Once Beyond a Time (13 page)

“It’s possible. So many young men did. Too many.”

I’m thinking she said that because she’s always worrying about Carl dying over in ’Nam. But maybe she’s right. I know about that First World War, how ugly it was. All wars are ugly. No wonder the peaceniks sit around singing,
How many deaths will it takes till he knows that too many people have died?
Yeah, so according to Bob Dylan, the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. Like that’s really going to help. It only sounds good when you’re stoned.

“So where would he be, Mom? I mean, if he died in the war, where would Austin be?”

“Well, lots of our soldiers were buried in France,” she says. “It was just impossible to bring them all home.”

I haven’t seen Austin in more than a week. All of a sudden, I’m scared. I mean, this is really blowing my mind. I’ve got to see him again. I only hope it’s not too late. I hope he hasn’t already gone to war.

Tuesday, July 30, 1968

I
WISH
A
UNT
Donna and them would hurry up and get here. I been ready to go swimming all morning. First time to go to the swimming pool—oh boy! I wish Dad could come but he and Uncle Steve are working at the car place. But Dad promised he’d go swimming with me soon as he can. I’m supposed to try out the diving board and tell him how bouncy it is. I bet it’ll be great for cannon balls!

“Hey, Digger, where you going swimming?”

It’s Mac! I’ve been watching down the drive for Aunt Donna’s car, and I looked away for just a minute and now here he is, standing right in front of the porch. He plops down on the step beside me like he’s tired out.

“How’d you know I was going swimming?” I ask.

“Those are swimming trunks you’re wearing, aren’t they? And you got a towel around your neck.”

“Oh yeah.”

“So where you going swimming?”

“At the pool.”

“There’s a pool around here?”

“Yeah, over that way somewhere.” He looks to where I’m pointing then looks back at me.

“Austin and me, we go to the lake when we want to swim.”

“Oh yeah? Where’s that?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Somewhere around here.” He pulls his shirt off and uses it to wipe his face. “Boy, I’m hot and tuckered. I wish I could go swimming with you.”

“Yeah, me too. Guess you can’t, though.”

“No, guess not.”

“Whatcha been doing?”

“This kid I know from school named Jeb, he and I’ve been down putting pennies on the train track.”

“Wow, they must be smashed flat as pancakes!”

“Flatter than that, even. Smashed clear into the tracks. They’re never coming off. After that, we wished we’d used the money for ice cream.”

“My sister works at the ice cream shop. She brings some home nearly every day.”

“Yeah? You’re lucky.”

“Yeah.”

He throws his shirt on the porch floor and leans his chin in his hands. “You know what Jeb told me?” he asks.

“No. What?”

“He said there’s gold out there.”

“Where?”

“Out there. In the mountains. He said people come through here all the time looking for gold. They dig these mines, see, and go down underground and pull out all the gold. They get rich, too.”

“No fooling?”

“That’s what Jeb said. He said his own uncle found enough gold to build himself a mansion over in Asheville.”

“Wow!”

“Yeah. Someday when I’m bigger, I’m going to come back here and look for gold.”

“Come back here from where?”

“You know—Chicago. That’s where we really live.”

“You do? Then what are you doing here?”

“We came down because Dad had the consumption.”

“What’s that?”

“You know, where you cough all the time. He had to be in that sanitarium for the longest time. We couldn’t even see him for months. But he’s better now, so the doctor let him come home. Dad wants to stay here for a little while because he says it’s good for his lungs. But then we’re going back to Chicago.”

“For good?”

“I think so. But Dad says we’ll come down here for vacation. He likes it here. Me too. It’s a whole lot better place to explore than Chicago.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Think you’ll find any gold?”

“Sure. You just have to know where to look.”

“Do you know where to look?”

“Not yet, but I’m sure going to find out.”

“Think there’ll be any gold left by the time you’re older?”

He nods. “Not many people know about it. Jeb swore me to secrecy. But I know I can tell you because you’re not even born yet.”

“Yeah I am!”

“Not in 1916, you’re not.”

“Oh yeah. Well, when you find the gold, will you leave some there so I can find it after I
am
born?”

He shrugs. “Can’t make any promises. Depends on how much there is.”

“I hope there’s lots.”

“Yeah, me too.”

I hear a horn honk and finally Aunt Donna’s car is coming up the drive. Jeff and Marjorie are waving their arms out the window at me. I wave back at them and say, “Well, Mac, I’m going swimming. I’ll see you later.” But when I look over to where he is, he’s already gone.

Friday, August 2, 1968

I
N THE ROOM
above me, Meg’s footsteps tap lightly across the bare floor. I listen for another moment; now it’s quiet. She has probably gone to bed. I sit here in the living room, looking at the Asheville paper. Looking, but not reading. I’m already too filled up to take in any more. And the shameful thing is, most of what fills me is my own sorrow. So much so, there is little room for anything else.

I’m certain I know now what sin is. It’s a wall. It’s one huge wall that keeps you from everything good in life.

It’s almost midnight now. Linda should be home soon. I don’t like to think of her out so late, but we are, at any rate, not in the big city anymore. Surely we are safe enough here in Black Mountain. Steve even tells me not to bother reading the Black Mountain News as nothing ever happens.

I’ll leave the light on, so she can see when she comes in. I’d better go to bed myself, before it gets any later. I’m not used to working on Saturdays, having to get up early. Lots to do tomorrow, getting ready for the upcoming End-of-Summer Blow-out Sale. Reduced prices on every car in the lot. It almost sounds like something I should be excited about. If only I could muster up a little bit of enthusiasm for the job. Maybe it would help if I thought in exclamation points like the newspaper ads Steve
has submitted to the Asheville Tribune …
Huge End-of-Summer Blowout Sale! Reduced prices on every car in the lot! You won’t find a better deal anywhere! Come check us out and …

Nope. It’s no use.

I toss aside the newspaper and head for the stairs, stepping lightly in my stocking feet. There is a nightlight on in the upstairs hall for Digger, in case he needs to find his way to the bathroom during the night, but also because he’s not yet comfortable falling asleep in the dark. He is beginning to seem so grown up, I almost forget what a little guy he still is.

I stop at the door of my room and reach inside for the light switch, but before I find it, the light suddenly goes on and I discover I am not alone. A young man sits at the desk with his face only inches from a television screen.

He turns his head, and when he sees me, he stands abruptly as though coming to attention. We stare at each other for what must be only seconds, though it seems like a very long time. I know what Meg has told me about the house, and yet, I am trying to understand how it can be that this fellow is here. Finally, he says, “Don’t be afraid.”

Oddly enough, I am not afraid, only puzzled. I am made even more so by his announcement not to be afraid. It seems a strange way to greet a person, even a person who shouldn’t be there.

“I suppose I should be surprised to find you here,” I say in response. “But I understand that there’s—something—about the house …”

I’m not quite sure what to say, or whether an explanation is needed, though before I can go on the man jumps in and says, “I’m very pleased to be meeting you.”

I take a small step forward. “You seem to have been expecting me.”

“Not really, no. I was only hoping—”

“Do you know me, then?”

“Only in a manner of speaking. You see, I’ve heard of you.”

“In what year do you live?” I ask, stepping closer.

“2005. And for you it’s …”

“1968.”

“Yes.” He says that as though he already knows and is simply agreeing. “I would shake your hand,” he goes on, “but I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Why’s that?”

“You don’t know?”

“No, I suppose I don’t.”

He reaches out his hand to me, and though his flesh looks perfectly solid, when I try to clasp it, it somehow isn’t there.

“We’re not allowed to touch,” he explains.

“Not allowed?”

“So it seems. Or not able. I don’t fully understand.”

“Neither do I.”

“Well.” He points to the wing chair beside the desk. “Would you like to sit a moment?”

I am being invited to sit in my own chair. “Thank you,” I say. We both sit down. “My name is Sheldon Crane.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Oh? But then, I suppose you would. Since you are—in the future. But I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.”

“My apologies,” he says quickly. “I should have introduced myself earlier. My name is Gavan Valdez.”

Gavan Valdez. I am amused. The name seems the result of an odd coupling between an Irish lass and a Spanish gentleman. And yet he is so fair, he doesn’t appear to have anything of Spain in him.

“Valdez,” I say. “That’s some kind of Spanish name, isn’t it?”

“Hispanic, yes.”

“You don’t look Spanish.”

“My mother married a man from Costa Rica when I was four. He adopted me.”

“I see. And now you own this house?”

“Yes.” He is distracted momentarily by the television screen. Something
has happened to the reception and there are spirals, like those Slinky toys, rolling from side to side. He touches what looks like a typewriter keyboard on the desk in front of the TV, and the picture returns. But there is no sound.

“What kind of television is that?” I ask.

“Oh.” He smiles. “It’s not a television. It’s a computer.”

I’m baffled. A computer? “But computers fill whole rooms.”

“Not anymore they don’t.” He looks amused as he says that.

I ask, “Why do you have a computer in your home?”

“Most people do today. They’re called PCs. Personal computers.”

“And everyone has one?”

“Not everyone. But most people. The way most people had TVs in their homes in 1968.”

I am awed by this. “We have gone far then, haven’t we?”

“In some ways, yes.”

“But what do you do with—this thing? This computer?”

“Well, before you came upstairs, I was—well, I was kind of using it the way people used to use typewriters. It’s called Word Processing. You type on the keyboard. See, it’s laid out just like a typewriter, but it has more keys. Function keys. The words go into the computer and when you’re finished, you can print it off here.” He pats a boxy thing on the desk beside the computer. “I was just working on a lesson plan for the fall semester. I teach at Ridgecrest College. It’s just up the road from here, about five miles.”

I nod. I’m familiar with the college, but I’m intrigued with the machine. “So it’s a modern typewriter,” I conclude.

“Yes, but it can do so much more than that. I mean, it can give you all sorts of information. Anything you want to know.”

“Do you mean, you can ask it a question and it’ll tell you the answer?”

“Something like that.”

“But how does it work?”

“Well, I’m not sure I can—”

He is interrupted by a tap on the door. Before I can say, “Come in,” the door opens a crack and Linda pokes her head in the room.

“Dad,” she says. “You still up?”

“Linda.” I rise from the chair. “I didn’t hear you come home.”

“What are you doing? I thought I heard you talking to someone.” She’s all the way inside my room now.

“I’m—”

But Gavan Valdez and his machine are gone. He must have disappeared the moment Linda tapped on the door.

“I’m just getting ready for bed.”

“Oh.” That seems to satisfy her.

“You must be pretty tired yourself.”

She shrugs. “I want to ask you something.”

“Sure.” Can she see that I am delighted? I am thrilled that she wants to speak to me.

“I want to call Monica and see how the guys are doing back home. I know it’s long distance and all, but I thought now that I’m working, I can pay for it. I can call tomorrow when the rates are cheaper.”