Saturdays at the bank were always busy; usually Steven Taylor came in to help Myrna handle the morning rush. Although they closed at noon, Myrna frequently dealt with more customers on a Saturday than she did during business hours all week. Steven had missed work the day before and was out again today.
‘I thought he and Mark were climbing Decatur.’
‘No, he told me Thursday night they had to cancel because of the snow. He distinctly said he would be able to close yesterday, and be here to help this morning.’ Howard slammed a drawer in his desk and poured a third cup of black coffee.
‘Where’s Stevie?’ Mrs Winter asked Myrna.
‘Steven,’ she said pointedly, ‘is not in this morning, Mrs Winter. He’ll be back on Monday.’ She handed a deposit receipt and twenty dollars in notes through the window. ‘Don’t spend it all at once, Mrs W. Have a good weekend.’
‘Good-bye dear,’ the elderly woman answered, and Myrna regretted correcting her. She was only being friendly, after all.
Howard finally appeared at Myrna’s side and opened a second teller window. Several customers in the long line across the lobby looked at one another awkwardly for a moment before shifting queues. Myrna’s pleasant demeanour was the antithesis of Howard’s cold efficiency, but for a bank manager with little time on the teller window, Griffin worked as quickly as Myrna. His tempo this morning was fuelled by anger.
‘He should let us know where he is,’ Howard whispered while running a receipt through his computer. ‘What if I hadn’t been available to come in this morning? I really thought he was more responsible than this.’ Howard counted out two hundred dollars in twenty-dollar bills as if practising for a Vegas gambling table.
‘Give him a break, Howard,’ Myrna scolded. ‘Maybe he’s in the hospital, or in a ditch with his car or something. We’ll be closed here in a couple of hours. I’ll go up to his house and see what’s happening with him.’
‘No,’ Griffin told her, ‘I’ll go. You take the afternoon and enjoy yourself. I’ll figure out what’s happening with him.’
Howard had intended to go straight round to 147 Tenth Street, but as he locked the bank door behind him, he smelled the distinct aroma of grilling beef emanating from Owen’s Pub down the block.
‘My heavens, but is there a better smell on this planet?’ he asked out loud, adding, ‘maybe just a quick burger to get me through the afternoon.’ Walking towards the pub in the bright afternoon sun, he heard a loud cheer go up from the crowd gathered inside. He stopped in his tracks. ‘Ah yes, Michigan.’ Griffin savoured the words before jogging the last few feet to the entrance while humming the Colorado fight song.
Six draught beers, one bacon cheeseburger, an enormous order of French fries and a forty-two-thirty-one victory later, Howard Griffin stumbled from the pub and up the street towards the corner of Miner and Tenth. When he reached Steven’s house, he was surprised to find the door unlocked and slightly ajar.
‘Stevie,’ he slurred into the front hallway, ‘Stevie, I am pissed at you, my boy, but CU won good this afternoon. So you’ve caught me in a good mood.’ Seeing no one coming out to greet him, Griffin meandered through the house towards the kitchen. Several beer cans stood on the counter near an open pizza box and Howard picked one up, realised it was nearly full and took a long draught from it before spitting the beer back into the sink.
‘Christ, it’s warm,’ he complained, then, shouting to anyone who might be listening, ‘what the hell are you doing leaving warm beer out here? Someone might drink it.’
He giggled as he pulled out a cold can from the fridge, then headed towards the living room.
If Howard Griffin noticed the shimmering air and flecks of coloured light dancing above the incongruous tapestry, he didn’t show it. Instead, he came awkwardly around the sofa and dropped heavily onto the cushions. Finding no ottoman on which to put his feet, the inebriated bank manager slid the coffee table out into the middle of the room and rested his boots on the finished wood surface. He rubbed one hand across his bulging stomach, and was distracted by the sight of a large expanse of cloth spread out across the floor.
‘Sheez, what an ugly rug,’ he gurgled, eyeing the tapestry now bunched up against the legs of the coffee table. ‘You guys must have stolen that from the bathroom at a bus station. Stevie, I am never going to let you live this one down. I wouldn’t even buy that ugly bastard, and I like tacky decor.’
Yawning widely, Griffin stood up, stretched and, with a loud groan, started back towards the door. In the kitchen, he found a pen and scribbled a note on the open pizza box: STEVIE: CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU GET IN, YOU DERILECT BUGGER. He was not quite certain how to spell derelict, so he deliberately ran the letters together, but even in his weakened condition he could spell bugger, so he made the letters much larger, as if he were a child practising for a spelling quiz.
Message completed, he moved the box to the edge of the stove near the refrigerator, where Steven would be certain to read it. Then he pulled from behind his ear the cigarette he’d bummed from a drinking buddy earlier that afternoon and, failing to find matches, turned on the gas stove. He placed the cigarette clumsily in his mouth and leaned into the flame until the embers glowed red and the smoke stung his eyes. He had not smoked regularly since his move from Boulder to Idaho Springs, but he allowed himself one cigarette every six months – or when he was under particularly difficult stress. He was not sure which excuse counted today, but he inhaled deeply regardless.
Making certain he had locked the door behind him, Howard Griffin walked into the waning afternoon sunlight. It was much colder outside now, and he took a moment to zip his jacket up tightly before making his way towards home in an ungainly drunken shuffle.
He had no idea the gas stove in Steven and Mark’s house continued to burn.
Rob Scott
The Hickory Staff
GREENTREE SQUARE
Several hours had passed since the strange beasts had attacked the Malakasian horses, and neither Mark nor Steven had heard any sound coming from the lower floors of the palace, or outside their window. They had fled the first suite of rooms for another on the same hallway, hoping Sallax and the enemy soldiers would be too busy battling one another to find them.
Brynne, exhausted, had fallen asleep several minutes before, despite the afternoon heat. The two friends whispered to one another, trying not to wake her.
‘You know what’s funny?’ Mark looked over at Brynne’s silent form, then leaned back against the cool stone of the chamber wall.
‘That a teenager who doesn’t know the rules governing the use of a semi-colon will have Asian characters tattooed on her ass?’ Steven replied, managing a smile.
‘No, although that does stagger my imagination,’ Mark chuckled. ‘Think about it. We’re here in another world. With two moons, it has to be another world. We can look back as far as the pyramids at Giza, 2,500 BC, long before there was metallurgy or weaponry of this sophistication in Western Europe, and there is nothing that speaks of two moons.’ He stopped for a moment to gather his thoughts, then continued, ‘And this language we’ve both apparently learned instantaneously, it’s not a Western language and it’s not a precursor to any modern European language. But these people appear to live in a culture similar to our early Europe. Their features, this architecture, some of their weapons and even their clothes: they all look like they fell right out of a history textbook.’
‘So, what’s your point?’ Steven asked. ‘You don’t think we came back in time. Great. I don’t believe that’s possible. Hell, I don’t believe any of this is possible, but it’s happened.’ He absentmindedly ran one knuckle along a seam between two large stones in the masonry.