Time Lapse

by Rex Bolt

  “You’ll disguise it well of course,” Pike continued. “Saturday nights sometimes, you might have a deal going with the old girl friends, a little innocent card game maybe, you all sit around with the red wine having fun complaining about your husbands, getting it off your chest . . . Except the only problem, you leave your house looking way too good to be headed to a middle-aged-gals get-together.”

  Pike was admittedly feeling pretty savage, laying it out there like this, but what else could you do.

  “Wow-eee,” Rose said, but she still didn’t hang up.

  “Answer your question,” Pike said, “yeah, your sister informed me of that too . . . Your other sister. Hailey.” Letting that one ride.

  There was a pause. “Okay now you’re starting to freak me out,” she said. “Maybe it’s not the worst idea for us to meet you . . . briefly . . . and I’m certain we can put all our concerns to rest.”

  “Sounds good. What are your concerns?”

  “I’m . . . not entirely sure . . . It’s only that, some of your references have been . . . disturbing.”

  Pike asked her again if tonight worked, and she said fine, for him to please come at 6:30. When they hung up he thought it was kind of strange that she didn’t at least check with her husband first.

  ***

  Luckily Mrs. Milburn was a darn good cook. It was also fortunate that the Milburns, at least tonight anyway, were old-school meat consumers.

  “Honestly,” Pike said, after he’d polished off thirds on the pot roast, “that’s the best meal I’ve had in weeks.”

  “Oh, I believe you’re buttering me up,” Rose said. “I’m sure your mom is an excellent cook.”

  Dang, she not only talked like Audrey, she looked a lot like her too, and she definitely had her body language. She was a classy girl, graceful. They both were.

  Mr. Milburn was sitting there at the table looking slightly like the odd man out. That was the way he was as an old guy too. Pike admired him actually, that he didn’t need to inject himself, comfortable with letting Rose be herself.

  But enough of this bull-roar.

  “How much longer you going be at your job, do you reckon?” Pike asked Preston.

  “That’s hard to say. I’m hoping they promote me up that ladder. I feel like I’m in line.”

  “Oh yeah?” Pike said. “When they pick up and move to Iowa, what are you going to do then?”

  They were in the middle of dessert, a peach pie that Pike had brought, which luckily in 1993 pricing only ran him $2.29 at one of the local bakeries on Main Street.

  Mr. Milburn finished swallowing and put down his fork. “And what gives you the notion my company would move to Iowa?” he said.

  “Ask them then . . . Look ‘em in the eye, see how they react . . . They’re going to spring it on you soon enough.”

  Mr. Milburn’s eyes were wide, like Pike was an idiot, but you could see at the same time he was working this off-the-wall piece of news around, that part of it might be making sense.

  “Rose,” Mr. Milburn said, with a little authority for the first time, “I’m not sure I understand why we’re entertaining this Pike tonight.” He turned to Pike. “With all due respect,” he said.

  “Honey,” she said, “I would agree with you . . . Except I didn’t know what to make of a few things he said, and it seemed wise to clear the air.”

  “What other things?” Preston said.

  “Knowing that my grandmother’s name is Audrey, for one,” she said.

  “I didn’t know that,” Pike said. “What I said, was that’s what you’re going to name your first daughter.”

  “Okay fine, sort of the same thing . . . Then he brings up Hailey.”

  “What about her?” Mr. Milburn said, straightening up slightly.

  Pike kept his mouth shut, and Rose said, “He claims to have spoken to my sister, named Hailey.”

  Mr. Milburn pushed away from the table and excused himself, and you could hear the back door close.

  “He goes out there and smokes,” Rose said, “because it bothers me in the house . . . He’s a good guy, like I told you . . . He had a little sister, born prematurely, she passed away when she was two.”

  No need for anyone to mention that her name would have been Hailey.

  “I’m going to go,” Pike said. “Thanks.”

  She said, “I didn’t bring up the part where you accused him of being the one who pulled something.”

  “Ah.”

  “Should I?”

  “Sure. Why not? He’ll know what he pulled.”

  She fumbled around for a minute. “This is a stupid question . . . what are you doing here anyway, Pike?”

  “I’m looking for a job. Do you know any?”

  She told him she’d keep her eye open and asked him where he was staying, and he gave her the name of the motel and she wrote it down, and he left. He had no car obviously, but he hadn’t minded walking here, it let him think, and on the way back he tried to sort out if he’d screwed anything up big-time, or if he was actually making any progress.

  ***

  On the way back to the motel, on Broadway, which seemed to be a second Main Street, running parallel to it one block over, there was a bar that looked like it had a little life to it.

  Pike was thirsty, he could go for a beer, or he could just as easily enjoy a soda, but either way, why not try to get in? Then it hit him that his fake ID, which had him born in 1995 so that he’d be 21 in 2016, wouldn’t exactly do the trick.

  There was a group of people heading inside, a motley herd of about 10 of them, all looking over-age, and two large bouncers at the door were treating it casual, and Pike pulled up his collar and ducked his head slightly and stuck close to the shoulder of one of the herd and was in.

  He ordered a light beer, and he shouldn’t have, but he gravitated toward the pool table. It had been a while now since the incident in Utah, downtown Logan, where he and that other recruit whose name he couldn’t remember got into it with those local yokels.

  All he wanted to do here was sit and watch, unwind a little. Not challenge anyone to play, not make eyes at anyone’s girlfriend, zip.

  Unfortunately bars were unpredictable places, and this had the feel of one of those no-nonsense hard-core joints like the Utah one. The atmosphere was probably different in here when the college was in session, more tame, more laid-back, but right now with school out and not many students around there was a definite edge to the place.

  It didn’t take long. “Yo, pretty boy, I’m talking to you,” someone said, though the guy hadn’t been talking to him before. “I said--you got next, or what?”

  Pike had had a full day, and he wasn’t fond of some jackass getting in his face, so he ignored the guy, which turned out to be a mistake.

  Next thing, the guy has a handful of Pike’s shirt and he’s lifting him up out of his seat, and Pike can smell his acidy bad breath and he can see the flakes of old food in the guy’s beard.

  The guy brought him to eye level and began the usual tough-guy lecture about When I talk to you, pardner, you’d best show me some respect, and so on.

  Pike wasn’t in the mood for a showdown, and didn’t particularly care for being singled out like this, so without thinking too hard he popped his head forward into the guy’s face, and the guy went down and that was that.

  And in a perfect world he could sit back down and relax and go back to nursing his beer.

  Except things were never that simple. No sooner had the idiot hit the floor than Pike felt himself swallowed up from behind by two big, hairy arms.

  Again, he reacted without thinking and popped his head backwards this time, and that guy went down, no problem. Pike recognized him as one of oversized bouncers that he’d snuck past on the way in.

  That would mean unfortunately there’d be a third guy, the other bouncer, and before Pike could find him that guy reared back and swung a forearm that resembled a club and caught him in the side of the face.

>   Pike turned toward the guy, who didn’t seem all that angry, more like surprised that Pike was still standing.

  Pike felt bad for the guy for a second, since after all, he was only doing his job, which was controlling the unruly patrons.

  But he couldn’t help thinking of the old Butch Cassidy movie, that was one of his dad’s favorites, where Butch is about to get stabbed to death by some lunatic but says hold on, we have to get the rules straight first.

  The bad guy is dumbfounded for a moment and hesitates, and Butch delivers.

  So Pike let the brute come one step closer and, that scene in his mind, he delivered a monster foot to the groin.

  The poor dude was going to be in trouble for a while, as Pike was pretty darn sure he’d done some rupturing, and/or popping, at the minimum.

  He took one quick final sip of his beer, so not to look frazzled, and then, not running but not dogging it either, got the hell out of there.

  When he got outside and turned the corner out of view of the bar, then he did pick up the pace and run--fast. He got within a block of the motel, looked around, gave it a 360 degree scope, felt like the coast was clear and hightailed it to the motel and ducked inside his room and closed and chained the door, and after a minute realized the dang curtains were still open so he zipped those up too.

  ***

  This was just great. Nice going.

  Again, in a perfect world--or maybe if you were in a place like New York City where bar fights probably happened every night and you could get lost in the crowd--you’d be okay.

  But here, he seriously doubted it. He’d just messed up three guys, who for all he knew were respected citizens of this hick town.

  That could be an exaggeration, but who knows? Cops have been known to moonlight as bouncers, haven’t they?, so that angle might be in play now as well. It wasn’t probable, from the looks of the two of them, but the point was anything is possible, and at the very least, three angry people and likely a few of their friends would be looking for a distinctive under-aged kid who definitely wasn’t from here.

  Fortunately, in 1993 you again didn’t have that much of the internet operating yet and Facebook wouldn’t be invented for another ten years, and no one could have been taking photos or videos of the incident with their phones.

  But sooner or later there was a good chance the event would at least make it into the old fashioned newspaper, and that couldn’t be good.

  Pike could picture it: Mystery Man Hospitalizes Three in Downtown Bar Altercation. And then a couple sentences down would be a description of him, and the Milburns would read it and think about it for half a second before calling it in, and like an idiot he told them exactly where he was staying and they wrote it down.

  And what about the motel guy?

  Pike figured he could try moving to a different one, maybe that was an idea, but no, that’s dumb, then you’d have a different motel guy putting the same 2 and 2 together.

  Right now he was too exhausted to think. The day that started so long ago with the trip to the Beacon assessor’s office was hitting him like a ton of bricks, and he barely made it under the covers before he was out cold.

  ***

  There was a coffee maker in the room and Pike needed it bad in the morning. He turned on the TV--he’d forgotten about that--but after sitting through a couple of torturously boring local newscasts he was relieved that his display last night apparently hadn’t made the cut.

  It seemed safe enough to check out the continental breakfast in the office, and while he was wolfing down multiple items he grabbed a morning Chico newspaper that was laying around, and there was nothing in there either.

  Maybe there never would be . . . but maybe all it meant was there wasn’t anything yet.

  When Pike decided he was full enough he dragged himself back to the room and tried to plot strategy. Such as it was.

  His options were extremely limited. This might be funny actually, if it wasn’t so pathetic . . . All the build-up to get here and the big plans to change history, at least for one family, and then Boom -- you pinned yourself in a silly motel room basically in the middle of nowhere.

  And morning TV, especially, it seemed, in 1993, was more than terrible. Luckily at 11 a pro bull riding competition from Amarillo came on ESPN, which provided a tiny measure of entertainment while Pike continued to rack his brain what the heck to do from here.

  It was mid-afternoon, just after three, when out of the blue the room phone sounded with a shrill jolt.

  Pike was afraid to speak, in case it somehow really might be the authorities, but it would have driven him crazy if he didn’t answer, so he did, but he kept his mouth shut.

  “Are you there?” the voice said twice, and by the second time it was pretty clearly Mrs. Milburn.

  “Gee,” Pike said. “How’d you find me?” Since he hadn’t signed anything when he checked in or given the guy his name, he’d only forked over the 75 bucks.

  “I described you,” she said. “The nice gentleman connected me.”

  “Well what’s up?” he said, happy to hear from her, if nothing else, to break the monotony.

  “How was your evening last night . . . and your morning?”

  She asked it like she didn’t care, she was building up to something, it felt like.

  “I got in a little trouble last night,” he said. “If you hear anything, you need to believe me that it wasn’t my fault.” Pike thinking what the hay, a preemptive strike can’t hurt.

  What Rose said was, “Listen . . . I should talk to you.”

  What could this be now? Pike thought it would be more than a little awkward to have her come by the motel, but it would also be safe-awkward compared to other options, so he invited her over.

  Twenty minutes later she tapped on the door.

  “You don’t fool around,” he said, sitting her at the little round table that motels tend to have.

  “I’ve been such a fool, haven’t I?” she said.

  “Hunh?”

  “You were right . . . you were so right, obviously . . . What on earth was I thinking?”

  Uh-oh. “I’m not following . . . What are you talking about?”

  “Preston. Who did you think? . . . Just what you put your finger on . . . I’m simply not ready.”

  Pike was scrambling in his head trying to remember exactly what he’d said, that might be setting her off now.

  “Hold on there,” he said. “Let’s don’t be ridiculous . . . What you may be going through, I guarantee it’s normal, in any marriage.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it . . . In my next marriage, if there is one . . . I’m going to leave Preston. It may be early enough to get an annulment, but that’s not a deal-breaker. We’re done.”

  Ho-ly Shit.

  “What?” she said. “Why are you looking at me like that? And you’re kinda cute . . . whoever you are . . . Did I tell you that?”

  Oh . . . My . . . God.

  So she was already acting-out like a free woman . . . Or of course, like someone who is destined to cheat on her husband, except with things accelerating just a bit.

  But forget all that for the moment. The alarming part now, which Pike had idiotically not considered when he was taking digs at her on the phone, getting under skin: If this continued, there wouldn’t be any Audrey and Hailey to try to save their mom for.

  He felt himself sliding back into the same no-nonsense mode that got the better of him last night in the bar.

  “Well you may think you’re done,” he said quietly. “But the fact is, you’re just getting started.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said, but he had her attention, she seemed a tad less sure of herself.

  “You know you and Mr . . . Preston . . . are going to have two children,” he continued, “beautiful girls. Two years apart . . . The sweetest people . . . And I believe you know what there names are, as well.”

  “That was . . . a bit ominous,” she said. “And al
so odd that you started to address him as Mr. Milburn . . . I’m not kidding around now Pike. What’s your story?”

  “Don’t worry about that . . . Just remember, the girls . . . it’s all about the girls . . . They need you.”

  “And . . . if I told you you are full of horse manure?” Very tentatively spoken though, like she’d lost a lot of momentum.

  Pike stood up for effect. He began pacing around the little room and returned to where she was sitting and hovered over her.

  “The big thing,” he said, “the single most important thing. You and Preston, you can’t set foot in Beacon again. If you do, something bad will happen.” Pike nodded at her.

  They both let it hang for a minute.

  “Why, is that . . . some sort of threat?” she said, but her voice was small, and there was fear in it.

  Pike said, “You may even decide, okay, fine I won’t . . . But the problem is, you’ll be drawn there anyway . . . Your car may break down 200 miles away, and the tow truck driver, irrational as it is, may say he has to tow you to Beacon . . . You have to fight that with all your power. And you have the ability to, it’s in your hands Rose.”

  Pike felt his voice cracking as he finished it off. He believed every word.

  She put her hands to her face and began to sob, and Pike had to say, she sure reminded him of Audrey upset, and he was very tempted to hold her and tell everything was going to be okay. But he didn’t.

  After a while she went in the bathroom and washed her face, and when she came out she didn’t say a word and headed straight to the door and opened it and walked out into the bright afternoon.

  She looked back once, as she was getting in her car, and Pike said, “Have a great life.”

  ***

  Pike had noticed a pizza place about a block down, and figured the odds were he’d be fine going there, but he played it safe and had one delivered.

  He was going major stir-crazy in the room. This would have to be his last night here. He was afraid to go anywhere, and no way he could take a repeat performance of today.

  He prayed he’d done enough to influence events. He feared he hadn’t though, and that was 100 percent on him.