My long-forgotten history peeked out from behind the curtains. The questions McInnes posed during hypnosis had dredged up memories that had been repressed for more than a century, and fragments of those subconscious recollections began intruding into my life. We would be performing our second-rate imitation of Simon and Garfunkel when an unexpected Germanism would leap out of my mouth. The boys in the band thought I was tripping, and we'd have to start over after a brief apology to the audience. Or I'd be seducing a young woman and find that her face had morphed into the visage of a changeling. A baby would cry and I'd wonder if it was human or a bundle of holy terror that had been left on the doorstep. A photograph of six-year-old Henry Day's first day of school would remind me of all I was not. I'd see myself superimposed over the image, my face reflected in the glass, layered over his face, and wonder what had become of him, what had become of me. No longer a monster, but not Henry Day either. I suffered trying to remember my own name, but that German boy stole away every time I drew near.
　　The only remedy for this obsession was to substitute another. Whenever my mind dwelled on the distant past, I would force myself to think of music, running alternative fingerings and the cycle of fifths in my mind, humming to myself, pushing dark thoughts away with a song. I flirted with the notion of becoming a composer again even as college aspirations faded while another two years slipped by. In the seemingly random sounds of everyday life, I began to abstract patterns, which grew to measures, which became movements. Often I would go back to Oscar's after a few hours' sleep, put on a pot of coffee, and scribble the notations resonating in my head. With solely a piano available, I had to imagine an orchestra in that empty barroom, and those early scores echo my chaotic confusion over who I am. The unfinished compositions were tentative steps back to the past, to my true nature. I spent ages looking for the sound, reshaping it, and tossing it away, for composition was as elusive at the time as my own name.
　　The bar was my studio most mornings. Oscar arrived around lunchtime, and George and Jimmy usually showed up midafternoon for rehearsal and a few beers—barely enough time for me to cover up my work. Halfheartedly, I plunked away at the piano before our practice was to begin on an early summer afternoon in '67. George, Jimmy, and Oscar experimented with a few chord changes and rhythms, but they were mostly smoking and drinking. The area kids had been out of school for two weeks and were already bored, riding their bicycles up and down Main Street. Their heads and shoulders slid across the view through the windowpanes. Lewis Love's green pickup truck pulled up outside, and a moment later the bar door swung open, sending in a crush of humid air. His shoulders slumped with exhaustion, Lewis stopped in the threshold, numb and dumb. Setting down his horn, Oscar walked over to talk with his brother. Their conversation was too soft to be overheard, but the body gives away its sorrows. Lewis hung his head and brought his hand to the bridge of his nose as if to hold back tears, and George and Jimmy and I watched from our chairs, not knowing quite what to say or do. Oscar led his brother to the bar and poured him a tall shot, which Lewis downed in a single swig. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and bent over like a question mark, his forehead resting on the rail, so we crowded around our friends.
　　"His son is missing," Oscar said. "Since last night. The police and fire and rescue are out looking for him, but they haven't found him. He's only eight years old, man."
　　"What does he look like?" George asked. "What's his name? How long has he been gone? Where did you last see him?"
　　Lewis straightened his shoulders. "His name is Oscar, after my brother here. About the averagest-looking kid you could find. Brown hair, brown eyes, about so high." He held out his hand and dropped it roughly four feet above the ground.
　　"When did he disappear?" I asked.
　　"He was wearing a baseball shirt and short pants, dark blue—his mother thinks. And high-top Chuck Taylors. He was out back of the house, playing after dinner last night. It was still light out. And then he vanished." He turned to his brother. "I tried calling you all over the place."
　　Oscar pursed his lips and shook his head. "I'm so sorry, man. I was out getting high."
　　George began walking to the door. "No time for recriminations. We've got a missing kid to find."
　　Off we went to the woods. Oscar and Lewis rode together in the cab of the pickup, and George, Jimmy, and I sat in the bed, where there was the residual odor of manure baking in the heat. The truck bumped and rattled along a firebreak cut through the timberline, and we ground to a stop in a cloud of dust. The search and rescue team had parked in a glen about a mile due west from my house, about as far into the forest as they could manage to drive the township's sole fire engine. The captain of the fire department leaned against the big rig. He pulled on a bottle of cola in enormous gulps, his face like an alarm against his starched white shirt. Our party got out of the pickup, and I was overwhelmed by the sweet smell of honeysuckle nearby. Bees patrolled among the flowers, and as we walked toward the captain, they lazily inspected us. Grasshoppers, panicked by our footfall, whirred ahead in the tall grass. Along the edge of the clearing, a tangle of wild raspberries and poison ivy reminded me of the double-edged nature of the forest. I followed the boys down a makeshift path, looking over my shoulder at the captain and his red truck until they vanished from sight.
　　A bloodhound bayed in the distance, taking up a scent. We trudged along single file for several hundred yards, and the dark shade cast by the canopy gave the appearance of dusk in the shank of the afternoon. Every few moments, someone would call out for the boy, and his name hung in the air before dissipating in the warm half-light. We were chasing shadows where no shadows could be seen. The group halted when we reached the top of a small rise.
　　"This is getting us nowhere," Oscar said. "Why don't we spread out?"
　　Though I loathed the idea of being alone in the forest, I could not counter his logic without seeming a coward.
　　"Let's meet back here at nine." With an air of determined sobriety, Oscar studied the face of his watch, following the sweep of the second hand, counting off moments to himself. We waited and watched our own time go by.
　　"Four thirty," he said at last.
　　"I've got four thirty-five," said George.
　　And almost simultaneously, I said, "Twenty after."
　　"Twenty-five of five," said Jimmy.
　　Lewis shook his wrist, removed his watch, and held the timepiece to his ear. "That's funny—my watch has stopped." He stared at its face. "Seven thirty. That's right around when I saw him last."
　　Each of us looked at the others for the way out of this temporal confusion. Oscar resumed his clock w............