Rewrite

by Gregory Benford

  Luscious green lands spread out below him. Even through his helmet visor, the view is stunning. He quells the momentary panic of sudden weightlessness, makes himself relax—and finds he is enjoying the accelerating plunge. A howling wind whips around him as his legs and arms splay out into the onrushing gale. His body tingles with pleasurable alarm. It’s great fun, the sensation of rushing toward a goal, risking all—then the team leader pops his chute. Weight returns brutally. He sways and bobs, savoring the river below that snakes like the convolutions of time. Or at least his time.

  He lands well, banging a knee into the ground but nothing more. The jump team has an after-jump celebration at lunch in a studiously dingy, dark, heavily curtained wannabe dive. Now the class chatters and laughs and swills beer in an orgy of release. Free of gravity! Like birds! A few say they wanted to do it to prove they could, but they’ll never do it again.

  Charlie takes a second dive the same day, not tethered to the instructor this time, falling by himself with a safety chute. Just for fun. There are five others in this jump, some quite experienced. Again he loves the view, the pressure of the atmosphere rippling his clothes, the rush.

  Halfway down the staircase of the sky, he has a feeling of completion—a resolution to the paradoxes of his reincarnate existence. He will find a way to make a world he wants. As he pops his chute and blood rushes down to his feet, he feels that he again owns his life, the self-time that he inhabits through the cycles of reincarnation. He even lands without falling to his knees.

  All five of the other skydivers land well too and then head off for dinner together with Charlie. Skydivers spend days training and seconds falling, so there is shared emotion, almost an afterglow, as the intoxication of flight fades. Instant camaraderie, thanks to the rush and the danger, like the bond of combat in wartime. It is a boisterous evening, aided with rituals of salutation that always involve alcohol. Hungry for a repetition of the release, the easy oblivion, Charlie goes back up the very next day.

  Falling, the ground looming toward him, Charlie has a burst of insight. The plan arrives as one bright arc in his head, intact. The way forward is clear, blade sharp, certain to work. He is ready to loop through the timescape again. He can defeat the ugly history of 1968.

  So he doesn’t pull the cord on his chute.

  37 Charlie’s body jerks backward against his mattress. He gasps. His arms and legs snap inward to clasp his gut. Even though his heartbeat hammers hard, the panic doesn’t come this time. He feels a great sadness instead, an ache.

  Then he realizes: It worked! He feels a rush. Master of time itself. As he lies there, his mind works furiously, his body again a torrent of young energy.

  Charlie resolves to put all doubt out of his mind. On Monday he will contact Owen, to get hooked up with the radical group. They will be the best prospect for help with his mission, and he has to move fast. Not that he can actually explain to them what he is doing or what his motives are. But he will tell them that it will be “a revolutionary act,” and that should be enough to get their help. So long as he doesn’t have to listen to them babbling interminably in Marxist jargon.

  But on his birthday he first has to put in an appearance, be the teenager. He can then wait till Monday morning to go to school, just like last time. Sixteen again, he thinks, with a sad smile. Now his Hollywood experience might help. He will be an actor.

  He wonders how many more times he will revisit his birthday.

  Do an infinity of them stretch ahead? It is pleasant to return to this young body, full of energy.

  Will I have to kill Delgado? A grim question. After all, I’ve killed myself for this cause. . . .

  He reaches for the dim outline of his lamp and finds its switch with practiced fingers. This time the room amuses him, and he appreciates the distraction. The posters of Jimi Hendrix, Cream—he notices a smaller one of Pete Townshend, in black-and-white, doing a windmill bar chord on a Rickenbacker guitar, captioned THE WHO. MAXIMUM R&B. Was that there before?

  He faces himself in the mirror—and there he is, young again. Long, greasy hair, dark eyes, hairless chest. A bit buff, yes. His image reassures him, almost soothes the strange echoing hurt of coming back.

  He looks for the book by Greenway on his bookshelf. It isn’t there. But the calendar still has the girl on the motorcycle, and the days are still crossed out before January 14. That reassures him too. Death and rebirth are starting to feel normal, he thinks.

  When dawn comes, Charlie is dressed in his red T-shirt and jeans, just as before. He waits for the knock that he knows has to come.

  And there it is, firm but not insistent. “Charles, can I come in?”

  “Sure, Dad.”

  His father is wearing his dressing gown over pajamas. He holds out his hand, with its slightly yellowed fingers. “Congratulations on sixteen years, son.”

  Charlie looks directly into his father’s face, knowing that he is going to hurt the fine man on this loop around, wanting to reconnect with his father before he unravels the man’s world. He struggles to keep all these thoughts out of his face. He beams, eyes bright. Acting, yes. A lot of this is going to have to be acting. But I can recall the script in this rewrite.

  “A big day, I know, Charlie.” His father’s smile is heedless. “I wanted to get you up before everybody else, but I see you’re already awake.”

  Charlie nods and stands up. Mute, struggling to stay in his character, his younger self. The world is sharp and clear, bright reality.

  “Come on, son. I want to show you something.”

  To the garage, through the kitchen. His father points at the Dodge Dart with a flourish.

  “It’s yours, son. I signed the papers on a Cadillac yesterday. Pass your driver’s test, and you’re a grown man.”

  This time Charlie just sighs, hoping that his father will take it as appreciation rather than resignation.

  His father puts his arm on Charlie’s shoulders and the warmth spreads through. “I know it’s a shock, son, but you’ve been a good boy—mostly, I guess. It’s time you got a little freedom.”

  Charlie looks straight ahead at the Dodge Dart. The stacks of years behind him come swarming up in him and he has to make himself say, “Thank you, Dad.”

  * * *

  On the ride to the tennis club, Charlie avoids looking at Catherine, staring out the window beside him instead. The world seems steady, concrete, and only he knows that it is a soft thing, molded by those who can voyage through time and lives. The loops through time are stunning him yet again. Will he ever know what time truly is?

  This time he dreads meeting Trudy. How can he cope with young spirits again? he wonders. What does Casanova feel when he makes love to a woman for her first time, yet again?

  This time Catherine just ignores him, preoccupied with a quick kiss at a middle-school party the night before.

  They sit down for lunch at the club. Before long his father goes off to play squash and his sister departs for her lesson, leaving Charlie alone with his mother. “I called Trudy yesterday,” his mother says. “She will be here after she comes back from church.”

  Charlie nods quietly, hoping that his mother won’t talk to him about Trudy.

  “I know you like her, Charlie. Don’t act cool with me.” She takes his hand. “I know I have to give you up, Charlie. But not just yet, okay?”

  Charlie knows that she only has days, if not hours, before her worst fears will be realized.

  “It’s a hard time for you, Charlie. You are becoming a man, but I know that you’re really still mostly boy.”

  But her words are wasted. Charlie’s mind has slipped into the future just a few seconds away—and then it arrives.

  “Charlie!” Trudy’s voice and the touch of her hand hit him at almost the same instant. She kisses the side of his head and plops down onto his sister’s chair, all white, dimples, and blue eyes. “I thought we might get a squash game in, Charlie!”

  As they turn the corner toward the loc
ker rooms, Trudy stops him. “What about your squash racket?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Trudy.”

  “Charlie Moment! What’s got into you?”

  But this cycle he has no time for her, no desire. His mission has left his chest an echoing barrel.

  Charlie turns from Trudy and walks away, unheeding, her protests echoing down the hall—around the corner, out the doors, fast fast, into the winter landscape. The cold will be his friend, he thinks. Snap him back into this new reality of what must be.

  * * *

  The walk to school on Monday is again eight blocks of winter memories, barely relieved by Charlie’s plan not to do it again on Tuesday. He has a new name for this time, the Land of Ago. It reeks with memory, old fragrances, unfiltered car exhaust aromas, and an oddly slanted regret. Charlie Two had nostalgia, walking through all this savory churn. Now Charlie Three has nostalgia for his nostalgia.

  Woodrow Wilson High is a gateway into the future that he has resolved to build, a future better than either of the two he has already lived through. Here, Eugene McCarthy is the great hope of the white kids afraid of the draft, as Charlie One was. Now that can change, the calamity looming just months away dissolved.

  As he takes the steps two at a time into the redbrick building the day after his third sixteenth birthday, Charlie knows he has no time for high school boisterousness. The banging metal doors, clicking heels, and cacophony of teenage voices mean nothing to him. He has to get moving, change this world. Pretty soon the last days of the Johnson administration will start shaping up the “unity government,” consolidating federal power and lowering a gray gloom over the decades to follow.

  He has to act, and soon. But he’s a teenager with no money, no real mobility, nothing. Remember, you’re just a kid. But he will pull together some resources, use what he knows of this era, starting with Delgado—

  “Hey, Charlie, you fuckhead.” Robert Woodson punches Charlie right in the middle of his chest. But Charlie holds on to his books. He fixes Robert with a quiet stare that freezes Robert’s grin.

  “Sixteen and still a virgin, loser.” But the challenge has no effect. Charlie has made it a stare-down, a screenwriter’s trick—let the actors do the work, no dialogue. Robert shakes his head and stalks off to class, chastened.

  Charlie goes straight to locker 555, where once again James is standing, face working with interior torments he cannot quite hide. Charlie can see them now, wonders why he could not before.

  “Hi, Charlie. Sorry, but I didn’t get you anything for your birthday.”

  Moment speaks softly. “That’s all right, James.”

  “Just kidding.” James reaches into his locker and pulls out a plastic-wrapped LP of Cream’s Disraeli Gears, the huge cover a jumble of orange and red psychedelic images.

  “Thank you, James.”

  “Sure, I guess.” James is obviously confused to be treated with simple politeness.

  A lanky boy with thick glasses yells at them as he walks by, “Ready for the test?”

  Charlie just looks at him blankly. The boy grins sheepishly and scurries away.

  “What’s with the cool treatment, Charlie? Like, I’m your best friend since sixth grade, you jerk.” James gathers his books together and locks up.

  “Sorry, James. I didn’t sleep well this weekend.”

  “I know. I’m getting a lot of headaches—can’t sleep worth shit myself.” He looks pointedly at Charlie’s open locker. “Don’t you think you should go to the test too?”

  The history exam covers the American Revolution and the Constitutional Convention. Charlie breezes through the short-answer questions and the assigned essay. It means nothing to him anymore.

  As expected, Mr. Owen is looking at him with soft eyes. Must be gay, Charlie decides. By now he has plenty of experience with gays in Hollywood; there are small signs he can’t miss now. Nothing else fits. His teacher is wearing his threadbare black suit with its high polish, a white shirt, and skinny black tie. Standard costume for a down-market mortician, if Charlie were casting a movie.

  Charlie returns to his essay with quiet resolve, deciding to do a professional job with it, if only to take his mind off what lies ahead.

  He hands the exam paper in to Mr. Owen, leaning forward to arrange a meeting later, after Owen’s classes. Owen’s eyes narrow.

  In the hallway after school, some distance down from the teachers’ lounge, Charlie meets with Owen. Might as well do it fast, he thinks. “I have a revolutionary plan of action, Mr. Owen.” Charlie keeps his voice neutral, factual. “I mean business. I will contact you again outside the warehouse where your cell meets. Eleven p.m. Bring someone who can be of use.”

  Owen’s eyes bulge slightly and he nods quickly. A glow dances in his eyes, with a tinge of fear to his excitement.

  * * *

  As he approaches the old brick building in the Dodge Dart, Charlie sees Owen’s skinny frame topped with that absurd beret, standing next to a slight woman wearing an army surplus jacket. Elspeth, thinks Charlie. My eternal succubus.

  She moves quickly toward the car. He rolls the window down, and she speaks quickly and anxiously: “What is your plan, comrade?”

  His voice rasps. “There is someone we need to liquidate, a counterrevolutionary of extreme importance.” This antique polit-jargon is laughable, but he keeps a straight face and sees that such clichés register with her.

  A quick intake of breath, then, “Can you tell me more?” Elspeth is playing along with his script, like she is in on the plot.

  “No. Information is on a need-only basis. I have my directives from higher up.” More clichés that go over just fine. Then he recalls a detail that Charlie One learned only later in his time line. “I was told to tell you this is a code eleven.”

  Elspeth seems confused momentarily. The simple password tells her he has moved up the pyramid of conspiracy and can be trusted. That’s how rewriting works. “Okay. I’ll get you some money and counterfeit ID. Meet back here in three days. One a.m.”

  “Done. I need a thousand minimum. And the ID better be good.”

  Charlie drives away without looking back. It seems incredible that so simple a ruse can work. But of course he knows so much more now.

  * * *

  One a.m. and Charlie is back with a bag of clothes and essentials. As a precaution he has gone into his mom’s cash stash for safety, $200. Charlie Moment, master criminal. He’s staying in role: teenagers do crazy, stupid things.

  He plans to drive to Costa Mesa once Elspeth has set him up. Delgado worked in Southern California before he set off on his mission to Indiana to shoot Kennedy, so Casanova’s faint recollection is probably right.

  He waits for twenty minutes, then thirty. He wonders if Elspeth got caught by the cops when she tried to get him the fake ID.

  But at 1:45 a.m. she shows up, coming fast out of the shadows in sneakers, getting into his car breathlessly. Her eyes dance, nostrils wide, a sheen of sweat on her forehead.

  “Drive,” is all she says. He speeds away from the parking lot, past her Beetle parked around the corner. “One eighty-five Oak, off Main.” It’s her apartment. Could this be a setup? Charlie asks himself. But Elspeth’s firm hand on his thigh tells him what her haste is for.

  After she has fucked him for an hour, coming twice, Elspeth lets him go. At the door her hug takes his breath away. Her face is iridescent joy, as if sex and revolution are one and the same to her.

  “Good luck, Char-lee.”

  Then she is back up the stairs and he is getting into his car. What is it about women and men planning violence? he wonders. What is the turn-on? A cliché in the movie world. It just leaves him empty.

  38 Charlie gets a studio apartment in Costa Mesa, on the second story of a drab structure not far from Harbor Boulevard. The older white apartment manager responds well to the dead president in lieu of renter’s documentation. Charlie tells him that he will be enrolling in Orange Coast College. He knows that he will have
to lie low after he takes care of Delgado, and just staying put in Southern California is his preferred strategy. Merge with the millions. He knows enough about it from coming to LA last time-loop around, and he has the option of bolting for the streets of Hollywood if he has to.

  California law makes getting the pistol easy. With an address, after a few days for checks, he has one from Grant’s for Guns on Newport Boulevard. At their firing range he grimly enjoys plunking .38 rounds into targets, imagining them to be the heads of history’s villains. The professor’s revenge . . .

  Charlie starts hanging around the streets of Orange County, looking for Delgado. His cursory research in the 1980s suggested that the Latino worked as a janitor in a small garment factory in Costa Mesa, but he wasn’t able to get the address.

  After a few weeks of hanging around in Latino bars and near factory entrances, Charlie takes a different tack. Maybe Delgado doesn’t drink, or maybe the factory story was bogus. He starts to loiter near taquerias in Santa Ana, figuring that most of the Latino community will eventually pass by one or the other of Santa Ana’s many Mexican restaurants.

  After twelve days using the restaurant search strategy, Charlie spots a man who looks like the photos he found. Short and broad, but his bronzed face beaming with hope for his new life, away from the troubles of Mexico. And equipped with a mysterious sponsor who, Charlie knows, has been making sure that Juan gets what he needs to find his way among the Yanquis.

  Charlie eases after the man. Nobody notices Charlie because Juan is a bit of a social success at the taqueria off Fourth Street. He doesn’t lack arms to clasp or hands to shake, women to give his flashing white smile. His mustache is a full black brush, his eyebrows not yet accented by parallel furrows in his forehead.

  Delgado goes into a dark Mexican restaurant down the street from the taqueria. The place swims in warm shadows, tinny mariachi music rattles off the walls, and nobody cares if a gringo slinks in. Charlie feels the weight of the gun in his pocket, the bulge under his long sweater. Delgado is sitting on the other side of the restaurant with a Dos Equis.