Chapter 2: A Leap of Faith

Young Tim just sat on the rock clutching the manila envelope his future self had left to try and fix their combined futures. He was fighting the urge to open and read all the envelopes right then and there. He went over and over again in his mind what had just happened. Was it real? Was someone playing a joke on him?

But the real thing that hit him was the way the “future” him (Fat Tim) knew how he lived his life and how he never really tried to do anything. Fat Tim knew how he only did enough to get by and not get into trouble. The way Fat Tim painted his life if he continued on the path he was on now was a serious splash of cold water to the face. Tim realized he needed to make a change and the opportunity given to him in a pill was enough of a kick in the ass to get him going. The decision was made. A change was needed but was he willing to go through with what his Fat Tim had planned for him.

Hearing loud laughter off in the distance, he suddenly realized he had sat on the rock all afternoon and a quick check of his watch showed just after three-thirty and his fear was rising as he knew the bullies generally started harassing the younger kids, during the summer, after three. Since they were older high school kids and not working, they usually slept all day then came out in the late afternoon. He decided to get down off the rock, before he hurt himself. Actually, he decided he did not want to hurt the contents of the envelope.

“Well, I guess that’s it for swimming today,” and with a giggle he retrieved his backpack and removed the dry t-shirt and quickly changed. He also peeked at the cut on his hand and saw that the gauze was tinged with blood but not really that much.

He decided to leave the gauze on, until he was almost home, just for safety. Tim also understood it was time to get going, because ... well now he had a little light reading to do. The trip home was anti-climatic. Avoiding the bullies was easily done, if you knew your way around the park, and Tim knew. He quickly made it out of the park and up the hill toward the residential streets. While walking past a house before he reached his own, he quickly removed the gauze and placed it in his backpack’s pen pocket, to keep it separated from both his wet shirt and the manila envelope.

“Tim, is that you?” came from the kitchen.

“Yeah Mom it’s me.”

“Don’t leave your wet shirt in your backpack. They’ll get moldy. Go ahead and give it a quick rinse off in the shower, then wring it out and leave it in the hamper. You know I don’t like it when you swim in the creek, you have no idea what kinda weird stuff is in there,” she yelled from the kitchen.

“No problem, Mom.”

Tim made his way through the hall way of the 1950s four bedroom, one and a half bath single story home. His room was at the end of the hall and the large bathroom was in the middle of the hall in between the master bedroom and the first bedroom, which was reserved for his younger sister Carmen.

Once in his room, he blew a quick kiss to his prized Cindy Crawford poster up on the wall. It was silly but for some reason he always blew a kiss to the supermodel in the tight blue jean shorts, and nothing else, posed in a looking over her shoulder. The look in her eyes seemed to ooze sex appeal. The room featured other posters of scantily clad women in different levels of undress, but the Cindy Crawford poster was a personal favorite.

He closed the door behind him, removed the wet shirt and dropped it on the floor, reminding himself to do as his mother asked. He then removed the manila envelope and with a paranoid look around his room he placed it under his pillow on his still unmade bed. After a second thought he felt under the pillow might not be secure enough, so he moved the envelope under the mattress and above the box spring. Most teens hide pornography in that obvious hiding spot but not Tim, his porn stash was under the bottom drawer of the dresser. Pull the bottom drawer completely out of the dresser and in the gap between the floor and the drawer were his porno mags. Not many but they were well used. Tim felt the mattress was good enough since no one went in his room anyways ... it was not very clean but it was just like a typical teens’ room.

Tim then removed the trash from the light lunch he’d had with him, which was now the empty sandwich bags and the empty water bottle. He liked the swimming hole and did not want it to be ruined with trash so picking up after himself was a simple thing to do. With the trash in one hand and the damp t-shirt in the other he went toward the bathroom. He dropped off his trash and continued on to the bathroom. He ran the shirt though the shower just enough to drench it then he spent a few seconds wringing it out. Once fairly dry, he put it in the dirty clothes hamper. He also washed his hands after all that and went to see what his mom was cooking for dinner.

His mother, Juanita, was prepping the main dinner course along with various side dishes. “Hi Mom, what’s for dinner?”

“Roast chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans,” she said with a smile as she enjoyed the kiss on the cheek from her oldest child. “How was your afternoon?”

Tim wanted to tell her everything that happened but on the walk back home he finally decided to heed the advice from his future self and keep it quiet. “Nothing much, just did a little swimming and played around then came home but I almost lost track of time and stayed too late to get caught by those guys on the other street.”

“Oh yeah, those bunch of hoodlums! Make sure you stay away from them. They are bad news. Dinner will be ready for when your dad comes home.” Juanita was a stay at home mom and cared for Tim and his little sister Carmen. While Tim was preparing to enter the ninth grade, little Carmen was getting ready for the fourth grade. She was smart and very personable like their father. Tim took after his mother. He was quiet, most of the time, cerebral person. Carmen and their father were out going people, and made friends easily. Tim was not shy, he was just the kind of person who thought out what he wanted to say before it came out of his mouth.

Realizing he had about an hour to kill, Tim would normally go ahead and watch TV in his room until called for dinner but today he had something to read. Back in his room, he retrieved the envelope from under the mattress and removed the envelope labeled “Read me first before you start.”

“Well ... no time like the present.”

Tim emptied out the envelope and inside were several sheets of paper. He also examined the small box holding two pills, were barely larger than aspirins. At least he did not have to worry about gagging on some giant horse pills like the ones he had needed to take when he’d had pneumonia.