Chapter 2

Thanksgiving 1880

After a wonderful dinner that left them all too full to go home yet, Jarrod, Nick, Heath and Carl Wheeler plopped themselves down in the library and talked about getting up and playing some pool. Every time they tried, though, they lit another cigar and fell into another conversation instead.

They talked about the food, and then they talked about their women, who were in the living room with Victoria and J.J., doing heaven knew what.

"They're probably talking about us," Nick offered.

"Probably," Carl agreed, and Heath and Jarrod grunted in agreement.

"So, what do you think?" Jarrod asked, looking at Heath and then Nick. "Are weddings in the future for you two?"

Nick and Heath looked at each other. Heath let his lopsided grin show.

Nick just got up and poured himself some whiskey. When he offered up the carafe to the others, they all declined. As Nick sat down again, Jarrod got up and went to the desk in the corner.

"You're not planning on doing any work, are you, Jarrod?" Heath asked.

"No," Jarrod said, "even though our brother would like it if I did get to those contracts he brought over yesterday." Jarrod began to look in the lower drawers in the desk.

"What are you doing?" Nick asked.

"I remember that Father left some empty journals, ones he never started writing in," Jarrod said. "I wanted to appropriate one."

"You ever notice how that brother of yours always uses a two dollar word when a nickel word will do?" Carl said.

"Yeah," Nick said. "You coulda just said 'take' one."

"All right, take," Jarrod said and pulled one of the books he was looking for out of the very bottom drawer. He came back to the sofa and sat down with it.

"You gonna start keeping a journal?" Heath asked.

"Not exactly," Jarrod said, thumbing through the pages to be sure they were blank. "Maggie and I were talking this morning, wondering how the world is gonna change as J.J. grows up. You know, he could live all the way to the 1950s or 1960s. Can you imagine what life will be like then?"

"No," Carl said, "and I don't want to."

"Why not?" Jarrod asked.

"Gives me a headache," Carl said, and the others laughed.

"Maggie suggested I might want to write some of my imaginings down to give to J.J.," Jarrod said. "I thought she had a good idea. I want to leave him something he can read as the years go by, to see if any of these ideas I get actually come true."

"Like flying machines and like that?" Heath asked.

"Yeah," Jarrod said. "And the telephone – somebody's already been working on that. And maybe that horseless carriage some people talk about. It'll be fun to think about things like that and write them down. Maybe J.J. will sit down when he's an old man in the 1950s and he will have seen these kinds of things come about. Maybe he'll have fun seeing if any of the things his old man imagined are things he takes for granted in his life."

"Or were so crazy they never came about," Nick said.

The others were silent for a moment. Jarrod did have a good idea there, leaving his son something of himself that was different from a regular journal. They knew why Jarrod was thinking about such things. They looked at each other, and understood, but left it unsaid.

"That's not a bad idea, Jarrod," Heath said instead.

"It'll give me some diversion, too," Jarrod said. "Nick's got me so wrapped up with deeds and contracts, my head is going around in circles half the time."

"Can't have that," Nick said, and then admitted, "I think you got a good idea there, too, Jarrod. Might do something like that for my own kid someday."

"Well, tell you what," Jarrod said. "Why don't we shoot a game of pool and I can put it right up front in this book of mine? J.J. can see if there are still pool tables around in the 1950s."

XXXXXXX

June 1950

There was a drawing of a pool table on the page that came after the title page in the Book of Imaginings, but this pool table didn't have any legs. "Here's what I bet you'll be playing pool on, J.J.," his father had written. "It's going to levitate, and instead of having to lean awkwardly and try to find the best way to make a shot on a stationary table, you can adjust this table to however you want it to be. Raise it higher, lower it, do everything except tilt it so much that the balls move. You do that, and the table will buzz real loud and you'll forfeit the game."

J.J. smiled as he read about his father's idea for pool tables of the future. And yes, pool tables were still around. They were everywhere, in bars and homes and pool halls and bowling alleys. But they did not levitate. They still had legs and were anchored to the ground, and the table and the balls still looked like they did when his father and his uncles played in 1880. At most, his father's levitating pool table looked like a big pinball machine.

"Some things can't be improved upon, Papa," J.J. said and hoped his father was listening.

His father had also written about how he and uncles played pool together. It made J.J. get up and walk out of his house, down to the corner bar where there were two tables. They were full when he got there, so he sat down with a beer and watched. And did his own imagining.

The two men at one table and the third man at another became his uncles Nick, Heath and Carl – men he grew up with and who were his role models throughout his childhood and young adulthood. The last man at this second table in 1950, the one with the darkest hair and quickest smile became his father, the man J.J. knew only through stories and the book he left.

J.J. used to ache when he was a kid, seeing his cousins with their fathers, his insides turning in and out because he could not remember his own father. Even now, old man that he was, he still wanted his Dad.

"You look a little melancholy tonight, J.J.," the bartender said.

"No," J.J. sighed, "not melancholy. Just remembering watching my uncles play pool. My Uncle Nick had a pool table he inherited from my grandfather. Big old library room full of books and a rack of rifles and the pool table. Men were men in those days, Andy."

The bartender laughed. "You know, I think every man who ever existed looked back at the men who came before him and said the same thing."

J.J. laughed. "You're probably right."

The man at the table who became his father in J.J.'s imagination came over to him and handed him his cue. "Here you go, sir," he said, and J.J. realized for the first time how young he was. "Maybe you'll have better luck than I've had."

J.J. took the cue with a smile, and he dove into a game with the man who had become his Uncle Nick in his imagination. J.J. played like he was a pro. They bet a couple dollars per game, and after playing and drinking for a couple hours, J.J. walked away with enough money to pay for his beer and a few dollars for car fare and lunch the next day.

J.J. walked home smiling and wondering how he might develop a levitating pool table.