“Madison 2-Forever” first appeared in moonShine review, Volume 4, Issue 2, Fall/Winter 2008
Copyright © 2008 Bob Strother
Roger Dougherty caught a glimpse of his humped shadow on the hallway wall and immediately looked away. Gnome, he thought. And then he smiled. Not at his grotesque, arthritic image, which had sent more than one Trick-or-Treater scurrying wide-eyed back to mommy, but because he had remembered an appropriate word. He said the word aloud: “Gnome,” then, “troll,” then … that was as far as he got. Arthritis and Alzheimer’s—another big double “A” battery that kept going and going and going. He could recall the propeller beanie he’d worn as a child but not where he’d hung his hat the previous evening.
Roger found himself staring at the cell phone on the table where he kept his house keys, mail, and a collection of other household objects whose proper place he had forgotten. Some he might remember later. The rest his daughter, Kelsey, would replace when she came by to check on him Sunday afternoon.
He had been about to make a phone call, but why? With a sigh and a grunt, Roger shuffled back to the kitchen and checked the list thumb-tacked to the corkboard hanging by the cabinets. His finger traced a trembling path down the list, hesitating here and there, and finally coming to rest on the number for the local grocery. A minute’s fumbling through his pockets produced a wrinkled scrap of paper and a scrawled list of necessities. Keeping the list in his hand, Roger made his way back to the hall table, picked up the phone, and consulted a taped-to-the-table set of instructions Kelsey had prepared for its use.
The grocer was on something called “speed dial,” but even using the instructions, it proved a frustrating experience. Roger’s first call went to the druggist, the next to a doctor’s office. He slammed down the phone in disgust, then picked it up and examined it carefully, hoping it wasn’t broken. The pale-blue light behind all the meaningless symbols still glowed. Roger breathed a sigh of relief. He tried to be very careful these days, fearing he’d find himself in a nice, antiseptic “home” somewhere. Just press in the numbers on the keypad and then “Send.” Roger frowned, trying to remember the number, thought he had it, and made the call. The electronic bleating shrilled in his ear.
“Hello,” a cheery female voice said.
Damnation! He’d done it again. When he called the grocer, he’d either get Jones, the proprietor, or his surly teenaged bag-and-delivery boy. This young woman was certainly neither. He should hang up.
“Hello,” the woman said again. “Who’s this?”
“I was … uh … calling for my groceries.”
“Well, this isn’t a grocery store,” she said. “It’s a residence. The number you’ve reached is Madison 2-8033.”
Madison? The telephone company hadn’t used exchange names since the 1950s. What was going on here? And the number … the one that had suddenly popped into his head only seconds ago … A spark of recognition bloomed vividly among the gnarled synapses in his brain—why, that had been his grandparents’ number at least sixty years ago. The realization caused his knees to buckle. He grasped the hall table for support.
“Sir, are you still on the line?”
Roger was speechless. The voice on the other end sounded strangely familiar, but no, it couldn’t be. She was—
“Who’s calling, please?” The slightest hint of impatience had crept into the woman’s voice.
“It’s Roger … Roger Dougherty,” he whispered.
“I should have known,” the woman said, laughing. “Roger, you prankster—are you talking through a towel or something? How’d you get your voice to sound so creaky?”
Roger said nothing.
“Well, young man, you’ll have to get up a whole lot earlier to fool your Aunt Jenny. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”
Beads of perspiration formed at Roger’s hairline.
“Did you want to say hello to Gramps or Nanny? Wait a minute, your Nanny’s right here.”
Another voice came on, more mature, and with a unique mellowness he’d never forgotten. “Roger, sweetie, is that you?”
The cell phone slipped from Roger’s moist hand and clattered to the floor, breaking into several pieces. His clothes were drenched in sweat and his head buzzed like a bag of angry flies. What the hell just happened? Aunt Jenny, his mother’s youngest sister—a maiden aunt who lived with her parents until their deaths—had passed away more than ten years ago. And Nanny had died when Roger was barely forty. What the hell was going on here? Roger massaged his temples, hoping it would help. It didn’t.
～
With calling for groceries no longer an option, Roger settled for a slice of lemon pound cake and a glass of milk and went to bed early. Much to his surprise, he fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow and, for the first time in many years, slept the untroubled sleep of a younger man.
The next morning, he summoned his courage and went back to the hallway to inspect the damage. The cell phone, or rather, the broken remnants of the cell phone, were gone. In its former place sat a sleek, white Trimline tabletop model much like the one he’d used years ago—before the Bell breakup and the proliferation of cheap, plastic throw-away instruments. Had he hallucinated the night before? Or was he hallucinating now?
He picked up the receiver and held it to his ear. The old familiar dial tone was there, the heft of the phone much more pleasing than the tiny cell. The digits on the number pad—large enough to read, he noted with some satisfaction—had a soft orange glow behind each one. He pressed a number at random and heard a soft beep. Could Kelsey have come by before he’d awakened, seen the broken cell phone, and somehow replaced it with this? He had slept longer than usual.
As Roger pondered the possibilities, his stomach growled loudly, reminding him that he’d not had dinner the previous evening, nor breakfast as yet that morning. Without thinking, he pressed in the number for Jones’s Grocery. Only when Jones answered did Roger realize that he had remembered the number correctly—and without benefit of speed dial. He gave his order, replaced the receiver reverently back in its slot, and walked to the living room window to await his delivery.
The first odd thing he noticed was that the mimosa tree—the one his late wife had planted in the front yard twenty years ago—no longer stretched high above the front porch overhang. Indeed, its fuzzy pink blooms were scarcely at eye level. And the yard itself, which had gone pretty much to seed following the onset of his arthritis, was now nearly bursting with life: multi-colored tulips lined the driveway and pink thrift mushroomed along the concrete path leading to the sidewalk. The grass was neatly trimmed and edged, the way he’d done it years before.
Roger was still staring at the yard when his front doorbell rang.
“Good morning, Mister Dougherty,” the young man said, his arms full of grocery bags. “Where shall I put these?”
This wasn’t the same, surly, ear-lip-and-nose-ringed, long-haired creature that typically rang the doorbell and left the plastic sacks simmering on the porch. This well-barbered young man was neatly dressed in khaki slacks, a knit golf shirt, and running shoes.
“In the kitchen?” Roger said, somewhat taken aback.
“Yes, sir, right away.”
When the young man returned, Roger was still waiting in the hallway. “What happened to the other boy?”
“Sir?”
“The one with all the stuff in his face—the one who delivered my groceries last week.”
“There’s no one else, sir. I’ve been doing this for the past couple of years, since I started high school.”
“Oh,” Roger said, sighing. “I must have been mistaken.”
He often vacillated between impotent rage at his condition and morose resignation. This, he figured, was a case for the latter. Certainly, there was no cause to vent his frustration on this pleasant young man. Instead, he dug into his wallet and produced a three-dollar tip.
“Cool! Thanks a lot, Mister Dougherty.”
The delivery boy’s grin was still evident as he mounted his bicycle and pedaled away.
～
After dinner that evening, Roger consulted the television listings and found a show called All in the Family. It was one he’d enjoyed years ago, and he was delighted to see it playing again. Syndication, he thought, and smiled at his grasp of the word. After a fruitless search for the remote, he turned the television on manually and went through the channels until he found the correct one.
All in the Family was followed by M*A*S*H, another of his old favorites, and then Taxi. When Roger could no longer hold his eyes open, he went to find a pencil to make note of this wonderful new syndication channel. And there on the hallway table, where the Trimline had been earlier, sat an aqua-colored Princess set. He looked around the hallway slowly: nothing else had been disturbed; the door was still locked.
Was this how it started? Sinking into the depths of dementia? Kelsey would be by on Sunday, two days from now. He could talk to her about it—a problem with his medications, perhaps. He touched the phone tentatively, let his finger rest on the edge of the rotary dial. Then he picked up the receiver and dialed: Madison 2-8033.
Gramps answered with a hearty, “Hello.”
Roger took a deep breath. “It’s Roger.”
“You don’t think I know my own grandson?” Gramps laughed, then added, “But you do sound a little hoarse. Jenny said you sounded funny yesterday, too.”
“I’ve been feeling a little … strange lately.”
“Well, I’ve got the cure for that. How’s about you and I go see the Lookouts play this Sunday?”
Roger remembered going to the ballpark with his grandfather—cold Coca-Colas and hot roasted peanuts. “That was great, Gramps.”
“And it’ll be great this Sunday, too. Say, Roger, your buddy, Jerry, called here for you earlier. You have his number?”
“I … no, I’ve forgotten the number.”
“Madison 2-1914.” The older man laughed again. “You boys have some hot dates for tomorrow night?”
Roger swallowed. “We’ll see, I guess.” The phone receiver grew warm under his grip, and he felt a thrumming sensation creeping up along his arm, across his chest, and down along his spine. Heart attack? Stroke? “I’ve got to go, Gramps. Bye.” He hung up, breathing hard, and with a trembling hand, wrote Jerry’s number down on a pad beside the phone.
～
Saturday morning, when Roger rolled out of bed and put on his eyeglasses, he knew immediately something was wrong. His whole world was fuzzy. Maybe he’d had a stroke, a small one that affected his vision. He went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. When he looked up, a different face looked back at him in the mirror. He looked forty years younger!
He put his glasses on and tried again: blurry, fuzzy … then took them off: he could see perfectly. He ran to the bedroom window and looked out. Leaves on the trees across the street stood out in vivid detail; the narrow spire of a church steeple sparkled in the distance.
Dear God, what was happening here? On the street below, a teal-blue ’65 Plymouth Barracuda motored by, followed by a shiny white Edsel, its chrome-edged tailfins glinting in the sun. As Roger stood transfixed, a young boy marched energetically along the sidewalk. Slung over his shoulder was a canvas bag with GRIT emblazoned on its side. Why, he hadn’t seen a GRIT newspaper since …
At that exact moment, Roger realized he was standing fully erect—not bent with the osteoporosis that had plagued him for the past decade. Still not believing, he stretched tentatively toward the ceiling, then bent to the floor, touching his toes, and back up.
An involuntary cry of elation escaped his lips.
He twisted his body back and forth. Then spun in a circle—his arms outstretched like a propeller; then danced an impromptu little jig. Finally, he dove headfirst onto his bed, bouncing like a five-year-old and laughing into the covers. Laughing … and crying—tears of joy, confusion, madness—he didn’t know or care. He knew only that for the first time in a very long time, he felt like a kid again.
～
When Roger had recovered from the initial shock of his miraculous transformation, he sat down and tried to analyze what had happened. But he could not. In fact, he could do little else but watch as the amazing conversion continued. Over the course of the next few hours, his hands, once wrinkled and liver-spotted, became supple and sun-freckled. His torso continued to harden and swell into smooth, muscular plates. At frequent intervals, Roger checked his progress in various mirrors around the house—though one could hardly call it progress. Regress was more like it, but what a wonderful regression it was!
By late afternoon, the metamorphosis had slowed, and by five o’clock it had stopped altogether. And that was good, because Roger had at one point wondered—and worried just a bit—if he would ultimately slip back into a totally embryonic state. Instead, the process had ground to a stop somewhere, he reckoned, around the age of sixteen. Where had once been the pale, twisted gnome now stood a tanned young Adonis.
Like any teenaged boy, Roger’s stomach had developed an infinite capacity for food. His regeneration had stoked his appetite to the point that there was nothing left of the previous day’s groceries and precious little in the fridge and pantry. Faced with the prospect of going hungry, Roger decided to call for a delivery from the grocery.
On the hall table, where the Princess had been yesterday, was now a plain black rotary-dial phone. No longer surprised at anything, Roger picked up the receiver and started to dial. Then he noticed the number he had written down the day before—Jerry’s number. He depressed the buttons in the receiver’s slot, got a new dial tone, and spun the dial.
“Yeah?” the voice said.
“Jerry?” Roger asked.
“Who else, guy? Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for days. We’ve got dates with two of the coolest chicks around and you can’t find the time to call me?” Jerry laughed. “I can see it now—we’ll be trading for backseat-bingo all night long.”
“Tonight?” Roger asked. His throat went suddenly dry.
“Of course, tonight. Roger, are you okay? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten Sandy Keller and Donna McCrosky, only the prettiest cheerleaders at our high school. Earth to Roger, are you there?”
“Yeah,” Roger said. “I’m here, I just … hey, no sweat, man. Bring ’em on.”
“Now you’re talking,” Jerry said. “I’m picking up the girls at Sandy’s at seven. We’ll be by your place at a quarter after.”
“That’s cool,” Roger said. “See you then.” As he hung up the phone, Roger pictured Donna McCrosky in his mind. He had worshipped her from afar all four years of high school, but she had been on a much higher social plane. He felt his excitement beginning to build. Could it be? Could this be happening for real?
Roger’s hunger was forgotten. He looked down at his clothes: the polyester slacks and cardigan had to go. He raced to the attic where—for some now-fortuitous reason—his wife had kept their son’s clothes packed away in plastic bins. There he found a pair of Levis, a black t-shirt, and a light gray windbreaker.
Coming down from the attic, he saw that it was nearly six-thirty. Just time enough for a shower and a shave. He ran a hand over his face, surprised at the down-like softness of his cheek. Even so, a fresh shave never hurt.
～
At seven o’clock, Roger sat in the front room of his house, rosy-cheeked and smelling of Aqua Velva. An older man might have noticed some of the not-so-subtle changes that had taken place in the neighborhood overnight: the mimosa tree, eye-height yesterday, was now nowhere to be seen; the neighbor’s house two doors down had turned into a vacant lot, in the middle of which stood a tall billboard announcing: Tranquil Forest Subdivision—A New Concept in Housing—Only Six Lots Left!
But Roger’s focus was centered squarely on the intersection of Hemlock and Poplar, where—assuming he wasn’t absolutely and completely crazy, bonkers, nutso, or worse, a pathetic, drooling vegetable strapped to a rolling hospital gurney—Jerry’s car, complete with two beautiful cheerleaders, would soon appear.
He heard the car even before he saw it. That was to be expected, since he and Jerry had spent the previous Saturday converting its dual mufflers to straight pipes. The exhausts’ throaty roar echoed off the asphalt, tires wailing as the vehicle careened around the corner and slid to a stop in front of the house.
Roger was up and at the door in a flash. His best friend’s car was truly a thing of beauty: a pale-green ’51 Ford two-door with bubble skirts, a Continental Kit, and two fuzzy dice swinging from the mirror. Idling at the curb, the twin pipes burbled sweet motor music that almost drowned out the sound of “Earth Angel” on the car radio.
In the quickly fading light, Roger could just make out the two blonde cheerleaders. Sandy had claimed the shotgun seat; Donna decorated the back.
Jerry leaned across and yelled out the passenger-side window. “Let’s go, Daddy-O. The beer’s getting warm.”
For just a moment, the whole scene broke up into tiny cubes with lines shifting haphazardly and then reshifting. Like one of those cubist paintings … or a scratched DVD, he thought briefly.
Then Donna leaned out the back window and smiled at him—the warmest, most compelling smile he had ever, in his short life, seen. “C’mon, Roger,” she said. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”
“So have I,” Roger whispered, bounding off the porch. “So have I.”
Sandy pulled her seatback forward, allowing Roger to slip in beside Donna. As the car door slammed, the Ford squealed away from the curb, jamming Roger into the seat and practically in Donna’s lap.
“You’re behind already,” Jerry said, passing a church key and a paper sack over the seat.
Roger opened a beer and gave it to Donna, then opened one for himself. “Where’re we going?” he asked.
Jerry’s eyes met his in the rearview mirror. They gleamed with a devilish light. “At this point, does it really matter?”
Donna leaned against him, her soft breast pressing into his arm. Roger caught a whiff of her perfume and felt a warmth spread through his loins. He held Jerry’s gaze. “I guess not.”
The Ford rocketed through the night, first blurring the landscape, then erasing it altogether, leaving nothing but blackness in its place. Donna’s arms were around his neck as they sank down in the back seat. She tasted of PBR and Juicy Fruit, and Roger thought her skin might burn the tips of his fingers.
At some point, the pitch of the engine changed, and he ceased to feel the vibration of the road beneath them. Stars filled the car windows, then fireworks blossomed—rockets and pinwheels and umbrellas of white-hot light cascading across the sky. Roger wondered briefly if the fireworks might simply be the blood vessels bursting inside his brain. Then he felt the blonde cheerleader’s warm breath on his neck, and he pulled her closer, and figured Jerry had it right: it didn’t really matter.
Bob Strother 