Once Beyond a Time (16 page)

And there’s Bim too, the dead man walking. Sheesh, what a face. He won’t even need to wear a mask come Halloween. That guy’s a walking zombie. If I was Gail, I’d be embarrassed to say I was related to anything like that.

But Gail’s cool. I like her. I mean, yeah, I guess you could say we’re friends. Hey, wow, I made a friend in Black Mountain. Will wonders never cease? She’s a far cry from Monica and the old gang up home, though. I mean, I can just see Gail and me smoking weed together out in the woods somewhere. No way, not Miss Goody Two-shoes. She’s never smoked so much as a cigarette in her life. Told me so herself. “I’m not messing with any of that stuff, not even tobacco,” she said.

“What are you, some kind of saint?” I asked.

“Naw, I just don’t want to go down that road.”

“Yeah? Well, you don’t know what you’re missing.”

I should know. I’m missing it something fierce. What I wouldn’t give for one small joint, just one chance to get high. Monica offered to mail me some grass. I almost said all right, but Mom’s the one who drives to the post office to pick up the mail. How could I hide it from her? It’d be my
head on a platter if she figured it out.

Back behind the counter, I’m waiting on a couple of kids who can’t decide what they want when some middle-aged woman walks in the front door.

“Hi, Mom,” Gail says.

So, what’s this? A family reunion? Grandpa Bim is here, and now her mom.

“You want some ice cream?” Gail asks. She’s smiling. She seems really happy to see her mom. They are one weird family.

“No thanks, sweetie,” her mom’s saying. “You forgot your pill, so I thought I’d bring it to you.”

Criminy! Gail’s on the pill? I can’t believe it! I never would have thought—

“It’s an antibiotic.” Gail’s looking at me like she read my mind or something. She lays an index finger against her temple. “I’ve got a sinus infection.”

“Oh.” Man, I was going to say, there’s no way that girl’s on the pill. “I didn’t think you looked so hot. You sure you should be here?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m past the contagious stage. Hey, you met my mom?”

No, I guess I haven’t had the pleasure. So what’s her name? She’s Bim’s daughter, right? So I guess that makes her … what? … Bimbo? A ha ha ha …

“Oh well, Mom, this is Linda. And Linda, this is my mom, Linda. You’re both Lindas, remember!”

Oh yeah, now I remember. That grand coincidence. Gail’s laughing like she’s some sort of stand-up comedian, and she’s just made the funniest joke in the world.

Her mother laughs too and says hello to me. Looking at her now, I notice she’s got one giant ugly scar just above her right eyebrow. She’s trying to cover it up with bangs, but it’s not working so hot. You can see the scar, all red and bumpy, between the strands of hair.

“Glad to meet you, Linda,” she says. “Gail’s told me so much about you. Welcome to Black Mountain.”

“Oh, um, yeah. Thanks.”

Gail’s drinking down her pill with a bottle of Orange Nehi. When she finishes, she says to her mom, “Why don’t you sit with Gramps a while and have a malted or something?”

“No thanks, honey. Looks like Gramps is in the middle of a pretty intense game of checkers there, and I’ve got to get home and get the laundry out of the dryer.”

Wow, the life these people live down here. What’s Abington got—what’s the whole of Philadelphia got—compared to excitement like that? I can’t imagine why these hills aren’t overrun with people just flocking in to join the fun.

Gail’s mom leaves, and the two kids who can’t decide what they want finally settle on a couple of root beer floats. After I fix them and ring up the sale, I ask Gail, “So, how’d your mom get that scar on her head?” Yeah, I know it’s tacky. I shouldn’t be asking about a scar, but I can’t help it.

Gail doesn’t seem offended, though. “Uncle Lyle hit her with an iron poker when they were kids. Not hard enough to kill her but hard enough to leave a scar.”

I can’t believe it! “You mean her own brother did that to her?”

“Yeah. Nasty, huh?”

“So how old was he?”

“Old enough to know better.”

“Sheesh! Nice guy. So where’s this uncle now?”

“Leavenworth.”

I start cracking up. Now she
is
joking. “Yeah, that’s good!”

“No,” she says. “Really. He’s in Leavenworth.”

I stop laughing. Her family’s getting weirder by the minute, but it’s kind of cool. I’ve never known anyone who had someone in their family in prison.

“So what’d he do?” I ask.

“What
didn’t
he do?” she says. “He has a criminal record as long as your arm.”

“Oh yeah?”

“The last thing he did was kill a U.S. Marshal. That landed him in Leavenworth.”

“Wow.” I look over at Bim who’s playing checkers with another of the perverts. Bim may be ugly as sin, but he looks too harmless to have a son in Leavenworth. I don’t know what else to say, so I just say “Wow” again.

“But we’re not close to him,” Gail adds. As if she needs to explain.

“Um, I guess not. Is he ever getting out?”

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “Soon as they’re done frying him in the chair.”

Double wow! Death row. I never would have guessed, coming from someone like Gail. All of a sudden she looks different somehow; like, a little more real or something, now that I know she’s got an uncle on death row. Sheesh. People sure are full of surprises.

Sunday, August 18, 1968

A
SOFT RAIN
falls outside the window. I can hear the raindrops and wind rustling the leaves of the trees behind the house. The windowpane is streaked with dozens of tiny slithering droplets. What I see in the glass, though, is not the outside world, which is dark now, but my own wraith-like reflection and the reflection of Gavan Valdez sitting behind me in the wing chair. He appeared a few moments ago, jotting notes in the margin of a thick book on his lap. He says he is reading about the everlastingness of God, the one who had no beginning and will have no end.

“You are a theology professor,” I say.

“That’s right.”

I turn from the window and look at him. He has a face I feel I’ve seen before, beyond the one time I met him earlier, but I cannot place it. He smiles kindly. I am comfortable with him, as though I’ve known him a very long while. “What do you think, then?” I ask. “About this—about our being able to see each other. Do you think it has something to do with God?”

He closes the book and leans forward in the chair. “I think it has everything to do with God,” he replies.

I pace the room a moment, then sit down on the edge of the bed
facing him. “How can we understand what’s happening?”

“I’m not sure we can. Not fully, anyway.”

“But do you have any idea?”

“Well—” He frowns, and two deep lines appear between his brows. “There are varying theories among theologians about God and time, you know.”

I nod, though it’s not a subject I studied while at seminary.

“Some theologians claim God exists within time, much as we do, and that as such, he experiences events in sequence, also as we do. Others claim God exists outside of time, that he exists but he doesn’t exist
at
any particular time. Or perhaps, he exists at all times. So that, instead of experiencing events in sequence, he somehow experiences all things at once.” He pauses and looks at me a moment. Then adds, “It’s complicated, of course.”

“Of course,” I agree. “But what do
you
think?”

He nods. “Personally, I think he exists outside of time. I think he exists in an Eternal Now.”

“An Eternal Now,” I repeat. The room is quiet as the thought settles over us. “So that, to God, you and I don’t actually exist at different times, but we both exist in this Eternal Now?”

“So it would seem.”

“And this place, this house somehow, for whatever reason, is itself caught up in an Eternal Now?”

“I can think of no other way to explain it. Though, as I say, no one can know for sure. Who, after all, can understand the depths of God?”

I stand and walk back to the window. My hands rest together at the small of my back. The Eternal Now.

“But why?” I ask. “Why is this happening?”

“Consider it a gift,” Gavan says.

“Oh!” I say, turning to him in surprise. “Then you’ve heard that too? That this is a gift? Who—”

“I’m not sure I can tell you that,” he interrupts. “But yes, I’ve been told it’s a gift.”

There is so much I want to ask this young man who lives in my future. But in the next moment, he rises from the chair. I look at him questioningly.

“My son is crying,” he explains as he moves across the room. “Another bad dream, I suppose. I’d better go tend to him.”

Now I hear it, the child crying. “Of course,” I say, “But …”

At the doorway Gavan stops and looks back, allowing me time to finish.

“But, you’ll come back, won’t you?” I ask.

“I’m always here,” he says. “I’ll see you again soon.”

And then he leaves the room, and only my now remains. I’m alone again and filled with wonder.

Monday, August 19, 1968

I
WALK INTO
the kitchen and find Celeste dozing in one of the rocking chairs, her feet propped up on the hearth. I can’t help but to gaze upon her face and wonder at the serenity so evident there. It’s the middle of the day, and she’s napping. I think of how she told me she came back to these mountains so she could stop spending money and just spend time. I myself have never had any money to spend, but neither do I think I’ve spent time, not the way Celeste does. I have not spent it, I’ve wasted it. I think I’m beginning to realize that now. I have wasted my time.

A phone rings. But it’s not the phone on the kitchen wall. The ringing seems to be coming from near the fireplace. It’s—why, it seems to be Celeste’s shoe! How very odd. In 2005, people are like Maxwell Smart, Secret Agent 86. They can take the sole off their shoe and answer the phone!

Celeste goes on sleeping, undisturbed. I would put a hand on her shoulder to waken her, but I know that I can’t do that. “Celeste,” I say. She begins to stir. “Celeste, your shoe is ringing.”

“What?” She looks up at me with puzzled eyes. She yawns and blinks. The phone goes on ringing. Suddenly, Celeste bursts out laughing. “Oh! Oh honey,” she says as she pulls her feet from the hearth. “That’s not my shoe. That’s my cell phone!”

There is an odd silver device sitting on the stones. It had been hidden behind Celeste’s feet. She picks it up, opens it the way you open a powder compact, pushes a button and says, “Hello?”

What’s a cell phone? I wonder. How can Celeste be talking to someone on that little device that doesn’t have a cord and isn’t connected to anything?

“Yes, Mrs. See,” she’s saying. She laughs; she seems to be enjoying herself. “No, no, it’s no problem. I can pick some up on my way to your place … Uh huh. No, don’t worry about that. I’ll see you around five … Uh huh. All right. You get some rest now.”

She says good-bye and folds the device back together. She looks at me. “That was Mrs. See, the woman I work for in Asheville.”

“But what’s that thing?” I ask, pointing at the silver compact.

“Oh. It’s a cellular phone. It’s—well, never mind about that now. You’ll know about them in another couple of decades or so.”

“Phones don’t need cords anymore?”

“Well, some models of landlines still have cords, but cell phones don’t. They’re made to be taken anywhere.”

“It’s a strange world,” I say.

“That it is,” Celeste agrees. Then she adds, “I’m glad to see you again.”

I smile. I’m glad to see her again too, and tell her so. “It’s nice to have some company up here,” I say.

“Hmmm,” she says. “You must get lonely sometimes, being new to town.”

I haven’t really thought about loneliness, not until this minute. But I suppose she’s right; at times I do feel lonely. I sit down in the second rocking chair in front of the hearth.

She asks, “Do you miss Pennsylvania?”

I have to think a moment. “No,” I finally say. “I guess I don’t. I wouldn’t want to be there anymore.” I look at her. I realize suddenly she may know more about me than I think. “Do you know why we moved here?”

She smiles placidly, and her face fills with compassion. “I’m afraid so,” she says quietly.

“Well,” I say, “at least that keeps me from having to explain. But tell me, is it common knowledge? Does everyone in Black Mountain in 2005 know why we moved down here?”

“Oh no,” she assures me. “I doubt anyone in Black Mountain in 2005 knows why you moved down here.”

“But you do.”

“Yes.”

“May I ask how you happen to know?”

She’s silent a moment, then says, “I’m not sure you’d understand if I told you.”

I nod. I feel she is at some advantage, being in the future. But that is neither her choice nor her fault. “Maybe someday I’ll understand.”