Early Fall on Whidbey Island was great in 1990. A little unseasonably warm and dry, we were enjoying it, and I sat with a long neck in my hand, next to Micah on the picnic table in my backyard watching Pat handle the burgers and steaks, with occasional helpful advice from Tammy. The boys were playing with the Maney kids, Jerry and Allison, 8 year old twins who looked like miniature versions of Pat and Candice. Micah clearly loved this.
“Oh no, I am way too busy for a family right now,” he replied when Tammy had asked about his love life. It only occurred to me while I was telling her who was coming over the next day that she knew Micah from High School, too. Two lives we have, the Navy and the one before the Navy. It’s very odd when they intersect.
When Micah said he was too busy right now, I could sense Tammy wanting to scrunch up her eyes, which made the worry lines on her forehead pop out, and say “well, when won’t you be too busy?” But, she just nodded in a very non-enthusiastic way and said nothing. She excused herself and went back to harass Pat some more about his grilling.
Micah turned to me and said “This is great, Rich. You’ve got a wonderful family.” Then, still smiling and flicking his eyebrows up, “you and Tammy Sorenson. You’ve done really well, my friend.”
Boy, didn’t I know it. I’d done well twice. Neither life was without its challenges, its drama, fights, heartbreaks and minor miseries. But in both of my lives, the one that I’d been ripped out of by either some force of nature, or else my own mind, and in this one, the good far outweighed the bad, and I has happy. Desperate at times, but happy.
I nodded at the beer in Micah’s hand. “You need another one?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Micah, I’m really glad I ran into you in Pensacola. I’ve…uh…got something to ask your opinion about.”
He tilted his head to the right, his smile gone. “Sure, what can I help you with?” He took a pull from his beer, waiting for me to say what was on my mind.
“Now, let’s talk hypothetically, OK?” I said, looking directly at him.
“Of course.” Micah shrugged.
“Have you had any experience with a patient who…Was displaced for want of a better word?” He was listening intently, his brow furrowed in concentration.
“Not sure…What you mean,” Micah replied after a couple seconds. I realized then that I hadn’t really thought through how to ask him about this.
I took a deep breath. Pat was still cooking, and Tammy was deep in conversation with Candice. “Let’s say a guy…Or a woman…Had an experience that seemed completely real, but couldn’t possibly be real. Not a hallucination or anything, they just found themselves…uh…somewhere else, and went on from there.” I shook my head. It was very frustrating. Trying to explain a little bit of something that was completely impossible.
Micah smiled. “Rich. How long we known each other?”
I shrugged. “7th or 8th grade. 20 years?”
“We met on our first day of 8th grade,” Micah replied. ” My family had just moved to Indy from Queens. That redneck Brett McCready, in his International Harvester hat, was about to kick my “Jew ass” as he so elequently put it, until you stepped in and stopped him.”
I smiled at the memory. Micah had been so skinny, and so obviously not from Central Indiana. “Brett McCready didn’t even know what a Jew was,” I said.
“That didn’t stop him from trying to kick the living shit out of me,” Micah replied. “Though I suppose I could have avoided the whole episode by not reminding him that Jesus was a Jew. I think I confused him.”
That made me laugh. When I stopped, he continued. “So Rich, we go back a long way, and I owe you my life…Or at least my “Jew ass.” There’s nothing you could tell me that would ever go any further.
I nodded. “After we eat, I’ll tell you everything.”
As if on cue, Pat announced to the world. “Chow is ON, shipmates!” prompting a cheer from the kids.
Micah nodded, patted me on the knee and said “I could use another beer.”
“So could I,” I said.
* * *
Later, Micah and I were in my den, talking. Pat, Candice and the kids had gone home, and Tammy had some things to do in her office. The boys went with her, since there was a park with a basketball court next door to the dance studio. We had some time to talk privately.
I told the whole story, realizing that despite what he’d said about nothing we talked about going any further, he could very well end my flying career right then and there.
“I can’t say I saw any change in your behavior at all, that year,” he replied when I asked if he noticed anything odd in my first days “back” in 1976. “I mean, if I remember correctly, you had a rough time with your leg after you broke it. It was pretty bad, wasn’t it?”
“Yea. Three places. It was bad,” I said.
Micah nodded, thinking. But you recovered. Exercised. You were pretty focused, if I remember. You didn’t have time for much else,” he said, remembering out loud. Then he shrugged. “I can’t say I saw any ‘discontinuity’ in the Rich I knew.”
It was my turn to nod. Then, after a few seconds, I said “that was the ‘me’ I am now. But I remember another ‘me,’ the first time I lived through those years. I didn’t do so well. I didn’t recover and workout so aggressively, and ended up using a lot of pain medication, I got hooked on the stuff.” I looked around the room, gesturing with my arms, “I didn’t do any of this. No Navy. I never played basketball again.”
We both looked at each other for a few seconds, until I said it.
“And no Tammy. It was all different.” I shrugged my shoulders, turning palms up as if to say there you go, that’s the whole story.
At this point, I’m a little ashamed to admit, I was suddenly worried that Micah would get up, go back to the BOQ and call in a report suspending my flight status. Sure, we knew each other a long time, but he would probably have been right, after all I’d just told him, to tell the Navy “do NOT, under any circumstances, let this lunatic EVER fly in our jets and drop our bombs again.”
But Micah sat, looking out the window thinking, while I worried. After a couple minutes, he looked back at me and said, “there’s a fine line, sometimes, between Psychology and Neurology. I’m not a shrink. I’m a Neurologist. Diagnostically, it can be a challenge to know which specialty an issue needs. Which is why a Neuro, if he’s smart, works really hard at deception detection, at observing a patient to see if he’s telling the truth. If you get really good at it, you can tell if someone’s lying with greater reliability than a lie detector.”
Micah paused for a moment, letting that sink in.
“I know you’re telling me the truth, Rich. I can tell. Now the question is, is this neurological or psychological?”
“Well, I can tell you what’s going to happen over the next few months,” I said.
Micah laughed, “Everybody knows what’s going to happen over the next few months, Rich!”
I joined him in his laughter. “True,” I replied. “But I’ll go one step further. We’ll just kick the Iraqis out of Kuwait. We won’t drive all the way to Baghdad, and Bush will catch a lot of shit for that. He’ll serve one term, Bill Clinton, the Governor of Arkansas will be the next President. He’ll do two terms, and then Bush’s son George gets elected, goes back and finishes the job.”
That set Micah back a bit. “Bush’s son? Doesn’t he own a baseball team or something?”
“Yea. But he gets elected to two terms, finds a reason to go back to Iraq, trashes the place, and they end up pulling Saddam out of a hole in the ground…An actual hidey-hole, by the way…And a couple years later around New Year’s eve…2006, I think…he gets strung up.”
Another pause.
“I could go on,” I said.
Micah laughed again, shaking his head. “That’s okay. Wow.”
I nodded, understanding the overload he must have been feeling. “Just remember that stuff,” I said, knowing he would.
The laughing trailed off, and there were a few more seconds of silence before Micah spoke again.
“This is definitely neurological.”
* * *
Three weeks later, I received a phone call from Micah. “Can you get away for a couple days?”
“Sure. I’ve got some leave in the bank,” I replied.
“No leave. I need you in San Fran for some tests,” he said.
“Okay…” I answered, warily.
“No, no…Nothing like that. I’m involved in a long-term study of the effects of combat aviation over time. We need pilots and aircrew from all different platforms, and when I saw I needed a couple A-6 crew on the roster…It’ll give us a chance to talk about some side research I’ve done recently that you might be interested in…” Micah replied, his voice trailing off, making his meaning clear.
“Sure. When do you want me there?” I asked.
“Next Monday and Tuesday? We’ll put you in an MRI for a couple hours, and do a couple hours of basic neuro screening. Then, we’ll have a chance to grab lunch or something and catch up.”
“I’ll be there,” I said.
“Great,” Micah said. I’ll have everything sent over. Travel details will be included in your orders packet,” he replied, Dr. Steinberg entering to the conversation for the first time.
After we hung up, I sat back in the chair in my den at home and looked at the notebook I’d been writing in, recording what I remember about the future I knew as my past.
It will give us a chance to talk about some side research I’ve done recently that you might be interested in.
Cool.
* * *
“You lucky bastard,” Pat said, giving me a sidelong look. “You and your high school buddy get to have a sleepover, while we real sailors keep the world safe for you girls.”
Laughter from the other officers and aircrews in the ready room as V-145’s CO, Commander Tony Colson announced that the squadron would spend most of next week in maintenance drills, except for Lt. Girrard, who had been ordered to San Francisco to “have his head examined by Fleet Medical to ascertain whether his brain level is ‘bingo’ or ‘joker,’” a reference to the codes used by aircrew to report how much fuel they have left. “Bingo” meaning they’ve got enough to get home if they turn around immediately, and “joker” which means the airplane is coming down very soon, whether there’s concrete or a flight deck nearby or not. In other words, if you’re “joker,” you’re out of gas.
Pat let his feelings about my escape from the tedium of a maintenance stand-down be known but Colson, not one to be easily one-upped by my flying partner, replied that “this is important, as both Command and Naval Intelligence are unable to explain the Lieutenant’s willingness to continue flying with Lt. Maney.”
Bigger laughter yet. Pat struck his colors and nodded his surrender to the Commander, who satisfied with his victory, continued. “Moving on…”
The Monday briefing ended shortly thereafter, the officers going their separate ways to their individual and collective duties. In addition to flying duties, every officer had a job that supported the operation of the squadron. I oversaw a group of enlisted sailors who maintained the ordinance delivery equipment on the squadron’s Intruders. The day-to-day hard work managing the guys who worked under me was handled by a Chief Petty Officer, but ultimately, I was accountable for what they did. There were always forms to be filled out, evaluations, disciplinary actions, leave scheduling, etc. Being a Navy flyer wasn’t all “punching holes in the sky. The paperwork helped pay for that fun.
“Word is, we sail late November,” Pat was saying as we put our paperwork away and prepared to head home for the day.
I nodded. It was one of those things I didn’t have any idea about, whether from contemporary scuttlebutt, or historical knowledge. I’d known Ranger participated in the Gulf War, but had no real idea when she had left San Diego, or when her Air Wing flew out and joined the cruise. So, once again, I had a vague outline of the future, but all the individual moving parts of what made that future came as news to me.
* * *
A quick hop on a Navy Citation to San Fran on Monday morning and I was in an MRI tube that afternoon. I’d had a couple MRIs in the early 2000s, and this was much the same as I “remembered.” A lot of noise, but considering my experience during flight operations on the Ranger, it wasn’t nearly as disconcerting as it could have been. In my young career as a Naval Aviator, I’d already done one 6 month cruise to the Indian Ocean and of all the new sights, sounds and smells, the biggest shock to my system, next to the excruciating boredom that came from a few days cooped up on the ship without flying, was the noise. Deafening doesn’t even begin to describe it. The howling of an F-14 Tomcat’s engine being run up to full power in a maintenance hanger could quite literally suck your breath away if you weren’t used to it. Not that anyone ever truly got used to it.
The MRI was a piece of cake. So were the basic neurological tests that made up the study’s workup. Micah told me I’d be back in for another set right after my next deployment, and they’d see what the pressure, near constant flying with all its high-G operations and shipboard life did to my brain and nervous system. In the end, I think all they really wanted to know was why we all seemed to father female children.
The MRI took up most of Monday afternoon, and the neuro workup the next morning, so Micah and I didn’t have a chance to talk privately until about 3pm on Tuesday afternoon. He said he’d sign out of the Fleet Medical facility early, and we agreed to meet at a coffee shop downtown. I had suggested the Starbucks across the street from Moscone Center, where I’d always enjoyed a quick cup during breaks at the MacWorld Expo, but though Micah said he’d heard of Starbucks, he didn’t think there was anything like that there.
“There will be,” I said, with a small smile. I really hadn’t planned that little demonstration of my knowledge of the future (which, of course wouldn’t be proven to be accurate for some time), it just happened.
We’d agreed to meet in “civvies,” so as to not attract attention, and I had to chuckle privately to myself as I saw Micah enter the coffee shop. With his short hair, mustache and thick eyeglass frames, anyone who didn’t peg him as Navy, just wasn’t paying attention. But them, I suppose the same could be said of me.
We sat down at a corner table that afforded some privacy, and a view of the door. We could both see anyone who came in, and that meant we had two pairs of eyes watching out for anyone who might know us as Naval officers. There was nothing wrong with the two of us in civilian clothes having a cup of coffee together, it was just the subject of the conversation that could be disastrous to both our careers. After all, one of the officers sitting and drinking coffee that day claimed privately that he was a time traveler who was living these years for the second time, and the other one was a respected Naval Flight Surgeon who believed him. Nobody could hear what we were going to be talking about this afternoon. The stakes were too high.
A little small talk as we sipped our coffee, and I could tell that Micah was anxious to tell me what he’d learned, so after a couple minutes, I asked him.
“Fascinating stuff, Rich. Fascinating,” he started, his eyes bright inside the heavy eyeglass frames.
I nodded without replying, allowing him to continue.
“There’s nothing in any of the literature about this…condition, but I found some isolated cases that are remarkably similar. It’s just that nobody seems to have made any connections between them yet.”
Again, I nodded.
“I’m not sure you’re the only one who has experienced this,” he said.
“I know I’m not,” I replied. “Our housekeeper when I was in high school said the same thing had happened to her.” I had told Micah about Thelma, but apparently he’d forgotten.
“Right, right,” he nodded, remembering. “Well, there are a few cases of this phenomenon in the literature, but it’s only there if you’re specifically looking for it.”
My puzzled expression showed I didn’t know exactly what he was saying.
“Look,” Micah said, “the medical community isn’t really good with psychic or paranormal stuff.” He smiled and continued. “We like organ failure, bleeding, preferably internal,” another smile, “and…things that can be quantified, researched and predicted.”
I got that, and nodded my understanding.
“We take notes about everything, but don’t always pay attention to the things we don’t like to think about,” Micah said, his left elbow on the table, hand rubbing his forehead. Clearly, this attitude in his profession frustrated him. I watched him as he took a small, wirebound notebook out of his front pocket and opened it on the table in front of him.
“Doing some searching through case notes attached to articles in the literature, I found two examples of people who reported that they were living their lives over again, and five who claimed that very thing had happened to them, and that they had returned to their original life when the experience had ended.” Micah sat back in his chair and looked across the table, willing me to be as amazed as he was.
So I complied. “Wow…That’s…Amazing. Five people?”
“Yes. Three women, two men, all five being treated for neurological or auto immune conditions. Two Parkinson’s patients, one MS, an ALS…Lou Gherig’s disease,” Micah added, referring to his notebook, “and one Lupus.”
At this point, knowing he had my full attention, Micah took a sip of his coffee, swallowed and then continued. I didn’t say a word, suddenly more desperate than I’d been since returning to 1976 to hear something that would provide a clue to what I was experiencing.
“Two things connected these cases, and I’m not sure it’s a coincidence. As I said, they all claimed they’d gone back in time and reinhabited their bodies, able to change the paths their lives had taken, but what was interesting to me was that all five were characterized by their doctors as extraordinarily self-aware and ‘centered’ in their views on their lives and health concerns. Not much seemed to bother them.”
I nodded, thinking that I understood this, from what Thelma had told me. She’d made different choices and because of it, was at peace when she returned to this life. But, I didn’t tell Micah about this. Not yet.
I did ask him though, “how long did they spend in the past?”
“OH!” He exclaimed, prompting a look from the two women sitting a couple tables away, which reminded him to lower his voice. “That’s REALLY interesting.” He flipped through the notebook, finally after a few seconds, finding the information he was looking for.
“That information was only in three of the cases. But they were all in the past for more than 20 years. One spent…” he said as he flipped to the next page, “38 years in her past.”
He paused, reading his notes. “Well, her past and future.”
I didn’t get that. “Wait a minute. Her past and future?” I asked, confused. “She traveled to her future?”
“No, no. In 1972, she ‘traveled’ to 1961, to when she was 20 years old. Then, she spent the next 38 years living her life. She claims that in 1999, she then returned to the day in 1972 from which she originally left.” Micah had a smile on his face that I could tell wasn’t there because he thought the woman he was talking about was crazy, but because he was on the trail of something that was massively interesting to him.
“So…” I made the connection. “Since 1972, she’s been living through a time she’s already seen…”
The smile got bigger. “Right.”
“What’s her name?” I asked. If I could track her down…
“No name,” Micah quickly replied. “Not in the notes. Never is.”
“And this was all freely available to doctors and researchers?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief. “Why wouldn’t the government classify this? Something this huge?”
It was Micah’s turn to shake his head. “Rich, you don’t understand. Time travel wasn’t the focus of the case. At most, it was evidence of ‘cognitive impairment.’ She was in an MS study. Multiple Sclerosis sometimes affects thinking, emotion, cognitive function.”
“Surely someone would have paid attention to that, though.” I said.
“No. I guarantee you, at the most, anyone who really thought about it, got a bit of a laugh out of it.”
“Wow,” was all I could think of to say, as my mind raced. Micah took another, longer drink from his coffee cup. After a few seconds, I looked up at him. He was watching me, obviously waiting for my next question.
Which then came to me.
“What caused her to return to her own time?” I asked.
“The same thing that caused all of them to return,” Micah answered. “Well, at least the four who answered that question.”
I waited for several seconds for the rest of the answer, finally raising my eyebrows questioningly.
Micah’s smile was gone when he said “she died.”
Somehow, I had known he was going to say that.
* * *
This time around, I had stayed in touch, however irregularly, with Thelma. My parents, not really understanding, accepted it without much comment. My staying in contact with her helped my sister do the same, though to my knowledge, Thelma never told Kristi anything about the time travel experiences we had in common. Micah Steinberg was the only other person I ever told about what had happened to me, happening to me to be perfectly accurate and to my knowlege, I was the only person Thelma had ever told about it. I exchanged Christmas cards and occasional phone calls with both Christopher and Darnell, but the topic of time travel never came up.
When I got back to Whidbey after my trip to San Francisco, there was a disturbing message waiting for me. After kissing me hello when I came in the door, Tammy hugged me tightly and then took my hand and led me into my den, picking up a note off my desk.
“Darnell Coleman called, Rich,” she said, handing me the note. “Thelma’s in the hospital. It doesn’t look good.”
I felt myself sag. Thelma had fought off cancer once, but it looked like the disease had returned. “Ah jeez,” I said, a lump forming in my throat as I read the note, which said exactly what Tammy had just told me. She had known Thelma since we were in High School, and I could tell she felt very bad about it, too.
“We need to take a trip to Indy, hon,” I said.
“I know. I already called my Mom and told her we’d be coming in for a few days,” Tammy replied.
I had to smile. She knew me better than I knew myself.
The timing was good, since I had some leave coming and managed to get the paperwork in just ahead of the pre-cruise ban on time off. We’d be really busy getting ready for deployment as soon as I got back, and I was hoping that I would have a chance to get to to see my parents before sailing. Ranger was based in San Diego, where my parents lived, and the Air Wing would usually fly to NAS Miramar, north of the city, a few days before the boat left. Three or four days after the ship sailed, we’d fly out to join them. But this time, on the eve of the first Gulf War, I wasn’t sure I’d be allowed off the base once we landed at Miramar. Still, I knew visiting Thelma was the right thing to do, and I had a couple questions that I was now surprised to realize I’d never asked her.
It was cold in Indianapolis when we arrived, a late-September cold snap forcing the people who lived in the middle of the Hoosier state to bring out their cold weather gear a little early. Having their parkas along for the trip, the boys were looking for snow, despite the assurances from both Tammy and myself that there wouldn’t be any. Even though the ground was bare, without a trace of white when we landed, they were excited by the novelty of the trip.
We rented a car at the airport and drove to Tammy’s parents’ house on the west side, Michael and Aaron getting more and more excited the closer we got to seeing “Gramma and Grampa.” Hugs all around when we arrived, with Tammy’s mother hustling us out of the cold and into the house. It was late in the afternoon, so after a few minutes reconnecting, I got into the car and heading to the hospital.
Walking back into Wishard Memorial Hospital brought back a lot of strange feelings. I’d been brought to the Wishard ER when I fell off the roof of a house while working for my Dad’s company in High School, and it was their rehab center where I’d done my rehab this time. Wishard had a lot to do with me doing so much better this time around, but I still had memories of coming to the ER to talk my way into scrips for pain meds when I was living those years for the first time. So, being here gave me a peculiar mix of feelings.
The 60-ish well dressed lady at the Information desk, looked up Thelma Coleman’s name in the patient directory, and gave me the room number. I thanked her and walked to the elevator for the ride up to Thelma’s floor. The look she had given me was one that held both sympathy, since there was obviously information on the page that told her Thelma was terminal, and curiosity that a young white military officer would be visiting an elderly black woman. I had decided to travel in uniform because I wanted Thelma to see what she had helped me accomplish. I owed everthing to my family, including my wife and children, but Thelma had a great deal of appreciation coming, too.
Entering room 314 as quietly as possible, I saw that it was dark, evening taking hold, the light in the room coming from a bedside lamp and a flickering television mounted on the wall. The local news was on, Mike Ahern telling Hoosiers what was going on in their part of the world. When I walked in, Darnell, sitting by his sleeping mother’s bedside, turned his head and looked at me. It took him a couple seconds to recognize me, hair shorter than he would have remembered, my requisite naval aviator mustache relatively new. But as soon as he realized it was me, he jumped up, came around the bed and held out his hand for “soul-brother handshake,” (which he had taught me when I was about 10 years old, to the mild annoyance of my father) that then transitioned into a bear hug. I noticed his magnificent afro had been dramatically reduced in size, a business necessity apparently. Darnell now owned two very successful fine-dining restaurants in Indianapolis, and it was, after all, 1990, not 1975.
“Hey, Ma, look what flew in!” Darnell exclaimed, turning toward Thelma, his right arm around my shoulders. She had apparently been only lightly sleeping and was now fully awake.
I now turned my attention to the bed, where Thelma lay, the head of the bed elevated, and both arms on pillows at her side. Her hair was almost totally white, and the previously stocky and robust woman looked, if not exactly frail, extremely thin. Her gaze though, was the same direct, hard one that I remembered growing up.
“Well, boy. Come over here,” she said. “Let me have a look at you.”
I immediately complied, taking the three steps over to her bedside, and leaning down to gently hug her. She patted me on the back with her right hand, and with her left, Thelma held the side of my head, kissing me on the cheek.
“Haven’t you got anything better to do than waste time coming all the way here to see me?” She asked.
Normally, I’d try and come up with a smartass retort for her, but a lump had suddenly appeared in my throat, seeing her like this, knowing it was pretty close to the end, so I just shrugged.
“Where are those babies, Lieutenant Ricardo?” Thelma asked.
“Tammy’s going to bring them tomorrow to see you,” I said, glad for the diversion away from Thelma’s condition, to thinking about the boys. “It’s late in the day and they’re just about due to start turning into little beasts from being tired,” I replied.
This brought a clipped laugh from her. “I know all about dealing with little beasts,” she said, looking at me, then Darnell, who responded with a comical grimmace. “If it wasn’t for your sweet little sister, I’d think every child born after 1950 was raised in a barn.”
Kristi had flown in a few days before to see Thelma, and had prepared me for how different the woman who had a big hand in raising her looked. She’d warned me that talking to her would lead me to believe she was healthier than she really was. I could see that, and was glad for the heads up I’d gotten from my little sister.
“So, how you feeling, Thelma?” I asked.
“Well, boy, I’ve been better,” she replied her shrug limited to her head and eyebrows, her arms back down on the pillows at her side. “But they take really good care of me here. Darnell won’t hardly leave the hospital, and Christopher comes down every few days.” Darnell lived here in Indy, but Thelma’s oldest son coached basketball at a small college in Michigan.
Darnell patted his mother’s leg, covered by the blanket and said “If I did leave, you’d be on the phone calling me wanting this, get me that…It’s easier just to stay here!” He picked up his cell phone, one of the huge “brick” phones Motorola made, and walked toward the door. “I’ve got to check in with work. I’ll leave you two to talk.”
I nodded, and walked around to the chair that Darnell had vacated when I came into the room. Sitting down, I saw Thelma looking intently at me.
“So. You’ve done a LOT better this time around, haven’t you?” She said.
I returned her gaze. “Yes, ma’am. You get a second chance, and you take advantage of it. Right?”
Thelma smiled, and looked up at Mike Ahern on the television. “I heard THAT.” We both laughed.
Then she said, “I can’t say running around the same track a couple times is the best thing that could happen to a body, but I tell you, it’s far from the worst.” She looked me up and down, admiring with evident pride, the aviator wings and ribbons on my uniform. “It sure looks like you’ve done well this time, boy.” For the first time since I got here, she really smiled.
“Darnell and Christopher know about what you went through?” I said. I’d never asked her that before. As close as Thelma’s sons and I were, I couldn’t imagine telling them that I was reliving my past, but thought it might be a good idea to know if their mother had told them about her experience.
“No,” she said, looking back at me, and abandoning Mike Ahern. “I don’t know how I’d tell them that I’d lived the better part of a life without them,” she answered. “Not sure how I’d do that.”
I nodded, understanding. I knew I didn’t have much time, since I didn’t want to tire her out, so I jumped right into it. “Thelma,” I began, “I told a good friend of mine, a Navy Neurologist I went to high school with…You remember Micah Steinberg?”
Thelma shook her head. I couldn’t remember if they’d ever met. No matter.
“Well,” I continued, “I told him the whole story, looking for answers. He did some research and found medical evidence that other people have had this same experience.”
Thelma was listening intently, her eyes slightly narrowed, in concentration or disapproval that I would reveal what I was going through, I couldn’t tell. She nodded slightly.
“There were a few similarities in the stories, and I need to ask you something I’ve never asked you before.” I paused.
Thelma’s gaze averted slightly. She knew what I was going to say.
“What happened that brought you back here…To your own time?” I asked.
She sighed slightly and rolled her eyes. “What makes the difference, Richie?” She called me “Richie,” not “boy” or “Ricardo.” This was difficult for her, and I felt a momentary pang of regret that she’s laying there dying and I’m asking her an obviously difficult question like that. But then again, Thelma Coleman was probably the toughest woman I’d ever known, and I knew that even in her current state, she could handle it.
She was silent for a few seconds, apparently thinking about her answer and then started talking.
“I went back to 1936 from 1954, so when I made it all the way back to ’54 again, I’d gotten pretty comfortable with what was happening to me. Once I passed the day it all happened, I pretty much figured I’d just wake up one morning and be back in my own time. Then, the further I got from ’54, the less I thought about it all. My Nan was still alive though, I made her take her health and eating more seriously, her blood pressure was pretty good, so I figured she wasn’t going to have a stroke like last time. I felt pretty good about everything.” Thelma paused, and pointed to a glass of water on the tray next to her bed. I passed it to her, and watched as she drank half of it, and then handed the glass back to me.
“I was writing for the Detroit News,” she continued, “since about 1963, mostly about the Civil Rights movement. Nan was living with me in Detroit. It was so different from Memphis, let me tell you.” Again, Thelma paused, but as I reach for the water glass to fill it up again, she shook her head.
“In 1967, a party for a couple soldiers coming back from Vietnam got raided by the police, and it got really ugly. Then, it got bigger and bigger. A couple days later, they’d brought in the National Guard, and it got even worse. I was with a couple reporters and photographers out on the fringes of the trouble, and we were talking with people who ran businesses on Clairmount Avenue, getting their view on things.” Thelma’s eyes were closed now, as she told me the story, but I wasn’t sure if it helped her remember, or if the telling required more effort because of her condition. But, her voice was strong as she continued.
“I remember stepping out onto the sidewalk after talking with a man who owned a shoe repair store, and walking to the curb. I turned around to say something to the photographer, and saw him and one of the other reporters eyes get real big. They jumped back as I turned around and saw the car coming up on the curb.” Her eyes were still closed, but she had wrinkled up her face at the memory.
“It felt like I got the wind knocked out of me. Next thing I knew, I was in my old bed in Memphis. The wind was blowing my lace curtains and my goodness, did my head hurt!” Thelma smiled a sad smile. “Just like that, I was back in 1954 and Nan was gone again.”
We both let the moment pass in silence. I refilled the water glass and handed it to Thelma. She took it, and drank again, but not so much this time.
Then, without fanfare, she continued. “I’m pretty sure I died. That’s what brought me back.”
* * *
Thelma and I didn’t talk any more about time travel. Darnell came back in the room, and we talked about the boys, Whidbey, the Navy and what was coming. I told them my squadron was heading out for a 6 month cruise on Ranger, and didn’t know what part we would play in the drama unfolding in the Gulf.
“So, you’ve got those wings on your shirt, but you don’t fly the airplane?” Thelma asked.
Laughing, I said “no, my friend Pat does that. As I tell everyone, he turns the airplane on and tell him where to go. I’m the Bombadier/Navigator.” Darnell was clearly impressed, and Thelma, much to my surprise, smiled and seemed just a little impressed, herself. “Really though, flying the airplane’s the tough job. Well,” I corrected, “flying it is usually pretty easy. It’s landing it on the ship that can be difficult.”
“Yea, I saw that movie ‘Top Gun’,” Darnell said, nodding.
I smiled. The movie, at first a point of pride for Tomcat crew, quickly became a sore subject when they saw how much fun the rest of the Naval Aviation community had with it. The overly dramatic and self-important callsigns, like ‘Maverick’ and ‘Iceman’, the towel-clad lounging in the locker room, and yes, the shirtless volleyball all became unwelcome jokes to F-14 pilots and RIOs, Radar Intercept Officers, the guys who rode in the Tomcat’s backseat. I held my breath, hoping Darnell wouldn’t ask me what my callsign was. It wasn’t anything like ‘Hollywood’ or ‘Iceman’. For reasons I won’t go into here, I was known simply as ‘Wax.’
I was relieved when Thelma ended the discussion with “Well, drop one of those bombs right on Saddam’s head, would you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Driving back to Tammy’s parents’ house, I realized that I’d known all along what Thelma would tell me happened to bring her back to her own time. Just like the four cases Micah had found, it took dying to end this particular sort of time travel experience. I also realized that I was more immersed in what I had been going through the past 14 years than I had been in a long time. I started wondering if I’d have the time to go to Belton to test a hypothesis I had. We only had a week here, but then the town my father grew up in was only a couple hours away. Surely, I could find the time.
For the first time in a long time, I was thinking too, about the letter from my Grandfather that had started all this, and what THAT kind of time travel had to do with THIS kind. Ever since the day I first talked with Thelma about what I was going through, when she told me SHE had been through the same thing, I felt confident that I would eventually return to 2005 and somehow maybe be able to resume my life there. That had been almost 15 years ago though, and to say I’d become more than a little attached to this life was a gross understatement. Now, I was certain that I was going to have to die to get back to 2005, and that was disconcerting.
I got back just as dinner was being cleared away, and the boys going up for baths. I’d told them not to wait dinner for me, and Tammy, busy with Michael and Aaron’s meal, hadn’t really eaten much. So, we decided to leave the baths to Gramma and Grampa and go out. When I asked her where she wanted to go, Tammy looked at me, smiled and without waiting for her response, I said “get your coat on.” I knew exactly where she wanted to go.
In the car on the way to Noble Roman’s Pizza, I told Tammy about Thelma, how she looked, how she sounded, and that despite the positives, it didn’t look good. I’d talked with Darnell on the way out and he said the doctors had told him she was on a lot of morphine, and that Pancreatic Cancer was one of the most insidious forms of the disease, progressing so fast and silently that by the time it was discovered, it was almost always too late to do anything about it.
We made plans to take the boys to see Thelma the next day. As we were talking, it occurred to me that I probably should have changed out of my uniform, but by the time I thought of it, we were more than halfway to the restaurant, and I figured it would be more trouble than it was worth to go back, so I drove on.
Noble Roman’s was much like we remembered it. They’d obviously updated the design a few years before, but it was laid out the same as it had been. The pizza was just as good, but the waitresses looked so much younger. As the hostess was leading us to our table, we passed by the table we had been sitting at on our first date in 1976. Tammy stopped suddenly. “Can we sit here?” She asked.
The hostess shrugged and said “sure,” laying the menus down on the table. Tammy sat down in the same seat she’d been in when I made the speech that had, more than anything I’d done to that point in this version of 1976, fundamentally changed the path of my life. I sat down in my seat and met that same smile I had come to know so well. The smile that even 15 years later, still seemed to make everything brighter and sharper.
We ordered, and after our drinks came, Tammy looked at me and said “you kissed me for the first time at this table.”
“As I remember it,” I replied in a matter-of-fact tone “it was you who kissed me.” I theatrically appeared to consult the memory and then said “Definitely. You kissed me.”
“Well, if I hadn’t, where would we be?” She said.
Boy, if she only knew, I thought guiltily. As always, I felt a little remorse for hiding my time traveling “situation” from Tammy. I mean, it was just one thing I hid, but it was a pretty big “thing.” But how could I tell her about this? How could I tell her that I had another life that didn’t include her? A life and world where our boys didn’t even exist? I knew that in that world, Tammy had two kids, a girl and a boy, I think, but I’d never met them. Had no idea what they looked like, or whether they were anything like Michael and Aaron. They were Tammy’s children, but also Steve’s. I’d lived with this for a long time, but at times it still boggled my mind. What would it have done to Tammy’s?
“We wouldn’t be here, sweetie. I like it here,” I replied, reaching out to hold her hands across the table. “I like it here.”
“So do I,” she said.
This time, I half stood to kiss her. It was only fair.
“Well, goddamned, this looks familiar.” A voice behind me. A little slurred. Vaguely familiar, but when I sat back down and turned around, I saw Nicki Collins, 50 pounds heavier than I remember him, a couple days from a razor, with a slightly dazed look in his eyes. I’m a veteran of more than a few shore-leave blowouts, and knew an ambulatory drunk when I saw one.
I glanced back at Tammy, who was looking at Nicki like he was something unpleasant and somewhat smelly. Which I guess he was.
I didn’t want to stand up to greet him, since in his inebriated state he might have interpreted that as an aggressive move. So, I smiled and still sitting, said “hey there, Nicki! How the hell are you?”
He swayed a little, looked at Tammy and said “I’m doing GREAT. Making shitloads of money. I’m in Real Estate with my brother STEVE. Remember STEVE Tammy?”
I glanced over at my wife, who was still looking at Nicki as though she’d smelled something really bad, but didn’t want to say anything. When Nicki was obviously not going to laugh off his little joke, and was obviously waiting for answer, Tammy once again made me proud to be her husband, and the man she chose to spend her life with.
“Not really.”
I loved that answer.
At first, Nicki looked like he was going to blow his stack. His cheeks flushed red, and I prepared to jump up and put an end to this if he made a move toward Tammy, but then a tiny bit of discretion pushed through the alcohol and he laughed, looking down at me. “Rich Girrard! Wow…What are you, in the Coast Guard? Great uniform!”
“Navy, actually, Nicki. Thanks,” I replied.
“So, you’re a SEAman, huh? A SEAMAN. You’re SEA-MUN.” More laughter, getting louder by the second. I noticed the people sitting at the tables around us looking at Nicki in much the same way Tammy still was.
“That’s a good one, Nicki,” I said, thinking what a good thing it was that Pat wasn’t here. Nicki outweighed my best buddy and flying partner by at least a hundred pounds, but Pat would have had this overgrown pudge on the ground, begging for mercy by now. I saw him do it a drunk, mouthy Marine in a Subic Bay dive bar once. It wasn’t a pretty fight, in fact it was short and brutal, and we were out of the bar before any of the Marine’s buddies got close. Pat grew up the youngest of 6 boys in the suburbs of Boston.
When I knew this guy 15 years ago, it was obvious he wouldn’t end up curing cancer, solving any of Hilbert’s Problems or probably even be able to support himself without breaking the law in some way. Sitting there at Noble Roman’s in Indinapolis in 1990, I realized just how accurate that assessment had been.
“No, Nicki, he’s an officer,” another voice from behind me said, but I kept my eyes on the still slightly swaying Nick Collins.
Our new visitor continued, “And see those gold wings? That means he’s an aviator, a flyer, who lands really big jets on ships, sometimes at night. So, why don’t you thank him for his service to our country, and go somewhere else. Maybe home to sleep it off.”
Nicki had turned his head around to the left to regard the speaker who, though he looked really familiar, now that I had a chance to glance at him, I couldn’t place. No one spoke for a few heartbeats, then Nicki grunted a short laugh, stepped back, and walking around the bigger guy, left.
As we watched Nicki leave, half weaving, half stalking out the door of the restaurant, I stood up, held out my hand and said “Thanks. The last thing we needed tonight was a problem with a drunk civilian.” Clearly, this young man was military. His build suggested Marines, but the haircut and his use of the word “aviator” instead of “pilot” meant he knew the difference between the gold wings of an NFO (Naval Flight Officers) and those of a Pilot. That probably made him Navy.
As I reached out and shook his hand, I said “Rich Girrard, VA-136. I remember you from…Ben Davis, right?”
The man smiled, obviously pleased to be recognized. “CPO Dennis Martin, sir. I’m a yellowshirt on Big John…” he said, meaning he was a sailor whose job it was to direct the movements of aircraft on the deck of the carrier, in his case, CV-67, the USS John F. Kennedy, “but yeah, I…went to Ben Davis,” he explained, ducking his head a little in confirmation.
“My wife and I were just coming in and I saw Nicki in his usual state, drunk and making friends.” Dennis continued, smiling a somewhat rueful smile, and shaking his head as he explained his interjection into the situation.
“Well, again, thanks,” I said. ” Why don’t you join us?” I looked at Tammy and she was smiling, nodding.
Dennis looked a little uncomfortable. “Oh, I don’t want to intrude, sir.” It was rare, and pretty much against the social rules of the Navy for officers and enlisted personnel to socialize, but despite my being in uniform, we were obviously both on leave and knew each other from before the Navy.
“You wouldn’t be intruding,” I answered. “We’re just out for a pizza without the kids.”
“Well, okay. Thanks,” Dennis said, turning and waving his wife over.
I had the feeling I’d met Dennis before, but couldn’t think of a context. When his wife reached our table, we could see she was pregnant, probably six months or so along. She looked familiar as well.
“Allison!” I heard Tammy exclaim as she jumped up, came around the table and hugged the girl. “Oh my goodness! Look at you!”
Clearly, they had known each other. Dennis helped Allison into one of the chairs, and we all sat down, the big man not as uneasy now, his attention on his wife, who I learned had been on the High School Band drill team with Tammy. My wife asked the usual questions, “when are you due?” “Boy or girl?” “Names?” But when the basic “pregnancy screening” questions were done, and Tammy had updated the couple on our boys, talk turned, as it always seems to do so, to the Navy.
“Big John’s in the Gulf already, isn’t she?” I asked Dennis. I was surprised that an experienced yellowshirt would be on shore leave during a cruise, but didn’t want to ask, in case he’d had to come back for a bereavement leave, even though a death in the family wouldn’t guarantee that a sailor could get home during a deployment. An aircraft carrier has a crew of somewhere around 5,000 people, every single one of them doing at least one important job, usually two or three. There were no extras.
“Yes sir, I broke my arm on our last WESTPAC and there were a few complications, but I had another surgery…” Dennis stretched his left arm out and turned it over, palm up and then down a couple times, “good as new. I fly out to rejoin the ship next week. Just in time for the fun,” he added with a wry smile.
The waitress then stepped up to the table and took our pizza order, dropped off some drinks and left.
“What about you, sir? VA-136 flys off Ranger, right?” Dennis asked.
“Yea…We’re heading out soon, I think.” I recognized both Dennis and his wife, but still, we got security drummed into our heads constantly, and so I didn’t talk about anything someone couldn’t learn by reading the Navy Times.
“Where are you going to have the baby?” Tammy asked Allison, since obviously Dennis would be at sea when she gave birth.
“Here, with my folks. We live in Norfolk, but our families are all here, so…” Tammy and I both nodded. With what was coming up, both the baby and the war, being with family was the right choice for everyone. More support for Allison and less worry for her husband, half a world away.
“So how’d you break your arm, Chief?” I asked.
“We were recovering a flight of Tomcats at night, and one had a hook problem after he caught his wire, but nobody got the word to the LSO bringing in the other one. By the time they called ‘bolter,’ the first one had to firewall his throttles and drive off the side of the ship. I happened to be in the way, and didn’t have anywhere to go but the catwalk over the side,” Dennis replied.
A “bolter” is when a landing aircraft, for some reason, isn’t going to be able to safely land on the deck, or if his tailhook misses all of the cables that stretch across the deck of the ship to stop the jet instantly. The relatively small flight deck of an aircraft carrier means that the choreography of moving airplanes around the has to be perfectly timed, or things can get very dangerous very quickly.
“We were blue water, so they had to do the best they could onboard,” Dennis said, meaning they were in the middle of the cruise, too far away from land to evac him to a better equipped medical facility. I nodded, appreciating the quick reaction this big guy had to make, and his courage, jumping off the side of an aircraft carrier, hopefully hitting a narrow metal catwalk 12 feet or so down, or missing that, ending up in the water. At night.
Dennis turned to Allison, smiled and hugged her with his right arm. “It could have been a lot worse.”
I nodded, remembering reading the report on that accident. It had prompted most Air Wings to reevaluate and refresh deck operations to make sure the series of events that led up to the accident didn’t happen again. A similar accident had happened a few years before and a sailor, a greenshirt fuel handler I think, lost his life that time. In both cases, the Pilot and RIO had been recovered with only minor injuries.
A few minutes later, our pizza came, and we ate, talking about Indy, things about our hometown that had changed, what hadn’t changed. Nobody said anything about Nicki, who Dennis had obviously been acquainted with in high school, but I’m sure we all reflected on him as part of the latter group – things that hadn’t changed. I realized that Dennis and Allison had been two of those “nameless faces” I’d gone to high school with, people who I saw most every day, but even after several years, had no idea what their names were. I didn’t think I’d ever had a conversation with either of them, until Dennis made me realize we had.
We were talking about Coach MacLaren, when Dennis said “I was there that day you passed out in the hallway.”
I nodded, the memory of a much shorter and thinner Dennis and his underclassman friend standing over me in the hallway finally dropping into place in my head, satisfying the irritating feeling that I knew him, but couldn’t place him. I replied with a laugh, “well, I never really passed out.”
The now big man frowned and said firmly “Yes sir, you did. You kind of went rubbery at the knees, fell against the lockers and slid down. I was shaking your shoulder for probably 10 seconds before you opened your eyes,” he said assuredly.
I laughed. “Okay, I guess I passed out. I remember you from that day. You were a lot shorter and skinnier then!”
Dennis shrugged. “I had a big growth spurt my senior year, and started weight training. Boy, I tell you, that was some day. Talking to Rich Girrard, and then Coach MacLaren came up to us and asked what happened. That was a pretty big day!”
I smiled, a little embarrassed about being referred to as some kind of celebrity. “Yea, I remember that,” I said, looking away, thinking back, “it was my first day back here, and everything was…so strange…” I left off, glancing at Tammy, who had a puzzled look on her face.
Dennis and Allison were listening, curious too, but not as intent as my wife. “I mean, I’d been sick for a couple days, it was my first day back at school…I probably went back too soon.”
They both accepted that explanation, but looking at Tammy again, it was clear she didn’t. I was suddenly furious with myself. Oh crap. All these years and I slip up like that. I just couldn’t believe it.
* * *
After good-naturedly arguing over the check and extracting a promise they’d send us a birth announcement, we said good-night to Dennis and Allison in the parking lot. Tammy hugged both of them, before Dennis threw me a quick but sharp salute. I returned it, and offered him a handshake, thanking him again for handling Nicki Collins so well. We wished each other well on our upcoming deployments and left.
Tammy and I drove in silence for several minutes before she finally started talking.
“Rich, we have to talk about something,” Tammy began. Then, when I started to open my mouth to interupt, “No, let me finish.”
I nodded, not saying anything.
“I love you. You’re the most wonderful father and husband I can imagine, and you’ve made me very, very happy.” Tammy paused, looking at me, waiting for me to look at her. Which I did, smiling. “I love our life together.” she then said.
My eyes returned to the road ahead, and I nodded.
“But I think there’s something really important you haven’t been truthful with me about, and I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Again, I nodded, my eyes still on the road.
“A few months ago, I was looking for some stamps, and found two notebooks in your desk. Hon, I wasn’t snooping, I really wasn’t. But I flipped through one of them and started reading. After a few minutes, I realized that it was a journal with notes…about the future…Or at least that’s what it seemed to be.”
Tammy paused, obviously waiting for me to say something in response.
“Yeah.” It was all I could think to say.
Seeing that was all she was going to get from me, she signed and continued. “If the dates were accurate, you were writing about Iraq invading Kuwait two years ago, and laid out exactly when that was going to happen,” Tammy continued. “And it looks like you’re going to be right.”
To this, I had no response. I mean, what could I say? What she said was true. Tammy had found my “future history” journals that I’d been writing to help exercise my memory and, I don’t know, maybe at some point prove to myself that what I had experienced had really happened. I kept my mouth shut and decided to let her talk until she had said everything on her mind. Then, I’d know what she had figured out.
After a couple seconds’ pause, Tammy continued as I drove the car. “How did you do that? Are you psychic? How do you know what’s going to happen?” Tammy asked, still calm, but the intensity in her voice rising. ” And what you wrote about who was going to become President, Bill Clinton, this ‘dot com’ stuff that you say is coming…” She paused.
“Then tonight,” she continued, ” when you said to Dennis ‘it was your first day back here.’ What’s going on? What’s BEEN going on, Rich?”
I’d hoped I’d never be in this position, having to explain to my wife that I was a time traveler. I’d hoped I’d be able to live this life and never explain to Tammy that I’d lived a life that didn’t include her past age 18, that we were never married, never had Michael and Aaron, and each married other people. I really wish I could have avoided this whole situation.
But I couldn’t. Tammy deserved the truth, even if it convinced her that I was crazy. Which, I realized, was a distinct possibility.
We had pulled into Tammy’s parents’ driveway five minutes before, and sat with the car running as we talked. I took a minute or so to gather my thoughts, and thought I’d try.
But not just yet.
“Tammy, you and the boys are everything to me. You’ve made me very, very happy, too. I promise, I’ll tell you everything.” I had turned to the right and now took Tammy’s hands in mine. The smile she gave me was a sad one, a worried one.
“Can your folks watch the boys tomorrow?” I asked.
“Sure. They’ll love it.”
“Good,” I nodded. “Let’s take the boys to see Thelma in the morning, and then you and I take a road trip. I want to show you something.”
This time, it was Tammy who nodded without saying anything.
We got out of the car and walked arm in arm up to the house. It had gotten much colder, and I was grateful for the warmth of my leather flying jacket. We entered the house to see Tammy’s mother and father waiting for us in the living room. Their expressions told me something was wrong.
As I shut the door behind us, Tammy’s mom said “Rich, I’m so sorry. Darnell Coleman called about an hour ago.”
I had a sinking feeling and knew what she was about to say.
“Thelma passed away this evening”
