Faces in Time (14 page)

They’ll be confused and feel the need to investigate as all intelligent people do, but they are comedy writers. They’ll investigate with jokes and satire. It’ll be a roast like that of old Hollywood, which will be uncomfortable even if it’s an awkward but well-intentioned method of getting to know a new coworker.

He’d feel sorry for his past self if he didn’t know he’d end up here as his present self, just as miser buhursday doesn’t pity Monday when its weather turns out to be just as bad.

He stares at a twitching furry tail, but he thinks about the fabric of time.

Maybe he still can’t make any major changes. He wonders if the newspaper picture was so insignificant that even though he was able to alter which person appeared in it, it made no impact on anyone’s life in a significant or noticeable way. Maybe that change was allowed because it made no difference in people’s life choices. The end result stayed the same no matter which woman was in the pic in the paper. No one died. No one committed a crime or hurt anyone over it. No one quit a job or married someone else.

Had last night been successful, Rhonda would not have gone off with Dane. Had they not started dating on that night, they were not likely to be at another party together. Dane’s flash in the pan would quickly fade away, and his behavior would put him on do-not-invite lists very quickly. Had they missed each other last night, they would’ve probably never seen each other again, much less gotten married. Her tragic life would’ve been much different. Dane prevented her from taking romantic roles with popular leading men, not to mention the damage he inflicted on her frail self-esteem.

Her adult life was watched by millions, popularly for the first decade and snidely for the second. Had her life gone differently, it would have affected the lexicon of an entire generation. For some, it might have been one less fallen celebrity to make them believe that everyone’s life is a wreck and that they needn’t bother do anything to fix their own. For others, maybe it would have been one less example of the media and the public joining hands to ridicule someone’s demise, to push a star deeper into the dirt than they find themselves currently wading, maybe even hoping to stand upon the famous and fallen skull trying to lift themselves a few more inches out of the filthy mire.

For himself, it might have been far more dramatic. Had she never married, it might have swollen his belief that they should be together to the point of bursting. Or had she married happily, it might have crushed his dreams of being with her altogether, pushing his life onto a completely different course. Were she ever truly happy in love, he would’ve never dreamed of intruding. He always wanted her to be happy more than anything else, even more than her being with him.

People have pondered the weight, influence, and responsibility of fame for all of civilization and before. But, until this very moment in a pet store, none have considered its hold on time itself.

The tail twitches.

A modest TV, that sits atop an ancient and nonworking console TV, which is bolted to the dresser top, along with new sheets are the only other alterations he’s made to the room. Reruns of his favorite shows, nearly all of which haven’t even aired in his current time period, consistently flicker on the new screen being fed from the device. Without the television’s noise, he’d hear the interstate, which would only remind him that everyone else is racing to a destination and he has nowhere to go.

He has returned to the mall a few times, trying to distract himself with video games that he played years ago. Were she there with him, treading the old territory would have been a fun adventure—rediscovering old entertainments with the person he should’ve experienced them with the first time around. It would have been reminiscence reshaped into rapture, but it’s only been a lonely figure pushing buttons in a dark room.

And sure enough, the kitten was gone when he returned on Tuesday morning. He had no doubt that it would happen as it had before he shot back in time, but it still made him sad. He even thought about going to his past self’s apartment, since he still has a key, to visit his tiny friend while his counterpart would be away at work, but worrying that it was too dangerous to have a neighbor possibly notice there were two of him, he couldn’t go.

His supply of canned soups, peanut butter crackers, cereal, and frozen dinners are running low along with the cash he’s brought with him.

To get money he could use in the past, it had taken him quite a few trips to the bank and making purchases with cash at various places to obtain enough currency that would be dated before his journey. To accommodate any potential flaws in the timing of his trip, he only saved money that was at least five years older than his destination. That way if he arrived a few years earlier than he was aiming for, his money would not be a glaring sign that he was either a time traveler or a sloppy counterfeiter. Had he known that his venture through decades would place him on the exact date that he desired, he would have had a slightly easier time in collecting the older currency.

He had brought enough money to get to her and to maintain himself for a short while after, but he’s had to stretch his funds to last this long.

The rent is paid by the week in this establishment, and his landlady doesn’t seem to be much of a philanthropist. In fact, he had driven around for a day and a half, sleeping the first night in a motel, searching for an apartment that would prefer cash payments and have no background check. His background would come up clean. He is in fact Chester B. Fuse in name, appearance, fingerprints, and identification, and Chester B. Fuse’s background is the boring and spotless type that landlords crave. But, he did not want a record of his name, license number, or any other identifier being on the lease. Surely, someone would notice the existence of two Chesters, maybe the IRS, maybe Chester’s credit report—he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to risk it.

He drove slowly through questionable neighborhoods until he saw her smoking a cigarette outside of her office at the front of her decrepit building. You pay in cash in advance, and that’s exactly what he was searching for. And for that type of establishment, it’s one of the best, although it is still terribly dismal.

His biggest discomfort is the bed that has to remain in the room. It’s old, lumpy, and smells faintly of mildew and decades gone past, but its comfort and scent are not what trouble him. The sanitary issues are his concern. His first purchase for the room was the new sheets and pillowcases.

Had he more money, perhaps he’d buy some pillows, and he has thought about some type of mattress cover to ease his mind. He does spend a significant amount of time lying on it, mostly staring at the TV or the ceiling whose color has turned an unclean shade of brownish yellow.

His choice of dwelling came in handy when he realized his brake tag and license plate stickers were dated twenty years in the future. He scraped them off and quit driving the car until he noticed one of his neighbors who spent a lot of his days in the parking lot taking money from people and handing them a sealed tan envelope. His neighbor’s customers occasionally pulled up in cars with no license plates at all and others would show up looking haggard and scared. Most of them seemed desperate.

For a few days, he watched the parking lot transactions through the ugly curtains of his only window. After an awkward conversation, the neighbor agreed that he could get Chester a license plate with valid stickers and a brake tag. The next evening both were delivered, and it took most of Chester’s remaining money to pay for them—there was no neighbor discount.

Although it may be unethical, he’ll have to go make some money. It’s been in the back of his head since before leaving the future, but he’s hoped another possibility would present itself. At least he’ll be taking the money from people who deserve to lose it, regardless of how sad they may appear.

A few short hours later…

It’s Sunday in the early fall, which made it much easier for him to find a venue. What first garnered his attention were the two gigantic letters of B and S standing tall on the building’s squat roof. Then the high percentage of trucks and sports cars in the large, full parking lot strengthened the likelihood that he had found the right place. It was all settled as soon as he was close enough to read the smaller letters of the sign “Balls & Suds.” He couldn’t have imagined it much better.

As he opens the door, the rumble of television and loud conversation rolls over his eardrums in myriad sounds of manliness.

The many screens flash quickly from one promo to the next. Despite the style being a bit much for the level of substance, the patrons listen intently whenever a new piece of information is delivered.

The tapping of pool balls can be heard coming from a room to the left, whose only entrance is an open archway at the end of the long rectangular main room he has stepped into.

The serving bar itself is a smaller rectangle centered in the main room and framed in wooden trim. It is surrounded by a fence of loosely connected shoulders, nearly all donning the same two-colored shirts and jerseys, although the duo of colors alternates from being the main color to the trim color, either depicting the team away or at home.

While this isn’t an environment that Chester has been inside very often, he knows he’ll have to break through that fence of flesh if he has any hope of walking out of here with a pocket full of money. By glancing at the screen closest to him, he sees that he only has eight minutes and forty-three seconds to do so and then find the man that he’s looking for, even though Chester doesn’t know what he looks like yet.

Football is a sport that he’s always enjoyed on the occasions when he’s watched it with co-workers. Super Bowl parties have held his interest, and not just for the zany commercials and the plugs for lousy new shows that the network is praying people will watch. He does enjoy the game itself and the excitement of watching it with a group who are all united in rooting for the same team.

He has not enjoyed the few games he’s watched with a split and bickering crowd. With the uniform sea of fabric pigment in front of him, he’s sure they’re a unified group. The device has informed him that the home team is a heavy underdog in today’s contest, so the bar patrons are all bonded by a blind hope in the face of certain disappointment.

As he nears the bar, he doesn’t see an open space.

Tapping one of the jersey-clad shoulders,he asks, “Excuse me, buddy, but can I get in front of you just to get a beer?”

The apprehension in the stranger’s slightly swollen face quickly disintegrates to friendly, “Tell you what: you hold my spot while I hit the bathroom, and your beer’s on my tab.”

“Sounds like a deal,” replies Chester.

The stranger pats him on the shoulder as he passes, and Chester sits down in the newly vacated stool. It’s still warm, and for an illogical reason he feels uncomfortable sitting in it.

Despite the stool soaked in body heat, he focuses on his surroundings. Particularly, he’s looking for money changing hands. Glancing around the room, he decides the action he’s looking for is probably going down in the billiards room to the left. All he can see of it now through the opened archway is that there are several large televisions on the far wall. The angle is still too steep to see much else.

He keeps his glance away from the bartender, not wanting to explain that he’s waiting on a guy he doesn’t know to return from the bathroom to buy him a drink. He hasn’t even found the dangerous part of the adventure yet, and it’s already a strange day.

The bartender wears a shirt in the same colors as the rest of the patrons, but hers is tight, tied in the middle of her back, making it a half-shirt and exposing her abdomen. It helps keep her cool in the crowded, body-heat-filled-air, and it also multiplies her tip total for the day. Nothing opens sports fans’ wallets easier than seeing a sexy version of their team’s colors.

As Chester watches a barback tap the number of empty beer bottles that litter the bar’s surface into a garbage can he slides along the employee side of the wooden alcoholic trough, Chester knows this is a heavy-drinking bar.

The potential for trouble is high, but he can’t afford to run his plan too conservatively, not if he wants to eat, make rent, and put some space between him and the filth that lies just beneath a thin sheet while he sleeps.

So far, he’s not afraid of the bulk of drinkers that surround him. He’s never felt at ease in bars. Not being a drinker or an outgoing person, he’s felt that he has no business there, but that was before the trip. Now he has to act differently. Even if he ends up at the same sad assisted living facility as when he left, he’s vowed to take a different route, even a dangerous one.

This trip may be one of few ventures that he’s taken from his motel-grade apartment, but today he’ll do more than just watch reruns and spin his mind in introspection that scalds. He begins to wonder why his stomach hasble is ht responded to his current stress. Typically he’d be burning and nauseous, but he hasn’t felt sick since leaving his apartment today. Before his thoughts race too far from the starting line, the hand returns to his shoulder.

“Well, alright, one beer coming up.”

“Thanks,” responds Chester.

“So, are you a Washington fan?”