The Future of Another Timeline

by Annalee Newitz

  From the back of the room there was a loud bang and the sound of a scuffle. Three men were overturning chairs, while others were trying to restrain them. As Aseel delivered a final clash of her cymbals, one of the agitated men stood up on a table and began to yell.

  “This is evil, Satanic filth! These foul sluts are nothing more than savage beasts! Send them back to the dark country that spawned them!”

  Then his buddy jumped up next to him, and my heart almost exploded. It was the shitbag from the Grape Ape concert—the Comstocker, older now, his face partly obscured by a beard shot with gray. “You are upstanding men! Do you want this vile obscenity to sicken the minds and bodies of every innocent who visits the Midway?”

  There were shouts as the press men scrambled to pull the Comstockers off their perch. But they wouldn’t shut up. “We will put a stop to this! Mark my words!”

  The third man, young with slicked-back hair, waved a rope that he’d coiled into a noose. “Will you let a Jew and his black bitches lead you to hell?” Then he ran at Salina, dumping a can of machine oil over her head before we could stop him. She screamed as the reeking black fluid ran down her face and stained her chemise. Sol raced to drape her in his jacket and I grabbed some spare fabric to clean her up.

  The room degenerated into chaos, and cries of “Stand down, man!” mingled with further ranting from the Comstockers, as they were dragged to the door. As I helped Salina into another chemise in the corner, I heard Soph’s unmistakable soprano above the baritone din. “The Devil take you!” she screamed. “There is no goodness left in your putrid souls!”

  A group of press men shoved the Comstockers into the street and Aseel appeared at my side. She was utterly calm, and said something quietly to Salina that made the weeping woman break into a shaky smile. Then Aseel turned to me, her lips thinned with rage. With a fierce yank on my shoulder, she pulled me close enough to hear her jagged whisper. “What you talked about last night? I’m in. We are going to bring those men low.”

  Before I could reply, Sol took to the center of the room and waved his hands to quiet everyone down. “Chicago is a great city! A city of progress and industry! We don’t need yesterday’s moralists to tell us what’s right and wrong. We can see for ourselves, and judge for ourselves. I hope you gentlemen learned something from the show.” Then he winked. “And maybe you had a little fun too, before that ruckus. Remember, the Algerian Theater is right next to Cairo Street, below the great Ferris wheel! You can see more of this beautiful, secret tradition for only two bits! Show opens on May first!”

  And with that, he hustled us back to the carriage waiting outside. I had never seen Sol upset before, so I couldn’t be certain that’s what I was witnessing now. He kept up the jolly patter as we rode back to the Midway, complimenting the women on their performances, and giving each of us an extra dollar for our trouble. Still, I thought I saw him wince a few times. When we got out of the carriage, he told the driver to take him straight to his favorite club for a drink.

  Aseel looked thoughtful as he drove away. “You know he makes the same salary as the president? But they still call him ‘Jew’ instead of Sol Bloom. Kind of makes me feel bad for him.”

  “Yeah.”

  I thought of my father reading the Haggadah at Passover, letting me ask the Four Questions for the first time. I stumbled over the unfamiliar word “reclining,” and my grandfather gently corrected me. As a kid in the liberal 1970s, I had no way to understand how much anti-Semitic shit they’d eaten in their lives. Of course, there were things about me that they would never understand either.

  TEN

  BETH

  Irvine, Alta California … Garden Grove, Alta California … Tustin, Alta California (1992 C.E.)

  It had been a week since I took the home pregnancy test, and three days since Hamid said he’d be home. He hadn’t called yet, which was a bitter kind of relief. I didn’t want to tell him anything about my plans with Lizzy and her mom Jenny, but maybe if he’d called I’d have changed my mind.

  I told my parents I was sleeping over at Lizzy’s house, so they suspected nothing when Jenny and Lizzy picked me up. It wasn’t a complete lie, of course: I would be staying with the Bermans that night. I left out the part where we’d be driving to Garden Grove for an off-the-books doctor’s appointment, paid for with a year’s worth of my saved allowance.

  I kept having panic flashes as Jenny drove. I was going to die. My parents would find out. A fucked-up larva covered in teeth and eyes would squirm its way out of my womb and eat the world.

  The doctor was a kinetic, pale man with matted hair on every part of his body except his head. It was weird to see him sitting in the receptionist’s chair when we walked in. “You can call me Bob, because we don’t stand on ceremony after hours.” He reached out to shake my hand, then grabbed my fingers and turned the gesture into a little bow. “Milady. Welcome to my humble chamber.” I could see bright lights in the office behind him, and a vinyl-covered exam table with metal stirrups attached.

  Jenny hugged me. “We’ll be right out here, honey.” She and Lizzy sat in the waiting room while I followed Bob to the back.

  He kept up the mock chivalry routine, twirling his hand in the air as he gestured for me to sit on the table. “You’re quite a young one. How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Naughty, naughty girl!” He waved an admonishing finger at me. “Take off all your clothes and I’ll be back with my instruments.”

  I wasn’t sure why I needed to take everything off, but I also didn’t think it was a good idea to ask questions. There was no hospital gown for me to put on, so I lay bare on the sticky plastic of the table, heels in stirrups and knees pressed firmly together. Hamid was probably back at home in Irvine right now, having a nice dinner with his family.

  Bob erupted back into the room, trailing a device on wheels that I couldn’t properly see. After craning my neck, I thought maybe it looked like one of those hair dryers my mom used at the salon, with the silver helmet that blew hot air evenly all over her head.

  “I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you, naughty girl.” Bob adjusted a lamp nearby, and suddenly I could feel heat against my legs. “The good news is that this is a state-of-the-art machine that’s sort of like a vacuum, and it does the job really quickly. The bad news is that you might feel a little cramp. Can you handle a little cramp?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, open wide.” He slid a hand between my knees and I opened my legs.

  Suddenly I felt his gloved hand inside me, covered in a cold slime. He grunted, withdrew, and pushed in the speculum. I could hear and feel its metal paddles clicking as he cranked me open until I thought I would rip. I focused my eyes on the ceiling, covered in white tiles, and tried to decide whether they were fissured or perforated. Then I heard rattling and what I thought was the low hum of a motor. Without warning, my abdomen wrenched with pain worse than anything I could have imagined.

  I clenched my teeth and fists and stared at a place in the ceiling where a water leak had left a cloudy brown stain behind. I wondered if it was normal to feel like a giant lamprey was chewing and digesting my guts.

  “Almost done.” Bob sounded distracted. “It’s not so bad, right? Some women love it. One of my patients had an orgasm when she was giving birth.” He paused, as if pondering. “Maybe one day you will too, when you find the right boy.”

  Everything hurt so much that his words were just sounds that meant time was passing. Soon it would be over.

  When he withdrew, it felt like I was giving birth to a machine. All the mechanical parts slimed out, and I was nothing but scraped tissue and diminishing anguish. I could feel warm liquid oozing out of me, like when I got my period.

  “You’ll be spotting for a few days, but if it starts to bleed a lot go to the emergency room right away.” Bob scooted his chair around the table so I could see his face. For the first time, he sounded like a normal doctor. “Also, no sex for a
couple of weeks. That’s it. Feel free to go when you’re ready.”

  He wadded up his gloves and threw them in a silver trash can, the kind that pops open like a mouth when you step on its foot. Then he jangled out of the room, trailing the vacuum cleaner. I sat up slowly and another warm lump dribbled out of me onto the plastic table, creating a heart-shaped puddle of lubricant and blood. I couldn’t see any tissues or cloths for cleaning up, and finally hobbled to the sink to grab some rough paper towels. I washed up as best I could, and jammed some fresh paper towels into the crotch of my underwear just in case.

  When I stumbled out of Bob’s office, I suddenly needed to throw up. The only place to do it was in the receptionist’s trash can, so he wound up with two samples of my bodily fluid that day. I didn’t mind leaving the smell there for him to find.

  Lizzy and Jenny jumped up as soon as I came back to the waiting room. They put their arms around me and we walked out together like that, squashing through the doorframe three abreast. It was awkward and warm and safe. I felt shaky when we got into the car, but my bleeding had slowed to a mild seep. I really was going to be all right.

  The radio blipped to life as Jenny started the car, and that shitty Don Henley song “All She Wants to Do Is Dance” came on. I thought I was going to scream, but instead I started talking, my words coming faster than outrage.

  “I hate this song. Because everybody thinks it’s about a woman who is carefree and beautiful, but it’s actually about how Don Henley goes to some war-torn country and meets this woman who is in the middle of the most horrible situation ever, and all he notices about her is that she’s dancing. That’s the only thing he sees. She’s living in this dystopia where the government is bugging discos and mobsters are selling weapons to the military, and he actually thinks that all she cares about is goddamn dancing!”

  My voice was a little too loud. Nobody said anything for a second, then Lizzy laughed. “I hate this song too.”

  Jenny smiled. “I realize that I am totally uncool because I like Don Henley. I like the Eagles, too.” Then she shot me a serious look. “But yeah, let’s listen to something else. Do you approve of Tracy Chapman?”

  It was mom music, but I still liked it. We sang along to “Fast Car” and sailed down the freeway back to Irvine.

  * * *

  Hamid called me two nights later. I answered on the downstairs phone next to the kitchen, where my mom was washing the dishes after dinner and listening to everything I said. That was fine, because I didn’t want to say much.

  “Hey, it’s Hamid. How’s it going?”

  “I’m good. How are you?” I twisted the curly cord around my fingers.

  “Pretty good. What are you up to this weekend?” He didn’t offer any explanation for why he’d waited so long to call.

  “I have plans with Heather and those guys.”

  “All weekend? You don’t even have time to watch a very special video history of the Mouseketeers?” His voice hovered between needy and sad. It reminded me of when we’d talked on the beach, where he’d pulled me into his melancholy and left an alien robot baby behind.

  “Yeah, sorry. I’m just super busy.”

  “Well, what about next weekend?”

  “I have a ton of SAT prep so…”

  “So you’re busy.”

  “Yeah.”

  I could practically hear him getting the hint. When he spoke again, there was no emotion in his voice. “Okay cool … well, anyway, maybe I’ll see you around before I leave for UCLA. Or maybe not. Whatever.”

  “Okay cool. Bye.” I hung up and tried not to feel anything.

  My mom put down the dish towel and looked at me. “Was that a boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were very nice. I thought you did a good job politely turning him down.”

  I had one of those split-second fantasies where I smashed every single dish my mom had painstakingly dried. The room was covered in powdery shards, and then it wasn’t.

  “I think I’m going out with Lizzy tonight, okay?”

  I ran upstairs before she could finish saying yes.

  Irvine Meadows was having a summer weeknight concert with four indie bands, including Million Eyes, and we’d been planning to see it for a few days. Soojin and Heather were already in the station wagon when Lizzy picked me up.

  “So what the hell happened with you and Hamid?” Heather turned all the way around in the front passenger seat, kneeling on the pleather to face me. “He said something about how you are going to be busy for the rest of the summer?”

  After what happened with Scott, I figured Heather could keep a secret. So I told her and Soojin the whole story. By the time I got to the part where I’d puked in the trash can, we were parked in Irvine Meadows’ most distant and secluded parking lot.

  “Please don’t tell Hamid, okay?” I looked at Heather.

  She nodded slowly and then let out one of her crazy cackles. “Yeah, I can see why you might be busy all summer.”

  “It’s not that Hamid is a bad person. Actually, he’s really nice. I’m just not … I know it sounds weird, but I’m not in the mood to talk to him.”

  “That totally makes sense. I mean, he’s my cousin, so I feel bad for him. But also he’s kind of a dumbass.” Heather stuffed some weed in a pipe and took a long hit. “You want some?”

  “I want some! I’m done driving now, hello!” Lizzy reached for the pipe, still trailing smoke.

  We passed the pipe around for a while, and then headed toward our seats. After the first opening act, I heard a familiar voice behind us.

  “Hey, guys. Great show, right?”

  It felt like the hair was walking off the back of my neck. I turned around to see our social studies teacher, Mr. Rasmann, smoking a cigarette and looking very non-teachery in a leather jacket. He’d graduated from college only a couple of years ago, and a lot of girls at school had crushes on him.

  “Hey, Mr. Rasmann.” Soojin smiled at him. “I didn’t know you liked punk rock.”

  “Yeah, I miss going to shows in L.A. But this lineup is great. Have you guys heard Million Eyes before?”

  I knew I wasn’t going to be interested in whatever he said next. My guess was that he only asked as an excuse to barf out some giant explanation of a band I definitely understood better than he did.

  But for some reason Soojin fell into his conversation trap. “I love them, but I’ve never seen them live.”

  And, as I predicted, he took her reply as pretext to launch into a long commentary about Million Eyes that he’d ripped off practically verbatim from an article in LA Weekly. Lizzy pulled out a cigarette to share, and Mr. Rasmann leaned forward to light it for us. It felt cool to have a teacher do that, but it also reminded me of Bob, with his “we’re not standing on ceremony” routine.

  Lizzy grabbed my elbow. “Let’s take a little stroll before the next band.”

  We wandered through the loge section and Lizzy glanced back over her shoulder. “That teacher is so gross. He’s always hitting on girls in my class.”

  “Really? Ugh.”

  Soojin raced up to us, almost crashing into the railing where we leaned. “Why did you guys leave me with that pervert?”

  I waggled my eyebrows. “Why did you leave Heather with that pervert?”

  “Heather went to the bathroom.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Well, at first I thought he was being nice. He was like asking me to call him Tom and talking about cool music. But then he was like, hey you have skin like a china doll, and do you want to party after the show, and it was super gross.”

  “That asshole has been molesting girls at our school all year.” Lizzy had a furious expression on her face that I’d only seen once before, on the night we never talked about.

  “He’s definitely got a molester vibe.”

  “We should teach him a lesson.” Lizzy’s mouth hardened into a smile. Soojin grinned back.

  I thought that would be the end o
f it. But Mr. Rasmann was still there when we got back to our seats, and Soojin wore a fake flirtatious smirk she only used to fuck with people.

  “Hey, ladies!” He was trying to riff on a Beastie Boys lyric, and it came out sounding awful.

  “Hi, um, Tom.” Soojin shot Lizzy a look as she spoke. “So where do you want to go party after the show?”

  He bared his teeth. “You should come to my place. I have some good bourbon I got from my dad.”

  “Can my friends come?”

  Mr. Rasmann raked his eyes over us. “Sure. What the hell. It’s summer vacation, right?”

  * * *

  We followed his directions to an apartment complex in Tustin. It was one of dozens of suburban developments built during the 1970s to look woodsy and natural. As we wandered between amorphously shaped plots of grass and stucco walls masked by trees, I hung back for a moment to light a cigarette that Lizzy had stuffed in my pocket earlier.

  “I’ll catch up, you guys! I’m going to smoke for a minute.”

  “See you there!”

  They climbed rustic wooden stairs and I leaned against a lamp post, blowing misshapen smoke rings and wondering what the hell we were doing. I kept thinking about Hamid, and how I wished he’d said he was sorry about not calling. I was raging, irrationally, that he hadn’t apologized for that evening he knew nothing about, when I lay naked on a table with a pain machine inside me. Smoke and anguish pricked my eyes, making everything blurry.

  Suddenly, a woman rounded the corner, walking straight toward me, her trench coat flaring open to reveal knickerbockers and a high-collared blouse that would have been fashionable during the 1980s Gunne Sax craze. Her brown hair was pulled back into a long, thick ponytail.