Here was the first perk of the time traveling: Hodge’s. Most of the time I was just dumped in the middle of nowhere or in a field or a park or A FUCKING ROCK SURROUNDED BY WATER. One time though I ended up in the parking lot of a bar. Well to be fair it’s a restaurant with a short bar in it. It was my day off from work and around 3pm when I left but was closer to 9pm five years back where I ended up. I went in for a late lunch or later dinner depending on how you look at it. The recap of the hockey game muted on the TV gave me my bearings for when I was. I ordered a beer and a sandwich and sat down reading over the discarded classified section of a newspaper that was next to me. The dim light of the bar area was welcomed as my head was still reeling from being jerked from my every day. This place was nice. Not great, not bad not thrilling just nice. Looked like families were just as comfortable there as the meatheads or the cast of sex and the city wannabe’s. I was two bites into my sandwich when “Adam?” came over my shoulder. I turned to find the grown up version of one of my best friends from when I was a kid, Felix. He looked a little worse for wear but it was recognizably him. “Oh, Shit. Adam, that is you, right? I haven’t seen you since we were kids!” Felix’s family moved away when we were little. We were close because we were close I suppose. He lived two houses down from me and we were the same age so that equaled automatically friends. I don’t think that my parents were really thrilled about me being friends with him. He would get into trouble from time to time but really what kid didn’t? It was great to see him.

“Yeah, wow, yeah Hey Felix.” I went to shake his hand and he pulls it into a bro hug. One arm around the back, two pats and release.

“How’ve you been? I’d say you’re looking good but you look like shit. I mean almost literal shit.” I laughed at that. He had a point I guess it was five years ago I was supposed to be 21 not 26.

“Good, man. I’m living as fast and reckless as you’d expect. What about you? What have you been up to all these years?” I joined him at his table where he and his friends had just left right before he spotted me. He told me about growing up in Ohio, high school, how his family was doing. He said that one of his mom’s friends father’s owned the bar so he was there a lot due to cheaper drinks. I was happy for him that he was about a year away from a bachelor’s in engineering. I shared my story of growing into a townie and going from high school to the office job. I make sure I don’t go too far into my story, obviously not that I was from the future and at this time there is another me back home. I tell him that I was just passing through town but he told me he was usually there with a few friends most Mondays and Wednesdays after a late class got out in case I was passing through town again sometime. I pay my bill; we walked out and shook hands I told him that it was good catching up. He called me a “Fag.” I walked to the other end of the parking lot pretending to go to a car just so I can wait until the growing familiarity I have with my “seizures” returns me back home. I find a place to sit and wait outside the restaurant and surrender my attention to a game on my phone. Looking away from my phone long enough to lose my game, a group of girls walking by catch my eye, one in particular. I over hear her being called Bethany just in time for my head to start spinning.

The next two weeks were uneventful. I went to work, came home, watched TV and repeated. For all the time I wanted to stop traveling, being pulled from here to whenever, I guess all I had to do was want to go. From the moment I left Hodge’s I wanted to go back. It was nice to catch up with Felix; I like the idea of having friends again. Mostly, though, I think that it’s because I couldn’t get the image of that girl out of my mind. I have a tendency of getting a sense about people. There are some people that I just know I have a connection to. That girl, Bethany, I was pretty sure was no exception. Maybe it was a psychic link, or we knew each other in a past life or something else that sounds science fictiony. Who am I to judge what’s impossible I’m a time traveling custodian. This was the first time since all this started that I wanted to go. I decided to go back to the sub shop where it all started. Turns out they were closed on Sundays. I started racking my brain on the walk back home. I was realizing that with all the traveling I had done I knew nothing about it. I was feeling restless and anxious. I tried to sit still long enough to Google theories on time travel. As it turns out there are a whole bunch but I’d need a black hole, flux capacitor or at the very least to break into a place called CERN. Plane tickets to Switzerland are so very expensive. Sure that all seemed doable but I had to work the next day.

I did the next best thing and walked a couple blocks away to a bar. It didn’t matter what bar I just needed to have something to calm my nerves and being around people probably would have helped too. I was starting to isolate myself, nothing a random game of pool with some strangers couldn’t cure. Chester’s was brighter and friendlier than most bars I’ve gone to. I felt awkward seeing the reality against my expectation of it being drab and low key. It was more fitting for what I needed though. I was quiet and kept to myself. I watched a hockey game on the TV but wasn’t really following it. I was more than a few beers in when I saw a man appear out of nowhere on the other side of the bar. He was in his fifties and looked like he kept himself together well. I knew exactly what had happened. He was like me. I made blood shot eye contact and he knew that I recognized what he had just done. I just started laughing like an idiot. I thought it was hilarious that I might finally get an answer but I was going to be black out drunk enough to forget. This was the night I met the “Monopoly man.” He came around the bar to where I was barely sitting on my stool. I wasn’t as drunk as I thought I was at the time, just enough to make everything foggy. He said his name and I missed it while I made my jokes. He asked me if I had any idea how it worked and I stopped my joking long enough for him to tell me what he knew. He told me the bit about gravity fields and brain chemistry and also explained how because of our intersecting fields he could tell that we were alike. I wish I had not been drunk. I could have picked his brain some more, shared some contact information, said “Hi,” anything other than acting like a moron.

When he left he had shown me the most important thing, it can be controlled. What he said was enough to get me in motion. It was another uneventful week before I traveled. The exciting thing was that I had induced it. I tried to remember the sensations I had every time I had left. I tried to match my breathing, focused my mind until it spun. I lost control of myself and fell backwards landing hard on the cold ground. It was obnoxiously bright and took a while for my vision to focus. When I could see clearly again I was almost face to face with a penguin. It was just looking at me for a moment then pecked at my cheek. The white painted cement I was sitting on told me I wasn’t at the South Pole. I started to hear muffled laughing and shouting. Turning I saw I was behind glass where a group of school children were pointing at me. Probably wondering why they couldn’t play with the penguins too. A door nearby opened and a strong hand had grabbed my arm and pulled me up. I was being escorted out of the penguin exhibit at an aquarium. I was soon met by security, which happened to be an eighteen year old kid in a khaki uniform with a flashlight that doubled as a club, which I’m sure he was dying to use. I was left alone in a waiting room while they had called the police. It was just long enough for my wooziness to pass and I could force myself back home. When I landed on the floor of my bedroom I swore that this was a bad idea. I had felt worse coming back than I had ever felt. I once again felt like I had run a marathon for two whole days with someone punching me in the stomach every few steps. My mom called up the stairs to make sure that everything was ok after the thud on the floor. I reassured her that everything was ok before I pulled myself onto my bed and held myself trying to get over the exhaustion and the pain.

After my bad experience with going to and back from the aquarium I desperately wanted to not travel for a while. Like clockwork I was being pulled through time as frequently as I was when it all started. Each time however I kept picturing Hodge’s in my mind. Looking back this was dumb. It was like trying to move your arm by thinking the words “arm, go up.” I know now that it’s not conscious, it’s like your internal clock waking you up before your alarm. Your body interprets what you need it to do. I still can’t exactly tell how but I think it’s tied to my emotions.

Another week and a half had passed where I had three, much less damaging, trips and two miniature gym basketball games to keep my life exciting. At the end of the second week I was feeling pretty good, less anxious, bordering on happy when I was ripped away from cleaning up after a child that must’ve exploded. (The kid turned out to not have exploded.) I fell forward grabbing a handicapped parking sign post to regain my balance. I was back outside Hodge’s. Thanks again for that, Universe. I walked inside and headed into the restroom just to make sure I was presentable before I headed into the bar. After meticulously making myself resemble how I do when I roll out of bed to give myself a carefree air I go and order a drink. This time it was root beer. I had learned my lesson about drinking when I go traveling on the job. It wasn’t long before a hand slapped me on the back and I was greeted with “Adam, hey I thought you were just passing through.” Felix had just got there and stepped away from his friends to say hi.

“Hey, I was but this was such a classy place I couldn’t keep away. It’s good to see you again, it feels like ages since last time, has it really been umm…” I knew how long it’d been for me but for him I had no clue.

“You’re retarded right? You lost count of the days in two weeks? God, working that mailroom must make time stand still.”

“Seems like it at times.”

“So we all just got here want to grab a chair and come over? We were going to eat.”

“That’d be great, I’m starving.” I wasn’t really but I wanted to just enjoy the time while I had it.

Felix introduced me to his fellow engineering student friends. They were friendly enough but introverted and quiet. I chalked it up to having a new person in their group and circling around conversation until we could find some common ground. Turns out that was Bill Murray movies. I prefer the classics: Stripes, Ghostbusters, Caddy Shack, and Groundhog Day. Felix and Martin, another in the group agreed with me. The other two preferred his later more abstract or serious movies like Lost in Translation and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Just wait until they get too see Garfield a Tale of Two Kitties. A couple hours had passed where they got drunk and I sipped on my root beer making it much easier to plead my case for old school Bill Murray. I lost my train of thought when I saw the group of girls walk in, and as I had hoped “Bethany” was with them. I think I stopped talking mid sentence. They got a table far from where we were sitting and I started plotting an excuse to go over there. A half hour had passed and I divided my attention between my new friends and this beautiful stranger who had no idea she’d been haunting me. Every bad pick up line I’d ever heard or come up with went through my head. “I lost my phone number can I have yours?” “Can I check your tag? I want to see if it says ‘Made in Heaven.’” “Your phone number is my Make a Wish!” The last was the winner but I needed an ice breaker that wouldn’t get a drink in my face. Let’s be honest, you’re just cold if you turn down somebody’s Make a Wish. I looked back at her group and she was gone. My eyes darted around the restaurant feeling crushed that I had missed my chance when I saw she had walked to the bar. I tried to work up the nerve to stand and walk over there. I tried to do the math to see if I could figure out how to be charming in the time it took to walk from our table to the bar. I ended up with a negative decimal. With her drink in hand she was walking towards our table trying to avoid the group of football fanatics that blocked her other route.

“Hey, Adam, what are staring at?” Felix broke my concentration as she approached. He saw what I was staring at. “Want to talk to her? Don’t worry buddy I got this.” I was horrified at the time but looking back it’s one of my favorite memories. ‘Bethany’ passed by us and a few steps later Felix yelled out “HEY! GIRLIE DATE MY FRIEND!”

I don’t remember the next few second clearly I just remember the angry embarrassment and my head hitting the table as if I could hide in it.

“Excuse me?! Girlie?” I’d never heard a voice sound both pissed off and beautiful at the same time before. I looked up the other three were looking away and Felix was laughing. I stood up and guided her away, not that she really wanted anything but an apology or some kind of spell or device that could erase embarrassing thing from ever happening. Her face was red from the looks that everyone there had given her.

“Look, I am sorry for my friend. He can be an ass but he means well. Truthfully I don’t really know him that well we lost touch for years and this is the second time we’ve hung out. He was trying to do me a favor but he’s been drinking and probably thought that was funny or something but I don’t know how. I think he might be brain damaged I should probably get him checked out. Do you know any good head doctors?” I might have even taken a breath somewhere in between all those words. I only stopped talking when I saw that she started to smile at me. Her sweet smile turned to a smirk as she started to speak. “Oh, so this is all your doing? You got your friend to yell at me in front of all these people? In front of my friends? Is that what gets you off? Embarrassing strangers very publicly?”

“God, no it’s just that I was here a few weeks ago and I saw you and then I saw you again and I wanted to talk to you but I forgot how to talk to people. I didn’t ask him to do anything. If it helps my head still hurts from me trying to push it through the table.” The words stumbled out of my mouth.

“I’ve been called worse than ‘Girlie’ by drunken frat guys in bars.”

“I don’t think he’d be able to get into a frat. Either he’s too big of a douche or not big enough. It’s hard to tell. Um now that you’re not as angry: Hi, I’m Adam.”

“I’m Bethany.” I had heard right.

“Can I buy you a drink?”
She gestured with the glass in her hand, “I have one.”

“Can I buy you a drink to throw at my friend?”

“Do they have ones with little umbrellas that might get stuck in his eye?”

“If they don’t I’m sure they have stir sticks, tooth picks and receipt paper. I excelled in arts and crafts.” I tried to playfully boast. She smiled at my awkward attempt at charm.

“Let’s go then. And maybe we can see about some ice for your head. It’s getting pretty red up there.”

“That probably explains all that thinking trouble I’m having.”

“And I thought it was my smile. I must be slipping.”

As we made our way back to the bar I smacked Felix in the back of the head. I’m sure he knew it meant a sincere thank you.

We sat there for the rest of the night ignoring our friends except for when they’d walk up to see if “this guy is bothering you” or “here’s your share of the check.” It turns out that she is a receptionist at a pharmaceutical company trying to become a rep. She’d lived here most of her life except for a few years she lived with her aunt and uncle in upstate New York while going to school for art history. I was very limited with what I shared about my life. I told her I would much rather listen and that next time we can talk about me. She smiled at the idea of a next time. She went on about her life and where she wanted to be eventually I just drank in every word along with my root beer. Eventually the bartender said that they were closing and kicking us out. I paid and walked Bethany to her car. Wanting some kind of last contact I held her hand as I said good night. She leaned in and kissed my cheek. We let it linger for a moment and she opened her door.

“Just so you know,” I began to joke, “Since I ditched my friends I’m going to have to tell them we slept together. It’s not that I have a reputation or anything but…” She stopped me and kissed my cheek again.

“A second kiss? That could have gone a much different way.”

“It wasn’t a second. I was taking back the first.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You’ll just have to earn it back.” She tried to smirk but her smile won out. She didn’t say another word she just got in her car and I closed the door for her. I waved as she back out of her spot. As she drove off I realized I never got her number. Where’s a table to smack your head into when you need one. The breeze was cold but it felt good. Since my head wasn’t spinning yet I started walking going over everything that had just happened in my head. It strikes me as odd how the body reacts to things. That in a moment of sheer terror your pulse races, you start to sweat, you get weak in the knees, it’s hard to think clearly but you’re more aware at the same time and you want to be any place other than where you are. That that is the exact same reaction you have to the moment you realize you’re in love with the difference of you’d do anything to stay there as long as possible. That never would have dawned on me until that second kiss. It was too a second kiss, she might have tried but I kept the first. I took in a deep breath of the breeze and my head was filled with that all too familiar sensation. An invisible gut punch later and I was back in the restroom cleaning up after the child that had exploded from either end. I’d never been happier.