Eli

by Bill Myers

  “Is this Santa Monica?”

  “Sure is,” she smiled. Her eyes were bloodshot and watery.

  She either had a bad case of allergies or was stoned. Conrad guessed the latter.

  The kid beside her called up to the driver, “Turn right up here at Third.”

  Conrad looked back out the window. “Actually”—he cleared his throat—“you can’t turn right at Third. It’s the mall.”

  “The what?”

  “The outdoor mall. It’s been there since the eighties.”

  “Nice pants,” the girl said. Suddenly Conrad was distracted by a playful hand on his leg. “What are they?”

  “These?” Conrad glanced down. “Just some, uh, Dockers.”

  “What-ers?”

  “Dockers.”

  “Never heard of ’em.”

  The leather-vested youth wrapped his arm around the girl’s shoulders just in case there was any miscommunication. “Crys-tal here, she wants to be a clothes designer. Pretty good, too.

  Made me this vest.” He reached down and lifted the beaded tassels along its edge.

  Conrad nodded and looked back out the window. They were at Third Street and to his astonishment, making a right.

  There was no mall, just the continuation of the street.

  “So what were the pigs after you for?” the driver called back.

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  “Pigs?”

  “Our esteemed law enforcement officers.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Could be anything these days,” the kid with the Afro said. “They’re so jumpy with the protesters and all.”

  “Maybe they saw those UFO things, too,” the girl offered.

  “UFOs?” Conrad asked.

  “If that’s what they were,” her boyfriend interjected. He looked through the windshield and suddenly called, “Hold on—that’s it up there.” He pointed ahead. “Right there, man.

  Pull up right there.”

  “Got it,” the driver answered as he slowed the van and pulled it to a stop.

  They were in front of a rundown, seedy building—blue cinderblock walls, front steps covered in green Astroturf, bright pink doors. Overhead, a neon sign, partially burned out, blinked: MOT L . . . MOT L . . . MOT L.

  “All right,” the kid with the Afro announced as he opened the door and stepped outside. “Everyone stay cool till I find out what’s happening.” He headed up the steps into the lobby.

  Conrad glanced down the street. He was sure this is where the mall had been. In fact, some evenings, just to unwind, he’d come down here to hit the bookshop, listen to the musicians, and sip a café latte while watching the street entertainers.

  Where was he? What was going on? And who were these kids? These throwbacks to the sixties?

  Up on a billboard just down the street, a woman stood in a black, one-piece bathing suit drinking a bottle of cola.

  Above her, the slogan read: “Keep tab with Tab.” Conrad closed his eyes and reopened them. That’s what it said. “Keep tab with Tab.” And the bottle she was drinking from had

  “Tab” written on it. Tab? Wasn’t that a diet soft drink of the sixties?

  He glanced down the street at the passing autos, and those parked along the curb. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t a hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 20

  20 late model in the bunch. Nothing past 1970. And the license plates? He squinted at the license tab of a nearby American Rambler. It read: April 1970.

  What was going on? Was someone playing a joke? Was he losing his mind? Or had he . . . no, he pushed the thought out of his head. Again he found himself looking back up at the billboard. It was crazy, and he was embarrassed even thinking it, but these kids, their van, the disappearance of the mall, the cars, this billboard. Was it possible? No, it was just a dream, an elaborate hallucination. No way could he have possibly traveled back in—

  “All right,” the kid with the Afro called to them as he stepped out of the lobby. “They say they’re in the back. In the service room where they do the laundry.”

  “Laundry?” the blond asked.

  “That’s what they said. All the rooms are booked, so they gave them a cot and a couple blankets in the laundry room.

  Just leave the bus there. It’s cool.”

  The driver nodded, turned off the ignition, and the group piled out. Conrad joined them, unsure what to do, what questions to ask. They walked past the lobby and down the crum-bling sidewalk beside the rooms. There was the faint tinkling of bells on someone’s shoes, the jangling of the girl’s bracelets.

  Conrad turned to the kid in the leather vest and asked, “You said you saw a UFO?”

  “Not one,” the boy corrected. “Hundreds of ’em. They lit up the sky.”

  “No kidding.”

  “But they really weren’t spaceships,” the blond explained.

  “More like people. Big, glowing people, filling the whole sky.”

  “Like angels or something,” her boyfriend agreed. “Really blew our minds.”

  Conrad nodded. “Did they say something?”

  “Yeah,” the boy answered. “We were out on the beach, groovin’ with the sunset, when this big, glowing giant, he’s like suddenly standing in front of us.”

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  “Giant?” Conrad repeated.

  The blond nodded. “And we’re like really scared, big time.”

  Her boyfriend agreed. “Bad scene.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then he starts speaking,” the boyfriend said. “He tells us not to be afraid and that he’s bringing good news for everyone in the world.”

  “Good news?”

  “Yeah. He says that here, right here at this motel, some sort of ruler is being born and he’s gonna save us. Said we’d recognize him ’cause he’d be wrapped up in a bunch of bath towels.”

  Conrad frowned. “Did he have a name? Did he give this ruler a name?”

  The boyfriend shrugged. “Don’t remember. But suddenly, the whole sky, it like lights up with thousands, maybe a million of these glowing guys. And they all start saying, ‘Glory to God, glory to God . . . and to those that please him, major peace.’”

  The story was starting to have an eerie ring of familiarity.

  “And then what?” Conrad asked.

  “Then nothing.” The boy shrugged. “Then they were gone.”

  The girl nodded. “Pretty trippy, huh?”

  “Here we are,” the kid with the Afro announced.

  The group slowed to a stop outside the very last door in the back. It was marked: Employees Only. The kid with the Afro reached out and gave a knock. Nothing. He tried again.

  A moment later the door cracked open. A young man in his early twenties stuck out his head.

  “We’ve, uh . . .” The kid in the Afro cleared his throat.

  “We’ve come to see the baby.”

  The young man peered at him suspiciously, then to the group behind him. He looked worn, tired, and very frightened. “Who told you?” he asked.

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  “The, uh . . . um . . .” The kid was hard-pressed to find the words. “The glowing guys down at the beach. They said that he was here.”

  A girl’s voice came faintly from inside. Conrad couldn’t make out what she said, but a moment later the young man opened the door wider. He took a half step outside and glanced around the parking lot to make sure there were no others. When he was satisfied, he stepped back and pushed the door wider.

  Silently, almost reverently, the young people shuffled in, Conrad bringing up the rear.

  And there, under the flickering light of a fluorescent bulb, was a young girl, about the same age as the blond. She lay on a cot wedged between several dirty laundry carts and a beat-up washer and dryer. Her raven hair was damp and plastered against her face, and she looked even more exhausted
than the young man. But, despite the exhaustion, her deep sap-phire eyes held a look of triumph, an indefinable peace.

  Because there in her arms, wrapped in worn bath towels, was her newborn baby boy.

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  C H A P T E R

  T W O

  CONRAD FOUGHT HIS WAY THROUGH THE EMPTY BLACKNESS. EVERYthing was gone. The city, the laundry room. Nothing was there. Only darkness. And the murmur of voices—distant conversations, past and present, snippets of sound. He tried clinging to them, using them to pull himself out of the void.

  “Has he had any purposeful movement since surgery?”

  The sound of screaming tires filled his head. So loud he winced.

  “What was that?” the voice asked.

  “Where?”

  “His eyes.”

  “Probably nystagmus.”

  The voice grew louder, closer. “Mr. Davis, can you hear me? Mr. Dav—”

  The air horn of a truck blasted again, drowning out the voice.

  “—can you hear me at all?”

  Conrad tried to answer, mustering all of his strength and will. But it was futile. His body would not respond.

  The sound of crushing metal filled his ears . . . exploding glass shattered around him. Flits and flurries of a crash 23

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  24 strobed through his mind but in no particular order. A sheer rock wall. Swish-swish, swish-swish. More squealing tires.

  Rain. As he fought the darkness, he tried connecting the fragments together, one way then another. Swish-swish, swish-swish. The deafening horn. The frightened young face of the driver. More glass shattering, metal crushing.

  He’d been in an accident—

  “We ran the Glasgow Coma a second time en route to the hospital before the surgery.”

  —and, apparently, hospitalized.

  But what of the baby . . . the laundry room? Where had they been? Where had they gone? They were so vivid. The entire scene had been as real as any bits he remembered from the accident. Even now he could smell the penetrating odor of marijuana, hear the jingling of beads and bells.

  “. . . worlds we can’t even see . . .”

  Where had he been? And when had he been there? Before the accident? After?

  “No, Mister, you ain’t dead . . . at least not yet.”

  More shattering glass.

  Swish-swish, swish-swish . . .

  “We’ve come to see the baby. ”

  It seemed so real. Santa Monica, 1970—the flower children, the cars, “Keep tab with Tab,” the mother and baby . . .

  he remembered them down to the tiniest detail.

  “. . . we’re talking the existence of other realities . . .”

  “. . . you can prove this?”

  “He shouldn’t be having any residual chemical paralysis at this point.”

  Maybe it was one of those out-of-body experiences somehow connected to the accident. Or a hallucination from all the drugs they were no doubt pumping into him, or . . .

  “. . . eyewitnesses, people have seen these . . .”

  “I am afraid eyewitnesses would be locked up in insane asylums, or in drug rehab programs.”

  Swish-swish, swish-swish . . .

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  “. . . worlds identical . . . but with differences.”

  The idea of a savior born in a laundry room was intrigu-ing—and he’d be a fool not to recognize the similarities between what he saw and the Christmas story Suzanne insisted upon reading every Christmas morning . . . although he suspected that “Away in the Laundry Basket” might not carry the same poetic charm as the original.

  Swish-swish, swish-swish . . .

  “. . . worlds identical . . . but with minor differences . . .”

  A heavier darkness began to wash over him.

  Was it possible? He didn’t know. Then again, maybe even these thoughts were a hallucination. How could he be thinking so clearly and yet be so . . . so . . .

  He fought the dullness as it started to swallow him.

  Maybe . . . from the trauma, the drugs, his imagination, or some combination, maybe he had entered another world. And if that was true, hadn’t Endo said there were others? Millions?

  Traveling at different speeds?

  The darkness was nearly complete and still he fought it.

  And if he had entered it once, wouldn’t it be possible to

  . . . to . . . couldn’t he . . .

  Conrad’s thoughts collapsed upon themselves as he fell back into the silent void.

  v

  Julia was so lost in thought that she nearly missed the Janss Road Exit off Freeway 23 into Thousand Oaks. Fortunately the early Sunday morning traffic was light, and she was able to swerve sharply, crossing two lanes and barely catching the exit ramp in time. As a girl, she remembered Thousand Oaks being a backwoods hick town with cowboys and horses. Well, all of that had changed. The expansive, grass-covered hills with their occasional dual-wheel ruts leading up to the summits had now been transformed into wave after wave of red-tile-roofed homes. She could still spot a few fields here and there, even catch the faint odor of dried hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 26

  26 grass and horse, but it was just a matter of time before that, too, would be swallowed up by L.A. sprawl.

  She turned onto Janss and followed the four-lane road to the hospital. To her left was a Methodist church with a blood donation banner hung across the reader board. To her right a sign posted the speed limit and the words, “Welcome Home.

  Relax and Slow Down.” Everywhere she looked there were houses and trees. Not a billboard in sight. Even the strip mall she passed was signless and surrounded by so much greenery that it was nearly impossible to catch a glimpse of the local McDonald’s.

  She’d read recently that the city had been voted the safest in America. She could see why. It appeared to be the quintessential American town. Quiet, peaceful, an occasional morning jogger, an elderly couple on bicycles. Water from a front-yard sprinkler sparkling in the sun. Everything about the city looked safe, quiet, secure . . . in many ways it reminded Julia of her own childhood.

  But looks can be deceiving. Julia, of all people, knew that.

  She crossed a major intersection—still no billboards or signs—and continued through another residential area until finally a small lit sign came into view. It read: The Conejo Valley Medical Center. She slowed, took a deep breath, and turned into the tree-lined drive. Eventually she found the visitor’s section and pulled into a stall. She turned off the ignition and was surprised at how hard her heart was pounding.

  She opened the car door, was reminded to remove the keys by the chiming bell, and stepped out into the warm sunlight.

  Everything was deathly still. Not a hint of breeze. Not a sound of traffic. Directly ahead lay the three-story, white-and-beige hospital. On the pole beside its entrance was the American flag and the California flag with its brown bear on white background. Both hung lifeless. Overhead, in one of the dozens of pine trees, a crow clicked and cawed, and in the distance she could hear the dull roar of someone using a leaf blower.

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  Everything else was silent, except for her own breathing and the pounding of her heart. Julia closed her eyes and lifted her face to the warm California sun, feeling it soak into her skin. She took another breath, smelling the morning heat and sun-softened asphalt.

  Then she opened her eyes and started toward the hospital.

  v

  “So do you want to move in for close-ups?”

  A disoriented Conrad turned from the glaring sun. He looked down to see he was standing on a small ridge of sand and bunchgrass about twenty yards from a river. The river was good sized, broad and flat, surrounded sparsely by cot-tonwoods. Beyond it lay rolling hills, tan and gold, sprinkled with clumps of olive green trees. And beyond those were dark, navy blue mountains sh
aded by ominous black clouds.

  “Connie?”

  Still trying to get his bearings, he turned toward the voice.

  It was Ned Burton, his favorite cameraman—late thirties, short, scraggly red hair, and a moth-eaten goatee. As a member of the old school who insisted upon producing his own segments, Conrad tried to work with those he trusted most.

  And Ned, with his experience and dogged tenacity, was always his first choice. At the moment, his eye was glued to the viewfinder of JVC’s latest digital camera—a mere $11,673

  (list price before tax), top of the line . . . until next year’s model came out.

  “We got enough on this clown,” Ned said, opening his other eye to look at Conrad. “Let’s get some cutaways of the audience and get outa here ’fore that storm hits.”

  Conrad turned back toward the mountains. Thunderheads darkened the sky above them. He could smell the moisture in the air. Already a breeze had kicked up. “Yeah,” he cleared his throat, “uh, cutaways, that would be good.”

  Without a word, Ned pulled his eye away from the camera, wiped his face with his sleeve, and motioned to the hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 28

  28 nearby sound man, Mike Horton. They’d only used Mike once or twice before. He was skinny, eager, and Ned’s junior by ten years. As always he was wearing earphones, holding a boom with a shotgun mike at the end, and doing his best to stay out of Ned’s picture. Together the two half-walked, half-slid down the sandy knoll to join the outside fringes of the crowd—a crowd that listened to a half-naked young man whose skin was red from the sun and whose sandy blond dreadlocks fell to the tops of his shoulders. He stood in a waist-deep eddy of the river, shouting at them:

  “You snakes! You vipers! Like frightened reptiles you slither from the desert’s wildfire, hoping this river can save you. Do you honestly think there’s something magical about this water, or about any water, that can save your souls? In your wildest dreams do you really believe that all you need to do is be baptized?”

  Some of the crowd murmured in resentment. Most simply listened. Conrad carefully surveyed them. He estimated there to be between five and six hundred. Five to six hundred people standing on the bank of a river in the middle of nowhere, baking in the sun, listening to someone browbeat them. Now he at least understood why he was out here covering the story—wherever “here” was. But why were these people here?