The Clout of Gen Read online

  John parked and got out of the car. He walked slowly to the edge, sweating and shivering. As he neared the edge, he looked below at the big, dark, salty waves crashing against the jagged rocks. Among them, he noticed something that looked like a box of a strange shape and color. His manic state began to calm, and he decided to get a closer look, to see what the thing was. “What’s a dead man got to lose?” he repeated to himself.

  There were some steep stairs about twenty yards away that led to the rocks below, likely created and used by locals who wanted to fish when the tide was in their favor. John watched each step carefully, so as not to lose his footing, as he made his way slowly down. He decided it was a good thing he’d taken only a few sips of whiskey; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to make the descent.

  At last, he reached the parcel. He picked up the dark green leather octagon-shaped box with maroon stripes. It had two locks, and curiosity filled his mind about what could be hiding behind them. He took the strange case and headed back to the car, so he could go home and have a look at it.

  As soon as he walked inside, he noticed the flashing light on the answering machine. He was sure it had to be Susan, trying to weasel her way back into his good graces after her indiscretion. John didn’t care, though, as there was nothing else on his mind other than the strange box and discovering its contents.

  He placed the case on the dining room table. He had no clue what it could mean or what it might contain. Why did I find it now, of all times? It weighed around twenty pounds and was constructed of high-quality leather. The locks seem to be old, as they were rusted, but they still held securely. John knew he’d never be able to safely open them with the tools he had at home, so he decided he’d have to head to Chinatown for the following day, if the curiosity didn’t kill him overnight. There isn’t a thing those guys can’t open.

  In spite of his worries and curiosities and woes, the hectic day finally took its toll on John, and within seconds, he was fast asleep on the sofa bed with the green box right next to him on the floor.

  It was a good thing that all of that mess happened on a Friday, as John couldn’t have imagined going to work the next day; honestly, he could barely imagine living after all he went through that day. At nine thirty a.m., John woke up with many thoughts swarming around in his head, but his real focus was on finding out what the box contained, if anything, or if it was simply a strange washed-up box of no significance.

  A quick ride, and he was off to Chinatown. He passed several small shops and finally came across a locksmith. After twenty minutes of light banging and hammering with his special tools, it was wide open!

  Inside the box was another container, a plastic one, something like a box within a box. John thought it was probably meant to prevent any water leakage, though the leather already did a great job of that. It seemed that whoever had put it all together went to great lengths to protect whatever was inside. The interior of the box was the same color as the outside. It was cushioned to protect it from any hits or bumps, and the smaller plastic container was totally sealed and air- and watertight, except for a small circular window that could be opened from a little slip.

  John thanked the locksmith, gave him a twenty-dollar bill, and went back to his car.

  The inside contents included a plastic-wrapped cassette of some sort and a business card written in something that looked like Asian; the card didn’t seem to contain a name—only an address. There was also a silver ring with an odd symbol on it, as well as some letters engraved on the inside of the band. The writing on the ring also looked to be in Asian. Interesting, but what does it mean? John wondered.

  The tape looked like one of those old small cassettes he hadn’t seen in a long time. He was glad he hadn’t left Chinatown yet and had decided to check it out right there in the parking area, as the cassette would require a visit to a shop that sold secondhand, outdated electronics. He thought he might take the business card along as well, hoping that the salesman might be able to tell him what it said.

  As it turned out, the tape was a small videocassette used in the eighties. The first two shops he went to didn’t have any device that could play it, but John didn’t have to worry, because Chinatown was packed with shops that sold used electronics. After a bit of searching, he found what he was searching for, and for a mere forty bucks, John bought a compatible player. He wasn’t as lucky with the business card, as no one in Chinatown seemed to be able to read it; clearly, it wasn’t written in Chinese, but one of them suggested to him that it did look like Japanese.

  Eager to see what was on the tape, John hurriedly headed home. He was starving, so he stopped on the way to pick up a pizza.

  Once he was home and settled down with his piping-hot dinner in front of him and the video player properly connected and the tape inserted, his heart began to throb. He couldn’t remember being so anxious to watch anything since the opening of Terminator 2 back in 1991, when he stood in line for two hours at the cinema. He pressed the play button, and in that moment, from that very instant, John began to see the world in a whole different way.

  The tape began with an Asian man introducing himself as Yaturo. He seemed to be in his late forties, and kept talking about his guilty feelings, claiming, “This is the least I can do.” Great, John thought. A suicide tape. Could the timing be any worse? Or more awfully perfect?

  Then, the picture went blank for a few moments and then the same guy appeared again, only he looked younger and was standing in a large parking lot, seemingly at a concert, event, or game, though John couldn’t tell for sure. The Asian began to speak: “I am now outside Estadio Azteca in Mexico city. It is June 22, 1986, and Argentina will play England in the quarter-finals.”

  John increased the volume of his TV and slid his sofa closer, getting more interesting. As outdated as the game was, he remembered it was quite a match.

  Yaturo continued with the stadium in the background, “I want to ask some fans about what they think the results might be.”

  Some of the passersby answered, projecting, “England two to nothing,” or, “Argentina, one to zero,” but then Yaturo managed to stop three fans wearing the British flag on their shirts. They looked to be in their twenties.

  Yaturo asked, “Can you guys give me your names, where you’re from, and what you think the results will be in today’s match? I am doing a program for a sports channel.”

  No one bothered to ask him which channel he was from. The first one answered, “Jim Owen Steadman, Dorking, two-nothing, England,” and started dancing.

  The second spectator, a young woman, answered, “Lisa Farry, same, and England, two to one.”

  The last guy answered with a smile, “John Humphrey, and I say England will win on penalties.”

  Then all three began to chant: “England, England, ENGLAND!”

  Before they left, the first guy, Jim Owen Steadman, asked Yaturo “What about you? What do you think?”

  Without a moment of hesitation, Yaturo answered, “Two to one, Argentina,” and put one of his hands in a fist shape above his head.

  The British fans began chanting again and went on their way.

  John suddenly paused the tape, in total shock. An avid soccer fan himself, as well as a soccer player in both high school and college, John knew that match by heart, especially since it was one of the most talked-about matches in history. In the end, Yaturo was absolutely correct. Argentina won that game two to one, and in the course of that victory, Maradona scored two of the most talked about goals in all of soccer’s history, dribbling half the English team to score one and the other with his fist, just as Yaturo mentioned and gestured before the game began. It was far too exact, too accurate to be mere coincidence. “What in the world is this? Some kind of bloody joke?” John began to shout to his pizza, demanding answers.

  He pressed play again, and he saw Yaturo with the stadium still in the background. This time, Yaturo said, “September 11, 2001—what a sad, sad day for the United States of
America. December 26, 2004—what a disastrous day for the people living along the Indian Ocean…” And then, the tape went black.

  In complete and utter shock, John stood and went to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. His head felt as if it might explode any minute, and he was trembling violently. He ran outside to smoke a cigarette, trying to get a grasp of everything that he’d seen on that strange tape from that strange box.

  Over the next two hours, John watched the tape at least ten more times in deep concentration and focus, studying it, trying to find any error in it. Is this…real? Or is it just some silly prank those four were playing? You know, video technology lets people do amazing things nowadays. But he was…he was talking about two world disasters way before their time. Everyone knows 9/11 changed the world and spawned wars, and that tsunami took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. What…how? And who is he? But John’s many questions only seemed to lead to more questions

  Being a journalist and organized by nature, he took the time to write down all the information, including the names and dates and everything mentioned on the tape. He immediately turned to the Internet for help. The Web was teeming with people named “Yaturo,” as it seemed to be a common Japanese name. The address on the business card didn’t get him anywhere, as it was really just the name of a place, offering no exact location. When he Googled “Lisa Farry” and “John Humphrey,” he had no luck piecing anything together. Fortunately, though, his search for “Jim Owen Steadman” did afford him some answers.

  The results of that search included information and snippets about fifteen or so people. John was specifically looking for a guy in his late forties or early fifties, since the tape was allegedly recorded in 1986, while he was still in his twenties, and nearly three decades had passed since then. John assumed Mr. Steadman was likely still living in England, and after narrowing his search based on those criteria, he finally restricted his hits to four people in the UK, one of them in Dorking, aligning with the information from the tape. The guy was fifty and listed soccer as an interest of his, so it seemed John had the right guy—as long as the Jim Owen Steadman on the tape and on the Internet listing was actually telling the truth. The photo on his profile on the social network where John found him didn’t seem to mesh, but John knew as well as anybody that twenty-six years can take a toll on a person’s appearance, among other things.

  John was completely intrigued, and the natural inquisitive nature of the reporter in him demanded that he take action. He knew there was no better way than to hop on a plane and go visit the guy. Things needed to be clarified, one way or another. The truth was, it was the best diversion from his shattered reality that John could have hoped for. It was a chance to get away from Susan and those painful memories, a chance to solve a mystery. He thought if it was true, something great might come of it. John was still a dreamer, and even if it turned out to be nothing at all and the tape was merely a fake, a prank, at least the trip would be a welcome escape for him from the reality of home.

  Before visiting the guy, he wanted to stop in Estadio Azteca in Mexico City to check out the authenticity of the video by investigating the camera angles around the stadium. He requested a week off from the paper, and there was no objection, as he hadn’t taken a vacation in over a year. All it took was a short call to his boss.

  In spite of his anger and angst with his wife, he hadn’t forgotten his son, of course, and he visited Susan’s parents’ home to bid the kid goodbye. While he was there, he wouldn’t say a word to Susan. He realized there was nothing left of their relationship, and he should have made the decision to leave her two years earlier, when she started her nonsense with that awful attitude and constant bitterness. Come to think of it, though, he rationed, if it wasn’t for me catching her in bed with another man like that two days ago, I wouldn’t have found that box floating in the sea. In some odd way, he had Susan to thank for the adventure he was about to undertake.

  The flight was booked for Monday, and all was ready for the trip to Mexico City. If everything went well, John would be off to Dorking via London. It was a good thing he still had his credit card to add to his measly $2,700 that was left over from his stock market fiasco, and he hoped that would be enough for now.

  John made a DVD copy of the movie, scanned the business card, and had a replica of the ring made. He was thoroughly prepared. He took several names from Jim Steadman’s profile; he would contact them if he was unable to locate Mr. Steadman himself. He even took the box along. When it came to details, John was an expert, which probably stemmed from all his years of working as a journalist. His continuous hunt for stories had brought him to this.

  He decided to visit the cliff where he had found the box just before sunset, hoping it would bring him some kind of luck and prepare him for the unknown. “What a view,” John said. Exactly two days prior, he planned to jump from that same cliff to end his life in the abyss. “How a moment can change a person’s life,” he said to the crashing waves. No matter what lay ahead, it was the start of a new life for him.

  Chapter 2

  After a flight that lasted just over five hours, John finally landed at Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City, the second largest airport in South America; he hadn’t been to Mexico in over six years. The last time he was there was on his second wedding anniversary, a surprise trip he had planned for Susan to Cancún, but that felt like a lifetime ago.

  After picking up his bag, he took Metro Line No. 5. Once he’d gone through several station changes, he would hit the Xochimilco Light Rail that was scheduled to stop at Azteca. John never would have guessed the Mexican Metro system was so huge and connected. It was a bit smaller than NYC Metro, of course, but busy nonetheless.

  As soon as he left the Metro station, he walked for several minutes before he arrived at the stadium, the Estadio Azteca. “What a beauty!” he proclaimed at the sight of the facility. This stadium was rich with history, especially for soccer fans like John. Not only did Maradona score the two most talked about goals in World Cup history there, but the arena had also hosted the greatest game of the century in 1970 between Germany and Italy. Funny enough, it was also the stadium where both Maradona and Pelé won their last World Cups. He decided he’d take a proper stadium tour after his personal business was attended to.

  All he had to do was use his Sony Handycam to try and replicate the filming angles Yaturo had used. He hoped the footage was not a hoax. It took him an hour to shoot his pictures and make comparisons. With the help of an English-speaking woman, he had a friendly chat with one of the oldest stadium operators. Acting like a curious tourist, John asked what he need to know. Everything seemed to pan out. Due to some renovations that had taken place over the years, there were some changes in the colors, but all in all, the visit lent extra credibility to the video John had watched so many times.

  Once his work was done there and all his notes were meticulously taken, John took a tour, paid his homage to the stadium and the soccer greats, and headed back to the airport. His long flight to London was scheduled to leave in about four hours, and he knew he had better get a move-on with the busy Metro connections.

  The plane took off around six p.m., and taking layovers and time changes into consideration, John was scheduled to reach London early the following day. During the flight, he planned to work out every scenario that might occur and consider what he might do in every case. How do I find Steadman, and if I do, how do I approach him? He finally decided his best option was to tell Steadman he was doing a story for his paper covering the twenty-fifth anniversary of that famous soccer match. He would tell the Brit that he was looking for opinions and reactions from both English and Argentinian spectators on the outcome of the controversial game and claim it was luck that would have him bumping into Steadman, who just so happened to attend that game back in 1986.

  When he reached London, he took a train to Dorking, to the hotel where he had booked a room. It was a small, but comfortable
place equipped with modern-day amenities like Wi-Fi, and it was close to the main square of the town. He needed some sleep to clear his head and relieve some of his jetlag, and then he would start nosing around to find the guy he’d come to talk to.

  He soon discovered that Dorking was a beautiful market town, with a proud heritage dating back to the Roman times, set in a wonderful landscape with the Surrey Hills to the north and the Greensand Hills to the south. The town had stuck to its roots over time, and everything seemed to be within walking distance, including the St. Martin’s Church, which was situated directly in the middle.

  The B&B where John had booked a room was just off Rose Hill Street. It was a small, beautiful place, and the elderly woman who was its caretaker was kind enough to show him his room right away so he could get some much-needed rest. A few minutes after unpacking, John was fast asleep.

  Three hours later, the American journalist woke up and decided right away to visit the Surrey Dorking Police Station. After a few laughs with the nice gentleman there, John had all the information he needed. In a matter of hours, he hoped to be in contact with Steadman in one of the town pubs.