"No, Keith."
"God damn you—you don't know what you're doing! You need me, the earth needs me—" He stopped abruptly, staring at an empty spot on the wall, his expression changing from angry pleading to horrified realization.
"What is it?" Woody said. "What's wrong?"
"My book . . ." Keith answered in the tones of a frightened little boy. "My book of the mind . . . it's fading . . . fading . . . I can't remember . . ." Then he shrieked. "I can't remember!"
Woody dashed into the kitchen, grabbed a tea towel and some cord from a drawer, then went back to the hall, where he jammed part of the towel in Keith's mouth and wound the cord around his head, tying it tightly in back. Keith gasped for breath, choked on the towel, started to breathe fitfully through his nose. "Woody," Tracy said. "Do you have to? . . ."
"He can't be screaming. We can't have anything else affect the return." He stood up and looked down at Keith. "The earth will have to take its chances without you. It did before. It can again. Maybe we can help it along. You were at least right in that." He looked at the others. "It's time. Time to go home."
He took Tracy's hand and led the others into the living room, all except Dale, who kissed Eddie, and walked alone into the bedroom.
Tracy sat on the couch, and Woody kissed her again, but said nothing. Then he got into the circle with the others. The music played on, repeating as it had before, a psychedelic mantra to focus their attention. There were only five in the circle now—Woody, Eddie, Diane, Frank, and Curly. The others watched as Curly took the baggie and papers from his pocket and rolled what they hoped would be the final joint. When he finished, he held it up and smiled sadly.
"Should be enough for a good half a dozen hits," he said, and lit it, drew in and held the smoke, released, then grinned. "That's more like it," he said. "That's the way. The truth. The light." And he passed it to his right. "Woody?"
Woody did not turn and look at Tracy on the couch behind him. He merely took the joint and drew in, held for as long as he could, holding Curly's right hand with his left, passing the joint to Eddie, then taking Eddie's hand, and feeling the links in the chain of souls draw together, and seeing Diane smoking, and the breath of God drifting out upon the air, and knowing that the way was opening, opening, then Frank welcoming the sweet and bitter smoke, and his face drowning in the bliss of oneness, and what remained of the smoke in Woody's lungs and heart and mind now was more than enough, and he saw the walls about him tremble as though they were underwater, but the water was a blue flame that burned so cool, and now there was the sense of mystic union with the others in the circle, as though they once again had but one mind, and the wheel that he and his friends made began to roll, the Great Mandala rolling into the future, lifting them up, taking them home . . .
But Woody Robinson was home. For Tracy sat behind him.
He pushed himself back and away from the circle, took Curly's hand and Eddie's hand, and pressed them together, then released them.
It was like being torn from a cosmic womb. The physical agony was unbelievable, the psychic sensation unbearable, but it lasted for only a moment, and he saw the faces of his friends grimace in sympathy with his pain, then saw the calm return in another instant. He pressed his mouth against Curly's ear, and whispered, "None of it has to happen now . . . because I don't belong here . . . and I'll know. And I'll remember. But I won't leave her again."
Then Curly's face and Diane's face and Eddie's face and Frank's face, all the same, glowed with love and compassion and hope, and their eyes opened, and though Woody saw that they were looking ahead and not at him, he still felt their gaze upon him, their minds in his, and he gave one last thought to Curly who was all of them before they were gone forever
Check . . . on Rooney, will you?
There was a laugh somewhere in their shared consciousness, and an unspoken promise, but just before the four friends faded, their number seemed to increase so that there were other dim shapes in the half-darkness, and then Woody felt Tracy's arms around him, and her warm tears on the back of his neck, and he turned and held her too.
"I couldn't leave you," he said. "I never intended to."
"Oh Woody . . ." She was crying hard, sobbing against him. "Oh God, Woody," she said. Then they looked at each other, and he saw in her eyes that she knew what he had done for the love of her, that he had chosen to remain with her in the past, and face a future in which he might not exist.
"I don't want it without you anymore," he said. "This time Orpheus stays with Eurydice. Once you live in Heaven, earth itself is hell."
"Hell," his word echoed. But it was not his voice.
He turned and saw Frank and Diane and Curly and Eddie sitting in a small circle, and his first thought was to wonder, with a surge of panic, what went wrong, why they were back. He was just about to speak when Frank went on. "These damn séances never work, stoned or straight."
Then he realized that the past had reclaimed itself, that the people he was seeing were not the friends of twenty-four years hence, but the friends of now, of a fall night in 1969.
"God, they're back," he said softly, then turned to Tracy. "They must have made it."
"What?"
Her expression curled the hairs on the back of his neck. It was a look of quizzical humor, the look a college girl would give a boyfriend who was putting her on, a look that told him he was alone, a stranger in another time.
"You've forgotten," he said.
"Forgotten what?" Her eyebrows drew together, but the teasing smile remained.
He smiled himself. It would still be all right. "Don't worry," he said. "I still remember. And I can't forget," and he patted his jeans pocket.
He felt different, younger not only outside but inside too, as though the cares and concerns of adult life had not yet borne down upon him.
"Forget what?" she asked.
"Forget this," and he reached into his pocket and felt the piece of paper on which he had written everything important—the trip back in time, the date of the ROTC building bombing, the deaths, the fact that Keith would become Pan, everything that he would need to remember, and need to make Tracy believe, so that, even if he forgot, their future could still be changed, could still be happy.
"You're not gonna believe this," he said, in an intonation that had grown higher and so much younger. He took out the single white sheet of paper and opened it, opened it and looked at it and saw that it was a flyer from the Iselin Theatre that advertised the forthcoming Midnight Cowboy, Putney Swope, and True Grit.
"The paper . . . it didn't exist back then . . ." he said to himself. "Didn't exist now . . . oh Jesus . . . oh Christ . . ."
He was forgetting. What did he mean, back then? Something about time, about Tracy and Keith and the ROTC building. He could barely recall why he was so upset, but he knew that if he got a pen and thought real hard that he could probably remember enough to write down on the back of the flyer what was really important.
"A pen," he said, and went into the dining room, but there was no pen there. He tossed aside piles of underground comics, textbooks, and Rolling Stone, whose tabloid pages were supple and pure white, then went into the hall, nearly tripping on a tied up Keith Aarons mumbling through his gag, and Woody wondered what the hell Keith was doing like that, but he couldn't stop, couldn't stop because he had to find a pen and write down something important, so very important, and Dale was coming out of the bedroom, and Woody passed him, and yeah, there in the bedroom on the dresser, yeah, was a nineteen cent Bic, and he grabbed it and flattened out the folded flyer on the dresser top and held the pen over the paper and . . .
. . . couldn't remember why he was there.
His mind was empty, empty of everything but young Woody Robinson's time, young Woody Robinson's existence.
He thought as hard as he could, but the voices in the hall broke his concentration:
"You were stoned, man . . ."
"Yeah, started sayin' somethin' about destroying the wor
ld and shit—"
"Bullshit! What are you talking about, Curly?"
"Hey, Keith, you had a bad trip, okay? So we just tied you up so you couldn't hurt yourself . . ."
"Fuck you, man . . ."
The voices moved toward the living room, but it was too late now. It just wouldn't come. The pen hovered over the paper for a moment longer, and then he set it down, thinking that he had lost something very important.
The front door opened, and he heard Alan and Sharla and Judy come in with the pizzas. Maybe he should just forget about it, go out and have a beer and some pizza. But still, it had seemed so important.
"What's with you, jazz man?"
He looked up and saw Tracy standing in the doorway.
"You look like the only one who saw a ghost at the séance." She put her hand on his hand that had held the pen.
"I thought . . ." he said slowly. "I thought I remembered . . . that there was something I had to write down. And I came in here for a pen . . . and I forgot what it was."
"Maybe a tune?" she suggested.
He thought for a moment, then recalled a snatch of melody that he had written in another world, and hummed it. "That's pretty," she said. "What is it?"
He shrugged. "You like it, it's your song."
She kissed the tip of his nose. "Thanks. I like my song.”
“But that's not what I came in here to write down."
"Don't worry about it. If it's important, you'll remember."
She put her arms around him and gave him a hard hug. "There's one thing," he said. "One thing that I do remember."
"What's that?"
"That I'm not supposed to leave you. No matter where you go, or what you do, I'm gonna stay with you."
"I hope so. I hope you do."
"I will." He shook his head at the wonder of her. "Dear God, I love you, Tracy."
"Love you, Woody."
Chapter 49
On a warm May evening, twenty-four years later, a group of people in their mid-forties found themselves in a shabby, poorly furnished room at the end of a journey they had started long before. Although only four people started that journey, seven completed it.
Sharla Jackson, garbed in camouflage gear, now sat between Curly and Eddie. Alan Franklin, ablaze in Carnaby Street colors, sat next to his wife, holding her hand, and looking at her face as though it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. And Judy McDonald sat between Frank and Curly, and when she saw her husband she sobbed and pressed herself into his arms.
"It worked," Curly said in awe. "It really did."
"I'm . . . alive." Sharla touched her own face, and ran her hands down her neck and chest, and let the feel of her heartbeat stop her.
"Oh God," whispered Alan. "What I did . . . did it . . . what happened?"
"You didn't," Curly said. "You didn't kill that senator. And Sharla, you didn't hold your class hostage, and Judy didn't go nuts in her gallery."
"But I remember it," Judy said, clinging to Frank. "I remember it, Curly."
Curly looked down at the carpet, remembering, thinking back through the years, back once, twice. And again. After a moment he looked back up, and the others saw a tear in his eye. "Yeah. I remember too. Just like we all remember Keith and Tracy dying together, and Woody's life in music. Just like we remember Tracy alive, and the world Pan lived in. But what else? What else do we remember now?" He glared at all of them with a dreadful intensity.
"Look," he said. "And remember."
They all concentrated, thought back, and knowledge and new memory settled on them like an outwardly soft coat lined with barbs.
"It's another," Frank said. "Dear God, another memory." Diane nodded. "Tracy and Keith . . . they died. They both died this time, but Woody . . ."
"Yeah," Curly said. "Woody died with them. The three of them, together." He smiled. "He did what he said he would. He didn't leave her again."
"I remember." Frank put a hand over his eyes. "Tracy and Woody said they had a date that night, but they didn't come back. And Keith went with them—they said they were giving him a ride to the Student Union. And then I heard the sirens, and the police came . . ."
Sharla continued their shared memory. "They identified the bodies, except for Woody. He took most of the blast. But Tracy and Keith . . . them they could tell."
"And now there's no Pan," Eddie said. "Keith's really dead." Then he added sadly, "And so is Dale."
"And so is Woody," Curly said. "Dead for over twenty years." He cocked his head like a teacher testing his students. "So who planned this party?"
Alan pointed at Curly. "You did. You called us, told us what a great time we'd have—" He paused, then laughed in disbelief. "It's May! I just remembered, it's still only May."
"That's right," Frank said. "Because what happened between the first party and the second one . . . didn't . . . couldn't, not if Woody was dead. But we had to have the party, because we had to have, what, a reason maybe, a reason to be here?"
"Too many questions," said Diane. "Dozens of them. Like why did we become young right away the last time?"
"Maybe," said Curly, "because we knew what was happening. We were expecting it. Maybe it was something we did. Christ, why did any of it happen in the first place?"
"You forget," Eddie said. "It didn't."
~*~
The next day Curly Rider drove into Colver, Pennsylvania, and stopped his car in front of a small, white frame house. Across the street, hidden among trees, was another house, with a For Sale or Rent sign stuck in the soil of the unmowed lawn.
When Curly got out of the car, a dog that was chained to a stake in the front yard of the white house began to bark, and an old man holding a taped baseball bat came out the front door.
Curly got back into the car, started the engine, and drove away, ignoring the shouts of the old man. "Rooney's fine, Woody," Curly said with a grin. "Rooney is just fine."
~*~
Eight months after that May night, Al Freeman went into the office of Dr. Charles Goncourt to give him the bad news. When he finished, the old man stuck out his lower lip.
"No way then."
"No sir, I'm afraid not. The virus is fatal, and it's airborne, but there just isn't a unique Caucasian gene that it'll respond to as an antibody. No matter what we've done to it, it's killed every white subject we've tried it on. Ted Horst and Bob Hastings and I all agree that it's simply not efficient to continue, that the danger it poses is far greater than any chance that we'll be able to make it into what we need. We could keep working on it for decades and never find the answer."
"Damn," Goncourt said. "Damn, damn, damn." Finally he nodded. "All right then. Eradicate it completely. We can't take any chance on its ever being released. It could mean the end of civilization, and after all . . ." He smiled thinly. ". . . we're not madmen. We'll just have to start again."
"Yes sir. You can bet your bottom dollar that's just what we'll do."
Chapter 50
On a Saturday night in the following May, seven friends had dinner in a restaurant in Iselin. It was Alumni Weekend, and they had all returned to campus and met there at Bruno's, to eat manicotti and salad with the special blue cheese dressing, and to talk about their old friends.
Two of them had made changes in their lives. Alan had left his position with the tobacco industry and was now lobbying at lower pay for an environmental organization. "Going through what we did—and what I did," he explained to the others, "makes you see things differently. I really might have gone nutzoid after a while. I was dealing with Congress, dealing with guilt, and dealing with my bosses at the same time. This way, I at least eliminate the middle man. How about you, Sharla? That old devil guilt a factor in your move?"
Sharla smiled. For the past nine months she had been teaching learning disabled children in one of the Cleveland city schools. "Not really. Just felt like a challenge again. Sometimes I hate it, sometimes I love it. When I was in the suburbs, I just did it.
"Did y
ou think," Alan asked Curly, who had made the initial calls, "about meeting at the apartment at all?"
"No. I don't ever want to see that place again. The present—this present's just fine. With one or two sorely missed exceptions."
"It's not all that much better," said Eddie, swirling the ice cubes in his bourbon. "The things that Keith hated are still around. We could kill ourselves yet."
"Yeah, we could," said Judy. "Maybe we will. But this way the decision's ours. And maybe we can still save ourselves too."
The waiter brought a wine bucket, and presented Curly with a cork and a small amount in a glass. Curly sniffed the cork, sipped, grinned, said, "Yep, that's wine all right," and the others laughed. Then the sommelier filled the glasses while Curly held up a hand, as if signaling to someone at the other end of the room.
"Don't drink yet. I want you to hear something first."
The Italian music on the ceiling speakers stopped, and then, over the chatter of the other diners came a tune played on a solo oboe, so pure and clear and lovely that the talk hushed, and forks paused halfway to mouths, and the people listened until the music faded into silence. Then, slowly, talk resumed, silverware sang, and the music of Italy was heard again.
"Tracy's Song," Diane said. "But . . . how?"
"It's a demo," Curly explained. "Frank wrote it out, and I have some contacts in the music business, so I was able to get it to Kevin Marcus's group. He loved it, wants to record it with his reed man, so I asked him if he'd just have the guy do a solo cassette I could play for you. And he did."
"There'll be more," Frank said. "I remember most of the tunes. I played them over and over. Now I'll be able to again." He smiled. "Curly and I told Marcus that we want to use a pseudonym for the composer credits."
"Woody Robinson?" Sharla asked.
Frank nodded. "Woody Robinson. At least his music will live."
No one spoke for a few moments. Then Diane said, "It's wonderful. But it's so strange. I mean, Woody never wrote those songs here—in this world. So how can they exist? How can we remember them?"
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