If
he was really being honest with himself, he was never, what you’d
call, a popular guy; an acquaintance here or a guy you nodded to there,
was probably the best way to describe his socialising strengths.
People
respected him, he didn’t doubt that fact, but he couldn’t see respect
bringing that many to his funeral, not that he planned on dying, no
sir, not for a very long time, but still the hurt did go deep.
When did all this other craziness start?
He
had been going over that thought again and again until he was
beginning to drive himself crazy. Had there been signs sitting right
out there in plain sight with no one even seeing them?
He
could feel through the beer glass it all starting again, the
vibrations; small waves on top of the beer causing it to foam up, as if a
half mile long train full of cargo was passing just outside the bar.
But there wasn’t a rail track for miles and the road only saw one or two
cars an hour, if that.
So he held the glass tight.
“Jeez, Jethro are you okay? You’re gripping that beer like your life depended on it.”
Jethro loosened his grip and smiled back at the barman.
“Guess you’re right Dan. Just thinking, that’s all.”
He
left a tip on the counter, threw his jacket over his shoulder and
walked out into the evening heat. It was growing dark as he drove onto
his driveway where he failed to notice the flickering street light
swinging above him. When Jethro entered the house, all the commotion
stopped.
He
walked down the hallway just as the telephone started ringing but
something told him it was a cold call from an east coast building
company, so he just plain ignored it. The little thoughts helped him at
times. Like last Easter when he was driving through that blind junction
on Madison Street and something told him to press the brake. He had no
idea why he stopped but just then some old Chevy came blasting out of
Jefferson Lane and it would have split Jethro’s car in two if had he
driven straight on.
Now Jethro was never a religious creature you understand, but he always had a hankering that there was
something
else out there, some truth to the whole universe that kept folks in
check.But all these things that were happening to him were unsettling,
especially since he didn't go out looking for them. “Just getting by”
was his way in life and had anyone bothered to be his friend, well they
would have known that too.
These
days he had trouble sleeping and not just with the usual bad thoughts
that crawled around in most men’s minds. Things happened to him in the
night, strange things, like at 1am every morning the telephone would
ring and when he answered it, no one would be there. Right after he put
the ‘phone down , the smoke detector, that lay on the floor, would
start beeping until he picked it up. The thing didn't have any power
for crying out loud.
Now
don’t get him wrong, these weren't ghosts or any kind of haunting.
Jethro didn’t believe in such things. No, if someone worked that hard at
life ( and Jethro felt everyone should get an award for just getting
through a single day) then they weren’t going to hang around
afterwards, not when they’d just been promoted - so ghosts were
definitely out of the question.
One
night he had this thought about an airport and so he switched on his
computer. He looked at the flight arrivals and noticed that one of them
from South America was delayed and he knew right there
and then that the flight was never going to land. Not ever. Some
technical fault over Brazil had been the reason for the crash.
On
Saturday nights if he didn't go down to the bar, he’d sit and watch
the lottery show on the television. Without thinking he’d say a number
out loud and what do you know? That number would be chosen. If he
tried to concentrate on it, it never happened.
So
one Saturday towards the end of the month, when his funds were getting
real low, he put on a lottery ticket - he chose only four of the
numbers he could hear in his head - well he didn’t want to peak too
early, you know how it is?
He
won a couple of hundred, just enough to pay one or two bills and get
by until his next pay day. At least that was the plan, but by Wednesday
he was already thinking about the next lottery draw. So even although
he still had money in the house, he put on five winning numbers and
this time it was several hundred thousand he won. He called the lottery
people direct so that no one local would find out.
He
drove into the big city to pick up the money but somewhere at the back
of his mind he was wishing that he had got the numbers wrong. Jethro
decided that the money wasn’t his to keep, it had only been an
experiment after all, a successful one nonetheless, but he’d proved a
point.
He
got the bank clerk to put the cash into two bags – half the amount in
each – and decided the first place to start was the Church half way
along Main Street.
A pleasant middle-aged woman let him in.
“I’ll just tell the Reverend you're here. Have a seat please. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”
“Coffee is good.” Jethro was slightly nervous.
The
woman smiled and left Jethro with the thought that this was probably
the Reverend's wife. The room was in the process of being dragged from
one century to another. There was garish pink flock wallpaper in a room
of furniture that spoke of a more modern taste.
So
two things startled Jethro that afternoon, the woman brought a large
pot of coffee, two cups and a plate of cakes. She placed them on the
table and sat beside him.
“So how can I help you?”
“I’d rather wait for the Reverend, if it’s all the same.”
“I’m she, the Reverend.”
“But you said....”
“That I’d tell the Reverend you were here? I was just trying to stop you running.”
“A lot do that?” asked Jethro.
“Enough.”
So
they talked, in fact they talked for a good two hours and Jethro told
Maureen, the Reverend’s name, all about the strange things that were
happening to him.
“You’re not stressed in anyway?” she asked.
He
wasn’t and the question annoyed him. How could she dismiss his
strangeness, yet spend her life promoting a strangeness of her own. He
was sure his experiences were nearer to religion than she was willing to
accept.
He left her the money but she needed convincing that he wasn’t a dealer, or a robber or insane. This he did.
“It
could be lots of things causing this” said Maureen. “It could be
weather conditions or it could be something electrical in you. It might
even be God working in a mysterious way as he’s want to do. It could be
a million other things as well.”
And
that was really all she had to say on the subject. Except when Jethro
mentioned that she might use some of the money to fix the room up. She
said the money would be put to good use as the flock wallpaper was
expensive and so she was decorating real slowly. She couldn’t wait to
get rid of all that modern furniture. That was the second thing that
surprised him that day, she was transforming the room back the way. His
power, whatever it was, wasn’t infallible.
He walked along University Street with the second bag of cash but was hesitant about who he should talk to. He read off the different faculties, some he dismissed immediately, some he played with in his head for a while. In the end it came down to Philosophy, Physics or Mathematics and as the first department that he approached was Mathematics, he settled on them.
He
told the receptionist that he wanted to make a donation and within
five minutes he had been whisked into the Dean’s office and another cup
of coffee pushed in front of his face. He explained that although he
was happy to donate to the faculty, he wanted to talk to someone about a
problem he had.
As
the Dean removed the bag and the cash and placed it in a safe, he
called in his secretary to contact whomever Jethro wanted to talk to. It
made Jethro smile that in the university no one was bothered if he was
a robber or a dealer.
In
the end he was given time with a Nobel Prize winning professor who
seemed a kindly man and who asked Jethro straight away how he could help
him.
When Jethro had told him of the flickering and the vibrations and the lottery numbers, he seemed bemused.
“So you think that you have some extraordinary powers, am I correct?”
And
Jethro had to agree that he’d got the problem down in one. The kindly
man suggested that Jethro take some notes as the professor tended to
ramble on and it might be a bit difficult for him to follow. So Jethro
took a pad from the professor’s desk and started writing. Words like
‘Chaos Theory’ kept coming up again and again.
“So
if I get this" said Jethro "and I’m still not sure that I have, you
are saying Prof, that in the universe, no matter how sure that
something is meant to happen or is due to happen, it might not happen
because of Chaos Theory? And that means that anything could happen?”
“Exactly my boy, wonderfully put.”
“So I’m a chaotic interruption in an otherwise ordered universe?”
“Just so”
“Doesn’t that make me a freak?”
“Never young man. Now, I really must dash.”
Jethro
drove home after spending a large amount of money on advice that he
could have got off of a television talk show, but he felt that they had
both meant well.
As
he approached his house, several of the street lights began to flicker
and swing and as he said out loud “this problem isn’t getting any
better”.
He
stayed in all weekend and drank a few beers and this seemed to keep
the thoughts at bay for a while - it even managed to stop the lights
flickering in the house.
By the Tuesday he took a walk into town and as he rounded the corner he literally bumped into a neighbour, Tomas Saltz.
“I’m sorry to hear about your wife's passing” he said sympathetically to Tomas.
“How did you know? I have only come from the hospital, she died this afternoon. Who told you?”
Jethro
left the poor man crying in the street as he ran off into Center City.
The rules had changed again, this chaos, whatever it was, had
surprised him once again.
So
Jethro sat in the bar with his hands clasped around a glass of beer
and purposely ignoring the vibrations on top of his drink. Danny the
barman gave him his usual look.
“You alright, Jethro?”
“Sure Danny.”
Danny went back to cleaning the glasses.
“Danny?”
“Yup?”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Shoot.”
And
Jethro told Danny about all the strange things that had been happening
to him and how it might be one of a million other things, but then
again he might just be a freak.
Danny
assured Jethro that there was no such thing as a freak and that we all
fitted into the universe in our own way. He also hoped that Jethro
didn’t think Danny was a hippy or anything, but if Jethro was made the
way the universe wanted him to be, then that was all there was to it.
Jethro
said he was sorry that he didn’t have any money to give him right
there and then, but come Saturday he could give Danny as much as he
wanted.
Danny
said he wasn’t interested in Jethro’s money. Wasn’t he a friend and
wasn’t that what friends did for one another? Friends listened and they
helped each other, they cared.
Danny handed Jethro a fresh beer. “On the house pal”
And
then they shook hands and that was when Jethro knew everything was
going to be alright. In an instance, he saw Danny in the years ahead
with a wife, kids and in a poor but happy life. He also saw a photo with
Jethro as a godparent holding one of Danny’s children.
And
he knew things were going to be alright for him too. So what if he was
the exception, so what if he didn’t have too many friends? He had one
and that was enough for him, and he had a gift that not too many people
had and he knew that he had to use it for better things than lottery
wins.
After all, this was a big, big universe and everything and anything was possible.
bobby stevenson 2013
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