vanishing act could have been contrived via the magical arts.
The more I ponder on this, the more I believe it to be so, and soon V. will return to our weekly gatherings and confess to his trickery. To think that the colonies did not persevere and there was never a United States is indeed an absurd notion!
If you have had a laugh from this letter, it is my sincere desire that it was a good chortle.
I remain, as always,
Your Loving Brother,
Prescott Wells
III.
Seventeen-year-old Christine Williams waited in her chambers for the next customer, who would be coming from the “portal” rather than downstairs. She never quite understood what this portal thing was, beyond the doors of the closet, and Mr. Chamberlain, the man who owned the brothel, told her not think about these things too much. One matter was for sure: the customers who came from the portal were better dressed and smelled nicer and treated her more kindly than the inebriated, rough “gentlemen” of London.
The customer who emerged from the portal was a tall man with a beard, wearing an odd body-hugging black fabric.
Christine sat up from the bed, letting her robe fall so the customer could get a good view of her body.
He wasn’t interested in her body.
—Some other time, my dear, he said with an accent, a curious accent, and one she could not place. Maybe he was from Australia?
He seemed familiar, though.
—Have we been together before, sir? she asked him.
He seemed nervous, glancing around, as if someone were chasing him.
—I know you from somewhere, said Christine.
—What? No, no—yes, yes. We—I know you too.
She stood up, closing the robe around her nakedness.
—My skin, it tingles, she said.
—I have to go.
—No! Please, I do not understand this.…
She ran to the customer, this stranger whom she felt like she had known all her life.
He held her and kissed her on the forehead.
—A form of déjà-vu, it seems, he said.
—I do not understand, she said.
—Goddamn time paradoxes. I’m sorry, Christine, but I must go now.
—How do you know my name?
—I will come back for you, I promise. It is, what? 1869, is that the year? What is the month?
—March, she said.
—I will come back for you by September, after I complete my—well, there are some things I must attend to. We have a child to enjoy, you and I. And this time I will get it right.
He started for the door. She grabbed his arm.
—How do you know my name? Why do I feel like I have known you all my life?
—Listen, my dear, can you do something for me? he asked.
—Anything.
—If another man comes out of the portal searching for me.…
—Another man? said Christine.
—Tell him not to worry. Tell him…there will be no consequences of steam this time. Will you tell him that?
She nodded and he gave her another kiss and left the chambers, not through the portal but out the door where England awaited him.
—March-April, 2011
Tijuana, México
BROTHERS
I.
“Listen,” I say into the microphone, “Jack, listen to me,” and I lower my voice, “Jack, I know you’re listening to me up there, I know this is piping into the cockpit or whatever you call it on the shuttle. They tell me you have not cut off communication; they tell me you’re listening but you’re not responding. This madness has to stop, Jack. This is all just crazy, you know? You have to know this. You can’t just blackmail the government into stopping a war. Listen, Jack, do this for me: just respond. You owe me, for what they’ve put me through. They came in the middle of the night, these men in black suits and sunglasses—what a cliché—these men in black in black government sedans came by at three in the morning and they didn’t even knock, they didn’t ring the bell, they just busted into my home, waking the kids up, scaring Janice—my second wife, Janice, I know you only met her twice—scaring her, and the kids, scaring us all. To hell with rights and the Constitution and Amendment and courtesy, they just broke in and woke me up and said: ‘You have to talk to your brother; he’s gone off the ranch.’ ‘National Security,’ they said. ‘A matter of global crises,’ they said. They wouldn’t tell me what exactly you did until I got here at this government installation, this place underground somewhere. And here I am, in this room, this little room, and I know they are listening, I know the mirror is two-way and they are watching me. I think they think I may have been in on it with you, that I knew what you had planned, because we are brothers. To that I say: ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ I mean, we have barely spoken the past year, ever since you joined the space program, ever since you trained for this mission, whatever it is, like it was a big secret. ‘National security.’ I know nothing, nothing other than what they have told me and what they have told me doesn’t sound good, Jack. Listen: this madness has to stop.”
II.
“Gentleman: I have done all that I can,” I say. “I don’t know what else to do. Tell me and I will try. I’ll do what my country asks. I don’t know my brother as well as you think.”
III.
“I don’t know my brother as well as you think,” I say to the government psychologist.
We sit at a metal table, facing each other. The room is cold and empty except for the table and chairs. He wears a gray suit and blue tie. He may not be a psychologist. He says he is. I have no other choice but to believe what they tell me.
The psychologist asks: “When he was a child, when you two were growing up, was Colonel Kornbluth violent?”
“I’m not sure what you mean. What does that mean, exactly?”
“Did he torture insects, animals? Did he beat other kids up for fun? Did he beat you up?”
“He was a gentle kid, as far as I’m concerned,” I say. “He believed in fairness, in justice. One time a bully two years older than me picked on me, that’s the one who beat me up, this bully gave me a black eye. Jack went after the bully. Jack held the bully down and told me to punch him in the eye. ‘A black eye for a black eye,’ he said. I hit the bully. It made me feel good. The bully cried, he begged for mercy, begged forgiveness.
