Author Archives: tim

“Spoiler Alert” is a serialized short story, coming in 13 parts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. “The Hands” is part twelve. It’s best if you know the end first, so go to part one if you haven’t read it yet.

The grand-daughters were fussing over David when I appeared, but they immediately turned their attention to me, gasping and chirping in Spanish.

“What? What did I do?” I asked.

“You closed the door,” David said. He looked like he had a hangover. “Apparently, you just locked their grandfather inside.”

The women rattled the door and said “aye” a lot. Did they know what I’d left behind? “We’ve got to get them out of here, David.”

“You gave him my gun, didn’t you?”

If someone told you you’d break a man out of a Salvadorian prison . . . .

“Let’s go.” David stood up and put a hand to his forehead.

“What about the women?”

“Don’t worry, they’ll follow us to the door. They’ll feel it necessary to see us out.”

He was right. They did follow us to the door. Back through that labyrinthine house we went until we were uttering our awkward goodbyes at the doorway. That’s when we heard the gunshot.

They must have known we were to blame for it. Hell, they may even have known it was coming. But that didn’t make their cries any quieter or any less passionate.

“We can’t stay and help them,” David said.

“I know.”

It felt shitty to leave them there, sobbing on each other’s shoulders, the awful work of cleaning out a bloodstained room left looming over them. But where there’s a death like Abuelo’s, there would be police, and we weren’t in Guatemala yet.

“I think I understand a little more, David. I think I understand how you feel. It’s this sort of helplessness, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer immediately. In fact, he didn’t speak much for the next hour or so. He only gave the occasional directions — “Let’s go left here,” or “This way.” But when we finally hitched a ride on a camioneta headed north, he spoke up. “I wasn’t helpless, you know. I just believed I was.”

It felt reassuring to be in the back of that truck, nodding at each other once again.

“If the old man told me lies, that means there’s hope.” He clasped his hands together as though in prayer. They were my own hands, in a sense. I’d seen them from the unique perspective of their owner.

He smiled. “When we get to Jutiapa, let’s catch a bus to Belize.”

“Spoiler Alert” is a serialized short story, coming in 13 parts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. “The Other Gift” is part eleven. It’s best if you know the end first, so go to part one if you haven’t read it yet.

I jumped up from my chair, tipping it backward and startling even myself with the sound of it hitting cement. The women had already cleared the table of anything useful — a glass of water to throw in his face, for instance — but I spotted his backpack resting near the door to the old man’s room, so I grabbed it and extracted his water bottle. “Here,” I told him. “Drink something.”

The grand-daughters arrived just in time to see David refuse the water, push back his chair, and throw his head between his knees. The older woman tended to David and the younger one began wheeling Abuelo away. “Come with me,” he whispered. I was reluctant to leave David, but I followed anyway. I suppose that’s exactly when the betrayal started.

As the girl pushed him toward his bedroom, I held the door open.

“I need your help,” he said. When I eyed the girl, he added, “Don’t worry. She doesn’t understand anything I’m saying.” Not that I was worried, really. I kind of wanted a witness to the conversation, someone to maybe discourage the full scale mindfuck I suspected Abuelo was capable of. Let’s just say I had the more common type of clairvoyance, the kind known in layman’s terms as “a bad feeling about this.”

But the pained expression on his face got me thinking otherwise. The look in his eyes as his great grand-daughter helped him into bed — a look revealing long years of helplessness due either to his geriatric immobility or to the torment of knowing the future — that look only confirmed that he was no threat to me.

“I need you to break me out of this prison,” he said, as the girl offered to change his socks.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“My family keeps me in this room. I can’t get out of bed without their help. It’s time to go.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

He said nothing more. He only snatched my hand in his and held it with a strength that didn’t seem possible. In a brief but vivid instant, I saw the future. I saw a hallway lit by florescent lights reflecting off immaculate floors. A man wheeling an I.V. unit shuffled by. Nurses and doctors hurried towards important destinations. A two-way door swung open, and a stocky, short-haired nurse told me I might want to come in now. In the room, I saw a woman lying on a bed, watching the face of a male nurse, who was coaching her to breathe. When she turned toward me, her lips pursed and face glistening with beads of sweat, it looked like she was blowing me a kiss. She called my name and reached for me, a gesture that almost made my knees buckle with heartache. Hers was a face I’d never seen before, but I knew someday I’d love this woman with my entire being.

Abuelo let go.

I gasped like a man long submerged under water, coming up for air. “How?” I choked.

“One more,” he said. He grabbed my hand again.

This time, I saw the inside of a bus, packed with passengers. A man to my right held a small, tan dog on his lap; in the seat ahead of me, a little boy was playing peek-a-bo, giggling each time he peered over the seatback. Suddenly, the bus swerved left, throwing the toddler into his mother’s shoulder. We tipped over, and bodies fell on top of me. I got kicked in the face a few times as people struggled to right themselves, but then the bus jerked to a stop and everyone fell again. We all started clambering toward the windows, now the ceiling of the bus. I lifted a few children upwards, and just as I was reaching for more, I noticed my own hands. Something wasn’t right about them. They weren’t mine. An explosion shattered the glass, and the cabin filled with thick, black smoke.

Abuelo let go again.

I resurfaced, choking over the only reaction I could vocalize. “David.”

“That,” he said, “is what the face of God looks like. Now you know why you have to help us die.” It only struck me later that he’d said “us.” I was too busy digesting the visions of the future I’d just been subjected to.

It took little justification, though, for me to extract David’s gun from his backpack and hand it to the old man. I waited for the great granddaughter to leave, of course. But I didn’t hesitate once she had.

Abuelo touched my hand — gently this time, like a father — and said, “Tell David I’m sorry.” Only once I closed the door behind me and saw David out in the courtyard, did I realize that the old man had finally called David by his name.

“Spoiler Alert” is a serialized short story, coming in 13 parts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. “The Gift” is part ten. It’s best if you know the end first, so go to part one if you haven’t read it yet.

We stayed for soup and David spoke with the grand-daughter and great-grand-daughter, who went out of their way to make us feel at home.

David translated their words for me. “We knew you were coming. Grandpa can still see the future. But he doesn’t remember the past very well.”

I had a little epiphany — or maybe just a memory from high school Spanish — that abuelo is grandpa. David was unimpressed.

Abuelo didn’t talk much during the meal. The women had wheeled him to the table, telling us he was over 100 but they weren’t quite sure how old. They were amazed he remembered David, said he didn’t remember much these days.

I always get a little uncomfortable around invalids. I know, I know: I’m a horrible person. I’ve come to accept that. Still, the utter helplessness of the old and incapacitated, trapped in their houses or hospitals, makes me want to cry.

We ate in the courtyard, the women helping Abuelo spoon soup into his mouth. I tried not to watch, but I couldn’t stop. After the meal, the women went to the kitchen.

Abuelo perked up and cleared his throat. “Alan, I have a confession.” He didn’t look so helpless anymore. His eyes darted briefly in my direction and I pretended not to be eavesdropping. He whispered, “Half the things I told your son were lies.”

If my heart skipped a beat at this news, imagine what David’s must have been doing. I mean, if all the prophecies had come true but some of the prophecies were lies, what did that mean?

David choked out a feeble “Why?” though I’m sure he had more to ask.

Abuelo leaned in closer, but I could still hear. “You remember that man we met in Kansas City? The guy with the leather vest who was always eating pineapple from a can? What’s it he used to say? ‘Ain’t truth that’ll set you free.’

“We were given gifts, Alan. We’ve seen the face of God. But who really wants to see the face of God. It’s death.”

I would come to understand soon enough what he was saying.

In the meantime, I had David to worry about. He looked like he was ready to fall over.

“Spoiler Alert” is a serialized short story, coming in 13 parts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. “The Abuelo” is part nine. It’s best if you know the end first, so go to part one if you haven’t read it yet.

“Wow, that’s weird.”

David put his palms to his eyes and started rubbing them. He looked like he was trying to push them into his head.

“What do you think it means?” I asked.

He slung his backpack over his shoulder and faced the Zapatero residence. “There’s only one way to find out.”

I watched him go, wondering whether I’d be hearing a gun shot soon. But as he approached the front door, he looked back at me and shouted, “What are you doing?”

I shrugged.

He motioned for me to follow him, so I jumped up and jogged toward the house. “You’re supposed to come with me.” It was an interesting choice of words (supposed to?) but I decided not to comment on them.

The woman/girl opened the door, saw me standing there, and began to close it again.

“Wait!” David shouted. “Yo soy Alan.”

She eyed us both and yelled something in Spanish. An older woman rounded a corner and came to stand by the first. I guessed they were mother and daughter.

David spoke with them. I couldn’t understand shit.

The women nodded and led us through a labyrinthine house — down one hall, through a kitchen, down another hall, out a door to a courtyard, and finally through another door to a solitary room.

Inside, an old man was lying on a bed, watching telenovelas on a small TV set that sat atop a dresser. He didn’t acknowledge us when we entered.

“Is that him?” I whispered.

“Yes.”

The women spoke quietly, addressing the man as abuelo.

He caught sight of David and smiled. “Alan?”

I’m sure he had some form of dementia. He looked disoriented. But his English was pretty good, and when David nodded, the old guy seemed to brighten up a bit. “This must be your son,” he said. I chuckled.

David glared at me.

The old man wagged a shaky finger at David. “I told him, like you asked. I told him.” Then he looked at me. “Don’t worry, the door’s been broken for years.”

Of course, I had no idea what he was talking about, but I smiled and nodded anyway. I might have said thanks, which was kind of weird now that I think about it.

The old guy extended a feeble arm and held it there for David to take. “Alan, my friend. It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you,” David said. He was crying.

“Spoiler Alert” is a serialized short story, coming in 13 parts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. “The Accomplice” is part eight. It’s best if you know the end first, so go to part one if you haven’t read it yet.

“I have a feeling this involves killing.”

“No, no. Don’t worry about that. I just want to talk to the guy, find out why he ruined my life.”

“And maybe show him that gun you stole earlier?”

“Maybe. But look, you came down here to, uh, disassociate from your past, right?” He waited for my nod. “Well I came down here to disassociate from my future. Don’t you see, we’re two sides of the same coin, you and me.”

“Brothers.”

“So to speak.”

All at once, I felt really tired. I’d barely slept the previous night. Dreaming of mice navigating mazes made for fitful rest. As David regarded me with his best rendition of puppy eyes, I suddenly remembered how, in my dream, I was told to go through the maze also. I thought there’d be a human-sized version of it, but there wasn’t. I had to toe-walk like a ballerina through the mouse-sized maze.

“Look, it’s easy. I just need you to go to the door and ask for Don Zapatero.”

“Don Zapatero?”

He coached me on the pronunciation a little. “Not ‘dawn,’ not ‘done.’ D-o-n. Don. Rhymes with bone.”

The plan was for me to simply determine that a Don Zapatero lived in the house. “Once you find out he lives there, just tell them anything, like you’re selling life insurance. They’ll tell you to go away.”

“That’s all I have to do?”

“Yep. That’s it. Just be sure that you’re absolutely clear on whether he is in the house. They’ll probably even speak English.”

The task seemed innocent enough. So I agreed to it.

Unfortunately, they didn’t speak English. I knocked on the door and a young woman answered. She was somewhere between 15 and 25, I’d guess, but I have a hard time pinpointing the ages of Central Americans. When I asked for Don Zapatero, she invited me in the house and then left me standing just inside the doorway despite my cries of “No, wait. I’m selling life insurance.”

I contemplated leaving since I didn’t want to face the actual Don Zapatero, but when she returned a minute later, there was no old man in tow, thank God. She said something to me in Spanish. I just shook my head.

“Jour name iss Alan?” She spoke slowly.

“Me? No, I’m Joe. Just your average Joe.” I laughed.

She didn’t. “Joe?”

I nodded enthusiastically, thrilled that I’d communicated effectively for once. But then she left again.

And when she returned, she was speaking more Spanish and showing me the door.

“Well?” David asked.

“Well, he’s there, I think. But they kicked me out when I told them my name wasn’t Alan.”

David’s face went white. “What did you just say?”

“She asked me if my name was Alan, and when . . .”

“Holy shit!”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Alan was my father’s name.”