Time Games

by Rex Bolt

  Pike appreciated her honesty but wasn’t real comfortable himself with the subject, the whole thing sounding like someone battling an eating disorder.

  But he couldn’t resist asking, “Well what’d you weigh?”

  “What? . . . Oh I’m not going to tell you that, are you kidding.”

  He said, “Well what are you now? Like 125 or so?”

  “Not quite . . . but that’s very nice of you.”

  “Okay . . . so say 135. That’d make you 195, at your peak.” Pike couldn’t help thinking, wow.

  “Kind of cruel of you to actually estimate, if you want to know the truth,” she said, but there was a hint of playfulness there, which he had to give her credit for.

  “You brought it up,” Pike said. It was a clear night, and from up here in the bleachers it felt like you could see half of Beacon, at least.

  No one said anything for a while. “If you asked me to read you,” Andrea said, “I’d say you’re stressing out. Like you’re running away from something.”

  “Well that’s very perceptive of you,” he said.

  “Seriously . . . Is everything good?”

  “Pretty good . . . Let me run something by you though. If you were looking for someone you used to know . . . who moved away . . . and you couldn’t find them so far? What would you make of that?”

  “If this your old girlfriend?” Andrea said.

  “Jeez . . . okay, let’s say it is.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Ooh boy. Now you got me kind of pinned in, here. But say around 13 years ago.”

  “I see. So you were both . . . like five?”

  “Nah, there’s a little more to it. Leave it that just the parents moved away then . . . If I can’t find ‘em, which I probably will, but still, what does that mean?”

  Andrea’s expression got more serious. “Pike, are you saying you’re afraid they perished?”

  “Yeah, that, or . . . maybe just never got where they were going.”

  “I’m not following you,” she said, “and I don’t think you really want me to.” She put her hand on his knee.

  “Man . . . not sure how I feel about that,” he said.

  She said, “You don’t have to feel any way . . . But these people, who you need so badly to find . . . were they running from something, as well?”

  “In a sense, you’d have to look at it that they were, yeah.”

  “So maybe they changed their name.”

  Wow . . . Something like that, it hadn’t been in his line of thinking at all . . . He considered it. “Well that’s an interesting take,” he said. “I can’t see why they would, though. These particular people.”

  “You never know,” she said. “A fresh start perhaps? . . . Hard to relate to what one might do, until we’re in the situation.”

  Pike thought about it some more. It seemed awful radical, but . . . it was just possible she had a point . . . If he’d really succeeded in scaring the daylights out them back in 1993? Would they go that far?

  “You’re saying,” he said, “they didn’t want to be found.”

  “That’s your ball of wax,” she said. “But it wouldn’t sound unreasonable . . . would it?”

  Pike let it hang. If that really was somehow the case, where would you start now?

  And bottom line, couldn’t you just let it go, leave them alone? . . . Before he talked to Mitch and started digging around, he figured you could. And should . . . Now that he’d opened the door though, that was going to be tough. Just let me know they’re okay, that’s not too much to ask.

  “Well it’s definitely been real,” Pike said finally. “You all set?”

  “Just a few more minutes,” she said quietly. “This is nice.”

  “In that case,” he said, “something else I’ll throw out . . . Anthony floating your boat?” He was again aware of having used the expression before.

  “Oh, speaking of Anthony,” she said, “he told me what happened today. Matt getting mad at you but then hitting a metal thing.”

  “Yeah, well, what can you do,” Pike said.

  “Yes, he floats my boat. He’s a nice guy.”

  “Good . . . because if I made a move on you now, and he found out about it . . . he wouldn’t let it go, I don’t think, and I couldn’t blame him.”

  Andrea let it linger without responding.

  “On a related-type deal,” Pike said. “We have this kind of . . . hang-out . . . in the basement? There’s been some mystery activity down there . . . I keep thinking I’ve got it figured out, but I don’t.”

  “Uumh . . . Sounds interesting . . . I could you give you a better opinion if I saw it in person.”

  Pike said, “Now that’s kind of forward of you. Inviting yourself . . . Also, there’s a catch, you have to make it over the wall to get in, we screwed up and forgot to build a door.”

  Andrea smiled, trying to picture it. “I like challenges,” she said.

  Chapter 11

  Pike cornered Jocelyn in the hall on Thursday and told her owed her one and how about another movie Saturday night, and she said that sounded fine.

  It felt good to break the ice again with her. She’d been standoffish toward him, and he hadn’t pushed it, since the dumb incident last weekend where he had to beat it out of there and left her holding her ticket and her popcorn and not much else.

  It wasn’t worth trying to explain that Hannamaker had been in trouble, and especially not the nature of the trouble, so Pike didn’t try to justify it because you couldn’t win, you’d only sound stupid. There was no excuse you could come up with for leaving her there.

  When he got home Jack was downstairs banging around on the drums. Pike figured let him play, don’t be bothering the guy all the time just because you’re both here. He grabbed a snack and sat in the kitchen for a while. The house seemed pretty dang empty, not that the five of them weren’t actively living here, but lifeless was kind of the word, considering this was December 15th all of a sudden.

  There was a token tree in the living room next to the TV, one of those little jobs you got at Rite Aid, which was fine, you didn’t need a major tree to have Christmas harmony and all.

  But the vibe was bad between his mom and his dad, which it had been for a while. Sure, there was no Mrs. Milburn in the picture, but his dad didn’t seem fulfilled, same as before, which pissed Pike off.

  He couldn’t forget his dad trying to get philosophical on him that time, kind of forlornly saying one Saturday night that there wasn’t much to do in this hick town. Pike took it back then like he was half-joking, but then you got the word from Audrey about her mom’s diary and he started putting it together.

  Just like yesterday, where when it came down to it, you didn’t change an idiot like Matt Foxe? . . . No matter how many other dimensions you accidentally threw him into?

  The same went for his dad.

  Pike had nothing concrete to go on right now, no smoking gun . . . but he was pretty darn sure his dad was still making it with other women.

  The family Thanksgiving had been a depressing scene, maybe not so much for his little brother and sister Bo and Jackie, luckily, but there was an unmistakeable going-through-the-motions edge between his parents, and it was hard to disguise the fact that Christmas would be more of the same.

  The drums stopped and Pike went down to the basement just as Hannamaker was swinging a leg over the wall of The Box and and dropping down.

  “Sounds better and better, man,” Pike said. “You got to get yourself in a band.”

  Jack said, “You’re pretty entertaining, yourself. The little episode yesterday. Though there’s one guy who might not agree.”

  “Very funny . . . one thing he did say, before he hauled off and wailed on me . . . that it wasn’t him and Cathy in The Box.”

  “You believe him?”

  “On that, I think I do . . . But where the guy’s unhinged though, I wasn’t challenging him, I was just amused by it.”

  “And
he took it personal.”

  “I guess. Something about his girlfriend’s perfume, as he put it, that set him off . . . What do you got these days, by the way? You knocking on anyone’s door, so to speak?”

  “Nah, I’m kind of re-grouping,” Jack said.

  Pike said, “What I’m thinking, is maybe heading down to Arizona at Christmas.”

  “You’re all over the place,” Jack said.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing much, except it just feels like you are.”

  ***

  Pike got there early, at 10 to 6, and like clockwork there was Frankie sitting at a back table with her computer open and writing something on a sheet of paper.

  “Don’t give me too much credit this time,” she said. “The file’s not as extensive, perhaps, as pertained to your last request.”

  “No, no,” Pike said, “Whatever you can come up with . . . truth be told, I don’t even want to do this.”

  “What is it then, that you intend to do? To alter your friend’s plight?” she said.

  Pike laughed. “Now that’s kind of out of character for you. More direct than you usually get.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m more than glad to toss it around . . . And the answer is, I have no friggin’ idea. What would you recommend?”

  “All right, as far as the confirmation goes,” Frankie said, turning her attention to the sheet of paper again, getting back to business, “I was unable to place an address for Jeffrey Geraghty, even through our administrative account . . . And I’m afraid a comprehensive search turned up nothing specific about the sporting event you referred to.”

  “Gee, thanks for trying all that, then.”

  “However . . . I was able to work my way into a few of the support group databases, for spinal cord injury victims . . . Jeff appeared to contribute to one of the groups until about 2009. He was quiet after that. But early on he wrote fairly extensively about his injury, the ramifications and his coping mechanisms.”

  “Where we headed, here?” Pike couldn’t help asking.

  “In the context of his descriptions, he details the game itself, and also his misgivings about participating.”

  “I think I’m with you . . . so when was it?”

  “It took place on October 28th, 1989 at Galileo High School in San Francisco. A Saturday . . . And checking here, the school is located at 1150 Francisco Street. I know exactly where that is, actually.”

  Pike was thinking.

  “Did I mis-speak?” Frankie said.

  “No, you’ve been amazing . . . Continue to be amazing, I’m not kidding . . . The one hitch with what you said, a guy who seemed to know, he told me it was the championship game. October’d be too early for that.”

  “I can’t comment there,” Frankie said.

  “Either way, 80’s now then,” Pike said. “You think the . . . radio station gimmick’ll still work? Far as getting me over there?”

  “Again, I can only make a recommendation,” she said. “My instinct is, based on your 1993 achievement, that it can indeed assist in your transport.”

  “Oh boy, and you keep talking funny,” Pike said.

  “It should be an exciting experience for you Pike. I’m envious actually, I love San Francisco. I can’t fathom experiencing it in a different era . . . I wish I could come along.”

  Pike looked at her. Part of him wanted to shout out, “Lady, are you nuts?” But the other side of it, what she said . . . was that ever something you could work?

  Pike was dumbfounded that he’d never even considered this before. Sitting there in the high school custodian’s closet, Julio’s, and of course now in the preferred departure chamber, The Box . . . son of a gun, could you, like double-up?

  Lock hands or some nonsense, and end up traveling together?

  “So why don’t you,” Pike said, “come along, I mean.” Throwing it out there.

  “Ooh. Thank you for offering . . . Gosh, I know I must sound crazy putting it that way.”

  “I could use the help.” Continuing to test her, and the truth was he could. These could be lonely pursuits.

  “But a joint effort, such as you’re proposing--I don’t believe that would be in accordance with anything Julian suggested, in his highly detailed stories.”

  “Julian . . . that’s your ex-husbands’s friend, right? Who claimed he traveled from under his ski house? In Vermont?”

  “Yes. From beneath the family’s summer cottage, actually, in New Hampshire.”

  “Okay, good then. Forget that, it won’t fly, it sounds like.” He was happy to close the door on the idea, frankly, once he’d worked it around for a minute . . . Even if it were possible, which he wasn’t going to rely on old Julian there, to tell him it wasn’t . . . you could be opening a monster can of worms by even trying it. Unleashing the unknown. There were enough surprises popping up, without you losing your mind and piling on something even more ridiculous than what you were already attempting.

  “You do sound a bit frustrated though, as you approach this project,” she said.

  Pike said, “You like ice cream?”

  “Indeed I do,” Frankie said.

  “So let’s get some. It’s walking distance. I’d recommend the black-and-tan, personally.”

  Frankie was game, and she packed up her stuff and they went over there. Luckily Pike had enough on him to take care of it, even though she tried to pay.

  She said, “This is delicious. One thing I surely miss, is being 18 again and able to eat whatever you like . . . Even ice cream before dinner.”

  Pike said, “Last time I was here, I was waiting for someone to join me, but she said she had to lay off the junk food.”

  “Well, I admire that level of discipline.”

  “Either that, or she’s got some issues.”

  “We all do,” Frankie said.

  Chapter 12

  When Pike got home he realized he’d meant to follow up with Frankie on one particular thing she’d mentioned. What it sounded like, she’d read a bunch of stuff Henry’s brother Jeff wrote and posted, and one thing he said, or at least she was interpreting that he said . . . was he had second thoughts.

  Misgivings about participating was what how she put it, if he remembered right.

  What the heck did this mean? Misgivings about going back in the game? Which is kind of how Anthony had described it . . . That he rolled his ankle, and it was bad enough that taping it up didn’t work, but then they stuck him back in at the end when the back-up guy got hurt also. Even though Jeff didn’t like the idea?

  Or . . . was it a larger, more complicated state of mind that the kid had? That he never had his heart in playing the sport, the game of football, period?

  It was a bit late to pick up the phone and call Frankie to get this straight. Pike thought it through a little more. If it was the second thing, that might make his job easier. You maybe go back a couple years earlier, catch the kid when he’s in middle school . . . a little persuasion, a little re-direction . . . and you get him to take up badminton or something.

  If it was the first thing, that he might have loved football more than anything but just didn’t feel like going back in that game at that particular moment, then your job was going to be rougher.

  It would be great of course if you cut just cut him off, that one game. Lock him in his house . . . or apartment or whatever it was . . . that morning. Or if you couldn’t do that, figure out a way not to let him get to the game . . . If that didn’t work, steal his cleats, or his helmet, his shoulder pads. Jeez. It shouldn’t be that hard . . . Whatever else, if you can only accomplish one thing, don’t let him go back in the game at the end. Even if you have to run halfway on the field and tackle the dude yourself.

  But then again you had to keep in mind your Mrs. Milburn situation.

  Shutting her down on the spot at the heart of the matter, the walk to the corner with Mark, which seemed so damn logical . . . it
didn’t work.

  It sure would make the job a lot simpler though.

  Pike called Mitch. With him, you didn’t worry what time it was, or whether you were waking him up. Who knows, by now he might have worked his way into Lucy’s apartment and they might be wide awake, nursing a couple of nightcaps, getting settled in to watch Jimmy Fallon.

  “Yeah,” Mitch said. He did sound like he just woke up, but whatever.

  “I want to keep it simple,” Pike said, “what I’m running past you . . . Now on the other thing, you told me I had to go deeper. Does that apply all the time?”

  “I’m not sure I’m following you . . . you mean in every situation?”

  “Yeah. Guy breaks his neck, I should be able to handle that . . . Shouldn’t I? . . . Instead of having to go all the way back like an idiot and psychoanalyze the dude? . . . Or whatever you call that? . . . All to find out why, deep down, in ten years, he’s going to want to run into something, or someone, and mess himself up bad?”

  Mitch said, “Well I can understand your frustration, but from what I gather, you’ve answered your own question.”

  Pike thought about Mrs. Milburn, from the first go-round to getting mowed down four days later.

  “Yeah, but . . . c’mon, help me out here,” he said.

  “I’m not sure I’m able to,” Mitch said. “Did you review your original Ten Rules of Time travel?”

  “I did, before I phoned you. There’s only two that really apply. 8 and 9 . . . Consequences of alterations should be carefully considered. And . . . Any alterations should be enacted according to the laws of the universe.”

  “I see what you mean, they don’t give you a whole lot to work with, do they?”

  “That’s not funny . . . The universe part though, what if I make up my own damn laws?”

  “You could try,” Mitch said. “It would be better, in my view, if you could pinpoint a distinct difference between this gentleman’s situation, and that last one, that backfired on you.”

  Pike said, “You know something? This is a lot of work, whether you realize it or not . . . You don’t have to throw anything on top of it, rubbing it in, that something backfired.”