Let’s talk to your friendly neighbourhood eggheads, and hear them talk about that time machine they’ve been working on. If time is a street, you never know which direction the travellers are coming from.
You ever seen a egghead in a bar fight?
Yeah, me neither.
Course if you got a time machine you could go back an watch the time they almost got in a fight. The eggheads, I mean.
Course only Pritchard’s got a time machine. An even if he’s one a my egghead pals, I’m guessing he don’t let you use it just to watch a bunch a eggheads almost get the tar whaled out of ‘em at the Baggy Knees by a bunch a runts what got no respect for eggheads.
Course you don’t need no time machine ‘cause I was the one what broke up that almost fight. It’s on account of that I hang with them eggheads on Fridays at the Baggy Knees, and it’s on account a hanging with them I learned all ‘bout Pritchard and the time machine. I was sitting at the bar and the eggheads was at a table behind me and some rough types what wasn’t regulars started givin’ my pals, but they wasn’t my pals back then a course, not quite yet, they was givin’ my pals a bad time, trying to get ‘em to fight cause it would have been an easy fight for ‘em. And Joe, the owner, he was down at the far end of the bar having problems with one of them soda pressure things and couldn’t see what was happening.
Well, just when it looked like there was going to be real trouble, the eggheads was kind of pushing their chairs back and looking ‘round for some help, I figured I’d have my own fun. I’m kind of big in case you don’t notice and I don’t mind a fight, ‘specially when it’s the right kind of fight, you know? And ‘specially when I know I can win. Those five chumps givin’ the eggheads trouble, they got some of their own. And I didn’t even break no tables or chairs, ‘cept a couple of beer mugs. But Joe, he said that weren’t no problem.
Well, soon as those bums cleared out, Charlie – the egghead what does all that literature stuff, not my shift boss Charlie – he invited me to sit down for a drink. Each one of them bought me a beer on account I didn’t want to drink nothing harder case those chumps came back with friends, and we all got to talking. And then I seen that they was playing chess and Burt, he was black, was getting the tar whaled out of him by Ed who was white. The pieces I mean. Burt’s white and Ed’s Black of course, not that that makes any difference. Anyway. Burt was down like four pawns and both knights and his center wasn’t holding if you know what I mean and I kind of leaned over and whispered a couple of moves to Burt and he managed to draw.
They was all kind of surprised that I know chess and played it pretty good, and then I got to explaining that I ain’t stupid, I just never had no chance to get a education on account of losing the family and having to work since I was like ten years old.
And that’s how I got to be friends with the eggheads. Fridays we go a few rounds, play some chess and checkers, dominoes and darts, and those guys fill my head with all kinds of great stuff – stuff not even you’d imagine was possible. Like time travel. But anyways, that’s why you won’t see no eggheads fighting at the Baggy Knees on Friday nights.
So this other Friday a couple or three weeks back I’m getting ready to head on down to the Baggy Knees. Course, if it was Thursday I’d of stayed at home on account of it being my turn to host poker night at my place. With different friends, guys what ain’t so eggheady but regular guys, you know? And on Mondays I usually do my laundry – which ain’t so bad cause Mrs. Paulson and Mrs. Kravitz is usually there doing their laundry and sometimes some of those college girls come in and most of them’s usually real nice to talk to. And Tuesdays I got a couple of shows I like to watch, so I go on down the Y and watch with some pals there, and on Wednesdays I got bowling league. Weekends most folks spend with family and I hang by myself on account of not having any. That’s pretty lonely and quiet and those days go real slow and I don’t like that. Which is why I keep busy the rest of the week. But it was Friday so I went to the bar. Pub.
You know, I don’t rightly see the difference ‘tween a bar and a pub ‘cept what Burt told me. Burt’s real smart and he even looks real smart – kind of like a balloon with a face painted on and glasses stuck right on the front, you know? He’s why I call those guys my egghead pals and I don’t mean nothing bad by that. Those guys is real smart. Real smart. They got degrees and teach over at the university, do research, that kind of thing.
I take a lot of guff at work ‘cause I hang out with them at the bar. I tell my pals at work something on Monday that Burt or Charlie or Ed or Mike tell me about on Friday and those guys at work don’t believe any of it.
Like, one time I explained what Charlie – Charlie’s a professor of literature, saying it like he was some English guy or something, not like you and me would say it, like ‘lit ra chore’ – Charlie teaches all ‘bout writing and reading books by Greek guys been dead thousands of years.
Charlie said that English was descended from German like you and me is descended from our parents, and when I told the guys at work, they just laughed and said ‘no way’ and ‘that’s stupid’ and Charlie – the shift boss Charlie, not the professor Charlie – he said ‘if English came from German, how come we can’t understand it?’ Stupid stuff like that.
But I don’t listen to that anyways cause Charlie and Burt and Mike and Ed are Doctors and what’s Charlie – shift boss Charlie – ? A guy with a G.E.D., that’s what. Bet he can’t even spell literature. Sometimes I don’t think he’s descended from a mother neither.
But anyways, like I said, it was Friday and on account of it being slow at work we got off early and I didn’t have nothing better to do so I went to the Baggy Knees early. I figured on getting a sandwich and some fries – they got great fries at the Knees – and waiting on the eggheads at one of the chess tables, maybe see if I could figure out how Burt beat me that last time before the rest of ‘em got there.
Burt does chemistry, making molecules or something an he looks just like a weasel, ‘cept he don’t have whiskers sticking out the sides of his nose. Wears glasses too. Come to think of it, they all wear glasses ‘cept for me. Ed’s are big thick ones. Looking at his eyes is like looking through two sides of an aquarium, you know? And no, we don’t call Burt a weasel to his face. He looks like a ferret too and calling him a ferret’s much nicer than calling him a weasel. ‘Specially considering he don’t act like a weasel. He don’t act like a ferret neither, but, well, ferrets is just nicer than weasels, right?
Well, I get to the …pub …and instead of finding it slow and hanging with Joe the owner, I can’t even see the front door. There’s a crowd out front, like maybe there was a fire or an accident or something and just when I figured I’d go home instead I see Ed and Ed sees me.
Before I can ask Ed what’s going on, Ed asks me if I can get us into the pub. He says ‘us’ and that’s when I see the rest of the eggheads is all right there, all knotted up and getting kind of squished by the crowd.
I tell Ed ‘Sure’ and ‘just get behind me’ and I start plowing to the door. Ed probably figured I’d be able to do it on account of how we all met that first time I run them bums off.
So I start pushing and leaning on folks what is in between me and the door of the Baggy Knees and the eggheads is all pressed right up against my back like ducklings following their mama and pretty soon all five of us is inside and it’s packed tighter than sardines – which I can’t stand and ain’t packed that tight anyways – and Joe’s hands is grabbing mugs an pulling taps so fast that I expect to see fingers flying across the bar any second. And we all look around an there ain’t no tables to be had, much less the regular one.
So I stick the eggheads in the corner by the dartboard – ain’t no one using it this night less they want to stick a dart in someone’s ear – and I get a table from the storeroom and set it up right there in the corner and finally I got to start wondering again ‘bout what was going on.
And just as I start really wondering ‘bout that, I start really wondering ‘bout the crowd what’s in the bar. Like one of them frat parties but weirder. Right in front of me, pushed up against Ed’s chair is a blue guy and there ain’t no question it’s a guy neither, seeing as how he ain’t wearing no clothes. All blue, every inch of him. And right beside him is what looks like maybe two blondes that seem to have too many arms between ’em. Strange clothes on some of the others too, like one guy wearing kind of chain mail, and a bunch of women who must never heard of bras, leastways I guess not cause their dresses didn’t cover but one breast. And something I can’t quite see but looks like a chimp hopping around behind a bunch of legs.
I guess my mouth must of been hanging open or something cause Mike says ‘Pretty weird, huh, Pauly?’ and about all I could do was shake my head ‘yeah’ on account there was just too many near-naked women and I was at the Baggy Knees, not that raunchy strip club downtown.
I finally stopped catching flies on account that blue guy moved between me and the girls and guys don’t do it for me, you know? Not there’s anything wrong with that. Fact is Ed’s married to a guy and it don’t seem to bother him. I ask Ed what’s up and he says, “Old Professor Pritchard finally got his time machine working,” like that explained something.
I must of looked dumber than usual ‘cause Mike said, “You know Professor Pritchard, Pauly. You met him here at the last Christmas party. White hair, he wore that plaid jacket with the leather elbow patches?”
I said ‘yeah, I remembered Pritchard’ cause I did. I remembered talking to him ‘bout how he’d been working at the university for like over fifty years and how he was a physicist and won awards and headed the department and then his wife died and then he got all weepy so I told him how I could understand that on account of losing my whole family.
Later on turned out Pritchard’d been hitting the eggnog pretty hard and Ed and Mike and Charlie and Burt and me, with me doing the lifting, got him home and later one of the eggheads – I don’t remember which one on account I had a lot of eggnog too – told me that the house Pritchard was living in was a gift of the university for helping to build the school.
Pritchard was some big deal before his wife died and lots of folks thought maybe he was going to crack that universal theory of everything like Einstein tried. But that never happened. Pritchard’s wife was everything to him, like family ought to be but ain’t too many times, you know? And everyone said Pritchard went crazy or something, couldn’t teach no more, stopped doing research and writing papers.
I thought he was just really sad like I know you can get, but then one of the eggheads – a different one than that first one what was doing the explaining but I don’t remember whether the second one talking was Charlie or Burt or Ed or Mike neither on account of the eggnog – one of the eggheads told me that Pritchard spent all his time locked up in the lab working on a time machine, and of course everyone knows time travel can’t happen, so then I thought Pritchard was so sad ‘bout his wife, maybe he had gone a little crazy.
The university kind of just ignored him, made him a professor emeritus which was like retirement but he still got a paycheck. An they let him use the lab. I guess everyone kind of felt sorry for him, which was nice. Not that they felt sorry for him I mean. That they kind of took care of him.
Then the blue guy moved again an I saw it was a monkey walking ’round, drinking a beer an talking to some girl what had mirrors for eyes and that made me remember that I had some questions to ask (made me remember some other stuff too, you know what I mean?), but every time I started to ask I kind of already got the answer. Like I was going to ask Burt if all the folks in the pub was maybe reporters covering the story, but that didn’t make no sense, leastways I never seen a naked blue reporter on the TV and I certainly ain’t never seen no two-headed, four-armed blonde reporter on the TV. Or on anything.
Then I remembered chess and how if you get yourself stuck during a game, one thing you can do is at least figure out how you got stuck and maybe a way to get unstuck will kind of pop into your head, so instead of asking dumb questions what I kind of already got the answers to, I said to Burt, “I thought time travel couldn’t happen.”
Ed kind of laughed and said, “It can now,” and then he explained that time travel couldn’t happen till the first working time machine had been built.
And then Burt said that it was pretty obvious from the crowd that Pritchard had gotten his machine working and I couldn’t figure out what he meant till he said that all the weird folks crowding the Baggy Knees was time travelers from the future come to meet the guy what made the first time machine, only Pritchard was locked up in his lab and they had to go somewhere while they was waiting to see him.
And then I asked what about the time travelers from the past and Mike said that as far as time travel was concerned we was the past cause since Pritchard’s machine was the first one, no one could travel backward any further cause there wasn’t no time machines before this one. Working ones anyways.
And then everyone was kind of talking ‘bout time travel and I got real confused, but I kind of sorted it out later. See, all these weird looking people was time travelers from our future. They was sitting round in the future, waiting for Pritchard to finish working and when he did it was like bang! All of them at once had working time machines! And if you had a working time machine what could only go backward in time, wouldn’t you want to meet the guy what made time travel happen? So they all ended up here at the same time. Even though they was from different times in the future.
And I can see from your face that that don’t make no sense, right? Right. Not to me neither. So I said to Mike, I said, “But if all these weirdos is from the future, then Pritchard’s making a working time machine is history to them, right? Like, they already knew he was going to do it cause he already done it, right?”
And Mike said something like, “Time is not a two-way street, Pauly. To us, and to Pritchard, the future hasn’t happened yet; but to all these time travelers, we’re the past they’ve always known.”
And Ed said, “No, now wait a second. Do you mean that if Pritchard hadn’t made his machine work, all these people would have a different past?”
And Burt said, “It doesn’t matter, does it? No time machine, no time travelers from the future, no problem.”
And Charlie said, “What about the multiverse theory?”
And then I asked if you could only travel back in time, how was all these people going to get back home, or was they stuck here for the rest of their lives? And Burt said that they weren’t traveling into the future when they went back home, cause as far as they was concerned we was the past and all they was doing was returning to the present.
Boy, that one sure had me thinking.
And Burt, who kind of wasn’t listening to me said, “That doesn’t enter into it. Whatever happened happened in this universe, regardless of what happened in any other.”
And then Charlie said, “Okay then. Suppose that naked blue guy over there is from, say five thousand AD and he travels back in time a thousand years to visit two-heads over there. She can’t travel into her future, but he could tell her about it because it’s his past. And suppose she acted on something he told her that would alter his future. Doesn’t that violate some fundamental law or something?”
And Burt said, “No, because if the blue guy traveled back in time to do that, the future he came from would be the one that derived from the past where he’d already done that.”
Which was like listening to someone say ‘gobbledygook, gobbledygook, flup dup booble,’ right? and expecting you to agree with ‘em. Me, I couldn’t figure out how come everyone was at the Baggy Knees so I said to Burt – who kind of sounded like he knew what he was talking ‘bout a bit more than the rest of the eggheads, I said to Burt – “So how come everyone from the future knew to come to the Baggy Knees?”
You ever seen a guy’s face after he whacked a thumb with a hammer but before the pain came? Yeah. Burt kind of looked like that, eyes going so crossed they looked like to meet each other on the other side of his head.
Mike, who’d been pretty quiet thinking up till then said, “Well, Pauly, they all have time travel, right? So they can go anywhere or any when in the past they want to. If they get it wrong, all they have to do is go back to their own time and try again. I bet there’s a whole mob of these tourists from the future popping up at the lab, figuring out they got the wrong address and popping up here.”
Burt got his eyes uncrossed ‘bout then and said to Mike, “If that’s the case, then that means that Pritchard is going to be coming here.”
And Charlie said something ‘bout ‘cause reality.’
And then they all kind of started talking at and past each other and getting red in the face and almost knocking beer steins over their hands was waving around so much.
I was kind of lost on the explanations which is how I guess I was the first at the table to notice a commotion at the door. All them weirdos standing round kind of ‘oooooed’ and made like a wave toward the door and I swear that monkey thing was jumping on and over heads and shoulders, and that made me stand up. And I grabbed Burt’s shoulder and squeezed so he’d stop arguing and said, “Pritchard’s got white hair and wears a plaid jacket with leather patches?” And after Burt said “Ow” he said, “Yeah, why?” and I said “’cause I think he just came in to the pub. Leastways all these weirdos must think it’s him on account they’s mobbing him.”
Well then Burt and Ed and Charlie and Mike they all stood up but couldn’t see nothing on account of the bodies in the way and Charlie, he stood up on a chair and said, “Yep, that’s him. Pauly, you think you could bring him over here?”
I didn’t think, I knew, but I didn’t bother saying nothing, I just kind of waded in and I guess folks from the future must speak different languages than English cause I didn’t understand hardly nothing any of them said, but I know hardly none of it was nice.
I got to Pritchard who hadn’t even really got all the way in the door and I kind of leaned over and said “Let’s get a seat” to him and then kind of half scooped him up and started wading back the other way, back to the table and I almost didn’t make it on account that monkey thing was hounding and jabbering at me the whole way, actin’ like I stole his coconuts or something, which I guess I kind of did.
I gave my chair to Pritchard on account someone needed to keep the crowd off a him and doing that kept me really busy for a couple of minutes, but it wasn’t all bad on account that girl with mirrors for eyes ended up kind of pressed right up against me. Even that close I couldn’t tell if she was wearing something really see-through or just plain naked. Made me wonder why so many people in the future don’t need no clothes.
I could hear Ed and Mike and Burt and Charlie and Pritchard making sure they knew each other, saying “Doctor Pritchard,” and him saying, “Ahh, yes, Professor Phillips, and Doctor Simpson,” and what not and congratulating him. When I pulled him out of the crowd he looked kind of tired and maybe scared, but I could hear him talking now and he sounded pretty happy.
Then Pritchard asked, “Who’s the rather large gentleman who helped me at the door?” and I kind of leaned back and said “Hello,” and explained how he and I drank too much eggnog last holiday at the pub, and I was the one what carried him home and Pritchard said he knew he’d got home but not how, and everyone kind of laughed a little.
And then Charlie said, “Wow, you really did it, huh?”
And Pritchard said, “Yes,” and then Burt said, “You know a lot of people thought you were crazy,” and Pritchard said, “Well, maybe I was at the beginning.”
And Ed asked him what he meant and Pritchard explained that when his wife Margaret had died, he had no idea what to do with himself. He said, “Peggy was my life; I could have done anything or lived anywhere as long as she was with me.”
And I said I knew what he meant and that talking ‘bout that was probably what led to the too much eggnog the last time we was in the pub together and maybe someone ought to make sure they don’t serve no eggnog tonight.
And meanwhile the crowd was just pushing and shoving and mirror eyes got shoved real hard into me and I caught her but kind of fell back into the table doing it and when I got straightened out I was still kind of holding her and she was smiling and saying something that was thank you even if I didn’t understand it.
Pritchard, he was still going on ‘bout how when he started working on his time machine he was thinking that he’d go into the past and bring Peggy back with him, ‘cept then he figured he’d be stealin’ her from himself; then he said he thought maybe he could stop her from dying or get some cells and clone her or some crazy thing and that it took him a long time to straighten out and realize that no matter how much he wanted it, the equations said he couldn’t.
And Burt said, “So what made you keep going?” And Pritchard said, “Even after I realized I was never going to see my Peggy again, I was still lonely. I had no one else. Everywhere I looked, something reminded me of her and how much I missed her. Everything in the house was something she’d bought, or something she made, or something I’d gotten for her. I just couldn’t stay there any length of time. I started staying at the lab longer and longer, but that didn’t help because all I could do was think about how much I missed her. I knew I’d really go crazy if I didn’t have something to do, so I started working on the machine again and just kept on working at it.”
About then the place kind of exploded. I had to pick mirror eyes up and stick her behind me on the table so I could clear out a space in front of me and it was all I could do to keep on my feet and keep everyone else away from the table.
Charlie said, “Professor, maybe you better say something to them all,” and I said, “Yeah, and you better hurry,” cause my arms was all tied up and I could see that monkey thing making to like jump on my head or something.
So then Pritchard stood up on his chair and waved his hands around a bit and everyone else kind of oooooos and shushes each other an they is all looking up at Pritchard like they was seeing the sun for the first time and it got all quiet and Pritchard said, “Thank you all for coming. I’ll be happy to meet with you all, but right now, I need to get some rest. After all, there’s plenty of time for all of us to get to know each other.”
That last made Charlie and Burt and Ed and Mike laugh, and me too once I figured out what he meant.
Some of the time travelers must of understood English cause they started clapping an whistling and some of them must of known how to talk to the rest cause pretty soon everyone – even that monkey thing – was clapping and hooting and whistling and laughing.
And Pritchard, he sat down with a grin on his face what looked like it stretched clear ’round to the back of his head.
The place started clearing out after that. I don’t know exactly how as hardly anyone seemed to use the door. I snagged another chair and sat back down at the table, right next to mirror eyes. It was tough to tell, but I think she was looking more at me than she was at Pritchard.
And Pritchard, he could of been six years old the way he was carrying on with Charlie and Mike and Ed and Burt, laughing and grinning and slapping the table and knocking back someone else’s beer. I don’t think ol’ Pritchard is going to be too lonely anymore. Charlie said Pritchard’s social calendar was booked solid for the next century.
I got up and went to the bar to get some more beers for the table. By the time Joe got finished pouring ’em off, most of the tourists – well, you got to call ’em something, right? – most of the tourists from the future had pretty much gone back to wherever they came from.
‘Cept Mirror eyes. She was still at the table and when I got back, she was setting up the chess board.
Good thing I got a extra beer just for her.
END
Steve Davidson is a longtime fan of the Science Fiction genre and the owner and publisher of Amazing Stories magazine, the world’s first magazine devoted exclusively to Science Fiction.
This story represents his first fiction sale, and he is proud to have been included. It was originally published in Celestial Echo Press‘ Ruth and Ann’s Guide To Time Travel, Volume II.
-Fin.
