HOME SUPPORT DIRECTORY CUSTOM COVERS NEWS REVIEWS ABOUT

O. Bush G. Alter and B. Sawyer

by Jay Dubya

I was driving my metallic blue Buick LeSabre towards Atlantic City, New Jersey on congested Route 30 on a Saturday morning in March 2000. My destination was Harrah’s Casino to try my luck at blackjack and to play an additional hundred dollars worth of video poker. On the way driving east on the White Horse Pike I figured I would stop in at Hammonton’s Silver Coin Diner to eat a hearty breakfast. I remember thinking, ‘I have all day to lose my hard-earned money at the casino so what’s the rush?’

After entering the bustling establishment, which was packed with mostly town patrons, I noticed that there was an end seat vacant at the busy counter. I sat down to the left of an acne-faced teenager, who seemed disinterested in my arrival while he concentrated his attention on devouring his breakfast of toast, ham and eggs.

I had learned in my college sociology class back in the mid-‘60s that it is wrong to judge anyone by his or her appearance even though the personal stereotype is probably correct ninety percent of the time. Civilized people know that it is improper and downright discourteous to be presumptuous. “Prejudice is when you pre-judge someone,” I remembered a discriminating professor had once lectured.

So what if the kid had four fake silver chains and a bronze medallion dangling down from his dirty neck! So what if he wore baggy pants and sported an unkempt long shaggy hairstyle that looked like it could feed a colony of lice! ‘I should not do the unthinkable and stereotype the young fellow,’ I perceptively thought. I reckoned I would show some basic decency and strike up a casual conversation with the young man just to demonstrate that I was a friendly sort of guy. I wanted to show my young fellow-breakfast diner that I was an open-minded civil American citizen that respected everyone’s sacred Constitutional rights.

“How ya’ doin’ amigo,” I said in very contrived friendly salutation. “I used to teach at the local high school, that is, before I intelligently retired two years ago. But I don’t seem to remember you as being a student there. Are you from out of town?”

“Sort of,” the kid succinctly mumbled with a gross amount of food and saliva spilling out from the corners of his enormous mouth. “I’m just passin’ through the area and heading for Philly’ for some recreation. I come around these parts once or twice a year.”

“Where ya’ from?” I persisted with my amiable interrogation. I figured the lad would say something like Berlin, Atco, Pleasantville, Folsom, Egg Harbor, Medford or Atlantic City.

“I’m actually a time traveler from the year 2085,” the teenager calmly answered. “I don’t really stay in one place all too long.”

“Sure, and I’m the nefarious Sheriff of Nottingham and I’m here in this diner looking for Robin Hood, Friar Tuck and Little John,” I laughed. “I must say young man, you have quite an active imagination. You wouldn’t have any idea where Maid Marian is, would you? I live just around the corner in the center of Sherwood Forest.”

The thin teenager stared at me with a nasty scowl that seemed to exaggerate his strange-looking facial features. “All right, don’t believe me when I tell you I’m from the future, the future you’ll never live to see!” the kid testily challenged. “See if I really care!”

I didn’t desire to appear as rude as I had really been so I humbly apologized for what he had perceived as a rather sarcastic remark. Strangers often misinterpret that I am anti-social but actually, I am usually very shy and reserved upon first contact. ‘I oughta’ humor this spoiled super-sensitive kid,’ I thought. ‘Then I can go home and look him up on the Sci-fi cable channel.’

“Tell me young man,” I suavely stated to deftly disguise my very abundant skepticism, “is your great-grandmother Chelsey Clinton?”

“Who in Andromeda is she?” he replied. “Does she live up on the space station? I remember a Dorothy Clinton from my third grade astronomy class, but no Chelsey Clinton. Who is Chelsey Clinton anyway?”

“Former President Bill Clinton’s daughter,” I clarified. “Never mind about her,” I declared, believing that my new acquaintance was probably not a conscientious student of current events. “Well, who is the President of the United States in 2085?”

“Obadiah Bush,” the kid casually responded quite matter-of-factly while munching away on his slightly burnt toast. “Obadiah Bush is President of the United States,” he repeated with his mouth completely full. “And I didn’t vote for the guy in my high school’s mock election, either!”

“Is Obadiah Bush George W. Bush’s grandson?” I innocently asked.
read full article