s1.e5

Shoe Horn

          With his mom’s shoe tucked away in the glove box so he wouldn’t have to keep looking at it, Jace lazily watched the passing landscape along Kettle Road as he and his uncle made the long journey to the item’s owner’s house, back in Desert Tree. The era’s pop music was playing on the radio again, but at a very low volume this time.         

          “What’s the plan?” Jace eventually asked.

          “What do you mean?” Wes replied, resting on an arm as he drove with the other.

          “To get the stupid shoe back to her without being caught, duh.”

          “Uh, I dunno. I guess I’ll just walk up to the front door, drop it off, knock, and leave? What’s to plan? This is a simple errand. I thought I implied that.”

          “Nothing’s been simple up to now.”

            “Well, this is where things turn around for us. You’ll see.”

          “Yeah, right…” Jace let out a bigger sigh than usual. “You’re the adult. You’re supposed to plan stuff, but things always become hot garbage when you’re in charge.”

          “Buddy,” Wes groaned at a stoplight, “not everything is planned out. Not every little thing needs a plan. Don’t obsess too much while trying to give order to chaos.”

          “But we’re in the past! Anything we do could screw up the present. You should be acting like a scientist or something, being really careful and planning everything out.”

          “Jace. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Adults aren’t these indomitable, perfect people. Yeah, we all think that when we’re young—that our parents are the best and invincible to failure, and they’re there to write the guidebook of our lives—but none of that is really true. Adults are just tall kids who have discovered cynicism.”

          “What are you talking about? I’m just asking you to be more careful.”

          “I’m making a point here. Do you still believe in Santa?”

          “What…?” Jace had no idea what he was trying to tell him, so without knowing of a proper way to argue, he could only reply with, “Uh, no. Not really.”

          “Okay. Well, Santa is part of the ‘plan’ we all think our parents make for us. He’s another element of a storybook they desperately want to author. Then you realize it was them putting the gifts under the tree the whole time. But that’s okay, since they’ll still get you anything you ask for, right? If they don’t, then it’s only because they ‘forgot.’ Until you understand the concept of money; what they need to buy you your presents.”

          “Unk, I really don’t care about whatever this lesson is supposed to teach me.”

          After the light turned green and Wes got back to driving, he continued, “I’m just saying adults have flaws often worth forgiving. It’s more important that they keep trying to be a good dad or mom. That brings us to something I’ve been wanting to touch on.”

          Jace looked at him. “Please don’t start talking about my dad again.”

          “I won’t. But I do want to know how things have been going between you two recently. You usually don’t tell me when I ask, but now we’re stuck in a car together.”

          “Everything’s fine. I only stay at his house every other weekend. Sometimes. We watch movies and go places. He’s nice enough. We don’t talk about Mom.”

          “Do you… keep anything over there?”

          “No. All I have is a room and a bed. It’s like a sleepover. And he calls me ‘buddy’ a lot, just like you do. Sometimes he tries to throw a football around. That’s the only thing I don’t like doing. Just because he doesn’t like Mom doesn’t mean we don’t get along. I know he screws up or leaves town sometimes, but he tries to make up for it.”

          A little surprised by Jace’s candor, Wes hesitated before replying, “You’re much more mature than I was at your age, at least about a… similar situation.”

          “I know. I’ve been ‘studying’ your kid self, remember?”

          “Some adults make for good parents, but not good partners. The way your dad treated my sister when you were younger, before you can really remember… I just can’t forgive him for that. I still say she should change your last name to her own.”

          “Jace Elaine? Ew. That doesn’t sound right. Not at all. Can we stop talking about this now? Every time you bring up my dad, you eventually get angry.”

          Wes wanted to argue that fact and say more, he but had to admit Jace was right.

          Taking advantage of the lull and hoping to change the subject before Wes might have started raving about his dad once more, Jace quickly threw something out there.

          “So, um… I saw a few episodes of Rugrats, and I was wondering… You know how Angelica can understand and talk to both the babies and the parents?”

          “Yeah. That’s how things work in that universe.”

          “And she’s like, three years old, right?”

          “Uh-huh. And mean and selfish. But nonetheless a great, iconic character.”

          “Doesn’t that imply that she could translate what the babies are saying to their parents? What if the real world was like that? It would be crazy. And what age do kids in that show… How old are they when they can’t understand babies anymore? And here’s the freakiest idea. When she becomes an adult, will she remember that she used to talk with babies? What if she becomes a scientist and studies why she had that ability?”

          “You got some sharp critical thinking skills, Jace. But it’s easy to overanalyze kid shows; not everything has to make sense or needs to be thought about. If you’re still a youthful lad yourself and already thinking about stuff like that… I dunno, bud. You might grow up always trying to look behind the curtain of artistic expression.”

          “Is that bad?”

          “It might not help your friend-keeping situation, if you jump into stuff like that whenever they talk about something they like.” Things were quiet for a few blocks, until Wes returned to the hated topic. “Anyway, at least you and your dad seem to do okay.”

          “Not this again.”

          “Don’t worry, I’m just going to talk about myself for a second. But for a reason! I swear. I’m trying to explain why I’m always so concerned about you two.”

          “Oh, goody! I get to hear about your amazing childhood again.”

          For once, Wes didn’t respond with a snarky remark. After too many awkward seconds of silence, Jace turned and saw that he seemed to be deeply contemplative.

          “It’s… because we’re going to your mom’s house. You’ve never seen the inside of it aside from a few photos—and I’m sure she hasn’t told you much about her time there. I know she was treated well and everything. Spoiled, probably. I hated the place. Every time I visited, I was reminded of this rift between the two sides of my family.”

          “But it’s kind of a nicer house, isn’t it?”

          “Sure. Not that Desert Tree has any true mansions, but the house is definitely in its ‘luxury corner.’ Everything about it, though… The look, how clean they kept it, even how it smelled… I dunno, it all felt fake to me, like it wasn’t lived in. Like you couldn’t leave your mark on it. My house had personality, with all its little nicks and scratches and imperfections. Maybe it’s because their place was built the same year they bought it, so it was brand new. Mine was made with the rest of the neighborhood; it was older and had a history. Hers was manufactured off a factory line. Or, I could just be biased against all houses built past the 80s. They tend to be too… perfect, sterile. Cold.

          “But it’s just walls and a roof. My real reason for not liking it were the people who lived in it. I hated my dad’s second wife as a kid. As an adult, I know hating anyone is a poisonous waste of energy, but kids hate things all the time, or at least think they do. It’s the only way they know how to express one side of their strongest feelings. You still ‘hate’ some stuff, right? If you do, it’s probably because you don’t understand a thing.”

          “I still hate my stupid once-friends because they became jerks.”

          “Yeah, well, then you get where I’m coming from. I haven’t felt this way for a long time, but I didn’t like going to Lucy’s. Her mom didn’t like me back. She thought I was a delinquent, even though I didn’t get in trouble all that often. And Dad pretended to like me. He tried as hard as he could to make us ‘friends,’ without actually trying. Sure, he gave me presents. Took me and Luce to movies. Even played video games with me.

          “But he also bought me things I already had or didn’t want, paid no attention to film ratings—me and your mom experienced our share of violence and language at the cineplex—and he was a sore loser as a gamer. Here was a guy in his forties who would actually rage quit when his kid beat him. He even broke a few controllers over the years.”

          “But your dad couldn’t have been all bad.”

          “Nah. I mean, he did try. Superficially. Like, he never put any effort into getting to know me; never asked me about my day or showed any interest in my own interests. But I’m sure he thought he was doing a good job. He made me do chores around the house, but not yard work so much. And I helped put stuff away when he cooked—only twice a month, as literally every Saturday I was over, we had pizza delivered. Every one.”

          “I don’t actually remember even meeting my mom’s parents.”

          “Nope. And that says a lot. They only ever saw you when you were a baby.”

          Without warning, at a stoplight by yet another Kettle strip mall, everything in the car suddenly shut off. Wes immediately tried to restart the engine without so much as a single curse word, but without success. It was like the Honda made no effort to run.

          “Aw, crap,” he moaned and tried the hazard lights, which thankfully still worked. As red turned to green and traffic moved around him, he sighed, “Eddie let us down.”

          “Eddie? Who’s Eddie? You got the car from a guy named Odie, didn’t you?”

          “Oh. Yeah. Eddie, Odie… Whatever. Guess Ol’ Odie wasn’t all that ’Onest.” Wes looked around at the nearby businesses, and to his fortune, there just so happened to be an auto-repair chain on the right. “I’m guessing it’s the alternator. If they don’t have any in stock, we might be out of a car for the next few days.”

          “Then how are we going to go to King Arcade tomorrow? Or back to our room? What if we can’t even get back to the present?”

          “Jace, relax. There are taxis and buses. Now get out and push.”

          “I’ll tell Mom you made me push a car in busy traffic.”

          “I’m kidding! Haven’t you figured out what my jape face looks like yet? Just stay there, and I’ll rescue us. Your uncle’s a hero. A hero with disposable money!”

          Wes got himself another eye roll. He waited for the next red light, got out, and with the kind of effort that reminded him he was out of shape, pushed the car from the doorframe and guided it into the plaza entrance on the intersection’s other road.

          “Hoo-boy,” the young country guy mechanic outside the garage greeted Wes as he wiped off oil from his fingers with a dirty cloth. “Saw the whole thing. Ya’ll got lucky, huh? Yer car sure picked a good place to break down; at least saves ya a tow.”

          “Yeah, lucky. Could we make this quick? We got places to be.”

          “Sure, sure. I mean, we’ll do our best. Well, hey, fella,” the mechanic said to Jace through the closed passenger window. “Why didn’t ya get out and push for your dad?”

          Jace groaned, heavily. Adults often thought they were so funny.

          After Jace waited inside the lobby for a few minutes—which had non-working air conditioning and little more than a water cooler with styrofoam cups and a TV showing a golf tournament with poor reception—he saw his uncle come in, Lucy’s shoe in hand. He tossed it onto the chair next to Jace and slid his hands into his pockets.

          “Yep. Alternator. They have it, but it’ll take a few hours to install.”

          “Then I guess the quest to give my mom her shoe back is a failure. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be, and, like, time is telling us to back off and stop messing with it.”

          “Brilliant theory, Jace, but, nah—now I’m even more determined to see this through. Her house is probably about a thirty-minute walk from here.”

          “B-but… Come on. Man…”

          “You could use some exercise anyway, after wasting away watching television.”

          “And who came up with that genius idea?”

          Jace found himself walking down Kettle’s cracked old sidewalk under the hot summer sun, the evaporating rain puddles making everything quite humid. After a few blocks, they turned onto Moson Street; one of Desert Tree’s entrance roads. The busy and loud traffic from Kettle soon fell into the distant background past the canal bridge.

          Being the first to break an uncomfortable silence for once, Jace looked at his still unusually sullen uncle and tried his hand at an astute remark. “So… you have dad issues. It’s okay—I know a lot of kids with those. You just gotta work past them.”

          “Are you trying to give me advice again? Bud, you have no idea. You don’t even know the extent of your daddy issues. You’re not old enough yet; you lack context.”

          “Whatever. When did your parents split up, anyway?”

          “I hate saying this, and I rarely ever do about anything, but I’m not comfortable talking about that. ‘Not comfortable.’ Ugh, God, that’s so sickeningly genial.”

          “Then it must really upset you. Mom says I ‘volunteer information’ too easily. But it always feels rude to me when anyone asks me something, to just say no.”

          “Well, it shouldn’t be. You don’t owe others anything. You tell them what you want them to know. Sometimes they’re just looking for something to use against you.”

          “Yeah, maybe… Your dad never talked about time travel or anything, right?”

          “What? No. We watched Back to the Future together, but that’s about it. Why?”

          “I dunno. Just looking for some kind of reason why we’re here in the first place.”

          “It’s a random, strange thing that happened in a chaotic, crazy world. Look, since you’re growing up and family… I’ll tell you just a little. But I don’t have daddy issues,” he reiterated. “I’m way past any I might have had. They divorced when I was one year old, man. So, no memories; I didn’t grow up knowing what it’s like having married parents.”

          “Oh. Mine were married until I was six, so… I have some memories.”

          “The thing is, as much of a jerk as your dad can be, mine was a real… well, he was a bastard. At one point, at least. Then he spent the following years trying to make up for it. You’re an only child, but try to imagine being young, and knowing you have a sister about your age… But it happens that she lives in another, nicer house, you only get to see her a few times a month, and you’re not sure why she doesn’t live with you. Lucy mostly had a whole different life than I did. That was always weird to me.

          “When I was eight, Mom sat me down and explained—in her serious way that I didn’t see very often—that while I was an oven bun, Dad had… a ‘lady friend’ that he liked more, and that when she found out that they were also having a baby, well, that was the moment she knew it was irreconcilable. She actually used that big word with me. It pops up a lot in divorce cases. What I’ll never understand is that, the way I reason it at least, Dad freaked out when he realized my mom was having a kid, but was okay with his mistress having one; he saw the three of them as a compatible family, but not us. Who knows why. Of course, as you saw… your mom was not a happy child.”

          “So… does that mean you think you had a better childhood than she did?”

          “Sorry to bum you out, or just confuse you with all these ugly adult problems. But, yes, our early years were a stark contrast. I don’t know if mine would’ve been worse if Dad had stayed, or if it was all Lucy’s mom’s fault, but whenever I visited, I could always tell that something in their parenting was… off. They treated her like a doll.”

          “How so?” Jace asked curiously.

          “Eh. I’m not going to get into it. I don’t really know enough anyway, and I don’t want to gossip about your own mom. What matters is how she’s taken care of you.”

          “One of my friends called me a mama’s boy once…”

          “Heh, is that old insult still around? Just be glad you got a good one.”

          “I guess she really did change a lot over the years… Or at some point.”

          “College let her grow, socially. She wasn’t surrounded by ‘imbeciles,’ as she’d call most of her high school peers. Instead, she made friends with people she liked and lived independently. We went to Royal U. and stayed local, sure, but we had dorms.”

          “Did you guys hang out in college, if you were only a year apart?”

          “More often than we did before. We had a few mutual friends.”

          “Did you do drugs?”

          “Jace—w-what? Why would you ask something like that?”

          “Jamie told me that everyone in college does them. I mean, some are legal now.”

          “Come on. He’s, at most, half right,” Wes said and read Jace’s face, to see that he believed he was being serious. “Joking. I’ve already told you; I’ve always been clean, and your mom has definitely also never touched stuff. Freakin’ hell, does everyone your age take narcotic use so casually? When I was ten, it was drilled into us how serious they were. I mean, if you did them, you were either a ‘hardcore bad guy,’ or just a loser.”

          Jace shrugged. “We just kinda joked about it all the time.”

          “Kids really are growing up too fast these days… Uh, our days.”

          After another block of travel but no dialogue, Jace looked around at the deeper segment of the neighborhood, far from both his own and Wes’ childhood homes. This part of Desert Tree was one that he had rarely seen. It may as well have been in another city altogether. But while none of the houses looked familiar, the trees still did.

          “The trees aren’t as big. Or old, I guess. Not like I’m used to.”

          “They can grow a lot in twenty-five years. The suburb you’re used to is… aged. Grown up. Your mom is kind of an exception to most of the local kids I knew; she stayed. Or rather, came back. It’s still a young neighborhood in our time, but any kids you see out and about here—they most likely moved away by the time you were born.”

          The muffled sound of someone pounding away at a drum set carried through the air and into their ears. Wes stopped and turned to look at the house across the street. It was one of the few single-story residences in the area yet still relatively upscale. The local musician was evidently playing from within its double-length garage.

          “Someone you know in there, playing the drums?” Jace asked.

          “I’ll tell you later, sometime. That beat just lit up a distant, foggy memory… Let’s keep going. Lucy’s house is still a few blocks away. Don’t lose that shoe!”

          “What do you think it’s gonna do, fly out of my hand?”

          “This place…” Wes sighed as he absorbed the cozy surroundings. “You’re lucky you grew up here—not specifically here, but in a classic American neighborhood. With trees, yards, and quiet streets. I wouldn’t have wanted to be a kid in some big city condo. Nothing like running around all the houses once you get bored of TV and games.”

          “Um, okay. Sure.”

          “Memories are made in places like this. Warm, happy memories to recall on some cold, rainy night in a hotel when you’re far away from home, like on a business trip.”

          “If you say so. I spend most of my time indoors, so I guess I don’t ‘get’ all that.”

          “Ah, buddy, you gotta get out more and explore. The world’s a big place, but so is any neighborhood. When you look at a map of this country, you’ll see all of these little dots that mark towns. There are tens of thousands. They all have their own people, and many of them grew up in neighborhoods of their own. You should get to know the place where you spent your childhood, and remember what’s special about it.”

          “But it’s just a bunch of wooden buildings.”

          “No, Jace! It’s much more. Try not to be so unfeeling. I know you haven’t really embedded too many precious memories in your head yet; you’re still a kid. But you will.

          “You come into this world tied to a box. That’s where you spend your time at first—a crib. Then you become aware of your nursery. All of a sudden, you can walk, and the entire house becomes your playground. And unless you live in a nomadic family, your neighborhood’s the next level up. It’s a mini-world that belongs to you in a way no other place will. Yeah, there’s the city, but it’s just an extension that has venues to visit.

          “And then there are the far reaches of your neighborhood, like right here. It’s unfamiliar to you, yet still connected. Kind of mysterious. Only place I ever visited in this corner was Lucy’s house. But on this one Halloween—this one, epic night of trick-or-treating, me and my crew walked all the way here. We saw really cool decorations and got our pillowcases stuffed with candy. We weren’t supposed to walk this far, but we did anyway, and that’s when I learned that taking risks can net big rewards. I think… Yeah, I’m pretty sure that happens this year, too. I did a few more runs afterwards, none as epic, and my last one wasn’t with the whole gang. Well, that’s growing up for you.”

          Jace watched Wes nearly collapse as he sat down on a raised yard’s stone retainer, and for some reason, took on the most desolate expression he had ever seen on him.

          “Jace…” he sighed and slumped over. “Do me a favor and try to get back to enjoying your childhood, while you have it. It doesn’t last long, and you don’t want it to be full of regrets. It’s painful enough looking back, even when you had a good one.”

          “Um, Uncle Wesley, are you okay? Are you, like, having a breakdown?”

          “It’s nothing that bad. I just… Sometimes I have these ‘nostalgia attacks.’ It’s like some almost forgotten sight, or sound, or smell triggers a small memory I’d almost lost into exploding, you know? Doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. I get this sudden longing to go back. This really strong, even paralyzing longing. Nostalgia can be bitter.”

          “But we are back, so why are you being all crazy?”

          “No, being back isn’t the same as going back. It’s great getting a chance to time travel and everything, but I’m still stuck being in this old, ugly, adult body. Oh… God, Jace, being an adult can really suck,” Wes said and dropped his face into his hands.

          After he looked around to make sure no one was watching, Jace grimaced and asked Wes, “Are you for real? You’re not just joking with this freak out, right?”

          Wes breathed deeply a few times, calmed himself, and showed his face again. He hadn’t completely embarrassed himself—he hadn’t shed a tear—but his expression was one of hard melancholy, and his eyes had turned into a void of hopelessness.

          “Buddy… Jace, listen to me. You have to relish your youth. It’s the best part of life. Do you remember what I do for a living? I work in IT. I spend all day in an office, fixing others’ computer problems. It’s mind-numbing. Everything I accomplished as a kid has no value in the world of opening and closing tickets. I can’t even count how many times I’ve asked someone if they’ve tried restarting their computer yet.”

          “Maybe you’re just doing a bad job at being an adult,” Jace said with a shrug. “It’s nothing to lose your mind over. Learn how to do fun grown-up stuff. At least you can do whatever you want, and no one tells you not to, right?”

          “Uh, no. You still got bosses and the police. And taxes, politics, and car care… Ah, hell. I didn’t want you seeing me like this. Can we just forget this happened?”

          Wes composed himself as much as possible, got up, and began walking quickly, with Jace following behind a little cautiously—in case the guy was about to snap. Never before had he seen his uncle get so emotional. Then again, this was already by far the longest stretch he’d been around Wes, so the depths of his sanity or lack thereof were still unknown to him. At least the current adventure looked like it was almost over.

          “There it is, at the edge of the DTE school district.” Wes stopped and pointed at a house across the street, which had a second floor with a central arched large window. “Lucy’s probably inside right now, wondering in disappointment where her shoe is.”

          “Should I just put it down at the door, knock, and run away?” Jace asked.

          Wes, who was staring at the house with obvious contempt, said nothing. The big SUV that Lucy’s mom had driven home was resting on the dual-entry driveway, the last of its cooling engine crackles permeating the otherwise silent and warm air.

          He eventually muttered, “Dad retired, and they moved to Hawaii a couple years after Lucy graduated college. She got a job and an apartment and stayed here. I haven’t seen him in person in over ten years now. He’s probably too busy golfing on a volcano.”

          “Maybe you don’t have dad issues, but you definitely got want-to-be-a-kid-again ones. And, um, now I’m kind of scared about being an adult… Thanks for that.”

          “Ah, don’t listen to me too much. I’m sure you’ll do fine when you’re my age.”

          Wes suddenly grabbed the shoe out of Jace’s hands, crossed the road, and then threw it at the screen door as hard as he could from the sidewalk. It veered and hit the metal frame of the door hard, the impact sound reverberating through the area.

          “Still got it…” he grumbled upon his return. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

          Jace tagged along a few feet behind his uncle, who still seemed distant. Before they had left the block, they heard the screen door open, and turned to see Lucy’s mom look around for a moment before noticing the shoe on the ground.

          “Luce!” she called. “I found it, hon! You dropped it when you were coming in.”

          She picked it up, went back inside, and the day was saved.

          After noticing that Wes was staring at him, Jace exclaimed, “What?”

          “You’re still here. That’s a good sign.”

          “Yeeeah… We’re not going to mess with the past anymore, right?”

          “We’re done here,” Wes said and got back to walking.

          “You have to promise that we won’t change anything else. I like to exist. I like that the universe exists. That’s why we’re going home after the park visit tomorrow.”

          “I just want to have a nice weekend with you, you know. That’s all.”

          Jace, falling behind as Wes had picked up his walking pace, heard the rustling of leaves from somewhere behind him. He flipped around, but saw nothing. The suburban corner was still quite empty. Then he thought he saw movement above, in the trees. He focused his eyes into the canopy, but still didn’t spot anything. He figured that it had just been a bird, and yet he couldn’t help but feel like he was being watched.

          “You two have a nice day now,” the mechanic said, wiping his hands with his dirty cloth after Wes successfully started the car on the lot. “Any other problems crop up, you come see us. Not that I’m wishin’ problems on ya, heh.”

          “Yeah, thanks,” Wes said and rolled up his window before the guy could say anything else. “Looks like the car’s okay. Not that I had planned to spend the money.”

          Jace frowned. “Do we still have enough to go to the park tomorrow?”

          “Of course. I have plenty of cash left. I’m just burning through it a bit faster than I expected… Anyway!” Wes hit the steering wheel. “Let’s rent some video games!”

          “Didn’t you just say… Never mind. Where do we do that?”

          “At Video Klub. With a K. It’s a locally owned, hip little store. Me and Mom usually rented there, and only went to Blockbuster when we wanted something the Klub didn’t have. Blockbuster was barely around when you were born—now it’s an example of a fallen empire. What I remember most from the blue ticket were their ceiling-mounted TVs playing promos for new releases, the expensive late fees, and the smell of Crunch chocolate bars. Maybe that’s just association; I always got a king size when I went.”

          “You know…” Jace breathed out. “My teacher taught me the value of getting to the point when you’re trying to, like, make a point. I think he called it brevity?”

          “Aw, but when you’re with friends and family and there’s no sense of urgency, it’s great to include some trivia. Life’s not just bullet points, Jace.”

          “Okay, fine, but don’t we need consoles to play video games?”

          “Oh. Right…” Wes squeezed the steering wheel and turned back onto Kettle once the light turned green. “Lucky for us, we can rent those, too.”

          “Cooool… We’re not going to talk about what happened back there, are we?”

          “Nope. Because I still don’t need advice from an eleven-year-old.”

          “I just don’t want you freaking out on me again while we’re here.”

          “I won’t. Jace, I run on a high-octane, low-sleep train of thought. It’s how I keep my troubles at bay. If a moment comes when I stop, and I have nothing to talk or think about, a lot of crap can catch up with me. Don’t pretend you’re not kind of the same way. You ‘definitely’ also have issues. And they’re not something I enjoy bringing up.”

          Jace stared out his window. “We’ve talked enough about me.”

          “Yeah. I’m getting tired of it, too.”

          After a few minutes, Wes turned into the largest shopping plaza in the city: a parking lot-surrounded brown brick behemoth that had round corners and hosted about two dozen stores, a few of which belonged to large retail chains. In the present, it always seemed to draw more people than the mall, which could be nearly empty some days.

          Tucked away on the smallest side of the oblong building was a video store that was dressed up like a nerd’s paradise. Posters and cardboard characters from franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek, Terminator, Alien, Robocop and Nightmare on Elm Street filled up the windows, partially hiding the surprisingly large number of people inside.

          “We didn’t actually start coming here until I was twelve, so we’re safe from my kid self,” Wes explained and opened the glass door. “Hope you like the hemp smell.”

          Once inside, Jace looked around at a place of narrow aisles, and shelves and walls filled to the brim with videotapes, VCRs, and their cleaner products. In the back right corner, far past the security gate, was a large section dedicated to video games. On the opposite side was a closed off “room” with walls made of shelving and a hanging beads “door.” He watched as a shady guy looked around suspiciously before going in.

          “What’s back there?” Jace asked, pointing in the room’s general direction.

          “Oh. Uh, that’s where the really boring adult movies are. Like, you know, um… documentaries about chess players and C-SPAN recordings.”

          “Wow. You’re a lot of things, but at least you’re not boring like that stuff.”

          Wes rubbed his neck. “Anyway, this place is like a record or comic book store; I always got that vibe. I have to register a card, so go explore. Don’t talk to any hipsters.”

          There were at least fifty people inside, many of them college-aged. But the one who stood out the most was the lone employee behind the counter, currently debating with a pair of film nerds on how a version of some movie on some videotape compared to its theatrical release. He had long, surfer dude hair and puffed on a cigarette between sentences—Jace had never seen someone smoking on the job before.

          “Really is a wonder how this place was never shut down by the health or fire department…” Wes murmured and went up to get the guy’s attention.

            Once he began browsing, Jace quickly noticed that every tape had been moved to a plastic case, with the cover and back from the original box cut off and inserted into the clear sleeves. Spines only had the title, typed on labels, along with a Video Klub logo.

          He went past the small section of early dubbed anime releases, currently called “Japanimation,” and entered an aisle with a big selection of family and kid movies. Aside from the swathes of Disney films and “best of” episodes of 80s cartoons like Care Bears and Transformers, there were more obscure releases like the overly cute Scamper the Penguin, samples from the single season of the animated James Bond Jr., and the For Better or For Worse and Monster in my Pocket specials. There were even extra copies of some cassettes.

            But the few other kids in the store, all of them with their parents and a little younger than Jace, were really only entranced by the colorful cover art of Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Sega games. Jace investigated the corner, hoping to maybe get a head start on Wes by choosing some games that he thought looked interesting. He also quickly found a very small library of cartridges labeled for an “Atari” console, which he had never heard of before, as Wes had never mentioned such a system.

          The consoles were on the top shelf, out of the reach of the young ones, and Jace still hardly believed that they could be rented out; it was a bizarre idea. Did kids actually borrow systems instead of owning them? What did they do, take them out on weekends? At what point were they wasting money by renting them instead of begging their parents for that next big birthday present? After he unwrapped his Xbox and Nintendo Switch, they had never left his house—despite the latter having been designed as a portable hybrid. He saw them as precious gateways, like how Wes viewed his own collection of old systems, some of which were now current and rentable from this very store.

          Jace gave up on life’s bigger questions and meandered over to the action section, currently empty but packed with deliciously cheesy B-flicks. Jean-Claude Van Damme’s name must’ve been printed on half the boxes. And one of his movies’ titles jumped out. Timecop, from 1994. He picked it up and read the back cover’s summary, and the idea of a time traveling muscular police officer protecting the continuum got him thinking. He looked over at his uncle, still filling out paperwork at the counter, and considered if it was worth bringing up. When he looked back down, the tape had returned to its spot.

          “Really…?” he muttered. “Great. Guess I have to make underwear gloves again.”

          Realizing that he was talking to himself, he looked around to make sure no one was nearby, and then moved onto the horror aisle. He wasn’t big on the genre and had seen very few films, but for some reason, he had a macabre interest in their cover art.

          “You done, dude?” the overly-chill employee asked Wes, who had been eyeing Jace for a moment as the kid investigated some slasher films. “With your, uh, details?”

          “Y-yeah,” he replied, and read off his nametag as Beastie Boys music played behind him on his personal stereo. “So, Scott, how long have you worked here?”

          “You know. A few years. Beats my old job. That one sucked.”

          “You got some big life plans? I just get the feeling that you… won’t be here for much longer. Like, in a good way. Because you’ll move onto bigger things.”

          “I dunno,” Scott said with a laugh. “I don’t plan that far ahead.”

          “I’m shocked. Anyway, I was hoping to rent a couple consoles, and three or four games for both of them. You got a Super Nintendo and Genesis in stock, I’m hoping.”

          “Uhh, well…” Scott took a long drag on his cigarette, which Wes was pretty sure he shouldn’t have been smoking. “Like, my boss kind of has this waiting period on consoles, because people kept, like… not bringing them back, for some reason?”

          “That’s called stealing. Scott.”

          “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I can let you rent some video games, but, like… you have to wait six months before you can take the consoles.”

          Wes breathed in and out, and tried to reason, “How am I supposed to play any video games without a console? Scott?”

          “Like… I mean, you could, uh, go buy them. They have them at… stores?”

          “Scott, look over there.” Wes pointed at Jace. “See that kid? He’s my nephew. I get to see him once a year—he’s not from around here. Boy loves video games. Plays them at home all the time, and he has so many he wants to show me. But he can’t bring his collection when he visits. All he wants is to share some two-player time with me. He doesn’t get that chance at home, because his dad hates video games. Also, he has zero friends. And we’re just looking to spend a nice weekend together with some vidja.”

          “Oh. That’s too bad, man. Wish I could help.”

          Wes glared at him, took out his wallet, pulled out a twenty, and placed it on the counter. “I can’t have you ruining my weekend plans. Scott. Take the money and don’t.”

          Scott looked around to see if anyone was watching, as if this little bribe was a criminal act, and slid the bill into his pocket.

          “I’ll need them back by Monday,” he whispered, and then took another puff.

          Wes closed the car door a little harshly, just under a slam, as Jace buckled in. His “friendless” nephew waited for him to turn the key, with two stacks of three games each on his lap and a pair of consoles at his feet. But Wes did not start the car, or even at least get the air conditioning running. Instead, he sat there gripping the wheel and grumbling.

          “Um… Are we going?” Jace asked to break an uncomfortable silence.

          “Yeah, sure…” Wes turned on the engine to get some air flowing. “I don’t like it when people try to interfere with my put-together plans. That’s all. Just a little ticked.”

          “What are you talking about?”

          “That guy at the counter. Scott. I don’t remember Scott. By the time I started coming to Video Klub, I guess he was long gone, never spoken of by the employees I can recall. Probably because he was a jerk, I’m guessing. Trying to ruin everything.”

          “But now we can go ‘home’ and you can talk about 16-bit games all night, and how it’s ‘beautiful’ that people worked together to make them really great or whatever.”

          Wes gave Jace a small chuckle. “You’re becoming more like me every day. Video Klub…” He sighed and looked at the storefront. “It rented out DVDs when they came along, but streaming killed it just like it did to Blockbuster. Place still had the last laugh, though; I think it closed a year after the big blue ticket did.”

          “Did… people try to ‘ruin’ stuff for you during your first visit?”

          “Hm? Oh, um, not really. But I didn’t have many ‘plans’ anyway, because I don’t usually make them for myself. I just want to show you some neat things.”

          “Okay, but do you think that there are, like… time cops, or something?”

          “What? Time cops?” Wes laughed. “W-where’d you get an idea like that?”

          “A movie,” Jace said with a shrug.

          “One you saw inside? Ooh, that Timecop movie, yeah… Don’t worry about that.”

          “Why not? If we could time travel so easily, why couldn’t there be some group of time protector… guys who might come after us because we keep messing with junk?”

          “Not a chance. Even if there were people, or robots that did that, time is so vast. How would they pin us down, or the minuscule changes we must be making?”

          “I guess you’re right… I hope you’re right. Hey. In order to rent all this stuff, didn’t you, like, have to give them an address? We don’t actually live anywhere.”

          “You actively find things to freak out about, don’t you? It’s all taken care of!”

          “But… We’re in a hotel. Doesn’t—”

          “Taken care of, Jace! Let’s just have a nice night of video games and get ready to be at King Arcade all day tomorrow, while it has that new amusement park smell.”

          “Well… I guess a video game marathon isn’t something I can complain about.”

          “Open the cases and take a look at my picks.”

          Jace did so as his uncle drove, who as an admittedly safe driver, only looked over when traffic was barely moving or he was waiting at a red light. The first game from the Sega stack was Mortal Kombat II, a series that was still going in his time but one that his mom would never let him play due to its ultra-violent “fatality” finishing moves.

          “That’s the best of the original three. I forget if the Nintendo version of the second game was censored like the first one, so I didn’t want to risk it.”

          “You didn’t want to ‘risk’ me not seeing a bunch of blood and gore?”

          “It’s not as graphic as the later games. Also, I always sucked at it. The button-masher that you are, you’ll probably beat me.” Wes then described the next two games as Jace looked at their colorful illustrated artwork, “There’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the first in the series to allow two players—and they’re on the screen at the same time. Try to forget that Sonic’s something of a joke in the present, okay? He used to be cool, in a good way. And that one is Gunstar Heroes. A sci-fi platformer shoot-em-up. Lots of fun, awesome weapons, fast. It’ll test your reflexes for tomorrow’s arcade adventure.”

          Jace moved onto the Super Nintendo stack, and pulled out the one at the top from the plastic clips inside the case. Its instruction manual was particularly beaten up.

          “Super Mario World. Required learning,” Wes continued. “Gotta take turns, but it’s still a great multiplayer game. Mario’s transition to 16-bits was perfect, and defined the appearance of the characters and enemies for all time. And that one is a flagship Zelda title, Link to the Past. It’s the only game I got that’s single player, but that’s okay. It will give you something to do when I’m out. It has one of the best ever, most explorable overworlds. And… Super Mario Kart, first in the series. Just so we have a racing title. I hope the Mode 7 psuedo-3D graphics don’t make you sick. They take getting used to.”

          “I’ll try not to make fun of any of the graphics… too much.”

          “Don’t see why you would. A lot of new indie games still use the style, since 16 and 32-bit games were the pinnacles of pixels, and produced some real works of art.”

          “A lot of the new old-style games look hand drawn, too.”

          “Sure, but I’m talking actual pixels, a limited palette that forces color creativity, and transparency and parallax effects. For me, these games exist in a happy middle ground that allowed developers to put in just enough detail, while leaving many things to the player’s imagination. Like, usually your character is small—and in RPGs especially, that have a lot of dialogue, you ‘own’ the guys you control. Their complete personalities and looks aren’t shoved in your face. For me, that’s why games from this era always had the perfect balance. Even as I moved on when 3D took over and it became all about who had the best graphics, I often went back to my ‘comfort titles’ from the old days.”

          “What about your Game Boy? The graphics on that thing are really basic.”

          “Still playing the one I got you, and not just relying on your phone games?”

          Jace shrugged. “I got kind of bored of Tetris.”

          “I’ll buy you a few more games when I get a chance. And, yeah, I obviously loved my Game Boy; I carried the adapter with me, remember? Back then we didn’t expect to be carrying a powerhouse in our pocket. We took what we got if it meant we could play stuff on the bus ride home. If we were lucky enough to have a link cable and a friend with the same game, sometimes we even did multiplayer. With our own screens! That felt really special. Of course, teachers took them away from us now and then.”

          “I’m still not sure if I can adjust to all this old technology.”

          “Come on, Jace! Haven’t you played any of those hundreds of new ‘retro’ games you just mentioned, or compilations of actual ones? Not everything has to be full of a million polygons, HDR, bloom, lip-syncing, and orchestrated soundtracks. Lower your expectations, and you’ll be surprised what game companies can pull off in 1995.”

          “Hey, what about computer games? Do those look better?”

          “You desperate? They’re starting to use CDs now, mostly for high-quality audio and crappy compressed video, so they have that going for them. But that’s a whole other kettle of fish. And we already got console stuff tonight and arcade stuff tomorrow.”

          “I… I just like video games…”

          “That’s really good, Jace. At least you like something.”

          “I mean, they get me through tough times. Make me feel better about… things.”

          Since Jace was now the one brooding and lost in his thoughts, Wes cut the snark.

          “Okay, ya got like two seconds to put it in!” Wes said before Jace’s fighter kicked away the last of his guy’s health. “Down-down, forward-forward, low punch!”

          Surprising himself, Jace executed the combination flawlessly, and watched as his movie star combatant, Johnny Cage, ripped the enemy ninja, Scorpion, in half at the torso, pulling him away from his legs without effort as blood spurted everywhere.

          “First fatality of the night, bud!” Wes congratulated him. “Whew, I forgot how hard they were to pull off in these early MKs. So, you ready to move on?”

          “Can we do something a little slower-paced for a bit?” Jace huffed. “I think it’s been about three hours of this, and Gunstar, and Mario Kart. I’m ready to take it easy.”

          “Easiest thing I got is Super Mario World. Since we take turns in that.”

          Wes got up and reached around the back of the hotel’s big TV set to once again switch the red, yellow, and white cables from one system to the other. Jace took a look at the clock radio to see that it was past nine, and he was starting to feel tired.

          “What time does the park open again?” he asked.

          “Nine in the morning. But we want to be there by seven so we’re not too far back in line. Maybe we’ll grab some breakfast on the way. You pumped?”

          “I don’t get ‘pumped’ about anything. But… I guess it’s a little exciting.”

          “Yeah, bud! You get a chance to be among the first people let into the park!”

          “Too bad I can’t really tell anyone that I got to do it.”

          “Maybe Cookton still has class trips to it just before you graduate, like we got to do,” Wes said and finished plugging in the Super Nintendo. He stuck in its first Mario game, powered it up, and added, “Most of us had been there a hundred times by then, of course, but not with our whole class. A city this size is lucky to have a theme park.”

          “Uncle Wes?” Jace murmured as he was a handed a controller. “I think this has actually been kind of… um… fun. Even though I complained a lot.”

          “Hm? What, the game night, or the entire thing so far? By the way, there are two types of jumps in this game. You gotta spin jump to break the yellow blocks.” Wes started his run as Mario by going left on the world map. “And I always go straight to the switch palace. It makes a bunch of blocks appear in the levels that help you out.”

          “I mean time traveling. I still wanna go home, but it’s been, uh, cool seeing the kid versions of you and Mom, and how the city was different when you were growing up.”

          “I’m glad you ended up liking it,” Wes said, his eyes glued on the screen while he stomped on enemies. “And, hey, if you ever write a paper in college about the decade for some reason, you’ll have firsthand knowledge. Field experience.”

          “Can I… tell you something? And you won’t make fun of me?”

          “I’ll try not to.”

          “Mom… just signed me up for therapy. It was supposed to start on Monday.”

          Wes paused the game and looked down at Jace to check the level of seriousness on his face. He stared up at Wes from the floor, visibly worried that his uncle was about to burst out laughing. Instead, Wes simply unpaused and returned to stomping.

          “Oh. Yeah, I guess that’s becoming more of a thing. For kids, I mean.”

          “You’re… not going to crack a joke about it?”

          “Nah. I don’t joke about stuff like that. Well, maybe only if the person telling me about it clearly finds it ironic or funny, too. I’m not someone who laughs at another’s expense, Jace. So… therapy, huh? Do you know what that is, exactly?”

          He shrugged. “I mean, it’s Mom’s job, but I don’t ask about it. Do you?”

          “Never had any myself.” Wes took a sip from his can of Sprite—which, to his credit, was his first and only soda of the day. “Of course, times change. I don’t think many parents came close to giving a passing thought about putting their kids in therapy here. Heck, when they were growing up, people were still being tossed into asylums and sometimes lobotomized. Not, uh… not that you need to know anything about that.”

          “Isn’t that, like, when they take your brain out or something?”

          Wes nearly choked on his drink as he suppressed a laugh. “The way I understand it, a therapist teaches you how to emotionally deal with problems. There’s some psycho-analyzing too, but not, like, sitting on a couch spilling everything under hypnosis stuff.”

          “I don’t know how much they can help. I’m probably a one-of-a-kind ‘freak.’”

          “I’m betting that’s not even close to true. I’m sure they’ve dealt with plenty of angry and lonely kids, who hide in their rooms yelling at their teammates all day in online video games. Am I warm? Was my diagnosis close-iss?”

          Jace looked up and sighed. “Maybe. I guess so.”

          “Well. Don’t be embarrassed about it,” Wes said as Jace began to take his turn as Mario’s brother Luigi. “It’ll probably help you in the end, if you give it a chance.”

          “Guess we’ve never really, um… bonded like this, huh?”

          “You just shared a personal secret, so that must mean something,” Wes said with a yawn. “You starting to trust me, bud? You spend more than a few hours with me, and ya realize that maybe I’m more than just some annoying nostalgic ‘old’ dude?”

          “I didn’t know that much about you before. I mean, you always talked about old stuff and gave me dumb trivia, but you never told me that much about your life.”

          “Because I didn’t think my personal stories would interest you. So, I kept those at a minimum. But maybe seeing me as a kid and realizing I had kid friends made you, I dunno, see the ways we’re similar? Anyway, it’s great that I finally got through to you some, maybe taught you a few life lessons. And now look at us, a pair of fun-seeking time travelers!” Wes patted Jace’s back, which almost made Luigi fall off a cliff.

          “You mean like Doc Brown and Marty? You think we’re like them?”

          “Sure, kind of. Or more like Scrooge McDuck and one of his nephews—or a combination of all three of them. Whatever fits the bill for the ‘old cool guy teaches a kid about the world’ genre of storytelling. No, wait—you know what we are? We’re a regular old Rick and Morty. Only I’m not a totally self-centered jerk.”

          “Y-yeah…” Jace said with a tired laugh. “So, you do watch some modern shows.”

          Wes looked at him with a flat expression, and waited for Jace to pause the game and stare back. “Jace. That’s an adult show. It’s MA for a reason. Does your mom know you stay up late and watch stuff like that? You’re so busted. I’m going to tell her.”

          “You’re not really going to, right? Come on, everyone in class was watching it.”

          “Relax, pal! I’m kidding. I’m not going to snitch on you. It was entrapment on my part, anyway. Ah…” Wes yawned again. “Man, it’s getting late. Let’s wrap this up.”

          Charging ahead into the first boss’s castle, Wes had planned on getting to the first of the Koopa kids and defeating him soundly, but in a surprise both to himself and Jace, he instead managed to get crushed by a masher in the dungeon’s final room.

          Once Jace took his turn, despite never having played the game before, he both managed to get to the end of the level and send Iggy tumbling into the lava, all on his first try. Wes, still trying to be the good uncle, rooted him on all the way.

          After declaring his nephew ready to conquer many arcade games tomorrow, the long night of gaming ended in the best way possible: with good, quiet sleep.

          Between yawns and bites of a McMuffin breakfast, Jace watched as the swerving steel mass of The Red Demon came into view outside the car window. It was one of the west coast’s tallest rollercoasters, and its peak towered above the park’s techno-industrial front gate—where hundreds of kids and their families were already waiting in six lines.

          “We could’ve gotten here earlier,” Wes said after parking towards the back of the packed lot. “But I didn’t want to get ahead of my younger self and potentially mess with his route, and the order he goes on rides.”

          “What time did you arrive here back then? Or now?” Jace asked after the two stepped out into the soon-to-be-hot desert air.

          “Begged Mom to get us here by six,” he answered. Once he saw Jace’s reaction to his devotion, he added, “But she was cool with it! She really likes theme parks, too. Heck, she was at Disney World all the way in Florida when it opened in ’71.”

          By the time they had traversed the sea of parked minivans, gotten their tickets, and made it to the end of one of the long lines of people waiting for the gates to open for the first time, the two only had another thirty minutes to kill.

          Jace looked at the entrance marquee and past it, to see how clean and new it all looked, especially when compared to its somewhat worn, pre-loved modern state.

          On the main sign, the mascot’s colors were livelier than the faded contemporary counterpart, which like the rides, was in need of a fresh coat of paint. He was a beloved local cultural icon: a precocious modern prince, a royal robe over his jeans and baggy shirt. Above his big eyes was a tilted crown, and one hand gripped a gold scepter with a miniature arcade cabinet attached to the top. After having seen many other 90s kids and their attire, Jace now realized how well the “arcade prince” emulated their generation.

          His eyes wandered down to one of the park’s generic, infringement-free video game heroes, Niegh the Knight. The armored mascot was revving up kids for the big opening, and just so happened to walk by an antsy Wessy near the front, with his mom.

          Then Jace spotted someone else nearby in another line, with her own mom.

          “Hey, look,” he said and tugged at his uncle’s sleeve. “Mom’s here.”

          Wes found Lucy, his eyes widened, he noticed that she was wearing her new pair of black shoes, and he simply stated, “Uh-oh. She, uh… isn’t supposed to be here.”

          He and Jace then spent the next five seconds staring at one another. Oops.