When I awoke on Sunday morning, I was thinking about last night. Mom had finally agreed to send me back to 2004, but waited too long to make the wish. I'd cried to sleep thinking about it. Mom held me while she sat in a rocking chair, patting my back and letting the swaying motion calm me. Obviously it had worked, because I'd ended up in "my" crib.
It was bad enough revisiting my babyhood. Now, thanks to my mother, I was here indefinitely. If I had to relive a day in my life, why couldn't it have been college? Or my teenage days? I wouldn't even have minded ending up as a little kid in the 80s.
But a baby? That was a time best forgotten, and now I was living it. Not being allowed to touch anything, drinking sour milk through a rubber nipple, and wearing diapers that stayed wet most of the time. Like now-- everything in the crib was drenched. I had a 29 year old mind, but a one year old bladder. I looked around. It was 9:30, and Mom was asleep. Typical. With that quality of care, I probably stayed wet a lot at this age.
I needed to get this disgusting thing off of me. Luckily, even in 1976, disposable diapers were fastened with tapes, and these were easy to remove. I would have had a hard time with a safety pin. I struggled with my shirt, then decided to keep it. Now I needed to climb out of this crib. Working the latch was fruitless, so I climbed over the rail, lowered myself to the mattress from the outside, then dropped. I could forget about opening the dresser drawer to get some clothes, but I figured that there were pants in the laundry room. I went out in the hall, half naked, but at least I wasn't dressed like a baby-- until Grandma appeared.
"Oh for goodness sake!" she said, laughing, and she carried me back to the bedroom. I had been out of diapers for less than five minutes, and in moments, I was in them again. Grandma handed me some plastic keys and a pacifier while she redressed me, this time in a one piece outfit, kind of like a leotard. "You won't be able to pull of your diaper now," she said, setting me down, "so run along to the kitchen. Grandma will fix you some breakfast." She removed the wet sheets from the crib instead of waking my mother. Better for me if Mom stayed asleep.
In the kitchen, I looked for the candle where it had been before, but someone had moved the cake from the table. I didn't have to look far, for there was Pete, finishing off the last of it, and licking the icing off the candle. That 13 year old fool! He had power over time and he was slobbering on it. "Sorry, Spencer. No more cake," he said, laughing. He shot a wadded napkin, basketball style, into the trashcan across the room, and he was about to do the same with the candle. "NonoPete!!" I yelled and grabbed his arm. "Huh? It's just a wax candle!" he said, holding it up away from me. I feigned crying, and with a look of disgust, he handed it to me. "Aw, here's your dumb old candle." It was mine, finally. If I could find a way to....
"Spencer! What do you have there?" It was Grandma, prying my fingers loose. "This is not a lollipop Spencer. You could get choked on this!" she said, taking from me the most powerful item in the universe. She went to the sink, and for a moment, I was afraid it was going to the garbage disposal. Instead, she rinsed it off. "This is our special candle for birthdays," she said.
"Burfday." I responded. I knew that no matter how inarticulate I was, I needed to master talking. "Your birthday is a long, long way off," she said, rubbing salt in my wounds. "Hey Momma," Pete inquired, "Whose birthday is next?" I could use this information. "Hmmm. Emily's going to be 16 in September."
September? Crap! Grandma opened a drawer that I could reach. The candle would be easy to get, at least. But she pulled out the box that held these things-- at least the rest of them weren't red white and blue-- and then moved everything up to a cabinet above the sink, a place I couldn't reach even if I climbed on the counter. I shouldn't have been so obvious about wanting that thing.
When Mom got up, I was hoping she would work with me on plans to return to 2004. No such luck. "Spencer, stop following me around everywhere!" she groused. It was clear that she was becoming irritated with me, but I spotted her weakness. I was her responsibility, and she couldn't walk away from me easily. As the day progressed, I could see that basic baby care was getting to her.
It's not that I had to work at irritating her. She had to deal with me, and with a baby as well. I'll explain it the way I learned it. When I went from 2004 to 1976, my 2004 mind ended up in my 1976 body--- but there was no swap, and the mind I had in '76 didn't travel to the future (thank heaven!)-- nor did baby Spencer suddenly stop thinking in 1976.
Instead, my adult mind was sharing the available space. I've heard that we use only 10 percent of our brains anyway-- it's one of those things that "they" say and nobody knows where that statistic came from-- but there was room. I had the experience and the intelligence of a 29 year old, and my own plans. However, the baby had its own agenda, including the immediate realization of basic human needs. For instance, when I detected hunger, I found myself whining or even crying. And what is referred to by psychologists as the "need for elimination" was satisfied as soon as it became apparent, meaning that if baby Spencer had to use the bathroom, he went immediately, no matter where I happened to be.
Notwithstanding what I had been taught at age two, the other occupant of this body had learned no restraint yet, so Mom found herself having to change diapers a often as the last time she had been in 1976. At first, she thought I was doing it on purpose-- kind of perverse revenge, I suppose. If it had been left solely to 2004 Betty, she might well have kept me in my own mess. Of course, she was sharing a body with a 22 year old who had a powerful maternal instinct, so she found it difficult NOT to take care of me.
That's it in a nutshell-- 2004 Spencer and 2004 Betty had to yield to the instincts of their 1976 counterparts. Acting like a baby was like grinding my teeth, a habit I didn't like, but found myself doing anyway.
"I hate changing your dirty diapers!!" Mom said during one unpleasant chore, and she got a lecture from her mother. "He can't very well change his own diaper, Betty. He's only a year old."
"Mom, he's more..."
"Betty, you should have thought of this before you ran off with Jimmy Transom. Life carries a lot of responsibilities." Ah, but not for me, I thought.
-----
I would have preferred to have bills to pay and deadlines to meet over this. The days that followed were not very interesting. Watching TV was about all there was to do in the Wheeler household, for a baby, at least. I couldn't go outside by myself without someone following me. If I picked up anything that I could hurt or that could hurt me, it got taken away swiftly. Reading was out of the question, since people assumed that I would tear the pages of a book or magazine. My basket of toys was what I was limited to choosing from.
So I watched TV-- Captain Kangaroo had apparently been a favorite of baby Spencer, because I ended up watching Mr. Keeshan every morning after the news, then sat through game shows. Emily watched Mike Douglas in the afternoon, but by afternoon, I was on a different schedule. One o'clock in my world in 2004 marked the beginning of afternoon meetings, phone conferences, trips to the golf course. Not so in 1976.
No matter what I was doing in 1976, 1:00 pm was marked by my mother announcing, "Time for your nap." Then she would pick me up, change my diaper, place me in my crib with a baby bottle, put a blanket over me, and close the door. The first time I tried to get out, I got a spanking. After that, I gave up fighting. Even if I escaped the crib, I couldn't turn the doorknob. There were no exceptions to my two hour nap. Mom insisted on it, because it was the only time that she wasn't expected to devote her attention to me. From 3:00 to dinner, it was more TV-- generally reruns that Pete watched. The first few days, I got an 8:00 bedtime, but Mom eventually relented an started driving us to the playground at sunset.
Mom's purpose was to talk. She still complained about taking care of me, and she still wanted to remind me that I was only a baby. But I was the only other person on Earth who had seen the 21st century, and we talked a lot about that distant era.
It was Friday the 18th, and while the rest of the world was celebrating the week's end, it was another day for Mom and me. She found an empty bench and held me on her lap, because she had something important to talk about this evening.
"Spencer, I could not imagine that this would be as awful for me as it would be for you," she began. "I'm sorry I turned you into a baby. In the process, I turned myself into someone taking care of a baby."
"Buh..you..diddis..beefaw" I said, sounding out my words slowly.
"That's the point. I've done this before. Several times. I'm too old to be raising you again. I've lived more than 78 years, no matter how young I look. Just as you've lived 30 years and I still have to change your diapers."
"Leskoback. Find a way, Mommy!"
"That's what I wanted to tell you. Yesterday, while you were taking your nap, I found out it was Kelly Tannenbaum's birthday. She's 8, and I went to her party, and actually talked her into saying 'I wish Betty and Spencer could go back to 2004'. I wrote it on a paper and she read it word for word and blew out the candle. And it still didn't work!"
My heart sank. That had been my idea-- not very original, just common sense-- that as long as you could find somebody celebrating a birthday, you could use the magic without waiting for your own special day.
"I don't wanna stay here Mommy," I said. The words were more bunched than that, but she understood. "How do you think I feel? We could be stuck here until next April, and I'll still be changing you when you turn two. And even then..."
She stopped, and I didn't ask her to finish the thought. I changed the subject. "Wha you fink is goin' on in two fousan four?" I asked.
"Huh?"
I repeated the question, and she got it. "You mean, what's happening to us there if our minds are here?" I nodded.
"If we went back there today, it would be Friday, June 18, 2004-- six days after we left. You're wondering if all hell has broken loose since we've been gone."
"Yeah. Who's back home?"
"I'll tell you. The 2004 we get back to is going to be different than the one we left. You know those stories about parallel universes? I've lived in one where Pete got killed in a wreck, and another one where he survived. And I don't know where this one is going. Do you follow me?"
I nodded, and she continued. "Now we're here, and 28 years from now there's another place, with another me, and another you, and they'll be there when we return to 2004. Do you get it?" She could tell that I didn't.
"I'll tell you why I know this. I remember how you were before my wish. Then I ended up in 1976, and lived the next 28 years differently. The Spencer I raised the second time was a little bit nicer. But when my 50th birthday came around again, I ended up with you."
"What's gonna happen to dose uvver people, Mommy?" I asked.
"Just shut up. You ask too many questions."
------
After that, Mom and I were more upset than ever. For the next couple of weeks, I lost all interest in living. Mom started drinking a lot, and I stopped caring about anything. By the first of July-- a Thursday-- Grandma decided that I needed to see my old pediatrician, Dr. Lister. It was a welcome change from the monotony of the Wheeler home. In the waiting room, I recognized Cora Pexley, the mother of one of the few friends I had in 2004. Jason Pexley and I had gone to a strip club a few days before I left 2004 and gotten drunk. He was one of these who liked to smoke while he was drinking one beer after another, and I hadn't seen him in... well, 28 years. He was here in 1976-- a two year old over at the toy box-- and true to form, he was alternating between a bottle and a pacifier. I didn't try to make friends, though-- here, he was half a head taller than I was.
"Spencer Transom?" called the receptionist. I hadn't heard both names used since I got here. Dr. Lister was ready to see us, and she had me weighed (26 pounds) and measured (32 inches tall) as she listened to Grandma's concerns.
"His mother won't take care of him, and she stays depressed, and I think it's carrying over to the baby. He hardly eats and he wants to sleep all the time. I just don't know what to do."
If this had been 2004, I probably would have been sent for an MRI and a battery of blood work. In 1976, the county's doctors were more practical. "I don't see any sign that he's ill," said Dr. Lister, "but until his mother is back to taking care of him, you'll have to do what grandmothers have done for centuries."
"What's that?"
"Spoil him. He needs attention, and affection, more than ever. You can start with that Benji movie at the theater."
"Benji?!" I said aloud.
"Who is Benji? Is he some longhaired Hollywood actor?" asked Grandma.
I had to laugh at that one-- Grandma saw subversives everywhere.
"Actually he is. He's a trained dog. See, baby Spencer is laughing already. Spencer, you want to see the cute doggie, don't you." She was playing with my toes now. "See? He's cheering up already."
So Grandma dressed me up-- she wasn't one to take a baby into town in just a diaper-- and we went to the matinee showing. Ordinarily, going to a Benji movie would not have made me "snap out" of a depression. But there was something during the previews that made me realize that in a few days, I would have a chance to finally go back home....