Ripples Through Time

by Lincoln Cole

  “Don’t play dumb with me,” she said. “When was he here?”

  She gestured vaguely at Rickie. Mikey threw up his hands in defeat. “A few weeks ago. They just stopped by for a couple burgers.”

  “Just burgers?” she asked.

  Mikey coughed.

  “And it was just the once?”

  Mikey went back to staring at the bar.

  “Goddamn it,” she said. “It’s one thing for him to…to…but for him to bring Rickie. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Mikey looked scared. Rickie felt bad for him. But at least his mom wasn’t mad at him this time.

  He glanced over and spotted a bowl of peanuts, then grabbed a handful.

  “Look, I didn’t think it was a big deal—”

  “Not a big deal? He’s six!” she said. She was practically shouting now.

  “Seven,” Rickie said, through a mouthful of peanuts. They ignored him.

  “I know. I just…I’m sorry,” Mikey said, shaking his head.

  Emily sighed and the anger drained out of her. “No, it’s not you I’m mad at.”

  Mikey didn’t respond. The only break in the silence was Rickie crunching on peanuts. Mikey glanced over at Rickie. “So it’s your birthday today, huh?”

  “Yup,” Rickie said.

  “Get anything good?”

  Rickie shook his head.

  “We haven’t gotten to open presents,” Emily said offhandedly.

  Rickie perked up at the mention of presents. First he’d heard of it.

  “I was hoping,” Emily continued, “that Cal would be home on time. Like we planned. But…”

  “He said he was only going to have a couple. When I figured out that wasn’t true I called.”

  “I know. I’m sorry Mikey. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”

  “It’s alright Em,” he said. He turned to Rickie. “But, when he came by, he also mentioned that it was somebody important’s birthday.”

  Mikey reached behind the counter, and when his arms reappeared he was clutching a wrapped up towel in his hands. He handed it to Rickie, who felt his eyes pop open in excitement.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Well you have to unwrap it to find out,” Mikey said, then shrugged. “I didn’t exactly have wrapping paper, but we have plenty of extra bar towels. Don’t lick it though. It’s probably got half of a bottle of whiskey soaked in.”

  Emily sighed in exasperation, but Rickie saw that she was smiling a little bit. He quickly unrolled the towel, and a G.I. Joe fell into his hand. His face lit up.

  “Awesome!”

  “Like it?” Mikey asked, grinning. “That’ll be me in a few months.”

  “Well Rickie, what do you say?” his mom asked.

  “Thank you Uncle Mikey,” he recited, super excited.

  “And, I have something for you too, Em. I wanted to give this to Calvin earlier, but never got the chance. And I ship out tomorrow so I probably won’t see him again until I’m back. Can you give this to him?”

  He slid a watch off his wrist and handed it to her. Rickie glanced at it, but didn’t see any numbers. It was just a bunch of ‘I’s and ‘V’s on it in gold coloring on an ivory background. He’d been learning how to tell time on watches and clocks, but without numbers it was useless.

  Still…it was pretty.

  “Oh, this is…” she said, seeming to recognize it. “This was your dad’s watch, wasn’t it? You can’t give this away.”

  “It was just a watch my dad bought, not a family heirloom.”

  “Every family heirloom has to start somewhere,” Emily said. Mikey laughed.

  “Touché. But I couldn’t take it with me anyway. From everything I’ve heard it’s always hot and humid over there and it would destroy the internal mechanism after a few weeks.”

  “So what you mean to say is: if you take it you’ll gamble it away?”

  “Pretty much,” he said with a shrug and smile.

  Emily hesitated. “Well, if you’re sure…”

  “I’m sure,” Mikey said.

  “We’ll hang on to it for you, okay? As soon as you get back Calvin will return it.”

  “Deal,” Mikey said. “And, if I don’t see him again before I ship out, tell him bye for me too.”

  She smiled sadly. “Okay. Be safe over there Mikey. And write. Everyday.”

  Mikey laughed.

  “Well, maybe every week,” Emily said. “But you’d better write.”

  “Got it.”

  A minute passed.

  “Well,” Mikey said, leaning back against the counter. “He’s in the back passed out. Need help getting him to the car?”

  Calvin Greenwood

  Unfulfilled Promises

  Present Day

  The memory hits me like a punch in the gut, leaving me breathless and weak. I can still feel the emotions, the shame. It’s like a wet blanket wrapped around my soul. What I wouldn’t do to go back and fix…

  Useless thoughts, I decide. Weak thoughts from a weak man.

  I’m always weak these days, but usually physically. It takes something extra to break me down mentally as well. My eyes slip closed and I force the pain in my chest to leave me alone. It’s not unlike a heart attack.

  Or, I should clarify, not unlike my first heart attack.

  I smile and nearly laugh: no one should ever have to clarify which heart attack they are referring to.

  I feel my left hand shaking against the table and wrap my right around the wrist to steady it. The cold metal of the watch buckled there is a painful reminder of how cruel life can be. Mikey’s watch is a pentagon shaped piece of work. Silver lines the edges and white Roman Numerals count the time over a black background. The glass is scratched in a few places where my carelessness got the better of me. Two turn dials flank the face on either side.

  It’s a simple watch, unlike the new beasts today. I saw a commercial for a watch that tells the time, links to satellites for GPS, programs five alarms, and is powered by kinetic energy when you move. Never have to charge it, just move around and it’ll always work.

  If it could make toast too I think I’d buy it.

  Come to think of it, if I did buy that watch, then with how little I move it’d be dead in a week.

  Mikey’s watch was a watch. It did what it promised, and it did it well. I’ve had it repaired twice since it was placed in my care, and other than those times and showering it never came off my wrist. The second time I repaired it was ten years ago after a particularly vicious rain storm. Even my pockets got too soaked to spare the watch from complete harm.

  The first time I repaired it was the day I heard Mikey died.

  I shudder involuntarily at the memory. I think the hardest thing was how…ordinary it was. There was no fanfare at his death. No glory. No trumpets. Just a box. A box with my closest friend tucked inside.

  One of his war buddies told me what happened sometime after the funeral. Come to think of it, we shared a bottle of smooth Tennessee whiskey at a bar when he told me. The last bottle I ever drank.

  God I miss it.

  Thing was, Mikey didn’t even die in Vietnam. No medals because the military didn’t want to admit where he was when he got shot. Charlie had trouble getting troops past our outposts without turning into Swiss cheese. So they used the Cambodian border, leaving Vietnam and skirting around the Americans in neutral territory, then coming and hitting them from behind. Since we weren’t at war with Cambodia, we couldn’t stop them. At least not officially.

  Mikey’s unit was ordered to cross the border and find them. All but four died.

  Mikey didn’t even die in Vietnam.

  It was all bullshit, the buddy slurred after the fifth drink. We were both crying by then. And I believed him, that it was bullshit. We bombed them, he said. The Cambodians. The whole war we were bombing them and not telling anyone. Bombed the shit out of them for letting Charlie get the jump on us through their country. Or even just for the fun of it. Ope
ration Menu.

  I heard once that people think America caused the Khmer Rouge and the deaths of one in five Cambodians during their genocide because of those bombings.

  I don’t give it much thought, to be honest. What I do think is that Mikey died in a place he didn’t know for a cause he didn’t believe in…

  …and if bombing them twice as hard would have brought Mikey home safe…

  Mellie always told me that attitude was warmongering. How could I be willing to wish other people dead if it would bring my friend back? Trading one life for another.

  Warmongering. What the hell kind of word is that? I don’t like war. I’m not dumb. I know that everyone loses. I lost Mikey. He was sent home in a box, forgotten and neglected. There wasn’t even a family to come home to, except me and Mellie.

  And I don’t really wish anyone dead, either. If those Cambodians could live and be happy I’d be thrilled as a peach. But I knew Mikey. I never knew any of them. And if there was any way…ever…that I could say sorry…

  “Calvin?” Edward asks. His voice is quiet. I look up and he’s staring at me, concerned.

  “What?”

  “You just…” he says, trailing off and waving his hand.

  “…look like shit?” I offer. He gets a charge out of that, chuckling. But he still looks concerned.

  “Yeah. That’s a good enough way to put it.”

  I rub my eyes and find that they’re wet. Guess the old ducts work after all.

  “That’s when I stopped drinking,” I say.

  “After Mikey went to war?”

  I forgot that I wasn’t speaking out loud. He missed half the conversation. Though I guess it’s not really a conversation if I’m not talking, is it?

  “No,” I say. “Not when Mikey went to war. When he didn’t come back.”

  He hesitates. “Oh.”

  “I knew then what drinking really cost me. Rock bottom. Describes it pretty well. When you realize that it doesn’t matter if you drink yourself to death because you might as well be dead.”

  My hand closes around the watch again.

  “I never even said goodbye.”

  My chest aches but I fight the emotion. I haven’t felt like this in years. Probably twenty some, to be honest. I came to terms with Mikey’s death and my pathetic part in it a long time ago. I hated myself, and without my wife at my side I never would have gotten past it. Mikey looked up to me like a brother. And I let him die too drunk to even say goodbye.

  But that’s not what’s making me hurt so much. No, I know that the pain I’m feeling has nothing to do with Mikey.

  It’s about Mellie.

  She can’t really be gone…

  Can she?

  Even on my worst of days I always knew she would be there. Only one time in my life did I wonder if I would come home to an empty house after I married Mellie. And not empty like I had to make myself dinner.

  She was gone for two months when her mom died, taking care of her and her father up until the end, and I didn’t starve (though peanut butter and Jelly gets old, even when it’s Jiffy peanut butter and Concord grape). I mean empty like I knew she wasn’t coming back. Was never coming back.

  Like this.

  And it hurts.

  It hurts like hell.

  “I can’t do this, Edward,” I say, barely whispering.

  “Do what?”

  “Keep going.”

  He is silent.

  “There’s no reason to get out of bed. No reason to get dressed. To eat. The world has lost its importance.”

  “Then find a reason,” Edward says. “Find something.”

  I shake my head. “There’s no point.”

  “There’s always a point,” Edward says, anger in his eyes. “I hate seeing you like this. I hate seeing you quit.”

  “This isn’t quitting,” I say. “It’s being honest. I’m eighty-one years old. I’ve only ever loved one woman, and she’s gone. There’s nothing left.”

  The anger fades from his eyes. He leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. “Eighty-five,” he says

  “Eh?”

  “You’re eighty-five years old.”

  We stare at each other for a long second, and I feel a smile on my lips. And then suddenly I burst out laughing. He follows along, laughing too, but probably just to be polite.

  I don’t know why it’s funny, but I can’t stop. It hurts, in my chest, but it also feels good. Pain can be good.

  It takes me a clean thirty seconds to finally settle back down, and when I do it ends in a coughing fit.

  “Eighty-five,” I say. “I never thought I’d make sixty-five.”

  “Well you did.”

  “Doesn’t change anything.”

  “You’re right,” Edward says. “It doesn’t. You have a lot to live for.”

  I shake my head.

  “Read more books.”

  “Most writers are terrible,” I say. “They just rehash the same old story again and again.”

  “Watch more movies.”

  “Same problem,” I say. “Only worse. The last movie I watched might as well have been from the sixties. Boy meets girl. They fall in love. Boy beds girl. Girl pops out kid.”

  “They usually leave the last two out of the movie,” Edward says, chuckling. “But I see what you mean.”

  “It’s a waste.”

  “Then find something.”

  “There’s nothing,” I say.

  “There’s always something,” replies Edward. “And if you think there isn’t, you just aren’t looking hard enough.”

  I scowl at him, but he isn’t done yet:

  “How do you think Bethany would feel without you even talking to her about it?”

  “I don’t care how she feels about it,” I reply. “It isn’t her decision, it’s mine.”

  “Then you’re being a selfish-bastard,” Edward says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “Pardon my saying so, but it’s true. She’s your daughter.”

  “She’ll try to talk me out of it,” I say. “Just like you’re doing. She always was hard headed. Even as a little kid.”

  “Like her father.”

  I snort. True enough, I suppose.

  “And what about Jason?” he asks. “How could you even think about doing this to him?”

  That hurts worse, actually. I find myself staring at the table, shame creeping in. He’s right. Beth grew up like me, but Jason took after his mom. He’s more emotional, less able to tune pain and hurt out.

  I figured out with Jason that you can’t raise all kids the same. When Beth faced a problem she would just butt her head against it until it went away. If I yelled at her, she just worked harder and got pissed at me.

  Jason was never that way. If I yelled at him he’d just close up. He would bottle things inside himself, tuck the pain away. Never talk about it until it came spilling out. He was always more likely to hurt himself than anyone else.

  I’m proud of him. The man he’s become is someone I’m proud to know. Proud to be a part of his life. He had a rough go of it. Turned into a fine man, but his journey there was harder than most.

  Not telling Bethany my plans doesn’t really bother me. She’d just get pissed, probably curse my name for a while, but she’d use her anger to get over it. I’m not sure she’d forgive me, but she’d come to terms.

  Not telling Jason, though, would be like stabbing a knife in his stomach and twisting the blade.

  Come to think of it, that’s probably why I called Bethany this morning instead of Jason. I can handle people being pissed at me. That’s no problem at all. It’s the hurt I can’t stand.

  “Jason always was an emotional kid,” I say, leaning back into my chair.

  “Do you remember that time,” Edward asks, the hint of a smile growing on his lips, “when your family came over for dinner? You were at work, or the track, or something. And my mom was trying to be nice to Emily, so she asked her to bring the kids over. I was nine, mayb
e ten years old.”

  “No,” I say, “but Mellie was fit to be tied when she got home. She wouldn’t breathe a word about what happened whenever I asked. Last time she ever wanted to go back to your house, though.”

  Edward laughs. “Last time my mom ever invited her,” he says. “Want me to tell you about it?”

  “I see what you’re trying to do,” I say. “You want to remind me of my family and make me think about them.”

  “So what if I am?”

  “It won’t change anything,” I say. And I believe it.

  I think.

  He smiles as innocently as possible. “Then why not humor me?”

  I can’t help but snort again. “Fine…”

  1972 - Jason Greenwood

  Dinner and a Disaster

  “I was there, just a fly on the wall when your kids and wife came over,” Edward says. “I loved my sister, completely. I mean, of course I did, but we rarely had visitors because of her. I was excited having Jason and Richard over.”

  “You didn’t mind what she was?”

  “She wasn’t anything,” Edward says defensively, and I know I’ve offended him. “She was just a sweet girl who had a tough row to hoe. Push comes to shove, I wouldn’t trade her for anyone.”

  I’m not sure I believe him. Edward is a good kid, but he always seemed embarrassed by his sister. Hell, I was embarrassed by her, which was my fault and not hers. I just didn’t know how to be around people like her, and when I was growing up you just…weren’t.

  Different times.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I never really got used to her.”

  “Is that why you never really came around?”

  “That,” I say, “and other reasons. I was selfish, and I didn’t really know what I was missing out on. Mellie wouldn’t tell me what happened that night, so I never really got the details.”

  “Then let me fill you in…”

  ***

  Jason Greenwood sat staring at the blank piece of paper. He hadn’t actually written anything yet, but that was of no consequence. He had ideas. Too many ideas, actually, to settle on anything in particular. He just had to pick a starting point, and the pen in his hand would do the rest.

  Currently that pen was tapping his chin as he concentrated, elbow resting on the corner of his desk and tongue protruding from the right corner of his mouth. If his sister Beth saw him right now she’d probably laugh. She always did when he was focused on something, but Jason didn’t mind much anymore.