Entering the cluttered and musty-smelling old store, Bill saw a frail, white-haired man sitting in a tattered chair behind an overflowing desk. ‘Whatcha looking for, Mack?’
‘Just heard about this old place and wanted to check it out. I’m “Magic Bill,” always on the lookout for a new illusion.’
The clerk pointed. ‘That wall of shelves over there are the new clocks and watches, and this side on the tables are the used time-related tricks, from old hourglasses to three-minute sand timers.’
‘Thanks. I’ll browse the old stuff.’ Bill moved to a rear table of wooden cigar boxes with no tops. Each looked like someone dumped their junk drawer. What caught his eye was an old, tarnished silver pocket watch and chain. There was something resembling pictograph writing on the back. Also, ‘91% Silver’ engraved on it. Almost sterling and heavy. It’d polish up nice. He turned the winding stem clockwise. It ticked. His hand felt warm. Huh? He almost put it down, but something pulled his arm back.
With another glance around, Bill remembered his waiting cab and decided to buy it. He asked the drowsy clerk, ‘How much?’
The old guy perked up. ‘That? Yeah, it’s been here a couple ’o times. Keeps showin’ up. Forty bucks, no guarantees.’
Bill forked over two twenties as the clerk filled out a cash sale on a small receipt pad.
In the cab, Bill removed the pocket watch from the brown bag and wound the stem a few times, careful not to wind too tight. It started ticking. Noticing it was only ten minutes ahead of his wristwatch, he pulled out the stem to set and moved the minute hand back that much.
Instantly, Bill’s surroundings got fuzzy and quiet. He shook his head to clear the fog. When it cleared, he stood before the same old clerk who pointed and said, ‘That wall of shelves over there are the new clocks and watches, and this side on the tables are the used time-related tricks, from old hourglasses to three-minute sand timers.’
My God. What’s going on?
‘Have I been here before?’ he asked the clerk.
‘Not in the last week or two,’ the clerk said. ‘Cain’t rightly say ’afore that.’
Bill understood. He went to the old wooden box, retrieved the same tarnished old watch, paid for it, and left the store, again to the waiting cab. Heading home, he wound the timepiece but didn’t set the time. He’d wait.
Sitting in his magic room, he studied the strange watch. He polished the case with a tarnish cloth. It gleamed like new. After he’d puttered with the odd device, he purposefully pulled out the stem and set it back five minutes. The same fog overtook him—same clearing, and he was polishing the watch again.
‘Fantastic. It takes me back,’ Bill whispered. ‘Shit, I wonder how far it will go?’
Later, he tried thirty minutes. It worked, going back precisely a half-hour to where he was earlier. This could have some real possibilities. Reliving the previous minutes, but knowing how he got there, he deliberately went to a different room and changed what he’d done before. No problem. So he could alter his past. It didn’t have to be the same way. After more experiments, he found that no matter how far he turned the watch back in time, he only went back a single hour.
Bill couldn’t immediately see a way to improve his magic, but he had some profitable ideas. Go to a horse race, learn the winner, go back an hour, then bet on a sure thing.
The next day, at the nearby Santa Anita Race Track, Bill placed a hundred-dollar bet on a race he’d previously watched. The wager brought him three thousand on a 30-to-1 long shot who placed first. As he turned to leave, he bumped into a giant of a man who stared at his handful of cash. Bill hurried out.
The next day, he bet it all on a 20-to-1 long shot. His winnings now returned sixty thousand dollars.
‘Wahoo!’ he said as the cashier gave him his six-hundred, $100 bills in several cloth sacks this time.
He glanced around and piped down. Too much cash to carry. Time to head home, but he needed to pee something fierce, so he stopped by the men’s room. As he turned the corner inside, he bumped into the same immense man, now in a ski mask, who shoved a knife into his heart with one hand and twisted it. He relieved Bill of his sacks with his other.
Bill gasped. Blood gushed from his chest—he collapsed. He struggled to retrieve the watch from his vest pocket. If he could only go back. His eyes closed, and time tumbled from his hand.
The next day, the frail old clerk smiled while he stood by the cash register of Time Keeper Illusions with the timepiece to his ear. However, he looked years younger.
‘Yes, that is one of the more interesting stories of the many you’ve told me,’ he said as he removed it from his ear. ‘It feels good to have some of his unused years added to mine. I don’t feel a day over seventy.’
The not so frail clerk smiled and put it back in the same old wooden box.
