,"But if we keep going,” he protested, “we can make a million and a half dollars on an eight-horse parlay.”
I winced. I thought of the newspapers under my seat. “There are better ways to make a million and a half dollars,” I said. “Quieter ways. More discreet.”
He didn’t answer. I waited till Big John crossed the finish line and paid off at three to one. I scooped up my newspapers and stood. “Come on,” I said. “You go get the money. I’ll wait for you at the car.”
I think he wanted me to go with him, but I had to be alone for a while. I had a lot to think about and I was suddenly in a very, very bad mood.
Oh, it wasn’t the money — I’d already realized that if I could make fifty-seven thousand, six hundred dollars in one day at the races, I could easily turn that into more in the stock market. And there were other ways I could make a fortune too—
It wasn’t the money. It was the implications of the visit from Don.
This Don, the new one, the one who had given me the newspaper — where had he come from? The future obviously, but which future? His world was one that no longer existed — no, never would exist. We were leaving the races without taking the track for a million and a half dollars.
I reached the car and got in on the passenger side. I didn’t feel like driving back. I started to toss the papers into the back seat, then stopped. I looked at them again. One had a small story on page one: FIVE-HORSE PARLAY WINS $57,600! The other: IDENTICAL TWINS TAKE TRACK FOR $1,500,000! A banner headline.
Both newspapers were dated the same, yet they were from two different alternate worlds.
The $57,600 world was mine; I knew the events in it because I had lived them. The $1,500,000 world was Don’s, but he had talked me out of the actions that would eventually produce his future.
Where had that future gone? Where had that Don gone? Had they both ceased to exist?
No. I still had the newspaper. That proved something.
Or did it?
I had the paper in my hands — it was real. But you couldn’t take it back — I mean, forward — to the future it came from because that future no longer existed. Shouldn’t the newspaper cease to exist too?
The “Don” who had come back in time to talk me out of the actions that had produced the time he had come from — what had happened to him?
Where was he now?
If he stayed here — like the newspaper — he wouldn’t disappear. (Were there actually two of me now?) In fact, he couldn’t disappear, unless he could get back to his own future, except that future didn’t exist anymore, so he couldn’t do that.
Now, wait a minute…
If he bounced forward from now, where would he end up? His world’s future? Or this world’s future? If he went back to his world, he’d have to disappear with that world, wouldn’t he? Or would he? But if he disappeared, then he wouldn’t exist and couldn’t come back to warn me. So, he had to exist. Where was he? Unless — maybe his original world didn’t disappear at all. Maybe it just got left behind.
So, where was Don?
Was he waiting for me in tomorrow?
If so, then he wouldn’t be my future self anymore. He’d be a different duplicate.
No. The whole thing didn’t make sense. It didn’t seem logical that every time I went back and talked myself out of an action that I would create a duplicate of myself—
But it seemed the only answer. Every time I changed the past, I was creating an alternate world—
My head was starting to hurt.
Now, wait a minute — I had already changed the past! I had worn different clothes and I had given Dan two hundred dollars to bet instead of one hundred. And the newspaper I had brought with me—
The newspaper, of course! It had been staring at me all the time. FIVE-HORSE PARLAY WINS $57,600!
But it wasn’t a five-horse parlay — not anymore! It was only a four-horse parlay! We hadn’t stayed to bet on bet on Michelangelo. We’d doubled the first bet. It was only coincidence that we’d ended up with the same amount.
But the important thing was: I had changed the past. Just as Don had come back in time to change his past, so I had done the same thing to my past, though not on so large a scale. I remembered my past differently — I remembered different clothes, a different bet and a five-horse parlay. I remembered it the way it had happened to me — and then I had changed it.
So where was my Don — the one I had gone to the races with? Where was he?
The situation was exactly the same: I had changed the past and destroyed the future. So where was he?
Well, that was silly. He was me. He hadn’t disappeared — he was right here. I had simply done things differently this time around.
Ouch.
That meant that the Don who had come back in time with the newspaper was me too. (Of course — but would I have to go back in time to warn myself? No, because I hadn’t let the bets go that far.)
Then, if he was me… there really was only one of me! He would go back to the future — my future, our future — with his memories, but—
But if his memories were different than mine, how could we be the same person?
So the question was still unanswered: Where was the Don I had gone to the races with? The one who had worn a sweater and slacks and bet only a hundred dollars? Where was my good sport jacket?!!
Danny showed up then, he was giddy and excited — like he’d invented money. He waved the check at me.
“You want to see it?”
I took it thoughtfully and looked. I took my check out of my pocket and compared them — they were not identical. The check number on Danny’s was lower and the signatures were not quite the same.
Of course, how could they be identical? We were leaving earlier in the day after a different set of bets. The situations were not the same — why should the checks be?
Then, this check I was carrying — it was no longer any good, it was from a world that no longer existed.
And it was the same situation with the disappearing Don; he was a canceled check in this world, wasn’t he?
But the canceled check hadn’t disappeared. I still had it.
(I remembered myself asking if we could cash them both.)
I’d been fooled once by the illusion of the duplicated check, but this time the check had been duplicated!
And if I could duplicate the check, then couldn’t I have duplicated myself?
There was another side to it too.
I’d already eliminated two possible futures: the one where I’d worn slacks and a sweater and the one where I’d won a million and a half dollars.
As far as I knew, both of those Dons had ceased to exist along with their futures. Neither seemed to be still around.
And if I could eliminate them — - what was to keep some other Dan from eliminating me?
Perhaps even now—
No. There must be something I was misunderstanding.
Danny drove. He babbled incessantly; he was like a schoolgirl. But I wasn’t listening anyway. I was too preoccupied with my own thoughts.