude and so on. Dark skin, pale white, and all the shades between. They are moving around the room and going in and out of the monitor’s range. The glowing guy starts moving around with them, all seemingly moving in random patterns. But anytime there’s just a tiny bit of him showing, I see the glow. And on the ground, when I see his shadow, it too glows red. Huh.

  My mind starts to race a bit.

  -This, Jonathan, is a piece of technology that the analysts, those particular analysts, don’t know about. Actually, very few people know about it. It’s sort of a pet black ops project of mine. For now, anyway. Let me tell you what you are seeing.

  He pulls a binder from the door pocket and pulls out some full-sized photographs.

  -Here’s the device that was used to locate and track the First, on the screen. It’s essentially an incredibly powerful microphone that picks up the very narrow-range frequency that all Firsts emit. This particular device is the shape and size of a lipstick case but we’ll get it even smaller in the future. A lot smaller. Miniscule. We put three of them in that room in the video. They’re mounted in the corners. They each capture the buzz separately. And because there are more than two, they triangulate it to pinpoint the exact location. Ok, so that’s going on behind the scenes. You didn’t see any of that in this part of the video. But then, the part that you did see, is when that signal is fed into a program that attaches the glow, more or less, to the subject emitting the noise. That’s the First we saw. Once it’s attached, the video capture software assigns it to him in the database, meaning that even if he runs out of range of the microphones or one of them fails, for example, the glow will still show up whenever he’s in range of the video camera. Now that’s important, because the very best we can do with the microphone range is about 50 feet. But the video, well, it’s high def and has a range many many multiples of that. Eventually we might just use off-the-shelf facial recognition from Google. They’re doing amazing things with facial recognition. At any rate, a previously identified First won’t need to be anywhere near a microphone. Just a camera. Anywhere in the country. Within a decade, anywhere in the world.

  He pauses for a bit. He knows that this really is making me think.

  -What you’re seeing now exists today. And it’s live here in St Louis as our test city.

  -St Louis as a test city? For two Firsts?

  -Two?

  -Me and Maurice. At least when you aren’t in town.

  -Jonathan, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day. Two! You and Maurice!

  I look at him but stay silent. Fuck. There’s more? Why don’t I know this?

  -There are eighteen Firsts in the St Louis area that we know of. Although you are the only one living in your part of the city.

  He laughs so hard he chokes for a second.

  -Sorry Jonathan, I’m just imagining Samuel Rowe or Jeffrey Shaw or a few of the others living in your neighborhood. That’s… oh, that is funny!

  More laughter and choking. I’d love to see him choke to death right here and now in front of me.

  -Do you still watch baseball, Jonathan?

  -Why?

  He smiles as big as he can.

  -No. One of the Cards?

  He shakes his head from left to right and holds up two fingers and barely contains his laughter.

  -Don’t tell me. Damnit.

  I thought in the eighties that Vince Coleman was a First. He was just too fast and agile when stealing all of those bases. But he wasn’t a First. He was just really fast and agile.

  -But seriously, Jonathan, you haven’t asked the most important question. So I’ll ask it for you. Why do all of this? Why spend all of this money to identify and track Firsts who, for the most part, don’t hide themselves from other Firsts? Because, Jonathan, we have a lot of Firsts in the world today. Naturally more than has ever existed. That’s just how it goes when you live thousands years and the man that spawned you seems to copulate like a rabbit on Ecstacy. Even with a survival rate of only 2%, even if we never raise it like I mentioned in the restaurant, there’s quite a few of us alive. A conservative estimate by my company puts that number at 15,000 Firsts in the world. And growing. A third of us are in America. But we are everywhere. There are six First politicians in the U.S. Congress. Four in the British parliament. At least a dozen in the National People’s Congress in China. Sometimes I think half of the parliament in Oslo are Firsts. And others around the world. Some of them use makeup and prosthetics to artificially age themselves. The day is going to come when we can be open about who we are. And when that day comes, I’m assured by my friends in DC, my company…

  He pauses as he presses a button and his window rolls halfway down and he points to a building next to the car.

  -My company will be the one that powers the tracking.

  I look past him at the building. It’s not so big and looks dingy even in the dimness of the setting sun. Alokin Denshi Digi-Tech on the unlit sign. I’m not impressed.

  -I bought this company for their technology five years ago and found the perfect person to run it, a brilliant software designer named Barry who is personally dedicated to the project. The project, by the way, is called Aka Kage. You should memorize that, Jonathan. Aka Kage. In fact, I found Barry by using an early version of the software I told you about in the restaurant. Barry’s younger sister was raped by a stranger when she was just sixteen and died giving birth to a son. Mason. Who has never been sick a minute in his life. And so on and so on. Barry and his wife adopted Mason, who’s eight now and chances are he’s got ten to twelve years before First Death. Assuming he’s a First. He checks all of the boxes, so he probably is. Barry knows all of this. He’s hoping his son is part of the 1.8% that survives and that his technology will be used to ensure Mason can live a normal, free life. Barry knows what I know and what even you know. The American public, the world at large, will only accept Firsts if they feel safe around us. And my software and hardware will do that.

  I’m silent. I don’t know what to say or even how to react. I’m mad for some reason. Furious, really. But I don’t know why. Kingsley’s right though. If our existenc
e is known, we’ll be hunted down. I know that better than most. But if someone can show that we’re all being tracked in real time, people would sleep better knowing that we are far less likely to abuse our advantages. But I’m still upset with him. He’s positioned himself to rule us with his technology. To be the arbiter of who is safe and who isn’t. He might even being creating the very problem that he’s offering to solve.

  -I’m out, Kingsley. Alright? I’m out. You do what you gotta do, but something about this reminds me of times in history when we, Firsts and Thirds alike, did a lot of horrible shit to each other. And I’m not going to be part of it. Nope. Not me. Not again.

  -Jonathan. I don’t know what more I can say to you. I can’t for the life of me figure you out. We’ll help Firsts go through First Death, we’ll comfort the 98.2% of boys before they die, and of course all of the girls who die, and we’ll get to live out in the open, like every other goddamn person. No more hiding and lying and changing who we are and moving away just to move again in a decade or two. You have to do this! Our very existence is at stake!

  -You’re laying it on way too thick, Kingsley. Our existence is not at stake. What a load of shit. The Father’s offspring will survive First Death or they won’t. That’s Mother Nature. Evolution. Karma. Whatever the fuck. And Firsts will live like we always have. If someone finds out about a First, he’ll just move and start over again. I’ve done it more times than you’ve celebrated birthdays. This is just a scheme for you-

  -You’re forgetting something, Jonathan. The Seconds.