Time Traveler

An absolutely true story, swear to Crom.

“It’s completely true,” Edwin insisted. His heavy New York accent and his natural propensity for laughter made him seem insincere. The librarians laughed, thinking it was a joke, and a good one.

 

“Well, what did he want, then?” asked one of the ladies.

 

Edwin shrugged.

 

“I don’t know. I couldn’t get much out of him,” he said.

 

They looked at each other and laughed again.

 

***

 

Edwin was a security guard, recently of Brooklyn, New York where he’d worked for years at a Macy’s. The job, for the most part, was boring. He walked around and talked to the employees, entertaining them with the stories he had, and every once in a while apprehended a shoplifter or caught a couple getting too friendly in the recesses.

 

He and his wife, and now small daughter, his Princess, worked enough to pay the bills and to put some money aside for emergencies. They took a trip once a year to Florida, lately now to Disney World. Finally, the discussion came up that perhaps they should move to the warmer, friendlier state and so they did, moving to the slower metropolis of St Petersburg.

 

There, Edwin took a job as a security guard for the city libraries. He’d start out the day at the Main branch then move to the headquarters at Mirror Lake later. Budget cuts, because Floridians refused to pay taxes, had forced the libraries to hire only one security guard who must be shared. Edwin didn’t mind the six day work week, the pay wasn’t as good as it had been in New York, and he liked to keep his family comfortable.

 

It was at Mirror Lake when it happened.

 

***

 

“You do tell some … interesting stories, Ed,” said Paul. He laughed when he said it because Paul, too, told some interesting stories and he liked Edwin’s sense of humor. Edwin laughed, too, but he was deadly serious.

 

“It happened,” he said.

 

“He was drunk.”

 

“That’s what I thought, too.”

 

***

 

It was five ‘til seven. The library was dead this time of night and the librarians were waiting for the clock to move. They sat at the main desk waiting. Edwin started his final rounds, just to make sure that no one was making out in the bathroom, or hiding in the stacks. Mirror Lake was a tiny library and it only took him three minutes to check everything.

 

At two minutes, he spotted the man in the bushes. Obviously drunk. Downtown was notorious for it’s population of homeless people who had escaped the bitter cold of the northern states to the sunshine dappled waterways of mild Florida. Sitting half-drunk on the seawall they watched the same brilliant sunsets over the same green waters as those in the half-finished, mostly empty condominiums in whose shadow they sat.

 

“Hey, man,” Edwin said. The man in question did not raise his head or acknowledge Edwin at all. “Hey, you got to get outta here. The place is closing up.”

 

The man was dressed in the hand-me-down, ill-fitting clothes of the charity case. He was wearing pale blue acid washed jeans too high on the hip and too short on the leg to be fashionable. Thick white athletic socks poked out beneath the tight cuff of the jeans and were bunched into white high top Reeboks. The shirt he wore was a violent shade of green which contrasted with the motley colored jacket.

 

“Oh man,” Edwin said, soto voce.

 

“Come on, man,” he said louder, “you gotta go. You have somewhere to go?”

 

The man looked up now.

 

***

 

“Edwin, stop, you know that didn’t happen,” Sommer said. She laughed. Edwin’s stories were hilarious. The people he ran into on a daily basis, well, Florida was known for having it’s fair share of crazy people.

 

“It did,” he said. “I’m telling you, no one believes me.”

 

She quirked her eyebrow at him.

 

“All right, so, what did he look like?”

 

***

 

The man looked familiar but Edwin couldn’t place him. He felt like he should be able to, though. He looked like a very famous man, one that he’d seen just recently, but he was out of context and younger, much younger.

 

“I need to get home,” the man said.

 

“Yeah, you do,” Edwin agreed. “The libraries about to close up, buddy.”

 

The man stood, wobbled, and moved toward Edwin. The guy was drunk, there was no doubt about it, and in that stage of drunk that made him very serious and purpose driven, where every word is a sermon of great importance and he’s not drunk, officer, but has something very important to say.

 

“I need to get home. Can you call me a free cab?”

 

Edwin took a step back from the man, his training kicking in, and he spread his hands out.

 

“Come on, man, you know the city’s not going to pay for that. Where do you live? Do you live nearby?”

 

The man was confused and shook his head.

 

“I don’t know how to get there,” he said.

 

Edwin’s watch binged, telling him that it was now seven o’clock. After this, any second longer, he was on overtime. While the money was okay, and overtime better, his back hurt and his feet ached and he didn’t want to stand here talking to this man any longer.

 

“All right, buddy, come on. What’s your address, then?”

 

The man shook his head again, then his eyes lit up and he moved towards Edwin again, his eyes glassy-intense.

 

“I have to get back to May 21^st, 1985.”

 

***

 

“May 21^st, 1985?” Allan asked.

 

“Yeah, it’s really weird.”

 

Allan shelved the last handfuls of books and leaned against the shelves.

 

“What does that mean? What happened on that day?”

 

***

 

Edwin took a step back from the man. He was feeling creeped out now and it occurred to him that he didn’t actually smell any alcohol on the man’s breath.

 

“Look, buddy, I don’t know what your problem is,” he started to say.

 

The man shook his head and muttered something and picked himself up. He looked affronted, as affronted as a man in his condition could look, and walked away. Edwin watched him leave until he disappeared around the corner.

 

Then, shaking his head, he walked back inside.

 

***

 

“Rick Scott,” Kimberly said. “Our darling governor who bears more than a passing resemblance to Mr. Burns?”

 

Edwin nodded.

 

“Yeah, I recognized him later. He had hair then.”

 

She shook her head and whistled.

 

“Oh man, that guy’s crazy. You know his campaign slogan was: Florida is Open for Business? He’s not even subtle,” she said.

 

“So, I looked it up, right? I wanted to know what happened May 21^st, 1985, and you know what I found?”

 

“What?”

 

“Rick Scott started at Columbia HCA right around then.”

 

Kimberly’s eyes flew open.

 

“Holy s**t.”

Author's Note

This may require some explanation for those not keeping up with Florida politics. Rick Scott is our new Governor (who does look like The Simpsons' Mr. Burns) who was accused of stealing thousands of tax-payer dollars in a medical scam when he was CEO for Columbia Hospital Corporation of America.

Reviews

[Nothing Personal]

It's a great way to put a story with a moral. And you did that perfectly. I like the eerie and suspense you kept in the tale with your in between chapters..Good story. Enjoyed it...Thanks..Was a good read..

[Cassie Meno]

I'll admit that I don't follow Florida politics much (being from Nevada), but either way, I love the way you merged the story telling with the actual event. Very original, and the switching back and forth actually made sense. Your narration and dialog is great too. You really get your style of writing across right up front.