"What are you talking about?"
He looked at me steadily from his watery, newly old eyes. "Talking's done for now. You need to find out for yourself. Go on, open it."
I looked at him doubtfully.
"Think of it as a dying man's last request," he said. "Go on, buddy. If you really are my buddy, that is. Open the door."
5
I'd be lying if I said my heart didn't kick into a higher gear when I turned the knob and pulled. I had no idea what I might be faced with (although I seem to remember having a brief image of dead cats, skinned and ready for the electric meat grinder), but when Al reached past my shoulder and turned on the light, what I saw was--
Well, a pantry.
It was small, and as neat as the rest of the diner. There were shelves stacked with big restaurant-sized cans on both walls. At the far end of the room, where the roof curved down, were some cleaning supplies, although the broom and mop had to lie flat because that part of the cubby was no more than three feet high. The floor was the same dark gray linoleum as the floor of the diner, but rather than the faint odor of cooked meat, in here there was the scent of coffee, vegetables, and spices. There was another smell, too, faint and not so pleasant.
"Okay," I said. "It's the pantry. Neat and fully stocked. You get an A in supply management, if there is such a thing."
"What do you smell?"
"Spices, mostly. Coffee. Maybe air freshener, too, I'm not sure."
"Uh-huh, I use Glade. Because of the other smell. Are you saying you don't smell anything else?"
"Yeah, there's something. Kind of sulphury. Makes me think of burnt matches." It also made me think of the poison gas I and my family had put out after my mom's Saturday night bean suppers, but I didn't like to say so. Did cancer treatments make you fart?
"It is sulphur. Other stuff, too, none of it Chanel No. 5. It's the smell of the mill, buddy."
More craziness, but all I said (in a tone of absurd cocktail-party politeness) was, "Really?"
He smiled again, exposing those gaps where teeth had been the day before. "What you're too polite to say is that Worumbo has been closed since Hector was a pup. That in fact it mostly burned to the ground back in the late eighties, and what's standing out there now"--he jerked a thumb back over his shoulder--"is nothing but a mill outlet store. Your basic Vacationland tourist stop, like the Kennebec Fruit Company during Moxie Days. You're also thinking it's about time you grabbed your cell phone and called for the men in the white coats. That about the size of it, buddy?"
"I'm not calling anybody, because you're not crazy." I was far from sure of that. "But this is just a pantry, and it's true that Worumbo Mills and Weaving hasn't turned out a bolt of cloth in the last quarter century."
"You aren't going to call anybody, you're right about that, because I want you to give me your cell phone, your wallet, and all the money you have in your pockets, coins included. It ain't a robbery; you'll get it all back. Will you do that?"
"How long is this going to take, Al? Because I've got some honors themes to correct before I can close up my grade book for the school year."
"It'll take as long as you want," he said, "because it'll only take two minutes. It always takes two minutes. Take an hour and really look around, if you want, but I wouldn't, not the first time, because it's a shock to the system. You'll see. Will you trust me on this?" Something he saw on my face tightened his lips over that reduced set of teeth. "Please. Please, Jake. Dying man's request."
I was sure he was crazy, but I was equally sure that he was telling the truth about his condition. His eyes seemed to have retreated deeper into their sockets in the short time we'd been talking. Also, he was exhausted. Just the two dozen steps from the booth at one end of the diner to the pantry at the other had left him swaying on his feet. And the bloody handkerchief, I reminded myself. Don't forget the bloody handkerchief.
Also . . . sometimes it's just easier to go along, don't you think? "Let go and let God," they like to say in the meetings my ex-wife goes to, but I decided this was going to be a case of let go and let Al. Up to a point, at any rate. And hey, I told myself, you have to go through more rigamarole than this just to get on an airplane these days. He isn't even asking me to put my shoes on a conveyor.
I unclipped my phone from my belt and put it on top of a canned tuna carton. I added my wallet, a little fold of paper money, a dollar fifty or so in change, and my key ring.
"Keep the keys, they don't matter."
Well, they did to me, but I kept my mouth shut.
Al reached into his pocket and brought out a sheaf of bills considerably thicker than the one I'd deposited on top of the carton. He held the wad out to me. "Mad money. In case you want to buy a souvenir, or something. Go on and take it."
"Why wouldn't I use my own money for that?" I sounded quite reasonable, I thought. Just as if this crazy conversation made sense.
"Never mind that now," he said. "The experience will answer most of your questions better than I could even if I was feeling tip-top, and right now I'm on the absolute other side of the world from tip-top. Take the money."
I took the money and thumbed through it. There were ones on top and they looked okay. Then I came to a five, and that looked both okay and not okay. It said SILVER CERTIFICATE above Abe Lincoln's picture, and to his left there was a big blue 5. I held it up to the light.
"It ain't counterfeit, if that's what you're thinking." Al sounded wearily amused.
Maybe not--it felt as real as it looked--but there was no bleed-through image.
"If it's real, it's old," I said.
"Just put the money in your pocket, Jake."
I did.
"Are you carrying a pocket calculator? Any other electronics?"
"Nope."
"I guess you're good to go, then. Turn around so you're looking at the back of the pantry." Before I could do it, he slapped his forehead and said, "Oh God, where are my brains? I forgot the Yellow Card Man."
"The who? The what?"
"The Yellow Card Man. That's just what I call him, I don't know his real name. Here, take this." He rummaged in his pocket, then handed me a fifty-cent piece. I hadn't seen one in years. Maybe not since I was a kid.
I hefted it. "I don't think you want to give me this. It's probably valuable."
"Of course it's valuable, it's worth half a buck."
He got coughing, and this time it shook him like a hard wind, but he waved me off when I started toward him. He leaned on the stack of cartons with my stuff on top, spat into the wad of napkins, looked, winced, and then closed his fist around them. His haggard face was now running with sweat.
"Hot flash, or somethin like it. Damn cancer's screwing with my thermostat along with the rest of my shit. About the Yellow Card Man. He's a wino, and he's harmless, but he's not like anyone else. It's like he knows something. I think it's only a coincidence--because he happens to be plumped down not far from where you're gonna come out--but I wanted to give you a heads-up about him."
"Well you're not doing a very good job," I said. "I have no fucking idea what you're talking about."
"He's gonna say, 'I got a yellow card from the greenfront, so gimme a buck because today's double-money day.' You got that?"
"Got it." The shit kept getting deeper.
"And he does have a yellow card, tucked in the brim of his hat. Probably nothing but a taxi company card or maybe a Red & White coupon he found in the gutter, but his brains are shot on cheap wine and he seems to thinks it's like Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket. So you say, 'I can't spare a buck but here's half a rock,' and you give it to him. Then he may say . . ." Al raised one of his now skeletal fingers. "He may say something like, 'Why are you here' or 'Where did you come from.' He may even say something like, 'You're not the same guy.' I don't think so, but it's possible. There's so much about this I don't know. Whatever he says, just leave him there by the drying shed--which is where he's sitting--and go out the gate. When you go he'll probably say,
'I know you could spare a buck, you cheap bastard,' but pay no attention. Don't look back. Cross the tracks and you'll be at the intersection of Main and Lisbon." He gave me an ironic smile. "After that, buddy, the world is yours."
"Drying shed?" I thought I vaguely remembered something near the place where the diner now stood, and I supposed it might have been the old Worumbo drying shed, but whatever it had been, it was gone now. If there had been a window at the back of the Aluminaire's cozy little pantry, it would have been looking out on nothing but a brick courtyard and an outerwear shop called Your Maine Snuggery. I had treated myself to a North Face parka there shortly after Christmas, and got it at a real bargain price.
"Never mind the drying shed, just remember what I told you. Now turn around again--that's right--and take two or three steps forward. Little ones. Baby steps. Pretend you're trying to find the top of a staircase with all the lights out--careful like that."
I did as he asked, feeling like the world's biggest dope. One step . . . lowering my head to keep from scraping it on the aluminum ceiling . . . two steps . . . now actually crouching a little. A few more steps and I'd have to get on my knees. That I had no intention of doing, dying man's request or not.
"Al, this is stupid. Unless you want me to bring you a carton of fruit cocktail or some of these little jelly packets, there's nothing I can do in h--"
That was when my foot went down, the way your foot does when you're starting down a flight of steps. Except my foot was still firmly on the dark gray linoleum floor. I could see it.
"There you go," Al said. The gravel had gone out of his voice, at least temporarily; the words were soft with satisfaction. "You found it, buddy."
But what had I found? What exactly was I experiencing? The power of suggestion seemed the most likely answer, since no matter what I felt, I could see my foot on the floor. Except . . .
You know how, on a bright day, you can close your eyes and see an afterimage of whatever you were just looking at? It was like that. When I looked at my foot, I saw it on the floor. But when I blinked--either a millisecond before or a millisecond after my eyes closed, I couldn't tell which--I caught a glimpse of my foot on a step. And it wasn't in the dim light of a sixty-watt bulb, either. It was in bright sunshine.
I froze.
"Go on," Al said. "Nothing's going to happen to you, buddy. Just go on." He coughed harshly, then said in a kind of desperate growl: "I need you to do this."
So I did.
God help me, I did.
CHAPTER 2
1
I took another step forward and went down another step. My eyes still told me I was standing on the floor in the pantry of Al's Diner, but I was standing straight and the top of my head no longer scraped the roof of the pantry. Which was of course impossible. My stomach lurched unhappily in response to my sensory confusion, and I could feel the egg salad sandwich and the piece of apple pie I'd eaten for lunch preparing to push the ejector button.
From behind me--yet a little distant, as if he were standing fifteen yards away instead of only five feet--Al said, "Close your eyes, buddy, it's easier that way."
When I did it, the sensory confusion disappeared at once. It was like uncrossing your eyes. Or putting on the special glasses in a 3-D movie, that might be closer. I moved my right foot and went down another step. It was steps; with my vision shut off, my body had no doubt about that.
"Two more, then open em," Al said. He sounded farther away than ever. At the other end of the diner instead of standing in the pantry door.
I went down with my left foot. Went down with my right foot again, and all at once there was a pop inside my head, exactly like the kind you hear when you're in an airplane and the pressure changes suddenly. The dark field inside my eyelids turned red, and there was warmth on my skin. It was sunlight. No question about it. And that faint sulphurous smell had grown thicker, moving up the olfactory scale from barely there to actively unpleasant. There was no question about that, either.
I opened my eyes.
I was no longer in the pantry. I was no longer in Al's Diner, either. Although there was no door from the pantry to the outside world, I was outside. I was in the courtyard. But it was no longer brick, and there were no outlet stores surrounding it. I was standing on crumbling, dirty cement. Several huge metal receptacles stood against the blank white wall where Your Maine Snuggery should have been. They were piled high with something and covered with sail-size sheets of rough brown burlap cloth.
I turned around to look at the big silver trailer which housed Al's Diner, but the diner was gone.
2
Where it should have been was the vast Dickensian bulk of Worumbo Mills and Weaving, and it was in full operation. I could hear the thunder of the dyers and dryers, the shat-HOOSH, shat-HOOSH of the huge weaving flats that had once filled the second floor (I had seen pictures of these machines, tended by women who wore kerchiefs and coveralls, in the tiny Lisbon Historical Society building on upper Main Street). Whitish-gray smoke poured from three tall stacks that had come down during a big windstorm in the eighties.
I was standing beside a large, green-painted cube of a building--the drying shed, I assumed. It filled half the courtyard and rose to a height of about twenty feet. I had come down a flight of stairs, but now there were no stairs. No way back. I felt a surge of panic.
"Jake?" It was Al's voice, but very faint. It seemed to arrive in my ears by a mere trick of acoustics, like a voice winding for miles down a long, narrow canyon. "You can come back the same way you got there. Feel for the steps."
I lifted my left foot, put it down, and felt a step. My panic eased.
"Go on." Faint. A voice seemingly powered by its own echoes. "Look around a little, then come back."
I didn't go anywhere at first, just stood still, wiping my mouth with the palm of my hand. My eyes felt like they were bugging out of their sockets. My scalp and a narrow strip of skin all the way down the middle of my back was crawling. I was scared--almost terrified--but balancing that off and keeping panic at bay (for the moment) was a powerful curiosity. I could see my shadow on the concrete, as clear as something cut from black cloth. I could see flakes of rust on the chain that closed the drying shed off from the rest of the courtyard. I could smell the powerful effluent pouring from the triple stacks, strong enough to make my eyes sting. An EPA inspector would have taken one sniff of that shit and shut the whole operation down in a New England minute. Except . . . I didn't think there were any EPA inspectors in the vicinity. I wasn't even sure the EPA had been invented yet. I knew where I was; Lisbon Falls, Maine, deep in the heart of Androscoggin County.
The real question was when I was.
3
A sign I couldn't read hung from the chain--the message was facing the wrong way. I started toward it, then turned around. I closed my eyes and shuffled forward, reminding myself to take baby steps. When my left foot clunked against the bottom step that went back up to the pantry of Al's Diner (or so I devoutly hoped), I felt in my back pocket and brought out a folded sheet of paper: my exalted department head's "Have a nice summer and don't forget the July in-service day" memo. I briefly wondered how he'd feel about Jake Epping teaching a six-week block called The Literature of Time Travel next year. Then I tore a strip from the top, crumpled it, and dropped it on the first step of the invisible stairway. It landed on the ground, of course, but either way it marked the spot. It was a warm, still afternoon and I didn't think it would blow away, but I found a little chunk of concrete and used it as a paperweight, just to be sure. It landed on the step, but it also landed on the scrap of memo. Because there was no step. A snatch of some old pop song drifted through my head: First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.
Look around a little, Al had said, and I decided that was what I'd do. I figured if I hadn't lost my mind already, I was probably going to be okay for awhile longer. Unless I saw a parade of pink elephants or a UFO hovering over John Crafts Auto, that was.
I tried to tell myself this wasn't happening, couldn't be happening, but it wouldn't wash. Philosophers and psychologists may argue over what's real and what isn't, but most of us living ordinary lives know and accept the texture of the world around us. This was happening. All else aside, it was too goddam stinky to be a hallucination.
I walked to the chain, which hung at thigh level, and ducked beneath it. Stenciled in black paint on the other side was NO ADMITTANCE BEYOND THIS POINT UNTIL SEWER PIPE IS REPAIRED. I looked back again, saw no indication that repairs were in the immediate offing, walked around the corner of the drying shed, and almost stumbled over the man sunning himself there. Not that he could expect to get much of a tan. He was wearing an old black overcoat that puddled around him like an amorphous shadow. There were dried crackles of snot on both sleeves. The body inside the coat was scrawny to the point of emaciation. His iron-gray hair hung in snaggles around his beard-scruffy cheeks. He was a wino if ever a wino there was.
Cocked back on his head was a filthy fedora that looked straight out of a 1950s film noir, the kind where all the women have big bazonkas and all the men talk fast around the cigarettes stuck in the corners of their mouths. And yep, poking up from the fedora's hatband, like an old-fashioned reporter's press pass, was a yellow card. Once it had probably been a bright yellow, but much handling by grimy fingers had turned it bleary.
When my shadow fell across his lap, the Yellow Card Man turned and surveyed me with bleary eyes.
"Who the fuck're you?" he asked, only it came out Hoo-a fuck-a you?
Al hadn't given me detailed instructions on how to answer questions, so I said what seemed safest. "None of your fucking business."