Chapter 3

"It's really you, isn't it?" It was more of a statement than a question.

Jon gave no answer. He had none. Was I really me? What the hell kind of question is that?

This nightmare could easily fit right in with being stuck in one place while being chased by a giant aardvark, or waking up in the middle of a busy shopping mall and realizing you have no clothes on. Jon wondered if he sat there long enough, some scary clowns would come walking through the kitchen looking for a sandwich.

"Rich?" he ventured, "if this is some fucking joke you and the guys are playing, it's not funny." He wanted it to be a joke. Wanted for the rest of the band to pop up from behind the counters gloating that they'd pulled a big one over him.

But he knew somehow, that that would not happen. That he would not just wake up and find that this was all a dream. Fear clung to him at this realization and he needed to break the spell.

"WHY ARE YOU SO FREAKING OLD?!"

Richie crossed his arms and glared at him with a withering stare.

This was not going too well.

"Yelling is not going to help."

"I mean...what's happening, Rich?" Jon was raking his hands through his mane again. "Why am I here? What happened to twenty years?"

Richie sighed, "I don't know. How the hell should I know?" He realized that Jon - this Jon - had more at stake than he did. Richie, at least, was in the right place at the right time.

"Look, just think back to last night. What happened?"

"I told you already, Rich. We went out to a club and that idiot Alec..."

"No! I'm talking about anything unusual. Did you see a portal to another world and walked through it? Maybe you met some weird fortune teller like in that movie."

"What movie?"

"Big. You know, with Tom Hanks. Don't you remember going to see it with Dot?"

At Jon's confused look, Richie realized that the movie must have been after his time. It suddenly dawned on him that he needed to be careful of what he said. He'd seen enough movies about time travel to know that the less the main character knew about the future, the better. Fuck! How am I going to remember what happened when?

Now it was Richie who was raking his hands through his hair.

"What about any strange people you've met?"

"A lot of the people we meet are strange, Rich. What do you expect in this business?"

"Jon! If you want me to help you, you're going to have to focus, okay?" Even as the words were leaving his lips, Richie knew that he had no idea what he was supposed to do to help him. It wasn't like he could just take him to the emergency room of a hospital or even to a police station. He chuckled to himself as he thought of what their reactions would be when he told them what was wrong with Jon.

"I'm glad somebody is enjoying this."

"Sorry, bro. But you gotta admit, that this is a pretty fucked up situation."

"No shit. Now help me get back to 1987."

"Do you have a DeLorean?"

*****

"Honey, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Dot. Just had this mean headache, but it's gone now."

They were driving back from watching Stephanie in her class play when the headache hit. The intensity of it took Jon by surprise and he was glad they were stopped at a red light at the intersection. It had gone as swiftly as it came and it left him puzzled as it had never happened before. I think.

He glanced back and saw Steph and Jesse, both lost in their own worlds of iPods and Gameboys. The younger two were fast asleep, snug in their car seats.

He sighed. Jake and Romeo still thought the sun revolved around their dad, but the older ones were slowly but surely starting to be more rebellious. They tested him whenever they could and found it embarrassing to have him around when their friends were there. Earlier in the week, Steph had even tried to get her parents not to go to see her in the play. When he had made no bones about going, she had uttered her one thousandth "Fine, whatever."

"They're just going through a phase, Jon." Dot was more accepting of Stephanie's behavior than he was. He was just not ready to let go of his little girl.

Going through the gates and pulling up the driveway to the house, he felt the fleeting sense of the headache return. But this one, too, had gone before he even put his hand up to his temples.

"Are you sure you're okay? Maybe you're coming down with something."

"Yeah, maybe." He knew that Richie was waiting for his return to go over some material and wondered if he could make it through a session.

He pulled the car into the garage and turning off the engine, he sat for a while resting his head on the steering wheel. Rubbing his eyes, he slowly got out of the car, smiling at Dot to assure her that he was fine.

"Come on. Let's get the kids into bed."

*****

They had been sitting in the kitchen for a good hour going over what Jon remembered. Richie was interrogating him on the events of 'last night', sure that any little detail should not be overlooked. He was starting to feel that he would have made a pretty good detective if this whole rock star thing hadn't panned out.

Jon was getting agitated. "What are you asking me all these things for? You were there, don't you remember anything?"

"It was twenty years ago for me, last night for you, birdbrain."

"And what are we supposed to do with all this information, anyway?"

Good question. Richie had no idea.

"We could surf the web for some clues. There's a lot of crazy stuff out there."

"Surf the what?"

Shit! I did it again!

That's when they heard the garage door open and the sound of the engine being cut.

Richie bolted out of his chair, grabbed Jon by the arm, and practically dragged him off to his room.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Hiding you."

"From who?"

"From you."

*****