by Geoff North
He was rubbing his sore neck and still struggling to breathe freely again, but he managed to offer Hugh a weak smile. He kicked out and caught Nelson square in the face with his heel. “Sh-shit that felt good!”
They watched with sick fascination as he thrashed about. It was obvious to both boys that he wasn’t going to be a threat to anyone for much longer. Surprisingly he managed to lift himself back up onto his knees, and a few seconds after that he pushed back up to a lurching, unsteady stand. Hugh and Billy backed away, terrified and amazed.
Nelson turned around once, twice, his arms stuck out straight to the sides, fingers clutching and grasping for something and finding nothing. He took one step away from the boys, then another. On the third step he was almost running and banged his head into a support beam. Instead of falling back down though, he just stood there.
The boys looked at one another, eyes wide open and unblinking, mouths open wider still, and then they looked back at Nelson. His choking gurgles had ended and his arms lay still at his sides.
“Jesus, that’s gross,” Billy said turning his head away.
Hugh stood up and took a few careful steps forward. Had Nelson worked the hay out of his throat? Was he catching his breath, getting ready to finish them off?
“Oh,” was all Hugh could manage to say after he’d seen what happened. A thick, rusty spike nailed into the beam had pierced through Nelson’s nostril and into the back of his brain. The top of his skull was the only thing holding him up.
Billy had crawled back to the window. “Someone’s coming! They’ve found us!”
Hugh saw the yellow headlights flicker and bob off his friend’s face. His features started to blur and things started to darken. He wouldn’t get a chance to see who their rescuers were. He fainted to the loft floor, his head less than three feet from Nelson’s left foot.
Chapter 17
On Tuesday morning Hugh looked out the window of his Braedon Hospital room, over the parking lot and across the entire town of Braedon to the forested ridgeline of valley to the south. Physically it looked much the same as it did, or would look over thirty years in the future. Unlike cities, small towns didn’t change that much. People packed up and left, fewer moved in, and an unfortunate few passed on altogether. Mr. McDonald was one of those latter few, and Bob Roberts, future manager of Little City Food Store, high school jock and stud, had joined him. So had Thomas Nelson.
Hugh was a hero, at least that’s what everyone was calling him. He’d told the authorities and all the concerned parents what had happened. Billy’s story matched up perfectly with everything he said. And why wouldn’t it? He told everyone the truth. He kept the part about travelling through time and living his life again to himself, but that could hardly be considered lying. Recovering from dehydration and being patched up for a variety of cuts and bruises was better than living in a room padded with rubber.
“You saved my life.”
Hugh hadn’t heard Billy enter the room. He turned and faced his friend, winced when he saw the brace around his neck, and shook his head. “We saved each other.”
“I just saw your mom and dad at the nurse’s desk. They’re here to take you home.”
“What about you?” Hugh asked. He slipped a sweatshirt over his aching shoulders. The thick bandage around his thumb throbbed making it difficult to work with.
“They’ll probably release me this afternoon. The doctor wanted to take one last look at my throat.”
Hugh looked down at the picture on the front of his shirt. Luke Skywalker held a light saber in two hands and Darth Vader stood ominously behind him. “It’s the movie Bob wanted to see.”
“What?”
“Star Wars. Bob wanted to see Star Wars last weekend.” Tears welled up in his eyes and he sat down on the corner of the stiff hospital bed. “He should’ve seen it. He should’ve told me to go to hell and gone to the movie instead.”
“I heard it was pretty bad. He probably wouldn’t have liked it.”
Hugh knew he would’ve liked it. “But he would still be here.”
Billy didn’t have an answer for that. Instead he picked up the duffel bag with Hugh’s old clothes and get well soon gifts packed inside. “Come on, I’ll walk you outside.”
“I heard that Mrs. McDonald committed suicide.”
“Yeah, the nurses were talking about that last night.”
“That’s three deaths, Billy. Three deaths where there should’ve only been one. Shit, no one was supposed to die. I could’ve stopped it all.”
“No more ghost stories. No more talk about coming from the future, alright?” Billy looked out the door to make sure no one was listening. “You gotta stop talking about that stuff.”
“You believe me then?”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe. All I know is that we’re still alive. All that talk about what happens in the future, about what you become and what happens to me--I just don’t wanna know.”
Hugh crossed the room and hugged Billy. He kissed him gently on the cheek and whispered in his ear. “I’m sorry for everything. No more talk.”
Billy hugged him back and handed the bag to him. “Here, carry your own shit. My neck hurts like a bastard.”
June 1981
The dreams he used to have nightly about his lost family were less frequent. Once a month now, if that, and they’d become more nightmare than dream in quality. The faces of his children were being replaced by the faces of his siblings. Dana always appeared as Lorna, Julie as Heather, and worst of all, Colton looked like Gordo. Cathy at least still looked like Cathy, but the image of her was never a happy one. There was a constant scowl on her face, a look of deep hatred in eyes that were darker than normal, almost black, an unblinking stare of betrayal and abandonment that always made Hugh waken in a cold sweat.
It had been almost seven years since he’d last seen them.
8, 12, 20, 23, 34, 36
There was no need to write the numbers down anymore. Hugh remembered them as easily as the letters of his own name. He still liked to look at the numbers on the news letter from time to time. He would run his fingers along the wrinkled, worn surface of paper and try to recall as much as he could from that first life.
The numbers were fading; the crumpled black and white photos of lottery winners were smudged with dirty finger prints, enough ink had rubbed away to make most of their features unrecognizable.
Just like the dreams.
He would meet Cathy in the fall if history repeated itself correctly. They would date four years before getting married. Bob wouldn’t be his best man, that task would now be assigned to Billy. The destined farm accident of ‘79 never happened. The boy’s father had taken his religion to an extreme. He quit farming all together and rented their half section to a neighbor. Tom Parton had come to view planting crops as a form of gambling, an output of money on an uncertain outcome. Billy never was crushed behind a grain truck, and in some ways Hugh had to respect the boy’s father for his fanaticism. It had saved Billy’s life.
Benjamin would be born two years after the wedding, and if Hugh sat back and did nothing, the child would die less than two years after that. Hugh wasn’t about to let that happen. He had interfered enough to save Billy’s life, he was certain he could do the same for his first born son.
Hugh remained a virgin through the high school years even though it was a monumental struggle. Theoretically, if you added up the years of both his lives, the girls he was expected to be chasing after were young enough to be his granddaughters. It just didn’t seem right, and the fear of knocking up anyone but Cathy scared the hell out of him.
Billy had grown into a strapping young man, his complexion cleared, and his constantly runny nose finally dried up. He was dating Caroline Sterling. Gordo had moved away after graduating and Hugh hadn’t seen him since the Christmas before. He was the last kid still living at home and he would have the remainder of grade eleven and twelve to live out his teenage years in peace.
“You should get yourself a girlfriend,” Scott Harder told him through a mouthful of bologna sandwich.
Hugh looked up from his own lunch and sneered at the boy sitting backwards in his homeroom school desk. Scott reminded him of Bob Richards, built like brick shit-house, his blonde hair a mass of tight curls hanging all the way to his shoulders. A lot of boys grew their hair like that in the late seventies-early eighties. Hugh liked his hair short, without the perm. “Girls are more trouble than they’re worth.”
“Never seen you with a girl, Hugh…a lot of kids’ figure you might be gay or something.”
Hugh shrugged his shoulders and tossed the remainder of his own lunch into the trash bin. The unintentional insult had no effect on him. Scott kept at him. “You’ll look like a real tool if you go to the dance this weekend all alone.”
“I hadn’t planned on going.”
Scott leaned in and grinned. Close enough that Hugh could see the bread on his gums. “What if I told you Mandy Wood’s been asking about you?”
“I’d say you have bad breath, and you’re full of shit.”
“It’s true! She dumped Todd Kay a couple of weeks ago. She’s single, man, and she’s looking for a little Nance to fill the void.”
Mandy had been Bob’s girl. She’d been out of Hugh’s league in elementary, and she was even farther out of his league now. Or was she? Hugh could feel the hammer of his heart between his ears, that familiar warm butterfly rush that started in his stomach and worked down.
Damn teenage hormones.
His analytical mind went to work alongside the hard-on in his pants. Didn’t he need some time away from home? He was a kid, wasn’t he? Didn’t he deserve a bit of happiness now and then? He pictured Mandy with the art-appreciative part of his mind. Her long auburn hair full of bounce and shine, her breasts straining against the too-tight red turtleneck sweaters she liked to wear.
Analytical mind and art-appreciative mind worked well together at times.
Hugh looked out the classroom window and saw a group of senior students chasing a soccer ball around the yard. Todd Kay had the ball. “For sure they’re broken up?”
“Would I lie about something like that? She has the hots for you!”
“Guess it couldn’t hurt to check things out. Are you going to finish the other half of that sandwich?” His appetite had suddenly returned.
Asking her out was harder than he had imagined. He’d caught up to Mandy on Wednesday morning and he definitely sensed her interest in him before asking. But it was still incredibly difficult. He stuttered and kept looking down at her feet as he spoke. He chewed a giant wad of gum in an attempt to keep his mouth from drying up. Kids, he supposed, were still kids whether they had lived an extra fifty years or not. She said yes.
***
On Thursday Hugh accepted a ride home from school in Billy’s rusty Ford Mustang. Billy steered with one hand and held the other out for him to shake. “I hear congratulations are in order.”
“Maybe. We’ll see how things go tomorrow night.”
“Caroline just told me this afternoon during history. Good for you, man. You need to get laid.”
“Still feels kind of unreal to me.”
“Don’t worry, buddy. It will all feel real enough when you two are slow dancing. You wanna smoke a joint?”
“I don’t touch the stuff, you know that.” Hugh eyed the pile of cigarette butts in the ashtray. His friend had developed a number of nasty habits. He was tempted to ask for a smoke. Billy had only driven half a block when he pulled over again and jumped out of the car before Hugh could ask for one. “Where are you going?”
“Wait there while I get a bottle.”
Hugh watched him cross the street over to Reynolds Liquor Mart and shouted. “Are you kidding? You’re only seventeen!” Billy waved without looking back and continued into the store. Hugh waited in the car and pictured a younger Gary Reynolds sitting behind the counter reading his newspaper. He was the last person Hugh had spoken to in his first life. He’d sold him the lottery ticket that changed everything. Billy emerged outside a few minutes later with a brown paper bag nestled proudly in one arm. He sat back in the car and exhaled heavily. His cheeks were beet red.
“That’s the first time you ever tried that isn’t it?”
Billy nodded, started the car, and squealed the tires. “Yeah, I heard a couple kids say he doesn’t care who gets booze, as long as they spend money at his place.”
“That sounds like Gary.” Billy raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t ask what he meant. Hugh dug through the bag. There were two magnums of cheap bubbly wine and a twenty six ounce bottle of vodka. Teenagers drinking tastes weren’t very refined. “I’m not drinking any of this crap.”
“Who said it was for you?” Billy crumpled the top of the bag shut and pulled it in beside him. “I’m saving this for the dance. Maybe then, if you treat me nice, I’ll let you have some.”
Why did teenagers think drinking was such a privilege? Hugh hadn’t touched alcohol since the Nelson incident. If he never drank again it would still be too soon.
The boys drove around town aimlessly for another thirty minutes, talking about their girls and about the dance.
When Hugh finally got home he was feeling less guilty about asking the seventeen year old out. He did deserve a little fun in his life. What could possibly go wrong?
***
“What do you mean I can’t go?”
“Because it’s your brother’s wedding on Saturday, sweetheart,” Hugh’s mother said at the supper table later that evening. “How could you forget that?”
Quite easily.
“Why do I have to go? I can’t even stand who he’s marrying.”
“Give Gordon a break,” his father said. “I don’t like Sandy much either but you don’t see me trying to get out of it.”
“Steve!”
A comment like that would normally make Hugh laugh. Not tonight. “But I haven’t gone out for so long, and well, there’s this girl…”
“Bring her along,” his father offered.
Wouldn’t that be a wonderful introduction to the Nance family?
He remembered Gordo’s nuptials all too well. A drunken uncle on Sandy Lewinski’s side of the family had fallen into the wedding cake during the reception. A fist fight involving the entire wedding party and a dozen or so guests had broken out as a result. “It’s a first date for crying out loud! I can’t ask her to come all the way to Winnipeg for that.”
“Then have your date tomorrow night,” his mom said. She started to clear the table. “You’re standing up for your brother on Saturday afternoon and that’s final.”
Greg Curtis, another mindless track and field jock would be Gordo’s best man, standing next to him would be Donald, and there would be Hugh. “Can’t someone take my place? That stupid tuxedo is too big for me anyway.” He knew the argument had been lost, but he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
“The tux looks wonderful on you, dear.”
“Cheer up, pal,” Steve Nance said as he poured himself a cup of tea. “We’ll have a blast.”
“It’ll never last,” Hugh muttered.
“What won’t last?” His mother asked.
“The marriage. Gordo’s only twenty years old and Sandy just graduated from high school. It’ll never last.”
“It had better last if he knows what’s good for him,” his father said.
“Why? Because he got the fat bitch knocked up?” He’d gone too far, touched on a subject he shouldn’t have. Maybe he could tell his parents that Sandy would miscarry a month after the wedding. Maybe that could get him out of going.
“Go to your room,” both parents said simultaneously.
“My room? Are you serious? I’m seventeen years old for fuck’s sake!”
His father banged his cup on the table, spilling tea all over the place. “Now!”
Hugh went to his room and stewed things over in his mind. After he’d cooled down, he reali
zed the weekend ahead didn’t have to be an entire loss. After all, Mandy did like him, and if he couldn’t take her to the dance maybe she would settle for a movie the night before.
Good thinking, mom.
Chapter 18
The wedding couldn’t have turned out more perfect even if Hugh had tried to change it, which he didn’t. The cake-breaking incident played out just as he remembered, perhaps even better since he knew it was coming.
Lloyd Wolowich, the bride’s uncle, staggered up to the front table to steal a kiss from his niece, and any other girl seated around her under the age of forty. If Sandy hadn’t pulled back, old Lloyd wouldn’t have had to lean so far across the table. His one dress shoe slipped on the slick, hardwood dance floor and he knocked a half-filled glass of champagne onto her lap. The rest, as they say was history.
“My dress!” She screamed and backed away from the table. One chair leg caught against a slightly raised section of floorboard and she toppled over onto her back with a crash. The fall wasn’t far and the landing wasn’t particularly hard but she clutched her swollen belly and screamed. “The baby!”
“Ish alright, darling, let me help you back up.” Uncle Lloyd splayed out across the table knocking over more glasses. He worked his way across, flopping like a grounded fish. The sleeve of his suit found a plate of meatballs and mashed potatoes. More chairs pushed away from the table as the entire wedding party recoiled from the struggling man.
“Goddamned old drunk,” Gordo said stepping accidentally on his new bride’s hand. She screamed again and Gordo teetered forward. His head connected with Lloyd’s, the man’s approach ended. He slid back uncontrollably taking a double handful of tablecloth with him. He missed the wedding cake that was set up in front on its own table tray by inches. An ice bucket containing two bottles of champagne didn’t. The little plastic model of bride and groom went first, followed by the first round, white layer of cake. It fell onto Lloyd’s crotch just as the man was struggling to sit up on the floor. Icing sprayed up into his red, sweaty face.
