Farah Rishi - I Hope You Get This Message

Wishful thinking.

Suddenly, his mom pushed her chair back with a screech and stood.

“Well, guess I better hurry and pack my things.”

“Wait, just like that?”

She approached him, her worn-out slippers brushing against the linoleum floor. She put her hand on his cheek. Her hand was warm. Jesse felt a little shy beneath her stare. Like he was a little kid again.

“They’ve opened up Goddard as a safe house,” his mom said. “I’ll be safe.”

Goddard was a planetarium a half-hour walk from their home. He’d been there a couple times for elementary school field trips, but he’d never really paid attention to the presentation; in the safety of the dark, starry beads of light floating overhead, he’d been too busy staring at Vance Wagner, his first crush. He’d gotten beaten up for it, too. The thought made him sick with shame now. He’d fallen in love so many times not even knowing what the hell love was.

“What about you?” she asked, her shaking voice betraying her outward veneer of calm. “Or am I not supposed to ask?”

Jesse smiled sadly. “I have some stuff to make up for. But as soon as I’m done, I’ll come find you.”

She tapped his cheek before pulling her hand away. “Better late than never. Just make it quick, ’kay? I want to spend some time with my boy.”

“Okay.”

He watched his mom begin to climb the stairs back up to her bedroom. She looked so thin from behind. It made his chest ache.

“Hey, Mom?” Jesse scratched his wrist nervously.

She paused. “Hmm?”

“I’m sorry.” And I love you.

Her warm eyes crinkled. “I know.”

The UFOs & U HQ was a crudely built extension behind Tom Ralford’s house, painted an uneven black and made with reclaimed materials, mostly pilfered from a school construction site. Jesse only knew this because he was there when Tom first launched UFOs & U a year ago—before his big breakdown and subsequent resurrection of the channel—right in the middle of a group counseling session. He had pulled out one of his portable radios, tuned in to some random channel, and filled the room with the sound of the X-Files theme song. He beamed brighter than a young mother showing her newborn to the world. The rest of the session involved Ms. K trying to get back on track, her voice barely carrying over Tom’s overly detailed explanation of how and why he launched a radio channel dedicated to “the rich alien lore” of Roswell. Jesse had laughed his ass off.

Being at Tom’s house now made his stomach curdle with guilt.

Jesse’s heart drummed unsteadily as he pulled down his hood; he’d worn it beneath his leather jacket to blend into the crowd as he escaped his house and ran to Tom’s, carrying a wheelbarrow he’d found in the back of the shed before the crowd had arrived and filled with about twenty pounds of paper, as well as all the money he’d made from the machine, tucked inside a leather knapsack. The last thing he saw behind him was a man with a green bandanna covering his face, approaching the shed with something that looked like a lit glass beer bottle. An image that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

He was still trying to catch his breath.

Mom had already packed her things and snuck out from the back of the house. She was probably already halfway to Goddard Planetarium by now.

Which left only the messages to deal with. And Marco’s friends.

He knocked on Tom’s front door. If he knew Tom—and he did—he’d still be home. He wouldn’t leave Roswell, even if he could. Even now. Tom wasn’t a coward.

“Tom?” Jesse called out. “Tom Ralford? It’s me. Jesse. From counseling.”

Silence. The shuffling of feet. Then a gruff voice from behind the door said, “You mean Jesse from the machine.”

“Hey, that’d be a good band name,” said Jesse amicably. “But yes. I’m Jesse, formerly of the machine. I was hoping you’d give me a chance to talk to you.”

The door pried open an inch, and Jesse caught Tom’s beady eye staring back at him.

“Talk about what?”

“Your radio. Believe it or not.”

Tom’s eye narrowed to a sliver, as if considering.

“I’ve got a lady friend over. You can try again tomorrow.” The door slammed shut.

Jesse groaned. He leaned his forearm against the door. “Tom! Please?”

Again, silence.

“Tom!”

Jesus, how many people had Jesse pissed off?

“Tom, I think he gets the point,” a familiar woman’s voice sounded from behind the door.

The door opened once more, this time to reveal Ms. K.

“Sorry about that, Jesse. What are you doing here?”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I just stopped here on my way back from the hospital.” She looked at him meaningfully. “Mari is out of surgery.”

“Oh, that’s… good.”

Ms. K smiled knowingly. “She’s stable, in case you were wondering. Corbin is very relieved. So then I came here to see if I could get a message back home. Tom’s one of the only ones left in town with a working radio channel—well, maybe ‘working’ is a bit of a stretch. But we’re trying to fix it in case the others need to use it. And he’s got a generator.”

“Funny you should say that,” Jesse said, “because I also need to use the radio.”

“Tell him I have a rifle!” Tom shouted from somewhere inside the house.

“You do not have a rifle!” Ms. K retorted. She turned to Jesse. “Shouldn’t you be with the machine? What’s going on? Where’s your mom?”

“Mom’s fine. And the machine… it’s gone.” If she knew how he’d hammered it to death, and barely escaped with the jacket on his back and a wheelbarrow full of wishes before his former customers and/or Marco’s friends probably set the shed and his house on fire, she’d sit him down on a couch and ask him how he felt about it. “My machine wasn’t exactly built for the people I need to reach, anyway.”

“Who do you need to reach?” asked Ms. K, looking confused.

Jesse slipped past her and went inside, dragging his wheelbarrow behind him. The UFOs & U radio station had walls painted black to match the outside, but Tom had left the carpet a hideous green plush covered in what Jesse hoped were coffee stains. The back wall was taken up entirely by a thick wooden table with layers of weird blinking devices and boxes and radios. Tom had two matching computer monitors, both showing a screen saver that was some kind of cat slideshow.

A red-and-black ON THE AIR sign hung from the ceiling, but it was off. For now.

This was it. This was Jesse’s chance to make it up to all those people he’d conned. He’d promised he would send out their wishes like messages in a bottle. It was time for him to keep that promise.

Just because you’ve lost all hope doesn’t mean you get to throw out hope for all of us. Corbin’s words still echoed in his head, raw and undeniable. Jesse was so tired of taking out his hopelessness on others.

Tom was sitting on a chair, his arms folded across his chest. A circular black microphone held by a skinny metal support attached to the table floated above his head like a halo. Tom was pouting.

“So, Tom, you got any open slots on your radio?” Jesse lifted the first stack of paper from his wheelbarrow. “Because I’ve got a ton of messages to send out, and I’m going to need some help.”

Adeem swayed. The sun burned overhead, hazy and terrible and blinding. He sat down on a curb.

“Don’t you dare sit down!” There Cate was in a second, pulling on his arm. “We are down to the wire, and my dad is still out there somewhere. Not to mention your sister. We don’t have time to rest.”