The Day After You Die

by Dan Kolbet

  “Thank you,” Harold said, rushing toward the exit.

  “Hey, why are they yelling about a bus crash?” she called out, to no reply.

  #

  To distract the kids, the horse-drawn wagon would do loops through the orchard before approaching the storage barn so the kids might not realize they had only traveled a short distance to the North Pole. Harold knew this, so rather than follow the path carved in the snow, he crossed the open area toward several buildings in the distance, one of which he prayed was the cider-processing barn.

  As he got closer, he saw two yellow school buses parked alongside a red barn. He knew he was headed the right direction, and the buses had not left yet.

  Leaning against the snowy bumper of one bus, smoking cigarettes, were the bus drivers Harold assumed were Elmore Walker and Sam Harris. He needed to convince the drivers to wait until the plow came, but his priority was to find Gail. He raised the collar of his jacket to partially cover his face, and veered away from the buses, but he was already too close.

  “Hey, you. Flake,” the tall one said. “What are you playing at? I got a whole load of kiddies worried about me crashing that bus cuz of you. I don’t need that. Hey, don’t walk away from me!”

  Harold kept walking, determined not to engage with the men until he had to.

  “That’s right,” called the other one. “You better beat feet, hippie!”

  Harold had certainly been called a square before, but never a hippie. However, he ignored the jab and kept moving.

  The red barn was labeled, “Processing” above the door. Harold stepped inside to find dozens of children sitting in circles, playing games and drinking cider and hot chocolate.

  He saw Gail almost immediately, lined up in a row facing away from him, with several other children playing Mother May I.

  Her tight blonde curls were now frizzy and unkempt because of the snow. She still wore her gray peacoat, with blue mittens attached to the sleeves with safety pins.

  “Bette, take two giant steps forward,” the Mother said.

  “Mother, May I?” a girl replies.

  The girl playing Mother stopped providing instructions, to the annoyance of the other children. She just stopped and stared at Harold until they all turned around, Gail included.

  “Harold?” Gail said, as she ran to him, and was about to give him a big hug, but pulled up short due to the attention that was being paid to him.

  “Hi, Gail,” Harold said. “It’s really, really good to see you.”

  A lump caught in Harold’s throat, he’d done it. He’d saved her.

  He waited for the flood of memories to create a new alternate future for them, but nothing happened. This was the pinnacle moment. This was the thing he was supposed to do today, and he’d done it. Despite everything, he’d made it. He had stolen a car, for heaven’s sake.

  “Gail, this is going to be hard to explain, but I think something bad is going to happen with the buses today and if it’s OK with you, I’d like to stick with you until we get home. We won’t go on the bus.”

  “I know,” she said.

  Harold was baffled. How did she know? Was she somehow party to the second chance he’d been given today? Alas, no.

  “You were yelling about it at the bus like the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.”

  “Yes, I was,” Harold said, smiling. “And very good literary reference.”

  “It’s a good book. Dad bought it for me, even though mom said I wouldn’t understand it.”

  Tears welled around Harold’s eyes and he wiped them away. Gail looked at him quizzically.

  “It’s just the cold, really,” he said.

  Gail ignored her instincts to be cool in front of her classmates and hugged her brother. She sensed something important was happening, that she couldn’t easily identify.

  “So you’ll stay with me today?” he asked.

  “Sure, as long as we get home for dinner on time,” she said. “Mom’s making meatloaf.”

  The flood of many new memories finally rippled into Harold, as his knees went weak and his body tingled.

  Just one bus crashing, killing seven students. Gail on her first day of 5th grade. She was too scared to return to Hopkins Elementary, so she enrolled in another school. Gone was the wheelchair and her injury from the crash. Her waving goodbye to him in his green Army uniform, standing upright and proud. She was safe.

  But that’s where the memories stopped, as Harold would never see her again after leaving for bootcamp. Yet, with the new memories, several old memories turned gray and slip away.

  Meeting Ruth at the hospital after the bus accident. The smell of her hair and the touch of her skin. Making her promise to wait for his return. Carrying her picture to Vietnam.

  Because Gail wouldn’t be in the bus accident, Harold and his parents would never go to the hospital. Harold will never meet the love of his life and hold her in his thoughts every day of his time in Vietnam.

  Harold could feel the memories pulling away inside his mind. He knew in mere moments, they would be gone forever. Overwritten by something new. A brief, fantastic love that would evaporate into the lost wilds of time. Could he call the hospital and ask to speak to Ruth? That wouldn’t make any sense to her, and he didn’t have enough time, anyway.

  And then it came to him.

  “Gail, do you have your diary?” Harold asked.

  Of course she did. She carried it always. She nodded and pulled out the blue and white checkered diary with a small brass pin clip securing it closed.

  There on page 46, Harold wrote the most important note of his life. He scribbled with the pencil until he forgot what he was writing about and why he was even holding the diary in the first place.

  Confused and slightly embarrassed, he handed the diary back to Gail, never discussing with her what he wrote.

  Chapter 10

  Harold kept Gail at his side as he approached Elmore Walker and Sam Harris, hoping the presence of a cute little girl would curb any vile things the men might say to him. Harold explained the hairpin turns leading up the bluff were iced over and unsafe to drive down without first being cleared by a plow.

  It was clear that Sam wasn’t interested in what Harold had to say.

  “Pal, when these kiddies are done sitting on Santa’s lap, we’re leaving,” Sam said. “That’s what they pay us for. We don’t get paid if we never come back.”

  Elmore nodded, but seemed a little more cautious.

  “Maybe the hippie’s got a point,” Elmore said. “That road’s pretty narrow in places. We should make sure it’s clear before we leave.”

  “Well, maybe if you had secured the chains to the undercarriage like I asked you to, we wouldn’t be having to discuss this here, now would we?” Sam said. “It’s cold, I’m tired, and we’re leaving as soon as we’re all loaded up.”

  Harold recalled that the newspaper accounts never addressed why the buses didn’t have chains on the tires for the drive back. Knowing now that the drivers had discussed it prior to his intervention was incredibly frustrating.

  “It was barely snowing when we left,” Elmore replied.

  Sam walked away and lit up another cigarette. Elmore motioned for Harold to follow him, as kids loaded onto the buses.

  “There’s something off about you, kid, and you’re butting in where you don’t belong,” he said. “Sam’s in charge. He’s my boss, and if he says we go, then we go. The road will be fine. We got up here with no issues. And besides, with all the yelping you’ve done, Sam and I will be on high alert the whole way down. I’ll lead. We’ll be alright. ”

  With Sam’s commitment to be cautious, Harold felt something shift and change, with new memories coming to him. His body tingled and his knees were weak.

  Edgar Dawson, despite his reservations, plowed the hairpin turns with his tractor. “I was already up the bluff and had to get down anyway,” he’d say. The buses return to the school late, but safe. No accidents. No deaths.


  Harold blinked away the new memories and Sam watched him.

  “There’s something wrong with you, kid,” he said, before getting into the bus and firing up the engine for the ride home.

  Harold watched as the buses drove away from the farm, Gail at his side.

  “It’s going to be alright for them now, right?” Gail said. “The buses, I mean?”

  How she could sense the seismic shift, he didn’t know.

  “Yes, I think so,” Harold said.

  “How?” she asked.

  Harold couldn’t imagine trying to explain all that had happened and worried that giving her even a hint of it might somehow change everything back to the way it was before. He couldn’t let that happen.

  “Maybe someday we can talk about it, but for now, I think it’ll need to be one of our secrets,” he said.

  #

  One of the farm hands gave Harold and Gail a ride down the bluff to the Buick, which Edgar Dawson had pulled out of the ditch for him. They drove slowly back to town to an address near their home, one that matched the registration paper in the Buick’s glove box. Harold parked the Buick in the driveway and both he and Gail went to the front door.

  A woman opened the door with a smile that quickly faded when she saw Harold.

  “You little thief,” she hissed. “You stole my car! Are you here for my house now? Maybe my silver?”

  Harold did his best to apologize and told her he was returning the car to her exactly the way it was before. No damage. He’d even filled the gas tank. And besides, it was only for a few hours.

  “I called the police,” she said. “They are looking for you, right now. You’ll be arrested for what you did. Why would you do such a thing?”

  Harold refused to answer. He knew he would have to live with the consequences of what he did, but he didn’t care. Gail was alive and if he hadn’t taken the Buick, she would not be. It was worth it. He was unaware of how significant the act of stealing the car was on his life’s trajectory. How this one act led him to the Army, the war in Vietnam, and his subsequent death there. He was returning the car for no other reason than it was the right thing to do.

  Gail watched the woman’s anger with a sense of bewilderment. She didn’t understand why Harold wouldn’t tell her why he took the car. He did it for her, to save her from something, although she didn’t quite know what it was. Maybe the woman would understand if he only explained it to her, but for some reason he wouldn’t. He just let her yell at him. Gail didn’t want him to get in trouble for helping her. She had to help him, too.

  “It was me,” Gail said. “I stole the car. He’s just covering for me.”

  “No, Gail,” Harold said, panic in his voice. “You can’t say that.”

  “It’s true,” Gail persisted. “I took the keys from his pocket when he was walking to your car from Frankie’s. My brother was out looking for me all day. When he found me, we came straight here. I swear it’s the truth. It was me, not him.”

  Harold couldn’t imagine what changes might happen now. Would Gail be arrested? She was alive, but would she now be branded a juvenile delinquent or a criminal? He waited for the flood of memories to come and change everything. He prepared himself to correct Gail and tell this woman the truth, but nothing changed. No memories came to reverse the day.

  The woman’s expression turned from anger to confusion—possibly over how nine-year-old Gail had the dexterity and wherewithal to pilot the vehicle. From inside the house, a kitchen timer rang, followed by the shouts of, “Geraldine! The dinner!”

  “Just one minute, for Heaven’s sake!” she shouted back into the house, which was answered by low muttering, presumably by her hungry husband.

  She stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her. She pulled her arms tight against her sweater to ward off the cold, looking straight at Gail.

  “You took my keys from him, then stole my car?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gail said.

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m nine and in the fourth grade at Hopkins, but I read at a seventh-grade level.”

  “Well, that’s good, honey,” she said, pausing a moment as if in deep thought. “I didn’t call the police. I actually didn’t tell anyone. My husband would have killed me if that car had gone missing. No matter the reason, he would have found a way to blame me for it. I told him it was still at the shop. I thought somehow it might just turn up, I don’t really know why. I was going to call in the morning, but since you returned it, I guess I won’t.”

  Harold handed her the keys. When his hand touched hers, he felt a spark of new memories, a new future. So much changed for both him and Gail, with that one act.

  Harold gets the job at Frankie’s for the summer and returns to college to finish his degree. Gone was the arrest for grand theft auto and the enlistment in Vietnam. Harold again moves to Michigan and works for Ford for 32 years. He buys season tickets to the Detroit Tigers and is in the stands when they win the World Series in 1984. With no wife to insist on moving away from Detroit when he retires, he stays there. Eventually he passes away in his recliner, alone, watching television. It is a long, but not exceptional life.

  Gail excels in school, eventually becoming valedictorian of her high school class. Her passion for reading becomes a passion for writing. She is the first female in her family to go to college, and publishes her first novel “Secrets,” when she is only 22. She marries and has two sons, one of whom she calls Harry, after her brother. She works as a professor, then chairs the English department at the University of Washington for two decades. She lives a good life.

  Harold also saw glimpses of the lives of the children he saved on the bus that day.

  One of the boys becomes a well-known TV personality. One of the girls is elected to Congress and represents her district for five terms. The lives of the other children and their families were full, thanks to a bus accident that never happened.

  As they walked back home, Harold began to feel the day slipping away and his youthful 19-year-old body slowing. The snow and cold hurt his joints. His hearing was slightly muted. His steps became a slow shuffle. He knew where his path was leading.

  Gail held his hand, sensing this change, and attributing it to sadness of some sort.

  “Something big happened today, didn’t it?” she asked.

  He nodded, not looking at her.

  “But you are not going to tell me about it, are you?”

  “I am not,” he replied. “It’s a bit of a secret.”

  “OK,” she said. “I have secrets, too.”

  Chapter 11

  Harold stepped into the white room for the second time, but there was no door behind him this go around. No going back. Before him was an old desk attended by the man in a yellow tank top. The man didn’t look up. He was reading a small book.

  As Harold waited to be noticed, he took stock of his emotions, recalling the excitement he had left this room with. You can go back for one day. Then discovering that the one day allowed him to re-write history and prevent his sister’s death. He had succeeded in the mission he assigned himself, but he felt an overwhelming sense of melancholy, of which he couldn’t find a root cause. His life was, well, lonely.

  “Harold, you’re dead,” the man said. “Again.”

  “Very observant,” he replied.

  “Whoa, a little chippy, aren’t we? I understand, you had a busy day, and by all accounts that was one emotional rollercoaster ride you went on. I know standing here today, you can’t recall the alternate paths you walked but trust me, it’s better you’re here, than a muddy pit in Vietnam. That’s for sure.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Harold said.

  “Right, you wouldn’t. Those paths were wiped clear. That’s OK. They didn’t tell me what I might have changed either.”

  “You got to go back, too?” Harold asked.

  “Yes, I got the choice just like you.”

  “What was your day like
?”

  “Typical day, I guess,” the man said. “I went to the lake with some friends. I saved a kid from drowning. Did CPR—it was new back then. The kid lived to become an old man.”

  Harold could not believe that he had not recognized the man before. He seemed somewhat familiar, but he hadn’t been able to place him. Steven Beckman, his friend’s older brother who performed CPR on him when he hit his head and nearly drowned at Loon Lake in 1961 when he was 15 years old. Steven wasn’t supposed to go on the trip to the lake, but somehow showed up and saved his life. He was wearing the same yellow tank top and cut-off shorts, too.

  “You went back for me?” Harold asked.

  “Not exactly, but I was in the right place at the right time and you benefited from it. They called me a hero. I got several dates based on that story. Worked out well for me and you both. You’re welcome.”

  Harold had so many questions. Was going back all about saving lives? Was this opportunity only meant to correct mistakes? Could he go back again? But he didn’t ask any of those questions.

  “Thank you,” Harold said. “So, since I saved Gail, does that mean I get to give her the instructions about going back—help her on her path, like you did for me?”

  “Things aren’t so linear around here,” Steven said. “You won’t be talking to Gail, at least not in the way you think.”

  Steven held up the book he was reading at the desk. Gail’s blue and white checkered diary.

  “You did something that some people might consider cheating, writing in this thing, but it’s not like we have a rule book. Personally, I think it was genius, and honestly, I wish I would have thought of it too. It would have saved me a lot of heartache with my first wife.”

  “What did I do?” Harold asked.

  Steven handed him the book.

  “Read page 46.”

  Harold took the book. The last time he held it was at Cider Farms, just after he prevented the bus accident, which seemed a long, long time ago. He vaguely remembered writing something, but not what or why.