Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero (36 page)

“It looks like a steel blacksmith shaping steel. As if you’re saying…” Jonathan paused. “That man shapes himself?”

“Hmmm,” she said, looking at it again from Jonathan’s perspective. “I was curious what it would evoke, I hadn’t been thinking of the symbolism, but I do like your take on it.”

“Not sure it’s the truth, though,” Jonathan said.

She frowned at him. He didn’t see the look right away, as he was still gazing at the statue. Finally he turned back and noticed her staring at him with a perplexed face.

“What?” he asked.

“Just weird that you of all people would say that,” she said.

“How so?” he asked.

“I don’t know a ton about you, but the one thing I’ve noticed since I moved in is that you work a great deal to shape yourself.” She nodded back to the statue. “Steel shaping itself, flesh shaping itself, same difference.”

Jonathan understood her perspective. People around him didn’t know that circumstance was shaping him, not any decision he’d made himself. She might have seen all the work he put into his body as some form of creation, some kind of art, something comparable to the work she’d put into the statue to bring the shape to life. She couldn’t know he was bending to someone else’s design.

He wasn’t creating something to be marveled at; he was trying to build a weapon scary enough to frighten monsters.

“You’re shaping the statue. You are creating the illusion that he is shaping himself of his own choice,” Jonathan said. “The statue just has to hope you have his best interests in mind.”

“That’s a depressing take,” she said. “It takes away any say he has in creating himself.”

She mused over the idea.

“Meh,” she said, “that’s just the kind of bull that comes up when you try to make art that reflects life. The rules applying to art aren’t the rules applying to man.”

Jonathan grinned and looked down at the ground.

“What?” she asked.

“My roommate, Hayden, would’ve loved to have been a part of this conversation.” He looked back up at the statue then and changed the subject. “It doesn’t have eyes. Is it supposed to be a blind blacksmith?”

“I’m working on getting it some eyes,” she said. “Though for now, I kind of like the idea of a blind blacksmith shaping itself. Maybe I’ll just tie a blindfold over his face.”

Jonathan looked up at the metal statue one last time and remembered why he had come over in the first place.

“I wanted to see if you would take a look at something for me,” he said.

“This about that favor you needed?” she asked.

“Meet Eileen,” he said.

“Wow,” said Leah as she set eyes on Jonathan’s motorcycle. “Where did you find this piece of junk?”

“Blue light special at the flea market,” he joked.

She grinned, but her face betrayed that she wasn’t sure if he was kidding. Jack, content just to be sitting on it, didn’t seem to care that the bike was a mess.

“I had Collin check it out. He says it‘ll run. That’s all I need it to do,” Jonathan said.

She nodded, but still looked skeptical.

“So what do you need from me?” she asked.

Jonathan walked over to the cabinet where he stored his training staffs. Beside the practice weapons was a thick steel demolition bar. It was heavy, hexagonal in shape, coated with a rust resistant black oxide. The bar was the same length and height of the practice staffs, but thicker, with ends that looked like giant flat head screw drivers. He held it parallel to the side of the bike.

“I need to weld on clasps for this so that I can easily clip this bar on to the bike when I’m riding. I need to be sure it won’t slip loose and that it doesn’t hinder any of the operations of the bike. Also, I need to be able to get it free easily,” Jonathan said.

She looked up at him questioningly from beside the bike. He could see this wasn’t the type of welding she’d imagined him asking for.

“No big deal to do the alteration, especially since I don’t think you’ll care how it looks. We’ll put it on the side where the fuel tank is dented and the paint is scratched off. But…” She paused as she rose from kneeling beside the bike. “Why do you need to carry an oversized crowbar around?”

“It’s a demolition bar, a rather expensive one that I had to special order,” he said. “I’ve been looking at getting a side gig on a demolition’s crew, but I don’t want to leave this at work sites.”

The beauty of this lie was that it wasn’t a lie at all. Jonathan had been looking into an employment change with a demolitions crew as Mr. Fletcher had offered to help him with his current monetary issues. Running a hardware store gave the man a wide net of acquaintances that were always looking for a hardworking young man whom a trusted colleague like Mr. Fletcher could vouch for. The part about needing a special crowbar was complete crap, but at least if the story ever came up, it would sound legit to someone like Leah.

“That sounds like it’s half BS to me,” she said.

Or not,
he thought. Jonathan was about to defend his story, but she stopped him.

“Tell you what, Tibbs,” she said. “You come out with us tonight, I’ll do your welding, and I won’t ask what it’s really for.”

Her offer not to require he explain himself was relieving, but much like buying the motorcycle had usurped his schedule, it now looked like this evening was going to be a wash as well. Luckily, he didn’t have a shift at the hardware store today, so he still had the rest of the afternoon. September was looming closer. The deadline was charging at him, whether he was ready or not. The only reason he could agree to forfeiting a night of training was if it was at least in an effort to move forward. Of course, it being Paige’s birthday also weighed in, he might not be there for the next one.

“Tibbs,” Leah said. “It’s getting offensive that you need to think about it this long.”

“Deal,” he said, sticking out his hand for her to shake.

“How formal,” she said, shaking his hand.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

SATURDAY | AUGUST 13, 2005 | 3:15 PM

HE
struggled to keep from growing frustrated as he threw his strikes into the punching bag, the familiar feeling of sweat beading up onto his forehead. With every punch that landed on the canvas he reprimanded himself for the imperfections in his technique.

His hand to hand wasn’t progressing as well as his weapons training. The fighting style couldn’t be learned as quickly. This realization, with his slow and disjointed rate of improvement, crept into his thoughts, regularly poisoning his confidence.

To be a master of hand-to-hand required a greater degree of fluidity gained through sparring and real life experience, a development of movements that needed to be instinctual, but on a deeper level than the staff. Jonathan was hard pressed to fit such a transformation into his deadline. If he’d already been acquainted with a fighting style, the standard body movements from an earlier age, it would have helped him immensely on the onset. As it was, Jonathan had never so much as taken a kickboxing class as a child. His mother had never pushed him toward such things and he had never pushed himself.

Through Lincoln’s contacts he’d been able to gain private training from a professional, much like his staff instructor. His teacher gave him praise for his degree of focus and commitment. The praise was, of course, lost on Jonathan. He was used to this reaction, much like with Lincoln training him at the gym and his staff instructor; they seemed to covet what they saw as raw determination.

The teachers could not find it in themselves, because they still believed that what they were seeing was ‘determination’; a desire inspired by an aspiration could not contend with need. Desire might gain strength from praise, but it did nothing for true need.

The instructor he’d chosen taught the Keysi Fight Method. Having no background from which to draw on, Jonathan had picked KFM because it was principled on effectiveness. It wasn’t a martial art meant for recreation, but for reality. It was a hard decision to research, as reality would be bent when he fought a monster capable of knocking him through walls with a single strike.

Keep your chin tucked in, shoulders up
, he chastised himself.

He caught himself dropping his arms again and turned away hastily.

He fumed for a minute and forced some deep breaths. It was better to let his irritation run its course he’d found, than to force himself to try and struggle through it. Frustration could sometimes lead to a completely wasted training session or even a back slide if he allowed it to become strong enough.

Take a moment
, his father would say.

It was then, while he tried to let his anger seep out, that he noticed he was no longer alone in the garage.

The blond man with his fedora stood against the wall, watching him train.

“Crap!” Jonathan jumped. His irritation replaced with shock.

“I apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you, but you looked so focused,” Heyer said. “I thought it best to wait.”

Jonathan laughed at himself. Here he was training to be some kind of warrior and he’d practically jumped into the rafters.

“It looks as though you have taken my instruction to heart,” Heyer said. “I’d wager you are twenty pounds heavier than when I saw you last.”

He’d expected he’d be angry when he saw the alien again. Instead, a tension he’d blamed on the stress of his circumstances relaxed. It was one of many burdens, but still, as it happened, he became aware of how much it had weighed on him, how he must have adapted unconsciously to carry it. Only as it lifted did he realize how heavy it had really been.

“Let’s hope it’s worth it,” Jonathan replied. “If I end up dying anyway, I could have spent the last three months in a drug-induced coma instead of wasting the time I had left.”

Heyer’s expression looked concerned at Jonathan’s grim outlook.

“I don’t think you ever would have done that, Jonathan,” Heyer replied.

Jonathan frowned at him.

“Oh, you were being comical,” Heyer said.

“I’m glad to see you,” Jonathan said, letting it show on his features that he was as surprised to say it as Heyer likely was to hear it. “Frankly, I question my sanity sometimes.”

“I apologize that I have been absent so long,” Heyer said. “You know it’s funny, all the technological advancements of my species have colluded to make me busier than any one man should be required. I can’t imagine being constrained to a 24 hour sleep pattern as humans are. But I digress, I returned as soon as I could.”

Jonathan found it odd that the alien referred to himself as a man.

“Don’t suppose I can ask what you were off doing?”

“I was engaged in a matter of diplomacy on the East Coast until a few moments ago,” Heyer said. “Off planet before that.”

Jonathan nodded.

“So you’re just going to be purposely cryptic then?” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t be asking anyway.”

Heyer halfheartedly smiled and began to pace around the garage. Tapping his foot against one of the weights Jonathan had left on the floor, reaching out and pushing the punching bag to see it sway, he seemed more human for a moment as he busied his body with the examination of the room. It reminded Jonathan of the way his grandfather used to look when he’d taken him garage sale shopping as a kid.

“It’s not my aim to keep you in the dark, Jonathan. But the less you know the safer we both remain. In the end, there is nothing I could reveal to you that will serve you in any useful capacity. Still though,” Heyer paused, appraising Jonathan before committing to anything. “I understand what it is to want to know what you are a part of. It is not, after all, a desire unique to man.”

“What does that mean?” Jonathan asked.

“Perhaps…” Heyer emphasized the word and let it linger. “Once you’ve repelled the next inbound, we will discuss
some
of your questions,” Heyer said, stressing the word
some
as deliberately as the word
perhaps
.

“What?” Jonathan said skeptically, unsure of what the alien seemed to be offering. “Is that your idea of a reward?”

“No, Jonathan, I would not consider knowing anything about our arrangement a reward,” Heyer said. “More of a responsibility.”