"Don"t know, buddy, I didn"t even try going that way. A person who doesn"t learn from the past is an idiot, in my estimation. One thing I learned was which way Andrew Cullum would be coming, and I wasted no time getting there. The tree was down across the road, just like before, and when he came along, I was wrestling with it, just like before. Pretty soon I"m having chest pains, just like before. We played out the whole comedy, Carolyn Poulin had her Sat.u.r.day in the woods with her dad, and a couple of weeks later I said yahoo and got on a train for Texas."
"Then how can I still have this picture of her graduating in a wheelchair?"
"Because every trip down the rabbit-hole"s a reset." Then Al just looked at me, to see if I got it. After a minute, I did.
"I-?"
"That"s right, buddy. You bought yourself a dime root beer this afternoon. You also put Carolyn Poulin back in a wheelchair."
CHAPTER 4.
1.
Al let me help him into his bedroom, and even muttered "Thanks, buddy" when I knelt to unlace his shoes and pull them off. He only balked when I offered to help him into the bathroom.
"Making the world a better place is important, but so is being able to get to the john under your own power."
"Just as long as you"re sure you can make it."
"I"m sure I can tonight, and I"ll worry about tomorrow tomorrow. Go home, Jake. Start reading the notebook-there"s a lot there. Sleep on it. Come see me in the morning and tell me what you decided. I"ll still be here."
"Ninety-five percent probability?"
"At least ninety-seven. On the whole, I"m feeling pretty chipper. I wasn"t sure I"d even get this far with you. Just telling it-and having you believe it-is a load off my mind."
I wasn"t sure I did believe it, even after my adventure that afternoon, but I didn"t say so. I told him goodnight, reminded him not to lose count of his pills ("Yeah, yeah"), and left. I stood outside looking at the gnome with his Lone Star flag for a minute before going down the walk to my car.
Don"t mess with Texas, I thought . . . but maybe I was going to. And given Al"s difficulties with changing the past-the blown tires, the blown engine, the collapsed bridge-I had an idea that if I went ahead, Texas was going to mess with me.
2.
After all that, I didn"t think I"d be able to get to sleep before two or three in the morning, and there was a fair likelihood that I wouldn"t be able to get to sleep at all. But sometimes the body a.s.serts its own imperatives. By the time I got home and fixed myself a weak drink (being able to have liquor in the house again was one of several small pluses in my return to the single state), I was heavy-eyed; by the time I had finished the scotch and read the first nine or ten pages of Al"s Oswald Book, I could barely keep them open.
I rinsed my gla.s.s in the sink, went into the bedroom (leaving a trail of clothes behind me as I walked, a thing Christy would have given me h.e.l.l about), and fell onto the double bed where I now slept single. I thought about reaching over to turn off the bedside lamp, but my arm felt heavy, heavy. Correcting honors essays in the strangely quiet teachers" room now seemed like something that had happened a very long time ago. Nor was that strange; everyone knows that, for such an unforgiving thing, time is uniquely malleable.
I crippled that girl. Put her back in a wheelchair.
When you went down those steps from the pantry this afternoon, you didn"t even know who Carolyn Poulin was, so don"t be an a.s.s. Besides, maybe somewhere she"s still walking. Maybe going through that hole creates alternate realities, or time-streams, or some d.a.m.n thing.
Carolyn Poulin, sitting in her wheelchair and getting her diploma. Back in the year when "Hang On Sloopy" by the McCoys was top of the pops.
Carolyn Poulin, walking through her garden of daylilies in 1979, when "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People was top of the pops; occasionally dropping to one knee to pull some weeds, then springing up again and walking on.
Carolyn Poulin in the woods with her dad, soon to be crippled.
Carolyn Poulin in the woods with her dad, soon to walk into an ordinary smalltown adolescence. Where had she been on that time-stream, I wondered, when the radio and TV bulletins announced that the thirty-fifth President of the United States had been shot in Dallas?
John Kennedy can live. You can save him, Jake.
And would that really make things better? There were no guarantees.
I felt like a man trying to fight his way out of a nylon stocking.
I closed my eyes and saw pages flying off a calendar-the kind of corny transition they used in old movies. I saw them flying out my bedroom window like birds.
One more thought came before I dropped off: the dopey soph.o.m.ore with the even dopier straggle of goatee on his chin, grinning and muttering, Hoptoad Harry, hoppin down the av-a-new. And Harry stopping me when I went to call the kid on it. Nah, don"t bother, he"d said. I"m used to it.
Then I was gone, down for the count.
3.
I woke up to early light and twittering birdsong, pawing at my face, sure I had cried just before waking. I"d had a dream, and although I couldn"t remember what it was, it must have been a very sad one, because I have never been what you"d call a crying man.
Dry cheeks. No tears.
I turned my head on the pillow to look at the clock on the nightstand and saw it lacked just two minutes of 6:00 A.M. Given the quality of the light, it was going to be a beautiful June morning, and school was out. The first day of summer vacation is usually as happy for teachers as it is for students, but I felt sad. Sad. And not just because I had a tough decision to make.
Halfway to the shower, three words popped into my mind: Kowabunga, Buffalo Bob!
I stopped, naked and looking at my own wide-eyed reflection in the mirror over the dresser. Now I remembered the dream, and it was no wonder I"d awoken feeling sad. I"d dreamed I was in the teachers" room, reading Adult English themes while down the hall in the gymnasium, another high school basketball game wound down toward another final buzzer. My wife was just out of rehab. I was hoping that she"d be home when I got there and I wouldn"t have to spend an hour on the phone before locating her and fishing her out of some local waterhole.
In the dream, I had shifted Harry Dunning"s essay to the top of the pile and begun to read: It wasnt a day but a night. The night that change my life was the night my father murdirt my mother and two brothers. . . .
That had gotten my full attention, and in a hurry. Well, it would get anybody"s, wouldn"t it? But my eyes had only begun to sting when I got to the part about what he"d been wearing. The outfit made perfect sense, too. When kids went out on that special fall night, carrying empty bags they hoped to bring back filled with sweet swag, their costumes always reflected the current craze. Five years ago, it seemed that every second boy who showed up at my door was wearing Harry Potter eyegla.s.ses and a lightning-bolt-scar decal on his forehead. On my own maiden voyage as a candy-beggar, many moons ago, I"d gone clanking down the sidewalk (with my mother trailing ten feet behind me, at my urgent request) dressed as a snowtrooper from The Empire Strikes Back. So was it surprising that Harry Dunning had been wearing buckskin?
"Kowabunga, Buffalo Bob," I told my reflection, and suddenly ran for my study. I don"t keep all student work, no teacher does-you"d drown in it!-but I made a habit of photocopying the best essays. They make great teaching tools. I never would have used Harry"s in cla.s.s, it was far too personal for that, but I thought I remembered making a copy of it just the same, because it had provoked such a strong emotional reaction in me. I pulled open the bottom drawer and began thumbing through the rat"s nest of folders and loose papers. After fifteen sweaty minutes, I found it. I sat down in my desk chair and began to read.
4.
It wasnt a day but a night. The night that change my life was the night my father murdirt my mother and two brothers and hurt me bad. He hurt my sister too, so bad she went into a comah. In three years she died without waking up. Her name was Ellen and I loved her very much. She love to pick flowers and put them in vayses. What happen was like a horra movie. I never go see horra movies because on Halloween night in 1958 I lived thru one.
My brother Troy was to old for trick and treat (15). He was watching TV with my mother and said he would help us eat our candy when we came back and Ellen, she said no you won"t, dress up and get your own, and everybody laughed because we all loved Ellen, she was only 7 but she was a real Lucile Ball, she could make anybody laugh, even my father (if he was sober that is, when he was drunk he was always mad). She was going as Princess Summerfall Winterspring (I look it up and that"s how you spell it) and I was going as Buffalo Bob, both from THE HOWDY DOODY SHOW we like to watch. "Say kids what time is it?" and "Let"s hear from the Penut Galery" and "Kowabunga, Buffalo Bob!!!" Me and Ellen love that show. She love the Princess and I love Buffalo Bob and we both love Howdy! We wanted my brother Tugga (his name was Arthur but everyone called him Tugga, I dont remember why) to go as "Mayor Fineus T. Bl.u.s.ter" but he wouldnt, he said Howdy Doody was a baby show, he was going as "Frankinstine" even though Ellen she said that mask was to scary. Also, Tugga, he gave me some s--t about taking my Daisy air rifle because he said Buffalo Bob didnt have any guns on the TV show, and my mother she said, "You take it if you want to Harry its not a real gun or even shoot preten bullets so Buffalo Bob wouldnt mind." That was the last thing she ever said to me and I"m glad it was a nice thing because she could be strick.
So we was getting ready to go and I said wait a sec I have to go to the bathroom because I was so excited. They all laugh at me, even Mom and Troy on the couch but going to pee then save my life because that was when my dad come in with that hammer. My dad he was mean when he drank and beat up my mom "time and again." One time when Troy try to stop him by argueing him out of it, he broke Troys arm. That time he almost went to jail (my dad I mean). Anyway my mom and dad were "separated" at this time I"m writing about, and she was thinking about divorcing him, but that wasn"t so easy back in 1958 like it is now.
Anyway, he came in the door and I was in the bathroom peeing and I heard my mother say "Get out of here with that thing, youre not suppose to be here." The next thing was she start to scream. Then after that they was all screaming.
There was more-three terrible pages-but it wasn"t me who had to read them.
5.
It was still a few minutes shy of six-thirty, but I found Al in the phone book and punched in his number without hesitation. I didn"t wake him up, either. He answered on the first ring, his voice more like a dog"s bark than human speech.
"Hey, buddy, ain"t you the early bird?"
"I"ve got something to show you. A student theme. You even know who wrote it. You ought to; you"ve got his picture on your Celebrity Wall."
He coughed, then said: "I"ve got a lot of pictures on the Celebrity Wall, buddy. I think there might even be one of Frank Anicetti, back around the time of the first Moxie Festival. Help me out a little here."
"I"d rather show you. Can I come over?"
"If you can take me in my bathrobe, you can come over. But I got to ask you straight up, now that you"ve had a night to sleep on it. Have you decided?"
"I think I have to make another trip back first."
I hung up before he could ask any more questions.
6.
He looked worse than ever in the early light flooding in through his living room window. His white terrycloth robe hung around him like a deflated parachute. Pa.s.sing up the chemo had allowed him to keep his hair, but it was thinning and baby-fine. His eyes appeared to have retreated even farther into their sockets. He read Harry Dunning"s theme twice, started to put it down, then read it again. At last he looked up at me and said, "Jesus H. Christ on a chariot-driven crutch."
"The first time I read it, I cried."
"I don"t blame you. The part about the Daisy air rifle is what really gets me. Back in the fifties, there was an ad for Daisy air rifles on the back of just about every G.o.ddam comic book that hit the stands. Every kid on my block-every boy, anyway-wanted just two things: a Daisy air rifle and a Davy Crockett c.o.o.nskin cap. He"s right, there were no bullets, even pretend ones, but we used to tip a little Johnson"s Baby Oil down the barrel. Then when you pumped air into it and pulled the trigger, you got a puff of blue smoke." He looked down at the photocopied pages again. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h killed his wife and three of his kids with a hammer? Jee-zus."
He just start laying on with it, Harry had written. I run back into the living room and there was blood all over the walls and white stuff on the couch. That was my mother"s brains. Ellen, she was laying on the floor with the rocker-chair on top of her legs and blood coming out of her ears and hair. The TV was still on, it was this show my mom liked about Elerie Queen, who solve crimes.
The crime that night had been nothing like the bloodlessly elegant problems Ellery Queen unraveled; it had been a slaughter. The ten-year-old boy who stopped to pee before going out trick-or-treating came back from the bathroom in time to see his drunken, roaring father split the head of Arthur "Tugga" Dunning as Tugga tried to crawl into the kitchen. Then he turned and saw Harry, who raised the Daisy air rifle and said, "Leave me alone, Daddy, or I"ll shoot you."
Dunning rushed at the boy, swinging the b.l.o.o.d.y hammer. Harry fired the air rifle at him (I could hear the ka-chow sound it must have made, even if I had never fired one myself), then dropped it and ran for the bedroom he shared with the now-deceased Tugga. His father had neglected to shut the front door when he came in, and somewhere-"it sounded 1000 miles away," the janitor had written-neighbors were shouting and trick-or-treating kids were screaming.
Dunning would almost certainly have killed the remaining son as well, if he hadn"t tripped on the overturned "rocker-chair." He went sprawling, got up, and ran down to his younger sons" room. Harry was trying to crawl under the bed. His father hauled him out and fetched him a lick on the side of the head that surely would have killed the boy if the father"s hand hadn"t slipped on the b.l.o.o.d.y handle; instead of splitting Harry"s skull, the hammerhead had only caved in part of it above the right ear.
I didnt pa.s.s out but almost. I kept crawling for under the bed and I hardly felt him hit my leg at all but he did and broke it in 4 diferent places.
A man from down the block who had been out canva.s.sing the neighborhood for candy with his daughter came running in at that point. In spite of the slaughter in the living room, the neighbor had the presence of mind to grab the ash shovel out of the tool bucket beside the kitchen woodstove. He slugged Dunning in the back of the head with it while the man was trying to turn the bed over and get at his bleeding, semiconscious son.
Afterwards I went uncontchus like Ellen only I was lucky I woke up. The doctors said they might have to ampantate my leg but in the end they didnt.
No, he had kept the leg and eventually become a janitor at Lisbon High School, known to generations of students as Hoptoad Harry. Would the kids have been kinder if they"d known the origin of the limp? Probably not. Although emotionally delicate and eminently bruisable, teenagers are short on empathy. That comes later in life, if it comes at all.
"October of 1958," Al said in his harsh dog-bark voice. "Am I supposed to believe that"s a coincidence?"
I remembered what I"d said to the teenage version of Frank Anicetti about the Shirley Jackson story and smiled. "Sometimes a cigar is just a smoke and a coincidence is just a coincidence. All I know is that we"re talking about another watershed moment."
"And I didn"t find this story in the Enterprise because?"
"It didn"t happen around here. It happened in Derry, upstate. When Harry was well enough to get out of the hospital, he went to live with his uncle and aunt in Haven, about twenty-five miles south of Derry. They adopted him and put him to work on the family farm when it became clear he couldn"t keep up in school."
"Sounds like Oliver Twist, or something."
"No, they were good to him. Remember there were no remedial cla.s.ses in those days, and the phrase "mentally challenged" hadn"t been invented yet-"
"I know," Al said dryly. "Back then, mentally challenged means you"re either a feeb, a dummy, or just plain addlepated."
"But he wasn"t then and he isn"t now," I said. "Not really. I think mostly it was the shock, you know? The trauma. It took him years to recover from that night, and by the time he did, school was behind him."