Charlie Brewster and His Time Machine
By: John Wolf
It had been six months since Clair died, and Charlie was having a hard time coping. He was alone now. His son was miles away and had worries of his own. Charlie came to the conclusion the only thing to do was fix his time machine he had chucked in the back of his garage and set out to be with Clair. Charlie was a dreamer, an inventor, and a desperate man.
The dog next door barked at the rattle and clatter coming from Charlie's garage. He was digging out his favorite machine from years of neglect. There is was a near perfect 1956 Chevy Belair two-tone. The back was white and the rest baby blue. It was the original Pikes Peak steep-grade record holder. It was a hardtop sedan, a sweet machine, that held many memories for Clair and Charlie. It was conceived in a simpler time when style and teenaged love came together at the drive-in. Root beer floats and warm summer nights. The world was better then.
Sham-a-ling Dang-dong meant everything. The dances came to mind as Charlie drifted with a feeling of floating in space. Their parents thought they'd lost their minds, but the song's funny phrases held the moment in their hearts. He saw Clair's smiling face as the background spun around. Shoo-boop Ringa-ling Dang-dong rang in Charlie's ears.
He would have to put some elbow grease into bringing the car back to life, but he had done it many times before. He'd do it again.
Once the car was humming like a big cat, Charlie packed some sandwiches and a thermos of coffee and pulled out of the driveway. He quietly left his hometown of Springfield, Missouri. The white-walled tires eased onto The Mother Road. As the day went by, finding the pieces of old Route 66 was like working a jigsaw puzzle, but each time Charlie would drive onto a section of the original Main Street of America memories would come back. He pictured the day the road was named The Will Roger's Highway. He passed Joplin, Tulsa, and was near Amarillo, Texas when he just had to rest.
Charlie parked the car in the shadow of the old Nat Hotel. He had thrown a tattered Army sleeping bag on the back seat. It made for a cozy sleep. He drifted away listening to the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra working the ballroom in the hotel and watched the ghostly dancers drift across the shiny wooden floor.
By the time Charlie made it to Arizona, the heat was melting him away. He chiseled his mission into his brain, "I must reach Santa Monica." He didn't drive in the day, instead he started out in the late afternoon. He stopped in old motels that were barely in business but were like all the stops he and Clair made many years ago. He reminisced about their honeymoon spent in one of these old motels that had teepees next door. They were full or that would have been their first choice. Near Williams he stopped the car and turned off the headlights. The blue sky with a thread of maroon on the horizon blended into a field of twinkling stars. He heard the coyotes yapping, signaling each other there was a stranger in their midst.
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The trip had been all Charlie had hoped for. All the good times had come rushing back to him. Each segment of that wonderful highway stitched his life back together as he segued from Interstate back to Route 66. All the shops and diners along the way were evidence that the America he knew was still alive and well. Young families smiled at the hotdog stands and searched the curio shops built in an old power plant or a train station with a steam engine parked next to it in a green grassy patch. Yes, this was the route Clair and Charlie took on their way to California in 1956, the year the "time machine" was brand new.
They agreed to keep the car as long as they were married. It had such an important place in their lives. After all, it was this trip to Santa Monica to see her mother and tell her of their marriage that gave birth to their happiness. Charlie was just out of the Army having been pulled in by the Korean War. They would return to Springfield after a summer of being free where Charlie had found a job. They had moved into a Sears kit home built in the 1930s, but it had a wonderful charm. It was called a Westly, a seven room bungalow. It was where they stayed to raise a family.
Charlie's son was in Santa Monica now, working in computers. Charlie wanted to be near family and the ocean one more time.
A policeman rolled up behind the blue Chevy about dawn. Brilliant stars of light ran along the chrome as he approached. There was a man in the back seat, stretched out with his arms folded across the chest. Charlie has passed in the night with his thoughts fixed on Clair. He had a post card clutched in his hand with the words Santa Monica printed across it in broad letters that revealed the city skyline within them.
Charlie didn't make it but the time machine had transported him to the place he really wanted to be. He was back in Clair's arm now.
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John is a writer in progress. Word by word the trail of communications gets clearer. Maybe someday the message will be picked up by a distant ear and the effort to be heard will have been reached. Until that day, the keyboard clatters endlessly into the night. |
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