The Self Made Man
Gin Allister McKinn was so surprised by the newspaper headline that he set down his doughnut.
“Abby! Says here they invented a time machine!”
“I know dear. It’s exciting, isn’t it?” Abigail said, incredibly uninterested. She stopped and sipped her water but otherwise continued her morning calisthenics in the living room of the gigantic mansion.
“How in the world did I not hear about this? Time travel! You’re always saying how we need to travel more often!” Gin said, crumbs tumbling onto his goatee as he proceeded eating breakfast at an alarming rate.
“I can’t imagine anywhere being as exciting as Texas, dear. There’s really nowhere else I’d rather live.”
“I know honey bear,” Gin said as he continued merely skimming the article, “but this time travel deal seems as fun as a hummingbird on a string and I am not going to miss out. I just need-” Gin’s eyes brightened and he slapped the table hard. “I got it! The ultimate display of Southern hospitality! You! Tell Rick to get the chopper fueled and ready to go! Abby, get my coat! I have had just the most hog wild idea!”
Abigail said and did nothing as Gin squeezed out of his chair. He grabbed another doughnut and waddled over to the main foyer. “Wish me the best of luck Abby! Not everyone gets the privilege to make history!” He cried before snatching his hat and coat and leaving the mansion with a flourish.
Abigail turned off the exercise program with a sigh and went to go find the gardener.
-
Getting permission to take a human being from two thousand years in the past on a tour of modern day Texas requires a great deal of money, government influence, and patience. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Gin McKinn had an exuberant amount of all three.
The eventual Congressional hearing on the matter was a rather impressive sight to see. Hundreds of professors and career scientists came to lend their support in stopping the oil tycoon in the court of law. Ph.D’s in theoretical particle physics, biophysics, advanced chaos theory mathematics, and even philosophy flocked to Washington, DC from MIT, Harvard, Delhi, Cambridge, and Kyoto. In a concerted effort by the greatest minds of the planet, they fought to save the greatest discovery in the history of mankind from being so grossly misused.
But Gin McKinn was a self made man. He fought tooth and nail and ultimately convinced Congress to approve his plan- most pundits agree that the turning point was when Gin won the hearts of millions by infamously describing to the Senate on national television, “’dem science boys could fall into a barrel full of titties and come out sucking their thumbs.”
Doctor Cassandra Wilkins, two time Nobel Laureate in physics and Director of the Translight Project, watched in horror with her colleagues as the Senate voted in favor of Gin McKinn. One Senator would later defend her vote by stating Gin McKinn had “heart and showed spunk.”
“Oh, fuck me,” said one of Cassandra’s colleagues as he hung his head low.
-
A deep humming spread throughout the room as the machine started up. Cassandra looked at the device lovingly and appreciated all the decades, no, centuries of labor that was put into it. The Wilkins-Singh Translight Accelerator was the net culmination of human scientific progress, with trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of man hours poured painstakingly into it. Cassandra glanced at the room around her and at the scientists packed into every conceivable nook and cranny. Gin McKinn stood proudly next to her, a twinkle in his eye as he looked over the mass of tubes and wires that made up the Accelerator, appreciating his part to play in this historic moment.
“Initiate startup drive. Activating particle beam in three… two… one…” Cassandra said, the device whirring and clicking. The power fluctuated.
As the device grew louder and louder, so did Cassandra’s pride in the continued ingenuity of man. Her life’s work, her dreams, her magnum opus lay bare. Her achievements today would never be forgotten, remembered throughout history just as vividly, even more so, than the Apollo moon landings.
Cassandra was about to bear witness to the first human being to travel through time- because of her project.
Clearing her throat, she spoke with a passion known only by a few, “As Humanity once accepted fire from Prometheus, we now accept-”
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” boomed Gin’s voice, proudly echoing throughout the room as he cemented himself in history by pressing the button, leaving a slight film of chicken grease on it.
Mere moments before Cassandra could complete the career change from award-winning particle physicist to violent felon, the Accelerator made a soft ding.
The front compartment opened, revealing the prone, naked figure of a boy, who was immediately surrounded by doctors and nurses in HAZMAT suits. They took him to an isolated examination room.
“Well wadn’t nothing between him and the Lord but a smile!” Gin exclaimed, his eyes wide with childlike wonder, “when do I get to show him the Lone Star?”
“Mr. McKinn-”
“Call me Gin.”
Cassandra adjusted her lab coat. “Mr. McKinn, we’ve already explained it will be several months before he is in any condition to safely speak with us, let alone-”
“Call me Gin. But all right, I getcha. Tell you what: I’ll let your boys have him for a week. Then how’s about I take him from there?”
“That is absolutely out of the question and the exact opposite of what I just-”
Gin was already halfway to the exit.
“Don’t be hurting him! Remember now, he is our guest!”
-
Gin McKinn was back three days later. To Cassandra’s chagrin, it was with a warrant signed by a federal judge.
“Don’t you worry Cassie; I’ll take good care of our guest now!” Gin cried as he led the still confused boy to the grossly oversized helicopter waiting outside the laboratory.
Cassandra gulped her coffee and shivered, but downed the rest of it through pure willpower. She hated whiskey.
-
Gin McKinn rifled through the manila folder. Reading a piece of paper, he patted the ragged-looking boy sitting across from him on the shoulder.
“Says here you’re from two thousand years ago!”
The boy said nothing. His eyes were staring out the window, transfixed on the ground thousands of feet below him and on the sky masked by clouds. Gin followed his gaze.
“Yep, that there’s Texas. My home! And you,” Gin said, pointing at the boy, “get a VIP tour! Now it says here you’re from what they say is ‘modern day West Bank.’ Never heard of no West Bank. I do my business through Wells Farg0. The west coast division manager is the best golf player I’ve ever played with; knocked three strokes off my game in three trips.”
The boy frowned, and his eyes began to tear up.
“Ana slach li,” the boy pleaded, “Ata yakhol laazor lekha? Ibati et hadere-”
“Woah woah woah,” Gin interrupted, “I’m not about to have any of that terrorspeak onboard my aircraft! Now where in the hell,” Gin trailed off as he ruffled through the manila folder. “Those dinguses, er sorry, dingi, said they had finished the neural implants… there!”
Gin found a small remote control device at the bottom of the folder. With a grin, he grabbed it and mashed down the button that was labeled with a human brain.
With a gasp, the boy’s eyes immediately dilated and returned to normal.
“There we go! Now the eggheads said there might be some long term side effects, like hallucinations, delusions, euphoria, and some other stuff, but I bet it feels great to speak good old fashioned American!”
“I- I- don’t-” the boy croaked.
“See! It does feels good, don’t it?”
“I want to go home.”
“But my boy! You haven’t even seen the Alamo yet!”
The boy looked around the cabin. He looked outside the window. He looked at the fat man in the ten gallon hat sitting in front of him. He looked at the crew of attractive stewardesses.
“Am I dead?”
Gin slapped his knee hard and guffawed
“No, my boy! You’re in the future!” Gin spread his arms wide.
“The… future?”
“Yeah!
“What is-”
“The future? Well, think of it this way. You have your life, follow me? You have your life. Then, other people after you have their lives too. And then, people have lives after that, and so on and so forth until here we are! In fact, everyone where yer from will eventually reach where we are now!”
The boy stared, wide eyed. Who was this man in front of him who had so suddenly appeared? What sort of place was he in? Was he even alive? The strange man seemed to say he was.
“Who- who are you? You seem very wise. Strong too. Only the strongest men in my town are the size of you,” the boy said. He glanced again at one of the prettier stewardesses walking by.
Gin guffawed even harder.
“Well, I am that I am, my boy!” Gin bellowed, misquoting his childhood idol Popeye. “Just be sure to eat up that spinach, haha! I’m Gin Allister McKinn, self made man.”
Calming his breathing, the boy studied the man in front of him even harder. He was friendly, that was obvious enough, and he was wise and strong as well. Why did he continue calling him his son? And how did he know the ancient language of the Hebrew? And self made? What does-
The boy understood immediately.
Gin guffawed yet again as the boy jumped to the floor of the cabin and began mumbling.
“My boy, what in the world are you doing? Get up!”
The boy stood up but kept his gaze down.
“I should not be in your presence. I beg of you, return me to my home. I will do anything you ask.”
“What? But the Alamo-”
Gin McKinn narrowed his eyes at the boy. What was his problem? Gin was merely trying to show him the wonders of his time, the achievements humanity will accomplish. It was the ultimate display of Southern hospitality! Still, if the guest wishes to leave, the host must oblige him.
“Fine, fine. You can go back to your time. But listen to me closely, my boy. You need to learn to mind your manners and not look a gift horse in the mouth. Why don’t you go tell your little buddies that, hm?”
The boy said nothing, simply nodding as fast as his head would allow. Gin, with a sigh, fished out the remote control again.
“Cassie didn’t tell me this, but I overheard her talking about how this thing works. Heh, call me paranoid but I just cannot shake the feeling that she does not like me.”
Gin mashed the button down on the remote, and instantly the fourth dimensional bubble surrounding the boy collapsed into space-time, sending the atoms that didn’t belong in this timeline back to their origination.
The boy disappeared.
-
“You what?”
“I sent him back. Kiddo didn’t wanna be here.”
Cassandra gripped the ends of her Plexiglas clipboard as she glared at the fat man in the ten gallon hat before composing herself. She still couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“That is exactly what multiple scientists said directly to your face in the Senate hearing, Mr. McKinn.”
“Call me Gin. And don’t worry about it. The kid seemed like a bit of a fairy anyway. Couldn’t find his ass if both his hands were in his back pockets. He won’t amount to much.”
“You really don’t have any of the relevant information to make a claim like-”
“Oh well, no harm, no foul! That’s what science is about, isn’t it? Making mistakes and trying again! Next time we’ll just slow down and make sure we have all our bases covered, eh Cassie? But between you and me, I don’t think the science community can afford anymore of these embarrassing miscalculations. Might wanna be a bit more careful next time and double check your homework,” Gin said, patting her on the back. “Whelp, I gotta piss so bad my eyeballs are floatin’. You take care now!”
With that, Gin Allister McKinn tipped his hat and left the office.
Cassandra snapped her clipboard in half.
-
Caleb found his friend in the back alley behind the stables. He cried out to Thomas, who helped lift their dizzy friend to his feet.
“Hey! We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
The boy squinted his eyes for a solid minute before the world materialized around him. Surrounding him was not the strange man in the strange hat flying through the sky, but the concerned faces of his friends.
“You all right, buddy?”
The boy pushed Caleb away and took a couple unsteady steps before falling to his knees. Caleb and Thomas rushed to his side.
“Woah! You don’t look too great,” Thomas said with concern. The boy stared into his eyes and recalled the Message.
“I- I- saw Him.”
“What?”
“I saw Him! I was there! I listened to his words with my own ears! He spoke the language of our people, Thomas! Our people!” The boy cried before tears began rolling down his face, the words beginning to flow of their own accord, “It was beautiful. So beautiful! But we were in the clouds, Caleb! We were surrounded by the most gorgeous of angels!”
The two boys stared at their friend.
“Listen, I think you need to go home and lay down for a little bit. Joseph has been worried all day, he has no idea-”
“I was in the next life, Thomas! He said so himself! What else did he say? Something about gifting horses, minding manners, good behavior?” The boy’s eyes widened as he remembered his task. “They need to know! Everyone!”
The boy sprinted off in the direction of the synagogue. Thomas called after him while Caleb looked on incredulously.
“Yeshua! Yeshua!” Thomas cried after him, “Where is he going?”
“Ugh, I don’t know. I hope he’s back before supper. Mary is going to crucify me if he’s late again.”
