Connected

Chapter 4: The Story of Dr. Bremner

"You... Knew my old man?" I was baffled, in the fact that I was sure that my dad died when I was 6.

He grinned. "I know him. He's alive. Well, probably."

He's alive, probably? Filled with disbelief, I had him follow me to a table and sit down. He had to be lying anyways. My father died in a car crash, and I even went to his funeral!

"Tell me how you met him." I said with obvious imprudence.

"With pleasure."

•••

It was a long time ago, in a gal-

"Come on man, this isn't Star Wars."

Ahem. It was a couple years ago, around 2006, and I was on my way to the convenience store. (I had lived in a university dorm, so I had to go pick up my daily helping of ramen.) On my walk to the store, I strode past dark alleyway. I was like, 'Oh, this is a nice shortcut!'

(Talk about cliché.)

I decided to walk through the alleyway. When I came out on the other side, I saw some strange looking men. On each of their right arms, menacing-looking gang tattoos sat comfortably. When they saw me staring at them, they started walking in unison towards me. Considering it was only my 3rd year of study, I high-tailed it out of there. I was like, 'Hell no brother! I'm not payed enough for thi-

"Just a sec, how old are you?"

He flicked a rubber band at me.

"Please stop interrupting. I'm 27, my name is Dean Bremner, I majored for 6 years in science and math, I weigh one-hundred-eighty-six pounds, I am roughly five foot ten, and I have a mild allergy to nuts. Enough information?"

"Sure."

Finally. Back to the story, it kind of became a high-speed chase. Of course, minus the "high-speed" and the adrenaline. Since I was pretty lean at the time, (I was basically living off of ramen, you see) and I was one of the best runners in the track team during high school, I got away from them easily. Since it was two slow, bulky men vs. one slightly malnourished track athlete, it was kind of an unfair match. When I finally got away, I knew it was only temporary, so I had to hide in another alley to fully evade their senses. Walking out from the side opposite of which I ran in from, I encountered a strange man.

"And this man-" I started to say.

He nodded his head towards me. "-Was your father."

To me, he looked incredibly insane at the time. His clothes were mangled and torn, he had a wretched case of 5-o'clock shadow, and was wheezing like he just finished a marathon. We were just sitting there together, panting like 2 antelopes after a five mile chase. After some couple minutes, I finally had enough breath to say something. "Hey, who are you?"

"Dean, I am your fa-"

"Stop with the Star Wars references!"

Sorry, sorry.

"I'm John," He let out another pant. "John Creebick, scientist."

I put out my hand for him, expecting a formal handshake. "Nice to meet you, Dr Creebick.. I'm Dean Bremner, science and math major."

Instead, he fist-bumped me. "Just call me John. So, why are you so coincidentally running around a corning just like I, in which (if it is the case) has no greater odds then randomly becoming a god while eating a taco on a street corner at approximately 11:38 P.M. during a Friday night?"

That was my father. Even though I don't have many memories from when I was younger, I knew that he was an intelligible man with a strange comedic sense.