Willie's Redneck Time Machine by John Luke Robertson Page A

leaving this weird and wacky world. “Are you happy? Now? In your life?”
    He nods. “Yeah. Got a great family. God has been good to us. Can’t complain.”
    This is good to hear. Despite all the strangeness.
    You both walk into the barn, and after the lights go on, you discover the driver’s seat from a car.
    “You just sit down there and it transports you to wherever you think of going,” John Luke says.
    For a moment you consider all the places you’d like to go. But then you realize you have to go back to the moment you made the mistake of deciding to get the po’boy sandwich at Duck Diner.
    “Anywhere I want to go? I just have to think about it?”
    John Luke nods. You can’t help noticing how tall he is now.
    “Man, you really grew, didn’t you?” you say.
    “It’s funny seeing you in a beard, Dad. You haven’t had one in years.”
    “I don’t think I was meant to be a yoga instructor,” you say.
    “I don’t either. A lot of things have seemed weird. I think   —I don’t know. I think you might be able to help by going back in time.”
    You look at the car seat and think you recognize it.
    “Is that from your Jeep?”
    John Luke nods. “Yep. I kept it for nostalgia.”
    “Or did you eventually crash it, and that was the only piece left?”
    “Well . . .”
    You give your son a hug and decide to get in the driver’s seat. But one thing before you leave.
    “Okay, I just gotta ask   —” you begin to say.
    “Sadie started an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. Rebecca’s fashion line is now worldwide. Will is a big-time music producer who helped with Jep’s albums. And Bella is a famous chef. She cooks for a restaurant on Mars.”
    You nod. “These all seem totally believable.”
    With a smile and a handshake for John Luke, you take a seat. You focus on the moment you chose to go to Duck Diner instead of getting in the outhouse right away, and the driver’s seat begins to spin.
    Maybe you’re not ready to face this future just yet.
    THE END
    Start over.
    Read “The Morning Fog: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”

1990

    YOU HAVE THIS CRAZY IDEA. So crazy it’s going to be crazy awesome.
    You’re going to give these students something they’ll never forget. They won’t be ready for it. It’ll be like they get hit by a tsunami of groovy love.
    You head for the DJ at the back of the gym. “Hey, buddy. I’m wondering if I can play a song.”
    The DJ looks sleepy-eyed and pretty laid-back. You could probably ask him anything and he’d say, “Yeah, sure, whatever.”
    You pull your iPhone out of your pocket and try to see if the DJ has anything to hook it up with.
    But it’s 1990, and things weren’t so simple back then. You can’t just find a plug-in and play music from your phone.
    “What’s that thing?” the DJ asks.
    “This? It’s my phone.”
    The guy shrugs. He seems quite out of it.
    “I’m from the future,” you tell him.
    “Me too,” he says.
    You laugh. Then he pulls out something that resembles a Post-it note. He turns it on with a tap.
    “What is that?”
    “My communicator. Phones eventually go obsolete.” The hippie-looking dude is not smiling.
    “Are you for real?” you ask him.
    “Are you?”
    “So would you be able to hook my phone up so I could play a song?”
    The DJ just nods.
    Cool. “Okay, here. This is the song I want to play.”
    The DJ looks at your phone. “Whoa. I don’t know, man.”
    “What?”
    “I don’t know if the world is ready for this.”
    “They better be ready, ’cause I’m gonna bring the boom.”
    Hippie DJ just stares at you. He obviously doesn’t get your joke. Whatever.
    When the music stops, you go to the middle of the floor carrying a microphone the DJ gave you.
    “Good evening, everyone. How’s everybody doing?”
    Nobody says a word. They’re all looking at you, wondering why the music is off, wondering who in the world you are.
    “Listen, Principal Zachary told me I could introduce a song to