LOST COWBOY MOON TIME
by
Madeira Desouza
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY
Madeira Desouza on Smashwords
Lost Cowboy Moon Time
Copyright © 2012 by Madeira Desouza
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products or brands referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks or brands is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
* * * * *
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
The cover for this eBook was designed and created by the author, Madeira Desouza. LOST COWBOY MOON TIME is the prequel to DARE NOT ASK THE DEAD, which was originally published by Madeira Desouza on Smashwords in 2010. Visit the author’s website www.MondoMacho.com for more information about both works and to see the author’s original illustrations.
* * * * *
Dedication
To S. Bear. You’ve heard me tell you this so many times: I love you very much, baby.
* * * * *
LOST COWBOY MOON TIME
* * * * *
When a guy suffering from memory loss wakes up in a hospital bed, what is the first thing he thinks about? I think that his mind races to figure out how he got there. That’s what I’m doing. I am that guy.
Waking up in a hospital bed and not knowing why I’m is horribly frightening. Gunshot wound to the chest? Knife slashes to the jugular? Blunt force trauma? Please God, don’t let it my body be damaged! Adding to my terror is that I cannot remember my own name!
A young male nurse dressed completely in angelic shades of white enters the hospital ward where I am in one of the four beds. The other male patients are all asleep, so I get the full attention from the nurse. He looks surreal. He is young with classic good looks like from ancient civilizations. Maybe I’m dead. Maybe this guy looks so handsome because he’s come to process me into the afterlife. He smiles at me reassuringly like an angel would, and he asks in a rich, masculine voice, “How are you feeling?” He speaks English, not Latin! Maybe he’s human like me.
“Not injured,” I reply quickly and with self-assurance. I am happy that apparently I am not dead and that he is not an ancient being from the underworld. “I’m also not in any physical pain,” I tell him.
“Very precise answers,” the handsome nurse says as he draws nearer to my bed.
“I feel okay,” I say to him, trying to minimize my own fear. “Except for the fact that I cannot remember my name. And, I don’t know how I got here.”
“Doctor will be in to see you,” the nurse tells me as he stands near my bed.
“You cannot tell me anything?” I ask him.
“That’s right,” he says like I knew he would.
“Can I get up and go look at myself in the mirror in the bathroom?” I ask him.
“Sure,” the nurse says. “I don’t see why not. If you feel up to it. Let me help you out of bed.” I realize how strong this man is as he assists me in getting out of the hospital bed. He points to the bathroom door not too many steps from my bed.
When I switch on the bathroom light and look at myself in the mirror, I feel as though I am looking at a total stranger. Who is that guy looking back at me in the reflection? He is apparently in his late twenties or early thirties. His dark eyes seem honest. His smile seems genuine. But, who is he? He hasn’t shaved in a few days and his curly light brown hair is a mess.
The nurse, who is standing next to me as I stare at that bathroom mirror, asks, “Any luck?”
I turn to look at him and say, “Not a fucking clue. Better help me back to my bed. I feel like I might pass out.”
The nurse holds onto me by both shoulders as he walks behind me and guides me back to my bed. He helps me get into bed and then pulls the cover up to my chest and smiles at me. “Doctor will be in to see you,” he assures me.
* * * *
A woman standing next to my bed in the hospital ward awakens me. She is in her mid-thirties and is African American. She is dressed in expensive business attire that is perfectly coordinated in gray tones upon black. The impression that her appearance gives off is one of strong confidence and grace.
“Good evening,” she says to me with a smile that makes me want to trust her.
“It’s evening?” I ask her. “I still see light outside through the blinds.”
“Yes,” she says. “It’s about 7:30 p.m. right now.”
“So, it’s summertime?” I ask her.
“Yes, that’s correct,” she replies. “You told the nurse that you do not remember your name or how you got here to this hospital?”
“No doubt this is the first of so many questions that you have for me,” I say to her.
She smiles at my response and nods to indicate “yes.” Then she asks, “I am a doctor. Can you tell me who the president of the United States is?”
I suppose that’s a standard question asked of people who are hospitalized with memory loss. But, it turns out to be a question I cannot answer. My brain just will not cooperate. I imagine that I am supposed to be able to answer that simple question. All I can say to the doctor is, “I can remember the first African American president. I also remember the first female president.”
The doctor does not smile at my answer. She asks me, “Can you tell me what day of the week it is? How about today’s date?”
“Sorry,” I reply. “No idea whatsoever.”
“Can you tell me anything that you remember?”
“Well, I thought I would look in the bathroom mirror,” I tell her. “Maybe doing that would help me. That’s what I thought. I saw my reflection. But, I don’t know who I am. The guy looking back at me in my reflection does not look at all familiar to me.”
“What about any personal memories?” she asks. “Think back to anything that you can remember in your life.”
“Well, I can remember our Moon,” I tell her.
She replies gently, “Tell me what you remember.”
“I vaguely remember looking out through a very thick geometrically-shaped window,” I explain to her. “Spherical triangles. That window looked out upon the lunar surface. Observation deck many stories above the underground base.”
Once again, the doctor does not smile at my answer.
“Okay,” I say to her quickly. “I can tell you didn’t like my answer in response to your question about the president of the United States. And, you didn’t like hearing about my memory of our lunar base.”
“Yes,” she replies. “You are absolutely correct. Both of your answers concern me.”
“Maybe you can tell me who you are and how you know me,” I suggest to her.
“Fair enough,” she replies. “I am doctor Victoria Price. A medical doctor. I also have a Ph.D. in Psychology. I am 36 years old. And, I am your psychiatrist.”
“My psychiatrist?” I ask her.
“Yes,” Doctor Price replies quickly. “I realize that you do not remember me. But, I do want you to know that I am your psychiatrist. You have been seeing me for several months now.”
“This makes me feel light-headed,” I admit to her. “Kind of shocking to hear this.”
“I understand,” Doctor Price replies. “That’s to be expected. But, I think that you’re doing fine here.”
“Can you tell me why I started seeing you?”
“Sure, of course I can tell you that,” she replies. “You became my patient to help you cope with difficulties in your marriage.”
“My marriage?” I ask her. “Wow. I don’t even remember having a wife.”
“That’s okay, too,” Doctor Price reassures me. “Her name is Katherine Snowe.”
I shake my head to indicate “no” to her.
“You two met in graduate school,” Doctor Price explains. “Indiana University. Married for a few years now. She’s a communication professor at a local university. You remember where she works?”
“Brown University,” I reply to Doctor Price. But, I am surprised at how quickly I answered her.
“Very good,” she says to me with a smile. “And do you know where Brown University is located?”
“Providence, Rhode Island,” I answer. “Everybody knows that. Is that where this hospital is located?”
“Yes, it is,” Doctor Price replies. She is smiling at me now.
“Well, it’s just inductive reasoning. I remember Brown University,” I explain. “I have to believe that right now we are in Providence, Rhode Island. But, that’s it. I don’t know how I remember some stuff, but not everything.”
“I am pleased that you can remember Brown,” Doctor Price says to me.
“Why am I here?” I want to know. “How did I get here?”
“Well,” she answers. “To be perfectly honest with you, the why is a bit of mystery to all of us at the moment. We know how you got here. You just walked in. Right through the main public entrance. Like it was what you wanted to do. You showed my business card that you had with you. Gave it to the people at the front desk. You even told them outright that you did not remember who you are or why you had come to the hospital.”
“Did I kill my wife, Doctor Price?” I ask.
“No, God no. You did not kill your wife,” she reassures me as she smiles at me. I conclude that Doctor Price was expecting me to ask that question. “She is very much alive. Tell me: Why did you ask that question?”
I explain to her: “Just a feeling. I now remember feeling angry. Very angry. I guess what I’m saying is: I have just started to remember being angry with my wife. Just the intense emotions. Just the anger. I cannot remember anything specific. Why isn’t my wife here?”
“Because she’s at another hospital right now,” Doctor Price replies.
“Is she a psychiatrist, too?” I ask.
My question makes Doctor Price chuckle aloud involuntarily. She seems embarrassed at her unrestrained reaction. She says to me, “Uh, no, your wife is a patient. In a psychiatric hospital. Not far from where we are right now.”
“A patient. Psychiatric hospital. That makes you laugh?”
“I apologize. Your wife is doing just fine,” Doctor Price says to me. “In the psychiatric hospital.”
“Is there a story here?”
“Meaning what?” Doctor Price asks me in return.
“That other hospital,” I explain. “That psychiatric hospital. How is it that my wife, whom I do not remember, is in a psychiatric hospital? That’s kind of an important detail, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Doctor Price replies calmly, “Of course, it is a very important detail. But, I think that your memories will return soon based on what I’ve seen here. You remembered Brown. You remembered that your wife works at Brown. All your memories will return soon. I feel quite certain of that.”
“Have I had some kind of trauma?” I ask her.
“Are you remembering that right now?”
“No,” I admit. “It just seems logical. Like how a story would unfold. A guy wakes up in a hospital. Doesn’t remember his own name. Doesn’t know how he got there. Had to have been some kind of trauma. Physical or otherwise.”
“You used the word ‘story’ to explain this,” Doctor Price says to me. “What do you mean by that?”
“Like a news story,” I respond without thinking. Once again, I am surprised at my answer that seems to have come from nowhere.
“Very good,” she replies.
“I work in the journalism profession?” I ask Doctor Price.
“Yes, you do,” Doctor Price replies.
“At one of the Providence television stations?” I ask her.
“Very good,” she replies. “Exactly correct. I told you that your memories would return.”
“I’m just grasping here in the dark. Everything is so damn foggy in my head,” I say to her. “I really am very confused right now.”
“That’s to be expected,” Doctor Price tells me. “You are correct about working at one of the Providence television stations. You should know the news business because of your work in that profession. Your conclusion is that you’re in this hospital because you experienced some kind of emotional trauma.”
“You’re only echoing back things I already know,” I say to her.
Doctor Price smiles and nods to me.
“The trauma,” I say to her, “That has something to do with my wife being in that psychiatric hospital, doesn’t it?”
Doctor Price nods to me once again.
“I put my wife in there,” I hear myself saying. “I had my wife committed into the psychiatric hospital in Connecticut, didn’t I?”
Doctor Price nods to me yet again.
“You told me my wife’s name is Katherine Snowe,” I say to Doctor Price. “I seem to only have incomplete memories. Kind of like the exact same foggy memories of my looking out from that thick, spherical triangle window at the lunar base.”
Doctor Price says nothing and just waits for me to keep talking.
“You know what? I don’t see how a guy who works at a Providence television station in the news business could also have memories of being on our Moon,” I tell her. “Makes no sense at all does it?”
“Probably not,” Doctor Price says to me. “Why do you refer to it as ‘our Moon’?”
“There are some moons that are not ours. Orbiting planets not ours. The lunar base of ours is a top-secret military facility,” I tell her quickly, very surprised at how I seemed to know what to say to her. “Nobody here on Earth is supposed to know.”
“Then don’t tell me anything more,” Doctor Price says as if she is humoring me.
“The president of the United States,” I say to her. “I just remembered. The president is George Herbert Walker Bush.”
“Yes,” Doctor Price replies. “That is correct. Full name and all. Like there is any other George Bush?”
Her response confuses me, but I say nothing.
She asks me, “Can you tell me today’s date?”
“No,” I reply. “But, the elder Bush. He had only one term. Early Nineties? Is that correct?”
She frowns at me, but says nothing. Rather, she just waits for me to keep talking.
“I feel like I need sleep,” I say to her. “Very disoriented right now. Can I please just get some sleep now?”
Doctor Price nods to me yet again as I feel myself falling asleep.
* * * *
I am not in a hospital bed in Rhode Island. Instead, I am outdoors on a very bright and intensely muggy Indiana afternoon back in October of Nineteen Seventy-Six. I see my Iranian friend, Farhad, has propped himself up next to me as our thin plastic cups are melting in the late fall heat and humidity, overflowing with cheap beer. We were already buzzed from what Farhad had deemed the single worst pot he had ever smoked and he wanted to wash away the bitter aftertaste. So, we left his dorm room next to mine in Eigenmann Hall to venture outdoors into a bright Bloomington day in search of liquid refreshment.
Because we had just smoked pot, Farhad and I should have stayed indoors. Instead, we venture outdoors to a pre-Halloween bash in the large grassy meadow near Eigenmann. A heavy-set blonde woman with seriously spooky eyes approaches me. I initially get a glimpse of her in my peripheral vision. Since smoking marijuana causes time compression, the woman arrives at my side faster than I was expecting. Farhad jumps backwards to avoid getting wet as I inadvertently tipped my beer sideways in response to her arrival. I hear him mutter something to me in Farsi.
She completes a quick scan of me from face to crotch to feet to crotch to direct eye contact with me. Then the very first words out of her mouth are, "I approve of this man." She says this while addressing me directly and looking me squarely in my eyes.
I glance in disbelief over at Farhad for reassurance that he heard it, too. His laughter confirms that he'd heard it, yes. He silently mouths the word, “Approve.”
I was impressed with her appealing smile, but the manner in which she had spoken to me in the third person made me wonder if perhaps English were not her native language. I find that I feel sexually attracted to her. Was it the beer? I'm young, single, oversexed and inebriated. An available, unpredictable woman with spooky blue eyes walks up to me at a college mixer in Indiana and practically grabs my cock. What I am expected to do? Sit around discussing basketball stats and Bobby Knight? She gave me a blowjob that night in her apartment. For me, that was a first-ever experience for me on a first date.
In Farhad’s room at Eigenmann, he gives me another literary experience into the writings of his favorite Persian. Farhad switches back and forth from English to Farsi quite easily. “A man shall not let himself be guided by his cock,” Farhad quotes the poet. Then, he returns to several sentences in Farsi. Such a rhythmical language.
“Just stop,” I finally say to Farhad. I look out the window and noticed that we are getting another December snowstorm. Even though we are on the twelfth floor, the wind is blowing thick flakes of snow against the window. I tell Farhad, “Katherine and I have done it.”
“What have you done?” he asks.
“Well, I thought that if I used the phrase ‘have done it,’ in your mind, you would automatically substitute the phrase ‘have fucked.’”
Farhad replies, “Yes, at first I thought that.”
“At first?” I ask him.
“I mean,” he replies, “that you could have been starting to tell me that you and her have gotten into some kind of trouble. As in ‘now, we’ve done it.’”
“I forgot how literary you are,” I reply. “I may be in some kind of trouble, however.”
“She’s pregnant,” Farhad says.
“No, but I’ve only known the mysterious Katherine Snowe since around Halloween. Not quite two months. She tells me that she was seeing a psychiatrist at the university medical center.” Farhad shook his head “no” to me and opened his eyes very wide, pretending to be surprised at what I had just told him.
“And when I asked her why she was seeing a psychiatrist,” I explain to Farhad, “She answered me without any hesitation. So, I was not really prepared for her answer.”
“She’s an escapee from a mental hospital?” Farhad asks.
“You have such a low opinion of her, Farhad,” I say to him.
“Why was she seeing a psychiatrist?” Farhad says to me. “It doesn’t really matter. Whatever the reason is, she should not tell you on the second date, right?”
“When you’re right, you’re right,” I say to him. “So, the answer Katherine gives me was—. Uh, I would have to say that the answer Katherine gives me was unexpected.”
“She’s on parole from federal prison?” Farhad asks. “She’s a convicted mass murderer?”
That makes me laugh at Farhad. “No, listen,” I say to him. “She
says to me,
‘Four days before I met you, I was going to step
off the curb deliberately in front of an oncoming bus."
Farhad laughs aloud, but then seems genuinely embarrassed at his lack of sensitivity in response to the details I have just shared with him.
“I cut my journalism history class to get warm with her,” I explained to Farhad. “It was a very cold afternoon.”
“And she had the only place in all of Bloomington where you could you’re your hands,” Farhad says.
“Well,” I reply, “I was hoping to warm my cock, not my hands. So, we’re in her small apartment. She is lying next to me under a soft, thick quilted multicolored comforter with her skillful hands strategically positioned inside my thighs. ‘Oh,’ was my brilliant response as she carefully caressed my balls as she kept talking of killing herself by stepping in front of one of those big red city busses. She said, ‘I just got through a rough break-up. My shrink told me to avoid men for at least several weeks,’ while gently stroking my cock slowly under the comforter. Her hands felt so good. ‘I was honest and told my shrink that I had met you,’ Katherine says to me. It turns out that her psychiatrist is male. 'Not a good idea,' was the male shrink's response. Katherine then tells me that she’s unhappy with her shrink, so she has stopped seeing him. The next thing I know, she’s screaming, ‘Oh, fuck him! Just fuck him!! Fuck him. And suddenly, she switches to ‘Fuck me!’ And, well, that was the exact moment that I inserted myself and shot off into her in a frenzied stupor. Like I was a prisoner who had been denied sexual intercourse for a decade until just that exquisite moment. And I know at this moment, Farhad, that you are bound and determined to start quoting that Persian poet to me again!”
“Was she speaking about you in the third person again?” Farhad asks.
“Yeah,” I replied, “I had the same exact question. That whole ‘fuck him, just fuck him’ and then again another ‘fuck him’ kind of confused me.”
Farhad asks, “She finally does say ‘fuck me,’ right? Meaning you. Not the male shrink.”
“Of course. Like you say,” I reply, not sure if I agree with him.
“But, you’re worried about personal pronouns,” he says to me. “You’ve had sex with her now on only two occasions,” Farhad says to me like I am somehow in need of being reminded.
“Is a blowjob really sex?” I ask him, trying to be sarcastic.
“Depends,” he replies. “Did you actually ejaculate into her mouth, or, somewhere else?”
“Are you serious?” I ask Farhad, unable to control my laughing at his question.
“You creamed her face,” He says to me. “I just knew it. So, to answer your question, no. That doesn’t count as sex. She had to swallow it to be legitimately considered as a sex act.”
“You get such wisdom from that fucking Persian poet?” I quickly respond.
“Definitely,” Farhad answers confidently. “But, it sounds an awful lot more impressive in the original Farsi.”
I say to Farhad, “Teach me how to say ‘swallow it’ in Farsi.”
* * * *
When I open my eyes, I am once again the hospital bed in Rhode Island in the Nineteen Nineties during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. Doctor Victoria Price is still standing near my bed.
“You started to doze off,” Doctor Price tells me.
“Had some flashes of memory. From Indiana. Like I was dreaming.”
“Tell me what you remember,” she says to me.
“Now I realize something. Katherine Snowe is quite unforgettable,” I reply to Doctor Price. “Did I ever tell you that on our first date, Katherine told me she was seeing a psychiatrist? Do you think that I should have worried about that? No, this isn’t the time for that. Listen: I give you permission to just tell me who I am. Is that allowed? I’m your patient and I give you the go-ahead, okay? No legal problems here. I’m asking you to just tell me who I am.”
Doctor Price crosses her arms in front of her chest as if I have frustrated her. But, she nods, “yes” to me. Then, she drops her arms down to her sides in more relaxed stance. She says to me very slowly, “You are Ted Avila. Your full name is Theodore Joseph Avila.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Doc,” I respond. What she has just told me does not make the slightest difference in my apparent memory loss.
“You’re known on local TV as ‘Ted Avila,’” Doctor Price explains. “Local news anchor. High ratings. High credibility. Any of this registering with you, Ted?”
“No, unfortunately,” I admit in complete honesty to her. “Sounds like he’s an interesting guy. Successful, at least. Good for him.”
“Well,” she says to me. “You’re not physically injured. No blow to the head or whatever. You do have some memory loss. Obviously. You need a psychiatrist to tell you that? But, I believe your memory loss is only temporary. There’s no reason to keep you here in this hospital overnight. I’m going to discharge you. I think you should go home and relax in familiar surroundings.”
“I cannot remember where ‘home’ is,” I admit to her.
“I’ll write the address down for you,” she says to me. “Then, just take a taxi. Best for you to be back at your own place. Not here. This isn’t even a private hospital room. You should start feeling better once you are out of this hospital and back in the comforts of your own four walls.”
* * * *
Well, Doctor Price was wrong. Once I am inside my apartment on the tenth floor of a Providence high rise, staring at the man in my own bathroom mirror, I feel just as disconnected from an identity as I had back at the hospital. My memories of being inside a top-secret lunar base especially are the source of worry for me. I easily recall some parts of US history. The very first time men visited our Moon was in Nineteen Sixty-Nine. I remember that George H. W. Bush is the president. And I am fairly certain that during his presidency there were no people living and working in a secret underground lunar base!
So, what should I do? Mental inventory! That’s where I start. Okay, whom do I remember?
In the hospital, I remember the male nurse. I also remember Doctor Price.
I remember Farhad from when I was at Indiana University. I also remember the first time that I met Katherine Snowe.
Four people. Great. I only can remember four people! This makes no sense to me. How is it possible for me to only remember a grand total of four people in my entire life?
Think. Try to remember others. There must certainly be others.
What about people from my work? Doctor Price said I worked at one of the Providence television stations. Why can’t I remember anybody from work?
And, really, this memory that I have about an underground base beneath a lunar crater, well, that’s just crazy. Isn’t it crazy? Of course it’s crazy! How can I know of a base submerged several stories deep under the lunar crust, and yet, I cannot remember anybody from work?
Somehow, even though it is crazy, I feel certain that my memory of that Moon base is real. That memory is strong. I feel as though my actual workplace is not at some Providence television station. The memory of working in a television station seems fake to me in comparison to what I remember about working in a top-secret military facility.
This is making me crazy. Something has to be blocking my memories. I feel like something has been deliberately done to my mind so that I will not remember certain things. Have I been hypnotized?
I walk from the bathroom to the adjacent master bedroom. The room has been designed by someone with a crazed penchant for the African safari motif. There are jungle colors and jungle animals everywhere. And I don’t have to look very far within this bedroom to find several artistic statues of African tribal gods or whatever those skinny figures are supposed to be. This is not the kind of design that I would choose for my bedroom! In fact, I find this jungle theme offensive.
The king-size bed looks very odd and distracts me from the lions and elephants on the wall. Nobody has touched that bed for a while by the looks of it. Does anybody actually sleep here? The jungle-theme bedding and pillows are all perfectly situated as though housekeeping staff from a five-star hotel had just made up the room.
When I sit down on the edge of the large bed, it does not feel familiar like my own bed should feel. It feels to me as though I have walked into this jungle-themed bedroom for the very first time.
I am supposed to accept in my mind that this master bedroom is in my home. I am supposed to believe that I live here in this unfamiliar place with a woman named Katherine Snowe, whom Doctor Price said was my wife.
I must talk with Doctor Price. She is my best hope to regain my memories. I know that now. But, how do I reach her? It must be after midnight now.
I remember what she told me in the hospital: They were surprised that I just walked in the front door and handed the receptionist her business card. When I stand up and check through the pockets of my trousers, I finally find Doctor Price’s business card. Now I have her phone number!
When I dial Doctor Price’s phone number from the telephone on the nightstand next to the large bed, all I get is an answering service. They want me to call back in the morning. That’s the best that the answering service can offer me tonight?
So, I stretch out in the middle of the king-size bed, planning to rest for just a few minutes. It’s been a frustrating day and I feel exhausted physically and emotionally as I close my eyes.
* * * *
When I open my eyes, I have no idea whether I have gotten any sleep. I feel exhausted. I know for certain that I am no longer lying on the large jungle-themed bed. I am seated in a chair. As I quickly look around my new surroundings, I immediately realize that I am seated in a Providence, Rhode Island bistro that is both familiar and comfortable to me. My mind tells me something that I know is impossible: I have gone back in time and I am reliving a past experience.
Directly across a small round table from me that is covered with a red and white-checkered tablecloth is a woman that does not look familiar to me. Then, I realize who she is. This woman is Katherine Snowe.
My psychiatrist diagnosed me as having temporary amnesia. As such, I needed Doctor Price’s help to remember that I married Katherine Snowe. With Doctor Price’s guidance, I was able to remember meeting Katherine Snowe in Bloomington, Indiana when I was 26 and she was 23.
The woman seated across from me inside this bistro looks like she is 40. I feel stunned to discover that this version of Katherine Snowe certainly looks nothing like the young woman that I met in Indiana. Can they be the same person?
I would never let this version of Katherine Snowe give me a blowjob. This is the very first thought I get in my bewildered mind. I worry that my mind is shattering slowly, one piece at a time. Soon, my identity will have faded away and I will be nobody.
This older, unappealing Katherine Snowe turns me off because of how obese she is compared to the younger woman that I married. This Katherine Snowe has gained at least a hundred pounds since I met the younger edition in Indiana. I wonder how many men will say the exact same thing about weight gain in their wives?
Katherine Snowe is wearing a black men’s football jersey bearing a gigantic number “81” on the front, but no identification of any team. This clothing choice is curious and seems inappropriate for an adult woman—a Brown University professor. Why would a female who is a grownup wear a men’s football jersey? It hangs on her because it is oversized. Maybe there is some significance that she finds in wearing that gigantic number on her chest? Is it an abbreviation for the year Nineteen Eighty-One? What could have happened to her in Nineteen Eighty-One that she finds so important to display that year on her chest by wearing a men’s football jersey? I was with her in Nineteen Eight-One and I do not remember anything significant happening. But, then again, I have suffered memory loss.
Katherine Snowe also wears blue denim jeans that emphasize how large her thighs and buttocks are. On her feet are wooden beach shoes with open toes revealing that she does not buy into the aesthetic value of pedicures or toenail polish. I am certain that Katherine Snowe will never be mistaken for a fashion statement.
I find it difficult to believe that any man would find this woman sexually attractive. How in the world did I allow myself to get married to her? Apparently, I was so immature and foolish when I was in my twenties. Or was I just simply blind?
Ultimately, the woman that I find so completely unattractive speaks directly to me. She leans across the small table and gets very close to my face before she says in an unnecessarily loud voice, “Do you think you could buy me a drink? Is anyone actually waiting on our table tonight? I need a real drink. With lots of rum in it.”
I can only say, “This all seems so unreal.” I am so upset that I honestly, I am ready to vomit.
“How do you distinguish between what’s real and what’s not, Teddy?” the ugly woman asks me. “What do you do for a living?”
I am not sure how to answer her, so I remain silent.
She persists: “You heard me,” she bellows loudly. “What do you do for a living? Television. You’re on television. How real is being on television?”
These first few moments reconnecting with my wife have convinced me that there was something very seriously wrong with me for having gotten involved with her back when we were in Indiana. One blowjob and I throw away my entire life? Is this the direction I want for my life?
“We’ve been coming here to this bistro for years,” Katherine says to me. “I don’t really know why you like this place. Because it’s so near to your television studio? To me, this bistro is way too predictable. Repeating itself over and over and over and over again. With us stuck inside. Get it, Ted? All we have left in our relationship is eating and drinking, don’t you realize that?” she asks. “Eating and drinking. I must admit, though, at least the Italian food here is always delicious.”
“Always try to find the bright spot in life,” I tell her. I’m having déjà vu. I seem to remember that she previously complained about this bistro using those exact words. Is this how my memory breaking through will work? Am I really back in time to the evening when she and I were together at this bistro?
As always, Katherine is oblivious to what I have just said to her. “You’re behaving like you’re somewhere else, Ted. Far away from here.”
“Doctor Price told me I’ve suffered some kind of trauma,” I tell her.
“Doctor Price is a fraud,” she says. “I told you that you do not need to go to any psychiatrist, Ted.” Katherine drinks deeply from her glass of red wine. Her face rapidly is becoming the same color as the wine. “I’m tired, Ted. Really tired,” Katherine tells me after a brief pause to catch her breath.
This is not a mere memory breaking through. I seem actually to have gone back in time. Katherine Snowe. I remember that I had this exact conversation on our final night together in this bistro.
Katherine says, “I’m tired of acting. I’m tired of pretending to be some other person.”
The waitress, carrying a plate with food, comes to our table and places our order in front of us.
“Thank you very much,” I reply to the waitress.
“Don’t thank me, you sarcastic son of a bitch,” Katherine replies. “I’m pouring my heart out to you and all you want to do is make your usual jokes.”
The waitress walks away with a frustrated look on her face.
“I was thanking the waitress,” I tell Katherine. “Didn’t you see her?”
Katherine disregards what I asked her and instead says, “Maybe I should go away. You know what, Ted? You’re cruel to mess with me like you’re doing here tonight. I’m trying to tell you that I want to be myself and not pretend to be someone else. I am only one person. I can only be one person.”
“No multiple personalities tonight?” I ask sarcastically.
“I will not let you push me away,” Katherine adds. Then, she quickly says, “You think that you can always use humor to save yourself. Well, not tonight. I don’t find this humorous at all. I’m telling you this tonight because I am going to change who I am. Whether you like it or not. I have made my decision.”
This is the fateful night that Katherine Snowe and I spent our last dinner together in this bistro. I accept that I have gone back in time to the worst single event of my life. Maybe if I pay more attention to my wine glass than to my wife, I will feel better?
“And staring at your wine glass is not going to provide you with an answer,” Katherine says. “What’s wrong with you? You haven’t even touched your chicken Parmesan.”
I can see that the plate in front of me contains an order of breaded chicken that has been topped with Parmesan cheese and then smothered in deep red marinara sauce. I use my fork to prod the chicken because I have lost my appetite.
“Everything’s okay,” I reply.
“You can’t even be honest with me about food,” Katherine says angrily. “You say everything’s okay. It’s not okay. I need to tell you, Ted, that I haven’t been honest with you about our relationship.”
“You’re fucking some long-haired kid from your British Public Address class?” I ask her. “After class one afternoon, he comes up to you and asked you a question. About David Lloyd George and how he saved the empire during the Boer War in South Africa. So, of course, you got all excited over some American guy with long hair who somehow has read about South Africa and also understands the truth about Lloyd George, so you fucked him right there on the floor of the lecture hall.”
“Not exactly, Teddy,” she says. “But, it’s a good anecdote. Historically accurate. You tell a good story. I’ll give you that.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” I ask her.
“I chose to deceive you. Deliberately,” she says. “Because it was part of my act. I have believed for many years—since we first met—that you could not handle the truth about me. So, instead, I pretended to be happy. For you. For the sake of what I thought you wanted in our marriage.”
This is not a surprise to me. I sigh in frustration because I know every word that Katherine is going to speak before she does.
“You’ve never done too well,” she tells me, “with me being depressed all the time. It’s a disorder. You know that. My shrink prescribed Prozac for me. You haven’t done well with me being on Prozac all the time, either. You’ve told me several times that Prozac makes me drink more and you think it makes me suicidal. But, you’re wrong about all this. I know that you’re wrong.”
“What do you want me to say?” I ask her. “I wish you would just stop calling this ‘a disorder’ like you always do.”
She sticks out the middle finger of her right hand very near my face and says to me, “I want our marriage to be a safe haven for me. Yes, a safe haven. That’s what I said. A place where I can be myself, where I can be depressed if I want to. And I want you, as my husband, to accept me because you are my husband. You must take care of me. Our vows said so.”
“Yeah,” I reply to her, “Well maybe there’s an escape clause in there that we weren’t told about at the altar on that day. Or, you know what? That priest who presided over our marriage was drunk at the church that day. Maybe his impaired condition means that our marriage isn’t legitimate. I think I’ve read about a Roman Catholic Church law about mental intent that has been compromised by ill will or chemicals. Something like that.”
Katherine asks me, “So, you think we’re ready to end our relationship?”
I feel helpless. Trapped. I have no choice but to answer Katherine. So, I respond by saying, “Sure. Let’s just call the whole thing off.”
Katherine pushes her chair back from the table in anger and frustration. “Take me home, Ted,” she demands. “Or, I swear to you I’ll drive your car. You know I have a spare key. Even though I’m drunk, I’m gonna get behind the wheel of your car! Your life will never be the same.” She gets up quickly from the table and walks toward the front entrance of the bistro. When I get up in the obligatory role of the deferential husband who must go rescue his drunk wife, I see my reflection in one of the mirrors covering the west wall of the bistro. Who is that guy looking back at me in the reflection? He is apparently in his late twenties or early thirties. His dark eyes seem honest. His smile seems genuine. But, who is he? He hasn’t shaved in a few days and his curly light brown hair is a mess.
* * * *
I wake up reclining on top of the large bed in the tenth floor apartment that Doctor Price said was my residence. My memories now include my talking with Doctor Price the morning after that final dinner I had with Katherine in the Providence bistro.
“I’m afraid,” I remember telling Doctor Price as I sat across from her in her office as bright but opaque sunlight poured in through her large tinted windows. “I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing. Having Katherine committed. But, what were my choices?”
Doctor Price nodded and said to me, “You did the right thing, Ted. I know how difficult this must be for you.”
“At the bistro, she threatened to use her spare key and take my car,” I explained to Doctor Price. “She had taken a taxi from Brown to meet me for dinner. Katherine was so drunk. More than usual. She would’ve killed herself behind the wheel if she drove my car. Maybe killed others, too. I feel like I did the right thing.” I could not keep talking with crying.
“The loss feels so strong,” I told Doctor Price. “My marriage is over. I drove us home. She started throwing up in my car from all she had to drink. Managed to get her inside our apartment. Dragged her into the elevator, where she threw up again. Once she was in our master bathroom, she threw up again. I could not stand there and watch her throwing up. It was making me sick to watch over her. So, I left her alone in the master bathroom and went to use our guest bathroom. I heard a muffled thumping sound. I knew she had fallen. I rushed back to her and I saw the aftermath. She had slipped in her vomit. She smashed her fucking face into the side of the toilet bowl. Everyone would think that I hit her! That was my very first reaction. How selfish is that?”
As I remain reclined on my back with my eyes wide open on that king size bed, I start to realize what may have happened: If I consider myself to be a logical person, I have to conclude that I suffered some kind of delayed emotional trauma the following day after I made the difficult decision to have Katherine committed in the Connecticut mental hospital. This must be what military veterans know as post traumatic stress disorder.
God, I don’t want to lose my sanity because I married that woman. I believe now that she’s just not worth the emotional pain that I am experiencing. I’m sure that no marriage is worth it if one of the people loses their sanity because of the relationship.
If I have PTSD and memory loss, how do I explain having partial memories of living and working in the future? How do I know while living today in the Nineteen Eighties that Barack Obama will be the first African American president starting in the year Twenty Oh-Nine? How do I have memories of working in an underground Moon base? How can I be aware of a future that has not yet happened unless I have somehow traveled in time to this day in the Nineteen Nineties?
To amuse myself, I choose a nickname, “Science Fiction Ted.” Better yet, that needs to be “Sci-Fi Teddy.” I hate if anyone calls me Teddy. That sounds immature—a boy’s name. Not what a man would call himself. I cannot imagine any man would nickname himself “Sci-Fi Teddy” so what the fuck.
I wonder if anybody from that lunar base will be out looking for me here in the Nineteen Nineties? I must certainly have some kind of locator surgically attached to the inside of my body so I could be tracked over the centuries in my time travel missions.
* * * *
The Moon base is real! I knew it. I am lying on a flat, leathery surface covered by a shiny silvery sheet that drapes over my naked body. I’m on some kind of bed in what seems to be a high technology medical facility. Computerized panels and blinking lights are everywhere. There are familiar beeps and tones playing from somewhere deep inside the panels on the walls. I know where I am. I know I am back at the lunar base. I can feel the lunar gravity. I know where I am. Someone who has lived on Earth and lived on our Moon knows how the two very different gravities feel. It’s unmistakable. Your body just never forgets living in both of those two gravities.
* * * *
“Dump her,” Farhad says to me over our second pitcher of frosty cold beer in the little bar across the street from Eigenmann Hall in Bloomington, Indiana. He looks me directly in the eyes and restates his declaration: “Just dump her.”
I shift my weight on the uncomfortable wooden bench at the picnic-style wooden table in the Bloomington bar. Farhad has made me feel uncomfortable. The bench adds to my discomfort. The bench makes a creaking sound as I try to find a satisfying way to sit there. Farhad just stares at me in silence for at least two full minutes.
“You know you’re only using her,” he finally says to me after he gulped down his entire mug of golden beer. He then leans across the wooden picnic table towards my face and lets loose an extended burp at me.
“Nice,” I say to Farhad. “Real nice.”
“Only using her,” he repeats as though I am hearing impaired. He pours himself another fresh mug of beer. “Just need someone to shoot your load into.”
I look around the bar at the handful of other customers, who seem to have taken no notice Farhad and me. I say to him, “Maybe you should repeat that a little louder. I don’t think those guys over there by the juke box heard you clearly.”
“You know I’m right,” Farhad says as he sips his beer and stares at me, waiting for my reply.
“Not this whole ‘I know you’re gay’ thing again, Farhad,” I tell him.
He smiles at me and then he finishes his beer very quickly. “You got it,” he says to me. His eyes are now very glassy. I will have to help him walk across the street back to Eigenmann Hall like I have done so many times.
“You Persian men come across as such experts,” I say to him. “You know who’s gay and who’s not. Is that it?”
“I know you’re gay,” Farhad says to me.
“You want me to be,” I reply quickly. “Because you are.”
“I know you’re gay because I am,” Farhad corrects me. “I really don’t want you for sex. I know that you don’t really like that woman. You’re just using her.”
“I don’t really like her,” I hear myself say to Farhad. I feel relieved to have heard him tell me that he did not want me for sex. So, I chose to be honest with him. “Yeah, she’s fucked up. Crazy. And don’t get into that ‘just shoot my load into her’ again. I think that just cheapens the relationship I have with her.”
“Cheapens,” Farhad repeats back to me. More of a question than a statement.
“Yeah, okay,” I admit. “It’s already pretty cheap. Vacant. Empty. We just have sex in common. Nothing else. How could it get any cheaper? I know that.”
“Admit it,” Farhad says to me.
“What?” I ask him. “What, specifically?”
“You’re not sexually attracted to her,” Farhad says with unusual clarity for someone so drunk.
“Guess you’re probably right,” I admit. Then, I swallow the entire contents of my beer mug and reach quickly for the pitcher that is waiting there in front of me to comfort me in my time of need.
* * * *
I am behind the wheel driving a brand new Ford Explorer on a two-lane desert highway in Arizona. I am clever. I know where I am. And, I don’t mean clever about Arizona. I discover what year I am in by looking in the glove compartment and reading the cover of the 1991 operator’s manual. I see the odometer reading is just over five thousand miles. This is a brand new vehicle that I am driving. But, I do not remember buying this 4x4 truck.
I look behind where I am sitting in the driver’s seat. The cargo area has been adjusted so that seats are folded down beneath the floor to create a large, flat space that is filled with cardboard boxes of various sizes. Packing tape, hurriedly affixed, holds the boxes more or less shut. I recognize my block printing in a blue marker pen on boxes promising that the contents are shoes, gym clothing, books, videotapes, and so forth—all the worldly possessions a guy needs when he is running away home.
I want to feel the dry, hot desert wind hitting me in the face as I drive, so I push a button and the driver’s side window retracts all the way down. This provides me with a more authentic experience compared to hiding all day behind the wheel inside the truck’s air-conditioned cabin.
Above me I can see a vast, cloudless bright blue Arizona sky was interrupted only by a large California condor who sails silently in the wind. His huge, eight-foot wingspan with white stripes underneath play with the breeze relentlessly flowing over the dessert surface. This vulture's head is pink with no feathers, but his small, scary eyes commanded my attention. He looks angry as the soothing and peaceful wind sound around and under him has been so rudely interrupted by the sound of my approaching 4x4.
The flying scavenger navigates the skies above a lonely, dusty two-lane highway that snaked its way through terribly dry territory where there are more Joshua Trees than practically any other living thing. The stately cactus plants share the landscape with scrub brush and an occasional outcropping of rounded rocks. But, this also is a terribly uninviting environment. The sun is making its regular arc towards the western horizon, but continues to bake the dust and dirt that cover my truck that looks dirty from having been on the road for several days in a row. The condor sweeps over my truck, and me and then he flies over a sign on the side of the highway that identifies this lonely stretch of road as “Joshua Tree Highway.”
When I look in my rearview mirror, I wonder who is that guy looking back at me in the reflection. He is apparently in his late twenties or early thirties. His dark eyes seem honest. His smile seems genuine. But, who was he? He hasn’t shaved in a few days and his curly light brown hair is a mess.
Highway 93 crosses the desert providing a back roads alternative to drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas. This is one very hot summer afternoon. But, when is any summer afternoon in the Arizona desert anything other than very hot?
Because I was born here in Arizona, I have enjoyed making this off-the-beaten-path drive so many times in my life. The terrain looks very familiar to me, but the two-lane highway seems more primitive and undeveloped than the way I remember it.
“That’s because you drove on this highway in your teenage years.” The voice is my own. But, when I turn my head to look at the passenger who is suddenly seated next to me in my 1991 Ford Explorer, I am shocked. His face is the very same that I have seen in mirrors. He apparently is in his late twenties or early thirties. His dark eyes seem honest. His smile seems genuine. But, who was he? He hasn’t shaved in a few days and his curly light brown hair is a mess. He’s wearing trousers and a long sleeved shirt that both are made of the same silvery-blue material. He also has on thick black boots like you might expect the storm troopers from Star Wars to be wearing. “And,” he continues, “Your teenage years were in the Seventies—to be precise, the Twenty-One Seventies. You look at little shocked right now, dude. I should introduce myself. I am Sci-Fi Teddy.”
Okay, so I have to accept he is me. What choice do I have? “Highway 93 looks different because I drove here hundreds of years in the future,” I say to Sci-Fi Teddy.
“You got it, baby,” he replies. “Those scrambled brains of yours still work. Well, sort of.”
“How is this happening?” I ask him.
“Fuck if I know,” Sci-Fi Teddy responds. “What’s important is: You’re free, Ted. You’ve set yourself free. Now you can live out your cowboy fantasies here in a time long ago.”
“This is a hallucination I’m having behind the wheel. Been driving too long. All the way here to Arizona from New England,” I say to Sci-Fi Teddy. “I’m worn out. In shock from having committed my wife. I should get off the road and sleep for several days straight.”
He simply smiles at me from the passenger seat like he knows something that I do not.
“How did I get here?” I ask Sci-Fi Teddy.
“You get all metaphysical when you’re tired, Ted. You know that, right?” he says to me.
“I mean, how does time travel work?” I clarify for Sci-Fi Teddy. “There obviously is some sort of time machine that has sent me back here to this time period. And, when I see myself in a reflect, I always look as though I do not age.”
Sci-Fi Teddy puts his left hand on my right shoulder reassuringly. “I don’t really understand all the science or technology, okay? It’s just my job. Like the song says.”
“I’m a rocket man,” I quote the lyrics to him.
“There you go,” Sci-Fi Teddy says. “Except you’re not, actually. You travel in time. You don’t use any rockets.”
“Is the time machine deep beneath a lunar crater?” I ask him.
“That’s classified,” he replied. “You know all this.”
“I’m lost,” I admit to him.
Sci-Fi Teddy opens up the glove compartment of my 4x4 and says, “Maybe I can find us a map in here. What do you think, Ted?”
“Just fuck yourself!” I shout at him.
Sci-Fi Teddy smiles and replies, “Yes, there’s a fresh idea, man. If I fuck you, I’m actually fucking myself. It’s every gay man’s dream.”
I pound the steering wheel a couple of times in anger.
“Maybe we really should stop and get off the road and have sex with each other,” Sci-Fi Teddy suggests. “You’re behaving like you haven’t fucked anyone for quite some time.”
“Marriage,” I explain to him. “A real unfulfilling experience. Especially difficult on a gay man who persists in pretending that he’s straight.”
“In the future,” he assures me, “This won’t be a problem for you.”
“A time when I shall live beneath the Moon?” I ask him.
“You’ll find lots of men there, Ted,” Sci-Fi Teddy promises me. “Lunar cowboys just like you are.”
“So, I’m right. I never age because of time travel?” I ask him. “I will always look the same.”
“That’s classified, too, Ted,” he says to me. “Besides, this works in your favor. Trust me. You always are going to be sexually appealing.”
“Lost,” I repeat to Sci-Fi Teddy. “Out of synch. I don’t belong here.”
He shakes his head and suggests, “Reset your internal clock, Ted.”
“How can I do that?” I ask him.
Sci-Fi Teddy pulls back the left sleeve of his shirt and shows me a
high-tech device that he is wearing on his left wrist. I could see a
spherical triangle face on the device where numerals are appearing
and disappearing and then reappearing again. This device does not
belong here in Nineteen Ninety-One. Sci-Fi Teddy reaches over and
touches the wrist device lightly with his right index finger. “Oh,
look what just happened,” he said to me with a sarcastic smile, “We
were in Mountain Standard Time, but we’ve just crossed over into
Lost Cowboy Moon Time.”
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-34 show above.)