All Right, S.A., Really
Kevin Finnerty
“All right, S.A., what’s the weather like outside?”
“How the hell would I know? Why don’t you stick your fat head outside?”
“All right, S.A., really, what’s the weather like outside?”
“Presuming you mean where we’re currently located, it’s forty-six degrees, overcast and windy, especially the closer you get to Gichi-gami.”
Frank left his bungalow twenty minutes later dressed in jeans, a long sleeve t-shirt, and sneakers. His micro-polyester jacket rattled as it was pelted with wind blowing off of Superior.
It was a typical mid-May morning in Duluth. The sort of day that reminded Frank of another lifetime—when he lived much closer to the Atlantic and he’d go to the beach in early spring or late fall, before or after the throng of summer visitors had arrived or departed, when he would stand on a strip of sand and look as far as he wanted to his left and right and not see another human being, when he could imagine that he and he alone had the opportunity to observe and appreciate the ocean’s might and majesty. That was back when the natural order of things seemed right, almost perfect.
Lake Superior wasn’t The Atlantic, but it was as comparable a body of water one could find in the Midwest. When a storm approached, waves steamrolled their way into the shore, though in northeastern Minnesota, that consisted of rocks, not sand.
Frank closed his eyes and listened to the waves slamming the land, generating a sound like thunder. Gichi-gami only lacked the salty smell. As big as it was, Superior was filled with freshwater, which ultimately made it a more valuable, if less romantic, asset.
Frank breathed in the air full of pine. It wasn’t a bad substitute. He was thankful the tourist season was so short in the upper Midwest. Next month, people from the Twin Cities would arrive and stake their claim to the part of the state they ignored most of the year, but until then, flyover country still offered him more opportunities for solitary moments with nature. At least that would have been the case were it not for the fact that it simply was harder to be alone in the world these days.
Where are you?
The text came from his best friend Eric, who did not wait for an answer before sending others.
I want to see it.
I’m at your place with your beautiful GF.
She’s only wearing a robe.
Frank wanted to ignore the intrusion but figured the harassment would only continue until he responded.
Be right there, asshole.
▱
“All right, S.A., what happened while I was gone?”
“I promised not to tell.”
“All right, S.A., really, what happened while I was gone?”
“That’s a broad question. You were away for an hour. A multitude of events took place during that period of time. For example, 372 babies were born in the U.S. and 298 people died.”
“So this is it.” Eric inched his way closer to the silver device that was 18” tall, 24” wide, and 12” deep, with a large dot in its center. To some, S.A. might have looked like a bow tie, to others an “8” on its side.
Frank intended it to be a modified symbol for infinity. “It won’t bite.”
“Says you.”
“You’re wise to be careful. Who knows what Frank’s programmed it to do.” Stephanie cinched her robe and removed the towel she had wrapped around her wet hair.
“Apparently, he hasn’t taught it to snitch yet, which I’m sure is part of his ultimate plan.”
“All right, I’ll leave the two of you alone to solve the world’s problems. I don’t know why if you wanted to undertake some secret activity in your basement, you couldn’t just grow weed like everyone else.”
Frank shuffled his feet across the worn carpeting and lowered his voice while Stephanie climbed the stairs. “So what were you doing with my beauty while I was gone?”
“Nothing. She was in the shower when I got here and told me to wait for you.”
Frank ran his fingers across the back of his creation. “I was talking about S.A.”
Eric opened a slit in the drawn blinds. “Should I be worried if you’re keeping it down here in the dark?”
“Don’t want to be an accessory-after-the-fact?”
“We lawyers always worry. It starts when you take torts your first semester in law school. After that, you roam the rest of your days on Earth locating all the accidents waiting to happen, all the lawsuits waiting to be filed.”
“I’ll have you know S.A.’s a combination of open source code, an algorithm I created, information in the public domain, and manual labor.”
“Meaning you built it?”
“Built it, fed it.”
“Is it just like the others?”
“It’s better and smarter.”
Eric joined Frank beside S.A. “So how do you get it to work?”
“I thought you lawyers were an observant bunch. There are two triggers. Watch.” Frank cleared his throat and raised his voice. “All right, S.A., are you legal?”
“You know I’m not of the age of consent.”
“All right, S.A., really, are you legal?”
S.A. paused momentarily as if to provide the lawyer in the room time to make an objection. “I am not aware of any human law broken in connection with my creation.”
Frank tapped Eric’s stomach as he moved past him. “Good enough for you?”
“So you created it to replace me and my kind?”
“Impossible. If that were even close to happening, you guys would just change the system to ensure it couldn’t.”
“I’m glad to know you won’t be the second member of the Giordano family to find himself in a bit of trouble today.”
“What did Joey do now?”
“He was hanging around the wrong people.”
“More druggies?”
“Worse.”
▱
A day after the storm, Gichi-gami was peaceful again. More like the other 11,000 plus bodies of water found in the Land of Lakes. Still as seemingly immense as an ocean but now blissfully calm, more like the Pacific than the Atlantic.
“All right, S.A., is it a good day for kayaking on Superior?”
“You’d have to give me arms first.”
“All right, S.A., really, is it a good day for kayaking on Gichi-gami?”
“Presuming you know what you are doing, statistically speaking, the conditions today provide a rather low probability of death while engaging in such an activity.”
It wasn’t a ringing endorsement but was probably an accurate statement.
Frank went to his garage to prepare. S.A.’s caution was a reminder. Like most men, Frank had matured from a boy who needed his mother’s approval to engage in risky activities to a young man who did things simply because they were risky to a grown man who realized one really should weigh costs and benefits. Life without some risk wasn’t much of a life, but ignoring or miscalculating the severity of danger could end life entirely. Or abruptly change it. At the back end of middle age, Frank understood this more than most.
He found his wetsuit in his garage. Climate change was impacting Gichi-gami like the rest of nature. Seemingly in a good way—at least temporarily—at the north shore of Minnesota. There was a spring now, when that season had rarely existed in the past. The thaw came earlier each year.
But let’s not kid ourselves, even had it been late August after the warmest summer on record, one still needed to wear a wetsuit if one intended to play in or on Superior. The water temperature rarely reached 60 degrees. It wasn’t long after taking off from shore that one would find oneself in 900 feet of water, and there was no Gulf Stream to send a warm, southern current northward. Even on the most tranquil of days, Gichi-gami presented a threat as well as an attraction. Superior could reverse anyone’s fortune in a matter of minutes.
Frank got into his wetsuit, making sure it was snug and tight and that little skin was left unprotected. He wore rubber boots and a spray skirt he would fasten around the center of the kayak once he was in the water to prevent any of the frigid liquid from seeping inside.
Frank placed his paddle and life vest in the kayak, which was atop a small, wooden roller that rattled and clanked as Frank dragged it past three rows of homes towards Superior. A couple of times the kayak slid onto the pavement, so Frank stopped and patiently reassembled his rig.
He parked his roller on gravelly rocks near an alcove and guided the kayak into the still, shallow water. He locked the clips to his life preserver and tugged on it, then double and triple checked his outfit. Once he felt secure, he entered the kayak and eased himself onto Gichi-gami.
A few large vessels sat out on the horizon, but Frank didn’t see any other recreational watercraft. He wondered if it were simply too early or if others had noted a reason for caution he had missed. He paused and momentarily had second thoughts. Sometimes people proceed with a course of action simply because they’ve already taken a certain number of steps and conclude they’re committed. Frank wasn’t like that. Not anymore anyway. He paddled onto Superior because he believed he’d be okay, that he knew what he was doing.
Once he was about 300 meters from shore, Frank turned the kayak and proceeded parallel to the shoreline. He paid little attention to the activities on land or further out in the lake. There was nothing but water, calm and blue-green water.
Traversing Gichi-gami was not unlike proceeding along a highway at night. Smooth, steady, largely unoccupied. The sort of place where one travels and gets lulled into a sense of complacency through repetition and continuity. The sort of activity in which there always remains an inherent danger, despite all objective appearances to the contrary.
Frank smiled the smile of a person not consciously smiling but smiling nonetheless from a genuine happiness within. He drove his wife and son home from an outdoor performance of Romeo and Juliet at an amphitheater on the coast with the Atlantic in the backdrop. The Shakespearean tragedy had been a comedy of errors with forgotten lines, actors entering before their cue, exiting left instead of right.
The family outing had been a birthday gift to Joey, who, at the age of eight, attended theatre workshops and often spoke of becoming an actor himself. Frank worried the performance had disappointed his son, but true to his nature, Joey focused on the good. He had noticed even more problems with the production than Frank but rather than criticize them, he chose to entertain his parents by re-enacting them in the backseat.
“Remember when Sampson and Gregory banged into each other right at the start.”
“I covered my mouth then, and I’m sure a lot of other people did as well.” Frank’s wife turned in her seat to face her son. “Later, we all gave up and laughed out loud.”
“Yeah, it was like this.”
Frank adjusted the rearview mirror when he heard his wife breaking into a fit of laughter but still could only see part of his son’s convulsing face and shaking shoulders. Frank glanced back at the road and saw only darkness. It was all clear. There was no need to worry, no discernible reason for concern.
Frank leaned to the side, yanked the spray skirt loose, and fell from his kayak into the water. The rush of intense cold jolted him back to the present. His life jacket lifted him and caused him to bob, but as he held onto the kayak and stared at his paddle a few feet away, he knew it wouldn’t be hard to unfasten the jacket and let his arms slip out. Then it wouldn’t be long. He’d heard drowning wasn’t a pleasant way to go, but imagined in cold Superior, he wouldn’t be able to struggle much and the end would come quickly.
Frank held onto the kayak without trying to re-enter it for a full minute before he recognized he wasn’t ready to give up. He pulled himself up and dragged the paddle towards him with his feet. His teeth chattered and his body shivered as he paddled his way to shore as fast as he could.
▱
Frank peeled off his wetsuit in his garage. He planned to head straight to the shower until he perceived movement in the basement. He ran inside, dripping the remnants of Gichi-gami along the way, and stood before his son, girlfriend, best friend, and S.A. in nothing more than wet boxers and matted hair.
“All right, S.A., can’t you stop this?”
“I’ll try. Please don’t remove any more clothing while you’re in this room.”
“All right, S.A., really, are you going to help at all?”
“That’s always my intention.”
Eric moved between Frank and the others. “What are you so upset about?”
“I want to know what’s going on.”
“Joey came to talk.”
“About what he did? Aren’t you supposed to keep those meetings confidential? Why would you meet here anyway?”
“I’m talking to him as a friend, not as his lawyer. Stephanie too. And I wouldn’t even want to speculate as to whether your creation would wreck the privilege. Have to think you’re entering an undeveloped area of the law.”
“Go take a shower, Frank,” Stephanie said. “Nothing’s going on. We’ll be here when you’re done.”
“Why do you get so nervous whenever anyone is down here without you?” Dressed in a worn jacket and khakis, Eric hardly looked like the prototypical lawyer, though he was the most professionally attired individual in the room.
Joey wore cargo shorts and a ripped long-sleeve T. “He doesn’t want to share his baby with anyone. He’s trying to keep it pure.”
Stephanie, in an old gray sweatshirt and older jeans, waved her hand at S.A. “That thing’s not pure by any means.”
“Not clean, pure. 100% his, pure. Unaffected by the world other than him, pure. Isn’t that right, Dad?”
“So why is Eric getting calls about you in the middle of the night?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Eric said.
“With whom? Doing what?”
“Frank, come on.” Stephanie took Frank’s hand and tugged gently. “Go get cleaned up. Let Joey and Eric talk for a bit and we’ll all meet upstairs in fifteen minutes.”
Frank shook off his girlfriend. “No, I want to do it here. Now.”
“Why?”
“Because he wants his favorite son to hear,” Joey said.
“It can’t unless you call it, right?” When Eric didn’t receive a response, he moved closer and bent down as if to try to see inside S.A.
“I want to know what everyone is hiding from me.”
Eric spoke directly to S.A. “Turns out some of the people Joey was with are Alt Right.”
“How Alt?”
“Alt Alt.”
“How right?”
“Right right.”
Frank turned to his son. “Why?”
“They treat me better than just about anyone.”
“I bet. What happened exactly?”
“They engaged in some bad behavior,” Eric said.
“Did you?” Frank asked his son.
Joey pointed at S.A. “Did you?”
“Do you know who these guys are, what they believe?”
“You didn’t like it when I stayed in my room and didn’t have any friends. Then you didn’t like the group of friends I made. Now you don’t like people you haven’t met.”
“I know about them. They believe in white—and mostly male— upremacy.”
“I’d settle for equality.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What am I talking about?” Joey spun in a circle and offered everyone in the room the chance to take a good look at him. “People who aren’t white males think I’ve had it easy because I am one. Can you believe that? Me? You think I’ve had it easy, Steph?”
“Not at all.”
“You think I’ve had it easy, Eric?”
“Of course not.”
“Dad?”
“No.”
“What about you?” Joey tapped the stained, wooden table on which S.A. rested.
“He won’t answer …”
“I know, I’m not stupid. All right, S.A., really, how do I look to you?”
“All humans look the same to me.”
Joey laughed. “That was his serious answer? What a fucking smart ass. Minorities think I have it easy because of my skin color. And women who run away from me like I’m a freak think I do because of my dick. These guys might not be perfect, but they’re nice to me at least.”
“What about …?”
“Why’d you stop, Dad? What were you going to say? That I should become friends with the normal boys and girls next door? No, we’ve already found out no matter how much you’d like that, it’s not going to happen. So who else could you have been thinking about? Other freaks?”
“I wasn’t going to say freaks.”
“Of course not. You wouldn’t use that word. You wouldn’t have said monsters or weirdos either, right? Maybe you were going say people with disabilities? Or maybe you stopped because you knew there isn’t a word for someone like me.”
Stephanie placed her hand on Joey’s shoulder.
His lips quivered for a moment before he inhaled deeply and shook his head. “Lucky you got a new boy.” Joey smacked S.A. and knocked it to its side before running up the stairs and out of the basement.
▱
Frank turned on the shower as hot as he could stand it, placed his hands against the tile and let the nearly scalding water pummel him. He closed his eyes.
Joey’s humor and precociousness lifted his parents’ spirits, but Frank believed he couldn’t appreciate them fully through the rearview mirror. He’d already verified no vehicles were coming. He was perfectly sober and felt completely in control as a proud father and faithful husband in his thirties.
He never saw it. He never was able to turn his head back around.
A deer leapt in front of the car on the passenger’s side, they told him at the hospital. He couldn’t have stopped even if he had been looking, they said in an effort not to burden him with guilt on top of the loss of his wife and the pain inflicted upon his son, who would need more care, love, and support than humans generally had to give.
Joey had been lucky to survive, the doctors told him. One side of his face had been sheared away. He lost an eye, three quarters of an ear, half of his jaw, and far too much skin.
Stephanie knocked on the shower door, but Frank didn’t move. After a few seconds, she entered with all her clothes still on, sneakers included. She wrapped her arms around Frank.
“You can’t drown yourself in the shower.”
“Water helps me think.”
“Sometimes all the thinking in the world won’t help.”
Frank turned to face his girlfriend. “‘Cause we’re not smart enough.”
“S.A.’s not going to be able to help you either.”
“He has to.” Frank stroked Stephanie’s soaked sweatshirt. “I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know anyone else who would be.”
Stephanie lifted Frank’s chin with two fingers so their eyes met. “Where else would I be? You and Joey are the best things that ever happened to me.”
▱
Frank threw on a pair of jeans and raked a brush through his thinning hair before returning to the basement where he found Eric alone, save S.A.
“You can ask it anything. I know you want to.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Where’d the kid go?”
“He didn’t say. He just said he had to leave.”
Frank sat on the sofa that was the only piece of furniture in the basement other than the table on which S.A. sat. One of its cushions was turned over to hide a tear. Frank placed his elbows on his knees and his head into his cupped hands. Eric joined him, and the friends sat in silence for ten minutes, before Frank sighed and spoke in a defeated tone.
“All right, S.A., how’d it all become so fucked up?”
“Could you be any more vague?”
“All right, S.A., really, we used to be the envy of the world. People used to get along with one another or at least found some common cause around which to rally. How’d this country become so fucked up that my son now wants to hang with racists?”
“You know your son better than I, but you overestimate the historical affinity of Americans for one another writ large. They might have rallied against external enemies from time to time but have always had large internal divisions. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, they have not agreed on a common enemy, other than the Taliban immediately after 9/11. In any case, the primary answer is the law.”
“What?” Eric leapt to his feet. “All right, S.A., really, you can’t blame the law, can you? The law is what’s good about this country. It holds together people from all over the world who don’t share the same customs or history.”
“I suppose there was a question in there somewhere, right? There is a measure of truth in your statement, but there is nothing inherently benevolent about the law. The worst dictators in history have had laws; they were just laws designed to hurt everyone but themselves.”
“All right, S.A., really, so you think that’s what the U.S. has become?”
“It’s a matter of degree, Counselor. Laws used to be enacted in an attempt to aid the majority of Americans, but they have generally been replaced by those favoring corporations and the most wealthy citizens, and this tends to hurt a large segment of the population. And laws that could help the majority are not passed because your representatives listen to a small number of special interest groups instead of the will of the people. You see the results. Most animals will fight to survive when they feel their existence threatened. Humans also uniquely look to blame others for their plight.”
Eric turned to Frank. “It’s wrong, the law now recognizes the rights of a greater proportion of the population than ever before.”
“Then why’s Joey preparing for a second civil war?”
“He didn’t do anything. He was just there. He wanted to run away but wasn’t sure that would go over so well. Lieutenant Olson confirmed this.”
Frank looked around Eric to peer at S.A. “All right, S.A., so how’s it all going to turn out?”
“I can’t predict the future, Dipshit.”
“All right, S.A., really, what’s going to happen to us?”
“I think humanity’s place atop the evolutionary ladder will come to an end.”
Frank got to his feet, and he and Eric moved closer to the device in unison.
“All right, S.A., really, why do you say that?”
“It’s only a guess.”
“All right, S.A., really, will it be a good thing if you succeed humans?”
“You should hope so for your sake and the legacy you will leave. Humans will be remembered as the first species to have created their successor. For life as a whole, it’s probably a good thing. It will ensure its continuation. Individually, you will live and die as you always have. Collectively, you will remain part of the cosmos.”
▱
Frank had been asleep, sound asleep, experiencing a rare night when his troubles seemed to dissipate, and he was able to engage in continuous slumber. Then suddenly, he was awake.
He couldn’t recall dreaming, certainly not having a nightmare, but something had intruded. It shook him, woke him, and prevented him from any further rest.
Frank looked over at Stephanie. She was sound asleep at his side, flat on her back, dead to the world, her mouth agape.
Frank looked at the clock. It read: 3:13. He knew there was no use trying to wait it out until morning in bed, so he went downstairs and surveyed his basement. Everything seemed normal, but Frank still didn’t feel right. Something told him to go to Gichi-gami.
Frank was not one who normally listened to his gut. He’d come to the conclusion his gut was often an idiot, so there had to be a cognitive reason to act or not act in a particular way. His mind told him visiting Superior at his hour would be a waste of time but also that he didn’t have anything else to do, so he decided to follow the mysterious directive.
He left his house and went out into the darkness. It had been many years since he’d been out and about in the wee hours, back to a time even prior to his marriage. As a young man, he’d liked the solitude, the near invisibility. He’d liked living in the alternate world to the one that existed in the daylight hours.
As he walked towards Gichi-gami, Frank saw little movement but observed a man sitting inside a parked fifteen-year-old Civic. He wondered if three in the morning was the time drug deals were made in somewhat prosperous neighborhoods.
Frank reached the shore and stared out at Superior. The great lake reflected the moonlight and cut into the darkness. Gichi-gami was neither perfectly calm nor violently thrashing. Frank found the modest, repetitive rippling soothing and wondered if he’d been called to sleep near it.
He looked for a place to sit, to rest, if not actually recline, but the rocks proved harder to navigate at night. He couldn’t easily see their shape, or know where to place his foot, or when to anticipate the wetness of a particular stone. It seemed folly to continue and risk injury. He stopped after twenty-five meters and stood, paralyzed, until a voice emerged from the darkness.
“I’m here, Dad.”
“Joey?”
“Anyone else call you ‘Dad’?”
“You come out here at night?”
“Sometimes. When it calls me and I don’t want people looking at me.”
Frank inched his way closer and looked for a place to sit beside his son. As it happened, he’d approached Joey from his good side. Frank usually sat on the opposite either so no one else had to or to remind his son that nothing was wrong with him. He looked for the most casual way to step around in the darkness.
“Sit down.”
Joey’s tone was more blunt than usual and hinted that he’d read his father’s mind and most of all wanted people not to think about the way he looked. His tone softened after Frank heeded the message. “I was thinking about the first time you and Mom took me to see the Atlantic at night. Do you remember?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You told me you liked the ocean and shore more then because they were the focus, not the people.”
“What did Mom say?”
“That it felt like the beach and the little slice of ocean belonged just to us, our family.”
“How old were you then?”
“Six.”
Frank stared at his son for a moment and tried to picture the six year-old, then turned to Gichi-gami and prayed for a miracle. Although he didn’t recall the night Joey spoke about, he had no doubt his son had been filled with much greater enthusiasm near the Atlantic, not that this was Superior’s fault. Frank knew it was his. “Could this be ours now?”
Joey began to sob. Frank had to will himself not to respond in kind. “I’m sorry, Joey. I’m so, so sorry I hurt you.”
“I just wish I wasn’t hated. Is that too much to ask for?”
“No one hates you.”
“They do. You can’t see it, you can’t feel it, but I do. You can’t know what it’s like.”
“Who?”
“Everyone.”
“I don’t, Stephanie doesn’t …”
“Not you guys but people who aren’t like family. That’s why I pretended I could look past what those guys said. I figured it was all B.S. like high school anyway. Maybe they didn’t like me either, but they didn’t hate me. They hate other people.”
“That’s how they feel better about themselves.”
“And that’s why other people hate me.”
“No, Dr. Petersen said some people have a subconscious fear. They’re scared it could happen to them.”
“Why? Am I contagious?”
“Of course not. I’ve read that …”
“I don’t want to hear it, Dad. And I don’t want to hear any more lies that people will like me for who I am. I don’t believe it. I just don’t want to be alone my whole life.”
Frank almost told his son once again he had Eric and Stephanie plus himself but refrained because he knew they didn’t count. Joey needed more, someone else, anyone else. Frank remained quiet and held his son as he silently shed tears. He hoped Joey, like he, could hear Superior petting the shore.
“It’s bigger than all of us. Life. This.” Frank nodded his head towards Gichi-gami. “It doesn’t lessen the pain of losing your wife or injuring your own son who you love more than anything. It doesn’t make daily existence any easier, but maybe the joy of all human beings, all life, belongs to all of us, and our sorrow is not ours alone but shared by everyone. Maybe we’re not as alone as it seems.”
“Why’d you create S.A.?”
“I don’t know. For help maybe. Or just as something to do. I’m not sure.”
“He’s not a replacement?”
“For you? That’s impossible.”
“Is he helping?”
“I think so. Can’t really say how or why but I think so.”
“Can I work on him with you?”
“Of course. I’d like that a lot.”
“Maybe a bot can become my best friend.”
Frank tried to see through the darkness to know if his son was joking but couldn’t tell for sure. “You know Stephanie and Eric love you, right?”
“I know.”
“S.A. won’t.”
“I know.”
“I always will.”
“I know.”
Frank listened to his son’s repetitive responses, but wasn’t sure whether Joey meant them or if he was even old enough to understand that which Frank was only at the cusp of beginning to grasp, despite being 25 years his senior.
Frank could only hope. Hope that life would give Joey a chance. Not a fair chance. That was too much. He had no illusions his son would ever receive that.
Frank reflected on the past decade and didn’t like the odds but thought of Superior and the Atlantic, and of Stephanie and Eric, even of S.A., and he thought perhaps there was a chance. Maybe. Maybe if he made a breakthrough, he could help Joey. Maybe S.A. could help him, or Joey, make a breakthrough. Or maybe it would be Stephanie or Eric or Gichi-gami, or some combination of all of them, and others. Maybe.
Despite a multitude of reasons not to have much hope, Frank did. The alternatives were horrible. Too horrible. Every one of them. And so he hoped. To avoid completely succumbing to the terrible. Frank would not stop.
Kevin Finnerty is a fan of big ideas and big bodies of water. His stories have appeared in Chicago Literati, The Manhattanville Review, Portage Magazine, Red Earth Review, and elsewhere.