Part 1 (2/2)
”Everyone calls you Johnny, but you prefer John. You have a stash of Playboys Playboys in the barn loft. And you burned a hole in the rug in your room once. No one knows because you rearranged your room so that the nightstand is on top of it.” He spread his arms like a gymnast who'd just stuck a landing. in the barn loft. And you burned a hole in the rug in your room once. No one knows because you rearranged your room so that the nightstand is on top of it.” He spread his arms like a gymnast who'd just stuck a landing.
”Well? How close did I come?” He smiled and tossed the apple core into Stan's stall.
”I never kissed Amy Walder.” Amy had gotten pregnant when she was fifteen by Tyrone Biggens. She'd moved to Montana with her aunt and hadn't come back. John didn't mention that everything else he'd said was true.
”Well, was I right?”
John shrugged. ”Mostly.”
”Mostly? I nailed it on the head with a hammer, because it all happened to me. Only it happened in another universe.”
How did this guy know so much about him? Who had he talked to? His parents? ”Okay. Answer this. What was my first cat's name?”
”s...o...b..ll.”
”What is my favorite cla.s.s?”
”Physics.”
”What schools did I apply to?”
The man paused, frowned. ”I don't know.”
”Why not? You know everything else.”
”I've been traveling, you know, for a while. I haven't applied to college yet, so I don't know. As soon as I used the device, I became someone different. Up till then, we were the same.” He looked tired. ”Listen. I'm you, but if I can't convince you, that's fine. Let me sleep in the loft tonight and then I'll leave.”
John watched him grab the ladder, and he felt a twinge of guilt at treating him so shabbily. ”Yeah, you can sleep in the loft. Let me get you some dinner. Stay here. Don't leave the barn, and hide if someone comes. You'd give my parents a heart attack.”
”Thanks, John.”
He left him there and sprinted across the yard to the house. His mother and father stopped talking when the door slammed, so he knew they'd been talking about him.
”I'm gonna eat in the barn,” he said. ”I'm working on an electronics experiment.”
He took a plate from the cabinet and began to dish out the lasagna. He filled the plate with enough to feed two of him.
His father caught his eye, then said, ”Son, this business with the Carson boy...”
John slipped a second fork into his pocket. ”Yeah?”
”I'm sure you did the right thing and all.”
John nodded at his father, saw his mother look away. ”He hates us because we're farmers and we dig in the dirt,” John said. His mother lifted her ap.r.o.n strap over her neck, hung the ap.r.o.n on a chair, and slipped out of the kitchen.
”I know that, Johnny... John. But sometimes you gotta keep the peace.”
John nodded. ”Sometimes I have to throw a punch, Dad.” He turned to go.
”John, you can eat in here with us.”
”Not tonight, Dad.”
Grabbing a quart of milk, he walked through the laundry room and left out the back door.
He stopped short as he pulled open the barn door. The stranger was rubbing Stan's ears, and the horse was leaning into him, loving it.
”Stan never lets anyone do that but me.”
The stranger-this other John-turned with a half smile on his lips. ”Just so,” he said. He took the proffered paper towel full of lasagna, dug into it with the extra fork John had fetched.
”I always loved this lasagna. Thanks.”
The tone, the arrogance, of the stranger annoyed him. His smile... Did John look like that? He expected the stranger to keep talking, to keep goading him, but instead he remained silent, chewing on his dinner.
Finally John said, ”Let's a.s.sume for a moment that you are me from another universe. How can you do it? And why you?”
Through a mouth of pasta, the stranger said, ”With my device, and I don't know.”
”Elaborate,” John said, angry.
”I was given a device that lets me pa.s.s from one universe to the next. It's right here under my s.h.i.+rt. I don't know why it was me. Or rather, I don't know why it was us.”
”Stop prancing around my questions!” John shouted. He was impossible! He wouldn't give a straight answer. ”Who gave you the device?”
”I did!” The stranger grinned.
John shook his head, trying to understand. ”You're saying that one of us-yet another John-from another universe gave you the device.”
”Yeah. Another John. Nice-looking fellow.”
Again that smile. John was silent for a while, just watching the stranger wolf down his food. Finally John said, ”I need to feed the sheep.” He poured a bag of corn into the trough. The stranger lifted the end of it with him. ”Thanks.” They fed the cows and the horse afterwards, then finished their own dinners.
John said, ”So if you are me, what do I call you? If we were twins we'd have different names. But really, we're the same person exactly. Closer than twins.” Twins had identical genetic material but from the moment of conception had slightly differing environments that might turn on and off different genes. Presumably John and this other John had identical genetic material and indentical environments, up to a point.
”My name is John, just like yours. I am you, but you may not like to think of me as John Rayburn. I think of you as John Farm Boy. But you gotta remember there's an infinite number of us. It's going to be hard to keep track of all us John Rayburns if we ever get together.” The stranger laughed. ”How about you think of me as John Prime for now? We'll keep track of ourselves relative to our downstream and upstream universes.”
”Who gave you the device?”
”John Superprime,” Prime said with a smile. ”So do you believe me yet?”
<script>