The Clout of Gen Read Free Page B

front of him and the video player properly connected and the tape inserted, his heart began to throb. He couldn’t remember being so anxious to watch anything since the opening of Terminator 2 back in 1991, when he stood in line for two hours at the cinema. He pressed the play button, and in that moment, from that very instant, John began to see the world in a whole different way.
     
    The tape began with an Asian man introducing himself as Yaturo. He seemed to be in his late forties, and kept talking about his guilty feelings, claiming, “This is the least I can do.” Great , John thought. A suicide tape. Could the timing be any worse? Or more awfully perfect?
     
    Then, the picture went blank for a few moments and then the same guy appeared again, only he looked younger and was standing in a large parking lot, seemingly at a concert, event, or game, though John couldn’t tell for sure. The Asian began to speak: “I am now outside Estadio Azteca in Mexico city. It is June 22, 1986, and Argentina will play England in the quarter-finals.”
     
    John increased the volume of his TV and slid his sofa closer, getting more interesting. As outdated as the game was, he remembered it was quite a match.
     
    Yaturo continued with the stadium in the background, “I want to ask some fans about what they think the results might be.”
     
    Some of the passersby answered, projecting, “England two to nothing,” or, “Argentina, one to zero,” but then Yaturo managed to stop three fans wearing the British flag on their shirts. They looked to be in their twenties.
     
    Yaturo asked, “Can you guys give me your names, where you’re from, and what you think the results will be in today’s match? I am doing a program for a sports channel.”
     
    No one bothered to ask him which channel he was from. The first one answered, “Jim Owen Steadman, Dorking, two-nothing, England,” and started dancing.
     
    The second spectator, a young woman, answered, “Lisa Farry, same, and England, two to one.”
     
    The last guy answered with a smile, “John Humphrey, and I say England will win on penalties.”
     
    Then all three began to chant: “England, England, ENGLAND!”
     
    Before they left, the first guy, Jim Owen Steadman, asked Yaturo “What about you? What do you think?”
     
    Without a moment of hesitation, Yaturo answered, “Two to one, Argentina,” and put one of his hands in a fist shape above his head.
     
    The British fans began chanting again and went on their way. 
     
    John suddenly paused the tape, in total shock. An avid soccer fan himself, as well as a soccer player in both high school and college, John knew that match by heart, especially since it was one of the most talked-about matches in history. In the end, Yaturo was absolutely correct. Argentina won that game two to one, and in the course of that victory, Maradona scored two of the most talked about goals in all of soccer’s history, dribbling half the English team to score one and the other with his fist, just as Yaturo mentioned and gestured before the game began. It was far too exact, too accurate to be mere coincidence. “What in the world is this? Some kind of bloody joke?” John began to shout to his pizza, demanding answers.
     
    He pressed play again, and he saw Yaturo with the stadium still in the background. This time, Yaturo said, “September 11, 2001—what a sad, sad day for the United States of America. December 26, 2004—what a disastrous day for the people living along the Indian Ocean…” And then, the tape went black. 
     
    In complete and utter shock, John stood and went to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. His head felt as if it might explode any minute, and he was trembling violently. He ran outside to smoke a cigarette, trying to get a grasp of everything that he’d seen on that strange tape from that strange box.
     
    Over the next two hours, John watched the tape at least ten more times in deep concentration and