Wealth of Time

by Andre Gonzalez

  27

  Chapter 27

  Martin lied to Sonya about taking the rest of the week off from work. Thursday and Friday he unpacked all six of his boxes, setting things up where he wanted in the bathroom and kitchen, and filling the guest room closet with the clothes he had gathered since arriving in 1996.

  They made passionate love during their first four nights living together. On Sunday, Martin examined himself in the mirror after stepping out of the shower and noticed he had lost weight. The reduced alcohol and constant exercise between the sheets did a miracle for his gut.

  When Martin stepped out of the bathroom he found Sonya on the couch, folding a basket of laundry.

  “I was gonna wash your uniforms for the week, but didn’t see them anywhere. Are they packed still?” she asked him with a gentle smile.

  Shit, he thought. He had never been one to cover all of his bases, and changing eras didn’t fix that.

  “We actually have a changing room down at the post office. They do our laundry for us.”

  “Wow. The post office does that?”

  “Not many do,” he continued. “But the ones in bigger cities will. The downtown post office is the place to be.”

  Martin’s voice sounded fake to himself, but he kept a careful watch on Sonya, who apparently thought nothing of it.

  “I see. That’s pretty cool.” Her hands kept folding while her eyes remained fixated on the VHS of Romeo + Juliet playing on the TV. If young Leonardo DiCaprio put her in the mood, then so be it. “I’ve been thinking,” she continued. “With summer break coming up, maybe you can take some time off and we go on a trip?”

  “I thought you teach summer school?” Martin asked.

  “I do teach summer school, but it’s only through the third week of June,” she said, still not breaking her stare from young Leonardo. “We could plan for a trip in July.”

  “All right, did you have somewhere in mind?”

  “I’ve always wanted to go to D.C. Have you ever been?”

  Martin rarely went on trips for leisure, mostly passing by new cities on work trips where he spent ninety percent of his time in a hotel. His mom and dad took him on a trip to Disneyland when he was twelve, and he went to Cancun for a friend’s bachelor party before he married Lela. Those were the only trips he’d ever gone on for fun; he and Lela never had the budget to take Izzy anywhere out-of-state.

  “I’ve never been. How long would you wanna go for?”

  “I was thinking maybe ten days, if you can get that much time off. Give us time to see the city and maybe spend some time in Baltimore, too.”

  “I should be able the make that work. I’ve accrued so much time off and never use it,” he lied.

  Sonya clapped giddily as she jumped from the couch, squealing as she ran to Martin. “I’m so excited! I’ll call a travel agent and get everything arranged for us.”

  “Perfect. Our first trip together – I look forward to it.”

  Sonya kissed him, her lips moist as he tasted the bitterness of her lip balm.

  “I love you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist.

  Martin grinned at her, looking into her eyes, knowing what all lay ahead. I can’t keep lying to you, he thought.

  “I love you, too,” he said, and kissed her forehead.

  * * *

  As their relationship continued to evolve, they learned more about each other’s past. Sonya could talk for hours, while Martin could only offer a few lines at a time to keep the conversation going. He decided to stick to his actual life history, finding no point in making things more difficult in his web of lies. When she asked him about his past marriage, he told her it was a matter he didn’t like to discuss.

  “Some things are best left in the past where they belong,” he said. “It was a very dark time of life for me. I hope you can understand.”

  “I’ve had some nasty relationships myself, and I’ll tell you all about them. I hope you’ll confide in me one day.” She always stroked a steady hand through his hair when they talked in bed.

  “I do trust you. It’s just one of those things I’ve pushed so far back in my mind, it’s like it never happened. And I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Alright. If you change your mind, I’m here and would love to listen.”

  Sonya lay her head on his bare chest, rising with each breath. “I just feel like I know you from somewhere,” she said. “Do you ever feel that way?”

  It’s because you’ve probably seen my younger self passing around the school.

  “I feel like I’ve known you forever. Hard to believe it’s only been a few weeks.”

  “I know. They say time flies when you’re having fun. I guess it’s true.”

  They lay in bed that night listening to the gentle rustle of leaves outside as a soft breeze blew through the cracked open bedroom window. Sonya curled up into a ball beside Martin, an arm resting peacefully across his chest. She always fell asleep before him, he being the night owl, leaving his mind to ponder life.

  Is this relationship even real? My reality is in 2018 where I’m out cold at a crazy old man’s desk, probably from some fucked-up drug he gave me. Sonya might not even exist in my reality, but only in this dimension.

  Martin had plenty of late nights thinking, but this was the first time he had stared at the beautiful sleeping woman and wondered what exactly her purpose was. The fact that she only existed in 1996, when he would have been in his thirties, suggested that her purpose was not to be the love of his life, but rather something else.

  So, then – who are you?

  Martin wanted desperately to travel back to the future to learn more about Sonya. A quick search online could pull up her information. She might even be on social media where he could see what she was up to in her older years; she would be seventy, assuming she hadn’t passed away.

  Would she remember me if I left her and visited her again in the future?

  Martin supposed a visit to Calvin was in line, but didn’t want to keep pestering his friend, or possible foe, from the future.

  What if you can’t save Izzy? His mind continued to wander, settling on a topic he had never considered. What if everything happened so fast that he couldn’t react in time? Would Chris actually set me up to fail?

  The thought made Martin question his own purpose. So many nights he had wanted to put his pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger. There would be no more sorrow, no more pain, no more lack of direction in his shitty, whiskey-chugging life. But every time he sat down to really consider it, his inner voice of reason whispered for him to wait, promising it would all be better one day.

  It’s still possible that Izzy is not why you were sent back in time. He could have baited you with her, but what if your real objective is to stop that shooting?

  Martin closed his eyes and pictured all of those innocent, young faces they had shown on the news on April 20, 1999. He remembered wondering what he would do if he had to see Izzy’s face on the news after such a tragedy.

  “I would hunt down the shooters and make sure they never breathed again,” he whispered in the silent bedroom. “And that’s what I’m gonna do.”

  The faces of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold spun around his head as he dozed to sleep.

  I’m not letting you get away with it.

  28

  Chapter 28

  A couple weeks passed, but the thought of confronting Eric and Dylan continued to throb in Martin’s mind like a tumor.

  You’re doing this for Izzy. If you can stop this attack, you can certainly stop her disappearance.

  He would wait for school to let out for summer break, and then stalk Dylan by hiding in the woods behind his mansion. If he could get Dylan alone, he’d tell him if he ever saw him talking to Eric Harris again, he would come back and slit his throat.

  One thing Martin had learned over time, thanks to the several mass shootings every year, was that a lot of the shooters were nothing more than chickenshits. They
might be frightening when they had time to plan their attacks on unsuspecting people, but they were no better equipped to handle a random confrontation than a child.

  The plan surely wasn’t a guarantee, but it would certainly throw a wrench into Dylan’s life. Threatening a mass murderer three years before an attack would have to alter the track of history.

  Maybe it would all backfire and the Columbine shooting would end up worse than it had originally. Maybe Dylan would kill himself before making the decision to harm his classmates. Martin had no choice but to at least try and hope for the best. Taking no action would lead to the same result, but making a move, even a small one, could change everything.

  Sonya continued to work every day, leaving Martin at home to lounge around the house and get lost in his chaotic thoughts. Eric and Dylan remained front and center, with Izzy on the back burner. He had followed her home from school a couple more times. She giggled with friends and held her books between her skinny arms just like always. Her life was normal.

  Martin had gone to the library to find Columbine High School’s phone number and called them to find out when the last day of school was. May 23rd, and he marked it on his mental calendar. It was currently May 16th, leaving him another week until school would let out and Dylan had a whole summer to lounge around his castle. All the students in his class would have a summer full of fun at the swimming pools, day camps, and baseball parks, unaware their lives would be forever changed or ended just before their graduation in 1999.

  I have to save them.

  Martin no longer felt nervous when thinking about confronting the tall, scrawny high school student. He felt rejuvenated, like fate was on his side.

  Every morning Martin got dressed along with Sonya, but he had the advantage of her needing to leave first, due at school at 7:30, while he didn’t need to report to the “post office” until 9:00. Sonya didn’t leave school until five in the afternoon, the same time Martin supposedly got off work. However, with his drive much further than Sonya’s, he would cruise around, arriving home around 5:30 when expected. Often times Sonya stayed late and he’d still get home before her.

  On this particular Friday, Martin headed to the liquor store, wanting to see Calvin, but to also buy a new bottle of whiskey. The weekend was upon him, after all. He pulled his car into the parking lot, noticing two other cars in the usually vacant lot. It was later than when he normally stopped by, almost noon, and he didn’t think much of the extra visitors, only dreading that he might not get the chance to speak with Calvin.

  As he stepped out and approached the entrance he noticed the neon lights were off. When he reached the door, he saw that none of the interior lights were turned on, either. Only the natural sunlight illuminated the store, seeping through the windows on the sunny day. Martin’s heart skipped a beat as something immediately felt off. Even though he had only met with Calvin twice, he gathered that he was a man of habit and would never forget to turn on the lights.

  Martin put his face to the door, tugging on the handle as it refused to budge. In front of the checkout counter, four men stood in a semicircle with their backs to Martin. As they wavered side to side, Martin caught a glimpse of Calvin tied to a chair with duct tape over his mouth and blood streaming from his forehead to chin.

  Martin froze, unsure if he should distract the men or run and call for help. He mustered the strength to get out of sight and darted away from the door, peering through a side window instead. From here Martin would stay out of sight, obstructed behind a row of beer boxes, but he still had a clear view of Calvin.

  They appeared to be in a discussion, the men bobbing their heads as they spoke, Calvin’s eyes following their speech back and forth like a tennis match.

  Are these the Road Runners? Martin wondered, now realizing this was not a robbery of any sort. Thieves made plans to get in and out as quickly as possible, not discuss dinner plans in front of the store’s owner.

  Each man wore a long gray pea coat, strange for a day expecting 85 degrees and sunshine. They had the collars flipped up to cover their faces, showing nothing but the tops of their heads, which all had identical black hair slicked to one side.

  One of the men tossed his hands in the air before reaching inside his coat, and retrieved a black pistol. The two men beside him threw their hands up in protest, one even grabbing the gunman on his arm to plead with him. Calvin’s eyes bulged in terror, his body trembling in fear.

  The man appeared to have been talked off the ledge, lowering the pistol. There was a momentary pause where time felt frozen before the man whipped the pistol to Calvin’s forehead and pulled the trigger, splattering blood droplets in every direction. Muffled through the glass, Martin heard the men shouting at each other. One shoved the gunman in the chest and sent the pistol in the air. Martin couldn’t look away, trembling from the window and now fearing for his own life.

  What the fuck?

  The men remained in a circle, no one having moved and continuing their conversation above the dead liquor store owner, head split open and brains spilling out. Calvin’s face had disappeared under a coat of blood.

  The men all nodded in unison before turning toward the door. Martin used the adrenaline pumping in his system and dove around the corner, completely out of sight from the pea-coated terrorists. He heard the faint chime of the bell as the door swung open and one deep voice say, “Get it done with. Now!”

  Three car doors opened and closed in near unison. Martin squatted, waiting for the fourth and final door to slam. When no sounds came after a few seconds, he tiptoed to the corner of the building and peeked a curious eye around to see what was going on.

  Two men sat in the car furthest from Martin, on the far side of the entrance, while one man sat in the car next to it. They all had their eyes glued to the fourth man emptying a five gallon container of gasoline across the store’s entryway.

  “Hurry up, let’s get out of here!” the man behind the wheel shouted through a rolled down window.

  The gasoline man pulled a box of matches from his coat, and struck the tip to light a flame. He held the match to the box until the whole thing caught fire, and tossed it on the door. He dashed for the car, falling into the passenger seat as he tossed the gasoline container over his shoulder to the back seat.

  “Let’s go! Let’s go!” the driver barked to the other car as they both fired up their engines and skidded out of the parking lot, leaving a trail of smoke from the burnt rubber.

  Martin came out of hiding, gawking at the small flame that had already grown the height of his knee. The flame crackled violently, growing by the second, and spreading further across the building’s façade. He pulled at the front door, wanting to save Calvin’s corpse, but the handle was already scorched to the touch.

  “God dammit!” Martin squealed, flailing his hand in the air. Realizing he couldn’t save Calvin or the store, he jumped back into his car and burnt his own rubber. He kept his eyes on the store as he drove further, watching the flame grow in his rear-view mirror, knowing it would eventually swallow the entire building.

  What the fuck is going on?

  For the first time since Martin had traveled back in time, he felt genuinely terrified. If those men—who he assumed to be Road Runners—could murder a man and burn a building so quickly, what could they do to him? Calvin had been more prepared than he would ever be, watching every person that entered his store like a vulture ready to pounce.

  I guess Chris was right: I need to be very careful.

  29

  Chapter 29

  Martin watched the news every hour, sick to his stomach at the images of the roaring flames that devoured the liquor store. The firefighters arrived too late, showering flames that had grown too wide to contain. By the time the flames died down, the building was nothing but a pile of ashes. The news didn’t report a body found in the rubble, and he could only assume Calvin had been completely cremated in the fire.

  “That was my liquor store,” Martin tol
d Sonya. “I spoke with the owner numerous times; he was a good guy.”

  “I hope he was able to get out safely,” she said.

  “Yeah, me too.” Martin could see Calvin in his mind, his brains spilling out of his skull from the gunshot wound. “I’m sure he did.”

  As more days passed, Martin managed to push the tragedy further back in his mind. Knowing what Calvin was working on, and seeing his end result made him wonder if those men were sent to prevent him from taking his knowledge back to the future, or if they were some figment of the past pushing back to make sure nothing changed in Calvin’s future. The whole ordeal made Martin want to hide in his house until September. He even took his pill out of its hiding spot from the small zipper in his suitcase. He could swallow the pill and go back to normal, work at the post office, and go home afterwards to drink until he passed out, forgetting about the past and not worry about being hunted and killed. Life wouldn’t be any different if he called it quits right now and returned to 2018. Izzy would still be missing and the Columbine shooting would have still happened. The world was just fine without his interference.

  You have to see this through. Going back now would just mean you’ve wasted two months of your life.

  “Ten minutes. That’s all this is costing me.”

  You don’t actually believe that old man, do you? You’re probably dead and trapped in some fucked-up purgatory.

  “As slimy as he is, he’s never actually lied about anything.”

  It happened much sooner than he had expected, but Martin wanted to see Chris immediately. He wanted to ask him how death worked: if he died in the past, what happened to his body in 2018? Who were those men? Why did they want Calvin?

  Martin could only try to figure these things out on his own. Without Calvin or Chris, he was left to accept his questions would never be answered.