LITTERBUG
Copyright 2009 by Henry Melton

"Dad!"  Jerry yelled as his father tossed the banana peel out the open window of the pickup truck.

He turned toward his 17-year-old son, mildly surprised.  "What?"

Jerry Foley sighed, "Dad, don't litter like that!"

"Why?  It was just a banana peel."  As always on this subject, he was unrepentant.

"Because, littering is against the law."

The elder Foley shook his head, "Son, you'll have to do better than that.  Illegal isn't the same thing as immoral.  These days, there are so many laws that you can't get through a day without breaking some of them.  I refuse to live my life by the rules a high paid debating team comes up with."

"There is a big fine.  Several hundred dollars."

Mr. Foley slowly, and pointedly, looked up and down the little country road they were traveling.  There was no other traffic, and the farmhouses were far apart.  "You gonna turn me in?"  He grinned.

Jerry crossed his arms.  "That's not the point.  Littering is wrong.  You shouldn't do it."

His father was enjoying himself.  "We have a couple of minutes yet before we reach town.  Go for it.  Convince me you are right, and I am wrong."

Jerry hated it when his father opened himself up for argument.  Greg Foley never lost his temper, nor lost his grin.  And he almost never lost the argument either.

But he knew his father played fair too. 

He quickly ran his reasons through his mind.  The littering laws and being a good public citizen were already crushed.  He would have to think of something else.

Luckily there was one reason immediately obvious. 

"It takes tax dollars or other people's efforts to clean up the mess you leave."  He pointed down at the plastic trash bags he was going to be using in a few minutes as part of the Hutto clean up campaign.

Thoughtfully, he nodded. "Good point for an abandoned refrigerator, or even an old newspaper.  But that was a banana peel.  In a day, it will be black, dried up and invisible among the weeds.  Before another month or so, the county will have a crew through here to cut the roadside weeds.   Litter or no litter, they will be here to turn Johnson grass, baby trees, and old banana peels into mulch.  No additional cost to anyone, as far as I can see."

Jerry pointed, "You gave a bad example."  His father had harped on just that point in another argument earlier in the week.  Not that he would have smoked the cigarettes anyway.  He just wanted them to test his gadget.

His father pursed his lips and nodded, "In other circumstances, I might agree.  But, who was here to see this?  Only my environmentally brainwashed son who would never litter so much as a used blob of chewing gum if his life depended on it."

"You were also giving me an example of ignoring a public law if it didn't suit your private preferences!  What if I see you doing this, and I use the same logic to stay out past curfew or slide through the stop sign at Jake's Hill road."

"Would you?"

Jerry put a pause on his tongue.  There were hazards no matter what he said to his parent.  He decided to go with honesty.

"I don't know."

His father nodded.  "Good enough.  Obeying the law is a good solid default behavior, and you should never break one just on impulse.  But following every little subsection of the traffic code when a tornado is bearing down on you is suicidal.  I have purposely ignored stop signs with as little excuse as being very low on gas.  If you get caught, then pay the fine with a smile, because it was your decision.  Just don't be brainless, and break a law on a whim."

Jerry smiled, "So, what was your reason for tossing the banana peel, other than your whim?"

Greg Foley curled his upper lip.  "Fruit flies.  I hate 'em.  Leave a dead banana in this pickup for any time at all and they appear as if by spontaneous generation.  You ever snort in one of those critters by accident?  Murder!  I tell ya."

###

Jerry shook his head in capitulation, grateful that they were pulling to a stop at the Highway 79, Ranch Road 685 intersection.  He got out with his bags and looked along the stretch of railroad tracks that were his personal cleanup duty.

"Call me when you are done."

Jerry tapped the pocket where he had his cell phone and nodded.  After the pickup drove off, the first thing he picked up was the note trapped under a large flat rock.  His part of the cleanup was the rails and southern side of Highway 79 from the intersection to a marker he would find closer to town.

He opened his first bag, stuffed the note in and got to work.

###

The cleanup was inspired by the Presidential whistle-stop campaign now working its way through this part of the state.  The President's special Amtrak train was due to arrive in Hutto tomorrow morning, before heading east.  Stopping only at small farming communities, it was the President's latest attempt to repair the PR damage he had taken over last year's Omnibus Farm Bill. 

Hutto farmers who shared morning coffee at the little diner room at Wag-A-Bag next to the Co-op hadn't said a kind word for the President there all year.  Yet the community had pulled out all the stops to sweep the streets and polish the stop signs on the half-dozen streets that faced the Union Pacific rail siding.  There was still glitter in the Presidency, no matter how hard the actual politicians tried to tarnish it.

It also helped that the locals were being given the prime seats.  The press were relegated to a special parking area over amid the metal silos at the cotton gin.  By doing his part in this cleanup, Jerry had locked up one of the limited seats on the bleachers hastily erected next to the tracks.

###

Beer cans, stained paper plates, shiny candy wrappers, and plastic drink cups emblazoned with the sun-faded logo of a fast food place eight miles away in Round Rock, Texas–there was plenty of trash to fill his first bag.  It was taking a lot longer than he had thought.  His stretch of roadway was much less than a mile, but there was a lot of stooping and picking.

Jerry wished he had one of those remote grippers or even a spike on the end of a stick.  He could already feel it in the muscles of his back.

Still, this was a good selection of stuff for his gadget.  Household trash wasn't the same as road litter.

When he saw his end-point memo next to the switch where the siding left the main line, he was ready to quit.  He picked it up and added it to the little bit of stuff he had in his second bag, and then called his father.

As he waited, he looked at the switch.  Even though he had lived in the Hutto area all his life and on most days trains barreled through town about every fifteen minutes, he had never really gotten this close to the tracks.  The local police were pretty quick to chase off kids who played on the rails.

He patted his pocket where he had stashed a rusted railroad spike, an unexpected treasure.  There were lots of them in the rocks next to the tracks but he had not realized they were there. 

The switch was interesting as well.  In the back of his mind, he had wondered what would happen if someone switched the tracks as a joke.  Now he realized it would never happen.  The switch was simple.  It was clear how to make it work–step on the release and flip that heavy bar over to the other side.  But the most massive padlock he had ever seen latched the bar down.  It made the padlock on his school locker look like a toy.

Plus, there was some kind of wiring hooked to the switch and he suspected there was some huge central office that could read the position of every track on the line.

###

His father drove up after a while, and rolled his eyes as Jerry put the full and partial trash bag into the back of the truck.

"We're taking that stuff home?"  he asked.

Jerry grinned.  "I want to test my gadget."

"I've raised my son to be a trash man."  He shook his head.

At home, the first order of business was getting a canned coke out of the refrigerator, and then he hauled the bags out to the barn.

###

His gadget stood over twelve feet tall.  A roller coaster for trash is what his father called it.  He called it a Refuse Separator.

All three switches on–click click click, and the barn was alive with the hum and rattle of the fans and the conveyer belt.  Unceremoniously, he dumped the first bag into the hopper, and then fished out the railroad spike and placed it on the top of the pile like a cherry on a sundae.

Already, the bottom of the pile was being dragged off, up the conveyer belt and dropped from the top.  The fans separated the paper, while a huge electromagnet attempted to bend the fall of the iron and steel into a separate catcher bin.  Glass and aluminum and other inert stuff landed in the center bin, which was shaking in an attempt to sort light from heavy.

Jerry still wasn't happy with it.  The gadget started as a science fair project last year, and although he got a second place, he couldn't stop playing with the design.

"Having fun?"  His father came out, sipping a drink of his own.

"I'll know in a minute."  He pointed at the railroad spike.  "I want to see that drop into the iron bin."

His father nodded, finishing his drink, and then tossing the aluminum can into the trash.

"Dad!"  Jerry fished it out and dropped it into the aluminum recycle bin.  "I told you.  Aluminum is prime recyclable.  Old cans are valuable."

"As valuable as my time?"

Jerry spoke slowly, as if his father was too stupid to understand.  "Separating the recycle streams at the very beginning is the most cost efficient method!"

"Ah ha!  Cost efficient for whom?  It's not cost effective for me.  I could care less whether I make a penny by tossing the can into the pretty colored bin.  It's only cost effective for the people like you who are trying to manage the environment.  And the way I look at it, I'm doing you a favor."

"What?"

His father gestured at the separator.  "Your gadget will be most valuable, not for managing new trash, but for mining out the valuable metals that are already stashed in the existing landfills.  So I am doing you a favor by making sure that the mine has good quality ore."

Jerry just shook his head.  He would never make his father understand.

But just then, the spike started to climb up the conveyer belt, and Jerry moved closer to watch it drop.

Ker-chunk!  Success!

His father patted him on the back.  "Good job son."

###

After his father left, he reached for the little bag and dumped its load into the hopper.  Even with the limited range of things the separator could handle, it still made his job of sorting the recyclables easier.  His father ribbed him about the electricity he spent on the job, but at least he was willing to chalk that up as an educational expense.

The smaller load went fast, but just before it was done, he caught sight of something shiny shooting out of the drop stream.  He walked around to the backside of the gadget and retrieved the silvery candy wrapper.

"'Brokies'–I never heard of that one."  He tossed it back into the input hopper and a few seconds later, just as before, it shot out of the drop path in an unexpected direction.

"What is going on?"

A third time, he sent it on its way.  He kept an eye on it the whole way.

It was the magnetic separator.  The wrapper was being pushed out the back by the electromagnet.

"Why is it being pushed?"

He grabbed up the flimsy wrapper and looked it over.  It looked just like all the other aluminized plastic wrappers so popular with candy makers.  He went over to the paper bin and fished out a peanuts wrapper that looked identical in material and put the both of them into the hopper.

They flickered through the separator one after the other.  The Brokies hit the magnet and was ejected, but the peanut wrapper dropped past it without a wobble and hit the airflow that pushed it over into the paper bin.

"Dad!"

###

"I think I’ve heard of this," his father said as he looked over the shiny wrapper.  He looked at Jerry, "Do you still have that assortment of magnets you ordered?  Go get it."

One by one they tested different magnets.  Each pushed the wrapper.  When they found the little samarium magnet, Mr. Foley spread the wrapper flat on the bench and the little rare-earth magnet floated in the air above it–suspended by the magnetic field.

"No doubt about it, Meisner effect," he pronounced.  "You have a superconductor here."  He frowned.  "A room temperature superconductor."

Jerry shook his head.  "I don't believe it.  I've read up on superconductors.  You need super cold conditions to make superconductors."

His father shrugged, and tapped the little magnet.  It wobbled, oscillating with nothing to dampen out the motion but miniscule air friction.  "Do you believe what you read, or what you see?"

Jerry took a deep breath.  "I don't understand what I see."

"Good.  Neither do I.  I could maybe see someone inventing a superconductor and then keeping it secret.  But a candy wrapper?"

Mr. Foley tapped the magnet aside and picked up the wrapper again.  He read the text, and then examined the inside, and even the edges for some clue.

"Jerry, there is something different about this.  Here, take a look."

At first glance, the Brokies wrapper was just like all the other wrappers he had seen.  There was a bold text banner across the top proclaiming the name, with an enticing image of the treat itself–some kind of caramel glazed chewy treat.  It was when he looked the back side that it struck him just how strange the wrapper was.  There was no fine print.  Both sides of the package were the same.

He grinned up at his father, "There is no recycle logo."

"Ha!  Trust you to notice that one."

"Also, no ingredients list.  I thought all food things had to have a list of ingredients."

"And no trademark symbol next to the product name, nor a use-by date, nor a copyright on the text.  If it didn't say 'Made in San Antonio' there plain as day, I would have suspected it was from some other country, one where the product laws were different."

They were both silent for a moment.

Jerry asked, "Okay, maybe it's an experimental lot.  Somebody in San Antonio is getting ready to release a new candy and has given out samples for people to test."

"Hmm.  Maybe.  What is that dot?"

On the upper left of the package was a large gray dot, nearly a half-inch in diameter.  Jerry looked closely.

"Wait a minute."  He dashed over to his workbench and rummaged in a drawer.  He pulled out a large magnifying glass and examined the dot.

"Come look."  He repositioned the lamp to shine a brighter light on the wrapper.

His father adjusted the glass.  "I can't see as well as you do.  I think I see a pattern."

Jerry nodded.  "There is a pattern.  That dot is a dense maze of digital information.  And it seems to be laid out in some kind of spiral pattern."

The elder Foley nodded.  "Now it makes sense."

"What makes sense?"

He set down the magnifier.  "Somebody has invented a way to put all the junk information into this dot, like a super IPC product bar code.  I'd bet that all the trademarks, ingredients, and product history is all encoded into that dot."

"No way.  That doesn't make sense at all.  You still have the laws, and nobody is set up to read the dot.  Even if the big stores and warehouses have dot readers, it's the end-user, the consumer that needs to be able to read recycle markers, ingredient lists, and the date the food goes bad.  The dot is useless."

"Unless everyone has a dot reader."

Jerry shook his head.  "Everyone doesn't."

His father waved his hand.  "Hear me out.  Digital watches are so cheap right now that they give them away.  How much more so when the electronics get generations more powerful and smaller.  I could see a day, fifty years from now, a hundred, when stores have a giveaway pile of things smaller than a dime that could read the dots.  Marketing would love to get rid of anything on the package that isn't advertising.  Not too far in the future, everybody will be able to read the dots, with a dirt cheap free reader."

"Maybe in the future, but not now."

His father just stared at the wrapper, frowning.

Jerry asked, "You aren't serious?"

"If there were cheap ways to make room temperature superconductors, just think how nice it would be to use it as a candy wrapper.  Your whole production line could just move the things around on magnetic fields."  He pointed at the rubber and metal conveyer belt that was part of Jerry's gadget.  "Wouldn't it be cheaper to use and maintain than that?"

"Well yes, but the future?  You can't mean time travel."

"Because it's impossible?  Well there is more than one kind of impossible.  What's scientifically impossible changes every day, but what's economically impossible has a little more staying power.  That's based on human nature.  Your idea of an experimental product is possible, but no one could be stupid enough to hide a breakthrough like room temperature superconductors so they could make candy wrappers.

"Son.  I don't think you should go to that whistle stop thing tomorrow."

"Why?"

"Because I can't think of any reason for a time traveler to come visit Hutto unless something bad is going to happen."

###

They argued most of the evening over it.  Jerry was adamant that he had paid his dues and had done the cleanup chore and he deserved to be there to see the President.

It was going to be a once in a lifetime event, and the only argument against it was that maybe time travel was possible, and that maybe there was something bad that would bring visitor to Hutto.

Jerry fought with tenacity.  He could never tell for sure when these arguments were bogus.  His father would argue over anything, and often didn't really believe his own position.  Still when they headed for town in the morning, his father wasn't done.

"Safety should come first.  After all, the whole event will likely be on the television."

"Dad, give it up.  You are repeating yourself.  I am going."

"Disrespectful youngsters.  I promised myself I would avoid this exercise in political self-gratification at all costs.  And now look at what you are doing to me.  I have to stay there all day to watch out for you."

"You could have gotten a good seat if you had helped with the cleanup."

"I'm not that hypocritical.  The farther I can get from the event the better."

Jerry wondered again whom his father voted for.  For as long as he could remember, the polling place was an early morning visit on election day.  But he would never find out which way Dad voted.  He would debate against any politician under the sun, but there was never a kind word for any of them.

"If I am right," Mr. Foley said as they pulled up next to the Co-op's silos where cars were being parked, "it will at least prove one good thing."

"What is that?"

"That in spite of all the ecological brainwashing, there will still be litterbugs in the future."

###

Even though the train wouldn't arrive for another couple of hours, the makeshift parking area was nearly full, and the bleachers were mostly populated.  Jerry brought his binoculars and camera, and had to wait in line as the Sheriff glanced over his items before he would be let in through the barricade.  It would have been annoying if it weren't for the news crews.  Second class citizens, they had to wait by their remote broadcast vans until all the locals were seated.

Jerry went for the top row.  He settled in next to the football coach and the school board president. 

"Good morning, Jerry.  Did I see your father here?"

"Yes, Coach.  He decided to come to keep me out of trouble."

They laughed, and the men went back to their discussion.  Jerry pulled out the binoculars and scanned the area.

It was a long wait.  In spite of the fact that he had heard the band practicing 'Hail to the Chief' all day long at school this week, it was a relief to be able to watch them from his perch.

The long wait also gave him time to worry about his father's time traveler theory.  Suppose someone was here from the future.  Why here?  Why now?

Why would I want to travel back in time?

He would like to watch a lost treasure being buried, so that he could find it in the present day.  He would like to go back and see Jesus do a miracle.  He would like to watch the JFK assassination and see if there was really someone on the grassy knoll.

That last worried him the most.  This President was really hated by the farmers.  Suppose one of them tried to do something about it.

He looked over the area again with his binoculars.

It was amazing how many people in uniform there were.  All of the local police and DPS officers were in attendance, as well as a large number of men in black suits with little earplugs snaking up out of their collars.

He was startled when one of them turned and stared directly at him.  He waved, but there was no response.  How many of these events did a Secret Service agent attend before he grew tired of all the same people?

Besides, Jerry thought, he should be looking for the time traveler.  What would a time traveler look like?

Not somebody he knew.  Probably not any of the police or Secret Service, because they would recognize a stranger in their own ranks.  His best bet would be to find someone ordinary who had something strange about him–because if the time traveler had a perfect disguise, then he would never spot him anyway.

Of course, there were a huge number of ordinary strangers in Hutto today.

He settled down to scan the crowd systematically.  He was bored stiff, and anything was better than watching the grass grow.

###

He knew the train was coming five minutes before he could actually see it.  The black suits started moving at a quicker pace, and the police started using their hand held radios.  He stood up to stretch and ease the soreness on his backside before the main event.  The SS agent watched him again.  Jerry was pleased.  He had never thought of himself as a suspicious character before.  He waved at the man again.

The rest of the crowd started standing as the little silver train approached.  The band struck up its piece as the three-car Amtrak special pulled into town.

From his perch, he watched as a railroad worker, accompanied by a black suit, worked the switch and directed the Presidential special over onto the north siding.  The rumble of the engine almost drowned out the music, but the Hutto Hippo band played gamely on.

There wasn't a long wait.  The door swung open and the President of the United States of America came to Hutto Texas.

Jerry, and everyone else, took a picture.  It was amusing how many flashes went off in broad daylight.

Barely had the speeches started, when he had a worrisome thought.  Why did the time traveler litter yesterday?

Maybe Dad's whole theory was wrong and it was unrelated to today's event?

But that didn't make sense either.

He shifted in his seat, and heard the faint rattle of the wrapper in his pocket.  Why had he brought it along?

He pulled it out, and while the President spoke about his future plans to help the farmers, Jerry stared again at the shiny plastic.

It was frustrating.  The packaging did look futuristic, in many subtle ways.  For example, the seams were really merged, not just hot crimped like normal.  Even the font that advertising text was written in was like nothing he had seen before, yet clean and crisp and very readable.  And that info-dot–how far into the future before everybody easily used things like that?

But if it was from the future, it had to be related in some way to this event.   If the traveler dropped the wrapper yesterday, he had to be scouting out the area before today's festivities.  Why?

He looked over the scene again.  It was a mob, packed with people all around the stands and nearly up to the train.  Even Highway 79 was blocked off.  All traffic, road and railroad, had to stop while the President gave his speech.

Jerry glanced along the rails.

He stood up and grabbed his binoculars.  Far to the west, there was something on the tracks.  The heat shimmer made it hard to see, but it looked like another train was coming.

Vividly, he remembered picking up the Brokies wrapper, wedged against the rails–right next to the switch.  It was almost the last bit of litter he had picked up.

The switch!

From his position on the top row, he could make out the yellow-tipped handle that controlled which position the rail was in.  It was just like they had left it when they directed the special onto the siding. 

But surely the oncoming train would stop.  They had traffic signals and there was a red light on the tower.  He could see it plainly.

He turned his binoculars again on the oncoming train.  It was coming closer.  But something looked wrong.  There was no engine.

A runaway!

His father had told him something like this had happened before.  Eight miles away in Round Rock, several cars had been parked on a siding.  They were all connected to an air-hose that controlled the brakes.  A loss of air stopped the car.  The rules were to bleed the air out of the hose when parking train cars, but someone had taken the short cut and left them pressurized. 

The land between Round Rock and Hutto looked flat, but there was indeed a grade, enough to keep Brushy Creek flowing swiftly, and enough to accelerate the cars to dangerous speeds.

Those are tanker cars.  Chemicals.

For the first time, he felt afraid.

He looked over at the town.  Of course.

The tanker cars would come barreling into town and smash into the Presidential special on the siding.  The tanks would rupture and splash flaming death over the President, the news crews, and all the people of Hutto.

And me too.

There!  The man in the black suit was watching him again.  He waved his arms wide and shouted, "Train!  A train is coming!"  He pointed.

The people from Hutto frowned at him.  Trains coming through town were nothing new. 

But the Secret Service man was talking into his radio, and instantly, there was motion all over the stage.  Men stopped the President in mid-sentence and were hustling him off the stage.  The locals were starting to panic.

Jerry looked around for his father.

Back at the edge of the crowd, almost to Main Street, his father was resting against the two-story brick general store.  Back there, they hadn't noticed anything wrong.

And at the corner of the building, a man was avidly scanning the scene with a camcorder.  There was nothing odd about that, except for the strange color plaid baseball cap he wore.  Maybe there were plaid baseball caps somewhere, but he had never seen one before.

There was shouting below.  The compact wedge of Secret Service men protecting and moving the President shoved their way through the crowd at the base of the stand.  They were making for the parking area, where other agents were trying to get a car free of the jammed space.

They aren't going to make it.

Jerry looked back along the track.  The runaway was much closer.

The yellow end of the switch handle was barely visible.  That was the pivot point.  That was the difference the time traveler had examined yesterday.

The President wouldn't make it to safety in time.  The news crews and all their videotape would be destroyed in the inferno.  Other than a fragment of live broadcast, there would be little to document what happened to cause this great catastrophe.  Future researchers would die to know what exactly transpired.

It was all clear in his head, but there was no way he could reach the switch in time to avert the onrush of history.

Below the stands, in the mob, the shouts were getting more strident.  His SS agent was one of them.  Yelling at hi radio.

Jerry jumped over the edge of the stands, and landed painfully in the mass of Secret Service men.  A pistol was shoved immediately in his face.

Jerry yelled, "Somebody get the switch changed back to the main line!  The runaway is heading for the siding!"

His agent put a hand on the pistol and pushed it down away from his cheek.  With the other hand, he was already on his radio, yelling for the railroad workers.

But the agents didn't stop for him.  They were getting the President to safety no matter what.

Jerry pulled himself up off the ground and started shoving through the mob on his own.  He had to reach his father.

Up ahead, trying to buck the stream of panicked people, there he was, looking for him.

And filming the whole thing, the man in the plaid ball cap was standing in the doorway of the large brick building, maybe the safest spot in the whole town.  A time traveler would know which places came through unscathed, wouldn't he.

Jerry gritted his teeth.  Let us all die, but get your video!  He turned and stalked straight for the time traveler.  The man glanced up from his viewfinder.

Jerry pulled the candy wrapper from his pocket.  He waved it and yelled.  "I know about you!  It's not going to happen!"

The man with the camera looked at him.  Jerry could see his eyes focus on the wrapper, and comprehension come over his face, like the face of horror.

There was a sudden wrench, and Jerry stumbled, and almost fell.

I can't panic now.  This will be the safest place in town, I just know it!

There was the growing rumble of a train coming, and as he rounded the corner of the building, the string of a dozen tanker cars blazed through town on the main line.

They made it!  The surge of relief was cut short by the flash of an explosion as the cars finally jumped the track just past the old baseball field at the far edge of town.

But I'm alive.  I'm alive.

###

"I understand we have a real live hero!"  The President came into the room and the Secret Service men who had been questioning him backed out of his way.

Jerry shook his head, "Hardly a hero, sir."

The President held out his hand and Jerry shook it.

"I am quite sure I owe you my life, and maybe two thousand other people could say the same thing.  I think that qualifies you as a hero.  That's what I've been telling the press, and you know they believe everything I say."

Jerry was uncomfortably aware of the blaze of camera lights that had accompanied the President.  He could only smile timidly.

But the President wasn't done with the moment.  "How did you know that the train switch was in the wrong position?"

Jerry shook his head.  "Just instinct, I guess.  I had been on the cleanup crew yesterday–picking up litter along the tracks–and I had looked at how the switch worked.  From where I was in the stands, I could just tell that it was wrong."

"You have good instincts.  And a good heart working for you town like you did.  You ought to go into politics when you get a little older."

Jerry tried to hide the thought of what his father would say about that.

One of the other men in suits came up. "The boy's father has arrived."

Greg Foley entered, a little shy of the lights.  He ignored the President and came straight to his son.

"Dad, you made it."  They embraced.  Camera lights were concentrated and hot.

"I was in the pickup before the sound of the explosion reached the house.  But they almost didn't let me into town."

The President moved into the lights with them.

"I am sorry about that.  But let me thank you, too for your son's efforts."

"You are the President, aren't you?  What did he do?"

"He tackled a squad of Secret Service agents and made them switch the train tracks back to the main line.  He saved the day.  He saved the town too."

###

It was several hours later before they made their way back to the house.

"You know," said his father, "I almost think I'm a little psychic."

"What do you mean?"

"A moment before the explosion, just a few seconds really, I was hit by the sudden feeling that I really should be in town.  It was so clear.  I was already out the door when the flash happened.  I've never had a feeling like that before in my life."

"I know what you mean.  When I saw the train coming, I just knew where I had to run to try to escape the explosion.  Instinct I guess."

His father nodded, absently, and finished off his canned coke.  He crumpled it like always, and then hesitated for an instant, before tossing it into the aluminum recycle bin.

"Dad?"  Jerry was shocked.

His father grinned.  "Okay!  So maybe I'll stop being a litterbug.  After all, I have a famous son I shouldn't embarrass. Logically, I know I was right.  But..."

"But what?"

He shook his head. "I can't shake this feeling.  Logic isn't everything.  Nobody can predict all the effects of his actions.  I'd hate to litter and have it come back to haunt me."  He shrugged.

Jerry smiled.  "I'm proud of you Dad."

-end-