Ken Grimwood: Replay

Jeff started the Chevy again, got back onto two-lane U.S. 23. Locust Grove, Jenkinsburg, Jackson … the dilapidated, drowsy little towns of backwoods Georgia slid past like scenes from a movie of the depression era. Maybe that was what had drawn him to make this aimless drive, he thought: the timelessness of the countryside beyond Atlanta, the total lack of clues to what year or decade it might be. Weathered barns with "Jesus Saves" painted in massive letters, the staggered highway rhymes of leftover Burma Shave signs, an old black man leading a mule … even the Atlanta of 1963 seemed futuristic compared to this.

At Pope’s Ferry, just north of Macon, he pulled into a mom-and-pop gas station with a general store attached. No self-service pumps, no unleaded; Gulf premium for thirty-three cents a gallon, regular for twenty-seven. He told the kid outside to fill it with premium and check the oil, add two quarts if it was low.

He bought a couple of Slim Jims and a can of Pabst in the store, clawed ineffectually at the beer can for a moment or two before he realized there was no pop top.

"You must be mighty thirsty, hon." The old woman behind the counter chuckled. "Tryin' to tear that thing open with your bare hands!"

Jeff smiled sheepishly. The woman pointed to a church-key hanging on a string by the cash register, and he punched two V-shaped holes in the top of the can. The boy from the gas pumps shouted through the ratty screen door of the store: "Looks like you need about three quarts of oil, mister!"

"Fine, put in whatever it takes. And check the fan belts, too, will you?"

Jeff took a long sip of the beer, picked a magazine from the rack. There was an article about the new pop-art craze: Lichtenstein’s blowups of comic-strip panels, Oldenburg’s big, floppy vinyl hamburgers. Funny, he’d thought all that happened later, '65 or '66. Had he found a discrepancy? Was this world already slightly different from the one he thought he knew?

He needed to talk to somebody. Martin would just make a big joke of it all, and his parents would worry for his sanity. Maybe that was it; maybe he should see a shrink. A doctor would at least listen, and keep the talk confidential; but an encounter like that would carry the unspoken presupposition of a mental problem, a desire to be "cured" of something.

No, there was really no one he could discuss this with, not openly. But he couldn’t just keep avoiding everyone for fear it might come out; that would probably seem stranger than any anachronistic slip of the tongue he might make. And he was getting lonely, damn it. Even if he couldn’t tell the truth, or whatever he knew of the truth, he needed the comfort of company, after all he’d been through.

"Could I have some change for the phone?" Jeff asked the woman at the cash register, handing her a five.

"Dollar’s worth O.K.?"

"I want to call Atlanta."

She nodded, hit the no-sale key, and scooped some coins from the drawer. "Dollar’s worth’ll be plenty, hon."

The girl at the front desk at Harris Hall was obviously annoyed that she’d drawn Saturday-night reception duty, but was taking her weekend entertainment where she could find it, observing the rituals of her peers. She gave Jeff a coolly appraising stare when he walked in, and her voice carried a tinge of sarcastic amusement when she called upstairs to tell Judy Gordon her date was here. Maybe she knew Judy’d been stood up the night before; maybe she’d even listened in on the conversation when Jeff had called from the gas station near Macon this afternoon.

The girl’s enigmatic half-smile was a little unnerving, so he took a seat on one of the uncomfortable sofas in the adjoining lounge, where a pony-tailed brunette and her date were playing "Heart and Soul" on an old Steinway near the fireplace. The girl smiled and waved at Jeff when he came into the room. He had no idea who she was, probably some friend of Judy’s whom he’d long since forgotten about, but he nodded and returned her smile. Eight or nine other young men sat scattered around the airy lounge, each a respectful distance from the others. Two of them carried bunches of cut flowers, and one held a heart-shaped box of Whitman’s candies. All wore stoic expressions that did little to mask their eager but nervous anticipation: suitors at the gate of Aphrodite’s temple, untested claimants to the favors of the nymphs within this fortress. Date Night, 1963.

Jeff remembered the sensation all too well. In fact, he noted wryly, his own palms were damp with tension even now.

Soprano laughter came from the stairwell, floated into the lobby. The young men straightened their ties, checked their watches, patted tufts of hair into place. Two girls found their escorts and led them through the door into the mysterious night.

It was twenty minutes before Judy emerged, her face set in what was clearly intended to be a look of frosty determination. All Jeff could see, though, was her incredible youthfulness, a vernal tenderness that went beyond the fact that she was still in her teens. Girls—women—her age in the eighties didn’t look like this, he realized. They simply weren’t this young, this innocent; hadn’t been since the days of Janis Joplin, and certainly weren’t in the aftermath of Madonna.

"So," Judy said. "I’m glad to see you could make it tonight."

Jeff pulled himself awkwardly to his feet, gave her an apologetic smile. "I’m really sorry about last night," he said. "I—wasn’t feeling very well; I was in a strange mood. You wouldn’t have wanted to be with me."

"You could have called," she said petulantly. Her arms were crossed under her breasts, highlighting those demure swells beneath the Peter Pan blouse. A beige cashmere sweater was slung over one arm, and she wore a Madras skirt, with low-heeled ankle-strap shoes. Jeff caught the mixed aromas of Lanvin perfume and a floral-scented shampoo, found himself entranced by the blond bangs that danced above her wide blue eyes.

"I know," he said. "I wish I had."

Her expression eased, the confrontation over before it had begun. She’d never been able to stay angry for long, Jeff recalled.

"You missed a really good movie last night," she said without a trace of sullenness. "It starts off where this girl is buying these birds in a pet shop, and then Rod Taylor pretends like he works there, and…"

She went on to recount most of the plot as they walked outside and got into Jeff s Chevy. He feigned unfamiliarity with the twists and turns of the story, even though he’d recently seen the movie on one of HBO’s periodic Hitchcock retrospectives. And, of course, he’d seen it when it first came out, seen it with Judy. Seen it twenty-five years ago last night, in that other version of his life.

"… and then this guy goes to light a cigar at this gas station, but—well, I don’t want to tell you anything that happens after that; it’d spoil it for you. It’s a really spooky movie. I wouldn’t mind going to see it again, if you want to. Or we could go see Bye Bye Birdie. What do you feel like?"

"I think I’d rather just sit and talk," he said. "Get a beer someplace, maybe a bite to eat?"

"Sure." She smiled. "Moe’s and Joe’s?"

"O.K. That’s … on Ponce De Leon, right?"

Judy wrinkled her brow. "No, that’s Manuel’s. Don’t tell me you forgot—take a left, right here!" She turned in her seat, gave him an odd look. "Hey, you really are acting kind of weird. Is something wrong?"

"Nothing serious. Like I told you, I’ve been feeling a little off kilter." He recognized the entrance of the old college hangout, parked around the corner.

Inside, it didn’t look quite the way Jeff remembered it. He’d thought the bar was on the left as you went in the door, not the right; and the booths seemed different somehow, too, higher or darker or something. He led Judy toward a booth in the back, and as they approached it a man about his own age—no, he corrected himself, a man in his early forties, an older man—slapped Jeff’s shoulder in an amiable manner.