Time Flying (6 page)

The summer
. I didn't set foot in the gym in the summer of 1976, not even once. Varsity basketball players worked out together at least once and preferably twice a day in the summer, and though no coaching was allowed by Indiana High School Athletic Association rules, Coach MacLaren always supervised (a faculty member had to be present any time the gym was open to students), sitting silently in the stands or in his office. I hadn't spent any time in the gym because of the pain and because of the weakness in my left leg. I always intended to eventually start working out that summer, but it was always “next week," which never came. I'd never gone back.

Mrs Givern gave me two aspirin and a small paper cup of water. I took the aspirin, thinking this was surely a simpler time. The paperwork necessary for her to give me two aspirin in 2007 would have taken half the day.

Coach MacLaren thanked Mrs Givern and left, telling me to go on to first period and to stop by his office later in the afternoon. I promised I would, thanked Mrs Givern, and walked out into the hallway, hoping I’d be able to remember the combination if I somehow managed to find my locker. I waited for the information to pour back into my head like with the physical therapy, but...nothing. Mrs Givern's office sat at an intersection of hallways, one to the right and one to the left. I stared down both and choosing one, headed toward where I hoped the Junior lockers resided.

Three hours later, I sat in the multi-purpose room used as a massive lunchroom in the middle of the day. Will Curry, another member of the basketball team, across the table from me, next to him, my best friend and confirmed non-jock, Rick Underhill. To my right was long-time pal, Walter Steinberg, like Rick, decidedly unathletic, but an accomplished trumpet player in the band. Rick would be, in the years to come, a 'nerd,' thanks to his knowledge of computers, Star Trek and later, Dungeons and Dragons. Sitting next to him while he ate his lunch on this day in 1976, I didn't have the heart to tell him he'd wake up one morning after a D&D weekend, hungover, naked and next to a large Wiccan co-ed. He'd grab his clothes, run out and within three weeks find himself 'born again,' in a Seminary studying for a life in the clergy. After graduation, I lost touch with Walter, who went on to college, followed by med school, and a career in the US Navy. I'd wanted to fly Navy jets at one point, but addiction and getting thrown out of school tends to eliminate the possibility of becoming a Military Officer. On this day though, Rick and Walter lived the lives of Science and Band nerds, and as such, were marginally tolerated by my jock friends. A couple members of the athlete cast might talk to them occasionally, but only if they needed some help with an assignment from Chemistry, Math or Physical Science class. We sat and ate. Lunch for me a wax paper wrapped ham and cheese sandwich, an apple, three chocolate chip cookies and two small cartons of milk, all purchased from the cafeteria for the sum total of $1.75. I'd thought to put my wallet in the back pocket of my jeans as I left the house and while in the lunch line, found it contained $12, more than enough to get me through the day, even if I had to buy gas.

The topic of conversation, not surprisingly, didn't include me traveling some 30 years into the past, consciousness somehow sliding into my 17 year old body and brain and taking them over, or about how to get back to the time from which I'd come. We talked discussed the previous Saturday night's broadcast of “NBC Saturday Night,” hosted by Raquel Welch (and musical guest Phoebe Snow, though that part was of no interest to us). I vaguely remembered the episode, but as Rick and Will talked and laughed, I began to remember. By the time I drew a pair of puzzled expressions from my reference to 'SNL,' they were clear I hadn't watched the show that week, which was rare. After all, what else what was on late Saturday night in a world without cable or satellite?

The weekly critique exhausted itself, the bits redone and shared among ourselves to the point they weren't funny anymore, Will stood up to return his tray and leave, but not before looking at me and saying, in his level, direct way 'I hear you passed out in the hallway this morning...'

“No,” I replied testily, without thinking, “I didn't pass out. I slipped and fell.”

“Coach says you're not doing your rehab”

Damn. MacLaren had talked to Will, and once again, I had no memory of having this conversation 30 years before.

'He said that?' I asked, my leg starting to ache again. I'd forgotten the pain for a while, it had returned.

'Don't you want to play next year? We've been working for this 3 years. I’m not missing winning State because you fell off a roof and aren’t interested in getting up off your ass, and back in shape, Rich.'

Will turned and left before I said anything, which was pure Will Curry. One minute we're laughing about Raquel Welch's tits and the next he's giving me a direct stream of flack to the face and walking away, leaving me the biggest loser Indianapolis has ever seen. Meanwhile, Walter and Rick both sat mute, not wanting to get in between us. Walter gave me a sympathetic half-smile and rolled eyes. Rick, however, looked like a kid much younger than his 16 years, in over his head. His expression “what the hell?” which, for some unjust reason, pissed me off. All I could think to say as I stood up and gathered my own tray was 'Stay away from Wiccans, Rick. You'll be better off' and I was off, making the decision to do something I'd never done before.

I cut class.

So far, I'd run into Coach MacLaren, gotten shit from Will, and despite what I told him, passed out in the hallway, all of which added up to a little more nostalgia than I had a taste for. All I needed now…, I thought, and as if on cue, it hit me, the one and only perfume in the world I knew by scent - Taboo. I looked to the right, and she was there, walking away from me, thick, blonde hair in a ponytail swaying as she walked, a bit less than her hips. Visceral youth washed over me, and then through my body, reminding me what being young was all about, adrenaline, testosterone coursing through your veins. It was an amazing sensation. As the ponytail strode in the opposite direction, out the double doors connecting the lunchroom to the hallway, I realized I was looking at the one person in this whole damn school I didn't want to run into until I was ready, the girl/woman who over the past 30 years I've struggled with not having in my life.

Her name, to this day, makes my heart flutter and blood pressure rise, and her 17 year old self walked away from me at a determined pace, yet the Taboo remained. Holy Christ, I thought. She is the most beautiful creature in the world, an opinion I held then, and...well, now. My stomach seemed to be turning over five or six times a second, something only Amanda Tully ever caused.

I need to tell you about this girl, with the caveat that there was I time when I wished her memory would leave me forever. I walked past the doors she had passed through seconds before, the scene with Will forgotten, because my feelings for the girl have haunted me for almost 30 years. All the other regrets in my life totaled didn’t equal the loss that lived in me because I hadn’t said  what I felt years ago, and didn’t do what I should have.

When I say Amanda was the most beautiful creature on the face of the earth, I don't mean in a glossy glamour magazine way. To someone who had not been in love with her all his life, she was a pretty, self-assured and attractive girl, but they'd be able to sleep at night. That wasn’t me, no, I loved her from the first time I saw her in the 7th grade until...Well, except for short periods, I never stopped loving her. For a long time, able to rationalize the whole thing by telling myself I love the idea of Amanda, and she only represented my childhood. Who said, “When you long for the home house you grew up with, you're not longing for the place, but for your childhood?” I guess “people” can be substituted for “house” or “home," but seeing her walking away, the subtle scent of her perfume still in the air, told me all the rationalizations amounted to nothing. I loved her in 1976 and I love her now. Whatever this experience turns out to be, Amanda Tully wasn't what I needed right now. The best alternative? 

I was SO cutting class.

Escaping turned out to be easier than I'd imagined. Between 5th and 6th period, I took a left at the hallway intersection instead of a right, and rather than head to Physical Science, I hit the parking lot, looking like I had every right to be there, pulled the keys to the El Camino out of my pocket and opened the door. This little full-immersion trip down memory lane had gotten old, its welcome almost worn out. I needed to get clear of this nostalgia factory and think. Under normal circumstances, I'd head to a coffee shop, but since the nearest Starbucks, or Seattle's Best meant a four day drive , I didn't have the option to grab a vanilla latte. It would have to be someplace quiet, where my chances of running into someone I knew was small.

The answer hit me in an instant,
the library
.

Fortunately, no one witnessed me walking to the parking lot and get into the El Camino, or if they did, my self-assurance while leaving school after lunch made them assume I was legitimately leaving. It had been so long since I had not been allowed to go where I pleased, departing was difficult at all. A few minutes later, driving toward the public library, I realized being AWOL wasn't the same as ducking out of work for a couple hours. I had committed a crime, and I’d be lying if I said the feeling wasn’t a good one. I wondered why I never did this kind of thing when  17.

In reality, if I had cut class in high school, the destination probably WOULD have been the library, I reflected sadly, and I'm sure the punishment would have been fairly light. I mean, it's one thing to ditch school to smoke cigarettes or chase girls and something else entirely to go to the library.

Driving to the library, away from all the familiar and nostalgic sights and sounds, I started to worry again this situation. The thought I am dead returned, so I started reviewing facts about my life in 2007. I wanted to convince myself this experience was real, and not some symptom of some chemical imbalance in 1976. I thought about the bank accounts I had, at branches in San Diego, a city I never visited until the early 80s. I thought about my computer passwords, what the computers I owned looked like. I thought about Steve Jobs, and the sight of him giving his 2007 Macworld Keynote Address, when he introduced the iPhone to the world. I had been in the audience as a representative of my company, a developer of Macintosh software, and I distinctly remembered walking out, while John Mayer played on stage, and called Molly on my Blackberry, telling her our world was about to change, then Gary, telling him the same thing, except in more technical terms, about how we need to start the process of designing software for this device. The Macintosh, let alone the iPhone, did not exist in 1976, yet in my mind's eye, I saw the various screens and the information they displayed. How would it be possible for me to envision the iPod in 1976? I thought about all the music, movies and TV shows I had on mine, and how I moved them from my Mac Mini to the device. I had always been always a smart kid, but I never could have come up with all this in such detail, but if somehow my mind was creating this, I needed to be writing it all down, because these are million...No, BILLION dollar ideas.

I started to think about my family, my mom, dad and sister and of course, my wife and daughter. I thought of their names, their appearance in 2007 in our house in San Diego, the presents we bought for Samantha for her birthday a few days before I flew to Cincinnati for the first time.

Cincinnati.

With a mental thud, the thought of the Hummer hit me, harder than the real vehicle had and I seemed to experience the crash again. The thought I was dead came back in a rush of certainty. I must be.
Oh, crap, is this what death is?
A sudden backtrack into a previous point in our existence? What if a 1976 version of a Hummer, or a semi-truck or something t-boned me here on Girl's School Road at the next intersection and without side airbags or 2007 auto safety technology I died again? Would I be shot back a decade earlier and be sitting in Mrs Henderson's first grade class thinking of the specs of an Apple Powerbook while the teacher read “Spot the Dog” to us? Being in a 17 year old body again was mostly cool, but the pain in my leg was returning. I did NOT want to be in a pre-pubescent form again, and while that didn’t seem possible, to be safe, I started driving like Tom Cruise's character did after picking up his Dad's car from the shop in Risky Business. Which reminded me how would I know about Risky Business, or even Tom Cruise, in 1976?

The Wayne Public Library didn’t boast the biggest collection of books in the world, but was an excellent little refuge from the rest of life, and in the 70s, the biggest resource for my considerable curiosity about a lot of different things. At age 11, I'd spend hours poring over books on dogs, after my mother dropped me off and ran errands. At 13, it was airplanes and sports that took up most of my attention. After the accident which shattered my leg, I spent entire days in the stacks and reading room, at first unable, then later unwilling to do much physically. Starting at about this time, I read a lot time reading about meditation, which a few 'experts' were starting to say helped with pain, mostly hippie stuff inspired by The Beatles' study in India a few years before.

The “Medical” section was well stocked, as I discovered late in my Senior year of High School (a year or so from now). The books inspired an interest in medicine, pleasing to my parents. What I ended up getting out of the research I did, however, resulted in years of trouble. Information about opiates, and their benefits in managing pain. I should have stuck with dogs and airplanes.

I walked through the familiar double doors and glanced around, taking the distantly familiar sights in. No one was here, neither of the two librarians who bustled around the building during the day, no patrols browsing through the shelves of books. It was quiet. 

I turned to the right and headed toward the section containing the medical books, and started looking at book spines for Neurology texts. Within a couple minutes, I had pulled three from the shelf and carried them to one of the tables at the end of the row of bookcases. Not sure what to look for, I started skimming the first book. After a couple minutes, I sat back, glanced out the window and began to again try to put this whole thing in some sort of comprehendible context.