Second Chance (11 page)

He was back. It was true. He had come back.

"Turn off the TV," said Alan, looking as though he had just become aware of something the others hadn't. "Turn it off." Eddie twisted the switch, and the image faded to a hot pinpoint of light, then vanished. "Now listen."

They did. There was nothing, not a sound except for their own shallow, excited breathing.

"No cars," Alan said. "No music. No voices from people outside. Nothing." He got up and walked quickly to the dining room windows that overlooked the street. "My God," he whispered.

Woody and the others joined him. The cars parked on the street below were a variety of late sixties models—a gold
Corvair
convertible, a stubby Renault Dauphine, two VW beetles, and a huge, boxy-looking car that Woody thought might be a Buick. But it was not the cars that commanded their attention as much as the sight in, or rather on, the Dodge showroom window across the street from the building in which they stood.

The street level window was only one story high, so they could not see themselves reflected in it, but what they could see was the mirror image of The Alternative Book Store.

Its windows were no longer dark and coated with dust. Instead, two ceiling lights glowed feebly, revealing shelves filled with books and magazines, a brightly colored rack of underground comics (Woody could see the reversed letters, PAZ, and remembered the hilariously obscene contents of ZAP comics), a banner with black swastikas emblazoned on vicious red, a poster of
Che
Guevara with a gold star on his black hat, a pegboard against the back wall crowded with helmets, like vertical mushrooms.

"Some scientists think," said Alan slowly, his quiet voice sounding huge in the silence, "that time's like a big sheet. And maybe there are places where the sheet folds over on itself."

"I thought that was space," said Frank.

Alan shrugged. "Space, time—same thing."

"With that kind of thinking it's obvious you were a
political
science major," Eddie said, but no one laughed.

"Maybe we ought to go outside," Curly suggested. "See if it's really the same down there."

"No," Woody said. "We'd better not split up." He looked nervously at Curly. "Suppose the rest of us went back somehow while you were out there? What would happen to you?"

Curly frowned and crossed his arms tightly.

"Can we just go back and sit down for a minute?" asked Diane. "I don't feel so good."

"You
look
good," said Eddie, mustering a smile. "At least twenty years younger."

Alan started to move into the living room. "We ought to try and figure out a way to get back." He sounded dazed.

Curly shrugged and sat on the floor near the door. "I don't know, maybe we just
oughta
enjoy ourselves for a while. I could go to Professor McClellan's house and break his windows for giving me a 2 in Pre-Renaissance Drama."

"I wouldn't," Eddie said. "When we get back, it might be on your permanent record."

"Jesus
Christ
," said Frank, throwing himself onto the sofa next to Judy. "You really think this is
funny
?"

"I take it as it comes, Frank," Curly said, his face suddenly sober, "and I try to smile at it."

"’I laugh so I do not weep,’" Eddie said. "That's from something, I forget what."

"Funny or not," Woody said, "this is real. Or at least it's real to us. Now we have to decide what to do until . . . we're taken back. Or we can figure out a way to go ourselves. Or something else happens."

"Something else? Like what?"
Sharla
asked.

Then the door opened, and the light burst in from the stairwell, and dead friends began to come through the door.

Chapter 9

Dale
Collini
was first, wearing a red, quilted ski jacket against the cool autumn air that came in through the door. He was grinning, and carried two pizza boxes, one piled on the other.

"We're back,
piggies
," he said.

Behind him was Keith Aarons, wearing a C.P.O. coat with its massive collar all the way up, so that his bearded head seemed to be borne in a navy blue vase. An expression halfway between a smile and a smirk was on his handsome face, his hands were pressed deep into his pockets, and a cigarillo protruded from a corner of his mouth like a fang.

Woody's heart had begun to pound the moment the door opened, and now he felt as though it would burst from his chest as Tracy
Zampelios
appeared in the doorway.

She stood there for a moment, finding him instantly, her gray, Grecian eyes looking at him, her sweet, triangular face softened by the waves of dark hair falling over the shoulders of his brown leather jacket that she wore. He thought in that moment that he would die, and welcomed the prospect, for to wake up now, to return to the reality of the present, would be infinitely cruel.

"Tracy," he said softly.

"Who else were you expecting?" she said lightly, then ran to where he sat, melted onto his lap with the lightness of a dream, and kissed him. Her lips were cold from being outside, but he warmed them quickly, intoxicated by the feel, the scent, the sight of her, by the sheer corporeality of her being.

It seemed a long time before he became aware of the shallow, panicked breathing near him, and when he looked he saw that Diane's eyes were bulging, her mouth was hanging open, and little yips were coming from her throat.

"God," said Tracy, "Diane's freaking out . . ."

By the time Woody got to her, Curly, Alan, and Keith (
Keith
, Woody thought, my God,
Keith!
) were by her, but she was looking at Keith in terror, and now the little whines of sound seemed ready to explode into screams, and Keith looked at her as though he understood everything, and said, "Hey, Diane, it's cool. Everything is cool. We're your friends, you dig?"

Her breathing slowed, although she still looked at Keith as if afraid to take her eyes off him.

"What've you guys been doing?" Keith said to Curly. "Bad shit or something?"

For the first time in as long as Woody had known him, Curly seemed at a loss for words. He knelt on the floor, his eyes darting from Keith to Tracy back to Keith, a vacuous half-smile on his face, as though he had found himself in a wonderful if frightening dream.

"Curly?" Keith said in his dimly remembered but compelling voice, "you stoned too?"

Curly laughed. It sounded halfhearted, but under the circumstances Woody thought he did an adequate job of it. "I guess . . ." he said, pausing, then going on. "I guess we're
all
a little stoned."

Tracy sniffed the air and made an angry little-girl face at Woody. "I smell it. Getting stoned without us, huh? And on some heavy shit, if Diane's any indication. You okay?"

Diane nodded, but her amazed mouth, still open, allowed no smile.

"You
all
look really far out," Keith said. "You got any of that shit left?"

"Uh, no," Curly said. "Just the one joint. Sorry."

"I'm . . ." Diane spoke. "I'm sorry I . . . freaked out. That was stupid."

"Hey," said Keith, "we've all gotten burned already. It's over now, everything's groovy. Who wants some pizza?" He yelled out to the kitchen. "Hey, Dale, bring in the pizza! And let's get some music. It's like a morgue in here." He went to the stereo and put on Big Brother. A moment later Janis Joplin's wail filled the room.

Dale brought the pizzas into the room, and sat next to Alan, who regarded him with the look a mouse gives an owl about to pounce. Keith settled on the floor by
Sharla's
feet next to the rickety coffee table. He rubbed her knees and smiled up at her. In return, she looked at him as if he were a ghost. "
S'matter
, wild
thang
?" he said. "
Curly's
magic dope get you too?"

Sharla
looked at him for a moment, then at Woody, his arms around Tracy, and she grinned. "Hell, no, white boy," she said to Keith. "
Gimme
a slice of that pizza. And heavy on the mushrooms."

Frank whispered something, and Dale said, "What did you say, Frank?"

Frank turned to Dale, looked at him, and slowly shook his head. "This proves it. It's a dream," he said.

Keith looked at Woody. "Still stoned, huh?"

Woody nodded. "I guess so. But most of us are okay." He looked around the room at the others. Judy sat next to Alan, a smile of astonishment on her face. Diane looked less delighted, but no longer about to panic.

Eddie, on the other hand, looked like a kid in a candy store.

"God," he blurted out, "it's good to see you guys again." Then, with a face filled with wonder, Eddie took a piece of pizza as carefully and sacredly as if taking the host at communion.

Curly was already chewing. He swallowed, then said, "I haven't had a piece of pizza like this since . . ." Then he seemed to realize the circumstances, strange as they were. ". . . since
last
week."

"God, you guys are acting weird," said Tracy, getting off Woody's lap just long enough to grab a slice of pizza.

"It's a dream," said Frank again.

"So if it's a dream," Woody said, "
enjoy
it." He looked around at his friends, the living and the dead, together again. Just enjoy it, Frank."

"Woody? Baby?" Tracy said, her hand on his knee. "You crying?"

"I'm happy," he said, knuckling away tears. "I'm just happy, babe. Happy to be with you. With all my friends."

"No," Frank said, pushing himself up and picking his way across the room as if treading through a vipers' den. "No, this isn't right."

"I'll talk to him," Woody said as Judy started to get up. "Let me talk to him, Jude."

He followed Frank to the bathroom, where he found him leaning against the wash bowl, his head bowed, eyes closed. "Frank . . ."

"This isn't real, Woody. It's what we want to see, that's all. It's all hallucination. You know as well as I do that none of this can be happening."

"All right then. Have it your own way. It's a dream." He sat down on the edge of the bathtub. "But after Tracy died, I dreamed about her. I dreamed that she came back, that we both knew she was dead, but she was allowed to come back to say goodbye to me." He gave a great sigh, remembering.
Or was it now
, he wondered,
foreseeing
? "I had that dream over and over, and every time I was glad for it, glad to be able to see her again, to finally have the chance to say goodbye, to tell her how much I loved her.

"We've got that chance now, Frank. It's like that dream again, only during it I always knew it was a dream. But this, tonight, feels
real
, and that makes it even better." He waved an arm toward the living room. "They don't know they're dead. They don't know we've lived twenty-some years since we last saw them. They're alive, and we're alive, and this is 1969 for as long as this dream lasts. And Tracy's there and God help me but I still love her, and I'm going to spend this time—whether it's seconds or hours, whether it's a dream or as real as my pain—with her. And so is everybody else. They were scared at first, but did you see their faces now?"

He grabbed Frank's arms. "
Dammit
, Frank, don't question this. It's a gift. Accept it!"

Frank didn't look at him. "It's not real, it's—"

Woody's patience fled. He swung Frank around and slapped his cheek hard enough to stagger the man.

"Is
that
real?" he said. "Did you feel that?"

Frank looked at him in what seemed like shock. But then his eyes calmed, and he nodded. "Okay. I'll . . . do it. I'll be part of it.”

"They were your friends too. And you loved them." Woody put a hand on Frank's shoulder. "Come on."

They went into the rooms where the others were. Woody sat next to Tracy, and watched as Frank sat on the other sofa by Judy. Slowly his friend's face softened, and in another few minutes he was listening to the conversation, and a gently ecstatic smile was arching the corners of his mouth.

They sat, eleven people in a large, dimly lit room, eight of them hiding twice the years of living that their fresh and
unseamed
faces showed, slowly remembering what being young was like, and starting to enjoy it again.

They ate pizza from cardboard boxes, drank beer from a keg. The pizza tasted better, spicier, the beer colder and richer than they had remembered. The music was fresh, the conversation more alive than any they had heard in years.

They listened to their young friends talk about music, about films and books. Their opinions were frank and unassailable, and they gave the exasperating yet charming impression of being absolutely right in everything they said. There was no subject too lofty, no problem so complex that it could not be encircled and solved by their simple, youthful logic.

For the most part, the eight kept silent, allowing Tracy and Keith and Dale to talk. When they discussed politics, Keith asked Frank why he had that stupid grin on his face, and Frank replied that it just felt so good to be a liberal and not feel guilty about it. The young ones looked around and shook their heads in mock pity, then talked some more, and slowly Woody understood that this was a Saturday night in the fall of 1969, that same fall that—