After the Show

The lights came on, and the patrons streamed out of the cinema. Among the crowd were four boys, about nine years old, wearing courderoy pants, plaid flannel shirts, and blue sneakers. They were critiquing the movie.

"Man, that was lame," said one. "End of the world. It was done better in Planet of the Apes."

"Yeah, whoever thought havin' the USA fight England was smokin' dope. If we was to fight anyone, it would be Russia."

"No, s---, Sherlock," said the largest boy. "They have all the nukes. If the commies launched all their nukes, you know what would be their number one target?"

The first child, a small kid with glasses named Dave, said, "Randy, I betcha its Washington. They'd wanna blow up the White House, and Congress, and all the guvmit."

Randy said, "I thought so. Naw, the communists would go after military targets. First place they'd knock out would be the naval base, just down the road."

Two of the others looked at him, and said, "Really?"

A third responded, "Randy is right. My Dad's works at the navy yard, and he tells me about all the subs that are there. The Russians are afraid of our subs, so they would bomb them first."

"So if they hit the base, would they also hit the school?"

Randy said, "Yeah. I looked it up. The school is about three miles away. It wouldn't be vaporized, like it would if it were only a half mile away. But it would have blast damage." Randy had spent an hour poring over the concentric circles of a blast diagram, fascinated with the damage a nuclear bomb could do, in terms of spalling, radiation, blast, and electromagnetic pulse.

"That would be cool," said a child named Ricky, with a blue windbreaker whose cuffs had been well chewed. "If we could be far enough away from the school when it blew up, we could go on vacation, and wouldn't have to learn math. No more times tables."

"It wouldn't be cool," said Randy. "They would make us go to school up in the northern part of the county, where the air conditioning doesn't always work, and ..."

Ricky interrupted, "Man, this is crap. A movie about a shark."

And indeed, it was a poster on the wall under a sign that said "Coming Attractions." In big, blocky blue letters was the word "JAWS." A giant shark with a wide-open maw and rows of sharp teeth was headed up out of the water, toward what looked like a nude female swimmer, with all the interesting parts airbrushed out. These kids were a little young to take an interest in the swimmer. Chuck decided to go along with Ricky.

"Yeah, that is so stoo-pid. I mean, the people who make those movies are real dumbasses, you know? That don't know what makes a good movie. This will close in a week."

Randy said, "Yeah, I could do better. You start with Bruce Lee."

Dave said, "But Bruce Lee's dead!"

Randy said, "He isn't really dead."

Dave said, "Is so! I read it in the News."

Randy replied, "That's what they want you to think. He is on a secret mission for the guvmit. He is in the army, training a bunch of Green Berets in the secret arts of Kung Fu, see? Help us win the war over there. So he has a secret mission, to report to General Patton..."

"But Patton is dead!" objected Ricky.

"Patton's been reincarnated. Don'tcha know that? He joins the army. He thinks he's someone else, but he gets hit on the head with flak." Flak sounded military and cool, so Ricky latched onto the word. "Then he knows that he was Patton in an earlier life, besides all the other soldiers that he was."

1. The four children develop the story further...
2. Thirty years later...

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