KEN OGUSS·MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2020·
Prompt: "Jack of Hearts."
"Look out!" I yelled at the old man walking across the street in the fog. I could hear the fire engine sirens speeding toward us, the flashing red and white lights igniting the fog into an explosion of light. Now I could see the man's face. It was my neighbor, Jack. "Jack, get out of the way!" He held a little package in his hand. In an instant he tossed a card into the air just as the fire truck reached him. There was a terrible crashing thud. I covered my face. And then everything went dead silent. I was breathing heavily and slowly looked back to the street, expecting to see a scene of incredible gore… but there was nothing there. No fire truck, no Jack, just the fog and the dark night. I took a step down off the curb toward the scene and felt myself falling forward.
I awoke with a startle and a gasp. "Jack!" My eyes adjusted to the dark of my bedroom. I reached over and pulled my glasses off of the side table. The old LCD alarm clock on the other side of the room displayed 4:01 AM. God, I thought. Bad dream. Jesus, it was so real! I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't.
A pot of coffee, a plate of eggs, and toast with orange marmalade later, I checked the local media online. I expected to read about a fire engine hitting a pedestrian in the early morning or at least a report of the siren and the crashing sound. But there was nothing to confirm that something had actually happened.
I went on with my morning still feeling uneasy. I pay attention to my dreams. I write them down so that I won't forget them. They sometimes inspire me to write a story. This time the dream was too real. I decided to call Jack to ask him about it. His home phone did not answer. He didn't carry a cell phone. They are too much technology for him. I never leave home without mine.
At noon I walked over to our small, local grocery store. I spotted my neighbor Jack in the produce section.
"Hey, neighbor!" I called to him.
"Hey Morrison, Robert!" He said to me. This was a private joke based on the way his home phone called ID displays my name when I call him, last name first. We chuckled at each other.
"You finding anything good?" I asked him.
"Well, the avocados are on sale. I wasn't really planning to eat avocados this week. But you know, a sale like that and it's like a divine force is telling me to eat avocados. A good avocado is worth its weight in gold!"
"Yeah, they are good." I said looking into his eyes, but he looked away. He seemed a little uneasy. "I have a question for you," I said.
"Okay, but nothing difficult. I'm still a little foggy this morning." He joked. He began feeling the mound of avocados in the display for ripeness.
"I heard some strange noises last night. I may have dreamt them? They sounded like they came from about two blocks away near the fire station."
"Were you outside in the fog last night?" He asked putting two of the avocados into a plastic bag.
"No, but the noises woke me up. I heard the fire engine siren and then a loud crashing sound like it hit someone."
Jack stopped fussing with the bag and set it down in his cart. He patted at his back pocket and then said, "Damn, I forgot my wallet. I'm going home to get it. Maybe we'll talk later.
I could see the outline of an object in his thin overcoat pocket about the size of a man's wallet. "Is that your wallet?" I asked. I reached over and tapped it. It had the feel of something made of thin cardboard. Something mostly empty.
"Jack stepped away from me. "Nope. Not my wallet. Say if you'd buy the avocados for me, I'll pay you back. I'm going back to the apartment. … not feeling too well."
"Sure, Neighbor," I said patting his shoulder affectionately.
I rushed through my shopping and headed back to the apartment building that we two bachelors had called home for the last ten years.
On the day I had moved in years ago, Jack had stepped out of his apartment to greet me. He had pitched in and carried boxes up the three flights of stairs. I had no idea of his actual age. It never really came up in our conversations, but he had a U.S. Navy tattoo, and it sounded like he had seen action in WWII. If I had done the math it would have made him over 90 when we met. But he didn't look much more than 70 or 75 at the most? "Good genes," he would laugh any time I asked how he managed to keep his health. That didn't figure either because I remembered him saying his father and older brother had died of cardiac arrest years ago.
I went back to my apartment and unpacked my groceries including some avocados I had bought for myself. I made a cup of coffee, strong, the way I like it. Jack had offered me coffee on occasion the past, but it was weak like tea. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, and so I always brought coffee with me when I went across the hall to visit.
"Knock, knock," I said at his door. It didn't have an actual knocker. I moved the plastic bag of avocados over to my left hand that held my insulated coffee mug and knocked on the door. I heard the sound of his recliner spring into the upright position. A moment later the sounds of multiple locks being undone ran up the door. It opened just enough so that I could see Jack's steel-blue eyes checking to see if it was me. He undid the sliding chain and opened the door.
His apartment like mine bore features of bachelor's sensibilities. His worn leather recliner was older than me, but it still worked. It had come to fit him like a glove, as the saying goes. I think he probably slept in it? I took a seat at the old estate sale sofa. I put three pillows behind me to keep from falling into its ancient upholstered mouth. There were paintings of ships and the sea on the walls of the living room. Jack had been quite the artist back in the day. Most of the books on his single library shelf were about naval history, fiction, and treasure hunting.
"Have a seat. I've got some coffee in the galley from this morning, still warm?"
I followed him into the kitchen with the avocados and set them on the red vintage Formica table. I spotted the brown stained glass carafe in his ancient Mr. Coffee machine next to the stove. "Oh, no thanks. I've got my own."
"Okay." He shuffled back to his recliner and settled in.
"So, Jack. Like I was saying back in the store, did you hear a fire engine siren and a crash really early this morning? I know you go out on walks early in the day. I can't tell if I actually heard it or dreamt it? I just wondered…"
"Well," he said, with finality as if having made up his mind about something. "I do have something to discuss with you."
"About the noises?" I asked.
"Yeah. Well … a lot more than the noises. He paused. "You've told me about some of your dreams in the past. What did you see in your dream?"
"I dreamt that I saw you, Jack, standing in the middle of the road in the fog. A fire engine came rushing at you and I yelled to warn you. But you pulled a card out of your pocket and you all disappeared? It was such a strange dream."
"It wasn't a dream," Jack said. He placed a very old deck of cards on an end table next to his chair. "It's a long story. You know I was in the Navy," he began.
"Yeah, Jack. There are lots of clues about that," I said nodding at all of the naval theme pictures around the room.
"Does the name U.S.S. Indianapolis mean anything to you?" He asked.
"Ah, that was the ship that carried parts of the first atomic bomb to a U.S. Navy port on an island in the Pacific at the end of the war. That was the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima. It was a secret mission as I recall? So secret that none of the ships in the area knew it was there. A Japanese sub torpedoed the Indianapolis after the secret delivery. After it sank, no one noticed that the ship was missing for several days. Some big FUBAR scandal. Lots of men lost. Something like that?" I said feeling good about my recollection of history.
"Yeah. Something like that," Jack said. He got a far away look in his eyes. "I was on that ship. By all rights, I should be dead."
"Jesus Christ, Jack. How old are you?" I asked.
"I'll be 108 at the end of the Winter."
"That's impossible!" I said.
"No. It's possible. Because I have these," he held up the cards. I took them as payment when won a poker game a few weeks before the mission. The man who gave them to me was a bar tender, part Romany Gypsy. He was older then than I am now. Something like 120? He said he was tired of living. He told me that I could use them one at a time to save my life from accident or illness."
"By drawing one and then…?"
"Yes, and then tossing it down. Your life is saved. It's like it never happened."
"How many times have you…?"
"Oh, half a dozen; heart attack, a plane crash, a jealous husband shot me, and my bout with cancer. But the first time was on the U.S.S. Indianapolis. I had the cards in that Mason jar over there on the bookshelf next to the TV. I had put them in there before boarding ship to keep them dry. I used three cards during four days I was in the water; Shark attacks. I saw seventeen men die, one at a time, within ten feet of me."
I sat stunned as listened to a string of stories about the cards, each one more remarkable than the last. It had grown late. Jack looked very tired and closer to his actual age for a change.
"So, with these cards, I've been able to live much longer than I should have. Like the gypsy, it has come time for me to pass them on. I really miss my wife, Ellen. It makes my heart ach. Lost her in a car accident years ago. I'm ready to join her. After that close call last night I decided that I was going to give the cards to you. You saw it in your dream. The card I pulled was the Jack of Hearts. Ellen used to call me that. It seemed like a sign to me, you know?"
Jack got up from the recliner and walked over to the mason jar. He walked back over to me and set the jar down on the coffee table in front of me. The lid was corroded from salt water? "You can keep this too. It served me well."
He handed the deck of cards to me. I could see that they were quite old. The cards were a little warped as if they had been wet at some point a long time ago. The design on the backs of the cards was of a Phoenix rising out of the ashes.
"The rules are simple. You use the cards one-at-a-time. You can only save your own life. You can't share them. Goodness knows I tried to. And when you want to pass them along you sell them to someone and then explain how to used them.
The whole thing was so fantastic; unbelieveable. Honestly, I just chalked it up to Jack's ability as a storyteller and his incredible luck. But I wanted to humor him. "So, I need to pay you for the cards?"
"Yes, he smiled. The price for you is two avocados. As good as gold." He held out his hand and we shook on it.
I put the cards into the jar and grabbed my empty coffee mug. After the door closed behind me I could hear him fastening all of those locks. It was remarkable how much I had not known about my old friend Jack.
I was suddenly very tired too. I ate a late dinner and then settled in for the evening. I put the jar of cards on the shelf next to my collections of science fiction and fantasy stories. I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I didn't dream at all that night which is unusual. The next morning I made coffee. I spread avocado on some nice rye toast. I decided to take an early morning walk. It seems to have served Jack well. I stopped at Jack's door and knocked to see if he'd like to join me. There was no answer. I supposed he was sleeping in.
The morning was clear and cool. I found myself walking East over by the firehouse. I reached an intersection that seemed familiar, but different in the bright sunlight. I was about to turn around to go back home when something caught my eye. It was a playing card in the street. I picked it up. It was the Jack of Hearts! What were the chances? I guess I wasn't really surprised when I turned it over to see the Phoenix on the back. I ran back to the apartment to tell Jack about finding the card. There was a fire truck, and ambulance, and three police cars in the parking lot. From a distance I saw them wheeling a man out on a gurney. It was Jack!
"Hey, Morrison, Robert!" Jack said weakly through the oxygen mask. " Would you believe, a heart attack. At my age!" He smiled. "It won't be long now."
"Jack, wait. I've got something for you." I put the playing card in his hands.
"You know this won't work now?" He said looking up at me.
"I know, but you are the Jack of Hearts, aren't you?" I patted his hands holding the card.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, I am. Okay boys, take me away. I'm ready to go. Good-bye Morrison, Robert," he said waving to me with the card. "Good luck to you."
"Good-by Jack of Hearts," I said, my eyes tearing up. "Say hello to Ellen for me."
Jack passed away quietly in his sleep at the hospital. He had a DNR. They let him go. He was ready. As for me, I still pay attention to my dreams. And I still have the jar on my bookshelf. Now, do I believe the cards could save my life? Well these days, you can't be too careful. Between you and me, I don't leave home without them.
THE END
(Revised, November 11, 2020)
Copyright © ℗ 2020 by Ken Oguss
All Rights Reserved.
2,594 words.
