Here They Be Monsters

Rarely, and then usually unnoticed, does a person experience foreknowledge.  In its mildest and most mundane form, it is intuition,  the gut instinct that tells you to turn left when looking for a shop you’ve never been to, or to circle the second choice on the test, or countless other things over the course of lives.  It is clairvoyance or divination when discussed on television shows or in the parlors of fortune tellers.  But for two people in Texas, it was nothing but a bad feeling, an insight that showed them nothing,  a worry that they dismissed without thinking of it at all. They were both like children just beyond earshot, unable to hear clearly their mother’s call to supper.  They were strangers to each other, and sometimes to themselves, and neither  recognized the feeling that would tug at their attention,  those free radical memories that popped out of nowhere for no reason at all.   And had they heard, they probably still would not have listened.

John Seiker looked at the bruise on his shoulder, wincing at the sight of the carbon-paper colored circle, even though it did not hurt  much.  It was just the size of  a big man’s fist.  “Wonder if I should have it fingerprinted,”  he said to himself in the mirror.

He turned and left his bathroom, stepping on several buttons which had been ripped from his shirt when he impatiently tore it off, and limped back to his bed.  He had obtained three VHS surveillance tapes, counting the one that was already loaded into his player.  As he switched on the television and the tape player by remote control, he stacked his pillows comfortably behind him, and dialed his client’s number.

 “Compton, Bond law offices,”  a pleasant voice said.

“Ken Price please.  This is John Seiker.”

John reached over to his night stand and retrieved the chocolate-chip milkshake he had made when he first arrived home.  Finally, Ken’s voice replaced the local radio station broadcast on the phone.

“You must have hit a home run, Johnny,”  Ken said excitedly.   “Watson’s lawyer  called ten minutes ago, begging to settle.  How much ammunition do you have for me?”

John took a long sip of his milkshake, and rubbed the cold glass across his forehead.  He was starting to ache, despite his earlier declaration to himself to  the contrary.  He closed his eyes while he talked.    “Three tapes over four days.  At least one hundred minutes of impeachment quality stuff.   I got him loading suitcases in his suburban.  Practicing his golf swing.  Running.  And I got at least an hour of him at his girlfriend’s pool, diving, playing volleyball.  This guy’s been on vacation.”   He sat up in his bed, and looked over to the television.  He fast forwarded through a chase scene around the pool that ended when the allegedly crippled Freddy Watson caught his girlfriend by the diving board.  “I’ll have it edited and ready for you, if you need it for trial.”

“I don’t think we’ll be going to court on this one.  My gut told me this guy was a fraud.”

“Yea, another mark for your Dictaphone handle,”   John muttered as he watched Watson jump into the pool with a pretty brown-haired girl in his arms.  “After you win your case, send the tapes over to the D A’s office.  I really want to see if they have the TF to go after these pirates for insurance fraud.”

Ken could tell by Johnny’s tone that he was upset.  “What are you not telling me, Johnny?  What did you do?”

Johnny switched off the tape and TV, and pushed himself deeper into his pillows, hoping to be swallowed into some kind of comfort.  He reached over and turned off the lights, leaving the room dusk-like.     “You can ask me at trial if the guy can throw a good punch.  I’ve got a plum on my shoulder that you could sue over.”    He winced as he flexed his arm, pulling at the deep bruise above his left arm.  “Don’t worry, I’ve already taken pictures of it.”

 Awe shit Johnny, you didn’t get into a fight with him?”

“Did.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Same song, just different ooohhh’s and aaahhh’s.”    He changed the phone to his other ear, then continued.  “Look, I’m going to my place in the country.  I’m tired.&