So what happens at Belle Isle after dark..?
Pro tip: It's not just an island
Issue #300 Keith’s SciFi Musings April 16, 2023
OK guys, so don’t get used to this. But today I’m gonna give you a FREE Detroit Stories Quarterly story. The whole enchilada, no teaser, no tricks. But I am gonna insert this l’il link right here to the DSQ site where you can find the Fall 2019 issue of DSG where this story first appeared.
‘Cause I loves you guys.
So without further ado, I give y’all…
The Beasts of Belle Isle
“OK, so now tell me this again...What was this you think you saw, James, and I mean for real.”
Even when we was kids Fred didn’t never believe a damned thing I said, so I don’t guess I was surprised at how he was acting now after I told him.
If I was the little brother, then I guess maybe I coulda written it off to that. Except it was the other way around by about ten years. Let’s make that ten years, three months, and five days. I could even give you the number of minutes, but Fred being Fred, he would swear I was just making that up to sound impressive. Just because he couldn’t do it, and he was supposed to be the more ‘reliable’ one (according to Mom and Dad who…fuck it, that’s a whole other story), then naturally that meant I couldn’t possibly. Right? Because…
Well, because I’m not Fred.
But just because you’re the most reliable one, which I ain’t saying he is, who the hell says that more reliable means more smart?
Anyways... in spite of it all, I love Fred. I’ve always been proud of him. Big-time lawyer in a big-name firm downtown. I’m pretty sure he loves me too, even if he wasn’t always willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. I mean, he had to, right? Blood.
The one thing me and Fred have in common is our love for Belle Isle. Growing up, that park had been something special for us. It was like a whole other world apart, away from the crazy shit that went on in the neighborhood - not that crazy shit didn’t happen on Belle Isle too; like that two-headed baby they found climbing that tree that one time a few years back. And it was blue, too? Now that was some crazy shit for real.
Speaking of which, if one of those State Police hadn’t seen it, you know damned well nobody would have believed me then neither; because that was wild even by Detroit standards.
But I’m just saying that for the most part, Belle Isle was a refuge, you know? It was a place you could go like kind of a filling station. You could fill up on enough peace of mind to get you through until, hopefully, the next time.
Anyway, so there we were. It was this really beautiful summer afternoon on a Sunday, meaning warm, somewhere upwards near ninety, but not too humid. It’s always the humidity that kills you. We were sitting on a bench with our legs crossed, both of us watching one of those really huge ships making its way down the river. We had been there nearly half an hour before Fred finally put the question to me. I guess I coulda been a little pissed that he disturbed such a rare and peaceful moment between brothers, but then again this was why I’d asked him to meet me there in the first place.
I looked over at Fred, letting him see in my face this wasn’t the time.
“I didn’t say anything about anything I thought I saw, Fred. I don’t know what the hell it was, but it was something real. Scared the shit outta me...”
Fred nodded. I knew what he was gonna ask me next, and sure enough, he did.
“I’m not trying to doubt you, James, it’s just…sorry. So then just tell me what was this thing you saw. And you called me late as hell so I’m guessing it was…wait. The park closes at ten and you didn’t even call me until practically one in the morning. What the hell were you doing out here? How did you even get past the police?”
I shook my head and sighed.
“Here we go…”
“James, I don’t think that’s an unreasonable question, right? What were you doing out here so late?”
“To be a lawyer I swear I don’t know how you can ask so many wrong questions. You’re asking the wrong questions, Fred. Man, this isn’t about me missing curfew like when we were kids. This isn’t about me sneaking out the window to go see that girl. This is about something serious, and if it ain’t handled then I think it might be something real dangerous.”
Fred’s eyes popped open wide as he leaned forward.
“Fucking dangerous? Big brother, if this thing is dangerous then why the hell you telling me first? You need to…”
“Listen to me, Fred. Just… listen…”
He didn’t want to listen, I could tell. Show me a lawyer who wants to stop talking, right? But he did stop talking, and I was thankful.
“They asked me to come get you,” I finally said. “They say they need to talk to both of us about what’s going to happen.”
“Jesus Christ! How could I be so damned stupid? You owe some thugs money or something, and after you swore to me…”
I slammed the bench with my fist so hard it rattled. He looked a little scared of me now, which was probably a good thing since Fred is bigger than me and had always been in better shape. As a matter of fact, Fred is built like he was born with a gym membership. But I had his attention now.
I reached in my pocket to pull out my phone.
“There’s something you need to see. Because then just maybe you’ll start asking the right kinda questions.”
While I was digging in my pocket, Fred kept looking at me hard. I knew what was going through his mind. How could I not know? We’d been brothers for forty-five years, forty-six in a couple months when Fred had his birthday. Anyway, what he was thinking was whether he gave a shit about what I had on my phone because I had just pounded a park bench like a crazy person. Kinda like the Hulk. But I knew that once he saw what…
“OK, here you go. Look. Because I knew you were gonna get like this. I dunno, maybe they knew how you were gonna react too. Watch this.”
The phone was set on video playback, and I placed it between us so we could both see. Once Fred let himself glance at the screen, I saw his expression shift. Because there was no way you could see what was on that screen, even before I pressed the ‘play’ button, and not wonder…
“James…what…”
“Exactly. But you haven’t even seen it yet, so hold your questions - the right ones - for just a sec.”
I pressed the play button, and that’s when you could hear it - that same loud humming noise that I heard last night. The same noise that made me drive deep into those wild woods on the east side of the island, to the part where it looks like you suddenly just left Detroit and disappeared up north somewhere.
Oh, and those cops Fred was asking about how did I get past? Yeah, right. Hadn’t been a cop on Belle Isle in three months. Or not an actual cop anyway. Not since what we all called the incident. Now all they had was those little roving metallic sensors I call Motor Booties because that’s pretty much what they look like to me. Not that you wanted to make the mistake of fuckin with one of them neither, because they were set up to take a brother down with a quickness.
Maybe it’s me, but I’m still thinkin’ we woulda got a whole lot more than Motor Booties to replace those cops if it was mostly white folks hangin’ out on Belle Isle. We woulda got black helicopters 24-7 and an army of robocops is what we woulda got.
Anyway, it wasn’t the noise that was getting Fred’s attention and making him question the reality of what was right in front of him, making him question reality period. What was putting that look on Fred’s face was the beast. It was standing there directly in full view of my dash cam, with long scaly arms stretched behind its back looking like it didn’t have any bones. It was maybe six foot tall, and its body wasn’t so completely different from ours… except that it was. I mean, the shape... two arms, two legs, two feet, one head… all that was the same. But then there was that boneless thing, and there was no sex organ that I could see. And then there were those thick-assed scales covering the entire creature, looking more like wood chips than any scales you might see on a lizard or reptile… and they breathed. I don’t know how to say it any other way, because it doesn’t make any kinda sense what I was looking at. But I’m telling you, those scales were breathing…
And those eyes? Three eyes? Seeing it again on the small screen brought back the same chill I felt when I first saw it come walking out onto the road, right in front of my headlights like it did. I jammed the brakes, but it didn’t even move to jump out the way. Like it knew I knew better than to make the mistake of running into it. I sat there in the car for what seemed like way longer than it probably was before I made the questionable decision to get out of the car. But OK, yeah, I had been drinking a bit, so there was that.
“James. What’s that sound.”
“Just wait a minute.”
Fred started to protest, again acting like a lawyer, but I shoved my warning finger up in the air, still looking down at the screen.
“Just hold up.”
So we both watched the replay of the dashcam video as I approached this thing. The beast cocked its head to the side, then blinked all three of its gold-colored eyes in a way that was almost seductive, which really messed with my head. But then, almost like it was reading my mind, it kinda grinned. That made me jump two steps back in a hurry.
“What the fuck are you, man?” I asked. And as soon as I asked the question I felt like a damned fool, because why was I assuming this thing would speak…
“We are related, you and I.”
The way its voice sounded wasn’t like any voice I had ever heard, like hissing steam spewing out of a large pipe, and the way its mouth moved didn’t look like it was in any way synced up to what it had just said. Even though they didn’t look that much different from regular folk lips, which I have to admit was kind of a shocker when you looked at the rest of the creature, there was obviously a difference in the way these lip things worked. Maybe he - she, whatever the hell - ate with that mouth. Maybe it did other things. The more I thought about it, the more I really didn’t wanna think about it.
Oh, and the other thing? About that voice? It didn’t just go into your ears like a normal sound. Like how you would hear anything else. It…
“James, why is the inside of my head starting to itch?”
Yeah. That. And the thing was, because that itch was on the inside of your head, it wasn’t like you could reach it and give yourself any kind of relief. All you could do was just scrunch up your face and handle it the best way you could. Or at least pretend like you were. Because once it started talking, all you really wanted was for it to stop - except you knew you had to hear what it was saying.
“How in the green hell you figure we’re related? I got a lotta relatives, and trust me not a damned one looks a thing like you. Some of ‘em ugly, true enough, but I mean…damn.”
“Hell is not green.”
“So how would you…oh shit…”
The thing made a sound that I guessed was supposed to be laughter, judging by how the lips curled up at the sides, and the way the shoulders were bouncing up and down.
“Do not worry, I am not him. And we don’t much care for him either. He is not pleasant.”
“Yeah, well. You really didn’t have to go to hell to find out that the devil is not a nice guy. I coulda told you that for free. So what is it you want? Why did you step in front of my car like you did? Man, if I hadn’t seen you in time, I could have run you over. Speaking of which, what are you, anyway?”
The thing laughed again, which gave me chills.
“Many questions.”
“If you saw something looked like me pop out into the middle of the road in front of whatever it is your kind drives back on wherever your planet happens to be, wouldn’t you have questions?”
“This is our planet, James Thompson. That is a good place to begin. We have always been here. Long before you, and long after you. We are the Tzz. I am called Tzz-Phat. We inhabit the Other Side. We are also known as the beasts of Belle Isle. In your limited context, we feel the term applies.”
“The beasts of…? Forget it. The other side of what? The other side of Belle Isle? And why hasn’t anyone seen you before if you guys have been here all along? And where is everybody else? How many of you are there? And how in the hell you know my name?”
“Many questions. I will give you answers. But first, we need to talk about Fred. He is a lawyer, correct?”
Right then was when my brother jumped up off that park bench like it was a skillet, and then he started backing away from me.
“James…? How in the…what the fuck, James…”
“Little brother, I know, OK? I know. How you feeling right now ain’t even close to how my head was reeling last night, believe me. But at least you got me here to watch this thing with you. You got me. But last night? I was all alone with this shit, man, you hear me? I was all alone and any damned thing coulda happened.”
“But it knows I’m a lawyer!”
“Fred, you gotta sit back down, man. Because this Tzz-Phat guy doesn’t just know you a lawyer, hear? He knows a lot more than that. He...no, they been watching you. For years. It’s what they do, little brother. It’s what they do.”
“But …the beasts of Belle Isle..? What kind of…”
“Fred. You gotta listen to the rest. So sit down, man. OK? Sit down.”
Fred gave me a long look like he was making up his mind to do what I said or take off running. If he decided to do the stupid thing then I had always been a lot faster than Fred and I would tackle him if I had to.
“Just finish this thing,” he said, sounding like he’d just aged by about twenty years. “After that, I’m going home.”
“I wish you could, little brother. I really do.”
Fred squeezed his eyes shut, massaged his temples with his thumbs, then shook his head real slow. I pressed the button again and the video started to play.
“How you know Fred is a lawyer? And how the hell you know his name is Fred? Or that I even have a brother?”
“As I said, we were here long before you, and we are here long after you are gone. That is all you need to know for now. You must make the introduction.”
“To Fred?”
“Correct. We require his services.”
“Require or request? There’s a difference. Because whatever the hell you guys are, you damned sure ain’t our masters so Fred ain’t got to do shit for you, and I ain’t got to tell him to do shit. We clear on that?”
The beast smiled, but not in a way that inspired confidence. Was there a way for a beast to smile that would inspire confidence? Something to consider... I held my ground though. Fuck it. I’d run up against some hard boys in my time and hadn’t backed down from one. I never backed down because that ain’t what you do. I still remember the day when a group of bullies chased me home from school and I ran into the house thinking I was safe. My mother looked out the window, saw those bullies still out on the sidewalk, talking loud and stickin’ their chests out.
“They chase you home?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Stay right there. I’ll be back.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Two minutes later my mother came back with a baseball bat.
“Now you go back out there and don’t come back inside until you deal with them. You start running now and you ain’t never gonna stop.”
“But mom, there’s seven of them! This bat ain’t gonna be enough, they gonna kill me!”
Mom looked at me real hard, then hollered for my brother to come downstairs. It was more than a year before he ever forgave me, but it also made us closer. And I still to this day don’t understand why he blamed me and not Mom.
“Now you got your brother. And a bat. That ought to even it up a little, but remember you won’t always have your mother to make things even for you. Life don’t work like that. Whatever life throws at you, you got to deal with it however it comes. Now get your asses out there, and I’m locking this door.”
When it was all over, I have to say me and Fred didn’t do too bad. But the point here is that I never backed down from any kinda fight in my life, thanks to Mahalia Thompson, God rest.
So there I was, heart pounding inside my chest like a crazy man with a really big hammer trying to beat his way out, but hoping I still looked cool. The beast kept smiling, and I guess that was when I noticed his eyes didn’t blink. At all.
Considering the situation I was in, that was probably going to be the least of my problems.
The beast cocked his head to the side real slow, then stretched its smile a bit wider. He pointed his finger at me, which was really long, and I looked at it real hard, like maybe it was going to fire a shot. This thing was some kinda alien so who knew what it could do?
But then it threw me a curveball. Kinda.
“We are clear,” it said.
“Huh?”
“We are clear, and we request. Satisfactory?”
Damn. Who woulda thought?
“Oh. Alright then. Good to know.”
We stared at each other a bit longer.
“Is our request granted?”
“Depends. What you need a lawyer for?”
The beast gave me a funny look. I couldn’t figure out whether it was anger or just some kinda curious, but then it told me to wait there while it ducked off into the woods. Don’t think I didn’t think about jumping in my car and getting the hell outta there. But I was starting to get really curious, and my curiosity was outweighing my common sense.
A few more minutes and I heard a loud rustling, and then there were four beasts standing in the road in front of me. All of them giving me that same funny look. Wasn’t like I hadn’t ever been stomped before, so I steeled myself up and got ready.
“So you needed backup for this?”
“Backup…?” said one, which I assumed was the one I had originally been talking to. No way to know for sure because they all looked pretty much alike to me.
“Yeah. Look, I know what this is, all right? I’m East Side Detroit for real. But if you knew what that was then you’d know I still ain’t tellin’ you shit until you answer my question.”
“Which is why we are all here. You thought we were preparing to do you harm?”
I took a deep breath, then let it out slow.
“And you say we’re related. That’s bullshit. Look, what is it you need with Fred? Why you guys need a lawyer? And whichever one of you is Tzz-Phat, or however the hell you pronounce that name, that’s the one I wanna hear from. Keep things consistent...”
They all looked back and forth at one another, then I guess it was Tzz-Phat who stepped forward.
“You cannot tell us apart?”
“Obviously.”
“But we can…”
“That’s because we don’t all look alike. Not to be like white people, but I’m just sayin’. In this case? The shit applies.”
I’m pretty sure Tzz-Phat shrugged his shoulders, but I wasn’t sure if it meant the same thing. I was just gonna have to assume that it did.
“Those of us you see here are not the rest of us. Who you see here are The Council. The Council must always be present when we discuss collective issues such as we are about to do.”
“OK. Got it. But just outta curiosity, how many of you are there over here from that other side you were talking about?”
“Somewhere in the tens of thousands, but we would like to bring more.”
“Tens of…but ain’t no way this island can even fit…where you keeping everybody?”
“Questions, questions, and questions! Can we please begin with the answers?”
So the beast was getting pissed. I probably should have been scared, but it was actually kinda funny for some reason. He sounded huffy, like those white butlers you see on comedy shows.
“Sure, Tzz. My bad. Go ahead.”
“Tzz-Phat,” they all said in unison.
They all stared at me for a long moment, I think sizing me up to decide if I was even worth dealing with. But somewhere along that moment, they figured out they didn’t have a whole lotta choice.
“You recall the event referred to as the incident? The one that took place here on Belle Isle several months ago?”
“Of course I do. Everybody remembers that. How could we not? Nobody could figure out how that shit was even possible, not with Belle Isle being as big as it is. It happened back in April. So what about it?”
“We caused it.”
“Ain’t no way.”
“But you say you don’t know how such a thing was possible, correct?”
“Causing an entire island to levitate more than one-hundred feet straight up into the sky without even damaging the bridge? Then keeping it up there for a whole two days? Then easing it back down into the Detroit River like that? And nobody died? Hell naw I don’t know how a thing like that is possible. Except I was riding my bike across the street down East Jefferson when that whole thing went down. I saw it with my own eyes, man.”
“What did you think?”
“Man, damn what I thought about it, OK? Because if you really did do this thing, then I wanna know why.”
“That is fair. It is because we needed to make repairs.”
“Repairs…? You gotta be kidding! You all been on that island since the beginning of time but you didn’t see when the folks from the State came in and fixed the fountain and all that stuff? I mean, you saw what it looked like before, right?”
“You are talking about changes on top of the island. We are talking about the island itself. After so many years of being your plaything, the island had become ill. Had we not done anything, it would have been dead within a decade. It has been our home for all this time, so we felt obligated to fix the problem since you are not capable. The only way to fix the problem was to disconnect Belle Isle from the river and elevate it beyond your reach so that we could do what needed to be done. Without disruption. A thorough repair of the entire system. We were partially successful. Regretfully, some damage simply cannot be undone.”
All I could do was just stare at them for quite a while, with that image back in my head of those long two days when Belle Isle was just hovering above the city like a flying saucer. That whole time you could hear the folks who got stuck on the island screaming their lungs out. It was the biggest story in the world for a whole month, until another two-headed baby showed up down in El Paso. The press damned near stampeded outta here, and a day later it was like nothin’ had even happened. The sooner I could erase that from my memory banks the better.
“Man…what am I supposed to say to that?”
“Actually, it is what we would like to say. To all of you. We would like to explain our actions to your city. But to do this, we believe we may need a lawyer in case there are any complications. Which is why we need your Fred.”
“Look, lemme tell you something; if you think you all gonna just show up lookin’ like you do in Hart Plaza or …”
“We are not leaving the island.”
“Right. So OK. You make this announcement at the band shell or wherever. Lookin’ like how you look? I mean, you been observing us all these years, so you gotta know at least a little bit about how we react to things. And something like this? You gonna need one helluva lot more than just a lawyer. And when it comes to lawyers, you gonna need a whole lot more than just one. You gonna need a whole damned army of Freds, hear me?
“And you gonna have to leave this island because the courtroom ain’t comin’ to you.”
They looked at me for a while, then started to talk among themselves. For a minute it got kinda animated, and I really wished I spoke whatever language it was they were slinging around. Once they were done, the one I was pretty sure was Tzz-Phat took a couple steps forward until he was standing real close. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder, while his face did something that was like a smile.
“We believe one Fred will be sufficient. We appreciate your concern, and it has been noted. Will you introduce us to your Fred?”
“Man, can’t you all just let this thing go? I’m telling you I know Detroiters, and they don’t want no long conversation with a group of aliens trying to explain why they hauled our favorite place up into the sky so they could fix it. Plus you didn’t even wait until all the people were off the island, man! You even had cops stranded up there! How you gonna explain that?”
“But we did it for them. They need to understand. We have discussed this, and we cannot let it go, as you say. If we wanted to, we could make our case more forcefully. I believe you suspect this already. And quite obviously we have little use for your legal system, as you call it. But we believe it is the most conventional way to get ourselves heard. We are not completely familiar with your laws, but I have no doubt that doing what we did is in violation of them…”
“That’s a good guess.”
“…so allowing ourselves to plead guilty will give us the opportunity to explain ourselves before a wide audience. It will also alert your people that we are here. That we have always been here.”
“OK, first thing? I think you guys been watching too much Law and Order, because if you…”
“Very good show.”
“Yeah. Sure. And it’s fiction. Because if you think any judge is gonna let you guys make some big speech in his courtroom about how you only stole Belle Isle to save it? Man, they sendin’ brothers to prison for stealing lollipops and you think…? Shit. Your ass goin’ to jail. Soon as they get you in that building they lockin’ you up and throwing away the key like you ain’t never been…”
“I can assure you that will never happen.”
I started to say something else, based on the benefits of experience as a black man in this country, or as anything that ain’t white and blonde in this country, which would for damned sure include Tzz-Phat and his crew. But something about the way he said what he said made me chill on that one. Because somehow I knew that before any one of his guys spent a minute in a Detroit holding cell, somebody was going to get hurt, and hurt bad.
…
“I’ll do it.”
“Whoa, hold up. Fred. Do you know what you signin’ up for with this? Just a minute ago you were all scared and fixin’ to jackrabbit outta here. You were all bent outta shape because they knew you were a lawyer. You were freakin’ out that they even knew your name. And now you wanna be Perry Mason for these beasts?”
“Yes.”
I couldn’t see my own incredulous expression because I didn’t have a mirror handy, but I’m pretty sure that expression was sending the message of who the hell are you and what have you done with my brother Fred? Because this didn’t make not one bit of sense.
“Fred, you got to…”
Fred reached over and squeezed my shoulder in the way he always did ever since we were kids when he knew I was starting to get overheated. He was better at getting me to calm down than Mom or Dad had ever been.
“James, I know you’re worried. And everything you just said? You’re right. At least pretty much. But you got to see this as a bigger thing, big brother. A way bigger thing. Yeah, sure, I was scared to death for most of the time we were watching that video you took. But then, once I got past that? I got to thinking about what this was that I was really looking at. That we were really looking at. Man, do you have any idea what something like this could do for the city if we pull this thing off right? Not to mention my career?”
“You worried about your career right now? Seriously? We got space aliens with the power to lift an entire island out of the Detroit River up into the sky and keep it there. And what you talking about is your damned career?”
“OK look, first of all, they ain’t space aliens. They said right there on your video that they’ve been here forever. Probably longer than us. Hell, they mighta been running around down here since before human beings were even an idea. But I also didn’t just say this was a career move, did I? Naw. I said this could be good for the city too.”
“Oh. Yeah. Right. And how you figure that?”
Fred leaned in as he started tapping his temple with his forefinger, giving me this real intense look that didn’t have quite the effect I think he was going for. He was just getting on my nerves.
“You got to think, big brother. Because if these things have the ability to do what they did, that means they have the ability to do a whole lotta harm too. If that’s what they wanted. But instead, they’ve just been living their lives out there all this time without nobody even knowing they were there. Until they decided they had an obligation - an obligation - to fix Belle Isle because they said it was sick and they knew we didn’t have the ability!”
“Sounds to me like they trippin’. That’s what it sounds like to me.”
“Naw. What it sounds like is they lookin’ out for us. They on our side. Hell, we been tryin’ to get the State Police outta that park ever since we heard that shit was comin’ down, and they managed to do it in just a few days. If that’s not lookin’ out for us then what is?”
I had to admit Fred did have a point. I really didn’t want to admit it, but I had to. And so we sat there for more than a minute without saying anything else, which for us is a really long time.
“So you really wanna take this thing to court, Fred?”
Fred smiled so wide I thought his face was gonna split.
“Oh hell yeah, big brother. Oh hell yeah.”
…
When it came close to time for the trial, I can’t even begin to explain what the whole thing was like. Everything about it was surreal. Detroit had been worldwide news for months as the city with its own aliens, except they weren’t really aliens because, like they said, they had always been here. We were more like the aliens than they were.
But anyway, shit was crazy. The closer it got to the date, the more camera crews you started seeing all over town. They were like locusts. You couldn’t take two steps without tripping over one. And it got to the point where you really had to get rude to stop them chasing you down the street asking you a damned question everywhere you went. And nine times out of ten they were always stupid questions, like would I let one of them play with my kids or some dumb shit. I mean for real?
And then there were the crazies out in the streets with signs and bullhorns, yelling that the beasts needed to leave Belle Isle alone, leave it to the humans as God intended. As if God had time to be out here settling landlord-tenant disputes.
The beasts? You woulda thought all this insanity would have really pissed them off, or even made them decide this trial strategy wasn’t worth the hassle. They said they did what they did for us, the people of Detroit, but now here came all these folks - most of them not even from Detroit - makin’ all this noise about an issue that wasn’t even any of their damned business as far as I was concerned. Were we really worth leaving the island for?
The day of the trial was actually a beautiful summer day, but I don’t think anyone noticed. Everybody outside was all pushing, shoving, and cursing, trying to get a glimpse of the beasts once they arrived via police escort. Normally that wasn’t something you would see, but normal had left this city a long time ago. Right around the time Belle Isle was floating up in the sky. But it was funny because once the beasts finally did arrive? Everybody suddenly got real quiet. Like you coulda heard a pin drop.
As for Fred? He was smiling just as cool as East Side should. Shades on and everything as he escorted his clients into the courthouse. Did I mention they made them all wear suits?
Anyway, that’s where shit got really deep. The basic charges the beasts were facing weren’t all that heavy because they hadn’t done a whole lot. Not really. But then there was the question of them not being human, so did our laws really apply? And wasn’t it a bit more than theft when they stole an entire island? But can you say they stole it when it never left the city and everyone knew where it was? And can you really say it was destruction of public property when they actually made it better, and they did so in the public interest? And when the public isn’t even their public, so to speak? And can you actually say someone is vagrant when they are living in their own home, even if that home is an entire island? Or how about trespassing? Because were they really?
And if they hadn’t turned themselves in, would there even be a trial? Hell no, because we probably still wouldn’t even know they existed. They could have gone back to that ‘other side’ that Tzz-Phat told me about, but never really explained.
And then it came time where the beasts got to speak for themselves. Anybody who’s ever been to a regular trial knows the difference between what really goes down as opposed to what you see in the movies or on Law and Order; ain’t no judge got time to listen to any one defendant give any long dissertation in his own defense while mood music plays in the background. The docket is way too backed up for that, and in Detroit, the judges have seen it all before and just want to get it over with.
But like I said, normal was out the window with this one. Even the judge knew there was no way to handle this like just another court case because this was definitely not in the category of anything he had ever seen before or was ever likely to see again. The world was literally watching and waiting on what happened in this courtroom today. Far as we knew, the fate of the world might depend on what happened today, and that’s for real.
Tzz-Phat had been appointed chief spokesman for the beasts by his clan, but when he stood up, I still couldn’t get over how strange he looked in that suit. Then again, maybe it wasn’t a half-bad idea Fred had come up with. Because they already looked threatening enough with the three eyes and the scales on their bodies that breathed, so maybe the suits made them easier to take. Then again, maybe it reminded everyone how much they weren’t one of us.
But who the hell is ‘us’ in this scenario?
Tzz-Phat cleared his throat before looking around at the packed courtroom. I was worried how folks were gonna respond to that weird voice of his that made your ears itch…
But that voice was gone. The beast sounded like James Earl Jones!
“Your honor, I’m sure everyone here is wondering who …what we are and how we got here. Why in all these years no one has known that we existed until this very day? And I’m sure the largest two questions your people have is what is it that we want and why are we here now?
“Perhaps those are the two easiest questions to answer; we have always been here and we don’t want anything. All we want is to continue to live in harmony with all of you as we have been doing before you knew of our existence. Strangely, I do realize that the very acknowledgment of our existence may pose a bigger threat to this harmony than anything else. But I remain hopeful that this poses a lesser hurdle than it may at first appear. Harmony is not harmful, wouldn’t you agree?”
The judge smiled and nodded. I actually knew this judge, and this was probably the first time since he’d been a baby in a crib that he had ever smiled at any damned thing.
“Yes. And so harmony is our only objective. But as to why we are here and why we have not made ourselves known before now? Certainly, that is a fair question. And let me first say again, as I told my new friend James Thompson when we first met on the island; we have always been here. We are not from outer space, nor from any other dimension. I see James looking at me the way he is right now, and I know it is because I told him about the Other Side. But the Other Side is not really another dimension, it is simply a portal into what Detroit is meant to become that our kind have accessed for generations. It is a creative space where alternate futures are tried, shaped, and molded. We have not shared this portal with you because there has never been a need. Possibly until now, but we shall see.
“But we have been here since long before there was a Detroit as well as long after this point in time, which in some ways I suppose makes us the original Detroiters. We are well aware how you like to rank one another in that regard, which we find amusing. But we do understand that sentiment given its context. For not only are we aware of Detroit, but we are well aware of how the world views Detroit. And we know the world is watching even now.
“Which leads to why we did what we did. Certainly, Belle Isle was in need of deeper repair than you were capable of, which is no reflection on any of you. You are all limited to this time and therefore limited to its capabilities. We are also all of you, a sort of mirror reflection, even though our appearance may indicate otherwise. But we are not shackled to the baggage of the here and now, nor of the many crippling mischaracterizations and misperceptions that have poisoned your realities.
“In short? We are free. Which is the other reason why we raised up Belle Isle in the manner that we did for all to witness and wonder. Because in truth, we could have performed our repairs in such a way that none except us would have ever known, and all life would have continued on uninterrupted.
“Except that you all were in grave need of disruption. As I said, we were here before it all, and we are here after it all even as we continually shape and reshape future scenarios, which places upon us a grave responsibility that, honestly, we oftentimes wish we could abandon. And yet, if we abandon you then we are abandoning ourselves, which will result in the evaporation of us all. Which will result in a clean slate, as if all that is never was.”
Right then the judge got a funny look on his face, curious but also a little scared.
“I’m sorry…did you say evaporation?”
“I am afraid I did. I once told James Thompson on that same night that we are related. He did not believe me, and I do not blame him based on the initial visual evidence to which he was constrained. But we are truly related, and further than that we are interwoven. We are different but we are the same. Identical threads woven into a dissimilar fabric. Which is why we are free, and yet you yourselves do not realize this. We have waited for ages, sometimes encouraged, sometimes less so, that the time would come when you would realize who you truly are. But we can no longer wait for that day, even though we remain confident that you would eventually come to it of your own. And so…”
“OK, OK. But here’s what I don’t get, Mr. Tzz-Phat; you say you and your people are free. But if you’re so free then why in God’s name haven’t you ever left the island until now?” asked the judge.
Tzz-Phat smiled, then took in a deep breath that I thought might make his suit pop open. And when he exhaled, his scales all exhaled too, and suddenly I remembered the Big Bad Wolf in that fairy tale. My mind works twisted that way I guess.
The judge smiled again, and warmly.
“It is because Belle Isle is Detroit. It is where your heart has been kept beating for all these many years. Your true heart. And Detroit? It is Belle Isle. It is the center of your gravity, the source of your forever.
“We are the keepers of that heart. Because that heart beats for us all.”
…
When the trial ended, it was so quiet in the courtroom that if anybody said anything I’m pretty sure it would have echoed. It was almost like people were afraid to breathe. I mean, what do you say to something like that? I don’t think anybody seriously thought there was ever any chance the judge was gonna send those beasts to jail even if he had found them guilty of anything. But none of this was about that. This was about what was supposed to happen now.
Because when you don’t know, and you act like you don’t know, then that’s one thing. That’s why they say ignorance is bliss. But once the blinders come off then all that weight falls on you whether you ready to carry it or not. All that knowledge, like a ton of bricks. Knowledge ain’t always easy, but then easy ain’t always right.
Detroit is about to find that out. Because if we can lift a whole damned island into the sky...
Again, you can find the Fall 2019 issue of DSG at the highlighted link.
