Faces in Time (13 page)

An unseen voice to Edmund’s left and behind him shouts, “Archibald, no! Leave it! Leave it!”

Perhaps it was a nutria or a rabbit that distracted the dog, but since the shouting has stopped, it didn’t prove to be a long distraction.

Between the tree branches and through the thicket, he can see a barrel reflecting the moonlight. It is pointed almost straight up and slanted to the left, just peaking over the top of the levee. The officer must be standing sideways on the incline of the opposing side of the levee, looking in the direction of the dog’s disturbance.

The ground rises under Edmund’s feet, and the tension in his straining calf and thigh muscles is immense, but his pace doesn’t slow. He can hear the bushes, leaves, and plants getting thrashed around behind him. He knows something is nearly upon him, and worse, the barrel turns in his direction. Edmund clenches his fists as they pump through the air.

Noises erupt again to his left, and the same voice calls out, “Dammit, Archibald, no! Leave it! Leave it, dammit!”

While remaining pointed at the sky, the barrel turns in the direction of the dog, its handler, and their combined ruckus. The top of the levee grows nearer, and Edmund can see the officer’s head just on the other side. Barking intensifies from Archibald, which makes it hard to hear the escalated rustling in the bushes directly behind Edmund.

Reaching the top of the levee, Edmund tightens his calves and lunges at the officer on the other side. The policeman sees the soaring convict just as he lifts off the levee.

A blur of dog that is a large Belgian Malinois jumps off the top of the levee and pierces his sharp, white, shiny teeth into Edmund’s calf, immediately twisting and yanking it to the side, trying to make Edmund fall over as the dog has been drilled to do countless times in years of training.

Edmund feels burning and ripping in his lower leg, but he keeps his focus on the target before him. The weight and force of the gnawing animal knock his body crooked as he falls downward at the uniformed man below who turns his barrel toward Edmund. The border of the officer’s irises looks electric, horrified, and wild with the reflection of the diving man, the attacking dog, and a dangling leash in their centers.

The canine squirms in its tearing, jerking motion, swinging its body wildly around Edmund’s leg. Edmund’s left arm swats trel hard just before his body plows into the officer, sending the shotgun falling to the ground. The officer grabs the right arm of the human cannonball, and Edmund brings the knee of his free leg into the midsection of the policeman a fraction of a second before they crash into the ground. The officer’s head, neck, and shoulders slam into the steep incline first, the dog’s rear legs get caught between Edmund’s left shin and the ground, and they all slide downward toward the muddy water below.

The slide down is a struggle of both the men trying to free their arms while fighting each other and the force that shoves them to the bottom of the levee.

The jaws of the dog release, and he is dragged another few feet before his legs become untangled from underneath Edmund. Immediately upon being free, the dog struggles to get on his feet and after the prisoner again.

A slew of sounds saturate Edmund’s ears, and while none of it is distinct and clear, he is sure all of it is bad for him.

Their slide hits the bottom of the incline at the flat, mushy land that leads to the river with Edmund still atop the officer, having ridden him down the levee like a sled. Edmund pushes his body off the officer. Once standing, he yanks the officer off the slushy ground.

As soon as Edmund pulls the officer to his feet, he releases one of his arms, bends the other behind his back, and puts him in a headlock. He has little more than squeezed the neck of his victim before the dog latches onto his calf again, this time on the other leg.

“Ahhh!” shoots out Edmund’s mouth before he can even think about restraining himself.

He flings his leg back and forth trying to dislodge the seventy-three pound dog and having no luck. Teeth and determination sink into flesh that is three times its own size.

Flexing his bicep into the throat of his captive, he kicks the dog with his other leg, noticing the blood spots that have seeped through his pants.

The dog releases its grip, falls onto its haunches, and leaps right back at the meaty calf.

Holding back the wince that the pain in his leg demands, Edmund looks around the area. He sees officers approaching him from all sides except from the direction of the sibilant river current a few feet behind him.

Guns are drawn and pointed in his direction; trepidation abounds as the writhing dog has not taken the perpetrator down.

Edmund can see nine men approaching, and the sounds coming from over the levee warn that they are just the first of legion to raise their guns at him.

“Stay where you are!” screams Edmund, crouching down trying to hide his body behind the smaller officer.

Steps come slower but continue.

“Damnit, I said, ‘Stay where you are!’ Your man ain’t breathin’, and he ain’t gonna breathe ever again if you don’t stop where the hell you are!”

One of the officers in the front raises his left hand in the air, his right still holding his gun aimed at the bit of Edmund’s face that is peaking out from behind the head of their captive associate. They put a moratorium on their pace, but they’d deeply rather bring death to the one that shouts at them from near the water’s edge.

“Get this mutt off of me! Now!”

The uniformed man who had raised his hand in the air responds, “You release Henderson first, and we’ll call off the dog.”

“Henderson is gonna be dead in a few seconds—call off the damned dog now!”

One of the men in the distance calls out in a booming voice, “Kamo! Heel! Kamo! Heel!”

The dog’s jaws open, and he instantly runs to the side of his master. Edmund’s leg feels as if it will snap if he doesn’t get off his feet.

The uniformed man speaks to Edmund again, “Alright, now you let go of Henderson.”

Edmund stares over their ranks, carefully moving his face behind the head of the officer before him.

“Let him go, Convict Turley.”

“I loosened my grip. He’s breathing. That’s enough for now.”

“Don’t be stupid; we’ve got you trapped. You have to turn yourself in.”

“What if I do? How do I know I’m not going to get shot to pieces once I let Henderson here go?”

“You just have to trust us.”

Laughing, “No, I don’t think so. I’ll let your man go as soon as you point your guns at the ground.”

“We can’t do that.”

“If you’re not going to shoot me, why not? You know I don’t have a weapon. There’re sure as hell a lot more of you than me,” glancing around he sees more opposition running over the top of the levee, “Hey! You wanna tell these guys to hold the hell up?”

Man shouts, “Stay where you are! Do not move forward.”

Edmund hears a squishing sound behind him. Immediately, he lets go of Henderson who drops to his knees and gasps, and turning around quickly, the convict has just enough time to plant his elbow in the face of an officer charging across the three feet between him and the river. As soon as the blow lands, Edmund drops to a crouch and lunges into the stunned officer, driving his shoulder into his midsection, and knocking them both into the water.

Crashing into the river of Twain that has been drowning both the foolish and the unfortunate for untold years, the thought that stays with Edmund’s mind is that he didn’t even hear the attacker coming, only hearing that one slushy step at the last moment. Anger shoots through him as he thinks that he was set up, made to stand there and jabber like a moron until the guy, who is now in his grasp, crept up along the water’s edge and tried to apprehend him from behind.

The officer that he’s brought underwater with him strains to swim to the top. Edmund must have knocked the wind out of him, might’ve made him swallow some water too. Quickly, Edmund climbs around the officer, putting the man between himself and the police on the riverbank.

With a tight bear hug around the midsection, Edmund squeezes the man with all his strength and pulls him backward and further into the river. Hitting deep water, his feet stagger back and forth not touching anything. Kicking with his legs, he pulls both himself and the man wrenched in his arms even deeper in the water.

The current pulls on both their bodies, stirring up only fear in one and both fear and the excitement of success in the other. Releasing one arm, Edmund grabs at the officer’s belt until he finds his gun. Yanking the gun free, he kicks the officer in the back, sending him up toward the surface and in the direction of the shore.

As soon as the officer breaks through the water’s surface into the night air, gunshots fire in a fury at the area of water just beyond him. To the firing officers on the shore, the water looks like a liquefied vers="3f the blackness of the night sky, providing a remarkable reflection despite its color of a chocolate milk and motor oil mix, stars reflected only slightly less brightly than in the sky itself.

Their bullets blast into the liquid surface, creating an expanding ripple that blurs and warps the image of the reflected sky. The warping is a muddy brown shift similar to that of a red or blue shift that tints one’s vision when approaching the speed of light. It all makes the universe seem vulnerable and all that we see uncertain. Although it’s not a conscious thought, the police feel helpless as the dark water absorbs their assault; their best attack not able to do any more damage than a disrupted reflection.

Straining to swim both downward and along with the current, pistol grasped in his right hand, Edmund’s thoughts grow weak with the sound of bullets firing in the air and breaking with a liquidy blip into the grainy water that pushes him away.

Did she go home with Dane? Did he just bring her home and get her phone number?

Unlikely.

Did he hurt her?

Failure.

Utter failure sours Chester’s mind and even the taste in his mouth. He hates himself for not following behind them, making sure that she arrived safely and that Dane did not harm her.

But, he was unwanted.

He would have had to become the stalker that she was afraid of in order to help her. Now that the uncertainty poisons him, he is angry that he didn’t follow her anyway.

So what if she would’ve thought he was a psycho? If she truly needed help, she would not have cared from where it came. Maybe she would have always felt weird about him after that, but she would’ve been safe.

One thing is for sure though: the night that they met didn’t happen this way the first time around. Dane didn’t have someone like Chester bringing his anger to a boil—there was no one opposing him for Rhonda’s attention. There was no confrontation, nothing to get his temper stirring before meeting her.

He prays that it has not affected Rhonda for the worse.

Once again, he finds himself in the backseat of his car trying to sort his pain through the infiltrating rays of the morning sun. He has keys to his apartment that is vacant. He had rented it a month before he came to work on the show. It’s now Sunday morning, and he didn’t originally return to L.A. until late Sunday night for work on Monday. He could go and seek refuge there until evening when his counterpart of this time will be arriving, but the idea seems hopeless to him.

He’s come all this way, and his own emotion for Rhonda, the fondness that fueled the trip, the one that pushed him to accomplish what no one has done before, has done him in. Honest words made him seem insincere. Passion pulls the impossible within reach, but too much pressure leaves passion’s thumbprints, smudging the saintly scene and scaring away the object of affection, reminding the viewer he’s only looking through a glass at a dream that he’s never reached.

Breaking new ground the night before, Chester beat his social phobias; he overcame his nervousness. He walked right up to her and started the conversation. He made her laugh. She blushed and said he had made her night.

All of these things were beyond his reach during his normal life before the journey back in time. He had never been so forward, never dared to be so daring. So many obstacles were dealt with, and it was all spoiled by the love that made the whole trip possible. There is no sadder soul than one whose embrace has turned to a smother.

Although he’s never felt that he truly belonged anywhere, he feels more lost now than anything he’s experienced before. The days of the horrible face surgery being broadcast on the television came close. But then, he had the hope of the trip back to relive the life he should have had and to help her avoid the tragedy.

Now that that hope is lost, he feels he is too. The closest he ever felt to belonging anywhere were the few moments in which he conversed with Rhonda the night before. He did what he wanted to do, and it achieved the results he was hoping for, well, at least for a few minutes.

Besides that, the next closest experience was being in the writing room of the TV show,
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, with others who were similar to himself. He wasn’t happy with his life or his decisions, but he was at least in a room with others who felt the same way.

He wonders how that first day of work will go now that he made it to the party. His past self is still driving the last leg of the trip to L.A. It will no doubt be a confusing first day tomorrow for his past self, when all the other writers saw him there talking to the stunning redhead that they were too intimidated to approach. And, they certainly all saw the awkward confrontation with Dane and that he took her home.

Chester
had stumbled out of the party after less than two minutes of standing there where she left him.

As soon as he saw the head producer, Omar J. Sobelsk, the man who had hired him, walking toward him, Chester made a straight walk to the door. The writers never had much trouble poking fun at each other, so his past self is in for a heck of a confusing meeting on Monday morning.

Despite the uncomfortable first day of work, Chester would almost rather trade places with his old self. At least he’d have something to do; something to occupy. Even an awkward meeting would be a distraction from his failure. He ran the impossible marathon and fell down two yards from the finish. Thinking of anything, even something embarrassing and painful, would be a reprieve from staring at his colorless future.

A short while later.

He stares through a Plexiglas pane at a kitten in a wire mesh cage. The young cat that he watches simply sits at the back of her cage and stares at him. The two kittens in the adjoining cages both stare and whine at him with their paws pressed against the transparent pane. That’s why he picked her in the first place.

He bought her after his first day of work in which he learned that he missed Rhonda at the party and that she left with Dane. That won’t be until tomorrow, so he came to the mall pet store to visit his feline friend to soothe his female affliction.

The mall itself is gloriously less sophisticated. Stores in which teens can afford to shop, an arcade, black faux-marble floors: it all shines of years gone past—years in which a youth wasn’t force-fed the raunchiest bits of adult culture. Were he not so lost, he’d breathe in the scent of an Orange Julius stand and revel in consumerism that was still an enjoyable,

The Riverview Mall back home was a prime example of the movement. There was a place for everybody then. Even him. The arcade and the video game store were escapes to new worlds in which he could be brave without real life consequences.

The bookstore was another home for him. The long, narrow shop with packed bookshelves reaching to the ten foot ceiling was another of his favorite hangouts. Whether it was reading Garfield, Faulkner, or a biography, there was always something for him to discover there.

In the time that he came from, the chain stores have smothered these bookstores, pulling their locations out of the high-rent malls and even further away from the droves of teens.

The Orange Julius disappeared to make room for a chain-restaurant food court, devoid of the local fried chicken place to which he was partial. The arcade was shut down due to a lack of profit and expensive upkeep.

Even the music store faded away as technology antiqued purchasing music. Something in the experience of being in the store amidst thousands of albums and glancing over the cover artwork lead to building one’s own culture. That experience was soon annihilated by complicated strings of 1s and 0s flashing through stale file transfers.

The mall movie theater was another casualty of the two decades he’s jumped. The close proximity of the theater being in the mall parking lot created a day of activities for the youth. Spending a day going on adventures in the arcade, discovering new songs in the music store, finding new worlds in the bookstore, and capping it off with a film provided a perfect youth activity, even sufficing for a decent early date.

Despite being pulled away into his own world for most of his life, while still in the future that he left, he did contemplate what scarce options the youth had for honest fun. He did pity them, realizing they were told what not to do, but the choices of what they could do had dwindled away: few to no affordable stores in the mall, no arcade, movie theaters in remote locations that charge four times the cost of admission from two decades before, and no miniature golf.

The saddest part of it all was most of the fun disappeared to turn a larger profit, which usually entailed selling the youth a more adult product. Adults can stay at home and do as they please; they don’t need the mall as an escape. The youth have to go find their own way without a means to support an independent lifestyle or their own unsupervised place in which to do it. They seek places like the mall to call their own, so they’re herded in, abused, and charged for the experience. Had Chester even dreamed of the confidence to run for public office, he’d start with the idea that the key to repairing a dangerous city is in its protection of its childrn and providing healthy activities for them.

When adolescents are fed material meant for discerning adults, development fails, and all else with it. His TV show scripts, regardless of whether people found them to be funny (which most did), irreverent, or in bad taste, were all positive in theme. Even when he was tearing down a silly adornment of society in a biting satire, he offered a better alternative.

His characters ultimately sought the right answer.

Being in this environment would have thrilled him five short days ago. Seeing a shopping center in a condition that is more suitable to the young at heart would have had him beaming with joy. Now as he is on one knee in front of a glass window smeared with small finger prints on one side and tiny cat hairs on the other, his chest seems hollow, and its inner walls feel like they’re bleeding.

He wants to take the kitten home, call it by its name for the first time, and retreat to get a grasp on his situation. But, his home is not his home. It’s the home of his former self, the him of this time, and that person must be already nearing the end of his cross country trek to Los Angeles. And, it’s not exactly his cat either. Sure, he could buy it now, but his former self will need the support of an animal friend all the more after the first day of work tomorrow.

The head producer of the show, Omar J. Sobelsk, will likely be annoyed that Chester walked away from him without a word or acknowledgment before he left the party. Omar is a kind man, and he is also a genius in the field of television production and a hero to all of the writers on staff. In fact, his input created nearly all of Chester’s favorite shows growing up. But as with many revered men, Omar doesn’t appreciate being ignored, especially by someone he’s just hired with no experience except a fantastic spec script.

The other writers will also not know what to make of him.

Although he and his past self look nearly identical in age, the past self is one of them, shy in demeanor and very intelligent, but his current self lunged into action in front of a whole group of people to talk to a starlet. He wasn’t there long enough to have been drunk, at least not from the party’s alcohol, and he left without talking to them and walking away from Omar, their mentor, without a word.