The Later Journeys - 15. Rest, Plan and Ponder

                              
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The story starts here...

After our meal (which included leftover homemade soup -- Ben’s first direct exposure to food prepared in the microwave -- he excused himself for a short rest. Warren, Trevor and I high-tailed it out to the barn, along with Trevor’s cell phone. All of our phones were charged to varying degrees, but we didn’t want to take chances. We plugged all of them in.

We wanted to speak to Gerry, reassure him that Ben was back to his normal self, and find out if he knew anything more about the inn. Gerry confessed to us that his business dealings with regard to his real-estate investment had been less ironclad than he’d pretended. He had silent partners who held out the option of shutting down the entire enterprise if he fell short of expectations, and he had -- at the most inopportune possible moment. Later, of course, we reflected that the timing still could have been worse -- like, the day before we picked up Ben and brought him here. Apparently all of the fixtures and equipment had been repossessed the very morning that Ben and I were sitting in the kitchen eating hoecakes and talking about zippers. Gerry was understandably angry that they had not only given him zero warning about the impending shutdown but hadn’t even bothered to put up a “Closed” sign or apprise him of the situation as it stood. He told us he was “working it out.”

A reminder to us, alas, that Gerry was brilliant and loaded, but really not much of an entrepreneur for the long haul. Still, we were glad to report that the inn had been there exactly when we’d needed it, and Ben was in no need of accommodations at present.

Gerry was very encouraged by our progress with regard to Ben. We conferred on our next steps. It was the consensus that internet could wait, but cars and clothes probably could not. We’d all held out as long as we could, but cabin fever had now taken hold with a vengeance. We needed to get away from this farm and reclaim our places in the 21st century. My younger sister Norah had friends in town for the wedding of a mutual acquaintance and I’d let them all crash at my condo. She was checking in on Mom and Dad from time to time, but sooner or later, I wanted to check in. I missed them all, for one thing. Warren had just broken up with someone and was more than happy to be preoccupied with “Project Franklin,” as he called it. Trevor, like me, was on sabbatical, officially, so he needed to have something to show for it when that period was up. He wasn’t sure if this “time-travel” experience might be useful or not, but he was letting it percolate for now. In short, none of us had urgent business to return to, but we did have lives outside of this. We were ready to revisit it, at least briefly. We did have Gerry’s reassurance that the influence of his partners would never touch the farm, so in theory, we could keep Ben hidden away indefinitely. But who would look after him?

“Can I meet him?” asked Gerry.

“Of course!” we all said. Gerry had assumed he had no role to play other than facilitator, but we thought Ben would benefit by meeting a variety of people over time. We just didn’t want to overwhelm him.

“Have you got any unwanted clothes you were thinking of getting rid of?” I asked him. He replied that he did, and I asked him to put a selection aside -- he and Ben were close in size, and when we transitioned our wardrobes back to the present in a couple of days, I didn’t want to have to make Ben run out to a mall with me. Online shopping could happen in its time, of course, but I wanted Ben to enjoy clothing that had a more personal touch and had been broken in somewhat. I thought it would be more comfortable for him. I asked Gerry if he could bring an assortment. Mostly casual, but maybe some dressier items.

“Underwear and socks?” he asked. I wasn’t sure.

“Ummm...clean ones?” I said.

“Jas! C’mon!” said Trevor and Warren.

“Child, you cut me to the quick,” said Gerry, doing his Wizard of Oz impression and defusing the situation.

“Sorry...” I smiled, embarrassed.

“No problem. I will bring my whitey-tighties, my lefty Lucies and everything in between,” he promised.

So we looked forward to seeing Gerry later in the week and proceeding with our plans.

After the call, the guys went back through the woods to a small cinder-block garage where our cars were kept, so they could run the engines and make sure all was in order. We’d be needing them sooner than later. Now that Ben knew we weren’t relying on 18th-century supplies, we would no longer need surreptitious deliveries in the wee hours. I was really excited for the day we’d treat Ben to his first ride in a car.

I returned to the house to catch up on whatever needed doing there and see if Ben was up yet. He wasn’t. I went to the study and perused a few books. They were still tucked away in cupboards to avoid overwhelming our guest. That brief encounter with present-day printing on a medicine bottle was making me uneasy. How hard would it be for Ben to re-acclimate himself to the English language in such a different form? Aside from that, there was now so much to read. In his day, “speed reading” probably meant finishing one book in 6 months. People didn’t even READ printed books as much anymore. They read them on Kindles, while dodging an endless stream of text messages, ads and “breaking” news alerts.

Ben now knew about 50 states and 350 million inhabitants of this country, but I didn’t think he’d gotten around to inquiring about the rest of the world. He didn’t know we were over the 8 billion mark for world population; he didn’t know about space travel, or melting ice caps, or pollution. The thought of pollution gave me some very mixed feelings about our ideas of “convenience” and the short-sighted way we’d let plastics do our thinking for us.

I thought, of course, about Trevor and the unacknowledged “elephant in the room” of race relations in this country. Trevor had declined to say much to Ben about it so far. He said he was content to let the Civil War come up in its own time, but in Ben’s own time there was already a lot of controversy around slavery. A level of disquiet during the Congress that had given birth to the Declaration of Independence had risen to a roar during the Constitutional Convention that Ben would be planning in 1785, the year he is presumed to have joined our group.

I put down the book I was skimming through and asked myself why I felt such a sense of urgency. Then I realized. Once again, I was running on 2030 time. An age when everyone talks, moves, reads and thinks as quickly as possible. Why? What exactly was our hurry? I sat back in the chair with the book on my lap, closed my eyes and took deep meditative breaths. I was safe. I was home (more or less), and among friends. There was nothing to rush for. The old man in the next room was in far more of a time crunch than any of us: He might or might not have four or five productive years left in his life, and during that time, he, or some iteration of himself, was about to draft the Constitution of the United States. Compared to that, none of us knew the first thing about urgency. I seriously needed to chill.

Just a moment later I heard the door to Ben’s room open. Then I heard the bathroom door close and the light switch click on. I got up and headed back to the kitchen so I could see if the guys were returning. But then I heard a familiar chug and looked out the front window and saw Warren’s gray Nissan Altima parking on the little pad to the side of the driveway. A moment later, he and Trevor walked through the door. Warren turned to the window and shaded the blinds. Ben would see the car eventually. Today there were other topics on the agenda.

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