"Murder." "Oh, God, Sam." "Murder?" "It wasn't me." "Nobody could understand this." "It's too much." "I thought it wouId be easier if I told you a little at a time." "It would sink in a little at a time." "Sink in a little at a time?" "You just dropped an emotional anvil on my head." "Look at me." "I'm flat as a pancake." "Are you even listening to me?" "I'm listening to you, Ruby." "I'm listening to you with all my heart and that's why I had to tell you." "That's why you need to understand." "And that's when I felt it." "felt what?" "The fist." "What kind of fist?" "Pressing on me." "ParaIyzing me." "It's so stupid, because, based on what he had just told me I should have punched him with that fist, in the other eye this time." "I should have just kicked him out!" "But I couldn't." "Do you love Sam?" "Dear, you know, there's really not much I can do to help you if you don't talk to me." "But it's not about me." "It's about Sam." "After all our time together and all our sessions, you still believe that?" "I must suck." "You say it's about Sam." "Okay." "Let's talk about Sam, and we'II see." "But let's include this revelation in our thinking." "Crank it back, just rewind." "tell me again, how did you meet him?" "tell me what it was like." "It was exciting." "It was like a roIIer-coaster ride." "The world, the night, the lights, everything was fast." "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah." "Sounds like falling in love to me." "Sam said something like that." "First time we met." "Something about love and time." "He said your heart...." "...is like a clock measuring time and one's emotional state determines the flow of time." "It speeds it up or slows it down." "So, time is a personal thing." "Sure." "Time is an emotional thing." "That's what you're saying." "It's true." "Don't bad things always seem to last longer than good ones?" "But good things seem to just fly by like the best times in life." "Like what?" "Like" "Like falling in love." "Oh, my God!" "I'm late for work." "I totally spaced." "See what I mean?" "That was the morning we first met." "I got fired that afternoon." "I cannot give you my name, sir." "Do you want the number, or...." "My number?" "tell me what you look like first." "So." "What did he say?" "He said I took too much time." "That's men for you, always in a rush." "Shit, you're helpful." "I mean, isn't that what directory assistance operators are for?" "I was too helpful." "You know, Iet me talk to my boss." "I'II see if I can get you a job teaching ESL." "How's your grammar?" "Fuckin' great." "So, over breakfast last month, he goes:" ""Do you believe in Christ as your savior?"" "You're kidding?" "I'm telling you the truth." "Five months, not a peep about anything remotely spiritual, right?" "AII carnal." "The guy just wants to fuck." "Then he just springs this on you?" "That's right." "So, I tell him, "I'm Jewish, you idiot." ""I'm a Jew." ""I mean, what do you think, I'm a Jew for Jesus or something?"" "He freaks out." "I freak out." "It turns out he's a Jew for Jesus." "And he never told you?" "Not a peep." "That's the Trojan horse strategy." "They get you to bring them into your palace, and then out come the soldiers." "Do you remember Steven?" "The Adventist?" "The religious ones are really sneaky that way, right?" "You got a mug shot?" "Oh, my God!" "You're kidding!" "I think he belongs in the box, please." "I know." "We need a bigger box." "I don't think they're all going to fit." "unless Ruby wants her own." "Guess what, claire?" "You have more in there than I do." "I don't think so." "Count them up." "Don't count." "That's depressing." "Remember that Ruby has a higher handicap, because she's a recovering codependent." "I was fired today." "Ruby, did you ever actually fix any of them?" "She doesn't really fix them." "She goes in there to fix them and discovers that they're permanently broken, then she ends up dumping them." "AII those men." "You mean, all those problems." "The narcissist." "The abductee." "The bad drummer." "The artist." "Are you leaving me?" "Or are you leaving my work?" "The bad actor." "Don't come crying to me when I'm famous and you're, Iike:" ""Ned, please take me back." It's over." "The fetishist." "I should have expected this." "It's happened before." "The Frenchman." "Fini?" "The junkie." "Okay, enough." "I'm not fixing anymore." "I'm not in that business anymore." "My fixing days are over." "tell that to your therapist, you kook." "That's what she tells me to say." "I'm sorry about the job, baby." "I've got one question for you." "Shoot." "Do the words "Jesus Christ" mean anything to you?" "I'm a painter." "I paint." "What, houses?" "I'm a real painter." "I'm having a big show in a couple of months." "Hey." "Ned." "How you doing?" "AII right." "You?" "Great." "Have you seen me since this happened?" "Pretty good?" "I've been doing a Iot of lifting weights." "Doing a Iot of free-weights, isometrics, my body fat's way low." "So, what was it like?" "What was it about him?" "For God's sake, swing it around here." "Starboard." "Right." "Starboard." "That's Victor." "His sister went down in the "Titanic"." "He always talks about it." "She went down on the "Titanic"." "I know." "I remember." "old folks are great." "You should hear the stories." "Wow." "You an artist?" "No." "It's just a hobby." "kills time." "What was it about him?" "Maybe it was his manner." "He seemed gentle." "But I didn't think I'd see him again." ""I...."" "He was one of those guys you meet for a moment but that lodge themselves in your brain forever." ""...that my own needs are important."" "Better for fantasizing about than actually sleeping with." ""I am willing to find a balance between my own needs..." ""...and my concern for others."" "Better as mysteries." "Because we all know what happens when you take away the mystery." "Hi, Ruby." "Hi." "How do you know my name?" "You left your book in the park." "Your nametag." "I Iooked up your name in the phone book." "I put it back on Page 45, where it was." "You could have just called." "You know." "I was in the neighborhood." "Don't you work today?" "It's my day off." "What's it about?" "It's...." "It's erotica." "Anaïs Nin." "You didn't peek?" "What's that?" "What?" "You smell that?" "It's sublime." "It's beautiful." "I don't smell anything." "It's...." "The perfume, it's lovely." "Thanks." "You're not from here, are you?" "It's that obvious?" "What, are you from the Midwest?" "Dubuque." "Ohio?" "actually, it's Iowa." "Dubuque, Iowa." "It is?" "Shit!" "Okay." "What?" "Nothing." "I'm fine." "I'm okay." "We don't...." "We just don't have little ones like that in Dubuque." "But I'm okay." "I'm fine." "I think I should apologize." "I've been acting a little odd." "It's just because I've never done this before." "So much has happened, so many surprises." "I haven't been able to stop thinking of you since we met" "But we just met." "And why you left the book." "I'm absent-minded." "I think that you've been thinking about me." "Look, I don't even know you." "I know." "Deep inside you've wondered about me?" "No." "And why I'm here in New York City?" "No." "Can we meet?" "After?" "After what?" "class." "My name is Ruby Weaver." "I'm your new teacher." "This is my acquaintance." "What's your name?" "My name is Sam Deed." "I am from Dubuque, Iowa." "Thank you." "Who are you?" "Sam Deed." "I know." "And what's your agenda?" "Agenda?" "I'm not looking for a relationship right now." "I need balance in my Iife." "It's really nice to be talking to you." "I'm only here because I liked what you did in my class today." "So are you an army brat?" "What's that?" "The languages...." "Did your parents travel around a Iot as a kid, in the military or something?" "actually, I've never left Dubuque before." "What brings you to New York?" "Job at the UN?" "Job at the United Nations?" "No." "I came here three months ago and...." "Are you okay?" "I'm sorry." "You don't have to say anything if it makes you uncomfortable." "Do you Iike music?" "Yeah." "Doesn't everybody?" "I Iove music." "You're not a drummer, are you?" "No." "I Iike to listen to it." "would you Iike to listen to music with me tomorrow night?" "Come up for a sec." "I'm almost ready." "Hi." "I'm ready." "Hey." "Are you ready to rock?" "What?" "You know, if you told me you wanted to just listen to music I do have a CD player." "The man said these were warmer." "Can you do this?" "Yeah." "You look great." "Thanks." "I thought that we were gonna go out, so I dressed up." "Is this typical of your musical taste?" "I Iove this." "This is...." "Wine?" "What do you call this?" "French MerIot." "Don't sound French to me." "Do you want to dance to this French MerIot with me?" "This is like an "Art of War" thing, right?" "What?" "You just confuse your foe, and then you move in fast for the kill?" "Come on." "Life is short." "What are you on?" "Ecstasy?" "Ecstasy?" "Why are you so happy?" "'Cause I'm here with you." "But you don't even know me at all." "I'm sorry." "It's just that where I'm from, courting rituals are really abbreviated." "I'm sorry." ""Courting rituals"?" "What are we, birds?" "You could show me." "Show you what?" "How to court you." "This is new." "The man asking the woman how she wants to be seduced." "Like a roIe-reversaI strategy?" "No." "There's no strategy." "I just liked talking to you that day in that park." "I think you're really great, and I'd Iike to get to know you." "And I think the reason why I'm acting so awkward it's because I'm worried about acting awkward." "That's all." "You want to know how to court me?" "I would." "Take off this shit, put on something good, and pour me some more wine." "So, that's how it happened." "Like I told you, fast." "It was brilliant strategy." "He tricked me into picking up him." "He'd never have figured it out on his own." "I Iove you." "So that's when you started to become suspicious, correct?" "No." "It was after that." "It was definitely after he moved in." "When was that?" "When did he move in?" "Later that week." "José couldn't put him up anymore." "He needed a place to stay." "Didn't it occur to you at the time that this kind of compulsive behavior is repetitive for you?" "It's classic codependency." "It's why you came to see me." "This is what you don't want anymore in your life." "This is what we've been working on." "I mean, Sam has a problem and you make sacrifices to fix it." "But it wasn't a sacrifice." "It was great." "Oh, my God!" "I was really happy." "After all the boozers and fuck-ups and gender fIoppers and the fiasco with Tab." "I mean, Sam, he could be over the top sometimes, but it was fun." "Sweetie, you want to go in?" "Go in there?" "But listen, it wasn't like I just jumped blindly into this relationship." "Are you sure you don't want to go in?" "What is this?" "Why would I want to go in?" "I was very cautious." "Very cautious." "You pass." "Let's see it." "Come on." "At first there didn't seem like there was anything to worry about." "Sam always had a clever explanation for everything." "I lost a dare to a friend at a Stop  Shop." "If you scan me, I'm a dozen bananas." "Even his friend José saw good colors in my aura." "Said he felt really good about us." "Like we were kind of meant for each other." "This is great for the relationship." "It's perfect." "Our relationship has to be about trust, and...." "We both told each other everything about ourselves, about our families." "We went to the AI-Anon meetings every week." "My mother, she took the brunt of it, of course." "But it worked." "He doesn't drink anymore." "That's when he first told me about his parents." "I really don't talk to them much anymore, since I Ieft Dubuque." "And his sister." "She fell out of an elm tree." "It was an accident." "And so after that, I had to...." "I couldn't stay in Dubuque." "And that's why you came to New York?" "Do you have any pictures of her?" "I don't like to live in the past." "Thank you for telling me, Sammy." "Hi." "How much?" "$8.75." "Then I found the photos." "There you are." "Thank you." "I didn't want to think he lied." "Maybe he forgot." "But how could he forget?" "I let it slide." "But I guess after that, my antenna came out." "I started to notice other things." "Just little things." "Like he's scared of dogs." "Miniatures." "I mean, terrified." "Maybe he got bit as a kid." "Maybe." "talks in his sleep." "That's a problem for you?" "It's just the things he says." "Break the causal chain." "And then everyday normal things, just seem really new to him." "Oh, God." "You're being so ridiculous!" "God!" "He has spells, Gretchen!" "spells?" "What do you mean?" "Sometimes he just stares at things." "His eyes get all glazed over." "Like he's in a trance." "It's like he's really far away." "It's weird." "Does it happen during sex?" "No." "Then don't worry about it." "If these spells were happening during sex, you know, then I'd worry." "That usually means they're thinking about someone else, you know?" "That's not Sam." "You know what he said to me the other night?" "What?" "He said...." "You know, I've never told a woman the things I've told you." "You are the first and the only." "You're the one and only." "You know...." "I feel like my whole life has just been a journey into your arms." "Oh, my Larry." "Are you kidding me?" "Kick him out now while you got the chance, sister." "I guess you had to be there." "You are this incurable romantic, Iike, thwarted back to 1955, where you think you are his first love." "You know, men only say that kind of shit when they got some agenda goin' on." "He meant it." "I mean, I think he meant it." ""I am willing to find a balance between my own needs..." ""...and my concern for others." ""I am learning to love myself more every day."" "Maybe I shouldn't have been so paranoid." "What is it?" "What is he on?" "Maybe I should have just trusted him, the way he said he trusted me." "should I worry?" "only if you love sailing." "It's prescription Dramamine." "It's prescribed for people who suffer severe distress at sea, seasickness." "Are you planning a cruise?" "Sammy?" "Guess what today is?" "But I'd been burned so many times before." ""So, that's how it happened"." "That's how I Iearned who I was living with." "Hey, baby." "Guess what day it is today?" "Who is Chrystie DeIancey?" "She's a girl." "Are you sleeping with her?" ""You're the one and only" maybe." "God." "Gretchen was right." "You're a hypocrite." "You're a liar and you're a cheat." "I am not a cheat." "What's this?" "Prescription Dramamine?" "planning a little cruise on "The Love Boat" with Ms. DeIancey?" "It's not what you think." "I don't know what to think!" "You're fucking someone else." "You are the one and only." "Baby, that is the truth." "I got you some roses." "A whole dozen of them." "It's our three-month anniversary." "Baby, don't cry." "They're carnations." "Or is that another thing they don't have in Dubuque?" "You think I haven't noticed your little idiosyncrasies?" "Your spells?" "What's going on?" "Don't give me any bullshit." "Okay." "I'm listening." "I'm different." "You're gay." "You're a Jew for Jesus?" "It's that tattoo." "It's a cult." "You're a Branch Davidian?" "You're a survivalist!" "You're a pimp, and Chrystie DeIancey is one of your sluts?" "I'm not a pimp!" "What then?" "Okay, look, I'II say it." "AII right?" "I'm not from Dubuque." "Okay." "You're not from Dubuque." "So where are you from then?" "Dubuque." "I'm not from Dubuque in the way you think." "How many ways are there?" "I'm not from your Dubuque." "Since when is Dubuque mine?" "I've never been to Ohio!" "Iowa." "Whatever." "I'm just saying that my Dubuque is different from your Dubuque." "How?" "It doesn't exist." "You just said it's in Idaho." "Iowa!" "So your Dubuque doesn't exist?" "Yet." "Yet!" "Yet." "So when will your Dubuque exist?" "2470 AD." "That's in 47 1 years from now." "47 1 years?" "Not counting leap years." "See, when I say "my Dubuque," I don't mean the present Dubuque which is your Dubuque." "I mean the future Dubuque, which is where I'm from." "The future." "Oh, God." "At least, forward on the time-space continuum which is how your scientific establishment would understand it." "It's called "back-traveI."" "That's what I meant about who I am." "I'm a back-traveIer." "I know it's hard to understand, and that's why it was hard to tell you, because I knew you'd be real upset." "I didn't think you'd laugh in my face." "Come on." "You're from the future?" "I am from the future." "I'm from the year 2470." "I was born on May 8, 2439, in Dubuque, Iowa on the atlantic coast." "That's right, the atlantic coast." "It moved inland, after the icecaps melted in 2330." "That was five years after the Great Infestation eliminated all plant and vegetable matter, trees and flowers and domestic pets." "Cats, hamsters, dogs." "Okay, don't touch me." "Don't worry." "I'm a biological." "I'm just like you." "Back in 2470, most people are corporate-sponsored Gene Dupes manufactured in the philippines." "My parents were Anachronists." "And they believed in doing it the old way." "Stop it!" "What?" "I'm just being honest!" "My parents raised my sister and me on a reservation with other Anachronists." "The Gene Dupes kept us there." "They hated us." "We were always fighting for our nostalgia rights." "My father was a freedom fighter." "He led the battle to have the Ban on Beauty lifted, in 2451 ." "The Gene Dupes finally got him." "Want to know what his crime was?" "He was teaching us an ancient protest song." "Maybe you've heard it before." ""I'm as a free as a bird now" ""And this bird will never" ""change"" "My mother, she taught ancient languages in a local school." "Spanish, French, Ebonics." "She died of cancer when I was 25." "You know, there's still no cure." "But I'II never forget what she told me while I was watching her deconstruct." "She said to me, "Make your sister proud."" "You know, not her, my sister." "But she died, too. 2468." "She was 1 4." "I mean, 1 4." "That was a year after they banned back-traveI." "But that didn't stop anybody." "If you had guts you'd get an Underground Agent to send you back." "And that's what I did." "That was six months ago." "There." "Now you know everything." "Any more questions?" "Yes." "Who is Chrystie DeIancey?" "You're killing me." "Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird"?" "A protest song?" "So, what, everybody's a redneck in the future?" "It's really hilarious, Gretch!" "He's dead serious." "You should have seen the look in his eye." "You want me to get the ex-fiIes?" "Have you got a mug shot yet?" "Why must they always be drawn to me?" "I'm sorry." "AII right, don't keep me in suspense anymore." "Who's this DeIancey ho?" "My contact!" "What kind of contact?" "Another back-traveIer who can orient you." "Chrystie DeIancey was my contact." "I wrote her name down so I wouldn't forget it." "I found her." "She filled me in on current events." "Taught me how to flag a cab, and gave me my back-story, and then she left." ""Back-story"?" "What?" "false documents." "A driver's license." "Birth certificate." "You know, so you can assimilate." "That's good." "Are you "assimilating" with her?" "No!" "She's old and wrinkIed and" "Looks pretty hot in your drawings!" "That's not Chrystie DeIancey baby." ""It's you. "" "What?" "That's what he tells me." "The drawings are of me." "There's just a little something missing from your story." "Sanity." "That, and the part where you walk him to the door and you open it and you say:" ""Just get the fuck out of my apartment!" "Get the hell out!"" "I tried." "But then he starts into this story about a certain photograph." "I found a photograph of you." "And that's what these drawings are." "Of that photograph." "Where's this photograph?" "The future." "What?" "You can't bring non-carbon based, inanimate matter back with you." "I know the drawings aren't very good." "Okay, blame me for that." "But that's the way that I remember that photo." "Okay?" "Look, you could say that they're drawings of a memory of a photograph of you." "Look, I can explain." "Okay?" "After my sister died, I kind of lost it." "After his sister died he kind of lost it." "She was the only family he had left." "And now there was no one." "I guess Anachronists are big on families." "One day...." "One day he stumbles into this small curio shop." "He says he was looking for a certain piece of obsolete, pre-miIIennium technology a gun." "Instead, he finds this photograph." "I stared at it for hours." "Those hours, they turned into days." "Every time I shut my eyes to go to sleep I saw your face blazing on the inside of my eyelids." "And suddenly I remembered everything my dad fought for." "That the past had potential, that the past had meaning." "So, I leaped into the temporal stream, and I came back here, to this time, I guess, to find the meaning in life again." "To find your face." "My God, I'm gonna cry." "He was going to kill himself." "He gave up all he had in the future to travel through time to find me." "It's one of the most romantic, crazy, fucked-up lies a guy has ever told me." "So, what did you say?" "How do you respond to that?" "Oh, my God!" "I didn't have time to." "It hit me I'd made arrangements for us to have dinner at my parents' that night." "The one night I need to be on my toes." "I feel so good about having come out." "We can be more honest with each other." "Just once, I wanted to impress them." "especially after that fiasco with Tab." "hello, Theodore." "Listen, we're here, and I'm assuming you're not going to say anything to them." "No." "That would violate protocol." "protocol?" "Strict rules of conduct for back-traveIers." "You never reveal your identity, where you're from or your name." "It's absolutely forbidden." "Okay, so this is new." "Sam is not your real name?" "It's not." "Okay." "What is your real name?" "It's in binary code, so it might not make sense." "But if you really want to know, it's 01 1 1 1001 1  1 1001 10001 10." "Just like on my bar code and my chip." "My contact gave me "Sam Deed."" "That's S-A-M, three." "D-E-E-D, four." "That's three- and four-name combos." "AII back-traveIers have that so we can identify each other, also so we can avoid each other." "But protocol prohibits us from telling anybody any of this." "You just told me." "Haven't you ever tied a tie before?" "Dressing rituals went out with the advent of disposable clothes, back in the early 2200s." "Oh, God." "Just get me through this one night." "You know, Sam, Ruby tells me that you work at a hospice." "Did you study medicine?" "No." "I drive the van, lillian." "I see." "So where you from, son?" "He's from Iowa, Dad." "That's good country out there." "What part?" "The atlantic coast." "Sorry?" "Coast?" "He means the shoreline." "The Mississippi" "River." "shoreline." "Right." "Did you go to college out there in Iowa?" "Didn't have to go to college." "They planted everything I needed to know right here when I was 3." ""planted"?" "Sam is a prodigy." "He speaks five languages fluently." "Right?" "Prodigy." "Oh, my God." "Not bad." "Is that Homeric or platonic Greek?" "actually, it's platonic." "Amazing." "Fantastic." "You must have big ambitions." "please tell us, what brings you to New York?" "I came because of...." "Okay, Marvin!" "Down!" "Wow." "I didn't know they were so soft." "How is he?" "Who, Dad?" "Yeah." "Working." "always." "Buying, selling." "That's good." "Right?" "Sure." "Where did you meet this one?" "I Iike him." "I do." "You do?" "I Iike him." "He's sweet." "He's funny." "You think he's funny?" "Yes, funny." "LiIIian, these are great pickles." "Very nice." "pickles?" "pickles." "You really are funny." "You know, Sam has some incredible ideas about investment." "Does he really?" "Very advanced." "Very exciting." "tell us." "Something that I should know?" "Excuse me." "You all right, son?" "Is he all right?" "What's wrong with him?" "I don't know." "Sammy?" "Are you all right, baby?" "I'm okay." "It didn't go very well." "I know." "I'm sorry." "It's my fault, you know, I...." "First the thing with the dog, you know." "I can't believe I Ieft dinner so abruptly." "It's okay." "I think they really liked you." "You think they really liked me?" "Yeah." "really?" "It's a first." "Wow!" "You gotta tell me what's really going on here." "I would never do anything to hurt this relationship." "I wouldn't." "That's the truth." "It's just that I have RTDS." "RTDS?" "residual temporal Drag Syndrome." "It's a side effect of back-traveI." "Most people call it "drag."" "It's like you're jet-Iagged." "You know, because when you back-traveI, you go back centuries, Iike that." "The mind is a little slower." "It tries to catch up, but then it gets confused and throws itself into reverse." "The causality of events flips, and time flows backwards." "But you shouldn't worry about it, okay?" "Because most people adjust in months." "Most?" "Yeah." "For some people, it just gets worse until everything is in reverse all the time." "They live in a reverse world in their head until they die." ""Die" is the wrong word." "until they re-enter their mother's you know." "But you know, that Dramamine that José got me, that helps." "Maybe you should see someone." "There is someone that could help me." "Who?" "Hey!" "You." "Okay." "Now it's making sense." "He's getting off on it." "You're getting off on it." "It's a kinky roIe-pIaying game." "RoIe-pIaying?" "Look, I know I shouldn't tell you this but Mark and I play a little game also." "Mark likes to pretend that he's someone else in bed." "Who?" "Anthony michael hall." "Shut up." "You know, that geeky actor kid from that "Sixteen candles" movie." "I swear to God." "Shut up." "I'm just telling you this, because some guys are kinky." "Maybe Sam watched a Iot of "Star Trek" as a kid, you know?" "Who cares?" "God, as long as the sex is good." "But I don't think that this is about sex." "You're so oId-fashioned." "He's from the future." "What the hell do you guys see in each other anyway?" "I have to be able to trust him." "I mean, who is this DeIancey bitch?" "He told you." "She's his contact." "Come on." "I'm telling you." "It's just a game." "play along!" "I think that I think I'm going to have to leave him." "I thought you guys were coming to the beach house this weekend." "That would be perpetuating the fantasy." "It's not dealing with the problem!" "I have a therapist to answer to." "Just make up your mind, sweetie." "I mean, what are you waiting for, proof?" "That's going to be hard to find." "Mark." "It should have been so easy to kick him out." "So why didn't you, right then?" "Were you waiting for proof?" "No!" "I don't know." "I guess I was just curious." "I wanted to get to the root of it." "Maybe that's what the whole thing was, just morbid, sick curiosity." "How did you find me?" "You just had that one, crumbling photo." "The date was electronically printed on the back." "And the guy in the curio shop he just guessed that it was New York City because of all the black clothing." "So I took a chance." "I came to this here and now." "Your face was as familiar to me as the sun." "I searched and I combed the streets, and then that day in the park." "It was a happy accident." "It was just a happy accident?" "That's exactly what it was." "Give me your wallet." "I don't have any money." "Give me your wallet." "Okay." "What?" "I don't know who those people are." "Let me remind you!" "Mom and Dad!" "That's back-story!" "My contact gave me that!" "I told you." "That's not your sister?" "No." "That's not a photo of your sister?" "You said you had no photos." "No." "My sister was terrified of dogs." "I know you don't believe me" "There's a date on the back." "There's no way that I can actually prove it to you." "1991 ." "1991 sounds like the past, though, it doesn't sound like the future." "You know what?" "There's a phone number here, too." "Yeah?" "So call it!" "I mean, if that's what you want to do, call it!" "That's what it's for, for doubters like you." "You really want to know?" "I do want to know." "Then call it!" "They'II tell you everything you want to know." "My dad'II tell you how he works in a plastics factory and my mom drives a school bus." "I was born in 1961, Dubuque." "I was a breech birth." "Backwards?" "It's a little joke between back-traveIers." "They'II tell you that I was clumsy in school." "I was always falling off the jungle gym." "How I had an overactive imagination." "They'II tell you about the difficult years, the black lights, the acid trips." "The fights about money and responsibilities, proper hygiene!" "How I ran away when I was 23 and they haven't heard from me since." "You see, my story is a sad one." "You want to know why?" "Because that's all I couId afford." "I don't want to see you anymore." "Sit over here, so that we're not facing each other." "I don't want to see you in my Iife anymore." "And the way that I see it, it's freaks versus normal guys and you have confirmed yourself as a member of the former." "What's a freak?" "It's a weirdo!" "You are scamming me somehow." "I don't know how but I'm not sticking around to find out." "You call me a weirdo?" "I'm sorry it didn't work out, but my therapist says that I have a fear of intimacy." "I am freak." "I think it's best if I work it out on my own." "Freak." "I thought that was the dance circa the 1970s." "Weirdo, I know." "That's what BIinovitch's detractors called him when he discovered how to bend space and time in 2278." "Time-traveI is a physical impossibility." "So was the light bulb." "So was going to the moon." "So was male pregnancy." "You explain to me how time-traveI is possible." "You tell me how an internaI-combustion engine works." "You don't even know how the basic quantum mechanics work." "Sit down." "No!" "Sit down!" "You want to know how back-traveI works?" "Sit down." "Okay." "Let's hear." "Give me your leg." "You want to know how back-traveI works?" "Okay." "Yes." "You want to know how it works?" "I'm giving you my leg." "Let's say that this is the passage of time." "This is the present." "And that is the past." "It's a memory." "The problem always was how to get from the present all the way back to the...." "You can't do it, right?" "Breaks all the fundamental laws of physics." "It's impossible." "It's impossible." "But what if time isn't a rigid line?" "What if you could bend space and time so that the present Iays side by side with the past?" "Then you really wouldn't have to go back at all." "You'd just have to make a little leap." "See, you go from here to there." "Maybe it was all about sex at first." "Maybe I was just in denial, buying time ignoring the problem." "But I really did want it to work." "It really did feel like a game." "As long as it was just our little game as long as he didn't tell anyone else everything seemed just fine." "So, why did the Gene Dupes ban it?" "Back-traveI?" "Brain drain." "apparently, too many Anachronists disappeared into the past." "They banned it in 2467, except for the terminally ill." "That's fun isn't it?" "playing along?" "Yeah." "I mean, he's a freak, but he tells a good story." "I'II bet he does." "What if he has?" "Has what?" "told someone else?" "Then I'd worry." "But he hasn't." "Don't worry." "He couldn't." "That would spoil the fantasy." "Trust me on this one." "He couldn't." "Do you ever think about, Iike the big issues, you know?" "Like, where do we come from?" "What are we here for?" "The big questions." "Someday, Marko, there won't be any big questions." "Like UFOs." "What are they?" "They're interstellar travelers." "They come from a planet called Eenon from the Sirus galaxy." "They stop here on Earth to fill up their nitro-carbon engines, and then...." "Maybe." "What about God?" "Is there a God?" "surprisingly, yes." "A Jesuit priest found 102 of them using a telepathy scope." "Through a what?" "telepathy scope." "What's a telepathy scope, dude?" "You're all right, man." "I Iike you." "I feel like I can talk to you." "Gretchen, she's cool and everything, but I don't know if it's gonna work out." "She's not deep enough, you know?" "What about Ruby?" "Is she deep?" "What is this stuff?" "I just want to say how happy I am that you guys are here." "We're happy, too." "Let's toast." "To the future..." "AII right." "...of our relationships." "Good MerIot, Gretchen." "Thanks." "It's a Syrah, actually, from brazil." "apparently, they are growing grapes where the rain forests used to be." "I think it's so tragic about the rain forests." "They're going so fast." "Do you know that I read that they will all be gone by the year 2467?" "ActuaIIy" "Can you tell that story about that time" "Can you imagine the world without the rain forests?" "That's deep." "'Cause I often wonder just all of it, gone." "That's deep." "What do you think that world would be like, Mark?" "That's real deep, baby." "You're stoned." "Ruby, what about you?" "I heard that the rain forests are doing just fine and in no danger, thanks to Sting." "How worthy of him." "What do you think that world, that future world would be like?" "HypotheticaIIy speaking, of course." "Lick my finger." "Go ahead, lick it." "It's nothing weird." "Come on, baby." "And that's what the world would be like in the future." "You're fucking stoned!" "I am stoned." "What did I tell you?" "So what can I tell you?" "I felt we made progress that weekend." "As long as I just played aIong" "You mean, as long as you enabled him?" "Yes." "But it enriched our relationship." "I know you don't approve, but by trusting him it allowed him to open up in ways that he couldn't that he hadn't before." "That's when he told me about his sister." "She didn't fall out of a tree, did she?" "Or at Ieast the latest version of his story about his sister." "No, all the trees were gone after the Great Infestation." "You know." "It's back-story." "Remember?" "Yeah." "I'm sorry." "He said she was down on the beach or whatever they call the atlantic coast of Iowa." "She was by herself and she was looking for washed-up treasures." "He said she must have seen something something out in the water something marvelous a real treasure because she swam out after it and drowned." "Now, wait." "Let's hang on a tick." "Sam claims he can travel back into the past." "What prevented him from simply going back and saving his sister from drowning?" "I asked him the same thing." "Very good." "What'd he say?" "BIinovitch's Second Law of temporal Inertia." "Again?" "BIinovitch's Second Law of temporal Inertia." "basically, it's impossible to back-traveI in your own lifetime." "You have to go way back to make any change at all." "Even then, they have to be small changes so they dampen out by the time it reaches the present." "So, you really can't change anything?" "It's just a theory, and an unproven one as well." "If it's just a theory, then you should change it." "There is another theory, you know." "That you can change the past." "That you can really change it." "What theory is that?" "Cheeseman's." "Cheeseman's?" "Cheeseman's emotional Energy Theory." "It's true." "Cheeseman believed if concentrated enough energy in a moment in time then you could alter the past and create a new future." "What kind of energy?" "nuclear?" "emotional." "Love energy." "Hate energy." "It's very potent stuff, you know." "really?" "Cheeseman worked with fruit flies, and then he realized they didn't have enough emotional energy." "It was kind of Iow." "But then he thought, humans are creative, sensitive creatures." "Maybe they could muster up enough energy to actually break the causal chain, alter the past and create a new future." "So then what happens to the old future?" "It'd be there." "There'd be two futures." "The one you left and the one you're creating." "They'd exist simultaneously, parallel to each other." "Not parallel universes." "It's only a theory." "It hasn't been proven yet." "After that, I guess you could say we coasted." "If the Gene Dupes defeated the Anachronists...." "I Iearned about his past by asking about my future." "And Sam, he kept the relationship interesting by keeping it mysterious." "Hi." "Can I have the number for SuniI Vipassana?" "I think it's in Queens." "What's a relationship without mystery, right?" "Okay." "Somebody give me a verb." "So, for a while, we just enjoyed each other and our game." "We can beat this thing." "And we took care of each other." "I know we will." "We'II do it together." "Maybe you should see someone." "I wasn't talking about me." "Maybe it could have gone on like that forever." "But it didn't." "Another cruise?" "It was just a matter of time before something I guess you could call it reality shocked me back to my senses." "Oh, boy." "And it was after that that I finally asked you for your help." "I definitely think I should see him." "Why?" "What do you mean?" "Have you ever heard of TLE?" "TLE?" "temporal Lobe epilepsy." "Don't worry, I mean, this is not Iike grand mal." "I mean, he doesn't fall to the ground foaming at the mouth." "These seizures are infinitely more subtle." "Seizures?" "So, you think that his spells are" "With TLE, it's more like intense attacks of emotion." "Euphoria." "A heightened sense of smell and hearing." "The distortion of time and space." "A great enhancement of the imagination, leading to compulsive writing of words drawing, and the creation of elaborate fantasies." "Oh, God." "TLE isn't inherently dangerous." "Many great artists had it." "Lewis carroll, Dostoyevsky, van Gogh." "Sam's not that good." "I definitely think I should see him." "Okay." "I'II bring him with me next session." "No." "I think best to see him by myself." "And don't let on that you know anything about this." "If he felt his fantasy was jeopardized in some way...." "He never threatened you or anything, has he?" "No." "Sam would never do anything like that." "That wasn't a comedy." "Come on, comedy, tragedy." "Depends on your point of view." "You're sick." "Do you smell that?" "It's incredible." "Wait." "Come here, look." "You're sick." "Come on." "That was the first one in a Iong time." "It's the drag." "It's going away." "Come on, please." "Drag." "A professional might have another name for it." "And what's that supposed to mean?" "I want you to see my therapist." "What?" "Your therapist?" "Yeah." "You're sick." "AII the signs are there." "I feel better than I have in my entire life, you're telling me that I'm sick." "That's crazy!" "I'm not sick." "You told her about me?" "No, I told her about us." "About our problems." "What problems?" "Don't be an idiot!" "Sam Deed." "Come in." "Sit on the couch." "Let me introduce myself." "My friends call me Maggie Ann." "She went down on the "Titanic"." "This, of course, was a few years back." "I'm not getting a reading." "This is about Sam, isn't it?" "Yeah." "I'm really worried about him, José." "Me, too." "So, I'm not the only one who noticed his little problem?" "little problem?" "I think it's more than a little problem." "I demanded he get help." "From who?" "I mean, we have to keep this a secret." "You know that." "Is that the best way to handle this?" "Don't you think we should confront him?" "Let him know we're here for him?" "I mean my therapist says that" "Your therapist?" "You told your therapist?" "Yeah." "She could be one of them." "Them?" "A back-traveIer." "You know how hard they are to pick out of a crowd." "Sam violated protocol." "If other back-traveIers found out, I dread what would happen." "We don't want to put him in any more danger." "I've traveled the astral plain." "Sam, we're talking, has gone back 400 years." "I can't even imagine what that must do to his energy fields." "You told José." "I didn't." "He guessed." "He's psychic." "I thought this was between me and you." "That's what I thought, too, until you forced me to see your therapist!" "She just wants to help you." "I don't think I'm the one that needs help, but" "You told somebody else about our game, and you need serious help!" "Was that what you think it is?" "You need help." "You think this is game?" "You need lots and lots of help!" "I'm not the one that needs help." "You are the one that needs help." "What the fuck did you just say?" "I know you're used to always being the fixer, okay?" "You're not the fixer this time." "You've got it all wrong." "I am." "How dare you!" "After all I have done to salvage this relationship." "Just get the fuck out!" "Get out!" "Okay." "Fine." "Go." "Wait." "What did you just say?" "I said, "Get out"!" "That's what I thought you said." "You really mean it?" "Yes, I fucking mean it, baby!" "That's perfect." "What?" "emotional energy." "That's what we need!" "Remember Cheeseman?" "HypotheticaIIy, anger would work just as well as love!" "We could be breaking the causal chain right now." "If we can generate enough emotional energy!" "Like that?" "Okay." "That was good." "How's that?" "That's okay." "AII right, but you're hurting me, but it's good." "Wait!" "Is that good enough emotional energy for you?" "Did that break your chain?" "I'm so sorry." "I don't know what happened, baby." "I don't know what came over me." "It's okay." "Everything's fine." "How come you never told me you loved me?" "Just tell me." "I Iove you." "Sometimes love isn't enough." "We need" "What?" "reality." "We need sanity." "The reality is that I found your face, and" "help me." "That's what I came here for." "To help you." "Why do I need your help?" "Because you're gonna die." "tell me something I don't know." "We're all gonna die." "What, people don't die in the future?" "Is death pass"é"?" "No." "It's good to know some things don't change." "They can." "What?" "Change." "Things can change." "I thought we'd go out of town on Friday." "We'd let the whole thing slip by." "But I think it's only fair that you know now that we can change it." "Change what?" "Friday." "What's Friday?" "I told you." "You're gonna die." "On Friday?" "Yes." "This Friday?" "This is better than the Jew for Jesus." "Sam's not at all religious, is he?" "No." "religion goes out of favor in 2033, when science discovers the gene that regulates fear." "I was just telling you how he explains it." "Oh, honey." "What about his story about finding your photo in that curio shop?" "You know, coming back for your face?" "God, that was so romantic." "We loved that fantasy." "He's got a new fantasy now." "It starts the same." "Growing up an Anachronist." "Dad's arrest." "Mom's death." "How he had to take care of his sister." "Then the day on the beach." "His sister noticing some floating treasure." "Her drowning." "But now there's a big difference." "Now Sam is there, on the beach." "He's with his sister." "He was supposed to be watching her." "Supposed to be keeping an eye on her." "But he fucked up." "So, he didn't find my photo in a curio shop and escape to the past." "It's much more prosaic than that." "He was arrested." "Arrested?" "For what?" "Murder?" "Oh, God!" "Murder?" "Wait." "But he didn't murder his sister." "Right?" "No." "It was an accident." "It wasn't me." "But the Gene Dupes had it in for him, because of his dad, the freedom fighter." "They had followed me there." "So, they framed him." "They were waiting for me." "Accusing him of murdering his own sister." "She was standing on the beach." "But he can't afford a lawyer." "So he has to defend himself." "I watched her drown." "He has to find a way to prove that his sister's death was an accident." "So, now he says he actually found my photo on an historical database, while researching legal precedence." "legal precedence for what?" "Accident cases." "Accident cases?" "That would mean that you...." "On Friday." "I know it's hard." "I know it's hard to understand, but you have to try." "Nobody could understand this." "It's too much." "So, that's it." "You've heard it all now." "Tonight's Mark's opening, and tomorrow's Friday." "Did he ever say whether he was found innocent or guilty in this trial by the Gene Dupes?" "No." "He didn't stick around to find out." "He just put himself in a time machine, set the dial back to 1999, and voilà." "What did he tell you?" "Did he say that he has TLE?" "He said he was from Dubuque." "He was born in 1961, I think it was." "His sister fell from a tree." "That's back-story." "Of course he'd tell you that." "That's not what he's telling me now." "Because you are part of the ritual." "ritual?" "I believe that Sam is living out a delusional fantasy." "A fantasy which allows him to explain the inexplicable senseIess tragedy." "The death of his sister." "A death for which he may feel some responsibility." "And if I'm right exacerbated by the temporal Lobe epilepsy this seems as real to him as you and I sitting here." "But since he can't actually go into the past and save his sister he's brilliantly created a ritual whereby he can at Ieast atone for her death." "The ritual of saving your life." "He said he didn't stick around for the trial, right?" "That's because in Sam's mind, the verdict isn't in yet." "And it won't be until he imagines that he has saved you." "I don't know." "I don't know about this theory." "What's the alternative?" "Cheeseman's?" "He hasn't even told you how this is going to happen, has he?" "Your accident?" "No." "He doesn't want to tell me all the details because he's afraid it will become a seIf-fuIfiIIing prophecy." "That's convenient, isn't it?" "Look." "The last thing I want to do is frighten you, but he has threatened you." "What?" "When?" "He has told you when and how you are going to die." "But it's an accident!" "He doesn't do it!" "please hear me." "I understand that you care for Sam." "But the most caring thing that you could do for him would be to walk away." "Today." "And I believe that you could do that." "If you could see that what Sam seeks what he asks of you is for him not you." "Just give it another day." "I mean, come on, at Ieast find out what the guy's gonna say to you, right?" "What's the harm in that?" "It could be destructive." "I don't know what he's gonna do." "Look at him." "He never drinks like this." "This is so weird." "Mark is gonna die." "Thanks." "Tab." "How are you?" "Great work." "Yeah." "You're Anthony michael hall, man." "I can't believe you came to my opening." "Just call me michael." "Come on, team hug, baby." "We can do that." "It's very improvisational." "It's great." "Thank you so much, dude." "In this day and age, you know, it's like everything's so fucking calculated." "I think it's great." "It really is." "I was working on "Weird Science"." "I was having a problem." "John Hughes pulls me aside, right?" "He's like:" ""Drop it." "Let it go and improvise."" "Make those mistakes." "You know what I mean?" "This is my friend, Sam Deed." "Sam, Anthony michael hall." "How are you?" "Nice to meet you." "So, you're an artist, too?" "No." "He's just joking." "This is Anthony michael hall." "It's New York." "No one gives a shit." "Right?" "Am I an artist?" ""Sixteen candles"." "The one with Judd nelson." ""The Breakfast club"?" "I never heard of 'em." "Where you from, Sam?" "Where am I from?" "Where am I from?" "Tough question." "I'm from the future." "I'm a time-traveIer from the future, Mr. hall." "About what year?" "Everything's fine." "2470." "That's quite a ways." "That really is the future." "You're a time-traveIer from the year 2470." "That's improv." "I have a question." "What do people look like in the future?" "The same." "Except for Gene Dupes." "They're gene-warped, so they have smaller fingers and purple irises, no genitalia." "Gene Dupes." "Very nice." "More improv." "He's good." "He's good." "My turn." "Do people have sex in the future?" "BioIogicaIs do." "Thank the Lord." "But only two times in a lifetime, and that's to procreate." "Sex for fun is oId-fashioned." "But I'm an Anachronist, so I guess I couId be considered oId-fashioned." "Right, Ruby?" "So, why'd you come back to the past?" "The future isn't what it used to be." "Describe for us, if you would the device by which you traveled here." "Your time machine." "How does that work?" "Do you know how an internaI-combustion engine works?" "In fact, I do." "Touch"é"." "A time machine is much more complicated." "Time-traveI is not possible." "See?" "This is what you don't do." "You never want to block your partner's need to improv." "One merely has to point out the numerous logical absurdities, temporal paradoxes, circular causation, closed time loops." "You name it." "You mean like the Grandfather Paradox?" "Where you go back in time and kill your own grandfather thereby you totally negate your own existence?" "That's fucking trippy." "You get the point." "The idea of effect preceding cause of tampering with history, creates so many logical absurdities that even if the technology were available, time-traveI would still be impossible." "You are forgetting BIinovitch's Fifth Law of causal Determination, which resolves all of those paradoxes." "BIinovitch?" "Never heard of him." "Russian?" "Yugoserbian." "YugosIavian" "No." "BIinovitch was from Yugoserbia." "There is no Yugoserbia." "I see." "There will be, after the petroleum Wars of 21 1 1  AD." "Is it just me or isn't this guy just a little too adamantIy opposed to time-traveI?" "I'm getting my doctorate in physics and theoretical calculus." "Forgive me if I don't suffer fools gladly." "Forgive me if I have the guts to admit where I'm from, unlike you." "What are you implying?" "Do I know you from the clone Riots in '66?" "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." "This guy is a time-traveIer like me." "I most certainly am not!" "It's so obvious." "please!" "What are you, afraid you're going to violate protocol?" "I am not a time-traveIer!" "Come out!" "You can be free!" "Fuck you!" "I am not a time-traveIer!" "It's just an improv!" "Another fine fucking fiasco!" "Your friend's an idiot." "I didn't start it." "That "idiot" has a Ph.D. from columbia!" "exactly!" "Tab." "The one with the expensive back-story." "Right?" "What's his last name?" "SokoIofsky!" "He's still an idiot, because he didn't even realize that he was right." "What?" "Yes." "closed time loop." "In 470 years, I'm gonna find your photo." "I'm gonna come back here." "We're going to meet again on that bench and fall in love." "If we don't do something about tomorrow, you'II die again." "In another 470 years, the whole thing's going to repeat itself and you're going to die again and again." "Great!" "So, not only do I die tomorrow I die over and over." "When we first met on the bench you could feel it." "Like we'd met before." "Like it happened before, maybe once maybe a million times before." "Yes, but it's called d"é"jà vu!" "No." "It's called the loop." "It's the causal chain repeating itself." "We gotta break that chain." "We gotta break it!" "AII you gotta do is say you love me." "Just say it." "You don't have to say you love me." "That's okay, because according to Cheeseman, all you gotta do is feel it." "Shit." "What." "Okay." "Sammy, it's okay." "We're going to get you a good doctor." "Baby, it's all right." "It's gonna be okay." "We're going to get you a TLE specialist." "Those cheap bastards." "I paid a Iot of money for that back-story and they give me cheap inserts from plastic frames." "What a rip-off!" "That's a rip-off." "You live and learn." "Right?" "Say it, right now!" "Say that you put those strange people in your wallet!" "Say it!" "My back-story." "My contact gave them to me!" "Chrystie DeIancey." "Where you going?" "You can't leave." "You have to help us through this!" "We gotta break the chain!" "I am breaking the chain!" "Okay, fine!" "I'II do this on my own!" "Motherfucker!" "You'II realize how much I Iove you when you wake up on Saturday morning alive!" "You'II see." "Fine." "Fucker!" "Honey." "Mother." "What is it?" "I come from such a different world, and I'm not going to be here long." "Where's Dad?" "Where do you think?" "He's at the office, as usual." "What is it?" "I had a happy childhood, right?" "We tried." "So why am I so fucked up?" "Why are my relationships so fucked up?" "Because you care, my love." "I care too much." "You can't care too much." "I faII in love too easily." "There are a Iot worse things that could be wrong with you." "believe me." "I bet you Sam would agree with me." "Sam was scared of Marvin." "little Marvin?" "The foot Iicker?" "Sam is like...." "Give me another shot of merlot." "How can I even describe him?" "hello?" "sunil Vipassana?" "He's like two people in one." "Sometimes he's like an incredible genius." "Then he's also really clueless sometimes, Iike a child." "Are you SuniI Vipassana?" "Yes." "And he can be really fierce." "What do you want?" "Who are you?" "But he's also really soft." "But he can be really romantic and chivalrous." "I'm really sorry, but I have to do this." "I'm gonna break the causal chain!" "please...." "Papa?" "But the thing is, he's really caring." "More than me." "More than what I can give back to him." "You take a couple of days off." "Okay?" "I just don't know if I know what love is." "It's not fair." "Fair?" "Who ever told you that relationships were fair?" "relationships are not fair." "They're battles." "They're battles for supremacy." "What?" "Honey, you have any idea how many years I had to live with your father's drinking?" "Do you realize what a battle that was?" "I know, Mom." "And that's why you helped him quit, because it wasn't fair." "October 15, 1988." "That was it." "That was the day he stopped." "I remember that day like it's yesterday." "It was a Tuesday, and he hasn't had a drop since." "Because you made it happen." "That's it." "And now every day's a struggle." "What?" "Sweetheart since Daddy's stopped drinking we have lost our spark." "I know that it's wrong of me to say it, but I miss your father the way he was." "But he's an alcoholic." "And I was a classic codependent." "I know that." "until I forced myself to stop caring about him." "until I forced him to deal with his own problems." "Guess what?" "He did." "And he got better." "I guess you could say now, that our relationship is more fair." "There's just one slight casualty." "The passion is gone." "My love, my beautiful daughter." "You give so much." "You care so deeply." "But you're so busy trying to fix the problem that you forget to enjoy the moments of happiness that you have." "And your father and I, we had our moments." "We loved our happiness." "When we had it, we relished it." "And that's what you must do." "You must go to him and you must tell him." "You tell him how you feel." "And you enjoy each other for what you can give to each other now." "believe me, it won't last forever." "What happened?" "I drank too much." "I had too much MerIot, and I bumped into a pole." "It's silly, but I did." "I have to tell you something." "I believe you." "Say it again." "I believe you." "Do you believe me?" "Videos." "Snacks." "To generate the requisite emotional energy." "Look what else I got." "Two clocks." "To be safe." "AII right?" "Here, you set them, and I'II put on the tunes." "Baby, you thought of everything." "I know." "You know, it's been a big ordeal for you, this whole thing." "But I really think it's best." "You know?" "Maybe it wouId have been better if you didn't know, but now everything's out in the open." "I do, I think it's for the best." "I'm not gonna let anything happen to you." "I've taken every precaution." "I won't let you go." "I won't let you go anywhere near the water." "I won't let you." "I won't let anything happen." "What I'm thinking is that if we have complete faith in each other and we love each other deeply enough, that I'm certain that" "I'm staying right here." "I'm staying home all day." "Right here." "With you." "I thought you'd gotten José to cover for you." "I did." "It's José." "apparently, Victor won't let him in his apartment." "He says he won't let anybody in except for me." "Is he all right?" "He says there's a rat or something." "Go help him." "No way." "It's too risky." "Baby, I'm fine." "And I'm gonna be fine." "And you can be there and back in an hour." "We have time, right?" "Go." "Let's just stay here, okay?" "I mean, everything is just going perfect." "believe me." "AII right." "I'II be...." "Just hurry home." "You're the one and only, baby." "Take Sixth." "There's less traffic." "He says it's a brown rat." "He needs his meds." "Victor!" "It's Sam Deed." "Is the brown one with you?" "You believe this guy, Pat?" "I think I better go." "Good." "I'II see you." "Bye, José." "I guess you and I have been, more or less, used to a life of pink champagne." "He forgot." "Where's the rat?" "Want to play?" "There is no rat, right?" "It gets to be lonely." "You know, this was supposed to be my day off." "You know that?" "I'm 95 years old." "I got no friends no family." "AII dead." "I remember my sister, getting on the great "Titanic"." "If everything turns out all right...." "hello?" "Hi." "This is Ruby Weaver." "I'm calling for Mr. Deed." "Is this Mr. Deed?" "This is Tom Deed." "Yes?" "Hi." "I'm calling about your son, Sam." "Sam Deed, he...." "hello?" "He is your son, correct?" "Who is this?" "What happened?" "Is he all right?" "He's fine." "I'm calling from "The New York Times" because he...." "I have to check some facts for the paper." "He did an interview with us and I was wondering if I couId just confirm a few facts with you." "AII right." "I suppose." "He was born in Dubuque December 12, 1961?" "He was." "Down she went." "I know." "Come here." "I know, son." "You know what?" "I know when it's going to happen." "My death." "No one knows." "I just wanted someone to know that I ain't scared." "It's time for Mr. GreenIop's 4:00." "It's time for your 4:00...." "And his sister?" "She passed away?" "I'm sorry, did she fall out of a tree?" "Who the hell are you?" "Is this a prank?" "I'm sorry." "I'm not from "The New York Times"." "Sam and I Iive together." "I'm calling because I'm concerned about him." "Concerned?" "Mr. Deed, he's been saying some very strange things." "What kinds of things?" "He's saying that he's from the future and somehow today...." "Now listen." "Sam's always been a little crazy." "Ever since he fell off that jungle gym as a boy." "We tried a shrink." "That didn't work." "A couple of years ago, he picked up and left." "I fear he must be getting worse, if, Iike you say he's spouting stories about being from the year 2470." "I don't think I mentioned that he was from the year 2470." "Maybe not, but you see, I know that because that's what he tells all his gals." "AII his "gals"?" "The gals that call every couple of months, Iike you." "AII worried about him, about the things he says about being a time-traveIer." "Asking if Sammy's all right in the head." "I've heard it many times." "How many?" "I'd say seven to eight times in the Iast year, every time from a different city." "We started sticking pins on a map to kind of track" "I'm sorry, sir." "I have to go." "I thought you were sick." "I got over it." "I'm home!" "It was just Victor going on about the "Titanic"." "Oh, God!" "Find a good one." "Are these new?" "Yeah, from last month." "I'II get the ex-fiIes." "His "first and only."" "Right." "Come on." "He certainly wasn't your first." "Nope." "I'm just one of his gals." "You sure you want to do this?" "You'II find Mark's photo in there, too." "What happened?" "He just wasn't deep enough." "I'II make us some more tea." "Men suck." "You could say that they're drawings of a memory of a photograph of you." "That one." "That's when that stupid zoom fucked up." "Remember?" "I think you look really cute in that photo, though." "Don't you?" "You found me 'cause of a happy accident?" "That's exactly what it was." "So, Sam, allow me to introduce myself." "My friends call me Maggie Ann." "Maggie Ann Ford." "But why don't you call me Meg?" "Meg Ford?" "M-E-G, three, F-O-R-D, four?" "What year?" "2457." "Why did you come here?" "Tax evasion." "You came to the late 1990s to avoid taxes?" "Who was your accountant back there?" "Shut up!" "I just cannot believe that you violated protocol." "The hell with protocol!" "And how dare you tell Ruby!" "Why would you do that?" "What are you doing here?" "Why are you here now?" "Because...." "I'm very sorry." "So you love her?" "Yes." "I always have." "But you know you can't change anything." "You don't know that!" "Do you want to give her false hopes?" "I mean, is that fair?" "please, don't try to help Ruby." "What if she believes you?" "Then everything will be all right." "Everything will be wonderful." "We'II create our own future." "Everything will be okay." "Motherfucker!" "Goddamn bitch!" "I can't believe this!" "Okay, that's good." "smile."