From Time to Time

From TimeTo Time

Jack Finney

PROLOGUE

The man at the end of the long table-he wore a trimmed black beard streaked white at the ends of his mouth-looked up at the wall clock: three minutes past seven. "Okay, he said to the dozen men and women around the table, "we better get started. But he turned once more to look at the open doorway behind him, and so did everyone else. No one appeared, though, no footsteps approached along the wood-floored hall outside, and he turned back to the group. He was the oldest of them, a trim youthful forty, wearing blue denims and a plaid cotton shirt-and the only full professor. "Audrey, you want to begin?

"Sure. She bent up the clasp of a manila envelope on the table beside her purse, and partly pulled out a newspaper folded to quarter size. Only a portion of its masthead was visible, reading, vi'- York Courier, and one or two people smiled at what they took to be the deliberate drama of this. All were casually dressed, casually seated; aged from twenty-five to forty. This was the little Chemistry Department library, cheerful with shelved books and framed sepia photographs of the old laboratories. It was early evening, September and still light, and here in Durham still warm. Someone had opened the three tall round-topped windows, and the\' could hear birds wrangling in the campus trees.

"So far my network is only four people, Audrey said. Her hand, wearing a plain wedding ring, lay on the tabletop, curved forefinger just touching the word Courier. "If you can call that a network. One is my brother-in-law, and I honestly never thought he'd turn up a thing. But he has. A friend of his owns a floor covering store of some kind in Brooklyn, New York. One of his men was working in an old house there, tearing up worn-out kitchen linoleum, and underneath- She stopped: rapid footsteps sounded woodenly outside, and they all turned to watch the doorway. But the hurrying figure, glancing in at them, moved on by. "Under the linoleum the floor was covered about half an inch thick with newspapers. To cushion it, I suppose. And of course he looked at some of the papers, read the old comics-you know. I envied him. They were all really old, been there for decades. And he kept this one. She drew the folded newspaper from its envelope, and passed it to the man beside her.

He opened it, spreading it flat on the tabletop, and the others around the table hunched forward to look. The New-York Courier, read the complete masthead, and the man who'd opened it began reading the headline aloud. " President Urges Trade Recip-'

"No, not the news, the date.

"Tuesday, February 22, 1916.

After a moment she said, slightly annoyed and disappointed, "Well, don't you see? There was no New-York Courier in 1916. It went out of business-I looked this up-on June 8, 1909.

"Hey, a woman across the table from her murmured, and someone else said, "Looks like a good one. Let's see that thing, and the paper was passed down to him.

"Is that it, Audrey-the date? said the chairman.

"Yes.

"Okay, well, it's a good one. Write it up, will you? Use the new form; we got new ones, we're getting organized, sort of. Can we keep the paper?

"Sure. Her face flushing with pleasure, she ducked to give close attention to bending down the clasp of her envelope.

A woman of thirty, small, with straight dark hair, said, "Dick, I have to leave early; I've got a babysitter who can't stay long. Can I he next?

"Sure, go ahead.

She touched a cardboard folder on the table before her. "I got this from my aunt in Newton, Kansas. The local library there has a little history room. History of the town; people give them old photographs, clippings, and so on, and she had one of these photos copied for me. Opening the folder, she exposed a large, glossy black-and-white photograph. "This was taken in 1947 -she touched the date inscribed in white in a lower corner of the photograph. "It shows the main street. As it was then, of course. It includes the movie theater, and you can read the marquee. I'll pass this around in a minute, but let me just read it to you first. From the table she picked up her reading glasses and put them on, bending over the photo, pushing the glasses slightly higher on her nose. "It says, Clark Gable and Mary Astor in Devil's Judgment, Cartoons, and Pathé News.'

She sat back, snatching her glasses off, sliding the photograph to the man beside her. "I've checked every old-movie book in the libraries here; listings of old pictures. And this summer in New York I checked a lot more in the main library there. No such movie is listed. I wrote to the studio, never got an answer, so I phoned, got through to someone eventually who said he'd check it out, and call me back. To my amazement, that's just what he did. Phoned a couple days later. Very pleasant; had a nice voice. They had no record of any such movie, he said. And-well, that's my offering. She glanced around at the others.

The chairman said, "Well, it's interesting, but we've got to be rigorous. The movie listings could be incomplete. Or the studio's mistaken. Or, nice as your man's voice was, maybe he didn't really look that hard. Old pictures that weren't too popular get forgotten. Lost.

"But a Clark Gable?

"I know, but -he moved a shoulder reluctantlv- we've got to be impeccable. It could be only a title change. Released as Devil's Judgment, then changed to something else. I think they do that.

"Okay. She reached across the table as someone returned her picture. "I had some more checking in mind anyway, but I wanted to bring this to the meeting to show I haven't been loafing all summer.'

"Well, it sounds good. Keep on it, see if you can really pin it down. Steve, you got something?

"Yeah. Took me all summer. He was twenty-five, his extremely fine yellow hair thin on top. "Had to write a million letters. With his knuckle he tapped a little pile of stacked papers. "Want me to read them, or just tell you?

"Just tell us for now. Can you xerox copies for next time?

"Sure. Ben Bendix put me in touch with this. Remember Ben? He was in my class. Parapsych degree like me.

Someone said, "Sure, I remember him.

"Well, he's married now, lives in Stockton, California, and he put me in touch with this family. Their name is Weiss; father, mother, two grown daughters. One married, the other divorced and back in Stockton, living with the folks. Well, the divorced one remembers another sister. Sort of.

"Steve. The chairman sat shaking his head. "I don't know about the sort-ofs. Is this one of those little fragments of memory things?

" Fraid so.

"Well . . . what's the rest?

"She thinks the other sister was called Naomi. Or Natalie. Not sure. A year younger, maybe. Thinks she remembers them playing together, when she was around twelve.

"She says it reminds her of trying to remember a dream?

"Yep; one of those. Little memories like walking to school together. Dinner with the family. Just stuff like that. And you know the rest: no one else in the family remembers this other sister, there never was another daughter. The divorced daughter actually checked out birth records, and they finally insisted this one cut it out, quit talking about it. He touched the papers before him. "What I got here is three letters, pretty long, from her; what she remembers, what she doesn't. And one each from the others. They didn't want to write at all, but I pestered them into it.

"I think we have to pass on this, Steve; sorry.

"That's okay.

"The vague ones, remember little hits and pieces-what can we do with them? Appreciate the effort, though.

Footsteps coming fast sounded outside, and two men walked in quickly, the younger one tall and stick-thin in a wrinkled white suit, saving, "Sorry, sorry, sorry! We're late, late, late! But you wont mind. He nodlded proudly at the other man as they stopped beside the chairman, who was rising to greet them. "Mv fault, the other man said; he looked about forty-five, lean in the face, and wore a blue nylon windbreaker over a very clean white T-shirt. "I had to work, so supper was late.

To the group, the younger man said, "This is Lawrence Braunstein,' and Braunstein said, "Larry. The younger added, "Larry drove in from Drexel.

People near the chairman were standing or leaning across the table to shake hands with Braunstein, or smiling and flicking hands in greeting from the other end of the table. They were liking him because he responded so pleasantly, nodding, looking pleased to be here. He was incompletely bald, a thinning, straight stripe of brown hair from forehead to crown.

Someone moved to another chair so that he could sit at the middle of the table, and when he was seated, the chairman said, "Larry, a lot of us know your story from Carl here, though I understand you have an addition to it tonight. But some of us haven't heard; would you mind telling it over again? From the top?

"Sure. Okay. And if you want to laugh, folks, go to it. I don't mind, I'm used to it.

"We won't laugh, the chairman said.

"Well. Braunstein slid down the zipper of his jacket and sat back, settling himself comfortably, one arm lying relaxed on the tabletop, hand loosely clenched. "There's not that much to tell; it's just that I remember Kennedy's second term. The group sat quiet and intent, some leaning forward to see him. "I don't really remember a lot about it, tell you the truth. I vote. Sometimes. But I don't pay much attention to the politicians. Never did; what's the use. They're all-well, you know well's I do. But I do remember him running again. Watched a little of the convention. It was in Atlanta. Heard some of the campaign speeches. Not much. A little of that goes a long ways, you know?

Someone said, "Who'd he run against?

"Dirksen-isn't that a shout? I remember the commentators, remember Cronkite, saying the Republicans only ran Dirksen because they knew he didn't have a chance against Kennedy. And they were sure right. Kennedy won forty-nine states and was close in the other; Illinois, or something. And that's about it. I watched Dirksen concede less than an hour after the polls closed in California. And I remember Kennedy headquarters then, the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, him there at the microphones smiling, everybody yelling, then him lifting his arms, thanking his people, and-you know; all that stuff. Jackie was there, and I think his mother. Don't remember about Bobby or Edward.

They sat silent for a moment. Then one of the men said, "I know you've already answered this, but do you also remember-

"That he never had a second term? Sure. Carl asked me that first thing, and sure I remember, just like everyone. He was shot. In Dallas. In . . . 1963? Then they shot Oswald. He shrugged, apologizing. "I know it don't make sense, hut-I got both memories; what can I tell you?

"Do you remember where you were when he was shot?

The chairman said, "Okay. And tonight you've got something more?

"Yeah. A couple days after Carl came out and we talked, I remembered something, but I didn't get around to it for a while. I run the shipping department at Vector over in Drexel, and we been working a lot of overtime, sending out a lot of stuff. But last Sunday I got out my top dresser drawer and set it on the bed. He smiled around at them, inviting them in on this. "That drawer is a joke at my house, everybody laughs about my top drawer. It's my junk drawer. Packed full of nothing; you can hardly open it. You know: old ticket stubs from movies, receipts from stores, guarantees from stuff we wore out years ago. And snapshots, stuff I clip out of magazines, a couple of watches'll never run again, old lenses from glasses after the prescription was changed. My high school graduation picture. And a coonskin tail I had tied to my radiator in high school. Shoelaces, pencils, pens that don't write, match- books, soap from motels, worn-out flashlight batteries. You name it, it's all there.

"Well, I dumped that whole drawer right out on the bed, and started putting stuff hack. One by one, till I found this. He opened the fingers of his loosely clenched hand, exposing the palm, and at sight of what lay there people shoved chairs back, legs scraping the wood floor, as they stood up to see. Faceup on his palm lay a flat round object a little larger than a half-dollar. It was white, of plastic or enameled metal. Imprinted on it in blue were the head-and-shoulders photographs of two men, facing each

other. The one on the left was a confidently smiling John Kennedy in three-quarters profile; the other, in sharp profile, a serious, almost scowling Estes Kefauver. Above these photos, white letters on a red band that followed the button's curve read: One Good Term. In a similar band of blue at the bottom of the button: Deserves Another! Directly under the photos in a ribbon shape: Kenned y-Kefauver, 64.

"A campaign button, someone said softly, and another voice said, "I'll be goddamned. Someone said, "May I? Braunstein nodded, and the button began moving slowly from hand to hand around the table.

They had coffee, as they usually did, made in a cone-shaped Chemistry Department flask and glass funnel with filter paper. And as they stood around or near the long table or sat on its edge sipping at their Styrofoam cups, the button continued to move from one to another of them, inscription and printed photos held close to the eyes, the little blue union bug on its reverse touched.