The Memory Tree Page 2

  When high school did end in 1973, I attended the University of Washington in Seattle, where I studied Economics and Business. It wasn’t New York City, but it was still a big step up from Nelson. I’m not quite sure even now why I picked Economics and Business. It seemed like a crapshoot, each subject just as unlikely to be enjoyable as the next. I just grabbed something that sounded like it might use some math; I was good at math.

  I did like my courses, though, and I surprised myself by graduating first in my class. Straight A’s.

  Moving to Seattle was one of the biggest changes in my life. It was five hundred miles from Montana, far enough to eventually put a dent in the memories of my childhood.

  When I left Nelson, I drove a 1952 Chevy, a light-blue clunker I had picked up from the father of a friend for two hundred bucks. All the way west, I wondered if the car would make it. As it turned out, the car lasted me another five years and never cost me a dime in repairs.

  The trip itself was a blur. I didn’t appreciate the scenery and barely remember anything except sleeping in the car the first night, just pulled over on the side of the highway, waking up cramped and cold and wondering if I had made a huge mistake in leaving home.

  Everything turned around as soon as I hit the west coast.

  Mrs. Clawson ran a boarding house in Everett, a clean, quiet suburb of Seattle. She had a spare room on the top floor of her sprawling two-and-a-half story home, and I lived there for three years, until I finished my studies.

  She was a stern woman but kind. When I first met her, she was about forty but seemed much older. You could tell just with a quick glance that she had lived a hard life. I don’t think I ever saw her smile. Her hair was prematurely gray, and the wrinkles in her face were etched by worry and hardship. Her husband had abandoned her shortly after their daughter, Jenny, was born.

  Mrs. Clawson had initially rented out her own bedroom in the small bungalow she lived in, while she herself slept on a living room couch, scrimped and saved, and eventually was able to afford the nice home she now owned. She still rented rooms, still saving every penny.

  Her house was large and rambling. In Nelson, we would have called it a mansion. In Everett, it just fit in with all its neighbors. Off-white with olive green trim. The lawn was neat, and so was everything inside. The house reflected Mrs. Clawson’s personality. Clean, organized. Everything in its place.

  And then there was Jenny.

  Mrs. Clawson had mentioned a daughter, but I lived in the house for almost two weeks before I met her, realized she was my age -- eighteen -- and found she was absolutely drop-dead stunning. When I first saw her, she was sitting on the front porch, reading. Her feet were absently swinging beneath her. She stood up, smiled, and said, “You must be Sam. I’m Jenny.” My heart jumped alive with a beat of its own accord.

  It took me a moment to collect my wits enough to answer, “Hey. Nice to meet you.”

  She laughed -- a wondrous laugh that caught me off guard. She had long, chestnut hair woven into a tight ponytail reaching halfway down her back. I couldn’t help but stare at her. She had the brightest smile and laughing dark-brown eyes, eyes that captured me and wouldn’t let go. Her lips were wide and full of life, just like the rest of her. Little wire-frame glasses perched on her nose, and a pink dress just covered her knees. Below that were short white socks and brown sandals where her toes peeked out.

  At that moment, I imagined spending the rest of my life with this girl. I’d never been so overwhelmed by anybody. Never before, never since, had I felt so absolutely lost. Before we spoke another dozen sentences to each other, I could tell she was as smitten with me as I was with her.

  I can still see her face as it was that day, the slight tilting of her head as the radio played Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” in the background, and the smell of the petunias surrounding the deck permeating the air.

  “So Sam, sit down and tell me something about yourself.”

  I did.

  I told her about Nelson, about my brother, a bit about my mother. Somehow, my father didn’t seem to enter my thoughts. I told her about my dreams of living in a big city, of making a difference (whatever that meant), of wanting to see the world, of wanting to go to Times Square on New Year’s Eve and Rio de Janeiro during Mardi Gras and the markets of Cairo and Bangkok. I told her about wanting to do everything.

  She laughed and nodded, and before I knew it an hour had passed and I was holding her hand.

  She told me all about herself, too -- book lover, wants to travel, her father’s death, no siblings, good mother.

  Hell, we even talked about how neither of us wanted children later in life. We both wanted our freedom.

  We both knew with a snap that we were meant to be together. I was happy for the first time in longer than I could remember.

  This was the girl I was to marry in less than four years. And in less than five, I would be beating her.

  Part 2

  Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today’s events.

  Albert Einstein

  Chapter 4

  The first sensation I had when I woke up was soft floral scents somewhere around me. I always loved flowers. With my eyes still closed, I tried to identify the type of flower, a little challenge before prying myself fully awake. Roses, maybe, but I couldn’t figure out why I would have roses in my house, unless Jenny had picked some up when she was out shopping earlier.

  Then I realized I wasn’t very comfortable, with something sticking up into the small of my back.

  Absent-mindedly I reached around and pulled a small rock out from underneath me.

  I sat up and snapped my eyes open when I realized I wasn’t in my bed. Blinking, I took in the scene around me. It took my eyes a few moments to focus. To my left was a massive field of sunflowers, hundreds of acres worth. That was the smell I hadn’t quite figured out. They seemed to sway in unison, thousands upon thousands of identical soldiers marching together into eternity.

  To my right was a small gravel road and on the other side of the road, more fields. I couldn’t tell what was planted on that side, since there were no blooms, only a stretch of green as far as I could see.

  What the hell happened? I wondered silently. Where am I?

  I licked my lips and rubbed my sore eyes, hoping this would help to clarify things.

  I thought back. The office. Sitting watching Nasdaq quotes. Then --

  Exploding green and white flashes all over my body.

  “Oh, my God,” I said as I jumped to my feet.

  I held my hands in front of me, then grabbed my chest, feeling nothing out of the ordinary, knowing my hands were solid, not a million shifting little bits falling by the wayside. I concentrated on my breathing, and everything seemed fine. As I thought of the labored struggle I had just survived, the cool clean air filling my lungs felt incredible. The pain and tingling sensations were gone.

  Then, I flexed my left hand and swung my arm around. Nothing. I stuttered, “What, what . . . ”

  I had just had some kind of attack. I knew that. I remembered it just happening. Dissolving. Vanishing.

  But now, there were no signs.

  I fell back to the ground, my legs totally giving way. “How am I not -- ” I struggled with the word “ -- dead?”

  Then a thought. Or am I?

  But I didn’t feel dead. I started to chuckle at that thought, as if I would actually know what it was like to be dead. But, damnit, it didn’t feel like I was dead. I felt fully alert, conscious, alive.

  I had no strength in my legs, and I could feel my bowels gurgling. The smell of the sunflowers and the light breeze cooling my face seemed foreign. I stayed sitting on the ground and tried once more to remember what had happened.

  I had been sitting at my desk at McLeod Warner, the biggest securities firm in Seattle. It was another boring day, the market up, the market down. I didn’t care one way or the other. The little envelope icon was flashing at the bottom of my screen.
Probably the usual set of persistent clients wanting to know about the drop in Intel or Cisco or the gains in Home Depot or --

  Then the shortness of breath and the stinging pain running through me as . . . as I dissolved.

  It happened. I remembered it clearly. Just a moment ago.

  Trying to get out of the chair, collapsing to the floor, passing out before the pounding floor smashed into my face.

  And waking up on the side of a gravel road, surrounded by sunflowers, cool breeze, and emptiness.

  Emptiness.

  Where the hell am I?

  Not Seattle, that’s for sure. No place like this within striking distance of Microsoft and Starbucks. Seattle was a huge city, a million miles of traffic jams, built on a harbor in Puget Sound.

  I climbed back to my feet and convinced myself I wasn’t dreaming by pinching myself and biting the inside of my mouth.

  My back was sore, cramped from lying on the harsh ground. I didn’t know how long I had been there.

  I looked around more closely.

  Beyond the sunflowers, there were only more sunflowers, hundreds of acres of the fucking things.

  I walked across the gravel road and up to the green plants on the other side. I didn’t have to get too close before I recognized they were corn stalks. From their size, I could tell it was from late June or early July.

  Ten minutes ago, it had been February.

  I looked past the corn and could see other kinds of plants beyond, but they were too far away to tell exactly what they were.

  The sun was a blazing globe, halfway up the sky. If this was late June, it was near the summer solstice, give or take. It was early afternoon, and I was probably in the mid-west. One of the courses I took at university was astronomy, since I always enjoyed reading science fiction as a kid. This was the first time that course had ever had a practical purpose for me. Thanks, Professor Gryseels.

  I got my bearings. The gravel road was running north/south. As far as I could see, the road south went straight forever, and all I could see were more fields. Going north, however, the road bent around the cornfields and disappeared. It seemed like the better way to go.

  Chapter 5

  I soon realized my shoes weren’t well suited to walking. My polished leather wingtips fit a busy office environment just fine, but they sucked for wandering along a gravel road in the middle of nowhere. Three hundred dollars a pair, now covered with ruining dust and grime. It disgusted me.

  It could have been worse, though. At least I wasn’t wearing a three-piece suit, which I sometimes need to do when the toadies from the New York office come by to inspect things. Instead, our office normally tended toward business casual, and I was cool enough in a light short sleeve dress shirt, and tan pants. Armani, of course.

  It didn’t take me very long -- maybe a half mile -- to realize just how hot the sun was. As it blazed down at me, I knew it must be above a hundred degrees, dreadfully hot, and so humid I was sweating like a sick pig.

  I surprised myself at how quickly I adjusted to the situation and gained control of myself. Years of dealing with frustrated investors had made me quick on my feet. I still hadn’t a fucking clue of how I had ended up here, but everything in life has an explanation. Whether it’s the behavior of the clients I didn’t give a rat’s ass about, or the way Jenny used to frown at me sometimes when I came home late after hitting the pub. Everything has an explanation. I’m just not always privy to what the hell it is.

  I felt confident this little side trip to farm country would be explained to me in due course. I’d find out I had been in a coma, I had amnesia, I had been kidnapped, the damned hospital dumped me off the back of a cabbage truck. Whatever it was, a logical reason would eventually arrive.

  I wasn’t sure I could concoct any possible explanation of how February had turned into June, but that was a thought best relegated to the back of my mind. Could I really have been out of it for four months?

  “Four months,” I said aloud. “And wearing the same clothes.” Didn’t fit. Not at all. My throat was parched, as if I had swallowed a bucket of sand.

  The road meandered among fields of corn, potatoes, and beans. This was a fertile area, and I knew then what it reminded me of. It was just like Nelson. Not the Nelson of today, a manufacturing town, but the Nelson I remembered from my childhood, where farming was everything that mattered, and all kinds of produce was grown.

  It felt weird, to be honest. Not quite déjà vu, but close.

  After an hour, I could hear water gurgling. My mouth was even drier if that was possible, and I immediately tracked toward the sound. The fresh aroma of the water called to me, pulling me even faster. A rickety wooden bridge connected the dirt road to another on the other side of a small river.

  I found my way down the bank to the water and cupped some into my mouth. You’d never do that in Seattle, but in the middle of all these fields, it just seemed right. Safe. And so tasty. As I sat and rested, I wondered why I hadn’t seen any farmhouses. They must be there somewhere, just not in my line of sight.

  I stretched on the ground and rested for five or ten minutes before taking another drink and reluctantly getting back to my walk. I still didn’t know where I was going, just knew if I kept walking, I had to run into somebody who could help. Eventually.

  I crossed over the small bridge and walked for another 45 minutes, when the gravel road finally connected with a real road, a paved road, and in the distance, I could see the outskirts of a city.

  Hallelujah.

  It felt like I had passed an endurance test. I was drenched with sweat and was exhausted, but I had reached civilization, where I could find somewhere to rest and grab a shower, not to mention food, before finding out just what was going on.

  When I had started on my walk, I had been frustrated and pissed. Now, I was just tired and hungry.

  A couple of cars passed me from behind heading into town, and a large blue tractor was grinding its way in the other direction, heading out to the fields.

  I thought my first stop would be a place to find a beer and a burger, and my stomach started to growl at the thought. The last thing I had eaten was an Egg McMuffin I had grabbed at the drive-through McDonalds early that morning. That was shortly before six o’clock. On weekdays, the stock market opens at 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time, and I never bother to try to make myself breakfast that early. McDonalds, Burger King, and a few other fast food restaurants always supplied my breakfast.

  I was walking with my head down, but as I glanced ahead, there was a white sign with black writing, announcing:

  Welcome to Nelson, Montana

  Pop. 35,347

  Home of the Largest Trout Derby in Montana!

  Nelson, Montana. Population 35,000 and change. For the second time that day, I was stunned. It wasn’t so much being in Nelson, although that was unlikely in its own right.

  The population.

  I knew the city had grown a lot since I had left, after industrialization hit and large conglomerates settled there due to the cheap labor and low taxes. Nelson’s population was easily 50,000 now, maybe more. It had been 35,000 when I lived there, almost forty years ago.

  In fact, I remembered clearly when all the population signs were changed from 35,000 to 37,000. I was fifteen or sixteen at the time. It seemed like a big event.

  The cars.

  It suddenly hit me that the cars passing me were old. Long sedans with dark coloring, fins, and whitewalls. An ancient midnight-blue Thunderbird had passed by, an old white beat-up Chevy Belaire, and a dark green Buick Skylark. I looked around as a vintage ’65 Mustang pulled smoothly past me. No Toyotas, Hondas, or Datsons to be seen, just good ole’ American-made gas-guzzlers.

  Ahead of me, the town looked exactly as I remembered it. I kept walking, ignoring the glances of old ladies looking at me with frowns covering their faces. They looked ready to jump back if I so much as took a single step in their direction. I walked down the main street, called Main Street by some unkn
own bureaucrat with no imagination. The same old buildings I remembered stood by me. The same old streets.

  The old brick courthouse was there. It had burned to the ground sometime around 1975. It stood directly in front of me, resurrected from the fire. Standing as straight and proud as ever.

  Without comprehension, I stumbled along to Jones’s Grocery, and my trembling hands picked up a copy of the Nelson Times-Record.

  The front-page headline stated in two-inch type, “Drought Expected in July.”

  At the top of the paper, in much smaller type, I saw the date. It didn’t show February 16, 2007 as it should have. Rather the date printed was June 27, 1968.

  Chapter 6

  The Nelson Times-Record never had to worry that one of their reporters might accidentally win any major journalism awards. The best anyone could say about it was that they printed the box scores of most of the baseball games that mattered, and at least they spelled President Johnson’s name correctly.

  I hadn’t seen a copy of the Times-Record since I left Nelson as a teenager. I knew that originally there had been two competing papers in Nelson. The Times and the Record. In the forties, one of them started a price war, trying to put the other out of business. All that resulted was both of them losing so much money, the only way they could stay in business was to merge. Then, they raised the price to fifteen cents a copy, which seemed like robbery back then.

  Now, though, the paper seemed like gold, and fifteen cents seemed like a steal in the other direction. I bought a copy from Old Man Jones -- that’s what all the kids called him, even though he was younger than I was now.

  Everybody called his place a Grocery store, but in fact, there were few groceries and certainly nothing needing refrigeration. The store sold almost any kind of dry goods that Jones could cram into one of the three narrow aisles. Beside the newspapers in the front were bubble gum dispensers, lots of brands of cigarettes, and a candy counter holding a dozen different kinds of sugary sweets selling for a penny each.