11/22/63: A Novel (14 page)

I put the briefcase between my feet and held my hands out to show him they were empty, but he cringed even further down the side of the drying shed. Spittle gleamed on his stubbly chin. I looked around to be sure we weren’t attracting attention, saw that we had this part of the millyard to ourselves, and tried again. “I only pushed you because you startled me.”

“Who the fuck
are
you?” he asked, his voice cracking through about five different registers. If I hadn’t heard the question on my last visit, I wouldn’t have had any idea what he was asking . . . and although the slur was the same, wasn’t the inflection a little different this time? I wasn’t sure, but I thought so.
He’s harmless, but he’s not like anyone else,
Al had said.
It’s like he
knows
something
. Al thought it was because he happened to be sunning himself near the rabbit-hole at 11:58 in the morning on September 9, 1958, and was susceptible to its influence. The way you can produce static on a TV screen if you run a mixer close to it. Maybe that was it. Or, hell, maybe it was just the booze.

“Nobody important,” I said in my most soothing voice. “Nobody you need to concern yourself with. My name’s George. What’s yours?”

“Motherfucker!” he snarled, and scrambled yet further from me.
If that was his name, it was certainly an unusual one. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” I said. I picked up the briefcase to demonstrate my sincerity, and he hunched his thin shoulders all the way up to his ears, as if he expected me to hurl it at him. He was like a dog that’s been beaten so often it expects no other treatment. “No harm and no foul, okay?”

“Get out, bastard-ball! Go back to where you came from
and leave me alone
!”

“It’s a deal.” I was still recovering from the startle he’d given me, and the residual adrenaline mixed badly with the pity I felt—not to mention the exasperation. The same exasperation I’d felt with Christy when I came home to discover she was drunk-going-on-shitfaced again in spite of all her promises to straighten up, fly right, and quit the booze once and for all. The combination of emotions added to the heat of this late summer midday was making me feel a little sick to my stomach. Probably not the best way to start a rescue mission.

I thought of the Kennebec Fruit and how good that root beer had been; I could see the gasp of vapor from the ice cream freezer as Frank Anicetti Senior pulled out the big mug. Also, it had been blessedly cool in there. I started in that direction with no further ado, my new (but carefully aged around the edges) briefcase banging against the side of my knee.

“Hey! Hey, you, whatsyaface!”

I turned. The wino was struggling to his feet, using the side of the drying shed as a support. He had snagged his hat and was holding it crushed against his midsection. Now he began to fumble at it. “I got a yellow card from the greenfront, so gimme a buck, motherfucker. Today’s double-money day.”

We were back on message. That was comforting. Nonetheless, I took pains not to approach him too closely. I didn’t want to scare him again or provoke another attack. I stopped six feet away and held out my hand. The coin Al had given me gleamed on my palm. “I can’t spare a buck, but here’s half a rock.”

He hesitated, now holding his hat in his left hand. “You better not want a suck-job.”

“Tempting, but I think I can resist.”

“Huh?” He looked from the fifty-cent piece to my face, then back down at the money again. He raised his right hand to wipe the slick of drool off his chin, and I saw another difference from before. Nothing earth-shattering, but enough to make me wonder about the solidity of Al’s claim that each time was a complete reset.

“I don’t care if you take it or leave it, but make up your mind,” I said. “I’ve got things to do.”

He snatched the coin, then cowered back against the drying shed again. His eyes were large and wet. The slick of drool had reappeared on his chin. There’s really nothing in the world that can match the glamour of a late-stage alcoholic; I can’t think why Jim Beam, Seagram’s, and Mike’s Hard Lemonade don’t use them in their magazine ads. Drink Beam and see a better class of bugs.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“A job, I hope. Listen, have you tried AA for that little problem you’ve got with the boo—”

“Fuck off, Jimla!”

I had no idea what a jimla might be, the
fuck off
part came through loud and clear. I headed for the gate, expecting him to hurl more questions after me. He hadn’t before, but this encounter had been markedly different.

Because he wasn’t the Yellow Card Man, not this time. When he raised his hand to wipe his chin, the card clutched in it had no longer been yellow.

This time it was a dirty but still bright orange.

I threaded my way through the mill parking lot, once again tapping the trunk of the white-over-red Plymouth Fury for good luck. I was certainly going to need all of that I could get. I crossed
the train tracks, once again hearing the
wuff-chuff
of a train, only this time it sounded a little more distant, because this time my encounter with the Yellow Card Man—who was now the Orange Card Man—had taken a bit longer. The air stank of mill effluent as it had before, and the same inter-city bus snored past. Because I was a little late this time, I couldn’t read the route sign, but I remembered what it said: LEWISTON EXPRESS. I wondered idly how many times Al had seen that same bus, with the same passengers looking out the windows.

I hurried across the street, waving away the blue cloud of bus exhaust as best I could. The rockabilly rebel was at his post outside the door, and I wondered briefly what he’d say if I stole his line. But in a way that would be as mean as terrorizing the drying shed wino on purpose; if you stole the secret language belonging to kids like this, they didn’t have much left. This one couldn’t even go back and pound on the Xbox. So I just nodded.

He nodded back. “Hi-ho, Daddy-O.”

I went inside. The bell jingled. I went past the discount comic books and straight to the soda fountain where Frank Anicetti Senior was standing. “What can I do for you today, my friend?”

For a moment I was stumped, because that wasn’t what he’d said before. Then I realized it wouldn’t be. Last time I’d grabbed a newspaper out of the rack. This time I hadn’t. Maybe each trip back to 1958 reset the odometer back to all zeros (with the exception of the Yellow Card Man), but the first time you varied something, everything was up for grabs. The idea was both scary and liberating.

“I could use a root beer,” I said.

“And I can use the custom, so we’ve got a meeting of the minds. Five-or ten-cent beer?”

“Ten, I guess.”

“Well, I think you guess right.”

The frost-coated mug came out of the freezer. He used the handle of the wooden spoon to scrape off the foam. He filled it to the top and set it in front of me. All just like before.

“That’s a dime, plus one for the governor.”

I handed over one of Al’s vintage dollars, and while Frank 1.0 made change, I looked over my shoulder and saw the former Yellow Card Man standing outside the liquor store—the
greenfront
—and swaying from side to side. He made me think of a Hindu fakir I’d seen in some old movie, tooting a horn to coax a cobra out of a wicker basket. And, coming up the sidewalk, right on schedule, was Anicetti the Younger.

I turned back, sipped my root beer, and sighed. “This hits the spot.”

“Yep, nothing like a cold beer on a hot day. Not from around here, are you?”

“No, Wisconsin.” I held out my hand. “George Amberson.”

He shook it as the bell over the door jangled. “Frank Anicetti. And there comes my boy. Frank Junior. Say hello to Mr. Amberson from Wisconsin, Frankie.”

“Hello, sir.” He gave me a smile and a nod, then turned to his dad. “Titus has got the truck up on the lift. Says it’ll be ready by five.”

“Well, that’s good.” I waited for Anicetti 1.0 to light a cigarette and wasn’t disappointed. He inhaled, then turned back to me. “Are you traveling on business or for pleasure?”

For a moment I didn’t respond, but not because I was stumped for an answer. What was throwing me was the way this scene kept diverging from and then returning to the original script. In any case, Anicetti didn’t seem to notice.

“Either way, you picked the right time to come. Most of the summer people are gone, and when that happens we all relax. You want a scoop of vanilla ice cream in your beer? Usually it’s five cents extra, but on Tuesdays I reduce the price to a nickel.”

“You wore that one out ten years ago, Pop,” Frank Junior said amiably.

“Thanks, but this is fine,” I said. “I’m on business, actually. A real estate closing up in . . . Sabattus? I think that’s it. Do you know that town?”

“Only my whole life,” Frank said. He jetted smoke from his nostrils, then gave me a shrewd look. “Long way to come for a real estate closing.”

I returned a smile that was supposed to communicate
if you knew what I know.
It must have gotten across, because he tipped me a wink. The bell over the door jingled and the fruit-shopping ladies came in. The DRINK CHEER-UP COFFEE wall clock read 12:28. Apparently the part of the script where Frank Junior and I discussed the Shirley Jackson story had been cut from this draft. I finished my root beer in three long swallows, and as I did, a cramp tightened my bowels. In novels characters rarely have to go potty, but in real life, mental stress often provokes a physical reaction.

“Say, you don’t happen to have a men’s room, do you?”

“Sorry, no,” Frank Senior said. “Keep meaning to put one in, but in the summer we’re too busy and in the winter there never seems to be enough cash for the renovations.”

“You can go around the corner to Titus,” Frank Junior said. He was scooping ice cream into a metal cylinder, getting ready to make himself a milkshake. He hadn’t done that before, and I thought with some unease about the so-called butterfly effect. I thought I was watching that butterfly unfurl its wings right before my eyes. We were changing the world. Only in small ways—infinitesimal ways—but yes, we were changing it.

“Mister?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Had a senior moment.”

He looked puzzled, then laughed. “Never heard that one before, but it’s pretty good.” Because it was, he might repeat it the next time he lost his own train of thought. And a phrase that otherwise wouldn’t enter the bright flow of American slanguage until the seventies or eighties would make an early debut. You couldn’t say a
premature
debut, exactly, because on this time-stream it would be right on schedule.

“Titus Chevron is around the corner on your right,” Anicetti Senior said. “If it’s . . . uh . . . urgent, you’re welcome to use our bathroom upstairs.”

“No, I’m fine,” I said, and although I’d already looked at the
wall clock, I took an ostentatious glance at my Bulova on the cool Speidel band. It was a good thing they couldn’t see the face, because I’d forgotten to reset it and it was still on 2011 time. “But I’ve got to be going. Errands to run. Unless I’m very lucky, they’ll tie me up for more than a day. Can you recommend a good motel around here?”

“Do you mean a motor court?” Anicetti Senior asked. He butted his cigarette in one of the WINSTON TASTES GOOD ashtrays that lined the counter.

“Yes.” This time my smile felt foolish rather than in-the-know . . . and my bowels cramped again. If I didn’t take care of that problem soon, it was going to develop into an authentic 911 situation. “Motels are what we call them in Wisconsin.”

“Well I’d say the Tamarack Motor Court, about five miles up 196 on your way to Lewiston,” Anicetti Senior said. “It’s near the drive-in movie.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said, getting up.

“You bet. And if you want to get trimmed up before any of your meetings, try Baumer’s Barber Shop. He does a real fine job.”

“Thanks. Another good tip.”

“Tips are free, root beers are sold American. Enjoy your time in Maine, Mr. Amberson. And Frankie? You drink that milkshake and get on back to school.”

“You bet, Pop.” This time it was Junior who tipped a wink in my direction.

“Frank?” one of the ladies called in a yoo-hoo voice. “Are these oranges fresh?”

“As fresh as your smile, Leola,” he replied, and the ladies tee-hee’d. I’m not trying to be cute here; they actually tee-hee’d.

I passed them, murmuring “Ladies” as I went by. The bell jingled and I went out into the world that had existed before my birth. But this time instead of crossing the street to the courtyard where the rabbit-hole was, I walked deeper into that world. Across the street, the wino in the long black coat was gesticulating at
the tunic-wearing clerk. The card he was waving might be orange instead of yellow, but otherwise he was back on script.

I took that as a good sign.

Titus Chevron was beyond the Red & White Supermarket, where Al had bought the same supplies for his diner over and over again. According to the sign in the window, lobster was going for sixty-nine cents a pound. Across from the market, standing on a patch of ground that was vacant in 2011, was a big maroon barn with the doors standing open and all sorts of used furniture on display—cribs, cane rockers, and overstuffed easy chairs of the “Dad’s relaxin’” type seemed in particularly abundant supply. The sign over the door read
THE JOLLY WHITE ELEPHANT
. An additional sign, this one an A-frame propped to catch the eye of folks on the road to Lewiston, made the audacious claim that
IF WE DON’T HAVE IT, YOU DON’T NEED IT
. A fellow I took to be the proprietor was sitting in one of the rocking chairs, smoking a pipe and looking across at me. He wore a strap-style tee-shirt and baggy brown slacks. He also wore a goatee, which I thought equally audacious for this particular island in the time-stream. His hair, although combed back and held in place with some sort of grease, curled down to the nape of his neck and made me think of some old rock-and-roll video I’d seen: Jerry Lee Lewis jumping on his piano as he sang “Great Balls of Fire.” The proprietor of the Jolly White Elephant probably had a reputation as the town beatnik.