Although I’ve never told Beth this, the reason I always hope I’m sitting by a beautiful woman on an airplane goes beyond just having sex with her as we plummet to our doom. Since I was about sixteen years old, my favorite fantasy has involved a deserted island and a beautiful woman. The woman is never a celebrity; rather, she’s someone I know. Usually, she’s the hottest girl at that moment with whom I have a platonic relationship. Nowadays, it could be a neighbor, a co-worker, a friend of Beth’s, someone from high school or college I’ve stayed in touch with, one of my kids’ barely of age babysitters. By some strange coincidence, we end up sitting next to one another on a commercial airliner. The plane crashes, and miraculously we’re the only survivors. Even more miraculously, we crash within swimming distance of a deserted tropical island. We swim to shore, take off our wet clothes so we don’t die of hypothermia. We start a fire with some coconut husks, the sun, and her glasses she just happened to be wearing even though she usually wears contacts. (I realize there’s quite a bit of minutiae here; I’ve had this dream a lot.) We spoon naked by the fire, trying only to raise our body temperatures, but in the heat of the moment have sex on the beach. We awake in the morning, lamenting our impulsiveness. Over the next few weeks and then months, we distract ourselves with finding food, water, and shelter, but then irrevocably fall in love and spend our days and nights fucking each other’s brains out. It’s at this point we get rescued and are reunited with our significant others, forced to live a life we’re no longer comfortable living, forced to love someone we’re no longer comfortable loving. Like the TV show Lost, our lives become reduced to finding a way back to the island.
Has my life become just some great big lamentation? A ponderous slog from one expectation to the next? Marriage, fatherhood, work. Long stretches of lonely depression allayed only by sporadic drunken make-up sex and chronic shower masturbation. The button on my jeans pinching my beer gut. Reading Slaughterhouse-Five for the first time just because Kurt Vonnegut died. Feeling guilty about that third glass of red wine, social smoking, and being attracted to teenage girls.
I miss teenage girls. I miss Headbangers Balls. I miss the Brat Pack and Miami Vice. I miss the Cold War, back when good was good and evil was evil and Rocky saved the world by cutting down the giant Russian and giving a prescient speech at the center of the ring. I miss Dick Clark and his giant white wand of a microphone on American Bandstand. I miss big hair, shoulder pads, pumps with lacy ankle socks, Susanna Hoffs’ fuck-me eyes, John Hughes’ dialogue, and a how about a nice game of chess.
I miss that deserted island.
I miss my father.
I can’t open my eyes. They’re crusted shut. How long have I been asleep? My head is fucking killing me. I’m swearing off Jim Beam forever, and this time I mean it. Okay, probably not. My tongue has a layer of fuzz on it. Jesus Christ, did I smoke last night?
I rub my eyes until I can open them, reach my arm up to my nose and smell my shirt. Marlboro Lights, and something else. Oak moss and lavender overlaying an odor that’s sweaty, distinctly feminine. I smell my fingers. Well, that answers my next question. Apparently Beth and I had sex last night, or at the very least some rigorous foreplay.
Beth turns over and mumbles something in her sleep. I see her face for a moment, before she buries herself in a pillow.
What the fuck?
It’s not Beth.
I sit up, look around the room. Two posters hang on the wall opposite the bed. Sharon Stone stares at me menacingly from one of the posters, her claws digging into Michael Douglas’s naked shoulder. The Dream Team smiles at me from the other poster. Check that. Ewing, Laettner, and Barkley aren’t smiling. Ewing is as stoic as ever. Laettner, the consummate Duke turd. It’s Barkley that gets me. He has this what-the-fuck look on his face like he just had a birds-eye view of my hairy ass as I did a girl doggie style.
Below both posters is my dresser. On top of my dresser sits a television; we forgot to turn it off last night before Beth and I, or this girl and I, before we did whatever it is we did. The screen of the Panasonic TV/VCR combo stares at me with its big blue eye, the video cassette sticking out of the horizontal slot on the bottom of the set like a tongue. A tongue that’s labeled, The Outsiders.
Fucking great. This dream again. I’m in my apartment on October 1, 1992, the day my father died. I suppose now I’m going to get up, shower and shave, take my well-worn VHS copy of The Outsiders downstairs to watch on the couch, and wait for that phone call that changes my life forever.
“Hank?” the strange woman says, stirring. She turns her head to me.
Well, what do you know? Genuine discourse. This is a new approach for my subconscious.
“Heeey…you.”
“It’s Eleni,” she says, turning away from me in an exasperated huff. She pulls the sheets tight around her.
“Eleni,” I say, snapping my fingers. “Of course! It’s a Greek name, just like Eleni Andros, Melina Kanakaredes’ character in Guiding Light.”
She turns back to me. “Are you still drunk, Hank?”
“I don’t think so,” I answer. “But cut me some slack. It only took me sixteen years to remember your name.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“You want to go get some coffee?” Eleni says. “Sounds like you might need some.”
I grab Eleni’s jeans from the foot of the bed, toss them next to her pillow. “Starbucks on me,” I say.
“Starwhat?” Eleni asks.
“Oh, that’s right,” I say. “It’s nineteen ninety-two. Starbucks won’t be in Indiana for another seven years.”
“Hank, you are really weirding me out right now.”
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
Eleni jumps, startles. “What the hell was that?”
“I can hear myself scream.”
“The whole apartment complex can hear you scream.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“You’ve lost you mind.”
“Hold that thought, Eleni.” I stand, only then realizing I’m completely naked. I drop to the floor.
“It’s a little late for modesty,” she says.
A pair of used boxers sit crumpled beneath the bed. I grab them. Lying on my back on the floor, I slide them up my body. It’s awkward but effective.
Eleni peaks over the side of the bed. “What are you—”
“There, that’s better.” I jump to my feet.
“What’s better?”
I raise my right index finger. “Just hold on. I’m trying a little experiment.” I concentrate on my feet. Right, left, right, left, right, left. I walk in place, then jog in place. I circle the bed, pacing back and forth around the room.
“What is this?” Eleni says. “Your morning calisthenics?”
“I can walk, I can jog, I can run.”
“So?”
“My feet are doing what I tell them to. That never happens. It always feels like I’m on ice, or walking in Jell-O.”
“You sure you’re not still drunk?”
“Don’t you get it, Eleni? I can’t do any of these things, in my dreams I mean. I’m always a prisoner to the dream. I can’t scream. I can’t consciously walk or run. I can’t even have an orgasm in my dream. This all seems so, so real.”
“You can’t have an orgasm in your dreams?”
I shake my head. “Never had a wet dream in my life. I always wake up, you know, right before.”
“So how about we put your dream to the test?” Eleni pulls back the covers, stopping me in my tracks. She’s as naked as I just was, only far less modest. Dark hair. Pale skin. A smooth back knotted by the indentations of her spine. A small, somewhat bony ass. Long legs and long, high arched feet. She’s a pretty girl, although skinnier than what I’m attracted to sober. I notice the soft pack of Marlboro Lights sticking out of the back pocket of her jeans.
“Eleni, I can’t.”
“You didn’t say that last night.”
“I wasn’t married last night.”
“Married?” Eleni says. “Since when?”
“Since about thirteen years ago.”
“So you got married when you were eight?”
There it is again. That weird feeling. Something isn’t right here. I feel so present, so knowing. That oak moss and lavender smell? It’s Drakkar Noir cologne. From 1986 through 1993, I bathed in that shit. I’ve never smelled it in my dreams. I’ve never smelled anything. Is this what they call lucid dreaming? What am I supposed to do?
“Earth to Hank,” Eleni says, waving her hand in front of my spaced out eyes. I shake my head, snapping out of it.
“I’m here,” I say. “Wherever here is.”
“Sit down,” Eleni says, guiding me back to the bed until we’re seated side by side. She swings her legs over mine.
Now that I look at her, Eleni is pretty fucking hot. She still hasn’t bothered to put any clothes on. If I’m going to relive the worst day of my life, I guess I could start it off with having sex with a beautiful woman.
She grabs my hand, places it on her breast. Her breasts are tiny but workable. Her skin, so smooth, unwrinkled, and almost baby soft. Holy Lord, I had forgotten how soft girls could be. How new this could all feel. Alcohol or no alcohol, cigarettes or no cigarettes, my head is buzzing. I’m hard almost instantaneously.
Eleni spreads her legs, guides my other hand to the tangle of dark pubic hair between them. I try not to look, but who am I kidding? I look. My fingers almost inside her, leaning in to kiss her. Still looking. I can’t remember the last time I saw such a proudly unshorn puss—
“Is that clock right?” I say over her shoulder, dropping my hands abruptly to my sides.
“What clock?” Eleni says.
“The one on my night stand.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Eleni grabs my hands. “Now where were we?”
“But it says seven o’clock.”
“Yeah, so?”
“In my dream, I always wake up after it happens, not an hour-and-a-half before.”
“Before what happens?”
“I relive the day from A to Z, just like in real life. There is no prologue. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
The room starts to spin. I’m short of breath. I can feel a panic attack coming on. I am terrified. I am excited.
I am not dreaming.
I am awake.
Somehow, someway, I have awoken on October 1, 1992, twenty-one years old, armed with the knowledge of my thirty-seven-year-old self. And I can save my father.
“Eleni, it’s been fun.” I kiss her on the cheek. “But I have to go.”
“Go where?”
I rifle through my dresser, finding my favorite old raggedy Notre Dame sweatshirt, only it’s brand-new again. I put on a pair of blue jeans over my boxers, stash the soft pack of Marlboro Lights in my pocket while Eleni isn’t looking. “I’ll be back later. Or at least I think I will. Or somebody who looks like me will.”
“Hank, you’re scaring me.”
“Don’t be scared,” I say, opening the door to the hallway. “Be happy. I’ve been given a miraculous gift this morning.”
“And what gift is that?”
“Salvation!”
I exit the room. But just as I close the door, the smallest pang of guilt tugs at my heart. Be a gentleman, Hank. Salvation can wait ten more seconds.
I open the door. Eleni is still sitting there. Still naked.
“Forget something?” she asks.
“There’s a good man out there for you, Eleni, but I’m not him.”
“Spoiler alert!”
“I’m serious. Be kind to others and to yourself, and don’t worry about all the other bullshit.”
“Thanks for the tip. Anything else?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Put all your money into tech stocks in nineteen ninety-seven, then take all your money out of tech stocks in nineteen ninety-nine. When the new Star Wars movie comes out, prepare to be very disappointed. If nine years from now, you find yourself planning a trip to New York City on September eleventh, two thousand one, cancel it. And in two thousand five, right before the Kentucky Derby, place a two-dollar trifecta bet on Giacomo, Closing Argument, and Afleet Alex, in that order.”
“A two-dollar trifecta?” Eleni asks. “What is that?”
“Just buy the ticket, take the ride.”
“I don’t follow.”
“It’s a meta—oh, never mind.”
“I understand metaphors, Hank. I’m not one of your usual airheads.” Eleni stands. She finally wraps a sheet around her lithe body, a gesture for which I’m grateful, although my penis doesn’t share in the sentiment. Backlit by the morning sun that peaks through the mini-blind, she almost looks like the Virgin Mary. Or Laura on the night I resigned from the Virgin Mary’s club.
“Want a co-pilot on this ride?” she asks.
“Thanks, Eleni.” I kiss her on the forehead, wondering yet again how it is that a jackhole like me attracts the sweet ones. “But I have to take this trip alone. You’re welcome to sleep in, have some breakfast, lunch, whatever. I’m going to be awhile. There’s coffee in the pantry, eggs in the fridge. Lock the door behind you.”
“Will I see you again?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t want to see me again?”
“I don’t know if it’s up to me.”
“You can say ‘goodbye,’ Hank. I’m going to say ‘see you soon.’”
I walk out the door, for good this time. “Goodbye, Eleni.”
“See you soon,” she says with a delicate wave of her hand.
I show myself out of the apartment. Parked out front is the brand-new light blue Chevy C/K 1500 Dad gave me off the lot two months ago. I start the truck. The engine radiates a trace of heat from multiple runs to the liquor store a few hours earlier, and the gas gauge has dropped below a quarter-tank. The truck smells like a guy trying to impress a Grecian waif named Eleni—beer, cigarettes, cheap perfume. I peer out the back of the truck, almost too afraid to look, but there it is—a V-shaped indentation on the inside of the truck bed. What am I going to tell Dad? The truth? That Eleni was blowing me while I was driving and I didn’t see the red light until it was almost too late? That I slammed on the brakes and sent a sixteen-gallon keg hurtling across my truck bed and a girl almost bit my dick off?
Hell, maybe I will tell him the truth. What do I have to lose? We’ll talk it out man-to-man. So the owner’s son is sending another car to the body shop. So what? I’m saving his fucking life. I figure that earns me a little clemency. He’s technically only nine years older than me, my peer more than my parent. If only I had played Powerball all these years; I could do some real fucking damage. Maybe I’ll go put some money on Stanford to upset Notre Dame two days from now.
What’s that smell? Probably Doc Brown shitting his pants and muttering something about the space-time continuum.