by Jean Rabe
Leaving the book on the table, he went back to the main room. The woman who had helped him was sitting at a microfiche viewer, jotting down notes. She looked up as Carl stopped beside her. “Did you find what you were looking for?” She seemed genuinely interested.
Carl nodded. “More or less. Could I see the Tribune? For June?”
“Of sixty-six also?”
“Yes.”
“Of course. It’s on microfilm.” She led him in a different direction this time, glancing back to ask, “You said you graduated in ‘sixty-six? In June?”
He nodded.
“My daughter graduated that year. Linda Gates. Did you know her?”
Carl shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not. It was a big class.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” She’d taken the tension in his voice for resentment, but Carl didn’t know what to do about it. “It’s just that you do look familiar. I’m almost sure I’ve seen you before.”
His knees loosened with relief and shock. “I used to come to the library fairly often.” He tried not to sound too eager. “Did you work here then?”
“Oh, no. Just these past three years. But I’m sure I’ve seen you.” She tilted her head. “A long time ago, though. It must have been your father … if you look like him.”
Carl sighed. “No, not really. I don’t think I look like my dad at all.”
They had reached the periodicals room. In a minute or two the woman had loaded the microfilm reel into a viewer. “Push the lever this way for forward, this way to back up,” she explained. “This knob focuses.”
“Thanks.”
Finally he came to Saturday, June 4, 1966: the graduating class of Morgantown High. No Johnson, Carl. No Barber, George. None of his other friends. No Ascenscio. No Haimbaugh. Only names he’d seen in the green yearbook on the shelf: Selvaggio. Coleman. Ramirez. Blake. And Linda Gates, the librarian’s daughter.
The urge to run did not grip him. Now he had only a hollow feeling that his past was being stripped away from him, faster the harder he chased it. He wondered why he was not more concerned.
“Could I—” He stopped, realizing the woman might have gone back to her work, but no, she was standing a little way off, her head cocked, as if she’d known he’d need more help. Carl cleared his throat. “Could I see the December 1969 reel?”
“Of course. And if there’s anything particular you want to look up, but you don’t know the exact date, that computer screen there will give you the index. It’ll walk you through the directions for finding what you need.”
“Oh. Sorry I bothered you, then.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
Page sixteen, it had been. Just before the classified ads. The third entry from the top—
It wasn’t there, either.
Shaking, Carl checked the date, looked at three days before and three days after what he knew was the right issue. No use. His father’s obituary just wasn’t there. Of course not, he thought with bitter humor. How can the father of a man who doesn’t exist die, let alone have that fact recorded? This library was so familiar. But could he really be in the wrong Morgantown?
“Thank you,” he said, holding onto a facade of calm as he hurried toward the exit. I should have looked up Mom’s, he thought. No. Because it wouldn’t have been there, either. And then she wouldn’t have existed, either. But maybe, if he didn’t look, she would still be there. Or even if he did take just a little peek? His steps slowed.
No. He couldn’t go back and look. He had to save his mother.
The image of her face floated before him. He tried to visualize her eyes, the last day she’d waved casually at him and he climbed into the car and driven away … going to look at something, buy something. He had money in his pocket. The last time he’d seen her. Or other times, younger times, outings or angers or pride in her son—
But he couldn’t. The more he concentrated, the fuzzier the image became. Green eyes? Or blue? That faint scar, almost invisible—on her right cheek, or her left?
She lived, he mouthed. I remember the pain of losing her, so she must have lived. I remember her life. I’ve touched her, held and been held by her. She was a warm, living woman. If not in this Morgantown, than another one.
But I remember my own life, too. And … somehow … it was this Morgantown.
His heart skipped at the thought, and suddenly he was short of breath. Carl leaned against the cool library door, forcing himself to remain still, to breathe regularly until, finally, the moment of weakness passed. He realized that somewhere back in the library some part of his mind had discarded the hoax theory and had accepted … accepted what? His own insanity? The world’s insanity?
Deliberately, he formed the words mentally, mouthing them silently: “I remember my mother, her life. I remember her death. I remember my life.” But his life was slipping through his fingers like a handful of water. If the memories of his own life were false, there was no reason to believe that what he remembered of his mother was false too.
He was crossing the street and heading toward his car when he heard the scream. It was the terrified scream of a small child, and it snared his attention. Only yards away, bearing down on him at highway speed, was a car. A child screamed for him to run. For a fraction of a second, everything seemed to freeze, and he felt a jolt of panic race up from his stomach to his brain. Every muscle in his body went bone-breakingly tense, and he opened his mouth as the grill and headlights expanded to fill his field of vision, leaving him nowhere to go even if he’d had the presence to run.
There wasn’t enough time to move … only enough to realize that the crushing impact was coming and that the massive careening vehicle was—
—past him.
For an instant, there had been only swirling grayness everywhere, like an impossible fog that blanketed and muffled everything. Now the car was past him. Its brakes screeched for a moment before it accelerated again and shot through the red light at the intersection and vanished around the corner. Carl’s heart was pounding, his legs and arms felt rubbery, and the whole world seemed to be spinning around him.
“You okay, mister?” It was the child who had screamed. She was a girl of seven or eight, standing a dozen yards away, her mouth open. His eyes met hers for a moment, and then, abruptly, she looked away. A woman was running toward her from a clothing store a few doors away, and a man was standing at the corner, looking worried and ineffectual. From around the corner came the sound of blaring horns and squealing tires as the car apparently bulled its way through the next intersection.
“Are you all right?” This from the woman.
Carl nodded. A cold chill had spread over him, as if he had just stepped inside from a blizzard. It wasn’t the internal, tingling chill of fear, but an icy physical chill that coated every inch of him with a biting sting. Shivering, Carl forced the weakness from his legs and hurried stiffly the rest of the way across the street.
Somehow his mind accepted, unquestioningly, the fact of his survival.
The Mazda—oh, loyal car!—was still waiting where he’d parked it. What next? he asked himself, getting in.
Neighbors.
O O O
“Mrs. McGrath?”
Carl peered through the back screen door. What he could see of the kitchen inside was spotless, and the woman standing at the sink looked starched and untouchable. Again, he felt the stirring of hope: something about her stance seemed familiar, something about the way her hair was wound into a tight bun seemed right, though he had the vague feeling the hair should be brown mixed with a trace of gray and not the fine silver it was.
“That’s right.” Maggie McGrath’s voice was an old woman’s voice, thin and reminding him of crystal wind chimes, but it was every bit as crisp as her appearance. She came to the door, taking him in with obvious disapproval. “All right, young man,” she sighed. “There’s only one of you, so I guess you won’t try to convert me. What are you selling?”
&
nbsp; “Nothing.” Carl shook his head. “I just want to talk to you for a minute.”
“You can talk right there.” She made no move to unlock the screen. In fact, she put her hand on the edge of the inner door.
Carl swallowed. “Your new neighbor at 1733, Mrs. Goldstein, tells me you’ve lived in this house for a number of years.”
“Thirty, come next March.” Her eyes narrowed. “But if I ever decide I want to sell, I’ll pick my own real estate agent, thank you all the same.”
“No, no,” Carl said quickly. He backed down two steps, to put his face on a level with hers. “I’m not a real estate agent. I just have one question—”
She raised her chin, inviting the question and giving him the answer. But he had to ask it. “Have you ever seen me before?”
She leaned forward slightly, as if to examine him better. “Not you, young man,” she said, backing up. “Is there any reason I should have?”
“I used to live next door.” He nodded toward the house to his left. “At 1727.” At least I think I did.
“You? When?”
“Until my father died.” Hopeless. “Eight years ago.”
“Your father?” Her eyes narrowed to needle-fine slits. “What was his name?”
“Warren Johnson. My mother—her name was Ellen—died a couple of years before that, in an accident.”
“Oh, yes?” She continued to search his face, her chin jutted forward in a challenge.
“I’m Carl Johnson,” he said. “I lived next door there, most of my life. You’re sure you don’t remember me?”
“Think anybody would forget the likes of you?” Mrs. McGrath shook her head. “You never lived in this neighborhood, young man.
“Could you tell me who did live there?”
“Art Siegel, same as now, that’s who. What is it you want? I may be old, but I’m no fool. Whatever your scam is—”
“No, no,” Carl said hastily. “No scam. Really. I—I must have been mistaken, that’s all.” Softer: “Going mad.” Even to himself, he sounded like a fool. Louder now, so she could hear: “I just must have been mistaken.”
“You can’t even keep straight in your head where you lived most of your life? Young man, you better get yourself a keeper.” The door closed decisively, not quite a slam.
O O O
Dazed anew, Carl sat in the car. What now? No work, no school, no father, no neighbors—impossible! Impossible that it was impossible! Morgantown High School. How could he not have graduated from Morgantown High School? He knew every word, every note of the alma mater. Knew the cheers from the pep rallies—Smash ‘em, bust ‘em, that’s our custom! Go, Raiders! He even remembered—could still hear just how the passing bells sounded, could smell the machine shop, the locker rooms, and the fresh floor wax in the halls …
What he should have done was look at other yearbooks. Dimwit. Of course, that was what he should have done. Probably he was thinking of the year ahead of his own—1965—something like that. Sure. Go find the Raider he did remember: that was the best bet. Go look up 1965 or 1964. He’d have his pictures in those.
Wouldn’t he?
O O O
Losing your past is like losing your keys, he thought, climbing the library steps for the second time in two hours. You search the same damn pants, the same dresser drawer, the same jacket pocket again and again, run back and forth to the car to peer through the window and make sure they haven’t magically reappeared dangling from the ignition—and all the while, they’re–
Where?
But he kept climbing. This time the woman at the checkout desk was busy with something and didn’t look up. He didn’t see Mrs. Gates, who’d helped him the previous time.
First, the yearbooks.
He went straight back to the room with the long maple tables, squatted in front of the shelf that held the traitorous Raider, and scanned along the spines.
There it was! Black, with gold lettering!
He snatched it down and threw it open without looking at the date on the front cover. Still hunkered in front of the shelf, he began to leaf through it. A whispered “Yes!” exploded from his lips.
This was what his yearbook had looked like! Pictures square with the pages, captions neatly rectangular, nothing oddly skewed and fanciful … but he didn’t know these names, these faces. True, a Mr. Bullis taught mathematics, but he looked old enough to be his Mr. Bullis’s father. And the students—crew cuts and pompadours on the boys, conservative shoulder length and occasional bangs on the girls. And the car in the Driver’s Ed picture—
Swallowing, he shut the book and looked at the cover.
1930!
***
Chapter 13
His heart thrumming like a jackhammer, he shoved the book back onto the shelf and scanned along it for more gold-on-black spines. Earlier editions, and later ones. It seemed that every fourth year was black. But the black volumes ended … in 1946?
Twenty years before he graduated.
Before he was even born!
Taking the 1938 one down, he searched its pages, suddenly more afraid that he would find a familiar face than that he wouldn’t. Occasionally a face raised a ripple in his mind, but he found no one of whom he could say, yes, I definitely know him, yes, she’s someone I remember.
Until a name, not a picture, caught his eye.
Wait …
James Robert Denton. James Robert Denton. There’d been a Jim Denton in a couple of his classes, but this face was thinner, the hair straighter. In a section called Senior Class Facts, in a column under the heading, “usually found,” was the name of a grocery store.
He must have worked there, Carl thought, probably stocking shelves. His scalp crawled. I remember the store! My mother shopped there. The book open on his knees, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember exactly where the store had been. Where the K-Mart is, he decided, in a wave of regret. Any chance to find out about Jim Denton had been razed with the store.
Reluctantly, he returned the book to the shelf and began working his way back, quickly scanning each set of class pictures.
In 1934, he found what he had been hoping—fearing!—he would find: An unmistakably familiar face. Her name was Jackie Harrison. He’d dated her a half dozen times, but he’d eventually lost out to Wade Dillman, whose picture was nowhere to be found.
But he’d dated her in 1965! Something moved at the back of his mind at that thought. He couldn’t catch hold of a necessary fleeting notion. Like the dreams, the nightmares, but smaller, calmer, like wakening from an ordinary dream knowing only that it had been vivid a moment before and now was gone.
He shoved 1934 back into history and skipped again to 1930. Quickly, nervously, he flipped through the pages. Until—
Suddenly, the face of a girl leaped out at him from the yellowing page, literally taking his breath away.
I’ve dreamed of her, he thought, his heart slamming against his ribcage at least as hard as it had in the nightmares. I’ve dreamed …
Slender features, soft with youth. Full lips, high cheekbones, but most of all oval eyes that even through the yellow curtain of the aging paper seemed to glisten with barely suppressed joy, a joy in living he knew, knew first-hand, as … as …
His stomach sank. His throat tightened, almost forcing a cry through the ache. Sitting on the floor with the book in his hands he began to sob. Compared to this, compared to this, nothing he had ever felt before had touched him.
But the name beneath the picture was the name of a total stranger: Claire E. Carstairs. Her classmates had called her Ceecee.
O O O
Wiping his eyes on his sleeve, he put the book back on the shelf, sat at one of the tables and composed himself, thankful that at least the room was empty. A few minutes later the woman who had been at the checkout desk put her head through the door to tell him the library was closing. No time to go back into the Tribune microfilm, even if he could have found the courage.
He retreated to
the Adler Motel and let himself into his room. His suitcase was gone.
“Nobody stays here two nights, mister,” the man in the office said when Carl reported the loss. “Thought you skipped without signing the credit slip. Sorry.”
“I’m staying two nights.” His tone was so grim it surprised him. “Maybe three.”
“Okay, okay. Won’t happen again. Here’s your suitcase.”
Carl stalked back to the room, flung the suitcase onto the shelf provided, and slumped onto the edge of the bed. The Adler had had some pretensions at one time, he recalled. Now it was just a place to rent a bed, cheap. Not even in a decent part of town—the idea startled him: he had never before thought of Morgantown as having parts that weren’t decent.
He flopped back onto the bed, staring up at the stained ceiling.
I am Carl Johnson, he told himself with great deliberation. I know that. I lived in Morgantown through twelve years of school and a few years beyond. My parents lived and died here. I know that. And it’s this Morgantown. This one. But nobody in this Morgantown remembers Carl Johnson. Or his parents. Nobody remembers that we ever lived here at all, and from what I’ve looked up—the yearbooks, the newspapers—they’re right. We never did.
He rubbed his face with both hands. I got hit on the head, he thought. Or something. Amnesia. Sure, that’s it. Must have happened about the time I moved to Roseville near Milwaukee and started with Harry. When I woke up and couldn’t remember anything, I must’ve just—just made up the first twenty years of my life, made it up from bits and pieces of … what?
He felt his mind slipping away. Just when things started to make sense, just when he almost had it worked out, the solutions slithered away. He backed up and began again: slowly, methodically. My name is Carl Johnson. Eight or nine years ago, something happened that gave me amnesia, and I … built a past for myself. I made all of this up.
He locked onto that notion for a moment. Why a past based on Morgantown? A town I’ve never lived in? I must know something about it or there wouldn’t be even the few matches I have between my memory and reality: the courthouse, the Adler Motel, the Tip-Top, the library, the location of the yearbooks in the library … I had to have lived here or visited here or seen pictures or—