11/22/63: A Novel Read online

  “And I can use the custom, so we’ve got a meeting of the minds. Five-or tencent beer?”

  “Ten, I guess.”

  “Well, I think you guess right.”

  The frost-coated mug came out of the freezer. He used the handle of the wooden spoon to scrape off the foam. He filled it to the top and set it in front of me. All just like before.

  “That’s a dime, plus one for the governor.”

  I handed over one of Al’s vintage dollars, and while Frank 1.0 made change, I looked over my shoulder and saw the former Yellow Card Man standing outside the liquor store—the greenfront—and swaying from side to side. He made me think of a Hindu fakir I’d seen in some old movie, tooting a horn to coax a cobra out of a wicker basket. And, coming up the sidewalk, right on schedule, was Anicetti the Younger.

  I turned back, sipped my root beer, and sighed. “This hits the spot.”

  “Yep, nothing like a cold beer on a hot day. Not from around here, are you?”

  “No, Wisconsin.” I held out my hand. “George Amberson.”

  He shook it as the bell over the door jangled. “Frank Anicetti. And there comes my boy. Frank Junior. Say hello to Mr. Amberson from Wisconsin, Frankie.”

  “Hello, sir.” He gave me a smile and a nod, then turned to his dad. “Titus has got the truck up on the lift. Says it’ll be ready by five.”

  “Well, that’s good.” I waited for Anicetti 1.0 to light a cigarette and wasn’t disappointed. He inhaled, then turned back to me. “Are you traveling on business or for pleasure?”

  For a moment I didn’t respond, but not because I was stumped for an answer. What was throwing me was the way this scene kept diverging from and then returning to the original script. In any case, Anicetti didn’t seem to notice.

  “Either way, you picked the right time to come. Most of the summer people are gone, and when that happens we all relax. You want a scoop of vanilla ice cream in your beer? Usually it’s five cents extra, but on Tuesdays I reduce the price to a nickel.”

  “You wore that one out ten years ago, Pop,” Frank Junior said amiably.

  “Thanks, but this is fine,” I said. “I’m on business, actually. A real estate closing up in … Sabattus? I think that’s it. Do you know that town?”

  “Only my whole life,” Frank said. He jetted smoke from his nostrils, then gave me a shrewd look. “Long way to come for a real estate closing.”

  I returned a smile that was supposed to communicate if you knew what I know. It must have gotten across, because he tipped me a wink. The bell over the door jingled and the fruit-shopping ladies came in. The DRINK CHEER-UP COFFEE wall clock read 12:28. Apparently the part of the script where Frank Junior and I discussed the Shirley Jackson story had been cut from this draft. I finished my root beer in three long swallows, and as I did, a cramp tightened my bowels. In novels characters rarely have to go potty, but in real life, mental stress often provokes a physical reaction.

  “Say, you don’t happen to have a men’s room, do you?”

  “Sorry, no,” Frank Senior said. “Keep meaning to put one in, but in the summer we’re too busy and in the winter there never seems to be enough cash for the renovations.”

  “You can go around the corner to Titus,” Frank Junior said. He was scooping ice cream into a metal cylinder, getting ready to make himself a milkshake. He hadn’t done that before, and I thought with some unease about the so-called butterfly effect. I thought I was watching that butterfly unfurl its wings right before my eyes. We were changing the world. Only in small ways—infinitesimal ways—but yes, we were changing it.

  “Mister?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Had a senior moment.”

  He looked puzzled, then laughed. “Never heard that one before, but it’s pretty good.” Because it was, he might repeat it the next time he lost his own train of thought. And a phrase that otherwise wouldn’t enter the bright flow of American slanguage until the seventies or eighties would make an early debut. You couldn’t say a premature debut, exactly, because on this time-stream it would be right on schedule.

  “Titus Chevron is around the corner on your right,” Anicetti Senior said. “If it’s … uh … urgent, you’re welcome to use our bathroom upstairs.”

  “No, I’m fine,” I said, and although I’d already looked at the wall clock, I took an ostentatious glance at my Bulova on the cool Speidel band. It was a good thing they couldn’t see the face, because I’d forgotten to reset it and it was still on 2011 time. “But I’ve got to be going. Errands to run. Unless I’m very lucky, they’ll tie me up for more than a day. Can you recommend a good motel around here?”

  “Do you mean a motor court?” Anicetti Senior asked. He butted his cigarette in one of the WINSTON TASTES GOOD ashtrays that lined the counter.

  “Yes.” This time my smile felt foolish rather than in-the-know … and my bowels cramped again. If I didn’t take care of that problem soon, it was going to develop into an authentic 911 situation. “Motels are what we call them in Wisconsin.”

  “Well I’d say the Tamarack Motor Court, about five miles up 196 on your way to Lewiston,” Anicetti Senior said. “It’s near the drive-in movie.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” I said, getting up.

  “You bet. And if you want to get trimmed up before any of your meetings, try Baumer’s Barber Shop. He does a real fine job.”

  “Thanks. Another good tip.”

  “Tips are free, root beers are sold American. Enjoy your time in Maine, Mr. Amberson. And Frankie? You drink that milkshake and get on back to school.”

  “You bet, Pop.” This time it was Junior who tipped a wink in my direction.

  “Frank?” one of the ladies called in a yoo-hoo voice. “Are these oranges fresh?”

  “As fresh as your smile, Leola,” he replied, and the ladies tee-hee’d. I’m not trying to be cute here; they actually tee-hee’d.

  I passed them, murmuring “Ladies” as I went by. The bell jingled and I went out into the world that had existed before my birth. But this time instead of crossing the street to the courtyard where the rabbit-hole was, I walked deeper into that world. Across the street, the wino in the long black coat was gesticulating at the tunic-wearing clerk. The card he was waving might be orange instead of yellow, but otherwise he was back on script.

  I took that as a good sign.

  3

  Titus Chevron was beyond the Red & White Supermarket, where Al had bought the same supplies for his diner over and over again. According to the sign in the window, lobster was going for sixty-nine cents a pound. Across from the market, standing on a patch of ground that was vacant in 2011, was a big maroon barn with the doors standing open and all sorts of used furniture on display—cribs, cane rockers, and overstuffed easy chairs of the “Dad’s relaxin’” type seemed in particularly abundant supply. The sign over the door read THE JOLLY WHITE ELEPHANT. An additional sign, this one an A-frame propped to catch the eye of folks on the road to Lewiston, made the audacious claim that IF WE DON’T HAVE IT, YOU DON’T NEED IT. A fellow I took to be the proprietor was sitting in one of the rocking chairs, smoking a pipe and looking across at me. He wore a strap-style tee-shirt and baggy brown slacks. He also wore a goatee, which I thought equally audacious for this particular island in the time-stream. His hair, although combed back and held in place with some sort of grease, curled down to the nape of his neck and made me think of some old rock-and-roll video I’d seen: Jerry Lee Lewis jumping on his piano as he sang “Great Balls of Fire.” The proprietor of the Jolly White Elephant probably had a reputation as the town beatnik.

  I tipped a finger to him. He gave me the faintest of nods and went on puffing his pipe.

  At the Chevron (where regular was selling for 19.9 cents a gallon and “super” was a penny more), a man in blue coveralls and a strenuous crewcut was working on a truck—the Anicettis’, I presumed—that was up on the lift.

  “Mr. Titus?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Ayuh
?”

  “Mr. Anicetti said I could use your restroom?”

  “Key’s inside the front door.” Doe-ah.

  “Thank you.”

  The key was attached to a wooden paddle with MEN printed on it. The other key had GIRLS printed on the paddle. My ex-wife would have shit a brick at that, I thought, and not without glee.

  The restroom was clean but smoky-smelling. There was an urn-style ashtray beside the commode. From the number of butts studding it, I would guess a good many visitors to this tidy little room enjoyed puffing as they pooped.

  When I came out, I saw two dozen or so used cars in a small lot next to the station. A line of colored pennants fluttered above them in a light breeze. Cars that would have sold for thousands

  —as classics, no less—in 2011 were priced at seventy-five and a hundred dollars. A Caddy that looked in nearly mint condition was going for eight hundred. The sign over the little sales booth (inside, a gum-chewing, ponytailed cutie was absorbed in Photoplay) read: ALL THESE CARS RUN GOOD AND COME WITH THE BILL TITUS GUARENTEE WE SERVICE WHAT WE SELL!

  I hung the key up, thanked Titus (who grunted without turning from the truck on the lift), and started back toward Main Street, thinking it would be a good idea to get my hair cut before visiting the bank. That made me remember the goatee-wearing beatnik, and on impulse I crossed the street to the used furniture emporium.

  “Morning,” I said.

  “Well, it’s actually afternoon, but whatever makes you happy.” He puffed his pipe, and that light late-summer breeze brought me a whiff of Cherry Blend. Also a memory of my grandfather, who used to smoke it when I was a kid. He sometimes blew it in my ear to quell the earache, a treatment that was probably not AMA-approved.

  “Do you sell suitcases?”

  “Oh, I got a few in my kick. No more’n two hundred, I’d say. Walk all the way to the back and look on your right.”

  “If I buy one, could I leave it here for a couple of hours, while I do some shopping?”

  “I’m open until five,” he said, and turned his face up into the sun. “After that you’re on your own.”

  4

  I traded two of Al’s vintage dollars for a leather valise, left it behind the beatnik’s counter, then walked up to Main Street with my briefcase banging my leg. I glanced into the greenfront and saw the clerk sitting beside the cash register and reading a newspaper. There was no sign of my pal in the black overcoat.

  It would have been hard to get lost in the shopping district; it was only a block long. Three of four storefronts up from the Kennebec Fruit, I came to Baumer’s Barber Shop. A red-and-white barber pole twirled in the window. Next to it was a political poster featuring Edmund Muskie. I remembered him as a tired, slope-shouldered old man, but this version of him looked almost too young to vote, let alone get elected to anything. The poster read, SEND ED MUSKIE TO THE U.S. SENATE, VOTE DEMOCRAT! Someone had put a bright white band around the bottom. Hand-printed on it was THEY SAID IT COULDN’T BE DONE IN MAINE BUT WE DID IT! NEXT UP: HUMPHREY IN 1960!

  Inside, two old parties were sitting against the wall while an equally old third party got his tonsure trimmed. Both of the waiting men were puffing like choo-choos. So was the barber (Baumer, I assumed), with one eye squinted against the rising smoke as he clipped. All four studied me in a way I was familiar with: the not-quite-mistrustful look of appraisal that Christy once called the Yankee Glare. It was nice to know that some things hadn’t changed.

  “I’m from out of town, but I’m a friend,” I told them. “Voted the straight Democratic ticket my whole life.” I raised my hand in a so-help-me-God gesture.

  Baumer grunted with amusement. Ash tumbled from his cigarette. He brushed it absently off his smock and onto the floor, where there were several crushed butts among the cut hair. “Harold there’s a Republican. You want to watch out he don’t bitecha.”

  “He ain’t got the choppers for it nummore,” one of the others said, and they all cackled.

  “Where you from, mister?” Harold the Republican asked.

  “Wisconsin.” I picked up a copy of Man’s Adventure to forestall further conversation. On the cover, a subhuman Asian gent with a whip in one gloved hand was approaching a blonde lovely tied to a post. The story that went with it was called JAP SEX-SLAVES OF THE PACIFIC. The barbershop’s smell was a sweet and completely wonderful mixture of talcum powder, pomade, and cigarette smoke. By the time Baumer motioned me to the chair, I was deep into the sex-slaves story. It wasn’t as exciting as the cover.

  “Been doin some traveling, Mr. Wisconsin?” he asked as he settled a white rayon cloth over my front and wrapped a paper collar around my neck.

  “Quite a lot,” I said truthfully.

  “Well, you’re in God’s country now. How short do you want it?”

  “Short enough so I don’t look like”—a hippie, I almost finished, but Baumer wouldn’t know what that was—“like a beatnik.”

  “Let it get a little out of control, I guess.” He began to clip. “Leave it much longer and you’d look like that faggot who runs the Jolly White Elephant.”

  “I wouldn’t want that,” I said.

  “Nosir, he’s a sight, that one.” That-un.

  When Baumer finished, he powdered the back of my neck, asked me if I wanted Vitalis, Brylcreem, or Wildroot Cream Oil, and charged me forty cents.

  I call that a deal.

  5

  My thousand-dollar deposit at the Hometown Trust raised no eyebrows. The freshly barbered look probably helped, but I think it was mostly being in a cash-and-carry society where credit cards were still in their infancy … and probably regarded with some suspicion by thrifty Yankees. A severely pretty teller with her hair done up in tight rolls and a cameo at her throat counted my money, entered the amount in a ledger, then called over the assistant manager, who counted it again, checked the ledger, and then wrote out a receipt that showed both the deposit and the total in my new checking account.

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, that’s a mighty big amount to be carrying in checking, Mr. Amberson. Would you like to open a savings account? We’re currently offering three percent interest, compounded quarterly.” He widened his eyes to show me what a wonderful deal this was. He looked like that oldtime Cuban bandleader, Xavier Cugat.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got a fair amount of business to transact.” I lowered my voice. “Real estate closing. Or so I hope.”

  “Good luck,” he said, lowering his own to the same confidential pitch. “Lorraine will fix you up with checks. Fifty enough to go on with?”

  “Fifty would be fine.”

  “Later on, we can have some printed with your name and your address.” He raised his eyebrows, turning it into a question.

  “I expect to be in Derry. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Fine. I’m at Drexel eight four-seven-seven-seven.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about until he slid a business card through the window. Gregory Dusen, Assistant Manager, was engraved on it, and DRexel 8-4777.

  Lorraine got my checks and a faux alligator checkbook to put them in. I thanked her and dropped them into my briefcase. At the door I paused for a look back. A couple of the tellers were working adding machines, but otherwise the transactions were all of the pen-and-elbow-grease variety. It occurred to me that, with a few exceptions, Charles Dickens would have felt at home here. It also occurred to me that living in the past was a little like living underwater and breathing through a tube.

  6

  I got the clothes Al had recommended at Mason’s Menswear, and the clerk told me yes, they would be more than happy to take a check, providing it was drawn on a local bank. Thanks to Lorraine, I could oblige in that regard.

  Back at the Jolly White Elephant, the beatnik watched silently as I transferred the contents of three shopping bags to my new valise. When I snapped it shut, he finally offered an opinion. “Funny way to shop, man.”

  “I guess so,” I said. “But it’s a
funny old world, isn’t it?”

  He cracked a smile at that. “In my opinion, that’s a big you-bet. Slip me some skin, Jackson.” He extended his hand, palm up.

  For a moment it was like trying to figure out what the word Drexel attached to some numbers was all about. Then I remembered Dragstrip Girl, and understood the beatnik was offering the fifties version of a fist-bump. I dragged my palm across his, feeling the warmth and the sweat, thinking again: This is real. This is happening.

  “Skin, man,” I said.

  7

  I crossed back to Titus Chevron, swinging the newly loaded valise from one hand and the briefcase from the other. It was only midmorning in the 2011 world I’d come from, but I felt tired out. There was a telephone booth between the service station and the adjacent car lot. I went in, shut the door, and read the hand-printed sign over the old-fashioned pay phone: REMEMBER PHONE CALLS NOW A DIME COURTESY OF “MA” BELL.

  I thumbed through the Yellow Pages in the local phone book and found Lisbon Taxi. Their ad featured a cartoon cab with eyes for headlights and a big smile on its grille. It promised FAST, COURTEOUS SERVICE. That sounded good to me. I grubbed for my change, but the first thing I came up with was something I should have left behind: my Nokia cell phone. It was antique by the standards of the year I’d come from—I’d been meaning to trade up to an iPhone—but it had no business here. If someone saw it, I’d be asked a hundred questions I couldn’t answer. I stowed it in the briefcase. It would be okay there for the time being, I guessed, but I’d have to get rid of it eventually. Keeping it would be like walking around with an unexploded bomb.

  I found a dime, dropped it in the slot, and it went right through to the coin return. I fished it out, and one look was enough to pinpoint the problem. Like my Nokia, the dime had come from the future; it was a copper sandwich, really no more than a penny with pretensions. I pulled out all my coins, poked through them, and found a 1953 dime I’d probably got in change from the root beer I’d bought at the Kennebec Fruit. I started to put it in, then had a thought that made me feel cold. What if my 2002 dime had gotten stuck in the phone’s throat instead of falling through to the coin return? And what if the AT&T man who serviced the pay phones in Lisbon Falls had found it?