How To Go Back in Time Book One: Chapter Four

Chaos in Beldad. Dogs leaping from their picket-white cages to chase after the sirens. Heads
turning. Us, slowly coursing down the street like authorial blood flow. It was simple. We were meeting
Justin in his own homeland.
Paul and James were in the car ahead of us. He pulled off into the dirt by Justin’s house, and his
mirror barely scraped the wood fence. The paint was peeling. The house looked like a haunted pile of
trash. The windows were covered with duct tape. At the bottom, rust and rot.
I watched as the blinds were peeled back and a face stuck out. It was Justin. All this time, Paul
had decided there would be a signal. I sat in my seat, being ancy. Where was the signal? Paul said
there’d be a signal. Where was it?
Paul jumped out of the car and began racing. No signal this time, that was certain. We jumped
out of the car, and climbed the steps. “Justin Montez!” I called out. I heard the sound of the door
locking and knew what that meant. This beauty would have to be kicked down.
I put a hole through it with just my foot, and it crashed down. I stepped out of it, and began
patrolling the house. Bowls of moldy food, a kitchen with rust, floorboards ripped up. Oh, and a
television sitting on a plastic crate. The couch looked nice.
It was when we reached the bedroom that we realized Justin wasn’t there. “You go out front, I
go out back. Got it?” She nodded, and took off.
I flung open the backdoor and raced down. Hopped the fence, and ended up in a muddy alley.
Just up ahead, I could see Justin running. Shirt flapping in the wind. “Stay the fuck away from me!” He
yelled.
“You could make this easy on yourself!” I shouted, running.
“I didn’t do it!” He yelled, and turned a corner.
And when I came to that corner, two shots rang out. I ducked and barely missed them. At first, I
was sad for the kid. Now I was angry.
I rounded the corner and fired. It missed and hit a brick wall. Justin kept his gun pointed and
raised. “Don’t come any closer!” He screeched. “I have a gun!”
“And what do you think that’s gonna do?” I asked. “Raising your gun at a police officer?
Seriously?”
“I’ll do it! I’ll shoot!”
“Do it then you fucking pussy!”
He fired. I ducked and slammed down on the trigger. It struck him in the hand, and he fell to the
floor. The gun was toast too. Folding his arms behind his back, I noticed he had been crying.
I radioed Paul to tell him I found him. He came around back in his car, and we hauled Justin
inside. The entire time he just repeated, “I didn’t do it.” Like a hum. A mantra. But with the way he was
acting? A part of me almost believed it.
I had the time to light a cigarette and watch a raindrop hit it—before James ran up to me. We
were beginning to get monsoons. “What happened?” James asked.
“He shot at me, I fired back. He’s arrested.”
“Healthy?”
“Kinda. His fingers will be wrapped though.”
He chuckled. “That’s great—hey, we’re still going drinking, right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Just then Paul stuck his head out the window and shouted, “Are we ready to go now?”
I gave him a silent nod, and got inside the car. Rosa greeted me with the air conditioner on fullblast. “I went the completely wrong way.” She said. “Good idea to split up, though.”
I shrugged. “Pretty dumb, honestly. It’s not like he’d be going out front.”
“But he could’ve went out back, and then to the front.”
“Fair.”
And as we turned off the road, I felt something in my gut. “Somethin’s bothering me right now.”
I announced.
“What? The case?”
“Yeah, you could say that. I’m just not sure if Justin really did it.”
Rosa scoffed and said, “Irwin, we have him on video committing the murder—and we arrested
him. The case is over. You’re probably gonna leave tomorrow.”
I kept my eyes focused away from her, and my breath sharp. “Yeah, maybe I will.”
We turned right, and continued down a road of grassy fields. All while rain pattered the glass.
* * *
A TRANSMISSION AFTER RETURNING FROM
THE BOTTOM OF A SWIMMING POOL
And as the child rises, the colors are iridescent.
The sun hovers in the sky calmly caressing the child.
He smiles and swats his hand in the air.
The hills unfurl around him, revealing a happy place.
Now the child has grown old and sits underneath an apple tree.
White hairs tuck out from his chin.
He feels around in his gums for a tooth, and pulls it out.
Then flicks it to the dirt.
With nothing to do but think all his entire life,
He has learned many things.
Number One being that his dad was not good to him.
Number two being that his mom was not good to him.
Number three being that his grandparents were not good to his parents.
Number four being that his great-grandparents, were not good to his grandparents.
Number five being that there is no accurate model of perfection.
Nothing is ever anyone’s fault.
Trapped within cycles,
Within cycles,
Within cycles,
Within cycles.
* * *
I stood at the door, and watched as Paul hauled Justin up the stairs. His face was red, and tears
streamed down his face. And inside of that, I felt a pang of guilt.
I had to hold the door open, and it was pretty difficult to do. I clenched my teeth as he walked
by. Justin was brought into the interrogation room, and I was left to sit in the office.
“Can I smoke in here?” I asked James. For the past ten minutes we had been sitting across from
each other in shitty spinny-chairs. Supposedly they were real leather, but they were all ripped. Waiting
for Paul to get done with Justin.
“We all smoke. All the time—though Rosa vapes.”
“Can I bum one off ya’?”
James accepted the trade deal and handed me a Palm Mall. Harsh, and made you cough if you
had even the slightest sinus disturbance.
“Rosa. Huh.” I said, biting the filter.
Our attention was turned back to the interrogation room. A loud thud had sounded out, and
made us jump. Images of what Paul was doing to Justin in there flashed in my mind. Though unlikely,
still horrifying.
I stood up and opened the door just a crack. Paul stood over Justin with crossed arms.
Subconsciously enacting menace. Justin kept his head down on the table. His long hair covered all parts
of his face, and he was dead quiet.
“You saw the video tape. What do you think of it?” Paul asked.
Just crickets.
“Silent. Okay. I can hear you breathing, you know.”
I pushed the door fully open, and stepped forward. “Justin, what were doing on the day of that
recording?”
At first, nothing. The boy had gone completely quiet. Shock, maybe? He had just seen a video
of himself killing a man. But deep down, I felt that there was something off. What were people not
telling me? I gazed around the room.
“Justin, you know you’re going to jail, right? With this video tape you’re screwed. So, there’s no
point. However, this also means that there’s no pressure. So come on, tell me. What were you doing on
the day of that tape?”
He brushed hair out of his face, and slowly rose. “I was over at my friend’s house—Gabriel’s.”
“And what did you?”
“Played xbox… and smoked a joint.”
“And what time did you arrive?”
“Like, at eleven in the morning.”
“And when did you leave?”
“Uh, I think it was at four. There was this update we had to play—and, you know…”
I asked for Gabriel’s address, and Justin said it clearly. There was hope in his eyes.