Earth vs. Everybody (12 page)

I tried to make
the best of my life in a jar, of course. You know me. Mr. Positive. I tried to
concentrate on what was good about being in a jar, like the tremendous 360
degree view, and the free pickle smell. And I spent a lot of time fixing up my
jar so it looked real nice. I put a label on it so people would know I was
inside. I put a porch on it. And I strung up some Christmas lights on the lid.
But once I’d gotten all that done I started to get bored again.

There was just
nothing to do. No movies, no prize fights. I tried to get a couple of the
larger brains to fight, then sell me tickets to this fight, but they weren’t
interested. I couldn’t get them to put on a Broadway show for me either. There
was just no entertainment around here at all. All of the entertainment here in
the future took place in people’s minds. Other people’s minds, though, not
mine. Once, when the brains seemed to be having a particularly good time, I
asked if I could get into their minds somehow and see what was going on in
there that was so hilarious, but they said no, stay back.

“Well, at least
tell me what you’re doing in there,” I said. “You’re driving me crazy out
here.”

“We are thinking
of how much we know,” said one, “and how thoroughly we know it.”

“We know all,”
agreed another brain.

I couldn’t let
that one pass. “Who was the 17
^th
vice president of the United States?” I asked.

“Schuyler
Colfax.”

“Shit, that’s
right.”

“We are always
right.”

“I guess so.”

“Ask another one.
A harder one this time.”

“How much wood
would a woodchuck chuck…”

“Fourteen.”

“Shit.” These
guys knew everything. “Well, that’s right,” I admitted, “but I’m going to have
to take off some points for attitude.”

“We understand.
We understand all.”

Boy, talk about
big heads!

I kept trying to
get them involved in some kind of outdoor activity, so we could have some real
fun. But they didn’t want to play.

“C’mon, catch the
ball,” I said.

“Ow! You hit me
in the brain!”

“Well catch it,
stupid.”

Every time I
tried to get a game going they just screwed their lids on tighter and pretended
they weren’t home. I could see them in there though. They weren’t fooling
anybody.

I got pretty
tired of just sitting around thinking my same three thoughts over and over.
There had to be something else to do.

“Don’t you at
least have any books here?” I asked. I’ve never been much of a reader, but I
knew a guy, who knew a guy, who said that he had found something interesting in
a book once. I was bored enough by this point that I was willing to try
anything. “This is supposed to be an advanced civilization,” I said, poking Mr.
Rosenbloom’s jar with an accusing finger. “Where are all your books?”

“We did have
books,” he replied stiffly, “but you have been wiping your nose and butt with
them ever since you arrived here. That’s the last one we had you’re blowing
your nose on now.”

So there went my
book reading idea. I asked if they had any phonograph records. Same answer.

I put up with the
endless boredom for as long as I could, because I’m such a good sport, but
finally I decided I’d had it with the future. There had to be some way to get
out of here. No, don’t try to stop me, I’m leaving.

I made my way
back to my ship and looked it over. Maybe I could figure out a way to fix it.
Maybe hanging around with all those giant brains had made me smarter. I
certainly felt smarter. I confidently started screwing the nose cone onto one
of the fins. Once I got it on, it didn’t look exactly right so I pried it off
and nailed it to a piece of the tail I had found in the river. That’s better.
Almost there. Only nine million pieces to go.

But then I
noticed the gaping hole in the fuel tank. I stuck my head in through the hole
and lit a match. That’s when I got the bad news. My ship was out of astronium,
a fuel made from the fossilized remains of astronauts, which is a dwindling
natural resource in the universe, and is difficult to come by in the best of
times. I doubted if there was any of it around here. And I’d just blown up the
last of what was in the tank with my match. I reluctantly concluded that even
if I managed to get the ship put back together, it wasn’t going anywhere. And
that meant neither was I.

I went back and
spent the rest of the day moping around tossing a ball up against my neighbor’s
jar, and reflecting on what a bad break I had gotten and how unfair it all was,
and that there should be a law.

Like most people,
when something bad happens, my first reaction is to pass a law so it didn’t
happen. But passing laws like that never works, even though people keep trying
it. It’s the flow of time that makes these laws toothless. If the laws had been
passed earlier they would have worked fine. It’s not that there’s anything
wrong with the law itself. So, like everybody else who makes these kinds of
laws, what I really had was a time problem.

Then I remembered
that, hey, I was in the future here. They’ve got to have time machines. Right?
Couldn’t call themselves the future if they didn’t have time machines. I could
get out of here in a second with one of those babies.

I excitedly asked
the brains where the nearest time machine was. I didn’t need anything flashy.
Just as long as it worked, and had bucket seats, and was sort of flashy. They
said they didn’t have time machines here in the future. Didn’t need them. They
could travel through time in their minds, which, they pointed out, saved money
for tickets and lodging. Money they end up losing in telephone real estate
scams, pointed out one of them sourly, but he was told to quit harping on that.

I’d like to say
that I deliberately started annoying the brains because I didn’t believe their
story that there weren’t any time machines around here. And that I was trying
to make myself as unpleasant as possible so they would break down and tell me
where the nearest one was. I’d like to say I had a reason for the things I did.
But I didn’t. I was just bored. And, say what you like about being a big jerk,
at least it isn’t boring.

I spent the next
few weeks doing everything I could think of to make the brains’ lives hell for
them. I threw rocks at their jars, tossed firecrackers into them, rolled their
jars down the hill to make the brains inside dizzy, mooned the occupants of the
jars individually and in groups, used lighted matches to give each of them a
“hotbrain”, and so on. I was the Juvenile Delinquent Of The Future. A 3
Millionth Century Dennis The Menace. I never had so much fun in my life.

The brains kept
telling me to quit it, that they weren’t kidding this time, and not to make
them come out there, but I didn’t stop. I was having too much fun.

Finally—a little
to my dismay—the brains relented. I was having a pretty good time in the future
now. I didn’t really want to leave anymore. If the rest of my life was going to
be like this, count me in. But they had had enough. They told me that there
was, in fact, a time machine less than a mile away, in a cave. A 19
^th
century novelist had left it there.
They didn’t know if it still worked, but if it did, they would be obliged if I
would get in it and piss off into any time period in Earth’s history except
this one.

They said the
reason they hadn’t told me about this before wasn’t because they were worried
about me tampering with time or anything. They just didn’t like helping people.
But my boorish behavior had forced their hand.

I thanked them
for the information, tossed a goodbye firecracker into each of their jars, then
headed for the cave.

When I got there
I found that the cave opening was covered with fallen rocks and debris. About a
million years worth. I hefted one of the rocks. It was heavy, just as I suspected.
I tried another one. It was almost as heavy. At that point, I had half a mind
to forget the whole thing and go back and throw stuff at the jars some more.
Maybe run a hose into the jars and fill them up with water. See if brains can
swim. But the thought of the long walk back, and then having to listen to a
bunch of criticism from my brainiac neighbors, spurred me into starting to dig.

When I finally
got enough rocks out of the way to squeeze into the cave, I wished I had
remembered to bring a lantern. It was dark in there. Damned dark. Just my luck
I got one of those dark caves. The brains had told me that this was part of an
ancient coal mine, so I whipped out my lighter and set fire to the walls.

Now I had plenty
of light. More than I wanted, actually. And lots of nice heat too. I went a
little farther into the cave and found a cave painting on the wall that would
be confusing to anthropologists if they ever happened to see it. It showed some
brains killing an antelope. A little farther on, I found what I was looking
for.

It was a time
machine graveyard. Almost two dozen old time machines, in various stages of
disrepair, were scattered around the cave. All of them were apparently built by
19
^th
century novelists, who had
then abandoned them here, I never learned why. Probably had to get back to
their writing, and were in such a hurry they decided to walk. That’s the way I
reasoned it out. That’s what I think probably happened.

I didn’t like the
look of most of the machines. Charles Dickens’ time machine was a wreck. So was
Fenimore Cooper’s. Mary Shelley’s machine seemed to have been fashioned out of
cannibalized parts from other machines and then torched. Mark Twain’s time
machine was so stupid I’m amazed he got it this far. Too many of the parts were
obviously just there for laughs. The machine needed more plot. This is why, as
a general rule, we shouldn’t let novelists design powerful machinery. It’s not
their specialty. They should stick to their writing. But H.G. Wells’ time
machine was the exception. It looked like it was well designed, and still
seemed to be in working order. Some of the controls were out—I wouldn’t be
putting the top down this trip—everything was covered with centuries of dust,
and I decided not to eat the ham sandwich I found under the seat. But the
engine made a nice confident humming noise, the leather seat was still
comfortable, and on second thoughts, maybe I would eat that ham sandwich.

So,
with nothing to lose that I could think of, I hopped in, stepped on the gas,
and streaked off into time and space.

As the years flew
by, and civilizations fell and then rose before my uninterested eyes, I noticed
that the machine seemed to be working fine except for the year indicator, which
evidently had been corroded away by the elements. So it looked like I was going
to have to eyeball that part of the trip. Fortunately, in a time machine it
doesn’t really matter how long a trip takes. When you finally get where you’re
going, you’ll be on time.

My first idea had
been to go forward into the future. I figured if I went far enough all those
brains would be dead. Then I could live in my jar in peace. But I finally
vetoed that idea. You never know what the future will bring, that’s what’s
wrong with it. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into when you go
there. We already know what’s going to happen in the past. It’s been written
down for us by some guy in a library. Plus, if I went farther into the future
I’d probably have to deal with people who were even smarter than the
know-it-alls who had been giving me such a hard time here. I had to find a
place where everybody was approximately at my mental level.

So I decided to
head back into Earth’s past to live out my life there. I knew 1941 was a little
too advanced for me—I’d been there before—so I decided to try 1934. That
sounded like a pretty stupid year. Plus, if I started in 1934, I’d, with any
luck, be dead by 2009 when the Earth got invaded and everything went to hell.
If not, I could just go back and try again—maybe start in 1912 or something.

That’s the nice
thing about having a time machine. You can make almost all the mistakes there
are and still end up with the life you want. You keep getting more chances. For
example, with a time machine you can bowl a 300 game every time. Just keep
going back and trying again on each frame until you’ve got a strike. Then move
on to the next frame. People will wonder why your hair turned gray during the
game, but you don’t have to tell them about that. Tell them you want to talk
about your 300 game, not your rapid aging.

When I figured I
must be pretty close to 1934, I stopped the machine and asked a guy leaning
against an oxcart what year it was. He said I was in the year 1693. I was also
a witch, he informed me severely. I thanked him for the information and said he
was a witch too, which startled him no end, then took off again, this time
heading back towards the future as fast as I could. I’d wasted enough time. I
wanted to get home.

I raced through
the Revolutionary War and the Texas War of Independence without even slowing
down. I heard both Nathan Hale and Davy Crockett yelling to me for help, but
all I had time to do was tell them to sit tight, I’d be there in a minute. I
advised Nathan Hale to stall for time—make a speech or something. I’d be right
there. And I told Davy Crockett to wait for me in the Alamo.

I streaked
through New Jersey in 1872 and heard someone ask Thomas Edison: “Hey Tom, why
don’t you invent that electric light you’ve been talking about?” And he said:
“Why don’t you shut up?”

“Coming through!”
I yelled, knocking Edison on his ear, and shoving the machine into overdrive.

In 1881 I took a
shot at Garfield to get him out of my way. Just because you’ve been elected
President doesn’t mean you can block the road. I don’t think I hit him though.
I did hit McKinley with a bullet a few years later, but I don’t think he was
seriously hurt. I heard him yell “I’m okay!” as he fell.