This chapter's official song: "Ringo Buys A Rifle" by the Dead Milkmen
Not much, at first, seemed to have changed. My house was the same as it ever was. My key worked on the door, so we went in.
There were signs of my family all over. Mom's school papers, Dad's magazines, Brian's cartoons, my books. I opened the fridge. The contents had not changed since I last looked.
I flopped down on the couch and turned on CNN as Daniel rifled through the pantry.
"This just in—several men in the peacekeeping effort in Vietnam have been killed. Again." The newscaster wiped the sweat from his brow. "We're here with the latest in the new Vietnam crisis."
"What the—Vietnam?" Daniel emerged from the kitchen, holding a chocolate donut. "How did this happen?"
There is something known in science fiction stories as "time traveler's serendipity". This is a handy plot device that ensures that any time traveler, when entering an alternate universe, will immediately be able to figure out exactly how this timeline is different from the one he or she came from. Usually, they manage to find a library or just happen to bump into a professor of history or a current-events buff. Sometimes, the information comes from a newspaper. Or from a newscast.
I guess that time traveler's serendipity was with us then. Maybe it's a function of the universe in order to ensure that whoever messes with the universe gets enough information to set it right again.
The screen split as the newscaster turned to someone in another room, a bald guy with glasses. "We're here with Professor Tim O'Brien, an expert on the Vietnam situation. Professor, can you tell us why President Dole has redeclared war?"
The bald guy cleared his throat. "Well, Chet, it all started in 1974 when President Nixon narrowly avoided being impeached by the Watergate scandal. In order to bolster his popularity, he upped the efforts on Vietnam, despite warnings by experts such as myself that sending more troops there was a very, very bad idea. The national opinion had been surprisingly positive toward the war, despite scattered protests—which were, I may add, dying down…"
I threw a pillow at the TV. "Goddamn it! We fucked up. We made sure that John and Yoko never got together. So they never shouted with bags over their heads or spent a week in bed."
"Yeah? So?"
"Daniel, those were protests against the Vietnam War."
"They were stupid protests."
"But they garnered a lot of publicity. People who wouldn't have otherwise protested thought it was cool and tried to emulate them."
Daniel stared at me. "Rachel, that's…Well, it's clearly not what happened. We got out of the war because the guys in Washington finally decided that it was a bad idea, that's all. The protests didn't have anything to do with it."
"True, they were pretty ineffectual. But it was ended more as a public relations move than anything. Without the protests, it must have gone on longer, and that…God, I can't even think about it!"
Daniel patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry, okay? We can go back and stop ourselves from breaking them up."
"What is this all of a sudden? You were the one who was so freaked out about what to happen that we just had to go back, and now you're telling me not to worry?"
"Blood sugar." Daniel wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "I'm much calmer when I've eaten something. Want a donut?"
"No thanks. They make my teeth hurt."
I puttered around the kitchen for a while, flipped the TV on and off. Daniel was installing something in the time machine.
He came back and lifted me up. I shrieked. "Don't do that!"
He put me down and kissed me. "I put in a hydrogen fuel cell. We won't have to worry about gas again."
"Kick-ass!" I smooched him as a reward. "You know, displays of technical genius get me really turned on."
He thought I was joking. "Do you want to go fix up John and Yoko now?"
"Might as well."
"Great! Okay, here's the plan. We go back, stop ourselves from going into the exhibit, tell them what happens, and then go home."
"That, um, might not be a good idea."
"Why wouldn't it?"
I bit my lip. "Well…okay, so we tell our slightly younger selves what to do. They go home. And we…what do we remember? Where do we go back to? I mean, they're already there, where we're supposed to be…You understand what I'm getting at, don't you?"
Daniel frowned. "Yeah, sort of. So instead we have to go back, find John and Yoko directly after we leave, get them together somehow despite the fact that John clearly now thinks that Yoko is a crazy bitch, and make sure that they get together."
"Yep."
"How the fuck are we going to do that?"
"Well, we're going to need to get a lot of shredded marijuana into little bags."
"What, you mean like Ziploc bags?"
"What are we, Jay and Silent Bob? No, I mean like tea bags."
Daniel sighed. "Not gonna work."
"What do you mean, not gonna work? You haven't even listened to my plan yet."
"Rachel, I can see exactly where this is going and I really don't think it's a good idea."
I folded my arms. "Fine. What exactly am I going to do?"
"You're going to get John and Yoko together for tea, give them pot tea instead, making them mellow and thus more receptive to each other."
"Well, yeah," I admitted. "But how is that a bad idea? It should work perfectly."
"Rachel," Daniel explained patiently, "John and Yoko are both used to marijuana. It won't make them any more mellow."
"Then what are we going to do?"
"Well, the basic principle is sound. We just need something stronger."
"Huh. Would acid work?"
Daniel frowned. I could practically see images of things melting away going through his head.
"LSD, you geek. Lyso…lyso something. Diamethaline, I don't know."
He shook his head. "No, John's used to acid too. I think we may need…"
"Don't say heroin. Please do not say heroin. That's clearly not a good idea."
"I was going to say mushrooms. Not portabellas, so please do not make any stupid jokes."
"Amanita muscaria, right? Psychotropic drugs!" I pumped my fist in the air. "Those are fun."
"How would you know?"
"I wouldn't, but I have a book of Peter Max paintings that he probably did when he was on acid, and they're pretty good paintings."
Daniel shook his head. "You are unbelievable. So how do we get the acid anyway?"
"I think Brian can probably make some. He spends half of his time in the lab at school anyway. Oh, and did I tell you that he's learning how to grow marijuana?"
"He is? Where'd he get the materials?"
"Where do you think? He goes to North Farmington."
"Okay, good point. Still, it's sort of a stupid idea."
"Why? He can probably whip up a batch in a few minutes."
"Are you kidding? If he got caught, he could go to jail."
I considered this. "Fine. No acid. Then what the hell do we do?"
"I think," Daniel said, "that we play it by ear."
