Eleven Twenty-Three by Jason Hornsby Read Free Book Online

open it. I have to admit, I am
more than a tad bit curious.”
    “There’s no—fucking—way,” I said, inhaling
furiously on my cigarette. “If it’s not a bomb, it could very well
be full of some kind of, like, exotic flesh-eating bacteria or
nuclear secrets or something. I could be getting set up to
unwittingly play a role in some terrorist plot, Tara. Whatever it is, all radical political statements aside,
tomorrow morning I’m turning it into the police and calling the
airline and forgetting about it. That’s it.”
    “Tomorrow morning?” Hajime asked. “Isn’t your
dad’s funeral tomorrow morning?”
    “Oh,” I said. “Well, after the funeral
I’m going to, anyway.”
     
    Hajime dropped us off at the old yellow house
Tara and her friends had leased amid four or five more hugs. He
promised that he’d see us tonight, since he was having our friends
over anyway and they couldn’t wait to see us, which I kind of
thought was at least in part a lie. I told him that we would try to
make it, that Tara and I had dinner with our respective families at
seven and it would have to be later, and asked if Mitsuko would be
there.
    “It’s tentative,” he said. “But the rest of
them are a definite. Have you ever heard of Bohemian Grove? No?
Well then I’ve got to tell you about it tonight.”
    And then he left.
    Tara and I carried our bags inside her empty
house. I held my duffel bag with great unease, and quickly placed
it in the tiny garage out back while Tara made calls to her family.
Before I left the duffel and its contents in the dark, I unzipped
it and contemplated the briefcase tucked away inside for a long
time. Finally, I reached down and tried to open it, but
predictably, it was locked. Then I held the unlatched handcuff in
my palm, fingering the steel as if it would somehow provide me with
an answer. Instead I became queasy and quickly snatched up my
duffel, left the briefcase on the floor, and vacated the garage
without looking back. Tara and I both showered. I made a call on
Julie’s phone to my mother to confirm that we were home and that I
would be at her condo by seven, and then had my cell turned back on
by the phone company. I went outside to the back yard, pulled off
the blue tarp, and revved up my Accord to make sure it was still
running. Julie (not Miranda, though) promised to drive it and
Tara’s Cavalier around every once in a while to keep the battery
from dying. It gurgled smoke from the muffler and shimmied and
shook before finally kicking to life and running hesitantly, which
was enough for me at that point. I finally went inside the droopy
yellow house and Tara and I had sleepy welcome home sex and passed
out on her bed.
    I thought of Mitsuko when we did it.
     
    “Sunshine,” I say into Tara’s ear as she
struggles to awake. “I’ve got to get ready for my mom’s. Do you
hear me right now?”
    “I’m…getting there,” she whispers, and rolls
away from me again. “I’m in the middle of a happy dream, sweetie.
Come back in fifteen minutes.”
    “You’ve got to get ready for your parents’
dinner too. Wake up.”
    “But I’m dreaming still…”
    “What are you dreaming?” I ask, sitting up
beside her and lighting a cigarette. I glance out through the
blinds and realize that the traffic light outside already means
nothing to me.
    Three minutes pass before Tara says
anything.
    “I don’t remember anymore what the last one
was, the happy one,” she coos. “I’m in the middle of something else
now.”
    “Well better to wake up now while the
next dream is just beginning, right? Wake up, Sunshine.”
    “Now I’m dreaming that I’m standing behind a
man…He looks like Mr. Scott, in a way…I’m standing behind a man
like Mr. Scott who’s typing something out on a computer…and now I’m
looking over his shoulder…Hold on…I’m reading what it is he’s
writing…”
    “And pray tell: what does it say, creepy
girlfriend?” I ask, snickering to