sitting through Henry Fonda and Charlton Heston in Midway for the twentieth time, but the hard-core business stuff is mandatory.”
Just for fun, he coughed into the phone. “Nah, Dad. I’m serious. I think I’m coming down with something.”
“Don’t make me come get you,” his father humorously drawled.
“Love ya, you tree-hugging, veggie-munching boomer.”
“Right back atcha, you crystal ball-gazing, telephone psychic.”
The call ended, and he sat there, chuckling softly. Telephone psychic. Good one!
Getting away from the family wasn’t Arnie’s only reason for leaving the hotel. He needed distance and a full stomach. Sometimes being around those people made him shrivel from repulsion. The annual family retreats were always a nightmare, but now they resembled episodes of a tacky and embarrassing reality show populated by narcissists, wannabes, and those whose self-worth came from a plastic surgeon. The Kardashians had nothing on the Wanamakers when it came to this stuff. Old money always won.
The Mexican restaurant where he ended up drew him in like a magnet. He’d been aimlessly strolling an area of shops and eateries when a sombrero and colorful serape-wearing character held the restaurant door open and waved him in.
A dinner crowd had the place hopping. There was a wait for a table, so he strolled into the bar and fast-slammed two standard tourist margaritas while putting a serious dent in a basket of tortilla chips and the saucer of fresh salsa the bartender placed next to him
There was a lot to like about the cantina atmosphere. Decorated in a bright palette of colors and unreservedly proud of their Mexican roots, the place was known for authentic food in a terrific atmosphere. Or that was what the Yelp reviews said that he checked while waiting
By the time a costumed bandito escorted him to his table, he was relaxed and less likely to get into trouble.
Trouble, however, was on the menu when the pretty waitress took the unplanned food stop to a new level. She gave off an air that he couldn’t ignore. Something about her reached inside him.
Not many people got past his boundary lines. His extensive training taught him to keep his unusual abilities on lockdown unless needed. Showing off with martial arts expertise was okay, but his other skills were deemed top secret and highly classified.
Top secret status aside, it was hard to explain the unexplainable. He felt things and saw energy. Not dead people—he wasn’t a cartoon character, but he was able, once trained, to dial into situations and read people. His approach was immersive—after tuning in, a dimensional image formed. This sentient ability gave him an advantage he was careful not to abuse.
He was also mindful of the need for secrecy and for keeping his classified life invisible to the casual eye. It wasn’t possible to do what he did if everyone and their mailman’s neighbor knew and had an opinion about it.
A misinformed opinion.
Arnie knew all about jumping to ignorant conclusions where extrasensory stuff was concerned. He certainly wasn’t a believer until a fortuitous event in the form of a flyer he picked up on campus not long after the attacks on the World Trade Center changed the trajectory of his overprivileged life.
Wherever college students gathered, there’d be groups looking for volunteers to help with studies about everything from plastic waste, to sleep apnea, to color sensitivity. He found research projects so interesting that one time he volunteered for a study on fast food. Now that he gave it thought, maybe that was when he became so opinionated about french fries.
Back to the memory walk. The flyer he picked up was about a study on supernormal input. He didn’t have a clue what those words meant, but his interest was piqued. At the time, he was a young, dumb, bored college student and figured it would be fun.
The initial screening led to a much more intense test that was followed by a series of even weirder experiments.
In a scene worthy of an X-Men movie, a literal team of men in black approached him not long after. They descended one day while he was stuffing his face with falafels at a campus eatery. Their first move was to deploy in a ring around him. Before they closed in, Arnie saw them and nearly shit with anxiety.
The guy in charge was a short-statured low-talker. This mouthpiece introduced himself as Jordan.
Mr. Jordan? Tom Jordan? King Jordan the First? Arnie never knew.
The guy spoke in measured words. He offered a business card—a generic white card with a phone number in the