Remember, Remember [Short Story]

            This is not a happy story, I warn you. There are no daisies, gold at the end of a rainbow, or anything ridiculous like that. This is an angry story, a sad story, a story of regret. But most importantly, it’s a life lesson that I was taught and learned the hard way – probably a little later than I would’ve wanted.

           My father was a man named Roman. Roman A. Tibbs. He was a serious man, but had his moments where he liked to have fun. He was a tall man, a permanent five o’clock shadow on his face, course brown hair and thick black eyebrows. His musky scent and slightly sweaty palms served as constant reminders of his job when he came home in the evenings.

           My father was a bastard. No, not that kind of bastard. A real bastard. He never knew who his real father was. The orphanage was all he’d ever known until he turned eighteen. He enlisted in the military shortly after graduating high school. Infantry. Not much for making a military career, he served his time and was discharged; honorably no less.

            My father was a bodyguard. He picked up a few jobs here and there until he started working for some small time bookie that eventually got him tangled with “The Don.” The Don was a mafia guy, Italian to be specific. He considered himself King of Manhattan, but he was no Scarface or Al Capone. However, the cops were keeping their eye on him and so were the other smaller crime syndicates in the downtown New York area.

            My father was a murderer. He’d been doing a job for The Don. It was only supposed to be a stakeout, but it was a setup. My father was the fall guy since he was honorable. He took the blame gladly, happy to be of service to the group. The Don promised to take care of my father’s kids. My mother left a couple of years ago, deciding that the kind of life Roman Tibbs was providing his family wasn’t good enough.

           My father was a prisoner. He was held in the jail of the 17^th precinct police department until it was time for him to be moved to the local prison. I’d be in my late twenties by the time of his release from prison, give or take. Because he was convicted of murder in the second degree and it was his first offense, the sentencing wasn’t as heavy as it could’ve been. But still, he’d killed someone. Though being former military, taking a life probably came natural to him.

            After the routine frisking and checking ended, I was allowed access to that foggy plastic window that mirrored my father to me. The dusty gray jumpsuit seemed to fit him. He used to be mechanic’s assistant at a small shop downtown. I sat down in the visitor’s chair and picked up the phone, watching as he did the same. I could hear his breath in my ear as I’m sure he could hear mine through the receiver. For a while we said nothing to each other. I couldn’t imagine what sort of expression I had, but it managed to elicit a smile from him. The gesture was warm, yet it reflected his exhaustion from being behind bars.

            “Hey, Stevie.” His voice was deep, the words rumbling in his throat.

            “Hey,” I muttered, drumming my fingers against my thigh.

            “How’re you doing?”

            “Fine.”

            “How’s your brother?”

            I looked away from him. “Fine.”

            “Well, how’s school?”

            “Fine.”

            I heard a heavy sigh, forcing me to look up at him. His face looked even more worn than it was a few seconds ago. “Stephanie…”

            “What?”

His eyes burrowed into mine, as if searching for some kind of answer to a silent question. I watched him shake his head, running his fingers through that thick head of course dark hair. The digits moved to scratch where his prominent five o’clock shadow should have been, now replaced with a beard that resembled the spines of a baby porcupine. He looked as if he was about to say something, then changed his mind. “Nothing. Nevermind.”

I sighed, rubbing my temples. “The Don called. Said he was going to come and see you when he could.”

“Yeah?”

“I hate that guy.”

“I know.”

“No Roman, I don’t think you do.”

He visibly winced, doing his best to shake it off. “I get the idea…”

My father quit nagging me about using his name a long time ago. He’d further lost the privilege of being called “Dad” ever again the moment he was convicted and sentenced. Letting The Don brand him as the scapegoat made me lose what respect I had for him.

“I gotta go,” I said, looking at my watch.

“Wait!”

I was already moving my hand to hang up the phone, stopping short when I heard his muffled voice on the other side of the glass. I looked at him, his image scratched and foggy on the other side. Placing the receiver back to my ear, I waited patiently for him to speak. Seconds ticked by and all we did was stare at each other. I sighed, propping the phone my shoulder as I looked at my watch again.

“Roman, my shift starts in half an hour and—”

“I love you, Stevie.”

I looked at him, at the man named Roman A. Tibbs. His hand was pressed against the surface of the plastic wall separating us, the saddest of smiles on his face. Both his words and actions were so unexpected. I had no idea on how to respond, so I kept silent.

That’s when I saw it. A single tear had rolled down his left cheek and got lost in the dark forest of his beard. I had never seen my father cry in my life so the sight surprised me. Shocked so much so that my mind began sounding off warning sirens. I needed to escape from this person across from me.

“I…I need to go.” I dropped the phone onto the hook as I clambered out of my chair, hastily making my way toward the exit.

I needed to get out of there as quickly as possible. I barely acknowledged the guard as he told me goodbye, my legs moving a lot faster than my mind was processing things. I threw myself against the metal double doors that led out to the busy streets of New York. It wasn’t until I was huddled over, breathing heavily, that I realized I’d been holding my breath. I didn’t care about the pedestrians who cut their eyes at me, judging me. I didn’t care about the bustling city and all of its sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures.

I ran.

I didn’t see the red light flashing at me. I didn’t hear the incessant horn blowing from the oncoming taxi. I didn’t smell the burnt rubber and smoke that tried to fill my nostrils. I didn’t taste the metallic substance slowly filling my mouth. I didn’t feel the wind against my body, lifting me up gently into the air.

It was amazing the things I didn’t remember compared to what I did. I didn’t remember when I first lost my tooth – how my father and mother were both there to point and laugh at me as I cried while the blood poured from my mouth. I didn’t remember when my younger brother and I got into our first fist-fight – how I broke his nose and he gave me a black eye that lasted a week and a half. I didn’t remember my first crush in junior high, Thomas, or why I started crushing on him in the first place. We’d been in band together, both of us trombone players, and he helped me with the b-minor scale. “Remember, third and fourth positions are a little tricky, so you have to move the slide just right.” I didn’t remember reading The Divine Comedy and how it fascinated me, making me wish that I could’ve been Dante traveling through the various levels of Hell. I didn’t remember when I stopped calling my father, “Dad.”

As I felt myself falling, I remembered the ocean. The smell of salt, the cool breeze against my skin, and the gritty sand between my toes. I remembered my brother and me collecting seashells on the beach. I laughed as he stepped on a sand crab and got pinched. I remembered watching him scream, crying and flailing his arms about as he called out for Mom and Dad. I remembered plunging headfirst into the water, the salt of the ocean stinging my eyes but I insisted on keeping them open. I had been too lazy to get my goggles. The light of the sun reflected off the surface of the water above me and I felt like a mermaid, wishing that the fish would dance around me and that a little red crab would yell at me for swimming away from Atlantica, saying, “Dis is an outrage! Whatchu going to do when da humans see you?”

I remembered breaking the surface of the water, the breath I inhaled invigorating me and reminding me that I was alive. I floated on my back, enjoying the feeling of freedom and peace that came with lazily bobbing up and down against the water. The warmth of the sun beat down on me from above, forcing me to close my eyes until I could feel myself drifting. Drifting. Drifting away.

“…I love you too, Daddy.”

Under Black Skies [Novella/Novel Excerpt]

When I came to, I was in a burning field.

The air was so thick with smoke I could barely breathe. The once familiar town was unrecognizable. It looked like the remains of a battlefield from a movie.

But that didn’t last long either. The fire had died down by the time the sun rose. The tall wall of flame had shortened and most of the buildings had fallen.

It felt strange being the only thing in that place that still had its original form. Was I the only one left alive? I had no way of knowing and I lacked both the energy and desire to seek out the answer.

I felt that since I survived, I should live on.

I started walking, the building crumbling behind me my incentive to move forward – to escape the danger. I wasn’t really concerned about getting burned up like the people lying around me. The enemy’s air raid had ended.

But still, I had to keep moving.

It was already a wonder I was still alive, so I didn’t know if a rescue team would even be coming.

Would I survive? Could I survive?

Whatever happens, I won’t be able to escape from this red world. It was such an absolute hell that even a small child could understand it; a boy of eight. Me.

I collapsed.

Was it because there was no air? Was it because no energy was left in my body? I stared up at the clouded sky. I knew that everything around me was burned up, the many shriveled people littering the ground, so my only escape was to look into the sky.

The dark clouds loomed overhead, telling me it would rain soon. That’s good. The fire will be put out once it rains. I said to myself that it hurt. I said so on behalf of all people who couldn’t even say so.

That was ten years ago.

Now I was trying to escape from another hell. A cleaner, pristine, and more organized hell, but hell just the same: Virgilius. I was taking a risk. I knew that I would probably fail and get canceled, never to see anyone ever again.

But I still had to try.

“Sage! Hey, are you listenin’?”

Gray snapped his fingers in my face. I was placing food capsules in certain sections of my tray in the lunch line or I’d have broken his fingers. I glared at him as the lunch lady placed my tray in one of the machines, pressed a button and then handed it back to me. Actual food had replaced the pills.

“Man, what’s with that look?”

“Gray, what the fuck do you want with me?”

Gray was my friend. Sometimes he was an annoyance that I longed to get rid of. But six out of seven days of the week, Gray was my friend. “I just asked if you have P.T. this afternoon. Geez.”

“I’m skipping.” I knew that skipping my Physical Training exercises would land me in The Pit. But that’s only if I got caught.

His mouth gaped at me, forming into a perfect ‘O’ before closing it. He realized that I was walking away and he was now forced to catch up. “Are you serious? You can’t just skip P.T. You’re so busted if the Drones catch you. You’ll be in The Pit for three hours, min!”

“Like Sage gives a shit, Gray,” came an arrogant voice from behind us. We both turned and looked to see a girl with platinum blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin, an overwhelming look of apathy on her face.

“Nobody asked you, Cerulean.” I could hear the panic in his voice.

“Like I give a shit, Gray.”

We sat at our usual table, the three of us, and I mindlessly ate my meal while the two of them continued to fuss at each other. There was normally a fourth, Midnight, but she was currently in The Pit. No one would tell us why and we didn’t ask questions. Curiosity got you into trouble around here - outside the classroom, at least. We’d find out the truth once she was let out.

“In all seriousness, though, are you really going to skip P.T., Sage?” Cerulean asked. I only looked at her as I shoveled the instant mashed potatoes into my mouth. I gave a half shrug and she said, “Keep this up and you’re gonna get thrown into the Camps, doing hard labor.”

The Camps were a punishment facility – a harsher version of time-out. Time spent there varied, depending on what you did. Obedience was expected, at least from the adults. But really, how well-behaved did they think a bunch of amnesiac orphans given Crayola crayon names would be? Especially during the “adolescent” phase.

“Wanna go outside?”

They both looked at me, then at each other, and then back at me. We’d just left from “outside.” Gray cleared his throat. “We go outside every day.”

I tore into my biscuit, rolled my eyes. “I’m talking about ‘outside’ outside.” I pointed at the window behind them, to the silver and white-washed city filled with all of its doctors and scientists who’d taken care of the three hundred and fifty orphans who had survived the Red Wipe ten years ago. “Past the gates and into The Wasteland.”

“Are you crazy!” whispered Cerulean, the pitch of her voice elevating. “Do you want to be canceled? You know they’ll do it just like that.” She snapped her fingers in my face to emphasize her point.

I glared at her. I really hated that shit. “There’s something out there. Why do you think those who’ve talked about leaving Virgilius have been sent to the Camps permanently? What are they schooling us for? I’m sick of living like this.” I threw the bread onto my plate. “I’m leaving.”

“That’s suicide, man!” Gray was freaking out at this point. “Besides, how do you plan on getting out alive? They’ll cancel you on sight!”

Both Gray and Cerulean’s expressions changed almost instantly. They must’ve seen the look on my face. Too bad I couldn’t see it. 

“You think I’ve been eating half my meals and skipping P.T. for fun?” Their brows creased with worry, but something lit in their eyes. “Tomorrow night. You can stay or go, it’s up to you. But I’m leaving this hell.”