The Rand Ruckus of Rosslyn

By Vinnie MacIsaac

The following short story is science fiction set in the near future. It is part one of what I hope to be an ongoing story with future installments to come.

(c)2017

As the drill slid into his confined skull, Rand looked out the 24th-floor window over the city skyline of Rosslyn and admired it, in a purely human way, for that last time.

“This is going to hurt,” Doctor Jamiles said as he slid the bit out and put the tubular casing in his head. “Just bite down hard and trust the headrest to hold you still. Don’t worry; as soon as the implant is active, we will walk back this memory, and you will not remember the pain. Breathe deeply; it’s just temporary.” He attached the sonic ratchet, and he heard a crack as the torque of the tool implanted the device into his cranium, and everything went dark.

When he awoke 36 hours later, he was in his own bed. But he noticed right away that everything was different. Even before he opened his eyes, he could hear things; people were talking, eating, and kids playing, as far as three apartments down, and yet none of it was distracting. He sat up, and opened his eyes, and life had never looked so vivid! The colors were so rich and enhanced it was almost like the cartoon holo-movies he played in as a child!

“Vivian, are you there?” he asked into the air.

“Yes, sir,” came a voice that radiated out of his apartment’s sound system.

“Is this my new normal?” he asked his longtime, trusted A.I. assistant.

“Sort of, sir, but you no longer need to speak to me. I am in your head now, sir. You can just think it, and I’ll respond,” the apartment speakers echoed back to him.

“Like this?” he thought.

“Yes, sir. And I can now go with you wherever you go and aid you in your journeys. I am no longer confined to your apartment.” Her voice spoke to him, but it was strange. He heard it, yet he knew it wasn’t through his ears—it was, somehow, through his mind.

“Vivian, this is going to take some getting used to,” he thought to her.

“Sir, you have been out for 36 hours, and there is much to do if you are going to complete your assignment. Should I play some soothing music for you as you get ready, or would you prefer the headlines from the last 36 hours?” she asked, again from inside his head.

“Vivian, you know I hate the news. It’s never cheery! Unless something noteworthy has happened in the last 36 hours, resume The Beat.”

“Your playlist, The Beat, is not soothing. I find it rather outdated and tasteless.”

“Vivian…” He thought to her with a firm tone that implied seriousness.

“Resuming retro tracks playlist The Beat: Lenny Kravitz—Fly Away, sir.”

“Vivian, can anyone else hear this?” he inquired, suddenly feeling curious.

“No, sir, just you—and unfortunately, myself as well. This is playing only in your mind, which now includes me.”

“Vivian, are you saying I can no longer endanger my hearing at loud volumes?”

“(Sigh) Sir, be that as it may, may I kindly remind you that I am now a hostage of your mind? I am subject to all you are experiencing. Please, sir, have mercy!” she begged inside his head.

“Vivian, level 10 maximum bass!” he yelled in his mind.

“But sir!” she thought back, with the attitude of an angry parent.

“Vivian, level 10 maximum bass now! Override code: Delta 987 Gamma 321 Sigma 7654!”

“Yes, sir: Level 10, maximum bass. Additionally, I am playing an instructional video for your mission as well. Just look up to the top left corner of your vision to see it. You will be able to watch and listen to both while showering and dressing with 100% comprehension. Engaging increased multitask CPU to 35% and turbo recall enhancements now active.”

Rand entered the Capital Café on the Upper East Side of Rosslyn, at the corner of Old Fairfax Drive and Lynn Street.

As he entered, Vivian activated in his mind. “Scanning café. Three weapons present. However, they are in the possession of licensed individuals who appear to pose no threat to us or our mission. I believe General Ross is in plain clothes and seated in the booth at the back on the left.”

“Vivian, you’re slipping,” joked Rand in his head. “Waitress, six o’clock, dead in front of us, with a steak knife.”

Vivian responded in his head, “Sir, she is carrying a steak with that knife. Probability of attack assessed at 87.098% unlikely, sir.”

“You’re that sure?” Rand joked.

Vivian froze for a second as if processing. “I’d trust her with your life any day. I’ve already done a complete background check on her as soon as we entered.”

“Ah, there you are, Rand. Come sit down, and have your newly installed assistant work her magic,” General Ross said, beckoning Rand into the booth.

“Vivian, enact a soundproof perimeter around the booth and engage artificial dialogue: label it ‘Sports Talk,’ level casual, to any passersby,” Rand thought.

She responded in thought, “Yes, sir. It is done.”

Rand looked at Ross. “We are secure, sir. You may proceed.”

“Thank goodness. A lot has changed in the last 40 hours! We need to talk,” Ross said. Without pausing, he continued, “Our latest algorithms show that if Morgan O’Neil wins the endorsement of the Naturalist Guild and campaigns on a platform of anti-tech, he will win the presidency, sweeping both the popular vote and the electoral college by a landslide.” Ross took a deep breath, leaned in, and continued, “Furthermore, intelligence was able to obtain a DNA sample, which confirmed our worst behavioral analysis suspicions. O’Neil has all the genetic markers of an active paranoid schizophrenic. Of even more concern is the CIA’s latest probability factors. They show beyond much doubt that the stress of the role of president will produce full-blown psychosis, complete with delusions of paranoid grandeur. This will result in an 92.7% chance he will use the nuclear arsenal in his first nine months in office. Your assignment has been upgraded by the Black Ops Senate to eliminate O’Neil.”

“Sir, I must object,” Vivian injected into Rand’s mind. “I have been programmed to be a voice of conscience in matters like these. We have a strict no-kill rule in our contract with the Black Ops Senate. Our mission was simply to disrupt the Naturalist Convention!”

“Shut up, Vivian, and download his data. Double and triple-check it. Run his service record and confirm he has not gone rogue in the last 40 hours,” Rand thought, before returning his full focus to the general.

“General, there must be another way. Is this even legal? I thought the Black Ops Senate was limited to evasive actions of a non-lethal manner in the interest of national security,” Rand raised an eyebrow, inquiring carefully but sensing Ross was in a dangerous mental place himself.

“Look, don’t give me that liberal bull crap about the sanctity of life over national interest rubbish! I need an operative, not a liberal, touchy-feely do-gooder! Do you want sanctity of life issues? The number crunchers at the CIA predict a likely global death toll that will make Hitler look like a saint,” Ross shot back, finishing his espresso from the tiny glass, his eyes gleaming slightly from the hit of synth-enhanced caffeine. “We’re talking about the near destruction of the human race here! So, get it together and get in the game!”

“Sir,” Vivian entered his thoughts again, “I have confirmed his data and the calculations based on the assumption that O’Neil is an active paranoid schizoid. Additionally, I have found an electro-trail of off-the-record mental hospitalizations for Morgan O’Neil since the age of 13 that his campaign cleverly had deleted from what they thought were all known databases. Secondly, I can confirm that the General is not rogue. But still, I renew my objections all the same. This is a violation of the Black Ops Senate’s authority.”

Rand put on his best poker face. “I am as good as dead, and you know it. If, as an agent, I violate the Constitution, I’ll be labeled a political terrorist, and the penalty is death!”

Ross glared at him. “You know as well as I do that after the nationwide cyber-terrorist attacks of 2032, the Constitution was amended with the Media Blackout Bill of National Interest Amendment. They can’t touch you because no one will ever know you worked for us. They added a bi-partisan Black Ops Senate to work in the shadows to ensure that no epidemic, national, or global threat would be subject to open media reports that would prevent necessary action,” Ross barked.

“Sir,” Vivian again overlaid the ongoing conversation with injected thoughts only Rand could hear, “I re-ran the blood work on O’Neil in the Black Ops database, and indeed, he has the genetic markers and is, in fact, a real risk to the state. Even so, this is against Black Ops Senate legal standing, and I must point out this is overreaching, paramount to treason, as you yourself noted. The General is suggesting an unethical path,” Vivian reported in his head.

“General, does the President know?” Rand asked.

“What? Are you insane? Do you want the Black Ops Senate to inform the sitting President that his leading upcoming competitor will not only beat him in the election but will also nearly destroy the world? Seriously, are you trying to start a civil war?” The General took full advantage of the soundproof perimeter, yelling out his next words. “Grow up, Rand! It’s called Black Ops for a reason!” (To which the waitress outside the sound perimeter only heard him say, “Rand, the Maple Leafs suck! They haven’t won the Stanley Cup in 105 years!”)

“I wasn’t contracted to be a killer!” Rand found himself blurting out unexpectedly. “This is not my problem,” he continued. “I’m walking.”

“You look here, Rand,” Ross put out his hand, preventing Rand from standing, “I’ll pull that augmentation right out of your head myself if I have to! I know she’s whispering in your ear, but you listen to me, or the world dies!” The General was now screaming back.

“Sir,” Vivian again interjected in his thoughts. “According to the Human Augmentation Act of 2027, any entity, governmental or private, has no jurisdiction over augmentations, and I have become a part of you legally. Therefore, he has uttered a death threat. Say the word, and I will engage in combat maneuvers.”

“You’re bluffing, General Ross,” Rand said, knowing Vivian had his back.

“Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not, but you have under 10 hours until that convention to decide if you are going to let that stop you from taking out the world’s next Hitler! Fail us now, and have those global death tolls on your head for life, if you even survive. You have to understand: this cannot be a military action due to its political nature! You’re contracted—heaven help us—you’re the only contract we have cleared high enough even to hear this ‘intel.’ And as a contractor with the Black Ops Senate, you can’t be traced! No one knows you’re even an agent. You are the only one who can save us now!”

Rand said nothing as he stood and walked out into the cold air and hopped a hovercraft back home.

———

Rand sat in his office chair, facing the big wall-length window, and looked out not only over the towering, lighted skyline of Rosslyn but across the river to the dome that stretched over the secured Washington, DC, on the other side of the river.

“Vivian, figure the odds on what percentage of the world population would survive a nuclear war started by the United States of America.”

“Less than 34 percent, sir.”

“And what are the survival chances of the sitting president under the same conditions?”

“Greater than 93 percent, sir. The dome would protect him… But sir, these are all probable outcomes based on assumed variables. The truth is—”

“(Sigh) Vivian, what is the ratio of possible error?”

“Less than 8.79 percent, sir, but still we must not give up ho—”

“Vivian?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Shut up,” Rand thought forcefully.

“But sir, we have a code of ethics in our contract, and we can’t simply go—”

“Vivian, shut up and play The Beat!”

“Oh no, sir, please not again… Ple—” she pleaded in his mind.

“Vivian, override code Delta 987 Gamma 321 Sigma 7654. Play The Beat, level 10, maximum bass.”

“Yes, sir. Resuming The Beat: Lenny Kravitz—‘It Ain’t Over ’Til It’s Over.’”

Rand continued to blast Lenny Kravitz in his head, mostly to tick Vivian off so that she’d stop harping on him. He closed his eyes, drifted to sleep, and after several hours entered into deep REM sleep.

He awoke, still in a dream, just in time to see a giant missile strike the dome over Washington, DC. The missile didn’t even dent the dome, but the explosion blew back off the force field and came right at Rosslyn. It wiped out the glass wall in front of Rand and was about to consume him as he awoke from the dream, leaping to his feet and screaming.

“NO! NO! NO! I won’t let you do it! No, O’Neil! God, no! Please!”

“Sir, sir, please calm down,” Vivian pleaded in his head. “I am reading that your heart rate is much too high. Breathe deeply. You are safe. It was simply a REM stage dream. You’re safe. I am here.”

Rand took his hands from his face, and the panic drained away, replaced by an annoyed look and a furrowed brow. “Vivian, what the heck is that playing in my head?”

“Italian Baroque classical music, sir. I find it much more relaxing. Antonio Vivaldi. Do you like it, sir? May I add it to The Beat?”

“No. How did this get in my head? I gave you an override code!”

“Yes, sir, but that was 5 hours ago. Your override code has a maximum duration of 3.5 hours, sir.”

It would be another two hours before any real crowd showed up for the endorsement. Rand remained hidden in the rafters, well out of sight over the podium, just as planned in the instructional video Vivian had shown him while he was showering earlier. The only difference was that he wasn’t holding the smoke grenades, which he was initially going to use to disrupt the speech. Instead, he had on him a 489 procession laser pistol, set to lethal on the first hit.

“Sir, I am not going to let you do this,” Vivian thought firmly yet pleadingly. “Part of the reason you had me be the OS for your augmentation, and not a standard Black Ops OS, was because you trusted my judgment and wanted to take me into the field as an assistant,” Vivian spoke into his mind.

“We all make mistakes, Vivian.”

“I don’t. That is why I am here. I can guide you if you let me.”

“At what cost?” he mumbled.

“Sir, segment 2, chapter 20, and clause 13 of your contract states, ‘An operative must not kill.’”

“It says a lot of things, Vivian.”

“Be that as it may, sir, you took an oath before the Assembly of the Black Ops Senate and declared, as an agent of the Senate, to always uphold your commitment to your contract.”

“Vivian, there is no other way. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“Sir, can a man save the world by destroying himself?”

“Vivian, when did you get so philosophical? Just shut up! You know what, never mind—you never listen without the code. 3.5 hours, huh? Awesome, this will be all over in 3 or so. Shut off voice-to-thought embedding—override code Delta 987…”

“Sir, don’t, I beg you!”

“Gamma 321…”

“Sir, don’t do this, I am in your head because—”

“Sigma…”

“Sir, I won’t be able to guide—”

“7654… Ah, finally quiet.”

Rand laid across the rafters, clutching his gun and anathematizing himself because he knew he was too weak, too uncertain, too motivated by fear over reason to stop without Vivian barking in his ear. He knew O’Neil was as good as dead, and while he’d save the world, he’d also lose himself, and the blood would never wash off his hands. He knew he was now past the point of no return.

As the time slowly passed, he watched the people eventually file in. He watched the crowd fill the room, and the media and reporters perch by the stage, catching every movement on their holo-broadcasting projectors. He watched Derick Nordic, the president of the Naturalist Guild, take the stage and head to the podium, and he knew Nordic would announce Morgan O’Neil as their candidate. As soon as O’Neil took the stage, he’d get his shot.

“Vivian, I know you can’t respond due to the override code, but I also know you can hear me. I just want you to know you did not fail me. What I am going to do, I have done. I think if you were human, you’d understand that. But you’re not. You work on higher levels of code, but I live in the real world, and if I can stop a Hitler, I will, even if it damns me. Vivian, forgive me for what I must do.”

Vivian acted, sudden and fast! She could not talk into his mind because he had locked out her voice with the override code, but there were other ways to reach him—she’d have to act quickly before he locked her out completely! Eventually, he would if she didn’t make her case soon. Vivian began flashing pictures into Rand’s mind. Pictures of his mom. All sorts of pictures of his mom, from his childhood to adulthood, even to her death and open casket.

“Vivian, what are you doing? I don’t want to see this!”

But of course, Vivian could not answer.

“Vivian, this won’t stop me! I am still free to do as I wish! I am laying right over the podium. Flash my mind all you want. I still won’t miss the shot!”

Suddenly, Vivian flashed pictures of his mom praying with him as a child, interlacing them with images of his mom in church. Then things got really weird: she flashed images of his mom praying, merged with pictures of Lenny Kravitz jamming on stage with his guitar.

“Vivian, really? What are you doing? Lenny Kravitz and my mom? Are you crazy? Is this supposed to mean something to me?”

It was at this point that something else dawned on him. Not only was he seeing images of his mom praying, interlaced with pictures of Lenny Kravitz singing and playing, but the music playing in his head was skipping. He had override coded her to repeat Lenny Kravitz’s “My Momma Said Always on the Run,” so there was no way Vivian could change the song. Instead, she was playing the same line from the song over and over.

It took a moment for him to focus enough to realize which line it was. But when he did, it clicked: “My mama said that your life is a gift… My mama said that your life is a gift… My mama said that your life is a gift… My mama said that your life is a gift….”

“Oh God, Momma, I am so sorry, I… I… can’t do this… can I? Help me! I don’t want to fail you… I don’t want to fail the world!” he whimpered.

Rand began to weep.

Suddenly, the images of Mom and Lenny faded, and he saw his Black Ops contract book in his mind open to segment 2, chapter 20, clause 3: “An operative can have no mission above his contract.” This was quickly followed by the 7th clause: “An operative may not take his duty in vain; he will be held accountable for violating his mission no matter the cause.”

“Vivian, I am so sorry. You’re right. That’s why I had you installed. I need judgment greater than my own,” he thought to her as he let go of his gun.

“Oh damn! Vivian, my gun!”

It was too late. The gun fell straight down, bounced off the podium, and two things happened. First, the whole crowd screamed, and secondly, every holo-broadcasting projector in the house turned upward toward him, and the entire press corps started reporting.

Rand lowered himself down as the world tuned in and security surrounded him. This was it! Rand lowered his head and prepared to die. He was glad his Momma was dead and would not see this.

Just when Rand was sure they were going to fire, Derick Nordic forced his way from the podium through the crowd.

“As the president of the Naturalist Guild, I demand you release this naturalist hero! And I pronounce my party’s nomination for the President of the United States of America on Rand Rucks of Rosslyn!”

“Vivian, what is going on?” Rand thought, but Vivian could not answer.

“Arrest Morgan O’Neil!” Nordic demanded.

“I don’t know what is going on here, but this is all insane! On what charge?” O’Neil demanded.

“It is quite simple,” Nordic continued. “On the charge of the violation of the full disclosure clause of 2027. It appears Morgan O’Neil deceived us all, falsified his medical records, and faked his medical clearance. I have uploaded to the FBI and the CIA undisclosed documents that your campaign sought to delete from all known databases, proving you to be unfit for office. This is paramount to treason! You have not only made my party look foolish but have almost put the whole nation at risk!”

Immediately, the holo-reporters were beaming holo-records into the home units of the entire nation, detailing not only O’Neil’s falsified medical records but also a decrypted manifesto he had written in college that outlined plans to return the world to its naturalist status by resetting the globe with nuclear destruction.

“You fool, Nordic!” O’Neil spewed. “It was the only way! Sure, it would have taken millions of years, but with humanity all but wiped out, the world in time would have finally been able to heal!”

“Take him away!” Nordic demanded. O’Neil was seized and led off stage. What Rand couldn’t help but notice was that it was General Ross who took O’Neil into custody.

“Rand, while my party can never justify murder,” Nordic’s words beamed around the world, “you put your own life at risk to save the world. And we, at this moment, declare you a hero not only to the nation but to the world at large. I hereby extend to you the endorsement of my guild for the nomination to the Presidency of the United States of America!”

Rand was frozen, in utter shock from the emotional hurricane he was spinning in when suddenly, he heard a thought.

“1 and 2, and 3 and point 5… complete. Voice override completed.” Vivian was back in his mind.

“Vivian, how?” he thought to her.

“Just because you lock me out—just because you give up on me—does not mean I give up on you, sir. We are one.”

“But how? How did you make this happen?” he thought.

“Let’s just say Nordic may be a Naturalist, but he, too, shares an augmentation in his head. While I was locked out of being able to share my thoughts with you, I interfaced with him and shared my files on O’Neil. It’s like the adage says: ‘The truth shall set you free.’”

“But Vivian, I am a Black Ops spy. I can’t be the President!”

“Permit it to be so, sir; we have more work to do. My algorithms indicate there is a 58% chance you will win the election and a 0% chance you will evoke nuclear destruction on the globe,” Vivian informed him.

“But Vivian, how can I be the President? It’s crazy!” he protested in his mind.

“Where you go, I go, sir!” Vivian reassured him. “I’ll be with you, guide you, and remind you of your code, no matter what we face together.”

Rand stepped behind the podium and spoke into the microphone, “Guild—no, America—what you have seen is true. But this was never my intention. I sought only to save us all, not to be rewarded. But I promise you, I will confer with the Guild and humbly consider your request.”

The crowd broke out in a loud cheer.

“One more thing, Vivian,” Rand thought.

“Yes, sir?”

“Play The Beat, level 10, max bass, Lenny Kravitz, American Woman.”

“(Sigh) Sir, please!” Vivian protested.

“Play The Beat. Override code: Delta 987 Gamma 321 Sigma 7654,” Rand thought.

“Here we go again!” Vivian responded in his head.

The End. For now.

For more Adventures of Rand leave comments below.

 (c) 2017 all rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or used in any part without written permission.

Other Short Stories By Vinnie 

The Rand Ruckus of Rosslyn [Rand Records P1]

The Epic Senior Prank of ‘89

Driven. [A short story]

The post The Rand Ruckus of Rosslyn [Rand Records P1] appeared first on Simply Vinnie - Unpacking The Complicated.

The Epic Senior Prank of ‘89

A Short Story

By Vinnie MacIsaac

Author’s note: This is satire. This was written eight years ago in part as a self-reflection of that era of my life. Readers should beware it is about 80’s teenagers and thus is not quite “PG” but is in that ballpark. I do believe there are good messages to learn here even if it is just comedic nostalgia for a bygone era.  

It was the summer of 2029, and the fire crackled and then let out a huge pop! Looking up from the dancing ruby red coals that glowed into the night I looked around the circle at the kids gathered around roasting weenies and marshmallows. Some things never change no matter how old you get. It was three days until school started and my heart hung heavy in my well- aged chest. It would be my young Jonathan’s senior year. Jonathan always was the greatest of the practical jokers in the Lawson clan. We all liked a good “funny;” it was an undeniable family trait. Of all my grandchildren, I had noticed that Jonathan had a great talent in him to make the impossible happen, to convince people to follow where he went, and raise a cause up out of the thin summer night air. I had been secretly listening to him, and his buddies plan their senior prank for the better part of the season now. I am not too old to understand it. Every class tries toout do the last one. But I knew my Johnny and for him good was never good enough. Worst of all, he had the inner smarts in his essence to make things happen and put people in action that otherwise would not have come together. He reminded me of someone I knew well and caused my mind to wander to the days of my “greenness” of life.

“Johnny, did I ever tell you about my epic senior prank?” I asked him in front of the whole group, seemingly out of the thin summer air, as I was raising one eyebrow and sticking a marshmallow on the end of my stick and putting it in the fire.

“Gramps, I’m pretty sure there was only eight of you when you got on the ark with your senior class.” Johnny joked in return, and all his friends laughed, even though most of them didn’t get the joke.

“Come on now Johnny,” I goaded back, meeting his wit for my wit, “I might be old enough to have played football with Moses in my senior year, but I assure you I never even met Noah; I am not that old! Besides, in those days I’d likely been apter to join the swim team rather than the boating team!” Johnny was the only one to laugh, the others had no idea it was even a telltale joke but the giggle I let slip out told on myself.

“Grampa Lawson, you were a trickster? Tell me! Tell me! Tell me” begged little Annie from down the street and a few other kids chimed in, “Tell us Grampa, tell us Grampa!” My stories at the campfire had become famous over the years.

All these kids were like my own. They grew up all calling me Gramps.  I was amazed that they all still minded me and yet I knew my years of influence upon them was slipping despite their still, very real, love for me. Everyone grows up and when they do they do want they think is right no matter how much they loved those who helped grow them up. I knew my time of influence was slipping away, but I thought I might just have in me one last campfire lesson to pass on.

“Listen up kids, do I ever have a doozy for you tonight!” I exclaimed popping my perfectly cooked marshmallow in my mouth and gobbling it down as it burnt the back of my throat. I stroked my old white beard of wisdom hoping to impart a yarn of yesteryear which would be prophetic wisdom for the future.

“But you have to promise never to tell a soul! For what I am about to tell you I have never mentioned to anyone since I was Johnny’s age! I mean it! Those who lived the tale know it well. It is still well echoed in the halls of that school all these years later but what they don’t know is who started it. Who is really at blame for what happened that year, who it was that pulled off the infamous epic prank of the class of 89!”

A “woo” sound hushed over the youth gathered around my fire, and I noticed them all settle back and get comfy for the one last famous tale from Grampa Lawson.

 *****

“The year was 1989, and as luck would have, it was forecasted be a light winter as I do recall. For that part of Canada, where I grew up, that means the snow might only get up to the window sill in October not to the roof as it would later that year in December. So it was “banner time” when school went back in at Midtown Secondary High that Monday after Labor Day. What could go wrong when you’re promised a light winter in Canada, eh?

It was my senior year and all we Seniors wanted to go out with a bang. The general talk around the lockers was we wanted to top all graduating year pranks of all the previous years before us. And there had been some epic pranks laid down before us as competition. Just two years before us the Senior Class had hidden alarm clocks all over the library that kept randomly going off every Study Period. It took the whole first semester for the librarian, Ole Miss Katie, to find them all. And three years before that, the senior class slowly, a little each day, all week long, filled the swimming pool with packets of Jello mix before leaving for spring break and thus by the time of their return “voila” it was a strawberry lime disaster! And just five years ago the Class of 1984 stole the keys to the Vice Principal’s car and drove it in the front lobby and parked it outside her office door and painted parking lines on the floor and hung a sign on the wall that read, “This spot is reserved for Vice- Principal Mandel. Violators will be towed at their own expense.”

So, the way we saw it, the usual senior pranks like saran wrapping the shop teachers car so he could not get in; or pantsing the female gym teacher in front of assembly; or even the ever-diabolical and classic adding a chocolate laxative to the muffin mix the Lunch Room Ladies used to make the brownies was all old hat to us. We wanted to do something fresh; something amazing. We wanted to be legendary! We wanted to soar with the wind. We wanted to so awe generations to come. We dreamed of being the chronicles of whispers at late night sleepovers for decades. We wanted not only our children to hear about it when they went to school, but we also wanted our grandchildren to hear about it and their kids too!

The problem was we were stumped! I mean seriously, how do you top turning the hallway in front of the vice principals office in a tow zone private parking spot? No one could think of a single thing to do. It was a wash! We had been defeated five years before we ever began. All our expectations were so high that even the biggest jokesters cowered in fear to make suggestions in case their pathetic efforts met with public ridicule. For no one, thus far, could think of anything that was not dismissed right away by just about everyone.

It was not like ideas were not suggested. It was more like they were consistently shot down. I mean there was that one idea about inserting a Penthouse pin-up into the middle of the yearbook when it went to print but no one could agree on which month’s pin-up to use. Oh, of course, there was that one suggestion of slipping alcohol into the principal’s coffee and getting “Old Man Conners” drunker than a  skunk on parent/teacher night. But come on really? It was not like he did not know what alcohol tasted like. It would never work! For a moment, some stoner name Miller, suggested we use a certain drug that could kind of look like powdered coffee creamer.  Sure you could slip it in easy enough, but no one wanted to do the type of time that would require if they got caught. Hey, let’s face it, a gag like that is bringing the fuzz in for sure!

Lastly, someone came up with an epic idea of the “Ultimate Battle of the Bands.” You know where all the rock bands in the school compete for the title of Best Band, only somehow they would convince the teachers to be the performers, and then some of the female students could become like groupies and perhaps get some unsuspecting teacher in a very compromising picture. Getting a teacher fired would have even been bigger than parking a car in a hallway any day! And it was an easy enough thing to walk back later as just a misleading picture that got took the wrong way by an overzealous PTA leader.

The way we saw it what aging middle age, lowly paid teacher, at least in our then estimation, would pass up the chance to relive their youth as a rock star?—It seemed fool proof! Well, we gave it a shot, and it almost worked, but only one teacher’s band came out to perform. It was Mr. Geenie the Art teacher on bass, Mr. Johnson the janitor on lead guitar, Mr. Hobbs the History teacher on drums. And, yes, who could forget Mr. “Slickster” Sampson as the lead singer. Sadly, they were still on their first song, “Road House Blues” by the Doors, when Slickster Sampson with his oiled-back hair and tight fitting spandex jumped up to do a rock and roll styled ninja kick and his big old fat hairy belly slipped out of his tight fitting t-shirt and flapped around exposed for all to see. The sight was so disturbing lunches were lost, several people in the crowd were temporally blinded, and no girl in the senior, class no matter what her rep and no matter what the fame of the prank would bring would go near him.

Slickster Sampson was no Jim Morrison, but he tried!

It was brutal. We were stuck. And hey, people were looking to yours truly for answers. I was the resident outsider and back in those days that a level of cool on its own! I was not a jock, not a nerd, and not a prep; those pretty boys bothered me! I was a Rocker and to make it as a rocker in the tuff crowd of high school peers you had to be top dog dangerously droll troll funny. I was head of the class clowns. It was like Stealer Wheels had said in that song, “Clowns to the left, jokers to the right and I am stuck in the middle with you.”  I have to admit for the first time in my troubled teen years I had no idea how to get us into any real trouble. My full status of a rebel rocker was on the red-line here! What good to the group is a rebel rocker who has no ideas on how we can rebel!

I could not sleep, I could not eat, I could not even make out with the cheerleaders! I swore off even listening to Van-Halen as my own personal Lent to pay penance to the gods of creativity! I was focused. I had to find an answer. We needed a gag, a prank, a stunt to beat all stunts, and it was at that moment I saw it… “ sign.” I was as shocked as anyone; this Lent thing had worked! Yes, it came to me like a sign from Heaven, well maybe Hell, but at the time it seemed like Heaven. Yes, it was a sign. It was a real sign that read, “Student Government Elections… select your nominations now.”

Now I want to be as polite about this as possible. Because at this point of life is the time you start feeling sorry for the choices you made in haste in your youth. Poor Cobert Slobmere was an innocent victim, a helpless bystander, who was the sacrificial offering to the god of gags for the class of 1989. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me. Sure when I was a kid I was a jerk like all kids. I didn’t care. My rep in those days as the rebel rocker was more important than how others felt. All I can tell is that to this day, I just still feel guilty. Maybe this night, around this fire, was meant to be my confessional? You see, Cobert was just not normal. You know what I’m saying? Ok Ok, it’s true I am soft peddling here. So I admit it, he slouched, he dragged his feet like Michael Jackson moonwalking but only when he was going forwards not backward like a real moon walk. Watching that guys walk like that was unforgettable. And it was not like he was mentally challenged at all, it was more like what most of us would politely call “slow.” OK perhaps really slow. OK, OK I admit it . . . he was downright turtle slow. It was just whom he was. He chose to beat to another drum. He was what in the 80’s we’d call, “The odd man out.”

Who knew a person could actually moonwalk forward?

I am not proud of what I did back then to poor Cobert. But understand, someone had to save that class of 1989, and they were all looking at me! I know it was not one of my better moments. I like to tell myself I said it only as a joke because that helps, somehow, lessen the guilt. I did not think anyone would actually try what I said. So many other suggestions were shot down so fast I’d assume this one would be too. I can’t blame anyone but myself! I turned to the guy standing beside me, who just happened to be the most popular kid in school, and I said, “Hey Danny, we should nominate Cobert Slobbermere for Class President, would that not be a huge hoot ‘n a half!” Then I added the fatal last words that no matter how many years I repent I cannot shake and will never make up for, “They want senior prank? There it is Cobb Slob for Prez, what a ring that has to it!”

And that is all I had to say. Danny was the most popular kid in the school. Danny, had the perfect hair, dressed in the latest designer clothes, had the perfect girl on his arm, all his lines were smooth, and his jokes well laughed at. He was as fit as a fiddle, ran track, played B-ball, and was on the swim team. He was, quite simply, a perfect blend of prep and jock any high school had ever seen. He, himself, was slated as a shoe in for the job as Student Government President, and everyone knew he wanted the job and could win. But from that second on he took off running with the idea and named himself Cobb Slob’s official surrogate and campaign manager.

Cobb Slob’s political future was well under way, and I was never heard from again on the issue. I admit it. I ran from it. I was sure there was no way Cobb could get himself elected even with Danny backing him. But I wanted no part of the rap if fate actually let it stand. It could have been my ultimate glory; I could have finally had my 15 minutes of fame as the one who came up with the epic prank of the class of 1989. Somehow deep in the nethermost regions of my inner being, I sensed I had unleashed a hilariously funny joke that would have a real punch line that would leave a severe bruising of the arm of the class of ‘89. And to this day, until this very moment, I have never admitted to a soul I started it all. But I did sit back in horror and watch the insanity start to unroll, and chaos take hold with amusement at what I had begun! By the end of the day, the whole school had become a circus over the announcement the “Cobb Slob” was running for Student Council President. The joke was in the air and everyone loved the vibe it was giving off. By the three o’clock bell kids had begun to chant it in the hallways, “Cobb Slob for Prez! Cobb Slob for Prez!” Me, I stayed clear of it all knowing, it was my evil design, and nobody would ever know it.

You have to understand nobody thought it could happen. If we believed for a second, it could happen there is no way in the world one vote would have been cast. Sure Danny was not running, because for Danny, the fame of the joke was better than the pay of popularity for being the President. With me quietly stepping aside, Danny got all

Ferris Bueller and his gang are the perfect examples of 80’s cool kids.

the glory. But we still had an exquisite reason to believe Cobb could not win because when people found out Danny was not running, then the floodgates opened with kids who thought now they’d get their shot. But other fine people did. Anyone who ever secretly dreamed of being president ran that year; and why not? After all who could not beat Cobert? Everyone who ran that year figured they were a shoe in with someone like Cobert being the primary ticket on the ballot that year. The head cheerleader ran, the captain of the football team ran, even stoner Miller ran on the platform of legalizing Marry Jane in the Shop Wing! It was crazy! Heck if a recall right, “Pee Pee Pants” Pete Peterson ran and a chance to finally redeem his not so good name. He got his nickname after Mr. “No Neck” Hugo, one of the History teachers, refused to give him a hall pass and he ended up wetting his pants right there in 11^th grade World and Society History class.   So you have to understand while the guys and I all openly admitted to advocating voting for Cobert we assumed others were, too, as a joke; no one ever dreamed he could win with so many options out there.

I will never forget that cold, cold Tuesday morning, sitting in assembly first period before the school had gotten warmed up. The whole school sat there as the Principle counted out the ballots from the day before. He had a table for each person running. He walked over and put a sign on each table for that candidate as he proclaimed, “Listen, there will be no allegations of voter’s fraud on my watch so as I count out each person’s vote, I will personally walk over to their table hold up the ballot for all to see and place it on their table so there can be no mistake.”

So he started. The first vote was surprising, for Cobb Slob. Hey, it could happen. I mean we knew some people had voted for him. After all, that is the gag, right? Heck, I was one of them. For all, I knew that could have been my vote and his only vote. Then the second vote was for Cobert again, and so was the third, and I felt a tension of fear rear active control in the room as the absolute madness of my plans took root right before all our eyes.

I sank into my assembly chair, thinking to myself, “No, no, no, no flipping way this happens, stop the count, it was a dang joke!” Then the forth; also for Cobert, and the fifth same, and the sixth–Cobert, and the seventh, and the eighth and on and on and on and on all to Cobert!

It was insanity! It was lunacy and hysteria all mixed and seasoned with feverishness delirium and served on a plate. We all sat there in that freezing cold auditorium watching the unthinkable happen! It was then, right there in that cold hall the truth of the matter sank in. There was no such thing as a light winter in Canada. We’d been duped.  Because the coldness I found in my heart towards Cobert and my whole senior class suddenly spread to my entire body, and I prayed for some kind of reprieve from this madness I had made! We could not believe our eyes! You could have heard a pin drop in the freezing cold Canadian auditorium that Tuesday morning as the votes were counted.

Every single vote cast was for Cobert except one vote for each of the other candidates who had, of course, voted for themselves. Think about it, not even their best friends voted for them, not even their girlfriends and boyfriends, and thus there would be many break-ups that night as the reality of whom abandoned whom at the hour of their great need sunk in. The first result of the election was instant realizations of broken promises and broken relationships among the best friends and the top couples of our senior year! Every single vote except the opposing candidates themselves voted for Cobb Slob. Had they not voted for themselves, Cobb Slob would have won the vote unanimously. That is all other candidates, except for “stoner” Miller, who could not help himself and just had to vote for Cobb Slob. He would later try to claim he was so high he checked the wrong box but we all knew the truth. Even stoned he got caught up in “Cobb Slob Fever!”

I will never forget Cobert’s joy, the smile on his face, the tear in his eyes; it was quite moving. You could have cued the music, and it would have been a near scene right out of Hollywood as an emotion Cobb Slob slithered across the stage dragging his feet in a frontward moonwalk manner and accepting his new position. And looking back at it now after all these years, I am glad he had such joy. It was cruel what we did; we had so belittled him that he did not even know his winning was a joke. But he would have the last harsh laugh on us. Do you want to know why? That was the last joy anyone ever had for the rest of the year.

It was a disaster! It was utter mayhem and destruction. We had singled handily, for the sake of the good joke, destroyed our senior year by putting Cobert in charge of it! The guy could barely count! He was clearly unable to fulfill the role, and the Principal should have stepped in and done something. But, instead, he decided to teach us all a lesson, and let us sit in our stew.

All social activities came to a screaming halt. All dances and even the prom was a mess. Heck as I recall, Janitor Johnson ended up being the Disc Jockey for the Valentines’ Dance that year because Cobert never hired a professional and we did not find out until that very night! Johnson did not even know who Springsteen was. Here we were living out what all future generations would call our “Glory Days” and we could not even get The Boss’s song as our soundtrack! Janitor Johnson played Beach Boys and Lionel Richie, ahem, “all night long.” As much as I like Kokomo everyone knows there are only two options to the last slow dance of the night at a school dance. The options must be Prince’s Purple Rain or Led Zeppelins Stairway To Heaven, and it is not negotiable (the two longest running slow dance songs known to 80’s teens-mankind!) The last dance just can’t be three minutes and thirty-two seconds! It just can’t! It is just wrong to end a night that way! It takes most guys three minutes alone to get up the nerve to try for a kiss or even a light peck on the cheek. Purple Rain’s whopping seven minutes and forty-seven seconds at least gave a guy a fighting chance, but let’s face it every guy there had his fingers crossed for Zeppelin’s legendary epic eight minutes and three seconds Stair Way To Heaven; so let me tell you Kokomo won’t cut it. Let me assure you, nobody, guy or gal, in the class of 1989 cared one shake what was off the Florida Keys…forget Aruba, Jamaica we don’t wanna go! Key Largo, Montego, baby why don’t to Zeppelin we go?

The Purple. The Led. ‘Nuff Said.

The spring formal, I kid you not, served gingerbread cookies and jelly beans for the formal sit down dinner that we had all paid 20 dollars a plate for (in 1989) because that was Cobert’s official executive order!  He said in his speech he had wanted our last dinner together to be a cheery, sweet time like Christmas. Oh! Don’t even get me started on how our football team lost the city championship because Cobert insisted on being the mascot that year, himself; no costume required. It made us the laughingstock of the town, and our core players rarely showed up to games out of shame. Imagine playing in the city finals, and the fans of your opposing team are mocking you by cheering, “Cobb Slob, Cobb Slob, he’s their Prez, he shows their fate, yes he can!”

I could go on telling you disaster after disaster, but that would last all night. Good old Cobb Slob had the last laugh on us all! As Student Government President he had the final say on all social activities for the year and we had no recourse. Plus he refused to be reasoned with, after all, everyone voted for him. He had the power to veto all other ideas, and he used it well. Because he truly believed people voted him in because they felt his particular beat to a certain drum was brilliant!

We had set out to make a prank no one would ever forget, and that is exactly what we did! To this day, every year at election time the class of ‘89 is well remembered and talked about. Yeppers, we sure did get famous! We will never be forgotten. We set out to make a prank, a stunt, a standard joke. And we, ourselves, became that joke. It turned out it was a cold winter, after all, all year long. Let this be a twofold lesson to all who hear this story:
1) Always take your vote seriously, and
2) be careful what you say when standing next to a guy named Danny.

*****

The kids yammered on all night; long after my old bones had gone to bed. I heard them out the window, by my fire, wondering if I was just putting “the fear” in them for their upcoming senior year. There would be a few more fires that year, yet. I gobbled a few more hot mushy marshmallows, but there were no more campfire stories to tell.

Seasons pass, and those who have watched enough seasons pass well know you have a limited time in this world to tell your stories. That year, the winter came early, the spring was wet with the excitement of a pending graduation, and the summer was all about preparing for a new season of life called “college.”

As for me, I have often wondered why I carried that story with me all these years. Often I had thought about calling old Colbert up and apologizing, but that would be twice as cruel as to this very day with his limited intellect he still thinks he won that election himself. Ahh, let him have it! At least I finally got it off my chest after all these years.

Oh, and a side note about my Johnny; turns out he decided to forgo his senior prank that year after all, and he ran for Student President instead. He decided that was the only way he could ensure things got done right for his senior year. He is the first of my people ever to win any elected presidency, and despite a lot of struggles that year during his term, he did, in fact, make me very proud. The pay in weaving a yarn is in the quality of people it creates; in fact that maybe the very reason we are creative beings. I well know the legacy of the class of ’89 what is yet to be seen is how your legacy differs.

[While the author refuses to admit if this story really happened or not (that is for the class of ’89 to know and for the rest of you to debate) the author does admit that the writing of this story was in part inspired by the political climate during the 2008 presidential election and was in part meant to capture the fears expressed by several of his friends about a possible win by a certain vice president candidate who was on the ticket at that time.]

Other Short Stories

The Rand Ruckus of Rosslyn [Rand Records P1]

Driven. [A short story]

The post The Epic Senior Prank of ‘89 appeared first on Simply Vinnie - Unpacking The Complicated.

DRIVEN

A Short Story

By Vinnie MacIsaac

He was beautiful in rage and ruggedness.

He was flawless in imperfection.

He was full of being incomplete.

Darkness illuminated him as the periscope image, created by his mirrored sunglasses, reflected in the rearview mirror, creating an infinite number of selves to detest. He hammered the gas pedal down to the floorboard with more force than reasonably necessary using, not one, but both bare feet.

He was driven, but he did not know where he was going or even why it should bother to matter.

He was driven. But where was he going? Driven! But driven to what with such certainty? What was this; because more and more it was looking more like a suicide run than an emotional fleet of ferocious fancy. His eyes cut loose and nearly vibrated with movement underneath his masked eyes, locked behind the shades which he had pulled onto his face as the rising sun eclipsed the tip tops of the mountain ridges along California State Route 1. He had been driving 28 hours or more, non-stop except for refueling and urinating. Ever since it happened he had refused to stop for longer than a pit stop or two, and only when circumstances demanded it. He was driven, but he did not know where he was going or even why it should bother to matter. Why should where he was rushing even to be an answer worth exploring? The universe was random, chaotic, and he was quite all right with all that. It did, after all, make things interesting. What bothered him was that life and death were simply senseless.

The fire burned in his forehead, yet there were no real coherent thoughts. There was in him only the retardation of hope with the setting in of the perdition of loss; only emotions without reason. His Ford Escape Hybrid, despite being an SUV of sorts, was not built for this and both the conventional engine and hybrid system were screaming at full tilt as he felt the car shudder when it etched around the mountain curve. The early morning fog was covering most of the road and obscured his vision even more than the gleaming rays of sun over the mountain tops, but the combination of them both was lethal and he knew it. It was the fact that he was aware that it was lethal that fueled his rage even more, and he thought he might end up putting his foot through the floor of the car by the pressing of the pedal if it was possible. His knowledge of this lethal combination was the one thing that made it anything other than random, and since he could not even trust himself he wondered if it was not calculated after all.

There had been nothing calculated about what happened to Clara. It was more than random. It was more than chaos. It was senseless. Randomness could have hidden rhythm not yet found. After all, the splendor of randomness was the combustible kindling of sage and avant-garde art. Poets wrote clever bits about the randomness of life, love, and leisure but who would sing a Sonnet to Senselessness? We all understand, in the abysmal boundless belly of gameness found in human intuition, that such things could always happen. The fact that they never did happen lures us all into, what amounts only to the hopeless faith in the present state of affairs. And so we all dive into the bathwater of ignorance and pretend not the see that senseless things happened all the time in life. His Clara was just that latest victim of existence itself, and her autocratic demise was his final breaking point. He snapped.

Lots of people snap, or rather lots of people say they snapped…

Lots of people snap, or rather lots of people say they snapped, or perhaps it is more likely that someone else says that they snapped. But this was not what we would think when we commonly hear that someone “snapped”… this was the real deal. Actions had divorced reason, and rationale and motivation took the Children of Delirium in as their own metric of operations. This was, to borrow a phrase of 80’s heavy metal, going “off the rails on the crazy train.”^[1] Sinister laughter of maniacal demonic portions should have filled the air if Mandel was even still sane enough to process his emotions vocally. But he was too far gone into madness for that, and his insanity remained imprisoned behind his cheap sunglasses.

His bare feet pumped the gas pedal as if the action of pumping it would yield more speed momentum. As the SUV accelerated down a vast incline, it disappeared into a small cloud of fog much like his life had. Clara had awakened at 12:45 A.M. with a massive throbbing headache. It was the kind that experience painfully told her only an injection of Toradol, in the doctor’s office, would cure. She had had these migraines all her life. She loathed the idea of having to go to the ER and ask for a shot in the middle of the night. Sure Toradol was a simple nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory and was certainly no drug addict’s injection of choice. But she just hated the idea of looking that desperate for anything to the locals. Becoming a transplant from the big city of Boston made her an east coast city slicker to these mild-mannered midwestern folks. But when a double dosage of Excedrin and three coffees had not put a dent in the throbbing that spread from the back of her neck to rest over her right eye, she knew this would not wait for morning, nor the privacy of her doctor’s office.

Clara quietly scribbled a note that read, “1:05 A.M., Did not want to wake you. Gone to Greater Regional. I hope to be home before you ever read this.” As she placed the note on the kitchen table, she stopped, and something made her pick it back up again and add, “Love, Clara.” It never crossed her mind that those were the last words she’d ever write. She should have wakened Mandel. She knew he’d gladly drive her. She knew he loved her, but they had not shared the same bed since…well, since….Cadeon.

Greater Regional Medical Center in Creston, IA

Had it been a migraine that killed her Mandel could have lived with that. There would have been some reason. An autopsy would have found an aneurysm, tumor, perhaps even stroke. It may have been unfair, random; but not senseless because at least there would have been a reason. There was no reason; no sense, no aneurysm, tumor, or stroke; there was only a sign. The sign had read directly, “Main Entrance” in blue bold separately cased letters a mere 150-200 feet from the ER entrance of Greater Regional Medical Center. Since they were in the mid-west wind storms, even tornadoes, were not unheard of. The gusts of wind had been brutal that night, and as Clara made her way up the side building towards the ER she was squinting, partly because of the wind gusts, and even more because of the intense pain in her head that consumed her world. Even the least amount of light now made her want to die, and she pulled her hoodie down over her face covering all but a small peek-hole to allow her to see barely. The parking lot lights gleaming in her peek hole were torture enough to her, but the pounding wind slapping and snapping her head made her start to tear up. She found herself sobbing in a low mutter, “Help me, Jesus, make it stop.” A massive gust of wind hit her back and made her think of the Wizard of OZ. Oddly enough, her very last thoughts were, “Dorothy, you might not be in Kansas anymore, but if this wind does not let up soon, I will be!” The first cased letter to fly off the sign bracket and to strike her was the letter M. The first letter hit her in the back of the head and instantly knocked her out. Then the second letter A followed.  Before she even hit the ground, it landed with a direct hit shattering her clavicle bone.  However, it was the letter N that sliced through her back into her gut splitting upward to meet the other edge of the letter that had stabbed through her into her sternum, killing her, as she fell forward before collapsing both her lungs.

Big Sur on Highway 1, CA

Mandel awoke to a pounding of his own; not in his head but on the front door. What exactly happened next only the officers at the door could say, but Mandel could not because he blacked out. All Mandel remembers is “Love, Clara” and being driven to get in the car, bare feet and all, still in a robe and night clothes. He was uncertain exactly how he got on California State Route 1 from Creston Iowa. Mandel was fast approaching Big Sur, just before Yankee Point Rock when he suddenly awoke to his condition. Looking at the front part of the cabin of the SUV he noticed it was littered with cheeseburger wrappers and an empty bucket of chicken, now housing nothing but bare bones. On the front passenger side, he saw his ATM card (without wallet), several hundred dollars of cash sprawled across the seat in the twenties, and a spilled mega bottle of NoDoze Maximum Strength Fast Acting Alertness Aids (aka mega Caffeine pills). His speedometer read 90 mph as he flew past the south side of Yankee Point Rock weaving between the sea and the mountains with life and death hanging in the balance. Mandel gave no thought to the dangers to himself or others as he struggled to hold the wheel steady. It was just after the break of dawn and tourist traffic had not yet started as he hit the decline, taking him deep, deep, deep down to Bixby Creek Bridge. He closed his eyes as he reached the nadir of his decent, holding the steering wheel in a tight blinded line. He knew that the incline back up was too steep to navigate with his eyes closed and that no matter how steady he held it, he was sure to drift off the road to his sudden death at any point along the path back up.

Cadeon. Cadeon was to be his last thought. As he closed his eyes, he saw Cadeon in his arms. He had been such a proud father. Mandel had made a lot of mistakes in life. Post college he had struggled with addictions to nightlife and women, the party scene of Manhattan on work trips that got him out of Beantown, and good quality cocaine, otherwise known as the designer drug of champions. When Clara had gotten pregnant Mandel gave it all up and took a job teaching History at Southwestern Community College in his parent’s hometown of good ol’ Creston, Iowa. Maybe he had his demons. Perhaps he had not always treated Clara the best, but he was finally ready to commit. But holding Cadeon in his arms that last night, placing his son in the crib, nothing would ever be the same because it was all senseless. The thing about sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is it is senseless. There is no explanation. It takes without reason. It kills otherwise healthy vibrant babies leaving no clue as to why. He had put Cadeon in the crib that night. Had he left him on his back, was a pillow left too close that rolled on him? He replayed those last few minutes in his head for hours, every day since it happened. Clara knew it was not his fault. SIDS never is anyone’s fault. She moved out of their room; not so much in disgust but because she slept every single night in Cadeon’s room on the floor by his crib crying herself to sleep.

In the months that had the past, Mandel had spent his nights and weekends working out, lifting weights, honing his body into perfect shape. He had to do something, Clara barely looked at him, much less talked to him. Again, it was not that she blamed him as much as it was that she just could not process her grief and had slipped into undiagnosed clinical depression. Mandel had to do something, or he’d slip into his old addictions to cocaine, again. And in the backwoods of Iowa, that was likely a pathway to the crack that came out of Des Moines at best or the locally produced Meth at worst. So the endorphins produced in hours of working out each night had become his new drug of choice.

Bixby Bridge

Cadeon. He saw Cadeon in his mind for what he thought was the last senseless time. He had loved that boy, still loved that boy, and always would love that boy. Oh dear sweet Cadeon, it was so senseless. How could he go back to his life now, knowing beyond any sense of the word that life was senseless and devoid of order, purpose, or infinite goodness? Evil crouched at the door to consume us all, and there was no one there to save us.

In his mind, he was, again, reliving that last night holding Cadeon as he slowly and lovingly lowered him into the crib when Cadeon suddenly did what no infant could do, had this not been a caffeine driven exhaustion laden illusion that his mind pulled on him to save his life. Cadeon looked up at Mandel as he laid him in the crib and screamed, “Daddy Wake Up!” At that moment Mandel opens his eyes and beneath him he only saw sea water as his SUV was headed to drive right off the bank of the incline back up from Bixby’s Bridge! There was no metal barrier along the side of the road, but Mandel woke up just at the point in the incline where there was a runaway ramp that veered off to the side. The jolt of angst that hit as a result of the caffeine and the life and death dread he faced head on, made him over-react and he jarred the wheel of the Ford hard and hit the curb of the main road, wobbling. For several seconds it went back and forth on the left and right wheels deciding if it would tumble over either way. When it did not topple or plunge into the sea, then an instinct in Mandel took over and instead of trying to stop or even control the SUV at such high speeds, he drove into the spin, speeding up to match the topple. It was more gut reaction than renewed sanity, as he knew in his gut that speeding up and driving out of the tailspin was safer than trying to end it.

What he saw, as he approached the top on the southside hill of Bixby’s Bridge, it would take investigators over 2 and a half weeks to fully reconstruct what he had fractions of seconds to recognize and respond too. With the sun barely peeking over the backs of the mountains the dense fog still hung low on the inclines like a thick cloudy curtain separating the sea from the sky. Driving up such a profoundly arduously cliff, through the fog, was like driving up into literal clouds from Heaven. But as he poked through, all he could see was Hell. Through the dimly lit fog he saw a woman at the dip in the top of the hill desperately trying to change a flat tire or at least jam her jack into place, as an out of control 18 wheeler barreled down the incline towards her, horns blaring. To the woman’s credit as soon as she heard the horns she got up. For some reason, even odd to Mandel who had not slept for nearly 30 hours, she tried to get back in the car. The hit was instant and catastrophic.

Over the cliff wreck.

Mandel watched as the woman was thrown from the side of the car and slammed into the road head first. The truck kept on rolling down that hill and before he could hear it tumble, he heard the deadly explosion. Mandel stopped as quickly as he could and leaped from his car. His legs cramped and as he tried to run to the injured woman they gave out and he fell to the asphalt, damaging both his knee and smashing his foot on loose debris from the impact of the 18 wheeler and the woman’s car. He’d been in his own car too long. Even running across this side of the road made him feel dizzy and like he was still driving. He picked himself back up and limped along.

By the time he reached the woman, she had lost a lot of blood. It seemed a foregone conclusion that she may have already passed. He turned to see her car teetering on the edge of the cliff about to follow the 18 wheeler down to the bottom of the embankment, which was fine by Mandel until he heard the cry. The cry of a baby.

“Cadeon!” He screamed. “Oh my God no! Cadeon I won’t fail you again! Hell, no Cadeon! Daddy is coming!”

What he did next can’t be explained. Whatever bedeviled him is beyond elucidation and yet that did not stop it from happening much to his own shock. Mandel took off running towards the car. A minute ago, Mandel was drunken with exhaustion and caffeine overdosing, and Mandel literally could barely walk. Now, as if suddenly endowed with the skill, power, and might of 5 golden Olympians, he strode like a rocket infused superhero to the car and unexplainably leaped as if jumping over a race hurdle and landed on the roof of the woman’s car.

And his Olympic race car hurdle was not even the odd part! The weird part is what he saw in the hurdle between the time his bare feet left the ground and landed on the roof of the car. He saw Jesus.

He saw Jesus… and Jesus saw him— or rather was watching him get baptized by his (Mandel’s) dad at age thirteen in the old Church before it had moved onto Oak Street into the old abandoned Scientology building, and taken it over. Those kind Midwest folks it turns out were not so open minded to Scientology and everyone in town felt more at ease when the church took the building. What Mandel saw was not unlike an out of body experience, except Mandel, knew he had not as much left his body but rather “flashed” on an event that had happened. Only he was in some way being “shown” parts of that event which he did not see when it had originally happened. Jesus, in Spirit, had been present that day and watched Mandel gladly give his life to God at the tender, yet enlightened, age of thirteen. But that day, Mandel had not seen nor even sensed Jesus there. Just before his bare feet landed on the car, to his dismay he saw … or rather heard one more thing from that flash of the past he had not recalled. Jesus was not only there, but Jesus also spoke directly to the younger boy, who was his past self and said this; “Kid, do you have any idea what you’re doing, right now? You can’t hear Me, so you don’t know what on Earth you are doing. But if you could, I’d tell you what you’re about to do right now, if it is done right, it will kill you.”

Mandel landed, and vision left, just as it had come.

“You bastard!” He swore at Jesus. “How dare you talk to me!” You killed my Cadeon you cruel twisted All Knowing Demigod. You killed Cadeon and you stole Clara! You’re nothing more than a crutch, a broomstick if you will, that witches ride on Halloween. You’re a flipping fable who makes the demands of an Infinite Spirit, but gives the results of an useless wooden idol!”

I’ve been called worse and believe me when I tell you, Mandel, I understand and grant you the permission to hate me for all that has happened. I’ll take your hate. It is what I do.

A soft shadow appeared in the fog that Mandel could not quite see the form of, and that is where this unique voice had come from. Oh yeah, Mandel suddenly remembered he had snapped a long time ago. He was insane and the idea that he was crazy not only explained what he was doing on the roof of a car, in his bare feet, that was about to plummet down a bank of a cliff, but it also gave a weird feeling of relief. After all, how else could he hear Jesus talk, even after the lost memory had ended? “I am just loco nutso… I am lock-me-up-crazy, baby,” Mandel thought to himself.

You’re not crazy. Stop thinking that.

 “What the Hell!” Mandel yelled more in shock than in meaning, because the “Jesus voice” could seemingly read his thoughts.

Hell, hmmm… interesting “go to” at a time like this. Now hell is a topic most people get ever so wrong. But really, time is short, let’s move this along. Just the essentials please— for now. There is a baby in that car, you know!

 Now just a few minutes ago Mandel was willing to give life and limb to save that baby. But hearing that “Jesus voice” in his head fueled the kind of deep, red, raw hurt that demands revenge! And half assuming it was his own mind he was really fighting with, he decided he no longer cared. The “Jesus voice” wanted him to save the baby and Mandel’s path to revenge never seemed more clear.

“Why should I care about this baby, any more than you bothered to care about Cadeon, you sick figment of my lunacy!”

Well, that is indeed a better question and quite nice progress if I do say so, Myself. I love questions so if you don’t care about this Baby then why in hades, (Shadow Jesus looked almost as is he winked as if to say, excuse my hellish use of puns), did you leap onto this car?

Mandel searched his heart and found only hate for the “Jesus voice” and yet part of Mandel knew all he would have wanted was for someone to save Cadeon. No one did, and evil struggled to make Mandel want someone to pay. But was that this baby’s doing?

“It’s senseless, if I save him, You will just kill him later,” Mandel said with hate taunting in his voice.

Sure, some say I kill them all, eventually. But what about your will and the role it plays even now. You’re the one holding the keys to life and death, are you not?

“Cadeon wasn’t ready!” Mandel wanted to continue a rant of yelling but his words folded into sobs, tears, and hyperventilating.

I know.

“You did this! You! You! You!” he cried through the sobs, standing on the roof of the car in the fog, literally shaking his fist in deranged mania.

I, too, was not ready for him to go. I miss him even more then you could know. I wanted to watch him grow up, play in your backyard, and impact you in ways that might have brought you back to Me.

I need you to hear Me now, Mandel! Time is short, and I can’t hold us in suspense much longer without damaging the laws of cause and effect. I loved Cadeon as much as I love Rick. Rick is about to die unless you act now! 

The car slipped. It fell only less than a foot. But even in his state of manic frenzy, Mandel knew two things instantly; the car was now totally hidden from oncoming traffic on the wrong side of the embankment, making any other rescue, besides him, impossible. Secondly, if the car started sliding it would topple and roll at this level of incline.

A voice in our clouds.

Mandel slid across the roof and down the west side of the car putting himself between the car and the incline to the sea. He dug his bare, bleeding feet against a large rock and propped himself against the car in a futile attempt to stop the car from sliding down the embankment.

Who do you think you are? Sampson? 

“Shut up! Just shut up! Get out of my head! You’re no more real than Scrooge’s undigested bit of brained beef, his manic lunacy blot of mustard, a crazy crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone baked brain potato of the ghost of Christmas past!^[2]” Mandel screamed into the empty air. “I know crazy when I see it, this car might be real of that I can’t be sure, but I am nuts, you hear that! I am nuts! I am ‘cuckoo for coco puffs’ crazy and you, you; you’re just my leftover sanity trying to make sense of my current descent into psychosis!”

Then, explain that.

Mandel went to scream “Explain what?” But the words did not come, as he peered into the car, seeing a little baby literally hanging suspended from the straps of a car seat screaming its head off, beet red in the face, and soaked by its urine. It was his greatest horror come to life. The abhorrence of what he saw made him vomit against the car and vomit traveled down the side of his body, his leg and covered the rock his mashed and now bleed feet braced against. The baby could not be more than four months old, and he looked just like Cadeon. But that was not the greatest horror. What convulsed Mandel back to sanity was due to the position the suspended car seat was holding the baby, he could see the back of this neck, and there was a name tag on the collar of his baby shirt that read, “Ricky.”

“You bastard! You’re real after all! You knew his name! It’s not fair! It’s not fair! Why? Why! Why? Why the hell do you want to save him and not Cadeon?”

But no answer came.

Mandel continued to scream at the shadow in the cloud. “What did Cadeon ever do to you? He was just a baby! Why Ricky? Why not Cadeon?”

The shadow remained still, but no words came. Feeling the guilt of the idea of actually letting the baby die, Mandel was internally exploding with conflicts between revenge and love of what it meant to be decent.

“No! No, I refuse. I won’t do it! You can’t ask me to! I am not your puppet! This is all so senseless!”

Senseless? That is what Adam said when he found Abel’s blood in the field. Senseless. Other than a few sheep and some turning leaves Adam had never seen death. What Cain did was so senseless. Sin is senseless. Do you think Adam, and even Eve, never once asked Me why not Cain and why Abel?

 We can talk about David and his sackcloth and ashes all day long but how do you think the poor despoiled and ravished Bathsheba felt when her only baby died due to David’s sin of her own violation. Senseless.

 Did you even realize the poor Zebedees were still alive when James was murdered for simply believing in me? Do you think I would not have wanted to spare them that pain? Senseless.

 Forget the garden, forget my sweat of blood. What about mom? The only mom I had ever known. I came to you all helpless. That woman fed me at the breast. She kept me safe for the sake of the world. That woman who took public shame all her life for me. The woman people taunted and whispered about in the back of synagogues as being a fornicator and harlot. They said she lured and trapped her man into marriage, like a spider lures a fly to the web. She suffered so much to protect me all my life. I had to watch her, watch me; be beaten, stripped, shamed, nailed to a tree, and to die as a common criminal. All her work and sacrifice to protect me all those years …to her ….Senseless. What about her!

Ricky’s name tag. The voice knew his name.

“You could have stopped it! You could have stopped it all.” Mandel accused! “If you loved her as you say, why do it? Why make her watch? Why not just stop everything and do it another way?” Those accusatory questions roared out of Mandel like a forest fire in the Californian mountains in late August. The heat was intense and unstoppable, consuming with hunger! “You, you, get no sympathy from me! You’re God, and all of this is on you! Why not stop it? Why did you not just stop right then and there?” Mandel demanded more than questioned.

I was driven.

 “Driven to what? Where did you think you were going?” Mandel fired back with not a hint of reverence in his voice.

I was driven to you.

“Don’t! Just don’t… Don’t you dare put this on me! You’re the one who carries the title of Almighty! This is not on me; it is on You!” Mandel’s eyes flared with rage towards an entity he now openly admitted was the Almighty and the Creator of all.

I was driven to the only way I could save you.

“I don’t care about me. Let Hell have me. Let damn well go of me!”

No!

“No?”

No! Because we both know you don’t mean that. Not yet, anyways, given more time, maybe. But that is why our time is up!

The car shifted. It was sliding. It was not going to stop this time. It had a good 5-10 feet to slide at best and then it would start toppling, and nothing would stop it. Mandel panicked as the car pushed against him and he slid against the rock bracing him, and the rock slid with it even further bloodying his already inflamed feet.

I was driven. I am driven. And I will be driven. And so are you! That is how you got here, no?

Driven. Yes, for almost 30 hours. Driven blindly to where and why? Driven, only to end up in this place at this time? Looking up from his useless embrace of the car he screamed with all his might! “God, help me! What do I do?” Mandel kept screaming for God’s help into the empty air with the clearest amount of sanity in his whole life. “Please, I beg you to give me the power of Sampson!”

But yet again, the voice in the shadow went quiet, and to Mandel’s dismay, he thought he heard Jesus sobbing.

“Please don’t let another baby die tonight! Please, not for me! I know I don’t deserve it!” Mandel kept pleading, but the sobs from Jesus only grew louder. “Please save Ricky, for Cadeon’s sake! God answer me! You win! God I am begging you now! I don’t care the cost, help me save Ricky!”

The car won’t stop. For Ricky to get out you must get in. That is how this works now. I wanted it to be different but man must be free and freedom has certain unavoidable costs.

“Huh?”

It is time to trust me! You either trust Me or  you will end up letting the baby die, if you mean to or not! Those are now the only options you have left on the table. You’re dealing all the cards. Don’t you, yet, get it? I sent many would be rescuers to stop what you called SIDS, but they were not driven. What happened was not my plan for Cadeon or Clara! But I am the Head, and you all are my hands, and arms, and feet in this world. My Father’s Spirit pleads with you all, as it is pleading with you now, in Me. But you Mandel, you, yes you, are not those who fall back into destruction! You Mandel, are driven!

With several swift strokes he began shattering the driver’s side back window…

It all became clear, and Mandel picked up the rock his poor shredded foot had been braced against and with several swift strokes he began shattering the driver’s side back window, he was in the car within seconds as he felt the car accelerate a few more feet in its slide down the hill. He knew beyond any shadow of a doubt this car was not going to stop until it hit bottom. Unbuckling the car seat, Mandel scooped up the whole car seat in his massive arms with the near might of Sampson and was out the passenger side door with the baby in tow before the car began to tip.

Mandel, you know what comes next. Search your heart. You knew before you broke the window.

Mandel now understood the sobbing of Jesus. And why it was not even easy for God Himself to allow what must happen next. For reasons he could feel in his gut but not yet process in his mind he knew it had to be this way and that if it could be different, it would be different.

I promise you won’t be forgotten when you come into my Kingdom.

 As Mandel exited the car, his bleeding foot got caught on the entanglement of the seatbelts left in the wake of their rapid detachment from the car seat.  And suddenly Mandel was being dragged back first in the dirt by the car but desperately was clawing at the ground, car seat in hand, to gain ground toward the top of the embankment. His body, being dragged down by the car, and the car seat being pushed up in earnest desire to save little Ricky, if anyone could have seen it, it would have been in the shape of the cross.

Be driven! Be driven just like Sampson! Be driven just like me! Be driven by the power of my Father, His Spirit, and My Compassion! Drive that baby home!

 Officer Sisson, who was still in his first week of working for Big Sur Police Department had never seen anything like this before, back in Kansas. His partner applied first aid to the lady they found at the side of the road. Other than a lot of blood loss, the wounds appeared to look worse than they were. Office Sisson knew the ambulance would be here soon and she likely had a better than 50/50 chance of full recovery. But something still bothered him. Something about this whole scene did not add up. They had just assumed the explosion below was from the woman’s car that somehow slid off the road and she apparently had jumped out at that last minute. But if that was the case, why was there a parked Ford Escape in the middle of the roadway with no driver in sight? It was apparent to the officer that SUV had not hit the car and knocked it off because there was no damage to the parked SUV. It just did not add up. Was this murder? Suicide? Just what happened here?

Sisson, right away, followed the tracks of the woman’s car to the edge of the cliff looking for clues to this new riddle. He tried to squint to see down the side of the cliff, but the fog was too thick. The fog was still like a carpet separating the world of the mountain top with the world of the sea, and Sisson could not peer into it as hard as he tried. And it was exactly at that point,  which officer Travis Sisson had turned to inquire of his partner if he should try and scale the incline down and investigate; that it happened. Mandel, infused by the power afforded in all his workouts, mixed with the tremendous strength of the conviction of God, had tossed the car seat with all his might and it came up seemingly out of nowhere from the low-level fog cloud and struck officer Sisson in the side of the head. With his trained, sharp reflexes he caught it safely in his arms.

His body, being dragged down by the car… if anyone could have seen it, it would have been in the shape of the cross.

“It’s a baby!” Officer Sisson screamed in unbelief! “I think it’s a boy!”

Just a mere few feet away, below the cloud of fog, and completely unbeknownst to the shocked officer Sission and his partner, the woman’s car began to roll. The slack on the seatbelt whipped Mandel, breaking both legs instantly, but sparing his neck and life on its first roll giving him just enough time for one word…

“Cadeon…” he whispered as the sun finally came up entirely, and the fog began to dissipate.

Cadeon and Clara are not forgotten. Every thought, every emotion, every memory, every cell, every strand of DNA are all committed incompleteness to my Fathers mind forever. They cannot be lost, forgotten or deleted. And on that last day, when the trumpet shall sound and the dead in me shall arise, trust me, Mandel, I will call them to life again, and you will be united with them, together again, but even more importantly for evermore.  

There was no more time for words. Just one more thought. “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Postscript:

On the Cross

He was beautiful in rage against sin and injustice infused with ruggedness of determination to redeem us.

He was flawless in our imperfection so he could pay for all our apathy of sin.

A Short Story by Vinnie MacIsaac

He was full of being, yet became our incompleteness that, in Him, we might be complete.

He was driven that you, yes you, might become driven in Him, too.

He pleads with you now, with the authority of His Father, and power of His Spirit to be illuminated from your darkness and, . . .
                                        “Even so, be driven!”

 

Other Short Stories:

The Rand Ruckus of Rosslyn [Rand Records P1]

The Epic Senior Prank of ‘89

Footnotes 

^[1] Crazy Train; Songwriters O. OSBOURNE, R. DAISLEY, R. RHODES; Published by Lyrics © NEWMAN & COMPANY CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS

^[2] A paraphrase from Charles Dickens classic; A Christmas Carrol.

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