Butterman (Time) Travel, Inc. Page 14

  Defensively, I raise my voice. “Forget that. Wouldn’t wanna drag the fun loving Tristan Helms down, now would I? No way, brother.”

  A change in the music makes my ears perk up. Quickened tempo, raspy bellows. Pouring from the speakers in cascading rhythms. On impulse, I clamber up the side piling for a better view, scratching my knee in the process, but shit, I’m so pissed I don’t care right now …

  Holy hell, the stage is right there. So close I could almost leap to it. There’s Janis Joplin in tie-dyed glory, making love to the old school standup mike. No more Ms. Nice Girl like before—she’s commanding the stage, her voice gravelly and luxurious. Potent and soulful, rising and falling, sliding and smooth. Sandpaper and molasses. What’s coming from her lips is no longer a song—it’s a calling, to slip down whatever rabbit hole she’s from, lose control alongside her, because we’ll be doing it together as friends.

  And right now I want more than anything to go with her.

  I’m mesmerized, paralyzed. I’ve seen hundreds, if not thousands of holographic live music performances, but this—this is something different. She’s belting lyrics like her life depended on this one song, her hands gripping the mike, eyes squeezed shut as she wails, the song emerging from somewhere deep inside her—a power larger than life. Where does it come from? How can such a small body contain that kind of visceral energy? Her spirit bursts from the speakers like a caged lioness set free on its unsuspecting prey. Pure rockin’ prowess.

  In my musical stupor, I want to scream out, “Kiss my ass, DOT! You can’t steal this moment from me! You thought you could, but you didn’t! I’m here.”

  Holy hell. Why am I here in 1969?

  Janis’ song ends and I’m left dried and scorched in her wake. Unfuckingbelivable. This is what Tristan’s been trying to tell me? Jimi Hendrix will evoke something in me, too? For Tristan, it will. Maybe we all have that someone who awakens new life within us—an artist, or performer, who stirs our barren well with fresh, fluid creativity, unwittingly connecting us to something bigger. Frozen Solstice did that for me.

  But now I see, they’ve merely opened the door.

  The sun beams on my arms and face. Sweltering, but therapeutic at the same time. Sweat covers my body to a point I can smell myself, and for the first time ever, it doesn’t bother me. All these people around me, they’re sweating and stinky too.

  From my perch on the piling, I peer out amidst the ocean of faces, like a pirate on the high seas, my hand shielding the midday sun from my eyes. Potent herb wafts through the air, delicious and inviting. This entire moment in time seems so right. Everywhere around me people are free and alive in peaceful friendship, united through music. I’m stuck in an old photograph, but not one yellowed with age—one that’s vivid and bright, ripe and raw.

  I don’t want it to end.

  CHAPTER 15

  My arms weaken from my perch on the wood piling, and I glance below. Tristan’s beneath me, staring, his bare feet caked with mud, his bead-strewn chest and once-white snow pants tainted with dried dirt. Flecks of sunlight shimmer gold in his blond shag from the afternoon light.

  Through an explosion of adrenaline, I’m overcome with the urge to fling my arms around him. Quickly, I climb down, my eyes fastened on his. “Did you hear that?”

  He regards me, a smile playing at his lips, dark brows arched behind his tousled bangs. “Everyone in Sullivan County heard that.”

  My gaze holds onto his, unrelenting, and through the sound-filled silence, a connection binds us. Firm and tight. He experienced the same thing I did—through this entire journey, we’ve shared everything. We are the strangers united through music, preserved in time. “That was … so … I can’t even explain.”

  A full grin pulls the corners of his lips up now. “You don’t have to, Butterman. I was there. Should’ve known Janis Joplin would rock your world. Makes sense, now that I think of it.”

  I’m about to ask what that’s supposed to mean when Nancy appears, slips her arms around Tristan’s waist. “Come on, baby. Only got a few minutes then we miss our window.”

  Her words send a shiver down my spine. How’s that for a slice of reality pie? We will miss our window. I check my watch. We have all of fifteen minutes to see Hendrix if we’re to keep my hour buffer to reach Essence.

  “Tristan,” I say, “we have to move fast. I don’t see how we can get into see this guy and get back in time.”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Nancy says, turns with Tristan’s hand in hers. “Follow me.”

  Tristan hangs back to face me, though his body is moving forward. “We can do this. You can’t expect me to be this close and give it up now.”

  “I gave up meeting Dirk.”

  Tristan grabs my arm, forcing me to move faster, with Nancy still fixed to his other side. “You gotta know how epic this is for me. What if we go back to the time-craft—can you move us forward so we can be here already? I mean, like your slogan, right? Time is in our hands.”

  I groan. “Nice try, but if we keep messing around with this time string we’re gonna shake ourselves up. And I’m not playing anymore games. You can come back here during another time trip.”

  If we’re still in the time travel business, that is.

  “We’ve got fifteen minutes, and I intend to use it.” He lets my arm go and quickens his pace.

  Forced to keep up, I follow them, ignoring the spurt of jealousy rising in my chest. I want to scratch it away with my fingernails, along with Nancy’s arm at Tristan’s back. Over the course of our steps, it’s falling lower and lower down his waist til almost in slo-mo, her hand cups his ass, then falls away, right as we approach the trailer door.

  Nancy knocks, and some guy in a white tee shirt steps aside for her to enter. Tristan glances at me, waits in a too-late, half-ass act of chivalry for me to enter before him. Inside the narrow quarters, my eyes find a feast of colored lights streaming off purple interior walls. Three guys and two girls lounge on a makeshift sofa, legs propped, arms dangling; a smoky haze rising into a cloudy pinnacle above them. No doubt who Hendrix is. A presence so impeccable he could be made out of wax: thick afro mashed in at the sides by a red bandana; two small round earrings and a gold chain accenting smooth mocha flesh. His chest peeks out from a white fringed shirt opened down to his abs.

  He nods up at us, now leaning over his ivory retro-electric guitar. A joint passes to his ready fingers and he inhales deeply, smoke swirling up from his thin-mustached lip. Every breath I take in is now laced with the heady aroma of secondhand reefer. Full and robust. In this very surreal moment, I don’t fight against it. Instead, I welcome the weedy perfume into my lungs til my head expands like a balloon and calms my flaring nerves.

  I set the timer on my watch for the final countdown: Thirteen minutes, fifty-six seconds.

  Nancy draws my attention back to the group, her arms embracing each of them one by one, with such a natural, easy grace that I could never come close to imitating.

  Next thing I know, Tristan’s taking a seat on a folding chair, two bodies down from his rock hero. “Great to meet you, Jimi. Really great. I mean it, this is like, wow.”

  Tristan looks so vulnerable that I have to giggle, and it’s louder than I expected. Who knew superstar golden boy could get gushy over someone?

  All of them notice me now, Hendrix included, and they smirk through glassy-eyed stares.

  “Sorry,” I say. “My friend’s eloquent outburst struck me as funny.”

  Tristan doesn’t give me a second look. But Nancy flicks a brow my way, and for a minute, I want to ask her if there’s no such thing as snark in the twentieth century. Then Hendrix steals my attention with his mellow-melodic voice.

  “Right on. Tristan, you say. Yeah, I can dig it.” He chuckles and tokes from the joint again, long and deep, exhaling after a long pause. “Enjoying our little show here?”

  “Better believe it, man. You have no idea what it took for us to get here.” Tristan leans back i
n his chair, amused with himself, flipping his bangs aside with a jerk of his head.

  “No? Where you from then?” Hendrix asks. His voice has a way of drifting outward, as if lifted on a breeze.

  Tristan glances up at me. “If I told you, you’d never believe it. But originally, I’m from L.A.”

  “Far out, man,” the guy to Hendrix’s left says, now receiving the communal joint.

  “California,” Hendrix says, and draws it out syllable by syllable. “A west-coaster. I’m from Seattle, you know. You came a long way, my man.”

  “You only know the half of it,” Tristan says, hands behind his head now.

  Nancy’s coaxed away by the two girls in short shorts and they disappear behind a tie-dyed drape at the far side of the trailer. I’m the only one left standing and it occurs to me I’m a grungy mess. Not a thing I can do about it either.

  The trailer door opens and a guy calls in, “On in five, Jimi.”

  Whoever’s onstage right now has been talking, not playing music. Been like that for the last half hour. People flapping their gums about what a great bunch of kids this group is, and if everyone picks up around them there won’t be such a mess. Some guy even announces the bad acid is all gone and people should feel comfortable to drop freely. So much gabbing that this crowd should be ravenous for music by the time Hendrix gets out there.

  The two stoners next to Hendrix rise, move toward the front of the trailer in a lackadaisical bustle, toward what looks like an oversized amplifier. Dinosaur equipment. Boxy and behemoth.

  My lungs seem to be squeezing into each other and I hack, which attracts Hendrix’s attention. He motions me with the joint between his fingers, his voice decadently soft. “And who’s this now?”

  Making eye contact with Tristan’s guitar god gives me an odd little buzz that sprouts down to my toes. Enough to propel me forward and take a seat beside him so we’re shoulder to shoulder. He’s smaller than he looks, but put together like a fine portrait, with long molten strokes and warm gentle blends that make up his image.

  I’m relaxed by his easy company. “I’m Bianca. Tristan’s guide.”

  Hendrix nods, exhales smoke. “Right on. Good stuff?”

  I smile, glance at Tristan.

  “That’s not what she means,” Tristan says, then fixes his gaze on me. “He thinks you’re an LSD guide.”

  “Ohhhh ….,” I say.

  Hendrix offers me the joint, but I shake my head. People in this decade sure are generous with their drugs. Makes me feel impolite refusing it, and I wonder if I’ve committed some kind of hippie faux pas.

  Hendrix doesn’t seem to mind, though.

  “Trust me, I’m feeling fine right now,” I say, which is true. Just breathing inside this haze is enough to contaminate my lungs, send my brain soaring.

  I’m caught off my horse, though, when Tristan not only accepts the joint from Hendrix, but sucks it in with a long, even toke. I watch the ash elongate at its tip like time is standing still. Tristan peers at me through a thin wisp of smoke as he exhales, his expression placid and pointed, as if to say this is his moment and nothing is going to ruin it—not me, not our time window, or even his rehabilitation.

  I understand how huge this encounter is for him. And truth is, I’m completely ignorant when it comes to which drugs do what. If I don’t hear about it in the Web chat rooms, I don’t know about it. All I know is that, instinctually, it feels wrong. I’m sure it shows on my face just now. Tristan must think I’m the most sheltered and inexperienced time traveler in existence.

  And I’m anxious to show him how wrong he is. Something new inside me is hatching. I felt the first crackles of its emergence only a little while ago, watching Janis perform. More lies beneath my surface, and I don’t know if it’s good or bad. My head buzzes with a newfound insecurity.

  “Jimi,” I say with steady self-assuredness, “you wanna know where we’re really from? Or should I say when we’re from?”

  He squints at me through heavy lids. “Yeah, baby. Tell me everything.”

  Glancing at Tristan, then back at Hendrix, I grin. “2069.”

  Hendrix erupts in laughter. “Solid. Really solid, man.”

  “No, really. We’re time travelers from the future.”

  Once Hendrix stops chuckling, he notices the dead seriousness on my face, looks from me to Tristan.

  Tristan nods.

  “Shit, man,” Hendrix says. “You can’t trip my mind all up before I go on …”

  Tristan and I exchange glances. In his eyes the question burns—he wants to know why I’d tell Jimi Hendrix of all people, risk some kind of PF or parallel shift. Part of me wants to answer outright—tell him he doesn’t have me pegged, that I can be spontaneous and fun. But what am I trying to prove now that our time is almost up?

  “The future,” Hendrix says, straight-faced now, soaking it all in like he’s slowly accepting the truth. “That’s a head trip, man. Total mind fuck.” He speaks to Tristan. “You came back from the future to see the show?”

  “To see you,” Tristan says. “Your performance today’ll go down in history. You’ll become an icon of your generation. Fans’ll never forget you long after you’re gone.”

  Hendrix lets that thought marinate a moment, smoke still winding upward from the joint in his fingers.

  “I’m not kidding, man,” Tristan says. “I’m a musician myself, and even for me a hundred years from now, you’re a legend. Seeing you here right now, before you go on, you’ve no idea what it means to me. And knowing I’ll see you perform live … man, it just rocks my world.”

  A fluttering tickle in my chest reminds me how much this really is Tristan’s moment. I’m captivated by the intense satisfaction on his face, the passion in his words. They can’t be ignored, or the sentiment discounted. And that’s what proves our truth. Not even a primitive icon like Jimi Hendrix can disregard that. Will I be that convincing on my Induction Day, when it’s my turn to spill the truth?

  I could show Hendrix my watch and prove technology has surpassed anything he’s ever been introduced to, but in this case, there’s no reason to prove anything. He can believe whatever he wants.

  “Listen, Jimi, I’ve gotta tell you something …” Tristan’s forehead is creased with lines. “Stay off the drugs. It doesn’t go well for you.”

  I find this particularly odd—a recovering addict giving advice to his rock hero. Must be something catastrophic in Hendrix’s future. I make a mental note to ask Tristan later.

  Hendrix half smiles, shakes his head. “You’re shittin’ me. From the future. And you’ve seen me perform this same show I haven’t even done yet?”

  “A million times. Got it right on my handheld.”

  “Your what?” Hendrix says.

  “It’s this device in the future—everybody uses them, like digital notebooks you can stream media to.” Tristan stands now, his hands raised in full animation. “You play Voodoo Chile, and Purple Haze …”

  “How the hell did you know …” Hendrix trails off, rubs his forehead.

  “And your rendition of the National Anthem is epic,” Tristan adds.

  “National Anthem?” Hendrix asks, then snickers. “What, here? Now? You think I’m playing the National Anthem?”

  “You are.” Tristan nods. “You have to. It’s a historical rock moment. Everything you do today becomes classic.”

  Hendrix stands now, his guitar draped over his shoulder, hanging at his waist. “Classic? My music’s in the right now. I don’t do classics.”

  “But one day, in the future, your music will become classic. A century from now people still listen to it. Classic rock still has a huge following.”

  “Classic rock? What the …?” Hendrix stops, turns.

  One of the girls in short shorts saunters up to him, hands him a decanter and slips something into his palm. He swigs from the flask, hands it back to her, then glances from Tristan to me again, laughs with childlike amusement. “You had me, you know. Just
what kinda stuff you on, anyway?”

  Tristan lets out a long sigh.

  The door opens and the same guy as before points at Hendrix. “Your guys are waiting onstage.”

  I check my watch. Nine minutes, thirty-seven seconds.

  Hendrix pats me on the shoulder, puts a hand out for Tristan, the long white fringe from his sleeve swaying in the draft he created.

  In a swift lunge, Tristan embraces him for all of three seconds. “Stay off the drugs, Jimi.” He pulls back, says to his face, “Your life depends on it.”

  Hendrix shakes his head, grinning, then exits, mumbling something about the National Anthem and what a joke playing it would be.

  CHAPTER 16

  “That’s it,” I say, outside the trailer now. “Let’s bolt.”

  Tristan lays a hand on my shoulder. “Seriously, Butterman? Hendrix is about to perform. We can’t miss it now, after just talking to the man himself. That’s like … sacrilege.”

  Nancy appears and tugs Tristan to the left of the stage, just behind the ropes from the masses. I stride up behind them, checking my watch on the way. I’m still on the customer-is-always-right clock for a few minutes, then Tristan’s on my time.

  “Five minutes, Golden Boy,” I say. “That’s all you have left. No matter what.”

  Nancy gives me a dazed look and Tristan strains a smile. Up on stage, Hendrix and a few other musicians orient themselves while we wait in the mud. People around us shuffle about, hooting, whistling, ready for more entertainment, but bleary-eyed from the past three days of slogging through mud, scrounging for nourishment. Nancy tells us there’s been a water shortage for at least a day.

  I’m about to check my watch again when Hendrix’s guitar emits a long stream of feedback over the speakers. A collective hush silences the crowd. His velvety voice filters through the mike in a brief greeting, before he recedes to center stage, producing a series of fuzz and distortion like some secret musical language. Guitar riffs rise and fall, spinning out of control beneath his nimble fingers, plucking invisible energy from the strings. I can’t peel my eyes away from Hendrix’s face, now contorted in an ecstasy that must travel throughout his entire body. He’s on that wave, and this time it’s full of funk.