Thicker than Time

“Are you sure the test is positive?” George said into his cellphone.

“It’s a pretty easy test to read George. Of course, I’m sure,” said his girlfriend Stacy on the other end.

“Man, I’m so not ready for this,” he said.

“You’re not ready? Hello, who do you think has to carry it for nine months?”

“Alright,” George said trying to calm her down. “What do you want to do with it?”

“Do with it? It’s a child George, of course I’m going to have it,” Stacy replied. “The question is what are you going to do?”

George sat silent on the other end.

“Well?” Stacy said in a pleading tone.

“I need to process this Stacy. I’ll call you tomorrow,”

“As long as nobody’s putting you out,” she said crying into the phone before disconnecting the call.

George sat in his dorm room staring at the cream-colored walls covered with posters of famous athletes and rock bands. He loved Stacy, but a baby meant marriage and commitment and he had not even graduated from college yet.

He could walk away, but his own father had done that, and he didn’t want to follow in his footsteps. Plus, Stacy was a former beauty queen who had a thing for lanky red headed guys like him and she genuinely cared for him. Still this was a game changer. George wanted to be a professional basketball player. He was in college on a full scholarship because of his skills on the court. A baby meant all of that would go away. Trading dreams for diapers, his dad used to say before he finally gave up and walked out on George and his mother. George remembered how hard it was for his mother, but he also did not want to face this struggle himself.

He needed to study for his finals but knew that Stacy’s bombshell would not allow him to focus. What I need is a drink, he thought. George put on jeans and his sweatshirt with the college logo on it and headed out to find a soothing beverage.

With its wooden walls and oak trim bar, O’Malley’s was reminiscent of a place where everybody knew your name, but instead it was just one of Ithaca’s many sports bars. George frequented this place because it was close to campus.

He walked in and ambled over to the long bar.

“What’ll you have?” The balding pot-bellied bartender asked.

“Whatever’s on tap,” George replied.

The bartender poured him a glass of beer and placed it in front of George. He took a sip and took in the scene. The place was practically deserted except for a middle-aged man with graying hair at the other end of the bar.

“Looks like you had a rough day,” the man said as he walked over to where George was and took a seat next to him.

“Yeah,” George said.

“Do you want to talk about it?” The man asked.

Did he want to talk about it? Of course, he wanted to talk about it. George wanted to rail and scream from the rooftops, cry like a man who just lost his dreams of stardom. To the stranger all he said was “No.”

“You know,” the stranger began. “My father used to say talking something out makes the problem seem not as big.”

“Yeah, my dad used to say the same thing before he left.”

“Don’t worry,” the man said. “You won’t turn out like him.”

An annoyed look passed over George’s face as he said, “How are you supposed to know?”

“Because I do, George,” the man said with a twinkle in his eye.

George’s face blanched after the man said that. “How do you know my name?”

The man stood and put his hand on George’s elbow. “I think this is a conversation we should have in private.”

George ripped his arm away and stood up.

“You stay away from me,” George said backing away from the bar until he bumped into a table and nearly fell over.

“Are you alright George?” The man asked.

George pointed at the man and screamed “Stay the fuck away from me!”

George made it to the door and ran out of the bar. He ran several blocks before he ran out of breath.

He leaned against a newspaper rack and put his head in his hands shaking off the encounter with the guy from the bar. He decided he was hungry and thought about where to go. There was a 50’s style diner around the corner he enjoyed taking Stacy to. Stacy, he thought and immediately felt depressed. He lifted his head and cried out “God, why me?” As much as the thought of being in a place that reminded him of the love, he may have lost bothered him, his stomach made the winning argument and he headed down to the diner.

Pop’s was an Ithaca staple since the 1940s, or so he was told. George walked up to the former train car that now housed Pop’s and went inside. The bright walls were covered with posters of 50’s icons like Elvis Presley and Bobby Darin and red neon lights were hung above and below the artwork.

George slunk down into a booth at the center of the dining room and looked at the jukebox that was attached to the table. He flipped through the rotation, mostly songs from that era and decided against putting in a quarter in the machine. He picked up a menu and began leafing through to see what looked good to him.

“I would go for the bacon cheeseburger. It is your favorite,” said a voice from the booth closest to the door.

George looked up and saw the man from the bar.

“What? Are you following me?” George asked.

“No, I just knew where you’d show up.”

“How did you get here so quickly?” George asked.

“That would take too long to explain,” the man said smiling at George.

George and the man both stood at the same time and faced each other.

“What do you want from me?” George asked.

“I want to help you,” the man said calmly.

“How?” George asked. “By talking shit out! Man, you don’t even know a thing about me!”

“Not true,” the man said raising his right index finger.

A burly man came over and stood in between the two. “Is there a problem here?” He said facing George.

“Yeah Pops, this creep won’t leave me alone. He followed me here from O’Malley’s and he won’t leave me alone.”

Pops turned to ask the man if that were true, but he was gone.

“Look, maybe I’d better go,” George said.

“Are you sure? He could be outside waiting for you,” Pops said.

George looked out the window and did not see anybody. “No, I think you scared him away.”

George left and considered his options. He could go back to his dorm room, but the only food there was a pack of instant he purchased six months ago. He started walking back to the campus. There was a fast food restaurant on the way back and he would stop there for something quick.

He got to the restaurant and peered in the window. Sure enough, the man was in there sitting down at a table. George ducked behind the trim of the restaurant and checked to make sure the man did not see him. Fortunately, he seemed to be engrossed in his own meal: two Big Burger meals. George’s mouth watered. It was what he always ordered when he went there. Wait! George thought. Why does he have two meals? Was the second meal for him? Plus, how did he know what his favorite meal was? This was just too strange.

George crouched down and crab-walked underneath the windows. When he cleared the restaurant, he decided half a year-old instant would work under the circumstances.

He took a circuitous route back to campus in the hopes of avoiding the guy. After two hours, George finally made it back to campus. He got to his dorm room and threw open the door. The room was empty except for a bathroom light on.  It was probably his roommate. George shut the door and laid down on his bed. The toilet flushed and the door opened.

“Boy, you are not going to believe the night I had,” George said.

“Oh, I think I just might,” said a familiar voice George sat up and looked at the middle-aged man from this evening standing in the dorm room.

George looked at him defeated. There was no place else for him to go. The stranger was blocking the door. There was nothing left to do.

“If you are going to kill me, make it quick,” George said.

“I’m not here to kill you,” the man said as he sat at George’s desk and turned the desk lamp on. “I am trying to help you.”

“How?” George said sitting up.

“I am here to keep you from making the biggest mistake of your life.”

“Oh, and what is that?” George asked.

“Leaving the love of your life,” the man said. “It is a mistake that will haunt you for the rest of your life as it did me for a long time.”

George really looked at the man for a moment. There was something familiar about him.

“Are you my father,” George asked.

“No, I am your son,” the man replied.

George’s eyes widened. “That’s crazy. How could you be my son? You’re way older than I am.”

“Let’s just say in my time technology has really advanced.”

“What’s your name?” George asked.

“Noah.”

Stacy always liked that name. She said Noah was her favorite person from the Bible.

“Noah,” George said testing the name out. “I don’t suppose you would have any proof of what you’re telling me.”

“I knew you’d say that,” Noah said as he pulled out a small coin. He placed the coin on the desk and pushed down on it. An image of an older blond woman projected into the air.

“Is that--?”

“Yes, that is my mother.”

“She looks so sad,” George remarked.

“Your leaving devastated her,” Noah said. “She had me for awhile to take her mind off you, but eventually I grew up and she was alone again. She died not long after my twenty-first birthday.”

“So, you blame me for what happened to her?” George asked defensively.

“I did for a while,” Noah said. “When I turned thirty-five, I finally decided to track you down.”

George braced himself for this part.

“When I found you, you were living in a rundown apartment that reeked of booze,” Noah began.

George turned pale again as Noah continued.

“After you and Mom broke up, you hit a rough patch. You got kicked out of college and began working menial jobs.”

A tear formed on George’s cheek. “What happened?”

“You never got over her either. The night that we met you said you were getting ready to take your life because you could not live with the pain and guilt anymore.”

George was sobbing now.

Noah walked over and placed a hand on his father’s shoulder. “I knew then that you were hurting just as much as Mom was so I decided to see if I could make it right.”

“So, you magically got a hold of a time machine and came back here to stop me?” George said sniffling.

“Something like that,” Noah replied. “It took some time, but with your help I was able to piece this night together and worked out a plan to talk to you.”

Noah walked over to George and sat down beside him. “It’s not too late…Dad. She is waiting for you to call or go over to see her. Don’t make the same mistake again.”

George nodded. Noah got up to leave.

“You’re leaving?” George asked.

“My job here is done,” Noah said as he got to the door. “Just don’t run, because you will never be able to outrun how you feel.”

George put his head in his hands and cried. He heard the door open and close and realized his son had left. George dried his tears with the sleeve of his sweatshirt and then fished into his jeans pocket for his cell phone. He scrolled down until he got to Stacy’s number and called her.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hey, it’s me. Do you want to get something to eat? We have a lot to plan for.”