iPad Time Travel
Or, I Hid Weapons There For My Future Me To Find
Pretty Rudy stood at the foot of the stairs. His sister-in-law was always late getting dressed. Today her tardiness forced him to wait with his nephew, Flaco.
Pretty Rudy looked down at his skinny nephew tying his shoes and thought like he often did, “Damn, they sure don’t make 25 year olds like they did back in my day.” A quarter-century ago seemed far away from that mini-iPad Pretty Rudy held in his hands.
Pretty Rudy slid his finger across the screen to turn the page.
Flaco finished lacing his sneakers. What you reading, Tio?
A book about time travel.
Sci-fi like a mofo, huh? I’da thought you were too old for that shit.
Flaco chuckled at the age dig.
Too old for what? Reading sci-fi? Or believing in time-travel?
Both. I knew you were a reader, but like Russian history and shit. Not science-fiction.
Pretty Rudy looked up from his reader. What’s the difference in your pea brain?
Nah. It’s just, you know, I could see you like reading something ‘bout science or something. My mom told me you read all those books by that wheelchair cripple with the weird voice. Flaco digitized his voice. YOU LIKE THE PHYSICS SHIT.
What? Sci-fi ain’t scientific enough for you?
I don’t know. Every time I’m in county jail I don’t read that Jackie Collins crap. Seems soft or something. Like sci-fi. Like fuckin Twilight an’ shit. Harry Potter. All goofy ass fairy stories. Not real. Flaco slapped his chest hard: I’m real.
You’re about the real?
Fuck yeah! I’ma ‘bout the real! I happen. Make shit go down. Pull my gun out make people piss themselves. I ain’t about pipe dreams and Hardy Boys make-believe. AH! Didn’t think I knew ‘bout your Hardy Boys, huh?
Hardly a man, so figured you’d know lots ‘bout the hardly boys.
Ah, that’s fucked up, Tio! I’m just sayin.’
I see your mouth moving and I hear a bunch of noise dropping out of it, but for reals, you ain’t sayin’ nothing.
I don’t wanna disrespect you. I know you’re an OG an all. But we’re just different generations disagreeing.
Agreeing to disagree?
Somepin like that.
You know what a Taser is?
You kidding me? I got tasered by some Nazi ass Glendale cop. So yeah, I fuckin know tasers.
Turns out a fictional character—that means made up—in a sci-fi book was named Thomas A. Swift. In the story he invents an electric rifle. Years later, some dude at NASA created the weapon. TASER stands for Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle.
Ha! Okay. So people get inspired by sci-fi. I get it.
You don’t get shit. Submarines, atomic power, rockets, helicopters, cell phones, all that shit came from sci-fi. And all those inventions were weaponized.
Cell phones? Weaponized?
See how after the Boston bombing, cell phone coverage was shut off?
Fuck yeah! I remember.
That’s cuz they didn’t want someone to set off more bombs with a cell call.
Slick pricks.
I’m a criminal. Through and through. Like your dad was. You are. It’s what we do. They want to militarize all future sci-fi inventions, that’s cool with me, cuz I’m busy thinking about how to criminalize them.
Yeah, but time-travel. That’s gotta be bullshit. Right? I mean…right?
You dopey dumb fuck. Think of it this way. Where did I take you today?
To the mall.
Why?
Cuz I needed to buy a Christmas gift for little Sylvie.
When’s Christmas, again?
What do you mean? Months?
Yeah, months. How far away?
You know. 6 months.
Yeah, you’re right. I do know. So some future event reached all the way back here six months early and made you make a decision to open your wallet to buy something on sale in the mall. The future made you do it.
What? Nah, that ain’t…
…the future came to you today and attracted your mind to make a choice about a future event.
Attracted? What the fuck? Tio, you spun.
Take gravity.
Ah, fuck, do I gotta?
Your dad, my big brother, killed in prison. By a man who your pops rode hard for months in juvy 20 year earlier. Gave that kid the blues.
Time-travel?
Sorta. Some crazy gravitational force took your dad’s past and spun it around and put it in front of him. Ambushed his future. If light can bend, why not time?
Wait, I know this. Something like…what people don’t learn from the past will… let the past happen…. again. Or some shit like that.
How ‘bout this. You were born into a fucked up life. Dad murdered in prison when you were 10. Now you’re tipped up like we were at your age. Chances are you’re going out bloody too, out here, or in prison, don’t matter. Your pasts will bend around and become your future. Just keeping it real Mr. I’m-For-Real.
Fuck that. I can make choices. Fuck your kooky time-travel nonsense. In fact, fuck time-travel in the neck.
I time travel everyday.
That’s cuz you old AND crazy. 5150 for sure.
Oh, so you still gonna be all hardcore unbeliever ‘bout time- travel?
Cut it out!
No, for reals. I’ll prove it.
Pretty Rudy tapped an icon on his mini-iPad. I’ma open this calendar right here.
Wait, you gonna do mini-iPad time-travel?
Yeah. So I got 11:58. What time you got?
Flaco pulled out his phone. Same thing. This is some serious bullshit.
So I find the date in the calendar. Then open this box. Click on for 12 am. Midnight. Then I type in a few words.
You’re a sick fuck. I’m telling you. Find you a good psych on that Obamacare website. Might take you a minute, but keep at it. They’ll fix you up real swell.
Now we wait. Pretty Rudy knelt down to adjust the cuff on his jeans. C’mon future. Do you thing. He finished and stood. Looked down t his mini-iPad. I tell you I got the results for my liver scan? The news is good.
You mean the test for your Hep-C?
Yeah. They gave me this trial drug. Get this: the mutherfuckin pill has been used on 19 people and all of them got cured.
For reals?
Mutherfuckin’ right!
Hey Tio, I don’t want to shit on your parade but I’ve been doing some research over here on my end.
What?
Yeah, and the only concern I have is that the research I’ve read about the pill is that it’s a gateway drug.
Get the fuck outa here!
Nah, really. Apparently the pill opens up the gateways of hell so that the gay demons can possess your soul.
Fuck, that door has been open since the first weekend I was locked up 35 years ago, and I let some punk from Madera polish my knob.
They laughed.
Pretty Rudy placed his iPad on the stairs. So what time you got now?
Flaco checked his phone again. Huh, check it out, just turned midnight.
Flaco looked up from his phone just in time to see Pretty Rudy’s fist arriving at his jaw. Flaco violently hit the rug.
What the fuck, Tio. Why’d you do that?
Cuz two minutes ago I scheduled to punch you in the mouth right now. I dropped that blow in my calendar and I hid it there for my future me to find. BAM! Time-travel!
