“Maybe you can try out after the baby comes. What are you eight, nine months, now?”
“Very funny, you’re quite the comedian. You know damn well that”—he switched into his best impersonation of Marlon Brando, which sounded more like a sickly Vito Corleone than Terry Malloy—“I could have been a contender.”
“Yeah, well, shoulda, woulda, coulda. Speaking of which…” Ellis withdrew a stapled stack of paper from the inside pocket of his coat. The pages were creased, stained with coffee, and had notes jotted in the margins. The bulk of which was a lot of small text in two columns—much of it equations.
“What’s this?” Warren asked. “More of your geek leaking out? You bringing your work to the bar now?”
“No, this one’s all mine. Been working on it for years—sort of a hobby. You know anything about the theory of relativity? Black holes?”
“Do I look like Stephen Hawking?”
Ellis smiled. “Sometimes. When you’re sitting up straighter and speaking more clearly.”
Warren fake-laughed. “Oh you’re hot tonight.” Turning his attention to Freddy he added, “You hear this guy?—a regular Moe Howard.”
Freddy was pulling a pair of Miller Lites and a Michelob for three women, who had taken seats at the far end of the bar. He looked over, confused. “Who?”
“You know, the Three Stooges.”
Freddy shook his head.
“Jesus, are you shitting me? Moe, Larry, and Curly. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. The greatest comedians of our time.”
“What time would that be exactly?” Freddy asked, with a smile that both insulted and charmed.
“Never mind.” Warren had his disgusted-with-the-younger-generation expression on, which never ceased to amaze Ellis, because he had known Warren Eckard when they were the younger generation.
Warren flipped through the pages, shaking his head the way a cop might at a particularly gruesome crime scene. “I can’t believe you do this shit for fun.”
“You watch football,” Ellis countered. “I play with quantum—”
“Football’s exciting.”
“So is this.”
Warren pointed at the television where a blimp’s-eye view revealed the mammoth FedExField in Landover, Maryland. “There’s more than eighty-five thousand people in those stands, and a hundred million watch the Super Bowl every year. That’s how fun it is.”
“Five hundred million watched Neil Armstrong step on the surface of the moon. How fun is that?”
Warren scowled and sucked on his beer. “So what’s with the egghead papers? Got a point or just showing off?”
“Showing off?”
“You’re Mr. M.I.T and I’m Mr. G.E.D, right?”
Ellis frowned. “Don’t be an ass.”
“Fifty-eight years of practice, my friend. Hard to turn off.” Warren took another swig.
Ellis waited.
Warren looked at him and rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay—skip it. What’s this all about?”
Ellis laid the papers on the bar. “So, there was this guy in Germany back in the thirties, Gustaf Hoffmann, who published a theory reviewed in Annalen der Physik. That’s one of the oldest peer-reviewed scientific journals in the world. It’s where Einstein published his theories, okay? I’m talking important science here.”
Warren’s expression was one of labored patience.
“Anyway, it didn’t get much attention. Mostly because the math didn’t hold up, but basically he tried to show that time travel is not only possible but practical. I did one of my theses on Hoffmann, applying modern quantum theory on top of his concepts. Even after I turned in my dissertation, I continued to play with the idea and tweak the math. About two years ago I figured out what Hoffmann did wrong.”
“That’s…that’s great, Ellis.” Warren nodded robotically. “Twisted and sad, but if you’re happy, I’m happy.”
“You don’t understand. This theory—it’s really simple. Not the math—that was a bitch—but the final equation was like all good physics—simple and perfect. The best part is that it’s applicable. I’m talking about applied science, not just theory and conjecture. You know, like how Einstein came up with a theory and the guys on the Manhattan Project built the A-bomb. Well, that took years of research and development and tons of infrastructure and resources to make it a reality. This”—Ellis tapped the stack of pages—“is much easier, much simpler.”
“Uh-huh, and so…” Warren was quickly losing interest, although Ellis doubted he had much to begin with.
“Don’t you get it? This right here is a blueprint for a time machine. Wouldn’t you like to see the future?”
“Hell no. I’ve seen enough of the present to know what’ll happen. The last good thing society did together was kill Hitler.” Warren took another swallow and wiped his mouth.
“C’mon, are you telling me you don’t want to see how everything turns out?”
“That’s like wanting to stick around to see how jumping off a cliff turns out.” Warren smirked, shaking his head. “World’s going to shit. America’s like that old Buick of mine. The old gal is rusting out. China is gonna kick our ass. Everyone’s gonna be eating rice and carrying little red books.”
Now it was Ellis’s turn to smirk.
“You don’t think so, huh?” Warren said. “The problem is, we’ve gotten weak. The baby boomers and their kids have had it too easy. Spoiled brats, really. And they’re making the next generation even worse. Everyone wants their big houses and fancy cars, but no one wants to work for it. Hell, the only ones willing to work these days are the damn wetbacks.”
Ellis grimaced and looked across the bar at a table of Hispanics near the door. They either didn’t hear or didn’t care.
“You wanna use your indoor voice, Mr. Bunker? And you might consider joining the rest of us in the new millennium and use the revolutionary new terms of Hispanic or Latino.”
“What?” He looked toward the table near the door, and in a louder voice added, “I’m complimenting them. They’re good workers. That’s what I said.”
“Never mind.” Ellis rubbed his face with his hands. “We were talking about the future, remember?”
“Screw that shit. It’s gonna be some sort of apocalyptic hellscape or, worse, some kind of oppressive prison-world run by Big Brother from that Orson Welles story.”
“Nineteen Eighty-Four was written by George Orwell. H. G. Wells wrote The Time Machine, and Orson was a director and actor.”
“Whatever. I’m just saying the future don’t look bright, my friend.”
Ellis wondered if Warren realized he was part of that same baby-boom generation he was pinning the downfall of civilization on. He didn’t think Warren would throw his own name in the spoiled-rotten hat, and maybe he was right not to. They both came from blue-collar families whose fathers had worked themselves into early heart attacks. Ellis had been lucky, Warren hadn’t.
Warren’s dream of playing professional football had died for good when he lost his fingers. He’d cut them off in the die-stamp press at work after removing the safety cover because it was in the way. Warren won a lawsuit on the grounds that the cover shouldn’t have been removable. Apparently Warren felt as entitled as the next guy—felt he deserved something after losing his fingers. His friend’s personal responsibility had evaporated with the lure of a big check.
“Now, if you can send me to the past, okay then,” Warren said. “Shit, the 1950s were a fucking paradise. America ruled the world and was a beacon of hope and freedom for everyone. Anyone who wanted to could achieve their dreams. People knew what they were supposed to do. Men worked; women stayed home and raised the kids.”