Arnesto Modesto: The World's Most Ineffectual Time Traveler Page 4

  “Okay! Ask away,” Arnesto said, once he regained his composure.

  Pete sighed. “At least you’re getting your sense of humor back.” He thought for a few moments then smiled. “O wise oracle, when do we get laid?”

  Arnesto quickly turned to Pete. “What, together?! Never, you sick fuck!” he said, feigning disgust.

  “You know what I mean!”

  “Let me think. Senior year. Well, yours is toward the end of senior year. Mine is soon after.”

  “Damn, that’s two years away. Is it... with Sylvia?” Pete asked anxiously. Unlike Arnesto, who crushed on a great many girls, Pete spent most of high school fixated on one unknowing Sylvia Bowers.

  “No, you haven’t met your first yet. You meet her at work. That reminds me, have you applied for that hospital kitchen job yet?”

  “I… was working on it,” Pete said. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you knew I was applying. This is going to take some getting used to. So nothing ever happens between me and Sylvia?”

  Arnesto sensed Pete’s pain. “No, sorry. Well, you didn’t make anything happen before, but that doesn’t mean you can’t this time.”

  “Nah, I can’t talk to her. She makes me too nervous. Let’s change the subject. Ooh, what’s the greatest invention of the next century or so? After your time-traveling memory thing, of course.”

  “Good question.” Arnesto had to think about this one for a bit, then he smiled. “Yoga pants. They’re like tights, except women wear them everywhere, even to work.”

  “The future sounds awesome! Who wins the election?”

  “Bush.”

  “Who wins the next election? Bush again?”

  “No, he loses to Bill Clinton, from Arkansas. I should probably warn him against sleeping with his interns.”

  “I won’t ask. Are there aliens?”

  “From space? No.” They both looked disappointed. “But there are planets. Like metric shit-tons of planets. They find so many that most scientists believe it’s highly likely that there’s life out there. Space travel’s still a bitch, though. Hey, do you want to know how you die?”

  “Hell no! Please, I don’t ever want—”

  “Autoerotic asphyxiation. Pretty impressive for a man of your years. Don’t worry, I’ll erase your browser history.”

  “I don’t know what a browser is, and I don’t care. Please stop being a dick, and promise me you won’t tell me anything about my future. If you do, I’m going to fret about it until it happens.”

  “Okay, I promise,” Arnesto said.

  “Thank you. So… why now? Why did your memories all come back at once?”

  “My best guess is that it was some sort of feedback loop. The more electrical impulses phased in, the more my brain became a grounding station — a focal point — until it reached a critical mass. Then it was done. I was complete.”

  “A complete tool,” Pete corrected. “Well, at least now we know why it all happened. But dang, I’m still sad about Sylvia.”

  “Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m 99% sure the Celtics never invite me to a tryout.”

  “Their loss.” They sat melancholy for a bit. Pete suddenly chimed in. “How do they do without you warming the bench?”

  Arnesto realized what Pete was insinuating. “Let’s see. Next year will be the ‘89 playoffs. I’m not positive, but I think they lose. I’m pretty sure they get run over by the Pistons in the first round.” They were now both sitting up perfectly straight, smiling from ear to ear.

  “Would you be willing to bet on that?”

  Arnesto stretched his arms along the back of the hot tub. “How could I not?”

  “Another popsicle, good sir?” Pete asked as he got out and headed inside the house.

  “Indubitably, good sir!”

  Pete returned not thirty seconds later with fresh popsicles. “So… how do we do it? Do we find a bookie?”

  “No, they’re always bad news in the movies. What about Atlantic City?” Arnesto asked.

  “There’s a casino in Connecticut that’s much closer.”

  “We have no way in.”

  “We have no way in in Atlantic City.”

  “Don’t you have family in Jersey? What about your cousin... Barry?” Arnesto asked.

  “Larry.”

  “Didn’t he turn twenty-one a while back?”

  “Yeah, he did. I don’t know if he’ll want to place a bet for us, though.”

  Arnesto took another bite of his popsicle. “I’ve got it,” he said. “Well cut him in for a share of our profits. It’s hard to argue with free money. We’ll have to convince him why we think the Pistons will go all the way this year. Then we’ll keep betting on them every game, and we’re guaranteed to win more than we lose. We’ll have to lose some, though, to avoid arousing suspicions.”

  “It’s not just about winning or losing; you need to factor in the vigorish.”

  “Oh, I intend to bet vigorishly.”

  Pete groaned. “Get serious. Why do we have to go to Atlantic City? Can’t we call him?”

  “How would we get him the money to bet and how would he get us our winnings? Besides, my memory — it could be wrong. If I suddenly remember a different outcome, or a different game to bet on, whatever, we might need to contact him to cancel or increase a bet. Look — if those kids in Stand By Me can hike twenty hours to see a dead body, we can drive four hours to make a fortune. C’mon, it’ll be fun!”

  “Alright, fine,” Pete said. “But I know you really want to see the attractions.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Yeah, kinda.”

  ***

  Junior year began and Arnesto, being a few months older than Pete, was the first to get his driver’s license. This worked out well, as Arnesto could drive them both to their new hospital kitchen job. With evening and weekend differentials, not to mention the extra shifts they picked up in preparation for their future sports betting, they would have rather decent bankrolls with which to later build their fortunes.

  “I hope we don’t get Eugene today,” Pete said, referring to his least favorite boss. “Have you worked with him yet?”

  “No, not yet,” Arnesto said, merging onto the highway. “You know, he starts off gruff with new people, but once you get to know him, he’s alright.”

  “So you have worked with him, just not in this lifetime.” Pete looked at Arnesto, who shrugged. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this superpower of yours.” He turned toward the passenger side mirror then turned and looked out the back window. “Hey, this guy is right on your ass.”

  “Jesus, where did he come from,” Arnesto said, looking in the rear view mirror. They were in the left lane going fifty-five in a forty-five-mile-per-hour zone with a pickup truck tailgating a few feet behind them.

  Pete pointed to a vehicle several car-lengths ahead of them in the other lane. “Catch up to that car, don’t let him pass.”

  “Ha ha, yeah,” Arnesto agreed, pushing down the accelerator. However, a few seconds later, Arnesto instead pulled into the right lane behind the car and slowed down almost to the speed limit. The pickup sped past, flipping them off.

  “What’d you do that for? Why’d you let him pass?” Pete asked.

  “Because,” Arnesto said, “he was going to try to kill us.”

  Pete knew Arnesto wasn’t kidding. “Shit, what happened?”

  “Nothing, thankfully. First he cut us off and slammed on the brakes trying to get us to hit him. Then he tried to engage us in a game of chicken, but we were able to avoid it by hanging too far behind him. We got lucky.”

  “Huh. Well, if you know nothing happens, why not do it again? I mean, it could have been interesting.”

  “Pete,” Arnesto said, turning to Pete and sounding more like a disappointed father than a cocky teenager, “I told you, that’s not how it works. There’s no way I could exactly reproduce what happened the last time. My timing would be at least a tiny bit off, perhaps causing
us to ram him... or worse.”

  “Alright, forgive me for being an actual teenager and not Nostradamus, like you.”

  “Tell you what,” Arnesto said, getting back into the left lane and hitting the gas, “we’ll follow him from a safe distance and make sure he doesn’t kill somebody else in our absence. Maybe he’ll put on a show for you.”

  The “show” wasn’t much, only some weaving in and out of traffic and more vulgarities.

  They made it to work and had a wholly uninteresting shift. Pete was on soups and salads followed by washing dishes while Arnesto was stuck on “floors,” widely known as the least desirable of the kitchen jobs. The other ten or so jobs, while in no way glamorous, all required some element of teamwork and thus, social interaction. But not “floors,” where you not only spent the bulk of the shift mopping, you did so alone with almost no interaction other than Eugene pointing out spots you missed. Arnesto didn’t even realize Jacqueline was working in the cafeteria that night until he saw her sign out her timecard at the end of the shift.

  Jacqueline was two years older, a college freshman, and a babe, the kind who has an instant chemistry with everyone she talks to. She was the kind that engages you in conversation so casually and naturally that men find themselves thinking about her and wondering why they can never meet someone like her.

  “Hey, we’re having burgers tonight, let’s go,” Pete said with great insistence.

  “Hold on, I’ll meet you at the car,” Arnesto said, running after Jacqueline.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to have sex with her real quick. Be right there!”

  Pete lingered behind as he watched Arnesto catch up with her.

  “Um, Jacqueline?” Arnesto asked.

  “Hi!” she said with her smile which lit up the room.

  “Uh, yeah, I saw you driving the other day—”

  “I didn’t hit you, did I?” she joked.

  “This is going to sound weird, but it looked like you weren’t wearing your seatbelt.”

  “Aw, you’re worried about me. Sometimes I forget.”

  “Jacqueline, you have to remember to wear it.” Her smile left. The conversation had turned awkward. “A cousin of mine was just killed in a car accident. He would’ve lived if he had been wearing his seatbelt.” She didn’t say anything, so he continued. “I’m sorry, this is weird. I just wouldn’t want anything to happen to that pretty face of yours.”

  “I’ll try to remember. Goodnight, boys,” she said to both of them, somewhat patronizingly before turning to leave.

  “And if a rodent jumps in front of your car, it’s better to hit it and maintain control than to swerve into oncoming traffic!”

  “Okay!” she yelled back.

  “That was quite specific,” Pete said. “Come on, my family’s waiting.”

  “I hope she listens,” sighed Arnesto. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “God, I can’t wait until we have self-driving cars! But that’s like decades away still. Even if I saved Jacqueline, so many more are going to die in auto accidents before then.”

  “Seriously? Self-driving cars?”

  “Yeah, they virtually eliminate drinking and driving, texting and driving, road rage, you name it.”

  “How do they work?” Pete asked.

  “Lots of lasers and path-finding and... stuff, I’m not sure.”

  “That’s cool. What’s texting?”

  “It’s how people communicate in the near future without having to actually talk to one another. It’s awesome. I’ll explain in the car.”

  Appeal to Pity

  Atlantic City, New Jersey

  Sunday, November 6, 1988

  Afternoon

  November arrived, and that meant it was time to start gambling their earnings. They would make the drive to Atlantic City on a weekend day, meet Pete’s cousin Larry, and give him the money. He would disappear into the casino, then return ten minutes later with their betting slips. The next week they would return with the winning slips and leave with new slips and some money. And then they would leave with more money. And then they… stopped.

  The long drive got old in a hurry, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was they were sixteen and still bound financially to their parents. They couldn’t even open up new bank accounts without their mom or dad’s signature. They also didn’t have much to spend the money on — what big purchases could they make that they wouldn’t have to hide them from their families? Once they turned eighteen, they reasoned, they would be free to do as they pleased.

  For the most part, high school plodded along. With the extra money, they were able to cut back on their shifts at the hospital, which gave them more time to goof off and talk about girls. One difference was that Arnesto’s grades were climbing. Naturally, this concerned Pete.

  “Is everything alright with you?” Pete asked, after scoring a layup on Arnesto.

  “Yeah, why do you ask? Check.” They were playing losers-outs, so Arnesto was now on offense. He tossed the ball to Pete to check it. Pete tossed it right back.

  “In homeroom, you didn’t ask me what book we were reading for our book report due today.” Pete guarded Arnesto who drove to the left. “And I didn’t see you frantically reading the Cliff’s Notes either,” referring to the popular study guides of which Arnesto had built an impressive collection.

  Arnesto smiled. He drove quickly to the right before yelling, “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar skyhook!” The ball clanged off the rim to the left, giving Pete the rebound. “God-damnit I used to make those.”

  “In which lifetime?” Pete taunted as he dribbled to the top of the key.

  “This one, ass. Anyway, I finally realized — or I guess remembered — that it can actually be fun to put a little effort in. I was thirty when I finally learned this.”

  Pete’s three-point attempt hit the back of the rim and went flying back out to him. “Good for you,” Pete encouraged. “Is that why you’re acing Advanced Chem?”

  “Well, partly, but in that class I’m mostly doing better from experience. Chemistry becomes a big part of my later research. Hey, do you want to know which elements the periodic table is missing?”

  “Not particularly. But I can see how high school being little more than a beginner’s review would make things easier for you. So are you a super genius now?”

  “No, of course not. I don’t cure cancer until at least my fifties,” Arnesto joked. “Nine-ten, check.”

  Pete rolled his eyes. Arnesto had gone on a five-point tear after being down four-ten. This made Pete particularly adverse to his jokes. However, Pete’s well-timed block and Arnesto’s subsequent swearing returned a smile to Pete’s face. It was short-lived.

  They heard the hallway door open and watched as Stephanie Summers walked across the gym floor toward the side entrance. “See you tomorrow, Stephanie,” Arnesto said.

  “Bye!” Stephanie said, exiting the gym to the east parking lot.

  Pete’s lower jaw dropped as he turned to Arnesto. “You’re talking to Stephanie Summers now?” Neither Pete nor Arnesto had any trouble talking to the girls they worked with at the hospital, but the girls there were mostly from other schools. But this was their high school, where one didn’t start conversing with those who spent more than a decade forming cliques and ignoring guys like Pete and Arnesto.

  “Yeah, we both got to Social Studies early, so I braced myself and said hi to her. We only talked a little, but she seems pretty nice. Truth is, most everybody feels at least a little awkward at our age.”

  Pete reflected on this before replying. “Well, shit, dude, ask her out.”

  “I — I don’t know,” Arnesto said.

  “What? What is it?”

  “She seems kind of… young. She’s still in high school,” Arnesto said in earnest.

  “So are you!” Pete screamed before powering his way to the hoop to win the game 11-9. “Come on, let’s go
get some grub.” They grabbed their bags and headed back into the hallway then out the northern exit to the teacher’s lot where Arnesto had parked his car (“because I can”).

  "'She’s still in high school.’ For fuck’s sake!” Pete repeated, shaking his head as they strode into the lot.

  “Hey, can we catch a ride?” asked a couple girls, standing on the sidewalk. The boys didn’t recognize them. They might have been sophomores. It was a big school.

  “Sorry, I have a two-seater,” Arnesto lied.

  “We’ll sit on your laps,” the same girl offered.

  “Sorry, I can’t.”

  The boys walked in silence. Pete waited until they were both inside Arnesto’s car before asking, “Why didn’t you want to?”

  Arnesto put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it. He thought about it. He had no reason to turn them down aside from a weak gut feeling about what, picking up hitchhikers? From his own school? He realized that, for once, he had made the exact same decision the last time, in his previous life. This meant he had no other experience on which to inform him in this life, other than knowing that if he did nothing, nothing would happen.

  “Ah, what the hell. We’ll try it your way this time around,” he finally said, starting the car. They drove around and pulled up to the sidewalk next to the girls. After a brief conversation, they picked up Amy and Sheryl, who were so grateful for the lift, they didn’t mention the fact that Arnesto’s car had magically grown a backseat. Aside from Amy’s directions, the short ride to her house was mostly filled with awkward silence.

  “Thank you so much,” Amy said before she and Sheryl disappeared into Amy’s house.

  “See? You did a good deed and nothing bad happened,” assured Pete. “Let’s go eat!”

  They ordered their burgers and fries. Pete got a Coke while Arnesto got a water, to Pete’s surprise, as Arnesto loved soda as much as anyone he knew. Arnesto explained how horribly unhealthy soda was and how it gave him kidney stones in his thirties. “I will die before I go through that again,” he said as they grabbed a table and sat down.