by Rex Bolt
He settled on Hoosiers, which he had seen before but not for a few years. He remembered Coach telling a story one time about Hoosiers. It was about 10 years ago and Hamilton was traveling to a non-league game against a tough school from Vacaville, up in the Bay Area. The bus trip was about three hours, and Coach maneuvered a special bus that had video screens in place, and he had the team watch Hoosiers on the way to the game. Thinking it would fire everyone up.
What happened, it backfired. The players got off the bus all drained because they got too worked up watching the movie and had nothing left for the actual game. Coach said Hamilton got crushed that night 42-3.
Anyhow, Pike liked the flow and the spirit of the movie. His favorite part actually, was the opening, where Gene Hackman, the new coach, is driving a long distance to the little town and finally ends up at the school. He’s using maps and coffee to get there, and the music is playing, and the scenery as he gets off the major highways and onto the backroads is nice and simple and really puts you there.
The basketball part looked a little hokey, with the old-fashioned set-shots and the players moving kind of stiff. But the emotion is great, and there were a couple of moments where Pike broke down and cried a little, and he wouldn’t be ashamed to admit that it felt good to let it out.
Chapter 19
The town of Beacon assessor’s office opened at 9:30 and Pike was there waiting. The clerk was a young guy chewing gum who looked like he didn’t want to be there, and it took a little while to figure out what Pike was looking for and dig out the appropriate file.
Pike sat in a cubicle and went through it. It was interesting, it was one manila file folder, and it held everything on official the history of the property, which wasn’t a whole lot.
But there it was, son-of-a-gun, an original house was constructed in 1946 by a builder named A.R. Ernst, and then in 1974 a renovation was filed for by another builder, and when that was complete the property got reassessed. It was surprising they called it a renovation when it seemed like they tore whole joint down and started all over, except for the foundation, but whatever.
The main thing, the file confirmed there was pre-1956 activity there, and at this point that was good enough for Pike to let it fly now, and let the chips fall where they may.
He went home, showered and shaved and picked out the right clothes, which took a little thought, because he didn’t want to show up 25 years ago wearing stuff that didn’t exist back then, such as his Nikes or Green Bay Packers hat that was a modern alternate version of the one from back then.
The last thing was dipping into that wooden box again in his dad’s sock drawer, that his dad didn’t seem to pay attention to, and snagging two hundred fifty bucks.
Despite being mad at his dad for the Mrs. Milburn affair--and likely others too--Pike suspected, he did feel guilty stealing the money, and he vowed to pay it back when he could.
So there you were. He looked around his room, checked some notes he’d taken, grabbed his laptop and closed the door.
It was Thursday December 8th, ten past 11 in the morning now. It was chilly in the house, but nice and warm in The Box. Partly that was because of the furnace being nearby, but it was also the tightness, the coziness of the place.
He put on the Sacramento radio station, KEWC, from June 21st, 1993. He opened a tab for the newspaper baseball game summary that day, that showed the smiling player with the gap-teeth, and one for a photo of the old stadium. One of the dj’s talked over the beginning of the new Rod Stewart song, Have I Told You Lately? the way they did, and then the dj was quiet and he let the song play.
Pike closed his eyes at that point and hummed along. The song ended, and there was nothing, no change, and he was thinking should he open his eyes and start all over, try it again maybe with a different dj, a different song--when Hannamaker’s snare drum started rattling very slightly.
Then it got louder, the metal snare belt on the underside of the drum starting to shake. It was different than it had been the previous times, starting off in the school closet, where Pike had felt himself begin to shake.
That wasn’t happening here, but something was, and after a minute Pike felt himself holding on like he was in the front car of the old Big-Dipper rollercoaster on the beach at Santa Cruz, and the thing was slowly climbing to the top, getting ready to unleash that first monster drop, except someone had removed that bar that holds you in and now the the thing was falling big-time over the top like it was Niagra Falls.
There was blackness, he couldn’t see a thing, suddenly. Which was also something new, a nasty twist from the way it had worked his previous times.
Then . . . he heard some birds . . . and the hum of distant traffic . . . and then the smell of farm grasses in warm weather . . . and it seemed like a good idea to open his eyes.
He was sitting against a beat-up wooden fence on the side of a road. The sign up ahead said Highway 32. Pike tried to absorb the situation, got up, and quickly realized wherever he was, he better be paying attention. Cars and trucks were whizzing by pretty quick, and he was basically on the shoulder of a 50-mile-an-hour road, not that far from the traffic.
He could make out a cluster of old red-brick buildings maybe a half-mile away, which had the look of the center of a town, or even the whole town, and he started jogging at a not quite attention-getting pace, but at an urgent one.
There was a small, permanent type billboard on the way into town that said Welcome to Orland, Home of the Trojans. Everything was in blue and white, which Pike assumed were the town or school colors.
This was someplace he’d never heard of unfortunately. It occurred to him he wasn’t even sure he was in California, but then he checked three license plates in a row and confirmed he was.
The license plates were a little different too, than the current ones, not much but they were a little off. The main thing jumping out though was the cars. Quite a few weird looking mini-vans for one, and different makes, and the American cars you saw were way bigger than now. The Japanese ones also seemed bigger, and were real squared-off. The pickups were also more squared-off, but they were the least different. Pike figured pick-up drivers never worried as much as they others about gas mileage, so the auto companies probably didn’t have to change as much.
He was getting sidetracked though. The main good thing so far, he’d at least gone back. How far back, and where this was, exactly, were the issues.
You knew you were in a farm town because when you came to the first stoplight and sidewalk, right up front there was a tractor dealership. Pike crossed at the light and right there in front of Dottie’s Cafe which looked light it might be the town hub were three newspaper boxes.
In the current world you didn’t find one of these very often, much less three together. This part was going to be easy . . . no need to pick someone on the street this time and ask the incredibly awkward question of what year is it?
They had a Sacramento Bee, an Orland Record and a Chico Enterprise-Record.
Wait a second, Chico . . . and now for the date . . . June 22nd, 1993.
Un . . . freaking . . . real.
He popped into Dottie’s Cafe--he was starving anyway--and this was a basic question you could ask now, which he did of the first person he saw, an old wrinkled guy in a gray workshirt who looked like he’d done outdoor work for about 75 years and still could.
The guy was friendly, told him door-to-door it was 19 miles to Chico, and got a good laugh out of it. Pike thanked him and was almost going to ask if he was going that way, but that could wait just a bit.
Meanwhile a cheeseburger was $1.35 so he ordered two and they were tremendous, the meat tasting dang fresh and the trimmings piled high. The place was probably cheap anyway, if it was still around in 2016, but either way this was the kind of rollback he appreciated.
He was full now and took a little inventory around the cafe. The first thing, about half of them were smoking, and there was a steady rumble of talking in the joint. Nico
tine did that, Pike was pretty sure, it could stimulate you and make you social.
The second thing, almost no one was on a phone, and the few that were kept it short and sweet. They made their call, they received or dished out their information, and that was it . . . And those few phones that you did see, they looked funny too. Big, and with an antennae you had to pull up before you got started.
Some of his teachers would talk about the good old days and Pike never paid much attention, but one concept he sort of had down was there wasn’t much internet before the mid-90’s, period, and what there was, your phone didn’t connect to it.
So he had to admit, it was different, but not the worst thing, to be in a restaurant and nobody’s fingering any device.
Pike stepped back outside. It was one-twenty, and he left Beacon a little past eleven, so it appeared the time-of-day travel part was still in synch. Now to get his rear end to Chico, and hopefully not have to stay there for months to work things out.
There was a guy fiddling around outside his truck, a slightly scary-looking dude in camouflage gear, in fact the kind of guy who might be all tatted up these days, but Pike suspected tattoos weren’t popular and maybe not perfected back then.
The reason Pike approached the guy though, he liked his vehicle. It was raised, huge knobby tires and there were two legitimate-looking seats in the bed, open-air, with seat belts. You didn’t see a setup like that, much, or at all, back home, maybe they weren’t legal anymore. Pike figured what the heck and asked him if was going anywhere near Chico.
The guy had kind of a southern twang, like he wasn’t from around here. He said he wasn’t planning on it, but if Pike needed a ride he’d give him one. Just like that, not overly friendly, but matter-of fact.
Pike said that would be great and sat up front with the guy, not in the bed-seats after all, and the guy loosened up and gave him his story, that he was from Galveston, way down there on the Gulf of Mexico, and he was a lineman, which he explained to Pike was one of those guys who strung and repaired the high voltage stuff you saw on the towers going across hundreds of miles of wide-open countryside.
The guy, Toby, said there wasn’t enough steady work down in Texas right now, and it was wacky the way it worked, but PGE up here hired him on a 4-month contract job. He was holeing up in a motel in Orland and today they weren’t working, so driving people around was fine.
Toby was the kind of guy that didn’t ask one word about Pike and probably still wouldn’t even if they were riding cross-country together, but he did him a favor and when they got near the Chico college campus, which Pike figured was as good as any place, he thanked the guy and got out.
Downtown Chico was pretty laid back. Pike assumed there’d be a more lively vibe during the school year, and this was summer vacation and slower. It seemed like it wasn’t a bad place to live though, and taking it a step further, the Milburns, what was so bad about it that they had to move out of here?
You could walk to most everything and you had a couple of major streets, it seemed, that teed off into each other and put you right at the foot of the college. Nice and organized.
Pike knew going in that if he managed to make it here--which he was still kind of in shock about but didn’t want to dwell on it--he would have to bite the bullet and get a motel. This wasn’t going to be an up-and-back-on-same-day job, where you return to Beacon and you’ve wasted all of one hour.
He figured put a little distance on downtown and the campus and then start looking around, lodging was bound to be a little cheaper. A mile or so south, down past 14th Street, there was an ordinary looking motel, that called itself a motor inn, that could do the job. The sign said $29 weekdays and Pike went inside and explained his circumstances--not his real circumstances but that he was a student on a budget and what could they do.
The guy in the office was Indian, and it was clear he was the owner and you could smell curry coming out of a back room and the guy was nice about it and gave him a room for $75 for the week. Pike prayed that was all it would take.
The motel had an old-fashioned pool in the front of the parking lot, and it sure looked like it would hit the spot. Pike wanted bad to go in and and unwind but of course he didn’t have swim trunks, so he said what the heck and asked the hotel guy, and without making a big deal about it the guy found him a pair and they fit okay.
The water felt great, they didn’t heat the pool, you didn’t need to, and Pike floated on his back for a while and looked at the bright blue sky and thought to himself, this has been some day, you know it?
Back in the room there was a phone book, the same as Frankie the librarian was trying to help him with that day when she was laying down doing her best in the lower racks. Here now under M-I were the Milburns. Rose and Preston. He expected it, he shouldn’t have been surprised seeing the names there . . . but he couldn’t help it . . . this did not seem real.
Pike had been working for a few days on what to say to break the ice if this moment really occurred, and he had about five ideas, and in the end none of them made sense, and sitting on the bed right here at this moment, staring at the motel phone, he had no plan at all.
So he dialed the number . . . Mrs. Milburn answered, he was pretty sure, because . . . Dang It . . . she sounded a lot like Audrey.
“Hi my name’s Pike,” he said, no need to disguise that part. “I’m here from out of town, but I think I know you . . . did you go to Hamilton in Beacon?”
“Why yes,” she said, “my husband and myself both . . . Pike doesn’t ring a bell . . . What year were you, if I might ask, and what was your last name?”
“Uh, just last year actually, ‘92,” Pike said. “Jensen . . . What was your husband’s name again?”
“Preston . . . and of course Milburn. My name’s Rose Richardson. Or it was then . . . Where do you live Pike?”
“Man, you got married kinda quick then,” he said. He couldn’t think on-the-spot of a place to fake where he lived, so he gave her his current block, hoping that wouldn’t be a problem.
She said, “I know it’s hard to believe, but we’ve been together since 8th grade . . . For the most part. We were married last fall.”
“It working out okay then?” he said, trying to make small talk, no idea where he was going.
Mrs. Milburn handled it in stride, she had a maturity about her, even at--what was it--20, 21? She said, “It’s going spectacularly well, if you must know . . . The little bumps in the road, the few there are, they become insignificant when you’re lucky enough that your mate is also your best friend.”
“I don’t like your husband,” Pike said.
He blurted it out, on the fly, wanting, needing, to stir something up, make something happen. Since this love-fest they were apparently enjoying was starting to piss him off.
Which was another thing. Maybe not important right now, but out of curiosity . . . how’d they go from lovey dovey, to her messing around with half the town?
“Pardon?” Rose said.
“Yep,” Pike said, “I’m of a mind to kick his ass. If he’s the one that pulled it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “what in heavens are you talking about? Pulled what?”
“Okay, that’s on me then,” Pike said. “I shouldn’t have said anything, if you don’t know.”
“This is . . . I’m not sure what to say,” she said.
“Where is he right now, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Why at work, of course.”
“The trucking place?”
There was a pause. When she spoke again she was cautious. “Yes, that’s correct. How did you know where my husband works?”
“Your sister told me. At least she said she was your sister.”
This was starting to shape up a little bit. Maybe that was the way to work it . . . spook ‘em the fuck out of the state.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, “but I don’t have a sister.”
Pike remembered this. It was something Audrey v
olunteered on that drive home from Manhattan Beach, that her mom was an only child. No aunts or uncles or cousins from Audrey and Hailey on that side of the family.
“You sure about that?” Pike said. “Nice person, very pretty . . . She said her name was Audrey.”
He thought he heard Rose let out a little gasp at the other end of the phone line.
“Why, what an . . . uncanny . . . coincidence, then,” she said. “That’s my grandmother’s name.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Pike said. “She just said, if you have kids, that’s what you’re going to name your first girl. Audrey . . . after your sister.”
“My Lord,” she said, after a moment.
“Can you make me dinner? Do you have extra?” Pike said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Your questions--such as they are--are wandering toward the inappropriate.”
“I mean with your husband included . . . What’s that guy’s name again?’
“Well Preston, but that’s not the point.”
“The point,” Pike said, “is I’m not trying to put the moves on you or anything.” Remembering Hannamker’s line and throwing it in for the heck of it. “Even though you are a hot little number.”
“Okay. Thank you for calling then . . . Mr. Jensen,” she said, going formal on him now. “This has been . . . unusual . . . to say the least.”
“Ah, c’mon,” Pike said. “I’ll bring dessert . . . Putting the cards on the table here, it would behoove you to listen to what I have to say.” Not sure if he got that word right, but hopefully she’d get the message.
“You’re so insistent,” she said, “this is very peculiar.”
“You think . . . it’s on account of you being with Preston from such an early age?”
“Excuse me. What’s on account of that?”
“That you’re going to cheat on him right and left . . . What else did you think I was talking about?”
She was clearly ready to slam down the phone more than once, but couldn’t pull the trigger. “Unh-huh. And I suppose, my . . . sister . . . informed you of this as well.”