A Case of Deja View

It was barely 8:30 AM, and already the brutal Arizona heat made holding the handle to my shop door difficult as I unlocked the deadbolt and slid back the security gate. The familiar sound of the fluorescent lights starting up, the pops and pings, reminded me that I had another twelve hours of artificial light to bathe in before sleep would come again.

I stepped behind the counter, booted up the old Hewlett-Packard that runs my register software, unlocked the safe, and put my Glock 19 on the shelf below it. Behind me, I reached up and pressed in the power switch of the old Marantz 2245 stereo, and as it came to life, the sounds of ‘Classic Rock 106.3’ filled the store. Nothing like a little Led Zeppelin to get the day started. It's a good thing I like the classic rock station since the tuner knob disappeared before Dad did. I flipped the switch under the shelf, and the neon OPEN sign announced to the hoard of customers that O’Malley’s Camera Shop was ready to take their money.

If only.

Dad left me the store in 1995 when the lung cancer finally rent the life from his always-strong barrel chest. It's been twenty years, and the place still has that stale odor of cheap cigarettes. No amount of new drop ceiling tiles, fresh paint, or plug-in air fresheners seem to remove the constant reminder of death.

Half the people that stop in are drifters and vagrants just looking for respite from the oppressive heat. I don’t dare turn anyone away too quickly. You never can judge a book by its cover. I had one guy come in that smelled like rotten cabbage and dressed like he lived in a dirty diaper. He ended up buying a Canon 5D, cash on the spot.

A majority of the actual customers are just travelers looking for stuff they can’t find at Best Buy. Mostly advice. You’d be surprised that whatever you’re looking for always seems to be what they want to sell. I sell you what you need, not what I need to sell.

A fair share of the stuff in this shop makes it feel more like a museum than a store. Dad had Leica bodies and Hasselblad backs from the 30s and 40s, as well as a great collection of Zeiss lenses all on display in a case across from where I stood, by the register. I think I’ve sold maybe two things from that collection in the past twenty years. It's all very cool stuff, but everything is digital these days, and the old-timers that might love that stuff, well, they don’t have the cash for it. I carry all the Digital DSLR stuff, the GoPro stuff, and even some surveillance camera kits. It's that sort of stuff and SD cards, polarizers, and camera bags that pays the light bill. With places like Amazon and B&H out there on the web, you’ve got to be desperate for attention to spend 20% more at my place. I suppose I am okay with that because I know my gear and educate my customers, just like Dad did, and that keeps them coming back.

I bought an old steel mailbox at an auction a while back. You know, the ones the post office leaves on corners for you to drop mail in. I had the kids from a local elementary school paint a little photography-themed mural on it for me. My buddy Itchy modified the drop slot to accept larger packages, and I put a sign on it that reads, “Donations or Recycling of Old Cameras Accepted Here.”

Most of the time, it's empty or has trash in it. One time a raccoon gave birth in it, and the Arizona sun baked the little suckers. I didn’t enjoy cleaning that out any more than the time the homeless guy puked in it. Every so often, an old 110 or a Kodak Disc camera shows up, the occasional VHS or VHS-C Camcorder, and one time a fantastic old Brownie that still had undeveloped film in it. I don’t usually check the box daily, but today marked a week since I had, so I went out front and unlocked the access door.

I cautiously opened it, always expecting something vile or dangerous; Hornets, a rattler, corndog-and-malt-liquor smoothies? I never know. But that day was different. There was only one item in there, and I had never seen anything like it before. I scooped it up and locked the access door. I went back inside, where the A/C was just starting to cool the place again.

I spread out my padded velvet and sat the mystery item down on it. It was small and plain, just a grey box with what looked to be an 18mm lens on the front and old composite A/V ports, and an unmarked dial on the back. No power button, or jack, no controls, no slot for storage, and no visible means of assembly. Just a box, a lens, and the yellow, red & white ports for video and sound. It was rather dusty, dirty really, with little bits of red sand and rock dust coating it, as if it had sat a very long time in a place you shouldn’t keep such a thing.

I assumed it was some sort of a joke or part of a gag, but before I could hook it up, the bell rang on the front door, letting me know I had company. I had a clear line of sight to the front door, and I could see it was my old family friend Calvin stopping in to bring me a coffee. Cal is an older guy, a bit older than my dad would be today. I used to love to hear the tales of how he made his way across Europe and Asia in the ‘50s and ‘60s as a photographic journalist for National Geographic. He and my dad were friends before I was born. I literally can’t recall a time when Cal wasn’t part of our family. He sometimes helps around the shop with repairs and customers, if we get any. He’s been coming around less and less since his accident. Unsurprisingly, Arizona takes away the driver’s license of an eighty-four-year-old man when he hops the curb and deposits his ‘88 DeVille in the dining area of a Sizzler Steakhouse. Riding the bus isn’t something Cal enjoys, and I don’t blame him, but after Janet passed last year, he needs to be out of the house.

“Morning, James,” Cal said with a forced lilt of joy in his voice.

“How are you today, Cal?” I replied.

“Jezzy died during the night. I buried her out in the backyard this morning. My hip is killing me from the damn shovel. Too many Goddamned rocks in that yard,” Cal answered.

Jezzy was Janet’s Persian. Cal was a dog person, but Janet was allergic, so in 50 years of marriage, Cal was caretaker to ten or more of Janet’s fur babies, Jezebel being the last of them.

I spoke before I thought, “Finally free, eh Cal?” Referring to the burden of caring for a fluffy, hissing ball of knotted fur with failing kidneys and so much more shit stuck to its own ass-fur than was ever even close to the litter box. Seriously, that cat was such a disaster that when it got sick, Cal would say that rather than call the vet, he was going to call FEMA.

I saw him stare off into the past, thinking of Janet, I’m sure. That damned cat was all he had left of her, and I just stuck my foot in my mouth. I can be insensitive. I know how to do that. It's pulling the foot out gracefully that eludes me.

“I’m sorry, Cal. I know things have been rough for you these last few months. I bet that wasn’t easy to handle alone,” I said, trying to ease the pain.

“No, it wasn’t. I told you, too many fuckin’ rocks,” he barked as he handed me my coffee. He looked up at me with glassy eyes, a moment from tears, and we shared a slight chuckle.

Cal became fixated on the little box camera I had on my counter, “Looks like a custom security camera. That in for repairs?” he asked.

“No, “ I replied, “It was in the mailbox, and I haven’t the foggiest idea what it is.”

I picked it up and rotated it around, showing him that there were no power input jacks, controls for video, or shutter release for stills. Cal also noticed it seemed to be cast as a single block of metal, not riveted, welded, or screwed together.

“Have you tried connecting it to a monitor yet?” Cal queried.

“Nope. Just got it right before you got here. Let’s do that now,” I said. I pulled out the auxiliary audio/video cables from the wall-mounted forty-two-inch plasma. I blew dust out of the end of the wires. As I started to insert them into the cube, I remarked again, “I don’t expect this to do anything. There’s no power jack or power button.”

As soon as I plugged it in, an image appeared on the screen. It was apparently just a live pass-through. Wherever I pointed the camera, that’s what I saw on the screen. Somewhat underwhelming, honestly. The resolution was poor, and the colors were washed out, muted tones - Obviously an older CCD. Although the optics looked pretty nice, the picture was not much to write home about. Cal and I discussed it a bit and decided it must be an exterior slave security camera from some big military complex, but how it ended up in my box was still a mystery, as well as what was powering it.

Before too long, customers started dripping in, and the cube got set aside. Today was Wednesday, and that means the Sedona Photography Club meets here promptly at 9:30 AM. I give them assignments each week, and they go out into the city and shoot, and when they return, we discuss technique, composition, and exposure. If I’m lucky, someone gets the idea that spending money will make them a better photographer. That’s almost never true, but who am I to stand in the way of personal growth?

By 10 AM, the group is gone. I sent them out to the Veteran’s Memorial Park to shoot the peonies the city plants this time of year.

“What’s the dial do?” asked Cal, motioning his head toward that old cube camera.

“This is what passes for excitement these days, eh, Cal?” I said as I picked up the cube and placed it back on the velvet pad. As I reattached the video cable, I said to cal, “I suspect it's different channels. Many of the old security cameras could push a quarter screen resolution back to a control box, so if you had 4 cameras, you set each to its own channel, and they would be received as that quadrant on the main box.”

Cal shrugged and rolled his eyes in that way one might when they’ve got something to add but would rather just get on with it. So, I did just that.

I saw the image, again, up on the plasma. I had the camera pointed right at Cal; he was so close he filled the frame. I bent over closer to the counter and turned the dial counterclockwise. It was smooth and weighted, like the missing knob on Dad’s old Marantz was. Effortless. It seemed like it could just spin forever.

Cal’s trademarked sarcasm got my attention back, “Oh, now you done it. Nice work, Jimmy.”

I lifted my head and saw on the screen that the picture had changed. Not into quadrants like I assumed, but something a bit odder. The image was the same, but Cal was no longer in the frame, despite not having moved.

“Do you think it's a still frame from before?” I asked as if Cal had any answers.

I picked the camera up to have a closer look at the dial, and heard Cal whisper, “peculiar, that.”

He pointed at the screen with one hand and tapped on the glass counter with the other, his worn old wedding band making a sharp noise that drew my attention. I followed his hand back to the screen and could only blink and scrunch up my face in confusion.

It was still a live feed. It just wasn’t showing any people in it. I pointed it directly at Cal, then myself, and neither of us was visible on the plasma. As I turned the camera back to Cal, I noticed something else; the security gate appeared closed on the feed.

I put the cube down and stared at Cal for what felt like a minute until he took a breath and said to me, “Nope. I got nothin’.”

My eyes widened as I had the bright idea to point it at the clock on the wall behind me. It was one of those fancy atomic clocks. I ordered it from SkyMall after too many tiny bottles of Vodka on a flight to Fall River, Mass, to visit my sister when my nephew was born in 1998. The clock displays time, date, and weather and is guaranteed to be accurate. Although, now that I think of it... It is an atomic clock. What would you compare it to find out if it was incorrect?

What I saw with my eyes was 10:04 AM, August 19th, 2015, 102° F - The clock on the plasma screen showed was 8:04 AM, August 17th, 2015, 87° F.

Two days, two hours earlier than now.

I placed the camera back on the velvet pad. Shaking my head, I said to Cal, “Ok. Yeah. This camera does some weird shit.”

I would've said it was a prank, but I couldn’t figure out how it could be pre-recorded footage that matched the movements I made exactly.

“You need to fiddle with that dial a bit more, Jimmy,” Cal said with a raised eyebrow that intimated to me precisely what he meant. I pointed the cube again at the atomic clock and turned the dial further and further to the left until the clock disappeared on the plasma screen.

There was a poster on the wall for Kodak Film. This had to have been before I got the clock, prior to 1998. But when exactly? I remember that poster, and I remember my dad always had a classic car calendar pinned up that the car insurance company would send out at Christmas time. He hung it to the right of the mirror behind the counter, and as I pointed the camera in that direction, I could see it. The days of the month exed out with a green marker, all the way up to September 21st, 1993. The Westclox on the wall near the calendar read 9:03 AM.

Cal typed away on his iPhone, and after a moment, he declared, “That’s a Tuesday, Jimbo, if the calendar is correct.”

It struck me that if this was no hoax, Dad would be opening the shop just about this time. I turned and pointed the cube at the front door. I sat it down and just watched. A few minutes passed, and there was no Dad unlocking the door and starting the day. To be honest, I was in college then, so I really can’t say, “Dad never missed a day of work.” I was hopeful, beyond reason, that my dad would appear on the screen.

“This is bullshit, Cal,” I said aloud, in frustration, as I reached for the cube. But then we heard it... Something off-screen, presumably behind the camera. Just then, a hand entered the frame and crushed a cigarette into an ashtray on the counter by the camera. An ashtray that is no longer there. A long-gone relic of man’s journey towards an early grave. A shadowy figure walked towards the front door, unlocked and opened the security gate, then unlocked the front door. The morning sun's light was filling the room as the man hoisted the steel security shutters and flipped the sign from “Closed, Please Come Again” to “Open For Business.”

When the man turned, I could plainly see it was my father, Rory O’Malley. He walked back past the camera and went about the business of running a small, usually empty camera shop. I remembered now that Dad used to open the store from the back before we swapped the roll shutters for the sliding gate.

Cal and I watched for about two hours, following him around with the cube. When I saw him open the safe, I became very interested. Dad never used that safe, as far as I knew. The door opened, and he reached inside and pulled out what looked to be a glowing blue crystal. He walked it over to his desk and made what looked like a long-distance call to someone at M.I.T. named Harlan Fredericks. He seemed to be asking broad questions about science that were way over our heads. To be honest, I never knew my dad to be interested in any sort of formal science, let alone physics, or what I assumed was physics. The call was somewhat brief. Dad appeared to get agitated, I presume, by the questions coming back from this Fredericks guy, and suddenly he just hung up.

Over the next couple of hours, we watched as he sat at the counter assembling something of it, attaching wires and circuit boards. It was unclear what he was making or fixing, but he eventually wrapped it up and put it back in the safe. The day with my dad was precious for Cal and me, but it started to get depressing watching this long-gone father and friend just sit around an empty camera shop.

“Maybe turn the dial to the right, Jimbo,” Cal said with a chuckle. I caught his drift. He meant to insinuate that if to the left showed the past, then to the right may show the future. I’m not sure if it was Cal’s consistently blasé demeanor or some sort of shock, but not once did we stop and question how any of this was possible. More to the heart of it, why. We just kept playing with it, never even wondering if we should.

I pointed the camera at the Atomic Vodka SkyMall Clock and slowly spun the dial back to the present time, then a bit further to the right, and sure enough, the clock displayed a time later in the day.

I expected the Photography Club back by 2 pm, so I dialed it ahead to then, and we watched to see what would happen. The clock showed 2:05 on the plasma, and then I heard the bell through the TV - The front door opening and the club returning, but something was off, out of place. In the crowd was an unfamiliar face. A dirty, shifty-eyed, junkie-looking face. I trained the camera on the space where this man would be, and we watched as the club folks walked around him, apparently trying not to breathe in his toxic scent. I could see the drifter was uneasy, but he seemed compelled. To what end, I didn’t know. Once my group of amateurs had collected in the back room to download their SD treasures, the oddball turned quickly, pulling a revolver from his waistband and pointing it nervously in my direction.

“Where’s the cash, asshole!?” he demanded.

I heard my own voice reply, “You picked the wrong place to rob, pal. I haven’t made a sale in days. I got nothing here.” I pointed the camera at where I would be standing and saw myself reaching for that Glock 19 under the shelf. I’m sure I felt this guy would shoot us for what we had in our pockets.

Before my future self could grab the gun, the junkie said, “Hands where I can see ‘em, I got nothin’ to lose.” I had zero reasons not to believe him. He positioned the gun so my view was straight down the barrel.

On the tv, I saw that I raised my hands and obeyed the threat. Cal, however, was not as compliant. What the hell, Cal?

Cal had armed himself with a broom and swung it fast and hard on the thief’s wrist, knocking the gun from his hand. It fell straight down onto the velvet pad, shattering the glass and falling into the display case where I keep the better quality pre-owned cameras. There was a scuffle, and he and I butted heads as we both tried to get to that revolver before the other.

Cal and I both watched in horror as this unfolded on the TV. We started to lose track of time, and this was all so surreal that it was more like a bad ‘70s cop drama than what it really was; Some crazy precognitive camera showing us the future.

The scuffle continued, and the shouting got louder, and in an instant, it was over. The shot echoed through the store.

I moved the real-time cube around to see where the bullet went in this potential future. The plasma showed my eyes wide as saucers, but I was unharmed. The junkie was in shock as well but uninjured. The cube on TV had fallen through the glass, its guts spilled out, sparking, smoking, the crystal shattered, and the blue glow of light flickered and ceased. That’s when I saw it, where the ricochet had gone. Cal, looking down, his hand pressed against his gut where his liver was. The deep black blood soaked his shirt as he fell to his knees. I heard the bell ring again as the drifter ran out into the Arizona heat.

I pointed the cube back at the clock, 2:08 pm. Then I noticed the clock in the real world - 2:01 pm.

“Cal, I need you to leave the store right now. We can’t let this happen,” I said in a panic.

Cal replied, “You saw it. He pointed his gun in your face - If I don’t hit him with the...” Cal looked around for the broom and didn’t see it. He left the room mid-sentence to go and get a broom from the back room. When he returned, he continued, “Hit the sonofabitch with this here broom, you’re gonna get plugged, Jimmy.”

“Plugged? Who says plugged? You some sort of gangster now, Cal, what the Hell? We only have a few minutes before what we just saw actually happens. You need to leave!”

Cal looked at me for a moment. He seemed to be contemplating his options, his fate. I could read in his expression that he’d come to accept that his fate and mine were intertwined.

“A bit of advice, Jimbo,” Cal said, entirely too calmly, “don’t bury me in my neighborhood - too many goddamned rocks.”

We both laughed at that, not only about the absurdity of the day but the density of rocks in Cal’s yard. He wasn’t going to leave the store or me. Knowing the future gave me an advantage that the drifter did not have. I hatched a plan, an idea anyway. I shared it with Cal, and we agreed on how to better handle the situation together.

I sat the cube down on the velvet pad and grabbed a magic marker and a pre-printed sale card. On the card, I wrote, “One-of-a-kind rare Precog Camera $12,500.” I placed the card in front of the camera, and we waited.

At 2:05, the bell on the door jingles, and the club filed in as expected, filling the back room with a cacophony of chatter. Few noticed my new display, but I knew the price would keep them shuffling along. Then I saw him.

The drifter.

His behavior was already different. Hewas drawn immediately to the camera or its apparent value and picked it up and handled it like a loaf of bread.

“What’s this do? Why’s it so expensive?” he asked, his foul breath pushing its way past his rotten teeth.

I snatched the cube from his hand and placed it back on the velvet pad. “It can see the future or the past. I’ve seen yours, and this isn’t for you.”

He reached for it again, confused by my cryptic declaration, eyes focused on this prize. I put my hand over his and withheld him from it. He looked me in the eye and began to say, “Hands off, man, I got...”

“...nothin’ to lose?” I confidently finished for him as I positioned my Glock inches from his face. He backed up, raising his hands in defeat, his face wore shock. Cal circled behind him and took the revolver from his belt. The drifter’s expression was of confusion and annoyance as if we were now the thieves stealing his tool for survival.

While my adrenaline still pumped, I barked out, “Get out of my shop and don’t ever come back. Hell, don’t even think about coming back, or I'll know,” I said, with a nod towards my special camera.

He staggered back away from the counter, his head shook in disbelief. Pushing the door open, the bell rang as he retreated, running off into the blistering afternoon sun.

A couple of the club guys came up front and asked what the commotion was. Cal quickly hid the drifter’s revolver behind his back. “Nothing to worry about, just an unhappy customer,” I said.

I put the cube in the safe, and we joined the club for review and critiques. No one bought anything. Cheapskates. Every last one of them.

After they left, Cal and I deliberated and decided not to report the incident. We didn’t want to have to lie about the cube, let alone surrender it to the police. We resumed our examination of the camera and the secrets it held. I dialed in several dates subsequent to the last time we watched Dad until we saw him working again on that device from the safe. Over the course of several viewed months, we found ten more times he worked on it. Taking it out of the safe, tinkering with it, putting it back. I don’t know how or when it happened, but eventually, we found the date when he took it out for the last time.

It was the camera we held now. My own father built it.

We watched as he connected it to an old Commodore 64 monitor and cranked the dial to the right. We watched him as he watched us watching him. It was almost silly in how meta it was. It reminded me of that scene in Spaceballs. I think Cal found my snicker inappropriate, but it's not my fault he isn’t a Mel Brooks fan. We watched as Dad dialed further forward in our day and saw the incident with the drifter. For him, the event played out differently. When that was over, there was a cough, and the monitor was spattered with bright red blood.

This had to be near the end for him.

We dialed further ahead, and there were days when the store never opened. These had to be chemo and radiation treatment days. He and mom together at the cancer clinic. I remember when they called and told me I needed to come home from college. I knew there would be no more footage of my dad. He never made it home from the hospital. We took him from that small, sterile room to a slightly larger one at a hospice facility.

“November 18th, 1995, Jimmy. Try that.” Cal suggested.

I looked back at him with doubt and said, “Ok, Cal, but the store was closed up until I came back in spring of ‘96”

I pointed the cube one last time at the space where the calendar used to be, and as expected, with no one to ex out the days, I had no idea when I was looking at. I just kept slowly cranking that dial until something extraordinary happened. The dates were crossed off, and the calendar was set to November. I saw a hand come into the frame and ex out eighteen. I pulled back, and filling the frame now was Cal. A younger Cal. I’d known him all my life, so I never noticed him aging, but at twenty years younger, he looked so different.

“What is this, Cal?”

“Better if you just watch, Jimbo.”

I stood back and aimed the camera at Cal’s ghost while watching the scene unfold on the plasma.

Cal opened the safe and took out the camera. He turned towards where I was standing now, reached into his pocket, and retrieved a folded paper. As bad as the resolution was, I could see the logo of the hospice house they took Dad to right at the end. There was a quiet sadness about the Cal on the screen. He unfolded the paper and began to read it aloud.

“Dear James,

If you are hearing this, then I’ve been gone for twenty years or so. This camera was meant to be something special, and has it ever been. I made it from a crystal I found on that trip we took to Meteor Crater Park in Winslow when you were twelve. I never showed it to you. I never told you about it. I don’t have a reason or excuse for that and can’t explain it. I just knew it was special.

I was haunted by the pictures in my head whenever I went near the damned thing. I felt compelled to keep it in the safe but near me always. I’m confident it showed me how to build this camera. I also believe it gave me the cancer. We blamed the smoking, and I’m sure that played a part, but I am convinced it was the rock that done me in. A gift and a curse.

After I built the camera, I was able to watch you grow and have your family. I think I found every time Emily came to the shop with the girls. You done good, son. I’m proud of you. I watched when you took over the store, the changes you’ve made, and yes, even saw you have that fight with that hobo.

I’m sure this is all very strange to you now, but I wanted to tell you I love you, James. I wanted to make sure you saw the camera for the thing it is and believed it was real. To save you on that day. This day. But the truth is, that camera is still dangerous. It's why I asked Cal to remove it from the safe before you come in '96. It's why I asked him to bury it in his yard for twenty years and why I asked him to see that you found it today. To save your life or Cal’s. I’ve seen it both ways. Oh yes, every change you make affects other future events. But I will be long dead when you view this, so my ability to affect your future ends with this message.

Now that you’ve seen this, I want you to give the camera back to Cal so he can bury it again where no one will ever find it. It's just too dangerous. You'll be tempted to take the dial back, it's the one from the stereo, but it may be radioactive, too.

I love you, son. Live the life you’re meant to live,

Dad.

P.S. If a fella named Fredericks calls or comes asking for it, you say nothing, no matter how compelling his argument.”

And with that, the Cal on the TV folded the paper, locked the safe, and left the store.

I disconnected the A/V cables and looked at Cal as I handed him the camera.

“So Jezzy, huh?” I asked.

“Oh, shit, Jimbo, that shitty little fucker is going to outlive both of us,” he replied, “and I’ll tell you what, I ain’t lookin' forward to burying this damn thing again.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, “all the goddamned rocks.”