In Times Like These Boxed Set

by Nathan Van Coops

  I grab a pen and pad of paper from the desk to be prepared. Francesca straightens up as someone picks up on the other end. That was fast.

  “Hello, it’s Francesca, from the Pier. Oh . . . Hello.” She looks confused for a moment. “Yes, I know. But we have a situation. We would like to meet sooner . . . yes. It is very important . . . okay.”

  She grabs the pad of paper and pen from me and starts scribbling. “Okay. We’ll be there. Thank you.” She puts down the phone and tells us the news. “He’ll meet us tomorrow.”

  “Malcolm?” Carson asks.

  “Quickly,” Francesca replies. “I was just talking to Harold Quickly.”

  7

  “Cheating on a woman is always a bad idea. If your girl happens to be a time traveler, that’s worse. And if her father is a time traveler, too . . . well, now you’ve really messed up.”

  -Excerpt from the journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2010

  The St. Pete Shuffleboard club is as busy as I’ve ever seen it. The 1986 crowd seems a good bit older than the young demographic I’m used to in 2009, but the enthusiasm is the same. A squat, middle-aged woman named Annie greets us in the main building as we walk in, and asks if we’ve been here before. It occurs to me that technically we have been here after, and not before, but I simply nod and say yes. She points us to the tangs and I root through a couple, trying to find one with solid tips.

  “Are we actually going to play?” Carson asks.

  “We are a little early,” Francesca responds. “We can probably fit a game in.”

  We all grab tangs and head toward the courts. I notice a framed movie poster has been hung on the wall advertising Cocoon. Annie spies me looking at it and is at my elbow in an instant.

  “Did you know they filmed a scene right here? I got to meet Ron Howard myself. He’s such a sweetheart.”

  “You know, I saw that movie years ago but I never realized it was filmed here,” I say.

  “You must be thinking of something else, dear. This just came out this past summer. You mean you didn’t go out and see it?”

  “Oh, right. No. I wasn’t in town this past summer,” I reply.

  “It was such a wonderful film. Ron Howard is so handsome now that he is grown up. And to think that we used to see him so little on The Andy Griffith Show and now he’s shooting big time movies in our city.”

  Another person comes up to Annie for help and I gratefully make an exit out the door. I find my friends outside and we cruise around until we find an open lane. Blake grabs a rack of shuffleboard biscuits from a pile outside and turns back to Francesca. “How are we supposed to know when Quickly is here? Did you tell him what we look like?”

  “He said he would meet us,” Francesca replies. “He never asked what we looked like. He just said be here around eight and that he would find us.”

  “Do we know what he looks like?” Carson asks.

  “I guess we keep an eye out for somebody who looks like he’s looking for us,” I say.

  We can’t all play simultaneously, so Robbie and I decide to trade off shots. He, Francesca and I walk to the bleacher side of the lane and face off across from Blake and Carson. Robbie and I play against Francesca, while Blake contends with Carson. The match is going fairly smoothly until I accidentally knock two of my biscuits into the negative-ten-zone simultaneously while trying to move Francesca’s.

  “Son of a—” I edit myself as I see an older woman eyeing me disapprovingly from the neighboring lane.

  “There goes our lead.” Robbie laughs.

  “Here, you take it for the remainder. See if you can pick me up,” I say, and hand Robbie my tang.

  I jump up a couple of steps and have a seat in the bleachers to watch the others play. The clock on the wall in the main building shows ten past eight. No sign of our mysterious rendezvous. I prop my feet on the railing and adjust my pants. Mr. Cameron took us to the Salvation Army so we could raid the sale racks for clothing. I ended up with a pair of jeans and a couple of T-shirts. The one I’m wearing now features Gizmo from Gremlins. Carson claims to have found the best vintage treasure because he snagged an original Thriller T-shirt, but I’m happy with mine.

  I look around at the other people in the bleachers and take in the conversations. A group of older ladies are clumped together to my right, discussing their disapproval of someone’s taste in second husbands. I can hear occasional loud laughter from two men who are probably in their sixties, sitting a few rows up in the bleachers directly behind me. To my left a group of middle-aged couples is commenting on one of the games being played by their friends.

  As I’m watching Blake and Carson repetitively clear each other’s biscuits off the lane in quick succession, one of the older men from behind me steps past, still talking over his shoulder. “Gotta get back to glassing the lanes. It was good seeing you. Tell Mym I said hi.”

  “I’ll tell her,” the other man replies. “She still talks about your wife’s cooking on a regular basis. Probably an allusion to what she has to put up with from me.”

  “You two come over next time she’s in town. We’ll be happy to feed you both.”

  “See you, Walt,” the man behind me says.

  Walt walks in front of the bleachers, picks up the glass bead material and heads for the set of lanes around the corner. After a few moments, the second man proceeds down the steps as well, but instead of passing by, sits down next to me. He’s wearing a cheese cutter hat and a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows.

  I nod to him. “How ya doin’?”

  I look back to my friends’ game. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him appraising me. He stretches a leg out and puts a foot onto the lower rail in front of us. “Are you a betting man?”

  I turn to him. His eyes are friendly. His skin has the healthy, sunned look that a lot of Florida seniors acquire. “Not too much. My friend Robbie likes to bet the dogs. I’ve never been a big gambler.”

  “I find a good game of shuffleboard is made that much more interesting with a few side bets. Whom would you bet on in your friends’ game there, for example?”

  I look at the scoreboard at the far end of the lane and see that Carson and Francesca are up by fifteen points. “Francesca and Carson look like they’re pulling ahead a little bit, but I know Blake and Robbie are pretty consistent shooters. They’ve been known to pull off some comebacks.”

  “Who’s your pick then?” he presses me.

  “Hard to say. They’re all strong.”

  He reaches into his coat pocket and rummages around. “Let’s see what I’ve got for a wager.”

  “I really don’t have much money,” I reply, wishing he would just drop the subject.

  “Okay, what do you have?” he asks.

  I reach into my pocket hopelessly and pull out the few items inside. I have a gum wrapper, a pencil I borrowed from Mr. Cameron’s desk earlier, and some loose change. “I’ve got seventy-two cents for you.” I hold out the change in my right hand.

  He ignores it and looks toward my other hand. “What kind of pencil is that? Berol? Faber?”

  I read the label. “Dixon Ticonderoga.”

  “Ah, not bad. A classic. Okay, tell you what, I have a ball point pen here that I’ll wager against your Dixon Ticonderoga, that your lovely female friend will win it by five.”

  “Really?” I ask. “You want to be that specific? That looks like a nice pen.”

  “Confidence is key. And I’ve always been more of a pencil man. You never know when you might need to rewrite what you’ve already written.”

  He stares at me until I acquiesce. “Fine. I’ll take Blake for the winning shot, by three.”

  “Now we’re talking!” He smiles jubilantly, and turns his attention to the game.

  In the time it has taken for us to settle on a wager, Blake and Robbie have scored twelve points to Carson and Francesca’s three, making it a six-point game. Francesca notices the man sitting next to me and gives me a curious look. I shrug and she go
es back to shooting. She and Robbie both score sevens on their turns. Blake and Carson knock each other around for a couple of shots before Blake puts up two eights to put him within two points of the win. Francesca’s third shot lands on the centerline for no points and Robbie slides one into the ten spot just shy of the line for ten points. Francesca lines up and shoots down the middle and knocks Robbie’s away, neatly replacing it. She jumps up and down for joy as she’s showing eighteen points in position, but Robbie eyes his last shot.

  “I am going to hate you forever if you knock out my ten, Robbie!” Francesca exclaims.

  Robbie shows no mercy and trains his shot straight at it. The shot doesn’t have the force he wants however, and when it makes contact, it’s just a glancing blow, barely moving Francesca’s biscuit back into the eight spot and ricocheting off to make contact with his previous biscuit and knocking it off the lane. His shot winds up on the seven/eight line for no points.

  “Yes!” Francesca yells, and I see Carson’s celebratory fist pump. Francesca and Carson meet in the middle of the walkway and high-five. Mentally I do the math. Seventy-eight to seventy-three.

  I look at my companion. He’s not looking at me, but he’s smiling. “I don’t know how you did it, but you nailed it.” I hand the pencil over. He takes it and examines the eraser approvingly, then slides the pencil into the inner pocket of his jacket.

  “I’ll tell you the secret to my success.”

  “Psychic?”

  “Cheater,” he replies. “The worst.”

  I get a good look at his smiling green eyes and I know why I’ve been had. “You’re Harold Quickly, aren’t you?”

  “At your service.” He smiles and offers his hand. I shake it.

  He had to have seen the future. We aren’t the only ones after all.

  My friends make their way over.

  “Excellent match!” Quickly congratulates them.

  “What have you two been discussing over here?” Francesca asks.

  “I was simply giving a lesson in crooked wagering to your friend here,” Quickly replies.

  “Yeah, lesson one: Don’t bet against time travelers.”

  “Oh! You’re Dr. Quickly?” Francesca asks.

  “Indeed. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Blake and Robbie introduce themselves to Dr. Quickly and take seats on the bleachers behind us. Carson and Francesca remain standing below. “I’m sorry we didn’t recognize you earlier,” Francesca says.

  “No, that was my own doing,” Quickly replies. “I wanted to enjoy the game and get to know Benjamin here. Plus I had a lot riding on your performance.”

  “Oh yeah?” Carson asks.

  “He swindled me out of a pencil,” I say.

  “Oh, high stakes.” Robbie laughs.

  “You never can tell when you might need a good writing instrument,” Quickly says. “The possibilities are endless.”

  “We have about a million questions for you,” Blake says.

  “I imagine you do. Why don’t we go somewhere where we can discuss the issues at hand with a little more ease? Do you all mind riding with me, or do you have your own transportation?”

  “We actually walked here, so a ride would be good,” I reply.

  “Very well. Follow me then.”

  We file out into the parking lot behind Dr. Quickly, and he leads us to his car, a sky blue convertible with tail fins and a lot of chrome.

  “Wow. Sweet car,” Carson says.

  “This is my favorite,” Quickly responds.

  “What is it?” Francesca asks.

  “It’s a Ford Galaxie.”

  The six of us fit easily in its wide interior. Francesca rides in between Dr. Quickly and me on the front bench seat while the other guys share the back. We turn at the banyan trees and cruise past the library on our way south. We take a right on First Avenue North and head west. The skyline seems vacant without the baseball stadium, and I have an unexpected pang of homesickness.

  Dr. Quickly steers the Galaxie into a residential neighborhood I don’t recognize. There’s nothing that catches my eye about the houses on the street we turn on. They all blend together in their nondescript uniformity. We pull into the driveway of a one-story ranch house that seems, if anything, more bland than the others around it. I realize that I’ve been expecting Dr. Quickly to have something more elegant or dramatic in store for us, but there is nothing apologetic about his mannerisms as he cheerily welcomes us inside.

  If I was confused about the exterior of the house, I’m even more at a loss when I get inside. The living room to the left of the doorway is trimmed in aged, slightly sun-faded furniture, over a dingy, green shag carpet. The kitchen we pass has Formica counter-tops that are yellowed and stained and have begun to match the tan refrigerator, whose humming is the only noteworthy sound in the house. The place looks orderly and simple, but dated and cheaply decorated. I’m overwhelmed by the sheer ordinariness of it all. Even Francesca, who is usually brimming with polite comments, seems to be at a loss for anything to say.

  We don’t have long to contemplate this problem, because we’ve sailed directly through the house and out the screened-in laundry room into the moonlit backyard. A wooden fence obstructs any view from the neighboring yards but has provided an exemplary backdrop for the mob of diverse plants that have taken over the yard. Ivy drapes the fence and leafy palms and flowering shrubs seem to fill every available inch on the perimeter of the yard.

  We’re led along the brief flagstone path that leads to the modest garage, entering through a corner door and coming to a stop in the mostly vacant interior. Pegboards line the side walls, and the wall that divides us from the yard we just came from has a wide workbench supported by wooden 4x4 legs that has been butted up against the wall. Miscellaneous tools are scattered on the workbench, along with a dusty, broken, picture frame. A few nails lie beside the frame as if someone had begun a repair but given up in the act and wandered off to some more interesting pursuit. I would hardly blame them. The garage is even plainer than the house, and I would have a hard time staying entertained in it for more than a few minutes. Fortunately we don’t have to wait that long.

  Dr. Quickly directs us all toward the middle of the concrete floor. “If you will all be so kind as to stay here for just a minute, I’ll be right back.”

  We stand awkwardly together, not sure what direction to look, as there is nothing in particular to look at. Dr. Quickly steps back through the door we just came from but just before he shuts it, he stops and pokes his head back in to say, “Oh. Don’t be alarmed.” Then he is gone.

  Francesca looks at me and immediately her eyes are wide. “What am I not supposed to not be alarmed about?”

  “Haha. I don’t know,” I reply.

  “You’re clearly failing at following instructions,” Carson says.

  “Hey. If you don’t want someone to freak out, you shouldn’t stick them in a scary garage with, ‘Hey, don’t freak out,’” Francesca retorts.

  “Actually he said, ‘Don’t be alarmed,’” Blake says. “You can freak out all you want as long as you’re not alarmed about it.”

  “Great. We’re gonna get axe murdered in a garage in the eighties and you guys don’t even care.”

  “He’s a senior citizen,” Carson says.

  “He looks pretty spry to me,” Francesca counters.

  “True enough,” I reply.

  “I call the hammer,” Francesca adds, pointing to the workbench. Before anyone can reply, there is a loud clunk. The wall she’s pointing to, and the bench itself, both give a slight shudder. “What the hell was that?” Francesca exclaims.

  I stare in amazement as the entire wall and workbench, including the door, begin sliding toward us. Even a section of the floor that I thought was simply a rubber mat is sliding evenly along the concrete. “Oh, sweet Jesus!” Francesca blurts out.

  “Okay, is this thing gonna crush us?” Blake asks, now sounding concerned.

  Carson walks
to the door on the wall that is slowly advancing toward us, and tries the doorknob. It doesn’t move. Blake goes to the electric garage door and tries to lift it but it doesn’t budge. Francesca’s panic has me concerned now, too, so I join Blake in pulling on the garage door.

  The wall has slowly inched its way across approximately a quarter of the floor when it abruptly stops. Francesca breathes an audible sigh of relief. A moment later, the door opens and Dr. Quickly reappears. He takes a look at our still-panicked faces but doesn’t appear to notice our concern.

  “Right this way.”

  I’m confused as to why we’re headed back out the door we just entered, but once I step over the threshold, I can see we’re not back outside at all. We’ve entered a space between two halves of the wall. The wall we originally walked through has been neatly bisected, including the door. The other half of the door is still blocking the way to the backyard. The innards of the doorknob now protrude out into space directly across from their counterparts on the other half of the door. Just to our right, the wall and workbench being moved away has revealed a set of stone stairs descending into the ground.

  “This is amazing,” I say.

  “I didn’t know anyone could even build basements in Florida,” Carson says.

  “There were challenges to be sure,” Dr. Quickly says, and motions for us to descend the stairs. “After you.”

  We file toward the stairs and as Francesca steps in front of me, she catches my eye with a stern stare and mouths two words. “Axe Murderer.”

  My curiosity has far exceeded my concern at this point, so I follow her down the stairs, intrigued at what we’ll find.

  We descend the stairs about twelve feet and turn left into a long tunnel. The hallway is brightly lit with overhead fluorescent lights, and while the floor is plain concrete, the walls have been drywalled and painted an eggshell white. We pass occasional metal doors that have numbers painted on them and I can see through the small windows in each door that there are steel ladders behind each one that extend upward toward whatever lies above us. We follow the hallway for what must be several hundred yards. There is a periodic humming from beneath the floor.