Al Steiner - Doing It All Over

I made contact with several people in the administration of that particular con home in mid-1998. I passed several envelopes full of twenty-dollar bills and extracted promises that I would be called immediately the moment anyone named "Li" was admitted to their facility. I promised more little envelopes when the information arrived to me. I checked back frequently with them, more than once a week when 1999 began.

But a strange thing happened, something that I could not figure out. As 1999 wound onward towards the 7th of July, the date that I'd met him and come back, no Mr. Li appeared. He had to have been there for a while before I'd encountered him, hadn't he?

By July 2nd I was very confused. Still no Mr. Li in the con home. The man was going to die in five days, had to be wracked with cancer at that very moment. Where the hell was he? Had I imagined the whole thing? That certainly wasn't possible. How else could I have had so much knowledge of what had been unless I'd really lived through it.

July 4th came. The Stevens' family and the Meachen family celebrated by taking our cabin cruiser out onto the lake and watching the fireworks near Sandpoint. It was an annual tradition. We all got drunk and poured ourselves into bed later that night, Nina and I in our room, Maggie and Mike in a guest bedroom, Jack and Mary, who had watched our children, in another guest bedroom. The next morning, still hung over and feeling like shit, I'd called the con home once more. Still no Mr. Li.

Nor was there an admission on the 6th of July under the name Li. Very strange. Would the anniversary, the sacred date, the date of his death pass by without my ever contacting him? It seemed it would. And there was nothing I could do about it.

The 7th of July was a hot, sticky, typical Eastern Washington summer day. I went out to get the mail about 10:00 that morning, the same time I always did. Our mailbox was out on the main road in front of our plot and it was a considerable walk from the house itself. I took Frank, our two-year old German Shepherd with me like always. He tagged along my heels, sniffing this, peeing on that as we went. I reached down and petted him a few times, talking to him as a man does his dog.

I hadn't been thinking of much of anything as I opened the mailbox and pulled out the pile of envelopes and advertising circulars that were inside.

I was flipping through them, sorting what was important from what was not when a voice called my name.

I jerked a little, startled by the voice in the stillness and looked towards its source. Our little stretch of the world was typically pretty deserted and having someone else out there when I picked up the mail was so unusual as to be unheard of. Frank barked once and then began to growl menacingly, his eyes locked onto one of the pine trees that guarded our driveway.

A man stepped out from behind it. I did not recognize him at first. He was Asian and very short. He was dressed in a pair of running shorts and a T-shirt. His face was rugged and ageless. His appearance there coupled by the fact that he knew my name, put me immediately on guard.

"Can I help you?" I asked with a voice that was not quite steady. Beside me, Frank continued to growl.

The man smiled, continuing his approach. "You don't recognize me, do you?" he asked.

I didn't say anything, just continued to watch warily.

"Not surprising," he nodded. "The last time you saw me I looked considerably worse than I do now. But I know you've been looking for me for a long time." The smile widened. "I didn't want to be found by you, didn't want to cause you undue worry. But today the time has come for you and I to have a little talk."

I stared, wondering if what I was thinking was correct. "Mr. Li?" I asked in disbelief.

He chuckled. "The one and only."

I stared in disbelief at the vision before me. He was not emaciated in the least. In fact, his body appeared to be in tip-top physical shape. His calves were muscular, his stomach flat. His face was unlined, his eyes bright and inquisitive. He had no respiratory problems, in fact seemed to be breathing quite a bit easier than I was at that moment.

"But…" I started, "you're supposed to be…"

"Dying?" he asked, smiling at me.

I nodded.

Another chuckle. "There's a lot of things that have happened in the last seventeen years that weren't supposed to happen, eh? And a lot of things that WERE supposed to happen that didn't. You've led me on a very strange journey Mr. Stevens, a very strange one indeed. But the time has come for you and I to have a little talk together, to hash out a few details." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. "This is my address.

It is imperative that you show up here tonight, alone. I believe your wife Nina is off work today, is she not? Childcare for your three lovely children should not be a problem."

"Mr. Li…"

"Take the paper," he told me, offering it. "Be there tonight at six o'clock.

Be sure you are not late. Do not tell Nina what you are doing. If you care for the life that you have built over the last seventeen years, you will do as I say."

Numbly, I took the paper from his hand. I glanced at it, seeing the address: 123 Lakefront Drive. I shivered as I read this.

"Yes," Mr. Li told me. "I live less than three miles from where we now stand. I jogged over here as a matter of fact. I'm sure you've noticed my house a time or two as you sat out on your back deck. It's the brown one you can see across the bend of the shore."

"But, how…"

"Tonight," he said, turning from me and stretching his legs a bit. "Everything will be answered tonight. Just be sure to be there."

He began trotting off down the road, his legs pumping as he ran. In less than thirty seconds he'd disappeared around the bend.

I spent that day very troubled, very uncommunicative with my wife. She commented upon it a few times and finally dismissed it as a case of PMS on my part. She retreated to her private den to study some medical journals, leaving me to keep an eye upon our brood.

I mechanically made lunch and then dinner, serving everyone about five o'clock. I only picked at my food. After Nina began doing the dishes I told her that I had to go into town to take care of some business. I don't believe that she bought the lie that I gave her but she didn't question me.

I climbed onto the Honda motorcycle I'd bought a few years before and headed off, arriving before Mr. Li's house less than ten minutes later.

It was more modest than ours was but definitely expensive. A single story, four bedroom or so with a swimming pool. I walked up the steps and rang the doorbell with a trembling hand.

Mr. Li answered the door before the echo of the doorbell even faded away. He was dressed in a pair of sweats and was shirtless, his stomach and chest without an ounce of fat upon it.

"Bill," he nodded, stepping aside. "Come in please."

I stepped in and he showed me around his house. There were indeed four bedrooms, two of which were empty. Pictures of an Asian woman were in every hallway, on every wall. She was pretty and the pictures were from various points in her life. He made no comment upon them. His den was what interested me the most. It had an expensive roll-top desk and a modern computer upon it. The window looked out over the lake and my house was plainly visible from there. A large telescope sat next to the window.

Mr. Li led me back to the living room and offered me a seat upon his couch. He disappeared for a moment and then came back holding an icy cold bottle of my favorite brand of beer. This didn't surprise me at that point, I simply took it from him and gulped down half the bottle in less than ten seconds.

"So you remember what you did for me?" I asked, although it was not a question as much as it was a statement.