Chapter 9

Carolyn and I started being a little more cautious after that. It was obvious now, to both of us, that Sgt. Coffee was determined to catch us doing something. We stopped fooling around in Carolyn's house altogether. I would still stop by in the mornings, and we would take the little kids out to run around in the playground just as we had before, but when they went down for their naps, Carolyn and I would sit outside on the porch and talk. It seemed like it was harder on Carolyn, this abstinence, than it was on me.

In the evening though, we spent nearly every night over by the fence around Bolling Field. We couldn't get enough of each other during that frantic two hours each night. I would get a hard on just from the anticipation of it, and Carolyn was always wet by the time I touched her. Throughout the summer, as our knowledge of each other's minds and bodies improved, our sex life kept getting better and better. Our relationship got stronger as well. I had finally found real love with a woman, something that had somehow eluded me altogether in my first time through.

By the time the first week of August arrived, Carolyn was already starting to get sad whenever she thought about me leaving for California at the end of the month. The voice and I had already had many conversations concerning my move to California, saving Carolyn, and Carolyn and I getting married. The voice was always reminding me that Carolyn had to be totally removed from her family by December tenth, whether by death or for some other reason. If she remained alive, she couldn't ever get back into contact with them. The voice and I were still unable to agree on a method where she stayed alive, and the two of us were together. When I got agitated and frustrated about the lack of a workable solution, the voice reminded me that Carolyn had died just like this in my other life. The difference was, in my last time through, I hadn't kept in touch, and had never learned about her death.

On the tenth of August, we found out that Sgt. Coffee had been promoted, and was being transferred to the American Embassy in Moscow. Mrs. Coffee, and the children were to leave almost immediately for Norfolk, so that they would be closer to her family during Sgt. Coffee's absence. I tried to remember whether this had happened in my prior lifetime, but I couldn't. I remembered flirting with Carolyn on her front porch for most of the summer, but I couldn't remember why we had stopped, or when we had stopped flirting. They would all be leaving on the fifteenth, when Sgt. Coffee's leave would begin. Carolyn, who still knew nothing about her impending death in December, was worried that this sudden move would mean the end of our relationship. I was more concerned with trying to get the voice to figure out a way to save her life. I promised her that I would come for her in Norfolk very soon, and that I wouldn't go to California without her.

It was the morning of the sixteenth of August, when the voice woke me up out of a sound sleep. It must have done something to calm me down before it told me that Carolyn was dead. I heard what it said clearly, and understood. Carolyn and her cousin, Ralph, had been out driving around Norfolk. They had been coming down a steep hill when Ralph's brakes had failed and he'd lost control of the car and run right into a power line near the bottom of the hill. Carolyn had gotten out of the car and a live wire, that had been severed from the pole, had come into contact with her, and she was electrocuted. Her death was almost instantaneous. Ralph had been knocked out by the crash, and had some injuries, but he'd recover and be all right.

Jimmy, I'm sorry that it had to happen like this. Before, she lived until December tenth. I thought that we'd have more time.

<You can go back to right before the crash and save her.>

It doesn't work like that, Jimmy. She's dead. I was crying, but I wasn't nearly as distraught as I would have expected to be. The only girl I'd ever loved was dead, and I was taking it pretty calmly. I suspected that he'd done something to me to deaden my pain. Jimmy, Carolyn and Ralph were intimate together right before the accident. Carolyn wasn't totally honest with you concerning her feelings for Ralph, and about his for her. If she had had the time to make an honest choice between being with you or with him, she would have chosen him. I'm sorry. I heard what he said, I could even accept that it was all true. I loved Carolyn anyway. What the voice had told me did nothing to change the fact that I loved her.

<You knew that you weren't going to be able to save her. You just led me on so that I'd be more manageable.>

That isn't true, Jimmy. If that was the case, I could have simply shown you the two of them making love in Ralph's car, and let you listen to Carolyn's own words, and her cries of happiness at being back in her cousin's embrace. You would have been so hurt and angry that you would have probably asked me to kill them both. I honestly felt, that as the time for her death got nearer, that I'd find some way to let her escape her fate. I know you are hurt by her death, and also by her lapse with Ralph, but the girl is dead. You have to move on. I'm making some slight adjustments in you to allow you to cope better with your loss.

It took me a week to become adjusted enough to what had happened that I was able to think about the possibility of going forward with my life. I had spent most of that week in my bedroom. I had told my mother that Carolyn and I had broken up. As far as I knew, word of her death had never reached back up to our neighborhood. I did allow the voice to play me the accident and Carolyn's electrocution. It was the most painful thing that I have ever watched. I wouldn't let him show me the two of them making love together before the crash. Cousin Ralph looked a lot like me, except he was better looking. I hated him for fucking Carolyn, and for getting her killed too. I felt too numb about losing Carolyn to be that angry with her for being unfaithful to me. I was hurt by it, who wouldn't be? I had loved her though, and didn't regret a single minute of the time that the two of us had spent together. The voice stayed with me and helped me to get over the worst of it. He reminded me that she and I had gotten a lot of enjoyment from each other, and that she had led a richer, fuller life, because we had gotten together. My life was also enriched. It didn't overcome the loss, but it did help to mitigate some of my feelings of loss.

On the twenty sixth of August, I caught a flight from Bolling field to March A.F.B. in Riverside, California. It was a smooth flight on a mail plane that carried military orders and other communications between Washington D.C. and the west coast. I had $700.00 in my pocket, two weeks of freedom from my parents, and a contact point and telephone number with a friend of my father's so that we could meet up after they got out to California and they had found a place for us to live.

I called, "Tiny" Bueller, my father's friend, and he gave me directions to his house in Westminster. He told me that he had a spare bedroom that I could use if I cared to. That was unexpected, and very welcome since it meant that I would have more money available to do some sightseeing. When I hitched a ride to Garden Grove and walked the remaining two miles to Tiny's, I was struck with how undeveloped the area was compared to what I first remembered when I'd come out to California in 1959, during my first time through. I could see a lot of opportunity. The voice knew what I was thinking.

You will need a legal adult for you to start buying property.

<I'm a legal adult, I'm eighteen.>

Twenty one is the legal age to enter into contracts in California right now. You're legally still a child in most respects.

<I can't purchase property on my own?>

Not in California. You can own property, but you can't enter into a legal contract on your own.

<Are you sure?>

No, I'm just making it up. Of course I'm sure.

<I don't have very much money anyway.>

I could help you with that if you wanted me to.

<What do you mean by help?>

Help, assistance, I mean the usual thing when I say help. If you're asking me how, well, there are literally hundreds of ways. For example, less than three miles from where you are now standing, there is three thousand dollars in a bag that has been buried near a tree. In less than a week, that money will be totally and utterly buried and destroyed by a bulldozer and eight inches of concrete.

<Whose money is it? It has to belong to someone doesn't it?>

The last owner was a thief named Francisco Lopez. He is no longer in a position to redeem the money. Certainly not before it is destroyed. He is in custody, and will soon be convicted and sentenced for his many crimes. The money itself represents the proceeds that he was paid for merchandise that he converted into cash with a host of people who buy stolen goods. The money will benefit no one if you don't come and rescue it. I followed his directions, using a stick to dig with. It took less than five minutes to find the bag with the money inside. Almost all of it was in tens and twenties. I put the bag in my suitcase and walked over to Tiny's house.

In my first time through, Tiny, and his wife Terri, had been good friends with my parents for the first two years they had been out in California. Terri finally ran off from Tiny with another guy, and poor Tiny had spent the rest of his life just going to work and coming home and eating junk foods while watching television and lying on his sofa. He used to eat at least three big bowls of buttered and salted popcorn every night. He had a heart attack and died in 1966, but he had sugar diabetes really bad too. My father and I served as honorary pall bearers, but Tiny weighed more than four hundred pounds, and they used some kind of a special hoist to lift and lower his casket from the gurney.

When I got to his house, Tiny was still at work, but Terri greeted me and made me welcome. Their house was a three bedroom box, with all of the rooms small even for that time. The room that they put me in was nine feet by ten feet. It was even smaller than my bedroom back in Washington had been. Tiny and Terri had no children, which was probably just as well considering how the two of them ended up.

Terri was about thirty five or so. She was nice, but not that much to look at. She was friendly to me, but not overly so, and didn't show any signs of interest in me. When Tiny got home. I was surprised at how thin he was. By the time I met him in my last life, in late 1959, he must have been another fifty pounds heavier than he was right then. I'd guess that Tiny was about forty years old, a few years younger than my parents. He looked like he presently weighed less than two hundred pounds and was about six feet tall. I had always liked Tiny, and it really surprised me to see what he had looked like two years before I had met him in my last lifetime. Terri, on the other hand was about five feet tall, and couldn't have weighed much more than ninety pounds.

<Wow, I wonder what happened to make Tiny get so fat over the next two years.>

He quit smoking, and substituted food for his nicotine cravings. He's one of a few people who quit smoking, and it shortened their lifespan rather than lengthened it.

<I can't believe how different he looks from before. He's actually a normal sized man. Why did he quit smoking?>

He made a bet at work, and needed to win it, because losing would have increased his money problems. Right now, they are stretched to their limit trying to keep up with their payments. Tiny's work has been having cutbacks, and he only gets about twenty five hours a week. It isn't enough to keep up with everything.

<How much was the bet?>

A hundred dollars.

<Wow, he ended up eating himself to death, and losing his wife over a hundred dollars?>

It was more than that, but it was his quitting smoking that started him over eating.

<Can you do something to help him?>

No, Jimmy, I can't go rescuing people from their fate. I thought you learned that with Carolyn?

<Would it help if I gave him some money?>

I doubt it, but you're welcome to try if you want to.

That evening, Tiny and I worked out a plan for me staying with them for the whole two weeks. I insisted on giving him a hundred dollars to cover the room, and any meals that I ate there. Tiny also agreed to help me look for a used car to buy the next day because he had it off. We looked through the paper the next morning and found an old Chevy that an older couple was selling. It was in fair shape, with low mileage, and Tiny told me that it was a good buy at four hundred dollars. I managed to get them to come down to three fifty, and we took it over to the DMV to register it in my name, and for me to get myself a new driver's license. We spent nearly the whole day getting everything done, including getting insurance on my car. On the way home, I had Tiny stop at this butcher shop, and I bought three nice steaks as a thank you for all of his help. He took them outside to to the barbecue and we enjoyed a nice meal on his patio table.

I now had a car, and I went over and registered for three Fall classes at Fullerton Junior College. I would be taking a real estate course, tennis, and finance. The tuition was almost nothing. My first class was meeting the next Tuesday, and it was the tennis class, part of the physical education curriculum. Finance and Real Estate met on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tennis met on Tuesdays and was for two hours. I would be off every afternoon and all of Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

I started driving around everyday, looking at property that was for sale, just getting myself familiar with the nature of the real estate opportunities in 1957 Southern California. I found a large, older home in the Fullerton Heights that was for sale for sixteen thousand. It was on a huge lot that could easily be split off to give another four lots to build on. This was an area that had appreciated quite a bit during the sixties and early seventies. I figured that my folks would really do well owning this piece of property, and I could own the four parcels that I'd create. If I gave them three thousand to put towards the down payment, and paid for the lot split myself, I'd be well launched on my new career in real estate.