Inevitability

Inevitability
by Keith Good
(originally published in The Punkin House Digest, Premier Edition; January 1, 2010)

Mark Daniels will die in three years and eighty-two days. I read his obituary and remember. His lilting whisper and rectangular face will be survived by wife Karen and ten-month-old Isaac. He squints at the back of my hand as I slide my check under the glass. Those ice blue eyes - I can see why Karen loves him.

“You sure about this?” Mark asks. “It’s not my business, but the odds on Inevitability are astronomical.” He squints his left eye into his cheek. “With such a big bet”

I put etiquette aside and cut him off. “This is what I want, thank you.”

Mark shakes his head and punches more buttons. His typing is a metronome, tick-tick-tacking me to a waking lull. The newspaper slides into focus. “Marcus Jared Daniels, 27, gunned down at Vine and Main OTB after resisting robbery.” His death is a few lines jammed between drug busts and domestic disputes. The gunmen are never found. Two months later the same police page reports his wife’s admittance to Stokely. I can’t see what happens to young Isaac.

“Mr. Daniels,” I speak against the order written on my hand, “On June the third, 2012, when the men come in to rob this betting facility, please don’t resist. They’re murderers and it will make Karen insane and I don’t know what happens to Isaac.”

The printer screeches my betting slip. Mark stares at me, mouth open, his pink tongue lolling out. One of the televisions behind us murmurs of drizzle at Attica Downs. Mark doesn’t believe me. He rips the page free, eyes twitching on the circus freak behind the glass.

“Please leave.” The page flutters from his fingers. Its value has gone from mere cents to millions. I take it and Mark’s article goes to hell in my head. Everything shifts and changes: a different heading, a different width and length…

But the same name. “Marcus Jared Daniels, 27, stabbed to death after brutal robbery at Vine and Main OTB.” His wife’s admittance remains unchanged two months later. Our fates are obstinate in their truth. In The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the first book I read upon being stamped ‘clinically insane,’ Joyce colors history as a nightmare from which we try to escape. No matter how I try struggle against the burdens of myself and Mark, I cannot change fate. The future is a nickel matinee I’ve seen a million times before.

Mark Daniels dies as I hit the street corner. A cool gust nips my face. Where do I go next? Days melt together. Is today pizza or is that on Friday? Or is it tomorrow… If I was a solitary rabbit left to wander stippled sunlight on the forest floor, I think I could be content. I sit, back against the cool brick of Mark’s building, and look out onto the street, trying to remember anything at all.

“What took you so long, Mikey?” I look up to a woman silhouetted in the sunlight. This is my sister, Janine. She is about to tell me. She stands hand to hip, hair blowing strands across her face. The sun goes behind a cumulonimbus, revealing her flush cheeks and bluegreen eyes.

“Come on, it’s me. Your sister Janine.”

“Oh. Hi.”

“What took so long in there? You said you’d be a minute and that was five.” She suspects something already.

“I don’t recall.” This is a lie. Mark’s obituary is still in my head, but confessing would make Janine angry. I glance at the back of my hand as the sun returns.

“Please, God, say you didn’t tell someone the future again, Mike.” She emphasizes ‘the future’ with a scolding squint. “We’ve been through this a bazillion times, Mikey, you can’t just”

“Been through what?” I look up and the sun blinds me for a moment.

“It’s written on your hand. I saw you look at it. You know you’re not supposed to prophesize.” Janine crouches and forces the back of my hand to my eyes. “See? ‘No future.’” Her voice warbles as I read the curly writing on my hand. “No Future,” it reads.

“Marcus Jared Daniels is going to die on June the fourth, 2012. A young man will come in to rob him and stab him in the chest. His wife Karen will submit to depression and be admitted to Stokely. She’s the one…”

Janine jerks me by the wrist and drags me to a silver Toyota Camry. She shoves me through the squealing door on to the passenger seat.

“You're not going to do this in public, Mike…” The door slams and the cars, the people, the wind in the leaves, even her yelling - it goes away for a few glorious moments. She continues talking, I can see her mouth move and her arms wave, but I am insulated. I imbibe silence with eyes closed until Janine opens the driver door and gets in.

“And Stokely. Jesus, Mike, can you not mention that place? Charlie’s been on me about it all week, you know. It’s all I can do to keep you away from him. All this future shit isn’t helping.” Stokely is an institution for the psychologically infirm – a mental hospital.

“What would Caroline say, Mike?” Janine puts a key into the ignition and fires the engine. It rattles to idle.

“Caroline?” A shape hazes my mind then disappears. It’s a feeling not unlike dejà vú. Like steam from a teakettle. I wonder if the horserace is started yet.

“Mike please cut that shit out. I know you remember. I understand this is tough, but pretending to know the future and forgetting the past is not healthy.”

“Who was Caroline?”

The radio clicks on, a stuffy reporter talking about track conditions and odds adjustments. Janine just looks at the unmoving road and sighs. She rests her head on the steering wheel for a moment, and I think maybe I should console her, but I don’t know for what.

“Please stop. I can’t do this anymore.” Her voice is small, drowned by the growing thump of rain. She reaches into her purse, on the floor between our seats, and pulls out a pack of Kools.

“Those things are going to kill you.” This isn’t a statement of fact but of aggregate statistics. I don’t know what happens to Janine. She will disappear after signing the commitment papers. Without memory, it will be as if I never had a sister. Nonetheless, the thought of her struggling with emphysema or tracheal cancer is unsettling.

Janine cracks the window, filling the cabin with earthy spring rain before she lights her cigarette and takes a drag.

“Yeah.” She jets gray-green smoke out the window

“Are we going to the movie theatre today?” I whisper, so not to make Janine mad. She turns, and putting her cigarette in the ashtray, leans face to face. The lines under her eyes and around her mouth come into sharp focus. She looks too old to be twenty-eight.

“How is it that you remember movie day and not your wife?” Ash tumbles from her cigarette.

“I don’t know.”

“You remember. I know. I’m your sister. I know.” She sinks into her seat, tucks the half cigarette in a corner of her mouth and shifts to drive. We sputter into traffic behind a big Cadillac, air whistling in through the cracked window. The stuffy man on the radio describes chestnut horses walking to the gate.

“You know, Mike, I could have hired a nurse…”

“Shh.” I check my slip and turn up the volume. Janine scowls. The clock on the dash reads 2:31.

“This is race number five today at Attica Downs, all the horses are in the gate,” the voice is low and soothing, “and we’re waiting for start. Rain is slopping the track, so the horses... Oh, and they‘re off.” The voice pops to a yell. “Inevitability jumps to a half-length lead on the outside…”

Janine snaps the radio off.

“Don’t shush me. Not today.” Her face hardens, muscles tense. “I miss my book club so you can bet,” she grabs the slip out of my left hand and gasps. “Mike! This is your savings! God, what are we going to do now?” She crumples the slip and tosses it to the floor. “I can’t deal with this today. Not today. No movie. We’re going home, and I’m going to take a nap. You can do whatever the hell you want then, but you’re not going to waste any more of my life. I love you, Mike, I love you, but I can’t do this anymore.” Janine’s voice is honey-dipped thick. “I’m going to call Stokely. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” The clock on the dash flashes over to 2:34.

“Can you please turn the radio back on, Janine?” I ask in saccharine whisper. I could turn it on myself, but getting yelled at makes me unhappy. I cross my arms and look ahead.

“Whatever.” Janine sniffles.

She leans over to click the radio back on but never does. In the moments her eyes are off the road, the Cadillac in front of us comes to a complete stop. The driver, Elle Tansky, eighty-five years old, will tell the police she stopped to avoid a rabbit wandering in the road. We’re going thirty five-miles per hour – over sixty kilometers. The splashing scream of locked tires and Janine swearing register in the back of my mind, but I am too busy spending my winnings to care.