by Shawn Inmon
The two boys grew quiet, then serious. “You feeling okay, man? You said 1980, like it was in the distant past. You do know it’s 1978, right?”
Joe just stared at them. Well, that would certainly explain a damn few things, but how am I supposed to believe that?
“Okay, you guys say you’re stoned, but sit down. I’ve gotta tell you something.”
“Sure, sure,” JD said. He sat on one end of the couch, while Bobby dropped down cross-legged on the floor.
Joe sat down, too, and took his time trying to think of what to say.
“So, you guys say this is 1978, right?”
JD and Bobby both nodded.
“What if I told you I already lived through 1978? That I lived through the eighties and the nineties, and there was this big furor when we got to the year 2000, because everyone thought all the computers were gonna crash, and then some terrorists from the Middle East flew airplanes into the World Trade Center, and, well—a lot of shit happened.”
Joe turned from JD’s face to Bobby’s. Both looked at him levelly.
Finally, Bobby said, “Are you, like, super-high, man?”
Joe drew a deep breath, let it out in a rush, and said, “Yeah, I guess I am. Pretty good story, huh?”
I notice they’ve skipped right over that whole part about me knowing they were dead. No one wants to talk about their own death.
JD gave a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh, but more an expression of relief. “Yeah, pretty good story. So, we still good to watch the game here?”
“The game?”
“You must be high, brother. Game Seven of the NBA finals. The Sonics against the Bullets.”
“Oh. Uhh... sure.”
Let’s see. If it’s 1978, then the Sonics lose Game Seven tonight at home, and that breaks the home fans’ hearts. But, they’ll come back and beat this same Bullets team for the championship next year. I guess I won’t spoil their fun and I’ll just try to act disappointed when Seattle loses.
“So, whaddya say? Pizza on the menu?”
Joe had eaten a Mama Z’s pizza what felt like just a few hours before, even though both that pizza and that restaurant were apparently several decades in the future.
“Sure, I guess so,” Joe said.
JD and Bobby stood looking at him. JD’s head bobbed along to some internal music. For a long moment, no one said a word.
Finally, Bobby raised his eyebrows, as though Joe was forgetting some unspoken agreement. “You buy, we fly, right?”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Joe said. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. It was his wallet, but it sure wasn’t the wallet he had in his back pocket when he had gone to sleep. That had been a black tri-fold wallet with credit cards, his debit card, and not much else. The wallet that he held in his hand was blue vinyl, and had a zipper around it.
Surreal.
He unzipped the wallet to see what was inside. No credit cards, of course. What eighteen year old kid had a credit card in 1978? No debit card, because the banks hadn’t thought of that faster way to suck money out of your account yet. Instead, he found his driver’s license, set to expire on his birthday in 1979. The photo showed Joe looking uncomfortably off to the side, burningly aware of how obvious his birthmark would be to the camera. Aside from the license, there wasn’t much in the wallet. A five, a few singles, and a couple of twenties.
Joe grabbed one of the twenties. Is twenty bucks enough to get pizza for three of us? If this is actually 1978, then yeah, with enough left over to fill up JD’s gas tank, which he just might do.
Joe handed the bill to Tommy and it disappeared into his front pocket like a magic trick. “Beauty. If you want to call it in, it’ll be ready to go by the time we get there, then we can make it back in time for tip-off.”
Joe nodded vaguely at their retreating backs and the closing door.
He sat at the kitchen table and stared at the phone. It was black and heavy, with a thick, curled cord attached to the handset. He knew it hadn’t been there just a few hours ago.
This is real. I’m like Rip Van Winkle in reverse. I went to sleep and woke up twenty-six years earlier.
There was a thin phone book with curling edges beside the phone. He picked it up and looked in the yellow pages under “Pizza,” then “Restaurants,” but there was no listing for Shakey’s.
Right. There wouldn’t be. In 1978, it was too new to have made it into the book. How the hell did we call information? Did we just dial zero, or was it 4-1-1, or what?
His eyes fell on a small magnet, designed to go on a refrigerator. It had the Shakey’s logo and a phone number across the bottom. The magnet hadn’t made it to the kitchen yet, but long-ago Joe or Chandra had laid it next to the phone in case of a pizza emergency.
He dialed the number and heard a cheery, urgent voice on the other end say, “Shakey’s! We’ve made a deal with the banks. We don’t cash checks, and they don’t make pizzas. Do you want to place an order?”
Even in his confused state, Joe chuckled a little. He ordered two large pepperoni pizzas—no jalapenos, this time—and told them someone named Bobby or JD would be in to pick it up.
He hung the phone up and sat staring off into space, waiting for the missing piece of the puzzle to fall into place, or, maybe, to wake up suddenly back in 2004. Neither happened, and he was still sitting, chin in his hand, when the door burst open half an hour later.
JD and Bobby burst in, each carrying a large pizza box. “Dude, are we having a party? This is enough to feed us for a week!”
“You guys mentioned you might be in need of munchies, so...”
“Hold on, be right back!” JD said, putting the pizza box on the coffee table and running back outside
Thirty seconds later, he was back, brown grocery bag in hand. Reaching inside, he started to pull packages out. “Doritos. Red licorice. Ding Dongs. A half rack of beer that a guy I know bought for us. I think we’re set for the game now. It killed your twenty, though. Hope you don’t mind.”
Joe shook his head. Food only a teenager’s metabolism could love. “That’s cool. What channel’s the game on?”
Chapter Seven
A few hours later, they had plowed through many thousands of calories, watched the Sonics go down in their inevitable defeat, and Joe had one more piece of the puzzle. He knew, at least when it came to this one sporting event, the world as he knew it was recreating itself.
Will that hold true? I’m sure I’ve already done things differently than I did in my first life. So, won’t that cause changes, which will cause changes, which will cause changes? The butterfly flapping its wings in Singapore and causing a hurricane in Middle Falls, or something like that.
Joe gathered up the empty pizza box, the candy and chip wrappers, and walked it out to the garbage can inside the garage. He returned to the living room, wrapped the remaining pizza in aluminum foil and stuck it inside the refrigerator. When he did, his heart sank.
Containers of yogurt, cottage cheese, and other things his mom had called diet food were stacked inside.
This is all fresh. She was just here, and I just missed her. She’s been dead for decades, but here, the flowers fed by her ashes are blooming and her food is still in the fridge.
Joe took two backward steps and felt a kitchen chair hit the back of his legs. He sat down numbly. Damnit, Mom. You should still be here. You started killing yourself, one bottle at a time, when Dad died. It took you eighteen years, but you got the job done. You left me here alone.
Tears formed, then spilled unnoticed over his cheeks.
But, did I really do any better? I never did one single damn thing with my life. I watched television, ate junk food and played video games. I was a forty-four year old teenager, and then I woke up again as a real teenager. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere.
A sudden thought hit him like a lightning bolt.
Did I die, too? I don’t remember dying, but I’m not sure I would. Maybe I had a heart
attack, brought on by too many bowls of mac ‘n cheese and two-liters of Dr. Pepper.
Joe looked around his completely real kitchen, still filled with reminders of his mother, and felt a new certainty fill him.
It doesn’t matter what it is, or how I got here. I’m here. If I’m going to stay here, that gives me a second chance. The first time, I didn’t do anything with my life. Not this time. This time, I’m gonna make my life matter.
He stood, shut the refrigerator door, and opened the top drawer of a file cabinet stuck in a corner.
At least some things are the same.
Stuffed inside was all the financial paperwork for the Hart household. Neatly filed in the front of the drawer were the last two years of bank statements from Oregon State Savings and Loan. He took out the statement in the front, still in its envelope, it was postmarked “May 28, 1978, Middle Falls, Oregon.”
He opened the statement and ran his finger to the bottom of the second page.
Current Balance - $32,172.
“Hmm. Not bad,” he said aloud. “If I remember right, something happened and the royalties increased in the eighties. Can’t remember what it was, because I didn’t care, as long as I had enough to buy the latest video game system.”
He tapped the envelope against his leg, lost in thought.
Before I do anything, though, I think I need to get some help. I lived through life completely on my own, and it wasn’t good. So, who can help? Don’t have any relatives. Don’t think JD and Bobby are going to be much help, so who?
He sat back down at the kitchen table, pulled the phone book to him again and opened it to the Yellow Pages. He flipped through to the C’s, then looked under “Counselors.”
Even if I’ve got to buy the help, I’m gonna do it.
There weren’t many people listed—just two men and a woman.
Who would be better to talk to, a man or a woman?
He ran his finger down the three names, stopped at the listing for Abigail Green. He dialed the number. He heard the phone ring three times, then the hiss of an answering machine.
“Hello, this is Abigail Green, LPC, counselor for families and individuals. If you’re hearing this message, I am either with a client or it’s after hours. If this is a mental health care emergency, please dial 9-1-1. If you’d like to leave a message, please do so at the beep.” Another hiss of static was followed by a long beep.
“Um, yes, this is Joe Hart. I need to talk to a counselor. It’s not an emergency, but I would appreciate it if you would call me back as soon as you can.” Joe recited his number, then hung up.
He nodded. Well begun is half done. Was that Aristotle, or Mary Poppins? Either way, I’m committed. Or, should be committed. Something like that.
Joe glanced up at the clock. 11:15.
He walked back to his bedroom and flipped on the overhead light. Posters covered the walls. One was of the bare torso of a young woman with a beer cap covering her belly button. The caption read Not all beer bellies are created equal. Next to that was a black light poster with the Desiderata written on it. Some of his ink drawings of Conan the Barbarian and Baron Harkonnen from Dune were pinned haphazardly to the wall.
It’s like stepping into a Joe Museum. Half-naked girls, half-baked philosophy, and my drawings. I think I gave up on drawing not long after I did these.
He grasped the corner of the drawing of Baron Harkonnen and pulled it toward him. It showed a grossly fat man supported by some technological miracle. His face, covered in scabs and scars, wore a sneer.
Not too shabby. Why in the world did I give it up?
He took a deep breath of the stale air, redolent of dirty clothes and old food, and shook his head.
Just don’t think I can do it.
He flipped the light off again and shut the door.
He walked through the house turning other lights out until he was in darkness broken only by the pale light of an almost-full moon coming in through the living room window. He laid down on the couch, punching the pillow and unconsciously emulating the position he had woken up in a few hours before.
Moments later, he was asleep.
Chapter Eight
Joe was awakened from the slumber of the dead by the harsh ringing of the telephone. The third ring finally soaked through his sleep. He sat straight up on the couch, bleary-eyed and confused by the swirl of dreams that had haunted him.
“Okay, okay, I’m up.” Oh, that’s not an alarm, is it? That’s gotta be the phone.
He moved to roll over, but fell off the couch onto all fours. The phone continued to ring. He scrambled to his feet and jogged to the kitchen table. He picked the receiver up.
“Hello?” There was a pause on the other end and Joe was about to hang up when he heard a woman’s voice.
“Oh, hello! You caught me unaware. I dialed the number, then my mind wandered, I’m afraid. This is Abigail Green. You left a message on my answering machine, saying it was important that I call you.” The voice was smooth and professional. Deep for a woman’s voice.
“Right, right.” Joe’s tongue felt like Astroturf, his eyes had boogers in the corners, and he had developed a possibly permanent cowlick. He was not on top of his game.
After a lengthy pause, Green continued. “Are you all right? If this is an emergency—“
“No, no, it’s not an emergency,” Joe said, trying to find his mental balance. “I just need to speak to someone.”
“That’s why I’m here. Would you like to make an appointment?”
“Yes, I would.”
“Do you need an evening appointment due to work? Those tend to get booked out a few weeks.”
“No, I don’t work. I can come in any time.”
“I see.” A pause on the other end of the phone. The sound of a page turning. “I had a cancellation, so I have an opening this afternoon at 2:00. Would that work for you?”
I have no idea what’s going to work for me.
“Yes, that sounds good.”
“Do you need directions?”
“Not if your address is in the book. Middle Falls isn’t that big.”
“Very good. When you come into my waiting room, I may still be in with another client, but I’ll leave a form attached to a clipboard on one of the chairs. Fill that out while you’re waiting. See you then.”
Joe dropped the receiver with a clunk and dragged his hands through his hair.
Okay, I went to sleep and woke up in the same spot, so I seem to really be here. Guess I better make the most of it.
Joe took a shower, then noticed that the laundry basket was not only overflowing, but also smelling slightly of mildew. He sorted out a load of jeans and t-shirts and threw them in the washer, then took a good look around the bathroom.
Eeesh. Maybe my standards of cleanliness improved a little in my old age.
He drug a comb through his hair, slipped on a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt and set out to clean the house. He did it right, even getting into the window tracks with an old toothbrush and stripping his bed down to throw it into the washer with another load of sheets and towels.
Before he knew it, it was 1:30. The house was much cleaner, smelling of Lysol and bleach. Joe nodded his approval.
His stomach growled and he realized he hadn’t eaten anything since he had been woken up by the phone call that morning.
Have to grab something later, no time.
He looked up Abigail Green’s address—451 Bell Street—and jotted it down on the palm of his hand.
He found his ’76 Oldsmobile right where he had parked it in the driveway, either a few days ago or a few decades later, depending on how you wanted to measure time. He had never sold what had been his mother’s car or bought another. There was no reason to, when he only drove a few hundred miles per year at the most. He realized he hadn’t seen any keys as he was cleaning and felt a moment of panic.
If I have to get there on foot, I’m definitely gonna be late.
He looked in the
passenger window of the Olds, though, and saw the keys dangling in the ignition.
I was a trusting soul. Did I think there weren’t any kids wanting to take a joyride back in the day? Or maybe I just counted on the fact that they wouldn’t want to get caught dead in a gray, four-door Olds that looked like something their Grandpa drove. Probably that.
Joe opened the driver’s door and felt a burst of heat hit him in the face. He slid inside anyway and felt the sweat pop out on his face. He turned the key, rolled down the windows, and breathed a small sigh.
The radio lit up. It was set to KMFR, and the end of Steve Martin’s King Tut played. Immediately, Eddie Money’s Two Tickets to Paradise took its place. Joe adjusted the mirror that didn’t really need adjusting and backed out of the driveway.
Bell Street. Bell Street. That doesn’t seem like a downtown address. I think it’s over by the high school, isn’t it? If only I had a GPS, I would be sure.
Joe drove the quiet mid-afternoon streets of Middle Falls. The neighborhoods didn’t look all that different from 2004, to his eye. Older cars, perhaps, and a few more kids playing outside, but it mostly just looked like Middle Falls.
As he passed Middle Falls High, he saw that he had remembered correctly, and turned left onto Bell Street.
I guess I expected her to be in an office somewhere downtown, but this is all residential.
He found the 400 block of Bell Street and pulled up to the curb. He climbed out and noticed a small sign in front of a house that said “Middle Falls Counseling.” It was a two-story house, light green, with a country porch. In the warm afternoon, shaded by a number of large trees, it looked cool and inviting.
Joe walked up the steps, and there was another sign attached to the door frame—Come in, make yourself comfortable in the waiting room. I’ll be with you as soon as possible. Abigail.
Joe opened the old-fashioned screen door and let himself in to a large living room. There was a comfortable sofa against one wall and two high-backed upholstered chairs on either side of it. There was a clipboard sitting on one of the chairs.