by Darryl Brock
I looked up, very slowly.
The asphalt path skirted a rocky outcropping. I was on Russian Hill. But the dirt bluff had been transformed—terraced now with beds of blooms. A flowering hedge stood where O’Donovan had plummeted.
I lifted my eyes all the way. Above a curtain of conifers rose the Transamerica pyramid. In the distance to its left, the Bay Bridge stretched eastward into a sprawl of glistening cities. Coit Tower stood once again on Telegraph Hill.
A roar below. A motorcycle streaking past at terrifying speed. A gridwork of streets. Traffic lights winking. Cars and pedestrians alternately moving and stopping. All bewilderingly fast. Wedged between the streets were masses of stucco and metal that hid the lines of the hills. The wooden buildings I could see were gaudy with bright paintwork; they looked tacky, It all looked tacky. The rumbling, I realized, was merely the city’s normal commerce. A knot of emotions twisted in me. I couldn’t have begun to sort them out.
I moved laboriously to a wire fence and looked northward. Where there had been forests of them, only the Balclutha’s yellow masts were visible. A tanker from Richmond moved sluggishly past Alcatraz, where the prison stood again. The rest of my view was blocked by a glass-and-aluminum apartment complex. A cement truck backed slowly at its base; the source of the beeping.
Too loud. Too fast.
I had come back. All the way back.
My chest aching with the effort, I reached the top of the Vallejo Steps, where elderly Chinese in gymsuits did t’ai chi exercises far below. Their slow, graceful motions were dizzying. I looked down the steep flights. No way I could make the long descent. Try for the street above.
I stooped over a drinking fountain on the walk but couldn’t get my head low enough to drink. I wet my face with one palm, a welcome coolness. My hand came away pink with blood.
Nearby stood a grocery cart heaped with clothes and bottles and metal and cardboard. I came upon its owner several yards beyond, supine and snoring in juniper bushes, a wine bottle protruding from a paper bag beside him. He was unremarkable in every respect. Except one: Cait’s quilt was wrapped around him.
I prodded him with my foot. Again, harder. He groaned and rolled onto one side. I bent and tried to pull the quilt away—and nearly blacked out from the effort.
“Wake up,” I growled.
He groaned and looked up blearily, did a startled second take.
“I want my quilt.”
His watery eyes shifted from my face to the hole in my coat. “You’re dead.”
“Hand it over,” I said, with all the menace I could muster. “And help me up to the street.”
The double message didn’t threaten him. Even if it had, I realized, he could have escaped me easily.
“I’ll pay,” I said. “Ten bucks.”
“You don’t have . . .” Looking guilty, he stopped.
I checked my pockets. Empty. Things were getting blurry again. I unfastened my belt, pried loose one of the last gold eagles, held it out. He exchanged the quilt for it, eyeing the belt.
The blacktop spun. My mind was taken suddenly with images of Hope and Susy.
“Fella, about my girls . . .”
“Huh?”
“I’ve come back.”
I don’t know whether he edged away or just looked like he wanted to. By then little was clear. I hugged the quilt to me. Cait, I thought. Oh God, Cait.
“Get me to them,” I muttered.
Beds are bolted to the floor in San Francisco Central’s seclusion rooms. Bedding is minimal—self-strangling being a fairly serious no-no—and I couldn’t have my quilt just yet, though they assured me it was being held. I asked for it each time somebody came to unlock the bathroom.
It wasn’t what you’d call cheery. No windows. No TV. No sharp instruments, including pencils and pens. The walls held only fingernail line drawings: two sketches of genitalia, one perfect swastika. If you weren’t already crazy, the place might nudge you closer.
On the other hand, my daily ten mils of Haldol kept me pretty groggy. With the quilt, everything would have been fine.
The bum evidently had a sense of honor. He’d taken my money belt but left the quilt and called an ambulance. At Medical Intensive Care my behavior—including, apparently, extensive descriptions of nineteenth-century life—was judged to be out of synch with consensus reality. Hence the funny room, with somebody looking in every fifteen minutes.
“What’s the deal?” I asked an orderly.
“Fifty-one fifty, pal,” he said. “Gotta do your time.”
Section 5150 of the Welfare and Institutions Code permitted holding me for psychiatric observation up to seventy-two hours. An evaluation would determine if I were gravely disabled, perhaps a menace.
I waited.
Meanwhile, the big surprise was that although my chest was cut and bruised, there was no entry wound. I sought an explanation. Nurses patronized me and orderlies looked at me like I was, well, crazy.
Finally a guy about my age showed up, a shrink named Sjoberg. His friendly eyes and soft-spoken manner reminded me a little of Harry. That was probably why, like an idiot, I spilled everything. God knew, I needed to talk.
Sjoberg listened intently, nodded encouragingly. I talked and talked—and finally asked what he made of it. He smiled and said he’d defer “deep diagnosis” pending continued observation.
Which brought the abrupt realization that so long as I told the truth I wasn’t going anywhere. Except maybe to the looney ward in a state hospital.
“Look, doc,” I said. “Let’s just say I was out there in fantasyland, okay?”
He looked at me with new interest. “Go on.”
I told him of my daughters, my job at the Chronicle, the divorce. You’ve been through a lot,” he said. I guess so.”
He started to rise.
“Can you tell me what happened to my chest?”
“I’ll check with Medical,” he said, and went off to phone. “Do you own a watch?” he asked when he returned.
“Sure.” I reached instinctively for my breast pocket. “Big pocket watch.”
“It’s still in your coat,” said Sjoberg. “Badly smashed. If a bullet struck there as you claimed, it might have been deflected by the metal casing.” He looked at me. “Which would explain the furrow on your cheek.”
“No, that happened months ago.”
His expression changed. Uh-oh. Three giant steps backward.
“Well, something happened,” Sjoberg said.
Brilliant, I thought. “May I have the watch?”
“In due time.” He chuckled at his pun.
Not funny. It had saved my life. I wanted it repaired. After Sjoberg left I said, “Well, little brother, you paid me back in full.”
I looked at the door. Nobody observing. Which was fortunate. Since I was talking to Andy.
My condition was diagnosed as “adjustment reaction,” a catchall category for inexplicable behavior on the part of accident victims and other traumatized types expected to recover over time. Not bad company, really.
My energy returned as the headaches and vertigo diminished. Sjoberg cut the Haldol and let me read paperbacks, probably testing me with vicarious violence. I devoured John D. MacDonald and Robert Parker. Great stuff, totally unavailable in the previous century. I ran in place, did sit-ups and push-ups, and thought of how I’d approach Hope and Susy. I tried not to think about Cait. Not yet.
I couldn’t phone Stephanie. I wasn’t sure I’d’ve wanted to. But Sjoberg had.
“We’ll see you in three weeks,” he said one afternoon. “I’m releasing you as an outpatient to your family. They’re in the visitors’ room.”
I stared at him. “You mean I’m in my ex-wife’s goddamn custody?”
“They’re simply here to pick you up,” he said. “You wanted to see your daughters, didn’t you?”
“Well, sure.”
He studied me. If it was a test, I was flunking.
“How do I get my quil
t?”
I’d pictured it so many times, them laughing and hugging and kissing me. My heart swelled when I glimpsed them in their spotless dresses, hair brushed, faces scrubbed and glowing. Hope had just turned five, Susy three. Killer cute. My little girls. I burst through the doors and slid on my knees before them, calling their names, arms out to enfold them.
Hope hung back shyly. Susy hid behind her.
“Girls,” said Stephanie, from above.
Hope climbed dutifully into my lap. Susy, clinging to her, followed suit.
I pulled them close and kissed them, smelling their freshness. “Glad to see me?”
Hope nodded.
“We got a new daddy too,” said Susy, pointing to a man standing beside Stephanie. “Daddy Dave!”
I glanced up, half expecting Anchorman. But it wasn’t. Daddy Dave was about my age, medium build, rust-colored hair. Three-piece suit—his a darker gray than Stephanie’s—right out of GQ. A polo player. Or should be. He smiled with an appropriate measure of friendliness.
“Daddy Dave wants to ’dopt us,” said Susy.
Jesus Christ.
“The wedding was last month,” said Stephanie. “We mailed you an invitation.”
I saw her gray eyes noting my full beard, registering details of my antique clothing. Very little would escape her, I knew. She looked thinner, cheeks almost gaunt, hair cut short. Streamlined. Best of breed. It was good to be able to look at her without the old anger.
“. . . naturally since we nor anyone else knew how to find you,” she was saying, “or even if you were . . .”
“I was alive,” I said. “Working back East. Sorry about the support. I’ll make it up.”
Contempt flickered in the cool eyes, as if to say, “Who needs your money?” It occurred to me that she was probably enjoying this. Now I was not only an irresponsible, violent drunk but a full-fledged head case.
I didn’t care. Stephanie had her own problems and vulnerabilities. And Hope picked that moment to reduce me to silly putty by creeping close and putting her arms around my neck and kissing my cheek. “We still love you, Daddy,” she whispered.
Susy looked up at me and nodded.
Oh, lord.
Outside on the sidewalk Daddy Dave opened the door of a gleaming German sedan. The girls showed me a menagerie of expensive stuffed animals he had bought them and asked me to ride with them. Daddy Dave nodded neutrally.
“I don’t think I’m up to automobiles yet, thanks.”
Stephanie smirked and stepped in. A swivel of slender hips, a flash of pale stockings.
“I’ll be in touch,” I said.
Her lips curved ironically, eyes hidden behind dark glasses. Then the quilt caught her attention. She lifted the glasses. “Isn’t that your grandmother’s?”
“Almost.” My glance fell on one of the patches from Cait’s dress. The quilt had come through time unchanged: no aging, none of Grandma’s patches. “Almost,” I repeated. “Not quite.”
I rented a place in North Beach. My previous landlord had put my stuff in storage. I retrieved it by paying five months’ fees—easily done, once my credit cards were restored.
The Newspaper Guild prevented the Chronicle from firing me—which I suspect old Salvio would have preferred—but could not avert a major reassignment. I drew obits and nightside cop checks, the most dismal blood-and-gore beat imaginable. I worked four-thirty to midnight, often drawing the overnight shift till 3 a.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays off.
Everybody was surprised that I didn’t complain. Cubs usually got stuck with the night police beat. It was punishment. I didn’t care. Day or night or what sort of story made little difference. I worked thoroughly, mechanically.
Sjoberg asked repeatedly about my father during our sessions. There wasn’t much I could tell him.
I assumed, as a working hypothesis, that either I had been summoned by Colm, or in fact had once been Colm. That was my best guess and that was how it felt to me during the experience. Why it had happened I didn’t know. That’s what I wanted Sjoberg to help me figure out.
The trouble was that no matter how fascinating he found my accounts, no matter how inexplicably detailed, he could not help viewing them as manifestations of deep-rooted problems. He invariably returned to my father, suggesting that I was sublimating feelings of rage and rejection through complicated fantasies. Once he even hinted that I had abandoned my daughters in retaliation for my father’s abandoning me, and then subconsciously concocted the time-travel stuff to stave off guilt.
It was too deep for me. I knew what I had experienced. And that was all I knew.
After six months I stopped seeing him. We weren’t getting anywhere. And I felt okay, in the sense that I was coping reasonably well, not suicidal, not drinking. Most of all, with each passing month, I knew more clearly that I wanted to go back again.
The watch ran erratically, though it didn’t look bad. Too many makeshift parts, the repairman said. I wound it faithfully each day with Andy’s key, resetting it frequently.
It became clear that although Hope and Susy were central to my new life, I was an adjunct to theirs. Stephanie at first refused to budge on the terms of the custody order: one visit per week, during which she seldom strayed farther than the next room. In time she loosened and let me take the girls out.
It was a losing proposition. I got one day a week; Daddy Dave got them all. By the time I saw their day-care papers, he’d already lavished praise. If I bought dolls, he’d buy a whole damn dollhouse. I had the impression he couldn’t have kids of his own. He loved mine deeply and was a hell of a competitor. It was probably good for the girls—not so good for me.
Or maybe it was. It kept me from feeling guilty over the longings I felt to be with Cait and Timmy.
They listened patiently at Wells Fargo Bank without asking why, lacking receipts, account numbers, any record whatever, I believed deposits had been made in 1869 in the names of Susanne and Hope Fowler. They did ask if I were a descendant. I said I was, sort of—and realized I hadn’t thought this through at all.
They explained that mergers had occurred, that banking laws permitted the transfer of accounts to the state after a lapse of a number of years. I could check with the Superintendent of Banking in Sacramento to see what laws might have applied. But even if the gold pieces had remained in special accounts opened in 1869—similar to placing them in a safe-deposit box—they would have drawn no interest. Their value would lie only in what a coin collector would pay.
So much for that.
Pizza—like TV and a good many other modern cravings—turned out to be not such a big deal. Now I missed the clatter of horse-drawn vehicles; the sight of men wearing tall hats and high collars; women with bustles and parasols; even dirt streets with their raw stinks.
At work I stared out the window at the Old Mint for long minutes, remembering the morning I had walked by and seen its foundation being prepared.
Before long I was spending all my spare hours at the public library poring over 1869 newspapers on microfilm. I discovered what I was looking for in the October 6 San Francisco Call.
IRISH SPEAKER FOUND DEAD
The body of Capt. F. J. O’Donovan, noted Fenian lecturer and organizer, was found at the foot of a precipice near Vallejo Street yesterday. The body bore marks of its fatal descent, the head and neck injured terribly. This tragedy is but another lamentable example of the City failing to provide safety railings in mountainous sections—a needed reform long urged in these columns.
I stared at the smudged gray words. Fatal descent . . . head and neck injured terribly. . . .
It had happened; I hadn’t fantasized it.
But that was all I could find. No hint of foul play or mention of witnesses. Nothing about Johnny or me. No coverage at all in other papers.
Rereading accounts of the Stockings’ San Francisco games made me feel part of it all again. Hungry to know what happened to them, I haunted UC’s Bancroft Library, where I cranked throug
h reel after reel of the Cincinnati Enquirer—jolted by the occasional sight of my own dispatches.
The Stockings had demolished foes as they headed back across the country. At home again, they beat the Philadelphia Athletics and New York Mutuals, each making one last-ditch try at knocking off the unbeaten Stockings. There was wild celebrating in Cincinnati the night they concluded the perfect season: sixty games without a loss. Champion awarded them fifty-dollar bonuses on November 15, the day their contracts ended.
I felt an odd moment of trepidation when I ordered the reels for 1870. Time had gone on. What had the next year brought?
By late January the Stocking regulars were “reengaged without change,” the Enquirer noted. Harry’s lineup would be the same—although the substitute was one Ed Atwater. In April they toured Dixie, winning seven games in New Orleans and Memphis. In May they notched eight victories in Ohio and Kentucky, then in June invaded the East again, taking nine straight in Massachusetts and New York.
Then it finally happened. On June 14 they finished nine innings against the Brooklyn Atlantics with the score 5-5. The rules allowed ties, and the Atlantics, content with their performance, drifted from the field. But the Stockings stayed—I could picture Harry grimly commanding them to hold their positions—until the Atlantics returned from their clubhouse.
With Brainard tiring, Brooklyn got runners on first and second in the tenth. But George snuffed the threat by dropping a pop-up to start a double play. Brainard doubled and scored in the eleventh, and George, coming through in the clutch as ever, singled in another run. The 7-5 lead looked decisive.
But the Atlantics’ leadoff man blooped a hit in front of Andy and took third on Brainard’s wild pitch. The next hitter drove one into the right-field crowd. By the time Mac plowed among them and dug out the ball, the run was home and the hitter stood on third. Waterman took a hot grounder cleanly, held the runner, made the throw. One down. The Brooklyn captain, Ferguson, normally a right-handed batter, hit lefty to keep the ball away from George and managed a dribbler between Gould and Sweasy. The tying run scored. The next Atlantic drove a smash at Gould, who knocked it down to save the run but had no play. Ferguson alertly moved to third. A grounder went to George. He fielded it and threw to Sweasy at second to begin a game-saving double play.