Life On Reverb

The bus was hot, sticky, claustrophobic. If there was air conditioning, which the old man doubted, it was on its last legs. July in Georgia could smother you, and this time it just might.

The old man sighed, swiped dots of perspiration off his forehead with the back of his hand, braced himself against the grimy corner where he was tucked in as the bus juddered to yet another stop.

He didn’t bother scanning the faces as new souls lumbered on and old ones jockeyed for the exit. The young man he was looking for wouldn’t be getting on for five more stops, at the intersection of Chestnut and Evergreen. His gaze fell on the small notebook in his lap. Its cover, once supple black leather, was now dusty and brittle. Fifty years wears on things—and people.

He found the spot he wanted in the notebook, held by a tattered business card from Blockbuster Video, which went belly up around the last time he’d ridden this bus. Not quite fifty years ago, he mused. It was the last time the young man had ridden the bus, too. The old man had been twenty then. The young man was twenty now. It was strange enough to give him a shiver.

The bus made a loud creaking sound as the notebook opened. The old man ran a finger down the page. July twenty-eighth had been the worst day of his life, though he’d thought it the best at the time.

He couldn’t stop checking the notebook, verifying the date, making sure he’d gotten things right. Time travel was new; it was glitchy. He’d tried eight previous times to hit the mark, to reconnect with his younger self, to shake himself awake. All failures.

As the stops counted down, his pulse began knocking in his ears. Finally the doors whooshed open and a teenage girl with a thick braid boarded. The old man held his breath. The next passenger was Daniel. He climbed on as if from a dream, dropping his fare in the Plexiglas box—the old man chuckled at the quaintness of cash money—and wore a familiar path to the back of the bus.

Old Daniel (known as Dan since age thirty) and young Daniel had something in common: on public transportation, they held the rear.

Dan shifted his jacket from the seat beside him and Daniel sat down. Dan had been rehearsing this conversation for eleven years, since time travel had gone from a spark in Elon Musk’s eye to a simple—if expensive!—reality. But suddenly his tongue felt thick and his mind was swimming. He didn’t want to die alone in that big house with that woman’s ashes on the mantel (they’d made a fine couple for thirty years, but it was a hollow union), with every conceivable creature comfort but no one to comfort him. His only chance to turn things around was convincing Daniel to take the other road.

Again, he wiped his brow. “Hot enough for ya?” he asked.

Daniel was pecking away at a text message. He didn’t look up. “I’d say.”

Dan scrolled back through his mind, trying to remember whom he’d been texting on the bus on July 28, 2010. Was it Maria? He knew he’d broken the bad news in person, but had he tried to soften the blow beforehand? He couldn’t recall. “Where ya headed?” he asked, knowing the answer.

“Across town,” Daniel said.

“To … ?”

“My girlfriend. I got a promotion. I have to tell her.”

The word promotion turned Dan’s stomach—not the word per se, but the way his twenty-year-old self said it, as if it were a trophy. How naïve he’d been. How foolish. “Tell me about this girlfriend.”

Daniel’s eyes lit up. In a soft, dim corner of Dan’s heart, old feelings stirred. “She’s a baker. A really good one,” Daniel said. Dan could still taste the red velvet cupcakes Maria had made for their six-month anniversary. Delicate and rich as sin.

Dan’s eyes crinkled at the edges with a smile. “The way to a man’s heart …” Both Dan and Daniel laughed. The sound had a symphonic, echoing quality. Life on reverb.

The bus continued to fill and empty, groan and mutter. But the route now ran through tree-filled neighborhoods, blunting the glare of the sun.

Dan checked his watch. He had fifteen minutes to change young Daniel’s mind about taking the promotion, about letting Maria slip away, about dooming Dan to a life of silent dinners (he and Sheila had so little in common that conversation was a chore), early bedtimes, Saturday crosswords half undone. The loneliness of it choked him.

The memories came back in a fog of cinnamon and sugar: Maria kissing him in the rain under a glowing streetlight; Maria lying on a picnic blanket in the sun, playing with his hair while they faded in and out of sleep; Maria giving him that tender, vulnerable look that pierced his very soul.

With the heel of his shoe, Dan nudged the duffel bag under his seat. It had taken so long to collect twenty thousand dollars in pre-2010 bills. Cash of any kind was scarce, but finding notes from half a century ago was damn near impossible. Yet he’d done it.

Daniel had fallen back into his phone. Dan watched him for a moment like a painter studying a subject. The jaw line was sharper than he remembered, the chin more cleft, the hair fuller, shinier. He was handsome, something Dan never felt at the time. Youth is wasted on the young, he thought. It was a cliché for a reason.

Dan cleared his throat. “Can I tell you something?”

Daniel pried his eyes away from the screen. “Hmm?”

“See this notebook?” Dan held it up. “I’ve been writing down every important thing that’s happened to me since I was eighteen. Kind of a memoir, an autobiography.”

Daniel’s gaze flitted around the bus, searching for someone to save him from the crazy old man. He had a lot on his mind. He didn’t need this. Still … “I do a little writing myself. It’s cheaper than therapy, right?”

It struck Dan that his younger self had entertained the idea of writing for money, perhaps other people’s stories. Or hard news. He didn’t have the imagination for fiction or the temperament for internet fluff, even in those days. These days, he reminded himself. “Writing is … well, it’s cathartic, isn’t it? It crystallizes things. Looking back at choices you made five years ago—or fifty—brings home where you went right and where you went wrong.”

Young Daniel poked his head out of his shell. “I’ll bite. What’s your story?”

It was the moment Dan had been waiting for. He inhaled deeply, pulling the breath to the bottom of his lungs. He balanced the notebook on his thigh and opened it to the first page. The writing was small, angular, hesitant. He’d started making entries in pencil, like this one, and later switched to pen. It occurred to him that he’d meant to erase certain things and subsequently gave up caring.

As Dan was about to open his mouth, the bus veered toward the curb. The doors flapped open. Daniel was staring at Dan, waiting for the show to begin. Dan paused long enough to settle his bifocals on his nose and let the bus rumble back into motion. He read out the date at the top of the page—March 12, 2008—and then related an incident young Daniel was sure to remember.

During a night of teen partying, Daniel had urged his pals to break into a local candy shop. It was an easy mark: bad lighting and no security cams. The six of them had vandalized the place—broken glass, smashed computers, graffiti—before stuffing their pockets with taffy and truffles and fading back into the night. All five of Daniel’s friends had been arrested, but somehow he’d escaped. The injustice never sat right.

“Is this a joke?” Daniel shook his head. “Did one of them put you up to this?”

“I’m just telling you what happened,” said Dan.

“To me!”

“To both of us.”

The bus rattled more violently than usual. The sun flickered. Daniel’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What’s your game?” Was the old man trying to blackmail him? He doubted the police would care about a petty crime he’d committed as a dumb teenager.

“You’re making a terrible mistake. A mistake I can’t live with.” He held out the notebook. “It’s all here.”

Daniel took the notebook and began flipping through. The handwriting was familiar. He could imagine where he’d sat when recording each entry. But his notebook was at home in his apartment, tucked between a Lehane novel and a physics textbook. And it was in a lot better shape than this. But Daniel couldn’t help scanning the pages, his throat tightening as the dates approached July 28, 2010 and then—zoom!—kept right on going. “Creative,” he said. “But, honestly, kind of boring. You can do better.”

“My point exactly! You can do better!” Dan took the notebook and wedged it against the bus wall. “Turn down the promotion. Go with Maria to Boston. Adopt a cat. A dog. Learn French. Swim in the ocean. Have a couple of kids. Plant a garden. Drink beer. Laugh. A lot. Never stop laughing, no matter how hard things get. Work your ass off. Pay the bills. Raise hell. It’ll be over before you know it.”

Daniel had an odd, swirling feeling in his head. Could this man really be from the future? Was his diary a preview of things to come? A knot in his gut said it was true. “I need that job. It’s a big raise.”

“Twenty thousand dollars.” Dan jimmied the duffel out from under his seat and unzipped it, leaning over to show Daniel the cash.

Daniel’s eyes grew wide. “How did you—?”

“Forget about that.” Dan waved his hand. “You sold your car, canceled your lease, quit your job—or tried to. You made a promise. Maria is counting on you. Go north. Help her with the bakery. Everything else will work itself out.” He plopped the duffel in Daniel’s lap. “If you don’t, someone else will. He’ll be living your life, raising the kids you never had, kissing her on the neck in the shower. You’ll be empty in the worst kind of way. I know.”

Daniel’s features softened and Dan dared to hope. “My stop’s coming up.”

Dan nodded.

Daniel stood, gripping a nearby pole for balance. “I don’t know …”

“You don’t have to know everything. Take a leap. Now’s the time.”

The bus once again headed toward the sidewalk. Daniel and Dan locked eyes. Time collapsed and each man could see forward and backward without hindrance.

Without a word, Daniel exited with the duffel. Dan slumped back in his seat and opened the notebook to the last page. The entry was about his most recent time-travel failure. The ink was stubborn. Or maybe it was too soon. Daniel had to walk a block to Maria’s and do the thing he’d been too afraid to do fifty years ago.

Dan was staring so hard at the text that his eyes began to hurt. And his head felt light and shimmery. It might’ve been his imagination, but his arms seemed to go translucent. Then his legs. Finally, the ink started fading. My God! he thought. The kid did it!

The text continued disappearing, like a string unraveling, from end to beginning. With it, Dan dissolved, like snowflakes in the warmth of a fire.

At the end of her shift, the bus driver found a shiny black notebook. It was brand new, crisp white pages waiting for a story. She decided to take it home, maybe write down a few interesting things. Nobody would believe what happened on this bus.