Part Five: Ganymede Eulogy
Three bottles of liquors of varying degree of sinfulness later, we're both deep in our cups. The interview has resumed, as Jet gets to telling me a number of stories from the Bebop I'd never heard about. It's fun, but ultimately unimportant, until our last real talk late that night.
We'd been talking about Spike's fight with Tongpu. It's no good to hear from someone other than Faye about that guy...it goes a long way towards reaffirming my fear that the invincible serial-killing lunatic actually existed, rather than being the product of a fanciful imagination. We discuss Spike's incredible ability to take punishment, and inevitably, the question comes up.
"Jet...you must've heard the rumors." I mutter, much less coherently than I like to admit. "What about you, what's your opinion? Is Spike Spiegel really dead?"
Jet is a much sturdier drinker than I am. The question might be eased a bit by the booze, but his answer comes out as intelligible as anything I ever hear him say.
"Yeah, I've heard talk." He idly tosses something to Ein, and the little dog devours it. "I don't know. What did the others say? You asked them, right?"
"Ed is convinced she would have heard something. Faye thinks he would have tried to reach one of you." Jet raises an eyebrow at this. "They both think he's dead, man."
"How about you?"
"It doesn't matter what I think. I'm just another wannabe hunter, chasing down a ghost."
"Yeah, that's true enough." He pauses, long and quiet. "But then, I've seen that ghost."
I take this revelation remarkably well, considering it runs counter to every bit of conventional wisdom on the subject I've heard. "Really." I chalk my restraint up to the effects of alcoholic torpor.
"Lemme tell you the story. You can come to your own conclusions."
"It was a few years back. After the book came out. I had rented a room on Mars. I don't like going there if I can help it...but I had to repair the Bebop, and the only mechanics I use had relocated there from Earth. They knew Spike, too, so I could trust them to keep quiet.
"So, I had to stay somewhere off-ship for a night, while Doohan and Miles fixed it up. I got a room, and had a few drinks before heading off to bed. I'd been thinking a lot about him since coming back to Mars...moreso than usual...so it's possible I just had Spike on the brain...but I don't think it's that simple. This is the part where it gets hazy.
"Middle of the night, I woke up. Heard someone say my name. I look up over the foot of my bed, and there he is.
"'Hey, Jet,' he said, lighting a cigarette. 'Or should I call you Parker Blank?' That was what I was using as my alias at the time.
"'Jet's good. Been awhile since I heard anyone call me that and I didn't want to punch them in the face.'
"'Then Jet it is.' He sat down on a chair opposite the bed. A few new scars, but otherwise, he looked the same, right down to the cheap blue suit. 'How've you been?'
"'I've been getting by. You?'
"'The same. You haven't heard from Faye or Ed lately, have you.' It wasn't a question.
"'No. Haven't seen any of them since around the time I saw you last.'
"'That's a shame, Jet.' He took a long drag off a cigarette. I figured that this was either a dream, a hallucination, or I'd died in my sleep, so I felt that either way, there was no harm in smoking in bed under those circumstances. I lit up and joined him. 'These things will kill you someday.'
"That's what we always figured would get you in the end. Doesn't seem like anything else would've killed you. How many times did we have to bail you out?'
"'Seems like a million and one,' he said, and he laughed.
"'Except the last time. What happened, with Vicious?'
"'I died again. That's two so far.'
"'Oh. I'm sorry.'
"'Doesn't matter. I'm here now. Look, Jet...' he stopped, and tapped out some ash, "...this isn't easy...we never were any good at telling each other what to do in a given situation.'
"'You're telling me. We were worse at *letting* each other tell us what to do.'
"He looked up at me with a grin. 'Not as bad as letting Faye call the shots, though.' We both busted up at that.
"'So, anyway...Jet...I figured we should talk, because there's something I need you to do.'
"'Name it, Spike.'
"'Forgive me.' I try and protest, but he just holds up a hand. There's a serenity there that wasn't part of the Spike I knew. 'You know why, Jet Black. I know this has been eating you up inside. But you can't keep carrying that weight forever. Eventually, it'll be too heavy for you to drag around any more, and it'll crush you in the end.' He turned around, looked in my closet. 'At least, too much for you to support alone.'
"'Spike...it's my weight to carry.' I said. 'I can live with it. And if it helps...I can't forget what you did, in leaving us...but I'll do my best to forgive it.'
"'That's fine, Jet. That's fine.' There's one more thing, though.' He took something off a hangar and tossed it over his shoulder. 'You're gonna have to forgive her, too.'
"'Spike,' I said, 'that's one thing I can't do.'
"'You will. Trust me.' He held up the thing he took out of the closet. 'Can I take this?' It was my old ISSP jumpsuit, the one with the phoenix crest on the back. 'It seems kind of appropriate for the next part of the plan.'
"'Which is?' I asked.
"'Time for me to start all over again. Time to be someone else. Try to see if I can get it right the third time around. I won't see you again after tonight, Jet.'
"'I kind of figured that's how this was gonna be. We're gonna miss you, kid.'
"'Yeah, but it's already been a long time, partner. Real long time.' He walked over to the door.
"'Yeah. Long time. This a dream, kid?'
"'Jet...that's all life is.' He laughed, and it was the kind of pure laughter I had only heard once, just before the last time he left.
"'You take care of yourself. And remember what I said.' Spike opened the door, stepped out, and left for good." Jet finished the story with a final swig of some old Martian whisky. "Next day, I couldn't remember if it was real or a dream, and figured that wasn't the point anyway. The ISSP suit was gone, but I couldn't recall if I had packed it in the first place...though I never did find it again after that night."
"Wow." My wit is as stunted by alcohol as my excitability is. "So...how do you think he's doing now?"
"I think he's happy, wherever he is, and that's the best we can hope for Spike Spiegel."
"That's good." I ponder the ice slowly melting in what's left of the latest in a long line of rum and cokes. "Do you forgive him now?"
"Yeah...I think I do."
"How about Faye?"
He gives me a sheepish smile. Probably safe to take it as a yes. "Think you've got enough to go on for a story now?"
"Yeah. Think this'll do the trick." I hold up the recorder.
"Good. Well, I think I'm gonna turn in." He stretches and yawns. "You can have the infirmary bed. I'll sleep on the couch. I'll set the navcomputer to take us to Mars. We can drop you off tomorrow."
"Sounds good. Sweet dreams, Mr. Black."
"Count on it, kid."
......
I don't dream of anything that night. I'm too drunk, crippled and exhausted to dream coherently anyway. I wake up to a four-alarm hangover and the sound of something scratching at my door.
"What the hell? I open it up. I don't see anyone at first, but when I look down, there's Ein, staring expectantly up at me. "What do you want, pooch? It's early, my brain is screaming at me, and there's nowhere to take you for a walk in the upper Martian stratosphere. So where's the fire?"
In response, Ein starts tugging at my pants legs with his teeth. Trying to get me to move into the cabin, I think. "There'd better be a fire in there, Ein." He scampers off, and I lumber after him into the hall. To my surprise, he dashes into the control room instead of the cabin, where Jet is sleeping soundly, sawing logs. I hold my head in my hand as I follow. "I hope we're crashing. It'd make the headaches stop if we do," I mutter. I'm not really a morning person.
Ein is now sitting in front of the control room's comm. A little red light flashes, someone's trying to call Jet...probably space traffic control. I see a red landscape in front of me...we must have arrived...then it hits me through the haze of hangover. That's not Mars in front of us...
I don't have the slightest idea how we got to Venus instead, so I hope the person waiting on the comm has an answer for me. Fortunately, she does.
"Reporter-Man!" It's Ed-Thing. 7 in the morning, Ganymedian time, is too early for deviant grammar. I grit my teeth.
"Hi Francoise. We're on Venus. Do you know how we got to Venus, because I'm all out of guesses. Hey...you don't seem surprised to see me on the Bebop."
"I told you there was no one better connected than Radical Francoise! I intercepted a preliminary wire heading out to one of the Mars tabloids. It said you and Jet went into a hangar together, and that a ship resemembling the Bebop went into orbit shortly following. I can put two and two together."
"Sure you can. So, genius hacker...how'd we get here?"
"Don't you remember how Edward took control of the Bebop back when she joined? That isn't a trick you phase out of your act."
"Okay, but you can do that when we're as far off as Ganymede?"
"Yeah. So?" The insane distances, the sheer logistics of such an undertaking, do nothing to phase her. "Your point is?"
"You terrify me." From offscreen, I hear McIntyre shout 'Me too!' "Tell Mc-Person 'hi' for me."
I wonder if Jet has any coffee around here...
"Sooooo...how did it goooo last night, Kurtzman?"
"Why do I get the feeling you already know?"
"Well....I do. But I wanted to hear it from you." She flashes one of those impossible grins.
"I think your best grief-counselors would call it a breakthrough. As for me, I'm just a reporter...for a little while longer anyway. I wouldn't know what to call it."
"Kurtzman is planning something. I can tell."
"I'll give you the exclusive when I figure it out myself."
Meanwhile, Jet has awoken to the subdued commotion. Ein, the most intelligent one here, if the unspoken goal was not to wake Jet up, hasn't uttered so much as a yip until now. Spotting his master, he bursts out into a staccato blast of hyperactive friendly barks.
"What's going on here?" Jet stares out into the sky. Lucky bastard shows no sign of hangover. "Hey...that's not Mars out there..."
"Jet!"
"Ed? Is that you?"
"Francoise. I'm sorry I couldn't come off planet, but mapmaking knows no breaks. So I had Kurtzman take Ein to you!"
"Thank you, Ed." He points to the windows. "You do this, too?"
This sets off an excited stream of technobabble that Ed must not have felt I would understand if she told me. And, since I don't understand, I just hobble out to the cabin, leaving these three old friends to get reacquainted.
Not that anyone is surprised by this revelation, but our final destination is the tall tower where I first kicked off this quest. As we descend, I see a small figure wearing a yellow dress out on the roof. Ed must have called ahead.
As the hatch opens, Jet nearly turns on his heel and heads back inside. I bar the way with my crutch, and Ein gives his best effort to growl threateningly.
"I can't do this." He looks towards the portal, and I swear there's a bead of sweat forming on his brow.
"Sure you can, old man. You two spent ten years apart because of a stupid misunderstanding. Why do you want to delay things any longer over nerves?"
"Well...I don't think this'll be comfortable for either of us. I know how she felt about Spike, and you know how I feel about her. What makes you think this'll work out?"
"Nothing I can empirically prove." I sling the cane over my shoulder. "But, it's been ten years. Maybe you're coming out of this better than you realize."
He gives me a skeptical look. "What do you mean."
"Well, she told me once that it'd be like kissing her father, if anything had happened between you two back then, if she would have stayed on the Bebop. It wasn't the kind of ground you could build a relationship on."
He groaned. "You think this will make me feel better? Want to stick a knife in my gut while you're at it?"
"Will you just listen? I thought you used to be good at that." I sigh. "Christ. My point is, Jet...she can take care of herself now. You haven't been her 'dad' for ten years now. What she needs now is a friend." We share a smile. "Yeah, I think you can handle doing that. Besides...down the road, who knows what might work out?" I casually scratch my back with the crutch. "Anyway, at this point, I think it's safer to keep the stable ex-Beboper around the one more likely to shoot reporters. Maybe you'll cancel each other out, and you two might actually be able to live normal lives again."
He nods. "That sounds pretty good." Again, though, he hesitates. "But...what about the Spike thing?"
"Jesus, Romeo! Look, Jet...I know you're just stalling now. But...if it helps...she isn't in love with Spike anymore. She isn't sure she ever was, now. I know for certain that she never called it that when we spoke. And there is one thing I'm sure of. She definitely misses you." I hit him with the cane. "Now, will you get out there? You were always the gentleman of the ship...now you're keeping the lady waiting."
"Alright, alright." He takes a deep breath. "Wish me luck." With that, he steps out of the Bebop, and back into the real world. Ein runs after him, scampering about like he's half his age. As for me, I just hobble slowly down the ramp, and off towards a stairway entrance on the other side of the roof. I take a moment though, to watch. Faye is still standing a few meters back from the ship. She hasn't said anything since Jet has come out. Ein waits by the hatch, remarkably patient. Jet takes a few hesitant steps forward. Both of them look about two degrees from breaking down.
The silence is deafening, but his deep voice finally rumbles out across the scene, "Hello, Faye."
"Welcome back, Jet. I...I'm glad to see you again." There's another long pause. Come on, people, I try and command them mentally, just say it!
Finally, it breaks, and they both say it at once. "I'm sorry." Then there's another silence, this one shocked, as each tries to decipher what the other has to apologize for.
"Faye...you don't have anything to apologize to me for anything." He takes a few steps closer, and she, for her part, walks forward like she's pleading.
"No, Jet...whatever I did, to make you want me gone...I'm so sorry for it."
"You didn't do anything. It was all a mistake." The big man looks ready to weep. Faye already has. She wipes her eyes, trying to do it before anyone notices the tear that threatens to fall. As if anyone here would care. Faye stammers out a response, her voice cracking.
"Then...what is it you have to be sorry for, Jet?"
"For waiting so long..." He almost stops, but he's already too far gone. "..to tell you that I missed you."
"Oh, Jet...I missed you, too." They close the final gap between them, and embrace.
Ein dashes out and starts up with the yips again, wagging his tail furiously and staring up at his friends. Faye looks down, startled, and says something with a tone of surprise. I don't hear it clearly, and it doesn't matter to me. I've heard enough. This really isn't my story, anyway. I stumble towards the door, when something buzzes in my pocket. The comm I got before I went to Ganymede.
"Mendoza."
"Kurt." It's Ed. I think it's official, if three members of the Bebop are back together and Ed's using my unmodified proper name...that it means we're about one last sign away before the end of the universe. "How did it work out, Kurtzman?" That's more like it. For a second, I was worried.
"All's well, Miss Appledelhi." I look over to the trio on the other end of the roof. They're laughing and heading towards the other door. I can't help but smile myself. "Everything's perfect."
She's beaming, too. "Everything worked out, then."
"Yeah. I think they might finally stand half a shot at being happy." I smirk into the comm. "Wouldn't hurt to stack the deck with a visit from the last piece of the puzzle, though."
She laughs. "Don't rush things, Reporter-Man. I think they need a little time by themselves before they have what it takes to deal with me again." Ed grins slyly. "But who knows? Anything's possible."
"Even with your promise to your father?"
"Promises are good, and promises are fine, Kurt; but I have other family to think of, too."
"Well, I'll keep listening for the sound of the end of the universe, then. When you come back to civilization, that has to be the last sign..."
"Bring it on. Whatever happens, happens..."
"You're telling me. You take care of yourself, Francoise."
"You too, Tank Boy. And for your information," she winks, "you can call me Ed now. Bye-bye!"
"Bye-bye," I say, as the comm fades to black. I wonder what I'm going to do now that it's over. I can't go back to a desk job after all this. It's time to start again, time to be someone else. I put the comm back in my pocket, and begin the long walk home.
Wherever that turns out to be.
KEEP ON KEEPING ON
-Grateful thanks to Blues Traveler and Bob Dylan for title inspirations and occasional pilfered lyrics hidden amid the text. Thanks to the sick minds who made "Eddie and the Cruisers, a really quite awful flick which nonetheless gave me the idea to have a reporter track down the Bebop crew ten years later and to keep the possibility of a living Spike suitably nebulous. A bow of indebtedness to Christopher Priest for doing Black Panther, who's sarcastic coward narrator Everett K. Ross was the inspiration for Kurt Mendoza's personality. Mad props to Shinichiro Watanabe and the Sunrise crew for coming up with such incredible source material. I just hope my story has an iota of the quality Bebop had, if maybe just a little more definite resolution for its other main characters.
Also, thanks to everyone who's sat through this cumbersome pile of words. Let me know what you think, please.
Three bottles of liquors of varying degree of sinfulness later, we're both deep in our cups. The interview has resumed, as Jet gets to telling me a number of stories from the Bebop I'd never heard about. It's fun, but ultimately unimportant, until our last real talk late that night.
We'd been talking about Spike's fight with Tongpu. It's no good to hear from someone other than Faye about that guy...it goes a long way towards reaffirming my fear that the invincible serial-killing lunatic actually existed, rather than being the product of a fanciful imagination. We discuss Spike's incredible ability to take punishment, and inevitably, the question comes up.
"Jet...you must've heard the rumors." I mutter, much less coherently than I like to admit. "What about you, what's your opinion? Is Spike Spiegel really dead?"
Jet is a much sturdier drinker than I am. The question might be eased a bit by the booze, but his answer comes out as intelligible as anything I ever hear him say.
"Yeah, I've heard talk." He idly tosses something to Ein, and the little dog devours it. "I don't know. What did the others say? You asked them, right?"
"Ed is convinced she would have heard something. Faye thinks he would have tried to reach one of you." Jet raises an eyebrow at this. "They both think he's dead, man."
"How about you?"
"It doesn't matter what I think. I'm just another wannabe hunter, chasing down a ghost."
"Yeah, that's true enough." He pauses, long and quiet. "But then, I've seen that ghost."
I take this revelation remarkably well, considering it runs counter to every bit of conventional wisdom on the subject I've heard. "Really." I chalk my restraint up to the effects of alcoholic torpor.
"Lemme tell you the story. You can come to your own conclusions."
"It was a few years back. After the book came out. I had rented a room on Mars. I don't like going there if I can help it...but I had to repair the Bebop, and the only mechanics I use had relocated there from Earth. They knew Spike, too, so I could trust them to keep quiet.
"So, I had to stay somewhere off-ship for a night, while Doohan and Miles fixed it up. I got a room, and had a few drinks before heading off to bed. I'd been thinking a lot about him since coming back to Mars...moreso than usual...so it's possible I just had Spike on the brain...but I don't think it's that simple. This is the part where it gets hazy.
"Middle of the night, I woke up. Heard someone say my name. I look up over the foot of my bed, and there he is.
"'Hey, Jet,' he said, lighting a cigarette. 'Or should I call you Parker Blank?' That was what I was using as my alias at the time.
"'Jet's good. Been awhile since I heard anyone call me that and I didn't want to punch them in the face.'
"'Then Jet it is.' He sat down on a chair opposite the bed. A few new scars, but otherwise, he looked the same, right down to the cheap blue suit. 'How've you been?'
"'I've been getting by. You?'
"'The same. You haven't heard from Faye or Ed lately, have you.' It wasn't a question.
"'No. Haven't seen any of them since around the time I saw you last.'
"'That's a shame, Jet.' He took a long drag off a cigarette. I figured that this was either a dream, a hallucination, or I'd died in my sleep, so I felt that either way, there was no harm in smoking in bed under those circumstances. I lit up and joined him. 'These things will kill you someday.'
"That's what we always figured would get you in the end. Doesn't seem like anything else would've killed you. How many times did we have to bail you out?'
"'Seems like a million and one,' he said, and he laughed.
"'Except the last time. What happened, with Vicious?'
"'I died again. That's two so far.'
"'Oh. I'm sorry.'
"'Doesn't matter. I'm here now. Look, Jet...' he stopped, and tapped out some ash, "...this isn't easy...we never were any good at telling each other what to do in a given situation.'
"'You're telling me. We were worse at *letting* each other tell us what to do.'
"He looked up at me with a grin. 'Not as bad as letting Faye call the shots, though.' We both busted up at that.
"'So, anyway...Jet...I figured we should talk, because there's something I need you to do.'
"'Name it, Spike.'
"'Forgive me.' I try and protest, but he just holds up a hand. There's a serenity there that wasn't part of the Spike I knew. 'You know why, Jet Black. I know this has been eating you up inside. But you can't keep carrying that weight forever. Eventually, it'll be too heavy for you to drag around any more, and it'll crush you in the end.' He turned around, looked in my closet. 'At least, too much for you to support alone.'
"'Spike...it's my weight to carry.' I said. 'I can live with it. And if it helps...I can't forget what you did, in leaving us...but I'll do my best to forgive it.'
"'That's fine, Jet. That's fine.' There's one more thing, though.' He took something off a hangar and tossed it over his shoulder. 'You're gonna have to forgive her, too.'
"'Spike,' I said, 'that's one thing I can't do.'
"'You will. Trust me.' He held up the thing he took out of the closet. 'Can I take this?' It was my old ISSP jumpsuit, the one with the phoenix crest on the back. 'It seems kind of appropriate for the next part of the plan.'
"'Which is?' I asked.
"'Time for me to start all over again. Time to be someone else. Try to see if I can get it right the third time around. I won't see you again after tonight, Jet.'
"'I kind of figured that's how this was gonna be. We're gonna miss you, kid.'
"'Yeah, but it's already been a long time, partner. Real long time.' He walked over to the door.
"'Yeah. Long time. This a dream, kid?'
"'Jet...that's all life is.' He laughed, and it was the kind of pure laughter I had only heard once, just before the last time he left.
"'You take care of yourself. And remember what I said.' Spike opened the door, stepped out, and left for good." Jet finished the story with a final swig of some old Martian whisky. "Next day, I couldn't remember if it was real or a dream, and figured that wasn't the point anyway. The ISSP suit was gone, but I couldn't recall if I had packed it in the first place...though I never did find it again after that night."
"Wow." My wit is as stunted by alcohol as my excitability is. "So...how do you think he's doing now?"
"I think he's happy, wherever he is, and that's the best we can hope for Spike Spiegel."
"That's good." I ponder the ice slowly melting in what's left of the latest in a long line of rum and cokes. "Do you forgive him now?"
"Yeah...I think I do."
"How about Faye?"
He gives me a sheepish smile. Probably safe to take it as a yes. "Think you've got enough to go on for a story now?"
"Yeah. Think this'll do the trick." I hold up the recorder.
"Good. Well, I think I'm gonna turn in." He stretches and yawns. "You can have the infirmary bed. I'll sleep on the couch. I'll set the navcomputer to take us to Mars. We can drop you off tomorrow."
"Sounds good. Sweet dreams, Mr. Black."
"Count on it, kid."
......
I don't dream of anything that night. I'm too drunk, crippled and exhausted to dream coherently anyway. I wake up to a four-alarm hangover and the sound of something scratching at my door.
"What the hell? I open it up. I don't see anyone at first, but when I look down, there's Ein, staring expectantly up at me. "What do you want, pooch? It's early, my brain is screaming at me, and there's nowhere to take you for a walk in the upper Martian stratosphere. So where's the fire?"
In response, Ein starts tugging at my pants legs with his teeth. Trying to get me to move into the cabin, I think. "There'd better be a fire in there, Ein." He scampers off, and I lumber after him into the hall. To my surprise, he dashes into the control room instead of the cabin, where Jet is sleeping soundly, sawing logs. I hold my head in my hand as I follow. "I hope we're crashing. It'd make the headaches stop if we do," I mutter. I'm not really a morning person.
Ein is now sitting in front of the control room's comm. A little red light flashes, someone's trying to call Jet...probably space traffic control. I see a red landscape in front of me...we must have arrived...then it hits me through the haze of hangover. That's not Mars in front of us...
I don't have the slightest idea how we got to Venus instead, so I hope the person waiting on the comm has an answer for me. Fortunately, she does.
"Reporter-Man!" It's Ed-Thing. 7 in the morning, Ganymedian time, is too early for deviant grammar. I grit my teeth.
"Hi Francoise. We're on Venus. Do you know how we got to Venus, because I'm all out of guesses. Hey...you don't seem surprised to see me on the Bebop."
"I told you there was no one better connected than Radical Francoise! I intercepted a preliminary wire heading out to one of the Mars tabloids. It said you and Jet went into a hangar together, and that a ship resemembling the Bebop went into orbit shortly following. I can put two and two together."
"Sure you can. So, genius hacker...how'd we get here?"
"Don't you remember how Edward took control of the Bebop back when she joined? That isn't a trick you phase out of your act."
"Okay, but you can do that when we're as far off as Ganymede?"
"Yeah. So?" The insane distances, the sheer logistics of such an undertaking, do nothing to phase her. "Your point is?"
"You terrify me." From offscreen, I hear McIntyre shout 'Me too!' "Tell Mc-Person 'hi' for me."
I wonder if Jet has any coffee around here...
"Sooooo...how did it goooo last night, Kurtzman?"
"Why do I get the feeling you already know?"
"Well....I do. But I wanted to hear it from you." She flashes one of those impossible grins.
"I think your best grief-counselors would call it a breakthrough. As for me, I'm just a reporter...for a little while longer anyway. I wouldn't know what to call it."
"Kurtzman is planning something. I can tell."
"I'll give you the exclusive when I figure it out myself."
Meanwhile, Jet has awoken to the subdued commotion. Ein, the most intelligent one here, if the unspoken goal was not to wake Jet up, hasn't uttered so much as a yip until now. Spotting his master, he bursts out into a staccato blast of hyperactive friendly barks.
"What's going on here?" Jet stares out into the sky. Lucky bastard shows no sign of hangover. "Hey...that's not Mars out there..."
"Jet!"
"Ed? Is that you?"
"Francoise. I'm sorry I couldn't come off planet, but mapmaking knows no breaks. So I had Kurtzman take Ein to you!"
"Thank you, Ed." He points to the windows. "You do this, too?"
This sets off an excited stream of technobabble that Ed must not have felt I would understand if she told me. And, since I don't understand, I just hobble out to the cabin, leaving these three old friends to get reacquainted.
Not that anyone is surprised by this revelation, but our final destination is the tall tower where I first kicked off this quest. As we descend, I see a small figure wearing a yellow dress out on the roof. Ed must have called ahead.
As the hatch opens, Jet nearly turns on his heel and heads back inside. I bar the way with my crutch, and Ein gives his best effort to growl threateningly.
"I can't do this." He looks towards the portal, and I swear there's a bead of sweat forming on his brow.
"Sure you can, old man. You two spent ten years apart because of a stupid misunderstanding. Why do you want to delay things any longer over nerves?"
"Well...I don't think this'll be comfortable for either of us. I know how she felt about Spike, and you know how I feel about her. What makes you think this'll work out?"
"Nothing I can empirically prove." I sling the cane over my shoulder. "But, it's been ten years. Maybe you're coming out of this better than you realize."
He gives me a skeptical look. "What do you mean."
"Well, she told me once that it'd be like kissing her father, if anything had happened between you two back then, if she would have stayed on the Bebop. It wasn't the kind of ground you could build a relationship on."
He groaned. "You think this will make me feel better? Want to stick a knife in my gut while you're at it?"
"Will you just listen? I thought you used to be good at that." I sigh. "Christ. My point is, Jet...she can take care of herself now. You haven't been her 'dad' for ten years now. What she needs now is a friend." We share a smile. "Yeah, I think you can handle doing that. Besides...down the road, who knows what might work out?" I casually scratch my back with the crutch. "Anyway, at this point, I think it's safer to keep the stable ex-Beboper around the one more likely to shoot reporters. Maybe you'll cancel each other out, and you two might actually be able to live normal lives again."
He nods. "That sounds pretty good." Again, though, he hesitates. "But...what about the Spike thing?"
"Jesus, Romeo! Look, Jet...I know you're just stalling now. But...if it helps...she isn't in love with Spike anymore. She isn't sure she ever was, now. I know for certain that she never called it that when we spoke. And there is one thing I'm sure of. She definitely misses you." I hit him with the cane. "Now, will you get out there? You were always the gentleman of the ship...now you're keeping the lady waiting."
"Alright, alright." He takes a deep breath. "Wish me luck." With that, he steps out of the Bebop, and back into the real world. Ein runs after him, scampering about like he's half his age. As for me, I just hobble slowly down the ramp, and off towards a stairway entrance on the other side of the roof. I take a moment though, to watch. Faye is still standing a few meters back from the ship. She hasn't said anything since Jet has come out. Ein waits by the hatch, remarkably patient. Jet takes a few hesitant steps forward. Both of them look about two degrees from breaking down.
The silence is deafening, but his deep voice finally rumbles out across the scene, "Hello, Faye."
"Welcome back, Jet. I...I'm glad to see you again." There's another long pause. Come on, people, I try and command them mentally, just say it!
Finally, it breaks, and they both say it at once. "I'm sorry." Then there's another silence, this one shocked, as each tries to decipher what the other has to apologize for.
"Faye...you don't have anything to apologize to me for anything." He takes a few steps closer, and she, for her part, walks forward like she's pleading.
"No, Jet...whatever I did, to make you want me gone...I'm so sorry for it."
"You didn't do anything. It was all a mistake." The big man looks ready to weep. Faye already has. She wipes her eyes, trying to do it before anyone notices the tear that threatens to fall. As if anyone here would care. Faye stammers out a response, her voice cracking.
"Then...what is it you have to be sorry for, Jet?"
"For waiting so long..." He almost stops, but he's already too far gone. "..to tell you that I missed you."
"Oh, Jet...I missed you, too." They close the final gap between them, and embrace.
Ein dashes out and starts up with the yips again, wagging his tail furiously and staring up at his friends. Faye looks down, startled, and says something with a tone of surprise. I don't hear it clearly, and it doesn't matter to me. I've heard enough. This really isn't my story, anyway. I stumble towards the door, when something buzzes in my pocket. The comm I got before I went to Ganymede.
"Mendoza."
"Kurt." It's Ed. I think it's official, if three members of the Bebop are back together and Ed's using my unmodified proper name...that it means we're about one last sign away before the end of the universe. "How did it work out, Kurtzman?" That's more like it. For a second, I was worried.
"All's well, Miss Appledelhi." I look over to the trio on the other end of the roof. They're laughing and heading towards the other door. I can't help but smile myself. "Everything's perfect."
She's beaming, too. "Everything worked out, then."
"Yeah. I think they might finally stand half a shot at being happy." I smirk into the comm. "Wouldn't hurt to stack the deck with a visit from the last piece of the puzzle, though."
She laughs. "Don't rush things, Reporter-Man. I think they need a little time by themselves before they have what it takes to deal with me again." Ed grins slyly. "But who knows? Anything's possible."
"Even with your promise to your father?"
"Promises are good, and promises are fine, Kurt; but I have other family to think of, too."
"Well, I'll keep listening for the sound of the end of the universe, then. When you come back to civilization, that has to be the last sign..."
"Bring it on. Whatever happens, happens..."
"You're telling me. You take care of yourself, Francoise."
"You too, Tank Boy. And for your information," she winks, "you can call me Ed now. Bye-bye!"
"Bye-bye," I say, as the comm fades to black. I wonder what I'm going to do now that it's over. I can't go back to a desk job after all this. It's time to start again, time to be someone else. I put the comm back in my pocket, and begin the long walk home.
Wherever that turns out to be.
KEEP ON KEEPING ON
-Grateful thanks to Blues Traveler and Bob Dylan for title inspirations and occasional pilfered lyrics hidden amid the text. Thanks to the sick minds who made "Eddie and the Cruisers, a really quite awful flick which nonetheless gave me the idea to have a reporter track down the Bebop crew ten years later and to keep the possibility of a living Spike suitably nebulous. A bow of indebtedness to Christopher Priest for doing Black Panther, who's sarcastic coward narrator Everett K. Ross was the inspiration for Kurt Mendoza's personality. Mad props to Shinichiro Watanabe and the Sunrise crew for coming up with such incredible source material. I just hope my story has an iota of the quality Bebop had, if maybe just a little more definite resolution for its other main characters.
Also, thanks to everyone who's sat through this cumbersome pile of words. Let me know what you think, please.