Probability
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a window. When the lights come on the air isstill cold. The girls are shivering.
"Three p.m., January 12, 1956," says Rabelais. "Let's go get furcoats."
So we go out the way we came in and it's daylight. And there's snow onthe ground. The cottage is the same but the street is a highway now.Rabalais hails the fanciest looking cab I ever see and we get drivento town where he buys all of us fur coats in a store I never heard of.Then we go to a dinner club that makes the Buster look like a greasyspoon. None of us can say a word.
After he pays the check, Rabelais says, "I'm short of cash. Let's goto the bank."
"Banks ain't open," I remind him.
"Mine is," he says and makes a phone call. Pretty soon a big fancylimousine with a chauffeur drives up and we all pile in. I manage tobalk long enough to buy a newspaper. Sure enough, the date is January12, 1956.
We go to the financial section and right past my tavern. It's alllighted up and fancy looking and there's a big sign saying, "MIKE'S"outside.
Rabelais says, "You're making a mint, Mike."
"I see," I agrees, dazed. Rabelais flicks the paper with a silly grinand tells me to look on page four. I do and there's an editorialbeside a cartoon of me, pot belly and all, and it says, "Mayor MikeMurphy agrees to run for Congress...."
"Me?"
"You," says Rabelais. "You make it, too, Mike."
Before I can answer, we stop at a building lighted up. Over the doorit says, "Pettis." That's all. It's his, the whole building. And it'sfull of offices. He shows me one where his former bosses are slavingover drafting boards. The bank part is closed but some slavies areworking late as people in banks always do and we go in and Rabelaisgets a wad of money and we leave.
It goes on like that. I'm ashamed to say we get sort of looped and thenext thing we know we're in Paris and having a fine time. Then we takeanother flier on his machine and it's summer. We enjoy that for awhile and then try another season. It goes on that way for a coupleweeks. Once we accept the fact that we're traveling in time, it'seasy.
But Rabelais, even when he's looped, won't take us into the past orfar into the future. He just says, "We have to watch probability,Mike."
I don't get the idea but it doesn't seem to matter much. We're havingtoo good a time kicking around in the near future. Finally when we allfeel ready for a Keeley cure, Rabelais takes us home. We land in thebasement at the very moment we left it but with our fur coats andfancy luggage and souvenirs. Rabelais looks over all the gadgets wehave and those that are too much ahead of our time, he throws away.
In a taxi heading for town, I smoke my dollar cigar. I'm happy. Thegirls are quiet, a little sad.
"It was fun," the redhead sighs. "Kicking won't seem the same."
"Quit that kind of work," Rabelais says. "Go to college or something."And he hands each of them a big wad of money.
Downtown we split up, each of us going off somewhere to get the restwe need. I sleep around the clock and a little more. When I wake upI'm the owner of a tavern still, so I figure I'm to be mayor in '54and congressman in '56. It's a wonderful life for a while. The onlything is that I miss Rabelais coming in at five-ten for his beer.
In '54 I get elected Mayor like he said. My business gets remodelledand all is swell.
* * * * *
Then one night I go to sleep in my new house and I wake up in themiddle of the night feeling a cold draft. When I turn over I roll ontoa lump in the mattress and I know it was all a dream and I'm MikeMurphy, bartender, again.
The next a.m. I pick up the paper and it's the summer of '53, the dayof Rabelais and my thirty-first anniversary and I'm back at the oldstand. It was a fine dream, I says, and go to work.
At five-o-nine, though, I can't help looking at the clock. And sureenough, Rabelais comes in, walks up to the bar like he owns it androars at me, "Two beers, Mike!"
I can't help saying, "Look, haven't we done this before?"
He grins at me. "And we may have to do it again a few times," he says.
By now I know him pretty well, I think--or maybe I dreamed I know him;I'm not sure. Anyway, I give him the two beers and wait for him to getaround to telling me whatever is on his mind.
He goes through the same act as before--only I can't be sure he did gothrough the act or I dreamed he did. "Beer for the house," he yells.
"Take it easy," I cautions. "Take it easy, Rabelais."
"You never called me by my first name before, did you, Mike?"
I open my mouth to remind him that he told me to back in 1953 and thenI remember it is 1953. That confuses me because I remember, too, thatin 1954 I was--or maybe it's that I'm going to be--mayor. I just closemy mouth and wait.
Rabelais takes his time. When the early rush clears out, he gets meoff to one end of the bar and says, "Sorry to keep you waiting, Mike,but we have to do it all over again."
"Then it wasn't a dream?"
"No dream," he says.
"But everything was going fine."
"Up to a point," he says. "Up to the sixties."
Then he explains the way his machine works. But all I get out of whathe says is that there's a law of probability so he can't go back andshoot his grandfather when the old man is a boy or juggle stocks in'47 to pay off and make him rich in '53 and things like that. That iswhy he wouldn't let us go back into the past. He was afraid we woulddo something to change history and--bingo.
And he wouldn't let us go into the future very far because up a waythe atom bomb gets loose and it is awfully sad to see and dangerousbesides.
"That was in the sixties," he says. "Or will be in the sixties. Only Igot it figured out so it won't be, Mike."
It's over my head; I just keep on waiting.
He explains that he made a pile of dough in the near future by bettingon horse races and cleaning out a few bookies and investing hiswinnings in stocks he knew were going up (and in fact they wouldn'thave gone up if he hadn't looked into the future and known they wouldso he could go back and buy them) and anyway, he figured the exact dayit would be safe to start and so he did.
"Only," he says, "we made a mistake by making you mayor and thencongressman. I have it figured out for you to be congressman rightfrom the start--in fifty-four. That gives you two extra years ofseniority on Congress and so when the chips are down you have a littlemore pull."
"Fine," I says and start to take off my apron.
"The thing is," he explains, "there are a couple of lunkheads inCongress that get super-patriotic and they're the ones who cause thetrouble with the bomb getting loose." He leans over the bar and looksreal serious at me. "And you," he goes on, "are the one who stops thembefore they get started."
"Me? Me, Mike Murphy?"
"You," he says. "We just go on a different time track from the one wetried before. And this one ought to work." He gives me his grin. "Youshould see the history books about the year 2000. You're a realnational hero, Mike."
I throw my apron into a corner and roll down my sleeves. I'm ready.
And it goes just like Rabelais says. I pass up the mayor's job and gostraight to Congress. In my third term I get a chance to cool thosetwo excitable characters--cool them politically, that is, and I do.
The only thing wrong is that Rabelais never lets me go into the futureto read the history books that tell what a great guy I was and thethings I did. So I'm never sure I'm doing the right thing. Like I tellhim, how can I be sure what to do if he won't let me read about what Idid?
... THE END