Author Chris Riker appears on Scripps News to talk about the need for human magic.

Read Goody Celeste:

https://www.amazon.com/Goody-Celeste-Chris-Riker-ebook/dp/B0CJ3GVWTY/

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Published: 17 December 2023

This is one of those "beach songs" that was there on the transistor radio (new invention!) when we were kids. I didn't know until years later that the Cowsills were from Rhode Island and that they were the inspiration for The Partridge Family TV show. Hope this brings back memories... or just brings you a few minutes of joy. 

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Published: 17 December 2023

     I chose the triquetra pattern for Mara, my forever one. I run my fingers over its interlacing trinity knots and declare that she and I are united in eternity. There are three of these. Mine is coming. The original still lies, I suppose, painted on a granite wall deep inside our improper cave. Triads. The power of three. What you carry, what you seek, and how the weight and the journey change you.

     Things used to be simpler.

     Our teacher, Mrs. Flynt, took us on a field trip once to the Alton Jones campus. I was amazed there were so many acres of cedar, oak, and poplar inside West Warwick. On that spring day we hiked through the hilly woods, passing speckled red mushrooms, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, and fiddlehead ferns until we came to a spot near the lake. In her singsong teachery voice, Mrs. Flynt pointed out “a cohort of igneous titans dredged and dropped in a glacial campaign fought eons ago.”

     Someone said, “It’s a cave!”

     Mrs. Flynt said, “No, a proper cave is formed by water chewing its way through limestone or by a lava tube or some such.” I took a closer look at the cluster of boulders forming a big hole in the ground. This must be an improper cave, I thought.

     We spent an half an hour exploring that gaping hole, dropping in, climbing out, scrapping our knees raw on coarse granite, and getting generally sweaty and filthy. In those days, our ankles absorbed all abuse without complaint; we were unbreakable, I thought.   

     Later, we got a talk about snake bites and venereal disease–it was two talks actually; I think Mrs. Flynt used the snakes to build up her courage. My classmates and I hiked back to the school bus laughing and joking about “ssnakesss with ssyphilisss.” It was a fun day. I didn’t get many of those.

     Mara wasn’t on that trip. I met her at a party months later. I don’t usually go for Goth chicks, but there was something, a presence, about the pale girl sitting all alone, intensely scoping the room. She was underdeveloped, filling out her black dress slightly more than the hangar it came on. Her bangs were comically uneven, but cute.  

     She caught me staring. “What?”

     “Sorry,” I stammered. Indicating her dress, I asked, “Who died?” It was a stupid thing to say, an aggressive-defensive, insecure mess of an opening gambit. She was enjoying my obvious discomfort.

     “Don’t make fun of the dead,” she said, her lips widening into a crooked grin. Weird, but cute.

     I took a chance and sat down next to her. We talked nerd stuff. She was super smart, got straight A’s in chemistry, a subject I barely survived. I sketched a few things on napkins and bragged that one day I was going to be an artist.

     She said no. “Not the hang-it-in-the-Louvre kind, anyway. These are good, but it’s more like you’re trying to tell a story. You need to write, use these to help tell stories.”

     “Like kiddie books? Like Where the Wild Things Are?” I asked.

     “Or, who’s the guy who wrote The Giving Tree?”

     I can never remember his name; the guy who looked like a bald biker dude and wrote those gross, funny poems. “You must read a lot,” I said, trying to keep the conversation moving.  

     “I like books more than people.” She looked at her knees.

     I wanted to change the subject. “What else do you like to do?”

     “Nothing.” I thought she’d frozen me out. Then, she said, “I like to learn about the secret arts.” Cool!

     We drifted outside and she told she practiced Wicca. She told me how it was all about living in harmony with nature, and how she wasn’t supposed to use her special knowledge to hurt people. “I seek to honor the Triple Moon Goddess and the Horned God.”

     My mouth hung open. A horny god. I had no clue. “So, what kind of spells do you do?”

     “I am learning ways to build inner strength and acquire wisdom, to provide protection.”

     “I’ll protect you,” I offered and leaned in to kiss her.

     “No!” She pulled away abruptly, then walked off into the night. I hadn’t meant to make fun of her beliefs. I just wanted a kiss. I headed back to the house, carrying an empty beer and a ton of questions with no answers.

     The next time I saw Mara was at the homecoming game. I played bass drum in the marching band, not because I was good, but because I was tall. For our half-time show we did Copacabana and Star Wars and We Are the Champions and we sucked. Afterwards, we took a break. I spotted Mara in the concessions line. It was warm for September, but she wore a dowdy brown coat with a high collar and a wide-brimmed (witch’s?) hat pulled down over her eyes.

     “Hi!” I called.

     She flashed a smile. “Todd. Hi!” She sounded genuinely happy to see me, and that was electric joy to my senses. For an instant her face peeked out from under the brim. I saw that one snaggle-tooth that shows when she smiles, her big, expressive brown eyes, and the fading purplish marks along her jaw, poorly hidden by makeup.

     She saw the concern in my eyes and that’s all it took. It was like watching a time-stop movie of a flower blooming, except in reverse. She closed up tight and turned her face toward the person in front of her in line. For the second time, I had blown it. I was determined to do better. I realized we had something in common.

     We met a few times in the cafeteria and I made a point of saying, doing, and thinking nothing offensive. (You try it!) She warmed up to me, even suggested we enroll in an art class after school. She passed me a library book on Celtic art. The triquetra drew our attention, the perfection of a triple racetrack turning back on itself into infinity. We spent the next Saturday morning painting that design on the big rock that acts like a watchman at the entryway to EGHS. (That’s East Greenwich High School. Go, Avengers! Huzzah!) It wasn’t vandalism; everyone painted the rock. New layers obliterated the ones below, though they wound up looking the same.     

     This was my time, the one part of my life when everything was possible. The future lay in a perfect pattern before my eyes. I owed that wonderful feeling to Mara. We were sharing a chocolate cabinet. OK, you’re probably not from Rhode Island. A cabinet is an ice cream shake. Anyway, I blurted out that I loved her. She spoke softly. “I love you.” I heard her say those words. I can still hear her saying those words, just as I can still feel the warmth of her skin and the thrill of her kisses. Yes, it happened.

     Don’t ask me why, but I felt there was something only I could give to Mara, something she needed. I knew her secret; the clues were on her like cheat notes to a test. The trick was to get her to say it. Over the course of weeks, I got it out of her in bits and pieces. Her mom’s boyfriend, Brad, liked Mara as much as he liked her mom. Maybe more. And he was a mean old drunk. I asked Mara why she didn’t tell the police, or her mom. She said she thought her mom knew. That sucked. I told her (honestly) that I knew how she felt. I told her about Barry.

     Uncle Barry used to visit my room when I was little. I don’t remember much, but I know what I know. He’s gone now. Moved to Oregon and died. When I heard, I wanted to laugh, but that’s not what I did. That’s the really fucked up thing about me.

     Brad sounded like another Barry. I told Mara, “The difference between men and women is that a man wants to beat the shit out of his attacker.” That wasn’t completely true, but she accepted it. I sensed she appreciated my candor. A spark went off in my mind, my heart. I was her brave knight. I promised her I would avenge her; it would be my life’s quest.

     She held my hand tightly. “Together,” she said.

     Being the future writer, I laid out our plan. Mara was the brainy Wiccan, so she brewed up a chemical arsenal.

     Obviously, we picked Halloween, or Samhain as she called it. After her mom left for work, we put on a little performance for Brad, complete with music, magic, and Mara’s special spooky punch. He fell like a lightning-struck oak. We got him into his brand-new Cordoba with its Aztec eagle hood ornament and drove to the wilds of West Warwick. My learner’s permit meant I had to have an adult with me to drive after dark. Nobody said the adult had to be conscious.

     We dragged the groggy old bastard for an hour under the gibbous moon until we found our secret place; my memory did not falter. The boulder pile offered up its intimate domain. (Halloween makes me talk like this.)

     I dropped Brad down the hole, into that stony interior with its rudimentary floor of mud and leaves and muskrat turds. Mara was dressed in full regalia, with a black and red hooded cloak. By lantern light, she performed an arcane ceremony, at one point holding up a wicked cool dagger with a pentagram on the hilt. “Death to lies,” she said.  

     I went to work painting a nice triquetra on the wall above our semi-conscious subject. The Day-Glo green came alive in the lamp’s aura. It wasn’t paint, but a special, permanent dye, Mara’s creation. I was careful to save enough. We worked together to turn Brad’s manhood into a baby gherkin.

     Pointing at the symbol that stood over our work, I said, “We should get tattoos.”

     “We should cut the design into our flesh.”

     I looked at the blade again. “We should get tattoos,” I repeated.

     We decided to do it in henna, there being no end of surprises in Mara’s little bag of tricks. To this day I can feel the spot where the tattoo was.

     Brad was still in la-la land. My heart was pounding like my bass drum; I was jazzed from what we’d done. It felt … righteous. As we sat there in our improper cave, I turned to Mara. “Let’s make love,” I said.

     Familiar storm clouds filled her beautiful eyes. “I … can’t.” Everything I needed to know was in those two tortured words, if I had listened, but I was young and horny and stupid. She was trying to explain her situation. Mara said she needed me to be her friend. What I heard was rejection aimed straight at me. Poisonous pride flooded my brain. I had offered her my cock like it was some great gift. She didn’t want it.  

     We spoke only a little as we hoisted Brad’s fat ass out of the hole and dragged him back to his car. Pain and awareness were slowly seeping back into his mind. I told her we should have used her dagger on him, but Mara stopped me. “This is enough. It’s wrong to add more evil to the world.” So, I wrote a letter and put it in his pocket, saying next time he wouldn’t find a pickle dick; he’d find a stump.

     Brad moved out of her mom’s house. I hope he died, but I really don’t know. The cops never came knocking, so to hell with him.   

     Mara and I saw each other often. We walked through graveyards; gawped at the lizards in the pet store; went antiquing (what teenager goes antiquing?); and ate the world’s best pizza at Two Guys from Italy on Main Street. I cherish those moments, replay them often in my mind. I called it dating, but she corrected me. She said we were best friends. So, I went to a boutique in Newport called The Operculum and bought her a friendship ring: a moonstone set in tri-color gold. Witchy chic.      

     Anyway, try as I might, I graduated a virgin. Mara skipped commencement. We saw each other a few times that summer, but something had changed. When we kissed, she—it was— I’ve tried a million times to figure out what I could have done differently but succeeded only in making myself ache. I have to accept my past as it is. (That’s a fucking lie in case you couldn’t tell.)

     She went off to college at UC Berkeley. I guess they have more Wiccan circles out there. I got into RISD (just Google it) and focused on my art and my writing. I got pretty good. I’ve written more than a dozen children’s books over the years. Danny the Lonely Blue Dragon is mine. I like talking to kids at book signings and public readings, with their folks around, of course.

     I don’t have any kids of my own. Dawn, my ex, said it was best not to. “You know how you are.” I do know. At times, I’d be all over her, but mostly I wouldn’t touch her, just sit around wishing and being moody. My compass really spins! Dawn used to say her love was worth more than that… more than me. She was right.

     After the split, I’d hook up with other women, single moms. It’s no use. What I carry has become what I seek. I haven’t … but I can feel the beast getting stronger. Bourbon and a pricy shrink help, but the main thing is Mara. I feel her presence warning me against passing along this dark gift. You can believe that or not; it’s what I feel.

     I wrote to her about all of it. She wrote or emailed often, telling me about her life, her Wicca buddies, her three fat cats, her career in pharmaceuticals and the difficulties she had at work, plus the gory details on why her relationships crashed and burned. Some of it hurt to read, but I was glad she trusted me with her private thoughts. She signed her letters “your enchantress.” She never wrote the word “love.” That hurt, too.

     One day, I found a letter in my mailbox, written in her fine hand on parchment stationery. Mara said she might be coming back to Rhode Island soon. It was like my heart stepped out of the freezer. Maybe, I could say or do or be something different this time. I wanted to be better, to be someone who could offer her a decent future. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now. It didn’t happen.   

     The infinite track was always leading me here; it will go on even when I have ceased to be. All I have left is this task, then I’m done. I couldn’t be her protector, so I’ll be her avenger. Huzzah!   

     Witnesses say Jack, her junkie boyfriend, threw Mara against a wall so hard it caused bleeding in her brain. The prosecutor tried to pin it on him, but he was miles away when the aneurism killed her, so the jury gave him a pass. 

     The funeral was nice, I think. I was pretty drunk. I’m glad her mom brought Mara home and hope she doesn’t mind that I came back today and replaced the little bronze plaque with this big Celtic marker.

     So, I stand here crying like I haven’t done since Barry died. I’ve got one hand on Mara’s stone, the other holds a fifth of Cuervo Gold and a plane ticket. Without her, I’m a bad thing waiting to happen; it’s only a question of who gets hurt. I choose Jack. I’ll do what I have to do and make the cops do the rest. I’ve made sure the matching triquetra headstone I ordered for myself will be ready when they bring me back here.

     Mara, I can’t claim to understand your choices; I hope you can accept mine. I like to think you’re wearing the moonstone ring. Under this vacant October sky, I pronounce the two of us bound to eternity. I am a used and broken wreck of a man, but you, Mara, are beautiful. You are love-worthy.

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Published: 11 December 2023

            Takao felt old and bitter. His hair was thinning, his fingers refused to straighten, and cold sober he walked like a man in a storm. Worse, he couldn’t respond to the cherry blossom scented girl at the market who smiled at him despite his rheumy eyes and blood-stained clothes. He couldn’t respond because he had to go home to a wife who squandered all her affection on three lazy sons. They wanted nothing to do with the hunt. They had big dumb dreams. Such things might well embitter a man nearing forty. Takao put all the blame instead on the dolphins.

            He rose alone in the dark and chill, his family sleeping, snoring, twitching. His boatmates, whose names drifted away from him, shared no jokes or stories, just the shouted orders of the job. When Takao spoke, which was seldom, he was his own audience. As he walked down to the boats under a graying sky, he muttered a vow. “I loathe these fish. Despise them. They eat my catch and leave me nothing. I have waited through three long days of rain, but before this day ends, I will kill as many as I can.”

            Takao had his reasons. The dolphins had trapped him. Taiji’s cove was the last place in Japan where he could make a decent living at what he knew how to do: whaling. It was what his father had done, and his father before him. The money was good at this time of year, better than he made fishing the rest of the time, but it was never enough.   

            The meat was good. His wife cut it into sashimi or boiled it and served it with shoyu to the family. He used to sell the meat to government buyers, who distributed it to schools for the children. The damned Americans put a stop to that with their “make cry” movie and their lying newspapers. There were new limits everywhere. That meant even less money for his family.

            The man with the glasses was not at the docks. He was one of the few to come to the hunt this year, but he slept late like all the Europeans. He’d arrive later, after the crews returned from the day’s hunt, to see whether there were any of the valuable dolphins in the mix. The crews offered the man the best dolphin steaks, cut with the right portion of blubbery rind, but he smiled and politely refused.

            A boy ran up to the docks, where Takao and the rest of the crewmen were busy securing their harpoons and other gear in the aqua interiors of their white boats. He said they’d spotted a large pod, not too far out. The dolphins were not moving. It would be easy to get around them and begin a drive back toward the holding pens. The men began cheering their luck and hastily divided themselves among the white fleet.

**

            Aiko looked on but could do nothing to help the mother dolphin who was nearby, still holding her silent calf. Grandmother Shimizu conducted the pod as always, winding them in a great circle. Some of the mated groups protested, “We should go and eat fish. We’re hungry. It does no good for us to stay here for –”

            Grandmother silenced their chittering with a burst of clicks and shrill notes, saying, “Sink your fat bellies! This is your day. This is what you will do. Stay with Yubi. She grieves. We grieve with her.”

            The pod members forgot their protest and went back to the slow procession, moving around and around the mother and calf. All were intensely aware that Yubi might make the choice. It was not something anyone spoke of aloud. Ever. Every dolphin knew it was an option: to stop. Stop breathing. Stop moving. Stop life’s vital pulsations. To use their magnificent brains to end all suffering. To stop.  

            Grandmother had trained Aiko to be a healer. She concentrated for a moment then sent out high manipulator sounds to scan the baby and his mother. There was no doubt. The infant had died sometime during the night. The mother, unwilling to give her calf to the eaters who lived in the water – though that must happen eventually – stayed with the calf. She held the still form behind one pectoral fin, where the calf had suckled just hours before.

            From what Aiko could tell, this death tasted of mans. Mans had poisoned the water with  bits of plastic, chemicals, and awful metals. Fish swallowed everything and the dolphins gobbled the fish. The mans poison remained. In all likelihood, Yubi had delivered the mans evil with her own milk to her beloved Kentaro, dooming the calf with an act of motherly love.

            Aiko thought, as she did often, of the mans. They took fish by the millions. They killed the sharks, who were such fun for the dolphins to torment, also by the millions. Their boats and their nets and their blooding sticks were everywhere.

            Aiko wanted to love on the mans. After all, the pod raced out to meet the fishing boats. When they emptied their nets, they threw unwanted fish (imagine such a thing!) back into the water. Their language was a mystery, simplistic and blunt. The dolphins had taken to using the mans names that filtered into their world. They used them along with the intricate musical rhapsodies that were their natural monikers. It made them laugh. Dolphins liked to laugh. Mans were silly, but mans had the most interesting music. She liked it when the mans brought singing box machines on their machine boats. The melodies varied in form, swelling high and low. She especially loved the rare times when the boxes played orchestra or opera. Many sweet twisty sounds at once, more like a dolphin’s speech. Mans music found its true expression when sung by a dolphin. This, as she soon learned, became quite the habit.

            So, dolphins and mans should be playmates. They should share the fish. Instead, she felt something else for the mans because of the things they did.

            “And what do you feel, little one?” asked Grandmother, who always seemed to know Aiko’s mood, as she knew the mood of every member of the pod. Aiko tried to answer but could not find the right way to share her thoughts. Grandmother said, “You must ask yourself, ‘Would I do what they do to me?’”

            “Would I kill and eat them? I don’t know. I might. Everybody eats. What do mans taste like, anyway?”

            Grandmother sideswam the last part of her question, saying, “You would not do it the way they do, tearing pod mates one from another, taking dolphins into their boats, killing more than they need as I have seen them do.”

            “Do you hate them, Grandmother?”

            “Like you, I would like to reach into their hearts, squeeze out the part that makes them think only of themselves. Do not keep hatred in your deeps, little one. It poisons everything, and we carry enough mans poisons inside us as it is.”

            Grandmother swung wide and swept in, butting her rostrum rudely into Aiko’s side. “Find a better song, little one. Find a song of love no matter what. For now, feel what you can for poor Yubi and Kentaro, mostly for Yubi.

            The morning sun penetrated the dappled roof of the world, cleaving the waters with warming blades of white and gold. The light iridized the scales of red sea bream flitting in a vast school nearby. A squad of Japanese flying squid took notice, changing its course accordingly. “Yom!” sang Aiko. Both were tempting meals, but she and the other dolphins focused on their sister’s grief.

            Then they heard it, a rumbling that disrespected the ocean’s natural anthems. In contrast to the deep pitches larger whales crooned to one another, this was an ugly whine utterly lacking a cetacean’s musicality or joy. It took no more than a second for the dolphins to identify the sound as a harbinger of mans. These were the machine boats that swam on the surface, some of them almost as fast as a dolphin! Aiko sang a warning note to Grandmother, who called out to the entire pod, “Stay together! The pod is life!”

            Aiko wanted to dash off to the deep water, away from the cove. In that late summer and through the winter, the waters here tasted of dolphin blood. She did not like this place. The machine boats were getting closer… and there were many of them. She thought for just a second to abandon the pod, but that was madness. The pod was all. “Stay together,” she said, repeating Grandmother’s words.

            The machine boats were moving in several directions now, slapping their bellies on the watery peaks. Some had already swung wide, getting between the pod and the open sea.

**

            Takao cursed. He had to work twice as hard as the younger fisherman around him in order to look like he was working at all. He should be running the boat, but he was only a hooker. His hands hurt and trembled when he tried to grip anything. At least the weather was clear.

            The boat captains revved the engines, frothing the water while men beat on the gunwales, filling the undersea with noise to further confuse the dolphins. Streamlined bodies stitched the waves, anxiously darting in one direction and then another. The animals were fast, but the captains knew their weakness: they tried to stay together at all times. Their group bond slowed down the entire pod, allowing the boats to drive them into the cove, where the crews could go to work.

            Already the dolphins were squealing like frightened babies. They knew what was coming.

**

            Dolphins don’t need anyone to tell them which direction to follow. Their movements come freely; the only paradigm is to keep the clan together. Now, the screaming of the machine boats was scrambling their ability to think, to plan the graceful arcs and playful corkscrews that made up their usual movements.     

            The ancient strategy was sound: stay together while facing danger. It would work against any predator. Almost any predator. “The pod is life!” Grandmother sang out. Dozens of her mates and cousins took up the refrain. Their singing was off, terribly off as fear fractured the tocs and clicks, and muddied the carefully constructed chords.    

            Aiko looked around. The mans were dropping nets into the water between their machine boats. Her senses detected lines pulling more netting below them, drawn by other machine boats. The nets were surrounding them and coming up from underneath, like the maw of a blue whale. Her family members were no better than hapless krill feeding this hunter’s insatiable appetite. 

            One of her mates, a burly male named Raiden, raced toward the shallows then abruptly reversed himself, at once using his mighty peduncle to whip his flukes up and down. By the time he passed Aiko, he was moving at full speed and headed directly at the raised perimeter. He meant to break the nets, frustrating the mans trap. If anyone could, it was Raiden! Closer and closer he got until his melon struck the mesh barrier. The nets gave slightly. Aiko could see the two nearest machine boats jerk sharply.  Raiden issued a rude burst of whistles and clacks and drifted back into the main pod.

            The netting remained intact… and it was creeping like a predator, driving them ever closer to shore.

             More than ever, Aiko wanted to make her own run at the net, not to try to snap its nasty web but to jump over it. She could. Most of them had that kind of speed. Maybe not Grandmother, who had seen over eight hundred lunas. That was the problem. To jump the net meant leaving behind the pod, certainly leaving Grandmother and many of the younger dolphins caught in the trap. No, Aiko could not do that. “The pod is life!” she called, adding to the frantic voices around her.  

            Aiko looked around again. The pod was bunching in close together. Now, the machine boats had driven a second pod of moon-faced Risso’s Dolphins into the trap. The two clans were not friendly and this only made things more confusing. They were moving. The mans were forcing them through a small opening in a new net wall that surrounded a secluded cove.

            It was hard for Aiko to see anyone. She tried to find Yubi and Kentaro, but they were nowhere to be seen. Without warning, a group of dolphins found themselves surrounded by yet another of the mans nets. It rose from below, rolling her among four other dolphins, including Raiden. He contorted himself wildly, crushing them in even tighter. Aiko felt her slick body pressed between Raiden and another dolphin, forcing her backwards like when she bit into an urchin and wound up squeezing the tasty guts out of her mouth. She was free of the net! Before she could sing for joy, however, she saw the others pulled upward and through the rippling surface. Their screams never stopped as they transitioned from sea to air.

            Not far away, Grandmother was trying to calm her relations. She had gotten close to the white hull of one of the machine boats. Above the surface, Aiko could see the mans bodies moving menacingly against the blue vault of the Great heavens. There was a sharp motion and a missile pierced the water, creating a line of bubbles. It had a fierce looking metal tip. It was a bloodstick, and before Aiko knew what was happening, the bloodstick was buried deep in Grandmother’s side. Crimson mist formed around the wound. Even as she cried out in anguish, one pale hand dipped down from above holding a shorter blooding stick with a wicked hook at the end. Aiko tried to sing out to Grandmother. The hook found the older dolphin’s side, plunging into her, releasing a second cloud of red.

**

            Takao felt the blubber hook slice deeply into the big female and lodge firmly in place. He wanted this one. She’d be good eating. It looked like a Pantropical Spotted. The man in the dark glasses usually liked to keep these alive. Too bad. There were plenty more dolphins in these waters: Risso’s, Striped, even False Killer Whales. They would capture many today to add to those in the pens. This one – this one would feed the working men and their families.

            One of the captains called out, “Spread the tarps!”

            Damn them! Takao thought. He looked up to see if a drone camera was overhead. He couldn’t see one, but they were close to shore. A group of outsiders up in the hills had cameras pointed at them. They were trying to shame honest fishermen with videos on their computers and phones, the kind his idiot sons stared at all day. His boat mate got a line around the dolphin’s tail. Together, they hauled the animal close to the boat and secured it there. Then they wasted a quarter- hour rigging a tarp over the work areas to block the onlookers’ view. It was awkward, working in a wetsuit, plus the extra exertion hurt his back and legs. When he thought no one was looking, Takao pulled a flask from his back pocket and took a long sip of liquor.   

            Never having worked a single day on the water, these outsiders demanded the hunt be “humane.” So be it. Takao grabbed a T-handled metal rod with a sharp blade on the tip. He carefully positioned himself over the wounded dolphin’s front end. Pressing the tip just behind the blowhole, Takao thrust downward into the spinal cord. “Humane!” he yelled through the tarp to the hills above the cove. Men then hammered a cork into each of the dolphin’s wounds. This was supposed to reduce the bleeding and keep the cove’s water from churning into a bright red. This was another pointless chore the owners had added on to placate fools. Stupid! They would spend the next several days driving, netting, and gaffing the dolphins. Just wait till they began flensing off the blubber and meat. The cove would sparkle under the sun like cherry wine.  

**

            Grandmother’s body, leaking ruddy life, was pinned against the machine boat. Her tail lolled and bobbed with the motion of the surrounding water, and it was plain Grandmother no longer controlled it. She whimpered. Wanting desperately to free her, Aiko thought to chew the bonds, but they were made of the same mans rope as the nets and would not break. 

            “Grandmother!” she cried.

            “Poison, little one. I am full of poison.” Aiko was confused. The mans had not used poison, had they? Surely, their blooding sticks were enough.

            Aiko was terrified. She flipped and swam, bumping against strange dolphins to keep out of reach of the blooding sticks but she kept coming back to Grandmother’s side. The old dolphin’s eyes would not focus, and the only sound she produced was a song of misery. After a long time, she died.

**

            The man in the dark glasses checked the list on his fancy phone. His fine clothes were not stained like the other men’s. “It’s been a good haul,” he said with a smile. “My clients will be pleased with these specimens.” The man’s trucks had come and gone, taking more than two dozen of the chosen survivors off to dolphinariums around the world.

            Takao stood behind his boat captain, who said, “Our numbers could be higher, if we didn’t have this fucking quota limits. We had to release a lot of good animals.” It was the same excuse his captain gave Takao when he explained why his share was smaller than last year. Takao blamed the dolphins.

            “In time, when the world is distracted, things may go back to the way they were. For now, play the game,” the man in the dark glasses said, drawing good-natured laughter all around. The boat captains reported the annual take. Sometimes someone checked, mostly not. Police kept the activists back, so the men usually got an extra dolphin or two. Indeed, the butcher had not sent back his usual two pallet loads, but rather three heaping pallets. The boat crews eagerly divided the bundles of meat among themselves. It made Takao’s back hurt to think about hauling the heavy load home. Stepping in close so no cameras could see, the man carefully slipped each boat captain a thick envelope and drove off in his big dark car.

**

            Aiko poked her head above the crimson swells and she watched the mans on the shore. Sadness and the taste of the cove water filled her senses. Her mind was sharp. It knew these tastes. If she concentrated, she might be able to identify which blood came from which dolphin. The thought made her heart race. She was angry.

            She looked on until all the mans but one had left. He stood, taking up his bundles of dolphin meat. She tried not to allow the word to form in her mind. Tried. It burst through her barriers unbidden, complex, lovely, unbearably sad: Grandmother.

            The old dolphin’s words came back to Aiko. “Do not keep hatred in your deeps… It poisons everything.”

            Fine, let him eat her poisoned meat! she thought. It felt good to think of the mans feeling pain. Mans had poisoned the water. Mans had murdered her grandmother. Aiko cherished the thought that mans own mistakes would…      

            Aiko’s insides went cold. This was the old dolphin’s warning. This was what Grandmother was saying.

            At once, Aiko swam closer to where the lone mans was standing and called out. “Poison! Danger! Warn others! Not yom! Bad!” He heard her. Their eyes made contact, mans to dolphin and back. In that moment, she could almost sense his thoughts.

            Yubi’s head popped up a short distance away. Her calf was nowhere to be seen. Yubi heard Aiko’s warning cries, but did not join in.

            At last, the mans reacted. He dropped his wet bundles and scraped up a fist full of jagged stones, white but stained pink. These, he threw viciously towards Aiko. Most plunked harmlessly into the water, though one bounced painfully off the young dolphin’s melon.

            Aiko and Yubi ducked under the surface and swam out of the cove.

**

            “Hit you! Ha! Next fall, I will put my hook in you and eat you up!” Takao laughed loudly. With a grubby hand, he pulled the flask from his back pocket and swallowed the final drops inside. It dulled the pain in his hands and back. He picked up his heavy bundles again, feeling unsteady on his feet.

            As walked toward home, he looked out at the sun settling into the red waters. The color would fade to blue as it did every spring after the hunt. He’d be back next time. For now, he had a little money. Maybe he could save up and buy his own boat one day. Then he could smile back at the cherry blossom scented girl at the market. At least he had good dolphin meat to feed his wife and sons. They wasted their time playing computer games and dreaming of expensive schools. Something was wrong with those boys. They were dumb. No matter. Let them smell the cherry blossoms of their free spring. When winter came, he would bring them here to the shore. They would work the cove, just as Takao and his father had done, and his father before him.     

If you found this story moving, please check out Come the Eventide by Chris Riker -

https://chrisrikerauthor.com/news/novels/a-free-sample-and-a-story-unto-itself

Details

Published: 21 November 2023

Hieronymus LaRoche, DDS
by
Chris Riker

     Dr. LaRoche moved with purpose, using two of his six legs to pull the water pick with him as he crawled over gums and molars to reach and clean the deep crevices in his patient’s mouth. He found no new cavities, but some would certainly appear if this man failed to do a better job of brushing and flossing. There! A putrid hunk of masticated ham tucked behind a bicuspid. Dr. LaRoche reached in with one barbed appendage, skewered the morsel, and quickly jammed it into his own mouth parts. “Waste not, want not. Indeed, indeed!” he thought.
The dentist gave his patient a new toothbrush and inculcated him on the benefits of oral hygiene. The man, a sedentary-looking policeman with colorful donut sprinkles on his uniform, thanked him and hurried out the door. He’ll be back, Dr. LaRoche thought. More work for me. The thought of being useful bolstered his natural zeal.
     The final patient of the day was a slender professional woman with glossy hair the color of radio wiring, which put ribald thoughts of nesting into Dr. LaRoche’s mind. The woman scanned the room, at first believing it empty. Then she noticed the diminutive dentist on the instrument tray and let out a yelp. “A roach!” she cried.
     “La-Roche,” he corrected politely. “My family came from France. These days, we’re well established in Atlanta, though I have relatives all over: New York, New Jersey, indeed pretty much any city. I am Hieronymus LaRoche, DDS, just as it says on the diploma.” He used a stainless steel probe to proudly point to his bona fides, which hung on the wall next to a sign bearing the message: ‘Please don’t bite down during the exam.’
     “You’re the dentist? My friend said you were good, but she didn’t mention--” Her tone seemed uncertain.
     “I am fully accredited in the state of Georgia.” Standing on his hind legs, he continued, “You have magnificent teeth, Miss... Miss?”
     “Constance Wainwright.”
     “What a lovely name, indeed,” he responded, smiling.
     Her pale blue eyes were wide. Dr. LaRoche said, “Hop in the chair and let’s take a look.”
     Constance Wainwright hesitated a beat, then climbed into the dentist’s chair as instructed. Dr. LaRoche scurried over the bib covering her provocative bosom and onto her lower lip. With a bow and a wink, he stepped inside.
    As he worked, Dr. LaRoche could not help but feel there was something special about this woman; perhaps it was the sweetness of her voice, or the heady vapors from a lunchtime Pinot Noir which hung in her mouth and eased him into a pleasant euphoria. Whatever the case, Dr. LaRoche found himself daydreaming through the whole check-up. Was this the kind of woman, he wondered, who would like a large family? Perhaps three or four hundred children?
     Dr. LaRoche paid special attention to the cleaning, using his antennae to polish her brilliant white enamel. From deep in the throat of Constance Wainwright came a tiny song-like vocalization, rising sharply each time Dr. LaRoche scampered across her tongue. The melody escaped Dr. LaRoche, but he indeed enjoyed its child-like inflections.
     He pondered whether she might enjoy dining in some dimly lit spot far away from the gaudy glare of neon. Dr. LaRoche screwed up his courage while putting his instruments into the sterilizer. As Constance Wainwright straightened her smart business attire, he asked, “Would you like to have dinner with me?”
     Constance Wainwright did not acknowledge that she had heard his invitation. She took a swig of mouthwash, leaned over the tiny sink, and spat. Then she rinsed and spat again. And then twice more. Quickly thanking him, she was off and gone.
     Dr. LaRoche locked up his office for the night. There was no denying it: Constance Wainwright had disappeared from his life as quickly as she had come. The loneliness of his existence weighed on him for one brief moment, but only one. Then, he brightened and thought, “Indeed, there are other fish in the sea. In a city this size, there must be some lucky lady who wants to date a dentist. Perhaps I’ll find a wine and cheese tasting club. Ah, the days ahead will be sweet. Indeed, indeed!”
     Dr. Hieronymus LaRoche’s broke into a jaunty gait and whistled to himself all the way home.

Details

Published: 20 November 2023

Aimery Jaymes loved tempests, or nor’easters as they’d been called back when hurricanes struck old Jamestown only between the end of spring and the first bite of winter, back when there were seasons. He loved the storms’ primal fury and the capricious violence they dealt upon the village below.

In the storm’s tapering winds, he could hear damaged panels slapping against the rest of the estate’s protective blister. He came fully awake to the noise coupled with a draft of salty air, storm-washed of its usual muck. The scuttlebots would fix the tear in time, he knew. There were still enough of the drones left. Try as it might, the sky’s rage could not defeat the transparent blister safegaurding his family home. To the eye, it added a faint texturing to the sky and seascape, but the dome’s semi-porous layers allowed clean air and sunlight in while keeping pollution and unwanted visitors out. Safe. Life was good here in Jaymestown. The gold rococo clock on the mantleplace read just past nine. There was simply nothing like a storm for sleeping.

Well, that and a foursome at bedtime. A pity the others--two village girls and a boy hired for the price of a meal and some black market liquor--had scattered like roaches at first light. It would have been fun to enjoy a second round.

Or not. He rubbed the fleshy wattle under his chin. His lymph node implants ached; time for a tune-up. Aimery considered the impromptu orgy a warm-up for his 104th next month. He made a mental note to scour the red light sector for un-pocked girls and boys for a proper bacchanal fit for the emperors of old.

Last night’s affair had been a birthday gift of sorts. His eldest turned 77 yesterday, providing impetus for Aimery to indulge in some much-needed personal gratification. He’d sent Barry a nice message, but gotten no reply. Not surprising. Ungrateful. Barry, like his other children, was more than comfortable, thanks to Aimery’s generosity. They had homes, incomes, and mindless sinecures so they could toss out their titles at parties and impress the hangers-on. Their mothers, too, were well looked after, spending his money in far flung parts of the world. He loved them all, in his own way. A smirk came to his face as he played out a well-worn thought in his head: Sometimes we love best from a distance. Had he said that aloud? No matter. There was no one around.

He padded across the Brazilian hardwood floor to the spacious Calacatta marble shower, where the water kept changing temperature despite a read-out that promised a consistent 105 degrees Fahrenheit. After checking the mirror for silvery traitors to his carefully maintained crop of black hair, he dressed in a tailored suit, including a fine coat of midnight blue with eighteen-karat gold filigree. His breakfast arrived in the outer room of the Master Suite, as if by magic. The kitchen staff knew to keep out of sight.

He could usually hear them, of course, thanks to their books. He’d provided each of his serving staff with an extravagant gift: his Book of Jaymes, made of steel with a lifetime energy cell. The power of reading had largely gone out of the world, so the books were set to recite Aimery’s words in Aimery’s voice, hundreds of gems recorded over a lifetime. From another hallway, he could just recognize his own stentorian tones: “Before you risk losing, you must know what you get if you win.” That was a good one. Idiots spent fortunes trying to acquire holdings only to learn the prize had lost all value over time. Aimery made it a point to never confuse pride with business.

Another of the sayings he made sure to include ran: “Worship the God who speaks to you.” He never understood those who raised an impotent fist against the wealthy, raging about how the rich worship the almighty dollar. As if that was a bad thing. Money created purpose so it was important to help it go forth and multiply. Money built cities from sand; forged champions in the furnace of war; made towering leaders of those possessed of the wisdom to bend to its will. The god of that old book made all of those same promises, only to fall silent, leaving the average man thirsting in a trackless wilderness. His grandfather understood, as Aimery did now: you can be master of the home on the hill, or stare up from the slum below. It was why Grampa Avery had renamed Jamestown to Jaymestown, to properly honor their strong family rather than keeping the name of a dead regent from a dead empire.

He ate a few bites then called for the maid to take away the rest. He knew the staffers would eat his leftovers. He paid them well, deducting only a reasonable amount for room and board, and yet they stole the crumbs from his table. Like rats.

On his way to his office in the south wing, he stepped onto a broad balcony under the hazy morning sun and called for a lens. The virtual device obediently manifested in front of him, offering a detailed look at what the storm had done to the blister. Only a few bots were at work, securing loose fabric to the great spidery frame. At this rate, the repairs could take days. He needed more techs, or better techs, but…

Looking through the clear blister, his eyes drifted over the broad sweep of Narragansett Bay, taupe under a heavy sky, past the huge storm wall that struggled to protect the bay’s coasts and islands from the rising Atlantic, and past the fleet of tattered fishing boats. Their crews seemed oblivious to a great dark thing not far away.

There, just off the main channel about halfway to Newport’s bayside communities, lay a mass in the water, its bulk anchored or fixed or grounded, whipping spume around its edges. Gulls and other scavengers swooped down to nip at the oily, undulating bits above the surface. A few of the birds looked too large to be this far north, although with the changing currents and climates, the idea of a ‘north’ or ‘south’ meant little. Large, dull grey sea birds with long beaks settled onto the strange islet long enough to fill their orange pouches with twitching flesh before flying off. There was plenty of live traffic in the water around the great lump. Occasionally, an identifiable set of fins (that one was a shark, a big one!) broke the water and attacked the central bulk.

Aimery’s eyes widened. This was not one living thing, it was a great many creatures. It was a colony of flashing colors and shapes, maintaining tight formation within a slowly spreading volume. And it was eating. The splashing activity at the edges revealed itself as sea life rushing in to bite at the greater whole. Rather than diminish it, they enlarged it bit by bit. Each new gnash of teeth drew a fresh gush of blood, which in turn drew in more hungry mouths. It was a cancer in reverse; it grew not by feeding on those around it, but by ringing the dinner bell for ravening multitudes. How was it not consumed? What grotesque mechanism kept this evil filth from dying?

The image stayed with him as he tried to do his morning work. The computer offered intermittent service. The home had the best receivers made, albeit upwards of a decade old, but there were hours every day when the computer sat useless, unable to connect to the outside world. That meant he was out of touch with his holdings.

After several frustrating attempts, he made contact with his corporate officers in Manhattan. He hadn’t been there in person in years. He hated visiting that office. The landowners had diverted trillions in tax dollars to build protective dykes around key districts, including, of course, Wall Street; still, the rising waters of the Atlantic would not be stopped. They pooled and stagnated in ruined subways, courtyards, and back alleyways, relentlessly weakening aging brick and steel structures as well as moldering wood and drywall, and adding vast clouds of mosquitoes to the city’s occupying force of rats, roaches, fleas, flies, mice, mites, and assorted carrion eaters. Humans slogged through the pungent water on foot or in rickety water taxis. A few deluded souls liked to refer to New York City as the Venice of the West. Better to work from home.

This morning’s main focus was to get things moving on the Styx Project. The future was death. Jaymes World LLC was poised to acquire controlling shares in a consortium of funerary real estate, huge tracts in nations all over the world. Laws and public opinion were blocking  him from developing the lands beyond their current, sentimental purpose: slabs of overpriced marble marking holes containing forgotten piles of dust. What a waste! With carefully crafted legal instruments, JW would offer the descendants of the decedents what his people termed ‘reverse mortal mortgages,’ known as revmorts. Paying pennies on the dollar over a few short years, the project would get families to cede their rights to the land in which their loved ones rested. The true value of the land could then be exploited, as it should be. Arlington National would be the test case. If the team could handle any protests there, it would be relatively simple to rezone countless other tracts.

Legal was behind schedule drawing up the paperwork. One junior VP openly asked where the dead would rest, ensuring an end to his tenure. Planning was in a tizzy about a dearth of labor for any construction, not to mention what the team called a collapse of demand, all due to the shrinking population: five billion, down from eight billion.

Aimery knew they were thinking pragmatically when they should be thinking strategically. Properly handled, The Styx Project would explode in tens of thousands of locations all at once, like everyone discovering the latest pop star all on the same day. The result would be a quantum hike in stock values. At that point, he could decide whether the final goal was viable, and if not he could simply dump the whole project onto one of the other global corporate dynasties at a hefty profit. He half-thought, half-muttered, It’s time to light a fire under some asses and get this project in high gear.

He managed to place several key calls in between satellite gaps. By early afternoon, he’d managed to check on most of his accounts and send updated instructions to functionaries on four continents.

He’d learned from his father’s failures to keep a tight grip on things. Bertrand Jaymes had presided over the family’s various holdings during The Great Resizing. Two decades saw the loss of sixty percent of total global wealth and production. Father had left it to his boards and collectives to staunch the bleeding at Jaymes World, but nothing worked. Union agitators sprang up in every shop. Aimery, then a young man of forty-two, stepped in and whipped the family dynasty back into shape, breaking labor collectives, legally and otherwise, and moving jobs, factories, and headquarters wherever the environmental laws, wages, and tax rates dictated. Numerous and generous strategic donations made all the difference. JW kept the lights on, burning brighter than ever. Until lately.

He was about to break for lunch when the contessa called. He popped her up onto the wall, making her translucent so that he could continue to check his stocks on the next vid layer while appearing to meet her eyes. The global indices were continuing their downward slope. More and more commodities were rising in price, but only because supplies were drying up, in some cases entirely. Eleven straight quarters. His people could still slice out a profit, but the pie was shrinking. The trend was troubling. It was as if the markets were losing the will to live.

“You look well, Aimey.” He hated that nickname more than he could express, but hid his disgust. Margherita De Pascale--the contessa of nothing, though that didn’t stop her from flashing the title like a fifty-karat diamond at any jackass who’d coo and smile--represented a bankroll comparable to his own, and he was not one to insult wealth. At 113, her latest re-facing seemed to have gone well, mostly, so he returned her compliment.

“And you are the most beautiful liar I know, Maggie. Don’t ever change!” They half-laughed at the tired joke. “You’re lucky to get through. I’ve been having trouble with the comms all morning.”

“It’s not like the old days, Aimey. There are too few of us left with the focus to learn how to get things done. I remember being able to call for new satellites whenever I needed them. But, that was--well, never mind how long ago. Now, it was a nightmare to find the resources or enough people with any science education, let alone experience. Point is, it’s impossible to get a satellite built, let alone launched. So, we’re just waiting for the last of the old ones to go dark.” He had to admit she had a decent mind. If only the rest of her body matched her face. Why in the hell she paid surgeons to fix the chandelier while ignoring the plumbing was beyond him. The thought of her, even in the half-light, murdered any lust he might have felt. Their last time together would remain their last time.

“I’d like to talk to you about a new program to address that very concern. And not just communications satellites. A new generation of tech schools and a fine crop of graduates could unlock vast potentials--”

“No, no,” she cut him off. “The brain drain is complete. The universities are worthless. No one understands the specs, scans,  and blueprints. It’s gone, Aimey. Entropy wins. Gone and not coming back. I’m afraid our dreams of boldly going into space have been popped like a balloon.”

 “Quite the opposite, dear. Our projections suggest the time is ripe to clear significant profits from ice mining, getting an unlimited supply of potable water from the solar system. Aqua Luna! Sparkling Space Coolers! Martian Mineral Water!”

“Yes, that fits with the reports my people send me,” she said flatly. “Fewer than ten percent of known aquifers still produce safe water. The oceans come to our doorsteps even as we struggle to find a swallow of clean water.”

“Add to that pharmas are turning up even in carefully treated drinking supplies. Demand for non-toxic water is skyrocketing. My people suggest that despite the enormous initial expense, the ROI for space-based ice mining will tip to the plus side in six quarters. From there--”

 “And what I wanted to suggest, Aimey, is that we pool our remaining resources on the refurbishment and fortification of Sicily.” She attempted a warm smile, which had the odd effect of pulling on heavily reworked skin in ways that made it appear she was wearing a stiff mask of her own face. “Think of it: we could share coffee each morning looking out on the Mediterranean. Darling, say yes and please a lonely woman, hmmm?” Her vamping nearly made him lose his composure.

Still, this was no idle project. The island nation of Sicily was already a fortress. She was frightened that the recent uprisings in Nepal, Peru, Indonesia, Eastern Africa, and China would spread to the Mediterranean. He told her he’d consider throwing his weight behind such a project, though he mentally rejected the idea of actually joining her in Sicily. This house was his home and always would be.

Onto the main subject. “I wanted to be sure you got my invitation.”

“Yes, Aimey. I’d love to pop in. I’m not sure whether I can be there in the flesh, but I’ll be an electronic fly on the wall, as it were. Assuming the satellites permit it. Now, what do you want for your 104th?”

She had not quite finished asking when a loud crash erupted in another room. What the-- “I’ll have to call you back.” He severed the call and got up to investigate, using his wrist link to call for his guards to meet him in the library annex, where the noise originated. Walking there took him through a section of the great house that was under renovation. He stopped dead in his tracks as one large room revealed itself. It was one of the rooms added by his father--garish and ‘modern’ as people a generation ago had perceived ‘modern.’

He hadn’t been in there since he ordered the makeover. The work was to have been finished by now. Instead, there was an entire wall stripped down to its wooden skeleton. The room itself was littered with plaster dust and construction debris. Missing, too, were building supplies, tools… and workmen. Where the hell are they? He made a mental note to punish this dereliction. Unless something happened to them. No, that’s stupid.

Continuing on, he dodged, as he always had to, the ugly statue his father had ordered placed in the center of the hall: an eight-foot samurai warrior carved from a block of fine jade. Pearl-handled daggers jutted viciously from between the plates of his armor, indicating he’d been pierced in the liver and one lung. The figure’s face was twisted in rage as he held his katana above his head, ready to deal a death blow against his attacker. That target was whoever stood in front of the piece. The sculpture, by some long-dead artisan, carried the title: ‘No Surrender.’ The message hardly reflected the man who’d bought it. Aimery wanted to move it, but it weighed many tons. The floor below was reinforced to carry its weight. Over the years, he’d tracked down the junk art his father had amassed and sold what would sell, then donated other pieces for tax write-offs. Let them collect dust in public museums. This green monstrosity, however, appeared fixed in place for all time, like the house itself. His people told him this one was  ridiculously valuable. That was some comfort.

Aimery’s father had graduated to the catacombs of senescence; actually The Karkor Institute in Newport where his father’s husk could presumably continue forever, like the ship of Theseus. As in that famous thought experiment, doctors had replaced virtually every organ in the old man’s body, raising the question of whether they were now treating the same patient as when they started. Whatever the answer, his father had not spoken a coherent sentence in thirty years.

He met the guards and quizzed them on the state of things. One said nothing. Neither met his gaze.

“Where is Duerr? He should be here.” So much for Teutonic efficiency.

“Sir, Captain Duerr went to help his family; their home took heavy damage in last night’s storm. I think his daughter may have--”

“He left without my permission? Well, congratulations--”

“Maaka Parata, sir.”

He looked at the tall, beefy guard, whose face vanished beneath an elaborate indigo tattoo. What trade winds had blown this man so far from home he did not know, but damned if a Māori warrior wouldn’t scare off intruders! “Congratulations, Captain Parata. You’re my new security chief. Job one: find out what that noise was.”

“Sir?”

“The loud crash. Don’t tell me you didn’t hear it. Are you deaf, captain? I think someone knocked something over, or maybe someone… or something… got in through the hole in the blister. I don’t know. It was loud. Maybe some goddamned pelican got in and is wandering around my home, breaking things. Look, I don’t know what it is… just find it and kill it!”

“Yes, sir.” The newly-minted Captain Parata couldn’t hide his confusion.

“First, get the car. We’re going into the village for lunch and to arrange some things.”

 The giant black limosine wound through the cracked and potholed streets of the old seaside villages nestled in the parts of the island that lay outside of the Jaymes estate. There were no other cars. It had been weeks since fuel carriers had serviced Jaymestown; his own car’s supply was perilously low. These days, there was a difference between being able to afford something and being able to get it. He found the situation ridiculous, but could do nothing about it.

The local hotels were once the envy of the world, but times had changed. Their fortunes fled, they’d become out-of-the-way places for a handful of wealthy tourists to discover, year after year. Their condition now showed generations of decline. Indeed, it was testimony to the skill of the original architects that the hotels still stood at all, considering the quilt of patches: corrugated metal and tarpaper replacing whole sections of clapboard elegance. Comically mismatched windows marred the face of many of the multi-story hotels. They, like the shacks and shanties in the area, wore a uniform wainscoting of brine and muck from last night’s storm surge.

This area was far beyond the blister. Here, shore dwellers took their chances with the increasingly vindictive ocean. The storm had damaged many homes. Workers patched cedar shingles on two houses, while other properties stood silently showing the effects of the latest storm as families sat on the curb staring into space. A stretch of Walcott Avenue, around Union and Lincoln, had taken the worst of it. Carefully preserved Cape Cod-style houses were gone, leaving a few pipes and a single chimney rising up to nowhere, piles of broken shingles, and random detritus wrapped around salt-water poisoned red maples.

In the front seat, beyond the sound partition, Captain Parata was motioning to the driver to pull over. Aimery looked out and spotted the focus of the guard’s concern: in the twisted branches and scraps of fabric and sodden papers, was the shape of a large doll. It was face down in a mound of mud, its life-like hair matted with filth and dried leaves, one red ribbon neatly in place. A woman sat nearby, staring out to the horizon… and beyond. Just as Parata was reaching for the door handle, Aimery flicked the intercom. “What are you stopping for? Keep going.” There’s nothing to be done about that, not on my time in my ship. The two men up front exchanged a quick look, then drove on.

Aimery liked to think of any vehicle he was in, be it car or plane, as his ‘ship.’ It led his thoughts to roll back like the ebbing tide, revealing a carefully preserved memory. As a boy, he had loved being on the water, learning to handle a Sunfish as well as handling the girls who were drawn to sailboats. During his sixteenth summer his Grampa Avery had taken him on a month-long voyage around the Caribbean aboard his schooner, a hand-crafted wooden two-master christened ‘Bindi’s Virtue.’ One night in Saint Martin, while drunk as proverbial pirates, Grampa Avery had confessed to him every detail of his wild weekends with Bindi, even revealing the true owner of that name. The boy Aimery came away blushing, with a mission to live life as boldly as Grampa Avery, whom he secretly considered to be his true father.

He missed those days. He tried, in his eighties, to recapture something of those exhilarating times, even commissioning a one hundred twenty-ton brigantine with a towering square-rigged foremast. Over three seasons, the foul waters of ports from Boston to The Keys etched a brown stain along the waterline. He never forgot the smell of those chunky harbor swells, and never took her out again. 

They drove on to Newport for lunch. He might have preferred one of the Italian restaurants serving mounds of pasta on Federal Hill in Providence or one of the many quiet taverns dotting East Greenwich’s Hill and Harbor district. There was a problem, though: traversing the 60-year-old Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge connecting the island westward to the rest of Rhode Island was problematic. Pedestrians packed the crumbling lanes in each direction, on foot or bicycle, carrying everything they owned. Some dreamed no doubt of opportunities on one side: work or a market for whatever wares or services they had to sell. The rest were equally sure that reaching the opposite shore would reverse their dim fortunes. So instead, the big car sailed east along the stately Newport Bridge, which had patrols to keep the pedestrians off.

The city had fared better in the storm than the villages around his home. These days, Newport’s marinas were only half full of aging luxury craft, and though most appeared to have escaped damage overnight, they had not escaped the relentless gnawing of time’s teeth.

As a young man, he’d joined in ‘the happening,’ a summertime moveable feast of sex, booze, and drugs that jumped from one yacht to the next. Male cadets from the naval college performed admirably, pleasuring the wives of billionaires whose mogul-husbands were busy striking drunken deals aboard the floating palaces. All that was a distant shadow now. The party atmosphere had long since fled these slips, leaving crusty hulls and sagging grey rigging swaying  in the dirty breeze as a sad reminder of the city’s once giddy excesses. More than a few giant gas-guzzling yachts lay at the bottom of the Atlantic, their owners having scuttled them for the insurance money and grudgingly switched to sail or wind turbine power.

He chose a restaurant along Thames Street, tucked between various upscale shops and bars, just far enough from the putrid water of the docks to avoid the stink. The beer was cold, if weak. As usual, beef was nowhere to be found on the menu. No sweet pork, either. Although it’s not like the owners are gonna advertise if they have that. A couple at the table next to his looked over. Oh, that had come out aloud. Whatever. He settled for a bowl of Rhode Island Clam Chowder. The clams--quahogs, in fact--were most likely the product of one of the many land-based aquacultural farms that thrived even as the oceans died. The potatoes seemed real, but he recognized the onions and celery as the artificial cellulose produced in one of his JW plants. The bacon was anybody’s guess. The crackers came sealed in the same packets he remembered from childhood, and for all he knew may have been sitting in a warehouse since then. As he chewed the quahog bits, an unwanted image came to mind of the dark mass he had seen in the bay this morning. Evil doesn’t die. He pushed that thought away and finished his meal.

The wiry-haired woman who served him said not a word. Instead, he enjoyed the sound of a familiar voice, his own, coming from the Book of Jaymes she wore around her neck. “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” One of his better snatches of wisdom. The book followed up with: “Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life.” He forgot in what context these had occurred to him. What mattered is that he had recorded them and generously shared them with his employees.

He took a closer look at the woman who wore the talking necklace. He knew this trick. Waiters and merchants often kept the necklaces handy and threw them on when they saw him coming, hoping for a sale or fat tip from gullible old Aimery. Good luck!

He looked again at her face. He almost recognized the waitress from many years before; perhaps a former lover, or a maid, probably both. If she still felt anything, indeed even remembered him that way, she’d never given any outward sign in all the times he’d been here. Not that he really cared; she was much too old now for him to go looking to stir the ashes. Whatever.

After lunch, he stopped by the clinic to see about his lymph node augmentations. It was usually a twenty-minute proceedure. A special device harvested a graft from a donor and spliced it onto his existing tissue. Simple. For him, anyway.

As he approached, he saw that the clinic building was closed. A note on the door explained that Dr. Laghiri was dead and his aides had decided to move on. When did this happen? He looked through the glass door to see that the furnishings were absent, save for a dark green fish tank and some overturned chairs. It took money to attract a proper longevity doctor. He could do it, but he’d face a bidding war with a dozen other corporate dynasties, no small matter.

Still, he might find a doctor for one hush-hush operation at home. He’d think about it.

For now, he focused on the final, and most pleasant, item on the agenda. He checked with planners about arranging his own birthday party. Only a handful of people came and went in the shops. Although it was June, tourists now avoided this place, exposed as it was to the Atlantic weather.

Really, someone should be doing this busy work for him, but there was no one he could trust. Barry was useless, and besides he had not seen the boy in years. His daughters were off, doing whatever they did with his money. It wasn’t the kind of thing he’d leave to his corporate underlings. So, it was up to him.

As they traveled on, Captain Parata informed him that the guards had conducted a thorough search of the Jaymes mansion and grounds, but found nothing. Couldn’t have been all that thorough, now could it? Parata offered his best apology and they drove on. His first day as captain was not going well.

Aimery looked from one run-down shopping plaza to the next, finding a little here and more there. Favors and trinkets, snacks, booze. His favorite independent stores were long gone. In fact, he’d made it a point to buy most of them, with an eye to developing them into global chains. In the end, though, he folded them into larger retail holdings, in some cases erasing generations of work. No matter, since his business savvy ensured greater profit from each of the locations. For a while. These days, nothing was sure, but that wasn’t his fault. People were failing in their roles as supporters of the greater good that Jaymes World offered.

 The car rolled over streets lined by nine-foot privacy walls and trees from all nations. In the eighteenth century, sheep farmers cleared virtually every native tree. Then, the leisure class of the Gilded Age embroidered Newport with lush elms, European beeches, Japanese maples, and countless gardens crafted to rival Versailles. These days, what little decorative flora remained  stood sickly and stunted.

Stopping at Rosecliff, he made sure no one objected to his using the gaudy old palace for his party. It wasn’t as though the staffers could refuse. He just wanted to ensure that the estate was closed off to public visitors in time to put everything in order. The stony edifice cost two and half million dollars back when crews finished it in 1902, a laughable fraction of the cost of building such a home now. Getting things done was simple for the oil barons of the day; no one questioned their place atop society. Once, Rosecliff provided the setting for a movie based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, The Great Gatsby. As a boy, Aimery dreamed of being Robert Redford in a flawless pink suit and keeping the lithe and lovely Mia Farrow all to himself in an oversized marble dollhouse. Like Gatsby, Aimery threw lavish parties there, allowing his guests to wander the south-facing cliff walk from one gilded summer cottage to the next. None of the Newport pharaonic locations matched his own home, of course, but he had no intention of letting so many friends and strangers into his special preserve. Easier to make proper use of this dandified vacation home. That was the real benefit of ongoing efforts to keep Rosecliff in decent repair, along with a handful of lesser but still fine homes along Bellevue Avenue. His footsteps echoed through the atrium as he walked in the door. Gazing up, he pictured himself descending the grand staircase dressed in a splendid white tuxedo. Having his party at this location was a cliché, but the best possible kind. Not bad.

In the late afternoon, he, his driver, and Captain Parata made their way home. The big car drove through a tunnel under the blister and dropped him at the main atrium, then drove out of sight. Stepping inside, he heard and felt… something. Not silence. The wind blew through the damaged blister. The house still made sounds. A family of owls had claimed the attic over his bedroom. Pipes clattered and hissed like spirits denied their rest. This was none of those things. It was something with a purpose and it was moving about in the upper levels now, tentative and out of sight.

A new thought occurred to him. What if these sounds he heard were not some broken, wandering creature, but rather from one of his own spawn. Is that you, Barry? Barry had been busy, lately, trying to tap into some of the family’s business interests. What if he had ambitions to do more than just fiddle with them? What if Barry was planning to send Aimery to join his father at the clinic? No. That was not going to happen. He would put a stop to any thoughts the boy might have. Barry would learn--maybe sooner than later--that power meant always being ready to fuck or fight. To kill if necessary.

He summoned his staff, but only four came. They stood, haggard and gaunt, in their cheaply made uniforms. One of the girls--no smile; too bony to be sexy--had failed to properly press her uniform. Aimery made a mental note to dock her pay. He paid them good money. The fees he charged covered uniforms and laundering. They were responsible for presenting themselves in proper order, not this sad puppy condition. 

“Has my son been here? Or my daughters or any of the former Mrs. Jaymeses?” He noted  the vacant looks in the row of sunken eyes. What was wrong with them? Are you people or old ragdolls with mud for brains?

Then another thought hit him with a sudden chill. Perhaps these sorry excuses for staffers were in on this… this plot. Or, maybe some of the villagers had allowed their envy of his fine house to get the better of their reason. They’d throw away all that he had brought to the island just to possess what was his. Not a chance. These half-starved peons couldn’t muster a decent fart, much less a coup.

He was about to dismiss the staff, when he looked at one, considered for a moment, then checked something using his link. Yes. A match.

“You.” A vague gesture fired in the girl’s direction.

“Sir?”

“You’ll join me for dinner tonight.” The others didn’t flinch, but one appeared to tremble.

“Sir?” The girl stood like a statue with marble chipped away in the wrong places. She was underfed, but that wouldn’t matter.

“Sir? What sir? You’ll join me for dinner,” Aimery said. He barely looked at her as he keyed in a message to a public hospital in Boston. He wouldn’t be caught dead there, but he’d get someone down here to do what he needed done. It shouldn’t require a specialist. Any doctor or resident who worked at a public hospital would be willing to be discrete for a price. He’d had these transfers before. He could instruct even a public hospital worker on what to do. The transfer was never difficult… for him. Afterwards, Captain Parata would handle the clean-up.

“Sir, I – Really, you mean me, sir? Yes, sir.” She was young and new to the household, but already a darkness circled her eyes.  

“Good. Nine o’clock.” He then dismissed the girl and the other servants. It was only afterwards that he realized he hadn’t gotten her name.

Aimery spent the next hour going from room to room, but found nothing. Out one cracked window, the spotlights came on and revealed how overgrown the topiary had become, how laced with choke vines; he couldn’t tell the lion from the panda he had loved as a child. His explorations took him to parts of the house he hadn’t visited in years. The solarium held a dozen or more aviaries. On the bottoms of the oversized cages, there were dusty feathers but there was no sign of any living bird. Had they perished by some intruder? Somebody get hungry? Up on the fourth floor, he found his grandfather’s suite. Propped on a stand, a hand-written journal stood open to a page with a single entry: "We gladly gave our nights to every whispery sin, until the daylight found us bitter and empty." Grampa had gotten morose in his later years.

Again he mustered the staff. This time, the troop roster totaled three. When none could explain the absence of the fourth, the timid girl, he flew into a pique of anger and ordered them all off the property immediately. He threatened to call security, wondering if indeed he still had a security department. The ex-staffers made no challenge but quietly collected their things and left, walking slowly back to the village that, if the weather had shown mercy, still included their homes.

Aimery began the business of rummaging up dinner in his cavernous kitchen. Thankfully, the utensils were still in place. But, try as he might, he could not find all of the ingredients to make any of his favorite dishes. There’d been theft here, too. As he filled a Wedgewood plate with canned salmon and olives, his ears pricked up. There was a scraping sound, like a rake being dragged over the dining hall’s fine tile and teak inlay floors. He stopped what he was doing and listened. Nothing. He hummed to himself and started to bring his plate to a small servants table by the massive copper-hooded stove. The scraping drew slightly closer, then stopped again. Craning his neck, he could see down a small corridor to the dining hall. There was no sign of any movement. Screw it! He released a disgusted breath from his lips, and ate his dinner.

Aimery settled in for the night, with the help of a bottle of Courvoisier XO Impérial and some carefully hoarded pot. In the days to come, he had a great deal to do. He planned the best party ever, complete with the finest foods available, a rainbow fountain of liquors, four bands, and a coterie of young people for sex and feasting. His invitations drew unanimous acceptance and gifts soon began pouring in.

Ten days before the big event, he canceled the entire production, canceled the food and liquor, canceled the three-night reserve on the great marble mansion on Bellevue Avenue, canceled the brigade of servants and hired lovers. He did it all with one note fired from his wrist link. He eventually acquiesced to allow his friends, employees, and admirers to send video greetings, but no actual guests attended his grand masque. The 104th anniversary of the birth of Aimery Jaymes became an evening for one. He was sorely lacking in energy.

He’d had no luck getting someone from the hospital in Boston. This was troubling. His implants were no longer responding as they should, resulting in a noticeable drop in certain vital hormones. Any attempt at debauchery could only end in frustration, possibly humiliation. No. Just no. He’d have to find a new doctor to replace them, soon. From… somewhere. No matter, he’d tend to it.

Aimery Jaymes hired a new set of staffers, then fired them  three days later. Didn’t like the look of that bunch. He oversaw the bots himself as they finished repairing the blister, only to watch another storm tear a new hole in the northeastern section. He checked with all of his corporate departments to see whether they could muster the resources to build new bots and the operating support to go with them. All resources were committed, all supplies were facing sharp rationing. His people promised him they’d get it done somehow, but he knew… he knew they were lying. 

It didn’t matter. He was home. Safe. He was safe.

Was that damn thing moving again? No. No sound. Good. Good. He could hear it scraping, moving, circling. It was in the walls or the attic or under the floor. Then, it stopped. No. No sound. It waited. No. Nothing there, dammit. Aimery Jaymes focused on the next business at hand: The Styx Project. That was the future.

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[Note: Chris Riker is not a plagiarist, but Aimery Jaymes is. Two of his Book of Jaymes quotes are lifted from Ayn Rand and Frederick Nietzsche.]   

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Published: 03 November 2023