His Grandfather's Ring

pain in a dream Sil noticed. He had not panicked until that realization. His breathing picked up pace, drawing in shorter breathes and he lost the ability to blink.

  The man in the middle gained his footing, shoving aside the goon attempting to help him rise again. He held a finger in the air and shifted his eyes between the goons to tell them to wait before killing Sil. His other hand dabbed his upper lip checking for blood, of which there was plenty.

  The man’s tongue move around in his mouth for a moment before he spat out a tooth. The tooth bounced against the wooden planks of the board walk before falling below. A spit of blood followed and he smiled at Sil.

  “You got some hook there, boyo, I’ll give ye’ that,” the man said with a grin.

  “Cormac, you want this guy gone?” One goon asked, snarling and looking into Sil’s eyes.

  Cormac, Sil noted, I’ll have to remember that one.

  Sil watched Cormac look him over, deciding his fate. For a beat, Sil thought he was doomed.

  “No, I don’t think we’ll be doing any murderin’ today after all. You’ve got a familiar face, you know that?” Cormac asked.

  “You’ve got a bloodied one,” Sil said, staring down on the loan shark. He was now pretty sure he was in a coma, otherwise he would have thrown up.

  Cormac laughed uproariously. “You got the spirit, boyo, you really do. I like that,” Cormac said.

  Sil did not see the move happen, but he felt it. A fast, hard fist landed into his stomach and Cormac grabbed his head as he doubled over in pain and shock.

  Cormac pulled Sil’s head over and spoke directly into his ear, “That spirit will get you killed if I ever see you around again I will take your nose. Then your thumbs. Then your elbows will bend in abnormal directions. D’ye understand?”

  Sil coughed, gasping for air, but managed to reply, “Got it.”

  Cormac pushed him to the ground. “And boyo,” he said, “I will be seeing you around.” Cormac held his right hand’s ring finger and rolled the ring that was placed there; blue stone, red wood.

  “Wait, wait, how did you,” Sil started.

  A scream filled the alley and a woman called out, “Won’t somebody help that poor man?”

  Any other setting and Sil would have laughed at an obvious Blazing Saddles reference, but Cormac and his goons ran off when their plot had been foiled.

  Crap Sil thought. He slapped the ground.

  “Thank you, sir, thank you,” the bad gambler said, extending his arm to help Sil off the ground. “They would have ended me.”

  Sil got to his feet, dusted off his still immaculately pleated slacks, and walked away. He could care less for the man’s safety now. A crowd had gathered at one end of the alley, trying to get a glimpse of whatever commotion was worth making them leave the tavern. Sil waved them off.

  He returned to the beach for no other reason than having a crowd around him in the unlikely event Cormac and the goons found him. Certainly no one would be foolish enough to assault a man in broad view of the delicate beach goers. He felt his pulse slow and only when it returned to its resting rate did he realize how loud and fast his blood was pumping during the fight.

  He leaned against a rounded banister that kept boardwalk and beach separate by visual boundary only. Sand was absolutely everywhere. He did not notice any of it; the sand, the people, the gulls. He leaned against the post and looked at the ring, curious if it had caused this vision or if coma dreams were really intense. The knuckles around the ring were covered in dried blood and a scab was starting to form over where Cormac’s teeth cut into the space between pointer and middle fingers. Sil did notice the pain. His hand was going to take ages to feel better again.

  Why does my hand hurt if this is a dream? He pondered.

  He stood in that spot for hours. Ignoring stomach pains, ignoring the throbbing in his hand, trying his very best to ignore the incessant cries of the blasted gulls; he just stood and waited for something to happen. If he was in a dream state, he would have to wake up eventually. If he was not… He had no idea what to do if this was real.

  The sun fell and the swimmers vacated. The boardwalk was his alone. He had never seen a beach at night. It was remarkably boring. He brought his thoughts to his airplane, to the truck stop on I-80 that had the best cinnamon rolls, to the World Series, anything to keep his mind off what was increasingly a very odd, very real situation.

  Then he thought of his grandfather. He wondered what the old man would have said about getting into a fight with the loan shark in the back alley of the most bizarre Renaissance Fair ever. He wondered what this ring had to do with what was happening. He wondered what his grandfather knew about the ring.

  He stomped one foot on the boardwalk and kicked the pillar he had called home for the last several hours. What is happening! He called out under the brightest moon he had ever seen. Above him stars twinkled. He had lived in and around cities his entire life; never before had he seen so many stars.

  Then he heard the buzzing of a mosquito, growing ever louder by the moment.

  Is it happening again?

  He held his hands above his head.

  I’m very much ready to go home.

  The sound of a tree being split in half echoed against the walls of the shops and out to the ocean. Sil closed his eyes and thought of home.

  When he opened his eyes, he was in the spare room once more. Candy wrappers, boxes of old newspapers and bad carpet brought tears to Sil’s eyes. His clothes had returned to his customary attire and, to his delight, there was no hat atop his head. He ripped the ring off his finger and put it in the palm of a glove sitting beside him on the king sized mattress.

  He wanted to run out of the house, burn it to the ground and let his parents deal with the repercussions. He didn’t though. If he could face down mobsters in the street, he could clean up an old man’s house and avoid magical jewelry with ease. He was not sure he wanted to run from the ring either.

  The spare room was not going to be his starting point though. He would leave this room to his sisters, he thought. He pushed himself off the mattress and stepped out of the room into the hallway.

  Perhaps his eyes were more tuned for spotting abnormalities or perhaps the house shifted ever so slightly, but as Sil entered the hallway he saw something on the top of the door jamb of his grandfather’s room. He had walked this hallway so many times, but could not remember a door jamb being on any of the doorways. This time however, a little twinkle caught Sil’s attention.

  He moved to the doorway and put his hand at the top of the wooden frame. He came back down with a key.

  No he said, questioningly.

  His entire life he had wondered what secrets his grandfather kept tucked away behind this perpetually locked door; now he had the key.

  He slid the key into the door’s lock slowly, thinking it surely had to go to some other lock in the house. He was wrong. With a twist, the door unlocked and swung open.

  Sil had no words. His jaw dropped as he took in the room. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with posts holding deep red circles of wood, silver mounts and stones of brilliant shades of yellow, green, red, and blue. Beneath each post there was a label, hand written in his grandfather’s writing, with places and dates. “NYC 1810” read one, “Tokyo 1650”, “Barcelona 1700”, “London 1912”, “LA 1934”, “Rome 30bc”, “Ulaanbaatar 13th Century”, the rows and columns of posts continued with time and place notes.

  What did you find, Grandpa? Sil’s pulse raced and breathing fell shallower, it felt like facing down Cormac all over again. He loved the feeling. He walked along the walls and kept reading the notes. His grandfather’s handwriting was exquisite with flowing lines that were more like calligraphy than simple cursive lettering.

  One empty post sat near the bed. The note under it read “Coney Island, early 20th”. Sil pulled his ring from the palm of the work glove and placed back on its post.

&n
bsp; He spun around to see all of the rings sparkling back at him. Hundreds, thousands even. Sil’s eyes welled once more. He had completed a full circuit of the room and was stopped by a night stand with a lamp, a Michael Crichton book, and an envelope with Sil’s name beautifully written across the face.

  Sil choked back more tears. His grandfather knew he would be the first in the room, knew he would be the first to see the treasure locked behind closed doors. He opened the envelope and pulled out a post card older that read “Atlantis at Coney Island” across the top. He turned it over and read a note.

  “Sil, put on a ring. Find yourself, be the man I know you are capable of being. Come back wiser, stronger. Don’t let your mother see these things, or this note. If she asks what the note said tell her something mushy then burn it. It’ll be funny.”

  Thanks Grandpa.

  He wiped a tear away and his pocket began to vibrate. He pulled out his phone and the screen read “Mom”. Sil pressed the green button to answer and his mom was already talking.

  “You know what, mom, I got this. Take the cheap flight, a few days won’t make a difference to grandpa anymore,” he replied to the news his parents did not want to spend $600 each for a flight leaving in the morning.

  “I can handle it, really. I’ll get the funeral home on the line, I’ll get the lawyer out here. I’m fine. It’ll be like punching a mobster in the face,” he said with a little laugh.

  “No, that