The screen door creaked as Jet shuffled out onto the front porch. Then his knees creaked as he sat in his rocking chair.
Bo, sitting in his own rocking chair on the other side of the porch, grumbled something under his breath.
“You know, you really are the worst,” said Jet to Bo.
Bo scratched the scar on his left temple, a memoir from when Jet had aimed at him while swinging on the swings back in first grade.
“You started it,” said Bo.
Jet scoffed. “I started it? Hm. You always say that. But I didn’t start it.”
“Oh yeah? Who did?”
“You did. You know you did.”
“Is that so?” said Bo.
“That’s so,” said Jet.
They glared at the pavement. A boy on a hover-scooter rode by and waved at the pair of old men on the porch. The old men grumbled. Bo waved his cane.
“Hm,” said Bo.
“What?” said Jet.
“I was just thinking. Do you remember what it is we started fighting about?”
A rare smile slid onto Jet’s face. Bo didn’t see it, but it was a predatory smile. The smile of a hawk, if hawks could smile. “What we started fighting about?” repeated Jet.
“Yes,” Bo turned to Jet. “All those years ago.”
Bo stared out at the street. He didn’t answer right away. He let Bo stew for a minute. And just as Bo leaned forward to prod Jet with his cane, Jet said, “You know, Bo, a long time ago I heard something. ‘Memory is unreliable.’ The more you think about something, the more unreliable that memory becomes. When your brain thinks about a memory, reconnecting the synapses, or whatever, your brain changes the memory.”
“Oh? So I guess we’ll never know, eh?”
“No,” said Jet, now looking at Bo. “When I learned that, I decided I didn’t want to forget. I didn’t want to forget what you did. So I wrote it down. I wrote down what you did.”
“You wrote it down?” Bo said. “Well? Let me see it!” Bo held out his hand.
Jet waved Bo’s hand away. “It was a long time ago,” said Jet. “Over the years, the paper started to fade, and I was afraid of losing it. It was too unreliable. Just like my own memory. So instead, I got to work. I researched. I took classes. Day after day, month after month, year after year,”
As he spoke, Jet’s hand drifted to what Bo could now see was some kind of rectangle in Jet’s pocket.
“I built something,” said Jet.
Bo gulped. “What did you build, Jet?”
Jet yanked out the rectangle from his pocket. Bo jolted at the sudden movement, then relaxed. It looked like an iPhone.
“That looks like an iPhone,” said Bo.
“Ha!” said Jet. “It’s much more than that. This device scans your brain, finds any memory you want, and plays it back exactly as it happened.”
“But,” said Bo, “you just said that the more the brain thinks about something, the more unreliable it becomes. And if this thing scans your brain, then…”
“I accounted for that, Bo! Just you watch now. Watch what you did that made us fight all these years. All these decades.”
Jet flicked on the screen. It opened to a camera view looking down, as if from the eyes of a boy digging a hole in some dark dirt with a small hand shovel. The boy put the shovel down next to him, then turned away to dig with his hands. When he looked back, the shovel was gone! The boy gasped, and said “Hey!” and looked around. Another young boy, young Bo, was digging with the very same shovel.
Young Jet shouted, “HEY!” and old Jet stopped the video.
“So there!” said Jet. “You see now? It was you who started it!”
Bo waved his hands in the air. “You put the shovel down, Jet! I thought you were done with it!”
“Oh, pah-leeze! I was clearly still digging, Bo. You knew that. Anyone would’ve known that.”
“You started the video too late. Start it earlier and you’ll see that I had the shovel first.”
“Nice try, Bo. This is perfect evidence. You took that shovel from me, and ever since have taken everything else.”
“Everything else?” said Bo. “EVERYTHING else? I’ve given you everything, Jet! When you were left all alone with nothing, who invited you to come stay in their home for free? Who?” Bo waited for a moment for dramatic effect and then said, “Me! And now I’ve found out that you’ve been spending time in my house with my stuff making an incredible gadget like that. We should sell it!”
“You’d like that wouldn’t you?” said Jet. “Profit off of my genius!”
“If everything I’ve done for you over the years isn’t enough to make you forget the past, I don’t know what is.”
They paused for a moment, each breathing heavily.
Then Jet spoke. “You could start by giving me the shovel back.”
“Give you the shovel back?” said Bo.
“Yes,” said Jet.
“You mean…”
And now it was Jet’s turn to notice Bo’s hand slowly reaching for something in his pocket. Something sharp and angular.
“... this shovel?” said Bo.
From his pocket, Bo produced the small hand shovel, worn from the years and much smaller-looking in his adult hand.
Jet guffawed.
“That’s right, Jet. I’ve kept this shovel all this time as a reminder of what you did to our friendship. It’s been a reminder to me that the best of friends are the worst of enemies.”
Jet struggled to his feet. “You give that back!”
Bo rose too, in a rickety fashion. “Never!”
The men advanced on each other, poking and prodding. Bo waggled his cane at Jet’s legs. Jet tried using his device to knock on the top of Bo’s bald head.
A nurse burst out of the house onto the porch, calling for them to stop and settle down.
“You’re friends!” said the nurse. “I don’t know why you two insist on living together when fight like this every day.”
The two seasoned men rounded on the nurse.
“You stay out of this!” said Bo.
“Yeah, this is between us!” said Jet.
Other nurses streamed from the house.
The melee went on for some minutes. Bo and Jet cursed at each other as the nurses pulled them apart. Finally they lost their breath and settled back down in their chairs.
The nurses made their way back inside.
The two friends stared out onto the street.
Another boy rode by on a familiar hover-scooter, but this time in the opposite direction. He waved at the men, the turned back and laughed at someone behind him.
The men grunted in reply. Jet waved his hand, a scar there from when Bo had once gotten him bitten by a nonvenomous snake.
The boy from before ran by, chasing the other.
