His friend and book collaborator, the psychiatrist Benny Weinberg, took Jack on as if he were his most important case, because he was. As a psychiatrist for the New York City Police Department, Benny was no stranger to traumatic depression. Jack, normally an outgoing man at ease in any company, had become withdrawn and sullen.
Benny Weinberg and Jack had become close friends over the years. After Nancy’s death Benny tried to reach out to him, but his efforts got nowhere. Jack didn’t return phone calls. One day, after finally reaching him, Benny invited Jack over for lunch.
“Talk to me, Jack. You look like shit. What’s going on?”
“The image Ben. That image of Nancy has become my life. I’ve tried everything to get it out of my face, but it’s always there. Always. It’s there right now as we’re sitting here.”
“Asshole.”
Jack couldn’t help laughing. Benny could go from psychiatrist to tough cop in an instant.
“It may be true, Benny, but why do you call me an asshole?”
“You’re an asshole because you think your brilliant mind can reverse everything we know about the human brain. You think you can take a horrible image and force it out of your mind. Remember the old parlor game where the game master would tell everybody not to think about green elephants. Of course that’s the point of the game, the joke. The people playing the game couldn’t think about anything but green elephants. The psychology is simple. The more we resist something the more it persists. Okay, so let me ask you a question. What are you thinking about right now.”
“Green elephants.”
“That’s because you were trying not to think about it, just like you try not to think about Nancy’s torn lifeless body. Jack, work with me on something. I want you to close your eyes and imagine yourself sitting in your car right after you saw Nancy’s car crash to a stop.”
“Benny, are you trying to fuck with my brain?”
“You’ve been doing a great job of fucking with your own brain, so how about giving me a crack at it. Okay, now I want you to reach into your glove compartment and take out a tape measure. Now I want you to open the door and walk slowly, don’t run, walk slowly toward Nancy’s body. Be careful, the road is slick with blood, gas, and oil. Now I want you to take the tape and measure the exact distance between Nancy’s upper torso and her lower body.”
“Ben, you’ve got to be joking.”
“What the fuck do I look like, a standup comedian? Just follow my instructions. Now tell me exactly how far Nancy’s upper torso is from her lower body.” Jack said nothing.
“This isn’t rocket science, shithead, what’s the distance?”
“Six feet.”
“Exactly six feet?”
“Well, six feet, four and a half inches.”
Jack began to sob. “I’m sorry Benny, I’m sorry.” He kept on sobbing.
Benny waited for the tears to stop. “Only an asshole like you could apologize for acting like a human being.” Benny softened his voice and looked into Jack’s eyes. “Jack, when I heard about Nancy’s death and how you actually witnessed it, you know what I did? I cried. I cried like a baby. I cried for that beautiful woman who’s young life was snuffed out, but mainly I cried for my friend. That would be you, Jack. You’ve experienced a trauma like few other human beings will ever face. But you’ve been handling it by trying to force it out of your mind. That won’t work, Jack. That’s a green fucking elephant. That’s what the tape measure is all about. I want you to intentionally recreate that scene and allow it into your head. I want you to smell the smells, remember the sounds, listen to the sirens, hear the cops shouting. If you want me to be with you or on the phone when you do this, just let me know. That’s the only way you’re going to rob it of its power over you.”
Now, five years after he lost Nancy, Jack was emerging from his cave of despair, thanks in no small part to his friend Benny. He seldom thought of women, only a woman, Nancy. But he recognized that he was having a strange feeling, not an unpleasant one. Here, on a warship at sea in a strange time, he was becoming interested in a beautiful woman, his commanding officer. It was more than an interest, more like an infatuation. He liked the feeling.
Okay, thought Jack. Time to get back to work.
He began examining his two prior time journeys. Jack noted that, in his prior travels, one to the defunct golf course in 1929 and the other to Pearl Harbor in 1941, he was able to go back by finding the exact spot he came through. In the golf course trip, he walked in the opposite direction, but over the same spot. In the Pearl Harbor incident, he stepped on the same wooden plank in the same direction. These observations checked out with the other time travelers he had interviewed for his book. The key, obviously, is to find the spot, no matter how you cross it.
But the California had a problem. He talked extensively with Ivan Campbell, the ship’s navigator, as well as the quartermaster of the watch and the OOD at the time of the Daylight Event. Because their last navigational fix was done by dead reckoning, simply plotting course and speed and making an educated guess of your position, they could have been anywhere within 10 square miles of where they hit the time portal. To get back to it the ship would have to steam in a dizzying monotonous back and forth pattern for God know how long. His new found navigational knowledge told him that wind, current and sea conditions could have a big impact on how straight they travelled.
He also had another concern, a big one. All of the people he interviewed had crossed a land based portal. This was his own experience as well. His extensive research revealed nothing about time travel through a portal in the ocean, nor had he ever heard anything about a large ship with 630 people slipping through the same portal.
But they were stuck with that fact.
There are no signs that say, “Time Portal — Please Enter Here.”
Chapter 24
After lunch in the wardroom Father Rick asked Ashley if he could speak with her in her office. “Of course,” said Ashley. If there is one person on the ship her door is always open to it’s Father Rick.
“What’s up Father? I hope you’re going to tell me somebody slipped us all one big mickey, and we’ve all had the same strange dream.”
“I wish I could, Captain.”
“I want to talk to you about the crew. I’m concerned that morale is starting to stretch thin. It’s been a few days since we crossed the time portal. At first it was an interesting diversion for everyone on the ship. Some may have even enjoyed the excitement of it. But I’ve been getting vibrations that people want out of this, or at least they want you to try to get the ship back home. As you decided, very few secrets about time travel have been kept from the crew. Jack Thurber has made us all amateur experts in travelling through time. Every crew member knows one thing. They’ve heard about the idea of getting back to the time we came from by finding the exact location of the portal. Captain, if I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it a hundred times in the last two days, ‘When are we going to start looking for the portal?’ ”
Chapter 25
After Father Rick left, Ashley was alone with her thoughts. With all of the feverish activity of the last few days, she seldom had time to just think. Or was it that she kept busy because she didn’t want to think? A thought kept intruding, not a fully formed thought, not fully formed perhaps because it was so difficult to deal with. It was like a dark weather front on the horizon. You can’t ignore it, you know it means trouble; you just wish it would go away.
Pretty soon my crew is going to expect me to commit treason, Ashley thought. Word was out, as Father Rick just reminded her, that the way to go back was to find the place you came in. She never asked Jack Thurber to keep it secret. Under their strange circumstances secrecy can be a morale killer. Every person on the ship had the same question, “When are we going to try to go back?”
Before the Daylight Event, everyone aboard knew that they would return home after their deployment to the Persian Gulf. Return home to husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and lovers. As Father Rick reminded Ashley, people can only operate for a short time with no hope for a future. He had just told her that the crew was getting obsessed with the idea of going back.
This is the storm cloud she worried about, and she knew the storm could be rough. Ashley decided to stop forcing the trouble out of her head.
So here’s my problem, Ashley thought. This is an American warship, the property of the United States Government. We take our orders from the government, ultimately from the Commander in Chief, Abraham Lincoln. After he speaks to Gideon Wells, Lincoln will want the California to join the fight, either in direct battle support or as the lead ship in the blockade of the South. But my crew wants to go back to where we came from. They want to go home. I can’t fight the Civil War and go back to where we came from. It’s one or the other.”
I risk mutiny or commit treason. Nice choice.