by Jason Ford
During the physical, the damn phlebotomist had poked around so many times trying to find a vein that Keith was tempted to grab the needle and stick it in himself. After obtaining the two requisite samples of blood, a cotton ball was taped over the needle stick and he leaned over and threw up all over the floor. The moment his mother saw the enlistment packet in his hand, she knew he was leaving.
Basic training was a breeze. Some of the other recruits were outright bawling at the instructor’s raised voices. He met Hector, and the bond that was forged was more like a brother than a friend. Keith’s mother did not show up to see her son graduate. Keith went to Fort Jackson for advanced training. Hector went to Fort Sill. After the twenty weeks of advanced training were completed, Keith was sent to Fort Irwin in Barstow as a computer/systems repairer. After a few weeks on base, he got a four-day weekend off and got permission to pick up his car at his mother’s house three hours away. If it was three hours by car, it was eight hours by Greyhound bus. The sun was setting as he walked up to her door. She saw him through the window, opened the door, threw his car keys at him, and slammed the door in his face. On the drive back to Barstow, he pulled in at a truck stop halfway home to get something to eat.
Sitting down at a booth, the waitress came up and took his order. He tried not to stare at the plastered-on makeup and the cigarette poking out of the corner of her mouth; instead, he focused on her blue eyes, her only redeeming quality. She set the basket down with his double cheeseburger and onion rings and asked him three times if he wanted ketchup before he heard her. After paying the check and leaving, he didn’t think about her again.
He had just started at the Shell station when the waitress from the truck stop showed up. He learned that her name was Theresa Callahan, and that she lived with her parents in Chino. She seemed nice enough, and soon they started dating.
One weekend in December, after his twenty-first birthday, his buddies decided to take him to Las Vegas. Mario gave him the weekend off and they all chipped in for a party bus. After about the fourth or fifth shot, Keith couldn’t see straight anymore. The next thing he knew, he woke up in a hotel room with the sunlight lancing painfully into the room. His head felt like 50,000 drummers were all practicing at the same time. Theresa was curled next to him, snoring away. She looked a lot better with the makeup on. On the nightstand were three empty bottles of champagne, a picture of them at a wedding chapel with some guy dressed as Mr. Spock, and a marriage license.
He did his best to be a good husband to her, but nothing was ever good enough for her. It wasn’t long before they were fighting about the lack of money. They tried marriage counseling, and it was there that Keith saw the real Theresa. The accusations flew like darts out of her mouth. A real man would try to last more than thirty seconds in bed. A real man would provide for his wife. Keith had enough. He got up and walked out of the office. Hector came to him a week later and told him about the men that were visiting Theresa while Keith was at work. He was so disgusted with her he almost threw up.
It wasn’t until the divorce was finalized, and he had tried to put the deposit down on the new single-wide trailer on Angus Road, that he found out she had completely wiped out the checking account.
•••
Monday morning came, and it was like any other day. The week dragged on, he had to call the cops a few times, he went to the range on Thursday evening with Hector to keep his shooting skills up. He bought a lottery ticket or two on Friday like he always did now when he got paid. He had a feeling this would be different.
He didn’t stay up for the lottery drawing on Saturday evening; he watched a Star Wars marathon in machete order on Sunday. It wasn’t until Monday morning when he got to work and there was a news crew waiting that he got to thinking. Uh oh. Keith punched up the numbers for Saturday night’s drawing. He blinked. Then blinked again. $300 million! Realization was slowly dawning on him and he had but one thought: I’ve got to figure out how to build a time machine. I’ve got to do over my life!
THREE
The thing that worried him the most was that he knew that several people would be crawling out of the woodwork with their hand out. What he didn’t expect was a certain unwelcome visitor at work.
He was emptying the trash cans outside when Robert Callahan got out of his car with a tire iron in his hand.
“So, Mr. Rich Boy, you’re going to pay me back for all the trouble over the last twenty years!”
“Robert, Theresa made her own choices. It’s your fault you’re too stupid and keep bailing her out all the time.” Keith glanced in the window and saw Mario on the phone to the cops, and Ricardo videotaping the whole thing with his phone.
"We’re living in a trailer because we had to sell our house, and my wife had to take a second job!"
"Again, this is not my fault."
“Well, Mr. Smarty pants, I’m going to take it out of your ass then!"
He swung the tire iron at Keith’s head.
Keith dodged the blow and stepped back, pulling out his pistol and aiming it at Robert.
He saw Carlos pull up and holstered his weapon.
Robert dropped the tire iron and tried to hustle away, but Carlos jumped out and stopped him.
Ricardo came out with his cellphone and showed Carlos the footage. The officer asked Keith what he wanted to do.
"Normally, I would say lock the asshole up, but he’s been through enough. If you want to, just warn him to stay away from me. No charges, but I will put a restraining order against him if he tries it again"
“Sure thing, Keith.”
He approached Callahan, who was glaring daggers at Keith.
“Mr. Callahan, what I just witnessed a few minutes ago was assault. Keith is well within his rights to press charges. However, he is willing to let bygones be bygones if you would do the same. I would advise you to keep your distance from him."
Callahan couldn’t resist one more shot.
“I’ll curse you till the day I die, this isn’t over!”
Mario came up to stand next to Keith. “Never thought your last day would be this exciting, did you?”
•••
The house was finally complete. Three bedrooms, three baths, single level, with attached four-car garage. There was a large home theater with a seventy-inch TV, recliners, a wet bar, a digital surround sound system, and more Blu-ray movies than he could watch. The gun room in one half of the divided basement contained a large gun safe bolted to the floor, a display case of antique rifles and swords, and a pool table. There was a counter with gun cleaning kits. The other half of the basement was a game room with a full-motion VR simulator, hooked up to a powerful computer with top-of-the-line graphics, containing a multitude of flight simulator games.
The house sat on a hundred acres, while a big hill running the length of the back acres provided a perfect frame for the large lake in the left rear quadrant. The covered shooting range took up the right rear quadrant. The private road off the main highway ran a quarter mile to the driveway. A gravel road ran to the top of the hill, splitting off along the way to the different quadrants. A large, concrete pad west of the runway was sighted for future construction. The two-megawatt solar farms took up the middle ten acres. It was more than enough power for his needs and what he didn’t use he sold back to the utility company. Keith got LASIK and implanted contact lenses, followed by his pilot’s license. He was now the owner of a 2008 Cessna Caravan with upgraded avionics and a Garmin nav system. He bought the Caravan from a bank repo in Victorville and had an aircraft mechanic overhaul it to make sure it was flightworthy. He took off from Hesperia Airport on a checkout flight, heading toward Barstow. He did a touch and go at Barstow-Daggett Airport, then a sweeping left toward home. He had to do a few practice approaches until he was comfortable, then he took the plane to five miles out from his house and did a long final approach to the 2,500-foot, paved, private runway cutting across the property, parallel to the road. He ran through the mental checklist: Mix
ture rich, flaps 30, airspeed 85. As he crossed over the runway threshold, he reduced the power to idle and started to flare the aircraft. The wheels kissed the tarmac and he engaged reverse thrust, slowing the plane down with plenty of room to spare. He didn’t have fuel pumps at his house because Barstow-Daggett was only a quick fourteen-mile flight away. He knew that even fully loaded with cargo and the fuel tanks topped off, he didn’t have much room for error on his private strip. He only ever kept a quarter tank when the plane was in the hangar.
He loved his life, flying Hector and his family on their family vacations. They traveled up and down the Pacific coast, and even flew to Houston for an Astros game because that was Hector’s favorite team.
On the weekends, when the weather was cooperating, everyone went down to the lake and fished. Keith had a "You catch it, you cook it" policy. Of course, the kids were a little grossed out by the worm and the cleaning of the fish afterward, but even Hector’s youngest, José, soon grew adept at catching the different kinds of trout the lake was stocked with.
On colder days, Keith and Hector went to his covered shooting range to practice against steel targets. Keith hated the paper ones because he never knew if he hit or not. At least with steel, he could listen for the immediate ping of the round on the plate. They would spend several hours at it, working their way through a giant box of ammo.
He kept having that dream again—the one where he’s an old man looking in a mirror, wishing to change the past. He always noticed that the old man was alone in the dream; there was nobody next to him. He just looked very sad. Keith could understand that. He had to figure out some way to keep his younger self from turning into that old man. If he succeeded, then what? He had to figure out a way to transfer his knowledge into his younger self. Plus, he had to bring extra knowledge back stored in a device, so he could access it if needed.
And the most insurmountable task of all—building a time machine. Now there was a purpose for his life. Now I need to see what I can do with that concrete slab.
FOUR
May 2022
Keith looked down from the podium amid the polite applause from his classmates. He was valedictorian of his graduating class again, and he had just finished his speech about perseverance and never giving up. They eyed him skeptically—after all, he was the one who completely destroyed their grade curves. They couldn’t understand how one guy could get fourbachelor’s degrees and a master’s in five years.
Double majors, twenty-credit hour semesters, plus extra online classes, and no time for fun. And I am a genius, after all. He did take weekends off to have Hector and everybody over, and also to take them on their summer vacation, but he still had been extremely busy over the last five years. He picked out Consuela in the sea of cap and gowns, with a gold tassel on her mortarboard and a sash designating honors. His three gold tassels kept getting in his eyes. He looked out and saw Hector and Carmen beaming at their daughter. Hector Jr. was in his Army uniform, and José was busy playing on his phone.
He hosted everybody at his house for a graduation party and sendoff for Hector Jr., who was getting deployed to Syria in about three months. Consuela had been hired on by a big consulting firm before she had even finished her master’s degree. She started next month in Seattle.
They were all sitting on the back deck when Keith opened the mini fridge and reached for the Ziploc bag taped on the inside. It contained was a thick envelope, which he handed to Hector. He opened it and his eyes got big.
“A week in Hawaii!"
Keith nodded, grinning from ear to ear.
“Hector, we have so much packing to do! These tickets are for a week from this Saturday!” Carmen exclaimed.
“Everybody’s meeting up the evening before for movie night here. We’ll leave together in the morning for the ride to the airport.” “How are we going to get six people in your truck?” Hector asked.
“Just trust me on this, buddy!”
Movie night came and everybody had a great time eating pizza and watching Star Trek II through IV. Carmen and the kids laughed so hard they started crying when Keith and Hector jumped up and acted out the roles of Khan and James T. Kirk. Ricardo Montalbán couldn’t have done it better himself as Keith quoted Moby Dick. Hector did William Shatner proud as he angrily screamed, “KHAN!”
Early the next morning, they all got up and ate breakfast. They heard a car honking outside the window at eight o’clock. Yep, right on time, Keith thought. Everybody’s eyes widened as they saw a stretch limo sitting in the driveway, the driver waiting to load their bags.
Three hours later, they were boarding the Hawaiian Airlines Boeing 767. After a rather uneventful flight, they landed in Honolulu.
As they slowly made their way from the airport to the resort, everybody had their noses pressed to the tinted windows, marveling at the scenery and the beaches. As they pulled up, bellhops were waiting to get their luggage. The manager came out to greet them.
The vacationers crammed into the glass-walled elevator with the bellhop and their bags. Arriving at the top floor, they were given two room keys and led to their suites. Keith got his own two-bedroom suite with a living room and an awesome westward view of the water. The Jimenez family had a three-bedroom suite with one master and two smaller bedrooms, an east-facing living room, and a large kitchen. The top floor also had a wrap-around balcony with plenty of chairs and tables. Hector and Carmen claimed the big master bedroom, Consuela took one smaller bedroom, and the boys were stuck with the last one.
•••
Vacation was over before Keith knew it. He had taken the kids to the dolphin quest experience while Hector and Carmen got a couple’s massage and some quality alone time. Keith even had time to rent a plane and take them on an aerial tour of the islands. They passed still-erupting Kilauea, climbed to 15,000 feet to see the Mona Kea observatory, and took a lot of photographs.
By the time they get home from the airport, they were exhausted and jet-lagged, so Keith ordered some pizzas. Everybody watched a movie and then crashed.
Keith was up early the next morning, working on designs for the time machine. He knew from his recent coursework that most physicists thought time travel was impossible. But there had to be a way. He was so deep in thought that he didn’t notice Hector come in until he tapped him on the shoulder. Keith nearly jumped out of his skin.
Hector looked at the whiteboard, covered in equations and schematics.
“We’re heading home. Call me if you need anything.”
Keith told Hector that he was working on a time machine and asked him what he should do if he was successful.
Hector looked at him like he was crazy. He remained quiet as he absorbed the lab in all its disorganized array. Then, he told Keith he should go back and kill Hitler and Stalin.
Turning back to the whiteboard, Keith started sketching out a design.
•••
The lab was a thirty- by fifty-foot building with a twenty-foot ceiling. Keith installed twenty large banks of lithium-ion deep cycle batteries along the walls. He was finishing the final touches on his particle detector. That hard part wasn’t finding particles but finding the right kind that wouldn’t decay in a fraction of a second. He didn’t have the resources to build a particle accelerator, so he would just hope that the chronoton particles occurred in nature. From what he had read of them, they were as hard to detect as neutrinos.
He tightened the final screw and looked at the detector sitting on the table. It was about the size of those old, bulky hard drives for personal computers that he remembered from his youth. He switched it on and played with the dials for a few minutes, listening as the detector picked up the tones for the different kinds of particles. He left it on and went to bed.
Several weeks went by with no results. Keith started building a magnetic containment field generator. He was in the middle of soldering some wires when the alert sounded on the particle detector. The display showed a chronoton particle detection. I knew it!
He scavenged every sheet metal dealer in the vicinity of Barstow. Five more years went by before he was sure the containment field could hold the chronoton particles without suffering a breach. The generator was a huge, toroid-shaped structure of aluminum and steel that took up half the lab.
The moment Keith turned it on, an eerie, blue glow enveloped that area. The particle detectors started going crazy. At first, he thought it was the interference from the containment field, but he soon realized that the containment field was drawing the particles in, like a magnetic vacuum cleaner. The display case holding his and his father’s medals flew across the room and stuck to the side of the unit, pinning Keith’s arm to the wall. He immediately reached over with his good hand and put the containment unit on standby. The display case dropped to the floor, the glass shattering and contents spilling.
After stretching and shaking his arm out to make sure the circulation was okay, Keith studied the detector’s display: 100,000 particles. Should be more than enough when I want to run a test.
The time portal was a twenty-foot-diameter semicircle at one end of the lab. Next to it was the time machine itself, a hulking mass of metal and plastic, taking up almost a quarter of the building. Wires and cables snaked around in every direction. A large “Don’t Panic!” poster hung on the wall nearby. In between the bulky time machine and the magnetic field generator sat the master control panel, which faced the blue-painted floor designated as the time portal. At the controls was a single rolling office chair. A large, digital clock displaying the date and time was affixed to the front of the control panel. Keith opened up the mini fridge and cracked open a beer. Hector was coming over later, and he wanted to show him.
