The Barbeque

No one had heard a thing.

Not even the neighbours next door.

No witnesses.

Certainly, something odd had happened to Julie.

The last time Steve saw her was just yesterday evening: he’d seen the car parking itself in the garage, after he and Wayne had brought in the groceries.

A guy from the insurance company was with Maggie and him on the phone, the insurance guy checking out and investigating the scene of the accident remotely from their phone’s camera, now writing some report (It should be covered for this).

Sometime late last night or early this morning, the car must’ve had an “internal failure”. For an unknown reason, it had started its engine and just set off, blindly. Wayne had recorded it. He showed them the entire event, as seen by one of his eyes –the insurance guy exclaiming “Oh dear” and saying he’d never seen anything like it. They saw the car revving its engine and Wayne trying to grab the car with the house arms located in the garage walls, to stop Julie from charging away.

“But I couldn’t do anything”, Wayne said, and this was the first time Steve heard his house sound truly emotional, sad, heartfelt, helpless even. “She … She didn’t respond. I tried to stop her, but, I just couldn’t.”

They were watching this on the living-room’s wall-TV: Julie drove straight out through the thin metal doors, going as fast a speed as possible the short distance from their drive-way, across the street, into the neighbour’s tree.

Houses nowadays were all well sound insulated. No one had been out at the time around their block, so of course no one had heard the car totally smashing itself against Swanson’s great old oak. Lady Swanson had thought she felt a rumbling, but decided it must’ve been Mr Swanson moving about in his sleep, just next to her. He was a big fella, even bigger than Steve (at least on the width, if not on the height).

The insurance guy asked them to remove the car’s personality chip, if possible, as it was the most important thing in the entire car, to backtrack the fault, and to keep as a reference when claiming compensation.

So Steve had managed to pry open a lid by the steering wheel and get it out, before they came and towed her away. He wasn’t sure whether Julie’s chip had made it or not, as even the chip had become dented in the crash. Steve put it in a tiny plastic case, put it in his trouser pocket and hoped for the best, and for a full compensation.

Maggie had said how grateful she was. “We’re lucky it didn’t happen yesterday when you were going to the shop.” She held his arm.

“You don’t seem too sad she might be gone?” After all, Julie’s personality chip might have been destroyed, and the chip was what made Julie Julie.

Maggie said, “She’s a personality, Steve. Not a person.”

“Yeah, I know. But still …”

He imagined what it would feel like if the same kind of thing would happen to Wayne. Not that a house would crash into a tree, obviously, but if something would happen to his main server … Steve didn’t want to think about it. It was a horrible thought, losing Wayne.

*

Steve didn’t think much more about the incident with Julie. It was Saturday. BBQ day. The sun was shining and New Essex was spoiled by great weather.

The morning was all about the possible end of a car, but the afternoon would be all about good times in the garden.

Steve looked across the garden, and saw the little greenhouse Maggie liked to take care of and the small garden gnomes Steve and Wayne had placed at irregular intervals at the sides of the lawn. They looked so jolly, the little gnomes. Seeing them always made him feel a bit jolly too. And in comparison to them he felt like a humble giant.

He remembered a similar garden they used to have back when he was a kid. Sometimes they’d watch soccer on an old digital projector, displaying the picture onto the wall on the back of the house; his father would invite all the neighbours. Good times. Steve wanted to make the same good times happen here. Like his father had. Steve’s mum was retiring next year at the age of 73. He was bad at keeping in touch, yeah, he’d admit that to Maggie, he knew. He’d promised to call more often. She always called him before he got the chance anyway, called about once a week or every second week, and popped down from the Midlands a few times a year; she’d moved back up to where she was from after the old man died.

His father had always been a United supporter, while Steve’s brother – for some mysterious reason – was now more into cricket. (The only contact he would have with his older brother since he’d moved out when Steve was thirteen was when he’d call on Steve’s birthday; and for all he knew his brother could have developed the fondness for cricket later on) There was even a bat standing out here, leaned against the shed at the

end of the back porch. Steve was standing out on that porch now with the sun in his face, taking a nice big swig of a fresh, cold lager. First beer he’d ever tasted had been with his dad who’d let him have a sip of it when he was 11. They’d been watching the game together on TV, both wearing their Red Devil shirts. The colour on their shirt had never changed and never would, that’s what Dad had told him. The numbers on their backs had been different then; nowadays, it was all about number 7, and Steve was wearing that lucky number now.

Little Essie ran up to him with a huge water-tank rifle in her hands, “Daddy, Daddy …”

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“I asked Wayne to help me with the room? To, to … decorate it?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Daddy has to take care of the steaks now, honey. Mummy will look at that later with you.”

“Why can’t you look at it?”

“I’m busy now.”

“You’re always busy!” She laughed and showered him with little water bombs from her cannon, which looked bigger than her.

He grabbed the toy out of her hands. “Don’t do that – or else I’ll make Wayne use the water pistol on you.”

“Ehhhh!!”

She ran off with a frightened scream. Somehow, scaring her with Wayne always seemed to work, strangely enough.

He saw Maggie come walking from the garden, giving him a very definite look.

“What?” he said.

She came over and grabbed the toy gun out of his hands, heading inside to give it back to Essie.

“Why can’t you just play with her a bit?” said Maggie.

“What? I’m busy with the steaks here.”

“Can’t Wayne do that? Now would be a time for him to help out.”

“Nah, Wayne can’t do this by himself.”

“Great, don’t bother then.” She shook her head and went inside.

Wayne’s shining titanium arms were stretching out from the wall. The fingers worked nearly as good as human hands, and some things it could do even faster.

Steve liked to keep moderately busy and not become a total couch potato; even his folks had kept telling him he needed to stay active. Drinking beer and preparing the grill for cooking steaks was a physical activity he considered suitable for a day off … and even on a day not off.

The grill was done, steaks prepared and ready to go. The drinks were placed in the outdoor fridge. He then dumped himself into a fluffy sun chair clutching his lager and pulled off a really loud burp. The fart that followed was of such a calibre that he felt a bit proud; none of his mates had ever won against him in fart-competitions back in his school days (and even some years after school) and the loud sound made him remember that. It felt good to remember achievements.

He tossed aside the empty bottle of lager; Wayne caught it mid-air and put it in the recycling tube on the wall where it was sucked into the system. Within seconds it became beer-bottle-history as it mixed with the Aero chemicals, and a little white cloud puffed out of one of the can-shaped chimneys on the top of the house.

“Get me another one”, Steve said.

“Hehe, hehe …” Wayne answered. The orange-shifting eye hovered next to the armchair looking down at Steve. Somehow it flashed a quick flare of red around the edges of the pupil.

“I meant for you to get me another beer.”

“Oh yes”, Wayne responded. “I understand now.”

The orange eye had a shutter meant to resemble an eyelid, and a silver eyebrow above the lid (put there by the manufacturers to give it a further charming feel), plus the display in the eye could even show pictures and smiley-faces. Now, the expression of the brow, the lid and the eye itself gave it a somewhat troubled, or even offended, appearance, if but for half a second. But it could’ve been the sun’s reflection making it look that way.

One of Wayne’s hands opened the fridge, and a second hand handed him another beer. Steve thought the system was getting really slow, after just a couple of years of living here. Took the house maybe ten seconds to understand, and then finally do what Steve had told him. Definitely time for an upgrade. Wayne couldn’t understand several of even the simplest commands unless he was specifically told that his owner wanted not just “another one” but indeed “a beer”.

Strangely though, when it came to conversations about football or something with a lot of facts, like the country they were going to vacation in, Wayne was actually not bad at all. Wayne had a big memory bank and knew, or perhaps you could say could look up, a lot of facts on different subjects. Wayne didn’t just present facts, but also

drew conclusions on his own, and could give a hint of opinions. It couldn’t really be that way, Steve thought, but especially yesterday around the time of the boring documentary, Steve had got the feeling of awareness. Why, he wasn’t really sure.

Steve liked the fact that Wayne never judged him, no pressure, no questioning. Wayne just was. And Wayne was good fun. He satisfied Steve’s random curiosities; before the family had gone on holiday last year, he was able to find out instantly what Steve wanted to know, about the weather or things to do there, the odd facts Steve happened to wonder about there and then, like, actually, why did it used to rain so much in England just 50 years ago, like Gramps used to tell him? Steve’s grandfather could tell him stories about when he was little, stories from the time of Steve’s grandfather’s grandfather: Gramp’s gramp. That was like ancient times. He could ask Steve about those times; for example, had Manchester also been bombed, like London, during the great war?

Yesterday evening popped into his mind. The documentary again, about the Nazis. Had Wayne said something, or had it been just a dream? The thoughts passed in his mind before he sluggishly rose from the fluffy sun chair. Gotta call them boys and see where’re they at. Barbecue’s coming up.

*

“Halloween’s coming up”, Frank said, and popped open his first beer. As Steve knew him now, it probably would remain his friend’s only beer of the day. Close to becoming a non-drinker. What had happened to his good old Frank?

“So the bloke’s gonna have two parties like last year, one for the kids and one for ‘the adult kids’?” said one of the guys. Steve was busy with other things, didn’t catch who said what. “Yeah, I think he just might.”

“Hey Steve, you oughta get yourself a costume, mate!”

Steve was standing by the grill, smoke all around him. “What’s that?” he asked, while the sound of the meat, sausages, potatoes on the bake and veggies on sticks sizzled and oozed on the grill.

“He said”, Tom said, “you can’t come around just wearing a football shirt every year.”

“It’s gonna be hot.” That was Mike’s voice, from behind the smoke of the grill. “They say it’s gonna stay like this all week, and next week.”

“I heard Scandinavians complain they ain’t getting no more snow in the winters”, another of the guests continued.

They kept chatting about various topics, and laughing. Steve emptied another beer; he could feel it go to his head now. Numbing. Nice. The boys were outside in his garden with their missuses, Essie and some other kids were playing. He could see Essie running with a neighbour’s little boy, hiding behind a tree and the glasshouse, having shoot-outs with water guns. The water splashes made rainbow colours appear, and he couldn’t tell if the colours appeared naturally or if it was part of the product. Either way, it was a nice Saturday indeed.

Frank came over and took a fresh one from the fridge, to bring to one of the other guests. He said to Steve, “You all right?”

“All right. Day like this, who wouldn’t be?”

“Yeah, nice day.”

“You were right, what you said the other day, used to rain a lot 50 years ago. I checked some history facts with Wayne, interesting stuff.”

“Right.” Frank stood there for a moment, a bit unsteady on his feet. He’d been drinking more than just one. He came closer to Steve now. “Remember what else I said?”

“About what?” He turned a steak.

“Not being convenient, not too much, really Steve, don’t get comfy – get involved.”

“And what does that mean?”

“I told you before you got Essie, and when you got this house …”

“Uh-huh.” Not again, Frank.

“Your family, friends, the effort you put in, there’s the reward.”

“Frank, what are you saying, I don’t care? Is that it? Come on, you know me.”

“Just seen it happen before. It’s all the stuff we have to deal with as well: work, money, bills, commute, the houses and the lot. Doesn’t it all seem to steal more time than it gives? You ask me, we got all this, all these choices, but sometimes the bliss of it all, of all we got makes us … distant.”

“M-hm.”

“We lose touch. And dads, I tell you, dads, they’re always the busiest. But y’know, there’s no ‘busy’ that means too busy for your family.”

“You wanna have a lecture on that on campus? Come on, just enjoy the beer and the sunshine, and the company, mate. Everything’s fine.”

Frank held him by the neck. “Come here.”

“Come on, I gotta do this”, Steve said, but allowed himself to be led from the grill, just because it was Frank. He could be a bit of an annoying buddy, especially when drunk, which didn’t happen too often, but still. Frank’s words could be like a slap in the face. That could tend to bother a bloke.

“Look”, Frank said, “y’know I’m telling you this for your own good.”

“Frank, you don’t even got kids. How do you know what it’s like?”

Frank had been smiling just a second ago. Now he kind of froze. “I know”, he said. “I know. And you know why.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

Frank shook his head like, no worries. Placed his arm over his shoulder, just hanging there on Steve. “Y’know the crazy Italian.”

“Course I remember”, Steve said, and smiled. Crazy Italian. Frank’s dad.

“Been thinking about him lately, y’know. Back when we used to think he was not too funny. And then when we thought he really was, we dared to take the piss. Remember that, we put that cold tea with salt and vinegar in his beer bottles, and then sealed it? Put it back in the fridge …”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, that was something, that, he just sunk down in front of the TV, was gonna have a nice cold one after work …”

“And he drank …”

“Wasn’t a small sip, that, drank like more than half in one go.”

“And we ran like lightning, straight out of the house. Him after us …”

“Like a bullet.”

Both laughing a bit. Remembering how Frank’s dad had run out in the street bare-chested, wearing ragged underwear, sprinting after them in pink bunny flippers. This was to them a classic tale of bold boyhood pranks.

“You know”, Frank said, “I think I know what that was all about for me …”

“What about? The disgusting tea in beer bottles?”

“It was about attention. About getting it. The only time he’d recognise I was there, in the house, only time was when I’d play a prank or just take the Mickey out of him. Then I’d know he saw me, that, yeah … I’m his son.”

Steve stopped laughing. “But come on, your dad was all right, wasn’t he? All right, he had a bit of a temper, but that was just funny, mate.”

“Crazy Italian. He wasn’t crazier than any Brit, y’know. And he wasn’t crazy because he was Italian. Y’know what makes him crazy in my eyes?”

“You tell me.”

“The left-overs.”

“Left-overs?”

“That’s what I got from him. Left-over time. Some might call that quality time, but how often is quality time quality? I dunno … So, don’t leave them with just the left-overs. I know you contribute, provide, aim to look after them financially, provide something stable, but … emotionally. Yeah, really – emotionally, mate, you just gotta be there. Suddenly, you’ll be closing into sixty, Maggie too, your little ones will be eighteen, then twenty, flying out the door forever … And if you weren’t there, it’s just too late. Know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, I got you, Frank, got you.”

But he didn’t. Kind of. But not really. After all, how could Frank know, not having kids himself; he didn’t know all the challenges Steve was facing, and had faced, from experience.

I face them challenges every day, don’t I?

“Good one”, Frank said and hugged Steve’s broad shoulders, patting his cheek in a way that made Steve feel like his gramps would’ve done to him when he was like five, to encourage him to do well in school. But school was out long ago, and no one was going to be around to check the exams’ paper on how to be a parent.

Frank was still smiling, a smart person looking stupid. Somewhat tearfully, he told Steve, “I love you, Stevey.” Then he patted his back as well, before stumbling off towards the other guests in the garden.

Steve tried to think about what Frank had just said. He’d told Steve something like this before, another time when they were both equally drunk. So what? Steve thought. Wasn’t like he was not around his home and family. And look at them now, they were having a freaking barbeque and everybody was here. Frank just worries too much.

As Steve turned to grab the BBQ sauce from the table, he jumped in fright as something flaming red beamed into his face. One of Wayne’s eyes had been behind him all this time, where he hadn’t expected it to be. Then the eye turned yellow in its pupil’s glow, and a flame of orange showed around the edges and in the pixels of the iris’s dark space.

“Jeezus, Wayne”, Steve said, grabbing the sauce bottle and pouring some over the steaming meat.

“Did I startle you?” Wayne asked, sounding not much like the voice Steve had chosen. It was calmer, a bit deeper in tone.

“No, you didn’t ‘startle me’. Not at all. Christ.”

“Am I in your way?”

“Yes, in fact. Don’t need you now. Get back in your closet.”

“Hehe, hehe …” That was Wayne’s laughter indeed, though he’d never heard the real Wayne Rooker ever laughing like that. The voice was that of a person catching its breath, as if Steve had said something really funny. For Steve, it was a bit too much.

“I meant”, Steve ordered it, “that you should go into hibernation. Right?”

The eye withdrew into a space in the porch wall, and once the eye was inside the hatch slid shut. The white walls on the outside had a rough rock-like pattern. When the hatches containing the eyes and arms were closed, you couldn’t see where they were stored away. The effect was if they weren’t there.

Through the window into the hall, Steve could see that Maggie was coming out of the kitchen carrying the potato salad, probably refusing to let Wayne help her. As she passed the hallway he saw her closing the door to the cellar but noticed that the door remained slightly ajar behind her; the handle was broken. He didn’t think Wayne had the ability to make those kinds of repairs. He based this opinion on watching Maggie’s music lessons she’d downloaded and thought Wayne could help her with. The house could play the piano, so those lessons went fine, but Wayne had struggled with the guitar. The house’s robotic fingers were not flexible enough to work on such fine things as guitar strings, while piano keys seemed to be of a more manageable size. Maggie had in the beginning used Wayne to get Essie interested in an instrument and she had tried

to play with Wayne sometimes. However, the last thing he heard was that she didn’t feel it was at all the same thing as playing music with a real person.

Another old friend, Jim, came by the grill, got another beer and started chatting about upgrades and their house called Madonna, after his girlfriend’s grandma’s old pop-idol. Jim was going to do just minor upgrades, not the full-house entertainment package. Steve was definitely going for that as soon as he could. He could hear some other friends chatting from the tables in the garden about similar things, and a couple of others were playing boule dangerously close to Maggie’s greenhouse.

“Almost there with the steaks”, Steve said, longing for a grill-upgrade as well.

Steve heard a creaking, and turned his head to see a wall space slightly ajar. Steve had thought that when Wayne went into hibernation, the eye became inactive. It was still on. The eye was glowing red in the dark, like an animal hiding in its cave, watching them. A low humming noise was coming from the eye’s speakers. If Steve didn’t know better, he would’ve said the house was growling.

He heard laughter. Over the bushes and the fence Steve saw his next-door-neighbour Anasuya laughing, stepping down from her porch, to the lawn, so only her brown and red dyed curly hair was visible. He simply called her Ana. Some white smoke was streaming from that side as well, along with some chit-chat and more laughter. They were also putting the grill on today. Ana came back to the porch, looked across the fence to Steve, to say hi and asked him briefly if he’d seen their dog; it’d been gone since last night. Somehow it had broken out of its chain in their garden.

“I haven’t seen it,” Steve said, “sorry.”

While doing his best to look the master-chef he wasn’t, Steve tried to flip over the steak from high up in the air, and it nearly crashed from the grill to the floor, but he managed to save it.

He spotted Essie and the other kids running inside the house with water guns …

Frank, Tom and the other boys were involved in some macho activities they had done since they were kids. Arm wrestling now. The look on one of Maggie’s friend’s face was of disapproval of the childishness. Good to see Mike at it again. He’d been involved in a car accident a couple of years ago; the auto-steer on his car had suddenly stopped working. Now the guy was saying to Tom, “Come on, I’ll break you with my left, I dare you …”

All was good before the screams.