Time-spent

Yeah, sure, I'll remember Clemens as the original 'place porter', but Merezmo, to me, will always be 'Father Time'. Ya see, the first five had to work it all out with naked juice. I hated the feel of that raw juice crawling over your entire body. Maybe that’s why I’m still here and they’re not. They got to loving the feel, I mean. The naked juice, as they called it. But it affected your mind after a while and, well, I guess it just took them somewhere—beyond, out there dimensionally, ya know?

I remember the look in Jay’s eyes the last time he appeared in front of me just before he disappeared forever. It was wild, ya know, wide-eyed, a leering smile, not a word to me, just poof and, bye Jay. I didn’t even get to say that—I wish I had. Ya see, I’m the sixth, and I’m still here. I’m the one who came up with a way to travel without the electricity going through your body just as you jumped. I developed 'the grid.'

We met in school, growing up along Van Nuys Blvd. in California. Our exceptionally high grades, and our shared dream of going on to graduate from M.I.T., had brought us together. The six of us, Will Clemens, Arnie Deveroe, Joe Jennings, Jay Merezmo, Vince Paxton and myself, Maxwell Bleumon, studied in the same field of theory, ya see. After that, we were inseparable, traveling east together to attend the most prestigious school of study in our particular field of Electromechanical Physics. But it was the theories surrounding electrical properties that interested us the most. Our bodies were encased in the stuff, generating fields of it. There had to be more there, ya know?

I remember Will Clemens’ first jump. I came into his efficiency and there he was, standing with these two huge cables attached by gloves to each hand, waiting for me, ya see. I remember the manic look on his face as I stepped into the little corner of his apartment, that he jokingly referred to as 'the lab,' then he tells me, “…we’re about to make history!” Then nothing—the cables and gloves thudding to the floor empty—gone, I mean. I’m looking around for about fifteen minutes, at a loss as to what to do next. Suddenly, my cell phone rings and it’s Will—from France! He’s all excited, babbling and not making any sense, as this stream of theory is pouring out of the phone from Rue de Rivoli in Paris. I’m standing there dumbfounded, wondering how in the hell he’s going to get home.

Well, ya see, we started working on everything and our classes at M.I.T. went to hell. I mean, who needs a degree when you’re making history in your own lifetime? Then, Arnie and Paxton discovered that if a reverse current is set up on the other side, you can come right back a minute later. This started a flurry of events that is just a blur in my memory, with guys jumping in and out of the apartment and everything starting to take off. It’s like we stopped eating and the next few weeks became one long day, ya know? It’s amazing what the body will endure when the mind becomes feverishly locked into a theory and can't let go.

They set up return gates in different places and were hopping around the world like it was nothing. That’s when Jay noticed what it was doing to the mind—the juice, I mean. Jennings started getting weird on us, hopping in and out of the classrooms at M.I.T., and word got out that something was going on. Jennings had a gate in his pad and had discovered how to remote portal without needing a return unit at his destination—it was creepy, ya know? We tried to keep it as quiet as possible, but Joe was slipping mentally and we knew it, ya see. Jay said it was the raw juice frying the brain cells—not severely at first, but over time and with enough jumps the naked juice started to skew your perception of everything!

Jay and I were the first to jump in tandem. Jay starts explaining his theory to me at the lab, then the next thing I know, he takes my hand and poof, there we go. The evolution of the theory was growing at an alarming rate, as we uncovered different facets of it every day.

Then Will didn’t come back. Everybody got scared, except Jennings, but he was pretty much fried by now, becoming 'The Wizard of Van Nuys' in his own mind, ya know? Then Arnie and Paxton disappeared, and we discovered an aspect of placement that was a naturally occurring phenomenon. It meant you wouldn’t wind up in a wall or a bridge, because of the contrary electromagnetic fields between active organic matter and inert matter, ya see, but that didn’t mean you wouldn’t wind up in front of a speeding bus, as our two friends had discovered, unfortunately.

We were devastated by the news about Arnie and Pax and, for the first time, everything came to a crashing halt. At their funeral, I actually had my first beer in a month. I remember sitting down with a third round, when suddenly I burst out crying uncontrollably. We had no idea that the cost of discovery would be so high. Paxton had helped me get through my first year at M.I.T., ya see—I don’t know what I’d have done without Pax that year.

Jay started working on the 'whys' of what happened to Will almost immediately, and that’s how he discovered the ability to 'time portal.' It was no longer just 'place porting.' Ya see, the trick now, was controlling it, which is why Merezmo will always be 'Father Time.' He found out how to get exactly where you wanted to go through a reverse time stream and back again, instantaneously. Jay decided not to share his discovery with anyone except me. He could see what the juice had been doing to himself and Jennings, but he trusted me. I had 'jumped' the least and frankly, I hated it, ya know?

I clearly remember the day he revealed his discovery to me. We were alone at the lab. He told me to think back to that day when I got the word that Nancy was dumping me to go home to Georgia. Ya see, it’s the moment I will always remember as 'The Great Conflagration.' I took the Frye boots she had given me, that I cherished so much, and very ceremoniously folded them, and laid them on top of a pile of tinder, doused them in gas and ignited them, thus symbolically, in my heart, ending the relationship forever. Merezmo, being the close friend that he was, knew the deep pain of that day and how I carried it around with me all these years.

“Think back, Max, to that day…”, he said. I did. Then he flickered, for an instant, in front of me and my mouth dropped open. I was floored by the memory of Jay appearing near the dumpster that day, as I bent over the flaming pile - a memory that hadn’t been there before. I remembered hearing his voice and turning to look over my shoulder and there he was, telling me to forget her, she wasn’t worth my time and that I was about to find someone new anyway. Then he was gone from memory. He hadn’t touched me, taken or brought anything material into the space, just spoken and then he was gone, and I clearly remembered it.

Jay stood in front of me smiling, a huge crease ran across that bearded mug of his, like some gaping ape, ya know? He’d done it, ya see, and he understood that you don’t bring anything into the time space and you don’t take anything out of that space—unless, of course, you want to screw everything up in the future continuum.

Then Joe Jennings disappeared. Jay and I never did figure out where he wound up. We just chalked it up to too much juice, too fast, and made a note for future generations. After all, we were the forefathers of this whole crazy thing and somebody had to lay down the guidelines. I started working on a way to eliminate the need for the vehicle of raw juice when opening the port.

Before I could come up with the completed workings of it, and my invention of 'the 'grid', Jay disappeared. But not for good, ya see—he had to say goodbye. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon in the park. I was taking a break from the brainstorming I had been doing all week up at the lab, when suddenly, sitting next to me on the bench, was Jennings. Ya see, he’s got this crazy glint in his eyes and I know immediately that he’s gone upstairs, totally, ya know, but there’s love there too, in the look, ya see, and I realize it’s a goodbye from the 'Wizard of Van Nuys.' So I nod, and he nods back, and poof!

Then instantaneously, there’s Jay, and his wild eyes tell me he’s on to something. I realize he’s found the Wizard’s trail and is chasing him down. His hair’s all disheveled and his demeanor is disturbing and all I can think to say at the moment is, “…go get him, Jay!” Then, he too, is gone.

I’ve not seen hide nor hair of the five since then and I only know where two of them wound up. Then again, I wonder if Arnie and Pax didn’t really die, but are traveling around with the others somewhere out there, ya know? So, I had decided on one last mission to go back, clandestinely, and try and talk each one of my old friends individually, out of what they were about to do. To make them aware of the high cost of the journey they were about to embark on. If it failed, I was going to come back and bury the science. If I succeeded, I wouldn't need to return, ya know?

Ya see, I was already feeling old, time-spent and terribly alone...

Since then, I’ve perfected 'the grid' and have done some testing of my own. You should have seen the look on young Tom Cruise’s pimply 15-year-old face when I appeared at the mall that day in front of his giggling pack of girlfriends. I did it so that I could tell him how much his body of work meant to me—especially A Few Good Men and The Last Samurai. He looked at me strange, as if I were just another local crazy from Glen Ridge, New Jersey—then poof, ya know?

END