A/N: Hey, guys! I needed some breathing space from my other story, and this strange little one-shot happened. Thank you all for your wonderful feedback on Empty Orchestra.
May 20, 2018
12:03 am
The All-Valley trophy loomed over him at the desk where he was slumped forward, over a bitter drink. It might as well have been the taxidermy bust of his son, the boy's eyes glassy and stunned.
It seemed like every time Johnny held the trophy, he involuntarily walked with a limp.
Johnny swirled the Jim Beam in his glass. His face was flushed and tight. Tonight was a night to get so drunk that he'd piss in the crisper drawer of the fridge, thinking it was the toilet. It was a night to remember the good times with Shannon Keene, how hard he'd grip the headboard rungs after she'd had rich desserts.
The florescent lights in the office were dimming and green- that was why the light shining in the window suddenly seemed so obnoxious. "The hell…?"
He went out the back entrance into the alley, and saw that something- at this odd hour- was open across the street on Vanowen. Valhalla Video, said the lit-up awning. Johnny could swear that the building had been boarded up a week ago, but there it was. He hadn't seen a video store in years, even in Reseda, where things always trudged a little behind.
He walked through the door as an electronic chime rang out. The place had red carpeting and shelves and shelves of thick VHS tapes.
It was analog heaven.
He knew he wasn't drunk enough to be seeing full-on hallucinations.
He felt like a wide-eyed kid standing under a giant snake sign again. Billy Squier's "Catch 22" was playing on the radio. There was popcorn and candy at the register, and the M&M's had a picture on the box with tan ones in the mix. Where the fuck did they even get those? Could you eat candy that was twice as old as your students?
A kid popped up from behind the counter, who looked as familiar as everything else here. "Hellacious evening, bro'. Let me know if you need any help."
"So is this like…the 80's diner from Back To The Future II, or what?" Johnny mused.
That movie hadn't been too far off about the future. There were hover-boards, although they had giant wheels and often burst into flames. He remembered Shannon's lament a few years ago: "I can't pay for one of those hover-boards by myself. Please give me half, he wants one so bad. Johnny, I'm begging."
"Just get him a damn skateboard, Shan."
The guy at the register hadn't answered. Johnny cleared his throat. "I never noticed this place before."
"We're a hidden gem."
"I bet it's gonna get overrun by poindexters, like places that sell vinyl."
"Nah, we have a pretty specific base."
"You got a, um…behind-the-curtain section, bud?"
"You know it. There's someone back there already."
"If it's a chick, I'll know this place isn't real."
Johnny slipped past the red curtain and there was a wispy-haired old man in there, with his back turned. The man sighed loudly at the stacks of videotapes next to him. He put one into the clunky rewinder and pushed the button.
Johnny laughed to himself, thinking like his students: "the struggle is real." He wasn't amused for long when he noticed there was nothing on the shelves. "Uh, 'scuse me?" Johnny said. "You all out of porn, or what?"
"Must make better selection."
"I knew there was something weird about this place."
"Hai. But can't beat service." He turned around in that slow way begged for a sting of music- the twang of a koto.
You didn't forget a man who flung you over his shoulder and chopped you straight down the middle of your stark white ribcage.
For a moment, Johnny forgot the guy's name. Yamasaki, Hayashi? The only thing that stuck out was that LaRusso had talked about him in the past tense.
" ...flaming shits...?" was all Johnny could say. He clutched his swirling head, wondering how much this had to do with the Jim Beam. "You're not one of those Japanese ghosts who's gonna crawl across the floor and kill me, are you?"
"Have many power, still bad at killing. Miyagi have unfinish business here."
"W-what do you want from me, man? Is this because I never thanked you in the parking lot? OK, OK- thank you, guy who attacked me, for saving my ass when another guy attacked me. Thanks for being five percent less crazy than him, alright?"
"Cannot accept. Miyagi not finish saving boy. If Miyagi reached out hand to you…maybe everything different."
"Yeah, well, I didn't need your pity then, and I don't need it now," Johnny said, and stormed through the red curtain. When he came out on the other side, Miyagi was in front of him. "Hijo de puta?!" Johnny gasped, not realizing he'd picked up Spanish curses, or why they had come out before his fists even went up.
Johnny blinked and Miyagi was behind him again. "Best block, no be there." He tapped Johnny's goose-fleshed shoulder with a VHS tape, which the younger man jerkily accepted.
"What's this, five hours of kata I have to watch with my eyes clamped open?" Johnny swallowed.
"No. Not Iron Eagle, either. Boy choose. Put tape in machine, choose one day. Live day again. Which one, up to you. Wake up 2018, see what happen. Choose."
"There are no do-overs."
"Choose," Miyagi repeated.
Johnny looked down at the tape and when he looked up again, the old man was gone. Also gone was the counter boy Johnny had finally placed: the memorial page from the '83 yearbook. Everything was yellowing and he could swear he saw tracking lines across his vision.
Johnny ran out the door, but the electronic chime didn't sound. He didn't look back at Valhalla until he was almost at the rear entrance of the dojo. When he did, all he saw was a run-down storefront with plywood over the windows, and the night air swept his lungs.
Miguel knew it was urgent when Sensei called him after midnight. He slammed his bike to the sidewalk at the strip mall and blasted through the dojo door, the tingling bell going crazy.
Miguel sat on the desk in the office as Johnny paced back and forth, trying his best to retell his Twilight Zone story.
Miguel had many questions right off the bat, but after "LaRusso's dead sensei's ghost," "stopped Kreese from strangling me," "he wants to make things right," and "the store disappeared," the kid didn't know where to start.
He knows his teacher would never lie about something like this, and the amount of alcohol you'd have to consume to have such a vision would probably kill you. Miguel eyed the All-Valley trophy, the sheer height of it. If he could win that, he could believe anything.
"So…how…do you pick the day to do over when you put the 8-track in?" Miguel asked.
"Videotape, dipshit. Maybe I close my eyes and make a wish like a ten-year old girl- how the fuck do I know? This is probably some weird Santería curse your mom put on me or something."
"Why would she do that? She's a hundred percent converted to the way of the fist- couldn't you tell at the tournament?" Johnny thought of Carmen's radiant face and swallowed bourbon reflux. "...Wai-wai-wait. Sensei. Shit, I know your do-over! Senior year All-Valley, dude!"
"Wow, I never would've thought of that on my own, Chappy. What would I do without you?" Johnny flouted.
"Hey, you're the one who called me over here in a panic."
"I wanted to make sure I wasn't dead, not have a slumber party to paint our nails and chat about what day I'm gonna pick."
"Hear me out, OK? You do the tournament over, you zig instead of zag-"
"Who am I, Snoopy dancing on top of a little fucking piano?"
"You take the last point, you wake up in 2018 and ¡Ya está! Maybe everything changes for the better, a-and maybe LaRusso is strung out behind the strip eating burritos."
"Yeah, and where does that leave your little she-wolf you'd take back in a second?"
The boy wanted to furrow his brow and cluck in dismissal, but he bit the inside of his mouth and went soft. "Shit," he sighed.
"OK, so maybe that would have too big a ripple effect," Miguel said. "Alright, let's see…what else do you regret?"
It was the simplest question, but the bitter ocean unleashed in Johnny filled him to his gold hair. "How long you got?"
Miguel spent over an hour writing things on the dry erase board in the office. Possible do-overs, their possible ripple effects. Lines upon lines stemming out like tournament brackets. Question marks, bad doodles.
Johnny knew the days that stuck in his throat the most. They all had to do with Robby, but he wasn't ready to tell Miguel about him.
One day wasn't enough to fix things with Robby, anyhow.
"OK," Miguel said, tapping a marker against his palm. "You don't go drunk-driving to the sports arena that night, the Firebird doesn't get totaled…"
"I never get pissed off enough to re-open Cobra Kai. That's out."
"What if you go back to the summer of 1984 and never start that fight with your girlfriend?" Miguel proposed, scrawling away in red.
"Oh, you automatically assume I started it?" He did, but anyway.
"Whatever. You can thank me when you wake up married to Ali."
Johnny remembered the force of those hellcat hands against his chest, and wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
His mind drifted as Diaz continued to blather and go Bloodhound Gang on the board. "Cut stepdad's brake lines" seemed promising, but...as much as it filled Johnny's throat with bile, Sid had truly loved his mother- the geezer never missed a chance to offer too much information about just how much.
Besides...the color had once drained from Johnny's face at the thought of breaking someone's leg, never mind killing someone.
He could go back to that night in Shannon's bed, when he was strangely moved by her expression as she watched him. He could stop the three words from slipping out, because that had really complicated things...and...led to her throwing her birth control pills away.
He cleared his throat, thinking of the rare green of his son's eyes. Maybe his do-over didn't have to change anything at all. Maybe he could just re-live a day with his mother and feel her long, wavy hair falling all around his shoulders, and smell that green perfume…Emeraude, that was it. To put your grown-up brain in your clueless kid body- wasn't that everybody's dream? He could really absorb it all, knowing what he knew now. He and Mom could ride go-carts and buy penny candy, and change the ending of Blueberries for Sal to "She decided to live with the bears."
And when Sid chuckled, "That mop of hair makes you look like Sal," Johnny might still storm off- maybe even more so with his grown-up brain- and maybe walk into the path of a giant station wagon.
Who would be erased from the Valley? Who would be slouched in a corner, who would never find a channel for their anger?
"Diaz…you should go home. I'm not even gonna play around with this shit."
"What if you have to, though? If you don't play the tape, Miyagi might keep trolling you. It seems like you have to enter his realm voluntarily, so he'll keep luring you into obsolete establishments until you comply. Next could be some undead disco, or-"
"Diaz, shut the fuck up, alright? I can't do this anymore, I feel like I'm gonna hurl."
"…Hurl what, exactly?"
"Look, man," Johnny groaned. "Ninety-nine percent of these scenarios probably end with us never meeting, and you still being a wheezing gherkin. I…I can take one for the team and just let things be."
"You would do that, for me?" Miguel said quietly.
"Hell, yeah. And who knows...rip a page in a library book in 1973, and Bernie Sanders ends up being president or something."
"That would actually be…yeah, never mind." Miguel was more verklempt than ever in the beat that followed. "Dude, you…you have a magic fucking tape that can change the past, and…you're not gonna use it, for a kid who mostly annoys the shit out of you?"
"For all you annoying pricks," Johnny said.
Johnny fell asleep at his apartment with his face smashed so hard into the pillow, it rearranged his nose for most of the morning.
"Never drinking Jim Beam again," he groaned.
He was covered in sweat and realized the A/C unit in the wall was busted. HVAC shit was out of his expertise, so he called the maintenance guy and left a voicemail. Never got a call back, so he went to find him. He opened the screen door and saw him sitting with his back turned. "Oh, hiding out, huh? I should make you do a shot of my ball sweat. When the hell are you gonna fix my A/C?"
"Afterlife," the man chuckled.
"Motherfuc-" Johnny jumped as Miyagi turned around. "Just drag me to hell already..."
"Hah-hah! No such place, besides here. And bottom whiskey bottle."
He couldn't argue with that. "...yeah...pretty much everywhere except that video store."
"I know you'd like. And you make better selection."
"You sure about that, 'cause it feels like I'm in my boxer shorts talking to LaRusso's undead babysitter."
The old man laughed heartily. "Miyagi made mistake not to take Johnny-san under wing, but boy still fly. Best way to fix past, not be there. Johnny-san care more about others' future. Miyagi done here."
The old man walked to the screen door as Johnny felt sand in his eyes. "...You sure you weren't the crazier sensei?"
"Very sure. Breathe, Johnny-san. No snake around throat anymore."
He wanted to ask Miyagi one more thing before he vanished- if he could re-open the video store, because he felt there was a niche in Reseda for it. Instead, Johnny closed his eyes and felt the reels inside him filling to completion.
THE END