K Breese - Future Imperfect

Jimi says, “The whole thing, it was never about Vauxhall. It wasn’t a love triangle. It was just me getting my due. It was just me reclaiming my own history. Something admirable in that, right? Dad tried to warn you, didn’t work. He tried to warn me, to stop me via Vauxhall, but it was all garbled. That’s what happens when you’re a screwup. Besides, I consider Grandpa Razor to be more of a father to me. He took me under his wing and when I met you, when I found you and the plan started to come together, well, he was there to guide me.”

Jimi squeezes my shoulder, the muscles in his arm, my family, tensing, and he says, “When you talked with Dad over at Grandpa’s place, Razor was trying to stick you with some of my blood. Not sure where he got the idea that it would work, probably online, but basically that a syringe was going to make this process faster. He was helping me get what I deserved sooner. Really, this world is mine now, Ade. You got my past and now you got my future too.”

And of course that makes sense.

All the visions, all the menace so far out. The reason I’m seeing the edges all frayed and darkness creeping in is because I’m seeing some strange combination of mine and Jimi’s future.

Jimi says, “I’ve imagined that future. You should see what I imagine now.”

I’m ready to kill him.

It happens almost instantaneously, I jump forward, my body arcing like lightning, and I push him down into the water, my hands around his throat. What it feels like, what it looks like, is exactly like the first time I lived it. Call it déjà vu. Call it instant replay.

Jimi’s face is under the water. His arms are thrashing. His legs kicking. But I’m bearing down hard. My arms out straight, locked. My fingers, they’re white from blood loss. Jimi’s face, it’s white too. His eyes are so bugged out.

There is surprisingly little noise. Just the kick of him in the sand.

And I close my eyes.

I know already how this ends.

I know already how Jimi’s body goes slack.

I know already how Jimi’s past pushes me to do this.

I know his eyes are bugged out because for whatever reason, he never really believed I’d do this. He was laughing so hard. He was so sure of himself.

And with his throat getting smaller and smaller in my hands.

And with my hands getting number and number around his neck.

I see the vision of me and Vaux, the two of us ancient, overlooking a city, and there is a release.

His arms don’t go slack, mine do.

I open my eyes and see, in slow motion, with the moonlight breaking all over the surface of the water, Jimi’s face, eyes wide open, break the surface.

I fall back, not even feeling the water.

The future has changed, it’s settled down onto a certain track. I’m just not sure which track it’ll be. Right now, I know why there have been so many futures. The futures of me crippled. The ones with me and Vauxhall old. They’re all intertwined because Jimi and I are intertwined now. What happens next, no one can see. Now, nothing is certain but uncertainty.

Jimi retches. He sways, standing there with half the reservoir coming out of his lungs. He puts his hands on his knees and looks up at me, his eyes red with burst blood vessels. Right now, it’s like looking at myself in a mirror after a concussion.

We’re brothers in damage.

Jimi, he wipes his mouth and sighs, says, “The transfer… So freaking close, you don’t even… You can’t even get… If you’d killed me, I would be where you’re sitting right now. You’ve fucked this whole thing up, Ade. Unbelievable. Me, I’m supposed to be you.”

“But you’ll never be, Jimi. Never. There was enough,” I tell him, my voice coming out in gasps, “there was enough of my past still left. You lose.”

Jimi coughs. Swaying uneasily, he says, “There’s no going back now, Ade. I might be alive, but you and I, we’re wrapped up in this thing now. Like half-completed people. I’m looking forward to seeing how you work with what I gave you. The new you, I’m excited to see you struggle.”

I grab Jimi, my hands wrapped around the back of his head, my face right there in his, and I say, “No, I’m not going to struggle with this, Jimi. I’ll work it out. I’ll get over it. I’ve got a good shrink and good friends. And you, I can’t imagine you’ll be the same asshole with my childhood behind you. Storm’s over, brother. Time to pick up the pieces.”

And I let him go.

And I leave him standing there in the water, his head hanging, spitting out dark water into the shaky reflection of the sky.

I don’t go home.

Vauxhall takes me to Village Inn in Cherry Creek and buys me a slice of pie and gets me two cups of coffee. Still shivering, I sit there and eat the pie quietly while Vauxhall stirs her coffee and watches me. Every now and then she reaches across the table, squeezes my hand.

I’m having trouble focusing, her face blending in with the emptiness of the lights.

Vauxhall tells me that this moment is like something from a movie. She tells me that there will be people talking about this forever, that the whole scene will be different now. She says, “Maybe, us teamed up, we can even change the past.”

I’m dreading that future and praying that I can change the rest of it too.

Vaux asks, “What do you want to do next?”

I don’t have a response, but that’s when the divination community shows up.

All of them. The Diviners, Grandpa Razor, the Metal Sisters. And every two-bit psychic with a shingle downtown. Every ghost hunter and palm reader. At least sixty people come filing into the restaurant near three thirty in the morning, all of them nodding and clapping as they form a circle around our table. Vauxhall, like she doesn’t even notice them, keeps her eyes on me.

They lift me up out of my seat and parade me around the restaurant, some of them shouting things like “Hail to the King!” and “Welcome to the New Age!” Katrina and Janice, smaller and younger than ever, stand before me, their eyes lowered. They apologize. Ask forgiveness. Paige and Celeste appear. Clyde and Ambrosia too. And then my mom shows up with the All Souls congregation and they’ve got a crown, this gold, sparkling crown. And they lay it on my head. And my dad shows up too, he’s the last one in, and he’s got the letter I sent him. He sits down, watches the crowd surge around me, and mouths, Thank you.

And then Vauxhall shakes me awake.

We’re still in Village Inn, the place empty besides us.

Vauxhall asks, “You okay to talk?”

I nod and wipe my eyes.

“How did you do it?”

I say, “It was like when it was seen, once it was seen, the future got stuck. That’s just how it’s always been. Grandpa Razor, the Metal Sisters, none of them could change it. Once you see it, the future is made.”

“But you did change it, Ade.”

“See, that’s the trick. I didn’t really change the future. I got changed.”

“-”

“Jimi changing me, that changed the future.”

Vauxhall gets up, sits next to me. Kisses me.

I say, “It’s what none of them got. You can’t force yourself on the world, get your hands wet with time and space. That’s fighting uphill, trying to move a mountain with a spoon. You turn the equation around and that’s when anything is possible.”

Vauxhall says, “Sounds like my parents talking.”

I laugh and it hurts. “Maybe the hippies were onto something.”

“You think I’ll change too?”

“I do.”

“Tell me how?”

“Well, the obvious way, for starters. Parties won’t be the same, people won’t be worried about me busting my head on their sinks or toilets or starting fights. And I don’t think you’ll be running away from Mantlo. You’re not going to be chasing the high anymore. No more intimate mysteries. Instead, something stable. More rewarding. Let’s hope.”