“Edits, I imagine. I’ve been working on your stories for quite a long time, Sanjuro. Every time I make a change to the novels, your memories are altered. I wasn’t for sure if the old ones were erased or if they blended together somehow, but I always suspected you retained some trace of your alternate histories.”
“So why am I here?” I asked, defeated. “And why are you here talking to me?”
“You are here because I wanted you to exist. Your story is my life’s ambition, and I’ve only just begun. On some level, despite the turmoil that you’re obviously feeling right now, this news has got to be fairly comforting.”
“Comforting?”
“Isn’t it? To know—not to take on faith, but to actually know for a fact that God exists, that the world was created for you, and that above all, God loves you, well, is that not comforting? I know I’m not much to look at, as far as deities go, but meeting me has to be somewhat of a relief.”
Well, he was right about one thing. I figured God would’ve looked more like Charlton Heston, not some overgrown kid in a suit. “Well,” I said, “it’s kinda hard for me to embrace this whole ‘God Loves Me’ revelation, when I’m still trying to make sense of being a fictional character.”
“You’re taking it pretty well, all things considering.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m an agnostic and an avid comic book reader. So in a sense, I’ve been preparing for this encounter my entire life.”
We shared a final laugh together, and for a brief moment, I was almost content with what should have been a mind blowing revelation. But just as I was settling into this new idea of reality, out of nowhere, Sakura’s beautiful face flashed through my brain. And there it was. A nagging, previously inexplicable sensation made real.
Discontent.
If my life was a complete fiction then that meant that certain things didn’t have to happen. Certain irreversible events. Certain tragedies.
“What about Sakura? I was going to marry her!” I grabbed him by the shirt collar, but the stranger remained composed. “What about my dad?!” The world fell away. It was just me and my God.
“Well, that’s the other reason I’m here,” the stranger began. “That’s why I’m talking to you. Y’see, I’ve come to apologize. You’ve already been through so much, I mean, for Sakura to die, to lose your father, your friends…”
“They didn’t have to die!” I tightened my grip. “If this isn’t real, then you could have changed that. You could’ve made this world whatever you wanted!”
“Yes, theoretically, I could have, but as hard as this may be for you to understand, Sanjuro, sometimes characters take on lives of their own. They make their own decisions and their own mistakes. And sometimes… they die. I’m sorry that had to happen. I wish I could do something, but—”
“Horseshit! That’s a cop out! You’re the author here. You’re in control, so you can write the story anyway you damn well please!”
“That’s where you’re wrong. If I’m in control, then why are you so angry at me? Wouldn’t I prefer you to be overjoyed? To accept me? Yet wouldn’t that do away with the whole purpose of me apologizing? True, this conversation exists because I permit it to exist, but the fact of the matter is you’re exerting free will right now, son.”
Son? I couldn’t even look at him.
His voice grew quiet. “About your father, your friends, and Sakura, well, I-I feel bad about it. T-that’s why I’m here. I’m here to…”
“Have me absolve you of your guilt?”
“Partially, I suppose.” He thought his words over carefully. “But really, I just want to bring you comfort. I want to apologize. At the very least, you can take solace in knowing that as long as I have anything to say about it, you will endure and overcome. And with any luck, you’ll live happily ever after.”
I just stared at the bastard. Nobody said anything for a long while.
“Sanjuro,” he said timidly. “Are you okay?”
“Bloody fucking lovely.”
“Is there anything you’d like to say to me?”
It took me a while to muster up the words, but when I finally did, I let ’er rip. “You’re a piss-poor excuse for a god, I’ll tell you that much. Every time I got stabbed in the back, every time I got my heart torn from my chest, and every time I lost someone who meant something to me, that wasn’t just life, that was you!”
“Technically, I suppose, but like I said…”
“So how much money have you made off my ‘adventures’? What are you, Stephen King-famous now?”
“Well, actually,” he took in a deep breath. “It’s kind of funny you mention that. The thing is… I’m not published.”
“WHAT? What did you just say to me?”
“Well, I, um, easy there, hoss.” He raised his hands in defense. “My work is under consideration at some major publishing houses right now, but the last few seemed like they either wanted some crybaby coming of age story about ethnic identity or a lame brained mystery without an ounce of substance to it. Guess your stories are just ahead of their time.”
“Or maybe you’re just not a very good writer.” I have to admit that his visible embarrassment was almost revenge enough.
“That, too, is a possibility,” he said diplomatically. “But the thing is…”
“So let me see if I understand you,” I interrupted. “You’re telling me that not only is this world not real, but that all I’ve suffered never really happened or had to happen, that I myself am a figment of your imagination, and that my sole purpose for being is to make you rich and famous, yet MY STORIES AREN’T EVEN PUBLISHED!”
“Yeeaah,” he said slowly while rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s about the gist of it. Sorry.”
What happens when you punch God? I was willing to find out.
“Hold it right there, Sanjuro. I know what you’re thinking. But just hear me out. Why don’t I make this up to you? Through me, all things are possible, right?” He let out a nervous chuckle. “For example, that lighter you have in your pocket, that’s your father’s. He meant a lot to you. And you’ve always wished you had a better relationship with him before he died, isn’t that right? Just wait one second, and I’ll give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
Before I could react, the stranger spoke quietly, as if reciting an incantation. After he finished, a cascade of memories suddenly flooded through my mind. My father. Alive. We were working on cars in his old workshop, fishing together, and tossing the ol’ pigskin around. Those and hundreds of other little moments were now a part of me, connected like a chain from birth to the present instant. No more arguments. No hurt feelings. No cancer. And above all, no death. All gone, now replaced by new memories, real memories, enveloping me like a warm baby’s blanket. The whole thing would’ve been overwhelming if it weren’t such pure bliss.
When it was all over, the stranger put his hand on my shoulder. I was too shaken to say a word. Instead, I just rubbed the tears out of my eyes, as the man spoke once more: “I have the power to bring people back, Sanjuro—not just in your memory, but in the flesh. Right here, right now.”
“Giving me back my dad doesn’t change a goddamn thing,” I said through gritted teeth. “You can’t buy my respect. Or my forgiveness. Or my love.”
I looked him square in the eye to make sure he knew I meant it. I could tell that my words had hurt him, but the stranger attempted to mask his feelings, before finally speaking. “I don’t intend to buy anything, Sanjuro. I simply want to reward you. Call it a gift from God.” He mumbled something under his breath before speaking clearly once more. “Turn around.”
I did. There, sitting on the stool to my left was Sakura, alive and well, and more beautiful than ever.
The stranger stood up and spoke, “I’ll settle the bill. Not that it really matters, but hey, might as well go through the motions, right?” He counted out a wad of cash and placed it on the sushi bar. “For what it’s worth, I’m truly sorry. Sorry for every
thing that has happened. And for everything that will happen.”
I broke my gaze with Sakura and glanced at the stranger. “It can’t be all bad, can it?”
He smiled and waved his hand. “Orujnas tegrof.”
* * *
The stranger’s words—a backwards spell from an old comic book—were said more out of a sense of whimsy than for any practical reason. In truth, he could make Sanjuro remember as much or as little as he wanted without saying a word. The stranger was not God, but—as he had said—only a construct. When his purpose ceased to exist, so did he. The stranger simply vanished, yet no one in the restaurant cared to notice, least of all Sanjuro. Instead, he and Sakura tried to pick up where they had left off four years earlier. The two of them joked and laughed and reconnected as only lovers can after experiencing a long separation. Sanjuro had not known happiness like this in quite some time. The next morning, however, he woke up alone and wept.
Elsewhere, his true Creator stares at a blank page, fumbling for a happy ending.
—
Editor’s Note:
“The Sushi Bar at the Edge of Forever” first appeared in a slightly different form in Hawai’i Review (2007).
BONES OF THE REBELLION
by
Mark Finn
— :: —
El Paso, Texas, 1920
Wang Chu Kong, the leader of the El Paso Benevolent Celestial Brotherhood, was dying. The neighborhood knew it and its inhabitants reacted accordingly. Women began cooking for the food they would leave on the family’s steps as a tribute of grief and respect. Men sat quietly alone or in small groups and wondered what the future would bring. Younger men played Go and whispered among themselves, speculating about power and control. Shopkeepers lit joss incense and offered up prayers to their gods. Closer to home, the servants toiled with mechanical zeal, burying their feelings deep in their work as they made the home into a place of mourning.
Chu Kong’s daughter, Mei Ling, kept a strained vigil beside him. The man who once filled her with awe and wonder was now a shrunken shadow of his former self. She could have carried him in her arms. She looked down on him as he slept, tossing and turning and mumbling. She didn’t bother to lean in. She knew what he was saying. The whole house knew.
She felt, rather than saw, the door open. Her uncle, Dou Shu, entered and lightly touched her elbow. “You need to eat something,” he said to his niece.
She made no move to comply. “I’ll eat after. It won’t be long now.”
“You don’t know that. He’s strong. He may rally again.”
Mei Ling shook her head. “We are near the end. Will you stay with me?”
Dou Shu put his arm on Mei Ling’s shoulders and they stood quietly for several minutes, each lost in their own thoughts. Mei Ling was torn between her grief and the weight of responsibility that was due to rest upon her shoulders. Her father’s affairs were to become her own; in truth, she had been helping her father more and more these last few years as his health declined. Their frequent clashes and heated arguments kept trying to rise up and drown out the older, happier memories and she was mentally exhausted from keeping them at bay. Her uncle was a comforting presence, but he knew little of Chu Kong’s role in the community, having left El Paso for San Francisco, California twenty years ago.
Outside, the rain that had been threatening the city finally broke, a true Texas thunderstorm that the farmers and ranchers always praised as something they really needed. Lightning flared and lit the room in uneven, staccato bursts of light. Thunder rumbled in the distance, heralding more violent storm clouds. So violent was the storm outside that they initially mistook the knocking at the door for thunder.
Mei Ling only noticed it when her father sat bolt upright, panicked, gasping for breath. She tried to soothe him, to lay him back down, but he struggled feebly and reached a shaking, claw-like hand out as he tried to speak. The knocking persisted, and Mei Ling turned and barked, “Get the door!”
Dou Shu hastened to obey, noting in passing that she seemed more like her father every day. He stepped out of his brother’s bedroom and saw the servant who answered the door recoil, bow, and step back. Dou Shu threw the door open wider and gasped at the man as he came in from the rain, his coat and hat dripping water. It was a great coat, from England, and coupled with the broad brimmed, flat crowned Stetson he wore managed to shield him from most of the rain. His face was shadowed by the hat’s brim, but Dou saw his eyes and knew who he was in an instant. “Zhan Fu,” he whispered.
Behind Dou Shu, his brother was calling out. The stranger noticed it, too. “Zhan Fu!” cried Chu Kong from the bedroom. Dou Shu and Zhan Fu hurried to the bedroom. Dou Shu rushed in, but something checked Zhan Fu’s approach and he stopped at the door. He stared at the scene from the threshold, watching as Mei Ling eased her father back onto the pillow, her head bowed. “He is gone,” she said.
Dou Shu guided his niece away from the bed. “He loved you very much,” he said.
Her head down, Mei Ling sniffed. “I did everything for him. And who does he call out for at the end of his life? Not his daughter, the one who stayed by his side. No, he calls out for…” She stopped and looked up. “Zhan Fu.”
“Sister,” Zhan Fu said. “I am sorry. I got here as soon as I could.”
“So, you have returned. Ten years gone. And suddenly, Father falls ill and you just show back up again.”
Zhan Fu reached into his coat and produced a creased telegram. “I was asked to return.”
Mei Ling took the telegram and stared at it. “But, I didn’t…” She took a step away from Dou Shu, her eyes smoldering. “You sent it.”
“He’s a part of this family. He needed to know.”
She wheeled on her brother. “And what? Now that you’re back, you’ll just take over where Father left off? After you left to get away from the family business?”
“That’s not why I came back,” Zhan Fu said. He took a step toward his sister, his hand out. “I came because—because I had been gone for ten years. It was too long. I’m sorry.”
“Save your apologies,” she said. “You think I don’t know about you? Father? We heard stories, Zhan. The famous ‘Celestial Kid.’ Hero of the Rails. Please. You couldn’t have picked something more offensive to consort yourself with than the rail road companies? Why not sell opium, too, while you’re at it?” She pointed to her father. “You know, he was fine until you left. You broke his heart the day you walked out of this house! I’ve spent the last ten years being the son to him that you never were!”
Dou Shu stepped between them. “Enough. Not here. Out of respect for your father.”
Mei Ling made a strangled sound in her throat and stormed out of the room. Somewhere deep in the house, a door slammed. Lightning flared. The thunder crashed instantly after, and the heavens opened up, drowning the house’s grief in violent, cool June rain.
“Welcome home,” said Dou Shu.
* * *
The news of Wang’s death spread throughout Chinatown and within the hour, food, flowers, and other tributes were laid on the stoop of the two story building at the end of Crane Street. The small awning was scant protection from the rain, and soon one of the many sympathetic members of the Benevolent Celestial Brotherhood was tasked with receiving the tributes at the door and making room for them in the increasingly crowded house.
The doctor had come and gone, and Wang’s body was removed, leaving a large hole in the house that everyone felt, but couldn’t address. Mei Ling appeared somewhere in the middle of it all, more composed, and began signing papers, directing helpers and staff, and in doing so managed to assume effortless control without a backwards glance at her uncle or her older brother. With nothing to do but stay out of the way, Dou Shu and Zhan Fu retired to the dining room, where much of the food was steadily accumulating. The cook made them a pot of strong tea and they helped themselves to the food.
After they had sampled several of the dishes, Dou Shu put his chopstic
ks down and said, “Thank you for coming.”
“I was on a job in Bisby when I got the news. I got here as quickly as I could,” said Zhan Fu, wiping his mouth. He’d removed his great coat and hat and tied his long straight hair back in a ponytail with a rawhide thong. Without his coat and black jacket, he looked less like a law man and more like a gambler, though he was, in fact, neither. His silk shirt was gray and over that he wore an embroidered vest, in red and gold thread. Only Chinese people knew what the symbols and pictures rendered in the embroidery represented: family, honor, history, China. To western eyes, it was merely “heathen decoration.” But everything had a purpose on his vest. Especially the two crossed axes over his heart. His trousers were also black, and his boots worn and scuffed from much travel. At his waist was a two-gun rig, twin Colt .45s with intricately engraved handles, tied down to his legs. Both pistols were securely fastened down with leather straps on the holsters.
Dou Shu regarded his nephew with kind eyes. “Your last meeting did not go well. But you should know, he kept an ear out for news of your exploits. Your adventures.”
Zhan Fu smiled, his jaw clenched. “I cannot imagine that he was happy about that.”
“Not happy, no,” Dou Shu said, “but he was glad to hear that you have helped our people. It wasn’t how he would have gone about doing it, but still… he once said to me in a letter, ‘I did not realize at the time Zhan was paying attention, but it looks like he was.’ He was proud of you.”
Zhan Fu glanced away as Mei Ling walked past the dining room, scowling.
Dou Shu chuckled. “He didn’t tell Mei Ling that. Why would he have? Remember this: she made her own choices. She chose to become his number one. Your leaving home had nothing to do with her.”
Zhan Fu said, “Think she’ll ever figure that out?”
Dou Shu shrugged. “If the Wangs have one characteristic trait present in our family it is that we are stubborn to a fault.”
Zhan Fu raised his tea cup. “To the stubborn Wangs.”
Dou Shu touched his cup to Zhan Fu’s cup. “The mule headed Wangs.” They drank, and Dou Shu emptied his cup and set it down. “Will you stay?”
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