"Target was our store," Wes explained to Jace as they headed down the old, gray asphalt of Kettle Road, a four-lane highway that was long ago the main route into or out of town. "Whether I was at Dad's or Mom's, we got everything we needed there—so long as it wasn't food, I mean. Clothes, TVs, video games… It's just where we went."
As his uncle changed the radio station again, Jace asked, "Why not food?"
"Huh? Oh, it's not a Super Target yet. Won't be expanded until 2003, I think. But it still has frozen meals and snacks. Anyway, we're going mostly for clothes today."
"I hate clothes shopping… And, man, Kettle looks like crap," Jace commented after they passed by another batch of fast food restaurants and gas stations.
"Not like it looks much better in twenty-five years, either. Sure, the road is fixed up and most of the places had been… will be refurbished or rebuilt, but it's never not going to be an ugly, three-mile long strip of dollar stores and pawn shops."
When the Target sign appeared at the intersection ahead, Wes switched back to Royal Valley's pop station, heard what was playing, and began to tap his hands on the steering wheel to the beat of Sheryl Crow's All I Wanna Do. Thankfully, he didn't go so far as to start singing along with it and embarrassing Jace as much as it was possible. Most of the songs across the stations were ones he had never heard, but there were a few that his uncle had played on Pandora when he visited his apartment.
So far on the drive, he had heard that song about not chasing waterfalls, the one about someone being a loser so somebody should kill him, a guy exclaiming that "this is how we do it," and something about driving while sipping on gin and juice. He didn't "get" many of them, but he liked that he could understand most of the lyrics.
"It's all so easy to start singing to, once you've heard 'em three of four times, you know?" Wes commented and pulled into the parking lot. "Not that the present doesn't have songs you can pick up too, sure, but I think in general you have no idea what the artist is singing about. That… or it's just something about partying and drug use again."
"I usually like the music more than the words," Jace said with a shrug.
The two got out of the car and looked around at the shopping plaza, with the big, bulky Target its centerpiece. Next door to it was a piano store that would eventually be absorbed into its neighbor's future Super variant.
"That place sells pianos?" Jace questioned.
"Yup. Tickling the Ivory—always thought it was such a weird name. I barely ever even saw anyone in there. Kind of a wonder it lasts another two years."
"The whole plaza looks different. I think… only the shoe store is the same."
"Ha, yeah, you got it. You really don't appreciate just how much buildings swap owners over the years. Everything gets shuffled up slowly over time."
Once they made it past the sliding doors with the red frames, Jace was greeted with a familiar sight—and smell. The white and red warehouse-like place with the hundreds of fluorescent tubes had a familiar aroma and generally looked the same, although the neon light signage was an aspect long forgotten in his time.
"Okay, so the layout is mostly the same." Wes stopped and turned to Jace before they had stepped off the entrance area's gray carpet and transitioned to the tile. "You're eleven. Lucy raised you to be a responsible kid. And I got a lot of foodstuff to buy for us. So grab a cart and go look around a bit, find yourself a few shirts and pairs of pants. Or shorts since you seem to like them so much. Just pick what looks good to you."
"I… I dunno, I don't do much clothes shopping… What if I won't fit in?"
"Kid, it's all 90s clothes, remember? I would suggest a shirt that has the words 'No Fear' on it, and maybe one with a Looney Tunes character that looks like a gangster. But stay away from any giant pairs of jeans. They will not look good on you."
"U-Uncle Wes, I'm not sure… I'm kinda still scared about being alone."
"C'mon, Jace. You know this store. It just has fewer groceries now. Go out there and see stuff. We're gonna be here for a bit. I have a lot of… things to pick up."
Wes gave him a slap on the back, grabbed a cart, and headed off on his own.
Once his uncle had disappeared beyond the clothing and jewelry sections, Jace awkwardly pulled out one of the bright red shopping carts and pushed it across the clean white tile to the electronics section at the end of the store, since he was more curious about current video games than clothes shopping at the moment. Having been one of the shorter students in his class, he could just barely see above the handlebar.
On the way, he paid attention to the families walking around, to see what the kids were wearing. He didn't like most of what he saw, and by the time he was approaching the glass cabinets filled with boxed 16-bit cartridges, he had all but decided to simply try and pick out clothing that would form a close approximation to his modern outfit.
He paused before passing the movie and music section to look around. He noticed that the CD selection was about as big as the future version of the store. But in this time, it was more of an emerging media than one that had experienced its peak and was diminishing. Movie-wise, the shelves were all filled with videotapes, the Disney ones in their bigger "book" type packaging. He had never seen a tape in person, but examples of people enjoying the VHS era had appeared in scenes in many of his uncle's movies.
He pushed his cart up to the video game aisle, left it by the end cap, and went in for a closer look. All of the cases were behind glass, instead of being out and attached to pullable cords that would let him see the back. He first took in the sight of the small Sony PlayStation portion of the shelves, brand new and only having about a dozen games. In between it and the soon-to-disappear Nintendo Entertainment System section was a sliver of discs for the Sega Saturn, next to the last of the company's Genesis games, its star being the fastest ever blue hedgehog's Sonic & Knuckles.
By far the largest selection was the Super Nintendo's library, and it was a good year for the system. Titles like the sci-fi sidescrollers Super Metroid and Megaman 7, and the roleplaying game Chrono Trigger, coincidentally about time travelers, were all at the top of the shelf. The gorilla-platformer Donkey Kong Country and the quirky modern-day RPG Earthbound, in its big box that came with a player's guide, were also standouts.
He recognized a few of the titles from the times that his uncle had gone into long rants about this era being the pinnacle of gaming, but he was more taken aback by the fact that the store was asking for $70 for some of them. Kirby's Dreamland 2, the pink puffball's sequel in the Game Boy partition, was cheap by comparison at thirty bucks.
He swung around the back to check out the television display wall and had to let out a small laugh. With all twenty of the big old tube sets playing The Lion King, only one of which could even break the thirty-two-inch ceiling, he wondered why they bothered to display them at all. Their screens were dark and low-resolution, the sound was either tinny or had too much bass, and even just the exteriors were too ugly for Jace to accept them as legitimate portals to TV land. How did anyone put up with them?
Then he remembered that he'd be spending any television-watching time with a unit that was probably even older than any of those on the store's shelves.
He sighed to himself and returned to his cart—only to find that it wasn't there. He glanced into several nearby aisles, and quickly realized that it was completely gone.
"Ugh, 90s jerks…" he grumbled, having concluded that someone had taken it.
Instead of going back to get another one, he proceeded to the toy section. Once he arrived at their colorful aisles, he had to take a moment to ponder a curiosity. A sign marker separated one section specifically into a "Girls' Toys" zone, which was very pink. He had a very early memory of that still being the case when he was young, but by the time he was six, all of the toy placements had blended together. He remembered it being another one of those small changes that his mom seemed way too excited about.
He went through a few of the aisles and looked around. The Lego sets were interesting, as none of them were licensed yet, and they were all much simpler and less colorful. A former brickhead, he did enjoy seeing boxes of buildable to-the-point themes like Castle and Pirates, as well as the sci-fi underwater sets that made up Aquazone.
Aside from the masses of Legos, he also looked at or picked up and touched things like Power Rangers and G.I. Joe action figures, Nickelodeon's toy that was little more than colorful blobs of slime which they called Gak, the tiny vehicles from Micro Machines—many of which were Star Wars related, and the equally small character of Mighty Max, who came with clamshell play sets that became animal heads when closed.
He had already learned about Pogs from his uncle, and the store only had a small selection left since the popularity of the children's' gambling toy made of milk caps wasn't quite what it used to be. But across from them on the other side was something interesting: a modern and final variation of Stretch Armstrong, the man who had limbs that could be pulled to extreme lengths. There was one left in stock.
He picked up the box and looked at the sides and back, remembering having seen his uncle's in one of his mom's photo albums. He had gotten it on his ninth, maybe tenth birthday, and there was a picture of little Wes trying to tear the arms off with his ignored cake in the background. The snapshot had always stood out to Jace, because despite his uncle's constant insistence that his childhood was amazing, it was one of the few pictures he had seen where Wes actually looked genuinely happy.
As he was looking at the box, something inexplicable happened. The cardboard shell jittered and distorted for a split second before disappearing from his hands. And it wasn't like someone had just yanked it from his palms; though they retained their grasping position, it felt as if they were never holding the box to begin with.
Startled, he quickly found it back on the shelf, exactly where it was before he had picked it up. He tried to rationalize what had just happened, if it had at all or was only true in his mind. Cautiously and hesitantly, he grabbed a Street Sharks beefy shark-man figure container and studied and moved it in his hands in every way possible. Once he thought that the anomaly wouldn't repeat, he began to put it back on the shelf.
And then it completed its return journey on its own, "jumping" from just inches away back to from where it had been taken. Freaked out, Jace took a step back and peered down at his now untrustworthy hands. He realized what might have actually happened to his shopping cart, and then began to question if he was still real or not.
"Jace?" he heard his uncle exclaim and turned to see him. "What are you doin' here? Thought you'd be clothes shopping. We're gonna end up doing it together at this rate… Not that that's terrible or anything. I could… give ya some tips."
"W-what are you doing here? Buying toys?" Jace asked, noticing that his uncle's shopping cart was still empty. "Aren't you s'posed to be getting food and stuff?"
"Yeah, yeah. I just wanted a look around first. Ya know, even after just being here for a year last time, the stuff in stock really changed by the time I left. Thought I'd see what the store was like the moment we arrived. Oh, hey! I didn't know they had a Stretch in stock!" He beamed and went over and picked it up. "Man, it took me a week until I first came to the store last time. Must'a just missed him."
"Uh, there's something weird going on. W-when I picked it up…"
"Huh? What's weird?" Wes asked and put the toy back.
Jace stared at his hands like they were ready to betray him again at any moment. "Maybe I'm going crazy, but the things I'm holding or whatever… They keep 'glitching' on me, like I didn't touch them at all. What the heck's going on?"
"Um, hm. You're touching stuff and they… Oh! Oh, yeah, I remember that. My only advice is to not worry about it and keep trying."
"Keep trying? What does that mean? What if I disappear or something?"
"Haha, you won't. It's not that dramatic. Same thing happened to me for a few weeks. I think… time just needs some, uh, time to realize you're here. I guess when you travel through it, there's a lot of displacement and quantum-y stuff that has to happen and be resolved. But don't worry, you should become a true resident of 1995 soon. The glitch hasn't happened to me yet since we arrived. Maybe the year's still used to me"
"You know, you must be the worst time traveler ever. You have no idea how any of this works, do you? Did you even learn anything about it when you were here?"
"Never proclaimed that I did, kiddo." Wes let out a sigh and looked around at the bright packaging with a smile. "Ya know, every time I pass by a toy section in a store, it brings me right back…"
"To what? Sitting around playing with toys?"
"No, to my crowning childhood achievement. See, Toys 'R' Us used to have this contest with Nickelodeon, and if you won, you got to run around the store for a few minutes and put anything you want into all the shopping carts you need. And guess what? I was one of those lucky few! I told you I was the ultimate 90s kid."
Jace looked at his uncle incredulously again. "That sounds awesome and everything, but you've never told me about that before. So I'm not sure if you're lying."
"No way, no lie! Your mom probably just doesn't want to talk about it because she was really jealous when I won and then sulked after I only got her a few Barbie dolls. And I've been kind of waiting to reveal it to you at the right moment, at an age where you might be at 'peak understanding of something really cool.' Is… that now?"
Jace rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean I guess that sounds pretty fun…"
"You have no idea. Maybe I'll just have to convince you of its amazingness. Anyway, that doesn't actually happen until next year, just before middle school."
"I thought you liked this year the most."
"Aw, well, yeah. The Toy Run was definitely the highlight of '96, but as a year in its entirety, this one's still my hallmark. It's just too bad we don't get to see its first half."
"That's neat…" Jace said after a few moments of watching his uncle stare up at the ceiling in listless nostalgic bliss. "But I think I should get to the clothes."
"Oh. Yeah. Heh, better hope they don't flicker right off of you later on, right?"
"Maybe… as long as you touch them they won't, since you don't seem to have that problem, because you're… more real or something?"
"Yeah, maybe. You really are smart for an eleven-year-old, Jace."
"Too bad being smart doesn't count for anything…" he muttered to himself.
"What was that?"
"N-nothing."
"All right, bud, I'm getting back to the task at hand. Have fun."
Wes was about to go around the corner and leave with his shopping cart, but he suddenly stopped, looked at something, and hurriedly spun around and returned to Jace. Before he knew what was happening, Wes had grabbed his hand and quickly pulled him to the other side of the aisle. Assuming that they were now hiding from someone, Jace watched as his uncle peeked back into the toy corridor, and then did so himself.
"What's going on?" Jace whispered. "Why are we hiding?"
"Didn't think I was here…" Wes murmured back.
Jace watched as a young boy and his mother rounded the corner and stopped in front of the Super Soaker display. He instantly recognized the younger version of his great aunt, yet it took another few seconds to identify the kid near her.
Little Wes had a baggy white and red shirt, large cargo shorts that went past his knees, and plain gray socks snug in his big white Nike sneakers. His understated clothes were not what made him stand out, though. His red baseball cap, tilted just a little to the side, the slap bracelet on his left wrist with a black and white zigzag pattern, and the gray plastic brick clipped onto his shorts were what made him unique, as did his mannerisms.
The ten-year-old wasn't exactly the happy, carefree kid Jace had imagined. Even after only observing him for a second, he saw that he had the appearance of an eternally impatient child, at least at the moment. He was in a constant state of motion, whether folding or unfolding his arms, tapping his feet, or just swaying from side to side.
"That's… you…" Jace said.
"Yep. I think I remember this day now. I'm getting a new water gun, one of the big ones. And if I am… I think I break it in during a game later today."
"A game?"
"I'll tell you later. The important thing is to be careful. We're not ready to interact with my younger self."
"What do you mean not ready? I thought…"
"I mean we shouldn't interact with Little Wes at all. Yeah, we should only watch him from a distance, like we are right now. Don't want any paradoxes."
As the young Wes pointed to several models of the Super Soakers in what looked like an argument with his mom, Jace asked, "What's that thing at your side?"
"Game Boy power adapter. I always had a Game Boy in my pocket, ready to play at any time. And if I was anywhere near an outlet, I'd plug in and save some batteries."
"It's gotta be this one, Mom!" Little Wes had increased his volume enough to be audible. "I need the range! It's the longest of all the guns."
"All right. Fine," she relented. "But I don't see what's wrong with your last one."
"The last one was good! The water tank backpack thing is cool and everything, but the games don't last long enough and I don't need all that extra water!"
"Okay, sweetheart, okay. Whatever keeps you running around getting exercise. Oh, geez, look at the size of this thing. And do they have to look… so real?"
He smiled as he grabbed the biggest water gun on the shelf and squeezed it against his chest—and as the box was so long, it ran from his neck to his knees. Satisfied for the day, he placed it carefully into his mother's shopping cart, which was filled with clothing for the two of them, and went off with her. Once the coast was clear, Wes and Jace stepped back out into the open, and exchanged a quick glance.
"Um…" Jace hesitated before commenting.
"What? What'd you think of me? I was a cool kid, huh?"
"I mean… I don't talk to my mom like that…"
"Okay. What, you want a reward? She still spoils you anyway, doesn't she?"
"U-Uncle Wes… My first impression is that you… were kind of a brat?"
"All right, look, I got a little excited and wantsy around toys," he said defensively.
"Yeah, I see kids like that in the present too, and then I watch as they get dragged out of the store screaming and crying and kicking and—"
"Hold on there, bud. I did not devolve into tantrums. I never let myself lose my cool. Trust me on this one. I didn't ask for all the toys in the world, either. But when I saw something I knew I needed, like, legitimately, I would be assertive. I would make my case. And then I would be very grateful. Those three steps always worked for me."
"But the way you…"
"Jace. Jace, listen to me for a second." Wes placed a hand on his shoulder and took a breath. "My mom would let me know if I ever went too far. And she had me young. So, in some ways, to me, she was kind of like… an older sister, or a really cool babysitter. We kind of, ah, bounced off of each other, you know? It was my dad that flooded me with toys, but that was just to win my approval. But getting stuff from her… That was different. I respected, maybe even treasured her gifts.
"Also, dude, there's nothing wrong with standing up for yourself a little, even at your age. Show some backbone. Do you even have experience in those things? You can ask for something and take it like a man when you get shot down, instead of turning into a little delinquent puke and throwing a hissy fit about it. It's called nuance. I think. I dunno what you'd call it. Anyway, I'm sure we've given my kid self enough time to get some space from us, so let's get you some clothes."
Jace stood there for a few seconds and thought about what his uncle had just told him, and then caught up and joined him in the boys' clothing department.
Popping into his sight right away was an entire rack of multi-colored pastel polo shirts, all of which looked dull and faded in Jace's future vision. And he also didn't understand why he saw a shirt with an angry urban hip-hop-loving Tweety bird on it, much less an entire line of other similarly themed Looney Tunes characters, even though his uncle had "warned" him earlier. Thankfully, solid color clothing still existed, too.
Wes looked at the options. "So, we just need a couple pairs of pants and shorts, and maybe eight shirts or so. What do you have in mind?"
"Why do I need so many if we're just staying until the weekend?"
"Oh, you know, just in case… Also, hey, you'll get to take a new wardrobe with you back into the future, surprise your friends with clothes they don't have."
"I don't care about surprising anyone… Can I just get a bunch of simple shirts without logos or pictures? Mostly blues. Maybe a gray or two. Oh, and a slate."
"How about we compromise and just get you one 1995 version of your current outfit, for, you know, days when you feel insecure, and you trust me with all the other days? I'm no style expert, but I know how to make you look good enough where kids don't make fun of you. I could get you into a set the young me would be proud of."
"Why is that important?"
"Uh, because Little Wes could be pretty critical of others' fashion sense. Luckily, I know my own standards. So if you win my approval, that means you're gravy."
"I still don't see why…" Jace trailed off when he noticed a trio of giggling teenage girls going by, who stopped for a moment, looked at his yet-to-be-designed clothes, laughed to each other, and then moved on.
"That's why. Right there. Now, come on, do you want a Mortal Kombat shirt, with the dragon on it? How about this Mystery Science Theater one? Oh, here's some nice Metallica art. Or you could always go with some classic Simpsons flair."
"Stupid 90s teen girls…" Jace grumbled and tugged at his sleeves. "Bet if they looked back and saw themselves just now, they'd be the ones feeling dumb…"
"Stop being so vindictive and pick out some threads over here."
Jace tried to, but as an indecisive kid who was out of his element on what constituted functioning fashion for the decade, he let his uncle do most of the work. By the time they were done, the cart was full of clothing, which Wes insisted all needed to be tried on. After giving Jace the cart, he asked for a card with a number nine on it at the fitting rooms desk. The overworked clerk, with racks full of rejected shirts, pants, and dresses to go through, hastily gave them one without giving the two much of a look.
"I don't need you to come in with me," Jace insisted as Wes followed him into a changing room, his arms full of clothing. "I can dress myself."
"And I'm proud of you for that!" Wes said snarkily and placed the haul on the room's bench. "But you're still unstable, so if you had brought them in, they might've zapped right back out of here, and then the store would think you were shoplifting."
Jace got the point. He looked at the hill of fabric and reflected on how dreadfully boring it was to go clothes shopping, no matter the current trends.
"Take your time, make sure you look good in all this crap. I got a lot of shopping to do myself, so when you're done… Uh, you better just wait in here so the clothes don't snap back inside, out of your grasp. I'll come get you when I'm done."
"You're sticking me in a fitting room? What am I supposed to do to kill time?"
"Uh, here." Wes reached into one of his deep pockets and pulled out a Game Boy that was in pretty good shape. "Play some Tetris. Baby's first Game Boy game."
Jace took it and tried to find the power button. "Gee. Thanks."
Wes gave him a wave and left him alone. After a few moments in the quiet room, which also had the same smell as it did in the future, Jace came to a startling realization: the changing rooms were very likely not updated at all in the following twenty-five years.
• •
An hour later, with two carts by their food court table that were filled with red and white Target bags, Jace nibbled at a small bag of popcorn and watched his uncle munch a hot dog and sip from his second soda of the day. He remembered what was still in his pocket, next to his iPhone, and took out the Game Boy to return it.
"Keep it. It's yours," Wes said with a belch. "I wanted to give you a Game Boy Pocket—they're a lot smaller and lighter—but they won't be out for over a year. It'll help you fit in, give you something to play. Bought it before I went back to the present."
Jace returned the bulky gray portable to his shorts and brought up something he had been meaning to for the last few minutes, "You know, hot dogs are really, really bad for you. Mom lets me have an organic turkey dog like, once a month."
Wes took a bigger, more determined bite to emphasize that he didn't really care for Jace's health tips. "Look at me. Do I tip the scales? Strike you as really unhealthy? If I ate like this all the time, maybe I would—heck, maybe I'd be dead. But I feel like trying some of the food from my youth for a bit while I'm here. I appreciate that Luce watches out for you, but I wouldn't go through life criticizing others'… decisions."
His nephew bit his lip to keep himself from adding something about his uncle's soda consumption as well, and simply asked instead, "So… what do we do next?"
Wes finished his dog, stood up and stretched as if to celebrate his victory over food, and proclaimed, "Time to find a hotel room. And then the adventure continues."
Jace fell back in his chair and sighed. "Haven't we had enough adventure today?"
• •
The back of the car stuffed with their purchases, Wes pulled up to a Days Inn.
"It feels weird staying at a hotel in our own city," Jace noted as they stepped out.
"Yeah, that's right! It's like you're a tourist in your hometown," Wes replied as they went through the sliding doors. "You wouldn't have had a reason to come to this place until you started visiting your mom and me in the nursing home."
Check-ins had just opened, and Wes looked confident that he'd get a good room despite it being the height of the tourism season. He asked for a non-smoking with two beds, a microwave and a fridge, and said he'd be paying upfront for four days, with cash.
As Jace was looking at things in the lobby, Wes tugged on his sleeve. He turned to see the wad of cash that he had in hand and was trying to pass off to him.
"Jace, pay the nice lady while I start getting our things, okay?"
After he dropped the money into his palm and had taken the luggage trolley out, Jace suddenly realized, in disgust, what Wes had just done. But, feeling he had no choice, he forced a smile and gave the money to the desk clerk.
"Thank you, young man!" she said with a smile and began counting the bills. "Are you on vacation with your dad? Are you having fun?"
"S-sure…" Jace stammered. "Lots of fun…"
"Okay, we seem to be all set here." She typed on her loud old mechanical keyboard to confirm a few things, and then handed Jace a pair of metal keys. "Your room number is 203. Have a good stay and call us if you need anything at all!"
"Yeah. Okay. Um, thanks."
Hoping that the money would stay in the register, Jace rejoined his uncle once he returned with the shopping bag-laden trolley and went with him into the elevator, with a bit of a scowl on his face. On the ride up, Wes checked his pockets.
"Looking for something?" Jace muttered. "I don't think it's gonna work. That 'nice lady' touched the money last, so it probably won't come back to you."
"Hey," Wes shrugged, "it was worth a try."
"You just tried to rip off the hotel of over a hundred bucks!"
"And yet, there's really no harm or foul, because maybe I was planning to come back a third time and reset everything again anyway. You'll realize at some point that this city is kind of our playground. I'm not saying we should kill anyone, but…"
"You think there's no consequences, so it doesn't matter who you hurt?"
"Kind of," Wes said with another shrug as they stepped off into the hallway. "I don't plan on getting myself arrested, but what's wrong with bending the rules in our favor a little? Use a few cheat codes? I'm already gonna game the stock market a bit."
"You know, Uncle Wesley, you're… You can be a real assclown sometimes."
Wes held back a laugh that turned into a snort. "Hey, careful. Clowns stopped being funny after the big scare of '16."
"Yeah, well…" Jace demurred as they stopped at their door. "You don't have to tell me. I lived it. I still have nightmares from my seventh birthday party."
Wes put the key in and turned the knob. "If you don't want to do the kind of stuff you can do as a time traveler, that's fine, bud. But I'm here to have some fun."
"But that just seems… really selfish."
Once the door was opened, Jace quickly walked in and dropped himself onto the bed by the window, where he turned to see the view. Past the pool were the suburbs—his future house somewhere within them—and the distant desert hills beyond.
"I'm gonna go and take care of a few things in fifteen or so," Wes explained as he packed the minifridge full of snacks and drinks. "And when I get back, we can go check out the big water gun game me and my gang'll have just before sunset."
"You have a gun fight with your gang?"
"With water, yeah. We always have them late in the afternoon. We'll do a little spying, you'll get to see my friends and my old neighborhood, and how we kept ourselves entertained. Hey, come over here, see what I got for food."
Jace flipped around and looked down from the end of the bed.
"Geez, don't you think you went a little overboard?"
"Maybe." Wes took some things out from the bag and tried to organize them to optimize space in a way so they'd actually all fit. "But I kept seeing stuff I wanted you to try. I'm still kind of surprised at how much that store has…"
Jace picked up a six-pack of tall plastic bottles filled with green liquid.
"Squeezits," Wes said. "Apple juice flavor, supposedly. The gimmick is… you squeeze the bottle to drink them. Not around anymore. Got Capri Sun, too." He held up a box of forty silver pouches. "Variety pack. These lasted—you must've had a few."
"Mom doesn't let me have drinks with this much sugar," Jace said, looking at the nutrition facts. "Everything is junk food. Didn't you get any meals?"
"Hey, we'll get meals. No worries. In the meantime, if you get hungry, try one of these." He ripped off a package of Dunkaroos from its brethren and tossed it up to him. "Cookies with dippable frosting. Great stuff. I think they're still around, too. But only online, not really in stores anymore. Oh, and here." He gave him a strawberry-flavored Push Pop. "It's like lipstick candy, for kids. Keep it in your pocket and satisfy your sweet tooth whenever you want. Some of us always had one on hand."
"I know what these are. But what's so special about the Trix cereal?"
Wes took the box out of the bag. "Truth is, it was never a favorite of mine. But… the green and blue pieces exist again now, so I thought it'd be worth a purchase. There's something to be said about eating things that don't exist anymore, right?"
Jace shook his head a little. "I… I dunno. I don't really see the point."
"Of course you don't. None of the food you like has gone extinct yet."
"That's not exactly true. There were these nice, organic shortbread biscuits made in California that I liked as a kid, and they're not around anymore."
"Sounds like a tragedy. Here, try a bite of this." Wes unwrapped a strawberry Fruit by the Foot and handed it to him. "You have had a fruiter footer before, right?"
"A what? Oh. I've… traded for a few at lunch before."
"The ones they got in the present aren't anything like these babies. Try it."
Jace sighed once more and tore off a small piece, which he quickly ate. "Well. It's thicker and chewier. And it feels like it has tiny little seeds in it or something."
"I know, right? The texture is completely different! By the way, it's not like I'm still eating all this crap as an adult on a daily basis. But I do try them sometimes to see what the survivors have become. Uh, let's see, what else did I get…" He reached into a bag and pulled out a couple of Lunchables packages. "Got some classics here. A nachos and a 'Mega Pizza'. Oh, and here are some cheese and cracker Handi Snacks, too."
"Ugh… the fake cheese in stuff like that makes me kind of sick."
"Then don't eat the cheese," Wes said with a shrug. "And in the last bag… Some good old Kid Cuisines. Consider them emergency meals. Look, see how they still have a polar bear chef character on them? Isn't that… you know, different?"
"I really hope we don't eat like this the whole time," Jace said, his uncle trying to cram it all into their small icebox. "Do you even do any of your own cooking?"
"I can cook. When I'm not lazy enough to not do it."
Jace turned his arms into a pillow and looked up at the ceiling. "Mom makes me all of my lunches. She says I shouldn't eat what the school gives us. Even though she says California has higher standards for their lunches. Says it still has too many carbs. I don't even know what a carb is…" he said tiredly and closed his eyes.
"I figured. I have a pretty clear picture of what kind of mom she is. She surprised me; she was different as a kid. Problem is, she doesn't realize what she's doing to you."
"She's a nice mom…" Jace whispered. "She's so nice…"
"Uh-huh. And what do the other kids think when they see you bringing in your recyclable brown bag every day, and reading your nice little notes from Mommy?"
Jace didn't respond, but he felt his face twitch.
"Hey. Buddy. I think this would be a good time to have a little chat."
"About what?" he asked after his eyes shot open and he saw that his uncle was looking down at him with a serious expression, his arms crossed.
"Even if we had actually gone camping, I probably would've brought this up. And, uh, trust me on this one—I'm not looking forward to this either."
"W-what are you talking about?"
"You're having school problems. Or, you were. No point in hiding it. I watched you graduate, kiddo. You looked pretty mad. Didn't even look the principal in the eye."
Jace turned over so he wouldn't have to look at his uncle. "It's nothing. Just something stupid that happened at the end of the year. It doesn't even matter anymore."
"Okay." Wes sat on the bed, right next to him. "Time to take a crack at being a parent. Listen to me, it does still matter. You think things will get better when you go to middle school in a few months? You'd be wrong. It'll all just get worse."
"Can you let me rest for now? I'll… I'll deal with it when we go back."
"I doubt it. So, what went wrong? You were happy back in fourth grade, weren't you? Who are the little punks who made your life a living hell?"
He waited for a response, but Jace didn't give him one.
"I can stay here all day," Wes said. "And it'll only keep getting more awkward."
"They're… they're all jealous because I'm smart…"
"What? You think they're jealous? Because you're intelligent? Jace, I, uh, I hate to break this to you, but no one's ever envious of a kid who has a high IQ."
Unable to see his face, Wes had assumed that his nephew was close to tears by this point—until Jace suddenly shot up straight and spat fire.
"Yeah, they are, because what other reason would there be? Like my school didn't have enough morons already, and then even my own friends turned on me at the start of the school year, for no reason at all! They all went and joined the idiot squad!"
"Hoo, boy, this sounds like psychiatrist field day territory… All right. I can help if you give me a shot, but you have to, A: be candid and don't lie about anything, and B: cool your jets. Remember, none of the kids that were mean to you exist yet. You can say anything you want, and they'll never know you talked crap! Does that make it easier?"
"N-no! Not really…"
"They're that bad, huh? You think they're going to reach through time and space to make fun of you right now? This is against my better judgment, but how about you just spill it. Say what's on your mind. Let it allll out. And then I'll tell you what I think."
"No. I don't want to. You know, you'd be a terrible dad."
"C'mon. I wanna hear about it. Honest. Please, Jacey-poo?"
"S-shut up! Stop treating me like a baby. I… I can take care of myself!"
"Okay, let's play pretend. I'm a hired hitman who can take out these kids. Yeah, I'm serious. I got no qualms about knocking out a bunch of prepubescents. All I need is a good reason. So now it's up to you to convince me to do this job."
"I don't want you to kill them! Just… beating them a little would be good."
"Whoa. Hold on. You know I was kidding, right? Like, to test you? But you legit want me to kick their butts, don't you? Oh, man. That's not good, kiddo… Look, I had a few jerks and problems growing up, too, but I never resorted to physical violence."
"Y-yeah, well… Good for you. It… It's not like I'd be able to do anything anyway. I'm not strong or tough. I just want things to back to the way they were, when no one was being a jackass to me."
"Maybe you did something to deserve the treatment."
"What? No I didn't!"
"How do I know? You won't tell me anything. Look, just lay it on me. We need to toughen you up, get you some confidence. And I don't think you'll have enough fun on this trip otherwise. It's important to be able to relax"
"All right! Fine. Fine…" Jace took a deep breath. "Give me a second to think… It all kind of started a while ago. So. At the end of the fourth grade, I had this big fight with my friend Jamie, because we had an argument about some lore in the MMORPG we were both playing, and he was completely wrong about the Cyber-Mage class's background. He didn't even get the name of his people's home world correct, either."
"Uh-huh…" Wes mumbled as Jace took a hate-bite out of his fruit roll.
"I guess it kind of got out of control, and we never got a chance to patch things up before summer break. Me and Mom went on vacation to Canada and Jamie must've thought I was ignoring him and was still angry, but actually, I had stopped caring. So… when we get back, my email's full of messages from him about why I wasn't responding even though he knows my mom bans social media and messaging on our vacations.
"Now it's not about the Cyber-Mage anymore, that I was right about by the way, but this crap about how I should be a better friend. He tells me to apologize for a few things I said about him, that were actually also true. I don't say sorry because I didn't do anything wrong, so he starts talking to our other friends, making stuff up about me to be a jerk. It keeps getting worse because we don't see each other until school starts again."
"Yeah…" Wes yawned. "Yep…"
"By the time we do go back to school, he's totally changed! I'm not even sharing a class with Jamie anymore, but Austin and Chad keep bugging me by saying stupid things and trying to turn it all into a joke even though they hurt my feelings and they know it, and at lunch, they ignore me and sit with Jamie instead. They even leave a seat open just to mock me, like they're pretending I could sit with them. I wasn't going to fall for that."
"Uh… Jace…"
"And then they must've started spreading rumors about me through the whole school, because kids I didn't even know that well kept coming up to me and calling me this stupid nickname everyone knows I hate. Then this one girl I actually kind of liked but who probably didn't know I existed started calling me it and laughing about it."
"Jace?"
"This crap went on all year! Even a few teachers called me that stupid nickname! Do you know what it's like to ignore someone and hope they get the hint? It either works, or it doesn't! It's not like you can ignore someone more. The only thing I could do was prove that I was smarter than them, like none of their jokes bothered me anymore."
"Jace! Hey, shut up!"
"You shut up. I'm sure they all started it for more reasons than only me being smarter than them and knowing things, and not liking it when they get their facts wrong. I like people to be correct on things, is that so bad? Is knowledge something to mock? No! Why do you think Mom makes me flash cards and keeps them up to date, and makes me read five Wikipedia articles a day? She wants me to know things! She says I have to help defeat the anti-intellect… ism… Anti-intellect… The dumbness going on in the country. But it's more than just me being smart! They also make fun of my height! Jamie, Chad, and Austin and Laurie are all taller than me, and I'm the second-shortest in my class!"
"… Are you done?" Wes asked as Jace took a hyperventilation break.
"N-no!" he huffed and took another bite of his strawberry tape—only to realize that he had eaten it all and was now biting into paper. "I mean… Yeah. That's about it."
"Okay. Can you repeat all of that? I stopped listening. Because I stopped caring."
"W-what? You stopped listening?! I've never told anyone all this stuff before!"
"Buddy! Chill. I'm kidding. But most people really would have stopped, because you're whining. Like, a lot. No one wants to help a kid who whines about everything."
"But—"
"Shh. My turn now. To start… Aw, man…" Wes rubbed his forehead. "All right, you're not gonna like what I'm about to say. But I want you to listen. Your mom is a good parent overall, but you're lucky you have me, because she would just coddle you if you told her all this, just before going down the route of really bad advice.
"From the sound of it, you're the one at fault here. Yeah, this is mostly on you."
"No! No it's not! They were the ones being total a-holes!"
"I'll preface this by saying that kids your age shouldn't be on social media at all. You still need to graduate past in-person communication. But, not much we can do about that. Your problem… is that you took all of this way too personally. And I'm guessing this didn't start with some argument about a digital mage character."
"Cyber-Mage! His official bio says that he flies around on a starship called Gallant and joins the Galactic Council of Heroes to avenge his people back on Brendal IV."
"It's great that you have an endless library of trivia in your head, and I do too, but you gotta learn when to read those books out loud. Kids don't not like you because you're smart, Jace. Hell, you probably got the friends you had because you're smart. Every circle of buddies wants a guy like that, the thinker, the one with the juicy info. And it's okay if you're shy—I knew a lot of shy kids—but there's a big difference between being soft-spoken, and being a kid who thinks highly of himself and limits his communication down to nothing but smart-ass remarks. News flash: your friends weren't trying to make fun of you. They were trying to make light of the situation. Slap your back, laugh it off?"
"No, they weren't! They just wanted to keep the argument going!"
"That's only what you think. Sure, things escalated a little, but I promise you that by the time school started again, your friends were already way past some stupid tizzy. They were looking to have a sense of camaraderie with you again. It's what friends do."
"Camrad… What? They wanted to be friends by teasing me and being bullies?"
"Yes! I mean, no. That's only how you saw it. Tell me, Jace, did you ever tell them to stop? Did they know you thought they were being 'a-holes' to you? Or did you react only by ignoring them, and then take that up a notch when you started insulting them?"
"I… I, uh…"
"You acquired a victim complex somewhere along the line. That's all. You took something too personally, thought it meant something a lot more than what it actually did, and you started this loop in your head that you never took a step back from and took a different look at. Okay, so tell me, why do you think some kids bully others?"
"Because they're stupid."
"Good. I can see we're making real progress," Wes sighed. "No, wrong. Granted, there have probably been a few real sociopaths in the public school system—I had my days with one or two—but for the most part, your peers only want to feel some sort of connection to you, whether they like you or not. They want to be able to see what you're thinking, and that doesn't even always have to be through verbal means. When you turn away from your own need for social connection and try to make yourself feel nothing inside or just become super-defensive, then, yeah, this is what happens."
Wes paused for a moment as Jace looked at him, and finally gave what his uncle was saying some thought. Wes stood up, went over to the window, and stared out.
"Look… I don't have any degrees in any of this stuff. I never really needed any. I managed to figure out how people work all on my own. It was my gift, even as a child. You don't need to get into the complexities of it. You just need to know the basics.
"Trust me when I say it will only get worse. Especially if you end up in a class full of strangers, whose first impression of you will be, well, who you are now. You aren't 'cool' or 'mysterious' by hiding up in a tower. You gotta come down. Have fun. Laugh at the good, bad, and stupid times. You'll have lots of each. Sheesh… Before we all had cellphones, honesty was everything between kids. We were experts on reading a face."
"You say all that… But you can be a real jerk sometimes, Uncle Wes…"
He turned around and shook his head. "Haven't you been listening to anything? I don't see myself as being a 'jerk' to you! I'm your cool uncle who wants to help you!"
Jace sulked and looked at the floor.
"Take some time to think about these revelations and realize that, probably, most of what I said is good advice. Probably. I'll leave you alone for a few hours. Relax, watch TV. Remember, we're here to have fun, but practice your social skills on some local kids when you can. Try to make a few friends. Then when you get back, you'll be better off."
"Make friends? Why? I'm just going to leave soon and never see them again."
"Don't think about that. Just try to be open to any you come across while you are here," Wes said as he headed to the door. "Don't answer the phone or let anyone in. Ya know, all the stuff I'm sure your mom has told you not to do since you were born."
"Uncle Wes…" Jace spoke up before he left. "If you're good at talking to people, why do you hate work so much, and your boss, and have, like… no adult friends?"
Wes tried to give a reasonable, thought out and logical response, but could only muster, "Because things change," before he closed and locked the door.
Jace stayed sprawled out on the empty bed in the quiet hotel room for a few minutes, looking up at the ceiling while the large and loud air conditioner whirred away under the window. Maybe his uncle was smarter than he thought, and actually made a good point. But he wasn't an eleven-year-old who easily admitted his own faults.
"What does he know…" he mumbled. "He didn't see how mean they all got…"
He eyed the Dunkaroos pack, and finally relented to his Uncle's insistence to try and take it easy while on this trip, the strangest of all vacations. He flipped over, tore off the plastic top, and grabbed a room temperature Capri Sun from the minifridge.
After sinking into a hill of hotel pillows, he grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. After the loud thlump sound of the electron gun fired, Jerry Springer blasted into the room, and he scrambled to turn down the volume and change the channel. He went through the twenty available twice, stopping on HBO to watch a bit of Highlander.
Right as Sean Connery's sword fight began, the TV shut off—because according to the universe, it had never been on, since Jace had never picked up the remote; it was back on the nightstand between the beds. He angrily grabbed it and turned the old clunker back on, and again, two women fighting over a man blared into the room.
After he fixed the channel and volume but before he could take another bite of frosted kangaroo cookie, things reversed again. Frustrated, he wondered if everything he had eaten would leave his stomach and return to their packaging. What if he starved?
He got up, reached to turn on the TV with the button at its bottom, and was greeted by shouts of "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!" He fumbled with the cheap plastic tabs until he changed the channel, and kept pressing to surf through them. Moments after he thought he "had it" and leaned back a bit, time burped and the TV switched off for a third time.
Once he had re-retrieved the remote, he thought about throwing it at the screen and seeing if that would be permanent. Instead, he performed the breathing exercises his mom had taught him to use whenever he got frustrated, and then threw in some words.
"I'm real…" he murmured in a meditative state. "I'm really here… I'm in 1995, not 2020… I'm really… really, really really here. So… let me do things."
He opened his eyes, calmly turned on the TV, and steadily went to Nickelodeon, currently playing an early Rugrats episode. He took in the feeling of being in the past, in a hotel, and tried to enjoy doing nothing more than relaxing in a nice, cold room as talking babies went on an adventure. All was right with the world. There was no way the—
No, it happened again. Right now, he simply had no ability to watch TV on his own. Maybe he couldn't operate any machinery at all. And yet, he realized that anything his uncle had given him so far hadn't suffered the temporal glitch. His shopping cart, the toys, the remote—those were all things that Jace alone had interacted with.
Whatever the reason for that, he was now tired of trying to watch some retro shows, and had to find something else to do. He played Tetris for a few minutes, but soon only wanted a new game for his handheld. Maybe Wes had picked one up?
With a new goal in mind, Jace dropped to the carpeted floor and scooted over to the remaining Target bags, spilling out of the open closet. He peeked at them, and then dug into each bundle a little. But they turned out to be nothing but adult clothes.
Bored, he sprawled onto the floor and stared at the ceiling. Then he went to see if anyone was swimming in the pool. Finally, he returned to the bed, finished his snack, and played mobile games on his phone, which probably had the same power as a million Game Boys. Wes had yet to provide him with a fresh charge, so he watched his battery.
Unsure if his uncle would even allow a recharge, he stopped playing his games after several minutes, and with options exhausted, closed his eyes and let himself fall asleep among the empty packaging and wrappers of kid snacks on the bed.
Wes' voice woke him up some time later, "Yo, Jace, I'm back."
Jace groggily felt the sun on his eyes and saw that it was setting. He looked at Wes, carrying a bag from a place called Radio Shack, and another from an outdoor store.
"Got sick of TV? Did you learn anything?"
"Not much… I couldn't keep it on." He yawned. "Only thing I really noticed is that car commercials don't have that 'do not attempt' text on the bottom."
"Haha, yeah, good observation. Half the time all someone's doing is driving all normal like on some road. 'Do not attempt' to use your vehicular product, right? So, you couldn't keep the television going… Sorry, maybe I should'a turned it on for you."
"I dunno. That might've been even worse. It would've probably kept going back to that Jerry Springer show. I think if you hand me things, maybe it won't happen."
"I'll keep that in mind. Not like I had a partner last time to try that with. Here."
Wes tossed him a bag. Jace took out a box with a picture of a primitive, clunky cell phone. He looked surprised as he removed the Motorola from the box.
"What? Didn't think they existed? These don't have texting yet, but hey, at least we can talk to each other. It ain't cheap, though. Emergencies only. And in the other bag…" He took out a pair of binoculars and asked, "Ready to spy on some kids?"
Jace rubbed his eyes. "I think I had a teacher who got arrested for doing that."