by Dan Garmen
The pain stayed, then, and got worse.
I sat back down on the twin bed and consciously relaxed, closing my eyes and imagining myself outside in a big, green, short-cropped grass field.
Nothing.
Crap. This isn’t a lucid dream, and I know I’m not asleep, so I knew it wasn’t a standard, run of the mill dream, either.
I seemed to be in my old bedroom in our house on the West side of Indianapolis. So weird, I thought as the memory of the accident came flooding back in, and I again considered the possibility I was dead. I remember thinking if this is my life flashing before my eyes, why is it taking so long, and why start at age 17?
Again, like in the clearing in "Hawaii," this didn’t seem to be the right answer. I was stumped.
About then, I heard footsteps outside my room, someone coming closer. Masculine steps. So, if I’m home, back in high school, the steps would be…
Someone opened the door separating the house’s entryway from the hall running past my bedroom, walked three steps and rapped on the sliding doors that provided my privacy. "Richard," a deep male voice said. "7 o’clock."
I opened both sliding doors, and standing in my briefs with no shirt, saw a sight I hadn’t seen in 30 years, my father at the same age I am, writing this. 47 years old. He appeared to be closer to 37, hair dark with little grey and a lot of The Dry Look men’s hairspray. His sideburns were fashionably long, and glasses fashionably big. "Dad!"
My face must have given away a lot more than I intended, because the expression on my father suggested he thought I must still be asleep and sleepwalking. "Morning, Rich, uh…It’s 7. Time to get moving." His expression went from surprise to suspicion, and he surveyed the room behind me, clearly wondering what was going on.
"I’m up," I replied. "Just got up a few minutes ago."
Pause.
"Okay," he said. "Well, I’ve got to get going." He started to move on down the hall toward the garage.
"Hey Dad," I said, realizing I didn’t have a clue what I should be doing on that day, or even if this hallucination, dream, or whatever would even last another 5 minutes. "What’s the date today?"
“It’s April 27, Tuesday," he said suspiciously.
"Thanks!" I cheerily replied to his back as he continued on to the garage. "And for the bonus…What’s the year?"
"1976, wiseass, and you’d better get dressed."
Some things never change. I considered my sparse attire, and think I said aloud "when do I switch to boxers, anyway?" Today, reading the previous sentence seems like the whole experience was kind of a light sitcom or "Back to the Future" moment, but that’s not true. At best, I was disoriented, at worst, scared to death. I had virtually no control here, and in retrospect, I guess all I could think to do was crack jokes, The unreality of everything, however, warped my normal perceptions and so I alternated between intense fear, curiosity and the feeling that it wasn’t even me at the center of this thing.
THREE
Living in the Past
7:42 AM.
A long “country” road I knew in 2007 ran through a river of office buildings and modular retail businesses, but today, in 1976, stretched out in front of us surrounded by cornfields. I drove a 1975 Chevy El Camino, carrying two passengers, twins Dean and Betsy Sawyer, who lived nest door to us and rode with me each day. Two years younger than I, our families were friends, so I somewhat reluctantly had agreed to let them commute with me to school each morning. I wouldn't have my beloved Plymouth Fury for a few months yet, but used an El Camino owned my father’s company. Juniors and Seniors at Ben Davis High School in 1976 wouldn't be caught dead riding the bus to school.
Like most mornings, we rode in silence, the only sound in the car coming from the radio. The WNAP morning show was on, a mix of talk, phone calls from excited listeners winning tickets to concerts, or $92 dollars or (considering the enthusiasm of the winners, the best of all) a WNAP Buzzard T-Shirt. The music the station played I now call "oldies," but coming out of the radio in the El Camino, were “Hits.” We didn't talk a lot during these drives, because Dean and Betsy, though friends, were both Freshmen. This particular morning, however, there was even less talk than usual because in my mind, I no longer had two years on them, I was thirty-two years older, a 47 year old in a seventeen year old body, sitting uncomfortably close to a fifteen year old girl. Yea, it was weird, and worry gnawed at me.
I started to wonder again if I had died in the crash in Cincinnati, images of the accident still vivid in my mind, as were the details of the life I had (hopefully temporarily) left behind.
I asked Dean "you ever hear of a Chrysler Pacifica?" referring to the make and model of the car I drove in 2007. Dean’s father worked as an engineer in Indianapolis for one of the car companies, so both father and son were car buffs, and would know of any model made by an American auto maker.
He shook his head. "No, a…Chrysler what?"
"Pacifica."
"Nope."
I nodded my head. "How about a Hummer?" I remembered well the Hummer that t-boned me in the intersection in Cincinnati. I remembered the sight of the front grill, anyway. A cold stab of instant regret rushed through me after I asked the last question, imagining the shit I’d be bringing down on myself if Betsy went home and told her mother I’d been talking about "hummers" on the way to school. Well, at least I’d get to drive to school by myself, I thought, but then realized no, my El Camino privileges would be gone if my parents found out about it.
"A Hummer?" He shook his head, again coming up blank. "What are they?" I heaved a silent sigh of relief.
"Oh, nothing, just something I read," I replied, shrugging. "The Army is considering replacing the Jeep with something called the 'Humvee,’ and one of the car companies might make a civilian model. It was obvious I’d piqued Dean"s interest though. He would ask about the cars when his father got home from work today.
At this point, let me say though I wouldn't have believed I could have coped with being plopped down in the middle of my past, riding the flow of the day proved to be easy. After watching my father close the door to the garage behind him, I had gone to my closet, and pulled from a favorite short-sleeved light blue shirt with darker blue stripes. I found clean and folded jeans in the dresser and pulled them on, then white socks. I retrieved my tennis shoes, Adidas basketball shoes from my aborted 1975 season, and put them on, doing the familiar stretches that would sometimes reduce the pain in my left leg. The almost new jeans, still a little stiff, had a waist size of 34, and I couldn't remember the last time I wore that size. About this time, I reasoned, as I walked to the kitchen to try and find some breakfast. Despite the fact I still doubted this was all real, I nevertheless felt ravenous.
I found some Raisin Bran and milk, and sat at the kitchen table eating the cereal, thinking about the situation, when my mother walked into the kitchen, trailed by my little sister, 7 years old, in her favorite "granny dress" she had lobbied to get for six months, and the sight took my breath away. My mother, 42 years old, hair still dark and long, far younger looking than I remember, with my little sister, who in the time I belonged, had three children of her own, and always seemed tired. But at 7, all of it was ahead of her.
I dared not say anything, because I knew I would either gush with enthusiasm over seeing my mother and sister in this setting, or else get choked up, overcome by the emotion. The lump in my throat suggested to me the latter would be what happened, so I finished my Raisin Bran and ducked out the door, right on time at 7:30, making a welcome escape. The vertigo had returned, as had the pain in my leg, but I found the El Camino in the driveway with Dean and Betsy standing by, ready to go to school.
In the parking lot, I parted ways with my younger passengers, Betsy and Dean heading left and me, remembering the routine, to the right. I felt strange and almost euphoric, walking across the parking lot in the crisp, April air. I couldn't remember smelling air this clean in a long time, so long I'd forgotten it even could be this cle
ar. What have we done to the air? I thought, then again, maybe because I've got my 17 year old senses back I'm finally experiencing the world unfiltered by age. When I got close enough to the flow of people funneling into door #5, I began seeing faces gone from my memory for decades. I recognized friends, as well as people whose faces I recognized, but with no name attached to them in 1976, let alone on this day. Oh wait, I thought, this is 1976 again. Right.
The noise rushed into the building as well, everything so vivid. The sights and smells were overwhelming, and the sounds were too loud, with an almost metallic edge, as if I wasn't hearing plain old analog sound, but rather a distorted digitized version of the original sounds, causing the vertigo to rush back into my head In response, I edged over to walk along the wall, in case I lost my balance. It was a good think I did, too, because as soon as I reached the edge of the flowing crowd, the dizziness rose in a crescendo and the world twisted violently sideways. I grabbed for the wall, my hand touching the cool metal of a locker and fell against the narrow door, sliding down to the floor. My head lolled back and smacked the locker door, sounding a loose, metallic crash attracting the attention of several kids walking by. Three boys, who 13 years old or so, stepped over, and looking down at me asked 'you ok?’
I opened my eyes and with considerable effort, focused on each of their faces. I nodded.
“You're Rich Girrard, aren't you?” asked the one on the left, the smallest of the three. 'The basketball guy,' he added.
“Yea,” I said, a little embarrassed, but not as much as I would have been, had this happened when I was doing all this for the first time. “Help me up, would you?” I wanted to get back on my feet, but nothing seemed to work, I couldn’t even raise my hand for the three to grab to pull me up.
“Stay down for a minute,” a deep voice interjected from behind the boys. “Just sit and collect yourself.”
I looked up at a face I hadn't seen since the day I graduated. Coach Tom MacLaren, who had died minutes before the tipoff of a midseason game in 1980, stood before me, looking down, concerned. Our last two conversations, three weeks after I had graduated, had been strained, but more polite than the reamings I'd received when I was at the bottom of my descent into surrender after the accident, a descent that had started not far from the time I seemed to be living in at the present. In late April of 1976, the Coach and I had no problems yet, he, expecting me to recover and take up my place on his team again in a few months, and me wondering if I ever again would have a pain-free day. With the exception of falling in the hallway, I'd lived this all before. If everything from here played out in the same way, the pain would rule my life until I discovered the wonderful world of self-administered opiates. By the time I would recover from the mess I would make of everything, Coach MacLaren would be dead and forever lost to me, our last words to each other full of bitterness.
None of that had happened yet, however, so he stood in the school hallway, his heavy black framed glasses centered perfectly on his face, below the neatly maintained flat-top haircut. Stocky, wearing a plaid sport jacket, black dress pants and a blue shirt. He could be mistaken for nothing but a coach, and I loved him. All of our conflicts lie in the future, and here he wore his concern on his face. Coach MacLaren squatted down next to me, like he did in front of the bench during a game, missing only the small blue towel he always kept draped over his shoulder. 'Sit here a minute and we'll get you to the nurse.'
I nodded. My three would-be helpers had vanished, preferring to get lost in the crowd rather than face the attention of two members of the most hallowed varsity basketball team. I laughed a little to myself when I realized this. If they only knew how little all of it mattered, I thought.
Throughout my 4 years at Ben Davis High School, I'd never been to the nurse's office, so I had no feeling of familiarity when I walked in followed by Coach MacLaren. For the first time since this whole thing began, life seemed to move under its own power, new experiences every second. Mrs Givern entered, her long, straight hair a perfect black. I never realized until this moment, Mrs Givern was Native American. Why hadn't I ever noticed it before?
She was always pleasant, and today was no exception. 'What's the trouble?'
Coach MacLaren spoke up. “Mr Girrard here had a bit of a dizzy spell in the hallway and lost his footing. Seems to be all right now, but I wanted your opinion, Mrs Givern.”
She nodded, and indicated I should have a seat in the chair by her desk. She opened a cabinet and retrieved a thermometer. 'Open, please.' She stuck the thermometer in my mouth and lightly took my wrist to check my pulse. A few seconds later she nodded and dropped my arm, waited a few seconds before taking the thermometer out of my mouth. Another satisfied nod and she bent down, looking into each of my eyes, one at a time, and lifting the lids to check something I guess would tell her whether she expected me to die or not.
Dropping the second eyelid, she turned toward Coach MacLaren, patiently leaning against the door jamb and said, “He seems fine, Coach.” And to me, “Are you still dizzy?”
“No...Uh, my leg hurt a bit and I got a little light-headed,” I replied, “really, that’s all.”
Mrs. Givern considered me, squinting slightly. “I’ll give you some aspirin for the pain. Are you doing physical therapy for your leg?”
I tried to think fast. I had done a bit of physical therapy, but the frustration and pain had gotten to me, so I'd stopped before finishing the whole course. When did I stop? I wondered. It was 30 years ago from my perspective, but in 1976, it had been a few weeks, at most, since I’d quit PT. Almost like a computer, downloading a web page, I could sense the memory of the events in question seeping back into my head. Three weeks ago, I'd quit. Three weeks ago yesterday, to be exact.
“I haven't been in a couple weeks, but I'm going in on Friday after school,” I lied. Why did I do that, I wondered? The words had come out before I thought, which I found strange.
“You need to do your physical therapy, Mr Girrard,” the nurse said sternly, but with the hint of a smile. “You know how important it is to the healing process.”
“I know,” I replied.
Coach MacLaren straightened up and agreed. “You need to keep with the physical therapy, Rich. We need you in the fall, and it's going to be important for you to be in the gym this summer.”
The summer. I didn't set foot in the gym in the summer of 1976, not even once. Varsity basketball players worked out together at least once and preferably twice a day in the summer, and though no coaching was allowed by Indiana High School Athletic Association rules, Coach MacLaren always supervised (a faculty member had to be present any time the gym was open to students), sitting silently in the stands or in his office. I hadn't spent any time in the gym because of the pain and because of the weakness in my left leg. I always intended to eventually start working out that summer, but it was always “next week," which never came. I'd never gone back.
Mrs Givern gave me two aspirin and a small paper cup of water. I took the aspirin, thinking this was surely a simpler time. The paperwork necessary for her to give me two aspirin in 2007 would have taken half the day.
Coach MacLaren thanked Mrs Givern and left, telling me to go on to first period and to stop by his office later in the afternoon. I promised I would, thanked Mrs Givern, and walked out into the hallway, hoping I’d be able to remember the combination if I somehow managed to find my locker. I waited for the information to pour back into my head like with the physical therapy, but...nothing. Mrs Givern's office sat at an intersection of hallways, one to the right and one to the left. I stared down both and choosing one, headed toward where I hoped the Junior lockers resided.
Three hours later, I sat in the multi-purpose room used as a massive lunchroom in the middle of the day. Will Curry, another member of the basketball team, across the table from me, next to him, my best friend and confirmed non-jock, Rick Underhill. To my right was long-time pal, Walter Steinberg, like Rick, decidedly unathletic, but an accomplished trum
pet player in the band. Rick would be, in the years to come, a 'nerd,' thanks to his knowledge of computers, Star Trek and later, Dungeons and Dragons. Sitting next to him while he ate his lunch on this day in 1976, I didn't have the heart to tell him he'd wake up one morning after a D&D weekend, hungover, naked and next to a large Wiccan co-ed. He'd grab his clothes, run out and within three weeks find himself 'born again,' in a Seminary studying for a life in the clergy. After graduation, I lost touch with Walter, who went on to college, followed by med school, and a career in the US Navy. I'd wanted to fly Navy jets at one point, but addiction and getting thrown out of school tends to eliminate the possibility of becoming a Military Officer. On this day though, Rick and Walter lived the lives of Science and Band nerds, and as such, were marginally tolerated by my jock friends. A couple members of the athlete cast might talk to them occasionally, but only if they needed some help with an assignment from Chemistry, Math or Physical Science class. We sat and ate. Lunch for me a wax paper wrapped ham and cheese sandwich, an apple, three chocolate chip cookies and two small cartons of milk, all purchased from the cafeteria for the sum total of $1.75. I'd thought to put my wallet in the back pocket of my jeans as I left the house and while in the lunch line, found it contained $12, more than enough to get me through the day, even if I had to buy gas.
The topic of conversation, not surprisingly, didn't include me traveling some 30 years into the past, consciousness somehow sliding into my 17 year old body and brain and taking them over, or about how to get back to the time from which I'd come. We talked discussed the previous Saturday night's broadcast of “NBC Saturday Night,” hosted by Raquel Welch (and musical guest Phoebe Snow, though that part was of no interest to us). I vaguely remembered the episode, but as Rick and Will talked and laughed, I began to remember. By the time I drew a pair of puzzled expressions from my reference to 'SNL,' they were clear I hadn't watched the show that week, which was rare. After all, what else what was on late Saturday night in a world without cable or satellite?