Godzilla - The Official Movie Novelization (7 page)

“Ford, stop it—come on—!”

Not a chance
, he thought.

The muffled voice spoke again. All at once, her frolicsome manner evaporated. She stopped responding to his caresses and gave her full attention to the phone instead. Barely suppressed giggles were cut off abruptly. Her expression darkened and Ford knew at once that playtime was over. He listened intently, frowning.

“No, this is
Mrs.
Brody,” she replied to the unknown caller. “Yes, he’s my husband. Hold on a moment.”

She covered the phone and turned slowly toward Ford, who braced himself in anticipation. Judging from Elle’s reaction, he knew he wasn’t going to like this.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s the consulate,” she said tersely. “Joe… he’s been arrested in Japan.”

Ford felt like he had just been sucker-punched. Whatever trace of his amorous mood had remained dissolved completely, consumed by an all-too-familiar mixture of resentment and gloom. He should’ve known that the call was about his father—and his never-ending obsessions.

Jesus Christ, Dad
, he thought.
What have you done this time?

Ford slumped in a kitchen chair, already exhausted at the prospect of having to deal with his dad again. It never ended, year after year, all the way back to terrible day fifteen years ago, when Ford had watched the nuclear power plant vanish from sight, taking his mother with it. Joe Brody had begun to melt down that day as well, and his son was still dealing with the emotional fallout, all these years later.

“Ford?”

Elle held out the phone. He lifted his head to meet her worried gaze. He had no idea whether he could handle this again. He stared at the phone as though it was a ticking time bomb, about to blow up in his face… one more time. What the hell was he supposed to do?

“He’s your father,” she reminded him.

* * *

Ford rummaged unhappily through a bedroom dresser, searching for a clean pair of socks. His duffel bag rested on the bed nearby. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. He hadn’t even unpacked yet and here he was packing to leave again. He pulled open another drawer, unable to find what he was looking for. He didn’t even know where anything was anymore.

“Why was he trespassing in the quarantine zone?” Elle leaned against the wall, watching him pack. She nodded at the dresser. “No, the other drawer.”

“Why do you think?” Ford said bitterly. “Lone crusader for the truth, all his crackpot theories.”

“Your father’s a good man. He just needs help. He lost everything that day.”

“So did I. But I got over it.”

“I can see that,” she said wryly.

Ford paused in his search, realizing how he must sound. A photo of Elle and Sam, residing atop the dresser, reminded him not to take this out on her, and how much this whole situation sucked.

“We’ve worked so hard for everything we have, Elle. I’m afraid he’ll ruin it. Every time I let him close, he tries to drag me back. I can’t live in the past. I can’t put our family through that.”

“He
is
your family, Ford.” She came toward him, smiling. “You’ll be back in a few days. It’s not the end of the world.”

He wondered what he had ever done to deserve somebody so patient and understanding. He pulled her close and they kissed, doing their best to make every moment count.

Just a few days
, he thought.
That’s all.

“What is the duration of your stay?” the customs official asked, inspecting Ford’s passport.

An endless flight, one connection, and fifteen time zones later, Ford trudged wearily through Narita Airport, toting his carry-on luggage. He’d managed to catch a little sleep on the planes, but the prospect of returning to Japan had stirred up unwanted memories. Bad dreams had followed him all the way across the Pacific.

“One day,” he said curtly.

He fully intended to deal with his dad’s latest mess and get back on a plane to Frisco as soon as humanly possible. He’d promised Sam two weeks and he’d be damned if he’d let his crazy father cut into that precious time with Sam. More than he already had, that is.

“And the nature of your visit?” the customs official asked.

Ford paused briefly before answering. “Family.”

That was good enough for the official, who briskly stamped Ford’s passport. Ford bypassed baggage claim and headed straight for the taxi station outside the airport. The bright sunlight came as shock after leaving Frisco in the middle of the night. He wanted to catch a cab to Tokyo and crash in a cheap hotel, but instead he asked the cabbie to drive him to the police station where his father was still being held.

The drive was both longer and faster than Ford would have preferred. It was late afternoon by the time he found himself sitting in the austere waiting area of a Tokyo police station. Stark institutional walls and sparse furniture rendered the room inhospitable, not that anyone was ever likely to drop by for the amenities. Wanted posters and security alerts were pinned to a bulletin board. Ford tried flipping through some old magazines, only to discover that his Japanese wasn’t what it used to be, despite the long-ago efforts of Miss Okada. He glumly watched a parade of cops and perpetrators pass in and out of the station. He would’ve killed for a cup of black coffee, but that didn’t seem to be an option.

A middle-aged couple, their faces drawn, sat stiffly in the seats beside him. They looked about as happy to be here as he was, although he guessed that they hadn’t traveled nearly so far. Ford didn’t have the energy to try to make conversation with the couple, who appeared caught up in their own troubles anyway. They gripped each other’s hands as they waited. He wondered how long they’d been married.

A buzzer sounded and an inner door unlocked. Ford and the couple looked up to see a bedraggled teenager, decked out in Goth regalia, escorted into the waiting room by a duty cop. The boy’s Mohawked head was hung in shame and he stared at the floor, unable to meet his parent’s gaze. The black mascara around his eyes was smeared, as though he’d been crying. The teen’s mother placed a hand over her mouth, stifling a sob.

The father, a sober-looking gentleman in a conservative suit and tie, rose to face his errant son. The older man regarded the teen in silence for a moment, his stony face unreadable, then came forward to hug his son. The boy collapsed against his father, weeping and apologizing for whatever offense had landed him in the hoosegow. His mother, also forgiving, joined her husband in assuring the teen that, no matter what, he was still their son.

Maybe it was just the jet lag and lack of sleep, but Ford was moved by what he witnessed. He watched enviously as the trio departed the station together.
That
was what a family was supposed to look like. Not like…

“Been a while,” Joe Brody said.

Ford looked up to see his father standing before him, unkempt and disheveled from a night behind bars. He was rake-thin, having lost weight since the last time Ford had seen him, and there was more grey at his temples than Ford remembered. Stubble carpeted his face. If anything, he looked like he’d been sleeping worse than Ford. Heavy pouches shadowed his puffy, bloodshot eyes.

Caught up in someone else’s family drama, Ford hadn’t even noticed his dad being led in. Father and son stared at each other awkwardly, both of them searching for a place to begin. It had been a long time since they had known how to talk to each other, or been entirely comfortable in each other’s presence. Ford suddenly envied that Goth kid.

Unable to find the right words, Ford just held out his hand to shake.

It was the best he could do.

* * *

A partial view of downtown Tokyo from one small window was the only selling point of the cramped and cluttered garret Joe Brody currently called home. It was dusk and neon lights filtered in from outside as Ford and his father entered the apartment. Ford glanced around dubiously. This dump was a far cry from the cozy suburban home he had once shared with his parents—in what was now a radioactive ghost town.

“I’m sorry you had to come all this way, Ford,” his dad said. Joe stepped over tottering stacks of books, magazines, and newspapers piled high on the floor. A single beat-up futon was littered with dirty laundry. Crusty plates and dishes were heaped in the sink of an adjacent kitchenette. An open doorway revealed an unmade bed. The stuffy atmosphere was badly in need of air freshener. Joe avoided Ford’s eyes. “Couldn’t you have just given them a credit card?”

I wish
, Ford thought. Bailing his dad out wasn’t the issue here. It was the fact that Ford had needed to do so in the first place.

He refrained from saying so. The awkwardness between them had not gone away during the short drive here. Joe flipped on a light, igniting a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, and Ford got a better look at what his father’s life had become.

It was a lot to take in. The apartment was more than just a mess. It was a lunatic’s hoard of papers, maps, books, notes, photos, Post-its, and graphs occupying every available surface, including the walls. Tangled cables, snaking across the floor, connected a bewildering array of antique computer monitors, old TV sets, battered printers, and used mainframes that looked as though they should have been consigned to a junk heap years ago. There was even a VCR and VHS tapes for Pete’s sake. To Ford’s eyes, it was a chaotic flurry of random data, accumulated by someone driven round the bend by an obsessive search for answers. Ford dimly remembered how neat and well-ordered his father’s home office had once been, before the meltdown, and winced at the disorderly rat’s nest before him. Joe Brody had been a respected engineer, a professional, many years ago.

Ford wasn’t sure what his father was now.

Joe caught Ford staring silently at the clutter and disarray. He feebly attempted to tidy up, relocating some discarded clothing from the futon to a closet and clearing a path through the heaps of books and magazines. A knee-high stack of newspapers toppled over, spilling onto the floor.

“PhDs don’t make much teaching English as a second language,” Joe offered by way of explanation for his low-rent accommodation. He waited in vain for Ford to say something, then continued. “How’s the bomb business? That must be a growth area these days.”

Ford was irked by his dad’s remark. “It’s called explosive ordinance
disposal.
And my job isn’t dropping bombs. It’s stopping them.”

His gaze was still riveted by the insane accumulation of information pinned and taped to the walls. Looking closer, he spied decades-old news clippings about the meltdown, maps of the quarantine zone, and what appeared to be clandestine spy-photos of tall razor-wire fences and armed sentries on patrol. Ford frowned. He had a pretty good idea who had taken those amateur photos.

“How’s Elle doing?” Joe asked, in a transparent attempt to divert Ford’s attention from the walls. “Sam must be, what, two already?”

“Almost four.” Ford didn’t feel like talking about Sam. He made his way across the clutter to a second-hand desk that was practically buried beneath a surplus of scientific tomes. Bookmarks flagged key sections. Notes had been scribbled in the margins. “I thought you were over this stuff.” He sorted through the books, looking over the titles and chapter headings. He picked one after another up, trying to make sense of it all. “
Echolocation. Parasitic Communication Patterns.
”

Joe took the book from Ford. “Homework,” he said with forced casualness. “I’m studying Bioaccoustics. My new thing.”

As though that explains everything
, Ford thought, losing patience. He was too tired and fed up to beat around the bush any longer. He turned away from the desk to confront his father.

“Dad, what the hell were you doing?”

“Ah, that trespassing stuffis nonsense, Ford.” Joe waved it away with a dismissive gesture. “I was just trying to get to the old house—”

“It’s a quarantine zone!”

“Exactly!” Joe’s casual pose fell away, revealing what was really driving him. “That’s exactly it—there’s something happening in there, Ford. I’ve seen pictures. They didn’t quarantine that place because it’s dangerous. They’ve got
something
going on in there. The new readings are exactly like they were on that day, and if I can just get back in before it’s too late—”

“DAD!”

Ford cut him off, unable to hear anymore. His dad had been spewing this same wild conspiracy stuff for longer than Ford wanted to remember. His outburst stopped Joe short and the two men stared at each other across the physical residue of Joe’s obsessions. A crestfallen look came over Joe’s face as he realized, that his own son thought that he was bat-shit crazy.

His manic energy seeped away. Deflated, he sank into one of the few chairs not covered by scientific journals and reports. He slumped forward, looking defeated.

“You know your mom’s still out there,” he said weakly, his voice barely above a whisper. “For me, she’ll always be there. They evacuated us so quickly I don’t even have a picture of her.”

Sympathy tugged at Ford’s heart, but he had to stay firm.

“This has to stop, Dad. You need to let go.”

“I sent her down there, Ford,” Joe said plaintively. Fifteen years of anguish poured out of him, as though the disaster had happened only yesterday. “I would do anything, anything to bring her back. That haunts me, and I know it haunts you too”

Ford’s resolve melted in the face of his father’s inescapable guilt and grief. He couldn’t help imagining what would be left of him if something happened to Elle… or Sam. He remembered those disappointed but loving parents back at the police station, embracing their son despite everything, and that customs official asking him what his business in Japan was.

Family
, he thought.
Damn it.

“It’s time to come home, Dad,” he said, his voice softening. “Come home with me.”

The grateful look on his father’s face was enough to break Ford’s heart. He swallowed hard and wiped at his eyes, obviously touched by his son’s offer. Ford prayed that he had finally gotten through to him.