Birthday Contraband
On his eighty-fourth birthday in a kindly surveillance state where risk is a crime, retired lighthouse mechanic Dennis Hale Fairweather celebrates with forbidden bacon, real beer, an unharnessed climb, and a long-hoarded cigarette. His carefully staged defiance becomes an unexpected companionship when the officer charged with protecting him chooses to climb beside him—and grants him a minute to smoke facing the sea. When she asks whether he has another cigarette, the boundary between enforcement and shared rebellion remains tantalizingly unresolved.
By MyAudioBooks.ai ·
Listen free: Birthday Contraband
I turned Marjorie's eggs when the drone requested admission. Birthday breakfast deserved a witness, preferably without rotors. I left it hovering outside my kitchen window. My unopened tin pressed against my thigh.
That birthday morning belonged to two thousand and sixty. Brightwater supplied the sea and very dependable birthday surveillance. Our Commonwealth of New Albion took survival seriously. At eighty-four, I appreciated the interest, within limits.
You might find my file under Dennis Hale Fairweather, young officer. I hoped your future reading chair had proper cushions. I'd maintained Brightwater's lighthouse before retiring to my allotment. Widowhood left me washing one plate, very thoroughly. My neighbor Marjorie supplied eggs and less official provisions.
That morning, her black-market bacon supplied the frying fat. Eating it was my immediate ambition. Before evening, I intended two pints of real beer. Then came my lighthouse stairs, without a safety harness. Last came the cigarette I'd kept since tobacco's removal. Two thousand and forty-one had left me certain reserves. I meant to finish everything within this birthday.
I'd booked my birthday check to coincide with breakfast. A human witness could sit down, after all.
The screen doctor asked whether I felt happy. I gave him the answer that kept consultations brief. "I am happy, healthy, and grateful for today's opportunities."
He wished me continued flourishing and recommended slower chewing. The drone separately asked whether I was frying anything. I lifted my plate for its benefit. "Only warming the china. Older plates appreciate consideration."
I ate the eggs before their edges lost crispness. Then I finished the bacon, including its narrow rind. My teeth still performed certain work without public assistance. Bacon smell stayed longer than bacon, especially around witnesses.
My assigned birthday officer knocked while I wiped my plate. Priya Hollowell entered carrying her Risk Ledger. That meant a working screen, rather than divine judgment. She took the chair I'd already pulled out.
Priya settled the screen against her knee. "Many happy returns. We'd like sixteen more."
I kept the empty frying pan behind my elbow. "Tea? I've got the approved sort. Tastes surprisingly like tea."
"Tea would be lovely. What did you have for breakfast?"
"Something Marjorie recommended. She's my nutritional underground."
Priya placed her fingers around the cup I'd poured. "Fried food is Class C, Dennis. You booked this visit. You knew I'd smell it."
I scraped a final brown fragment into my mouth. Offering her bacon would have been discourteous. Arranging its smell had apparently passed my hospitality test.
I put down my fork. "Shouldn't you write that—"
She waited, with her hand beside the screen. I reached across for the teapot instead. "The tea needs drinking. Much worse when it cools. Even the Commonwealth hasn't cured that."
Priya left her screen untouched. "I'm leaving breakfast alone. That isn't permission for the rest of the day."
"You make it sound as though I've booked entertainment."
"You tell me."
She finished her tea without rescuing me from that. Her check stayed open when she left. I washed her cup more carefully than my plate. Hospitality had become surprisingly difficult to manage.
Later that morning, Marjorie met me outside my gate. Marjorie Okafor-Lamb carried a basket and withheld birthday compliments.
She tested my pace before speaking. "All eaten?"
"Even the evidence."
"Smell isn't evidence you can wash up."
We walked through our allotment before joining the seafront. She retrieved the thermos from among our illegal potatoes. Unapproved varieties grew very well under approved weather. I pressed soil around one exposed tuber.
Marjorie screwed the thermos cap firmly home. "Two pints. Real beer. Carrying it upright helps."
"I maintained machinery taller than your house."
"And spilled soup yesterday."
She carried it herself, which settled the technical dispute. We passed the glass Wellness Compliance office without entering. Inside, somebody offered somebody else a chair.
Marjorie slowed beside the window. "Nine years without an avoidable death. That's worth something."
"Quite a lot. I'd prefer celebrating it with butter."
We rested briefly on the seafront bench. My knees accepted public provision without political objections.
A seagull stole a wellness pamphlet beside our bench. I invented a keeper's ghost, officially unhappy without sandwiches.
Marjorie stood before my knees could become permanent residents. "Offer that officer tea, not bacon."
"Already done. She saw through the tea. Did you book the rest of my birthday?"
Marjorie tightened the thermos strap and resumed walking. I had booked the morning, which weakened my complaint.
At the hydration lounge door, she handed me the thermos. Her fingers stayed around its handle until mine settled.
Marjorie checked the cap once more. "Drink sitting down."
Then she turned back toward the allotment. I carried the beer inside, along with her unanswered question.
At noon, I occupied my former drinking chair. The pub had become a hydration lounge without changing carpets. Old beer had survived officially longer than living beer.
The attendant offered a large cup and complimentary water. I accepted the cup, preserving half the arrangement. The drone hovered nearby, recommending regular hydration. Its rotors worked perfectly throughout my interpretation.
I poured the first pint from Marjorie's thermos. Foam climbed properly, without suggesting any moral improvement. Eileen, my late wife, said beer deserved a proper chair. I drank that pint slowly, giving hers due consideration.
The attendant offered water again when I poured the second.
I drank every mouthful of beer, including the warm bottom. Marjorie brewed for people rather than inspection.
Priya arrived while I replaced the thermos cap. She pulled out the chair opposite without requesting hospitality.
She kept her Ledger between both hands. "We need to finish your check."
"You've missed refreshments."
"Class B alcohol. Two pints?"
I set the empty thermos beside my cup. "Exactly. Marjorie measures properly."
Priya touched the screen, then rested her hand. "This has crossed a line. I left breakfast alone. You treated that as room for more."
"The potatoes were involved before you visited."
"I'm talking about you. I'm required to walk you home."
Her cup stayed empty when the attendant offered water. She thanked them anyway, which troubled me more. My morning witness had acquired an afternoon of responsibility.
I lifted the thermos by its handle. "The lighthouse first. I'd like to see my old work."
Priya stood, keeping the Ledger with her. "That's the opposite direction."
"Most worthwhile places are, from somewhere."
"The door. Then we discuss home."
We walked along the front that afternoon. I carried the empty thermos, considerably improved as luggage. Priya carried the consequences, which remained fully charged.
At the lighthouse door, she stopped beside me. Home lay inland, along a perfectly level street. She left that route open between us.
Priya held her Ledger against her coat. "We can still walk home."
I took my hand off the door. "We can. Ask me properly and I'll come. I can disappoint myself without professional assistance."
"What happens if we go inside?"
"I climb. Without a harness. That's Class A, including for you. My birthday doesn't cover visitors."
She shifted her Ledger beneath one arm. "You arranged to have somebody here."
"I booked breakfast. I've been improvising the hospitality since."
Priya remained beside the open homeward route. I waited without adding another attraction to the invitation.
She put her free hand against the door. "Open it."
We entered without harnesses, two adults short of equipment. The stair curved around the tower's central column. I knew its turns from carrying tools, not birthdays. My knees recognized them with rather less affection.
Priya gripped the rail before taking her second step. At the first turn, she pressed against the inner wall. Her shoe stayed planted while she examined the space below.
I stopped above her, leaving room. "The tower's still where we left it."
Priya tightened her arm around the Ledger. "Give me a moment."
She moved her foot, then took the next step. I kept my attention on the steps ahead. An audience rarely improved unfamiliar work.
Farther up, I needed a moment of my own. I braced one hand against the stone.
I addressed my unassisted lungs. "Damn. Could have brought a harness for these."
Priya waited on the step below. "Take your time."
"I've been doing that for eighty-four years."
My breathing remained untidy when we reached the final landing. I pushed open the gallery door with my shoulder. Retirement had apparently included the hinges.
I stepped onto the gallery with the thermos still in my hand, and waited beside the doorway until my breathing allowed me to straighten.
Priya came through behind me and closed the door carefully, keeping her free hand against the stone until she could reach the outside rail.
I set down the thermos and took the tin from my pocket, opening it for the first time that day beneath the shelter of my coat.
I lifted out the cigarette and held it where she could see it, without asking her to pretend that she had seen anything else.
I faced her before speaking. "A cigarette. I've kept it since removal. May I have one minute? Facing the sea."
Priya kept her Ledger beneath her arm. "You know what it costs."
"I do. I'm asking you."
She watched my hand holding the cigarette, then moved beside me at the rail, where the sea extended beyond the breakwater and every building.
Priya rested her free hand on the rail. "One minute."
I lit the cigarette while she watched, and the first smoke scraped my throat with a dryness that nineteen years had done little to preserve.
The taste came through as bitter paper and old tobacco, then something I remembered precisely, although remembering it had never given me the taste itself.
I coughed into my sleeve and waited for my breathing to settle, with the cigarette held clear of my coat and her hand nearby.
I remembered Eileen's hands resting flat against a kitchen counter, the broad fingers and small burns that belonged to work she had always done herself.
The Commonwealth had been right about what this could cost my body, and I still thought it wrong about what my body was for.
I had booked a visit and expected to manage its kindness, but the woman beside me had repeatedly chosen things I had failed to arrange.
She kept facing the water while I smoked, and I stayed beside her rather than moving away to make the minute entirely my own.
When I finished, I pressed the cigarette against the stone at my feet until its glow disappeared, then remained bent while my lungs settled again.
Priya moved her hand toward the Ledger beneath her arm, stopped before touching it, and let her fingers stay there while she watched me straighten.
She turned toward me. "Have you got another cigarette?"
Salt wind passed over the open tin between us, and beyond her stopped hand the sea continued past the breakwater, with neither of us moving.
"I had kept enough for the day I meant to have, and I was still finding out what sort of day that was."