Remember Me (6 page)

I entered the store and went straight to the cooler to grab a diet Pepsi, just like I used to do in my youth. When I was in my late teens, there’d been an older lady who worked the counter.

She wore way too much make-up and supported a nineteen—

fifty’s billowing pile of platinum blonde hair. She always drew my stares and my curiosity whenever I stopped in. She was one of those “interesting people” who stood out in the crowd—

guaranteed to get a second-look. She walked her own path and was way ahead of her time.

I turned towards the checkout counter and was rewarded

with her smile. My reaction to her must have caused her to re-evaluate that smile, it disappeared in a heartbeat. It could have been my overall look; or more than likely, my mouth which was wide open and hanging down to the floor. It’s funny how the wisdom of life can make you see things so vastly different.

I was the one who was now her senior in years, and what I once thought of as excessive and over-the-top was becoming and flattering on her. In my world of tomorrow, she would be a “knockout,” boys and men would be lined up to buy anything from her. In this time, she was ahead of the curve and waiting patiently on the sidelines. I closed my mouth and walked cautiously towards the counter. I stopped dead in my tracks when the real motive for coming to the store hit me. Chalk-up one more reason for the counter lady to eye me suspiciously.

I redirected myself towards the newspaper stack next to

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the door. I reached down and grabbed one off the top. I had been both right and wrong. The day was May twenty-third. The year was nineteen eighty-five and not nineteen eighty-four. In this time, I had just turned twenty-five. I couldn’t remember for the life of me what I had done on my twenty-fifth birthday.

I stared hard at the headlines; trying to recapture lost memories…nothing came to me. Samantha was two and a half. What had we done—I couldn’t remember. Both in the past and my future, birthdays were shared with my parents, but not always on the birth date. My parents would fix a meal of my choice or we’d all go out to eat. There was one extremely important thing I did remember about nineteen eighty-five! In July, Tami would become pregnant with Emily.

The hair on the nape of my neck stood-up, and an invisible hand grabbed my shoulder. I began to have a mini panic attack as I remembered all the good and bad moments about Tami’s pregnancy. In the end Emily had been a God send for me. She was every father’s best wish. She was a beautiful and endearing child, and a tom-boy to boot. The day she was born I took one look at her and said, “God help the boys in her life!”

I knew that included me. The bell above the door jingled as another customer entered the store. I shook off the memories of Emily, and looked out the store’s front window. The sky in the Southeast had begun to darken sharply. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was an ominous sign in more ways than one.

I didn’t want the paper so I placed it back on the stack. I turned once again to face the clerk behind the counter. I could now read the “Stephanie” on her name tag. Stephanie’s smile was not perceptible, but her eyes had given up some of the scrutiny they once held. I shrugged my shoulders at her and moved to the counter. I set the diet Pepsi in front of her and pulled my wallet out of my back right pocket. Flipping it open, I ruffled through the small amount of bills stashed there. I had S 39 S

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two twenties, one ten, four fives and three ones. Old habits die hard and I reached for one of the fives. Under normal circumstances I would save the ones to deposit in the trip jar sitting on top of the kitchen counter at home. I had almost laid it down on the counter when I glimpsed the large head of Lincoln, sitting slightly off-center. It was one of the newly re-designed fives, and in this time it would be totally fraudulent. I snatched it back before Stephanie could grab it from my hand.

“Crap,” was all I said, but it was enough for Stephanie to get that undecided look going on her face again. “Just a second,” I said, “I promised to give my son his allowance tonight, and I’m going to need the five. He doesn’t make change.” I tried to laugh so as to make my lie seem more plausible. It was a half-hearted attempt at best, but Stephanie noticeably relaxed. I put the five back in my wallet and thumbed through the other bills, only one thing mattered the date of issue. Every single one of my bills had a date of two thousand and one or newer. My mind raced with options. At least the one’s looked normal. I wasn’t willing to take the chance, not with the way I’d already acted. The safe bet would be for me to put the pop away, or just leave it on the counter and walk out of the store.

I would be forever remembered as the, “Strange Man,” of the day. I could live with that.

I saw the picture of Emily and Samantha in my wallet that had been taken at Samantha’s wedding. I remembered the old two-dollar bill I kept behind it for luck. I thumbed it out and unfolded it. I knew it would pass. I’d carried it in my wallet for over thirty years. It was well worn, even frayed in some spots, but it would still buy me a pop. Hopefully I could escape and leave only a slightly befuddled look on Stephanie’s face. She didn’t say a word and gave me my change without a care in the world. It may have been more the hope I would leave as quickly as possible. Either way, I obliged her and beat it out the door.

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I twisted the top off the Diet Pepsi and drank most of it in a couple of swallows. I could barely make out the clock through the front glass window of the store—eleven-fifteen it read. I’d already made the decision to confess to my parents, how an unlikely appearance of their future son came to be in their present. With no other plan to follow, I headed towards their house. They should both be home. It being Sunday and all—only it wasn’t Sunday! I remembered reading the date on the paper inside the store. It read “Thursday May 23rd, 1985.”

This time, it was a “Go to Hell,” that left my mouth. I held back what I’d really wanted to say. I’d never been one for serious swearing, but I was getting real close to letting loose a few adjectives. My Dad would be at work; but my mom would be home. I re-evaluated the options: wait for both of my parents to be there at once versus only my mother. I was reasonably sure she would be there, not certain, but it was highly probable.

The thought came to me; “you can’t fool your mother, she always knows her own cub.” If I could convince her; then my father would be easy. I had four blocks to try and figure out what to say. I ran the scenarios in my head. Truthfully, I didn’t have a clue. Each one started and ended differently. Soon enough I would know the outcome regardless of how it began.

The sky still had a dark look to it, and the wind blew a cold streak down my spine. I wasn’t looking forward to the meeting ahead. The streets were deserted. The children were in school and the adults were at work. I only had myself to worry about as I made the trek towards their house.

My parent’s home looked like it did in my memories—not

how I saw it in the present of my future time. It was an older two-story house with a wide front porch. In my present, it had been painted white. In the past, it was a pale yellow with white flower boxes mounted to the underside of the two large windows of the living room. The porch was painted grey and S 41 S

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the pillars holding up the roof were white. The big oak front door looked the same as it always had. I had to smile to myself. I was glad that some things never change. I stole a glance at the window directly above the center of the porch. It was the window which looked into my bedroom. In 1985 it was

still a bedroom; but by 2010 it had been remodeled into an expanded bathroom and upstairs reading room.

I was having trouble finding the courage to move my feet forward. I shuffled along the sidewalk to the steps leading up to the front door. My arms felt like someone had attached an-chor weights and chains to them. My shoulders ached with the stress of uncertainty and the weight felt insurmountable.

Suddenly, I felt a strong urge to run away—back to the safety of the old farm house. I couldn’t, and I knew it. The only direction was up those steps to the front door. With every small step I took, my heart beat faster and faster. It felt like I was trying to climb Mt. Everest. The air was getting harder and harder to breathe. I couldn’t pull enough oxygen in to my lungs to calm the panic flowing out from my over-worked heart.

With the effort of a hundred-year old man, I broached the top step and literally drug myself towards the door. My hand trembled uncontrollably as I raised it to push the doorbell.

My vision narrowed and darkened. Only the glow of the in-tricately designed stained-glass window, as the noonday sun shone on it, showed any clarity. I felt light-headed and overwhelmed. My nerves were shot and I needed help. I found the courage to push the doorbell. After a few moments, the door swung open. Slowly, I raised my downturned eyes to gaze at my mother. As a solitary tear slid from my eye, I said, “Hello Mom.”

Linda Jane Johnson stood rooted to her spot. Her left arm held on to the door handle and her right arm rested at her side.

My mother stared at me, then through me. She didn’t say a S 42 S

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word, and I nearly drowned in her silence. I held her gaze, and then the unconceivable happened. My mother’s body began a total transformation. It began with a dawning awareness in her eyes—she knew who I was, even if it wasn’t logical or probable. Next, her left arm fell to her side and her right hand rose to cover her heart. She struggled to come to grips with the aged man standing on her porch—the one who had just called her Mom. Inherently she sensed and somehow understood,

even as the impossible doubts grabbed at the corners of her mind, that this man was her son—yet not quite her son. I said the only thing my mind could think of, “I somehow traveled through time from 2010. I don’t know how or why, but I have nowhere else to go. I need your help!”

“Andrew, is it really, truly you? You sound like Andrew, but you don’t look like him!”

“Yes Mom, it is,” I said in response to her. My legs had begun to shake and I feared I might collapse on her porch. I backed-up to rest my body against the porch rail.

“I see you, but I can’t believe you, it’s not possible. Time travel is stuff for the movies and books. I must be dreaming.”

“Sorry Mom, it’s no dream. I’m really here and without a clue as to how. It’s my birthday today, and I just turned fifty.”

I reached into my wallet and took out the picture of Tami and I with the girls taken at Samantha’s wedding. Tami and I were standing off to either side of the girls in the picture. They were sitting at a table and you could see other people in the background. I tried to hand it cautiously to my mother. She made no move to reach for it. I took a step towards her and she retreated back a step in response. My hand began to violently tremble and the picture slipped from my fingers. I let it lie where it fell. It landed just across the threshold of the door by my mother’s feet. I had to sit down before I succumbed to the intensity of the moment. I turned my back on my mom; taking S 43 S

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three paces back to the steps and sat down on the middle porch step—much like I had done as a kid living here.

Sitting there, I ran both of my hands over my face and

through my hair, eventually lacing my fingers together behind my neck. Exerting pressure with the palm of each hand, I attempted to crack out the tension from my neck.

I didn’t turn around, I wasn’t sure I could. I sat there in silence. I heard the rustling sound of my mom’s pants as she bent down to collect the picture I had dropped.

“My God Andrew, it really is you,” my mother barely whispered behind me and I could hear the nervous sound in her voice. “Is that Samantha?” she quietly asked, “She’s all grown up!”I nodded and replied, “It’s our daughter, Emily, too. She’s going to be born this coming April 6th. Look closely at the woman, just behind them in the picture, it’s you.” I heard her suck in her breath as she recognized herself in the picture.

“My God,” she exclaimed, “I look so old.”

“You are also a great-grandma; Samantha and Rick have a

daughter. Her name is Megan. She’s two and into everything.

“Of course it’s twenty-five years from now!” I had to add the last bit for my own personal sanity as well as for my mother’s.

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May 24th, 1985

I awoke in
my old bed, still too soft for a comfortable night’s sleep. I replayed once more in my mind, the interaction with my parents after I showed up on their doorstep yesterday. Mom had definitely been the easy one to convince. My father had been altogether different. He was the same man who believed in alien abductions and UFOs, but couldn’t come to grips with the possibility of time travel. He refused to acknowledge that I was his son from the future, and at one point he very openly showed me the front door. I had no choice but to rise from my seat on the couch, and head towards the door he held open, and to face the uncertainty… of what exactly. I didn’t know, and for the moment didn’t care.

My mother, like she had so many times in the past, came

to the rescue. “Neil! Sit down! And Andrew, come back in here and do likewise,” she commanded to the both of us. I’d known my mother longer than even she knew herself. In her older age she became more authoritative, directing the family members in precise, parliamentary form. When my father retired, she took over the running of the family, and not just the house-hold. She was good at organization and planning; and she did it with her heart of gold. Nobody was ever hurt under her re-gime; instead, I believe we had all been uplifted by it. She was a positive influence on all of us.

With my father and me firmly planted back on the couch

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once more, my mother stood in front of us, both hands rooted to her hips. Her demeanor had a look that conveyed annoyance.