Remember Me (8 page)

“Mom, I know things: things that I can profit from immensely. I can achieve more wealth than you can imagine. I could easily make billions of dollars. I can also dramatically and disastrously change the course of my lost future. What I believe is simple in concept and next to impossible to do! I’m stuck here for good, and the universe isn’t going to explode if I shake hands with my younger self. I believe that only happens in science fiction novels and at the movies. The world I once knew is now changed forever. How much it changes will be entirely up to me.”

My mother just stared at me, lost in images of her own

making. She carefully looked at the phone and gasped when she slid the phone apart to reveal the small keyboard underneath.

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It wasn’t on, nor did it need to be for my mom to come to a silent and knowing understanding. “Andrew, you have to be very careful.”

“I know Mom, lives depend upon it!”

We spent the rest of the morning discussing options,

scenarios, and potential plans for moving forward. The one common thread in all of them was the need for me to establish some form of a new identity. My mother desperately wanted to stay a big part of my life, and suggested I become a distant cousin from out East. It had merit, but I wasn’t sure that it was wise to stay so connected to the family. We decided I would be better served to be someone completely new.

By the time my father returned from work, around five-thirty, the plans had been hashed and rehashed to the point of silliness. The mother I would come to know in the future was fast arriving today. Papers with charts, pros and cons, littered the kitchen table. The only expression from my father was his silent acknowledgement. I believe he accepted the fact that that he would only be a consenting player, not one of the major decision makers in my search for direction. I felt a little remorse, because he was one of the best fathers and grandfathers there ever was. I sincerely hoped my presence here wouldn’t somehow cause him to change for the worse. He was going to have a big part to play, and I needed him to “stay on target.”

I had always known my mother had a keen intellect, but

seeing her in action was a sight to behold. She thought of things I never even gave credence to. While I had talked about the disastrous consequences of me being here, she spoke with such conviction of the wonderful possibilities, all the things I could do with my knowledge to help shape a better world. It was too hard for me to look past what I had lost—Amy, her children, my grandchildren…my life. For me and the life I once knew; it was officially over! My stomach turned sour and S 54 S

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my heart beat sadly in the recognition of my doomed finality.

In one of those rare moments, my father put his hand on

my shoulder. “Son, I can only imagine the pain you must be experiencing. I spent most of the night and all day wondering what I would do if it was me who found himself twenty-five years in the past. Of course, nineteen sixty would be no prize to relive again either.” He chuckled to himself, and I waited for him to continue. “There was one thought that seemed to grip me as I thought about what it would be like. It was a feeling of loneliness, being forced to the outside of life and having to look in.” With that statement he looked me directly in the eyes.

“Your mom and I will be here for you, whatever the situation entails!”

My father had surprised me with his empathetic evaluation, because it was exactly how I felt. Over the last twenty-five years, my father and I continued to grow together in our relationship with each other. It was unique, because he wasn’t the father I remembered growing up, but wished I had. He was a man of strong principles, and Mom had done most of the touchy-feely things with me throughout my childhood.

Though he would always be my father, during the last twenty-five years he had become a cherished friend as well. I said the only thing I could, “Thanks!”

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It’s only a bet.

May 27th, 1985

I’d been living
in nineteen eighty-five for slightly under a week. If nothing else, it had altered the perspective on what I remembered. My mother, and in most regards, my father also, had become more like allies than parents. I couldn’t blame them—trying to deal with one son was more than enough for most parents, let alone twins…born twenty-five years apart.

My father chipped in when it seemed it was needed most and my mother took control of the strategic planning. She was great at covering all of the little details which needed to be done. I felt, for lack of a better word, backwards. Technology spoils you in ways you wouldn’t even imagine until you live without it, or in my case, lose it. Life moves in the speed of

“slow” when you have no high speed internet connection—

no internet period. Research was still done the old fashioned way—at the library. Personal computers were just really starting to make inroads into the home. They were still mostly used in a business environment. Personal computers were nothing more than slow, cumbersome calculators with limited software. The “big boys” of the future technology boom weren’t even out of their diapers yet. As a kid, and all through my adulthood, I’d spent weeks roughing it in the wilderness of the Minnesota Boundary Waters; but living in 1985, without the conveniences of 2010 was more barbaric indeed.

I was planning on spending a quiet Memorial weekend

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with just my parents. The younger Andrew went with Tami to see her folks and spend the weekend with them. It was strange not to see the pictures of my grandkids hanging on my parent’s wall. I missed them and the loss of Amy’s loving smile crushed me more and more every day. If it hadn’t been for my mom, Linda, as she insisted I start calling her, I think I could have easily just packed it in for a while. It was hard; but I knew for the sake of all that was to come, I couldn’t be Andrew any longer, nor could she outwardly be Mom. She paced in front of me more times than I wanted to remember. “Andrew, you have to face the here and now. Andrew, quit feeling sorry for yourself, you have opportunities to do great things! Andrew, you’ll always have a family here. Andrew, I love you!”

My mind raced day and night with the wonders and

horrors of what might be. A dream would suddenly turn

into a nightmare. All my good intentions would turn sour and wreak devastation on the world. Several times Arnold Schwarzenegger would repeat his classic line from Terminator,

“I’ll be back,” as I watched the world blown-up because I gave my phone’s technology to the wrong people. It was either a premonition or a warning from God, I didn’t care which. All I knew was that I had to be careful, very careful.

I had to hand it to my parents. They were exceptional in dealing with their two sons. My mother didn’t have a color-coordinated calendar hanging on the wall, all marked up with two different colors to highlight the comings and goings of her sons. She kept it all straight in her head, and the younger Andrew and his family were never the wiser. I was playing against the odds of chance and realized the sooner I could be on my own, the better it would be for all of us.

My mother and I spent many mornings turning over ideas

for my new identity. Who should I be and how was I going to become him? Thank God it wasn’t the 21st Century. The S 57 S

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information highway and the high-tech policing organizations didn’t yet exist. One dramatic thought kept coming to mind as I researched ways to achieve a new persona, this time was still naive. In my world, one slip-up, such as a picture sent via phone or a comment in an email could evoke irreparable damage. Here, in this time, information moved at the speed of

“turtle.”

I learned one important lesson: librarians guard secrets with their lives. I spent a Saturday afternoon at the Cedar Falls Library researching articles on organized crime and identity changes. Several times I enlisted the help of Margret, the head librarian. Marge was the perfect picture for the librarian stereotype. She was older and wore glasses. She also gave you that “Be quiet” look if she thought you were too loud. I thought I had my cover story down pat—I didn’t. I told her I was a novelist trying to write a crime story where the lead character needed to change her identity to get away from an abusive husband, who was very connected to the Mafia. She always smiled politely and showed me where to find what I needed in the archives.

I did find what I needed, but not without escaping an extremely close call. I had filled a note pad full of information.

The table where I was working was covered with newspapers and reference books. Needing to go to the bathroom, I left everything out on the table. I happened to take my note pad with me. On it, I’d written down two other books I wanted to get after my bathroom break. When I came out of the bathroom, there were two police officers in heavy conversation with Margret. I knew what the topic of discussion was—me.

My heart started to race when I realized the immediate danger I was in. With a wallet full of future money, most assuredly to be considered forgeries, I needed to exit quickly and quietly.

Margret hadn’t seen me leave for the bathroom. Her head

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was turned towards where I was supposed to be sitting. The backs of the police officers were right in front of me. All three of them were glancing at the table where I had been sitting.

With no time to lose, I took the long way around and headed to the front door of the library. I snuck through the children’s section and followed a mother and her daughter as they were exiting. I casually walked next to them on the way out. I opened the outer door for them and walked slightly behind them as we both turned the same direction into the parking lot. I had the urge to run, but suppressed it the best I could.

My hands were shaking as I dug in my pocket for the keys to Mom’s Oldsmobile. I headed out the far side of the parking lot and turned South, away from my parent’s house. I didn’t rest easy until I made several left and right turns without incident or police sirens.

As soon as I got back to Linda and Neil’s house, I emptied out my pockets. In order to start anew, the old had to be discarded. My research had taught me several things: one slip-up and you would be taken down. The world was full of optimists when it came to making money, and most of them would sell their souls for it. I had gotten a general idea of what I would need to have happen for me, so I could begin as someone different. I was going to have lots of trouble explaining the sudden appearance of a fifty year-old that no one had ever known, and without any past history. I needed some sort of substantiated beginning. The place I needed to go was Chicago, and it was going to cost me a chunk of money.

Linda and I sat down to discuss my options, and she grilled me about all the things I’d forgotten. She understood the need for me to stake my own claim in the world, and to not be handcuffed to anyone—literally. She also had her own trepidations about what damage my knowledge could do. To her

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Mom and Dad had generously offered to give me money to

help out. I still believed that I shouldn’t try to alter too much of the past, at least not until I could get a better feel for the potential side-effects.

Outside of purchasing a lottery ticket and winning big,

there were no easy ways to make a lot of money fairly quickly.

Linda and I made list after list of potential money making ventures. “Andrew! What about betting?” she asked me out of the blue one afternoon.

“I don’t remember who won what, let alone the specifics.”

I said to her in reply. “I’m sure many of those events will come back to me as they take place. There are a few standouts, but for the life of me, I can’t tell you right now the year it happened,” I explained. It was my attempt at trying to convince her and myself the poor state of my memory.

“I thought you were always into all of that sporting stuff?”

she asked me.

“I am, but it was always more about the entertainment.

I’m not one of those statistic loving maniacs. I moved on from one year to the next. I can tell you who won last year’s Super bowl, but I honestly can’t remember the winner from the year before that.”

“Ok, fine,” my mother said, and she rose from her seat at the table and headed for the living room. She returned with a stack of newspapers. Exasperated, she tossed them more at me than on to the table. “Nothing on our list is going to make much money in the short-term. The stocks that you talk about buying may take years to grow substantially. Plus, we have to watch out for the crashes in the stock market you keep mentioning: nineteen eighty-seven, two thousand through two thousand-two. Internet bubbles, housing crisis, and all of those things that are way, way down the road. What about now?”

I adverted my eyes from hers, choosing to look instead

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for a reasonable answer in my coffee mug. How could I let her know I’d been having those feelings of dread again? I was worried about everything and everyone. I couldn’t see anything worthwhile happening by me being here. I remembered enough to make it rich if I wanted to, but at what cost? Save a life to destroy five more! Forty years of watching science fiction movies and reading novels left me with some pretty wild assumptions. All of the storylines continually raced around in my head. In almost every instance, the outcome never turned out very well. Life has its own karma and you can’t mess with it for very long without someday being called on to pay the piper.

To put it mildly, I was literally scared to death. In every novel, or movie I’d ever watched or read, the end rarely justified the means. In many cases, the hero created more collateral damage than he or she helped avoid. One other thought dominated my presumptions. This was not a story or a movie, but real…beyond any fathomed theory. Thus far, the world had not exploded—not yet. I believed in the Bermuda Triangle’s strange happenings, and in the possibility of advanced alien life. There were just too many unknowns, never thoroughly explained, that caused me to wonder if I wasn’t involved in something similar. Maybe the triangle was a wormhole to