Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero (46 page)

“I know I don’t want to die this way,” Jonathan said.

“No, I don’t doubt that you wish to live Jonathan, what I doubt is this attachment you have to your previous life trajectory,” Heyer explained.

“My life trajectory.” Jonathan felt a stir of anger at his previous endeavors being reduced to two stupid words. “You sound like a damn guidance counselor, you don’t know a—”

“—What was it for, Jonathan?” Heyer interrupted.

“What? What do you mean?” Jonathan asked.

“You went to college; you chose to study the life sciences. What did you want to do with that knowledge Jonathan? Why was it so important that you devoted over three years of your life to it?” Heyer asked.

Jonathan was flustered by the question. The alien asked it like it should have an obvious answer. It didn’t, and it couldn’t.

But shouldn’t it?
He wondered.

“Did you want to cure cancer? Did you want to be a doctor? Did you want to save the environment?” the alien asked.

Jonathan searched for an answer; it was difficult, on the spot like this. He felt like he’d known the answer, that at some point he decided it was his path, but the reasons wouldn’t come to him.

“I didn’t have a five year plan, Heyer. Knowing what made life work was important to me, gaining that knowledge was supposed to point the way. I figured I’d find what I wanted to do eventually,” Jonathan said.

Heyer shook his head at the answer.

“You’ve worried about this freedom you want back. This has weighed on you for nearly three months now. Yet, you do not know the answer to this question. Do you not find that curious? Do you not know what it is you want this freedom for?” Heyer said.

Jonathan felt he was being manipulated, like Heyer was just trying to make him feel stupid for wanting control of his own destiny. He clenched his jaw, but didn’t try to hide the anger building as he listened, refusing to look at the alien.

“You are a smart man, Jonathan. You’re scientific in nature; wise beyond your age. You don’t believe in anything past what you can prove. You don’t like gut feelings, and you choose not to delude yourself about the world. All things are admirable in and of themselves,” Heyer said, “and yes, you would have finished college, but only because you are dedicated. Yet, you lack the fundamental thing that would’ve made any of it mean anything to you.”

In a low, skeptical voice, still unwilling to look at the alien, Jonathan asked, “What’s that?”

“Call it what you want, Jonathan, a vocation, a calling. You’ve never had a sense of the true meaning of those words because you’ve never felt them. You’d run the danger of spending your whole life as a powder keg of potential, dying to be ignited, your own brain repeatedly getting in the way. You’d never have been able to find a good reason to do anything because you don’t believe in anything. You don’t stand for anything. You are missing the very spark that ignites ambitions.”

“It doesn’t mean I’d never have found it,” Jonathan said, starting to feel drained by the words the alien spoke, surprised he hadn’t argued.

“Jonathan,” Heyer said in a low voice, “I know the future waiting for you. I see you doing a job you’ve admitted to yourself long ago that you hate. Then one day, you realize you’ve lied at interviews, pretended to care about things you don’t, all in pursuit of something you never wanted, because you didn’t know what else to do. That day, you realize it happened so slowly, one compromise with yourself at a time, that you somehow forgot it wasn’t right to have to be what you’ve become.”

For a moment, Jonathan found himself disturbed at the thought that Heyer might mean he knew ‘the future’ literally.

“You keep surviving, but you are unsure why you bother. You are desperate for the world to tell you what to do with yourself, because you never found that spark, the thing that would give it all meaning. Desperate for someone to tell you that you are the one to do something and the world needs you to go do it. Desperate for anyone to tell you what you should give a damn about,” Heyer said sympathetically. “But most of all, you would be desperate to find a way to believe that ‘
someone
’ if he ever showed up to tell you.”

Heyer waited a moment before continuing, not wanting to move ahead and leave Jonathan bewildered. No one liked to be told someone knew them better than they know themselves.

“Jonathan, do you know why human stories are so filled with spirits, angels, gods, mythical creatures, even aliens that show up and guide men to what it is they should do?” Heyer asked.

He thought about it, but the answer came quickly.

“Because if it was just another man,” Jonathan said, “it wouldn’t be enough.”

“So here I am, the only being on this planet who will ever fit the criteria. I tell you this road has meaning for you, that your previous one did not. It’s an opinion, from a being outside your species, that you would never have heard without that device ‘chained’ to your chest.

“But I’m not a salesman, and I do not want to sell you on this and I certainly don’t want to lecture you. What I think, is pretty straight forward.

This world is not meant for everyone. It doesn’t hold that spark for all of you; it can’t. People like you Jonathan, will never find purpose in anything short of the unquestionable. So yes, I ask you to forfeit your life, in the defense of your species. It’s the closest I can get you. I ask you to stop focusing on having a choice, and really ask yourself if the choice that was made for you, isn’t one you wish you could have made for yourself, because all this worry over freedom and choice, it’s just a smoke screen for something else if you don’t know why you want it.”

They didn’t speak for a long while.

Jonathan rocked back and forth a bit, staring at the floor. He toiled around in a swamp of changing emotions and thoughts. He didn’t want to admit to himself that it felt true, any of it: that he’d never really known what he was doing, that he worried he never would, that he tried to ignore it by sweeping it under a rug of life’s realities. After all, in this world, it didn’t matter if you had a drive behind what you did; you had to find a way to live, fulfilling or not. Heyer had taken his freedom, but had he given him something more important?

“It’s too much to ask someone staring death in the face to accept that they would’ve preferred it this way twenty years from now. Even if it’s an alien doing the asking,” Jonathan said.

Heyer nodded his understanding.

“I’ll try to think about it.”

It meant something to Jonathan that Heyer at least conceded it was a bigger question than he could be expected to answer in the heat of an emotional lecture. Jonathan wasn’t one to argue for arguments sake. He felt enough self-doubt to think that Heyer might be more right than he wanted to admit. He wasn’t ready to concede it, though, not yet.

“Do you know when the Ferox will arrive? Do you have a better idea now that it’s closer?” Jonathan asked in a whisper.

“Late Friday, September fourth most likely. Possibly the morning of the fifth,” Heyer said.

Twelve days, best case
. Jonathan took a deep breath and nodded.

It was comforting that Heyer hadn’t checked his watch. He hadn’t shown any hurry, no rush to be off to other chores.

“Have you ever been in a war, Heyer?” Jonathan asked.

Heyer seemed caught off guard by the question, the shift of focus. It was more personal than anything Jonathan had ever asked him. He’d always been so focused on himself and his own problems in the presence of the alien he’d never thought to ask him something like this, something a friend might ask.

“Yes,” Heyer said.

“We’re you afraid?” Jonathan asked.

Heyer looked up into Jonathan’s eyes.

“I was terrified,” Heyer said.

Jonathan nodded.

“How did you keep it from stopping you, the fear? How did you do what you needed to?” Jonathan asked.

“There was a saying where I came from,” Heyer said. “It doesn’t translate perfectly, but the gist is this; fear is the heart alone.”

Jonathan nodded, waiting for the alien to continue.

“The first time I was in combat, I was lucky. My brother was in the trenches with me. Had I not known he was there, I don’t know that I would’ve survived,” Heyer said.

Jonathan nodded.

“It’s like kids in the dark,” Jonathan said. “Alone, it’s terrifying, but if someone is with you, sometimes you can forget to be afraid.”

It was Heyer’s turn to nod.

“Unfortunately, that doesn’t help me much,” Jonathan said, defeated.

“Jonathan, if it helps to know. I will be there when you fight. You won’t see me. I won’t be able to help you, I cannot intercede, but should you fall, someone will have witnessed that you tried.”

It should have been little comfort, as from what he understood, his efforts would be banished to a nonexistent timeline in his death. Jonathan tried not to think of that, instead, he tried to be grateful that someone would be there while he was still breathing.

After that, what did it really matter?

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Thursday | September 1, 2005 | 9:00 PM

HE
didn’t remember when he’d started to think of the garage as his friend. It was really just a cocoon large enough to contain him as he was forced to change. He’d found the same protection, the same isolation, in the MRI machine at the hospital, in his drug-imposed coma, huddled on the shower floor.

Its interior had changed along with him these last few months until it was hardly recognizable.

The poor man’s Batcave
, Jonathan thought, as he lay on the padded floor looking up at the rafters. He listened to the hum of the fan, the rain hitting the roof, and the sputtering of the gutters outside.

He hadn’t focused a great deal on gymnastic moves, but he’d drilled on the ‘Kip Up’ repeatedly. He wanted to know that no matter how bad a blow he took, no matter how dazed his head might be, his body would be able to perform this maneuver. To get him back to his feet. It had taken him a long time to get the hang of it. Now, he hadn’t failed the maneuver in over a week, but it was important that he keep the motions fresh.

He planted his hands on each side of his head, his legs went up, and the motion rolled down his body, until he thrust to his feet in one graceful movement.

He stopped practicing when the door to the garage opened.

She hadn’t knocked, and she didn’t look surprised to find him there alone. The rain outside had gotten to her as she made the short walk between their houses. Her hair was hanging down around her shoulders, curling where the water had touched it. Her camera hung around her neck. She seemed to shiver, but shook it off as she stepped into the garage.

This girl had to know how nervous she made him. Jonathan was frustrated with the paradox of the feeling, the excitement to be near her mixed with the fear that held him away. He didn’t know why she had invited herself over. It became clearer when he saw she held a bottle by the neck in one hand and two empty glasses in the other.

People get the luxury of drinking to forget the problems that infect their days, or at least the luxury of trying. It wasn’t that it hadn’t occurred to him that it might be healthy to forget his life, even if just for a few hours, even if just to get a decent night’s sleep. He’d allowed himself on Paige’s birthday knowing it might be the last birthday he ever attended. That hadn’t turned out so great. If he wanted to die without any excuses, there could be no time wasted. But, he didn’t think of this now, all that occurred to him was that Leah was here; the two of them alone together in his cocoon.

She didn’t have to ask him. She didn’t even have to speak. He simply looked to the bottle in her hands and up to her eyes and nodded. He walked over to the weight bench and sat with his back to the metal bar. She sat facing him, putting the bottle and the glasses between them, using the bench as a makeshift table. Then she poured.

“Thanks for not making me ask,” she said.

“Thanks for thinking of me,” he replied. “Should we drink to something?”

“If you want.”

Jonathan tried to think of something that didn’t sound like a cliché, something personal to them. It didn’t take him long.

“To less awkward moments,” he said.

She smiled at him, and they both drank. It was a strong liquor, some type of whiskey, dark with amber hues, like the color of her hair. He could feel the burn run down his throat, could feel the garage getting warmer around him. It was right somehow, perfect, it was what he would have imagined a girl like Leah drinking if the thought had occurred to him to imagine such things.

“You go next,” Jonathan said.

“To forgetting September 1st,” she said.

He’d never been sentimental about dates. If someone had asked him what day his father had died, he couldn’t have said. It wasn’t because he hadn’t been scarred; it was that the date didn’t have anything to do with it. It was a lot like the way Heyer had described birthdays, just another trip around the sun. Even if he never got it, he wasn’t about to be the jerk who pointed it out. Clearly today was one of those dates for Leah; clearly she wanted him to know.