K Breese - Future Imperfect

Belle and I drive in silence.

At least until we hit Colorado Boulevard.

“This is the kind of thing I was hinting at earlier,” Belle says. “You have just graduated to the next level, Ade. So how’s it feel?”

“I never really imagined there would be some sort of community. Always knew, Borgo always told me, that there were others, it’s just that I never thought so many would be here. Around me, ignoring me.”

“They weren’t ignoring you, Ade.”

“No? That’s what it feels like. What’s the point, anyway?”

“Point of what?”

“Of this underground deal. Of hiding like mice in the walls. And them blindly following what that fat animal back there says. Honestly, if you all got spines and stood up to Grandpa and his rules I’d bet you could do almost anything.”

Belle looks upset. She pops another cigarette into her mouth and searches around in her purse for a lighter. She does this haughtily. I reach in, find the lighter for her, flick it to life. She leans into the flame and I watch the flicker of it in her eyes. She is very pretty right now.

Taking a long drag and then releasing it, Belle says, “What this is really about is how you’re not accepting who you are. I can’t tell if it’s that you think you’re better than the rest of us or you just don’t want to take your place. Right? You just don’t want to take responsibility.”

“Probably more the former.”

She looks at me, makes a face. “Why is that, Ade? How could you possibly be better than the rest of us, Mister No Memory?”

I look away, out over the factories making clouds for Globeville, and say, “It’s the hiding thing. At first I thought it was cool. You know, when we talked to Gilberto and Lynne and that other chick it was like being in a secret club. It was being allowed to pull back the curtain and being welcomed into a special place. That part, the belonging part, felt good for a little bit. But then, after the rest of them, the further down the rabbit hole we went, I just started seeing them all for what they really are.”

“And what is that?”

“Like everyone else. Cowards, losers, children-”

Belle coughs loudly, it’s her choking on smoke, and gives me this disgusted look. “How can you say that? We’re trying to help you. We’re offering you insight for the first time in your life. These people care about you. I care about you.”

I say, “Yeah, you do. I know you do. But this whole thing, it’s just a charade. Sure, the Metal Sisters can poke around in people’s heads and Slow Bob can look at a map and get some vibes from it, maybe have a quick glance into the past, and Grandpa Razor, well, maybe he can kind of do what I can do, but at the end of the day, they’re hiding because they’re as scared of the future as anyone else. They have powers, you know, like superheroes, but really they can’t actually do anything. They choose not to do anything. You take away all the razzle-dazzle and it’s nothing but flair like at any chain restaurant.”

“And you, you think what you do is so much better? I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation. You want to know the real reason we didn’t even let you in? The real reason why you didn’t know about us until now?”

I shrug.

This just pisses Belle off even more. She says, almost shouting now, “We wouldn’t let you in because I told them not to trust you. I told them that you were gifted but so damaged, so beyond hope of repair, that it would just be better to pretend you didn’t exist. Only it was harder to do than I thought. I felt sorry for you. I still do. Ade, you need to think beyond yourself for a few minutes and think about the opportunities out there. For you, mostly.”

“Maybe the old me, the messed-up me, wasn’t ready for all this, and it’s probably true that I was beyond repair for a while, but not now, not anymore. But the only opportunity that I see here is the one to show all of you that you’re wrong. Enough with the navel gazing, you’re like a bunch of prima donnas who don’t like getting their hands dirty.”

To Belle I say, teeth grinding like a dog’s, “I will deny the past, Belle. I will change the future. And it will end the way I say it ends.”

Dr. David Gore-

Fuck you.

– Ade Patience

What I do first is go to Vauxhall’s house.

This is after I’ve dropped Belle off and after she told me that she forgave me for being so rude to her. This is after she told me that she knew I was just trying to process it all and probably just need a good night’s sleep. This is, of course, after she said, “You just call me when you’re ready to get back into it. Just think of me as your mentor!”

At Vauxhall’s all the lights are off. She is asleep. It is nearly one in the morning.

I have no idea how it got so late, but I need to see her right now. I walk over to her window and tap on it lightly. She doesn’t respond, so I tap harder. And I call out, kind of whisper yelling, “Vaux! Wake up, Vaux!”

There is a rustling behind the blinds. A soft light comes on.

Her face, all puffy with sleep, appears at the window, like a gorgeous spook show. When she sees me she grins and pulls the window up and open. Then she leans out, my Juliette, and asks, “Do you know what time it is?”

“This is important,” I say. “It’s crazy the stuff I’ve found out.”

“And what stuff would that be?” She is so cute the way she asks it.

“Jimi. This whole thing is him, him setting it up, and it’s ugly, Vaux.”

She puts on a sad face. It’s not acting.

I switch gears. “Come with me for a drive,” I say.

“Now?”

“Yeah. Right now. Jump into some clothes. Come on.”

Vauxhall shrugs, disappears back inside. I back away and watch a lone red car navigate slowly through a distant intersection. A dog barks. Leaves fall. Weather. Then Vauxhall reappears, jumps out of her bedroom window in jeans and a dark hooded sweater.

We drive to Stapleton Airport.

The streets are empty.

There’s this side road where the apartments edge the runways. I park there, right at the end of the street, with the hood of the car up against a chain-metal fence. We lie on the hood of the car. It’s hot but feels good.

“We need to talk more about Jimi,” I say. “I need to tell you what I learned about him. It isn’t good, Vaux. What he’s done is-”

Vaux shushes me with her index finger, soft on my lips. “Later,” she says. “Please? Just for a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

I calm down. A little.

Lying there, we’re looking up at the sky and counting stars. Vaux points out a blinking light. One so distant it fades in and out of existence with every blink.

“Satellite,” she says.

Still watching the sky, she says, “My dad worked on satellites. Engineer. Did mechanical stuff for recon satellites like the Corona, later ones. My dad, I told you he killed himself, right?”

I say, “No. At Oscar’s party, you just mentioned he’d died.”

Vaux says, “He got laid off from his job, some bullshit company reorganization. Couldn’t get work after that. He just kind of collapsed into himself. You really would have liked him, Ade, before, when he was working and happy. He had such a great sense of humor. Self-deprecating. My dad came from a religious home, Grandpa was a rabbi, but we didn’t keep Shabbat or keep kosher or anything.”

Looking at Vaux, at her looking up, I tell her I’m sorry, that I wish I could have met him. I tell her that he must have been an amazing person. I say, “Judging by you, an incredible person.”