It was Monday morning, and Carl was still in Seattle attending the construction conference.
James sat in his office and drank his first cup of morning coffee while he looked at some financial data on his computer.
Ten minutes later, he glanced at the yellow post-it for the Bannister house. He pulled the post-it off the monitor and threw it in the trash. He picked up his phone and punched in a phone number.
"Hello Sara, this is James from Eastman Construction. Listen, can you wait until next Monday to shut off the power to the Bannister house located on eighteen seventy-three Memphis?" he asked into the phone.
"Next Monday. Sure. That won't be a problem," Sara replied from his phone.
"Thank you," James replied, then he disconnected their call and made another call.
"Hey Stan, listen, I can't get the power turned off to the Bannister house until next week," he asked.
"We planning on getting started within in the next hour," Stan replied from the phone.
"Listen, I would like you to delay that until next Monday," James said.
"Next Monday? That will cost you for a weeks delay," Stand said.
"No problem. I'll work out the details with Carl," James replied.
"You got it. I'll have to drive out there and tell the boys," Stan responded.
"I'll take care of that," James offered.
"Okay boss," Stan replied.
James hung up his phone and got up from his desk.
He walked out of his office.
He walked down the office area where everybody diligently worked on numerous construction projects.
He left the building.
Twenty minutes later, James drove his Mustang back down Memphis Avenue.
He stopped and parked his car along the street at the Bannister house behind a Ford pickup truck. He saw one man near the excavator with one man behind the controls.
James quickly got out of his car and rushed down the front yard to the excavator just as the man started it up.
"Hey guys," James called out while he rushed over to them.
The man near the excavator looked at James.
"I'm James Eastman of Eastman Construction."
"Yes, sir, I'm Randy, the foreman," he replied.
"I called Stan this morning, and we're delaying this demolition until next Monday," James told him.
Randy looked at the man inside the excavator.
"Mel, shut her down," Randy yelled out at the excavator.
"Okay Randy," Mel yelled out from the excavator then turned it off.
Mel got out of the excavator and walked over to them. "What's up?" Mel asked.
"We're being told to tear this place down next Monday," Randy said.
"Whatever, it all pays the same," Mel said and was looking forward to a break.
Randy and Mel walked over to the pickup truck.
James watched while they got inside with Randy behind the wheel. He started it up, and they drove off.
James looked at the house and got really curious.
He walked down the front yard and went around the back.
He saw a stand-alone garage with a rusted out 1940 Packard 8 Touring car by the sidewall.
James walked over the Packard and checked it out. He had a vast rusted out hole in the roof and a vast rusted out hole in the rear quarter panel. It looked like it would fall apart during the next storm.
He walked to the garage where the door was half-opened and about to fall apart. He got on his knees and peeked inside where there was nothing but junk that cluttered the garage and no time machine was visible.
He got back on his feet and walked back to the front of the house.
He walked to the front door and went inside.
James entered the living room. It was filthy and dusty from not being cleaned in years, and the air was stale and smelly.
James looked around and saw old furniture, probably over fifty years old. There were no pictures of any family members on the walls. In fact, the walls were bare of any pictures that indicated any kind of family life. The walls were just old faded white paint.
He walked through the living room and peeked inside the kitchen. There were old kitchen cabinets probably installed in the 1920s. The refrigerator was an early 1950s model Frigidaire.
James walked down the hallway and peeked inside a room that was a den.
James went inside the den and saw three of the walls were covered by floor to ceiling bookcases filled with books. On one of the walls hung three college diplomas. One was for a Bachelor Science degree in Physics from MIT in 1924. The other one was for a Masters of Science in Physics from MIT in 1926. The third was for a Doctorate in Physics from MIT in 1929.
Then James walked over and checked out an old wooden desk that was probably over one hundred years old. Near the desk were a couch and chair. On top of the desk, was an old wooden radio made in the 1930s.
James walked over to the nearest bookcase. He scanned the books and found they were engineering and physics topics.
He walked along with the bookcases then found a section where Lloyd had numerous books on time travel.
He grabbed one and opened it up.
Lloyd had numerous areas of the book underlined with a pencil.
He dropped the book on the floor.
Then he looked up and saw numerous notebooks on the top shelf. He grabbed one of the notebooks and opened it up.
The notebook was filled with notes on the ability to time travel.
He dropped the notebook to the floor.
He reached up and grabbed two more notebooks. He opened up one, and it was nothing but more notes on time travel from his research. He dropped the notebook to the floor. He opened up the other notebook and immediately saw a pencil sketch of Lloyd's time machine.
"Wow! This is so cool!" James said to himself.
He flipped through some more pages and saw a bunch of highly technical equations that went 10,000 feet over James' head.
Then he looked at the back pages of the notebook and saw 1864 was checked off, 1881 was checked off, 1775 was checked off, and he saw 1818 was checked off.
"I believe he did it!" James cried out all excited. He dropped the notebook to the floor and thought for a second.
"There has to be only one place where he could store a time machine," James said with confidence.
He walked out of the den.
He walked down the hallway back to the kitchen.
He went inside the kitchen and looked around. He saw a door at the other end. He walked over to it and opened the door. It squeaked open, and he saw some stairs that led down to the dark basement.
He flipped the light switch at the top of the stairs.
He smiled that the basement lights were working.
He walked down the stairs.
The stairs creaked while James cautiously walked down the stairs in case they were rotten.
He stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked around the room. It was dusty and full of spider webs and junk scattered all over the place.
He saw that the basement had three concrete block walls and a plaster wall at the far end.
Then he saw something covered by a large tarp up against one of the concrete walls. He smiled as he knew he found Lloyd's time machine.
He walked over and peeked underneath the tarp. He looked disappointed when he saw there was nothing but a pile of junk under the tarp.
James walked back, disappointed to the stairs.
He walked up three steps then stopped as something piqued his curiosity. He looks at the plaster wall at the other end of the basement. Then he saw a sledgehammer amongst some nearby junk.
He walked down the stairs and over to the sledgehammer.
He picked up the sledgehammer and walked over to the plaster wall. He used the sledgehammer and gave the wall a good whack. He then repeatedly whacked the wall with the sledgehammer until he created a big hole. He removed a small flashlight from his pocket and peeked inside the hole.
Inside the hole, his flashlight illuminated a strange silver machine with windows and a door. This machine resembled a 1950s spaceship.
He crawled into the hole.
Inside this room, he walked over to the machine and checked it out with the flashlight. He grabbed a handle on the door, and it opened up with a whish.
James peeked inside the machine with the flashlight and saw a seat, a console with gauges, switches, knobs, buttons, and saw the "August 10, 1978" dialed on a counter. He closed the door with a smile.
"He wasn't a kook," James said while he walked around and illuminated the time machine with his flashlight.
He walked to the rear of the machine and saw an electrical cord, and there was an electrical outlet within reach.
James walked over and crawled through the hole.
James walked out of the house and rushed down the front yard to his Mustang. He gave the house another look while he got inside his car.
All the way back to the office, all he could think about was that time machine he found in the Bannister basement.
While James walked back down through the office area, he eyed that poster for their office Halloween party. His eyes lit up with a great idea at the sight of the poster.
He turned around and rushed back out of the office area.
James drove to his grandmother's house.
He knocked on her front door, and she opened up a few seconds later.
"James, what a lovely surprise!" she said when she laid eyes on him.
"Grandma, do you still have Grandpa Carl's old Marine uniform and stuff? I remember you showing them to me when I was a kid," James excitedly said.
"Why yes, I will never get rid of his memories," she said while she let him inside her home.
"Why do you want to see them?" she asked while she closed the front door.
"We're having a Halloween party at work, and I thought I would go dressed as a World War two Marine," he told her.
She smiled and liked the idea while she walked him through the living room.
"I don't see why not, but his uniform might need some cleaning," she said.
"I'll take care of that," he replied.
"Go ahead. I'll wait here," she said, then sat down on the couch.
James walked through the house and went to the door that led upstairs to the attic.
He went upstairs and looked around the attic and saw numerous boxes and wooden chests.
Seeing this attic again brought back many memories when he would explore up here, as a kid looking for hidden treasures.
He walked over and stopped at an old wooden chest. He knelt down and opened it.
Inside the chest were a folded WWII Marine 1st Lieutenant's service uniform with aviator's wings and cap. James removed it, and he also removed an old leather case. He opened the case where inside were numerous military papers for Ben and Carl and Carl's military ID card. James looked through the papers and scanned through them. Then he saw a case.
He opened it up and saw a purple heart.
He closed the case and closed the chest.
"Perfect," James said while he continued to scan through the numerous military papers.
He then disrobed and got dressed in his grandfather's uniform.
The old Marine uniform was a perfect fit for James.
James grabbed Carl's military ID card and shoved it in his pants pocket. He picked up the military papers and the rest of his clothes.
He walked out of the attic.
After dropping his clothes off in the downstairs bathroom, James walked into the living room.
Diana waited on the couch when James entered. She saw him in Carl's uniform and chuckled.
"I remember you wearing that when you were a kid, and the sleeves dragged on the floor. But it fits you perfect now," she said.
"I'll look good for our Halloween party," he said while he modeled around.
"You remind me so much of Ben," she said.
James looked proud and felt like a Marine.
He left and got dressed in his regular clothes.
On the way back to his office, he stopped off at a bookstore and purchased a couple books on World War II and the Marines.
When he got back to his office, he started to read the book about the Marines.
After he finished with the book on Marines, James read through Ben and Carl's old military papers.
After work, he drove over and picked up Teri at her office.
It was a quiet ride home as he had a lot on his mind.
Later that evening, while Teri was in the kitchen making a salad for dinner, James went out to his Mustang and removed Carl's uniform from the trunk.
He quietly went inside their bedroom and got dressed in the uniform. He grabbed his trumpet and left the room.
He walked down the hallway and stopped when he got to the kitchen.
Teri was now checking on the spaghetti noodles she had on the stove.
Then James marched into the kitchen and played the trumpet introduction to Glenn Miller's In the Mood song. He marched up to Teri playing that song.
Teri turned around and saw James in the Marine uniform and his trumpet blaring out that song. She rolled her eyes, thinking he acted childishly.
He stopped playing the trumpet and saluted. "Lieutenant Eastman at your service, ma'am," he said politely like a Marine.
"Are you going nuts on me?" she asked.
"No, ma'am, it's my costume for our office Halloween party," he barked out like a Marine.
James reached in his pocket and removed Carl's military ID card and some paperwork. He laid the papers on the counter. "I was wondering if you could make me some copies of these that look real?"
Teri picked up the ID card, and the papers then looked them over. "Wouldn't that be illegal?"
"No. I'm going to tell everybody I stepped out of time. I'll destroy them immediately after the party," he said. Then he thought for a second, and his eyes lit up with another suggestion. "Put down my address as eighteen seventy-three Memphis Avenue," James added.
"Okay, if you must play little boy," she said.
James thought for a few seconds. "Give me the name, Trevor Walker," he told her.
"Why Trevor Walker?"
"I need a different name if I stepped out of a time machine. And I will also need the same dates as what's on granddad's ID and papers," he said.
James removed an old picture from his pocket. "You can use this picture for the ID card and if possible, can you have it done by tomorrow?" he asked with a loving smile.
"Why so soon?" she asked.
"I know how you get busy and will forget," he said then kissed her cheek to butter her up.
"Okay," Teri said, then looked at the uniform. "You better take the uniform to the cleaners," she said.
Teri took the ID card and paperwork out of the kitchen.
James looked at his trumpet with a smirk. He continued to play In the Mood while he marched out of the kitchen.