Time Flying (17 page)

Walter was clearly shocked. “Bush's son? Doesn't he own a baseball team or something?”

“Yea, he gets elected to two terms, finds a reason to go back to Iraq, trashes the place, and they end up pulling Saddam out of a hole in the ground...An actual hidey-hole, by the way...And a couple years later around New Year's Eve...2006, I think...he gets strung up.”

“President Bush is hanged?” Walter asked, shocked.

“No!” I answered, laughing. “Saddam Hussein is.”

“Oh, thank God,” Walter said, again pausing.

“I could go on,” I said.

Walter laughed again, shaking his head. “No, that's okay. Wow.”

I nodded, understanding the overload he must have been feeling. “Just remember that stuff,” I said, knowing he would.

The laughing trailed off, and a few more seconds of silence passed before Walter spoke again.

“This is definitely neurological.”

Three weeks later, I received a phone call from Walter. “Can you get away for a couple days?”

“Sure, I’ve got some leave in the bank,” I replied.

“No leave, I need you in San Fran for some tests,” he said.

“Okay…” I answered, warily.

“No, no…Nothing like that. I’m involved in a long-term study of the effects of combat aviation over time. We need pilots and aircrew from all different platforms, and when I saw I needed a couple A-6 crew on the roster…It’ll give us a chance to talk about some of my side research you might be interested in…” Walter replied, his voice trailing off, making his meaning clear.

“Sure. When do you want me there?” I asked.

“Next Monday and Tuesday? We’ll put you in an MRI for a couple hours, and do a couple hours of basic neuro screening. Then, we can grab lunch or something and catch up.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“Great,” Walter said. “I’ll send everything over. Travel details will be included in your orders packet,” he replied, Commander Steinberg entering to the conversation for the first time.

After we hung up, I sat back in the chair in my den at home and looked at the notebook I’d been writing in, recording what I remember about the future I knew as my past.

Walter found something.

Cool.

“You lucky bastard,” Pat said, giving me a sidelong look. “You and your high school buddy get to have a sleepover, while we real sailors keep the world safe for you girls.”

Laughter from the other officers and aircrews in the ready room as VA-145’s Commanding Officer, Commander Tony Colson announced the squadron would spend most of next week in maintenance drills, “except for Lieutenant Commander Girrard,” our tall and thin African-American CO said, “who had been ordered to San Francisco to have his head examined by Fleet Medical to ascertain whether his brain level is ‘bingo’ or ‘joker,’.” Colson referenced the codes used by aircrew to report how much fuel is left in their tank, “Bingo” meaning they’ve got enough to get home if they turn around immediately, and “joker” which means the airplane is coming down very soon, whether there’s concrete or a flight deck nearby or not. In other words, if your fuel status is “joker,” you are out of gas.

Pat let his feelings about my escape from the tedium of a maintenance stand-down be known but Coleson, not one to be easily one-upped by my flying partner, replied “this is important, as both Command and Naval Intelligence are unable to explain the Lieutenant Commander’s willingness to continue flying with Lieutenant Commander Maney.”

That got an even bigger laugh, so Pat struck his colors and nodded his surrender to the Commander, who satisfied with his victory, continued. “Moving along…”

The Monday briefing ended shortly thereafter, the officers going their separate ways to their individual and collective duties. In addition to flying duties, every officer had a job that supported the operation of the squadron. I oversaw a group of enlisted sailors who maintained the ordinance delivery equipment on the squadron's Intruders. The day-to-day hard work managing the guys who worked under me was handled by a Chief Petty Officer, but ultimately, I was accountable for what they did. There were always forms to be filled out, evaluations, disciplinary actions, leave scheduling, etc. Being a Navy flyer wasn't all "punching holes in the sky.” The paperwork helped pay for the flying.

“Word is, we sail late November,” Pat informed me as we put our paperwork away and prepared to head home for the day.

I nodded. It was one of those things I had no idea about, whether from contemporary scuttlebutt, or historical knowledge. I was aware
Ranger
participated in the Gulf War, but had no real idea when she had left San Diego, or when her Air Wing flew out and joined the cruise. So, once again, I had a vague outline of the future, but all the individual moving parts of what made that future came as news to me.

A quick hop on a Navy Citation to San Fran on Monday morning and by afternoon, I found myself staring at the inside of an MRI tube. I'd had a couple MRIs in the early 2000s, so the experience was nothing new, just a lot of noise in a confined space, but considering my experience during flight operations on
Ranger
, not at all uncomfortable. In my young career as a Naval Aviator, I'd already done one 6 month cruise to the Indian Ocean and of all the new sights, sounds and smells, the biggest shock to my system, next to the excruciating boredom a few days cooped up on the ship without flying, was the noise. “Deafening” doesn't even begin to describe the howling of an F-14 Tomcat's engine being run up to full power in a maintenance hanger. The sound quite literally sucked your breath away the first time it hit you.

So, the MRI proved to be a piece of cake, as were the basic neurological tests in the study's workup. Walter told me I'd be back in for another set right after my next deployment, and they'd collect data about what the pressure, near constant flying with all its high-G operations and shipboard life did to my brain and nervous system. In the end, I think all they really wanted to know was why we all seemed to father female children.

The MRI took up most of Monday afternoon, and the neuro workup the next morning, so Walter and I didn't have a chance to talk privately until about 3pm on Tuesday afternoon. He said he'd sign out of the Fleet Medical facility early, and we agreed to meet at a coffee shop downtown. I had suggested the Starbucks across the street from Moscone Center, where I'd always enjoyed a quick cup during breaks at the MacWorld Expo, but though Walter said he'd heard of Starbucks, he didn't know of one within easy driving distance of Fleet Medical.

“There will be, soon,” I said, with a small smile, even though I hadn't planned the demonstration of my knowledge of the future, the accuracy of which, wouldn't be proven for some time.

We'd agreed to meet in 'civvies,' so as to not attract attention, and I had to chuckle to myself as Walter entered the coffee shop. With his short hair, mustache and thick eyeglass frames, anyone who didn't peg him as Navy, wasn't paying attention. But, the same could be said of me, I supposed. We sat down at a corner table affording some privacy, with a view of the door, so anyone who came in the shop would be visible to both of us. There was nothing wrong with the two of us in civilian clothes having a cup of coffee together, but the subject of the conversation, if overheard and reported, could be disastrous to both our careers. After all, one of the officers sitting and drinking coffee claimed he was a time traveler living these years for the second time, and the other one a respected Naval Flight Surgeon who believed him. The stakes were too high for anyone to overhear us talking.

A little small talk as we sipped our coffee, and I could tell Walter was eager to tell me what he'd learned, so after a couple minutes, I asked him.

“This is fascinating stuff, Rich. Truly,” he started, his eyes bright inside the heavy eyeglass frames.

I nodded without replying, allowing him to continue.

“Nothing in any of the literature directly discusses your…condition, but I found some isolated cases that are remarkably similar. No researchers seem to have made any connections between them yet, though.”

Again, I nodded.

“I’m not sure you're the only one who has experienced this,” he said.

“I know I'm not,” I replied. “Our housekeeper when I was in high school said the same thing had happened to her.” I had told Walter about Thelma, but he'd forgotten.

“Right, right,” he nodded, remembering. “Well, I found a few cases of this phenomenon in the literature, but they are only there if you're specifically looking for them.”

My puzzled expression demonstrated to Walter I wasn’t following him.

“Look,” Walter said, “the medical community isn't at all good with psychic or paranormal stuff.” He smiled and continued. “We like organ failure, bleeding, preferably internal,” another smile, “and…things quantifiable, researched and predicted.”

I nodded my understanding.

“We take notes about everything, but don't always pay attention to the things we don't like to think about,” Walter said, his left elbow on the table, hand rubbing his forehead. It was obvious to me this attitude present in his profession frustrated him. I watched as he took a small, wire bound notebook out of his front pocket, opening it on the table in front of him.

“When I did some searching through case notes attached to articles in the literature, I found two examples of people who reported living their lives over again, and five who claimed it had happened to them, but they had returned to their original life when the experience ended.” Walter sat back in his chair and with a self-satisfied expression on his face, willing me to be as amazed as he obviously felt.

So I complied. “Wow...That's...Amazing. Five people?”

“Yes, three women, two men, all five being treated for neurological or auto immune conditions. Two Parkinson's patients, one MS, an ALS...Lou Gherig's disease,” Walter added, referring to his notebook, “and one Lupus.”

At this point, knowing he had my full attention, Walter took a sip of his coffee, swallowed and continued. I didn't say a word, more desperate than I'd been since returning to 1976 to hear something that would provide a clue to what was happening to me.

“Two things connected these cases, and I'm not sure it's coincidence,” Walt continued. “As I said, they all claimed they'd gone back in time and reinhabited their bodies, able to change the paths their lives had taken, but most interesting to me was that all five were characterized by their doctors as extraordinarily self-aware and ‘centered’ in their views on their lives and health concerns. Not much seemed to bother them.”

I nodded, thinking from what Thelma had told me, I understood this. She'd made different choices that left her with a  more complete sense of peace when she returned to her original life. But, I didn't tell Walter about this, at least not yet.

I did ask him though, “How long did they spend in the past?”

“OH!” He exclaimed, prompting annoyed glances from the two women sitting a couple tables away, which reminded him to lower his voice. “That's REALLY interesting,” he said, flipping through the notebook. After a few seconds, he found what he was searching for.

“That information was only in three of the cases, but they were all in the past for more than 20 years. One spent…” he said as he flipped to the next page, “38 years in her past.”

He paused, reading his notes. “Well, her past and future.”

I didn't understand. “Wait a minute. Her past and future?” I asked. “She traveled to her future?”

“No, no, in 1972, she ‘traveled' to 1961, where she was 20 years old. Then she spent the next 38 years living her life. She claims in 1999, she had advanced to the day in 1972 from which she had originally traveled.” Walter had a smile on his face that told me he didn’t think the woman had been crazy, and it had put him on the trail of something he found interesting.

“So…” I made the connection. “Since 1972, she’s been living through years she has already seen…”

The smile got bigger. “Riiiiiight,” he said, as if I were a particularly slow student.

“But she saw these years in her alternate life, not the original,” I continued, noticing Walter’s smile had broadened again. “So she is repeating these years in her original timeline. Wow.”

Now, Walter added a vigorously nodding head to his smile.

“What's her name?” I asked. If I tracked her down...

“No name, not in the notes,” Walter replied. “Never is.”

“And this information is all available to doctors and researchers?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief. “Why wouldn't the government classify this? Something this huge?”

Walter's turn to shake his head came. “Rich, you don't understand. Time travel wasn't the focus of the case. At most, it was evidence of “cognitive impairment.” Her information came through interviews done in an MS study. Multiple Sclerosis sometimes affects thinking, emotion, cognitive function.”

“Surely someone would have paid attention to claims as wild as hers, though.” I said.

“No, I guarantee you, at the most, anyone who even briefly considered it, got nothing more than a laugh for their trouble.”

“Wow,” I said, as my mind raced. Walter took another, longer drink from his coffee cup. After a few seconds, I looked up to see him watching me closely, waiting for my next question, which came to me in a flash.

“What caused her to return to her own time?” I asked.

“The same thing that caused all of them to return,” Walter answered. “Well, at least the four who answered the question.”

I waited for several seconds for the rest of the answer, eventually raising my eyebrows in curiosity I didn’t feel. I knew the answer.

Walter's smile gone, he said, “She died.”

Somehow, I had known he was going to say that.

This time around, I stayed in touch with Thelma. My parents, not really understanding, accepted it without much comment. My staying in contact with her helped my sister do the same, though to my knowledge, Thelma never told Katie anything about the time travel experiences we had in common. Walter Steinberg was the only other person I ever told about my experience, and I’m sure I was the only person Thelma ever told about hers. I exchanged Christmas cards and occasional phone calls with both Christopher and Darnell, but the topic of time travel never came up.