“So we built this time machine the week before he left for the Isle of Capri (he was on a school break and had flown home from Switzerland a few weeks before to see Morgana). We used it to go back to prehistoric times and way into the future. Must have been charming to watch… if one could have hidden behind some bush with an eight-millimeter camera — what I wouldn’t give to see a home movie of those two little time travelers! Do you want to know the most amazing thing, Bertie? I don’t even know if you’d call it Freudian… but you know what time I wanted to go back to? Morgana, giving birth! I’m serious! I kept spinning the wheel and all the crazy dials, saying, ‘Oh! We’re at the hospital now!’ ‘Oh! Now we’re in the delivery room!’—and I’d make Jeremy pretend Mommy had her feet in the stirrups but this time I was coming out first. “But I was first, I was first!” he shouted, which was the truth, by nine legendary minutes. Or something like that. Jeremy went fucking wild. Because there I was saying we were going to change all that! He said we couldn’t because it already happened and the rules were you couldn’t change what already happened. The rules! Oh yes, there were rules. But can you imagine? The two of us going on like that?
“About five years ago, I was in a store in Manhattan. One of these side-street movie-memorabilia shops. They had it in a glass case — a beautiful copy of the time machine, an authentic one, an actual model from the movie. Beautiful upholstery, tuck-’n’-roll, soft, tufted, brushed velvet, tiny gold widgets… and that fantastic, whirring engine wheel! Whoever made this thing was a genius in miniatures. Incredible draftsman. I asked the nerd behind the counter if I could buy it and he said it wasn’t for sale but he would give me the number of the guy who built it. Great! Fantastic! So I called and found myself talking to the creator. Went out to Coney Island, that’s where he had his workshop. Bertram, I am telling you it was unbelievable. Here’s this man-child, this sweet, lonely wizard surrounded by spare parts of all the fantasy machines he’d constructed for films — like that toymaker from Blade Runner. There was a half-built time machine on one of the drafting tables (there was a ton of debris, very ‘Santa’s workshop’) and I was suddenly just so touched that my brother and I weren’t the only aficionados. Apparently, there was this whole secret society… a worldwide fraternal order! And I really had to bend his arm — he said he was busy with so many things — the guy was very convincing! — but he finally agreed to build me one. I said, Take all the time you need. And I meant it. See, I knew he was kind of squirrelly and I wanted to make it easy on him because I understood his temperament. He wasn’t of this world! He was an artist. I mean, if that’s how you spend the bulk of your time, you’re not fully on the planet, right? And what he was creating for me was this ephemeral — this magical mystery memory thing — how do the CIA say it? ‘Eyes only.’ My eyes only. A Caligari cabinet. Fabergé egg. I’m telling you, I was the ideal client — or ‘patient’! That’s probably the better word. And man, it was really expensive — I can’t remember exactly how much, maybe seven or eight grand. But totally worth it. At the end of the day, I was going to have this amazing sculpture, this talismanic fetish. I thought it was a fucking bargain.
“So the months go by and finally I heard from him. ‘Progress is being made,’ he said. Funny-looking little guy — I wish you could see his face. But he needs more money. OK. No problem. I’d already given him an advance, right? A few thousand. So I send fifteen hundred. Then I wait and I wait — I must have waited another year because that was the deal, I said from the get-go I wasn’t gonna hassle him, and I meant it. One day I call to see how he’s doing and he says more or less the same thing: He’s waiting for a part, he got sidelined by a big studio project… now I start to feel like I’m being had. I give him an ultimatum — still friendly, mind you — but I tell him I really need to have the little chair in two months’ time. That’s the deadline. Nonnegotiable. He says OK — but never delivers! I’m getting pissed off. He doesn’t answer my calls. I’m starting to think lawsuit. So — and I can’t remember the time sequence — I actually wind up going to Small Claims! To file. Can you imagine me, at Small Claims? You can’t, right? It’s insanity. I have no idea what drove me to that — I mean, I was frustrated, but still — anyway, after however many weeks I get a letter from the court telling me the person I sued was requesting a delay due to the fact that he was traveling on business. Right. A light goes off: something clicks and I realize that my fragile little model maker, my exquisitely tender artiste, is extremely well-versed in Small Claims! Knows the System, through and through! Been through this sort of action before — broken lots of hearts. Whatever. I don’t give a shit. I become obsessed with justice being served. I want my time machine! The motherfucker’s welshing on my time machine. And I’m, like, totally enraged! I’m serious, Bertie! Part of me is genuinely galled. Because there I was, trying to reclaim some part of my fractured boyhood — and there he was, defrauding my innocence!
“It went back and forth: another date would be requested, and the tinkerer-con would delay — then I’d be unavailable and would have to go in and see the clerk to set another time on the calendar. And so on and so forth. And you couldn’t do this shit by mail, you had to go in, right? This was pre-‘online.’ It became this bureaucratic ritual. Finally, the day comes we’re both due in court but the asshole doesn’t show. My moment of triumph! I thought that’d be the end of it — I’d win by default — but the tinkerer-stinkerer knew better. The judge rules in my favor but says his ruling could, most probably would, be appealed. He was actually tipping me to the guy’s M.O., right? The judge was saying in so many words that I was involved with a pro. OK. So now we’re talking maybe thirty-five hundred dollars that I’ve laid out in terms of advances, plus time spent filing, driving, parking — I actually kept a little leather satchel with receipts! You couldn’t put a dollar amount on the raging and bullshitting that was going on in my head. Right? OK? Are you loving it, Bertie? I haven’t even thought about this in fifteen years or whatever.