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Message-ID: <50443asstr$1108159803@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Carlos Malenkov <cmalenkov@yahoo.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} Aggie (MF cons ScFi inc)
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Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:10:03 -0500
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AGGIE
by Carlos Malenkov (writing as Dorpat Diem)
Word Count: 2174
Copyright (c) 2005 by Carlos Malenkov
Posting and archiving rights granted to ASSM. All other rights reserved.



Like a huge heap of steaming dog turds, DIA looms over the bleak prairie.
Its institutional appearance reminds me of Cold War era Soviet
architecture, and I try to avoid this particularly dismal airport like
the plague. But my favorite aunt was gravely ill, and I had to see her
before she died.

    I've always had a talent for making unpleasant things go away. In the
    fifth grade it was an especially nasty bully who had singled me out
    for his attentions. In desperation, I _wished_, wished as hard as I
    could, that he would just disappear out of my life. The following day
    he didn't show up at school. The police searched for months, but he
    was never found.

Aunt Agatha was the only one who ever understood me. My parents were
well-meaning, but distant, and I can't recall my mother ever drying
my tears or giving me a hug. But Agatha was always there for me, and
she let me lay my head on her ample maternal bosom and cry myself out
whenever the pain of existence was too much to bear.

    In Basic Training, the drill sergeant seemed to have a hardon for me.
    I was always the one on punishment detail, the one he cussed out and
    mocked for being a "pussy," the one he used as a scapegoat for
    anything that wasn't quite shipshape at inspection. Oh, how I wished
    he would disappear, just go away and never be seen again. Then one
    morning we had a new drill sergeant, and no one would answer questions
    about what had happened to the old one.

Landing in the so-called Queen City of the West at five in the morning
doesn't necessarily leave one in the best of moods. Lord, how I hate that
place! It was bad enough having to grow up in that jumped up cow town,
but seeing it transformed into a trendy, pseudo-cosmopolitan hi-tech
mecca makes me want to puke.

The car rental counter was already besieged, even at that hour. I had to
wait in line for forty minutes in spite of having made a reservation. It
was a relief to finally be able to drive out of the place in a late-model
Dodge Freon.

    For a time, Aggie was the love of my life. We had met at a mutual
    friend's New Year's party. I noticed the striking redhead with
    dangerous curves the moment I walked in, but thought, _no, I'd never
    stand a chance with a looker like that_. But, she walked right up
    to me, and as I stood there stammering and staring down at my feet,
    she put on a silly grin. Then she asked if the pain ever got too
    much for me to bear.

    "The pain?"

    "The pain of existence. Of living day in and day out in a cruel,
    indifferent universe."

    "Yes, we bear our scars inside, and sometimes our anguish expresses
    itself in an unintended grimace, or an accidental teardrop."

    I don't know what moved me to spout that hokum. But it worked.

    "Ah, a kindred soul," she said.

     And so it began.

She had tubes coming out of her arms and torso. They didn't expect her
to survive the night.

"Auntie Agatha," I said.

Her eyes opened.

I leaned forward as she tried to say something.

"Bennie." It was a barely audible whisper.

"Don't try to talk, Auntie." I reached out to touch her.

"No," she said. "No." She clutched my hand and sighed.

"My child," she said, "my lost treasure."

"Auntie -- "

"No. Listen. This needs to be said. Before I die . . . must be told."

Told _what_?

"Not . . . not your aunt."

"Auntie -- "

"I'm not your aunt!"

_Not my aunt?_

"Listen to me. Remember . . . remember the night we found each other.
That night at . . . at the party. That night . . . the pain . . . the
pain of existence."

_The pain of existence._

    She wouldn't let me alone. Bad enough that she'd call me four or
    five times a day at my workplace. But, she also had this annoying
    habit of dropping in unannounced at my apartment and more or less
    _demanding_ sex right then and there. And even when you're not in a
    particularly lusty mood, it's hard to turn down a needy woman when
    she's rubbing her nipples against you and grabbing your crotch. It
    was very inconvenient.

    I'd never known a woman as hot to trot as Aggie. She was obsessed
    with sex. On the nights she slept over, I'd all too often awaken
    early to find her tightly clutching my morning erection and --
    full bladder or not -- be compelled to stick it right into her. In
    public, she'd pull me over into a semi-concealed spot -- into the
    bushes or an unoccupied restroom -- and just bend over and flip up
    her skirt. It was embarrassing. It was exasperating. It was a mad,
    exciting whirl. And I didn't know how much more of it I could handle.

    Maybe she had gotten careless about taking her Pill. Or possibly it
    was a deliberate ploy to bind me to her. In any case, it happened.
    She somehow got pregnant.

I stumbled out of that hospital room and barely managed to make it to
the parking lot before I puked my guts out. The rest of that day was a
blur. I just couldn't face Aunt Agatha, or myself, any more.

That evening I got a phone call. Agatha had died earlier in the day. Just
minutes after I had left her.

    I'd had my fill of Aggie. More than my fill. Sure, the sex was fine,
    better than fine even. But, I just couldn't deal with a pregnant
    woman. A pregnant woman carrying my child. Who absolutely insisted on
    bearing that child. And who threatened me with dire consequences if
    I didn't assume my share of the responsibility. If I didn't marry her.

    I wished she'd go away, just disappear out of my life. I wished hard.
    Real hard. And, one morning she didn't call me at work. She didn't
    show up at my apartment that night. Or the next. A week later,
    when I finally got around to making inquiries about her, no one
    could tell me anything. She had just plain disappeared.

I somehow managed to attend the funeral. Afterward, my mother pulled
me aside.

"Ben," she said, "Agatha wanted you to have this to remember her by."
And she thrust what looked like a leather-bound diary into my hands.

I couldn't bear to look at it. I had a sudden premonition that I'd find
my own damnation in its pages. But, curiosity finally forced me to open
the book.


    May 27, 1969

    I'm finally beginning to get over the shock. I still have no idea
    how it happened, but here I am, thirty years in the past.

    Time travel? Well, maybe, but I couldn't begin to say how. All I know
    is that I was just lifting the phone to call _him_ when . . . when
    there was this blinding flash . . . and I lost consciousness. When
    I came to, everything had changed.

    I was lying in a ditch by the roadside, naked and bruised. My first
    thought was: _my baby!_

    I must have been staggering around and screaming incoherently. A
    highway patrolman had me draped in a blanket and was trying to calm
    me down. Between my sobs, I couldn't make out what he was saying.

    The baby was all right. Four months along and all indications normal,
    they said at the hospital. But, they wouldn't release me just yet,
    and I could hardly blame them. No ID or money and babbling a story
    that didn't make sense. Finally, we settled on trauma-induced
    amnesia. Memory loss.

    Memory loss! I remembered every moment of my life! And every lovely
    and painful moment with Ben, damn him. I loved him, but he pushed
    me away. Somehow, I couldn't help feeling he'd had something to
    do with this bizarre thing that had happened to me. Cut off from
    friends, family, everything familiar. Pushed back into the 60s!
    The era of the hippies and Viet Nam, for gosh sake. Before I was
    even born. What would I do?


So, _that_ was what happened to people I wished away. They were safely
"buried" in the past. The dead past.


    July 15, 1969

    Bastille Day. Hooray.

    The Murrays have told me I can stay with them until I have a place
    of my own. They're a young married couple still in their 20s. So
    optimistic. All their life before them, and the whole world for them
    to conquer. Not realizing all the tragedy and sorrow in store for
    them, and the rest of humankind, in the coming decades.

    The pregnancy is starting to show.



    August 23, 1969

    This is my baby. Mine! The only thing I have left that's truly mine.
    I wouldn't abort it even if it were legal. And, if memory serves me,
    it won't be legal until 1973.


Uh, oh.


    November 2, 1969

    He's such a beautiful baby boy. Luminous green eyes, just like Ben.
    And, that's just what I named him. Ben.



    Thanksgiving Day, 1969

    I didn't really have much choice. With what little money I was making
    as a maid and doing people's wash, I couldn't possibly support a
    child. And, with no established identity I didn't have a hope of
    getting on Welfare. It was either give Ben up to an agency, or --

    The Murrays will adopt him. It's a fortunate choice. They're a fine
    upstanding couple, and they'll let me drop in and visit Ben whenever
    I'd like. In fact, they'll let me pretend I'm his loving aunt. Instead
    of his loving mother.


This is getting just too damned weird.


    May 21, 1971

    The second anniversary of my "arrival." Had cake and ice cream to
    celebrate.

    I'm still not earning much, but at least I no longer have to make
    beds and scrub floors. I found a decent secretarial job, finally, and
    I'm making payments on a used car. Darn it, why did all my up-to-date
    technical skills turn out to be so useless here? I used to be quite
    a hotshot Website designer and Java programmer, but that doesn't
    translate to doing anything with the big-iron mainframe computers that
    businesses rely on in this time and place. (Can you believe keypunch
    machines and noisy teletype terminals?) Not to mention that I don't
    have anything in the way of credentials that anyone would recognize.

    Well, I'm managing to put aside a little each month after expenses.
    Some of it will go for Ben's college education, of course, but I have
    some ideas, too. I seem to recall that investments in companies like
    Intel, and later, Apple and Microsoft, will pay off. Meanwhile, I run
    the office coffeepot, and type and take dictation.



    August 21, 1975

    Ben is a sweet kid. Sharp as a tack and eager to please. But, it's
    uncanny how much he's starting to resemble his namesake. Even his
    little-boy voice has the many of the same inflections. Could it be
    that -- ?

    No! Mustn't think such thoughts.


I think I know where all this is headed. Got to put that diary aside and
think a while. Got to get a hold of myself and . . .


    May 2, 1983

    There's no doubt in my mind now. None.

    Ben has the same pattern of moles behind his left shoulder that . . .

    What can this all mean? My lover leaves me pregnant and discards me,
    then I get entangled in the coils of time . . . only to bear the
    child that will become . . .

    Mustn't let on that I know or alter my treatment of him. It's not
    his fault, or anyway, it won't be for quite a few more years. And,
    I do love him. And his father, too. Still. In spite of everything.


There was a letter in the mail. It was from the law firm handling Agatha's
estate. I had inherited some money. Forty million dollars.


    January 23, 1994

    Memory has served me very well, it seems. My investment portfolio has
    made me wealthy beyond my wildest dreams.

    My needs are few, and I certainly don't much care about living in
    luxury. It's nice to know, though, that I need never again worry
    about working or about retirement income. And I have something to
    leave behind for my child . . . and lover.


Forty million dollars! I was set for the rest of my life. Expensive cars.
Travel. Women. The best of everything.

So why did I feel this damn guilt? This burning shame? I had done nothing
wrong! Nothing, damn it! Just wished inconvenient people out of my life.
Just wished . . .

For the first time in my life, I wished, wished hard, that _I myself_
could just disappear. I --

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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