To say the least, my son Spencer was surprised to find himself back in 1976. My first trip back through time had been a shock. Countless wishes had been made on that birthday candle over the years, but it took until 2004 for someone to make the right wish. On my 50th birthday, I wished that I could have done things differently. Suddenly, I found I'd gone back from Saturday, June 12, 2004 to Saturday, June 12, 1976. Why 28 years? I had no idea. Could I get back to my present? I'd had no desire to.
It had been like "Peggy Sue Got Married", except I recall that Kathleen Turner missed her child. I was glad to be rid of that headache. When I had first reached 50, I'd developed diabetes and emphysema. Spencer had grown up to be a perfect asshole, pardon me, heir to a large fortune and determined to control my life. He had often reminded me that he was my sole source of income, and that he could stop that if he so chose. Then I found myself back in '76, at the age of 22. I was in perfect health, surrounded by my mom and dad, my brother and sister. My parents, long gone by 2004, were with me again. Spencer was once more a good kid, not an arrogant jerk.
While 1976 was an adjustment, I loved it. Nobody had ever heard of the Internet here, and if someone talked about having your own computer, they were referring to a little calculator. I laughed out loud when we got a phone call from Mom's friend, Dot Comstock, and I couldn't explain to her what I thought was funny about her name. The world wide web? I heard someone use that phrase when talking about how the Soviets were going to take over the world. People worried about the Soviets, and the killer bees that would be here in ten more years.
Nobody had a cell phone, but there were pay phones everywhere, and Dad's CB radio was the 1976 equivalent. About the only thing I missed was diet cola. I had forgotten how truly horrible Tab had been! For that reason, I didn't miss free refills or supersized drinks.
I spent my next 28 years differently on the second go round. I had the advantage of knowing a bit about what the future held in store. It wasn't useful at first-- I was wrong about the Yankees winning the '76 World Series, for instance. But I had the ultimate in insider information when it came to investing, and I was there for the IPO's for stock in places like Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Microsoft, and other places I knew would be thriving in A.D. 2004.
Along the way, I tried not to disturb the future too much. Things like that can drive you crazy, and I rationalized it away. I know there was a chance I could have prevented Oklahoma City or Columbine, or even 9/11, but I didn't try. Before you say what you would have done, I'll relate my own experience with rewriting history.
The only thing I undid was the death of my brother Pete. On that rainy afternoon in 1991, when he was wanting to drive to Omaha for a concert, I made sure to go with him. We left early, and heard the next day about the pileup on I-80. He was unaware of that he had cheated death. That single act had its consequences, however. In the original accident, a middle-aged woman was the other fatality. This time, there were still two deaths-- the woman, and an 18 year old girl riding in a small car with her friends. Another kid in the car ended up a paraplegic. By undoing my family's misery, I caused someone else to die, just as if I had murdered her. Another person was crippled for life. There was no way around it. It was my fault. The evening of September 10, 2001, I chose to get extremely drunk.
When I got back to June 12, 2004, I was a different person-- older and wiser. If Spencer hadn't been there the first time around, nobody would have known the difference, but who blows out a birthday cake candle when they're by themselves? When that day came back around, Spencer had his memory of how 2004 had been-- I couldn't change that. I wasn't surprised that he would demand an explanation, though I had hoped he wouldn't want to go through this himself. But he's a greedy S.O.B. (yes, I realize, he's MY son), and when he wanted to kill a dog, I figured it would serve him right if he ended up as a baby in '76.
This is my third time here, and it's the best of both worlds-- I've lived for 78 years, and I've got the body of a 22 year old woman. Going from 2004 to the bicentennial year was more of a shock for Spencer, since he was no longer an adult.
Poor little Spencer found himself not just in a different era, but in a much different place in the world. I'd gone from middle age to college age, but I was still an adult-- and since the drinking age here was still 18, I could party. But Spencer went from a much feared and hated community leader to a child-- and a very small child at that. The few people who were aware of his existence here didn't know or care about the name Spencer Transom. If he was referred to at all, it was in passing, as in Mike Wheeler's grandson, or Betty's little boy. Even around the house, they disagreed on his name-- "Baby Spencer" to some, or "Mikey". Dad waged an unsuccessful campaign to have people call them "Big Mike" and "Little Mike". Here he was in a world where he had no control over anything he did. Fitting.
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"Iwahngobat!!" he said for the tenth time that day, crying. He had alternated between whining and napping all evening.
"He keep saying that," said my mother, who was holding "fussy" little Spencer, and she added, "sounds like he wants a coldpak."
"A what?"
"A coldpack, Betty. You know, one of those blue chemical thingies that we put in the ice chest on trips. It's in the freezer."
"I can't believe people ever used those," I said. "Can I borrow the keys? Maybe if I take the baby for a drive, he'll settle down."
"NO! NO!" Spencer shouted. Maybe he thought I was going to leave him somewhere. No matter. "Spencer, you have to come with Mommy whether you like it or not," I said, pulling him away from my mother. I buckled him into the backseat of Dad's station wagon, and put him in his little tennis shoes, and a sun hat. "They don't have a carseat law here. Not yet anyway. I have some things to discuss with you, and this house isn't very private." He moaned. He knew he was going to get another parental lecture, and today's topic was about the balance of power in 1976.
"Until you can act a little bit nicer, you're not going to wear much more than diapers. I'm your Mommy, and I can dress you as much, or as little, as I want to. It makes you a lot easier to change, anyway." He started to talk, and I cut him off. "Lucky for you, when it gets to be October, you'll need more than a diaper when we go out of the house."
The look on his face was perfect. He was coming to terms with the idea that I could keep him here as long as I wanted to. "You could wish yourself back to 2004, but your next birthday won't be for... oh, let's see, ten more months. And even then, I may just keep you at two years old," I said, twisting the knife. I got in the car and drove us to town, where the playground was. He was sobbing while I kept my eyes on the road.
----
Spencer didn't want to play, of course. He was shifting the gears on the stages of grief-- anger, denial, despair. He was still in disbelief, and who wouldn't be? Though he had memories of being 29, they were jammed into a smaller brain-- one he was sharing with a one year old. He couldn't think as quickly as he once had, and snappy comebacks were a skill he had lost. It was fun watching him ponder a situation, looking like a baby trying to figure out a busy box.
"Whacanadutegebbak?" he finally asked from the sandbox. When he voiced a sentence, he jumbled all the words together. Since he was a baby, nobody expected anything intelligible, but he was asking what he could do to "get back"-- to 2004, of course. "Get over it, Spencer! You know as well as I do that the moment you get back to 2004, you're going to want to murder me."
"Bydowabeebabee!!!" he said, crying. I wasn't sure I understood that one. Spencer had-- would have-- speech therapy when he started first grade. I knew that eventually he would be able to tell the world what the future held, and that before that, he was going to be difficult. He would have to go back eventually. For now, however, he was getting what he deserved.
"Here in 1976, I'm sure you want to kill me. But what can you do? You don't weigh more than 25 pounds, and I'm twice your height." I picked him out of the sandbox and set him on a park bench. I knelt down and held his little hands. "But you know what the worst part of this is for you, Spencer?"
He wiped his eyes and braced himself.
"It's that both you and I know what's going to happen over the next 28 years-- what the great investments will be, who wins the Super Bowl, stuff like that..."
He nodded, waiting for me to finish.
"And you're too young to take advantage of that knowledge. You're going to be a child for the next seventeen years. Me? I'm a grown woman. I'll be wheeling and dealing while you're waiting for someone to change your diapers."
"WAAAAHHHH!!!" He screamed so loud that other mommies were beginning to notice us. I picked him up and made a great show of comforting him, with plenty of "there there" and such. Oh, he's going to kill me when he gets back to 2004, I thought.
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He fell asleep on the way home, and stayed asleep when I carried him in the house. I removed his little shoes and set him down in the crib. Some of it was my imagination, but when he was awake, he had that look in his eyes that reminded me that he was an adult. Asleep, however, he looked like any other baby might. His thumb was in his mouth, as the baby took over for awhile. I went to the living room where the family was watching TV.
It's a modern myth that, before cable, the average family gathered together to watch TV. Even back then, when there were only three channels (and educational TV), we only got together on a few shows. Saturday night usually started with Emergency! on Channel 23, then someone would spin the UHF dial to Channel 34 for Mary Tyler Moore. Pete was the youngest, so he was the "remote". He had the added job of adjusting the antenna box that controlled what happened on the roof. I was exhausted, so I fell asleep during Mary. It wasn't like jet lag, because you didn't cross time zones in time travel. If I left at noon in 2004, it was noon in 1976. But time travel is tiring in its own way, and I ended up asleep anyway. I had such bad dreams that when I woke up, I resolved I would send Spencer back to 1976. I stumbled in the dark from the living room to my room.
"Wake up honey. Mommy is going to return you to 2004," I said, picking him from the crib. He was still groggy, and I went ahead and changed him. He leaned on my shoulder as I carried him into the kitchen and set him in the high chair. It took awhile to find that candle, and put it on what was left of the birthday cake. I finally located a match and lit the candle, which softly illuminated the kitchen.
"Spencer, I hope this experience as a baby has taught you a lesson. If it looks like you're going to be trouble, then I'm going to use that candle again on my 49th birthday in 2003. And you'll go back to June 1975, when you were only two months old. Do you understand?" He nodded. "Huwwyupp!" he complained.
"See? You're doing it again. What if I just made the wish that we go back to 2004 like this? Hmmm?" He looked confused, and I explained some more. "How would you like to get home to 2004, and you're still a 14 month old baby? Twenty-two year old Mommy wouldn't mind. She would put you in daycare while she operated Transom Industrial, hmmm? Would you like that?" He shook his head "no" and I lit the candle.
"I wish for Spencer to return to 2004," I said. He looked to me to finish, and I added, "As a 29 year old man, of course." I blew out the candle. "I'll see you in 28 years," I said, staring off into the distance.
"Iddiwuk!!" I heard a little voice cry from the darkness. "Spencer?" I asked, turning toward him. "Iddiwukk!!!" he said, in distress. I got up and turned on the kitchen light. Tears were rolling down his face. "You're STILL here?!" I asked. He nodded, sobbing. "Don't panic!" I said, even as I panicked. "Let's try it again." I lit the candle, made the wish, blew out the candle, turned to Spencer-- he was shaking his head.
"Maybe you can't go back unless I go with you. I wish for Spencer and me to go back to 2004 together." Spencer paused his crying, and watched me extinguish the flame. Then he started crying again. "Oh no!!!" he whined. He was pointing a chubby finger at the kitchen clock. It was quarter to one. As he let out his most mournful wail yet, I realized why the wish wasn't working. It was Sunday, June 13. Since it was no longer the 12th, it was no longer my birthday, and I couldn't work a wish for another year. Oh, this was NOT what I had bargained for.
"Don't worry, honey," I said, trying to console him. "I'm sure we'll figure something out. Please don't cry, ok?" This was going to be a lousy experience for both of us. A regular baby, I could handle-- I had raised him twice. But this was a baby with an attitude. I had been bluffing when I threatened to keep him here. Now, it looked as if I was stuck with him.