By Hunter Perez

The sergeant sat on the platform at the base of the pillory and gave me another of his toothy overbite smiles. “You know, I never truly appreciated this thing until you came along. Normally, I prefer throwing guys into solitary confinement – the whole out-of-sight / out-of-mind thing. But you really are sexy when locked in – you have a nice lean body and I like watching it wiggle behind those boards. Too bad Thomas Edison won’t be inventing the movie camera for another 20 years, otherwise we’d be getting a jump start on the bondage flick genre.”

At this point, I couldn’t tell whether the sergeant was trying to be funny to amuse me or to amuse himself. Between the soreness of having my head and wrists locked in the heavy pillory boards and the shock in learning that he is also a time traveler, I would have welcomed the notion of solitary confinement just to be away from this assault on my senses.

“So, you probably have a million-billion-trillion questions,” he continued. “Well, you’re not due out for about another three hours – or, I should say, at least another three hours – and I am on a break from my duties, so feel free to ask away.”

I looked down from my imprisoned position, sighed, and said, “Just who are you and what are you doing here? And what am I doing here? None of this makes any sense.”

He nodded, inhaled, and shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, I should have introduced myself when I first came over here – sorry about that, bad manners. My name is John. Formally, I am known as Sergeant John Holmgren.”

“And my name is…” I began to say.

“I know who you are,” he interrupted, blurting my name out. “And you’re probably wondering how I know you. I must say that I don’t know you, but I’ve been told a lot about you, and I’ve seen a lot of your photos. Now, you must be wondering how that’s possible, right?”

I nodded and began to speak when something clicked in my memory. “Hold it, the last thing Nicky said to me was to give his love to John Holmgren if I ran into him.”

Holmgren cleared his throat with displeasure. “And I was having such a nice day before you had to mention his name.”

“But that still doesn’t explain how you know me and my photos,” I responded.

Holmgren stared at me intently for a few seconds. “Nicky told me that you two never communicated after you left college and went to – where, Haiti or Curacao?”

“Martinique,” I corrected. “I never had any messaging with him until a few weeks ago when he contacted me because he saw something I wrote on social media.”

Holmgren wiped his fingers over his eyes and shook his head. “Shit, you never realized it, did you? He was stalking you for years. Mostly on social media, but he went to New York once or twice a year with the hope of making it look like he accidentally encountered you. And every time you posted a photo online, he saved a copy and sometimes had them printed up. That’s how I recognized you – he had that photo of you in a phone booth in London on his refrigerator. That was my favorite photo – it was a real male model type of shot. I have to admit that I was jealous that you had such a hold on him.”

“But I didn’t – I mean, I didn’t try…” I stammered.

“I think that I can understand what happened,” Holmgren said, perhaps a bit too solemnly. “He told me all about your time together. But when you guys were together, you were the alpha and Nicky was the beta in your relationship. That was probably the only time he was a beta. I saw those pictures of you two together when you were in college, and then I saw his photos a year after you were gone. He was a completely different person. He cut his hair short and started exercising like crazy. He took up a bodybuilder lifestyle, with all of that weightlifting and dieting and steroids. He remade himself to be an alpha – the relations he had between your time and my time were with guys who looked like what he used to look like, real beta types. I could be wrong, but I think he wanted you back so you could be his beta. You were the one exception to his new rule, and he didn’t want that exception.”

I was getting dizzy and I was strangely grateful that the pillory was holding me up, as I would have fainted. But while this new information pummeled me, it also strangely fueled my need to get answers.

“But how did he get a time machine?” I asked. “When I saw him the last time, he was a cop.”

“An auxiliary deputy sheriff,” Holmgren said, placing a blunt emphasis on each word. “Damn, we had so many fights over that. You know, one time he was doing a traffic stop and a gang beat him up. The department wouldn’t cover his medical bills because being an auxiliary, which meant he was not on the payroll and not covered by their health care. I know it’s not your fault because we have to talk about him, but digging this stuff up depresses the hell out of me.”

Holmgren pulled out his flask and took a long swig of bourbon. He held up the flask before me and I nodded. He stood, wiped the flask’s opening with his sleeve and allowed me the indulgence of a longer gulp.

“He did the sheriff stuff in his free time,” he stated. “We worked together for a government contractor called Robinson Laboratories. That’s where the time machine comes in.”

I then remembered Nicky making an evasive mention of doing government work, but I didn’t repeat it. Instead, I muttered, “But I am still confused about a time machine.”

“Okay, here’s the Cliff Notes version,” Holmgren said, taking another bourbon swallow before closing up his flask. “After World War II, the American government began to conduct research and experiments on whether time travel was possible. But for the longest time, that went on the back burner thanks to the Cold War, the space race, Vietnam, the arms race – there was always something more important until the 1990s, when there was some degree of calm. But because the Defense Department had to be transparent in the budget over what they were working on, the time travel experiments were outsourced to contractors including the Robinson Laboratories. Robinson was built on the site of this prison, which was closed in the 1950s and torn down in the 1970s. Monroeville, the town where you were picked up, is three miles from here. Robinson did its experiments at the ghost town that used to be Monroeville – the company bought the place and fenced it off because the work was top secret.”

“But I still don’t understand why you were using that ghost town,” I said.

Holmgren leaned against the pillory – mercifully, it was heavy enough not to topple from his weight. “Time travel is nothing like what you see in the movies. The technology is possible, but it is very limited. You don’t get into a crazy vehicle in New Mexico and wind up having breakfast with Henry VIII in England. You can only go back in time to the place where you are standing.  And the experiments had to be done outdoors because the machine generated too much heat and smoke to be operated safely indoors. To be honest, time travel was possible, but not feasible. The furthest back anyone was ever sent was one month – until me and, obviously, you.”

Holmgren walked to the edge of the platform and looked out over the empty courtyard. He kept talking with his back to me.

“And your next question will be an inquiry on what I am doing here. Well, Nicky and I worked together on the bandwidth aspects of the technology, and we were often the last two guys at the lab. One night we left work late, went out to some restaurant and I drank too much. I asked him to drive me home, which he did. He put me to bed and put himself in bed with me. In fairness, the sex was phenomenal. But I think what happened to you happened to me – he loved me more than I loved him. While this was unfolding, I received a job offer from the Saudi Arabian government to work on their artificial intelligence projects. It was a two-year contract worth more money than I could ever dream of spending.”

He turned around and walked back, leaning again on the pillory. “Nicky and I were supposed to do a test of the machine at Monroeville. I told him that I had a surprise and he said he had a surprise, too. I let him go first – he pulled out an engagement ring and got down on his knee. Of course, I was surprised. I certainly didn’t want to marry him, but even if I did, I couldn’t take him as my husband to Saudi Arabia. He got angry and I got angry that he was angry, and words were exchanged and then fists were exchanged. The last thing I recall was his fist crashing into my face. When I woke up, Nicky was gone and I was in a back alley in Monroeville of 1873.”

“Why 1873?” I asked.

“Stupid me, I told him on the drive to the ghost town that 1873 was when the town was at the peak of its prosperity. I’m from New Mexico and the state’s history is a hobby of mine. That saved my life when I got here. After a few hours of panic at my fate, I began to figure out how I could get food and shelter and money as fast as possible. I knew the Jefferson Prison was close by and they had a history of problems getting guards because of its location and its reputation. I assumed if I showed up and bluffed my way in, they’d give me a job.”

“I’m still confused,” I said. “You weren’t dressed for 1873 when you got here.”

“I admit, I hid in an alley and broke into the tailor’s shop after dark to steal clothing,” he grumbled. “In the morning, I hitched a ride on a supply wagon and came out here. Just my luck, there was a convict riot the previous week and three of the guards quit. They hired me on the spot.”

“Did you ever work in a prison before?” I said.

Holmgren laughed. “No, I just watched prison documentaries on television and tried to remember what the correctional officers did. I must have done something right because I’ve been here for two years.”

“So how can we get back home?” I said, immediately regretting that I asked.

Holmgren took out his flask again and he treated himself to a swallow. “That’s the million-dollar question. My work involved going back in time, but there was another division trying to crack the nut on going forward. I have no idea what progress they made, if they made any. I did make an attempt at contact – after I was here for six months, I took a metal case and wrote a long letter addressed to my bosses at Robinson. The envelope said it was to be opened by specific people on a specific time and day. I explained what happened in the letter and where I could be found. I buried the case behind a guest visitor cottage here on the grounds – since Robinson was built on this site, I hoped that during the future demolition of the prison and the construction of Robinson that the metal case would be found and the folks in our time would know where to find me. But I have yet to hear from them.”

Holmgren lit a new cigar as I briefly recounted how I wound up back in time, noting that Nicky planned for me to arrive two years later than Holmgren’s arrival date. “I guess he assumed you’d land on your feet,” I said.

Holmgren began pacing the platform with a worried look. “We have a couple of problems,” he declared. “First, we have an innocent man in prison – that’s you. Second, the guy who was supposed to be brought here instead of you is out there someplace. From what I gather, he robbed stagecoaches and killed a driver. The dumb drunk sheriff probably let him escape – he’s done that before – but he’s the warden’s brother, so I can’t criticize him. Third, I can’t put you in the prison population because you won’t last a week. That’s just a death sentence. And I can’t risk having you tell people that you traveled from the future, or you’ll wind up in that insane asylum in Albuquerque – and that place is far worse than this place for inmates. And the warden wouldn’t even send his nephew there.”

Holmgren puffed on his cigar pensively, but abruptly his expression changed to one of astonishment. “Wait a minute, I think I have an idea. Aren’t you some kind of a salesman?”

“I’m a real estate broker,” I said. “Why?”

“That’s even better,” he said, snapping his fingers and grinning like a child on Christmas morning. “I have to leave for a while – I need to speak to the warden. I think I could use you for something important.”

“Me?” I wondered. “Why, are you looking for a new home? I don’t think I can do my work here.”

“No,” he chuckled. “I’ll explain later. Let me go take care of things.”

“Hey, before you go,” I said. “I need to piss. Can I get out of this for a minute to go to the bathroom?”

Holmgren shook his head. “You don’t get bathroom breaks when you’re being punished in a pillory. But I will make life easier for you.”

He quickly went around to the back of the pillory and tucked his fingers into my pants, yanking them down. Suddenly, I felt a deep pinch on my backside that caused me to squeal.

“Oh, cute,” he sang out. “Someone’s taken advantage of his gym membership. I’ll take a second helping when I get back.”

Holmgren raced down the steps of the platform and dashed into the courtyard, turning around to yell back, “And if you do piss, try not to piss down into your pants. That defeats the purpose of having them down.”

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