He tried to sell me a couple of hundred shares in RCA Radio, telling me it was a sure thing. He winked broadly. I remembered the stock pools they manipulated in those days, basically pumping and dumping after the shares went up in value as they let word slip on the street.
“Uh, no thanks, just let my order stand please. By the way, please only mail me an annual statement, nothing else.” I said, and gave them my new P.O. box address. “I’ll be back from time to time to check on it.”
With a little luck, the Great Depression notwithstanding, that investment would make both grandkids very comfortable indeed, when they became teenagers and ready for college.
As I left the brokerage, fully satisfied, I noticed a guy that I thought I had seen before, up by the Post Office, as if he was following me. I shrugged it off and continued on my way back to the hotel.
Dottie let the kids play with Wilson for a time and they had fun running around her notoriously messy apartment as she tried to work. Jonathan sat down and opened his suitcase while Lauren watched and pulled out his iTouch music player he took with him. Lauren told Jonathan not to take it out, but he frowned at her and put it on anyway and put in his earphones, saying, “I’m bored!”
Dottie looked over and saw him. “Jonathan!” she called, “What are you doing? Do have a little crystal set?” (The oldest radios were battery operated and you had to use earphones, kids made them at home.)
“Jonathan’s using his iPod,” Lauren told her innocently. She came over all curious and looked at him as he was swaying to a rhythm.
“What have you got there?”
“His iPod!” Lauren said. “It’s really an iTouch though.”
Dottie bent over and asked Jonathan if she could look at it? He gave it to her.
“What on earth?!” she said looking at the artist displayed in vivid color. Lauren showed her how it works, running her fingers on the smooth glass touching different icons as various song selections came up with video. He let her listen to the music as she watched the accompanying video fascinated, her hand quivering with shock.
“Where did you get THIS?!” she asked, eyes wide in shock.
“Dottie, we really came from 2011,” Lauren told her. “Really, but we have to go back today.”
“So, tell me something about yourselves… when were you born?” Dottie asked them.
They told her and showed her the magic wand.
After some time, I came back. Dottie was waiting with her crooked smile.
“Wonderful kids you have, but what’s with this, watchyamacalit, Eye-touch Jonathan’s got? How, where did you get such a thing, it’s amazing! I have to admit as hokey as your story about the future sounds, you have this stuff down cold. Come on, level with me? Some kind of trick, right?”
“Dottie, it’s all true, but I CAN’T tell you about the future, it might affect future events, and who am I to try to change history, it might turn out worse than it did, ’er will. I know it sounds screwy….”
She looked at me with that smile of hers “Well, it DOES sound screwy, Houdini’s magic wand indeed!! Sounds like a bad play… but this device, I mean it’s impossible, right? But where… I mean, how else? From what you told me, the future doesn’t sound so rosy, not like the usual predictions, more like real life… ‘all the plans of mice and men…’ and all that.” She grinned.
“Right,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about that too. History tells us that progress is like stuffing a torn mattress, you get one side stuffed only to have the stuffing fall out the other.”
“Hmm,” she said cynically, “I shouldn’t be surprised, the way the world really works. I suppose that the future isn’t all that wonderful - I mean look at the Great War, you’d have thought we progressed beyond that.”
“Well, it’s better than that,” I said, not having the heart to tell her about the Second World War only twelve years off. “More like two steps forward, one step back. In the end everyone is much better off. All I can tell you is while technology races ahead, people are not perfect and it just takes time, and you’ll live a long time and see it happen. That’s really all I can tell you. Are you mad?”
“I’m not mad, darlings,” she said “If anybody heard you you’d be carried out of here in a straight jacket. Don’t worry I won’t tell a soul, besides, nobody would believe a cockeyed story like that anyway. OK…so then, tell me this…who’s the president in your time?”
“Better sit down… ready? Barack Obama…a Democrat, the first African-American president,” I said.
She looked at me grinning as if I was really crazy “You CAN’T be serious?!”
“Why would I make up something like that?”
“Really? You don’t say?” she said skeptically but smiling. “You ARE mad you know. Who would believe it? But I love it all the same - about time we stopped all this racial nonsense!”
“So, how does this work then, you can just come and go as you please waving the magic wand?” she asked skeptically. I explained how it works, the need for a time portal, hypnotizing yourself to believe that you are actually living in the time you wish to visit, and it is amazingly accurate, so far within a few days.
“You’re crazy, you know that?” she said shaking her head, smiling. “I suppose there’s one thing I wish I could do…if I could travel in time… tell my Uncle Martin how much I miss him… he went down on the Titanic - the family hero.”
“Uncle Martin? Oh yes, Martin Rothschild. Yes, I forgot you’re a Rothschild.”
“Yes, and half-Jewish too, irritates Aleck (Woollcott) no end,” she said with a sly smile. “Kaufman, Ferber, Gershwin, Berlin, Harpo, Ziegfeld, Houdini… there’s just no getting away from us and all that talent,” she said very pleased. “And I had to go and marry a very respectable Connecticut Yankee, Eddie Parker - a stockbroker if you please. Oh well…”
“Dottie,” I said, “Visiting the Titanic would be almost irresistible. Of course, we can’t interfere with the past… much as I would like to do good and save lives. Even the best intentions can have untold terrible consequences in the future.”
“I’m sure… the road to hell and all that… besides, trying to convince anyone to not sail on her or tell the officers about the iceberg before it happens would convince anyone you are more of a loony than you appear,” she said smiling indulgently.
“There IS a trip that I’d love to take you on however,” I told her, laughing. “Would you believe that in my time there is a Dorothy Parker Society that meets regularly here at the Gonk? Tours your old haunts, promotes your writing but mainly an excuse to party and they like to dress up in 1920’s outfits - they even have a Dorothy Parker lookalike contest…”
“Oh shit! You can’t be SERIOUS?!” she said appalled. “What a dreadful idea…” She smiled, stroking her somewhat uncombed hair. “Sorry…I know I’m a sight…not much on housekeeping either. I daresay if I was to attend I’d never get first prize,” she said mischievously. “But I might at least get honorable mention for best costume…dresses from top designers, Chanel, Hattie Carnegie don’t y’ know? Yes, that would be amusing. I do hope they drink?” she asked with mock concern.
“Well, I’m sure they’d do you proud but I doubt they can toss ’em back like you and your crowd can,” I said grinning.
“Indeed,” she said. “I’m certain that I shall need no embalming fluid after I kick the bucket. Say, you’d better trot along so you don’t miss your train. Come here and give us a kiss goodbye.”
The kids gave her a peck on the cheek and I did the same.
“Dottie, this has been more than wonderful meeting you and the Round Table, Babe Ruth. Everything was fabulous, and of course nobody would believe OUR story. It’s too neat a package, it sounds like a naive, warmed- over children’s story. This is a great, even revolutionary, decade with plenty of problems - but every time has that. So we are going to enjoy the rest of our trip.” I looked at my pocket watch, “Say, we still have to pick up our tickets - come on, sorry, we have to skedaddle …let’s go!”
Dottie said goodbye leaning on her door frame, cigarette in its elegant holder with that ironic smile of hers.
“DO drop in again when you get some time?” she said with that grin.
“I will. That’s one thing we have plenty of!” I shouted back.
“You’re NUTS!!” she shouted as we turned away.
We headed for the lobby, paid our bill, plus the charges for the telephone calls.
The desk clerk said that I had a telegram marked urgent.
