Tom Avitabile: The Hammer of God

“Oh by the way, Mom and Dad, I was saving this for dinner, but that’s kinda doubtful so here it goes. Janice and I are going to get remarried. Next week… if we’re all out of the hospital by then.”

“Couldn’t you just have eloped and saved us all this commotion?” the elder Hiccock called as they rolled him out.

“It’s about time, William,” Bill’s mother said as she walked behind Hank’s stretcher.

Bill turned to Janice. “Well, Mrs. Hiccock, besides that how did you like the play…”

Bill’s attempt at lightening the mood only got him a hug. “Bill, you saved me… us. You kept your promise to me.”

“Honey, the guy who really helped all of us is right…” Bill looked around but there was no Bridgestone anywhere.

“He is a ghost…”

“Who is?”

“No one. Let’s get you to the hospital. With Pop there too, it’s going to be a busy night.”

Somewhere in the middle of that busy night, while Hank Hiccock was restfully sleeping and being monitored by gadgets, gizmos, and Mrs. Hiccock in the chair alongside the bed, the younger Mrs. Hiccock was giving birth to the older’s new grandson, Ross Bridgestone Hiccock.

In the aftermath of the helicopter crash, there was no attempt made to recover the copter, the device, nor the remains of any of the unfortunate souls who were killed in the building at the time. The entire building was sealed in 10 stories of alternating layers of concrete, lead, and sand. The foundation was also excavated and sealed in a similar method. The device and its deadly plutonium yoke was nestled in a concrete and lead egg, 50 feet thick on either side and 100 feet tall.

The entire midtown south area was decontaminated along with thirty thousand workers who got de-conned right at the scene by Homeland Security’s mobile decontamination centers. Twenty-three tons of clothes were burned and six square blocks of drapes, furniture, and anything porous were trashed. Buildings were scrubbed down and air quality samples taken. Six months after the attack, the only reminder would be the cold concrete obelisk where the building used to be and a small plaque honoring the 18 people who died in the building during the first nuclear attack on American soil.

At the hospital two days after the birth, Bill received an unaddressed envelope left at the front desk.

In it was a simple note that read “For the kid’s sake, it’s Richard.”

Bill went back inside Janice’s hospital room to tell her, but she and little “Richard” Ross Hiccock were fast asleep, safe and peaceful. He had done his job for his country, his hometown, and for his little fledgling family. So with nothing left to do, Professor William Jennings Hiccock, possessing one of the most brilliant scientific minds in the country, just sat and, for what had to be the one-hundredth time in two days, marveled at the miracle before him.