Time Games

by Rex Bolt

  “Such as?”

  “Well one example, I meet a guy and his kid in the park, they’re from out of town but happen to be visiting the new people in the exact same house where the family I’m dealing with lived . . . Another would be, the asshole, the drunk driver who caused the whole problem, now he’s cool supposedly but his wife’s not . . . Anyhow, that type of thing . . . also different people paired off.”

  “Of course,” Mitch said. “Interesting, but not surprising.”

  “I’ve had to make some adjustments, but overall nothing too earth-shattering . . . But the main part, do you think it’ll take?”

  “Let’s see, we’re talking 1993, so what . . . 23 years? And they were just kids basically. No offspring at all yet . . . It should.”

  “Jeez, thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “I am confident,” Mitch said. “You went deep . . . I’m very proud of you incidentally.”

  “Because there’s no sign of the family in Beacon, from everything I can tell. There is this girl though, new in school this time, I was worried there were some similarities . . . but now I’m not so sure.”

  “Let it go,” Mitch said, his tone softer. “Pike, you’re fine.”

  Pike made fun of the guy, but it was awful good to talk to Mitch, it really was.

  He continued. “What’s eating at me of course, which I try to block out every day, but in the end I can’t, is I want to make sure they’re . . . alive and well. The family.”

  “So try to check,” Mitch said.

  “Whoa . . . you don’t think, there’d be like some nasty karma, or something?”

  “Why would there? You’re not interfering in their lives, you’re simply confirming their whereabouts. And of course their existence.”

  “Oh . . . you think?”

  “I do,” Mitch said. “And do me a favor, keep in mind what I said, coming on down. Lucy is an amazing woman . . . And there’s a tremendous triple-pool and spa set-up, and you have 85 degrees and fresh desert air and red rock all around.”

  It did sound kind of appealing when he put it that way. “This is at Lucy’s, this dream resort thing--or your little fleabag motel?”

  “Lucy’s. I sneak in. You can too.”

  “Well where would I stay,” Pike said.

  “With me if you like. There’s an extra bed. Two queens.”

  That didn’t sound good, having to share a room with the old guy. Mitch picked up on it and said, “Either way, don’t worry about that right now. But I think it’d be adventure for you, if you can make it.”

  One thing Pike didn’t need were any more adventures. But yeah, okay, he’d think about it.

  Chapter 9

  It still went against his instincts, but Wednesday morning before school Pike sat at the kitchen table, flipped open the laptop and, slightly cautiously, started looking for the Milburns.

  Mitch seemed so casual about it, like just go for it, what could it hurt . . . which was kind of out of character, considering he’s been a stickler for certain other things, like making sure you travel from a pre-1956 departure point and all that.

  As Pike thought about it overnight though, this might be different. After all, you weren’t injecting yourself into their lives, you were just a guy snooping around on the internet, no different really than any other doofus who might be looking for them for whatever reason . . . Right?

  He didn’t have a lot of time, but in the ten minutes he gave it he didn’t get anywhere. He tried Preston Milburn first, in one of those national white pages directories. A few matches popped up, but none of them felt right. One guy was a dentist, and no way could Pike see that, and the guy seemed too young anyway. Another one seemed too old. A couple others had Preston as the middle name, which didn’t ring true.

  There were a bunch of P Milburns, no first name spelled out, but in the little side boxes where they list possible relatives and connected individuals, none of them had a Rose in there, much less an Audrey or a Hailey.

  Anyhow, he didn’t have time to look up Mrs. Milburn, and a more complete search would have to wait, and he got in his truck and drove to school. People weren’t always listed in these jumbled-up white pages thingamajigs of course, were they?

  In fact Pike was thinking probably most people weren’t . . . but then again a lot of old-fashioned folks in their 50’s like the Milburns had at least one landline somewhere--he remembered they did in the house on Ortega-- and probably were listed more often then.

  He’d find them, he was pretty sure of it, now that he’d opened the floodgates and was on a mission. If all else failed he could ask Frankie to help him, even if she had to break a rule or two again and use that administrative account to get a better search going.

  Putting all that aside though, Pike had a slightly uneasy feeling this morning as he pulled up in the student parking lot and headed to first period.

  ***

  With football being over for more than a month, going back to when they got hammered in the playoff game at the big stadium in Fresno, they were required to take some sort of P.E. every day to replace it, so most of the players chose weight training.

  Pike had never said boo to Foxe in the weight room, but this time around, since Hannamaker had convinced him the guy was decent, Pike said something to Foxe today for the first time.

  Of course the original problem, way back in the dark ages now it seemed, was Foxe started off the year at quarterback. Which is where he played in the Bellemeade game, where Pike as a skinny defensive back unexpectedly knocked a couple guys out of that game--one of them being Anthony, but of course that part didn’t happen now, though maybe it did to a third guy, which Pike wouldn’t want to know about.

  In any case, the Monday after the game, with Pike pretty much freaking out after confirming his unexpected monster increase in strength, he was throwing ball around with Marty Clarke in practice and Coach noticed.

  The ball had major zip on it and was going where he wanted, and Pike realized with some alarm that could probably throw it a hundred yards.

  Coach took him aside and set up some drills with a couple of the players, and Pike had to intentionally stick a few bad throws in there to avoid looking too good.

  Foxe started the next game but was only so-so, and Coach hooked him pretty quick and put in Pike, and Hamilton went on to have one its best seasons. Along the way, in the backyard of a party, was when Foxe had challenged Pike, and Pike had to let him beat him up.

  There were a few more incidents, one of them where Pike stole the steering wheel off what he thought was Foxe’s car, by snapping it off, when Pike was worried Foxe was going to drive drunk.

  In the aftermath of his dad and Mrs. Milburn, Foxe quit the team, and Pike tried give the guy a wide berth, staying out of his way as much as possible, though the last thing he heard was Foxe was in pretty deep with drugs, and with junkies who were robbing houses.

  So Pike supposed it was all good now, or at least mostly. You had the mom, Mrs. Foxe, apparently replacing the dad as the family drunk, and luckily her license was currently revoked, though Pike was a bit nervous that he’d have to keep any eye on that.

  But Foxe was obviously a decent kid now, especially if Pike had handed over to the guy the key to the basement and The Box.

  Still, part of Pike couldn’t help wondering . . . Am I some kind of idiot? I mean why would I do that?

  What he said to Foxe today, to break the ice, at least in this new reality, was, “Cathy ever in The Box before?”

  Foxe re-racked a barbell he’d been working with, looked at Pike funny and said, “Dude, what the hell you talking about?”

  This was interesting. Maybe the new guy wasn’t so differently nice after all. This reminded Pike pretty closely of the tone the guy had invoked before he swung on him in that backyard.

  He figured he could smooth it over though. He said, “My house? . . . The drum room downstairs?”

  “Oh yeah, that,” Foxe said. “Hey I’ve been meaning
to thank you, you’re a good man giving me access and all.”

  “Not a problem . . . reason I brought it up, and Cathy, was I notice you guys were hanging out there a while on Sunday.”

  “No we weren’t,” Foxe said point-blank.

  “Ah . . . there was perfume and stuff, when I got there later. I assumed it was Cathy’s?” This was a mistake, but too late.

  “Listen pal,” Foxe was saying now, edging up into Pike’s face, “what would a butter-butt like you be knowing about my girlfriend’s perfume?”

  It got silent quick in the weight room except for a clangs at the far end.

  Pike was pretty sure this was the exact same Foxe. Life hadn’t dealt him as many tough blows maybe, but you apparently you didn’t just iron a personality out of this guy and replace it with a better one, as simple as someone going in for knee-replacement surgery and coming out with all fresh parts.

  It was the wrong time to be doing it, but in his head, he was running through other people he’d known in multiple realities.

  It was hard to come to a blanket conclusion, but he suspected, like with Foxe (who was getting ready to punch him) that at the root, people didn’t change much.

  What Pike didn’t want to have happen, out of principle, was for Foxe to beat him up again. Even though it wouldn’t physically hurt him much, or at all . . .What could he say, it just didn’t look good.

  Word gets around right away and you have to deal with the fallout. It worked out okay after the backyard thing, Pike figured, because he was quarterbacking the team and playing pretty well, and that kind of made up for getting your ass kicked, since people forgot about it when you got back on the field.

  But now? . . . This little prick? . . . Nah.

  The other problem though, you couldn’t exactly kick his ass either. At least not the way you wanted to, with everyone watching.

  You could tone it down so you wouldn’t stand out, mix it up with him, roll around on the ground maybe, and have people break it up.

  But what would that accomplish?

  Right now he did not like Foxe at all. And he didn’t like his mother, and he didn’t like his father. Enough was enough, and it wasn’t complicated.

  There was a large flat silver weight plate laying on the rubber floor, just to the left of where Pike was standing. He could read the lettering on it clearly, the Barbell Standard and the 75 lbs.

  You stuck one of these on each end of a bar, and you were working out with 150 pounds.

  Pike reached down and tilted the edge of the weight plate and got a grip on it, just as Foxe drew back a balled-up fist and was about to come forward with a pretty vicious right hand.

  Pike figured that’s the way it worked with a guy like Foxe . . . Don’t just fly off the handle for no reason, no, that’s not enough . . . On top of that, look for a cheap edge and sucker-punch the guy when he’s not quite looking.

  Pike, with lightening quickness that surprised even him a little, straightened back up, and with it hoisted the 75 pound plate in front of his face like it was a rag doll.

  Foxe’s right hand connected with the plate at the same instant, and the dull thwap sound that distributed itself around the room wasn’t a good one.

  There were some Oohs and Oh Man’s, and Foxe, even though he didn’t get hit exactly, went down.

  There was blood and plenty of exposed flesh, and some stuff sticking up, and the alignment of his fingers and all the little bones in his hand looked pretty dang bad.

  A couple guys tried to sort of help him, though there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm. Finally Mr. Sanchez, who was running the class but had been in the hall when it happened, helped him up and they went out the door.

  Marty Clarke came over and eyeballed the weight and tentatively went through the motion empty-handed, bringing the imaginary plate up to his nose, and then thinking about it.

  He looked at Pike. “Are you kidding me?” he said.

  “I know,” Pike said. “I don’t quite get it either.’

  But luckily Amos Stillman started telling a story about something he saw on a reality show, some guy muscling up and performing some feat when the adrenaline kicked in, and after a few minutes other guys were telling their stories too, and pretty soon the whole thing got chalked up to the heat of the moment, thank God, and guys went back to their workouts.

  Chapter 10

  Frankie the librarian got back to him that night, an old fashioned voice-mail that was short and to the point. Pike couldn’t picture her texting somehow, though he was sure she sometimes did. The phone message said simply that she’d found some information that might be helpful, and that she didn’t have her usual day off this week, but she could meet him at Starbucks when the library closed tomorrow.

  A thought crept in . . . that this lady was doing an awful lot for him with nothing in return, as was Mitch when it came down to it, as well as a few others too, and it was frustrating not to be able to reciprocate properly. Maybe someday.

  Pike was getting ready to call Frankie back, and noticed a text had come in from Andrea.

  Hmm . . . this was a little odd, he had figured they were one-and-done there after that interrogation the night before last, which ended with her remarking on how unusual the conversation had been.

  The text said only: whats up, which Pike hated normally, wasting someone’s time without saying anything, but in this case there was the curiosity factor.

  He called Frankie back, and she said she didn’t have a whole lot this time, but it might be sufficient to get his project launched . . . Interesting that she would use that word, launched. No way of knowing if she was thinking of it that way, the big picture, which made no difference of course, and they made it for 6 tomorrow at the same downtown Starbucks which helped kick off Chico.

  Pike went back on the computer and resumed checking for the Milburns.

  He entered Rose into the address searches, the same way he’d tried Preston. There wasn’t much, and again what came back didn’t look right.

  The next step would be social media, wouldn’t it? But first . . . he figured, screw it, just google the two of them for Gosh sakes, why didn’t he think of this before?

  Pike’s hands were getting kind of sweaty on the keyboard, and he felt his heart racing slightly.

  Google turned up plenty of them, but it was too confusing, it would take some sifting through. Bottom line, there sure as heck weren’t any clear-cut matches. He tried Preston and Rose as one, on the chance there’d be some connected listing . . . somewhere, something . . . but zip. Other than an obituary of a Preston who died in the 1960’s in Fort Wayne, Indiana, leaving behind a family member named Rose.

  He tried the images section of google, but that was a mess, impossible to deal with right now.

  Yes, there was still Facebook, he’d take a look next time, but frankly so far, now that he’d decided to dive in, Mr. and Mrs. Milburn weren’t making it easy for him, were they.

  Of course the big thing, which Pike was still having major trouble coming to grips with . . . he wasn’t quite ready yet to look for Audrey. That just wasn’t going to happen right now.

  He checked the time. It was a little after nine . . . Yes, the whats up message from Andrea had been a little obnoxious and he’d been holding off doing anything about it, but there wasn’t a whole lot else going on at the moment.

  “What I’m thinking,” he said when she answered, “is going for a light jog.”

  “Now?” Andrea said.

  “Yeah. You know the big park over by the race track right? Old Orchard?”

  “I think so . . .”

  “I’m going to head over there and back. Couple miles. I’m kind of into running lately, though not too fast.” There was some truth to it, which Pike wouldn’t have thought. He was sort of enjoying it, it took his mind off things.

  “So what are you suggesting,” Andrea said, though she seemed reasonably amused. “I drive alongside you?”

  “That’d be one option.
Or just come with me. I’m leaving in 20 minutes, you want to join the fun.” He gave her his address and hung up.

  He’d started off, had turned the corner on Page Street and was a couple blocks into it when Andrea showed up in her car and said hello out the window. Pike stopped jogging and waited to see what she was going to do, and she parked and got out and she had on shorts and a sweatshirt and running shoes.

  “I found your house, and your mom said you’d just left,” she said. “Very nice person.”

  Pike said, “Well she is. I don’t give her enough credit or attention . . . I gotta keep moving right now though. You run?”

  “I do,” she said, and they started off. Pike was surprised actually, not just that she was a runner, but that here she was, spur of the moment, no big planning, no over-thinking it.

  She had a steady, relaxed stride and she wasn’t particularly out of breath when they got to the park and reached the old polo field in back. Pike asked her if she wanted to turn around.

  “What would be the alternative?” she said.

  “I don’t know, sit in the bleachers a few minutes, shoot the bull.”

  She said that’d be fine, and they parked themselves a dozen rows up.

  “Your dance fitness, I guess,” Pike said. “Kind of deceptive. You actually don’t look like much of a runner.”

  “Gee thanks.”

  “I’m just saying . . . You’re not the petite little type that springs around on the balls of their feet and can go all day. You know what I’m talking about, the cross-country team? Half of ‘em look starved.”

  Andrea didn’t answer for a minute. “Would you think of me any worse if I told you I used to be 60 pounds heavier?”

  “Jiminy Christmas,” Pike said.

  “See? That’s why I don’t tell most people.”

  “No, no . . . I don’t mean it what way. I guess I’m impressed . . . Sheez.” Though he wasn’t sure about that.

  “Well I spilled it out,” she said, “for better or worse . . . I must be comfortable with you.”