Then Again

by Rick Boling

  Then there were the career decisions: the struggle for creative independence that led me away from working with other musicians I admired; the refusal to compromise my musical integrity for commercial gain; agents and promoters I’d screwed by not showing up for gigs; recording sessions I’d missed because I was too stoned or hungover to give a shit. Among these was perhaps the worst judgment call I’d ever made: my stubborn refusal to let someone else sing Sunday Morning Sentinel and assure its national release before the war ended.

  At first, a simple reversal of that ego-driven act of stupidity seemed like a no-brainer. But when I thought a little deeper I realized there were several possible scenarios to consider, each with its own unforeseeable permutations. For example, if I went back to my teens and tried to clean up my act, would I end up with the necessary industry connections a decade later? Even if I did manage to plot the same general course, would the changes in my early life spread out over time, leading to an altered future in which I wouldn’t have a chance to make the demo tape? Or what if we got in a car wreck on the way to Muscle Shoals?

  On the other hand, if I started over when I was, say, ten or twelve, perhaps that would open up entirely new vistas, opportunities I hadn’t been presented with before. Maybe I could avoid drugs and alcohol, and with a clearer mind I would make better choices from then on. The problem there was that some of my most productive bursts of creativity had been influenced by mind-altering chemicals of one kind or another, and I didn’t know if I was willing to chance trading that for the benefits of a cleaner lifestyle. Besides, my actions would be governed by my adult mind, and even though my body would not yet be addicted, I might not be able to control the psychological cravings.

  What, then, would be the point of going back at all? If I couldn’t change my proclivity for substance abuse, I would end up in the same shape I was in now: physically deteriorating and facing the prospect of a miserable, premature death. Did I really want to go through that all over again?

  Finally, there was Robin. If I went back to my early youth, would I be able to follow a path that would bring us together again? Given the potential of the butterfly effect, would she even be interested in me if we did meet? I knew it was partly my addictions that had attracted her in the first place. Sexual chemistry played a role, but it was her mothering instinct that turned what might have been a brief tryst into a loving quest to save me from the ravages of alcohol and drugs. She’d failed, of course, and I had no idea if there was anything I could do to change that.

  After a while, the frustration of attempting to determine the ultimate outcome of alterations in my previous behavior led me into a kind of emotional paralysis. Had it not been for Aurélie’s calm understanding, my abrupt, often-angry responses to her reasonable questions and suggestions would have driven a wedge between us. Instead, my descent into hopeless confusion seemed to bring us closer.

  I had painted myself into a paradoxical corner from which neither logic nor guesswork could show the way out. And I was about to tell them to forget the whole thing, when Aurélie had a sudden change of heart.

  Till Death Do Us Part

  I first thought Aurélie’s capitulation was a mercenary attempt to make sure I stuck with the program. And when I later confronted her, she admitted that was partly true. Whether her initial motivation was dictated by a dedication to seeing the project come to fruition, or there was a more personal reason, didn’t matter to me. What mattered was that her acquiescence drew me back from the brink of despair into a fantasy I’d been dreaming of since I’d first seen her bathed in the sparkling light of Heyoka’s fireplace.

  As we lay in the naked afterglow of the most mind-blowing sex I could remember since I’d been with Robin, I asked her what she meant by ‘partly.’

  “I meant saving the program wasn’t the only reason I changed my mind,” she said. When she didn’t continue, I turned to her and cocked an eyebrow. “Okay,” she sighed, “but you have to promise you won’t get angry.”

  “As long as you don’t try to bullshit me,” I said. “Why don’t we start with that ambush in the shower?”

  “Oh, that. I was thinking about Robin’s Song. You know the line: Loving in a veil of soapsuds? I assumed making love in the shower was something you and Robin enjoyed, so I did my best.”

  “Pretty analytical,” I said. “Was that the plan, to imitate Robin? I thought your major objection to our having sex was that I would be making love to her memory.”

  “It was, Rix. And it still is. But I could tell you were about to lose your mind dealing with the confusion and fear of what could happen if you went back, and I wanted to give you a taste of the positive things you could experience again. Not only that, but I … well, I’m human, goddammit, and I hadn’t had sex in so long I’d forgotten what it was like. I know I can’t compare to Robin because you two had something special. But I guess I was being a little selfish, trying to kill two birds with one fuck, so to speak.”

  “One!” I said. “What about the other two? You were amazing, by the way. And I didn’t even need my Viagra. Problem is, now I don’t want to go back. Even if I only have a year or two left in this life, if I can spend that time with you—”

  “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not going to use me as an excuse. Look, Rix, I’m not Robin. Not even a decent stand-in for her. You were horny and needy as hell, so you let your imagination take over. It was make believe. You have to understand that. The point is, you can have the real thing again if you want. I’m sure of it. All you have to do is … now wait. Don’t start … We can’t …”

  I didn’t let her finish.

  Our fourth attempt to achieve terminal orgasm was nearly successful, for me at least. And once Aurélie realized the danger such frenetic sexual activity might pose for someone in my condition, she refused to allow physical intimacy of any kind. I argued and begged, but when she threatened to check out and turn me over to Fred, I gave up and promised to stop bugging her about it. The fact was, simply being with her—holding hands, listening to her talk, indulging in an occasional chaste hug—was worth the frustration. And even though we both knew the chemistry was still there—that under any other circumstances we’d be jumping each other’s bones every time the door closed behind her—we also knew there was no hope for a prolonged relationship between us. Not to mention that the sex might kill me prematurely.

  A couple of weeks later I was readmitted to the hospital for a full health-status evaluation, after which the doctors informed me that I might have another eighteen months to live, the last six of which would not be pleasant. Although the angioplasty and stent had temporarily cleared my artery, my heart function was hovering around forty-five percent, and the remnants of that cloud of plaque had left me vulnerable to additional blockages and strokes. Plus, I had Stage-2 cirrhosis, deteriorating kidneys, advanced pulmonary edema, and a funky gallbladder. Because of my degenerating condition, I wasn’t a transplant candidate; a moot point, since my body wouldn’t be able to tolerate the trauma of major surgery anyway.

  The irony of it all was that I’d fallen in love with someone more than thirty years my junior, and our age difference would not change in my alternate existence. I tried to think of ways Aurélie could go back with me, maybe inhabit the body of someone closer to my age, but she reminded me that doing so would be tantamount to murder. Besides, she would never abandon Heyoka, especially when they were about to complete the most important phase of the project. I was wracking my brain, trying to come up with a workable alternative, when it occurred to me that their research might go beyond Stage Three.

  “We haven’t thought that far ahead,” she told me when I asked. “Right now, all our eggs are in one basket, so to speak. If everything goes as planned—which I’m sure it will, by the way—we’ll evaluate the results and see if we can go anywhere from there. But we can’t even speculate until we have some data to study.”

  “So there’s a chance the project could continue?”

  �
�A chance, yes. After we go over everything, other possibilities may present themselves. What those possibilities might be we won’t know until all the data is in. Even then, we may choose to shut things down and seal the results. Unlike our other research, mind transference involves complex ethical considerations, and disseminating our methods could lead to abuse by unscrupulous entrepreneurs whose only interest is making a buck.”

  “But you can’t see into my new future, so how will you know what the ultimate results are.”

  “We won’t,” she said. “The best we can do is monitor your progress for a while and make an evaluation based on what we see. It’ll be a judgment call, and a difficult one at that. If the results appear to be positive or even neutral, then maybe we’ll consider moving ahead. But we can’t be sure what the pitfalls might be until we study at least a few years of results.”

  “If you’re going to monitor me, can we communicate?”

  “That remains to be seen. There’s no way to know if contacting someone in an alternate universe is possible because we’ve never been through Stage Three before.”

  Although she refused to speculate on future possibilities, the fact that they had not yet decided to end the project with Stage Three gave me reason to hope. Hope for what, I didn’t know, but I was so fearful of going back, I needed a lifeline to hang onto, even if that lifeline was woven from a few tenuous maybes.

  Whatever the future held, I now had little choice but to fulfill my end of the bargain. Not only because I had made a commitment, but because the alternative was a slow, torturous decline, during which I would suffer the added frustration of being denied sexual intimacy with Aurélie. Even if I died quickly from another stroke or heart attack, I would still be dead. Or worse, I could end up as a vegetable. I was scared, but I wasn’t about to let fear keep me from accepting a second chance at life.

  Having decided to go ahead with the project, the first order of business was to choose the three periods I wanted to relive in preparation for a final decision. Although Heyoka tried not to let on, I could tell he was growing impatient, most likely worried that I might have another stroke and destroy his careful repair work on my brain. I’d been stalling, but it was now clear that time was running out. So I told Aurélie to go ahead and schedule the Stage-Two previews, promising to make my decision within twenty-four hours.

  I went to bed that night hoping against hope that the answers, like many of my best songs, would come to me in a dream. Unfortunately, my dreams were no help. In the only one I could remember, I was on Let’s Make a Deal, wearing a Grim-Reaper costume and trying to draw Monty Hall’s attention by jumping up and down like an idiot. I was eventually selected, and by the time I got to the stage Heyoka had taken Monty’s place as host. I ended up as the final contestant, and while Aurélie presented the three doors, Heyoka told me the rules had been changed: instead of choosing one of the three doors, I would have to guess what was behind each of them in order to win the Grand Prize of reincarnation.

  I awoke at three a.m. in a cold sweat, with Aurélie hovering over me calling my name. After trying unsuccessfully to go back to sleep, I said the hell with it and convinced her I needed coffee. I was a little unsteady on my feet, so she held my arm as we walked down the hall to the kitchen, where we were surprised to find Heyoka and Fred sitting at the breakfast table playing Liar’s Poker.

  “Guess the insomnia’s catching tonight,” Heyoka said, glancing up from his folded one-dollar bill. “Coffee’s on. Grab a cup and join us.”

  We poured ourselves some coffee, then sat down at the table. “Who’s winning?” Aurélie asked, warming her hands on her mug.

  “Fred, of course,” said Heyoka. “He always was a better liar than me.”

  “It has nothing to do with dishonesty,” Fred said. “It’s all about probabilities.”

  “Wrong!” said Aurélie. “It’s all about numbers and guesswork, with a little bit of bluff thrown in for good measure. Bluff being a euphemism for lying.”

  “So says the numbers expert,” Heyoka grumbled. “By the way, Rix, if she ever tries to hook you into a game, don’t take her up on it. She’ll win before you finish reading the serial number on your bill. So, have you come to a decision yet?”

  I looked at the ceiling, then shook my head.

  “Well, maybe you should stop trying. When I’m stumped, I’ve found what works best is to forget all the pertinent facts and play something like Rock-Scissors-Paper, or consult the Tarot cards. Anything that’s completely random and makes no logical sense. How about it, Aurélie? Got any ideas? Maybe something numerical?”

  “You know I don’t believe in using random numbers to solve complex problems. And, for Rix, this one’s pretty damned complex. Still,” she said, looking at me, “if you’re really at the end of your rope …”

  “I am,” I said. “And my rope ends in a hangman’s noose. I’m ready for anything. Even a random drawing, if that’s what it takes.”

  “Speaking as Dirk Gently,” said Fred, “I believe in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Which means there is no such thing as randomness. Everything is connected to everything else. And that goes for numbers, too. You can choose any set of numbers and make it relate to whatever your problem is.”

  “Dirk Gently?” Heyoka said.

  “Character in the last two novels Douglas Adams published,” said Aurélie. “You know, the guy who wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. The one who gave us the ‘ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything?’”

  Heyoka looked bewildered.

  “It’s always nice when we find something we know and he doesn’t, “Fred said.

  “Okay, Fred,” I said. “So give me a set of numbers.”

  “Let’s see,” he said, scratching his cheek with a finger. “I guess we’d have to come up with a set, or a piece of a set, that would relate to specific times in your past. Different chronological ages. Right?”

  “You got it,” I said. “Any ideas?”

  He thought for a moment, then said, “Fibonacci.”

  When he didn’t elaborate, I said, “Of course, why didn’t I think of that? What the hell is a Fibonacci?”

  “It’s a number sequence,” said Aurélie. “It starts with zero, then one, then one again, and after that each number is the sum of the previous two. So, from there it would be two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, fifty-five, eighty-nine, and so on. You said you didn’t want to go back to your preteen days, and you haven’t yet reached eighty-nine, which leaves thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, and fifty-five. If you’re serious about trying anything, why not choose three of those? At least that makes it only a three-out-of-four choice.”

  “Absolutely!” I said. “Problem solved. Fifty-five is too old, so thirteen, twenty-one, and thirty-four it is. Let’s just hope Dirk was right. If not, I may have to go with forty-two, and leave it at that.”

  “Where does forty-two come from?” Heyoka asked.

  The three of us looked at each other and smiled. Finally, Fred said, “It’s the answer.”

  “The answer to what?”

  “THE ULTIMATE QUESTION OF LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING!” we all said in unison.

  Catch 42

  Over the years, Doug Adams offered several explanations for how he came up with the number 42, none of them having to do with science or mathematics. In one of these, he told an interviewer the number didn’t mean anything at all. “It was a joke,” he said. “It had to be an ordinary, smallish number, so I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do.’” This made about as much sense as my arbitrary choosing of three numbers from the Fibonacci sequence, which, Aurélie later told me, was devised by an ancient Italian mathematician trying to solve a problem involving rabbit reproduction.

  On the positive side, the decision put an end to my frustration, so I thanked Fred for his help, went back to my room, and slept like a log until Aurélie woke me around noon
the following day with a breakfast tray. While I ate, she explained what I should expect during Stage Two.

  “It’s not going to be anything like the other presentations,” she said. “In fact, at first it’s going to seem more like a medical procedure than a visual reenactment.” I stopped with a forkful of eggs halfway to my mouth. “Don’t let that worry you,” she continued. “There’s absolutely no danger involved. I just don’t want you to freak out when you see all the equipment.”

  When I didn’t move, she said, “You can eat that now.”

  I looked at the fork, opened my mouth, scraped the eggs off with my teeth, and began to chew. After swallowing with an audible gulp, I asked, “What do you mean by ‘all the equipment?’ I’ve already seen some pretty weird stuff. Is there something even weirder about this?”

  “Oh, no. Not weird, exactly. It’ll be kind of like you’re back in the hospital, rather than in one of our projection chambers. You know, hooked up to a bunch of high-tech gadgetry, lots of beeping and other sounds, maybe a little discomfort.”

  “Discomfort?”

  “Not much, Rix. I promise. Some needles and probes and contacts and things. A helmet of sorts. But once we get started, everything will disappear, and you’ll be perfectly comfortable. As I told you earlier, the experience will be indistinguishable from reality. You will not be observing, you will actually be yourself at a younger age, going through your life as it was back then. The only difference is you won’t be able to control anything or communicate with your younger self, so you may feel a little frustrated. You’ll get used to that pretty quick, though. I know, because I’ve done it. Now stop acting like a baby and finish your breakfast. We need to get moving.”