The Arcade
Chapter 16

Thursday morning dawned bright, and Cosmo was already awake before his alarm went off. He was pulling on his pants when he heard his mother coming up the stairs.

When she opened the door, she found Cosmo sitting on the edge of the bed tying his shoe laces. She smiled. “Good morning, Stinky! I’m surprised to see you up already. Usually I have to pry you out of that bed in the morning. Ready for breakfast?”

Cosmo looked up from tying his Vans. “I’m starving – what are we having?” He heard his stomach growl it’s own question.

“Your dad wanted blueberry waffles with sausage, and I thought that sounded pretty good, so that’s what we’re having. Sound good to you?” His mom smiled. He sure did like his mom’s smile. It reminded him of the sun peeking out from behind the clouds.

Grinning back, he replied “Yeah, mom – that sounds great.”

He finished tying his shoes and followed her downstairs to the kitchen, where the early morning air drifting in through the open patio doors was infused with the wondrous fragrances of blueberries and sausage. His father was already sitting at the table in the breakfast nook, reading the business section of the paper and sipping his coffee.

Joe Phillips looked up from his paper and smiled at his son. “’Morning, Slick! Surprised to see you up so soon.”

Cosmo sat down next to his dad at the table, helping himself to a couple of waffles and two large patties of sausage. “I guess the smell of breakfast got me going.” He reached for the syrup. “Besides, it’s nice not to have to rush through breakfast – especially when it’s this good.” He smiled at his mother, who had taken her seat next to Cosmo, and was enjoying her slice of honeydew – lightly peppered, of course.

“Can’t argue with that. Your mom’s a sorceress in the kitchen.” Joe winked at his wife. “I can’t wait to see what she conjures up tonight!”

Rosemary batted her hand in Joe’s direction and rolled her eyes. “You’d say anything as long as you didn’t have to do the cooking.”

Joe’s eyes widened in mock innocence, and placing a hand on his chest he protested loftily, “I beg your pardon, madam – but I would never stoop to such deceptive practices!”

Cosmo groaned, and he and his mother both rolled their eyes. Around a mouthful of melon she replied “Oh bro-ther… That is the worst acting I have seen since Plan 9 from Outer Space!” Cosmo’s dad started laughing at this, and his infectious chuckle made it’s way around the breakfast table, until all three of them were laughing.

When breakfast was through, Cosmo and his father gathered their things, and – each giving Mrs. Phillips a good-bye kiss (Cosmo’s on her cheek, of course) – headed out the door.

On the way to school, Cosmo was thinking about what he had done to Theo’s dirt bike the night before. Would it work? Would it keep him from slamming into Sal’s car, and keep him from getting killed?

Then another thought occurred to him: how badly would he be injured as a result of the tinkering he did? Surely it wouldn’t be bad enough to kill him, but would it be bad enough to, say – cripple him? He wasn’t so sure that would be much better. Theo really liked riding things with two wheels, and to not be able to do that – well, he probably would rather be dead.

Joe had noticed his son’s silence, and glancing over at him, he quickly noticed the look on Cosmo’s face. He had never seen that look before. The furrowed eyebrows and pinched expression caused Joe to immediately ask “Son, is everything ok?”

The sound of his dad’s voice caused Cosmo to jump in his seat. “Huh? Oh, uh – yeah, I guess so. I’m just worried about school, I guess.”

Joe gave his son a look and replied “Huh. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you less than truthful with me, son. I have to say – I’m a little disappointed.”

At this indictment, Cosmo looked directly at his father, and took a deep breath. If he was going to ever be able to explain himself to anyone, it would be his dad. That – and nobody else would ever believe him, but his father might.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, son?”

“Have I ever – in my entire life – lied to you?”

Joe thought about this for a long moment. His son had always been open and honest – almost to a fault. You certainly didn’t want his opinion of your musical abilities if all you could play was a kazoo. Something important was going on here – something very important to Cosmo – and he needed to get it off his chest. Joe had no other choice than to trust his son.

“No son, you’ve never lied to me – at least that I am aware of. What is it you need to tell me?”

“Dad, you might want to pull into a Micky-Dees or something – this is gonna take a while to explain.”

Joe looked at his son, nodded, then turned into the McDonald’s just past the light on the left. Pulling into a space, he turned to Cosmo and asked “Stay in the car or go in?”

Cosmo thought for a moment, then replied “You’re gonna need more coffee for this, so we should probably go in.”

“Great…” Joe muttered under his breath, as he undid his seatbelt and got out of the car.

Walking in to the restaurant, Joe told his son to replace an “appropriate place to sit,” while he went to the counter to order some coffee. Cosmo found a small booth as far away from the front and nearest a corner as he could.

A few minutes later, his father appeared with coffee for himself, and a large o.j. - and what his dad referred to as an “egg Mc-something-or-other” for Cosmo.

Taking the seat across from his son, Joe looked across at him and said “well, I’m listening – and take your time. I gotta feeling we’re both going to be late this morning, anyway.”

Cosmo took a bite of the sandwich, washed it down with a big swig of o.j., and launched into his story.

Leaving nothing out, Cosmo told him of his life as an adult in the year 2012, what he did for a living, the fact that he got fired, and that he never married. He also mentioned the fact that he and his parents drifted apart somewhere during Cosmo’s second year of college, and rarely kept in touch.

He told his dad about going to the mall and meeting Sal, and everything that Sal had told him. He even mentioned what Sal had told him about Holly, and how that was the reason he asked her out. Then he got to the part where he walked in to the arcade and found himself fourteen years old again.

Finally, he revealed his attempt to change the fact that, in the future – the OTHER future – Theo had been killed riding his motorcycle. He told his father everything. When he was finished, he waited for his dad’s reaction.

He wasn’t sure whether his dad would laugh, flip out, call his son the biggest storyteller the world has ever seen, or simply suggest that they both take the day off and see a shrink.

After what Cosmo felt must have been a good half an hour (which in fact was only about five minutes) his dad drank the last swallow of coffee from his Styrofoam cup and – blowing out his breath – replied “Wow. You’ve been carrying that around all these months?”

Cosmo looked at his father. In that moment, he realized that he never really knew him. Here he sat expecting his father to absolutely freak out, or at the least – shake his head and laugh. Instead, he was concerned – concerned! His dad was worried that he had been carrying around this burden with no one to help.

“Yeah. I have.” Cosmo looked down for a moment, then looked back at his father. “Does this mean you believe me?”

Cosmo’s dad took a deep breath and looked out the window at the morning traffic. Looking back at Cosmo, he replied “Yeah son, I do. Odd as it may sound to the both of us, I do. I also have my reasons why I believe you – but I can’t explain them just now.” Then Joe leaned over the table, and giving Cosmo a very keen and knowing look, said “The question is – what do you plan to do with this knowledge?”

Cosmo blinked. “Whaddya mean, ‘what do I plan to do’?”

“I mean what do you plan on doing now? You’ve rigged Theo’s dirt bike so that it doesn’t get very far – you hope – before falling apart. That should keep him from meeting the front end of Sal’s car. What then? What are you going to tell your friends? What are you going to tell Holly? What are you going to tell him? You know things, Cosmo.”

Now it was Cosmo’s turn to look out the window. Just as he was about to open his mouth to answer his father, he saw Theo riding his dirt bike toward the intersection that they had come through only a little while ago.

“Dad! Here he comes – and he’s riding the dirt bike!”

Joe stood up and looked out the window, and saw what Cosmo was pointing at. Just as Theo got to the intersection, the front wheel of his dirt bike start to wobble violently. A second or two later, Theo lost control and was catapulted over the handlebars.

As luck (or Fate) would have it, cross traffic still had the red light. Theo’s wipe-out wouldn’t be compounded with the threat of collisions of the side-swiping variety. Still, the crash itself was bad enough.

Traffic literally came to a standstill, and a crowd quickly gathered around the injured teen. Although not nearly as bad as it could have been, it was still very serious. Theo was unconscious and bleeding. The motorcycle looked like a giant had twisted it like a bread-tie. It was bad.

Cosmo and his father rushed out of the restaurant and into the intersection where the stricken boy lay. They could already hear the distant sound of sirens.

When they got to Theo, he was still unconscious. It was obvious upon first glance that his right arm and left leg were broken, from the unnatural angles at which they lay. There was a great deal of road rash, and he was bleeding from a large gash on his left knee. He hadn’t worn his riding leathers.

Scant moments later, the paramedics arrived and began their task of stabilizing the teen and loading him up into the ambulance for the trip to the hospital. Cosmo was the first to step up before they shut the rear door to the ambulance.

“Please, is he gonna be ok? I mean, he’s going to live – right?”

The paramedic who was just about to close the door replied “They really won’t know a whole lot until they get him in to the ER and get some x-rays and tests done, but I can tell you one thing – that helmet saved his life. That, and the fact that he only went over the front end of his bike instead of into another car. That probably would have killed him on impact.”

Joe put his hand on Cosmo’s shoulder and said “Come on, we’ll follow them to the hospital.” Turning to the paramedic, he said “He and my son are friends, and I’m going to need to call his parents and let them know what’s happened.”

The paramedic nodded and replied “That would be great sir, the police are going to want to take a report as well.”

Nodding to the man, Joe turned to walk back to the parking lot where his car was parked. After a few steps, he noticed that Cosmo was standing where Joe had left him, staring down at the wreckage of the motorcycle.

Joe walked back to where his son was standing, and put his arm around his shoulder. “You did the right thing Cosmo. You saved his life. Whatever else comes of this, you saved your friend’s life.”

Cosmo turned and looked up at his father, and for the first time since he met Sal and began this unbelievably odd journey, he felt small. He felt like a kid. He put his arms around his dad and hugged him, and Joe hugged him back. “Let’s go, son.” Casting a final look back at the ruined motorcycle, Cosmo could only nod, blinking away the tears that started to blur his vision.