And then he’s back, staring at the clock. Not even the World’s Most Powerful Psychic can know whether any one electron would fall into a particular hole, or ever drop at all. Electronic devices depend instead on statistical likelihood. Many holes, many electrons. Apply sufficient voltage, and enough electrons would almost certainly drop into place, causing the diode to emit light.
Buddy has tried to explain his job to only one person. Her name was Cerise. Is Cerise. I can’t know all the details, but I can spot trends, he says to her. And sometimes I give things a nudge. Cerise doesn’t understand. How can she? How can he make her understand what it’s like to keep track of a trillion pinballs bouncing along an infinite number of paths? Everything depends on sending them into the right lanes, off the right bumpers, at exactly the right time. Is there any metaphor—using electrons or pinballs or roulette balls—sufficient to explain how stressful his job is? “Oh honey,” Cerise says. “You’re getting stressed out now.”
He shakes himself back to 1995, the last few seconds of August.
11:59. There is no second hand on the digital clock. No way to know if 12:00 is coming soon, or ever.
Downstairs, the front door opens, and the sound reassures him that time is still flowing. (Unless—is this a memory of the door opening?) The visitor is Frankie, duffel bag in hand. A castaway, an exile, a refugee from the domestic homeland. Irene is up (she sleeps less than Buddy these days) and asks Frankie what the hell is going on. Frankie mumbles a reply, but it’s okay if Buddy can’t hear all the words right now; later they’ll talk more, and there will be donuts, and coffee despite the fact that it’s so late. Irene will raise her mug and say—
No!
He cannot skip ahead into the future. He has to stay on guard. Here. Now.
He glances back at the clock. A voltage knocks electrons into their graves, and suddenly it’s—
SEPTEMBER
16
Buddy
—and he’s walking downstairs, into the kitchen, where his sister and brother sit at the table, without donuts. Donuts come later. Irene is trying to get Frankie to tell her what happened to him tonight. Frankie is mute, struggling to find the words. Buddy watches them from the shadows for a full minute, his heart full, until Irene notices him.
“Buddy,” she says. “You all right?”
But he’s not all right. Who is? Nobody in this house, that’s for sure. Frankie is staring into nothing, a lost man. Buddy drifts up to the table. Waggles his fingers palm up.
Frankie glances at him, barely seeing him.
“I think you’re blocking the driveway,” Irene says.
Buddy repeats the waggle. Frankie sighs—not a faked sigh, but a deep-down, Delta blues sigh—and reaches into a pocket.
Buddy walks toward the front door, Frankie’s keys jangling, and behind him Irene says to their brother, “Just start with Loretta. Why did she kick you out? Is this about the money you owe?”
“You know about that?” he says in a small voice.
Buddy walks to the driveway, unlocks the back door of the Bumblebee van. He rummages in the dark until he finds the box he’d once pictured himself finding, and then uses a key to slit it open. Inside are the expected four huge canisters of Goji Go! berry juice powder. He twists one open, exposing contents that look black in this light, and then dips a finger inside and puts it to his mouth, Miami Vice–style. It tastes like chalk and cough medicine. He spits several times to get the taste out of his mouth.
He feels bad about what he’s about to do. He tries not to hurt anyone, and most of the time he remembers enough to know that he’s not hurting them forever, or not as much as first appears. Like with Frankie. Yes, it was terrifying for him when the casino employees grabbed him, but nothing really bad happened, and Frankie had already learned how to take a punch. But this, this is different. He can’t remember what happens after September 4. What if what he does tonight has far-reaching ramifications beyond that date?
And yet: he has to proceed, as his future memory dictates.
Buddy reaches into his pocket and brings out the packet of DUSTED insecticide. He pours it into the top of the goji powder, stirs it a bit with the big Magic Marker he’s brought with him. Not too much stirring, though. The first dose will be scooped off the top. Then he screws down the lid and writes, Embrace Life!
It takes him only twenty minutes to make the delivery—traffic is light this time of night—and he remembers to stop at the Dunkin’ Donuts. He orders a dozen, most of it chocolate sprinkles (he’s partial to sprinkles), and adds a bear claw for the baker’s dozenth. He’s carrying the box toward the house when he remembers there’s something he’s supposed to do first. Something about the garage. Oh! Right.
In the garage, Teddy’s big Buick is sleeping. Buddy opens the driver’s side, and winces at the absurdly loud door chimes. Balancing the donut box in one hand, he leans down, fishes under the driver’s seat. He comes up with his prize, a Ziploc bag containing two marijuana cigarettes, one half consumed. Best not mix that with the donuts. He tucks it into his pocket for later.
Frankie and Irene are still at the table, but they’ve gone silent. Frankie sits with his head in his hands. Irene stares at the tabletop, arms crossed on her lap. It’s as if they’re playing an invisible chess game and they’ve lost track of the pieces.
Buddy opens the donut box, letting Frankie have first choice. A quiet oh of surprise escapes his brother’s lips. He reaches for the bear claw. Bear claws are his favorite. Always have been, always will be.
There are not enough donuts in the world to make up for what he does to his brother in Alton. It’s an act of selfishness. Selfishness born of great need, true and burning curiosity, but selfishness nonetheless.
He lies in bed next to Cerise, whose hair is long and blonde and entirely artificial. What he’s experienced in the past hour is real, however, the most real thing he’s ever lived through. For long stretches of minutes he was entirely in his body, in the moment. His mind wasn’t roaming through the past, or the future. He wasn’t staring at a glowing clock frozen at 11:59.
“You feeling okay, honey?” she asks.
He says, “I’ve never felt better.”
“I can tell by that goofy smile on your face.” She chuckles, her voice low and sexy. She nibbles at the lobe of his ear and he laughs with her. Still close to his ear, she whispers, “Is this your first time with a girl like me?”
His ears burn. He’s blushing.
She throws her head back and laughs. “I thought so! You were so enthusiastic.”
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he says. “Yet…” He waits until she’s looking at him again. Until her eyes soften. He says, “I’ve always known you. I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”
“Aw.” She kisses his forehead, pushes his hair back. “Ain’t you sweet.”
He closes his eyes. “I just want to lie here forever,” he says. “Back home I have to—well, my job is pretty stressful.”
“What do you do?”
He wants to tell her everything, from the first guessed baseball score until the day his mother gave him the medal. “My job is to predict the future.”
“Ooh. Are you a stockbroker?”
“It’s kind of like that. I try to figure out what’s going to happen, and find the way to the best outcome. It’s impossible to know all the details—”
“Who can?” Cerise says.
“Right,” he says. He sits up. “But I can spot trends. And sometimes I give things a nudge.”
“Ah,” she says. “You’re one of those Master of the Universe types, aren’t you?” Teasing him. “Doing a little insider trading?”
“It’s not like that.” But isn’t it? Everyone else is on the outside of the machine, and he’s running along under the glass, nudging the pinballs without being run over himself. He wants to tell her this. He wants to explain everything to her, but his own habit of silence is getting in the way. He wants to tell her that ac
ross town, his brother is being dragged from one boat to another.
“Oh, honey,” Cerise says. “You’re getting stressed out now. We can’t have that.” She takes his hand and puts it on her. “You have all the time you need.”
“I wish that were true,” he says.
She shushes him. “Don’t be that way.” She turns into him, and he feels Cerise’s cock harden in his grip. Even though he’s been picturing this night for years, he’s amazed every moment by what it’s like to be with another person. He thought it would be like masturbation, except a little better.
He was wrong. So, so wrong.
She says, “What else you want to try, your first day behind the wheel?”
“Everything,” he says.
Slowly, she teaches him how to please her. Yes, they have similar equipment, but they’re not the same. Cerise is Cerise. A miracle and a mystery.
He finds himself at a kitchen table, cards in his hands, three days before the Zap. Eventually they make enough noise that Matty stops pretending he’s sleeping and comes downstairs. Nobody worries about waking Teddy. He snores like a man twice his size, and his sleep is impenetrable.
Irene has made a pot of coffee, but Frankie has switched to beer and Buddy’s on his second tall glass of milk. Matty nabs the last chocolate frosted donut—that’s his favorite—and says, “So we’re having a party?”
“I thought you were grounded,” Frankie says.
Matty shoots him a worried look, but Irene is not in a rule-enforcing mood. “The game is seven-card stud,” she says to her son. “Low-high, nickel ante.”
“Nickel?” Matty says. “Pretty steep.”
“This is why you need a job,” she says.
“To lose it to you in poker?”
“Or win big,” Frankie says.
Matty looks away from Frankie, embarrassed. Covers it by hitching up his running shorts and affecting a world-weary voice. “Guess you gotta risk money to make money.”
Irene laughs, charmed by her boy, and Matty doesn’t hide his pleasure at this. Buddy’s reminded again that those two were on their own for years, a self-contained unit.
An hour from now, Buddy disappears to the top floor. He retrieves the blue envelope from the locked box in his room, the one with Matty’s name on it. Then he goes to Matty’s attic room, strips the boy’s bed, and puts on clean sheets. Frankie will have to take Matty’s room, because the new bunk beds in the basement are too small for him. Matty will fit, though. Buddy goes downstairs and unwraps a set of Kmart sheets and dresses one of the four bunk beds. In the springs of the bed above, he places the envelope and the Ziploc bag.
Then he goes up to his own room. He hopes to sleep for a few hours before resuming preparations for the Zap, including installing a new fire door for the basement.
But that’s in an hour. Now Irene deals him in. There’s no money to risk, however; everyone’s playing with handfuls of coins from Teddy’s change jar.
Buddy’s playing several games at once, in different eras. His mother asks if he’s got any sevens. Teddy leans close, his hands covering Buddy’s own tiny hands, as he shows him how to peek at the second card during the deal. A fourteen-year-old Irene, bored from babysitting duty, lays out a spider solitaire game while he watches. Frankie says, “You in or out?”
“I have two sevens,” Buddy says.
“What?”
Wrong answer. Suddenly he’s back in 1995, three days before the Zap. The end of history. There are no memories of future poker games. This is the last he will ever play. He will never win another hand from his brother, or watch his sister frown over her cards. And he will never see Cerise again.
Irene touches his arm. “Buddy?”
He tries to focus on his cards. There are no sevens in this hand, merely a loosely connected series of cards that will never become a straight or a flush, and he knows better than to try to bluff Irene. He mucks his cards, folding.
That’s okay. One less distraction. He can watch his family, all of them, play across the decades.
17
Matty
The blue envelope was tucked into the springs above his bunk bed. It was addressed to him, in black handwriting he didn’t recognize. Inside was a single page, from a yellow legal pad. The ink was faint and scratchy.
Dear Matty,
We’ve never met, and to my great sadness, we never will. Alas and alack, as my Gran used to say. I suppose this is my one chance to sound like a grandmother.
My apologies for the pen. It’s terrible, but I don’t want to ask the nurse for another.
I regret that I know only a little about you. I’ve been told that you’re quite the brain, that you work hard, and have a good heart. I also know that you’re my daughter’s son, and as such have been raised by a brilliant, caring, fiercely protective person who can be hell to live with. I hope she wasn’t too hard on you. If my own mother could tell when I was lying I never would have escaped to meet your grandfather.
I’ve also been told that you’ve recently experienced something that I know a bit about. If you’re worried about where your gifts might take you, don’t be afraid. But I do have one piece of advice.
First, can I tell you a secret? I’ve only told it to one other person, your grandfather. But you deserve to know.
I worked for the government from 1962 to 1963, then again this past year (1974). I was a “remote viewer,” though that title’s not accurate. I wasn’t remote at all. I flew. In the skies, deep in the earth, below the oceans. There wasn’t anywhere I couldn’t go. My job was to find out all the secrets of our enemies. I loved the flying. Do you? You must.
All of that is technically “Top Secret” but it’s not the secret I want to tell you, which is this: I almost immediately came in contact with the other side. My Soviet counterpart, and fellow psychic, is named Vassili Godunov. He is—was?—a good man who loved his country as much as I loved mine. We realized that together we could pinpoint every missile silo in both of our countries, find every submarine, track every bomber. We also realized that if we gave our governments this information, they might destroy the world. I know this sounds melodramatic, but it’s true. Neither superpower can ever be too confident. Neither can ever think they can strike first and wipe out the arsenal of the other. (Look up “Mutually Assured Destruction.” Are the Encyclopaedia Brittanicas I bought still in the house?)
So, we lied. I lied to Destin Smalls, the man I worked for. Vassili lied to his superiors. We reported trivial sightings with great specificity, to keep them impressed with our abilities. But for any high-value target, the details we reported were too vague to act upon. (I learned that trick from your grandfather.) We kept the world safe by keeping it ignorant.
I tell you this not to scare you, but because you deserve to know the stakes, and I’m the only one to bring the news. My advice is this: don’t let the bastards use you. If later you want to use them, go right ahead. Teddy would approve. Your only duty now is to take care of yourself and your family, and to let them take care of you.
I have to sign off. I’m tired and scrawling this with a cheap Bic from an uncomfortable bed, and I have one more letter to write before I drift off.
Safe travels,
Her signature was beautiful: a mountainous “M,” a towering “T,” with beautifully spiky characters after each.
At the very bottom of the page was this:
P.S.
How can I love someone I’ve never met? A mystery.
Also tucked into the springs was a plastic baggie that contained the two joints Irene had confiscated: one full, one half consumed.
My grandmother, Matty thought, is delivering drugs from beyond the grave.
How did she know about what was happening to him? Could she travel into the future? Even if she could do that, who delivered the all-too-physical envelope and Ziploc bag?
The letter and pot were freaking him out, but the message of their simultaneous appearance was unmistakable: it was his duty
to help Frankie.
A half hour later he snuck out to the nest behind Grandpa Teddy’s garage and lit one of the joints. He needed to get as much of it into his lungs before he was unable to keep smoking. He thought, This is not a healthy life choice. And then: Duty calls.
—
He stayed out of his body for hours, his longest trip on record. He hovered in Mitzi’s Tavern, in Mitzi’s office, practically in Mitzi’s shadow. Friday, payday, made her office much more interesting than in previous visits. He watched her receive visitor after visitor, all men, most of them white, who brought her envelopes of cash. Mitzi would put them into the desk drawer, chat for ten seconds, then send the men packing.
As soon as they left the room, she moved the envelopes to the safe. It was then that Matty would sweep in, push his ghost noggin close to hers, and steal a glance at the dial. But Mitzi continued to make it impossible to read the combination. She leaned over the safe from her chair, her bird hand covering the dial, and spun it fast, barely looking at the numbers. For all he knew she’d kept the same combination for decades and could do it blind. After a couple of hours, he thought he had the starting number—28—but even that was a guess, because the dial was hash marks between every fifth number, and it could have been 27 or 29.
Mitzi barely left the room. Between visits she smoked, ate from a can of peanuts, read the paper, and drank coffee. Matty read over her shoulder, and mentally suggested solutions to the crossword puzzle. (He was usually wrong; Mitzi was really good at crosswords.) He killed time by floating around the room, peering into nooks and crannies. How malleable was his shadow body? Could he shrink down to mouse size, and go looking between the walls?
He also spent time pondering the morality of stealing from this old woman, and whether this was what Grandma Mo meant by helping his family. Frankie said Mitzi was a major criminal, but to Matty she seemed like a bored old lady doing a boring job.
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