by Stoney M. Setzer
My old man always told me that I had a gift – if you dared call it that – for making a mess out of everything I touched. The Midas touch in reverse, he called it. No matter how hard I tried, I always proved him right. As I trudged through the rain from the cheap hotel I called home to Bert’s Diner, I was reminded once more that I had this knack to thank for where my life now stood.
The bell over the door announced my entry, and both Bert and Kay looked up in a knee-jerk reaction. “Look what the cat dragged in,” Kay cracked, smacking her gum.
As for Bert, he didn’t say anything at all to me as he relinquished the grill. No surprise there. You speak to people, and in Bert’s mind, I wasn’t a person. I was a favor he did for his old Army buddy who was now a parole officer – my parole officer.
My shift ran from 5 PM to 5 AM – Bert covered the other twelve hours – and as usual the time crawled by. The diner was the only restaurant at this exit, but the exits immediately north and south of us offered more variety, so most people didn’t mind going a few extra miles in either direction for the golden arches, Colonel Sanders, or whatever else struck them. Bert kept his business afloat on the strength of offering a discount to uniformed policemen, making the best coffee around, and staying open twenty-four hours.
The dregs of society rolled in like clockwork after eleven or so, and although they were not all present every night, the faces rarely changed. I would always see the same truckers, trying to make head-way during the wee hours. The same drunks, trying to sober up just enough to make it home, would join them. They rotated in and out with such regularity that I had picked up most of their names, and almost all of them had learned mine.
All in all, the late-night crowd made for a seedy group. For that matter, a lot of the daytime clientele wasn’t much better, but old Bert didn’t care. “We serve all kinds here,” he would say whenever a weird character came through the doors, almost with a hint of pride. He actually enjoyed catering to the out-from-under-a-rock crowd.
By 3 AM there were only two customers in the diner. One of them was Joe, a heavy-set, bearded trucker wearing an old baseball cap so decrepit that a much-needed washing would probably have disinter-grated it. The other one was Dwayne, a frequent flyer on Air Intoxication who kept himself awake by singing old television theme songs under his breath. Knowing from where her best tip would come, Kay was lingering near Joe at the counter, flirting for all she was worth, and he was eating out of her hand. As for myself, I had filled their orders, so I probably could have keeled over for all they cared.
Some life I’ve got here, I thought bitterly. Dad really knew what he was talking about. I don’t think even he could have imagined my reverse Midas touch making this big a mess of my life, and I couldn’t see it getting better any time soon. The worst part of all was the loneliness. Mom and Dad were both dead and gone, and people weren’t exactly in a big hurry to reach out to an ex-con. I couldn’t help wondering if God Himself hadn’t forsaken me, if He had any reason at all for not putting me out of my misery.
The bell rang, and a burly Latino entered, wearing a black hat and carrying a backpack. His appearance alone would have been enough to raise eyebrows, but his behavior really drew my attention. The man’s eyes constantly darted back and forth, and there was an anxious, watchful look about him. Past experience reminded me of a man on the run, probably from the law. Even though it wouldn’t have been the first time that a fugitive of some sort had passed through here, even during my relatively short tenure, something about him made me especially uneasy.
After surveying the available seats, he finally made his way toward a booth in the back corner of the diner. I doubted that it was coincidence that the table happened to be the nearest one to the emergency exit. He locked his gaze out the window as soon as he sat, as if he were watching for something, and I could tell that he wasn’t letting himself get too comfortable. Just in case he had to make a quick getaway, I guessed.
Kay managed to pull herself away from Joe long enough to make her way down to the stranger’s table. Judging from her demeanor, she obviously intended to apply her wiles to him as well in hopes of inspiring a better tip. A moment later, she came to my serving window with his order, her body language now communicating disappointment and irritation. Apparently he found her charms completely resistible, which I found funny, but I had better sense than to let her see me laugh.
“Cheesy cow with spuds for Table Eleven,” she called, code for cheeseburger and fries. “Hold the rabbit food.”
I nodded and then leaned over so that only she could hear. Even before I spoke, I second-guessed myself. She and I had never been friendly, and I had no clue how she would react. “Anything about that guy seem weird to you?” I whispered.
She frowned disdainfully. “You should talk, Sammy?” she quipped.
I rolled my eyes; I should have known better. “Look, he just acts suspicious, and I don’t think we want him around here.”
“You know Bert’s motto. We serve all kinds here,” Kay replied sarcastically as she turned and walked back to Joe. Whether she meant to mock Bert or me, or both, I couldn’t tell. Dutifully I began to fill the order, but I did so with one eye on the stranger.
Soon I noticed that I wasn’t the only one who found the new-comer peculiar. Kay had whispered something to Joe about him, and now the trucker watched him intently. In his distant seat, the newcomer seemed only too aware of their interest and squirmed in his seat. He kept glancing over at the emergency exit, apparently second-guessing his decision to come here. I couldn’t blame him. If he really were on the run, then he wanted to be someplace where he could blend in with his surroundings. Other than the biker bar two exits south of here, I couldn’t think of anywhere else around here where he would have been more likely to stand out.
Even Dwayne had taken notice of him. Despite the veil of booze that perpetually clouded his mind, he could still recognize that something wasn’t quite right. The only difference was that Dwayne’s drunkenness caused him to throw to the wind the caution that held back the rest of us. Rising slowly, he staggered back to Table Eleven. I could see the stranger’s eyes widen even from where I stood, and I half-expected him to make a run for it right then.
Dwayne swayed unsteadily on his feet, and for a second I thought he would either vomit on the man or pass out. Instead, he slurred, “You’re not from ’round here, are you, buddy?” He smiled broadly, jovially, and I knew right away that his take on the situation was totally different from mine. Instead of being suspicious, Dwayne was bringing out the welcome wagon.
“Not exactly,” the newcomer answered shortly. His voice bore no trace of an accent, despite his appearance.
“Where are you from?” Dwayne asked as he fell into the seat opposite him. It looked more an effect of the alcohol on his balance than anything intentional on his part.
“You wouldn’t know about it,” the stranger said, acting more like a rat in a trap by the second.
“Okay, buddy. Oh, I forgot my manners. I’m Dwayne. Who’s your name?” Dwayne persisted. He made a gregarious drunk, and the stranger’s attempted cold shoulder sailed right over his swimmy head. Still the stranger made no reply.
The smell of searing beef pulled my attention away from the scene, and I quickly pulled the patty off of the grill before it burned. Hastily I finished the plate and placed it in the serving window, slap-ping the bell as I did so. “Order up!” I shouted, loudly, for Kay had become as enthralled with the scene as I had been.
She marched up to the window, nearly gagging me with her cheap perfume. “You didn’t spit in it, did you?” she asked, popping her chewing gum.
Before I could say anything, the huge picture windows along the wall filled with a strange flash of light, as if someone outside had taken a picture with an impossibly huge camera. Kay was just turning around from my window with the plate in her hand, and the flash startled her so badly that she dropped it. The plate shattered on the tile floor, sending fries, buns, and meat everywhere. Joe spilled his entire cup of coffee all over himself and howled in pain. Dwayne had his back turned and therefore missed the brunt of the flash, but he glimpsed enough to offer a muttered, “Whoa, dude.”
Once my eyes cleared, I immediately looked at the stranger, who could not have been more horrified. He knew exactly what that flash outside had been. Nobody ever accused me of being a genius, but I figured that it could only be whoever was chasing him.
A new light shone outside, and we could see that the diner was surrounded by a large group of men. They all wore some sort of uniform, and each of them had a rifle trained on the building. I swallowed hard, having suddenly gotten a lump in my throat the size of Texas. From my own regrettable experience, I knew I was looking at a SWAT team.
True to form, an amplified voice began to speak, but the words caught me totally off guard. “Attention, people of 2010!” the voice’s owner called. “We mean you no harm! We are here for the fugitive! If you surrender him to us, you have nothing to fear!”
My mind began to spin, for nothing that the man said made any sense. For starters, if they really were a SWAT team – and I couldn’t imagine anything else that they could be – why were they addressing us? Usually they addressed their quarry and assumed that anyone else inside was being held hostage. This guy’s choice of words made it sound like it was the other way around. If this man were the fugitive, why would they talk as if we were holding him?
Then there was that whole bit about “people of 2010.” It wouldn’t have made any sense for them to call us that unless that made us different from them. If that were so, then where – or when – did they come from?
Suddenly the stranger jumped to his feet, backpack in his hand. “No, not yet!” he cried, his hand close to his mouth. In a flash I realized that he had some sort of a weapon inside the pack and that this was about to become a hostage situation after all. Being involved in one of those per lifetime was plenty enough for me. Instinct took over, and I charged out from behind my grill. Just as he was reaching into the pack, I leaped and tackled with a fury worthy of any professional linebacker. He dropped his case, and I managed to knock it out of his reach. The impact dazed him for a minute. I stood over him, and when he tried to stand a moment later, I shoved him back down as hard as I could.
“You’re not going anywhere until you can give us some answers,” I barked.
If looks could kill, the Latino’s glare would have reduced me to ashes. “You idiot!” he snarled. “You have no idea….”
“Next person who moves, dies,” snapped a gruff voice from the other end of the diner. It took me a minute to realize that the voice be-longed to Joe.
Turning my head as slowly as humanly possible, I saw that Joe was standing next to the counter, holding what looked like a cell phone. I now knew it was something else entirely, judging from the way he had it trained on us. Kay stifled a scream and jerked backwards.
“Everybody put your hands up,” Joe ordered. “Major Francisco Gonzalez, I presume. Get on your feet, real slow, and put your hands where I can see them.”
Gonzalez obeyed, glaring at me. Then he said to us all, “Do what he says. That’s a proton disintegrator, the deadliest weapon made in that size.”
“Sammy, I reckon I ought to thank you,” Joe sneered. “I didn’t recognize the major at first, and he might have had me dead to rights if you hadn’t tackled him.”
Once again I was glad that looks couldn’t kill; otherwise, Gonzalez and Kay both would have finished me off at that point. Dwayne was the only one not angry with me, but he didn’t count because he had passed out somewhere in the middle of my melee with Gonzalez.
If Dad could just see me now, I thought. Even when I tried to play hero, I screwed up. God, why don’t you just strike me down and put everyone else out of my misery?
Aiming his weapon directly at Gonzalez, Joe said, “Major, why don’t you tell these good people exactly what’s going on here? I think we owe them at least that much, don’t you?” It was clearly more of a command than an invitation.
Sighing, Gonzalez said, “Mr. Jester there and I are both from here geographically, but not temporally. In the future there is a center for time travel standing on this location. We can transport ourselves to any point in history, but we always arrive in the same geographic co-ordinates – here. Once we have arrived, we can move freely geographically, but we must come back here in order to return to our own era.”
Here he paused, giving us a moment to grasp the concept. Then he continued, “Mr. Jester happens to be a wanted man back in our time – for desertion, to be exact. He had been stationed nearby, so it didn’t take much to figure out that he had gone somewhere in the past, it was just a matter of figuring out when he had escaped to.”
Kay cleared her throat. “He’s been coming in here for months. Why couldn’t you just go to the exact time when he arrived here and catch him then?” It was amazing how she and I had both suspended our disbelief of their wild story. Considering everything going on around us, I don’t guess either of us could find too much reason to doubt it.
“I’m smarter than I pretend to be, babe,” Joe replied smugly. “I figured out how to rig a temporal distortion so that they couldn’t come here within six months of my arrival. I wasn’t expecting them for another couple of days, but I guess I miscalculated. That’s partly why I didn’t suspect anything at first, especially since I know the Major by reputation only.”
Now I had a question. “OK, even with the distortion thing or whatever it’s called, why did you keep coming here? Looks to me like you’d want to get as far away from here as you could manage before they arrived and started looking you.”
“Good point,” Joe conceded. “That’s why I went into trucking, to give myself some mobility. The credentials were easier for me than you’d think. I guess I sort of had it in mind that after six months was over I’d go back to my time just long enough to transport elsewhere, hopefully throw them off the scent.” He shrugged. “Besides that, you have great coffee here.”
Kay sniffed. I figured that she was miffed that she didn’t number among the reasons for his frequent patronage. Not that she would have him after all of this, of course, but that shows how vain she was.
Here Gonzalez took over the story again. “I was sent here as an advance scout. When I saw Joe was actually here, I got nervous. I didn’t want to make the arrest until I had signaled for backup, but my new lieutenant jumped the gun on me.” He nodded to the uniformed men outside. “We figured you people were harboring him.”
All the pieces fit now, but that didn’t make me feel any better. “So now what?” I asked.
“Come on, Jester,” Gonzalez said, assuming the role of negotiator. “You really don’t want to drag these people into this, do you? Why don’t you just turn yourself in?”
Joe’s air of control cracked. “And go back to hard labor in the mines? Never! I can’t do it, and I won’t do it!” He clutched his weapon tightly, trying not to tremble.
“Joe, honey,” Kay began, a tear rolling down her cheek, “please, if I ever meant anything to you….”
“You didn’t!” Joe barked, making her recoil as if he had just slapped her. “Don’t you think I know you were just trying to milk me for a tip? And do you think you were the only girl in this era that ever looked at me?”
For the first time since I’d met her, Kay was without a snappy comeback. Even though she put on a similar act for the other men who came through here, his words really stung her. Maybe it was the implication of other women. The vainest women are usually the most jealous.
Meanwhile, my stomach churned so badly I wanted to vomit. Hadn’t my life been bad enough without having to live through another mess like this? Why me, God?
“You can’t escape,” Gonzalez appealed calmly. “We’ve got the building surrounded, your return frequency is blocked, and even if you could go back, we have a battalion of troops waiting for you there as well. Don’t you see that you’re only making things worse for your-self?”
“You can’t give me one good reason to turn myself in!” Joe shouted, his agitation mounting. “None of you know what this is like!”
Nobody in the diner was more surprised than myself when I said, “Actually, I do.”
My statement seemed to jolt Joe into a momentary calm. “What did you say, Sammy?”
There was no going back now, like it or not, which I hated. “I’ve done time before. In fact, I was in a situation a lot like yours.”
“How’s that?” Gonzalez asked, sharp enough to see a potential opportunity.
“After high school, I got messed up with the wrong crowd. This buddy of mine named Curt came by my place one day in this brand new convertible, asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. Like a fool I got in, didn’t even wonder how he got a car like that. Turned out to be stolen, but I didn’t find that out till later.
“Curt talked about having a big night on the town, finding some girls and all, but he said he had to stop by the bank and get some money first. We pulled up, and he said he has to go in since he didn’t have his ATM card. I went in there with him, never suspecting a thing. Then Curt whipped out two pistols, shoved one of them in my hand, and then yelled, ‘This is a stickup! Everybody on the floor!’ Didn’t even bother with masks.
“That would’ve been bad enough, but then the cops showed up. Then Curt had to make it worse by telling everyone to get down, he’s not going anywhere unless the police let him get out safely, and so on. I was stuck in the middle, didn’t have any intentions of doing anything like that, but since I was dumb enough to go with him and he stuck that gun in my hand, the police saw me as an accomplice.”
“What did you do?” Kay asked, fascinated. That had to be the first time she had ever been interested in anything I had to say.
“Finally I told Curt, ‘I don’t want any part of this, I’m surrendering,’ but he didn’t want to hear it. He squeezed the trigger for a warning shot, which missed my ear by a couple of inches, and by that time the cops had a SWAT team and snipers out there. One of them saw Curt shoot, and he sank a bullet into his temple. I threw down my pistol and put up my hands.”
“Then what?” Gonzalez prodded.
“I had to do time, since I couldn’t really prove that I didn’t know anything about his plan, but the public defender did manage to get me a reduced sentence. Thing is, if I had played along with Curt like he wanted, I’d probably have ended up just like him. By surrendering, I kept it from being as bad as it could have gotten.”
Joe just stood there for a minute, mulling over my story. Clearing his throat, Gonzalez said, “See, if you surrender now, we might be able to work with you, reduce your sentence. But if you don’t….” He trailed off and shrugged, leaving the rest to the imagination.
My gut was really knotted up as we all watched Joe. Come on, don’t tell me I spilled all that for nothing.
“Is that a guarantee?” Joe asked at last.
“I can’t speak for the judge,” Gonzalez admitted, “but I guarantee you I’ll try my best. This notwithstanding, you haven’t broke any other laws in this era.”
“Fine,” Joe sighed, dropping his weapon and putting up his hand. The weapon discharged as it hit the floor, vaporizing one of the bar stools. Kay had to clutch the edge of the counter to keep from fainting. “Oops,” Joe said sheepishly.
In the next five minutes, Gonzalez had contacted his cohorts through a gadget in his wristwatch, cuffed Joe, and had pulled a gizmo of his own out of his pocket. Aiming it at Joe, he pressed a button, and the arrested man disappeared in a flash. Speaking into his watch again, Gonzalez said, “Home base, confirm receipt of the package.”
“Package is in custody, Francisco. Good job.”
“Well, I had some help from the locals,” he said with a smile. He then looked at us and said, “Not much point in erasing your memories. Nobody would believe you if you told them anyway. Besides,” here he looked at me, “you sound like you need a good memory to take with you.”
“Thank you, sir.” It was the first time that I could remember having ever done something right, and hopefully Dad was watching from somewhere up above. Apparently God knew what He was doing after all.
Bringing his wrist to his mouth one last time, Gonzalez said, “Hey, you guys outside want to come in before we go back? This place has great coffee! Best you can find for as far back as the time machine goes!”
Within moments all of the troops from outside had marched in and were filling the booths and bar stools. Kay walked over to me and whispered nervously, “Can you believe this? People from the future, wanting our coffee?”
“Why not?” I asked with a shrug. “We serve all kinds here.”
© 2009 Stoney M. Setzer
Original fiction debuting at Residential Aliens.
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Author Stoney M. Setzer brings together 15 short stories (including the one you just read) in Zero Hour – Stories of Spiritual Suspense, a new anthology from ResAliens Press. Setzer combines mystery, thriller, and moral themes into a family friendly volume in this debut collection of speculative fiction. Think Mystery Theater and Twilight Zone with a spiritual twist.
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