The one I knocked myself out in last time, it’s being used by more than one person. So I head upstairs to where I suspect the master bedroom and hopefully master bath will be.
I haven’t been drinking but I’m hopped up enough on adrenaline that I don’t bother knocking on the door at the end of the hallway and just bust in. Bad idea. Garrett Shepard, the guy whose teeth I knocked out, is in there date-raping a girl. She’s passed out, hair in her face and makeup smeared, and limbs limp, dress pulled up and legs spread. Garrett, eyes almost busting loose from his head, stands and walks over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder and the veins in his forehead are throbbing as he says, “She’s just had too much to drink.”
His shirt off and his boxers at his knees, Garrett says, “There’s a toilet downstairs. You go ahead and knock yourself out down there. Let us have some privacy?”
I look over Garrett’s shoulder. I recognize this girl. I think her name is Rose and she was in my history class freshman year. She has red hair and a soft laugh and knows a lot about Scandinavia.
I ask, “What’s going on in here, Garrett?”
He shakes his head frantic, pushes me toward the door.
Still looking at Rose lying there, I say, “You’re a sick fucker, Garrett.”
I push him out of my way and he starts up burbling behind me, his voice higher, panicked. He says, “No. No. No. She’s fine. She led me up here. Wanted it and been asking for months. Months now. Just had a bit too much to drink.”
He closes the door and the room gets dark just as I’m leaning down next to Rose and wiping the hair out her face. Grinding my teeth, my fists opening and closing and opening and closing like heartbeats, breathing shallow, I say, “You’re not getting away with this. This is… this is inexcusable.”
And that’s when he hits me.
The way it feels, I’m guessing it’s either a vase or a lamp. It doesn’t shatter the way props do in the movies. If anything, it bounces up off the back of my head. It’s not the hardest hit I’ve ever taken. Honestly, I stand there thinking Garrett is totally weak.
But my eyes don’t shut off.
There is no vision. Only the darkness of the room and the wet feeling at the back of my head and there is no Buzz, just rage. Uncontrollable rage. I’m not sure how it happens, but just like in the car after Janice told me about the vision, after she tried to break my heart, I go nuts and my arms and legs move on their own. My hands move before I can even will them into motion.
Fact is: I don’t even feel my knuckles on Garrett’s nose.
Fact is: I barely feel them on his metal teeth.
This isn’t me being a rock star. This is me being an animal.
When my body’s settled back into its frame, Garrett is lying on the floor beside the bed moaning or crying or both and someone’s opening the door to the room and light is slipping back in, steadily climbing the length of the bed, and that’s when I pass out, my focus just spiraling into infinity.
This time, I’m back in the future.
The vision I have, it’s way off the charts. My mom’s setup, her year-by-year accounting of the next me, doesn’t even come close to reaching the age I’m at. My eyes open to sun and then zoom out to city. I’m standing at a window, looking out over a city I’ve only seen in movies. A city like Tokyo or Hong Kong. Even though it’s day, the streets below me are burning with neon. Cars are honking. The city buzzing like a hive of wasps.
I am old.
Really really old.
I can just feel the strain of it on my spine. My hands are shaking. Nothing major, just tremors like you feel when you have your hands on the wheel and the car’s going over seventy. I can see a ghost of myself in the window. My bald head. My thick glasses. And behind me, sitting in a white leather chair, is a woman. She’s old like me. Her hair gray and pulled up, and her legs crossed. She looks like Vauxhall now, only she’s also wearing glasses. She’s regal and beautiful and I want so desperately to kiss her.
Vision ends.
Wake up and I’m on a couch downstairs. First thing I hear is someone talking about me being up to my old tricks. There’s someone saying, “At least he took a few weeks off. What a loser.” I’m lying across Paige and Celeste and Vauxhall. My head in Vaux’s lap. She’s stroking me and doesn’t ask anything. What’s amazing, other than looking up at Vaux who’s looking down at me, is that there is no Buzz rampaging beautifully through my body. There is no high. Just a kind of warmth. A peace, like all my cells are aligned. Like a full-body cosmology.
I say, voice trembling, “It’s amazing.”
Vauxhall asks, so quiet, “What?”
“Us in the future,” I say. “What happens next.”
I can feel Vaux’s body breathing in deep and I tell her that it’s time. I tell her that we need to go to the reservoir now. I say, “Wait’s over. Time to break the rules and see if I’m right.”
“You’re not in any condition-”
“If I can walk, then I’m fine. I’ve had worse hits than that.”
“Still, I’ll drive.”
On our way out to the car, Paige lets me know that Garrett is locked in an upstairs bathroom and that Rose is still passed out but okay. “The cops are on their way. They’re gonna want to speak to you.” She says, “By the way, you’re incredible.”
I can hear the cat scream of the sirens.
Before closing the door, Paige leans in and kisses me on the cheek. She says, “I know it’s not like you’re trying to save the future president or the guy who will cure cancer, but I really hope you don’t kill Jimi. And if you do, I’ll go on the lam with you.”
THREE
And then, I’m there.
Vaux parks and lets me out and the moon is hanging in the sky just like I imagine it’s supposed to be. She asks me why I want to go alone. Why she can’t come.
I say, “You weren’t in the vision.”
“But I’m here right now.”
“Please, Vaux. I don’t know what to tell you. Just let me do this on my own. I mean, this might be totally obsessive-compulsive of me, but what if the reason you’re here now, but not in the original vision, is because the minute you step out of the car you’re hit by a stray bullet. Or an asteroid. Or something. I mean, that’s a bit-”
“Ridiculous. You said this is about breaking the rules. Why’re you freaking out?”
“Just want to take it one step at a time. If it doesn’t work-”
“You’re being silly.”
“Look, please, just let me do this my way.”
“Fine.” And she pecks me on the cheek and turns up the radio.
“Don’t leave me like that.”
“Okay.” Vaux turns the radio off and tells me that she trusts me and that she knows this will work. She tells me that she can feel energy in the air tonight. She says, “Being with you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Come back soon.”
That’s better.
I walk to the beach, slip off my shoes, and then wade into the water. I’m standing there and the sky is just crazily spitting out stars above me. The night is warm and the crickets are going apeshit in the elm trees.
The sand, it’s not sandy the way tropical beaches are but rocky with these little perfectly oval brown stones mixed in with what looks like the kind of gravel you find on playgrounds. And under that, my toes find mud. Thick, black mud.
Facing out, over the water, there is just the twinkling of distant cars crossing over the dam and beyond them the hulking outline of the mountains, all crouched like hounds. And behind me, only the sodium glare of the tennis court. The emptiness of the beach.