The Ongoing Diary of Casey Neal

You Want Tell?

(April 2020)

After the longest Monday and Tuesday on record, the clock finally turned to the big day in question.  Then, of course, we had to wait all day.

I gave a video interview to ESPN that was going to air over in the US, giving them a brief on Japanese baseball, and how the season was going.  I’m sure I sounded like a dork, but it was fun enough.  And I poked around on a few pages of what I think might be the beginning of my book about this whole experience.

We’ll see.

Ichihara went through the office routine.  Meetings with the staff and briefings with officers who are still chasing down Charlie Cooper, though by now even they are probably admitting to themselves that they aren’t getting anywhere.

When finally the time came, I met Ichihara and Don-o at the appointed location, an alley that was a couple train rides and a walk away.

Ichihara was there in what I will loosely call car.

It’s the first time I saw him drive, and looking at the car, I figure I know why.  It was basically a scooter on wheels.

“Are we all going to fit in that thing?” Don-o said?

“No worries,” Yuni said.  “Only need drive maybe two hours.”

He came around to help us open the doors, and I saw he was wearing all black.  Black pants, black sleeved shirt, black shoes.  We both help Don-o and his blue Hawaiian shirt wedge into the back, and then I got in the passenger side and Yuni, of course drove.

Ichihara started to pull out of the alley when I heard a yell and felt the “car” lursh hard to the right.  A body sprawled across the windshield, and I realized it wasn’t that we had hit anything, it was that DK had launched himself through the air from a flying start, and landed on us.

“Not go without DK!” he said.  “Four Horsemen!  Four Horsemen!”

Yuni gave what I assume is a curse in Japanese, and got out.  With the car fully loaded, the door swung with a deep metallic groan that made my teeth go acidic.

They argued in Japanese for a few minutes until it became obvious that DK was not going to lose this battle.  He climbed into the back with Don-o, ostensibly sitting at least half on his lap.

“I didn’t know you cared for me so much,” Don-o quipped.

“Don’t do anything to make future Mrs. Matsui unhappy, and we fine.”

Don-o laughed.

“I love you, man.  But let’s get this show on the road.”

Yuni got in, actually took a moment to buckle up, and then the four of us and his little buggy squealed our way onto the road.

#

We get there about an hour and a half earlier than the scheduled time.

“We’re going to KEK?”

I say this because after what has turned into about two hours and thirty minutes of pure hell, the last hour of which Don-o remained silent other than for a few moans and groans, and during which Ichihara drove us through eastern Tokyo proper and into some small patches of countryside, and after getting all the way to Ibaraki prefecture, and coming to the city of Tsukuba, Ichihara eventually turns us onto a service entrance that is labeled with a sign welcoming us to Kō Enerugī Kasokuki Kenkyū Kikō.  Otherwise known as KEK.

It’s a high energy, particle physics lab–the biggest one in Japan.

Or, to be more technically correct, the labs campus is a big thing, made of many buildings built onto a sprawling hillside.  Scattered patches of field and trees remain behind, lining the buildings which are generally long, thin, and twisting white creations of one and two stories along with one bigger, gray block that I’ll say is roughly in the middle of the whole thing.

We get out of the car and stretch our legs.

“Holy mother of God,” Don-o says as he nearly collapses face-first into the lawn.

DK, who is smaller, but in no better shape, is twisting his head around like a contortionist on acid.

“What are we doing at KEK?”

“Meeting Dr. Incho.  And, of course, meeting the the Russians.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I tell everything now.”

And despite the pain, we all became silent.

“I meet with Dr. Incho after you return from Irkutsk, Casey.  I ask him many questions about paper, which he is not able to answer.  So I meet with many others. And all have same no answer.  So I sit and I think.”

Ichihara smiles now because he sees we are all at his beck and call.

“Famous man once said that is to take away all that is not real, then what is left is the real, correct?”

“Yes, I say.  “It’s a Sherlock Holmes thing.  Close enough, anyway.”

“So I add all the pieces.  Fact is, Charlie Cooper act as GM for five teams.  Fact is he meet many people, but most through email and phone.  Fact is he is young.  So no one really knows him.  In fact, everyone sees nothing but fast moving man.  So fact is, we miss much.  Fact is he have no friends.”

“No Four Horseman!”

“Right, DK. Charlie Cooper have no four horseman.  Then I add in the missing pieces because missing or not, they still real.  So, fact is all of the many Charlie Coopers not be found–not even by spirit woman, who can see very, very deep.  And fact is that all missing money is just as gone.  And many other things are gone, too, missing, too.”

Ichihara looks at me.

A light bulb suddenly glows inside me like a million lumens.

“All the teams that don’t exist.”

“Exactly,” Ichihara said.

“We’ve already been through these before, Yuni.  They aren’t missing.  They never existed.”

Ichihara smiles and raises a finger. “See? Still missing one fact!” With this he turns to “Don-o.”

Ichihara looked at Don-o.  “You want tell?”

Don-o got to looking uncomfortable.

“Yuni thinks I do strange things to the world around me.”

“He doesn’t know the half of it,” I quip.

Then Don-o looks up and I’m immediately sorry.

“He say’s maybe it’s like something I was born with, or whatever.  Nothing I can get rid of.”

“What is it?” DK says.

“He says can do things with space-time.”

I glance from Don-o to Ichihara.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Yes, I think hard on this,” Ichihara said.  “All that is real is true.  All that is not real is not true.  Charlier Coopers were here, therefore Charlie Cooper exist.  True. Money here.  Money real.   Money gone.  All real, even though all gone.”

I motion to get on with it.  “I’ve heard this record before, Yuni.”

“Then you see Don-o.  And you all excited.  Don-o exist, right?”

I look at my friend, who just shrugs in his Hawaiian.

“If you want to call it that.”

“Then Don-o gone.”

“Yeah, just like he’s freakin’ magic.”

Ichihara raised a finger.  “Yes, just like … only now when you tell me this I add to list of facts. And next time I talk to Dr. Incho I ask different questions.  This time I ask about time and places, and he tell me about lots of weird things in lots of theories that make my head spin, but basically tell me that it is possible that space and time can be different in different places.  And he tell me about multiple universe theories.”

A tingle starts to go up my spine.

“He say it possible there are other places to live.  Possible that other dimensions or other universes close by.  So Dr. Incho,I ask: ‘can they come together?’ Can a man in one universe met a man in another?”

I look at Don-o and I flash on a night we were together in San Franciso, a night much like this one, dark, with a little wind.  And I remember standing in the grass in what would be centerfield in the old Candlestick Park, watching a flash of white jersey carrying the number 24 un across the field to pull a line drive off his shoe tips, his hat falling by the wayside behind him.

And suddenly I understand more about Don-o than I ever have.

“The other teams exist, don’t they?” I say

Ichihara smiles and nods.

“Yes, I think they do exist.  Just not here.”

“And Charlie Cooper not gone?” DK says.

“No,” Ichihara replied.

“Take away all that is not real, and what is left is real.  Like spirit woman say Charlie Cooper is gone,” Ichihara said.  “And she is right as far as she can see.  But Charlie Cooper is not gone.  No!, Casey san.  Spirit woman cannot see Charlie Cooper because she cannot see the other side.”

“Other side?” I say.

Ichihara smiles.

It’s all a little too much to digest, standing there on a lawn outside KEK.  I want to ask him: “Other side of what?”

But before I can get the words out of my mouth I see his gaze turn up behind me, and another car comes up the service road and stops behind Ichihara’s beater.  Four big men get out, carrying weapons that are sleek and shiny and make me feel cold inside.

The Russians are here.