Faces in Time (26 page)

“It’s not that I wouldn’t want to, Rhonda; it’s just a huge risk. No one has ever done this before. Well, no one that we know of. There were rumors of The Philadelphia Experiment, but no one has any evidence.”

“The Philadelphia Experiment?”

“Government thing. Tesla and Einstein were supposedly both a part of it. Both are rumored to have resigned. Lots of speculation; little proof. Pushed into the same category as Moon Landing Hoaxers and Bigfoot sightings.”

“Yeah, but you made it. Maybe the government did too.”

“Not too likely, not the way the next twenty years turned out. There would’ve been some key mistakes that would have been avoided. They’d have covered their tracks better on some other things. Some embarrassing moments would have been done over again. But, yeah, the bizarre can be true sometimes.”

Roaring like an explosion thrashes through their eardrums.

One of the white tigers shows its flesh-ripping teeth jutting out pink and black gums. Its lips are sucked back fully, exposing its pointy weapons as it eyes another tiger approaching its perch on the smooth, topmost rock in their habitat.

The approaching tiger crouches low, growling but not roaring, looking for a way to take what the other has.

Turning her head from the commotion, Rhonda asks, “And what about the gambling? Did you see the bookie’s face today while he was paying you guys? I thought for sure there’d be a fight. So, have you really come all this way to get stabbed in a bar brawl over a few hundred dollars?”

“It was actually a few grand today.”

“Chester!”

“Sorry,” chuckling.

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll have come all this way—found me—have me with you now only for you to die over a bet?”

“What else can I do?”

“Anything.”

“Can’t get any official job where they’ll need my social security number. I was only good at writing stories. What else can I do?”

“What if it were me, Chester? Would you let me gamble like you are?”

“Never. Not for a second,” his face serious at the thought.

“Then, why don’t you just stay with me?”

“And have you pay for everything—be a leech?”

“No, be safe, with me.”

“I can’t. If I lived with you, he’d come after me there; it’d bring him too close to you. He’s already tried once—imagine if I’m there all the time. The bars are safer than him.”

The patter of tiny tennis shoes on the concrete approaches them. The child smacks Rhonda’s rear with an echoing sound and runs away.

Rhonda’s lips purse into an appalled “O”.

“Did that just happen, or did I leave a chunk of my brain in the space-time foam?”

Grasping her derriere with both hands she says, “I can tell you the stinging through my butt is happening right now.”

Only halfway sure his response is appropriate, “We could kill him.”

Her lips only break from the “O” circle to an oval.

“No, really. We could casually be walking along and nudge him over the rail into the tiger den. Then, later, if we felt guilty about it, we could go back in time and push him into the bears.”

As she starts to smile, the flap and stomp of the untied shoes closes in on them again. The small hand cocks back with all the gusto of a victoriously celebrating athlete. The hand, covered in grime and cotton candy residue, flings forward toward the unprotected space between Rhonda’s two hands. The little wrist is grasped quickly by Chester, producing a crisp sound.

Unphased, the other small arm swings at Rhonda. Chester catches the counterpart. Now the youthful face turns toward Chester.

“Lemme go, dammit—you ain’t my daddy.”

“Hey, you can’t go around slapping ladies. What do you think you’re doing?”

“Just playin’ wit’ her. I didn’t hurt her none. Now let me go!”

“That’s right: you didn’t hurt her none—which means you hurt her some, and that’s what makes it something you can’t do.”

“Let me go!”

Booming from a bench under a tree about thirty yards away, “Oh, h-e-l-l no! You best let go of my child right nah.”

“Ma’am, he slapped my girlfriend on the butt, and I caught him trying to do it again.”

Coming closer, “Don’t matter nuttin’ what he was doing. He’s just a child and you a man.”

“Lady, I’m only holding his wrists to keep him from slapping her again.”

“O-o-o, yeah, she looks real hurt.”

“Screw you, lady,” says Rhonda as the shy dam can no longer hold back reason from flooding the valley of absurdity.

“Oh, it’s gonna get ugly now.”

Letting go of the child’s hands and stepping between the angry and the innocent, he says, “No, you’re going to take away your little boy and keep him away from my girlfriend.”

“I see—now you’re gonna tell me what to do.”

“Where do you get the audacity to yell at us when your unwatched child is sexually harassing women right in front of you?”

“I’ve got plenty of audacity with you putting your hands on my boy.”

“I couldn’t have said it better,” smirks Chester.

Janet walks up to them screaming at Chester, “Chaz, you idiot, what are you doing to this woman?”

“Uh…”

“Always quick with the response, huh, Chaz? I’m tired of all your screwing up. You’re fired.”

Chester
looks to Rhonda who returns his befuddled expression.

The angry woman asks Janet, “You trying to tell me that you’re this one’s boss?”

“I was; he’s fired now ‘cause of this.”

“What ya’ll doing in the zoo then?”

“Company picnic.”

“Mmm-hmmm. Well, that ain’t good enough. If he was working for you then while he was doing this, then I’m suing your company.”

“What?” Chester wheezes.

Janet says, “Shut up, Chaz. I’m handling this,” turning to the woman, “That’s fine. The company is Aardvark Shipping, and my name is Miss Glasscock. We’re the second one in the phonebook; right past Triple A.”

“Na-uh, no, that ain’t good enough, lady. Ain’t you got a card?”

“Sure,” fumbling in her purse and handing the card to the woman, “Call first thing in the morning.”

“Call whenever I damn well please. I’m gonna own that damn company,” continuing to talk out loud while walking away, waving her finger in the air with a three inch, glossy-polished glue-on nail, looking straight ahead at her bench, while her child throws pinecones down at the bears in their habitat.

“Janet, why on earth did you do that?” asks Chester as they start to walk to the zoo food court where Lucky is still finishing his third burger and Cindy waits patiently.

With a deep resolve, “Trying to reason with a crazy person is about as good as putting on makeup to impress a blind man. Logic is no good with an illogical person. When someone’s as unreasonable as that, you only have two choices: beat them to the punch or just agree with’em. Anything else is a waste of your time, so I just agreed with this one to shut her up.”

“I just have one question then: whose card did you give her?”

“Miss Glasscock is the name of my ex-husband’s secretary with whom he got awfully snuggly during the last year of our marriage. Still had the card ‘cause I had to call her during the divorce proceedings—she’s still his secretary. She can deal with the screaming
happy
woman early tomorrow morning.”

Chester
grins, “Even tragedy has its funny side.”

A bear roars vociferously.

“So, why are you trying to kill my man?”

“Funny. Your man looks a lot like me.”

A small fluff of curiosity creeps into the edge of Rhonda’s periphery, peeking around the corner of the recliner in which she sits. The left set of whiskers are pointed at her, but the giant black pupils in the yellow-green oval eyes are watching Chester sitting on an adjacent couch. All the while its paws step uncertainly forward and then comfortably backward and then repeat.

“You used to act like him too, but you’re different now.”

“Proudly so. Like to think I never shared the same thought with that lunatic imposter.”

“Watch it now,” seeing the rigidity of his face, she eases her tone, “He has beautiful thoughts all the time. What happened to you?”

“Little things. Little things that change your outlook. Showing up for work the first day at my dream job and finding out that everyone thinks I was at a party that I wasn’t and that I hit on you in front of everyone and you left with some drunk. And on top of that, they think I walked away from my new boss when he was trying to talk to me—completely blew him off after I was supposedly blown off. I was only halfway to L.A. while that party was going on—nearly a thousand miles away. Couldn’t tell if they thought I was cool or if they were making fun of me, but I could tell for sure that it wasn’t some elaborate joke—they all believed it—they weren’t making it up. Then I see the guy—looks exactly like me, driving my dream car that I don’t even have myself.”

He leans forward quickly, sending the feline retreating behind the recliner, and asks, “Do you have any idea how it feels to know that either everyone around you is playing a horrible trick on you or that you've gone insane? Or…”

“Or what?”

“Or some psychopath is messing with your life…Little cracks running through what was my life, spreading a little more each day. Then, he goes to the premiere pretending to be me. I’d had never known he was trying anything like that until it was all over if the tux rental store hadn’t called to tell me my tux was ready. So, I went to Omar’s to watch—to see what he’d do and try to figure out why the hell someone would want to be me. I stayed in my car out of sight, watching everyone arrive, and then the limo pulled up to take them to the premiere. As he was getting in the limo with the rest, I saw the scar on his hand—it’s just like mine. That plus the car—never told anyone about wanting that year and model—knew he wasn’t a conman, but me. Somehow he was me.”

She looks away from the intensity of his face and down at her knees. The cat mounts a new offensive, lightly stepping between them, dancing around the coffee table and looking at Chester on the sofa while nuzzling the side of its face against the corner of the squat glass tabletop.

“He
is
me, right? Somehow?”

She watches the stalking tail sail above the edge of the table like a shark’s fin.

“For the love of God, tell me! He’s interfering in all of my life—he’s taken my dreams away from me,” looking in her eyes as she finally brings her stare back to him, “even the ones I haven’t had a chance at yet.”

“Yes. He’s you.”

“From where?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Then, why are you here?”

“For love.”

The Chester on the sofa sputters in a choppy exhale, and she continues, “To ask you to leave the man I love alone.”

Shaking his head, “I’ve gone my whole life without hurting anybody, certainly never on purpose. But, I think his big, unbelievable secret that you’re having trouble telling me makes him too dangerous to be left alone.”

“Alone or alive?” she says with a squeak in her throat on the third word.

“Don’t know how to answer you without knowing all the facts, but I think I already know enough to say both—it’s neither safe to leave him alone or alive.”

She looks to the cat which lunges onto the opposite side of the couch as Chester and then, taking a moment to gain his bearings, timidly approaches him.

Chester
says, “You might as well just spit it out. It’s all bizarre to start with—the explanation has to be bizarre too. Strange offspring sprout out of strange circumstances. So, where is he from?”

“The future. Twenty years in the future.”

His face is stunned, but not quite enough for the revelation.

“Knew it. It doesn’t make sense, but neither does anyone looking exactly like me and knowing my desires that I’ve never told anyone…and the scar—my scar.”

“And you’ve been trying to kill him?”

“Con man, clone, time traveler—it didn’t really matter, did it? All three are dangerous; whatever it was, it was already taking my life away. But, it was too perfect—knew it had to be from the future. If it looks that much like me, can’t go to the police about it. If it has my scar, my memories, my dreams, it might have my fingerprints and DNA too.”

“
He
. Not an
it
.”

“Nothing but an it to me. Can’t be me; I’m me. It’s only some future copy of me. It’s not real—not human.”

A damp pink nose sniffs at his forearm, whiskers tickling him, the cat finding much more warmth in the man than she can see.

Rhonda responds, “He’s a wonderful man—the best I’ve ever known, and he doesn’t want to hurt you at all. And, I know you’ve had feelings for me since my show first went on the air years ago.”

From beneath the brim of his hat blocking out his forehead and covering his fashionable haircut, he looks to the cat snuggled against his thigh. As he scratches its head, the feline squints its eyes and flattens its ears. The cat puts its paws in front of him, setting his head atop them in a regal pose. Everyone likes to be king of their own domain, their own space, even if it’s just the sofa.

The tag that dangles from the end of its collar reads “Mouse” in big letters, followed by smaller writing that Rhonda can’t make out. It is indeed a cat but named Mouse, at heart being something different than what its name claims to be.

“Chester, listen to me. I know you must still have some kind of feelings for me.”

She waits for him to look up, but he doesn’t.

“I’m happy with him, Chester. I’ve never been happy before—didn’t even know what it was until I met him. Scared me at first. My whole life that happened before he came back here was miserable. Everything that was going to happen to me between now and then turned out to be a disaster. He did all of this to undo all that damage—to save me from it. He didn’t come back here to hurt anybody; it was all for me. He could’ve come back anytime he wanted to, but he only did it when my life hit a really ugly spot. He didn’t come back for power or to mess with your life; it’s all for me. Can’t you leave him alone for me?”

A smile forms and fades as he starts, “Sorry, Rhonda, I can’t do that. The information that he has is just too powerful. If anyone figures out what he’s done—what he knows, it’s the ultimate advantage. Being able to undo anything that’s been done, to reshape history with the knowledge of the future. Horrifying to think about. Any government with that kind of knowledge could take over the world. Any person with that kind of power could bring the world to its knees. Everyone would want to know what is going to happen next, which disaster to avoid, will a cure be found in time. It’s endless.”

A little furry belly twitches with rapid breaths, eyes barely open.

“And wait a minute! Why doesn’t he look older than me?”

“He doesn’t know—hasn’t figured it out.”

“It’s impossible—an  abomination—it’s not natural. And, he knows. He knows, Miss Romero—he did all this himself—he has to know how it happened. He just doesn’t want to tell you.”

“He has no idea—I swear it. He told me that himself. He said people were experimenting with sine waves to reverse effects of aging, but they hadn’t figured it out yet when he left.”

“Phhhh. Sounds like he’s lying to you. Guy figures out how to travel to his past and can’t figure out what happened to his own body.”

“Chester would never lie to me.”

“You might be surprised.”

Leaning forward with her hands clasped and held at the top of her closed knees, “Chester, would you lie to me? He told me how you feel about me—could you lie to me?”

“Might be surprised.”

The fact that he didn’t look away while delivering the line makes her believe it and worry about what she’s gotten herself into.

His words couldn't be any more resolute than if they were written by an apt judge and decreed by a quickened preacher. His body looks identical to her Chester's in every way despite the baseball cap on his head that she’s never seen her Chester wear. Even to her, the faint scar on his hand looks the same as the one she frequently slides her fingers over, not being able to see the difference between her boyfriend and the one who wants to kill him sitting a foot and a half from her. Her only clues to the differences between the man she knows and the facsimile before her are in the tone of the words he's let out and the expression on his face.

The cat jumps to the floor and walks down the hallway behind Rhonda’s chair toward the front door.

And then there are his eyes. Irises are seas full of angry despair with small islands of calm pupils. She wonders if the pupils are little paradises straining to survive amid the corrosive salt water waves, signaling there may still be hope alive in this lost, rightful Chester of this time. But, she's also aware that the sparkling hope embedded deep within the dense aggressive water might be nothing more than the afterglow of a past sunset, the glimme of a star's last gasp of luminance flashing in our sky thousands of years after it's burned out, a light whose source no longer exists, a remnant of the past reaching us in the present, unable to ever burn again.

Keys grind into a lock down the hallway at the door. Chester’s eyes drain of their angry look and are pumped full of panic. He flings off the sofa into a standing position.

“Oh, are you living with someone?” Rhonda asks.

“Not exactly. Get behind me.”

“What?”

“Just trust me—get behind me!”

As he pulls her by her arm out of the chair, the sound of the door opening reaches their ears. When he plops her down on the sofa, the door shuts.

Desperately trying to see what she is being protected from, she leans into the open area of the sofa to see around the side of Chester.

The form of a man leaves her anxious. As it starts to come into focus, she begins to smile. His purple shirt beams familiarity, but his face is twisted in anger and staring at his doppelganger before her.