Nick of Time: A Short Story (Part 1)
Backstory
This story came to me in a series of dreams. I was writing down fragments of different ones and all the pieces started to fit together. It feels a little like an episode of the old Twilight Zone TV series. It’s about a man who is given a second chance.
Nick of Time
His name was Nicholas Guerrier Wells or N.G. Wells, Jr. Guerrier was an old family name, Anglo-Saxon he thought. He had no idea of its history, but he’d had to spell it all of his life. When he was a kid, there was big Nick, his father, and little Nick, and then there was old Nick and young Nick. He had grown up in a small town from the time he was born until he was 17 years and 9 months old. Then he went to college, and he never went back to the town.
His family lived in a small brick rancher, typical for the time, on the edge of a farm that ran for acres behind them. The farm sloped down and ran into a small creek that meandered through the property and all about the small town.
As a child, he played in the pastures and down by, along, and in the creek. He knew it well. There were large rocks in several places, little inlets, and small ponds, all a part of the property that ran along behind his house.
There was always a mist along the creek, no matter the time of day or the time of year. Often it was a fog. Nick stayed away when it was a fog. He had once walked inside its grip and there had been the horrible sounds of war. Cannons exploded, shots fired, men screamed, and ran, and died, as horses thundered past. He had jumped back from the fog to the bright sunlight of a summer day. Yet, he could still hear the tremors of sound inside the fog. He ran for his house and didn’t look back.
A great civil war battle had been fought along the creek and across most of the small town where he lived. There were monuments and markers all about, explaining in great detail the happenings and circumstances of that fateful battle.
On misty days when Nick played along the creek, he would often cross it to another large pasture on the far side. There was an old one-room clapboard shack a few feet from the creek on the far side. There didn’t seem to be anyone living there, and Nick would often creep up to the door. But then it would creak or snap, and he would jump up and run. He told himself it was the wind or the decayed state of the place, but he was never sure.
One day as Nick sat in the grass on his side of the creek, on one of the large rocks that bordered the water, he saw something through the trees, on the far side of the creek. He had just come back from the shack where he had forced himself to stick his head inside the door. There had been nothing but cobwebs. The walls had been lined with portions of old newspapers, dating from the 1930s. There was nothing but dust and maybe someone’s old memories.
What he saw, as he lay on the rock, was an old black man in a worn suit of some material Nick could not identify. He was heading for the shack. The man carried a small striped cardboard suitcase with a single handle. He moved slowly as if he was in a great deal of pain or had come a very long way. He had a cane.
Nick didn’t move a muscle. After a few seconds, he realized he hadn’t even drawn a breath, and he inhaled quickly. The sound of his sudden inhale seemed to attract the man’s attention, and he turned his head and looked directly into Nick’s eyes. There was no expression on his face, but his eyes were dark and solemn. Nick felt as if he could see into the man’s eyes and they went back in time to the battle Nick had briefly witnessed. Nick felt himself drawn to the man, as if under some undeniable power.
Nick was very much afraid and wanted to turn and run to his house. But when he rose, he crossed the creek and slowly approached the man, who stood quietly, solemnly, and patiently as Nick made his way forward.
Nick stopped about six feet from the old man.
“I’ve been watching you for quite a while,” the man said. Nick was surprised to hear this and just nodded in return. “You come here often. Are you happy here?” the man asked.
Nick, still too frightened to speak, shook his head up and down.
“Good,” replied the man. “I have something for you,” and he went to open the suitcase.
He was back in town for his father’s funeral. Nick was 50 something years old. He didn’t keep up. His father had died of a rare form of cancer. His mother had been dead for several years. He stood in the backyard of the house and remembered. Now the pasture had been developed and was a suburb, but the creek remained. He wandered through the neighborhood until he got close enough to cut between two houses and get to the creek. He found the big rock he laid on many years before, but little else of the creek was familiar. He looked through the trees and the clapboard shack was gone as that side of the creek had also been developed and was someone’s backyard with a swing set and an aboveground pool.
A fog rose as Nick stood on the rock. On the far side of the creek, the old black man stepped into view, still holding the suitcase and cane.
“I see you came back,” he said to Nick.
Again, after all those years, Nick just nodded. The old man smiled, “Some things never change,” he said.
He continued, “You’re going to take a trip now, it won’t be long, but it may feel like it. It’s your chance to see things as they were. You may react differently this time, but when you return, nothing will have changed.” And then the old man disappeared back into the fog.
Nick stood on the rock, and nothing seemed to change. But then he realized the subdivision was gone and the empty pasture sat before him and behind him. He looked down and saw his hand. It was a young hand, not that of an old man. He jumped from the rock and walked to the creek. Looking at his face in the water it was his fifteen-year-old self, pimples, wild frizzy hair, everything except that he could still remember his 50-year-old life.
Nick walked back to the rock and saw his old bicycle leaning against it, except the bike wasn’t old. This is too weird, he thought. I guess I’ll play along. Maybe I’ll learn something. I don’t know how I got here, so I don’t know how to leave.
He got on the bike and pedaled toward the house. As he approached, he saw the cars, the yard, his younger brother playing, just as it had been then, when he was fifteen.
Nick parked the bike and went inside. He saw his mother in the kitchen and said hello as he walked calmly by her. She looked up, and he remembered that he usually teased or pestered her.
“You’re back early,” she said.
He just nodded, thinking he couldn’t bear to tease her now, not after the slow, painful way she had died.
“I think I’ll just go to my room,” he replied. She smiled that big smile she always gave him.
He turned quickly so she wouldn’t see his eyes and trudged down the hall to his room. It was just like he remembered it. Nick looked at his watch to see what day it was and found he wasn’t wearing one. He looked to the dresser and saw the old Timex with the leather band he had worn back then. Man, those big old leather bands really stink, he thought, picking it up and smelling. He checked the date, and it was Sunday. He laid the watch back down and saw school books on the dresser.
It was the same sophomore stuff, English, math, science, and history. That meant it was 1968, which would be correct for him to be fifteen.
Nick was curious about the date. When he looked up, he saw a wall calendar. Wow! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of those. And it had pictures of cars. Prominently displayed was a 1968 Shelby Mustang. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of those either! Nick raised a finger and remembering the date from his watch, located Sunday, December 16th. It was the last week of school. He would be out for Christmas next Thursday, the 20th. But there was something else! He looked around the room and saw his gym bag and ball. He had played basketball for the first two years of high school. He remembered his last game. It was coming up Tuesday.
Nick got up the next morning, went to school, saw people he hadn’t seen in forty years, and marveled at what they were teaching him. Was it really all that long ago? Nothing much was happening. His dad dropped him off and he rode the bus home. He was born late in the year, so while some of his friends had started driving, and many more soon would, Nick would be a junior before he got behind the wheel. Nothing he was doing seemed any different. His mother noticed he had gone quiet and asked him about it.
“Just thinking about Christmas I guess and getting out of class,” he said and smiled at her. She smiled back.
Tuesday came, and he put on the white shirt and tie he was expected to wear on game day. Man, these are some ugly clothes. How can you mess up a white shirt? Collars that reach all the way to my shoulders when unbuttoned and a tie wide enough to double as a tablecloth are a good way to start.
The day was uneventful, and the game rolled around that afternoon. Nick remembered that he was a backup point guard and didn’t play much. He’d inbound a ball occasionally or play the last thirty seconds of a game, but mostly he sat and watched. He was growing tired of it. There was no excitement, no exercise. He was about to quit.
Walking into the gym, Nick realized how small it was. There was just barely room for a few rows of bleachers. It was 4:00 pm in the afternoon and there were very few parents there. People had to work. Nick’s parents had never seen him play.
Nick thought to himself, This place is tiny. There’s not even a three-point line yet. I’m going to have some fun if I get on court.
The game started and five minutes into it, Nick’s team’s starting point guard when down hard on the floor. Two trainers ran to him and helped him off. The coach waved at Nick and motioned him onto the court. Nick had already taken off his warmup, somehow expecting that he was going to play.
Nick took the in-bounds pass and started up the floor. The opposing team went to test him and press the ball. Nick hit a hard crossover dribble to his left hand and shot up that side of the floor, leaving his man behind. He crossed beyond half court a few steps and pulled up. All of his teammates were covered and not moving.
Nick didn’t really think about it. He elevated and fired the ball into the basket. Nothing but net. He was twenty-four feet out. The problem with that was the coach didn’t allow outside shots beyond fifteen feet. One of the forwards, Alonzo, sometimes took shots from the top of the key, after he was warmed up. As long as he hit them, everything was good. If he missed, the coach sat him down for five minutes.
Nick turned to go back up the court and play defense and saw the coach giving him a hard stare. But he glanced quickly to the court and saw the other team’s guard, who had the ball, cross his legs so he couldn’t dribble. Knowing that he was going to have to pass, Nick shot forward and cleanly intercepted the ball just after the opposing guard launched it across the court to his teammate.
Nick’s opponents had one man left on Nick’s end of the court, and he rushed to cover Nick. Nick faked right and went down the left side of the lane with his left hand and laid it off the glass.
Nick had scored four points in less than thirty seconds. Most teams couldn’t even get the ball up the court in less than thirty seconds. Plus, nobody ever went left. All the plays were set up to go right. Even for a lefthander, the best it got was break left and shoot off a screen. Nobody at that moment in time ever drove the basket going left.
Nick came down the court again and was pressured by two men this time. They forced him toward the sideline and he reversed the ball between his legs, broke left, then reversed it through his legs and reversed back right. He lost both of them. The only problem was the coach didn’t allow between the legs dribbling either. Nick saw his big man alone at the other end of the court and fired a high ally op to him. The big man converged on the basket, intercepted the ball, and dropped it in the basket.
The coach was standing on the sideline, slack-jawed.
The balance of the game went quickly. Nick scored 24 of his team’s 36 points and they won 36-22. He was 6-8 from the floor, 4-4 on lay ups-including a fast break that he almost dunked, another no-no, and 4-4 from the line.
After the game was over the coach asked him to stay for a minute. Then he asked Nick how he had done it. Nick remembered the answer from all those years ago. He hadn’t known then, how or why he had played so well. Now he knew the answer. But you can’t change history-the old guy told him so.
Nick shrugged his shoulders at the coach and replied, “I got lucky.”
Nick also knew that this was the last basketball game he would ever play. His career was over. They would go on break and the coach would leave for a new job. The following year there would be two new high schools in place of the one Nick attended now and two new coaches who would start over with two new teams.
To be continued……………………….