Chapter 8
Monday morning had arrived.
Darin woke up at eight along with Tiffany, and they both coughed their raspy wet cough in unison. They both had to have their Marlboro the second they finished coughing up phlegm.
After they finished their cigarettes, Darin made a pot of coffee, pancakes for breakfast while she got dressed for her job at the A&P.
So for the whole day, he relaxed and watched TV.
He left for work at four-thirty and left before Tiffany came home from her shift at the A&P.
One he way to work, Darin stopped off at the CVS drugstore right next to the university campus. He went inside and bought a pack of Marlboro to help him survive the night shift of cleaning toilets.
He left CVS and drove straight to the university.
Once he got on the university campus, he went down to the basement of the Engineering and Science building and got his cleaning cart.
He rolled the cleaning cart by the locked door with the “Restricted Access – Authorized Personnel Only” sign. He stopped and looked at the door. His curiosity about what was behind the door has peeked again. But it was locked. If only he could find a key, he would check it out. After all, that would add a little excitement to his job.
He pushed his cart to the freight elevator.
Darin started up on the fourth floor and started cleaning the classrooms and the bathrooms.
Darin used the freight elevator and went down to the third floor. He went straight into the Ladies Restroom.
He opened the first stall. “Fucking pigs,” he cursed out the second he saw that some young girl had crapped all over the wall behind the toilet. “How the fuck can a girl do that? You have a fucking toilet right here,” he yelled out as if that girl was in the bathroom. “Fuck,” he said and hated these moments of his job. It was a symbol of his life.
Darin proceeded to clean the wall behind that toilet.
After he cleaned up that mess in that bathroom, Darin cleaned all four floors of the Engineering and Science building.
It was now the end of Darin’s shift, so he was on the first floor and pushed his cleaning cart to the freight elevator.
He was surprised when he heard the elevator coming up from the basement before he pressed the down button.
He wondered if maybe his boss came over to check on him.
The elevator stopped on the first floor. It took forever for the doors to open so Darin can see his boss.
The doors opened, and to his surprise, Dr. Bowman was in the elevator. He was sixty years old with a white beard, thinning hair and appeared that he never used a comb in his life. Dr. Bowman was an MIT graduate and considered one of the experts in the field of Physics.
Dr. Bowman always wore cowboy boots, a black suit, a Thunderbird Bolo tie with his white shirt, and covered his head with a white cowboy hat. He was brilliant but also had an obsession. It was this obsession that drove his desire for his secret project.
“Hello, Darin. I was in doing some final checks on my experiment,” Dr. Bowman said while he walked out of the elevator.
“What experiment?”
Dr. Bowman looked at Darin. “Maybe later, Darin,” he said and walked away with a smirk. “Maybe later.”
Darin shrugged off his comment and pushed his cleaning cart into the elevator.
He pressed the button for the basement, the doors closed, and it went down.
Darin got to the basement and pushed his cleaning cart toward his office.
But this time, when he walked by that secretive door and noticed it was cracked opened. He looked back at the elevator and felt he probably should run to the first floor to tell Dr. Bowman that he didn’t lock his room. But Darin’s curiosity went into high gear. He looked at the cracked opened door then back at the elevator. He looked back at the cracked opened door, and his curiosity won.
Darin gingerly walked to the door.
The second he got to it he looked back at the freight elevator expecting Dr. Bowman to appear. He didn’t.
So Darin placed his hand on the doorknob. He hesitated for a few seconds, thinking he would hear Dr. Bowman’s voice any second. He didn’t.
Darin’s heart raced with curiosity while he slowly opened the door.
He stepped inside the room and glanced and saw three tables.
One was full of chemistry tubes and bottles.
The other two were filled with all sort of electronic devices. On the one wall was a bank of computers that emitted a low hum.
While Darin was inside the room, he didn’t hear the ding of the elevator.
By the freight elevator, Dr. Bowman stepped out and saw that the door to his office was opened wider.
Back in that secretive room, Darin walked around and looked at all the fancy electronic devices on the tables.
“What the fuck is he doing down here?” he said while he looked at one device with a round green monitor radar.
He saw an interior room at the other end of the room with glass windows and a door. He could see some type of object in that room, and his curiosity went into high gear.
While Darin headed over to that room, he spotted some books on the top of a small desk with an Apple computer.
Darin grabbed one of the books and saw the “Traveling Through Time” by Dr. Ervin Bowman. “He wrote a book?” Darin said while he looked at the back cover and saw a picture of Dr. Bowman. “He wrote a book on time travel,” he said then put the book down.
Darin picked up a notebook and opened it up.
He flipped through the pages, and the notes, and sketches looked to be over twenty years old.
While he flipped through more pages, he saw they were filled with all sorts of highly technical mathematical equations, and then the back part had a sketch of a contraption along with schematics of wires, valves and piping and other devices.
That contraption sketch appeared familiar, and Darin couldn’t place where he saw it at the moment. It dawned on him. The sketch was of a 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk poised on top of a circular device. “What the fuck?” he said while he flipped through pages of sketches of the construction of that Studebaker contraption. From the drawings, it appeared that the Studebaker spun on top of the base.
He flipped to the end of the notebook and found a step-by-step instruction on operating that contraption.
He placed the notebook back down on the desk.
He glanced at the door, and he had this feeling that he had to check out that interior room.
While Darin slowly walked to the door, he didn’t notice that Dr. Bowman stood in the door opening to his secretive room. Dr. Bowman smiled when he saw Darin go inside that other room. He turned around and walked back to the freight elevator and looked satisfied; he achieved his objective.
Darin closed the door behind him and stared at the contraption parked in the middle of the room.
The contraption was, in fact, a 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk painted a shiny silver. The headlights and tail lights lens were removed. They had tubes running out of them going to the base of the black circular device. That device was two feet thick above the floor and looked like the Studebaker rotated on it.
Darin walked around the Studebaker and checked it out.
He noticed that the rear side and back windows were painted black from the inside. He thought that that was weird.
He walked over to the driver’s door and peeked inside. He noticed that the original dashboard was removed and replaced with a flat plate of shiny silver metal to be the console.
His curiosity got the best of him, and he opened up the driver’s door.
He sat inside the Studebaker.
Darin looked around the inside of the machine.
The original bench seat was still in place.
Behind it was a padded metal wall that blocked off the rear seat area.
Two lap belt and shoulder harnesses from an old bi-wing Stearman airplane were installed into places on the bench seat. Darin thought that that was a tad weird.
In front of him on the flat metal, the console was a circular gauge about four inches in diameter. In the center of that gauge was the outline of the 57 Studebaker. This gauge looked like something Dr. Bowman designed and constructed.
To the left of that gauge was the original speedometer from this car. It went from “0 – 160” miles per hour (MPH).
Way off to the lower left of the speedometer was the original Studebaker ignition switch. The key was not inserted. Darin thought it was funny that this contraption used the original key.
Above that four-inch gauge was a row of five toggle switches. Above each of those toggle switches was a small circular light.
The first toggle switch had “1 – Power” label etched in the panel.
To the right of the Engine, the switch was a toggle switch with the “2 – Door” label etched in the panel.
To the right of the door, the switch was a toggle switch with the “3 – Time Set” label etched in the panel.
To the right of the Time switch was a toggle switch with the “4 – Engine” label etched in the panel.
To the right of the Engine switch was a toggle switch with the “5 – Travel” label etched in the panel.
To the right of that four-inch gauge were two rectangular panels. Each of these two panels had four small digital read-out panels. The one panel to the left was labeled “Month.” The one next to that was labeled “Day.” The one next to that was labeled “Year,” and the one next to that was labeled “Time.” Below each of these panels was a dial for dialing in the digital read-out.
This panel to the left was etched with “3a – Travel From Time” in the panel and where you would dial in the month, year, day and time when you started your time travel adventure.
The panel to the far right had the same four panels and dials at the Present panel. It was etched with “3b – Travel To Time” in the panel and was where you dialed in the destination for your time travel adventure.
“A time machine. Is this thing a fucking time machine?” said while he looked the console over again and again.
He got out of the machine and closed the door.
Darin walked to the room door, opened it, and glanced back at the time machine.
He left the room and closed the door behind him.
Darin left the secretive room and closed the door.
He went over to his office and clocked out for the evening.
After Darin drove home, he couldn’t fall asleep. All he could think about was that machine Dr. Bowman built. He wondered if it really worked.