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“Who are you?” BJ asked.
Hawkeye was just coming to, just unraveling the latest tangle, and piecing together where and when he was.
“I’m—” he started, swallowing thickly.
His head had that usual cottony feeling. When he was little he compared it to the world-rattling, icy cold of getting hit in the skull with a snowball that was mostly ice. Tommy Gillis’ cousin Peter had done that to Hawk once. That’s what chronokinesis felt like, some of the time—at least the exciting part, the part that people wanted to hear about.
The room was coming into greater focus. Hawkeye could tell he was on a couch. He could feel a knitted blanket on the back of his neck, scratchy, like the one Margaret was making. There was dust in the air, and sunlight pouring in through a big, presumably living room, window. But BJ was here. It was hard to look too closely at him, in case he was an illusion. That happened sometimes, when Hawkeye phased between moments too quickly. Sometimes there was an aftertaste. Time travel was sour on his tongue. It made phantoms dance in his field of vision. Hawkeye liked BJ better when he was really there.
BJ put his hands on Hawkeye’s shoulders. His hands were heavy. They were calloused. And really there.
“Hey, it’s okay,” BJ said. “It’s 1965.”
“Oh,” Hawkeye said, blinking hard.
A moment ago it had been 1951. He’d been in the Swamp, in the freezing cold. BJ had been there too, but he’d looked different. He’d been clean shaven, and in olive drab. He’d been wearing a coat over two sweaters and the tip of his nose was cherry red. He’d been saying Hawk, Hawk… and snapping his fingers, which meant Hawkeye was about to go somewhere. Technically, he was still there. The Hawkeye of 1965, the Hawkeye this BJ had just been speaking to, was in his 1951 body, probably pretending to be asleep. Whenever he didn’t feel like explaining, he pretended to be asleep.
“Can you tell me where you’re coming from?” BJ asked.
His hands were still on Hawkeye’s shoulders. He was perched on an ottoman directly in front of him. Their knees knocked together. BJ was wearing light wash jeans and he wasn’t angry. Hawkeye had never seen him in jeans and he’d rarely been asked who he was without accusation. It was a question strangers spat at him, sometimes.
“The Swamp,” Hawkeye said. “You… you, you—know, then? I…did I tell you?”
“Lie back,” BJ said. “Just breathe for a bit.”
He retrieved a pillow from the other end of the couch and tucked it under Hawkeye’s head. Hawkeye made a great effort to breathe and to calm down, but he hadn’t been rocketed this far in the future in a long while. It was the war, fucking with everything. He’d have to record the details in his fieldnotes when he got back. He travelled more when he was in distress. When his mother died, he woke up in so many different times and places that it felt like he lost months. He lived in waking dreams. He cried all the time.
BJ put his hand on Hawkeye’s sternum. It was instantly calming in a way that seemed like it wasn’t the first time he’d done it.
“Where are we?” Hawkeye asked.
The fear was receding. He could look up at BJ without it being blinding. It was early evening, maybe, and Hawk could hear city sounds: honking cars, shouting teenagers, trash can lids slamming closed. BJ looked older, but there weren’t bags beneath his eyes. His expression was soft, which was confusing, but made heat radiate through Hawkeye’s chest and down through his arms.
“San Francisco,” BJ said. “Do you want to see your fieldnotes? Or something to drink?”
“Gin?” Hawkeye said.
BJ’s expression softened further. “We don’t have any. Tea? Lemonade? Orange juice? You told me citrus helps,” he said.
“I did?”
“You said it might be placebo. It might be vitamin C deficiency and nothing to do with chronokinesis. But we’ve got orange juice. And oranges. Do you want an orange?” BJ asked.
“You’ve got my fieldnotes and it’s 1965,” Hawkeye said.
Some constellation of true things was taking shape in his brain. He couldn’t see the picture yet, but he was getting closer.
BJ cupped Hawkeye’s jaw with his palm, just for a moment, and then he got up.
“I’ll get them,” he said.
The notebook was familiar. It was of the same size, shape, and paper weight of the one he had in his trunk back in the Swamp. Some of the pages were water damaged at the edges. He flipped through. He ran his hand along the spine.
“You got a new one a couple years ago,” BJ supplied, as if he could read Hawkeye’s mind. “Ran out of pages. Even with your tiny handwriting.”
Hawkeye looked up at him. BJ’s shoulders were hunched. His elbows were on his knees. It was the same attentive posture he was used to. It bordered on overeager puppy dog in 1951. It was more relaxed now.
“I’ll take that tea now, if you don’t mind,” Hawkeye said.
“‘Course” BJ said, and he was gone.
Hawkeye began reading.
FIELDNOTES (& TRAVEL LOG)
B.F PIERCE
5-12-63 Brain feels scrambled. I’m close to some new understanding. Today it happened right before we were off to work. I almost fell in the hallway, coming down the townhouse stairs. Beej caught me by my elbow and that’s the last thing I remember. I’m not sure where I went this time, maybe I was too young to piece it together. All I remember is warmth. It makes me think about what Dad used to say—well, used to say Mom said: that when I was a baby she’d look into my eyes and think I could see right through her, into her soul, like I was older somehow.
8-10-64 In Swamp. Trap’s here. Found the old log and got myself up to speed. Trying not to think of the shock it’s going to be for ’50 Hawk to wake up at our place alone. Beej has a weekend away with Erin, Girl Scout trip. He wanted me to come but I had a bad feeling. Hate it when I’m right.
1-3-65 Came to in the middle of anatomy lab. I think they thought I was hungover. I think it’s Spring ’41? Didn’t stay long enough to sort it out.
6-30-65 Got kicked back to ’38 – Dad got mad at me for skipping class to go to the beach with Marnie. I hardly remember Marnie. I think she wanted to kiss me, but I feel like an old man so I didn’t let it happen. Only stayed 3 hours. Taught her how to skip stones.
BJ came back with the tea and set it on a coaster. He pulled one of the Margaret blankets off a chair and draped it over Hawkeye’s shoulders.
“I thought I was more precise about dates than this,” Hawkeye said.
“The technical stuff’s in another notebook. Those are really diary entries now. Flip to the appendices,” BJ said.
“Right, of course, multiple appendices,” he said.
Hawkeye laughed, a startled, too-loud guffaw that broke out of his throat the same way it did in the Swamp. It was a relief, he realized, to know there was an other side to the war. It was an oasis to know some version of Hawkeye Pierce was alive in 1965. He couldn’t remember if he knew that already.
BJ’s shoulders relaxed. Hawkeye hadn’t known BJ’s posture was tense until he saw the way it melted. He thought about his Beej, back in 1950. There was usually something stiff and jumpy in his movements. He was primed to duck for cover or into O.R.
“Your laugh’s different now,” BJ said. “Surprised me.”
“Different how?” Hawkeye said.
BJ ran his hands through his hair. Hawkeye studied his face more closely. He had smile lines and crow’s feet. His jaw was scruffy, and he had a completely uncharacteristic mustache. In the trip from the kitchen back to the living room he’d put on a pair of reading glasses. Hawkeye tried not to stare.
BJ reached out and brushed his fingers against the bookmark at the top of the journal. He grazed Hawkeye’s knee when he withdrew his hand.
“Let’s get on the same page first, Hawk. Then I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” BJ said.
Hawkeye kept reading.
APPENDIX 1
Dear Hawk,
You and I wrote some things down in case a younger you ended up here. It’s a lot to explain, isn’t it? I don’t know if you’ll be coming from the MASH or if you’ll be even younger. You might not know me yet. I don’t want you to be afraid. You’re usually afraid, when you’re coming and going. But we talked it through and made this list of things you’ll want to know if/when you get here. You’ll write it out, so it’ll be in your handwriting. You might not know my handwriting when you get here. That’s okay. I love you. I love you wherever and whenever you are.
BJ
Dear Hawk,
I have a feeling you’re going to end up here soon. I feel it. I don’t have all the old dates. I was in a denial period when I ended up in ’65. Look, I’m a man of science. You’re a man of science. I understand. But I don’t think you’re the only one. Beej has all sorts of theories: temporal fracturing, magnetic fields, etheric anomalies. You can read all about it if you like. I just don’t know how much you’ll remember when you get back. I think we’re like marbles, you and I—me and me—past me and present me, if there is such a thing for someone like me anymore. We keep bouncing off each other and ricocheting. And the impact hurts. It rattles something up there. You know, you’ve seen the x-rays. What I really mean to tell you is that this denial thing isn’t going to help. I think it’s why I shot so far forward. Usually I just go back—but you know that. You’re me. I want to give you something to latch onto. I know you think you’re off your rocker. It’s the war. It makes everything worse, even the things that were already hell. I know you’ve talked yourself in and out of this whole time travel thing a million and a half times. I just want you to know that you’ll come out on the other side.
I promise.
Things to remember:
- It’s 1965 and you’re at home. You live with BJ in San Francisco. You met BJ at the MASH in Korea. You and BJ fell in love when he was married, but you didn’t get together until he and his wife Peg got a divorce. BJ has a daughter, Erin. You see her on the weekends. She doesn’t know about the chonokinesis, but she knows about the other stuff. She’s a smart kid. Are you following? I don’t know where you’re coming from, but you’re still me.
- BJ knows when you go and when you come back. He knows all the signs and he writes things in your fieldnotes when you can’t. You trust him to do this. You’re working on a paper about chronokinesis together. If everything’s still on track, you’re going to Europe to do some interviews. There may be others like you out there. BJ believes that. Sometimes I believe it too.
- You’re safe.
- Since ’62, you’ve only traveled a couple times a year. It’s still worse when you’re stressed, or on painful anniversaries. Sometimes you don’t know it’s an anniversary until you get there.
- Things that help: citrus, counting backward from 100, finding a telephone, staying where you are, keeping a map in your back pocket.
Hawk
Hawkeye wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve. BJ produced a handkerchief from his pocket.
“You had a feeling it was soon. You get a sort of pricking feeling in your hands. We took a couple days off last week, in case,” BJ said.
“I’ve never gone this far forward before,” Hawkeye said.
He was still grappling with the idea that he and BJ still constituted a we. And BJ knew all these things that Hawkeye was sure he wouldn’t tell anyone again. The older Hawkeye was right. He was in a denial period. He was traveling more these days, and the more he traveled the more the chronokinetic events became blurry and dreamlike. He’d shoot forward a couple of weeks and come to with a patient file he’d never seen before in his hands. Radar would look at him like he knew something and get him up to speed. He’d end up in college again, or in Carlye’s apartment, identifiable only by golden strands of hair on the pillow beside him. He convinced himself it was in his head. It hadn’t happened so frequently since his adolescence. It – he was so rooted in denying he didn’t want to give it a name.
“It’s alright. You’ll get back,” BJ said. “Can I take your vitals?”
“Buy a girl a drink first,” Hawkeye said.
BJ grinned. It was familiar.
“Hawk,” he said.
“Oh, we’ve done that whole song and dance already, haven’t we?”
“Technically, we haven’t,” BJ said, gesturing between them.
BJ had only been at the MASH a matter of months, which felt like a lifetime. That was to say, he had no idea all the things this BJ knew. The BJ he knew was married. The BJ he knew was straight-laced and clean shaven. Though, lately maybe some of his edges were blurring. There were new bags beneath his eyes. There was a new carelessness with which he tucked his shirt into his belt, so that sometimes the hem came loose on one side and Hawk could see a flash of his hip. BJ also happened to be the most happily married person Hawkeye knew.
“How did it happen?” Hawkeye asked. His mouth felt dry and sharp like static electricity. There were stones in his stomach.
“How did what happen?” BJ said.
He’d gone for his doctor’s bag across the room. He gave Hawk a look over the lenses of his reading glasses before reaching for his wrist and taking his pulse.
“I thought you were going to tell me everything I wanted to know,” Hawkeye said.
“I’m trying to be mindful of 1965 you who doesn’t want me to ruin every surprise—pulse’s a little fast—you like surprises,” BJ said. He looked up at Hawkeye, as if to confirm.
“The broad strokes won’t ruin it,” Hawkeye said. It came out sharper than he meant.
BJ released his arm. “What are you worried about?”
Hawkeye stood, still wearing the blanket like a cape, and made for the kitchen.
He stopped in the doorway. Something was familiar to his body but not his brain. One of his socks caught on an uneven floorboard. It was something that happened often. He knew by the feeling.
There were lots of things on the fridge: a postcard from Dad, a photo of Hawk and BJ and a blonde little girl at the beach, Erin, presumably, in water wings and a polka dotted bathing suit, Beej squinting at him in the sunlight even though he had sunglasses, they were just pushed on top of his head, takeout menus, a wedding invitation with Peg and another man’s name on it, a half-finished crossword puzzle, a flyer for a bar in the Castro, a picture of a farm, theatre tickets.
There was a whole life up on that fridge.
Hawkeye looked around at the dishes in the kitchen sink and the mostly empty coffee pot. He looked at the medical journals stacked on the kitchen table alongside notebooks and pens and a plate with some toast crusts on it. Under the table were sandals that were probably his. It looked like he’d just gone. He’d been snatched away from this version of himself and tossed violently backward. When he got a little nearer to the table he could see what he’d been working on. It was a paper titled Case Studies: Trauma & Chronokinetic Temporalities.
“Hawk,” BJ said, behind him. He put his hands on Hawk’s shoulders and Hawkeye jumped.
BJ removed his hands.
“You okay?” BJ asked.
Hawkeye grabbed at BJ’s shirt, getting a fistful of the fabric. He cleared his throat and tried to keep his vision from blurring.
“I’m okay,” Hawkeye said. “Denial period.”
BJ nodded. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, I just—”
“No, you’re right. Or we’re right. There should be surprises. If there can be, there should be,” Hawkeye said.
He was already curious. He wanted to know what it was like to kiss BJ for the first time. He wanted to know what it felt like to press his mouth to BJ’s jaw. He wanted to know how painful the waiting was, and what it felt like after. He wanted to know how many arguments came before and how many letters. He wanted to know what Dad thought and which side of the bed BJ slept on and how his hands moved when he undid buttons. He wanted to know how long it would last and how much the time travel would get in the way and what the shape and color and weight of a life like this would be.
“You’re going again, aren’t you?” BJ said.
It felt like his brain was being stretched and pulled like taffy.
“I think—god I don’t want to go back there. I want to skip to this part. The easy part,” Hawkeye said.
“Easier maybe, not easy,” BJ said.
His hands hovered beside Hawkeye’s arms.
“Can I touch you?” he asked. “Can I hold you a little while you go?”
Hawkeye was someplace else before he could answer, but he felt a lingering pressure, like he was being held tight anyway.
And then he was laying on his cot in the Swamp. The clean shaven BJ was sitting in front of him again, eyebrows knitted, shaking him back to his senses.
“They need us in O.R. Private Willis again,” BJ said. “Sorry to wake you.”
Hawkeye blinked hard. It was cold again. His toes were numb.
“I wasn’t sleeping,” Hawkeye said.
BJ grinned. His teeth were the same. His lips were chapped but they were still the same. There was some constancy. If he focused hard enough he could make the two images of BJ merge. It was a mirage, but he’d cling to it as long as he had it.
“You looked awful asleep to me. You looked like you were dreaming, like you were so deep in dreaming you were in another world,” BJ said.
Hawkeye sat up and pulled on his boots. The Swamp came back into focus in chunks. After he put Private Willis back together again he’d have to take some fieldnotes.
“I’m right here,” Hawkeye said.