"So did I, but they didn't make me wait five years to take it again."
He had a point there.
"What are you, Jake, thirty? Thirty-two?"
"Thirty-five." And two months closer to thirty-six than I had been earlier this morning, but what was a couple of months between friends?
"If you screwed the pooch and had to start over, you'd be forty-five when the merry-go-round came back to the brass ring the second time. A lot can happen in ten years, especially if the past's against you."
"I know," I said. "Look what happened to you."
"I got lung cancer from smoking, that's all." He coughed as if to prove this, but I saw doubt as well as pain in his eyes.
"Probably that's all it was. I hope that's all it was. But it's one more thing we don't kn--"
His front door banged open. A large young woman wearing a lime-green smock and white Nancy Nurse shoes came half-running down the driveway. She saw Al slumped in the passenger seat of my Toyota and yanked open the door. "Mr. Templeton, where have you been? I came in to give you your meds, and when I found the house empty, I thought--"
He managed a smile. "I know what you thought, but I'm okay. Not beautiful, but okay."
She looked at me. "And you. What are you doing driving him around? Can't you see how fragile he is?"
Of course I could. But since I could hardly tell her what we'd been doing, I kept my mouth shut and prepared to take my scolding like a man.
"We had an important matter to discuss," Al said. "Okay? Got it?"
"Just the same--"
He opened the car door. "Help me inside, Doris. Jake's got to get home."
Doris.
As in Dunning.
He didn't notice the coincidence--and surely that was what it was, it's a common enough name--but it clanged in my head just the same.
6
I made it home, and this time it was the Sunliner's emergency brake I found myself reaching for. As I turned off the engine I thought about what a cramped, niggardly, basically unpleasant plastic-and-fiberglass shitbox my Toyota was compared to the car I'd gotten used to in Derry. I let myself in, started to feed my cat, and saw the food in his dish was still fresh and moist. Why wouldn't it be? In 2011, it had been in the bowl for only an hour and a half.
"Eat that, Elmore," I said. "There are cats starving in China who'd love a bowl of Friskies Choice Cuts."
Elmore gave me the look that one deserved and oiled out through the cat door. I nuked a couple of Stouffer's frozen dinners (thinking like Frankenstein's monster learning to talk: microwave good, modern cars bad ). I ate everything, disposed of the trash, and went into the bedroom. I took off my plain white 1958 shirt (thanking God Al's Doris had been too mad to notice the blood-spatters on it), sat on the side of the bed to unlace my sensible 1958 shoes, and then let myself fall backward. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep while I was still in midair.
7
I forgot all about setting the alarm and might have slept long past 5:00 P.M., but Elmore jumped on my chest at quarter past four and began to sniff at my face. That meant he'd cleaned his dish and was requesting a refill. I provided more food for the feline, splashed my face with cold water, then ate a bowl of Special K, thinking it would be days before I could get the proper order of my meals reestablished.
With my belly full, I went into the study and booted up my computer. The town library was my first cyber-stop. Al was right--they had the entire run of the Lisbon Weekly Enterprise in their database. I had to become a Friend of the Library before I could access the goodies, which cost ten dollars, but given the circumstances, that seemed a small price to pay.
The issue of the Enterprise I was looking for was dated November 7. On page 2, sandwiched between an item about a fatal car wreck and one concerning a case of suspected arson, was a story headlined LOCAL POLICE SEEK MYSTERY MAN. The mystery man was me . . . or rather my Eisenhower-era alter ego. The Sunliner convertible had been found, the bloodstains duly noted. Bill Titus identified the Ford as one he had sold to a Mr. George Amberson. The tone of the article touched my heart: simple concern for a missing (and possibly injured) man's whereabouts. Gregory Dusen, my Hometown Trust banker, described me as "a well-spoken and polite fellow." Eddie Baumer, proprietor of Baumer's Barber Shop, said essentially the same thing. Not a single whiff of suspicion accrued to the Amberson name. Things might have been different if I'd been linked to a certain sensational case in Derry, but I hadn't been.
Nor was I in the following week's issue, where I had been reduced to a mere squib in the Police Beat: SEARCH FOR MISSING WISCONSIN MAN CONTINUES. In the issue following that, the Weekly Enterprise had gone gaga for the upcoming holiday season, and George Amberson disappeared from the paper entirely. But I had been there. Al carved his name on a tree. I'd found mine in the pages of an old newspaper. I'd expected it, but looking at the actual proof was still awe-inspiring.
I next went to the Derry Daily News website. It cost me considerably more to access their archives--$34.50--but within a matter of minutes I was looking at the front page of the issue for the first of November, 1958.
You would expect a sensational local crime to headline the front page of a local newspaper, but in Derry--the Peculiar Little City--they kept as quiet as possible about their atrocities. The big story that day had to do with Russia, Great Britain, and the United States meeting in Geneva to discuss a possible nuclear test-ban treaty. Below this was a story about a fourteen-year-old chess prodigy named Bobby Fischer. At the very bottom of the front page, on the lefthand side (where, media experts tell us, people are apt to look last, if at all), was a story headlined MURDEROUS RAMPAGE ENDS IN 2 DEATHS. According to the story, Frank Dunning, "a prominent member of the business community and active in many charity drives," had arrived at the home of his estranged wife "in a state of inebriation" shortly after 8:00 P.M. on Friday night. After an argument with his wife (which I certainly did not hear . . . and I was there), Dunning struck her with a hammer, breaking her arm, and then killed his twelve-year-old son, Arthur Dunning, when Arthur tried to defend his mother.
The story was continued on page 12. When I turned there, I was greeted by a snapshot of my old frenemy Bill Turcotte. According to the story, "Mr. Turcotte was passing by when he heard shouts and screams from the Dunning residence." He rushed up the walk, saw what was going on through the open door, and told Mr. Frank Dunning "to stop laying about with that hammer." Dunning refused; Mr. Turcotte spotted a sheathed hunting knife on Dunning's belt and pulled it free; Dunning rounded on Mr. Turcotte, who grappled with him; during the ensuing struggle, Dunning was stabbed to death. Only moments later, the heroic Mr. Turcotte suffered a heart attack.
I sat looking at the old snapshot--Turcotte standing with one foot placed proudly on the bumper of a late forties sedan, cigarette in the corner of his mouth--and drumming my fingers on my thighs. Dunning had been stabbed from the back, not from the front, and with a bayonet, not a hunting knife. Dunning hadn't even had a hunting knife. The sledgehammer--which was not identified as such--had been his only weapon. Could the police have missed such glaring details? I didn't see how, unless they were as blind as Ray Charles. Yet for Derry as I had come to know it, all this made perfect sense.
I think I was smiling. The story was so crazy it was admirable. All the loose ends were tied up. You had your crazy drunk husband, your cowering, terrified family, and your heroic passerby (no indication what he'd been passing by on his way to). What else did you need? And there was no mention of a certain Mysterious Stranger at the scene. It was all so Derry.
I rummaged in the fridge, found some leftover chocolate pudding, and hoovered it up while standing at the counter and looking out into my backyard. I picked up Elmore and petted him until he wriggled to be put down. I returned to my computer, tapped a key to magic away the screensaver, and looked at the picture of Bill Turcotte some more. The heroic intervener who had saved the family and suffered a heart attack for his pains.
At last
I went to the telephone and dialed directory assistance.
8
There was no listing for Doris, Troy, or Harold Dunning in Derry. As a last resort I tried Ellen, not expecting anything; even if she were still in town, she'd probably taken the name of her husband. But sometimes longshots are lucky shots (Lee Harvey Oswald being a particularly malignant case in point). I was so surprised when the phone-robot coughed up a number that I wasn't even holding my pencil. Rather than redial directory assistance, I pushed 1 to call the number I'd requested. Given time to think about it, I'm not sure I would have done that. Sometimes we don't want to know, do we? Sometimes we're afraid to know. We go just so far, then turn back. But I held bravely onto the receiver and listened as a phone in Derry rang once, twice, three times. The answering machine would probably kick on after the next one, and I decided I didn't want to leave a message. I had no idea what to say.
But halfway through the fourth ring, a woman said: "Hello?"
"Is this Ellen Dunning?"
"Well, I guess that depends on who's calling." She sounded cautiously amused. The voice was smoky and a little insinuating. If I didn't know better, I would have imagined a woman in her thirties rather than one who was now either sixty or pushing it hard. It was the voice, I thought, of someone who used it professionally. A singer? An actress? Maybe a comedian (or comedienne) after all? None of them seemed likely in Derry.
"My name is George Amberson. I knew your brother Harry a long time ago. I was back in Maine, and I thought maybe I'd try to get in touch."
"Harry?" She sounded startled. "Oh my God! Was it in the Army?"
Had it been? I thought fast and decided that couldn't be my story. Too many potential pitfalls.
"No, no, back in Derry. When we were kids." Inspiration struck. "We used to play at the Rec. Same teams. Palled around a lot."
"Well, I'm sorry to tell you this, Mr. Amberson, but Harry's dead."
For a moment I was dumbstruck. Only that doesn't work on the phone, does it? I managed to say, "Oh God, I'm so sorry."
"It was a long time ago. In Vietnam. During the Tet Offensive."
I sat down, feeling sick to my stomach. I'd saved him from a limp and some mental fogginess only to cut his lifespan by forty years or so? Terrific. The surgery was a success, but the patient died.
Meanwhile, the show had to go on.
"What about Troy? And you, how are you? You were just a little kid back then, riding a bike with training wheels. And singing. You were always singing." I essayed a feeble laugh. "Gosh, you used to drive us crazy."
"The only singing I do these days is on Karaoke Night at Bennigan's Pub, but I never did get tired of running my mouth. I'm a jock on WKIT up in Bangor. You know, a disc jockey?"
"Uh-huh. And Troy?"
"Living la vida loca in Palm Springs. He's the rich fella in the family. Made a bundle in the computer biz. Got in on the ground floor back in the seventies. Goes to lunch with Steve Jobs and stuff." She laughed. It was a terrific laugh. I bet people all over eastern Maine tuned in just to hear it. But when she spoke again, her tone was lower and all the humor had gone out of it. Sun to shade, just like that. "Who are you really, Mr. Amberson?"
"What do you mean?"
"I do call-in shows on the weekends. A yard-sale show on Saturdays--'I've got a rototiller, Ellen, almost brand-new, but I can't make the payments and I'll take the best offer over fifty bucks.' Like that. On Sundays, it's politics. Folks call in to flay Rush Limbaugh or talk about how Glenn Beck should run for president. I know voices. If you'd been friends with Harry back in the Rec days, you'd be in your sixties, but you're not. You sound like you're no more than thirty-five."
Jesus, right on the money. "People tell me I sound a lot younger than my age. I bet they tell you the same."
"Nice try," she said flatly, and all at once she did sound older. "I've had years of training to put that sunshine in my voice. Have you?"
I couldn't think of a response, so I kept silent.
"Also, no one calls to check up on someone they chummed around with when they were in grammar school. Not fifty years later, they don't."
Might as well hang up, I thought. I got what I called for, and more than I bargained for. I'll just hang up. But the phone felt glued to my ear. I'm not sure I could have dropped it if I'd seen fire racing up my living room curtains.
When she spoke again, there was a catch in her voice. "Are you him?"
"I don't know what you--"
"There was somebody else there that night. Harry saw him and so did I. Are you him?"
"What night?" Only it came out whu-nigh, because my lips had gone numb. It felt as if someone had put a mask over my face. One lined with snow.
"Harry said it was his good angel. I think you're him. So where were you?"
Now she was the one who sounded unclear, because she'd begun crying.
"Ma'am . . . Ellen . . . you're not making any sen--"
"I took him to the airport after he got his orders and his leave was over. He was going to Nam, and I told him to watch his ass. He said, 'Don't worry, Sis, I've got a guardian angel to watch out for me, remember?' So where were you on the sixth of February in 1968, Mr. Angel? Where were you when my brother died at Khe Sanh? Where were you then, you son of a bitch?"
She said something else, but I don't know what it was. By then she was crying too hard. I hung up the phone. I went into the bathroom. I got into the bathtub, pulled the curtain, and put my head between my knees so I was looking at the rubber mat with the yellow daisies on it. Then I screamed. Once. Twice. Three times. And here is the worst: I didn't just wish Al had never spoken to me about his goddamned rabbit-hole. It went farther than that. I wished him dead.
9
I got a bad feeling when I pulled into his driveway and saw the house was entirely dark. It got worse when I tried the door and found it unlocked.
"Al?"
Nothing.
I found a light switch and flipped it. The main living area had the sterile neatness of rooms that are cleaned regularly but no longer much used. The walls were covered with framed photographs. Almost all were of people I didn't know--Al's relatives, I assumed--but I recognized the couple in the one hanging over the couch: John and Jacqueline Kennedy. They were at the seashore, probably Hyannis Port, and had their arms around each other. There was a smell of Glade in the air, not quite masking the sickroom smell coming from deeper in the house. Somewhere, very low, The Temptations were singing "My Girl." Sunshine on a cloudy day, and all of that.
"Al? You here?"
Where else? Studio Nine in Portland, dancing disco and trying to pick up college girls? I knew better. I had made a wish, and sometimes wishes are granted.
I fumbled for the kitchen switches, found them, and flooded the room with enough fluorescent light to take out an appendix by. On the table was a plastic medicine-caddy, the kind that holds a week's worth of pills. Most of those caddies are small enough to fit into a pocket or purse, but this one was almost as big as an encyclopedia. Next to it was a message scribbled on a piece of Ziggy notepaper: If you forget your 8-o'clockies, I'LL KILL YOU!!!! Doris.
"My Girl" finished and "Just My Imagination" started. I followed the music into the sickroom stench. Al was in bed. He looked relatively peaceful. At the end, a single tear had trickled from the outer corner of each closed eye. The tracks were still wet enough to gleam. The multidisc CD player was on the night table to his left. There was a note on the table, too, with a pill bottle on top to hold it down. It wouldn't have served as much of a paperweight in even a light draft, because it was empty. I looked at the label: OxyContin, twenty milligrams. I picked up the note.
Sorry, buddy, couldn't wait. Too much pain. You have the key to the diner and you know what to do. Don't kid yourself that you can try again, either, because too much can happen. Do it right the first time. Maybe you're mad at me for getting you into this. I would be, in your shoes. But don't back down. Please don't do that. Tin box is under the bed.
There's another $500 or so inside that I saved back.
It's on you, buddy. About 2 hours after Doris finds me in the morning, the landlord will probably padlock the diner, so it has to be tonight. Save him, okay? Save Kennedy and everything changes.
Please.
Al
You bastard, I thought. You knew I might have second thoughts, and this is how you took care of them, right?
Sure I'd had second thoughts. But thoughts are not choices. If he'd had the idea I might back out, he was wrong. Stop Oswald? Sure. But Oswald was strictly secondary at that point, part of a misty future. A funny way to put it when you were thinking about 1963, but completely accurate. It was the Dunning family that was on my mind.
Arthur, also known as Tugga: I could still save him. Harry, too.
Kennedy might have changed his mind, Al had said. He'd been speaking of Vietnam.
Even if Kennedy didn't change his mind and pull out, would Harry be in the exact same place at the exact same time on February 6, 1968? I didn't think so.
"Okay," I said. "Okay." I bent over Al and kissed his cheek. I could taste the faint saltiness of that last tear. "Sleep well, buddy."
10
Back at my place, I inventoried the contents of my Lord Buxton briefcase and fancy-Dan ostrich wallet. I had Al's exhaustive notes on Oswald's movements after he mustered out of the Marines on September 11, 1959. My ID was still all present and accounted for. My cash situation was better than I'd expected; with the extra money Al had saved back, added to what I already had, my net worth was still over five thousand dollars.
There was hamburger in the meat drawer of my refrigerator. I cooked up some of it and put it in Elmore's dish. I stroked him as he ate. "If I don't come back, go next door to the Ritters'," I said. "They'll take care of you."
Elmore took no notice of this, of course, but I knew he'd do it if I wasn't there to feed him. Cats are survivors. I picked up the briefcase, went to the door, and fought off a brief but strong urge to run into my bedroom and hide under the covers. Would my cat and my house even be here when I came back, if I succeeded in what I was setting out to do? And if they were, would they still belong to me? No way of telling. Want to know something funny? Even people capable of living in the past don't really know what the future holds.