Not all little men are tyrants but there are a few who are and Baden Porter was in this category. He was an aggressive little Bantam rooster. The Fanshawe building housed a number of government departments on its six floors and it was Baden’s job to distribute files. He was up and down between floors with his trolley all day. And there was the problem.The building was old and had only two lifts to serve both staff and public. Baden had found that when he wanted a lift some other bastard would be using it.
He had solved the problem to his own satisfaction by carrying on his trolly a large block of wood which was placed in the lift doorway when he left it. With the door wedged open, the lift could not be called away to another floor. Heaven help anyone who shifted that block of wood. His anger was frightening. Even the heads of departments were cowed. Reasoned argument was no match for a congenital hostility and disregard for others. His attitude at work was reflected at home.
As Braden would tell you, women need a firm hand and his wife Rosie was no exception. She was hopeless at the best of times. A bundle of nerves, unable to make even the simplest decision, she lived in constant fear of putting her foot in it. And she usually did. And to top it all off, she was a cold fish in bed, never short of some feeble excuse. If the marriage was a non-event, it was quite clear where the blame lay.
Most evenings, Baden took his dog Butcher for a walk. Butcher was a Rottweiller and cost a mint to feed but it was highly gratifying to walk down the street with him. Just let anybody try something on. Baden was always glad to get out of the house with Butcher, Rosie being such a drag, but he had another reason also. He was, he believed, an honourable man and there were phone calls that would cause upset at home.
He had first sighted Eileen in the foyer of the Fanshawe Building. She was reading the board with the department floors. She had looked a bit of alright. Fortyish, dressed to be noticed, and not wearing a ring. He had no need to guess what was missing in her life. She was probably panting for it and she had come to the right man.
He had gone over and asked if he could help and she had smiled gratefully and given a helpless little shrug. Apparently she always dreaded having to deal with government officials. They got her so confused and everything was complicated enough as it was. Baden, at his most gallant, had offered to guide her to the people she needed and had taken her to the necessary floors in his lift. Her business could not be completed at that time and he had promised that he would keep chasing it up for her. If he had her phone number, he could keep her informed.
That was some months ago and their relationship had come a long way since then but it was still only by phone. Early on, Eileen had picked up a rather nasty virus and was adamant that she was not going to pass it on to him. She had told him coyly that he was far too precious to her. Now, she was having to care for her sister Joan who had terminal cancer and was in a great deal of pain. It was best that he kept away ‘just for the time being’.But, as she continued to assure him, poor Joan’s end could not be too far away and then they would be together for all time, it was ‘written in the stars’. Baden was careful never to contridict this idea even though his own scenario called for a bit of playtime without any permanent commitment. He’d already made that mistake once and once was enough.
Baden had usually called Eileen from the card-phone at the late-night takeaways but one of Rosie’s idiot friends had started working there. Like the rest of her type she’d probably run off at the mouth to Rosie. So on an evening in late autumn, Baden was forced to walk to the far end of the shopping-centre to the new phone box there. It was another half mile and he hoped that Eileen would finally prove worth it.
Because the box’s position was exposed, it was an enclosed box with a door and not the now more-common hood type. It had been there little more than a week but already some local graffiti artist had been at it. Sprayed on the door was the not very original, ‘Enter at your own risk.’ The side panel held words far less quotable.
Baden having told Butcher to ‘sit’, pushed open the door and pulled out his card. He dialed Eileen’s number 551-446. He could hear it ringing at the other end and it did so for some time. After a long wait, a grumpy voice answered. It was Eileen’s voice but grumpy.
“Who is it?”
“It’s lover boy,”he said but she was not mollified.
“Don’t you know what time it is? For heaven’s sake! It’s eleven-a-bloody-clock!”
“I make it just after eight.”
“Are ya drunk or something? Look at your watch man if you can still see it.” He looked at his watch and it was 11 o’clock just like she said. But how? And outside the door, Butch was in a deep sleep. He was confused and fumbled for an explanation but,
“I’m going back to bed,” and she hung up on him.
The next evening, he was still unsure what the explanation could be. Nothing made any sense. But he would not apologise. One did not apologise to women.
As he approached the box a woman got out of her car and beat him to it even though he broke into a trot. He stood outside impatiently, tapping the glass occasionally and pointing to his watch.
After an age, she surrendered the box and then, deliberately to annoy him, wanted to pat Butcher.
“Aren’t you a lovely big doggy now.” And the worst part of it was that Butcher actually let her do it, loved it, slobbered all over her. So much for his training! But as Baden pushed in his number he was pleased to see that Butcher as least partially redeeming himself by lifting his leg to one of the car’s wheels.
This time, as he pushed the last digit, he saw it all happen. The car and the woman immediately disappeared and Butcher disappeared. But no, there was Butcher lying asleep over by the fence. The handpiece slipped from his fingers and bounced up and down on its coiled cord. He looked at his watch knowing yet fearing what he would find. Three hours had been lost in one gulp. The handpiece began to speak.
“Who’s there? Is that you Baden? What’s going on?” He replaced it without a word.
He never rang Eileen again. He decided that he’d already wasted enough time on her and all for no return. And Eileen, for her part, was not particularly worried. There were still several other married men that she was stringing along.
But Baden had become obsessed with that phone box. It did not appear that anyone else had shared his experience. There seemed to be a special synergy between himself and the box. He kept visiting it each evening, punching in progressively smaller numbers and hanging up before anyone could answer. The time jumps grew smaller and when he finally reached the box’s own number 540-666 there was no change. The ‘540’ was the local area code but for some reason the ‘666’ also seemed familiar.
Baden was no mathematician but he had a good calculator secreted away in his cubby hole in the fanshawe Building basement. Someone had left it lying on their desk so they deserved to lose it. He had a notebook full of telephone numbers and time jumps. Unfortunately, they only served to confuse him but at last it came clear. 540-666 taken away from Eillen’s number 551-466 came to 10,800 and there are 10,800 seconds in 3 hours. That was how far he had jumped. The other figures then made sense. The fundamental unit was the second.
And it occurred to him, if one could jump forward, one could also jump back. That was so obvious that no test was needed. Dialling all zeros would give him 540,666 seconds or about six and a quarter days. Not much but enough to change history and a plan was formed.
He would win Lotto. He would watch the draw on Saturday evening and then go back in time and buy the winning ticket. His win would have to be kept from Rosie, of course, even after he’d taken off. He’d leave her with the house. That was fair enough. And there was always the Unemployment Benefit. She wouldn’t starve. He’d head for the Gold Coast to lie in the sun and look over the local talent.
On a Friday at exactly 8:45, Baden, who was standing in the phonebox, removed his finger from the six on the keypad. This was the first thing he would do when he made the jump back the next evening. He untied Butcher from the fence nearby and walked home whistling. He scarcely slept that night but was in an unusually good mood and was at a high pitch throughout the next day. So much so that Rosie had to wonder what was up. At 8 o’clock, he watched the Lotto draw and carefully jotted down the results which he put in his top pocket. He said that he would have to go out although he had been out earlier. He left Butcher at home. He was in a hurry and Butcher insisted on lifting his leg to at least a dozen gate posts.
His earlier excursion had been to make sure that no-one would be in the phone box at 8:45. During the week, in his basement cubby-hole, he had manufactured an official looking ‘Out of Order’ sign.
In the phone box, Baden punched in 364-266 which is 450-666 minus 86,400 seconds. He was never seen again. Two years later Rosie filed for divorce on the grounds of desertion and married a long-time gentleman friend. This was a friend with whom Rosie had often passed the time on the phone while Baden was out walking Butcher. By then, she was a different woman.
And what happened to Baden? Well, when Baden pushed that last six he jumped back 24 hours and marched home whistling, his mission underway. But he did not have the Lotto results in his pocket because Lotto had not yet been drawn and he had not yet jotted them down. The following 24 hours passed exactly as before. At 8 o’clock on Saturday evening he jotted down the Lotto results and at 8:45 he dialed 364-266 and jumped back 24 hours. He has been re-running those same 24 hours ever since and will do so for all eternity.
Perhaps you may think that even the likes of Baden deserves a better fate than that. But the truth is that it is much better than he deserves. He is quite unaware of the repeats. No matter how many times the day has been run, for him it is always the first time. He is on a permanent high. This is the most exciting day of his life. His fortune and the realisation of his dreams are so close at hand.
For him, hope springs eternal.