The Time Traveler's Almanac (75 page)

“Ray Chambers? The Nobel Prize? Jimmy says he can barely do his own lab work.” She shakes her head, then lights a cigarette, flicking the match out the window into the darkness. “Ray set you up for this, didn’t he? To get back at Jimmy for last term’s grade? Well, it’s a terrible joke,” she says turning away, “and you are one of the cruelest people I have ever met.”

“Sara, it’s not a joke. Please believe me.” I reach across the seat to take her hand, but she jerks it away.

I take a deep breath, trying deperately to think of something that will convince her. “Look, I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out. In September,
Modern Physics
is going to publish an article about you and your work. When I was ten years old – in 1975 – I read it sitting on the back porch of my father’s quarters at Fort Ord. That article inspired me to go into science. I read about you, and I knew when I grew up I wanted to travel through time.”

She stubs out her cigarette. “Go on.”

So I tell her all about my academic career, and my “assignment” from Chambers. She listens without interrupting me. I can’t see her expression in the darkened car.

After I finish, she says nothing, then sighs. “This is rather a lot to digest, you know. But I can’t very well believe in my work without giving your story some credence, can I?” She lights another cigarette, then asks the question I’ve been dreading. “So if you’ve come all this way to offer me an enormous sum for my paper, does that mean something happened to it – or to me?” I still can’t see her face, but her voice is shaking.

I can’t do it. I can’t tell her. I grope for a convincing lie. “There was a fire. A lot of papers were lost. Yours is the one they want.”

“I’m not a faculty member at
your
Cal, am I?”

“No.”

She takes a long drag on her cigarette, then asks, so softly I can barely hear her, “Am I—?” She lets her question trail off and is silent for a minute, then sighs again. “No, I won’t ask. I think I prefer to bumble about like other mortals. You’re a dangerous woman, Carol McCullough. I’m afraid you can tell me too many things I have no right to know.” She reaches for the ignition key, then stops. “There is one thing I must know, though. Was last night as carefully planned as everything else?”

“Jesus, no.” I reach over and touch her hand. She lets me hold it this time. “No, I had no idea. Other than finding you at the reception, last night had nothing to do with science.”

To my great relief, she chuckles. “Well, perhaps chemistry, don’t you think?” She glances in the rearview mirror then pulls me across the wide front seat and into her arms. We hold each other in the darkness for a long time, and kiss for even longer. Her lips taste faintly of gin.

We have a leisurely dinner at a restaurant overlooking the beach in Half Moon Bay. Fresh fish and a dry white wine. I have the urge to tell her about the picture, about how important she’s been to me. But as I start to speak, I realize she’s more important to me now, so I just tell her that. We finish the meal gazing at each other as if we were ordinary lovers.

Outside the restaurant, the sky is cloudy and cold, the breeze tangy with salt and kelp. Sara pulls off her high heels and we walk down a sandy path, holding hands in the darkness. Within minutes we are both freezing. I pull her to me and lean down to kiss her on the deserted beach. “You know what I’d like,” I say, over the roar of the surf.

“What?” she murmurs into my neck.

“I’d like to take you dancing.”

She shakes her head. “We can’t. Not here. Not now. It’s against the law, you know. Or perhaps you don’t. But it is, I’m afraid. And the police have been on a rampage in the city lately. One bar lost its license just because two men were holding hands. They arrested both as sexual vagrants and for being – oh, what was the phrase – lewd and dissolute persons.”

“Sexual vagrants? That’s outrageous!”

“Exactly what the newspapers said. An outrage to public decency. Jimmy knew one of the poor chaps. He was in Engineering at Stanford, but after his name and address were published in the paper, he lost his job. Does that still go on where you’re from?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe in some places. I don’t really know. I’m afraid I don’t pay any attention to politics. I’ve never needed to.”

Sara sighs. “What a wonderful luxury that must be, not having to be so careful all the time.”

“I guess so.” I feel a little guilty that it’s not something I worry about. But I was four years old when Stonewall happened. By the time I came out, in college, being gay was more of a lifestyle than a perversion. At least in San Francisco.

“It’s sure a lot more public,” I say after a minute. “Last year there were a quarter of a million people at the Gay Pride parade. Dancing down Market Street and carrying signs about how great it is to be queer.”

“You’re pulling my leg now. Aren’t you?” When I shake my head she smiles. “Well, I’m glad. I’m glad that this witch hunt ends. And in a few months, when I get my equipment up and running, perhaps I shall travel to dance at your parade. But for tonight, why don’t we just go to my house? At least I’ve got a new hi-fi.”

So we head back up the coast. One advantage to these old cars, the front seat is as big as a couch; we drive up Highway 1 sitting next to each other, my arm resting on her thigh. The ocean is a flat, black void on our left, until the road begins to climb and the water disappears behind jagged cliffs. On the driver’s side the road drops off steeply as we approach Devil’s Slide.

I feel like I’m coming to the scary part of a movie I’ve seen before. I’m afraid I know what happens next. My right hand grips the upholstery and I brace myself for the oncoming car or the loose patch of gravel or whatever it is that will send us skidding off the road and onto the rocks.

But nothing happens. Sara hums as she drives, and I realize that although this is the spot I dread, it means nothing to her. At least not tonight.

As the road levels out again, it is desolate, with few signs of civilization. Just beyond a sign that says “Sharp Park” is a trailer camp with a string of bare light bulbs outlining its perimeter. Across the road is a seedy-looking roadhouse with a neon sign that blinks “Hazel’s.” The parking lot is jammed with cars. Saturday night in the middle of nowhere.

We drive another hundred yards when Sara suddenly snaps her fingers and does a U-turn.

Please don’t go back to the cliffs, I beg silently. “What’s up?” I ask out loud.

“Hazel’s. Jimmy was telling me about it last week. It’s become a rather gay club, and since it’s over the county line, out here in the boondocks, he says anything goes. Including dancing. Besides, I thought I spotted his car.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, but there aren’t that many ’39 Packards still on the road. If it isn’t, we’ll just continue on.” She pulls into the parking lot and finds a space at the back, between the trash cans and the ocean.

Hazel’s is a noisy, smoky place – a small, single room with a bar along one side – jammed wall-to-wall with people. Hundreds of them, mostly men, but more than a few women. When I look closer, I realize that some of the “men” are actually women with slicked-back hair, ties, and sportcoats.

We manage to get two beers, and find Jimmy on the edge of the dance floor – a minuscule square of linoleum, not more than 10 × 10, where dozens of people are dancing to Bill Haley & the Comets blasting from the jukebox. Jimmy’s in a tweed jacket and chinos, his arm around the waist of a young Latino man in a tight white T-shirt and even tighter blue jeans. We elbow our way through to them and Sara gives Jimmy a kiss on the cheek. “Hullo, love,” she says.

He’s obviously surprised – shocked – to see Sara, but when he sees me behind her, he grins. “I told you so.”

“James, you don’t know the half of it,” Sara says, smiling, and puts her arm around me.

We dance for a few songs in the hot, crowded bar. I take off my jacket, then my sweater, draping them over the railing next to the bottles of beer. After the next song I roll up the sleeves of my button-down shirt. When Jimmy offers to buy another round of beers, I look at my watch and shake my head. It’s midnight, and as much as I wanted to dance with Sara, I want to sleep with her even more.

“One last dance, then let’s go, okay?” I ask, shouting to be heard over the noise of the crowd and the jukebox. “I’m bushed.”

She nods. Johnny Mathis starts to sing, and we slow dance, our arms around each other. My eyes are closed and Sara’s head is resting on my shoulder when the first of the cops bursts through the front door.

*   *   *

Sunday, February 19, 1956. 12:05 a.m.

A small army of uniformed men storms into the bar. Everywhere around us people are screaming in panic, and I’m buffeted by the bodies running in all directions. People near the back race for the rear door. A red-faced, heavy-set man in khaki, a gold star on his chest, climbs onto the bar. “This is a raid,” he shouts. He has brought reporters with him, and flashbulbs suddenly illuminate the stunned, terrified faces of people who had been sipping their drinks moments before.

Khaki-shirted deputies, nightsticks in hand, block the front door. There are so many uniforms. At least 40 men – highway patrol, sheriff’s department, and even some army MPs – begin to form a gauntlet leading to the back door, now the only exit.

Jimmy grabs my shoulders. “Dance with Antonio,” he says urgently. “I’ve just met him, but it’s our best chance of getting out of here. I’ll take Sara.”

I nod and the Latino man’s muscular arms are around my waist. He smiles shyly just as someone pulls the plug on the jukebox and Johnny Mathis stops in mid-croon. The room is quiet for a moment, then the cops begin barking orders. We stand against the railing, Jimmy’s arm curled protectively around Sara’s shoulders, Antonio’s around mine. Other people have done the same thing, but there are not enough women, and men who had been dancing now stand apart from each other, looking scared.

The uniforms are lining people up, herding them like sheep toward the back. We join the line and inch forward. The glare of headlights through the half-open back door cuts through the smoky room like the beam from a movie projector. There is an icy draft and I reach back for my sweater, but the railing is too far away, and the crush of people too solid to move any direction but forward. Jimmy sees me shivering and drapes his sportcoat over my shoulders.

We are in line for more than an hour, as the cops at the back door check everyone’s ID. Sara leans against Jimmy’s chest, squeezing my hand tightly once or twice, when no one’s looking. I am scared, shaking, but the uniforms seem to be letting most people go. Every few seconds, a car starts up in the parking lot, and I can hear the crunch of tires on gravel as someone leaves Hazel’s for the freedom of the highway.

As we get closer to the door, I can see a line of black vans parked just outside, ringing the exit. They are paneled with wooden benches, filled with the men who are not going home, most of them sitting with their shoulders sagging. One van holds a few women with crew cuts or slicked-back hair, who glare defiantly into the night.

We are ten people back from the door when Jimmy slips a key into my hand and whispers into my ear. “We’ll have to take separate cars. Drive Sara’s back to the city and we’ll meet at the lobby bar in your hotel.” “The bar will be closed,” I whisper back. “Take my key and meet me in the room. I’ll get another at the desk.” He nods as I hand it to him.

The cop at the door looks at Sara’s elegant dress and coat, barely glances at her outstretched ID, and waves her and Jimmy outside without a word. She pauses at the door and looks back at me, but an MP shakes his head and points to the parking lot. “Now or never, lady,” he says, and Sara and Jimmy disappear into the night.

I’m alone. Antonio is a total stranger, but his strong arm is my only support until a man in a suit pulls him away. “Nice try, sweetie,” the man says to him. “But I’ve seen you in here before, dancing with your pansy friends.” He turns to the khaki-shirted deputy and says, “He’s one of the perverts. Book him.” The cop pulls Antonio’s arm up between his shoulder blades, then cuffs his hands behind his back. “Time for a little ride, pretty boy,” he grins, and drags Antonio out into one of the black vans.

Without thinking, I take a step towards his retreating back. “Not so fast,” says another cop, with acne scars across both cheeks. He looks at Jimmy’s jacket, and down at my pants and my black basketball shoes with a sneer. Then he puts his hands on my breasts, groping me. “Loose ones. Not all tied down like those other he-shes. I like that.” He leers and pinches one of my nipples.

I yell for help, and try to pull away, but he laughs and shoves me up against the stack of beer cases that line the back hallway. He pokes his nightstick between my legs. “So you want to be a man, huh, butchie? Well, just what do you think you’ve got in there?” He jerks his nightstick up into my crotch so hard tears come to my eyes.

I stare at him, in pain, in disbelief. I am too stunned to move or to say anything. He cuffs my hands and pushes me out the back door and into the van with the other glaring women.

*   *   *

Sunday, February 19, 1956. 10:00 a.m.

I plead guilty to being a sex offender, and pay the $50 fine. Being arrested can’t ruin my life. I don’t even exist here.

Sara and Jimmy are waiting on a wooden bench outside the holding cell of the San Mateo County jail. “Are you all right, love?” she asks.

I shrug. “I’m exhausted. I didn’t sleep. There were ten of us in one cell. The woman next to me – a stone butch? – really tough, Frankie – she had a pompadour – two cops took her down the hall – when she came back the whole side of her face was swollen, and after that she didn’t say anything to anyone, but I’m okay, I just—” I start to shake. Sara takes one arm and Jimmy takes the other, and they walk me gently out to the parking lot.

The three of us sit in the front seat of Jimmy’s car, and as soon as we are out of sight of the jail, Sara puts her arms around me and holds me, brushing the hair off my forehead. When Jimmy takes the turnoff to the San Mateo bridge, she says, “We checked you out of the hotel this morning. Precious little to check, actually, except for the briefcase. Anyway, I thought you’d be more comfortable at my house. We need to get you some breakfast and a bed.” She kisses me on the cheek. “I’ve told Jimmy everything, by the way.”