LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Are you experiencing any such thing now?”

      “Oh, no, no, of course not, I was just wondering, that’s all, seeing that I did bang my head pretty hard on the sidewalk.”

      “The mind is a very complex organ, Mr. Tyler. It’s capable of almost anything you can conceive of.”

      “If I do have a concussion, Doc, will it take care of itself?”

      The doctor smiled. “You’d better hope it does. But if you feel any dizziness, double vision or nausea, don’t hesitate to get to a hospital…. And if you don’t mind my asking you a question now, Mr. Tyler, who’s Greg Norman?”

      “Who?”

      “The shirt you’re wearing, that,” he pointed, “with the name Greg Norman.”

      Gary smiled. “Oh, Greg. He’s just a friend I golf with.”

      “I see,” he said, looking puzzled. “And the name you mentioned…?”

      “Name I mentioned?”

      “For warding off infections?”

      “Oh, that--penicillin, or something that sounds like it….”

      Out on the street, Gary looked around, trying to decide the best way to get back to his car. Somehow he’d been caught up in a Twilight Zone nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. Maybe he was still unconscious on the sidewalk and everything up to now had been a dream. Or maybe that crack on the head had his mind playing crazy tricks on him. The only thing he was certain of was that he wouldn’t be able to walk very long or very far. Just breathing hurt. And he was getting hungry. He should’ve taken Grandma’s roast beef instead of the cookies when he had the chance.

      Thirty-five minutes later he found himself staring up at the North Division Street sign. No mistake about it, this is where he had pulled up and parked his car. Possibly towed away? He saw no signs against parking. Although the car was gone the building wasn’t. Retracing his steps, he walked back to the door he had entered earlier. Same address, but with shiny numbers, same knob-less door, but with a lustrous coat of green paint, and the sign saying Ring For Service. Wary of another encounter with the gang, he caressed his ribs as he hurried as quickly as he could around the block to the door he had exited from. Like the rear door, it was relatively new, but this one had a handle. He tried it but it was locked.

      Worry stirred in his gut as he moved off down the street. Edgy, unable to think straight, he tried to calm himself, but everything seemed out of sync, out of place, out of time. Everything was familiar and nothing was familiar. Most disturbing of all were the few cars that passed him as he walked along. They all looked like antiques. In fact, they were antiques.

      He wondered, could he be hallucinating? Could he be going mad? Could he at that very moment be at home in his room, dreaming? What other explanation could there be? It was all much too complex for a practical joke. Unless…unless what he had tried to convince Shelley of was true. Theoretically, going back in time seemed reasonable, possible, but if this actually was… if he had somehow actually slipped back…. His skin prickled at the thought and his blood ran cold.

      The world seemed strangely quiet as he headed back downtown. No radios or televisions blared anywhere, no planes roared overhead, no rumbling trucks shook the pavement, no voices crying out or barking dogs. The air itself seemed a calming blanket of silence that had a subtle unsettling effect.

      The sun warmed his skin, but the air carried a chill in it. The few people he saw, he saw only at a distance. A stray beagle waddled up behind him, sniffed at his heels and padded off into an alleyway.

      On the opposite side of the street, farther down, he spotted a diner and crossed over to it. If this… this dream… this hallucination…this time warp were for real, he couldn’t use the paper money in his wallet, not unless they didn’t look at it too closely. He did have the silver dollar in his pocket, though. If he had really landed sometime in the 1930s, it would go a heck of a lot further than in his own time. Still, he was going to need some luck, lots of luck. His mind couldn’t deny what his senses told him must be true. He felt scared. What in hell had he gotten himself into? And what was even more frightening, could he get out of it?

      Going into the diner, Gary failed to see the man observing him from across the street.

       Chapter 10

      

      The hinges squeaked when Gary opened the door to Ernie’s Diner, and the heavy smell of grease and cigarette smoke nearly closed his windpipe. The diner, an actual railroad car, was as deserted as the street. He debated between taking a padded counter stool or a wooden booth, and opted for the booth, where he had a better view of the outside. A cream pitcher, a sugar shaker, a napkin holder and an ashtray hugged the wall at the edge of the table under the windowsill where a couple of houseflies were dancing against the glass. On the wall behind the counter, in a childish scrawl, the specials of the day were chalked on a slate board:

      macaroni and cheese …..…15 cents

      veg soup, roll & coffee…..20 cents

      liver and onions …………20 cents

      Another list carried the usual hot dogs, hamburgers, tuna and BLT sandwiches. Here and there other signs were thumb-tacked to the wall:

      IF YOU WANT YOUR PRAYERS ANSWERED GET OFF YOUR KNEES AND HUSTLE

      and

       IF YOU DON’T EAT HERE WE’LL BOTH STARVE

      A slender man with sunken cheeks and dark, gloomy eyes, and wearing a dirty apron rose from the far end of the counter, where he had been whistling softly over a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette.

      “Need a menu?” he asked.

      “No, I think I’ll have a hamburger.”

      “One burger coming up,” he said, whistling his way over to the grill behind the counter.”

      “You’d better make it two, Ernie. And a cup of coffee.”

      “Two burgers coming up,” he said, slapping the patties on the grill. “Name’s Toby, by the way. Ernie died a couple of years ago-- heart attack they said. I took the joint off Mae’s hands. Mae’s his widow.” He moseyed over to a fat stainless steel urn, where he poured the coffee into a white mug and, sticking a spoon in it, carried it steaming over to the table. “Never changed the sign ‘cause everybody said it was bad luck. Would’ve have made no difference one way or t’other, though, not after they shut down the hair oil factory up the street. Hurt the business, but I get by all right.” He gave Gary a quick once-over. “Must be new around here.”

      “Well, it’s not exactly my neck of the woods” Gary said, stirring sugar in his cup.

      “Looking for work, I s’pose?”

      Gary shrugged.

      “Like everybody else. Jobs ain’t easy to get these days. You got a trade?”

      “I’m almost finished with school,” he said, blowing on his coffee. “I hope to be a teacher.”

      Toby’s thick eyebrows lifted. “College boy?”

      “In the meantime I could use a few dollars to help carry me.”

      “Not cheap, I hear, them colleges. A couple of hundred a year?”

      “At least.”

      “Quite a hunk of change. You maybe could try your luck at one of the factories in the neighborhood. I heard they might be taking on some help at the cereal company down on Exchange Street.”

      “I guess I can try that,” Gary said, looking toward the grill.

      Toby

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