Time Line

by Rex Bolt

He introduced himself as Bill, and he was a big burly guy wearing Ben Davis coveralls, and his handshake was one of those knuckle crunchers, letting you know who was boss.

  Bill said, “For my own edification here, just what are you’all intending to do? What’s the punch line?”

  A weird way to present it but Pike knew what he was getting at, and he couldn’t blame the guy. In fact Pike admired this Bill in a way, couldn’t help wondering would his own dad watch out for him in this situation, if he was Heidi. Though this was getting stupid, that comparison.

  Bill did hold Heidi pretty tight as he was interrogating Pike, and Pike found out from her later that her uncle and aunt had mostly raised her, since she was 8 . . . Pike didn’t ask what the circumstances were, but the bottom line, the guy was a father figure to her and was doing his job.

  Pike said, “Sir, you caught me a little off guard. I’m not sure there’s any punch line . . . She’ll be in good hands though.”

  He looked Bill straight in the eye as he said it, and there was enough conviction to it apparently that Bill didn’t require any more answers. Bill simply said, “All right then. Please let me know soon as you get there safe and sound.”

  He embraced Heidi once more, and you could see the guy getting a little emotional . . . and Pike was feeling it himself for a moment as well.

  That’s how you do it, he thought. If you have a daughter. You put everything into it.

  Even when they’re 20 years old you’re still worried about them like they’re in kindergarten, and what was wrong with that . . . not a thing.

  So here you were, and Heidi got in, and away they went (hopefully).

  The first curveball happened before they got to the corner stop sign, Heidi telling Pike there was just one thing--and would he mind if they drove a friend of hers back to Tuscon first . . . Since she wouldn’t be able to now.

  Pike’s geography wasn’t the greatest but he was pretty dang sure that Tuscon was south, toward Mexico, and their objective heading to Beacon would require going north.

  At this point though, you don’t argue. “Not at all,” he lied. “Where do we find this person--your friend?”

  “In Flagstaff,” Heidi said, as though it was around the corner. “That’s so sweet of you I can’t tell you.”

  Ooh baby. Pike managed to blurt out something to the effect that it was all in a day’s work, zeroing in now that Flagstaff was over a 100 miles north, . . . meaning this little extra maneuver might be tacking on, Jeez, 6 or 7 hours round trip? To get back to the starting point where they are right now?

  He was even thinking the 6 or 7 estimate could be a little light. Heidi’s arm resting on his shoulder did help a bit though.

  So what was one more surprise . . . and traffic was light to Flagstaff, though what had you cringing a little was you went right past Mitch’s place again, the other way this time, and as they fulled off I-17 into Flagstaff Heidi informed Pike the her friend--who she referred to as her best friend now--was a guy, Bruce.

  Wow. But Bruce got right in, all organized, gave Heidi a peck on the cheek, that was it, and it was pretty apparent that Bruce was a gay guy.

  He was also a good storyteller and had an upbeat personality, and the time went by--if not quickly at least adequately--and when they finally dropped him Pike was thinking maybe he should have invited Bruce to California too, that he could saved a lot of extra driving.

  Once again though Heidi laid it on. “That was so understanding of you,” she said.

  “No big thing,” Pike said, “except are you hungry? How we doing in that department?”

  “It’s very freeing to resolve Bruce,” she continued.

  “Clear the decks a bit,” Pike said.

  “Absolutely. And it’s wonderful that we each have two more weeks of break. I’m not a fan of being under pressure.” She’d had her arm off him for a while but put it back on.

  “No, me neither,” Pike said, meanwhile well-aware unfortunately that Hamilton didn’t have 2 more weeks of break like the colleges did--that they’d be back in school Monday. You’d have to figure something out if Heidi was still there, which could be tricky.

  Which got him thinking of another issue, basic--did Heidi think Jack and Andrea were in college too? So he asked her in a roundabout way--and at this point you certainly had plenty of time to work questions in bit by bit before you had to worry about running into the California border--and Pike hadn’t gotten there yet but Heidi helped him out by asking if Jack worked every day after school.

  Pike took school to mean high school, and he replied honestly that he didn’t know . . . and a few other comments from Heidi the next hour clarified that yes, Jack and Andrea were high school seniors. Pike was picturing how that might have gone, them discussing it, and you did give Jack some props in these situations, and Pike could see Jack playing it cool and not bursting Pike’s story of being older than he was. And Andrea of course, going along with it.

  They stopped and ate, more than once--and dang, Jack’s F-250 took plenty of gas but what could you do--and it got dark and they got to that crossroads where you wondered if and when and where you were going to stop for the night.

  Of course on the way down, the previous incarnation, you had Dani in Palm Springs, which would be more or less the midway point from Tucson this time, so that had solved that, you broke it up into 2 days . . . but the difference here, you didn’t have Dani, but more importantly Pike didn’t want to put Heidi in an awkward situation by bringing up the idea of a motel. He couldn’t help thinking about her Uncle Bill too, looking at him earnestly in front of the house and trusting him to not get carried away here.

  So he said, “Can you drive this thing, you think? Would you be comfortable?”

  “Hmm,” she said. “I can try. Sure.”

  This wasn’t all that encouraging. Pike’s idea was trade off the driving and keep going all night, straight through.

  He liked the all-night part, but it seemed wiser to hammer down a bunch of coffee and stay behind the wheel himself. The truck was a bit of a beast to handle, there was a definite learing curve before you got in your comfort zone. Probably not the best idea to have Heidi be experimenting as they barrelled along in the dark.

  So the next gas station convenience store, he came out of there with a big cardboard jug type thing, and the coffee was pretty dang weak but there was more than enough of it to do the job, and Pike turned up the heat and Heidi found some music and the weather cooperated. It was cold and clear and the moon was out and you could see a lot.

  “Nature is an amazing thing,” Heidi was saying. “The scope. Our insignificance really, in the true framework.”

  Uh-oh, she was going intellectual on him, not to mention philosophical. Hopefully she wouldn’t keep this up.

  Pike said, “I’m more thinking, we shouldn’t run into any snow. On account of the million stars that I think you’re referring to.”

  “Why that’s a wonderful connection,” she said, and there was sort of a purr to it, if Pike was picking it up right, that at least she sounded content.

  Always good, several hours in, where the passenger hasn’t gotten antsy yet and changed their mind.

  He actually didn’t think you’d have to worry about snow anywhere on this route, period, now matter what the weather--which was I-10 for a good hunk, to 210 outside of Redlands, to the 5 to Lebec, then to 99 finishing it off until the cutoff for Beacon.

  Heidi said, “I love Stephen King books. I’ve read most of them, but I’ve been catching up on a few that I haven’t read, during Christmas break. His work is highly absorbing. For me anyway.”

  Pike wasn’t sure he liked the direction, the last thing he wanted to get into was Area 51 for example--not that farfetched a topic, since they were going be a little south of there, southern Nevada, but still in the neighborhood, especially desert terrain and open-spaces-wise.

  “Oh yeah?” he said, a little cautiously, “which ones?”

  “Well the first
, ‘Under the Dome’.”

  “Wait. They made a movie, right?” Though Pike hadn’t seen it.

  “No, but a TV series, yes. But the book--I actually found it credible, on some levels.”

  “Hmm,” Pike said, “what’s it about?”

  “Essentially . . . a giant dome--it’s totally indestructible--it cuts a town off from the rest of the world.”

  Pike got the idea and had heard enough. “What else?”

  “Am I reading? Well, I finished ‘11/22/63’--that one, it’s a departure from his other novels. Now I’m into ‘Revival’. My sense is it will be more work to get through, it’s not as innocuous as much of his fiction . . . so far anyway, the novel takes a hard look at addiction, against an eerie yet quite realistic backdrop of religious fanaticism.”

  Pike was starting to get intimidated here. He said, “Were you this smart, like back in high school too . . . or you developed more at U of A?”

  She laughed, worked her fingers up the back of his neck, fiddled around with his hair. “Thank you. I mean I know you’re just saying it. But it means a lot.”

  Pike could assure her, he wasn’t just saying it. And he kind of wanted to hear about the other book ‘11/22/63’. How it was different, as she was saying.

  But here was the thing . . . he couldn’t be sure he didn’t already have this conversation with someone, the same darn book . . . it seemed important to figure that out, and he was racking his brain real hard, and couldn’t place anything.

  If he had had that previous discussion, then for sure you hoped you weren’t going senile. Much more likely though of course, doubling up on something and not being aware of it was a bi-product of traveling somewhere and coming back. Especially early on, the (hopefully) small details didn’t always line back up at first.

  So why not, he asked Heidi about that one and she said, “It’s a fascinating premise, actually. When you allow yourself to suspend disbelief and buy in.”

  Pike had a sense what was coming, was thinking uh-oh . . . and why am I not surprised?

  “Hmm,” he said.

  “Though the ending--not to spoil it for you--didn’t work for me. The story moved at a painstaking crawl at times, though in a good way, a wholly appropriate one. But the resolution . . . as I say, I’m not sure.”

  “You can spoil it for me,” Pike said.

  “I can? Well, he’s trying to stop Oswald. And then he does, or so we think. But then the backlash, the counter-effects if you will, were entirely unexpected developments for the protagonist.”

  “Hmm,” Pike said again.

  “It was quite fascinating though. The give and take, the cat and mouse. At one point he actually moves into an apartment across the street from Lee Oswald in Dallas.”

  “Keep an eye on him, you’re saying,” Pike chimed in.

  “Exactly. Before that--before Oswald moved to Dallas--and what I’m leaving out, the main character tries to arrive in Dallas a bit later, closer to the assasination attempt, but he can’t always control his arrival dates.”

  “No,” Pike said, “probably not, it sounds like.” This was getting eerie. But you had . . . like 400 miles to Beacon . . . so unless a better subject line overtook this one, you might as well keep going.

  “Of course the benefit to the reader,” Heidi said, “is you gain insight into another time and place. Almost like you are watching a documentary.”

  “Ah-ha,” Pike said. “What year we talking again? Specifically?”

  “1963, silly. I know you’re just pretending.”

  Pike realized he hadn’t grasped the obvious significance of the title. “That’s embarrassing,” he said.

  “I think it’s just fine,” she said, and she angled her head onto his arm. Unfortunately the F-250 cab as a little too wide and she couldn’t leave it there long without straining an abdominal muscle or something. Unless she took off her seat belt and really slid over, but that was for the past generations--where things were simpler and less regulated and probably more dangerous--such as Dallas in 1963.

  “So in the story,” Pike said, “the guy arrives early you say? What does he do to . . . you know . . . kill time.”

  “Well as I’ve alluded to, that’s fascinating part. It doesn’t directly impact the overlying plot--and in fact last semester I took a beginning creative writing course, and the teacher--the professor--she made that point repeatedly.”

  “Leave out, like the parts a reader might skip?” Pike said.

  “Yes, pretty much! I feel Stephen King though is in a class by himself.”

  “He can get away with that stuff then.”

  “Un-huh. Our professor’s point was don’t stray too far from the main story line. And certainly, that could precipitate a devout reader skipping a section, or multiple ones.”

  “Okay,” Pike said, “you gotta use more common words here . . . and secondly you didn’t answer my question, you went off on a different direction. You’re starting to act like Stephen King.”

  Heidi paused for a moment, Pike thinking un-oh she might think I’m serious, so when she looked over he tried giving her a wink, not sure she could pick it up in the dark, but it seemed to work. She said, “The main character, his name was Jake--and hold on please, no I’m confused.”

  “That’s a first. Take your time, get it straight.”

  “He has only one option, I’m recalling now. He must travel back to a specific date in 1958 that is available to him through a manner of portal. He has no control over that. So yes, it makes sense now--that’s what it is--he is forced to wait 5 or so years until the 1963 incident.”

  “Bull crap,” Pike said.

  Heidi laughed. “Excuse me?”

  Pike had reacted and just blurted it out, and was trying to rein it in now. “All’s I’m saying, that doesn’t sound . . . realistic, does it? Guy’s stuck with one way in, can’t do anything about it?”

  “Well yes, it worked for me. Which leads to my earlier reference, the reader being on a journey in old small town Texas and eventually Dallas.”

  “How’s he spend those 5 years then? I have to tell you, just picturing it, that’d be brutal.”

  “One would think. But he becomes a high school teacher, and leads a relatively satisfying life, while at the same time keeping an eye on the calendar and waiting for Lee Harvey Oswald to arrive in Dallas.”

  “So,” Pike said, “that’d be the part the readers might skip. At least according to your professor . . . Just have him arrive a day or two before President Kennedy comes to Dallas. Save all that time, and get the readers cut right to the chase.”

  “You’re funny. And possibly you are correct. But there’s more of interest once Lee Oswald shows up. Jake actually moves into an apartment across the street from him, so he can monitor his activities.”

  “Oh my God,” Pike said. “And how long was this before the assassination?”

  “A couple of years I’m guessing. At least one.”

  “What you’re telling me, the guy spends 3, 3 and a half years teaching high school someplace, completely unrelated to the President Kennedy situation--and then wastes another year and a half keeping tabs on the idiot? What’s the point.”

  “I’m not sure, exactly. What would your idea be, if you were writing that story?”

  “How would I work it? . . . Well it seems to me--and I’d have to refresh myself on exactly how it went down--but you stop the guy from entering the building . . . what was it, the bank depository?”

  “The school book depository.”

  “Yeah. So you don’t let him in there. And the motorcade proceeds normally, and President Kennedy lives happily ever after.” Pike knew it wasn’t this simple, the result part, but don’t worry about that for now.

  Heidi said, “That’s . . . certainly one approach I suppose.”

  “What?” Pike said. “You’re saying fine, but then there’s no story. The book’s about 30 pages long.”

  “Yes, that . . . but it seems too simple, a
s well. Somehow.”

  “Well what you’re shooting for, first and foremost, is don’t waste any more time than you have to. Say for instance you can’t stop Oswald from entering the building. You think you’ve got him under control--maybe you got in his way when he was walking there. Or if, say he took the bus, you give it a flat tire maybe.”

  Heidi was thinking about it, smiling. “Screw something up, as you would put it.”

  “Now you got it,” Pike said, and he reached over and held her hand, and this was going to be okay, the 350 or so miles you still had to cover.

  Pike continued, starting to get into it. “If that’s not going to work--either stopping him from entering the building--or rewinding it a bit, stopping him--or at least delaying him--from getting to the dang building . . . then maybe you need a plan B. But only then.”

  “I see. And what would that plan be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You really are a goofball. But you certainly have an active imagination. You should write a story.”

  “Me? Nah.”

  “You used the term rewinded. That was employed periodically in the book as well, and I found it interesting.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Yes. When Jake came back to the present-day--and this was Maine not surprisingly . . .”

  “Plenty of his books set there,”Pike said. “I did like the one about the car that goes nuts . . . But when he comes back to present day--what happens?”

  “Only, that if he decides to go back to 1958 again, that new attempt nullifies whatever he may have altered previously. So everything resets. Whatever he may have altered previously is erased. I realize that’s the term, not rewinds.”

  “Okay now, what a total crock of nonsense,” Pike said. “Sorry . . . I didn’t mean to get carried away there.”

  “My,” Heidi said, “we’re quite passionate about the story, apparently. By all means then, you should read the book.”

  “Maybe some time . . . What other . . . stuff . . . happens to the main guy? Since he seems to need to go back to 1958.” Chris felt himself gritting his teeth. He knew he was being irrational but couldn’t help it.

  “Well,” she said, “if you’re asking, what other organized elements of time travel surfaced? There would be 2 more that I can think of. The first, no matter how long Jack stayed in 1958--days, weeks, even years--only 2 minutes elapsed in the present.”