"Paperweight" - September 26, 2024
A man discovers a mysterious stranger who has a special ability...
Every Thursday, Silver Gecko Publishing highlights one of my stories, either a work of short fiction, a novel, or an audiobook. This week’s selection is the short story “Paperweight.”
This story premiered in my science fiction anthology THE GHOST READERS, AND OTHER STORIES. It was initially inspired by my job as a film critic. After having seen one too many films in the theater where some ass-hat is farting around on their phone throughout the movie, I wished I could have the power revealed in the story.
Completely unconnected to the story, I always hear the tune “Paperlate” by Genesis in my head whenever I think about the title. You’re welcome for that earworm.
“Paperweight” was also featured on the Sample Chapter Podcast back in 2018, and during the episode, I offer a live-read of the complete story. Check it out here.
If you like the story, be sure to pick up your own copy of THE GHOST READERS, AND OTHER STORIES on Kindle and in paperback.
-Kevin Carr
Click here to buy my books on Amazon.
Click here to buy my audiobooks on Audible.
Click here to follow me on TikTok.
Illustration by voldrag (@volfdrag-1905053) from Pixabay
“Paperweight” by Kevin Carr
Few things irritated Brick as much as someone using a cell phone in a movie theater. However, no matter how many public service announcements run before a movie, and no matter how much the theater chain insists that it has a strict “no phone” policy in its cinemas, someone always manages to pull out their phone in the middle of a movie.
What was worse for Brick was that he seemed to be the only person who bothered to do anything about it. Brick had no shame. He had yelled at plenty of people – from teenagers to senior citizens – who decided their own short attention span was more important than common courtesy to people around them trying to enjoy a film.
Brick knew that he really had no room to talk when it came to following the rules that day. After all, he was playing hooky from work, taking an extra-long lunch to catch a movie. He excused his own behavior on it being Friday before a long weekend, and nothing really happened at his job on a Friday before a holiday.
Still, while he didn’t mind shaving off an extra hour or so of his work day to catch a movie, he was a stickler for the often unenforced phone policy at his local theater.
The offender – a stereotypical hipster with a ridiculous beard and black plugs in his stretched earlobes – sat two rows down from him and was likewise alone. Brick was set to stand up and say something to him when the man’s phone suddenly went dark.
He hadn’t turned it off. Instead, it just simply stopped working. This was clear to Brick (and everyone else in the theater) when the man looked at it inquisitively, then smacked it on the side. He tried to turn it on a few times, but the phone was clearly dead.
Knowing the tendency for some cell phones to abruptly die from battery issues, Brick initially didn’t think much of it. However, something caught his eye right at the moment the phone’s bright screen went dark.
Down the row from him, Brick saw a man in a beige sport coat relaxing quietly. He was nondescript except for his actions the moment the phone turned off. The man’s right hand was extended out, making a finger gun that pointed directly at the phone user two rows ahead. He pulled his thumb trigger, which had perfectly synched with the phone turning off. As soon as that happened – while the offender was frantically trying to get his drug of choice to turn back on – the man in the beige sport coat held his index finger to his lips and blew on it as if it were a smoking gun.
Brick also could have sworn he heard the man whisper, “Do you feel lucky, punk?”
It was an incident that Brick certainly thought was strange, but soon, the glow of the large screen in front of him diverted his attention again. Brick was sucked back into the plot of the film and didn’t think about the incident again for a while.
• • •
A month later, there was another long weekend coming, and the Friday workload was considerably slow. As was tradition, Brick stole away to the neighborhood movie theater on a long lunch hour to catch a flick.
As was also tradition, within the first half-hour of the film, some inconsiderate jerk a few rows ahead had pulled out a cell phone. This time, it was a middle-aged woman with two friends rather than a stereotypical hipster. As Brick had noticed over the years, this sort of behavior bridged all demographics. Rude people were everywhere.
Brick grumbled and got ready to yell at the woman when her phone suddenly shut down.
Immediately, Brick looked around. Sure enough, a few rows back was the man in the beige sport coat again. And again, he was blowing on the index finger, mouthing the words, “Do you feel lucky, punk?”
This time, Brick couldn’t get back into the film. Seeing something strange happen once was an oddity. However, when a virtually identical thing happens a second time, that’s a pattern.
Brick kept watching the man in the beige sport coat throughout the film. Unfortunately, he did nothing more than eat his popcorn, sip on his soda, and leave as soon as the credits began to roll.
Brick almost got up to chase him into the lobby and ask him what happened. But before he could get up, he realized how insane this would have sounded. He let it drop again.
• • •
The third time Brick encountered the man in the beige sport coat was far more spectacular than the first two. This time it was at the neighborhood gas station, and it was late at night just before the bars closed.
Brick had stopped in after filling up his car to grab a few snacks for a late night of Netflix binge-watching. He was hovering around the chips where he was searching for pork cracklings when he saw the man in the beige sport coat come in.
The man moved quietly and smoothly. He sauntered up to the counter and asked for a packet of Marlboros. The man’s voice was like how he moved: quiet and smooth. It was almost hypnotic.
The clerk reached into the dispensers overhead, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and set it on the counter. Before he could quote a price, the door to the store opened, and a disheveled man burst in. He carried a sawed-off shotgun close to his chest and pointed it at the clerk.
“Empty the register, man!” the punk yelled.
Things happened so quickly at this point. In a film, it would be drawn out with slow-motion shots and suspense. But in real life, robberies happen in a matter of seconds. In fact, when everything was over, Brick hadn’t moved at all and barely had time to speak.
The clerk’s arms shot up immediately, and he stepped back. He froze, unprepared to be staring down the barrel of a shotgun.
“Now!” the robber yelled, and the clerk jumped into motion, opening the register.
The man in the beige sport coat probably could have stood there unassumingly and waited this out. Brick wasn’t sure why he didn’t. However, the man in the beige sport coat leaned into the robber and said in his smooth, soft voice: “Come on, man. I just want my cigarettes.”
It was a dangerous move to be sure. Even with a large weapon like a shotgun, which isn’t ideal for close quarters, there was plenty of room for the robber to move.
And move he did. The moment the man in the beige sport coat spoke, the robber took a step back and trained his gun on him.
And then he pulled the trigger.
Brick hadn’t expected him to shoot. After so many years of watching movies and television shows in which the villains always gave a second and third warning, Brick was unprepared for things to escalate.
And escalate they did...
...or rather, they would have if the gun had fired.
But it didn’t. There was a click of the trigger, and a stunned look on the face of the robber. Brick supposed that he simultaneously was surprised he actually tried to shoot a man and terrified what was going to happen now that this didn’t happen.
The man in the beige sport coat moved quickly. He grabbed the business end of the shotgun and yanked it out of the robber’s hands. As the man in the beige sport coat rather theatrically cocked the weapon repeatedly to cause the shells to pop out and rattle on the floor, the robber turned and ran away.
With the gun empty, the man in the beige sport coat set the shotgun on the counter and picked up the pack of cigarettes.
“How much?” he asked casually.
The clerk, still in a bit of shock, stammered, “Just... just take it. No charge, man.”
The man in the beige sport coat winked at him and pulled out a five dollar bill. He set it on the counter and said, “Naw. I insist.”
He then took his cigarettes and walked out the door.
• • •
From that point forward, Brick was obsessed with finding this man with the beige sport coat. Back at the convenience store, he had quietly disappeared but Brick had stuck around to help the clerk file a report. They were never able to identify the mysterious hero. Over the following weeks, Brick kept hoping that he would be identified on the security video at the convenience store, or possibly by his fingerprints on the shotgun left at the scene. However, as far as Brick knew, the man remained a mystery.
What followed was Brick’s own search for the man. He was clearly a local because Brick had run into him several times in as many months. It wasn’t a terribly scientific approach, but Brick figured if he wandered the neighborhood enough, he would run into him again.
Brick often took detours to the theater, even going as far as to buy a ticket on Friday afternoons but not actually watching a movie. Instead, he’d sneak into various showings, trying to find the man in the audience.
Brick also kept in touch with the clerk at the convenience store, asking him if he saw the man in the beige sport coat come in. The clerk never saw him again, and he soon quit his job anyway. Coming face-to-face with a shotgun at minimum wage has a tendency to make one reevaluate his career choices.
Even though Brick kept a rotating detail of the local haunts around the neighborhood, the man in the beige sport coat eluded him.
And then one day, Brick nearly tripped over him.
Brick was actually in a rush, heading back to his car after snooping around the movie theater. He passed a coffee shop on the corner of the parking lot as he turned the corner and swerved just in time before he would have crashed into a wrought-iron table.
It was a beautiful spring day, warm enough to be comfortable but still not burdened by the heat of the sun that would come later in the summer. Sitting at the table, reading a copy of The New York Times, was the man in the beige sport coat.
Brick regained his footing and stood up straight. He didn’t say anything, but rather just stared at the man, amazed his quest to find him was suddenly over.
The man in the beige sport coat looked at Brick for a moment, and then a wash of realization came to his eyes.
“You,” the man said.
Brick nodded and pulled a chair up, taking a seat across from the man in the beige sport coat.
“Yes,” Brick said. “Me.”
The man in the beige sport coat squinted a bit and pointed at him. “Movie theater, right?”
Brick nodded. “And the convenient store,” he added.
The man smiled and nodded, leaning back from his paper and crossing his legs. “I didn’t know anyone else was there.”
Again, Brick nodded. “I was in the chip aisle. I would have come out but...”
“...it happened so fast?” the man finished Brick’s sentence when his voice trailed off.
“Yeah,” Brick said.
The man then folded his arms. “So?” he prompted.
“How did you do it?” Brick asked. “How did you turn off those phones? And how did you know the gun wouldn’t go off?”
The man summed up Brick visually, then thought for a moment. He then shrugged and said, “Why not tell you? You won’t believe me anyway.”
“Try me.”
“Okay,” the man said…