11/22/63

“Nine cases out of ten that’s just sales-pitch bullshit, but this is the tenth case. And I’m not talking about some discount dollar store bumping to get in, I’m talking about Bean’s, and when it comes to Maine retail, L.L. Bean is the biggest ape in the jungle. Come July first, the diner’s gone like Enron. But that isn’t the big thing. By July first, I might be gone. I could catch a cold and be dead of pneumonia in three days. I could have a heart attack or a stroke. Or I could kill myself with these damn OxyContin pills by accident. The visiting nurse who comes in asks me every day if I’m being careful not to exceed the dosage, and I am careful, but I can see she’s still worried she’ll walk in some morning and find me dead, probably because I got stoned and lost count. Plus the pills inhibit respiration, and my lungs are shot. On top of all that, I’ve lost a lot of weight.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Nobody loves a smartass, buddy — when you get to be my age, you’ll know. In any case, I want you to take this as well as the notebook.” He held out a key. “It’s to the diner. If you should call me tomorrow and hear from the nurse that I passed away in the night, you’ll have to move fast. Always assuming you decide to move at all, that is.”

“Al, you’re not planning—”

“Just trying to be careful. Because this matters, Jake. As far as I’m concerned, it matters more than anything else. If you ever wanted to change the world, this is your chance. Save Kennedy, save his brother. Save Martin Luther King. Stop the race riots. Stop Vietnam, maybe.” He leaned forward. “Get rid of one wretched waif, buddy, and you could save millions of lives.”

“It’s a hell of a sales pitch,” I said, “but I don’t need the key. When the sun comes up tomorrow, you’ll still be on the big blue bus.”

“Ninety-five percent probability. But that’s not good enough. Take the goddam key.”

I took the goddam key and put it in my pocket. “I’ll let you get some rest.”

“One more thing before you go. I need to tell you about Carolyn Poulin and Andy Cullum. Sit down again, Jake. This’ll take a few minutes.”

I stayed on my feet. “Uh-uh. You’re used up. You need to sleep.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Sit down.”

6

After discovering what he called the rabbit-hole, Al said, he was at first content to use it to buy supplies, make a few bets with a bookie he found in Lewiston, and build up his stash of fifties cash. He also took the occasional midweek holiday on Sebago Lake, which was teeming with fish that were tasty and perfectly safe to eat. People worried about fallout from A-bomb tests, he said, but fears of getting mercury poisoning from tainted fish were still in the future. He called these jaunts (usually Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but he would sometimes stay all the way to Friday) his minivacations. The weather was always good (because it was always the same weather) and the fishing was always terrific (he probably caught at least some of the same fish over and over).

“I know exactly how you feel about all this, Jake, because I was pretty much in shock those first few years. You want to know what’s a mind-blower? Going down those stairs at the height of a January nor’easter and coming out in that bright September sunshine. Shirtsleeve weather, am I right?”

I nodded and told him to go on. The little bit of color that had been in his cheeks when I came in was all gone, and he was coughing steadily again.

“But if you give a man some time, he can get used to anything, and when the shock finally started to wear off, I started to think I’d found that old rabbit-hole for a reason. That’s when I started to think about Kennedy. But your question reared its ugly head: can you change the past? I wasn’t concerned about the consequences — at least not to start with — but only about whether or not it could be done at all. On one of my Sebago trips, I took out my knife and carved AL T. FROM 2007 on a tree near the cabin where I stayed. When I got back here, I jumped in my car and drove on over to Sebago Lake. The cabins where I stayed are gone; there’s a tourist hotel there now. But the tree is still there. So was what I carved into it. Old and smooth, but still there: AL T. FROM 2007. So I knew it could be done. Then I started thinking about the butterfly effect.