Any Coincidence Is Part 6

The Lab Coat Man, weary, almost to the last of his forms (a pink 2D with carbons) wished he had could have arranged to appear in a sauna somewhere in darkest Finland, but resolutely kept noting all he was able until he realized somewhere between checkmarks that Justin Nelson was pointing a gun right between his eyes. At first, he wanted to flip to a red 1A. Somewhere on a 1A there was a box relevant to imminent personal danger. But then, he understood in the microseconds he had left that Justin's finger was pulling the trigger, which was pulling back the hammer, which would imminently fire the bullet in a more or less straight line directly into his tired, balding skull.

He had expected his life to flash before his eyes, but all he could remember (and in fact see, superimposed over the image of Justin's gun) was a Dali that he could not be sure he had ever seen or had even been painted. Perhaps, in those last days of his own early life, studying art history and believing he too was capable of producing something famous, immortal, perfect, he had envisioned such a painting, an abstract only now completed, detailing a life of frustration and mediocrity that wound its way, eventually, down to this last moment of nothing.

It was so beautiful, so tragic, that he held the clipboard over his face as Justin fired once, piercing the thin wood with a single, perfect hole.

14. Criswell Speaks "One is always considered mad when one discovers something that others cannot grasp."

-- Bela Lugosi, "Bride of the Monster"

Julia and Rhonda ran inside the theater at exactly 7:10 pm. Still giggling, they bought two tickets from a weary looking man wearing a jacket and a "Manager" tag. When they hit the concession stand to relieve their munchies, they found a sign that said: "Closed".

"Aww!" Rhonda whined. "I was getting really hungry too!"

"It's too bad I can't hop back there and get us some popcorn. I worked at a theater for two summers when I was in high school."

"I beg your pardon?" the Manager inquired, somehow looking five years younger. "Do you mean that?"

"Oh yes!" exclaimed Julia. "I was a.s.sistant Manager for a month as well!"

"Would you like a job? Part-time?" he asked, regaining another three.

Both woman screamed and hugged each other. Wiping a tear from her eye, Julia said: "Sure!"

A smile suddenly broadened upon the Manager's now young and chipper face. Tom had been showing signs of being less than happy with this job. Perhaps he was ready to move on. Maybe he needed a push.

Anyway, he had called in sick for the evening, and despite the run of good luck with the second-run bad movies, the Manager did want something left over for a vacation this year.

Julia was about to ask a few questions from her new employer, but a voice like a drunken oracle began to blare from inside the theater.

Julia found herself entranced by the grammatically awkward oratory:

"Greetings my friends. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friends, future events such as these, will effect you in the future."

Julia winced, (and the Manager silently cursed Neoldner for threading "Plan 9" instead of the intended Bride of the Monster.)

"You are interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable; that is why you are here."

"You got the job!" Rhonda suddenly whooped in her friend's ear. But it seemed more like a distraction than an exclamation of happiness. Julia looked at Rhonda and the Manager. Her imagination? or was there something in the s.p.a.ce between them, around the building, wrapping tight around the theater doors, something that was just plain... wrong?

For the first time in years, she desperately felt the need to talk to her Uncle Justin.

Julia took a step back from Rhonda. Her friend's face suddenly fell, and she reached out to her as if to let her know everything was all right. She had the job. The Manager's eyebrow arched, perhaps a second thought as to his quick hire. She had to sit down.

"I need to sit down," her voice echoed her thought.

"We've got the tickets, don't we?" Rhonda replied, taking Julia by the arm and leading her into the theater.

15. Chance Happens "Good luck needs no explanation."

-- s.h.i.+rley Temple Black

"So I says to this guy I says -- "

The TV in the bar was on, and the man at Tom's side was letting his mouth run loose as he sucked back on his third beer in Popeye's none-too-copyrighted Pub. Jeez, he thought, I finally meet the one, the one, and she's going out with Kurt. With Kurt! How does he do it?

I couldn't get a date to save my life (except with Rhonda), and Kurt can't seem to shake them off! Alona's, what, his third this year?

The rest of the bar was watching a rerun of "The Simpsons" and trying to imitate Barney the drunk. One fell off his chair in a drunken stupor, which gained the applause of his comrades. After he lay on the floor for a minute, they realized it hadn't been an imitation, and they picked him up. They ordered him a coffee and Kaluhua in the most obnoxious trio of 'Moe the Bartender' voices ever heard east of the Mississippi. Some of the bar laughed at this but most just groaned.

Tom still wasn't listening.

If only... Tom thought. If only she had come in to see "Bride of the Monster" and gotten bored, and come out to the concession stand to get a drink, and began to talk about something -- it wouldn't have mattered what -- and stayed all the way through that entire string of rotten films!

The guy at Tom's side suddenly realized no one was listening to him and stumbled off to the bathroom. He nearly b.u.mped into a man with a strange brown mustache who took the seat to Tom's right. He plopped his clipboard onto the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender gave him a frosted mug of flat Treaty Beer and went back to the television.

Tom, again, didn't notice.

That is, until the sight of the man's reflection in the mirror behind the bar caught his attention. He seemed familiar, but he couldn't be sure. He was sure he would have remembered that mustache. The man was looking around for someone, peering into the far corners of the ill-lit room. As he did so, Tom noticed the clipboard. The cover sheet, a form labeled 3G, read: Complaints, Problems, Irregularities:

1) Find out who's been using Green paper. No green paper allowed. If it's Neoldner, give him restroom duty. If it's You Know Who, make him fill out all the forms in the proper color.

2) Leave message that Kurt is in Chicago for the weekend; also find and destroy his letter to Alona.

Tom read the note three times before believing it. Without realizing what he was doing, he raised his mug, causing what was left to dribble on his head. Then he brought it down, and the mug broke from the handle and bounced on the floor after smas.h.i.+ng into the exact center of the man's bald spot, who crumpled soundlessly to the floor. As the bar hooted and laughed at the cartoon antics on the tube, Tom grabbed the clipboard, tucked it inside the man's trousers, and dragged him by his feet out of the bar.

16. The Decision "It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and rea.s.suring."

-- Carl Sagan

Justin watched the clipboard plummet to the floor, followed by a multi-colored stream of papers, detached from the clip, fluttering like autumn leaves. The wall was marked by a bullet hole, the floor littered with paper, but the man had disappeared. Justin stood over what would have been the corpse. He looked at the floor from one angle, then another, and finally shrugged and scratched his scalp again. This was strange...

A lot of strange things had happened to him, even since he could remember. That dog he had. It was odd moments like this that he remembered how much he missed him.

Had him for thirty years. Never seemed to grow old. He never told anyone about it -- made the excuse that he just preferred the same type of black lab when the old one got taken to live at his parents' farm.

It was something of a relief when Roosevelt (the dog, named after Theodore rather than Franklin Delano) got killed. It was getting hard to keep up the pretense, especially after the local vets started to compare notes. But just when it seemed like half the town was talking about the Dog That Wouldn't Die, Justin woke up and found Roosevelt laying by his feet, even though he had left him out in the back yard and shut the bedroom door. Roosevelt was lying as content as he'd ever been, but dead. A coincidence, to say the least.

But if that had been the end, Justin wouldn't have thought of him so much. It was years after his dog's death that he saw him again, standing in the front yard, ready to chase a ball if it ever got thrown again. Justin had gone to the window, certain that his eyes were playing tricks on him, then more certain that they weren't. Roosevelt just stood there, waiting.

After Justin had summoned the courage to go outside, Roosevelt had led him the half-mile west to the new elementary school, up to the east-facing double-doors that opened into the kindergarten. Inside, the darkness seemed not merely a lack of light but more of something alive, spreading outward from the room and into the playground, toward Justin. He felt fixed to the spot, unable to do anything but shake, as Roosevelt let out a long, slow howl beside him.

He could not remember how he got home. He was sitting in his easy-chair, looking outside at the darkness. No Roosevelt. No vision, nothing. But his shoes were on, the soles stuck with wet gra.s.s.

Justin had trouble getting a few hours' sleep that night.

The next morning, he was sure the whole thing had been a dream.

Sleepwalking, probably. He comforted himself with this conclusion as he drove by the elementary school on his way to work. He slowed as a kickball bounced lazily into the road. An older child with an orange crossing-guard sash carefully crossed the street to get it. Justin turned toward the school. A number of children were playing outside.

Then he saw Roosevelt again. Standing in the middle of some children.

The smallest children. The kindergarten cla.s.s, Justin supposed. Then Roosevelt was gone. The ball had been retrieved, and a car behind him honked, but Justin couldn't drive on. Instead, he parked his truck by the curb and walked to kindergarten the doors. Inside, Mrs. Nolla was straightening a few chairs when he entered.

When she turned and saw him, she gasped and put her hand to her chest.

"I..." she stammered, "I wasn't expecting... to see... you... there."

Justin apologized and muttered something about stopping by. They had met a few times during the last round of school board meetings when the latest draconian cuts had been proposed. She was a few years from retiring and had a remarkable teaching record -- Justin still came across her old students in his cla.s.s who remembered her fondly.