Chapter 15 Chapter fifteen

I grew up in Cincinnati, Stewart.McGowan told them that his father was a construction worker, but also an alcoholic, so he couldn't find a job.When I was fifteen, he went to work drunk and accidentally let the wire loose and lost a leg.After that, our family’s only source of income was my mother and I. My mother did piece work for a company that produced police uniforms, and I helped pack people’s bags at K’s for tips. My father has always been very dissatisfied with my thin body.He was a big, powerful guy himself, with a forearm about twice as thick as Michel over there.Our relationship has gone from bad to worse since he lost a leg.He couldn't accept the fact that even if he was as weak as me, he still had sound limbs.He hates having to sometimes ask me for help when he can't hold a cane in one hand and a load in the other.After a while he really started to look down on me and drank more

I left home when I was eighteen, in 1954.I'm going west and staying in Seattle.I'm not very strong, but my eyes and hands are steady.So I managed to get a job at Boeing and learned to machine lighter aircraft parts, tabs, things like that.There I met a girl, got married, and had a bunch of kids.It wasn't too bad a day. Then I had an accident in the spring of 1963, the car accident I told you about.I drank too much that day; I wasn't used to drinking like my father, and I'd just have a few cans of beer on the way home from get off work, and then I'd have a drink or two when I got home, and you know I hit that tree and I was drunk.I was in a coma for eight weeks before waking up, and after that, everything changed.The concussion affected my hand-eye coordination and I can no longer rely on it for food.It's like my father's story is repeating itself to me.I started drinking more and more, yelling at my wife and children and eventually she packed her bags and moved out, taking the children with her.

The bank foreclosed shortly after and I lost my house.I had to live a street drinking life for about twenty-five years.Like they say in the 80s, I'm homeless but I know I'm just a bum, a street drunk.I didn't even know how old I was when I died in an alley in Detroit.But then I remembered that I was fifty-one years old. Then I woke up and was back in the same hospital bed, fresh out of a coma.It seemed like the last few years were all a dream, and I believed that for a while, since I don't remember much anyway.But suffice it to say, soon, I found a strange thing. At this point, McGowan looked at Jeff, his eyes, tired from telling his first life story, suddenly lit up.Are you a baseball fan?he asks.Did you bet on the World Series that year?

Jeff smiled at him.certainly. How much to bet? a lot of.I bet first on Shaddock at the KFC Derby and then on the Belmont Marseilles and won a lot of money. How much did you bet in total?Stewart insisted on wanting to know the answer. I had a partner back then.It's not a reborn person, it's just that I met in school. The two of us bet a total of twelve and a half yuan. You mean Wan? Jeff nodded, and McGowan let out a long sigh.You have a great opportunity ahead of time, Stewart said, and me, I can only save a few hundred yuan, and then my wife almost ran away from home early when she found out.But after I won two thousand dollars back, she just stayed there.

So I continued to gamble money on heavyweight championships, but only when the big chances were there, when they couldn't go wrong.Like the Super Bowl, the presidential election, those big events that you can't forget the result even if you spend your life soaked in alcohol.I quit drinking, and I will never drink again for the rest of my life.Since then I haven't even drank a sip of beer, and I have maintained this habit for every life after that. We moved north of Seattle to a large house in North Alderwood, Snohomish County.I bought a boat and moored it at the small boat marina in Xuxiu Bay. Every summer, I sailed around the Puget Sound, and sometimes went to Victoria, Canada.You know, carefree luxury living.And then I started hearing them talking to me.

hear?Jeff let the question hang in the air. McGowan leaned back in his chair, lowering his voice.The Antrians, this is what they did. How did they get in touch with you?Pamela probed. The first is through television, usually during the news broadcast.That's how I discovered that it was all just a show. Jeff was getting restless.What is a performance? Everything, everything in the news.The Antrians loved the shows so much they replayed them over and over again. What exactly do they like?asked Pamela, frowning. They like the smell of blood, and shooting, and killing people, and all that kind of thing.Richard the Vietnam War, the massacre of nurses in Chicago.Spike; the case of the Manson family, the Jonestown tragedy, and the terrorists.Jesus, yes, the terrorists really got them excited: the Rhodes airfield massacre, all the IRA bombings, the Beirut Naval HQ truck bombing, never ending.They just can't get enough of it.

Jeff and Pamela exchanged a quick look and nodded.Why?Jeff asked McGowan.Why are aliens so fond of violence on Earth? Because they have weakened, they are the first to admit this fact.They can control space and time, and with the power they have, they are too weak!His thin fist slammed on the table, making the cups and plates rattle.The muscular companion, Michel, looked away for a moment with raised eyebrows, but Jeff gestured to him that it was all right, and he went back to the jigsaw puzzle. They were all immortal, Stewart went on impassionedly, and their killer genes were gone, so there was no more war or murder in their world.But the animal nature in their minds still has needs, at least they need to satisfy the animal nature through others.

We are all their concoctions, like TV or movies.The twentieth century provides the best entertainment, and because it's the time with the most occasional gore, they keep it on repeat.Only the performer, the one who stands on the stage, the reborn, knows all the truth.I know Manson is one of us, I can see it in his eyes, and the Antrians told me.plum.Harvey.Oswald and Nelson who went to kill Kennedy first.So did Bennett.Oh, we are quite a number now. When Jeff spoke again, he tried to sound as calm and friendly as possible.But what about you and me and Pamela?He tried to wake up the remaining rationality in the man's mind.We haven't done anything terrible, so why keep us reborn, or what you say reborn?

I have done my part to appease them, McGowan said proudly, no one can say I am lazy. Jeff suddenly felt uncomfortable and didn't want to continue asking the inevitable question.Soothe, you mentioned that word before.What do you use to represent? It is our duty.It is our duty as reborns to keep the Antrians from being bored.Otherwise they'll turn it off and the world will end.We have to reassure and please them, so they will continue to watch. So how do you do it?How do you appease them? I always started with the little girl in Tacoma and made her with a knife.It's an easy case, and I've never been caught.Then I'll move around and kill a few more whores in Portland, maybe Vancouver, I never do a lot of cases close to home, but I do travel a lot.Sometimes abroad, but mostly in America: hitchhikers in Texas, kids on the streets of Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Don't think I'm going to do crime in Wisconsin, where I got caught early this time.But I'll be out in four or five years.They keep saying I'm crazy and I'm going to get caught somewhere sooner or later.Still, fooling doctors and juries has become my specialty.I always end up being let out, and then I can go back to my pacification work.

As they drove through the snow, Pamela leaned against the door, sobbing. it's all my fault!She cried, tears rolling down her face like broken pearls.He said that "Star Sea" made him find his purpose in life again.I had so many expectations for this movie, but the end result of all the efforts just encouraged a murderer! Jeff's hands gripped the steering wheel of his rented Plymouth, trying to keep the car steady on the icy road.Not just because of that movie.He's been killing people before that, since his first rebirth.He was crazy from the start.I don't know if it was the accident or the shock of the rebirth itself, or the combination of the two that drove him crazy.There may be so many different factors that we have no way of telling which one it is.But for goodness sake don't blame yourself for what he did.

He killed a little girl!He repeatedly killed her, stabbed her to death, and every time! I know.But it's not your fault, you understand? I don't care whose fault it is.We have to stop him. How to stop it?Jeff asked, squinting and trying to see the way through the snowflakes coming from all directions. Find a way to keep him from getting out this time.Let's catch him next time before he kills. If they thought he was cured, they would still let him out no matter what we said.What reason do doctors or courts have to listen to us?We want to say, because we are reborn people like McGowan, the only difference is that we are not crazy?You know what we're going to get. that next time The next time we go to the police station in Seattle or Tacoma, tell them that this solid citizen, man with expensive suburban house and yacht is going to be roaming all over America, killing wherever he goes.It won't work, Pamela, and you know that. But we'll do something anyway!Pamela protested. What should we do?kill him?I can't do it, and neither can you. She wept softly, eyes closed against the deadly whiteness of the winter blizzard. We cannot sit back and watch these things happen.she whispered at last. Jeff turned cautiously left onto the road back to Madison.I'm afraid we have no choice, he said, but to accept it. How can you accept such a thing!she said angrily.We knew in advance that he was going to kill, how can you watch innocent people die, murdered by a madman! We've been accepting it since the beginning: the aimless brutality of Manson, Berkowitz, Gacy, Bono, and Bianchi has become part of the age, and we've all grown accustomed to it .I can't even remember half the names of the serial killers who will be rampant for the next twenty years, don't you? Pamela was silent, her teeth clenched, her eyes red from crying. We never got involved in these murders, did we?Jeff asked.It never even occurred to us to do it, except that I wanted to prevent JFK from being assassinated in my first rebirth, and that was two different things than these murders.We're not just you and me, we're every human being in this society, and we all live with violence and accidental death.Unless it directly threatens us, we almost ignore its existence.Worse still, there are those who even take pleasure in violence, and seek thrills in the thrill of the imagination.Eighty percent of journalism at least survives by broadcasting this stuff.They inject tragedy, other people's blood and grief, into America's veins every day like a drug supply. We are the Antrians of McGowan's delirium.He and all the other unworthy butchers were indeed performers on stage, but the bloodthirsty audience was here on Earth, not in outer space.You and I can't do anything to change anything, even if it's just to save a drop of blood.We just did what we always did and always will do, which is accept, try not to think about it as much as possible, and move on.Get used to it, like all the hopeless, inescapable pain we face. Their ads continued to receive responses, although none of the letters brought the desired results.In the 1970s, they reduced the number of publications in which they advertised; in the mid-1970s, advertisements appeared in only a dozen newspapers and magazines with the largest circulation, once a month. Rows of filing cabinets occupy apartments on Riverside Street in the West Village.Jeff and Pamela archived even the most hopeless replies, together with the clippings they collected daily from the vast collection of periodicals they delved into, searching for possibly anachronistic events, through which they looked for something that existed in the world. Footsteps of the reborn in every corner.In any case, it is often difficult for them to determine whether a small event or product, work of art existed in their past, and they have never paid so much attention to such details before.They have had multiple exposures to inventors or entrepreneurs whose products have not been well publicized so they are not familiar with them.But what was thought to be an obvious clue turned out to be wrong in the end, without a single exception. In March 1979, Jeff and Pamela found this news in the Chicago Tribune: The Wisconsin Killer is released.The doctor said: He is sane. Crossfield, Wisconsin (AP) .In 1966, Stewart, who was recognized as having committed multiple murders,McGowan, who massacred four young female college students at a Madison sorority house, proclaimed his innocence on the grounds that he was insane at the time.Stewart.McGowan was released today from the private nursing home where he was held for the past 12 years.Joyo, director of Closfield House.Dr. Pfeiffer said McGowan has fully recovered from his paranoid patterns and is no longer a threat to society. An eyewitness noted that McGowan's car had been seen driving from Capa P.McGowan was charged with murdering and mutilating the bodies of four female students from the Gamma Sisterhood.Later that day, the Wisconsin State Police arrested McGowan in Chippewa Falls, just outside the town.A bloody ice hoist, hacksaw and other torture tools were found in his trunk. McGowan confessed that he murdered the young women, and claimed that he was ordered by aliens.He went a step further and claimed that he had been reincarnated several times, committing murder in each of his past lives. He had been named as a suspect in similar massacres in Minnesota and Idaho in 1964 and 1965, but his involvement in the crimes could never be proven.On May 11, 1966, McGowan was found unfit to stand trial and committed to Wisconsin State Hospital for insane criminal tendencies.In July 1967, he was transferred to the Closfield House, a private nursing home at his own expense. Pamela tightened the rubber tubing around Jeff's arm, and pointed out which vein the injection should be given, and how to insert the hypodermic at an angle, keeping the needle parallel to the side of the vein. But does this create a psychogenic addiction?he asks.I know that our bodies are immune to the effects of the drug after waking up, but do we still crave such sensual pleasures psychologically? She shook her head as she watched him practice the injection, the innocuous saline trickling down the bulging blue vein on the inside of his arm.It won't work if you just use it a few times, she said, wait until the morning of the 18th to inject, and try to keep as calm as possible.Then double the dose I showed you and inject it into the vein at a few minutes to one.At that time when the heart attack occurs, you should be unconscious. Jeff pushed the syringe all the way in, waited a moment and then withdrew the needle.He tossed the hypodermic syringe in the trash, then swabbed the injection site with an alcohol-soaked pad.On the coffee table are two matching leather tool sets, each complete with unused sterile needles and syringes, a coiled length of rubber tubing, a small bottle of alcohol, a box of cotton pads, and four Small glass vials of pharmaceutical grade heroin.It is not difficult to obtain medicines and tools for injecting medicines.Jeff's stockbroker had recommended him a trusty cocaine pill for the growing upper-middle-class heroin trade that was well stocked. Jeff stared at the two expensive death instruments for a moment, then looked up at Pamela's face and saw her forehead was covered with fine lines.In the previous life he knew, at this age, the fine lines were distributed at the corners of the mouth and the end of the eyes, and her forehead was as smooth as when she was a girl.The state of the skin can make a profound difference between a life of happiness and a life of almost no relief from anxiety. We're not very successful in life, are we?he said morosely. She tried to laugh, the corners of her mouth trembling, but finally gave up.I don't think so. The next time he started, but didn't finish talking.Pamela held out her hand to him, and they rubbed each other's hands. Next time, she says, we'll be more serious about living for our needs, every day. He nodded.In this life, we don't know how to control ourselves, so we let time slip away. I was overwhelmed with the idea of ​​finding other reborns.Although you indulged me, but I wish I could find someone else as much as you do, he interrupted her, took her hand to his lips and kissed it, that's what we had to do.It's no one's fault that it ended up like this. I don't think but looking back, what a stagnant, negative life we've lived all these years.We rarely even leave New York for fear of missing out on a connection we've been looking forward to. Jeff took her into his arms, wrapping his arms around her.Next time we will be our own masters again.He promised her it was up to us to strike, for ourselves. They rolled onto the sofa softly together, and no one uttered the deepest fear buried in their hearts: They had no way of predicting how long it would take for Pamela to return to him after this death, or even whether they would be together again in the next rebirth. Neither know. Jeff woke up suddenly from the slumber caused by heroin, and found himself surrounded by countless waterfalls of incandescent light, floating and sinking inexplicably in the center of the cylindrical space formed by the milky white flames like waterfalls.His ears were being assailed by the blaring of trumpets and the bombastic harmonies of a mariachi band playing the Spanish song "Merry Christmas" at tortured volume. Jeff had no recollection of the death, nor did he recall experiencing the excruciating pain of his heart stopping.The heroin did the job, but the transition from sluggish slumber to this frighteningly unfamiliar environment didn't make it any easier.The effect of the anesthesia did not affect his young body that once again inhabited. He was forced to be fully awake and could not rely on the effect of the drug to alleviate the drowsiness. The waterfalls of light and music around him constantly besieged his already vulnerable senses, leaving him in a state of bewilderment.There was no source of light in this space except the cascade of burning light surrounding it, but through the bright silvery light he now recognized the silhouettes of people standing, sitting, and dancing.He was sitting at a small table with a cold drink in his trembling hands.He took a small sip and tasted the sharp saltiness of the margarita. Damn it!Someone shouted in his ear.The sound overwhelmed the clamor of the music.What a sight!Think about what it would look like from the outside. Jeff put the drink back on the table and turned to see who was speaking.In the rapidly falling white flames, he recognized his roommate in Emory, Martin.Bailey's sharply defined face.His eyes had grown accustomed to the eerie light beams coming from all sides of the great room, and he looked around again.It was a bar or a nightclub; there were couples laughing loudly at a dozen other small tables, a mariachi band in wild glam on the dance floor, and colorful paper puppets of donkeys and bulls hanging from the ceiling. Mexico City during the Christmas season of 1964, when he and Martin took a drive on an impromptu basis that year.Remember the filthy cattle roaming the desert roads with only two-lane lanes, the winding passes that make it impossible to see the road ahead, and whenever Pemex trucks overtake their Chevrolets, they always leave behind a cotton ass smoke.Remember the house of prostitutes in the Sanarossa district, the long stone steps leading to the Pyramid of the Sun. He understood that the light falling from the window was from a firework show, the nightclub was on the top floor of the hotel, and brilliant fireworks were streaming down from the roof of the hotel where the fireworks were set off.Martin was right, the view must be spectacular from the street below.The hotel looked like a burning pointer, and the fireworks made the thirty- and forty-story building ablaze in the night sky across the city. What time is it, Christmas Eve or New Years Eve?This is the day when there will be a fireworks display in Mexico City.No matter which day it is, it will be the end of 1964 or the beginning of 1965.He lost fourteen months in this rebirth, the same as Pamela's previous one.God knows how much time she and they will lose this time? Martin smiled and patted Jeff on the shoulder briskly and kindly.By the way, Jeff remembered, they had a great time on this trip.At that time, they were carefree, as if there would be no more troubles in their lives, as if today's good days could last forever. That's what they thought.Jeff at least tried his best, regardless of his situation, and every time he was reborn, he managed to prevent an old friend from committing suicide.Although he couldn't prevent Martin from stepping into a bad marriage life, and no multinational company could provide him with a lifetime job, he always let Martin buy some stocks with excellent investment returns early on to help him get out of the final crisis. bankruptcy. This reminded Jeff of his own business.In the past he had always gambled for instant cash, but now, his most reliable source of winnings, the World Series in 1963, was a page in history, and no other bet could make such a huge amount of profit in a short period of time.The professional football season is over, and the Super Bowl won't start for another two years.If it was New Year's Eve, he didn't know if it would be too late to arrange a bet from Mexico City that Illinois would beat the University of Washington in tomorrow's Rose Bowl football game.This time, he may only be able to earn some pocket money from the ongoing basketball games. He will definitely not be able to get decent odds on the Boston Celtics' eight-game winning streak in the NBA championship season. The waterfall of fireworks outside the window came to an end with sporadic crackling sounds, the orchestra suddenly played the Mexican folk song "Beautiful Sky", and the nightclub returned to its original dim lights.Martin, who was accosting a slender blonde a few tables away, raised an eyebrow and asked if Jeff was interested in her redhead friend.They were tourists from Holland, Jeff recalled.He and Martin didn't have a touchdown, but they were going to drink, dance and have a good night with (was) these Dutch girls.Of course, he shrugged at Martin.Why not? Once the money thing is settled, well, money is not that important to Jeff, not yet.He just needs to be able to get him through to Pamela back.From now on, the only rule of the game is to wait. Xiao Pan felt ecstatic, she had fallen into a hallucination and felt powerless all over her body.Pete and Ellen had the best straw this time around, the best she'd smoked since a guy at a nightclub called Electric Circus gave it to her last month; maybe the lights, music and Hunks on the dance floor, everything, heightened its effect.When Clapton's guitar played the song "The Light of Love" with charming repetitive phrases, Xiao Pan sincerely felt that the current music is also very good, and only hoped that the small portable stereo could play the music louder Dot, that was her only thought. She tucked her bare feet under her thighs and leaned her back against Peter, who was against the entire wall behind her bed.Max (Annotation: Peter Max), a German-born American artist, was popular in the 1960s with his colorful portrait style. At that time, his paintings often appeared on posters, and they were the mainstay of the dormitory walls of American college students at that time. On the large poster of the popular decoration.), go back and continue to look at the back of the album "Disraeli's Gears" Bright colors, strong Peter Max art style, become a classic record cover design.). The eye on the back of the cover really seems to be talking, and the flowers grow directly from under the eyelashes.The white part and the iris pattern make the title of the song almost unreadable and, man, there's an eye there.The longer I look at it, the more I feel that I can't see anything except my eyes, and my attention is completely absorbed.Even the flowers look like they have eyes and are blinking at you, like a cat's eye or an oriental wink Hey, come see this one!cried Peter.She looked up and saw that he and Allen were watching "Lawrence.The Vick Show.Xiao Pan watched his elderly partner dancing on the black-and-white TV screen, dancing like a polka dance, as if he was dancing to record music.Then the scene cuts to Vick waving his little baton up and down, and she starts laughing.Vick clung to the beat, as if the old man was conducting the blues-rock band Cream on their "Dance Until Dawn." Come on, you guys, let's hit the road.Allen was tired of watching TV and insisted on going out to get some air.Everyone will be there tonight.Since an hour ago, she had been asking them to leave the room and move to the Adolf's Tavern.Allen's idea is right, there are many things to celebrate, and the atmosphere in the university bar must be very good tonight.Earlier this week, Eugene.McCarthy almost beat Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, but today, Bobby.Kennedy announced that he had changed his mind and decided to run the Democratic nomination for president. Pan pulled on his boots, and casually grabbed a thick woolen scarf and an old navy double-breasted coat from the hooks on the door.Allen took this time to slowly walk down the spiral staircase leading to the hall. She often stumbled in this dormitory converted from an old mansion like Tara Zhuangyuan in "Gone with the Wind".Peter joined the game as they went outside.He wandered into the well-ordered garden and began to imitate the heavy southern accent, half-truth and half-spoofing movie dialogue.But the night in March was really cold, a few people who were dazed and dazed played a pretend game for a while, and soon the three of them creaked across the snow, heading towards the cozy wooden house opposite the post office in Ananduo near the school go. Adolf's Tavern was packed with its usual weekend night crowd.Everyone who doesn't go to New York for the weekend will report here sooner or later. It's the only bar within walking distance around campus, and the only bar on this side of the Hudson River where disheveled, fancy-dressed Bard students can relax. and cozy bar.In the conservative suburb north of Pukisi, the relationship between the university and the community is tense.Long-term residents, young and old, despise the flamboyant and unconventional appearance and behavior of Bard students, and there are many gossips about drug use and sexual promiscuity on campus (Xiao Pan with a little interest believe that many of these legends are actually more true than they imagined). Younger residents sometimes go to the Adolf Tavern to drink some wine and pick up hippie chicks.Little Pan noticed with a sigh of relief that, apart from the weirdo who had been hanging around the school all year, there were no city people present at the tavern tonight; others seemed to be okay.The man was always alone, and very silent, and never caused trouble to anyone.Sometimes it seemed to her that he was watching her, but he wasn't staring at her, and a few times a week he popped up on purpose a few times a week where she might go: the library, the art department gallery, and here, but he never bothered. passed her, didn't even speak to her.Sometimes he would smile and nod to her, and she would smile back at him a little, just to confirm that they knew each other, and there would be no unnecessary associations.Yes, others are okay, and even attractive if you grow your hair long. The jukebox started playing "Swing to the Music" by The Sly and the Stones, and the dance floor in the front room started to fill up.Xiaopan, Ai.Len and Peter weaved their way through the crowd, trying to find a place to sit. Xiao Pan is still in a state of confusion.They smoked another joint on the way from school, and the bustling scene in the bar suddenly became a painting or a series of paintings in her eyes.Here she wants to emphasize a curly vase, there she wants to draw a lock of long black hair, people's faces, bodies, music and noise Yes, sound, she wants to capture the pleasant sound of this old place on the canvas, put It is visualized, presented with the synesthesia transformation of sensory experience that always comes to mind when she is lost.She looked around the entire bar, sifted out the characters and details in the picture in her mind, and then fixed her eyes on the weird guy who always met unexpectedly. Hey, she's elbowing Ellen, you know who I want to draw? who? there guys. Ai Po looked in the direction Xiao Pan was pointing at.which?You don't want to draw that serious guy, do you?The city guy? Yes, that's him.His eyes are very special, as if I don't know, it gives people a very old feeling, as if he is much older than his actual age, as if he has seen too much Indeed, Allen wryly suggested that perhaps he had been a former Marine or something and had seen too many bodies of women and children he had shot in Vietnam. You are talking about the Tet Offensive again. The Chinese Communist Party suffered a disastrous defeat. However, the brutal massacre and retaliation made the domestic public opinion in the United States gradually turn from the main war to the anti-war.) What happened?Peter asked. No, little Pan Sha went to a certain town. blind.Peter laughed. Xiao Pan blushed in anger.I didn't say that.I just said that his eyes are very interesting and I want to draw them.The jukebox played "The Piers of the Bay Area," and the dancers were mostly back in their seats.Otis.Redding's sad, brooding tune is reminiscent of the ironic epitaph sung by the singer, who died before the record was released.Xiao Pan wondered who would play this kind of music, maybe it was the guy with the strange eyes, he looked like someone who would like this kind of music. Losing time, Peter sang along to the music, showing a mischievous smile.He took off his watch and threw it into the half jug of beer with theatrical exaggeration, time was drowned by us!He announced it loudly, then raised his glass and toasted the others. I hear Bobby is a poisonous bug.While they were toasting, Allen made a remark without thinking.He and the Rolling Stones were in New York with the drug dealers who were the first to supply drugs. They were talking about Xiao Pan's favorite topic.I heard that Reynolds Tobacco Company has secretly obtained a patent right?All those good brand names. Trademark. Yes, yes, they are trademarked.The Acopco Golden and Red Parama people took all the good names just in case. Xiao Pan listened intently to her familiar chatter while nodding with interest.Not sure what the packaging will look like, and the ads too. Carton with swirl patterns.Allen said with a smile. Find Hendrix Shoot TV commercials.Peter interrupted. They roared with laughter, and they entered into an unstoppable trance laughing state together under the catalysis of alcohol and drugs, which was Xiao Pan's favorite all the time.She laughed so hard that tears ran out of her eyes, and she laughed until she was dizzy and out of breath. Where the hell was she this time, Pamela thought, and why was her head so heavy?She blinked away the tears that she didn't know where they came from, and settled down to observe this new environment.Goodness, she's at the Adolf's Tavern. Xiao Pan?Ellen asked suddenly, noticing her friend had stopped laughing.how are you I am fine.Pamela said after taking a slow, deep breath. Are you overexcited or something? fine.She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate, but her head couldn't stop and kept drifting.The music was loud as hell, and the place, even the clothes she was wearing, stinks of her ass, she realized.It was usually like this when she went to Adolf's.They call going to the Adolph's Tavern the road, and since it is the road, of course it must be easy to get on the road Another beer, Peter said in a concerned voice, you look weird.Are you sure it's okay? I am fine.She had befriended Peter and Allen in her professional field class the winter of her freshman year.Peter graduated in Pamela's junior year, and Ellen dropped out of school and moved to London with Peter.This meant that it must be 1968 or 1969. The jukebox starts playing the next record, Linda.Ronstadt sang "Different Drums", no, it wasn't just Linda who sang.朗絲黛，還有石頭小馬樂團。把事情搞清楚，她向自己喊話，慢慢重新適應環境，別讓腦袋裡的大麻讓事情變得更麻煩。別想做任何決定，甚至現在什麼都先別說。等到妳冷靜下來、等到 天，他在那裡，正坐在二十呎外盯著她。潘蜜拉目瞪口呆地看著那不協調且棒透了的畫面，她簡直不敢置信，傑夫．溫斯頓正安靜地坐在一群吵鬧的年輕人中間，就在她大學時代的巢穴裡。她看見他注意到她眼神的變化，他給了她一個溫暖、悠長的微笑當作歡迎，並讓她安心。 喂，小潘，艾倫說，妳怎麼哭了？聽著，也許我們回宿舍去比較好。潘蜜拉搖搖頭，把手放在她朋友的手臂上向她保證她沒事。然後她從桌子前起身，穿越房間、穿越這些年的等待，走向傑夫等待的懷抱裡。 刺青小姐，傑夫親著她大腿內側的粉紅玫瑰一邊咯咯笑道，我不記得以前那裡有這東西。 那不是刺青，只是轉印圖案。可以洗掉的。 可以舔掉嗎？他用邪惡的眼神抬頭看著她問。 she laughed.歡迎試看看。 也許等一下，他邊說邊滑上來，然後躺在她身邊的枕頭堆上。妳當花孩（譯註：可說是嬉皮的代名詞，尤指一九六七年舊金山夏季之愛運動中的年輕人。他們在髮際保戴花朵以象徵愛與和平。）我挺喜歡的。 你會喜歡的，她說著並戳戳他的肋骨，再倒點香檳。 他伸手去拿床頭桌上的瑪姆香檳，把酒杯倒滿。 你怎麼知道我什麼時候會開始重生？asked Pamela. I have no idea.我已經觀察妳好幾個月了。我這學年開始在萊茵貝克租下了這間房子，從那時候我就開始等。等待令人挫折，我都開始不耐煩了。不過在這裡的這段日子也幫助我放下了一些過去的回憶。我以前就住在這條河上游的某棟舊莊園裡，那時我和黛安在一起還有我女兒葛麗倩。我總認為我絕不會再回到這裡，不過妳給我一個回來的理由，我很高興我回來了。除了這點外，我也喜歡看見妳在這時期的真正模樣，原本的妳。 She made a face.我是個嬉皮大學生，皮製流蘇、紮染衣服。希望你沒聽到我跟朋友們聊些什麼，我可能說了很多沒規沒矩的話。 傑夫親親她的鼻尖。妳以前很可愛。我該說是現在，他更正說法，用手將她長長的直髮從臉上梳到一邊。不過我忍不住要想像這些孩子們十五年後穿著三件式西裝、開著寶馬跑車上班的樣子。 不是全部人都這樣，她說，巴德大學的畢業生有不少成了作家、演員、音樂家而且，她苦笑著補充，我丈夫和我也沒有寶馬跑車，我們開的是奧迪和馬自達。 well said.他笑著啜了口香檳。 他們心滿意足地並肩而臥，但傑夫看得出她愉快表情下藏著沉重的心情。 十七個月。He said. What? 我這次少了十七個月的時間。妳正在想這件事，對吧？ 我正想要問，她承認，我就是沒辦法不去想。我的偏離已經到你說現在是三月？一九六八年三月？ 傑夫點點頭。三年半。 從上一次算起的話，和一開始那幾次重生一共差了五年。老天，下次我可能 他把一根手指放在她唇上，阻止她繼續說下去。我們說過要專心在這一次的，還記得嗎？ Of course I do.她說，在被單下與他依偎得更緊了些。 而且我一直在想這件事，他告訴她，我有很長的時間可以好好思考，我想我已經想出一個勉強算得上的計畫。 她把頭向後靠，皺著眉頭瞧他，一副感興趣的模樣。you mean? 嗯，首先我想跟所有相關科學社群接觸，國家科學基金會和一些私人研究機構等，任何可能最恰當的團體，說不定是普林斯頓或麻省理工的物理系或研究時間性質的學者。 他們不會相信我們的。 的確，這一直是最大的絆腳石。而且我們每一次都保守祕密，卻也擋住了我們的去路。 但我們得小心謹慎才行，否則別人會以為我們瘋了。想想看史都華．麥高文，他 麥高文是瘋了，他是個殺人狂。但預測未來不犯法，沒有人會因此而把我們抓起來關。一旦我們預測的事情真的發生了，就會證明我們對未來的知識是正確的。他們就得聽我們的。人們會知道有件真實的事無法解釋但千真萬確的事正在發生。 但一開始要怎樣引起人注意呢？潘蜜拉提出反對意見。沒有一個麻省理工教授之類的人物會願意看一眼我們給他們的預測清單。只要我們一開口說出想法，他們立刻就會把我們歸類成幽浮狂熱者和神棍。 這就是重點了。我們不去找他們，讓他們來找我們。 憑什麼他們該，你說的沒道理。潘蜜拉困惑地搖頭。 我們向大眾公開。傑夫向她解釋。