I lie on my left side facing the wall in my rack at the lunar base where I work. I realize that I am naked lying on top of the sheets and blanket and I know that my eyes are open. But, this, like my Bullhead experiences, certainly feels like it is just another dream. I want to roll over onto my back and wake up. I must force myself to regain my fully awake status.
But I am fully awake. It is not possible for a man to dream while he is fully awake. What I experienced in Bullhead must be real!
I log into the online system on the screen just above my pillow. How convenient it is to roll over and be able to punch in a few characters on a screen while reclined in my rack! Once I am logged in, I scan through my personal data which confirms for me that my birthplace as Sedona, Arizona and that MMDI agent Vincent Wauneka recruited me when I was visiting the Navajo Nation in my mid-thirties during the 20th century.
The text and images on my screen explain that my parents were scientists. That helps me to remember when I was just a kid how they urged me to follow in their footsteps and enter the scientific field. All I ever wanted was to play cowboys and Indians outdoors in the desert with my buddies. This kid from a scientific family never grows up to become the cowboy he wants to be.
I remember leaving home at age 15 to live in Phoenix after arguing with my parents. We frequently argued because they told me I had an exceptional intelligence and were highly enthusiastic about my future prospects in some field of science. I faced an uphill battle attempting to survive on my own at such a young age with no connections in Phoenix. I quickly discovered I could make money if I let older men pay to have sex with me. That became how I made my living in my youth. I felt ashamed of myself. I did not deal well with the reality that I am sexually attracted to men instead of women. I was successful for a few years making a living as a gay male sex worker. I consistently was told by men who paid me for sex that I was sizzling hot and very desirable to them.
When I reached the age of 18, I was considered an adult. I made the adult decision to seek purpose in my life by entering into a military career, so I enlisted in the Air Force. I figured I likely would have the opportunity to meet smarter men in military service as compared to civilian life. I never saw or spoke with my parents again. I can guess that they would have been very angry with me because, as scientists, they actively distrusted the military. I have to be honest with myself that I made the choice to enter military life essentially to validate my independence from my parents.
During the first few months of my Air Force service, I was given an intensive series of tests in the medical section of a base not far from Boston where I was stationed. The official Air Force findings proved I had unique cognitive capabilities, and I greatly surprised the military leadership with the ways I used my mind compared to national standards. I immediately got assigned to top-secret projects at that base pertaining to the strategic military uses of radar.
Apparently, I was not sufficiently smart, however, in responding to my superior officer when he began pressuring me during my early twenties to get married to prove to the Air Force brass that I was top-notch dependable and stable in life in comparison to the other single men at the base. He was giddy with delight when I told him I had met a Massachusetts woman named Katherine Snowe at a restaurant bar in the Fanueil Hall Marketplace.
I was never sexually attracted to her or to any women. The afternoon I met her in Boston, she obviously had been drinking alone in an upbeat cocktail lounge within a tourist restaurant. I was there in civilian attire as I was not on duty. I enjoyed going to Boston whenever I could to get away from the base. When I mentioned to Katherine Snowe that I was born in Sedona, Arizona, she immediately showed a pinpointed interest in me. She admitted that since the late sixties she had become an avid follower of metaphysical advocates who emphasized past-life regressions and other mental explorations linked to Northern Arizona. To her way of thinking, Sedona was a very special place that merited deep respect. Since I had been born there, she instantly attributed to me an undeserved status of a someone savvy who was connected to principles that explain time, space, consciousness, and causality. The most simple explanation, however, was that Katherine Snowe was spooky.
After she agreed to marry me, she insisted that we make it happen in Arizona. “Black Saturday” is how I refer to the day that she and I tied the knot in Sedona. She believed that Sedona had multiple vortexes to other dimensions and that suited her. I might have been saved from that marriage had she been traveling at the time to another one of those dimensions. Instead, our wedding ceremony went on as scheduled during the Christmas holiday weekend in Sedona inside a trendy chapel in Tlaquepaquea—meaning “the best of everything” in the Central American Aztecan language. But my choice to marry this woman was everything but the best. The holiday season provided Katherine Snowe with the excuse to wear blood red as the color of choice for the gown she wore in our marriage ceremony. She told me that wearing white—the color which stood symbolically for purity—would have in her view been a “deliberate deception in the eyes of Almighty God” as she put it. Her exact words to me. Even though I married her in some misguided attempt to fulfill my chain-of-command responsibilities to the United States Air Force, I knew from the start that my marriage to Katherine Snowe proved to be a significant error in judgement on my part.
Since I was an atheist and the chapel had Aztecan interior design themes that blended in with the Tlaquepaquea venue, I insisted that the man who was the licensed officiant of the marriage ceremony be costumed within the parameters of the Aztecan theme. He was a tall, handsome and muscular actor who was well-established in the Sedona arts community. His body looked especially stunning to me, especially because he wore a traditional Aztecan loincloth that revealed a significant masculine bulge. The ceremony was built upon humanistic themes and incorporated a recreation of Aztecan sacred fire and mind-bending incense.
Our honeymoon was memorable for all the wrong reasons. My new wife passed out too early in our posh Sedona honeymoon suite on the king size bed with the red comforter. The bottle of chilled Spanish sparkling wine that she singlehandedly finished that night rendered her unconscious quickly. What this meant was we could not consummate our marriage in old Arizona over that Christmas holiday weekend. I ended up masturbating alone in the romantic, oversized oval tub with silver tiles in that Sedona honeymoon suite. I fantasized about being serviced in that tub by the Aztecan wedding officiant who washed my body carefully and respectfully in the jacuzzi. Then he ceremonially serviced me in the multiple ways that I wanted and needed, sucking and fucking me repeatedly until sunrise. The soft warm water washed my tears and semen together down the drain.
I know now that the core problem was that a marriage between one man and one woman must be built upon a central truth that both parties are attracted to one another. Simple enough. I was only pretending to be attracted to Katherine Snowe. I remember how much I wanted to pretend convincingly that I was attracted to any female because I was pressured by my commanding officer in the Air Force to learn how to fit in as a dependable straight man who “settled down” in a marriage between one man and one woman.
My new wife proved to be too self-absorbed in severe mental illness to be aware of the truth about my sexual identity. She never made any effort to discover what turned me on or turned me off sexually or emotionally. I did have sex with her, of course, because that was required of me as a husband. Katherine Snowe never found out that I didn’t enjoy sex with her because she was preoccupied with not enjoying sex with me. She was unbalanced and self-tormenting in ways that could never be repaired by prescription drugs or mental health therapy. More importantly, she existed somewhere else in her mind instead of being present with me in our life together as husband and wife. She simply was absent emotionally from our relationship at all times. In truth, the only thing I shared with her was our official marriage license from the State of Arizona.
I climb out of my rack at the lunar base when I see Vincent Wauneka walking into the crew quarters wearing a thick blue robe that signifies he just returned from a mission. “A hypothetical question for you, Vincent,” I say to him.
“Sure,” he says as he sits down next to me on my bed linens.
“You have worked here longer than I have. Most likely you know far more than me. About how things work around here. That’s what I mean.”
“So serious, Teddy.”
“Vincent, do you know whether a personal mission ever possible? What I mean is: Can agents like us request to be sent back to the past on a mission to change a timeline for personal reasons?”
He frowns at me and replies, “Personal reasons? The training and orientation we received covered it fully. You remember that, right?”
“Not entirely, no, Vincent. Remember, I’m the guy with memory problems,” is my aggressive reply.
He smiles at me and nods, but I am certain he does not appreciate what I am asking. “Do you think I might get approved to be sent back to the past so I could prevent myself from getting married in Arizona? My marriage to Katherine Snowe pretty much wrecked my life.”
“Interesting question. Our training and orientation taught us why we travel to the past. The agency we work for sends us to timelines that happened in our past. We have no part in what timelines are chosen nor the changes the agency wants us to make while we are on a mission,” Vincent says like he is an instructor at the base.
“How are those timelines chosen? Was that covered in the training and orientation?”
“What I recall is the process—the specific selection of timelines in the past— is handled by a super-computer. No human mind could ever keep track of all the variables so the selection of timelines is never done by humans,” he says.
“So the agency trusts non-human intelligence with that decision-making process?”
“I think that is accurate, yes,” he replies.
“We never know exactly why we are changing past timelines. You realize that, don’t you? We have targets—specific men which we are expected to manipulate and control specifically to bring about specific changes in outcomes for which the target is responsible. But we never know for certain why it is we were given the targets we were given. I believe that we never know that. We are in some ways flying blind when we go back in time to the past to change things in a timeline.”
He smiles and tells me, “Yes and the work we do on missions is repair work. In effect, we are repairmen who work on timelines in the past.”
“And we were told manipulating and controlling targets in those past timelines has some connection to preventing the self-destruction of human civilization on Earth.”
“Yes, exactly right,” he says. “I imagine the connection may not have a direct and immediate link to self-destruction of civilization. Like one guy is not the cause of the end of the world. But one man’s actions may trigger other men’s actions and so forth. Those human actions trigger events that occur along the timeline. And the work we do interrupts or prevents actions and events that one way or another lead to self-destruction of civilization on Earth.”
“And my ex-wife probably is not connected at all to the self-destruction of human civilization. Isn’t that what you are trying to tell me, Vincent?”
“She hurt you,” he replies with genuine sympathy. “That much is clear. But you should not think about time travel as a way to undo your hurt. We are repairmen of timelines. We do what we do for a worthwhile purpose. That should make you feel good, right?”
“Should,” I answer. “But does not.”
“Teddy, we have brains that cannot possibly see the larger significance of the work we do. We just need to follow orders. We just need to go on missions to past timelines. I once was assigned on a mission, multiple times to the past in Arizona. I repeatedly manipulated the target. I mean, several times, again and again. Eventually, I was sent on other missions, so I figured I must have finally completed the mission like I was supposed to. Or I would have kept being sent back repeatedly to complete the mission. The only outcome I knew about after such multiple missions was the state of Arizona switched in the late sixties from observing Daylight Time to not observing Daylight Time. From that point forward, the people who live in the border communities of the tri-state area were forced to refer to ‘California time,’ and ‘Nevada time,’ and ‘Arizona time’ to prevent confusion.”
“You’re saying that Daylight Saving Time in Arizona was in some way connected to the eventual self-destruction of human civilization? Makes no sense at all, Vincent”
ΔΔ
While we are on common missions to Arizona in the year 1991, I value the lessons I can learn from Vincent Wauneka’s deeper experience as an MMDI agent. “You do understand now that Carlo Zee is our target, right?” Vincent Wauneka finally asked me directly.
“I thought we were not supposed to discuss our missions with other agents, Vincent.”
“We are two agents on one mission together to the same location in one timeline. A common mission. That MMDI security regulation does not apply to us. You and I need to talk about Carlo so we can coordinate our efforts here and finish our mission.”
Vincent Wauneka says I must spend time with Carlo Zee at the Bullhead gym. I do so but discover that Carlo Zee is a very young and immature, but he also seems unskilled in the sense of coaching or mentoring me and Vincent Wauneka in the proper techniques of resistance training in a gym. I imagine few people will care about Carlo Zee’s lack of skill as a personal trainer because his body is such a delight to watch on a daily basis working out at that gym. Perhaps that can be said about many personal trainers who just get by in their profession because of their youth and physical perfection.
One evening at the gym, Carlo Zee tells me, “I got something for you. And idea to help you here at the gym.”
“What exactly do you have in mind?” I ask him.
“I have access to all kinds of supplements that can help you,” he says.
“What kind of supplements? Some kind of vitamin tablets?” I want to know.
“Vitamin C, yeah. Or maybe it is Vitamin T? You’ve heard of that? No, of course not. I’m talking about much stronger stuff,” he says. “Not vitamins. Not for everyone.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “It sounds illegal.”
“Think of it as a way to pump up your testosterone,” he replies. “Male hormone in all guys. Makes us get bigger. Lots of bodybuilders do this. Nothing really to worry about. Plus, I will get them for you at a discount. Because you are my client.”
“I know what testosterone is. But I don’t want to get in trouble. That shit is illegal, right?”
“Well,” he quickly says, “Look at me. My body looks great, doesn’t it?”
“Is this a trick question?” I reply.
Carlo Zee smiles and says, “My point is: I have used supplements to boost my testosterone and that makes my body bigger and stronger. The federal law only recently was changed. The Controlled Substances Act of 1990. You never heard of it, but this is all true. This stuff always was all perfectly legal here in the U.S. Now the only way to get it is buy it in Mexico.”
“As my personal trainer, you’re recommending that I start taking drugs from Mexico?” I ask him.
He replies, “You make it sound like a bad thing. I will watch over you and guide you. You will benefit, I’m sure of that. I know what I’m doing.”
“What exactly are we talking about here?” I ask him like I assume he is merely inflating his self-importance with me.
“Yeah, okay, you need to trust me,” he answers quickly. I choose to believe he is being completely honest with me. “What you need must be bought in Mexico. Then I will guide you, personally, here in Bullhead using the Mexican purchase. Your testosterone will get boosted. Like many of the supplements we bodybuilders use, this is naturally occurring in the human body.”
“Then why take it as a supplement?” I want to know.
“Sometimes, science can help push a man’s body a little bit. Or a lot,” he replies. “Just based upon what naturally is happening in the body to begin with.”
“What exactly does this drug?” I ask him.
“Well, one thing is a decrease in your body fat. That’s very good. You already know that is true. It also will increase your muscle mass. I’m telling you that’s great. It also increases bone density, boosts your energy, and makes you want to have sex more.”
“More than what?” I challenge him.
“I mean, it makes you want to have sex more often,” Carlo Zee explains. “Simple as that. You will want to fuck me twice every day. I can guarantee that.”
“Oh really?” I reply to him.
“Not gonna happen, of course. I’m attracted to females,” he responds quickly. “I just don’t have a problem with you being sexually attracted to me.”
“You’re giving me the go-ahead to jerk off while I fantasize about fucking you, Carlo?” I ask him. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
He does not smile nor answer me. I can guess at what his answer might have been. He tells me, “I do not keep what we need just lying around on a shelf somewhere, you know? Getting that for you will require a trip down to a border town in Mexico. I go there often, just south of the Arizona state line. The international border is right there.”
”You’re shitting me, right, Carlo?”
”I gotta limit the number of times I cross the international border outta Arizona. Done it many time like I said. Vincent was with me on one crossing recently. I’m thinking maybe Vincent and you can do a practice run so you will get a handle on that. Just to learn how it works. Not that you and Vincent will attempt to buy anything in a farmacia in Mexico. Just go there together. That can be a practice run of a trip that you and I will make later on.”
And somehow I agree to what Carlo Zee wants. I find myself driving my late model SUV with Vincent Wauneka riding in the passenger seat. I hear him telling me, “There are not many people who would agree to drive over two hundred miles from Bullhead so we could rehearse how to enter Mexico.”
“Well, I accept that Carlo is our target on this mission, Vincent. I need to feel confidence in what I’m supposed to do with him in this timeline.”
One thing is certain: In this timeline, every day American tourists cross that border into Mexico just south of Yuma into Mexico’s state of Sonora and the city of San Luis Rio Colorado. If you are young and male and you are in search of drugs that are illegal in the United States, you choose to walk on the wild side. This and other Mexican border towns fuel deeply ingrained cultural stereotypes in the United States regarding drug gang members south of the border.
These Mexican men are genuine outlaws in their own country and in ours. They each made the choice to work in an illegal drug trade. They are not prosocial men who place a value on an orderly and peace-loving civilization. The drug business is what they value more than anything. That can explain why they cut off the cocks and balls and heads of young United States males who cross into Mexico to buy drugs that are unavailable north of the border. Just as a way to promote their notorious nature. The men from these drug gangs often share videos of their deeds as a demonstration of their machismo and superiority. That is how they generate street cred.
Why does this happen?
Because there are corrupt men in both the military and in law enforcement in Mexico. Because selling illegal drugs in the United States is big business and it is far more important to Mexico than preserving the tourism business. Because American men who want to buy drugs south of the border make very irresistible targets for Mexican drug gangs.
For Vincent Wauneka and me to get from Bullhead down to that particular crossing into Mexico involves a grueling six-hour, one-way drive through many miles of Arizona desert. If one makes this journey in the summer months, there is the very real danger to life because of the harsh weather conditions. There is also the mind-numbing drive across the desert that can challenge a man’s thinking and perceptions.
On this particular road trip my mind tells me that Katherine Snowe is seated in the passenger seat directly behind Vincent Wauneka. When I turn to look at her, Katherine Snowe gives me a fake smile and displays the middle finger of her right hand.
I realize that he can see Katherine Snowe seated in the passenger seat because Vincent Wauneka asks me, “Do you often pick up strange women and drive them all the way to Mexico?” I accept that Katherine Snowe sees and hears Vincent Wauneka because she laughs as though she was genuinely amused by what he said.
I suggest to him that I can help make the long journey more enjoyable by jerking him off while I drive. He does not offer any resistance. Katherine Snowe says, “I imagine he’s going to shoot an awfully large load, Teddy. I should know. I have tasted several hundred men’s penises. And I’ve swallowed all they could give to me. I’ll bet you never knew that about me, did you?”
Vincent Wauneka’s juices smash against the inside of my windshield and he shouts out in pleasure and laughter. “A very large load,” I say aloud so both he and my ex-wife can hear my response.
When Vincent Wauneka and I finally arrive on the outskirts of Yuma, the high temperature during that summer of 1991 has reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit. That kind of heat can kill even a very healthy person if they are not careful. Perhaps I could restrain Katherine Snowe and lock her inside my vehicle when Vincent Wauneka and I walk away to cross the border. She would bake quickly like an angel food cake. Then I would be rid of her completely.
He and I walk out of the United States of America together. I feel oddly ill-prepared to be walking with this handsome, muscular Navajo man as we enter the small border town in Mexico. During the 1990s that border crossing held little significance to anyone in the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. I wonder about what could happen if a time-travel agent is caught while doing something illegal in a past timeline. Perhaps the use of time travel would be used to change the timeline so that the agent is not caught and therefore escapes prosecution. I have to accept that Vincent Wauneka was introduced by Carlo Zee to the exact drugs I have been urged to start taking and has already faced this same question.
Vincent Wauneka is very intelligent. I wonder why he made the choice to get involved with sports performance enhancing drugs. Perhaps doing so proves his intense commitment to our time-travel missions. Now we are working together on missions and I am facing the decision I must make about using the same drugs to prove myself. I feel a sense of dread as he and I cross together into Mexico so effortlessly from Arizona. I walk with Vincent Wauneka on a crowded Mexican street in the city of San Luis Rio Colorado. [description goes here] I am impressed when Vincent Wauneka speaks fluent Spanish flawlessly to ask for directions to a particular farmacia.
After this rehearsal to Mexico is done, I am ready for the trip south of the border with Carlo Zee so he can make the drug purchase in the farmacia.
We make the dreadfully boring six-hour journey in my 4×4 from Bullhead to Yuma. I distract myself similarly to what I learned with Vincent Wauneka on the trial run. I suggest to Carlo Zee that he allow me to give him a hand job and bring him to orgasm with my right hand as I drive with my left. I am surprised when he agrees and pulls down his blue jeans to expose his manhood to me.
I talk to Carlo Zee while pumping his cock. I tell him how great-looking he is. I explain how he could have any man he wanted in the gym to provide him sexual pleasure but he chose me. I explain how grateful I am that he has allowed me to bring him a special 65 miles-per-hour ejaculation in my 4×4. His plentiful juices smash forcefully against the inside of the windshield of my truck as he shouts out in extreme bliss at the peak of his sexual release.
At the international border I walk out of our country with Carlo Zee, who is carrying twenty Ben Franklins for the purpose of purchasing drugs in a Mexican border town that are illegal in the United States.
I accompany him down a quiet and dusty side street in the city of San Luis Rio Colorado. We arrive together at the front door of the designated farmacia. “I will wait outside and keep an eye out. Just a precaution, so you are protected,” I say to him. He looks at me and frowns as though he was not expecting me to show such savvy. Then, Carlo Zee just nods at me confidently before he walks alone through the open front door.
From my vantage point outside the farmacia I can vividly hear Carlo Zee’s voice cry out in agony. I also hear a scuffle. And then I hear Carlo Zee screaming desperately like no man I’d ever heard scream before.
Three muscular Hispanic men inside the farmacia overtake Carlo Zee. One of the men grabs Carlo Zee’s bulge in his blue jeans. Carlo Zee reacts in utter horror and doubles over.
The members of the Mexican drug gang overpower Carlo and strip him completely very quickly. ¡Rápido! one of the men shouts in a deep voice. Then, all five of the beefy gang members take turns fucking Carlo Zee in both of his openings.
He cannot break free from the gang members who relentlessly and repeatedly penetrate him without stopping as part of their ritual. One of the bigger men grabs a machete and moves close to Carlo Zee. He grabs Carlo Zee’s manhood with his large left hand. The big man’s right hand guides the sharp blade downward into Carlo Zee’s genitals as he is slumped on his back on the wooden floor. Carlo Zee screams in desperation. Where there once had been an impressively thick cock and massive testicles, soon there are only shreds of skin and a deep red goo.
The big man uses his left hand to forcibly hold Carlo Zee’s forehead while his right hand slides the blade back and forth several times across Carlo Zee’s undefended neck as he lies face-up on the floor. Blood pours from the deep crescent that the big man has cut across Carlo’s muscular neck. At the moment of his death, Carlo Zee’s facial expression is one of intense resignation combined with utter humiliation. I unwillingly stare into this man’s eyes and witness his life dissipating relentlessly from his body.
The big man aggressively pushes Carlo Zee’s head backwards and then he pounds the blade downward over and over and over—the preferred method for cutting through the impossibly thick mass of trapezius muscles that keeps a man’s head attached to the remainder of his body. The murderers kick the decapitated head repeatedly across the wooden floor as though they are athletes on a soccer field. There have been many United States men who were captured by the drug gangs while trying to buy illegal drugs in Mexico. The end game for them is when gang members each take turns and perform the same depraved and ritualistic penetration of their severed heads.
Instinctively, I know at this exact moment while standing outside of the farmacia that I have accomplished my mission in the 20th century. I come to accept that the single essential mission parameter I had to fulfill was to repair the timeline so Carlo Zee gets executed in Rio San Luis Colorado by a Mexican drug gang.