Chapter 75: Full Circle

July 10, 2007

I don't usually remember my dreams very well, unless I happen to wake up in the middle of one. However, the night after we decided to take part in the band competition in New Jersey, I had a dream unlike any I'd ever had before.

It was so vivid, and so detailed, it didn't seem like a dream at all. In it, I was an observer. I merely took in the happenings around me, with the people appearing like actors in a play. I was positioned inside what appeared to be a hotel lobby during the daylight hours. Although the sun was shining brightly outside, the fact that some folks were toting wet umbrellas pointed toward a very recent rainstorm.

Upon closer inspection, the dream-me recognized this locale. It was the lobby of the Flanders Hotel in Ocean City, New Jersey, the beach resort where we'd vacationed annually during my childhood in the first go-round. People were milling about, some seemingly headed for the beach, some headed for the boardwalk, others just content to hang out in the hotel. Their attire, however, seemed from a bygone era. There was a newspaper sitting on a nearby counter; I took a glance at the date at the top of page one. It read: Sunday, May 31, 1964. At that point in American history, May 30 was the fixed date for Memorial Day (rather than the last Monday in May), so this would have been Memorial Day weekend.

Suddenly, my dream-eyes were drawn toward a wide stairway entrance. Coming down from the upper floors was a very young version of my parents – much younger than I could ever remember seeing them. Still, I had viewed many family pictures in both timelines, so there was no mistaking who they were. Mom was holding a child, who was little more than an infant. Right behind them was another couple. The second couple was equally handsome, but their obvious Latino heritage provided great contrast to my parents. The Latino couple seemed quite familiar, and struck up a conversation with Mom and Dad. Meanwhile, further up the stairway, a couple of young teens were roughhousing with a beach ball.

"What a beautiful boy you have," said the lovely young Hispanic woman to my parents.

"Your girl will certainly break some hearts. She's adorable," smiled my mother.

For a brief second I saw both babies' hands reach out, momentarily touching and grasping the other's hand.

"Looks like they want to be friends," laughed the other man.

"I wish we had more time to chat, but we need to get checked out and back out on the road," said my father, sounding regretful.

As he said this, I saw a beach ball fly over the two families' heads and bounce harmlessly away through the lobby, generating a few annoyed looks from passersby. I then heard a woman's voice coming from above. "Timmy and Tommy! Stop playing with that ball on the stairs! It's dangerous!"

The four descending adults paid no mind to the errant object. With their two children in tow, they made their way to the bottom of the stairway. The dream faded as I watched my parents waving to the other couple, with my father moving off toward the checkout desk.

There in our bed, it took me a few minutes to realize that I'd been dreaming. It was still dark outside; the clock informed me it was 3:47a.m. Just then, I saw Inez stirring. There in the very dim light provided by the alarm clock display, I saw her eyes reluctantly open.

"Wow, sweetie," said Inez groggily. "You won't believe the dream I just had."

"I had a strange dream, too," I rasped, still not fully awake myself.

After a round of "Tell me your dream. No, you tell me yours," I agreed to go first. I told the story in full detail. When I finished, my wife stared at me blankly, but with a hint of incredulity.

"You won't believe this," she started.

"Believe what?"

"My dream was almost the same as yours. Almost. It's uncanny. But it finished up differently. Mine was, um, darker than yours – a lot more depressing. There's another thing I want to mention. That Latino couple in your dream? They were my parents, and the baby was me. I'm sure of that."

"I thought that might have been the case," I said in awe, "but I wasn't certain. How do you know?"

"Because like I said, your dream and my dream were almost identical at first. What I didn't realize until you told me just now was that the other couple in my dream was your parents, and the other baby was you."

"Okay. We've now established that we both dreamed simultaneously that we met as very young children." I paused for a moment, before adding, "This is just too weird."

"It's even weirder than you think," said my sweetie. "Let me tell you how my dream differed from yours. It was identical right up to the point where you said we touched hands. I even saw the newspaper with the May 31, 1964 date."

"Wow," I croaked, feeling a strange tightness in my throat.

"But I never saw us touch hands," Inez went on. "Here's where it gets ... disturbing. The conversation between our parents was much shorter than you made it out to be when you described your dream. They said a few words to each other and were about to go on their way. And you know that beach ball you mentioned? It hit your dad in the back of the head. It caused him to lose his balance, and he went tumbling down the stairs."

"He did?" I gasped.

Inez nodded. "It gets even worse. He landed on the suitcase he was carrying at a funny angle. It looked like it caught him right in the gut. He was lying on the ground, rolling around, yelling out in pain. I watched my dad go running out the door, looking for medical help. Your mom and my mom, and a couple of bystanders, were trying to help your dad, who was really in agony."

"Oh shit," was all I could squeak out. "At least it's just a dream, right?"

"Some medics arrived pretty quickly, and Papi and Mami stayed around to do what they could. One of the medics said that your dad was seriously injured, but the injuries were not life-threatening. At that point, my parents left your dad in the hands of the professionals, and I saw them leave. That's when I woke up."

We lay there in uncomfortable silence for a moment.

"So what do you make of this?" Inez asked me.

"I don't know. But I think we should tell your parents about these dreams in the morning, just to get their reaction."

Neither of us, however, was prepared for the surprise her parents dumped upon us at the breakfast table.

As I was sharing the details of my dream, Lupe tried to speak out, but her husband hushed her by gently raising his hand. It was apparent that he wanted to hear everything before commenting. Inez went next, and when she finished her story, Javier said what was on his mind.

"Pat, what you dreamed last night really happened. It happened exactly as you described it, with not a single inaccuracy." Lupe accentuated his words with a firm nod.

Inez and I just gaped at each other, speechless.

"Even the date you mentioned was probably right, Pat," said Lupe. "Inez was a little over a year old, and it was around Memorial Day. We came to New Jersey from Puerto Rico to visit a friend of ours – the same friend who helped Rosie and Raul move to New Jersey years later. One day, they had things to do, and we decided to drive down to Ocean City and stay overnight."

"Wow, I never knew you visited Ocean City," Inez was able to interject.

"I guess we never had any reason to mention it before," her mother continued. "We stayed there in the Flanders Hotel, on the fourth floor. Anyway, one thing I remember is that about an hour before all this happened, a thunderstorm passed through the area. A bolt of lightning hit the hotel and knocked out the power. It had been partially restored by the time we left. But the elevator was still out of service, so we had to walk down the stairs." A feeling of unease, which I couldn't assign to anything tangible, came over me with the mention of a lightning strike.

Javier picked up the story from there. "That's when we met that couple with the very young son. Yes, it's true, Inez and the little boy touched hands. I had forgotten about the beach ball bouncing around, but now that you mention it, yeah, that happened too. Something else important happened that day. Right after we left the hotel, we went out for lunch. I met up with a man who would become a good friend of mine, as well as an important business contact. Remember my friend Antonio, mi hija?" Inez nodded in acknowledgment, as Javier continued to speak. "He helped me get the business set up in Florida when we made the move to the mainland a few years later. Without his help, the business wouldn't have been nearly as successful."

"So, Pat," Lupe said slowly, "you're saying that other couple might have been your parents? And that small child with them was... you?"

"There's one way to find out for sure," I said, as I picked up my cell phone. Mom answered right away, and I told her about my dream.

"Why ... yes, Patrick, it happened exactly as you described it. I remember that day, clear as can be."

"Incredible," I muttered. "Absolutely incredible."

"Are you telling me," Mom went on, "that the couple we met on the stairs were Javier and Lupe? And the baby girl was Inez?"

I ended up handing the phone to Lupe, letting the two of them marvel excitedly at this revelation. "Yes, Ruth, I remember the thunderstorm and the power failure!" Lupe said excitedly at one point. "How could I forget that?"

Meanwhile, Inez addressed a question to her father that no one had asked yet. "Papi, that part of my dream about Pat's dad falling down the stairs ... that never happened, right?"

"It most certainly did not. I'd recall something like that. In fact, now that I think about it, I remember walking with them all the way down the stairs, and saying goodbye near the checkout desk."

Soon, Lupe got off the phone with Mom, and had some words of wisdom to offer Inez and me. "I can't get over the fact that you two met unknowingly, with both sets of parents around, when you were each a year old. Even reaching out to touch each other's hands, if Pat's version is correct. It's as if your relationship – and your marriage – was preordained by God."

Later on that evening, when we finally had a quiet moment, I put forth a question to Inez.

"What do you think it all means? You're the psychologist here."

"I really can't say. This is outside the scope of my knowledge," she declared matter-of-factly. "Let's see if something happens further down the road to clarify things."

July 12, 2007

It took all of two days for that to happen.

I had another extremely lifelike dream. Once again, I was an onlooker. I saw myself in my childhood home, a young lad of about kindergarten age, sprawled out on the floor of the living room, drawing on a piece of paper with crayons. A old black and white TV, perched precariously on four wobbly wooden legs with a rabbit-ear antenna protruding upward from the back of the box, was transmitting a fuzzy picture, along with a mixture of static and the occasional legible words. Nonetheless, it was quite apparent that the TV was tuned into coverage of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, which had happened the day before my fifth birthday.

My parents were seated on a ratty old sofa I couldn't ever recall seeing before. They were having a serious discussion, and their woebegone faces informed me that they were delving into a depressing topic. Mom appeared near tears, and my father – who for as long as I'd known him had always projected a strong, in-control demeanor – seemed overwhelmed and lost.

"Look at Patrick over there," Dad said softly. "He's five now, and we can't even afford to give him a suitable birthday party. He's always telling us how much he wants a brother or a sister. That will never happen. We've been dreaming about moving into a nicer house for so long now. That goal is no closer than it was the day we were married."

"Jim, don't beat yourself up. What happened is not your fault," Mom said, trying to sound soothing. Dad was indeed berating himself to a degree I'd never before witnessed.

"And it's all because of that damn accident in the hotel in Ocean City," Dad went on angrily. "All those medical bills, which our insurance hardly made a dent in! All the time missed from work! I've been passed over for promotion after promotion, and now, it seems as though my career has stalled out forever. You even had to go out and get a job to support us. And on top of all that, as a result of my injuries, I'll never be able to father any children. Sometimes, I feel as though I'm one step above useless."

As the young Pat continued to color and draw, his childhood innocence rendering him oblivious to the distress his parents were experiencing, Mom continued to voice the sentiment that my father should not blame himself. She sounded like someone who'd repeated that same tired mantra over and over again.

"And then, adding insult to injury," continued my father, "the damn hotel just made me a VIP for life. Which would have been great – if we could afford to stay there sometime. They're just worried that I might try to sue them before the statute of limitations runs out. Hell, I could sue them – or sue somebody – if I wanted to. But I'm just not the litigious type."

"Neither am I," my mother assured him.

"Patrick deserves a better life than this," Dad voiced sadly. "He should be able to..." The scene began to fade out at that point, and soon, I was wide awake, and looking into my wife's curious eyes. She was quite awake herself, even though it was the middle of the night.

"I just had another dream," I said right away.

"Me too," she said quietly.

"You go first this time."

She nodded. "I was a little girl of five or six. I was in the house where we lived in Florida. It was the same house, but it was ... different, somehow. The house was less furnished and less kept up than I ever remember. I got the feeling that we were rather poor. I can't ever recall being in that kind of a state. My parents were having a little chat, and it was quite depressing to listen to.

"We had moved from Puerto Rico to Florida not too long before. Papi was talking, over and over again, about how worried he was about his business. He was just getting started, and he felt overwhelmed. He kept saying how nice it would be to have a business partner, or an advisor ... someone who knew the business, to shoulder some of the risk. That's it, in a nutshell. The whole dream was pretty much a downer. Now, tell me about yours."

I did so, and after I finished, we remained silent for a moment. It was Inez who broke the silence.

"I think I know what's going on here."

"I think I do, too."

"These dreams are providing us with some of the missing pieces in our time-travel puzzle. It's up to us to figure out where they fit."

July 15, 2007

Very early this morning, we were given a couple more pieces.

I paid another very stark, lifelike visit to dreamland. I found myself watching what was undoubtedly a teenage version of myself standing in a partially open phone booth, punching out a phone number, wearing a Led Zeppelin T-shirt, a pair of jeans and a pair of white tennis shoes.

"Hello ... Debbie?" the teenage Pat uttered, sounding hesitant and uncertain.

I watched as my youthful counterpart began to nod, repeatedly and with increasing enthusiasm. "Oh, yeah," he said over and over, the smile on his face growing. At one point, he voiced, "Yeah, I'd really like that," in reply to a seemingly suggestive – perhaps even lurid – remark from the unseen Debbie.

His look suddenly grew serious. "I won't tell anyone," he voiced. "I'll get my buddy to drop me off in the area. Not too close. I won't tell him exactly where I'm going." He ended the conversation, then fed another quarter into the slot in the pay phone, and punched out a new set of numbers.

"Come pick me up now," he said into the receiver before hanging up quickly.

Soon, a beat-up four-door vehicle arrived on the scene, its navigator recklessly hitting the brakes suddenly and with full force, the tires squealing in protest. I watched as the other me got into the passenger side. At that stage, I assumed the viewpoint of a passenger in the back seat of the car. I recognized the driver as none other than Joe Myers. Joe was one of those racist "friends" who'd deserted me when I decided to take Evie to the senior prom.

I remembered Joe's car; I'd ridden in it once or twice. It was a mid-1960s Rambler with peeling exterior paint, hole-ridden interior upholstery, and quite a few parts under the hood which operated in a sub-optimal manner. The vehicle was, to put it bluntly, a heap of shit.

Moments later, Joe had the car careening down a back road at an excessive rate of speed. The sky was growing darker off to the left; it seemed that a storm was brewing. Inside the car, the conversation that was taking place was neither refined nor mature, but very typical of two teenage males.

"So, give it up about this chick," grinned Joe.

"I met her at the Genesis concert at the Spectrum. You should see this fox – a brunette with a killer body. I've been talking to her on the phone a lot. Get this – she's in college. Just finished her freshman year."

"Whoa there, guy ... an older chick! I'm impressed. Why all the secrecy?

"She says she has a boyfriend who lives right down the street. We're meeting up ... um, not too far from where she lives. She's been telling me on the phone how good she is at giving head. I'm gonna find out if she's telling the truth."

"Damn, dude! A BJ from a college chick! Hope her boyfriend doesn't find out. Anyway, what's up with that blonde bitch you been boffing?" Joe suddenly inquired. "She's fine. You still tapping into that pussy, or what?"

"You mean Diana Caldwell. Let me tell you, guy, that girl is psycho. One day she puts out like she can't get enough. Then, the next day, she goes frigid and won't talk to me for a week. I've been avoiding her for a couple weeks now. You know how it is, dude. New worlds to conquer."

Joe and my counterpart began laughing fiendishly. More profane conversation ensued, dealing primarily with sexual acts and the female anatomy. All of a sudden, the other me cried out, "Let me out right here!"

Joe, after slamming the brakes once again, gave a puzzled look. "Here?! Are you out of your fucking mind? This is out in the sticks, man! And look at the sky ... it's gonna rain!" As if to accentuate that point, a distant rumble of thunder could be heard.

"I think the storm's gonna miss us," said the other me, sounding nonplussed. "It's not that close. All in the name of the pursuit of pussy, right?"

Joe laughed at that wisecrack. "Well, all right, then," he replied a little doubtfully. "It's not my ass that's gonna get wet. You need a ride back home later?"

"Naaah. Debbie says she'll drop me off ... afterward." We both laughed again, and Joe sped off in his clunker. My counterpart walked slowly along the road, the pace of his stride brisk and eager, before veering off into a wooded area. Now, the thunder grew louder, accompanied by lightning flashes, the time span between the flashes and their accompanying rumbles decreasing. Continuing onward, the other me looked increasingly flustered, unsure, and downright lost as he absent-mindedly – and foolishly – wandered into a weed-strewn, grassy field, with a lone tree in the center. I remembered that field quite well. That's when it happened. As the young Pat passed in the vicinity of the tree, a massive bolt of lightning shot down from the heavens, accompanied by a deafening roar of thunder. The tree was split in two in a spectacular shower of sparks, as the other me fell motionless to the ground.

I awoke, and instantly sat bolt upright in the bed. "I know how it happened now!" I sang out excitedly.

Inez, already awake, had been lying there quietly. Still, she appeared startled by my sudden awakening. She gaped at me for a second or two. This time, daylight was already filtering through the curtains.

"How what happened?" she finally got out.

"I know how I ended up in that field where I found myself right after the lightning strike!" I exclaimed. I proceeded to tell her the story. She listened intently, but didn't offer much in the way of commentary. She seemed a little out of sorts, and I thought I knew why.

"You had a dream too," I said, running my finger lovingly across her cheek.

"I did," she acknowledged. She sat up in the bed to face me directly. "I was about eighteen years old. I'd just found out I was pregnant. I was sitting down with my parents at our kitchen table, talking about the situation. The father of the baby was that jerk Randy, as I suspected. He'd blown me off completely once he found out. I could tell that our standard of living was, again, nothing like what I was used to. Papi was telling me over and over that he and Mami still loved me, no matter what. They told me they'd help out with the baby when the time came, and that they still wanted me to go to college. I can't believe how understanding and supportive they were. It makes me feel sad, you know?" She appeared to be near tears.

"Remember, angel, that was not the reality that we are living in," I assured her, as she rested her head against my shoulder.

"But it was reality in another dimension, or whatever you want to call it," she pointed out. "And what happened a couple of years later, in that reality?"

Her point had been driven home. She squeezed my hand, got up from the bed, and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" I said, just a little alarmed.

She gave a small nod of reassurance. "I just want to go and hug my parents."

It was Sunday, and later that afternoon, Inez and I retreated to the bedroom to discuss things further. I sat down on the bed; she rested her head in my lap.

"I'm fine," she assured me, flashing a bright smile, in response to my look of concern. "It's just that when it comes to these dreams, I'm getting all the bad parts."

"Yes, you are," I said with a sympathetic chuckle. "It started with my dad falling down the stairs, and went from there." That drew a nervous laugh from both of us.

"So, let's summarize what these dreams have told us," suggested Inez.

"We've had three sets of dreams," I began. "In the first set, the Ocean City set, my dream was in the timeline we are now living in. Yours was set in the other timeline – the unhappy one, if you will. Things changed with the second set of dreams. Both yours and mine, apparently by necessity, were set in the other, unhappy timeline. The most recent set of dreams, dealing with our late teen years, mirrored the first set. I dreamed in the current timeline, you dreamed in the other one.

"Let's start with what happened that day in 1964 in Ocean City. In the timeline we are living in now, your parents and my parents met up on a stairway inside the Flanders Hotel. You and I were about a year old, and we reached out and touched each other's hands. This caused our parents to strike up a conversation, and that damn beach ball went bouncing by harmlessly. The O'Malleys checked out of the hotel and went on their way. The Trujillos went out to eat, and ran into Antonio, who was instrumental in helping your dad build a successful business. We've verified with our parents that all of this really happened.

"Then, there was the other timeline. Our parents met on the stairway, but for some reason, we didn't reach out for each other. As a result, their conversation was very brief. That put my dad directly in the path of the beach ball, he fell down the stairs, and suffered a horrible injury that disabled him for a long time and made him unable to father any more children. Hence, no Eileen and no Seamus in that timeline. Dad was out of work for an extended period of time, and our standard of living suffered greatly. Your parents stopped to assist my dad. Because of that, they were delayed in going to lunch, and never met up with Antonio. This negatively impacted your standard of living. Does that pretty much sum it up?"

"Wonderfully," smiled my wife.

"There's ones thing that bugs me, though," I added. "I lived forty-four years in the other timeline. How come my parents never told me about my dad's accident?"

"You have to factor in," Inez offered, "how different things were back when we were growing up. Your dad and mom – mine too – are products of that time period. Parents didn't often discuss serious topics with their kids, especially when it came to things like financial struggles and infertility. Here's something else to consider. We both know that your dad is a very proud man. That accident must have devastated his confidence and his self-image, and I'm not at all surprised that it dealt his career a permanent setback."

We mulled that over for a short while. "There's another clue in these dreams that we haven't thought about," declared Inez. "In the unhappy timeline, I attended college in Florida until my parents' accident. Obviously, with my pregnancy, attending college out of state would have been impractical. But when you add in the fact that my parents were struggling financially, it explains why they might not have been able to consider sending me to an out of state university like Rutgers."

At that point, with only one topic left undressed, all I could offer was a sheepish grin. "And then ... we have the story of how I wound up in the path of a lightning bolt in this timeline."

My wife merely rolled her eyes and gave me a disapproving sideways glance, although I sensed her tongue was in her cheek.

"Come on," I laughed. "Who among us hasn't done something embarrassing at seventeen years of age?"

Inez giggled, and began to tickle me. "You're right, Mr. Oral Sex in the Woods." A prolonged tickling session ensued, which evolved into the squeezing of various body parts, which in turn resulted in our clothes being strewn about the room, and the two of us eventually lying naked on the bed in a state of sexual satiety.

"Good thing the girls and my parents are busy right now," Inez giggled. "Anyway, tell me something. After you arrived in this timeline, did Joe ever ask you what happened with that girl?"

"He might have," I replied, "but I can't recall it. The thing is, I wouldn't have seen Joe until a few months later, when school started. I'm sure he must have brought it up, but I wouldn't have known what he was talking about. I probably gave him the same noncommittal type answer I was giving everyone else right about then." I paused for a moment, and then brought up another point. "Imagine that. None other than Joe Myers played a role in bringing me into this timeline. I can't wait to tell Evie!"

"What about the girl Debbie? Do you recall anything about her?"

"Not a thing. Maybe she just figured I stood her up, and let the whole thing drop. More likely, she stood me up. Even more likely, she was just messing with me the whole time." I paused briefly, before offering up another observation. "Ever since I arrived in this life, I've been wondering how I ended up in that open field. Now I know. What could be more fitting? I was in search of cheap, tawdry sex."

Inez giggled again, said "You're a guy," and resumed tickling me furiously.

August 18, 2007

The dreams ceased at that point. They were, if not completely forgotten, at least pushed into the backgrounds of our minds. The excitement of the approaching Lightning in a Bottle reunion moved to the forefront of our consciousness.

Today was Saturday, a mere two weeks before the big talent show. Javier and Lupe were off on one of their Saturday excursions – something they still did on a regular basis. Both were pushing seventy now, yet they remained fit and active. Inez, Lexie, Tina and I decided to head for the mall. The girls wanted to help their mother choose an outfit for the show. They, along with their grandparents, would of course be traveling east with Inez and me. And they were every bit as excited about it as we were.

At the mall, the four of us sat down in the food court and had lunch together. A lively conversation sprung up, centering on what songs we planned to do at the show. Lexie and Tina kept throwing out suggestions, mostly tunes that had come out in the last few years. We loved their enthusiasm, but had to keep telling them repeatedly, "That's not really our style." However, Lexie eventually managed to come close to hitting a bulls-eye.

"'My Immortal' by Evanescence," she suggested.

I looked thoughtfully over at Inez. "I'd love to hear you sing that one."

"It's ... probably something we could handle," Inez agreed. "But the problem is, it's much too sad of a song to do at a show like this."

Amid a chorus of "Aw, Mom!" and "That would be great!" I raised my hand. "Your mother is right," I declared. The Dad Speaks.

"Besides, there are six people in the band, and the six of us will choose our material together," Inez pointed out.