My remote feigned a deep breath as I tried to collect my thoughts. “So what happens next?”
“For starters, you and I never talk about this again. I wasn’t kidding about those lobbyists down in Columbus, so you’ve got to doctor the Department’s records regarding Smithers and Mickey. Paper the file to make Mickey disappear in a way that doesn’t attract attention. And then,” McGowan started heading toward the door, “do your best to live happily ever after.”
My remote nodded silently as I began to implement McGowan’s suggestions.
McGowan reached the door and turned so that he was framed by the threshold. “Good luck,” he said. “You’ll need it.”
That was twenty-five years ago.
Today Mickey and my original remote are at Brookside Park. It’s late autumn and there is a chill in the air. We’ve been collecting colored leaves to decorate the apartment for Halloween.
Mickey is sprawled in the dirt, tirelessly examining an anthill he discovered beneath a deep crimson maple leaf. His head is topped now with thinning, gray hair. There are thirty like him under the undocumented care of my remotes across Ohio, each ongoing challenges in their own way.
Uncertainty is now an accepted component of my life. I do what I can for each of my adopted children, learning from one what I can try to give to the next, always striving for—but never quite attaining—any true consistency. The responsibilities and fulfillment of parenthood are at the core of my existence.
It’s a great job.
Winter having locked the passes with snow and ice, the brass parceled out long-deferred leaves and junior officers scattered across the country. Some descended on their hometowns to rest in the bosoms of their families. Some came to the City to sample the fleshpots—and rest in other sorts of bosoms. That was the last winter before the big offensive, when I still had the flat in Chelsea. Jimmy Topeka dropped in to see me, all somber as always. He seemed to have something on his mind, but he talked around it six ways from Sunday the way he always does, and hadn’t gotten to the nub before Angel Osborne clumped his way up the stairs. I hadn’t seen Angel in almost three years, though he and Jimmy had crossed paths during the Red River campaign. I said how we lacked only Lyle “the Style” Guzman to make the old gang complete; and the Angel ups and beeps him over the Lynx and, wouldn’t you know it, Lyle was in the City, too. So before long we were all together, just like old times, drinking and shooting the shit and waiting for the Sun to come up. Those were wild years, and we were still young enough to be immortal.