by Clark Graham
He was being condescending, but she didn’t care, as long as she got the clothes.
She didn’t say a word, just stomped out of the hut and marched over to the hospital ward. She drew the curtain around John and handed him the clothes. “You are being released. Here are some clothes. If they do not fit, I don’t want to hear about it. You have no idea what I have gone through to get them.”
John looked shocked and worried at the same time, so she added. “You can stay at my place for a few days. The rules are, no hanky panky, don’t even think about it. You clean up after yourself and you help with the chores. It’s just until you can find a job and get your own place.”
“Um, okay, thank you. This is all so sudden. I thought that I would be here until I got my memory back. They don’t want to see me again?”
“No, this is a patch them up and send them home hospital and we are going to have a lot more soldiers to patch up in the next few days.” She smiled at him and then left him to get dressed.
When he finished he drew back the curtain. Susan and the doctor were both standing there when he walked out.
John was shocked when Dr. Ralston handed him back his ring. “You seem to be a pilot, Son. Perhaps you can go to the nearest flight school and get your license. I would hide that ring. If anyone asks, you were part of a parachute club. Don’t tell anyone about dates and times that are not in the here and now.”
“I don’t understand.” John said.
“You are not of this time; that much we have figured out. You need to make up the story of your life. Pick a name and adjust. You did not graduate from the Air Force Academy in 2010 because it hasn’t happened yet.”
John swallowed hard. “I see. Yes, I can figure out something. What about my memories?”
“You are probably better off without them,” the doctor replied and then walked off.
John was stunned that he would say something like that. Susan just patted his arm and said, “Come with me. My house is outside the base, so you will be able to come and go as you please.”
“Thank you so much for doing this for me.” He was genuinely grateful.
“Just remember the rules.”
He smiled, “Yes, no hanky panky. I can remember that one.”
She smiled but said, “Yes, and don’t even think about it.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
They left out the front door. The Arizona sun hurt John’s eyes until he adjusted to it. It was so much brighter than the hospital ward. He looked around and noticed that everything looked so old and dated. He didn’t know what he expected, but this wasn’t it.
The base was made up of a dozen Quonset huts and had a chain link fence around it. A guard’s shack at the front entrance regulated traffic coming on and off the base. The area was barren. Except for a few scraggly bushes on the surrounding hillsides, there was no green at all.
Susan climbed in a Jeep and so John climbed in beside her. She ground the gears but finally got it into first and then gunned it. She only slowed down for the gate and then she sped through the small town that surrounded the base. The jeep was a military surplus with the white star on the hood and sides painted over with mismatched paint. The tires looked bald. He hardly had time to notice the surrounding hills full of low brush and dead grass.
John held his breath. It was not because she was going fast, but because she didn’t appear to be in control. He was relieved when they arrived at her house. The home was small and had a flat roof. The exterior was tan colored stucco. The doors and window seals didn’t look like they had been painted in a very long time. They had blue highlights that indicated that they were that color long ago, but now they were faded and peeling.
“I think I will drive from now on,” John said when he got out of the Jeep.
“You don’t have a license,” was her retort.
“How do you know? I might have one. I just don’t remember.”
“Let me put it this way, you don’t have a license in this century.”
“We don’t know that I am from the future.” He was amazed that she would say something like that. It may have been because he insulted her driving, but it was really bad.
“Put it this way, when I asked about your family Dr. Ralston said, ‘I am pretty sure he doesn’t have any immediate family yet.’ My guess is that they found something in the wreckage that they are not talking about. So I go with my previous statement, you don’t have a license in this century, Future Man.”
“If they thought that I was from the future, why did they release me?”
Susan decided to calm down. She knew her driving was bad, but she hated it when people insulted it anyway. She took a deep breath. “We are at war. The hospital is about to receive a lot of casualties from Vietnam. We needed the bed space. You were a healthy body in a much needed bed. You had to go.”
“Vietnam?”
Susan saw a flash of memory across his face. “Do you know about Vietnam? Do we win the war? What happens?”
“I’ve heard that name before, but it wasn’t associated with a good feeling so I think it does not end well, but I don’t know.”
“Tell me if you remember.” Susan opened the door to the house.
“I just need to say a couple of things,” John started out. “I don’t think you should call me Future Man. That could cause an uproar. Secondly, I don’t think I should be talking about the future. I could accidentally change it and it would destroy my own future.”
“Okay, no talking about the future, but what should I call you then?”
“I don’t mind John, but I am definitely not a Doe. How about John Buck?”
“Fine, John Buck, welcome to my home.”
They entered through the laundry room, where both the washer and the dryer were stacked with clothes, along with a heaping laundry hamper. The next room was the kitchen. It, too, was a mess with dishes stacked everywhere. The walls were all a drab off white color.
“If I had known that I was going to have company tonight, I would have cleaned up.” Susan was embarrassed. She didn’t remember leaving it this bad. The living room just had a couch and a chair, both of which were coved with throws. The parts that the throws did not cover were a faded green. The carpet was blue shag and very worn. There was a small television in the corner sitting on a metal shelf.
She led him down the hall into a cluttered room. It was half full of boxes. “I have this roll away bed for when my mother comes to visit. It is real uncomfortable. I like it that way because she doesn’t stay long because of it.” Susan undid the roll away and the room just had a narrow walkway with boxes on one side and the bed on the other. “My mother just finds an empty box to put her clothes in when she is here. I suggest you do the same. The bedroom on the other side of the hall is off limits and there is only one bath, so you will have to wait until I am done before you use it.”
“Got it,” John said with a smile. “Oh, and no hanky panky.”
“You just love saying that, don’t you?” Susan replied.
“It does have an old time nostalgic feel to it.” John was smiling when he said it.
“I am going to change. You can watch TV until I get back.”
“Sure, I will just find an empty box to put all of my extra clothes in,” John replied.
“Yeah, we will need to do something about that, but not today. I know you are not going to fit in any of mine. I can ask around. Just to get something to tide you over until you can get some money of your own.”
“I was just kidding. Thank you for getting what you got. I will just go and watch TV.”
Susan smiled as she went to change.
Chapter Eight
When Susan came out of the bedroom she noticed that the television wasn’t on yet. She watched for a minute as John walked around the room as if he was looking for something, and then he looked at the television, then he returned to looking around the room.
“What are you doing?” she finally asked.
“Trying to turn on the TV,” he replied. He was a little perplexed.
“From the couch?” she asked.
“Is there a button somewhere? I can’t seem to find it.”
She giggled at him, “No button. You turn the volume knob and it comes on.”
“The volume knob? I never would have thought of that. How do you change channels?”
“You get up and turn the channel knob. You don’t have knobs in the future?”
“I guess not. It doesn’t sound familiar, getting up all the time to change channels. Doesn’t it get tiring?”
“It’s not a big deal; there are only three channels. Just pick your favorite and go with it.” Susan explained.
“Only three? That doesn’t sound like a lot.”
“Don’t tell me you have four channels in the future? Man, how nice that would be. There would be so much more selection.”
“Um,” he thought for a minute. “I would say, probably at least four, maybe even five. I don’t remember, but it seems to me that three isn’t the number.”
“Wow, I can’t wait for that new channel to come out. Do you suppose it will be soon?” Susan’s voice betrayed her excitement.
“Sometime in the next forty- five years I suppose.”
Susan sighed, “Now you are teasing me.”
“Just a little.”
Susan turned on the TV and then turned it onto the nightly news. When she was done, she sat on the couch. John sat down in the chair, but then popped right back up.
“Oops, I forgot to warn you, one of the springs broke.”
“I think I just got impaled. Can I sit by you?”
She giggled again. “Of course, it’s a big couch and I don’t bite.”
“Darn,” John said, but then he immediately regretted it. She just scowled at him. He could tell though that she was suppressing a smile.
When he sat down, he watched the show for a minute then commented, “There is something wrong with your color.”
“I can’t afford a color television on a nurse’s salary. Besides the networks just started broadcasting in color. Hardly anyone has one of those new fancy TVs.”
“Oh,” he said. He was thinking that he had landed in the stone ages.
He had been watching about a half an hour when his curiosity got the best of him. “Do you have to watch the commercials?”
“I guess we can get up and change the channel, but they seemed to be synchronized. All of the channels have them at the same time. Don’t tell me they don’t have commercials in the future.”
“I’m pretty sure they do.”
After an hour or so, Susan got up to make dinner. John followed her into the kitchen. “Can I help?” he asked.
She looked surprised, “No, I don’t need you underfoot. I can cook, you know?”
“I wasn’t trying to insult you.” He was a little defensive.
“After telling me that you wanted to do all of the driving and now you want to cook, you can see how I took that.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to cook, I just want to help.” It had seemed like the polite thing to do when he started out, but now it was not looking so good.
“You can help by staying out of the kitchen and letting me cook. I have never met a man who was any good in the kitchen.”
“Okay, now you’re insulting me. One of these days I will surprise you.”
“Hmmf,” was all she said in response and then went back to her cooking. ‘A man cooking in my kitchen? That will be the day.’ The future was looking weirder and weirder. She didn’t know if she wanted any part of it.
That night the two of them set down to a dinner of meat loaf. John smiled when he tasted it. “You are right, you can cook. This is good.”
She just smiled. She was still back on the part of, ‘a man who thinks he can cook in my kitchen.’
After dinner John was hands off and just watched her clean up. He didn’t dare ask to help again and risk her taking it all wrong. They watched some more TV. There were programs that John thought he might have heard of, but wasn’t sure. He was frustrated with his memory loss.
That night, he went to bed on a lumpy mattress. He thought the floor might be more comfortable, but when he tried it, it was worse, so he went back to the bed. He tossed and turned and finally around two in the morning, he fell asleep.
It was dark as John sat down in the cockpit of the plane. When he pushed a few buttons, the flight displays came to life. There were computer screens giving him the airplane status from fuel status to oil pressure and everything in between.
“Moondog, everything looks good from up here. Go through your preflight checklist.”
“Roger, Control, going through the list.” John looked over to the side where a built in metal clipboard hung. He went through each item one by one. Flaps, brakes, stabilizer and ailerons. They all checked out good. “Preflight good,” John reported.
“Roger that. Clear to start your engines, Moondoggy.”
“Roger, starting engines.” A loud roar started up behind him as he pulled the engine start switch. It settled down to a deep hum. He checked his engine status and oil pressure. “Engine running good, Control.”
“Roger, you are clear to taxi out to runway 32.”
“Copy.” John put the throttle forward until the plane started to roll. When he left the hanger and got out into the bright sunshine, he put down the sun screen on his visor. It didn’t take long for John to align himself with the runway. “Ready for takeoff.”
“Roger, Moondog, you are cleared for takeoff.”
“Copy.” John pushed the throttle forward and the low hum went to a dull roar as the plane started to vibrate. John released the brakes and soon the plane was building speed as it rolled down the runway. When the speed was sufficient, John pulled back on the yoke and the plane sliced gently up through the air. It did not take long before he could see the runway far below him.
“Moondog, get to a cruising height of 35,000 feet.”
“Roger, Control.” John watched as the world passed by below him. He was up above some mountain peaks that were snow capped. He recognized the city of Denver below him.
John leveled off the plane, then reported in. “At the cruising altitude, Control.”
“Roger, Moondog, it is time to activate the auxiliary drive.”
“Roger,” John said and reached for the button marked ‘Vmax3 Drive.’ When he hit the button the plane jumped forward and his head was pushed backwards in his seat.
He looked at his controls when it smoothed out some. “Holding steady at Mach 0.5, Control.”
“Roger that, we are reading the same thing.”
Suddenly John heard a loud pop behind him and the plane started buffeting wildly. The stick was shaking and all of the aural warnings went off all at the same time. “Massive system failure.”
“We’re losing him,” the normally calm controller was yelling.
“I’m still here,” John insisted.
“We’re losing him!” Then the headset went dead.
“Control, do you read me? Control?”
Then the flames started.
Chapter Nine
John sat bolt upright in bed. To his surprise, Susan was sitting on the edge of his bed and she calmly put her hands on his shoulders. “Are you okay? I could hear you yelling from my room.”
She didn’t have time to get dressed; she just came running in. She was wearing a faded pink nightgown that she would have been embarrassed to be seen in if she had thought it through.
“I was having a nightmare, fire and alarms in my plane. I had to get out.” John was sweating profusely.
“I wonder who Control is and why they can’t seem to hear you,” she said as she took the sleeve of her nightgown and dabbed the sweat away.
“I am sorry to have bothered you. What was I yelling?”
“You kept yelling over and over, ‘can you hear me, Control?’ No one seemed to respond though.”
“No
, I lost them. I guess I lost them 45 years from now.” He sighed. It was then he noticed how she was dressed and that her nightgown probably revealed a little more than she intended.
She saw him looking, but she didn’t care. There were more important things here than modesty. It would embarrass her more to go running off anyway. “You get some sleep. I have the early shift at work so I have to go get in the shower. I will ask Doctor Ralston about that yard work job, if you are interested. Nothing like being bored in someone else’s house where you can’t do anything.”
“Yes, I’m interested,” he said as he sat back.
When she went to get ready he watched her go. He enjoyed looking at her and it made him feel just a little guilty. ‘No hanky panky,’ he reminded himself.
When she was gone, he got up and got dressed. He only had the one set of clothes and they were going to be mighty uncomfortable by the end of the week. He would need any money he could get.
She came out of the shower in just a towel, but went immediately to her room. She didn’t even notice that he had gotten up. He was looking in the refrigerator, wondering if he could get away with cooking an omelet. He decided against it and went and sat down in the living room. He had brought the James Bond book back from the hospital so he started to read it.
When Susan came out she was in her nurse’s uniform. “Oh, you got up. I thought that you would have gone back to sleep.”
“I didn’t want to face the night demons again,” he explained.
“Did you figure out anymore about yourself in your dream?” She was half listening as she got out a frying pan and some eggs and bacon.
“I saw the plane that I was flying. It had swept wings and was all black. It wasn’t smooth but had weird angles. Oh, and I heard my call sign. They called me Moondog.”
She peeked around the corner, “Moondog, huh? Can I call you that?”
“No, it’s part of my nightmare.”
“What type of wings did you say your plane had?” She broke open four eggs into the pan and started the bacon in another one.
