Ur (6 page)

The inauguration of the forty-fourth President of the United States was only one example, but a powerful one. They checked it in two dozen different Urs before getting tired and moving on. Fully seventeen front pages on January 21
^st
of 2009 announced Hillary Clinton as the new President. In fourteen of them, Bill Richardson of New Mexico was her vice president. In two, it was Joe Biden. In one it was a Senator none of them had heard of: Linwood Speck of New Jersey.

“He always says no when someone else wins the top spot,” Don said.

“Who always says no?” Robbie asked. “Obama?”

“Yeah. He always gets asked, and he always says no.”

“It’s in character,” Wesley said. “And while events change, character never seems to.”

“You can’t say that for sure,” Don said. “We have a miniscule sample compared to the…the…” He laughed feebly. “You know, the whole thing. All the worlds of Ur.”

Barack Obama had been elected in six Urs. Mitt Romney had been elected once, with John McCain as his running mate. He had run against Obama, who had been tapped after Hillary was killed in a motorcade accident late in the campaign.

They saw not a single mention of Sarah Palin. Wesley wasn’t surprised. He thought that if they stumbled on her, it would be more by luck than by probability, and not just because Mitt Romney showed up more often as the Republican nominee than John McCain did. Palin had always been an outsider, a longshot, the one nobody expected.

Robbie wanted to check the Red Sox. Wesley felt it was a waste of time, but Don came down on the kid’s side, so Wesley agreed. The two of them checked the sports pages for October in ten different Urs, plugging in dates from 1918 to 2009.

“This is depressing,” Robbie said after the tenth try. Don Allman agreed.

“Why?” Wesley asked. “They win lots of times.”

“But there’s no rhyme or reason to it,” Robbie said.

“And no curse,” Don said. “They always win just enough to avoid it. Which is sort of boring.”

“What curse?” Wesley was mystified.

Don opened his mouth to explain, then sighed. “Never mind,” he said. “It would take too long, and you wouldn’t get it, anyway.”

“Look on the bright side,” Robbie said. “The Yankees are always there, so it isn’t
all
luck.”

“Yeah,” Don said glumly. “The military-industrial complex of the sporting world.”

“Soh-
ree.
Does anyone want that last slice?”

Don and Wes shook their heads. Robbie scarfed it and said, “Why not peek at the Big Casino, before we all decide we’re nuts and check ourselves into CentralState?”

“What Big Casino might that be, Yoda?” Don asked.

“The
JFK
assassination,” Robbie said. “Mr. Tollman says that was the seminal event of the twentieth century, even more important than the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. I thought seminal events usually happened in bed, but hey, I came to college to learn. Mr. Tollman’s in the History Department.”

“I know who Hugh Tollman is,” Don said. “He’s a goddam commie, and he never laughs at my jokes.”

“But he could be right about the Kennedy assassination,” Wesley said. “Let’s look.”

They pursued the John-Kennedy-in-Dallas thread until nearly eleven o’clock, while college students hooted unnoticed below them, on their way to and from the local beerpits. They checked over seventy versions of the New York
Times
for November 23
^rd
, 1963, and although the story was never the same, one fact seemed undeniable to all of them: whether he missed Kennedy, wounded Kennedy, or killed Kennedy, it was always Lee Harvey Oswald, and he always acted alone.

“The Warren Report was right,” Don said. “For once the bureaucracy did its job. I’m gobsmacked.”

In some Urs, that day in November had passed with no assassination stories, either attempted or successful. Sometimes Kennedy decided not to visit Dallas after all. Sometimes he did, and his motorcade was uneventful; he arrived at the Dallas Trade Mart, gave his hundred-dollar-a-plate luncheon speech (“God, things were cheap back in the day, weren’t they?” Robbie remarked), and flew off into the sunset.

This was the case in Ur 88,416. Wesley began to plug in more dates from that Ur. What he saw filled him with awe and horror and wonder and sorrow. In Ur 88,416, Kennedy had seen the folly of Vietnam and had pulled out over the vehement objections of Robert McNamara, his Secretary of Defense. McNamara quit and was replaced by a man named Bruce Palmer, who resigned his rank of U.S. Army general to take the job. The civil rights turmoil was milder than when Lyndon Johnson was President, and there were almost no riots in the American cities—partly because in Ur 88,416, Martin Luther King wasn’t assassinated in Memphis or anywhere else.

In this Ur,
JFK
was elected for a second term. In 1968, Edmund Muskie of Maine won the Presidency in a landslide over Nelson Rockefeller. By then the outgoing President was hardly able to walk without the aid of crutches, and said his first priority was going to be major back surgery.

Robbie ignored that and fixed on a story that had to do with Kennedy’s last White House party. The Beatles had played, but the concert ended early when drummer Pete Best suffered a seizure and had to be taken to Washington DC Hospital.

“Holy shit,” Don whispered. “What happened to Ringo?”

“Guys,” Wesley said, yawning, “I have to go to bed. I’m dying here.”

“Check one more,” Robbie said. “4,121,989. It’s my birthday. Gotta be lucky.”

But it wasn’t. When Wesley selected the Ur and added a date—January 20, 1973—not quite at random, what came up instead of
ENJOY
YOUR
SELECTION
was this: NO
TIMES
THIS
UR
AFTER
NOVEMBER
19, 1962.

“Oh my God,” Wesley said, and clapped a hand to his mouth. “Dear sweet God.”

“What?” Robbie asked. “What is it?”

“I think I know,” Don said. He tried to take the pink Kindle.

Wesley, who guessed he had gone pale (but probably not as pale as he felt inside), put a hand over Don’s. “No,” he said. “I don’t think I can bear it.”

“Bear
what
?” Robbie nearly shouted.

“Didn’t Hugh Tollman cover the Cuban Missile Crisis?” Don asked. “Or didn’t you get that far yet?”

“
What
missile crisis? Was it something to do with Castro?”

Don was looking at Wesley. “I don’t really want to see, either,” he said, “but I won’t sleep tonight unless I make sure, and I don’t think you will, either.”

“Okay,” Wesley said, and thought—not for the first time, either—that curiosity rather than rage was the true bane of the human spirit. “You’ll have to do it, though. My hands are trembling too much.”

Don filled in the fields for
NOVEMBER
19, 1962. The Kindle told him to enjoy his selection, but he didn’t. None of them did. The headlines were stark and huge:

NYC
TOLL
SURPASSES
6 MILLION

MANHATTAN
DECIMATED
BY RADIATION

RUSSIA
SAID
TO BE OBLITERATED

LOSSES
IN
EUROPE
AND
ASIA
“INCALCULABLE”

CHINESE
LAUNCH
40 ICBMS

“Turn it off,” Robbie said in a small, sick voice. “It’s like that song says—I don’t wanna see no more.”

Don said, “Look on the bright side, you two. It seems we dodged the bullet in most of the Urs, including this one.” But his voice wasn’t quite steady.

“Robbie’s right,” Wesley said. He had discovered that the final issue of the New York
Times
in Ur 4,121,989 was only three pages long. And every article was death. “Turn it off. I wish I’d never seen the damn thing in the first place.”

“Too late now,” Robbie said. And how right he was.

They went downstairs together and stood on the sidewalk in front of Wesley’s building.
Main Street
was almost deserted now. The rising wind moaned around the buildings and rattled late November leaves along the sidewalks. A trio of drunk students was stumbling back toward Fraternity Row, singing what might have been “ParadiseCity.”

“I can’t tell you what to do—it’s your gadget—but if it was mine, I’d get rid of it,” Don said. “It’ll suck you in.”

Wesley thought of telling him he’d already had this idea, but didn’t. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“Nope,” Don said. “I’m driving the wife and kids to Frankfort for a wonderful three-day weekend at my in-laws’. Suzy Montanari’s taking my classes. And after this little seminar tonight, I’m delighted to be getting away. Robbie? Drop you somewhere?”

“Thanks, but no need. I share an apartment with a couple of other guys two blocks up the street. Over Susan and Nan’s Place.”

“Isn’t that a little noisy?” Wesley asked. Susan and Nan’s was the local café, and opened at six AM seven days a week.

“Most days I sleep right through it.” Robbie flashed a grin. “Also, when it comes to the rent, the price is right.”

“Good deal. Night, you guys,” Don started for his Tercel, then turned back. “I intend to kiss my kids before I turn in. Maybe it’ll help me get to sleep. That last story—” He shook his head. “I could have done without that. No offense, Robbie, but stick your birthday up your ass.”

They watched his diminishing taillights and Robbie said thoughtfully, “Nobody ever told me to stick my birthday before.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to take it personally. And he’s probably right about the Kindle, you know. It’s fascinating—
too
fascinating—but useless in any practical sense.”

Robbie stared at him, wide-eyed. “You’re calling access to thousands of undiscovered novels by the great masters of the craft
useless
? Sheezis, what kind of English teacher are you?”

Wesley had no comeback. Especially when he knew that, late or not, he’d probably be reading more of
Cortland’s Dogs
before turning in.

“Besides,” Robbie said. “It might not be
entirely
useless. You could type up one of those books and send it in to a publisher, ever think of that? You know, submit it under your own name. Become the next big thing. They’d call you the heir to Vonnegut or Roth or whoever.”

It was an attractive idea, especially when Wesley thought of the useless scribbles in his briefcase. But he shook his head. “It’d probably violate the Paradox Laws…whatever
they
are. More importantly, it would eat at me like acid. From the inside out.” He hesitated, not wanting to sound prissy, but wanting to articulate what felt like the real reason for not doing such a thing. “I would feel ashamed.”

The kid smiled. “You’re a good dude, Wesley.” They were walking in the direction of Robbie’s apartment now, the leaves rattling around their feet, a quarter moon flying through the wind-driven clouds overhead.

“You think so?”

“I do. And so does Coach Silverman.”

Wesley stopped, caught by surprise. “What do you know about me and Coach Silverman?”

“Personally? Not a thing. But you must know Josie’s on the team. Josie Quinn from class?”

“Of course I know Josie.” The one who’d sounded like a kindly anthropologist when they’d been discussing the Kindle. And yes, he
had
known she was a Lady Meerkat. Unfortunately one of the subs who usually got into the game only if it was a total blowout.

“Josie says Coach has been really sad since you and her broke up. Grouchy, too. She makes them run all the time, and kicked one girl right off the team.”

“That was before we broke up.” Thinking:
In a way that’s
why
we broke up
. “Um…does the whole team know about us?”

Robbie Henderson looked at him as though he were mad. “If Josie knows, they all know.”

“How?” Because Ellen wouldn’t have told them; briefing the team on your love-life was not a coachly thing to do.

“How do women know anything?” Robbie asked. “They just do.”

“Are you and Josie Quinn an item, Robbie?”

“We’re going in the right direction. G’night, Wes. I’m gonna sleep in tomorrow—no classes on Friday—but if you drop by Susan and Nan’s for lunch, come on up and knock on my door.”

“I might do that,” Wesley said. “Goodnight, Robbie. Thanks for being one of the Three Stooges.”

“I’d say the pleasure was all mine, but I have to think about that.”

Instead of reading ur-Hemingway when he got back, Wesley stuffed the Kindle in his briefcase. Then he took out the mostly blank bound notebook and ran his hand over its pretty cover.
For your book ideas
, Ellen had said, and it had to’ve been an expensive present. Too bad it was going to waste.

I could still write a book
, he thought.
Just because I haven’t in any of the other Urs doesn’t mean I couldn’t here.

It was true. He could be the Sarah Palin of American letters. Because sometimes longshots came in.

Both for good and for ill.

He undressed, brushed his teeth, then called the English Department and left a message for the secretary to cancel his one morning class. “Thanks, Marilyn. Sorry to put this on you, but I think I’m coming down with the flu.” He added an unconvincing cough and hung up.

He thought he would lie sleepless for hours, thinking of all those other worlds, but in the dark they seemed as unreal as actors when you saw them on a movie screen. They were big up there—often beautiful, too—but they were still only shadows thrown by light. Maybe the Ur-worlds were like that, too.

What seemed real in this post-midnight hour was the sound of the wind, the beautiful sound of the wind telling tales of Tennessee, where it had been earlier this evening. Lulled by it, Wesley fell asleep, and he slept deeply and long. There were no dreams, and when he woke up, sunshine was flooding his bedroom. For the first time since his own undergraduate days, he had slept until almost eleven in the morning.