Distinguishing Features Part 8/8

It glowed a deep, dark red.

“You, Jack Lee Blue, are going to get into trouble and you and all of your friends will go to jail.”

Jack didn’t look at the ring. He just whispered:

“Not the middle name.”

            Austin toppled into the mulch, convulsing with laughter and getting wood chips all over his fuchsia yoga top. Matt turned to him and whispered.

“His mother?”

            Which didn’t help. Jack lowered his gaze to the ring and stared like destiny on the verge of breakdown. Austin, still prone, swung his head to ring and responded.

“If you show us where the latches are on the screen, I’ll join the National Association of Disaffected Males!” His pronouncement collapsed into hysterachuckle.

            Jack nodded rapidly to him, but he was still relating to that ring like something that was scheduled for surgical removal later that morning. Now, Matt didn’t know what; he just raised his arms and threw his hands out like he’d just finished conducting the Cow Pen Symphony Orchestra. Then all three leaned over the glowing ring like something out of Tolkein.

            “You do not qualify, Austin Anthony Woolam.”

            Matt beamed and swung his head to Austin. A manic smile. Too close.

            “…Anthony!”

            Jack shushed his ring and it obeyed, now whispering loud.

            “You do not qualify, Austin. You are fully affected, as far as I know…”

            By now Matt was basically caught up on the situation and loving every minute of it.

“…And you, Jack, are more disaffected than I could have ever imagined. Playing children’s games.”

            “Are you gonna tell?”

            With Austin’s query, Jack pressed his free hand to his forehead.

            “shit.”

            “People and their obsession with future tense!”

            Jack shushed the ring again.

            “I apologize,” the ring said. “It won’t happen again. No, Austin…”

            Austin grinned at Matt and tapped his own chest in self-recognition.

            “…if I would tell, I already have, and I haven’t.”

            Matt answered Austin’s gesture, pointing.

“Yeah, Tony,” he whispered, and Austin popped him a forearm smash. Now they were both completely peppered with mulch. But all three kept a head-circle formed around Jack’s unlikely oracle.

“You three haven’t done enough, and I would stop you before you do. I now have the utmost faith that you will do the right thing. But what if this Officer Winters stumbled across you? Have you even thought about that?”

            Indeed, they were momentarily remorseful.

            “It won’t be all chocolate glaze with strawberry sprinkles this time, I assure you.”

            Jack sighed. “But what do we do?”

            “I don’t know,” the ring answered. “I’m just a computer. But did you hear the ‘hrmph’ that man let loose?”

            She chuckled.

            “That was the ‘hrmph of despair’. I’ll help. Get that bag and see. See what you can do. But I want a promise from you first, Jack.”

            “No!” He fell back onto the mulch. His friends shushed him. He pushed back onto his heels all mulchy and addressed his ring.

            “Okay. I hereby join…”

            “No! Stop! Don’t join!” the ring hissed.

            Jack shook his head and raised his spare hand; a clawy crescent.

“Shut up! What?”

And there they waited.

“Well?” Austin asked the ring.

            “Oh,” she responded. “I was shutting up and now I’ll explain.”

            Austin rolled his eyes for Matt. Matt shrugged. (These things happen when you find yourself sitting in mulch talking to a hand.)

            “Once you join, I’m gone, you see. So, promise to join, Jack.”

            “I get it. Okay, I promise.” Jack said.

Austin and Matt watched transfixed, anticipating a brighter, equally uncertain future. The ring led the way.           

            “Show me the window.”

            Jack pointed his ring at the window. They all heard a snap like static surprise.

Later that morning, Matt told the others that he saw a laser-grid on the window at that point, for a moment only long enough to comprehend. Austin said that, indeed, he saw something. Jack just said that if he knew that the app could do that, he would have held out for more.

“Now you’ll find six small scratches on the frame,” the ring told them. “Push that pick through the screen just behind them.”

            Austin had the presence of mind to lean forward and thank the ring.

            “You’re welcome,” the ring answered. “I get that so seldom. Now’s the time to join, Jack.”

            The two witnesses gazed blissfully at the initiate. At that moment, bathed in the soft glow of the ring, all three were boys. Jack canted:

            “I join NADM.”

            “CONGRATULATIONS!” the ring squealed at full voice. All three went “Shhhhh!” but Jack found that the volume could only be lowered manually at that point. At whisper volume, the ring went on.

            “You are now a member of a group three million strong who feel that they are doing no harm, and, united, wish to just be left alone…”

            The three found it a little strange that the ring, which had helped them out, was now an obstacle to them. She was now just a telemarketer pushing for an up-sell. Of course it made sense in the scheme of things. Austin whispered for Jack to get on with it. With six quick snaps, Jack freed the screen from its frame and pushed it inward. With success and true purpose, all were silent, except for the ring.

            “…includes a six-month subscription to ‘Strong but Silent’ magazine, the premier source for discriminating gentlemen who could not give a rat’s ass…”

            They secured the bag of personal effects and dug through it. Jack found a small bar of soap, still in the package.

            “How’d this wind up in there?”

            “I dunno,” Austin answered. “He’s an unresponsive scrounger?”

            “…will be automatically registered in our drawing where a collection of Simon and Garfunkel is given to one lucky winner daily…”

            “We don’t need that anymore,” Austin said.

            “We might,” Jack disagreed. “What if she comes back with more advice?”

           Matt pulled out the man’s sky-blue printless shirt. He unfurled it over his knee and pushed his hand into it. The fabric in the front was stretched out into a convex tummy-tent.

            “Nice color.”

           Back at Notstalgia they were enjoying a screening of the film L’Atalante, with Czech titles. After some whining from the crowd, along with Julie’s blunt observation that no one in the room would have been able to fathom French any better, an accented voice in the corner began to issue what was then taken as the authoritative translation. Then the projector bulb gave out. As the incandescent Julie was replacing it, she dropped the good one.

            Everyone sensed this happening to a greater or lesser degree, however, no one heard the signature ‘Pff!’ these things would make as they dashed to dust on the tile. Instead they heard:

            ‘Tink! tink-tink…willawillawilla…willa…willa…’ as the bulb, still intact, rolled across the dark floor.

            ‘…willa. willa.’

            Julie shouted: “Nobody Move!”

            People did move, however. They just kept feet that were already planted planted, and swung the beams of their personal lights downward, spotlighting Julie and environs as she slithered about looking for the important bulb. That’s how Jack, Austin and Matt found them.

            “Yeah! Got it.”

            Julie had noticed that the boys were missing, and when the film resumed, after that Edison miracle, she was glad to see the trio in attendance. They were breathless, a bit celebratory, and smelled of cedar. Jack was paying more attention to his ring while participating in the screening, but Julie sensed anticipation, not trepidation. She was glad for him because it probably meant that he had made a decision on the new app.

            But Matt wore a different shirt than the one he was wearing when he left earlier that morning. It had been a black shirt he’d turned inside-out, and now it was one of those sky-blue numbers made in Inner Mongolia. It had to be one of his, though, since it seemed to fit that stomach perfectly. Jack called Matt over to look at his ring, but it was just a bit of early news; it turned out that the unresponsive guy had been wearing a shirt with a race-car, a picket fence and a windmill on it. Matt just went ‘hrmph’, and the boys had a good laugh. Julie had quit trying to figure them out.

           And what is there to figure? The what is that Jack and Austin watched Matt trade shirts with John Doe. The why is still a mystery. Back at the complex, Matt had the man’s shirt draped over his knee and took off his own shirt. The others watched, wide-eyed. It was one of those moments where one understands that they are a witness to a strange, significant event.

            Jack and Austin crouched ready to intervene, to stop the madness if necessary, but that moment never came.

            Oh. And Matt had an ‘innie’.

            He shook the wood fluff off his own shirt, reversed it, and folded it shop-style. The others held themselves ready to correct or assist. Perhaps this was the only thing that could be done. The perfect gesture. The solution. That’s what those two were thinking. Along with: What would the app think? But she was long gone. Jack reached out with the bag and Matt placed his shirt on top of the pile of things inside.

            Matt dived into the man’s shirt while Austin shoved the bag back through the window and into the room. Jack tugged the screen back into place; there was no quick way to latch it. Then all three beat hell out of there with a grassy hiss, across the lawn and down 21^st avenue.

And because of all that the man was quickly identified and by sunrise had talked to his family on the phone. They were early risers and had seen the description of the shirt. Then they called the police and asked them if they were sure that they had the right guy.

            The man’s family was appreciative of the care given to their boy for the past few days. They had been planning to send a card once they went past the store. They weren’t people who were much for words and didn’t understand such big ones as ‘unidentified’ or ‘unresponsive’. But that was their boy alright, or so they thought until they heard about that shirt. He didn’t follow the races. Not that he was all that green or a hippee or anything, he just didn’t take an interest in it. He certainly wasn’t wearing that shirt when he took off on his bike for downtown.

            There was an odd reaction at Notstalgia to all this. First, they had to wake Austin. All were happy for the man, and for Jack, who’d been obsessing for a long time. For once, Jack was genuinely, thoroughly happy with the outcome. Few at Notstalgia, though, understood the bit where Matt told Jack: “Cover me. I’m goin’ to the bar.”

            And Jack said: “Okay. I’ve got your stomach.”

           All this raises other questions which, sadly, will remain unanswered. Sometimes things work out that way. Brucey stumbled into the bar from out of the morning and they asked him if he’d heard the news. He looked a bit perplexed, then took a crumpled print out from a back pocket and read.

“Corn futures are steady. How ‘bout that?”

The inestimable Julie Rose looked over this scene and put everything to bed in her mind. This included a corresponding and routine action on her part; she rolled up her leather jacket, and, using it as a pillow, lay down in a corner booth for a nap.

She had kept her eyes open to current events and saw things quite clearly. Large concerns had come to the land, tossing trinkets about and laying claim to territory, believing that they knew better. All the magic seemed to have been taken away. But magic could be manufactured anew, and she believed that one place where that was done was Notstalgia. Thus her devotion to the place. Austin's voice wafted over; a protest joking challenge. A lot of Austin was tone.

Then, as it happened sometimes to her, she awoke to the loud, silent clang of a large bell, one in her own mind, and that isn't contradictory. It wasn't insomnia, either. After a second of sleep, she had digested the day. She propped herself up on an elbow and looked over the table. The last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.

The magic hadn't gone entirely from the land, it had lifted only again, and some of it was hovering in clouds about. These three, the night before- she looked over the table at Jack, Austin and Matt- they had gathered and condensed the magic and worked some sort of miracle. It didn't matter what. It had been done. She could sleep again.

The brooding mass, his mop-top muse, and the new one with the tummy. (There had to be a way she could contrive to touch it. She instantaneously registered several.) They had tapped into power she hoped they wouldn't get hurt by. She wasn't sure if they really knew what they were doing.