Once Beyond a Time (10 page)

“What do you mean? We’re the same age, aren’t we?”

“Listen, are you going to let me have a smoke or not?”

“Well.” He looks at the pack of cigarettes. “All right.” Then, sounding rather proud, he says, “Most of the folks around here roll their own tobacco, but Dad has these sent down from Chicago.”

“Nice. So hand one over.”

He places one in my hand, but it goes right through my skin and lands on the porch.

“What the—” Austin swears and leans away from me like I’m a ghost or something.

I try to touch the cigarette, but my finger goes right through it. “I should have known,” I say quietly. I feel something like awe as I run my finger through the cigarette again and again.

When I look at Austin, his face is white, and there are beads of sweat breaking out all over his forehead. He’s trying to say something, but he’s having trouble getting the words out. “Should … should have known what?” he finally manages to ask.

“That I wouldn’t be able to touch it.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” I have to stop and think a minute. “I’m not really sure.”

Austin stares at me for a good long while. “You’re talking in circles,” he says angrily. “Listen, get to the point. I want to know what’s going on around here.”

“Okay,” I say. “Okay, here’s the point. It’s time.”

“Time for what?”

“No. Not time for something, just time. We’re living in a place where all of time is going on at once.”

Now he’s looking at me like I’m wacko, with his eyes bugging out and
his mouth hanging open. “What are you saying?” he asks.

“Do you know a woman in town named Vernita Ponder?”

“No.”

“Well, I guess if she’d told you, she would have told me she told you, but she said she never spoke with you, so I guess it’s obvious she didn’t tell you.”

Austin stands up abruptly. “That’s crazy talk,” he says. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t like it. Maybe you’d better leave before—”

“Sit down, Austin,” I say. When he doesn’t make a move, I add, “Please. Please sit down, all right? I don’t really understand it myself, but I’ll try to explain.”

To my surprise, Austin doesn’t argue with me. He just sits down again. He waves the unlit cigarette in his hand. “You mind?” he asks.

“No, go ahead.”

His fingers tremble slightly as he strikes a match. He inhales deeply, looks at me and waits.

I lean back against the step and settle in. This might take awhile, and I want to be comfortable. I look up at the sky and take a deep breath. “There’s a legend in these mountains,” I begin …

Saturday, July 20, 1968

I
’M SITTING AT
the kitchen table eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, when I hear a weird noise outside. I run out the back door and see Mac sitting on top of the rock, playing a harmonica.

“Hey Mac! You know what?”

He stops blowing on the harmonica. He wipes the spit off his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “What?”

“My sister told me where you’re at it’s 1916.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, did you know where I’m at it’s 1968?”

He nods a little. “That’s what Austin told me. He said your sister told him.”

He starts playing the harmonica again.

“Well, don’t ya believe it?”

He stops blowing again. “Sure, I believe it. Why not? Your sister a liar or something?”

“No,” I say. Then, “Well, maybe sometimes. But I don’t think she’s lying about this because my mom says so, too.”

“Yeah? So?”

“So, it seems kind of strange, doesn’t it? Us living at different times but talking to each other?”

He shrugs. “Lots of things seem kind of strange. My Grandma Lowry, my mom’s mom—she used to talk all the time to the Archangel Michael. No one else could see him, but Grandma’d talk to him like he was sitting right there at the kitchen table.”

“Yeah? What’d they talk about?”

“I don’t know. I never listened much.”

“She still talk to him?”

“Naw.”

“How come?”

“She died.”

“Oh.”

He plays the harmonica for a minute, and then he stops. He looks around like he’s looking for something.

I say, “We’re not supposed to tell anybody, you know.”

“About what?” he asks.

“About us living at different times.”

He shrugs. “So who would care? No one cared about Grandma talking to the angel. They just said she was queer in the head.”

“So you’re not gonna tell anyone?”

“Naw.”

“Me neither. But I can tell you about the future, if you want. Want me to?”

“Naw, not really.”

I listen to him play a little bit. If he’s trying to play a song, I don’t know what it is. I think he could use a lot of practice.

“You want to play Cowboys and Indians, then?”

“Sure!” He stuffs the harmonica in his shirt pocket, leaps up and jumps off the rock. “Geronimo!” he yells.

I guess that makes me the cowboy, then, if he’s the Indian.

Saturday, July 20, 1968

W
E HAVE TO
drive into town to the post office to get our mail, but I’d go a hundred times a day if every time I went I found a letter from Carl waiting for me. This is the first one we’ve received from him since we arrived in Black Mountain. It was hard to do, but I waited until I got back home to open it. Opening his letters is a moment to savor.

“Dear Mom, Dad, Linda, and Digger, I am fine.”

He always starts that way. “I am fine.” He has no idea how I grab at those words the way a drowning person grabs at a rope. Or maybe he does. Maybe that’s why he always says it first, before anything else.

I settle back in the rocking chair to read. It’s not a long letter. Words of thanks for the box of baked goods I mailed off right before we left Abington. He shared the cookies and pound cake with his buddies in his hut and no one complained about them being a little stale. The chow they serve in the mess is awful and while he might feel full he’s never satisfied, and he can’t wait to get back to a home-cooked meal. He’s working like a dog, he says, especially when it comes to the daily report. The report, reviewed each evening by both the Executive Officer and the Commanding Officer, tells where every man in the battalion is at all times. This includes a breakdown, by pay grade, rate, company, etc., and when
and where the detachments are and which men are in the detachments (name, rate, service number, and company), emergency leaves, R & R, TADs, men on security watch, mess detail, trash crew, laundry detail, the rear echelon, men in school (back in the States), etc. And the numbers are always changing, every day, and each one requires a diary entry, and sometimes it’s enough to drive him crazy. But he likes the guys he works with in the office, and on the whole the place isn’t too bad, and at least he’s getting used to the nighttime mortar attacks. They don’t happen every night, just sometimes. When the siren goes off, most of the men run out of the huts and jump into the mortar pits naked so it’d be pretty funny—all of them running around in their birthday suits—if only there weren’t incoming artillery to worry about.

He ends his letter, ironically, by saying, “Don’t worry,” and I wonder, how can I not worry when my firstborn is in a war zone? Thank God he’s not on the front lines, but even so, like Carl himself said in his last letter, “This place is no picnic.” No, it’s no picnic when young men who have barely even started living are shipped home in body bags.

I lean my head against the back of the chair and shut my eyes. I don’t want to think dreadful thoughts. Please, God, let Carl come home safely.

When I open my eyes, I notice a half-eaten sandwich on the table. Digger’s lunch, the peanut butter and jelly I made him before I headed down to the post office.

“Linda?”

“What?”

She’s in the living room, watching something on TV while she paints her fingernails a fiery red. I can see her from where I’m sitting in the kitchen.

“Where’s Digger?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Out back, I think.”

“You were supposed to be watching him.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not my brother’s keeper.”

“You are when I’m not home.”

She shrugs again.

I feel a momentary wave of panic ripple through my stomach. I should have looked for Digger the moment I got back from the post office, but I was too anxious to read Carl’s letter. Moving to the kitchen window, I look out at the empty yard.

“Linda?”

“What?”

“Did Digger say anything to you?”

“About what?”

“About where he was going?”

“No.”

My panic turns to anger. “Listen, Linda, I’ve told you time and time again that when I’m not home—”

But I’m interrupted when the front door crashes open, and Digger runs through the front hall to the kitchen. “Hi, Ma!” he says. He is dirty and sweaty, and I feel his sweet warmth as he throws his arms around my waist. I squeeze him in return, then ruffle his unruly blond hair. “Where have you been?” I ask.

“Outside playing with Mac,” he answers.

“Oh!” I nod. I’m hardly used to any of this. “Mac. He’s your friend from …”

“Yeah,” Digger says. “He’s the kid who lives in 1916.”

An odd sensation ripples through my chest. “And does he know you live in 1968?”

Digger nods. “Yeah, he knows.”

“And doesn’t he think it’s … strange?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I offered to tell him about the future, but he wanted to play Cowboys and Indians instead.”

“Really?”

I have to think about that for a moment. Would I want to know the
future? Will I ever meet anyone to ask? In a place like this, that may very well be possible.

“Yup, so that’s what we’ve been doing, but he had to go. I’m hungry. What can I have to eat?”

“Well,” I say, pointing at the table, “you didn’t finish your sandwich.”

“Oh yeah!” He jumps into the chair and tears into the sandwich with his usual gusto.

I shake my head and begin to work on the dirty dishes in the sink. Only a little while ago we lived in Abington, Carl was with us, Sheldon was still a pastor, and time was fixed. All we had of time was the present moment.

Now everything has changed, including the fact that time has expanded, or maybe constricted, or somehow melted from something solid to something fluid. It was orderly once, broken down into increments of minutes, hours, days, years, but now all those barriers are gone, and I don’t know how to measure it anymore, don’t even know whether it
can
be measured or whether, in this one strange place, there are moments when time ceases to exist, becoming a calendar of blank pages.

It can be hard to make sense of things when your life isn’t determined by the orderly movement of time.

Saturday, July 20, 1968

T
HE MINUTE
I opened the door to Pop’s Ice Cream Parlor I was almost sorry I took the job. But here I am, tying on my apron and waiting for Gloria Reynolds to tell me what to do. She’s all smiles, that Gloria Reynolds, welcoming me to this hole-in-the-wall like I’ve just landed the best job on the planet. You can spare me your enthusiasm, lady. I’m just doing this so I can buy that ticket out of here.

“Well, let me go over the menu—” she begins, but she’s interrupted when some girl comes flying in the front door.

“Sorry I’m late, Gloria!” the girl hollers. “I was helping Grandpa with—”

“Cool your jets, Gail,” Gloria interrupts her. “It’s only just now five o’clock. According to my schedule, you’re right on time. Now, I’d like to introduce you to our newest employee.”

The girl comes behind the counter and starts to tie an apron around her waist. All the while she’s looking at me and smiling.

Gloria waves a hand at me and says, “Gail, this is Linda Crane.”

“No way!” Gail exclaims, and she looks so excited, I think she’s going to go spastic on me. “I can’t believe it. My mom’s named Linda too!”

“Oh yeah?” I say, and I can hardly keep from rolling my eyes. She
thinks this is some huge coincidence or something? Like what, she just scored some extra points because she now knows two of the million billion Lindas in the world?

“And Linda, this is Gail Leland. You two will be working evening shifts together.”

“Well, Linda, I’m glad to meet you,” Gail says.

“Yeah, same here.”

“I was about to show her the ropes, before we start to get busy,” Gloria says.

The ropes include how to make sundaes, malteds, milkshakes, and banana splits and ring them up on the cash register. That’s about all the place offers, except for coffee, hot chocolate, soda, and candy. Once I learn where everything is, the job should be a cinch.