Ken Grimwood - Replay

"Nobody ever does."

A raucous number came up on the jukebox, Jimmy Soul doing "If You Wanna Be Happy." Jeff raised his voice above the music. "So, do you know a bookie or not?"

Maddock gave him a long, curious stare. "Seventy-thirty, huh?"

"That’s right."

The senior shook his head, sighed resignedly. "You got the cash on you?"

The bar on North Druid Hills Road was packed that Saturday afternoon. The commercial-laden prerace show blared from the TV set as Jeff walked in: Wilkinson Sword trumpeting its newest product, stainless-steel razor blades.

Jeff was more nervous than he would have expected. This had all seemed perfect in the planning, but what if something went wrong? As far as he’d been able to tell, the previous week’s world events had duplicated the past that he recalled; still, his memory was as fallible as anyone’s, and after twenty-five years he couldn’t be sure that a thousand, a million, different incidents in 1963 hadn’t turned out differently than they had the first time around. He’d already noticed a few minor things that seemed slightly off-kilter, and of course his own actions had been drastically altered. This race could just as easily have a new outcome.

If it did, he’d be out everything he owned, and he’d skipped midterms this week, putting his academic standing in serious jeopardy. He might not even have the option at this point of buckling down to repeat his college career. He could be out of school on his ass, broke.

With Vietnam on the horizon.

"Hey, Charlie," somebody yelled. "Another round for the house, doubles, before they leave the gate!"

There was a chorus of cheers and laughter. One of the man’s buddies said, "Spending it a little early, aren’t you?"

"In the bag, man," said the generous one, "in the fucking bag!"

On the TV screen the horses were being shut into their gates, restless, hating the confinement, eager to run, as they’d been bred to do.

"Anything can happen now, Jimbo. That’s what a horse race is all about."

The bartender set out the doubles the stranger had bought for everyone. Before Jeff could pick up his glass, the horses were out of the gate, Never Bend breaking away as if electrically charged, with No Robbery almost at his side. Candy Spots, with Willie Shoemaker coolly astride him, was only three lengths back at the first turn.

Chateaugay was sixth. One mile to go, ten lengths behind.

Jeff tossed back a gulp of his drink, almost choked on the near-straight whiskey.

The front-runners sped past the half-mile pole. Chateaugay hadn’t gained an inch.

A smaller school, Jeff thought. Even if he flunked out of Emory, some community college would probably take him. He could work part time at a small-market radio station. His years of experience wouldn’t exist on paper, but they’d count for a lot on the job.

The bar crowd yelled at the screen as if the horses and jockeys could hear them, four hundred miles away. Jeff didn’t bother. Chateaugay had pulled up a bit toward the end of the backstretch, but it was as good as over; a three-horse race, just as the odds-makers had predicted.

Shoemaker took Candy Spots in on the rail as the field turned for home, then moved him back out for the stretch. Chateaugay was in fourth place, three lengths back, and with that kind of competition ahead of him he’d never—

At the quarter pole No Robbery suddenly seemed to tire, to lose heart for the closing battle. He dropped back, and it was Never Bend and Candy Spots tearing for home, but Shoemaker wasn’t getting the final spurt he needed out of the California Chestnut.

Chateaugay passed the favorite and bore down, steady and relentless, on Never Bend.

The din in the bar swelled to riotous levels. Jeff remained silent, unmoving, his hand nearly frozen, though he didn’t notice, as it clutched the icy glass.

Chateaugay took the race by a length and a quarter over Never Bend, with Candy Spots relegated to a close third. No Robbery was back in the field somewhere, fifth or sixth, exhausted.

Jeff had done it. He’d won.

The other men in the bar began loudly and angrily analyzing the race they’d just seen, with most of their ire aimed at Willie Shoemaker’s tactics in the last half mile. Jeff didn’t hear a word they said. He was waiting for the figures to come up on the tote board.

Chateaugay paid $20.80 to win. Jeff reached reflexively for his Casio calculator watch, then laughed as he realized how long it would be before such a thing existed. He grabbed a cocktail napkin from the bar, scribbled some figures with a ballpoint.

Half of 2300 times 20.8, less Frank Maddock’s 30 percent share for placing the bet … Jeff had won close to seventeen thousand dollars.

More importantly, the race had ended as he’d remembered it.

He was eighteen years old, and he knew everything of consequence that was going to happen in the world for the next two decades.

Jeff slapped the cards down one at a time, face-up, on the dark green Holiday Inn bedspread. He flicked them off the diminishing deck as fast as his fingers could move, and as he did so, Frank droned a now-familiar hypnotic chant: "Plus four, plus four, plus five, plus four, plus three, plus three, plus three, plus four, plus three, plus four, plus five—stop! Hole card’s an ace."

Jeff turned the ace of diamonds over slowly, and they both grinned.

"Hot damn!" Frank chortled, slapping the bedspread and sending the cards flying. "We are a team, my man, the team to beat!"

"Want a beer?"

"Fuckin'-A told!"

Jeff uncrossed his legs, walked across the room to the cooler on the table. The curtains of the first-floor room were open, and as he pried the tops off two bottles of Coors Jeff looked with fond admiration at his new grey Studebaker Avanti by the curb, gleaming in the lights of the Tucumcari motel’s parking lot.

The car had drawn curious stares and comments all the way from Atlanta, and would probably continue to do so for the rest of the drive to Las Vegas. Jeff felt totally at ease with it, even found a certain comfort in its "futuristic" design and instrumentation. The long-nosed machine, with its bobbed rear deck, would have looked attractively state-of-the-art in 1988; indeed, he seemed to recall that an independent firm had still been manufacturing limited-edition Avantis during the eighties. To him, here in 1963, the car was like a fellow voyager in time, a plush cocoon spun in the image of his own era. Nostalgic as he’d felt about the old Chevy, this machine evoked an even stronger, reverse nostalgia.

"Hey, where’s that brew?"

"Comin' up."

He handed Frank the cold beer, took a long pull of his own. They’d taken off right after Maddock had graduated, at the end of May. Jeff had long since stopped going to classes, was flunking out, and no longer cared. Frank had wanted to drive the southern route, stop over in New Orleans for a few days of celebration, but Jeff had insisted they take a more direct path, skirting past Birmingham and Memphis and Little Rock. Outside the cities there were newly opened patches of interstate highway every couple of hundred miles, with speed limits of 70 or 75, and Jeff had used their smooth, broad-laned isolation to push the Avanti near its 160 mph peak.

The depression and confusion Jeff had felt after the abortive evening with Judy Gordon had been largely dissipated by the Derby win. He hadn’t seen her since that night, except in passing, on campus. And he’d stopped agonizing over possible explanations for his predicament, aside from the times when he’d awake at dawn, his brain demanding answers that could not be found. Whatever the truth might be, at least he now had proof that his awareness of the future was more than just a fantasy.