 "A Bridge to Fifty-Six States"
(Excerpt)
by David M. Fitzpatrick
Joe Barris hobbled his arthritic body
around to the front of his La-Z-Boy recliner, backing his rear end into it
and leaning back with a satisfied sigh. There was nothing quite like his
chair. The relationship his butt, back, and shoulders had with that
cushiony seat was like none any lovers had ever shared.
He heard Genevieve padding down the
stairs just then, coming up behind him. His back had just relaxed to the
point that he’d rather not get up again when she spoke, and somehow he
knew it was trouble.
“Are you napping, dear?” she asked him in
that soft voice he’d loved for so long.
“Was planning on it,” he said grumpily.
“What, you figure out some errand for me to do?”
She stepped from behind the chair so he
could see her angelic face, white hair haloing it. She smiled that smile
of hers and said sweetly, “Don’t be so gosh darn bitter, Joseph Barris. I
was just wondering if you were going anywhere near the bank today. I have
to go to my Friday afternoon Ladies’ Auxiliary meeting at the church and
you know how that will tie me up.”
“Yeah, okay,” Joe said with a wave of his
hand. “I have to go to the hardware store later, so I suppose I could hit
the bank. What is it you need so badly?”
“I want one of those leaflets they have
there,” she said. “You know, the one about the fifty State quarters
they’re putting out.”
“Practically an emergency,” he declared,
and sighed. “You’ll find any way to make me work harder. But I suppose I
can manage that—but not until after I’ve had my nap.”
She blew him a kiss. “Thank you, dear. I
love you!”
“Yeah,” he said gruffly.
She chuckled, putting her hands on her
hips. “Joseph Raymond Barris, after being married for over forty years,
you’d think it wouldn’t kill you to tell me you loved me once in a while.”
“You know I do,” he said, and tipped his
head back as she left the living room behind him. She was such a cad.
Always on his case about saying silly things like that. His kids had been
the same way, just like their mother.
His gaze rested on the wall above the
mantle to his left, where all the family pictures hung – one of him and
Gen together, the three kids in three separate frames, and a family photo
with all five of them. It was hard to believe they were grown up and all
now, but they certainly were.
He was thinking about what handfuls all
three of them had been when they were younger, and why that was the reason
they had chosen to have no more, but before he could chuckle to himself
over it, he drifted off into his nap.
* * *
The nap was his customary hour and a
half, and then it was off to run his errands. The hardware store trip was
brief and the bank was on the way home anyway. Joe sidled up to the glass
bank doors and grunted as he pushed them open. He hunkered over to an open
teller window where a gorgeous young girl with a million-dollar smile
greeted him. “Good morning!”
“Morning, lass,” the old-timer said,
pushing his glasses up on his nose and resting his elbow on the counter.
“Just wanted to know if you had a list of the State quarters, and when the
next one is coming.”
“I sure do,” the girl said, and handed
him a leaflet. “That’s the whole eleven-year release schedule.”
Joe wrinkled his brow at this. “Eleven?
Thought they were doing them five a year?”
“Except for the last year, when they’re
doing six,” she replied sweetly.
“Now waitaminnit,” he said. “I know this
New Math has changed things since I was a schoolboy, but fifty States
divided by five per year is ten years.”
She laughed, musically, and slapped the
counter. “Well, if there were only fifty States, that would be correct.
But since there are fifty-six, they’re doing five per year for the first
ten years and the last six in the eleventh.”
He stared at her, then down to his
leaflet, and opened his mouth to inform her of her inanity, and then he
saw it. The leaflet displayed in big letters CELEBRATING THE FIFTY-SIX
STATES WITH COMMEMORATIVE STATE QUARTERS.
A flurry of thoughts rushed through his
head, most oriented around worrying about his state of mind, and so he
opted not to argue the point. He smiled, nodded, and left the bank with
his leaflet.
* * *
In his car, he read the leaflet over and
over. Fifty-six. There were fifty-six States, so it told him. The thing
was printed by the United States Mint, and it seemed like they should know
what they were talking about—yet there they were, listed in order. A map
accompanied the release schedule, so he was able to take this all into
account visually.
It seemed California had seriously shrunk
in size, being a big chunk of the middle of the State and including San
Francisco and Sacramento. The lower portion was named Mojave, like the
desert, containing Los Angeles and San Diego and such. The northern part
of what he knew to be California was named Klamath. Three States where
there was only one before.
Texas was split in two. The lower half
was called Texas and the northern part had given some of itself over to
Oklahoma; the rest was named Texhoma. North Dakota and South Dakota had
each given up a slice to create a middle band called Central Dakota.
Puerto Rico was apparently a State, and had been since 1972. Finally,
Ontario was the fifty-sixth State—not the Canadian province, but the large
peninsula part of that province containing Toronto and surrounded by the
Great Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario.
The State of Ontario. Two Texases. Three
Dakotas. Three Californias. Puerto Rico. Joe just sat and blinked, his
mind racing. It was almost painful as he tried to remember all this that
he had apparently forgotten. How could he be remembering things so screwed
up? He hadn’t had problems with memory loss before, but maybe it was
setting in with his late years. Or maybe he had been having memory
problems all along and just hadn’t been aware of it...
* *
* * * * * *
*
Joe thought it couldn't have gotten
crazier... until he got home...
To read the whole story, visit
www.JourneyBooksPublishing.com and order a back issue of Amazing
Journeys Volume 1, Issue 2.
|
Joe Barris might have been getting old, but
he was damn sure that the United States was comprised of only fifty
states. But the bank display for the state quarters program insisted there
were actually fifty-six... as did the librarian and everyone else Joe
asked. His own life seems to be not the way he remembered it... and Joe
needs to learn a little physics from some great theories like Einstein and
Rosen.