Time Flying

by Dan Garmen

  “Wait right there,” Liz said, turning to walk into the kitchen. Half a minute later she returned, holding an envelope in her hand. This one new, not brittle and old like the one she gave me on the front porch of this house not a year ago.

  On the front of the envelope was an elegant, if slightly shaky, handwritten “Richard” in ink. Like the letter Annie delivered to me from my Grandfather, her daughter passed along a note from her. I took the letter and said to Liz “this is getting to be a habit.” She smiled back at me, nodding.

  The letter, written in the same careful script on the envelope, consisted of three short paragraphs:

  Richard,

  You have in your hand another letter from the past. I know you will read this, because you will tell me you have when we meet again. For me, it will be our first meeting. For you, our second. I believe I will look a little different from I did in April when you were here, but you will recognize me. To me, you're a child, half my age, but I am aware at this time in your life, you are not necessarily looking for adventure. You are about to find it, however, and I hope you embrace that adventure with every fiber of your being.

  You have much to do. You need to recover from your accident and from what followed it. I need to tell you that you won't simply wake up in 1933, as happened the first time. Before you come back to Belton, you will have many trips. Do whatever you must to keep your family together, though it will not be easy to do. You must all stay together, since your daughter Samantha is my dearest friend in the world.

  I will see you soon, but I'm afraid you will have to remind me that we know each other.

  Sincerely,

  Annie

  Well, that explained why Liz didn’t act surprised when she learned of my accident.

  At the bottom of the page was a hand-drawn map. Simple lines drawn to lead me to a place not far away from here.

  I looked away, stunned at what I had just read. “Samantha is my dearest friend in the world?” I asked Liz. “And what's this map?”

  Liz looked at me for a couple seconds before speaking. “This is a strange situation, Richard, but I think it’s going to be all right.”

  I nodded at her, still not able to think of what to say, settling on “Thanks, Liz.”

  She smiled in response, and we hugged, her tight embrace reassuring. Not letting go, she held me tighter and whispered almost inaudibly, “Say ‘hi' to my Mom for me,” barely getting the words out before choking off a sob.

  We held the hug a few seconds longer, until I her arm loosen and I pulled back, saying, “I will.”

  I left with the letter, and standing by my rental car, folded the page in half to better study the map. I held it up to orient myself with the landmarks. The house, the Belton School a quarter mile away, and the road running between the two all were represented on the map, so I got in the car and drove toward the star drawn outside of the town out of town and just off the road. A simple drawing of a house over a ravine, with an arrow pointing north and “100 yards” next to proved to be an old covered bridge in disrepair, and the gravel road turnoff 100 yards further along the road.

  My car kicked a plume of dust into the chilly air as I crept along he gravel road toward what, I had no idea. I reached the end of the lane, which terminated in a kind of cul-de-sac. I stopped the car, observing between the gravel and the tree line was a fairly well maintained area of cleared brush, not manicured, but cut back on a regular basis. It only took a few moments, before a small object caught my eye. Two-thirds of the way to the tree line stood a small, 18 inch high obelisk, a thick, squat version of the Washington Monument. I approached it, carefully threading my way through the underbrush, cane supporting my steps. The object of my attention had been here a long time, the surface pock marked and stained by the elements.

  As I got closer, I could make out several numbers etched in the surface, professionally carved, intended to last a long time.

  “08-12-1958 3422 92127”

  I couldn't believe what I saw. I recognized the numbers at once. “08-12-1958” being the day I born. “3422” the street address of the house on the West side of Indianapolis I grew up in, and “92127” our zip code in San Diego.

  The meaning was obvious. This obelisk had been put here by someone who knew a great deal about me, or...

  I had put this thing here myself. That truth was clear. I had put this marker here, sometime in the past, but for what reason? I have to believe easier ways of telling myself I had been here existed, I figured. But here was this stone marker, saying nothing more than that.

  I looked around, taking in the area. A lot of trees, pretty flat, accessible from the main road, yet secluded.

  A good building site.

  No, an excellent building site.

  Once the shadows began to lengthen as evening approached, the temperature started dropping. I leaned against the hood of my rented car and again considered the small obelisk as the sudden thought I was trespassing hit me and I laughed out loud. For Christ's sake, if that’s true, I thought, I'm both the trespasser and the...trespassee.

  I was certain I owned this land, and decided to stay in nearby Rockville for the night so I could research the ownership of the property at the County Courthouse in the morning. Sure, it was 2007, deed registrations now done electronically, but my guess was, when this land had last been purchased, a trip to the old courthouse would have been necessary.

  Why the obelisk? Why did Annie's letter lead me here? What information was I supposed to glean from a small cement marker in the middle of the woods of Western Indiana? I pushed myself away from the car, and with my cane to help balance and support me, I walked toward the marker, circling the stubby concrete post a couple times, considering it from every angle. After the second lap, I noticed a subtle bare patch of ground underneath the leaves disturbed by my passing. I brushed the leaves aside, and identified a walking path leading away from the obelisk, further into the woods, so I followed to learn where the trail led.

  The sun had set ten minutes ago, and the canopy of the forest blocked the rest of the ambient light, but about a hundred yards in, I appeared to be approaching a clearing.

  Then, I saw the house.

  It was obviously abandoned, the windows gone, no front door, more roof shingles missing than present on a roof otherwise appearing to be intact and in good shape. My pace quickened as I approached the house, looking, realizing this is the kind of house I would build, and a shocking realization hit me. I've lived here...Or, will live here. I staggered slightly, as a wave of disorientation hit me, and I leaned on my cane for support, closing my eyes to alleviate the vertigo and dizziness. I had started the day early, and figured maybe I’d pushed myself a little too hard.

  As quickly as the disorientation started, it faded and I stood solidly on the ground again, but as I opened my eyes, everything felt…wrong. The darkness had turned, well, darker, and I caught the faint odor of smoke. The gradual awareness of smoke hadn’t slipped into my consciousness, smoke was suddenly all around me. A little alarmed, since my brain processed the sudden arrival of the scent as something dangerous, I scanned the area, trying to identify what burned, but the longer I stood, the more the smoke receded to a level that seemed less like danger and more like...comfort. Someone had a fire going in a fireplace. Looking back toward the house, quickly, I realized the smoke rose from its chimney.

  That wasn’t the only difference, either. The house I stood a few yards from no longer appeared to be a run-down shell. A front door hung on the hinges beyond the front porch, and glass filled the window frames, but most shocking, was a single dim light shining through one of the front windows. My heart beat rocketed as I tried to process this impossible turn of events. Minutes before, I stood in front of an abandoned house, which somehow, in a matter of seconds, had been repaired and was now obviously inhabited.

  My almost panicked analysis of the situation came to a grinding halt, however, as the front door swung in, revealing a darkness filled with
the shape of a person...A man, stepping out onto the porch. He had something in his right hand as he turned around and pulled the door shut with his left. The man took a couple more steps toward the front of the porch, but didn't walk down the four or five stairs to ground level, instead putting the object he held in his right hand into his mouth and reached into his pocket. He brought out a small box of matches and with a single flick of his hand lit a match he use to light the pipe clenched in his teeth. He waved the match several times to put the small flame out, dropped it into a small coffee can on the railing in front of him, and took long draw on the pipe before looking toward where I stood, nonchalantly waving, as if a stranger standing out in front of your house in the middle of the night was the most common occurrence in the world.

  I waved back without thinking, realizing I waved at myself.

  Older, a bit thinner, but me.

  SIXTEEN

  The Quiet Past

  September 18, 1955

  The thing I love most about the past is the quiet.

  I'm sure when someone is native to this now, they don't always appreciate it. But I do. By the time the century turned and 2001 became the year of 9/11, rather than the futuristic setting for the Arthur C. Clarke classic, life had gotten so busy and noisy, most people didn't realize how stressed they had become. I'm not suggesting stress is not a fact of life in the 1950s and won't be any in the 60s, but the pace of life is slower here, and I have learned a great deal of stress comes from how fast you live your life. Unfortunately, my dear reader, you will need to take my word for this, since to fully understand what I’m saying, you must travel to the past, something I assure you is easier said than done.

  I am sitting in this glorious quiet, at close to an hour past midnight, on September 18, 1955, and I am here in my house, outside Belton, Indiana, waiting for myself. I will appear 20 yards or so from the window I'm looking through, into the night, and I will be heartbreakingly young. I don't feel young at the time, I'm 47 years old, recovering from a bad car accident, walking with a cane, and warily curious about what I was in the middle of. I had, a few weeks before, been released from the hospital after spending 4 days in a Ketalisine-induced coma I experienced as almost 15 years in my past. But, it was a past I quite liberally changed. Changed beyond recognition, truth be told.

  Jesus, I had screwed things up.

  I wouldn’t say it’s been enjoyable, but I force myself to remember the things that happened as a result of the first time traveling I did, a phenomenon very different from what has resulted in my living in 1955. In many ways, it prepared me for what I was to go through later, but was still emotionally devastating. The three dear friends who died in that timeline, the seven children who had to grow up without fathers, the three women who were widowed as a result of my actions, all these things played on my conscience. I considered seeking out those friends who had died when I returned to 2007, but doing so would have been too self-serving. I was tempted to make personal contact with them, perhaps even becoming their friends. But I couldn’t do it, because they weren't my friends here. Doing that would only help my conscience, doing nothing for the versions of them in my other timeline. So, I mourned Pat Maney and Tony Coleson, and in my mind, asked forgiveness from their wives and children in that timeline. Nothing that I had done had caused their deaths, my being there simply changed the universe's “order of battle” and put them in the way of events which ended up taking Pat and Tony's lives, and forever changed the lives of Pat's wife Candace, Tony's wife Linda and the seven children among us all. Commander Coleson’s Bean, Lt. Luis Comacho had been single, no children, but I mourned the loss of his future every bit as much as what was taken from my friends’ families because of that mission and on the ground in Iraq the next morning.

  The effect my dying certainly had on my boys, Michael and Aaron however, was harder to come to terms with. If I hadn't traveled in time and done the things I'd done, they would never have been born. Amanda would have died at 17, and the family I love so much in this timeline, Molly and Samantha, would be my only family.

  One particular day, sometime between the accident and the day I traveled back to 1933, I was in Coronado, stopping at a deli I'd always liked, to get a sandwich when I found myself face to face with Tony Coleson. Seeing him stopped almost stopped my heart, and then realizing he had no idea who the me here and now was, almost broke my heart. Joyful as seeing him standing right in front of me in line, the Eagle of his Captain's insignia shining on his collar, but not being a part of his command, or even his world devastated me. The history we had meant nothing here to anyone but me, and I had to respect that, no matter how much meeting his gaze and seeing no recognition at all in his eyes depressed me.

  I never went to Coronado again.

  Once more, I glance at the clock, seeing it's five minutes to one. I look out the window, seeing darkness, and the faintest reflection of the light from the room, cast by the fixture made to look like an old-time oil lamp. I pull my favorite briar pipe from the rack on my small writing desk, open the plaid tobacco pouch and put some of the rich, black leaves into the bowl of the pipe. I regard the neat pile of paper to my right, the black Royal typewriter covered and quiet in front of me. On the shelf behind me sits the final product of the two books I am writing about my time traveling. I acquired them during a trip to the future, and have not read either, preferring to write them first. I stand and walk to the door.

  It was time.

  I quietly pull the door open, being careful not to wake Molly, asleep in the bedroom at the back of the house. Samantha is in Chicago with her husband, a wonderful man named Bill, who despite being a successful lawyer, is one of the most honest men I've ever met. In three years, Samantha will give Bill a son who will come to be my best friend.

  I step through the open door, pulling it shut, and take a couple steps toward the front of the porch. The moon is bright, its light filtering through the trees and casting shadows on the ground though far from bare, is waiting for full autumn in Indiana, waiting to be covered by the leaves now attached to the trees. In the depth of one of those shadows, I can see a solitary figure in the darkness, looking this way. He's standing straight, but using a cane to support himself. I pause, reaching into the pocket of my sweater with my right hand and pull out a small boxes of matches. I take one out, strike it, am dazzled briefly by the flare of the match head’s ignition, and place the burning tip at the top of my pipe's bowl, pulling in the aromatic smoke in large pulls to get the tobacco burning. The match has, for the time being, ruined my night vision, but I know the figure is standing in the dark in front of this house and after a couple puffs on the pipe, I casually wave toward him.

  A few seconds later, I'm descending the steps to talk to the man I was, some thirty years ago, and will be almost sixty years from now. For this moment though, we're both here, breathing in this quiet past, two time travelers meeting at a place which happens to lie along both of our paths, neither quite at the beginning nor the end.

  THE END of Part One.

  Acknowledgements

  I had a teacher in college who writes really good books and short stories, and I’d like to thank him for everything he taught me about point of view, dialogue, voice and pacing. Tobias Wolff has had some very successful students, including Alice Seybold (The Lovely Bones,) and Jay McInerney (Bright Lights, Big City). When I talk with him, I apologize for not yet being in their company yet, but assure him I’m trying.

  Thanks to an amazing artist I met several years ago when he was on my radio show. Joshua Kadison is not just a songwriter, his book, Seventeen Ways to Eat a Mango: A Discovered Journal of Life on an Island of Miracles is delightful. If I told you Time Flying wasn’t at some level, inspired by Joshua’s song Cherry Bowl Drive-In, I would be lying to you.

  Thanks to Peter Hunt for writing Angles of Attack, about his experiences as an A6 pilot in VA-145, during the First Gulf War. I came across this excellent memoir while writing Time Flying, and was happily s
hocked to find a book written by one of the pilots in the squadron I had fictionalized. None of the characters in this book are based on any of the Swordsmen pilots or B/Ns, but it’s been my goal to show as much respect to these air warriors as possible. Swordsmen own the night.

  A few days before issuing the current revision of this novel, the word came down that plans to convert the aircraft carrier USS Ranger had been cancelled by the Navy, and the ship would not be released to the foundation that had been formed to complete this tremendous task. A large number of dedicated men and women worked for several years to turn Ranger into a floating museum, on the Columbia River, at Fairview, Oregon. The USS Midway, converted into a similar museum, memorial and tourist attraction in San Diego, is a wonderful landmark. Ranger, arguably the world’s most recognizable and traveled aircraft carrier (she starred in Top Gun, Flight of the Intruder - ironically, both movies mentioned in Time Flying - and even stood in for the carrier Enterprise in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), would have been a breathtaking attraction. I was massively disappointed this week to learn Ranger would be scrapped. It’s a shame, but doesn’t diminish at all, the contributions the ship and all who served aboard her made to our country.

  Thanks to my friend Linda, who read the manuscript, checking to see if anyone we knew in high school had snuck into the story, so I could shoo them out.