Earl’s Potato Salad (Chapter 1)
Somewhere on the far side of the moon is a small deli shop that makes the best hoagie in our solar system. The deli shop is called Earl’s, after the founder, Earl Hopskhip. The hoagie is called the USS Bon Homme Richard after the WWII carrier. I’ve been to Earl’s twice. I’ve eaten the hoagie (pretty out-of-this-world) and the potato salad (not great). My first visit to Earl’s was uneventful (except for the mind-blowingly-good hoagie) but the second visit changed the fate of the entire known universe. In a dark corner, in the back of Earl’s, is a framed picture of Liberace with the caption, “See you on the flip side!” scrawled in permanent marker above the autographed signature. That photo is the only proof that Earl’s once was, before my time, an intergalactic hot spot for fashionable nightlife entertainment. At Earl’s you might see Fidel Castro sipping Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill while listening to Barbra Streisand backed by a jive band from one of the moons of Saturn. It was that kind of place.
But all that took place in what is now an alternate reality that runs parallel (but slightly askew) to our own, thanks to that picture of Liberace and Earl’s potato salad.
Scott Clucas was no stranger to interplanetary travel. During the 1990s he was employed as a staff columnist and editorial cartoonist for the New Brimmswark/East Fork Daily Gazette. The job took him to the far corners of space, writing intriguing little observations about the world of interplanetary politics and entertainment and drawing satirical cartoons of galactic leaders and interstellar entertainment personalities. He had gained a modest amount of adulation for his cartoon of Jupiterian Dictator Aen’on Aen’os shouting, “Douti’a maeo pui maoue!”*
After a painfully long visit to one of Neptune’s human colonies – the government-sponsored colonies, not the independent anarchistic states now popping up everywhere on Neptune – Scott stopped in at Earl’s for a “small bite of something to get me home” as he put it. He was seated at an oversized pink booth under can lights that could have illuminated an entire football stadium. These days, Earl’s was just a run-down, hole-in-the-crater establishment. The glory days were long devoured and decimated by the chain sandwich huts and quick-stop fast-food abominations now littering every off-earth settlement, the only evidence of its former fame was hanging above this booth. Staring up at the cherubic countenance of Wladziu Valentino Liberace majestically posed among ivory keys and glimmering candles, Scott tried to mentally recreate what must have been a momentous encounter with the galactic pop-culture superstar.
“Good evenin’ sir,” invited the waitress in an over-affected southern accent, “What can I get fer ya?”
Something warm…
“I think I’ll have the red beans and rice,” Scott ordered, tearing his concentration away from the framed image of Liberace.
“Well, I’m real sorry, sir, but we’re out of rice. The supply rocket from North Korea didn’t make it this week.”
“Okay, well,” Scott studied her name tag, “That’s okay, Margarine, I’ll just take the potato salad.”
“Alrighty, sir, I’ll have that right out,” she served, grumbling as she walked away, “It’s pronounced Maar-Gurr-Rine, sheesh.”
Someone left a folded napkin with a phone number written on it at the far end of the table. It was tucked between the napkin dispenser and the mustard bottle. As Scott unfolded it, he read the message scribbled above the phone number: “Anna Palindrome.” Immediately he recognized the name of the semi-famous professional tennis player that made more of a name for herself as the commercial spokesperson for some brand name household disinfectant. It was nice to see that Earl’s could still draw the right kind of crowd.
Two doo-wop songs and one grunge chart topper later, Scott was staring at an unwitting instrument of catastrophic and cataclysmic disruption on a plate. The first spoon of potato salad promised potential, but the second one spelled inevitable doom. After he’d eaten half the serving he began to feel light-headed and was experiencing a slight loss of vision. Not a good reaction to the potato salad.
Quite unexpectedly, and more than a little abruptly, a strange alien dressed as Benjamin Franklin burst into the room carrying a small lizard that was wearing a cowboy hat and a badge that read, “Little Sheriff.” When he (Ben Franklin, not the lizard) screamed, “Where’s my purse?” Scott’s left arm convulsed violently and uncontrollably…
…the spoon flew from his hand…
…struck the picture of Liberace…
…which fell from the wall…
…crashed onto the plate of potato salad…
…which flew from the plate to the booth behind him…
…and there it landed on the worse person to inadvertently toss potato salad on.
Winky Bob Gillette owned the only three hovercraft dealerships on the moon, the most productive low-gravity steel production plant on Earth, and the most commercially successful record label in outer space, which made him a lunar bigshot. Mr. Gillette’s influence extended into every business operating on the moon because he had practically cornered the market on the necessary low-gravity material, provided at an almost-respectable price.
Mr. Gillette had three personal bodyguards: Rubus, Maximus, and Larry. Rubus and Maximus were larger than any human you’re likely to find outside of the circus. Larry was Maxamorphian, which meant that he occupied three side-by-side restaurant booths. That’s big, even by interstellar standards. When the projectile potato salad hit the back of their employer’s neck, the bodyguards snapped into action. It’s common knowledge that personal bodyguards generally prefer to be armed with Mercurial Bio-Degradable Hyperdisentigrators and Anti-Plasma Dark Matter Displacement Rifles, and Maxamorphians wouldn’t be caught dead without their Remington P119 Short-Blast Molecular Defusion Pistols. All of these weapons are instant killers and can, on occasion, cause strange anomalies at a subatomic level. It just so happened that three of those anomalies happened at exactly the same time. One subatomic anomaly is dangerous enough, but three simultaneous subatomic anomalies in the same twelve-foot-square space has never happened before.
Until that moment.
There was a sound like a bullfrog singing an aria for one-thiry-third of a second. Then silence. Then voices and soft music.
Arnold Palmer…
Scott woke on the floor laying on top of what appeared to have been foam seats and ceramic plates. The only thing that he could make sense of was the yellow Post-It note stuck to his chest that read:
“We’re Sorry, But Your Dimension Has Been Altered. Your timeline has been relocated. Some details and events may have changed. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.” Signed, “Management.”
After a quick inventory of the essential body parts, he tried to recount the recent memories leading up to this moment but found only vague fragments of memories overdubbed with songs from Hello Dolly!
In the rubble nearby, seeming to have survived the rift in the time-space continuum, were two familiar objects: His leather journal and a framed picture of Liberace. His journal has been very important to him. Scott wrote down everything that happened, minute by minute, in the even that he was hit in the head by a falling chandelier and lost the ability to record and retrieve short-term memories. As it happens, this turned out to be a very fortuitous habit, as everything written in the journal now described an alternate, parallel (but slightly askew) timeline in which he’d previously exited. While everything in the journal had been changed, the occasional identical incident or event could be found to be perfectly identical. But at this point in our story Scott was only aware of his dilemma because of the yellow Post-It note, the leather journal, and the picture of Liberace.
Just moments before he’d been eating a not-great plate of potato salad at a deli called Earl’s on the far side of the moon. But now he was sitting in a heap of foam and ceramic in the middle of a Barnes and Noble bookstore. For twelve square feet, the ground was littered with pink vinyl, cotton wadding, ceramic shards, and foam. But beyond this were pristine rows of books, magazines, calendars, greeting cards, and novelty gift items. Soothing pop music was drifting down to me from some hidden origin in the ceiling. Dozens of consumers were busily and blissfully checking the new release shelves and browsing the bargain book selections. A group of young retail sales associates with clean name badges labeled “Sebastian,” “Madison,” and “Lindsay,” was huddled together at the mouth of the Home Improvement aisle discussing which nightclub they might most likely gain access to on the upcoming Saturday night.
After a nervous cough and what seemed like eight-and-a-half minutes, one solitary sales associate approached the heap of litter with increasing curiosity. “Excuse me, sir,” he stammered, “Can I help you find something?”
“As you can see, I seem to be lost here,” Scott replied, brushing chalk and dust from the front of his clothes. He picked up the leather journal and the picture of Liberace and asked, “Where can I find books on Transdimensional Phenomenon?”
* In English, “My face and my fate belong to the masses!” translated by Jupiterian ambassador, John Innerotter, 1995.
