Chapter 3

But being an 18 year old me? Now that has some serious potential.

I guarantee it.

If I was targeting 18 years old, and right after my graduation seemed like the best place to start, I would be better off starting from the other end of this timeline. I turned toward the past and started going as fast as I could. In just a few seconds from my perspective, I was facing the scene of my Mom in the mirror with me again.

I turned around and began moving forward while gaining speed. Soon the scenes were just a blur. Periodically, I stopped to check where I was. The first one I stopped at showed my oldest sister Laura sitting on the couch beside me, it looked like she was telling me something.

Laura was the oldest of my brothers and sisters, 6 years older than me, and she looked like a young teenager. I guessed she was probably around 13 or 14 years old. Figuring that mid-conversation would be a bad time to jump back into my life, I looked for a better opportunity a little later in the day.

I skimmed forward in the tunnel just a little further, until things seemed calm. I was alone and watching some TV commercials. I focused on the scene and jumped into my body. I looked around and quickly spotted our dog, Brutus.

I hadn’t thought about that dog in a long long time. Brutus was a stray that we picked up one day when he walked onto our property back when we still lived in Canterbury. He was a mix between what looked like a German Shepherd and a St. Bernard. He had the coat and coloration of the Shepherd, but he was much bigger than they normally run. His face was not as angular, he had a shorter snout and floppy ears instead of the pointy ones that Shepherds are known for.

What a great dog he was. Always fun to play with and loved to pull us on sleds in the winter. My younger brother and sister could ride him like a small horse, but I was a little too big for that. We never knew where he came from, but we fed him once and he stayed with us for about 6 years before he passed from doggie cancer. I remember a big tumor on his side that he lived with for a few years. It never seemed to pain him, but I suppose the signs were there.

Anyway, I was really happy to see him again and gave him lots of love, and tummy rubs which he adored. While I was doing so the TV got back to the episode of “The Six Million Dollar Man” that we were watching.

Apparently he had to deal with Bigfoot about something, I had to shake my head at the stupid things everyone watched back then. Mom was puttering around in the kitchen, and the rest of the family must have been playing in their rooms or something because I was alone. Which hardly ever happens with a family like mine.

A quick look at the TV Guide on the coffee table told me it was probably sometime in October of 1976. That was close enough information for my needs anyway. My sister Laura came out of the bathroom and headed my way. I thought it was probably not worth chancing my doing something stupid to raise suspicions, so I jumped back into the tunnel and quickly headed uptime again on the base timeline.

Let’s see, I went from being 2 being 8 in what felt like about 5 or 6 minutes of pretty fast travel in the tunnel, if so then 10 minutes of comparable effort should get me close.

When I stopped to check after slowly counting to 600, I found that I miscalculated and had overshot a bit. I was looking at a scene of me doing jumping jacks with my squad in basic training. That would put it somewhere in December of 88.

I quickly turned around and headed back, I was looking for somewhere in June of 86, I figured that the day after graduation would be a good choice. With a little back and forth I quickly found a good spot to use, which was just as I opened my eyes the next morning.

I was surprised to find myself in a struggle just to sit up on the bed. Somehow, I’d forgotten that I had a big old queen size waterbed back when I was in high school. Well, I wouldn’t be choosing to do that again either. I dug through my dresser drawers and found some clothing that I could wear.

No, I would not go for the parachute pants, they were no longer a fashion statement I was interested in making. A pair of wrangler jeans and a plain grey T-shirt would have to suffice for now. I grabbed my keys and wallet off the top of the dresser and headed downstairs.

I found the house quiet, which wasn’t a big shock since it was just after 6 am and none of the kids had school. Mom was working as a secretary for an office in town and didn’t need to be there until 8 am. She would be up and about soon, but not yet.

Nobody drank coffee in the house back then, so I knew I would need to head out if I wanted some. Checking my wallet I found a pair of twenty-dollar bills and a couple of ones. That should be plenty for my needs.

There was a diner called “Bon Appétit” just down the road, and I knew they would be good for a pleasant breakfast. I also wanted to check the paper to see what opportunities I had available to me, we didn’t get one at home. I left a note on the board, as was our habit when we were going out somewhere, and I stepped outside.

My beat-up, rusty, and mostly tan colored 1976 Mazda 626 coupe was sitting in the driveway. She was my first car. I bought her from a guy who only purchased it when he got stranded in Indiana and needed transport to get back home to CT.

It had a manual transmission, the first I ever drove with one. I stalled it twice on the test drive, very embarrassing at the time. While it had a bunch of rusted holes in and around the wheel wells and the back seat had to be covered with an old blanket to hide the sun-exploded upholstery, she was a very good car.

She never gave me any trouble as transportation with the single exception of a fuel pump once that I was able to change out on my own. She even got around 30 MPG which I thought was pretty amazing especially when you consider I was able to buy it for only $300 bucks. You know, thinking about it, that might be the best car purchase I ever made.

I got in the car and it started with ease, and reaching the diner only took a couple of minutes. I entered and grabbed a fresh copy of the morning newspaper (the Norwich Bulletin) off of a pile sitting by the register as I made my way to a booth.

A waitress that I recognized, but couldn’t quite place until I saw the “Carol” on her nametag, came by with a pot of coffee in her hand before I finished getting settled in the seat. I turned up the cup already sitting in front of me on the table and thanked her for being so kind.

She said, “You’re welcome. What can I get for you?”. I replied, “Let’s go with two eggs, over easy, hashbrowns, and a side of wheat toast please.” She came back with, “We’ve got a special that includes all of that and comes with either bacon or a sausage patty if you like. Just $3.00 with the coffee.” I decided to go for the bacon, thanked her again, and started looking through the paper.

The paper quickly confirmed the two biggest questions I had, first that today was Wednesday, June 18th, 1986, and second that the Connecticut lotto was currently sitting at 3.8 million dollars and the next drawing was going to be Friday night.

My thinking was that when I checked on Saturday morning if nobody had won I’d take a little trip back and change that little factoid in my favor. I might do some investing with the winnings, but really how much money did I need?

I could always make more anytime I wanted to, couldn’t I? I put the paper away, folding it back up nicely to put it back on the stack on my way out, and decided not to worry about it right now. Shortly after I finished that task, Carol was back with my food and I just enjoyed my breakfast while I thought about the next steps.

I tried to remember if Lisa and I were currently dating or not, and I honestly couldn’t say. I would guess we were, but I wasn’t interested in doing that to myself this time around. If we were currently together, I’d have to find a good way to end things.

I’ll have to play that by ear, at this point I had plenty of suspicions of her cheating, but never any proof. Nor did I want to bother with getting that proof. I think I’ll just wait for her to call me or visit and then break things off. If we had any plans at this point I couldn’t possibly remember them, so I’d just stick with waiting to hear from her.

Wait a minute, why am I sticking around here until Saturday? Nothing I do at this point should have any possible way of effecting the lottery numbers, but why risk it? I’m gonna want that winning ticket in my pocket before I start working on things.

I should just do that first, then decide where I want to come back to. Plus it will give me a chance to watch a bit more closely to see if I’m missing anything important, and possibly find a better point to jump back in at. With that plan in mind, I finished my meal, paid for it, and left a good tip.

Why am I bothering to do all this paying and tipping, considering my new abilities? Well, I don’t know what happens after I leave this timeline, even though I plan to abandon it. As far as I know, there is no way to get back here to find out if it matters.

But “just in case” when I get the opportunity to choose how I should act, I’m gonna choose to be a decent human being regardless of whether it matters in the long run or not.

Besides, it’s not like it hurts me to do so, I’ve got all the time in the world. Once I parked the car back in the driveway, I turned it off and jumped back into the tunnel and exited the alternate timeline I was on. Then I moved forward on the base timeline to Saturday morning.

It took three more night cycles to get to Saturday morning, nothing really exciting happening in the scenes I viewed along the way. Well, Lisa was definitely in the picture. We went to the movies Friday night and saw “Big Trouble in Little China”.

It was a pretty good movie as I recalled, but I didn’t want to get into anything with Lisa just yet. Stick with the plan, lottery numbers from Saturday morning first. I continued forward through the tunnel, looking for the night to end and soon found a spot as I was getting out of bed the next morning to jump into my body again.

[Saturday, June 21st, 1986]

I Looked at the Ironman watch on my left wrist, I pretty much only took it off to shower back in those days, and I saw it was almost 10:00 am. Lisa must have kept us out late last night. We would find the occasional time steaming up the windows from the back seat of my car, but actual quality alone time was always hard to come by.

I saw some of that in the scenes I passed while in the tunnel but didn’t investigate very closely. There would be time enough for that sort of thing, and to be frank about it, I was more than a little leary of getting my heart involved with her again. It would be easy to let my dick talk me into starting something I didn’t want to be involved in, so extra caution was warranted.

I was feeling kinda funky, and a shower sounded like a pretty good idea. I grabbed some clothes for the day and dug through the laundry basket for a used towel to wrap around myself as I headed downstairs to the shower.

The bathroom door was shut, so I knocked lightly and said, “Take your time, but I’m looking to take a shower”. I heard Marybeth say “Just a minute”. I wondered aloud, “Would that be a normal minute or a Marybeth minute?”. She laughed and told me “Shut up, I won’t be long”.

I smiled, we had always gotten along well. I loved her, but like most women I’ve known, she couldn’t be trusted to be accurate about anything time-related. I settled in to wait, and several minutes later, the door opened and she was looking adorable in a light blue sundress. I said, “Very nice” and kissed her on the cheek, then asked, “Are you and Tom headed somewhere today?”.