Ten Moves Ahead (Part 2)

After that, Cornelius suggests we go to a fairly popular, though not overly crowded part of town, claiming it will give him plenty of things to predict without being overwhelming.  So for the next hour or so, we roam around with him doing little party tricks like predicting when someone is going to trip, or telling me what a street prophet is about to say and how many people are going to sneer at him, or pointing out when two people walking towards each other know each other and whether they are going to shake hands, hug, or kiss when they meet.  It's a little disconcerting how accurate and precise everything he says is, but I still feel like it it's just some sort of trick.  He's "gazing" such a short distance into the future that he must have some mundane secret as to how he does it.

Finally I decide to ask him, with a bit of a sneer, "So what is it that you do anyway?"

He looks at me hopefully, but then frowns a little, as if he's fully realizing how little I still believe in him.  "Well, for now I'm an accountant," he says, "but I'm studying psychology in night school.  I guess I figured I could use my gift to help people some way, and psychology would make me better at it and give me more opportunities, but I'm starting to wonder.  I mean, you saw how well it worked out for you, and your case is pretty typical."

"Uh, huh," I mumble.  "So you mostly just go around ruining people's lives?"

He frowns even more.  I think I may have actually upset him and I almost feel bad.  I would have felt bad if the wound he dealt me wasn't still so fresh.  "Well, not always," he says quietly.

Then he just stops and closes his eyes for a moment.  He seems to be concentrating very had on something.  I'm pretty sure it's just an act.  When I open my mouth to say something, he holds his hand up to stop me even before I've made a sound.  His eyes are still closed.  This goes on for what seems like minutes, and I'm about to walk away when he opens his eyes and smiles.  "Sorry about that," he said.  "I was just trying to run through the different possibilities.  Sometimes if I really concentrate, I can see alternatives, and fortunately for us, this one was pretty easy to see.  Come on, there's someone I want you to meet, and if you want nothing to do with me after that, I'll leave you alone forever.  I promise."  He gives me a sly smile as if he thinks he already knows what's going to happen and part of me wants to leave and prove him wrong, but I can't help but be intrigued by his confidence, so I follow reluctantly along.

We walk a few blocks down and another couple blocks over and arrive at a fairly decent looking restaurant that I've never heard of before.  Cornelius happily holds the door for me as I walk in and Cornelius follows.  The receptionist or head waitress or whoever she is smiles pleasantly at me and says, "Table for two?"

I'm not sure what to say, but Cornelius chimes in, "Oh no, we're just meeting some friends here."

The moment he finishes speaking, I hear a voice to my right say, "Cornelius, is that you?"

A slightly plump, smiling man appearing to be in his late 30s walks over and extends a hand which Cornelius happily shakes.  "Hello, Bill," Cornelius says.  "It's nice to see you again."

Bill nods.  "I'll say," he says with a smile.  "Say, can you tell me when I'm going to win the lottery yet?"

Cornelius laughs, a little uneasy.  "You know it doesn't work like that, Bill."

Bill smiles and pats Cornelius on the back.  "I know," he says, "I'm just messing with you.  So what brings you around this way?  Did you know we were going to be here?"

"Sort-of," Cornelius responds.  "Mostly, I just needed a place to use the restroom, and I wanted my friend Dave here to meet you."

Bill looks over at me and holds his hand out with that same grin he's worn since he shook Cornelius's hand.  "Any friend of Cornelius's is a friend of mine," he says.  "Do you have the same gift he does, or are you someone he's helped."

I sneer a little.  "Neither," I say.

Bill frowns.  "Oh," he says.  Then he glances at Cornelius.  "Why is he here?" he asks.

"I tried to help him and kind-of made a botch of it," Cornelius says sadly.  "I was hoping you could talk to him, you know, convince him I'm not worthy of hatred.  That's all I'd really like."

Bill looks over at me in disappointment.  "Well Cornelius surely isn't worthy of hatred," he says.  Then he looks back at Cornelius and says, "but they're going to have our table ready for us any minute now," he says.  "Are you sure you don't want to just join us for dinner and talk about it?"

Cornelius shakes his head and glances over at the receptionist lady.  "No, that won't be necessary," he says. "You have more waiting time than you think, anyway.  A food critic is about to walk through the door and jump you in the line.  It will be about 18 minutes before you get a table."

Bill shakes his head.  "Well I'll be," he says, "Isn't that just something?  Well come on then, Dave, you can meet me and my family while we wait."

Cornelius nods politely and goes to ask the waitress where the restroom is while Bill leads me back to the bench where a moderately attractive woman of about his age, a shy looking girl of about 12 or 13, and a boy of about 7 or 8 are waiting.  The girl glances up at me and blushes before looking away.

"That's Becky," Bill says.  "But before we get to her story, this is my wife Samantha and our son Tom."  The wife stands up and shakes my hand.

"I overhead your conversation," she said.  "You really should give Cornelius a break.  He's just trying to help.  And I honestly don't think he's ever made things worse.  Perhaps failed to improve them a time or two, but I don't think he makes people's lives worse.  I just don't think he's capable of that."

I try hard to look sincere as I smile and nod.  I must not do a very good job because Samantha looks a little uncomfortable and then sits back down in silence.

Bill looks like he's about to launch into the story about his daughter, whatever craziness that may be, when I hear the bell above the door ring.  Bill looks past me and lets out a sigh and says, "Well, I think Cornelius was right again."

I turn and watch as a rather pompous looking heavy-set man walks through the door with his head held high and announces, "Table for one, please!"

The receptionist waitress darts forward and exclaims, "Oh yes of course Mr. Finelli!"  As she frantically becons a waiter over to lead the man to his seat, she glances over at Bill and his family and mouths "Sorry."  Bill just nods and smiles, seeming to understand, and she smiles back.

As the large man is led away, I turn to Bill and ask, "So that was the alleged food critic?"

Bill laughs a little.  "Alleged?" he counters.  "That's Phillip Finelli.  I see his picture in the paper every week.  His reviews can destroy a well-established restaurant or make a relative unknown like this the next big thing. Man, I'm sure glad we got in here before he made it popular!"

I shake my head in disbelief.  "And you really think Cornelius knew that man was coming here with some sort of physic power?  He didn't, like call the guy up and ask him to come here or something?"

Bill frowns.  "You clearly don't know much about either Cornelius or Mr. Finelli," he said.  "Mr. Finelli is famous, well, at least relatively so given that some people apparently have no idea who he is.  Cornelius is an accountant.  They'd never even meet unless Cornelius used his powers to force it or something, but that's not the kind of thing Cornelius would go, not unless Mr. Finelli was in trouble or something."

I sigh and shake my head.  "I'm sorry," I say.  "I just still have a really hard time believing all of this.  I mean, surely Cornelius just talks to lots of people and is a good judge of human behavior.  He's shown me his little tricks, but I just don't believe in this whole future-predicting thing.  I mean, he knew things about me and both my past and future that seem suspicious, but the past he could have asked about and the future he practically ensured would come true."

Bill looks like he's starting to get a little frustrated with me.  "Look, if you don't want to believe in Cornelius, that's fine, but don't defame him like that.  Not in front of me and my family."

"Listen, I'm sorry..." I say.

"Sit down," Bill demands, sitting down forcefully on the waiting bench.  I can see I've upset him and he is larger than me, so I do what he suggests.  "Listen," he says, "I owe Cornelius the world.  He saved my little girl; he saved Becky's life."

I really want to sneer in disbelief at that, but I resist.  "How did it happen?" I ask.

"Becky bikes to school," Bill says.  "About three years ago, she was biking to school just like she does every day when a 'crazy person' as she called him stepped in front of her bike.  She nearly fell over, but she stopped in time.  He wouldn't move though.  She made to go around him, but he stepped in her way.  He didn't say anything, just stood there looking at her.  She was starting to get uncomfortable and was about to call for help when he just walked away down the street.  Becky was a little shaken, but she glanced back and saw he was walking down the street away from her, so she continued on her way.  A few blocks further down, she was riding across a street, with the light, when a car ran the red light going what she said must have been 100 miles an hour just a few feet in front of her.  It didn't seem to see her at all.  If she hadn't been stopped by that crazy man for those few seconds, that car would have hit her, no question."

I looked at Bill and saw he was completely serious.  I had all kinds of counters, the main one being that Cornelius set it all up, asking the driver of the car to run the red light and scare this little girl half to death, but I saw Bill really believed in this, so I tried to restrain myself to asking, "So when did Cornelius show up to ask for the thanks he deserved?"

Bill looks at me with a look of sheer disdain.  "He didn't," Bill says.

"But you clearly know who he is now," I say.  "And if he can see the future and all, surely he arranged for you to meet."

Bill shook his head.  "I suppose that's possible," he says.  "But Cornelius tried so hard not to meet us, that I really don't think he planned it.  I mean, we didn't meet until over a year after the incident.  And we met at the zoo where Cornelius was trying to stop a small child from getting his hand bit off.  Becky and I were looking at the tigers, when we heard a woman shouting at someone behind us, by the lions and we turned and Becky just said, 'That's him!'  I saw Cornelius, looking pretty much just like he does today, frowning as a woman pulled a small boy away from him.  'You're welcome!' Cornelius called out after them and then he turned and looked straight at us.  He seemed genuinely shocked when he saw us.  It seemed for a moment like he was going to run away, but then he looked at Becky and I think he saw something.  Whether it was the future or just the look of gratitude in her eyes, I'm not really sure, but he stopped and then hesitantly stepped towards us.

"We walked over to him and I introduced myself and Becky.  Cornelius seemed pretty well at ease.  I'm sure he knew we weren't angry.  Becky blushed as she thanked him for saving her.  'What makes you think I saved you?' Cornelius asked her, and she glanced at me and I told him.  He smiled and said, 'You're welcome,' and then turned to walk away.  But I called him back and asked him how he knew.  That was when he reluctantly explained his gift and how he tried to use it to help people but it always turned out wrong.  He said it always worked, but people never really understood what he had done for them.  He didn't want to be a hero, he said, but he didn't want to be hated either.  He just wanted people to understand that he was trying to help them and not trying to hurt.

"I myself wasn't sure I really believed how he just knew things, but I did know that he had helped my little girl and I realized he had helped a little boy just moments before, so we walked around the rest of the zoo talking about Cornelius's gift and, I have to admit, using it to catch the various animals when they were doing the most interesting things.  It was the best day at the zoo we'd ever had and by the end, I had managed to convince Cornelius that he should keep using his gift, at least I like to think it was my words who had convinced him, so if you want to blame anyone for supposedly messing up your life, blame me, because I'm the reason Cornelius is still doing it."

I just didn't know what to say after all of that.  Even if I was still unsure, this man believed in Cornelius with his whole heart.  He encouraged Cornelius to interfere in the lives of people like me.  And this was a good, kind family man.  I managed a weak smile and said, "Well, I guess I won't blame him too much then."

Bill laughed.  "Now that's the spirit!" he said.  "Don't blame him too much!  Ha!  If you keep hanging out with Cornelius, your opinion will get a lot better than that, but I suppose time will tell.  Cornelius probably already knows how it's going to play out, and I doubt he would be putting so much effort into you without a reason.  Say, if you don't mind me asking, what was it he saw in your future anyway?"

"Well, it's already happened now," I admitted, "but he saw me failing in a relationship after running into my ex at a grocery store."

Bill frowns.  "Gee man, I'm sorry," he says.  "Life sucks sometimes, and sometimes you just can't change things."

That is when I suddenly realize that maybe I could have changed it.  Cornelius had told me that first time we met not to pursue Mandy, but I did anyway.  Even if he was setting me up, why would he have tried to convince me not to do the thing that I was going to do anyway?  Was it some sort of reverse psychology, or had he really been trying to help me?  "Yeah," I muter in return.  "So where is he anyway?"

I turn and see Cornelius walking back over towards us with a soft smile, seeming not gleeful or excited, but contented.  "Ready to go," he says to me.  It's not a question.

I nod.  "Yeah," I say.  I turn back to Bill.  "It was good to meet you," I say.

"Yeah, you, too, eventually," Bill says with a sly grin.  "We'll see you again?"  He glances at Cornelius, who shrugs, and Bill laughs.  "We'll see you again," he says with confidence, and then he returns to his family and Cornelius guides me away and back out the door.

"They seem like nice people," I say.

"They are nice people," Cornelius says.  "I didn't know anything about them when I met Becky, just like I didn't know anything about you.  I really am just trying to help, Dave."

I nod, finally starting to accept Cornelius's intentions, even if I'm still unsure about how he actually does it.  "Yeah, I know," I say.  "I know."  We walk in silence for a moment and then I ask, "So how did this all start anyway?  How did you discover you have this... gift?"

Cornelius nods and takes a deep breath before proceeding.  "Well," he says, "when I was young I had what my mother always described as an 'active imagination'.  I would have described it that way too, I suppose.  I was always walking around the stores with her, pointing out people and telling her the things that were going to happen in their lives.  These were people of course I had never seen before and never saw again, so I never realized I was making actual predictions.  I thought I was just making things up, until one day I said something a little bit too loudly about a man not getting the new office he wanted at work.  The man glared at me and then asked my mother, 'Who are you and how does your son know about that?'  My mother was quite alarmed and pulled me quickly away without answering the man.  After that, she told me that I better not go about blurting things about people anymore.

"I still saw things, though.  Even just playing in the back yard with my friends or my younger brother and sister.  I always just assumed I was imagining, that that's what imagination was, but things that I imagined were going to happen started to actually happen more and more often.  There were simple, immediate things at first, like a rabbit darting across our yard, and then, as I grew older, more involved things, like that our neighbors were going to sell their home and that the new couple to move in would have a barking dog and a crying baby.  I started getting annoyed with them before they had even moved in and my mom kept telling me to stop imagining the worse until they actually moved in and it was just as bad as I thought it was going to be.

"I think my mom started to get a little uncomfortable after that.  In fact, in my 'imagination' I saw her starting to spend more time with my brother and sister and let me go on my own more if I kept telling her about the things I saw.  I felt sad when I thought about that, so I kept things to myself, and only used my 'gift' for little things, like showing my brother or sister where some baby animals were hiding, or 'cheating' at video games against the kids who thought they were all that."  Cornelius paused and shook his head.  "Maybe that last one I shouldn't have done, but it was just so rewarding.  Anyway, as I got older, I realized I was seeing more and more and had to fight even more to keep it all to myself.  I only let on that I was seeing anything when something really terrible happened, like the head cheerleader at my high school falling down the stairs and breaking her ankle.  After I stopped that one, we dated for nearly three months, but she eventually decided I was too strange, whether I had saved her or not.  I understood.  Of course I understood.  I felt strange myself.  I didn't know why I had these predictive powers.  I didn't know why I saw the future as clearly as I saw the past, but I did.

"That's really how it works, it's like memories but for things that haven't happened.  I look at someone or at something that's about to happen and I see how it's going to play out for them, as clearly as if I was remembering my favorite birthday party.  Sometimes I can see different possibilities based on what would happen if I alter the events, but usually I have to start to alter them before I can see.  Only sometimes, with simple things, can I see lots of possibilities at once, like tonight, when I was just trying to figure out where we could go to meet someone you could talk to, I wasn't trying to look far into the future and I was only considering a very simple conversation.  But anyway, my gift seemed to get stronger as I grew older, like I could see things more clearly and further out.  In high school, I could see at most a few days into the future.  Now, as you saw, I can see months ahead, but not much further than that.  And I mean, that's about what there is to it."  He shrugs.

"What to you mean that's about what there is to it?" I demand.  "If you knew you had this gift, why didn't you open some fortune teller shop or something?  Why did you become an accountant?"

He smiles and shrugs.  "I was always good with numbers," he says.  "And I considered doing something more with my talent.  I never thought it would make me very happy, but Bill convinced me it wasn't so much about making me happy as it was about helping other people.  Until I met him, I was still only using my power to stop life-threatening events from happening.  Since I met him, I've broadened out to trying to help prevent heart-ache and disappointment, like I was trying to help you.  I've found those to go even worse than saving people's lives did in terms of people appreciating me, but I suppose it's not about being appreciated as it is about helping."

I look at him with a wrinkled brow.  "If you don't care about being appreciated, then why are you trying so hard with me?" I ask.

"Because I didn't save you the heart-ache," he says.  "And honestly, because I just want a friend.  Bill is great, but in terms of actual friends, he's got a different personality than I would choose.  You seem more my sped, frankly.  I know that probably weirds you out, weriding people out is what I do best, but I think you deserve the truth.  I think that we could be good friends and that we could really help one another."

"You think, or you 'see'?" I ask.

"I think," he says.

"So what do you actually 'see' about us?" I want to know.

He shrugs.  "Telling you might break it, but right now, I see us continuing to walk for a while, then you going home and trying to forget about me for a bit and calling me up again a few days later to see if I want to go out for a drink.  Of course I accept.  I see you slowly accepting me as not being a total freak, at least it seems like you do.  You start to accept my advice a little more and one day ask me if I think you'll ever find love."

"And?" I ask.

He shrugs again.  "That's where it cuts out," he says.

I sneer.  "Well isn't that convenient," I say.

"For what it's worth," he says.  "I think you will find love again, I just don't see it."

"Yeah, I suppose," I say, no knowing what else to say.

"You want to go home now," he says.  Again, it's not a question.

"Yeah," I say.

"Okay," he says.  "Let me walk with you back to your car."