No One to Blame

This is my first attempt at writing a no exotic story. I have had this particular story in my head for many years. I hope to write ten chapters or so in telling this tale. I might include some sexual activities in a future chapter but don't look forward to it because it's only a maybe.

I am my own editor so all mistakes are mine. Please vote and or comment.

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My name is Robert Spinelli but most people know me as Bobby. Most of you who read this, will find it hard to believe and call bullshit. Truth be told, I had a hard time accepting that it was actually happening to me. So I won't hold it against you if you chose not to believe me or chose not to read this story simply because you doubt its validity. For those of you that stick around to decide for yourselves or even just to hear a strange story, I say... enjoy!

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November 8th 2018

Death comes for all of us as it is the great equalizer!

Nobody escapes it, not the rich, not the educated and certainly not the religious. I found some comfort in that and I guess that makes me something of an asshole, finding solace in the fact that everyone was going to die one day and not just me. But it did make 'not taking it personal' a little bit easier.

I wasn't always so... petty, so angry, probably just the last 20 years of my 55 year life but I would venture to guess it's been festering much longer than that. I'm not exactly sure what made me embrace my bitterness and not try to overcome it but if I had to take a guess I'd say it's most likely the feeling of hopelessness by way of a lack of options growing up. When you lack options it feels like decisions are being made for you.

My station in life was one of a 'child of poverty' in a family that did not encourage seeking an elevation of status. My mother, bless her soul, would tell me to 'work hard and save your money for a rainy day' but never once did I hear 'education is the key to success' or 'if you put your mind to it you can do anything'. That coupled with the fact that there weren't any success stories in my bloodline for me to draw inspiration from. I never heard the word college or university for that matter, spoken in my humble home. From early on I was taught to fly low on the radar less I just be disappointed with failure. Suffice it to say the bar was set oh so very low.

I'm aware that some folks in the same situation managed to achieve greatness from similar backgrounds. But those are 'exceptions of the rule'.

Sometime back in the late 1950's, my mother, an Italian woman, met my biological father, a Puerto rican man, while out for a night on the town with her girlfriends. They went to the famous 'Roseland Ballroom' to dance to the latest latin music that was finding its way into mainstream American music. You see, the 50's was the beginning of the wave of Puerto Ricans and Cubans migrating to NYC most seeking a better life just like every other group of immigrants before them. But my father wasn't one of those hard working people looking for an opportunity at a better life.

My father was looking for any gullible women that he could take advantage of and my mother was ripe for the picking, so were 3 other women. The only problem with that plan was my mother was as poor as him only he was too stupid to see that until two kids later, After my sister and I were born and pressure started mounting for him to 'get his shit together', he decided America wasn't the golden ticket he thought it would be, so he hightailed it back to P.R. never to be seen again.

I was all of 5 years old at the time. My parents never got married so I ended up with my mother's maiden name instead of my father's family name.

With no positive male role models, I struggled to fully grasp the world in which I lived. So my only adult informational resource was a gullible hard working mother to guide me through the obstacle course we call life.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't blame my mothers bad decision making for my lot in life or the fact she had a thing for Latin men, I just wish she would have picked a better one. Truth is I have no one to blame but myself for the way my life played out. They say hindsight is 20/20 and I suppose that's true.

As I look back on my life, I see plenty of moments where I felt the universe took a great big dump on me. But I see even more instances where I could have turned things around instead of feeling sorry for myself and accepting my fate.

The reason I'm contemplating my mortality and my pitfalls at this moment is because when you're laying on a hospital bed with a body ravaged by cancer it's kind of what you do!

I was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma less than 6 months ago and I will probably get my ticket punched sometime this week. My doctors tell me there's a fair chance my cancer stemmed from my time in the military.

To add insult to injury, I'm told that a doctor out west, Dr. Landry, has come up with a radical way of maintaining a person's health with "NANOTECHNOLOGY".

He didn't invent the nanobots (microscopic robots that resemble crabs). He did however come up with the radical system of monitoring the human body for signs of a potential illness. It can catch things early when they're treatable, like...oh I don't no...cancer maybe

I failed to see how that bit of information was of any use to me since that knowledge didn't help my current situation or ease my constant pain. What does help, morphine. What doesn't help, the visits from loved ones.

My wife, Diane, is 5 years younger than me and we've been together 22 years, married 18.

My condition meant no children by natural means. Once I was diagnosed we understood why we haven't been able to conceive.

Diane and my younger sister Susan come most days more so now because I'm getting closer to the finish line. I don't have the heart to tell them that their visits just make things harder for me. It's just that when they visit I'm reminded that I have something to live for, someone to live for. But I know that's not going to happen.

So they visit, which encourages me to live, they then go home so I can rest, I spend all night coming to terms with mortality. By morning I'm ready to move on, again they visit and it starts all over.

Did I tell you that morphine helps? It's funny but I never did any drugs in my life, nor did I smoke, I had only drank socially. But now I can't imagine going through this... shit without the amazingly wonderful morphine.

My sister sees me pressing the button which administers the drug and warns me that morphine is addictive and I should slow down. I try not to laugh because I know she means well so I just agree and press the button again when she's not looking.

I lie to my wife and tell her I don't sleep well when she stays overnight or she would never go home. The truth is I'm afraid of what watching me die will do to her.

She's the one good... no, the one great thing in my life. She came from better stock than I did but never made me feel less than. Suffice it to say her family rightfully hated me but all they ever showed me was mild tolerance... for her sake.

I pray that what I'm going through doesn't ruin her sweet disposition. If I'm lucky I'll die in my sleep so she'll get that phone call instead of hearing me breathe my last. I fear that sound would haunt her forever.

It's after 9pm so I'm alone now and I just got my morphine snack so I'm feeling as good as can be expected. Sleep is now a luxury that I desperately look forward to each day. The night time nursing staff is mostly the younger and less experienced that haven't yet earned the right to work the coveted day shift. They spend a lot of their shift glued to their phones. Their whole world predominantly exists online. All their connections with other humans are through 'social media'. I wonder if they ever had a meaningful conversation with another human being face to face, eye to eye. That's the world I'm leaving behind, one of separation.

Because of their need to obtain likes and follows they mostly ignore patients. Which I appreciate because now I too seek a certain amount of separation from other human beings.

There's a storm tonight, a bad one. The thunder and lightning are increasing in intensity. The sounds combine to form a lullaby if you will that's slowly putting me to sleep. As I'm drifting off I start visualizing some of the most defining moments of my short life, standing and receiving my high school diploma, taking the oath of service before entering the military, the day we buried my mother, the day I met my wife Diane...

When morphine laced dreams finally engulf me, I find myself having some strange visions, especially as of late. They started a couple of nights ago. I would see flashes of events that played out during my lifetime that held no importance to me outside of being newsworthy.

The other strange thing about those visions, they had a common thread. They always involved some news about either discovered treasures or stock market rises.

I guess they're my mind's way of understanding my missed opportunities.

BOOM! The sound is deafening and wakes me from my slumber. I can hear frantic voices out in the hallway, they get louder and more urgent.

There's a crackling sound similar to static electricity but I'm not sure if I'm imagining it or if it's real. At one point the lights blinked off and then back on again only to go back off again.

And then I hear nothing but the thunderous beating of my own heart and that could only mean one thing, I haven't died, yet.

I wondered about the rest of the floors with patients whose lives depend on machines and devices that require electricity to function. And as I was saying a silent prayer for those patients, the ceiling above my bed started swirling. It looked like a whirlpool made of light and gasses and the closer I studied it the more I realized that it actually looked like a spiral galaxy. My thoughts went to my overuse of the painkiller button, that maybe I'm hallucinating because of it.

After what could only have been a minute the galaxy of light started descending and as it got closer, I started to feel its pull until it was right on top of me swallowing me. I could no longer hear the steady beeping of the heart monitor or the humming of the oxygen equipment. At that moment I truly believed my time had come, this is what it must have looked and felt like when you die.

Only question left was where am I going? I had no illusions of getting a one-way ticket to paradise but I didn't feel I deserved eternity in the other place either. But make no mistake, I was going somewhere. I could feel my body leave my bed and the wires and attachments disconnect from me.

The galaxy gave way to a vortex of some sort, resembling a "Wormhole" like the ones you see in those sci-fi movies. I was moving forward but couldn't feel any motion on my part but like I said, all this could just be the morphine.

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I must have been in the vortex for some time and fell asleep because I had the sensation of waking from a slumber, where you haven't yet opened your eyes but are starting to realize you've woken up. At the present time I wasn't thinking about the hospital I was in nor the 'event' or even about my imminent death. I was thinking about what excuse I could give my mother so I could go back to sleep and skip school today.

Then I remembered I had a 4th period history test that I couldn't afford to miss.

'What the...' my eyes shot open and didn't immediately recognize my surroundings, until I saw a "Star Wars: A new hope" poster right next to a Farrah Faucet poster, you know the one with her nipples poking through her tank top.

"What the fuck?" I yelled and jumped out the bed, my bed, in my room, in my family home. Then I realized I just jumped out the bed but how? I've been bedridden for the last 4 months. I instinctively looked at my bedroom door where there was a full length mirror mounted. Even as I made my way over to the mirror I looked down and saw the impossible. Not only was I wearing 'tighty whities', I was sporting major wood. To be perfectly honest, I haven't gotten a hard on in over 5 years but I also haven't worn white briefs since high school having switched to boxers in the military.

What I saw in the mirror damn near gave me a heart attack! There I was 5'10" 165 lbs, not the muscular physique I would later develop in the military but... athletic for sure and a full head of brown hair. Fucking shit! There was peach fuzz on my upper lip and chin. I staggered backwards till the back of my legs made contact with the bed and fell sitting on the corner of the mattress.

Even sitting on the bed, I could still see my reflection in the mirror and was afraid to blink, afraid that if I closed my eyes for even a second, I would open them and see a terminally ill version of the young man I was currently staring at now.

My thoughts were understandably all over the place. Am I dead and this is some sort of afterlife? Or, is this some kind of cruel joke that morphine plays on the dying? It was all too real to be an illusion so... what? A do over of some sort... does that even happen? And if this is some kind of reincarnation then why only go back this far... shit how far back am I? I looked around my room for something that might have a date on it. That's when I noticed it, hanging on the outside of my closet door was my cap and gown for graduation. It was 1981 and I had turned 18 years old in May. I remember getting my cap and gown 2 weeks before graduation so it must be mid June. Then I heard a beeping sound that I remember being my Casio digital watch, set to wake me up at 6am. I ran over to my night table to retrieve it and sure enough it said the date was June 17th 1981.

That history test that occupied my waking thoughts was part of my finals and once I took it I was done with school. All that was left was receiving my diploma. Fuck! Next week I'm supposed to be going to the recruiter so I can enlist in the army. But why am I here? WHY...AM...I...HERE?

Whatever this is, I know one thing for sure, today was an important day for me. I had to pass today's finals in order to move on to the next phase in my life. As I contemplated what might be on the test today it all came back to me. Everything from the Continental Congress to the industrial revolution.

I seem to be remembering things I thought I'd long forgotten. Could it be that I'm of two minds? Everything the 18 year old me knew and everything 55 year old me experienced, co-exists in my current mind. It would explain much but I can't afford to jump to conclusions. If that's the case then it would go a long way to aiding me in not repeating many of my past mistakes. Wait... is that what I'm supposed to do? Is that why I'm back... here?

Shit! What about the timeline? I've read and saw enough time travel sci-fi to know you don't fuck with the timeline. But why would I be sent back to this time if it wasn't to do something different from my first go around? Surely I'm not expected to just live it all over exactly the same as before, that would be the worst kind of hell!

Fuck it, I plan on altering the shit out of the timeline. Let the chips fall where they may.

Then I heard her, my mother yelling from downstairs for me to hurry up or I'll be late for school. The sound of her voice choked me up some but if I was going to get through this I was going to have to get a hold of my emotions. My mother had passed away from, ironically enough, cancer in 1998 so 17 years from now.

"I'll be right down ma!" I yelled. Did I mention that we were an Italian family? Well, we yelled a lot.

I ran to the bathroom just as my sister came out with a towel wrapped around her. I froze like a deer in the proverbial headlights.

"What the fuck are you staring at perv?" She mocked and laughed at her own joke/insult thinking it was funny.

"Fuck you 'miss piggy'. There better be hot water left!" I quickly retorted as I would have at 18 years old, before slamming the bathroom door. I stood with my back against the door gathering my wits. In 1981 my sister was 15 years old, so a complete little bitch. We didn't start getting along until mom was diagnosed in 1991. Oh yeah, my sister was smart, not just academically but like a fucking detective. Fooling her was going to be next to impossible but what could I tell her? "Oh yeah sis I just got back here from 37 years in the future. And by the way, I know when mom dies!"

I could hear her now, "mom Bobby's doing drugs"! Oh yeah everyone calls me Bobby insead of Robert, except my mother of course.

Then I remembered that just a few hours ago I was waiting for death to come take me and nothing mattered any longer. So what if she suspected something. The other thing I needed to take into consideration was that I was effectively a 55 year old man in an 18 year old body. That means I had wisdom on my side.

It looks like I was going to have to rely on my many years of experience and knowledge to get through this and prosper from it! If the universe saw fit to give me a second chance then I was going to take full advantage of it. Even if it meant I left people scratching their heads.

After my shower I got dressed in jeans and a tee shirt then went downstairs to grab some breakfast. I almost lost it when I saw my mother sitting at the table alive and well. The last time I saw her was on the day she passed away. We, my sister and I, were the only ones there that day and we watched her take her last breath from behind her oxygen mask just before she coughed up blood from her cancer ridden lungs. It was going to be hard but I need to act like nothing is out of the ordinary.

"Morning ma" I said as I hid my watery eyes while I poured myself a cup of coffee.

"Since when do you drink coffee? I thought you hated the stuff." My mother questioned. My first mistake!

"I know, right! I have my last finals test today and I was up late studying." I think I just might be able to get through this because my mother buys the excuse. I quickly finished my coffee, kissed my mother goodbye and headed to school.

Strange how everything looks smaller than I remember.

There goes Kurt Petersen, one of the few class bullies, messing with one of the many class victims. I didn't need to be concerned because he and I had fought two years earlier to a draw, leaving both of us with blood pouring from our noses and him from his mouth.

He gave me a head nod and went back to his current victim. The 55 year old me wanted to teach him a lesson in humility but my 18 year old self just wanted to get through this final day by drawing as little attention as possible. 18 year old me won out... this time.

The hand slapping my upper back and then lingering, told me it was friend not foe. I turned to see my best friend in high school, Tony White.

"Dude! This is it, last fucking test and then it's party time. I heard the Henderson twins are throwing a triple kegger this weekend and their parents are out of town again, New York this time. Party starts Friday and ends Sunday morning." Tony informed me.

Well I'll be damned! Tony was my best friend through most of high school. We'd known each other since elementary school but didn't really become good friends until high school when we found ourselves sharing a lot of the same classes.

"Yeah, you have to wonder what their parents are thinking about leaving those two alone when it's their final days before graduation and then they're off to college in a few weeks." I answered, wondering if the absentee parents were the reason their daughters turned out the way they did.

I tried not to sound too... adult but I must have failed at my attempt because Tony looked at me funny and rightfully questioned my priorities.