Fixed in the Past

by Ken Tokuno © 2018

                I’d known Chad for about 9 years, y’know, long enough to think I knew the guy at least a little bit. Turns out I didn’t know him half as well as I thought. I’d gone to office parties. Met his wife. She had that look of a lady who was well pleased with herself. Even if she was just a little plump when I first met her she was really hot. Since then, she’d been getting a little plumper with each year, but when I first saw her, hey, I could tell that she had been a real looker back in her younger days. Her name was Carol. We shook hands. She had one of those super feminine hand-shakes, y’know, real limp. Still, I was in instant lust. Lucky guy, that Chad.

            That first time we met, she says to me, “So you work with Chad? What do you do?

“Like him, I just push around a lot of papers all day. Makes me wonder what I got a college degree for.”

            “Yeah, Chad sometimes says things like that, but we met in college, so I got my man at least, right hon?” she says.

             Chad says, “Yeah, you sure did.” Back then he looked very pleased with himself. The proverbial cat that ate the proverbial canary.

            The other Friday night, though, we were at another office party and I could see that Carol wasn’t with Chad. So I asks him, “So how’s the missus?”

            Chad says, “Carol? Oh, she’s just great, just…great.”

Something about the way Chad says that is really funny. Y’know “odd” funny not “funny” funny. Not so much the words he said but the look in his eyes, like he was trying to tell me that there was more to the story than their living happier ever after, y’know?

Work the next week and I run into Chad who looks a bit demolished like he’d had something to drink before lunch. “You, uh, having a sip or two to loosen up there, Chad?” I says.

            “No Denny, I’ve sworn off liquor ever since just before I married Carol. She wouldn't marry me otherwise.”

            Wow, the dude stopped drinking because of her. She must be some kind of , y’know, wizard. “That reminds me,” I says. “You gave me a funny look at the party the other night. You tryin’ to tell me something about your wife?”

           He doesn’t give me a straight answer. “Denny,” says Chad. “You think Carol is good looking?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so. Not my type but she’s pretty.” Y’know I’m diplomatic as hell. Didn’t want to reveal that I would have shagged her in a minute.

           “When she was in college, man, I gotta tell you she was devastating looking, what we used to call a super fox.” I remember that back in those days we called hot women foxes. Something to do with Jimi Hendrix.

            Now Chad was not a bad looking guy at all, but he was no rock star and his personality was only so-so. I knew he was smart because he went to a college that was one of those that I had no shot of getting into, hadn’t even bothered to apply. I figured he had as much chance of landing a super fox as I did, which was to say infinitesimally small.

            I was blunt. I says, “So how did you get her to marry you?”

            Chad got that same weird look in his eyes. Understand now that we were not good buddies at all.  We didn’t hang out together. Just had an occasional lunch almost always with two or three other guys, y’know. But he says, “What are you doing for lunch.”

            I says, “Huh?”

            He says, “It’s a long story and I’ve never told anyone before because no one would believe it, but I gotta vent it out.”

            Now I was getting a funny feeling. Why would he tell me?

            I says, “So why tell me?” 

            He says, “Because you seem like the kind of guy who might believe it. How long have we known each other? Ten years? Besides, you’re the first one to have the balls to ask me about my getting Carol. You’re not exactly diplomatic.”

            So we go to lunch. We spend way too much time there and I worry about getting back to work, but he’s telling me this unbelievable story. And he doesn’t touch a drink. I probably should have avoided the third martini, but he was buying. I don’t believe what he tells me, whether I’m drunk or not, but that look in his eyes makes me want to. Here it is:

            He first met Carol when he was a senior at this first rate university they both attended. She was a freshman. He first saw her at the bookstore and it was one of those love at first sight things for him. She was gorgeous, he said, the most beautiful women he had ever seen. In his words, shimmering long blonde hair, flashing blue eyes, great figure, everything. He went right up to her and asked her for a date.  Being a freshman and all, I guess she was flattered by his bravado, so she said yes and they arranged to meet that Saturday. I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t have a boyfriend, but, hey, she was a freshman. Or maybe she did and Chad didn’t mention it.

They went to a movie. He was not experienced with women. He hardly said anything during the date and when they got back to her dorm, he didn’t have the guts to even try to kiss her, even though she had held his hand. What a simp.

            The next day all he could think about was her. He was in what he thought was love and like so many dumb-asses I’ve met, he thought she loved him too. So he calls her that night and asks her for another date. She was more experienced about this stuff then he was. Must’ve had some experience in high school.

            According to Chad, the phone call went something like this:

            “Hi Carol, this is Chad. I had a great time last night and I wondered when I could see you again?

            “Oh.” Chad remembers Carol pausing for some time here. “Chad. Uhh, I had a nice time, too. I meant to tell you some time that I want us to be good friends, so I don’t think we should see each other too soon.”

            “What do you mean by ‘friends’?”

            “Well, I’m just a freshman and I don’t want to get tied down by anything like a boyfriend, okay?”

            Here, Chad loses track of exactly how he handled the end of the call, but he says he immediately got very depressed as he soaked up the words he had just heard. He says he spent most of the rest of the night sitting on the sofa with his head between his legs. All he could do was see Carol’s face floating in front of him. He never did get any sleep that night. There must be a million guys who could tell this story, y’know? As for that phone call? Any idiot could have told Chad it would be like that after the way he acted on his date.

            So what does this loser do? He doesn’t give up, but keeps trying to see her and not just at her dorm room, but outside her classes, at the library—it would be called stalking today. He tells her, though, that he’s just trying to be friends. Finally, he walks her to her dorm from the library one night and blurts out that he loves her. What a simp. She gets furious with him and tells him that she never wants to see him again. Of course he’s broken hearted, but he graduates in two months and he has to stop bothering her.

            I’m listening to this, y’know, and thinking to myself about how he’s now married to this woman. As dull as his story is, I’m now curious about what he claims is unbelievable about this. Does Carol realize later that she loved him and looked him up? Happy ending? Or did he make a robot replica of her or something equally weird? I didn’t have a clue.

            We got our orders and we’re now eating and he tells me that his story is just beginning. What he does for the next ten years is, whaddaya call it, pine away for her. Myself, I’d call it an obsession. After all I majored in Psychology. This doesn't mean that he wants to be a celibate, natch. He dates. He has some success with women. He even has a couple of long term relationships, but Carol is always on his mind. Get this: He says he woke up every morning with an ache in his heart and Carol’s face in his mind. What a simp. He spends a lot of time in thinking about what he did wrong with her and how if he could do it all over again he would win her over.

            Now comes the weird part. Get this. He claims he’s actually lived twice. Well, not lived twice but replayed 8 years of his life. Like, he got a chance to re-do the years of his life from that last year in college until he was 30. So he tells me that one day well after he has turned 30, y’know, he realized that he knew exactly what he shoulda, coulda done. Using his experiences with women, some how-to books he read and Psychologists on the radio, he knew by that age exactly what he did wrong and how to fix it. He goes to bed feeling even more sorry for himself than ever. What a simp. The next day, you ready for this? The next day when he wakes up, he’s back in college. But he’s not really back in college, only his mind is back in his college body. Makes no sense, huh? Like what happened to his 30-year old body? I don’t know.

            Well, Chad couldn’t explain it either. He just said it happened. He woke up and there he is in his frat house, in his frat bed, which was a single room since he was a senior. He had--or his mind had—gone back to the time he first met Carol, the day he went to the bookstore and saw her.  His face, his clothes, his body were all what they had been when he was 22, but his mind was 30. He was back in the week that he had replayed over and over in his mind about what he would do differently. He’s getting a chance to fix the past. He says he felt mature, confident and he knew he could win Carol over.

            Of course, I’m not buying any of this bull-hockey, y’know. On the other hand, he seemed to really believe it, so maybe I’m dealing with a certifiable here. I figure no harm in letting him tell the whole story since he’s paying for the lunch. Plus he does have Carol.

            Of course, he tells me that the first thing he does is go to the bookstore remembering the first thing he had to do differently: be himself. Sure enough, he finds Carol there. In his words, she “looks as radiant as ever.” What’d he expect? Here I expect him to drag out a photo of what she looked like then. He doesn’t. He says, instead, that he was really nervous because he didn’t want to blow it again. He even wore better clothes than the first time so he would look better. Shaved and all that. The clean cut look was big in those days. Also the long hair. He had that, like every other guy in the 70s. He knows his best approach is to look casual, be natural and he introduce himself directly. He now knew that the best opening line is a simple “hi.”

            She says “Hello,” back to him. She smiles a little. He says he didn’t remember her smiling the first time. He follows by telling her his name and asking hers. The straight ahead approach. No games. It works. She tells him her name and adds that she’s a freshman. He tells her, matter of factly, that he’s a senior. He can that she’s impressed tell by the way her eyes widen but she says nothing. Then he makes his first move.

            “There’s an Omega Lambda Pi party this Friday. Would you like to come as my guest?” He knew that she was impressed by frat guys from before. That was partly why she went out with him. No movie this time. Second thing to do differently. More of a chance for him to get to talk to her. Again, she’s impressed that he’s acted so boldly so she agrees to go with him. So he asks for her phone number and where she lives and he cuts to the end. He now knew not to drag it out as he recalled doing the first time.

            “Pick you up at seven. Bye.” That’s what he says he did.

            So now he makes a big deal out of telling me that this first date was the key. He had to be himself or at least the self his mind was:  older, suave, and at ease. Show a lot of interest in her and not talk about himself. Introduce him to his friends without being jealous of their attention or looking like he was trying to show her off to his OLP brothers. He felt a bit odd about being back in time with all his old frat brothers including one who had died shortly after college. Still, his focus was all on Carol.

            It must have worked, because when he took her home after the party, he remembered how nervous he had been 30 years before; how he had not even tried to kiss her. His third major change was to be strong and confident and the best thing he could do was make an assertive move to kiss her. So he did and she returned his kiss with, what he says, was ardor. Whatever. I guess she didn’t wop him upside his head. Nowadays, in the early 21^st century, they hop into bed on the first date, but this was then. I was still listening with skepticism.

            The fourth thing he had to do differently was not push her too hard. No calls the next day. He let things simmer for two weeks. Something he never could have done, y’know, before. Before he could call her, though, he runs into her on campus She bats her eyelashes at his and tells him that she had a great time. Women have to be subtle. He says he now (meaning “then,” y’know) knew how to read that as a signal. He immediately asks her to go to dinner at a posh place in the town nearby. She jumps at the chance. They go. They talk in that private setting. Quiet. Dark. Intimate he says. He says all the “right things.” Calls her a week later and boom, they’re going steady as we used to say. He proposes. They get married right after she graduates.

            I’m still thinking “No way.”

            What I could not deny was: There she was. She was married to him and I could certainly see how she must have looked at the age of 18. I asked him then if he had a picture of her or the two of them from back in the day—whichever day he was talking about. He opened his wallet to show me a worn photo—no cell-phone then—and I saw the two of them looking pretty happy and it was true, she was really hot.

            I guess I sounded pretty cynical when I asked him “So did you live happily ever after? I mean ya gotta admit that this sounds like some kinda fairy tale. Hard to believe.”

He got that strange look in his eye again, except this time I could tell that it had a tincture of sorrow.

“How could I make this up? Fairy tale? Happily ever after? Not really. We never had any kids. Carol didn’t want any.”

            I guess Chad had wanted to have kids. He went on to say that it was great when they were dating and got more and more serious until he proposed to her. She said yes, but they never had sex until after they were married.

            “I bet it was great sex once you had her signed, sealed and delivered?” I says.

            After I said that the look in his eyes went all the way into grief. He says,” We hardly ever had sex and when we did it was like I was screwing a plastic model. I haven’t touched her in ten years.”

I says, “So you’re telling me that you shoulda been more careful what you wished for or what?”

He says, “When she said yes to my proposal, and I went the whole nine-yards: ring, kneeling to propose at a nice restaurant, it was the happiest day of my life. At that time I didn’t know how I got to be in that position, getting to go back in time, but I should still be grateful. It was kind of like providence, don’t you think?”

I had no answer for the poor sap. I thought about how Carol looked pleasantly plump as they say, kind of like a blond dumpling. I was pretty sure she was heading to fat city. It was also kind of obvious that she spent every dime he made, cause he made a good salary, but his suits were all department store grays and he drives a twelve year old Ford. I can imagine what kind of house they live in.

All I could think of to say was, “Well, it’s all pretty strange to me.”

            “But,’ he says, “at least I got her.”

            What can I say, y’know?