Duval Dirtbag
The Stray
Chapter 41 - Memories (Woo!)
Michael was never cut out for factory work. Sure, the ASVAB said that his attention to detail was impeccable but that seemed like one of those ploys an aggressive lover would use to coax their prey into doing what they want. My, what good eyes you have. On the other hand, it was the only document that explicitly said a career you may find success in is sign language interpretation. Life is all about parsing the good from the bad.
This situation, in Michael’s approximation, was bad. I mean, it’s not that bad, he thought. He wasn’t working in a factory, though it seemed similar to what he’d imagined it would be like. He’d been told by the factory workers he knew, that in a factory the human element was quality control: scanning a moving conveyor belt for defective products. Say the factory made bullets, the bullets factory worker had to keep watch over a constant stream of bullets looking for defects in shape, color, fitting, loose casings, primers and gunpowder.
Instead, what Michael was doing was flying through his solar system in a Shil’vati spaceship scanning for suspicious schemes in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Which, if comparing this task to working in a bullet factory, he was looking at a constant stream of rocks. Any of them could have been defective or suspicious, but usually, it was just rocks. It felt imperative to him to keep a vigilant eye out for nefarious activity at first. The first thousand asteroids were dubious. The second thousand were questionable. The third thousand without evidence of mining or outside-of-the-norm movement was annoying.
What had started as a novel and exciting opportunity for Michael quickly became monotonous. However, what he could do with his new vacuous duty was reflect.
It had only been a month or so ago that he’d first been on a Shil’vati spaceship, and now he spent most of his work hours on Shil’vati spaceships. At the time, time was of the essence; he and Bill had been voluntold that they’d be going from Jacksonville, Florida to Daytona Beach, Florida, where they’d just been. There’d been a terrorist attack on the Daytona International Speedway and they needed to capture the threat. Well, not exactly, Michael corrected himself.
Michael and Bill had been adopted into a Pack of Rakiri: aliens who looked like humongous upright dogs. They were hunters who had a connection to nature that Michael hadn’t conceived of before meeting them. During one of their first meetings with a member of the Pack, Bel’a whipped out snakes that they had gathered out of natural inclination; Michael and Bill were out of meat so she’d provided them with some.
The Rakiri were led by Fala, a princess of the Rakiri, but it was Linnet who had sought him out specifically.
Linnet only knew about Michael because he was connected to Serca. Michael was connected to Serca because he’d been picked up by her at a bar for a one night stand. It might have been more, but Michael didn’t get the chance to find out because Serca was murdered the next morning by Rachel.
What was that?! Michael saw a glint of something from his scanners. He zoomed in more. Was it an unauthorized spaceship’s engine burning? Was it shifting light in the cabin of his own spaceship? Was it a bird? Was it a plane? It wasn’t Superman. It was a rock. A particularly shiny rock. Ah well, where was I? Michael thought.
The terrorist attack in Daytona had actually been set up by Michael’s former girlfriend, Rachel Rogers. She had killed Serca in the attack on the Shil’vati base, then she tried to recruit Michael into her rebellion when they had been interrupted by an attack on their hideout from Shil’vati pursuers. Since then, Rachel had been materially supported by Bill’s mother’s boyfriend, who also happened to be named Bill. Michael hadn’t thought that Bill was that common of a name, but he guessed it must have been.
Michael’s eyes glazed over as he maintained what seemed to be a fruitless scan of rocks in this asteroid belt. Somehow, what was a problem for his ex-wife, Jessica, had become his daily duty. Her company was involved with domes on Mars. They suffered an incident with space debris landing on their domes. Joph’rena, who was a member of the Shil’vati Interior and ultimately Michael’s boss, jumped to the conclusion that it must be a space pirate group called the Armed Aurors. Reason being that they have a taste for gold with a history of sabotage. Another reason being that a member of the Pack, Finley, has been discovered to be a member of the Aurors and may have been feeding them information about all sorts of intelligence that had been gathered by the Shil’vati stationed around Earth. Joph’rena’s next leap of logic was that the Aurors could be searching for gold in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Which meant that Michael needed to be involved in the search for the Aurors amongst the rocks.
And so here he was, looking at rocks, half-hoping to find the bad guys half-hoping they didn’t. Sure, finding them would end the monotony. But finding them would also mean confronting them. Michael had already heard the stories. Seen the scars, particularly from Ssgt Remington’s not-so-expertly-trimmed ears.
Confrontation was, in itself, something Michael didn’t desire. And despite years of first-person shooter video games, he had no desire to use a gun to hurt anyone. I mean, there have been times of anger or fear when the thought had crossed my mind but handling a gun and knowing what it could do to a person–well that’s not something that I’m interested in doing. Michael cringed at the thought. But also he was on an alien spaceship that he did not have the slightest clue what to do with defensively or offensively. Or controls, really, he didn’t know what any of the buttons or levers or dials meant on the console they’d plopped him in front of when he was assigned this duty.
The person who had assigned him to the duty was named Sam, or at least that’s what Michael decided it should be. He wasn’t good with names. Michael didn’t retain names unless it was someone he had to be around all the time. He’d mostly gotten by in life by getting eye contact and making the pleasantries to get what he needed done accomplished. Out of boredom more than necessity, Michael turned to Sam. “What, uh, what does this do?”
Sam’s expression froze in complete disbelief, “We’ve been sitting here for hours and you’re just now asking what it does?”
Michael backtracked, “Well, no, not exactly. I mean, I know what I’m doing, but like, what are all these buttons and dials and levers?”
“They’re different modes of searching. Through different spectrums.” Sam explained impatiently.
“You’re saying that I could glean more information from different viewing modes?”
“Yes.” Sam replied curtly then returned to their own monitor.
Michael returned to his monitor. Still just rocks to him. He turned the dial. The screen showed mostly black with some blues and greens. He turned it again. The screen turned to a line graph with various colored lines and numbers with a visual of the rocks in the dim background. Michael panned the screen over a bit, the lines changed. Who knows what this means? He turned back to Sam. “What does this even mean?”
Sam, a Shil’vati science officer with years of study using spectrophotometry and the exact tools they were using in this endeavor turned to Michael. “Do you have any experience with scientific equipment?”
Michael shrank a bit. “I could usually find the fuzzy things we were supposed to find with a microscope.”
“The fuzzy things?” Sam squinted their eyes at Michael.
“I mean, they’re see-through. The light came through them so they’re not opaque.” Michael made a gesture like he was reaching through a ghost. “So ‘seeing them’ seeing them is kind of a physical slash philosophical conundrum, right?” He ended his sentence with a higher pitch than he usually would and a big fake smile.
Sam took a pained breath. “Cool. Cool cool cool. You know what? Next shift, I’ll bring a little cheat sheet for you. Ok?”
“Aww yeah! A cheat sheet! I love it!” Michael cried overenthusiastically.
Sam gave Michael a once over before returning to their equipment. “Great.”
Having made a connection, Michael felt more confident trying to ease his boredom. “So…rocks, huh?” Sam glanced at Michael sideways from their monitor. “Some are shiny. Some are dull.” Michael looked at his console and tried to think back to any other knowledge he could recall about geology and randomly exclaimed the specific word he could remember: “Cleavage!”
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Sam’s side eye hardened. “I can’t believe that not only are you inept with the equipment, but you won’t respect my identity. Yes. I was born female, but it’s not my preferred gender. As much as I’ve tried to cover them up, these uniforms still show my breasts. I will thank you for ignoring them and get back to work!”
“‘Cleavage’ is a word I remember from interpreting a geography course.” Michael tried to say defeatedly. Sam huffed and returned to their screen. Michael looked at his screen again. Flicked the dial a time or two and admitted to himself that this was going to be the rest of his time on ship: looking at rocks.
***
When Michael returned planetside, he waved goodbye to Sam who didn’t acknowledge it. He walked back to his locker where he had his civvy clothes and phone. No point in keeping my phone on me in space. Imagine the roaming charges. Michael laughed at himself and how clever he was before unlocking the screen and seeing that he’d missed two calls. One from Celeste and one from his mother.
Mom calling me can’t be a good thing. Michael thought worriedly. I’ll call Celeste back first. It’s been a while since I’ve talked to her. Hell, it’s been a long time since I’ve thought about life at school. Celeste Patel was Michael’s former coworker at the university. She was like an over-cheerful Asian Indian cheerleader, always bubbly and happy. Beyond that facade, she was always looking out for number one: herself. He had met her again outside of work when she was running around with Rachel, organizing rebellious activities. When it came to someone he could turn to for advice on how one gets ahead, Celeste was his best Human choice. He hit the missed call notification from Celeste first. “Hey, this is Michael.”
“Hey Michael, how’s it going?” Celeste asked sincerely.
“Pretty good. Just got back from space.” Michael gloated.
“Space, huh?” Celeste replied, feigning being impressed. “So you’re moving on up with those Purple Rapists, huh?”
“Ooh, you cut me right to the core.” Michael flashed back to his night with Serca and subsequent encounter with Pennar’dun. “Thanks for reminding me.”
“Well, I’m calling you to remind you that we still have the recording of your assault and the lawyer I’ve connected with says that they could move forward with it if you were willing to. But look, Michael, none of us can do this for you. This is your fight if you’re willing to take it on.”
“Yeah.” Michael thought for a second. He was trying to balance the shock he still felt at the mention of Pennar’dun’s name and the benefits he’d received living amongst the Shil’vati. On the one hand, he was sexually assaulted. On the other, they’d given him a home, a job, a girlfriend–he guessed maybe a girlfriend and a half. Sure he and Linnet and Bel’a had had fun together, but he reckoned that Bel’a was there out of loyalty for Linnet. Linnet, though, seemed genuinely interested in him. Though that feeling seemed to be fading through the discovery of Finley being a traitor. “Hey, y’all open for visitors?”
“You think you can find your way around campus? It’s been a while.” Celeste chided.
“I’ll figure it out. See you in a bit.” Michael said as he hung up the phone.
Michael walked across the base from the launchpad and related stations to the parking lot. He sat down in his LaCrosse and looked at the GPS on his phone as he started his car. North and South, he was going to have to cross the river. He looked over at the Buckman Bridge. No, I’m not going on that if I don’t have to, he thought. I’ll do all I ever do when I go on it: try to figure out where Rachel had perched herself when she killed Serca. Which was never a fun thought for him. There was too much traffic, too little room, too many drivers who had to be complicit when seeing someone with a sniper rifle aimed at the base who weren’t willing to ask or intervene. Then again, he remembered, road rage is a hell of a thing. Invasion is a hell of a thing. People just want to go home, Samaritans be damned.
Michael took a right out of the main gate of the Shil’vati base. He merged with the traffic that ebbed and flowed like a narrowed creek. This was, by far, the least efficient path to take, but it was much more scenic. He could see the artsier neighborhoods that he would have never been able to live in on his own like Avondale and Five Points. Those never appealed to him. What he was waiting for was still up ahead. He wound his way through i95 traffic to go downtown onto Forsythe. He thought of all the places he’d been for work and pleasure: the hospitals, the theater, the Museum of Contemporary Art aka the MOCA, but the most familiar landmark to Michael was the Veterans Memorial Arena. Sure, Everbank Arena was where the Jaguars played footgame, but the Veterans Memorial was where events happened. Popular bands played there, shows were held there, and Michael was once called there–when he and Jessica were still married and living in Georgia–to interpret a WWE event. He didn’t see much reason to need an interpreter there at the time, but hell, why let reason get in the way of a childhood dream, right?
When he got there, he was pointed in the direction of the Deaf people who were attending. They practically had floor seats. The point of contact at the arena told Michael that he or they would have had to purchase for him a seat with them because there was no way that Michael was getting on the floor. From the mezzanine, where he was told to go, he conveyed to his clients that that was the policy of the arena. They, politely, told the ushers to shove it and they would enjoy the show without an interpreter. Michael relayed the message to the usher who took him back to the point of contact. They didn’t particularly want Michael to leave since this was a filmed event and they needed butts in seats.
They set Michael up in one of the skyboxes. He had no right to be there but it was fun. He felt too guilty to partake in the bar, so kept to his seat and watched the show. It was then that it occurred to him that wrestling is soap operas for men. He remembered back to when his Papaw would watch wrestling on one tv while his Grandmother would watch people dance on CMT in another room. Michael did get to see Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker in the ring with more talk than action. He’d eventually gotten tired and realized that he still had to drive home, so he headed out. The point of contact sent him through pathways that were previously unauthorized for Michael to use. Through these back pathways he was eventually led to a large open area that was hidden from the public. It was like a cafeteria but filled with big bulky men and small children. There he was, Ric Flair, within a stone’s throw. He was shorter than Michael had imagined, but still bigger than life. He wooed for the children. They wooed back. Michael took a moment to etch those woos on his brain before he walked out and got back in his car to go home.
These memories welled in Michael’s brain and filled his eyes a little bit too. He choked down his emotions just in time to get past the arena to the Maxwell House Coffee Company. He didn’t even like coffee, but the smell of roasting coffee was always a treat. He wanted to etch this in his brain too. This may be the last time I enjoy this drive for a while, Michael thought, I want to make it last.
Michael loitered over the Hart Bridge and made his way to his old campus. He knew that Celeste wasn’t in the building he used to be in since his move onto base and away from his old job. Newer, shinier buildings were there. Purpler buildings, he noted. The buildings may be new, but the people weren’t entirely different. He checked in with his old boss and gave him some small updates before moving on to other familiar faces. He hugged and chatted his way through them until he got to Celeste’s office.
“Hey there, stranger!” Celeste chided cheerfully.
“Hey there yourself.” Michael replied. “Is it just me or is this new building a little tinted?”
Celeste gave her windows a sneer. “Yeah, we can’t hide from the reminders that the Shil’s are here.” She looked at the bright side, as usual, “That said, I got my own office and lots of other little glow ups that almost make it worth it.”
Michael looked out the tinted window to see that several buildings had seemed to have received the Shil’vati treatment as well. “Yeah, it’s not all bad being taken over by the Shil’vati.”
Celeste leaned forward at her desk, “But you and I both know that this trimming is being used to distract from the bullshit that they do regularly. Including what they did to you.” She said pointing at Michael aggressively.
Michael took a deep breath trying to recall the responses he’d cooked up on the long drive here. Failing there, he spoke from the heart instead. “What happened to me wasn’t a fluke, I know. I’m not the most attractive pull they’ve made while they’re here.”
Celeste looked at him disappointedly. “Shut up, how much weight have you lost?”
“When the menu includes space snails my appetite has waned.” Michael admitted. “That’s not my point. My point is that when cultures interact there’s always going to be friction.”
“Friction? That’s the word we’re using for sexual assault?”
Michael slumped his shoulders. “Men have used more casual terms for sexual assault for generations. And maybe it’s that generational, genetic…I don’t know, that’s keeping me from pulling the trigger on this case.”
“So you want to stay a silent victim of,” Celeste gestured broadly, “Of this system? That that’s just the way things are?”
“I mean, it is, isn’t it?”
“Only as long as you don’t speak up.”
“What do we expect to get out of this?” Michael asked.
Celeste squared her shoulders. “This needs to be public knowledge. People need to know that this hasn’t been a peaceful transition!”
“To what end? What good will it do?”
“Hopefully, it’ll inform others so that they don’t walk blindly into danger. Into a trap.” Celeste rubbed her temples. “I get it. They’re sexy space babes. But people have got to know that they’re shaking hands with danger when they approach the Shil’vati.”
Michael closed his eyes. “Can we?” He paused again. “Is there any harm in waiting a little while longer on this?”
Celeste looked disappointed at first but simmered down enough to say, “No, there isn’t. Boys will still walk into the fly trap until they recognize it. You’re not hurting yourself, but you may be hurting others.”
Michael pursed his lips. “Ok, well, they’re not all bad.”
Celeste smiled and slowly blinked at Michael. “That seems oddly familiar.”
“Well look, we have it ready to go when I’m ready.” Michael took a deep breath and stood up. “Thank you for doing this. I don’t know why you’re so motivated to help me but I do appreciate it.”
Celeste walked around her desk and gave Michael a hug goodbye. “Because you’re a good dude. There weren’t a lot of good dudes before the invasion and I’ll be damned if I let one of the good ones get abused by a barrage of alien bitches.”
“Thank you.” Michael said earnestly. “I’ll keep in touch. Maybe I’ll come to my senses sooner rather than later.”
“Let’s hope so.” Celeste said as the door to the building closed between them.
There was a bank of televisions in the lobby on Michael’s way out of the building. One screen rotated events on campus. Another showed the College of Education’s splash page and rotated pictures and comments from faculty members. The last television played the local news station, KJAX. None of the TVs were audible, but this one had closed captioning. It showed a familiar sight for Floridians as well as most Americans in the south. There was a map of the state of Florida dangling off the right side of America.
A big circle with concentric circles inside of it loomed to the southeast of land. The circles consisted of a leading blue and purple edge that swirled around a red core. The doppler image of the tropical storm was replaced by the trajectory map which showed the open beyblade-looking symbol nestled in the apex of a cone heading northwest. This map displayed the name “Blake” with an approximation of the possible trajectories toward Florida from where the Atlantic Ocean met the Gulf of Mexico.
They hardly ever hit here, Michael thought, there’s a sandbar at St. Augustine that blocks the big storms from crossing over land in this area. He smiled to himself. Plus they usually turn or fizzle out. Nothing to worry about.
Michael looked around campus and how unfamiliar it had become to him. Changes were happening all around him, whether he liked them or not. It will come time for me to be a part of the changes, Michael thought, Or I’ll have to change myself.
Just then Michael’s phone rang. He answered it. From the other end came a familiar voice, “Michael? It’s your mother. I need you to come home.”