“Fine,” I say. “My mom’s a bit of a freak. Religious stuff. My dad, he’s in a coma.”
Jimi nods slowly. “You’re like us. Abandoned.”
“No.” I shake my head. “No. My dad was in a car accident. He didn’t—”
“He was a drunk, right?”
I just stutter. “He was drinking, but he didn’t—”
“Your dad chose the bottle over you. Worst kind of abandonment.”
“Wasn’t like that at all, Jimi.”
He ignores me, says, “I’ve been tracking my dad. For years, I’ve been slowly but surely, step by step, tracking him down. He left me, my mom, back when I was just a little kid. Not even two. He just up and vanished. I was able to kind of make a life for myself, able to avoid a lot of the traps other kids like me fall into. And how I did it was by keeping myself focused. Focused on one thing.”
Vaux, whispering, says, “Ask him what the one thing was.”
“What was the one thing, Jimi?”
Jimi takes a drag. More drama. Drags it out. He says, “At the end of most Westerns, the good ones, the spaghetti ones, there’s always this scene where the good guy and the bad guy come face-to-face. Just mano a mano in a dusty street. Vultures overhead. Harmonica on the sound track. Tense. That’s it. Confronting my dad. The big showdown. Ka-boom.”
I nod. Not sure what to say.
Vauxhall, beauty at my ear, breathes, “Just make him think you’re interested.”
Jimi tells me that his childhood was the stuff that people write bestselling memoirs about. He tells me that his mother used to torment him mercilessly and when she died he kind of felt guilty that he was so elated. He says, “It’s the past that makes us who we are, Ade. It’s not destiny, I don’t like to use that word. But your parents lay down tracks for you to follow. Most of us don’t ever get off them. Most of us don’t need to.”
“And the train?” I ask. “Why we almost died?”
“Metaphor. Allegory. Past sneaking up on you. I’m not sure what, but I thought it was a nice touch. Train was like ten feet from you, dude. You weren’t ever really in danger. Just thought you were.”
Vauxhall murmurs, “He planned it out for like a week.”
Jimi stands up, reaches out a hand, and when I take it he pulls me up. Pulls me up fast. Then he hugs me hard. Tight, the way football players do after a game. He says, “Welcome to the club, buddy. What do you want to do next?”
I say, “Sleep.”
Jimi laughs. “You’ll sleep when you’re dead.”
Vauxhall stands up, puts her arm around my shoulder, and says, out loud this time, “It’s a three-day weekend. Nothing but open road out there. We have a car, lots of friends. Why don’t you come along? We won’t bite. Promise.”
Of course I say yes. Mostly I want to be around Vauxhall. But part of me also wants to be around Jimi. I’m not sure why. After tonight, after finding out he’s touching the girl I’ve been writing about for years, I should be head-butting him into unconsciousness. The guy’s an asshole and like a lot of assholes he’s also just crazy enough to be wildly entertaining.
“Okay,” I say.
Vauxhall jumps. Giggles so sweetly I can’t help but break out grinning.
“We’ll leave tomorrow, after school,” Jimi says.
And I think it’s funny that these two actually care about going to school.
“What do you have in mind?” I ask.
Jimi says, “Really, I only have two modes: vengeance and party. And, in a twisted way, I think one just leads to the other. It’s party time.”
CHAPTER FOUR
ONE
Professor Susan Graham
Department of Experimental Physics
University of Colorado, Boulder
Professor Graham,
A family friend of mine, Dr. Reginald Borgo, suggested I get in touch with you about a certain school project I’m working on. I’m a junior at Mantlo in Denver, so it’s nothing major. Not a dissertation or anything! (I’ll admit it’s an attempt to salvage my grade, but it’s a long, ugly story.)
Anyway, this thing I’m doing (a “thought experiment”) is about seeing the future. I realize that’s such an old sci-fi movie deal, and probably a standard for Physics 101, but I’m really trying to add a few new wrinkles to the idea and wonder if you might be able to help me flesh some of them out better.
Dr. Borgo suggested I just lay out the hypothetical, so here’s the gist: I’ve got this “subject” who can see the future, only he/she can only see it when he/she is unconscious. The future the subject sees can be way off in the future or very near—this depends on a kind of focusing, but is not really important. Let’s say that our subject, when he/she looks out into the distant future, sees only good stuff. I mean, he/she sees himself/herself living a very normal, enjoyable life totally devoid of brain damage (from repeated concussions (the whole knocking-out thing) and having succeeded in his/her work despite not being a very good student (getting kicked out of school three times, suspended on a monthly basis, etc). Oh, and the future can’t be changed. What he sees happens. Always. So, that’s the “thought experiment.”
I’ve got three guesses on how the future winds up so cheery:
1. He/she isn’t really seeing the future (though this is frequently contradicted by those times when he/she sees the near future and it comes true, down to the letter).
2. He/she is really seeing the future and everything just worked out right for the subject—e.g., the whole “concussions are really terrible for you over the long run” thing was exaggerated. Also, that school—at least high school—isn’t as necessary as everyone seems to think. College too.
3. He/she is really seeing the future only something big happened to change it. Like divine intervention.
What do you think? Am I missing some variables here?
Sorry for the long letter and thanks again, in advance, for you help.
Sincerely,
Ade Patience
TWO
What I am is dead tired.
Dead. Tired.
The good thing about having a mom who only thinks about the future you, the one she knows will be successful, is that the you right now isn’t nearly as important. The me right now is almost extraneous. According to the future I’ve seen, not getting good grades isn’t such a big thing. Not having perfect attendance is par for the course.
I’m literally lying on a desk when Paige finds me.
Not lying there with my head on the desk. My head cradled in my arms. No, I’m lying on my back, my eyes shut, and I’m pretty sure I’m snoring something gnarly when Paige shakes me awake.
I sit up groggy and first thing I notice is everyone else is gone. Fourth period, speech, and the classroom is now empty. I missed the whole thing. Whatever it was we were discussing.
“Time is it?” I ask, trying to get a crick out of my neck.
Paige just shakes her head at me.
“Seriously, though. Is school over or…?”
“You only missed lunch.”
I swing my feet over the edge of the table, stretch. “What’s funny,” I say, “is that I don’t think I’ve been this delirious after a concussion. This is like, it’s like being the most wasted ever.”
My best friend, head still shaking, she tells me I’m pathetic. She tells me that if I was a true friend I would consider limiting myself to just the concussion. She says, “Real friends, they don’t keep adding on damage. Real friends know where to quit.”
“Did I mention the thing about Vauxhall and … you know?”
“Yes. Several times already. Makes perfect sense.”
“Of course it does.”
“Both of you’re junkies.”
To this I just give her a hug and ask her to help me to the bathroom.
Why I’m so dead tired is because I haven’t slept in days.
That’s actually not quite accurate, I did get about three hours of sleep on Sunday but that was post-concussion, so I’m not actually sure it counts as sleep. It was more like just plain unconsciousness. And a good ten hours or so was spent in a daze. Not sure if a daze counts as sleeping.
My arm over Paige’s shoulder, my feet scuffing, dragging, I tell Paige that she can think of this as an experiment. I tell her that, really, it’s one of those experiments where everyone involved is blinded to what’s actually happening. I say, “And I think I’m close to a breakthrough here.”
“Breakthrough, huh?”
“Yeah. You see it’s like that game Mouse Trap.”
“The one with the little plastic mice?”
“Right. And the whole trick of it is to set up this complicated trap and catch the little plastic mice … no, wait, maybe the trick is to not get caught.…”
“Anyway…”
“Well, whatever it is, this is like it. Except the mice are me and Vauxhall and Jimi and you are somewhere in there too. No, I’m the trap and Vauxhall is that … What the hell am I talking about?”
Pretty much, it’s been the Me, Vauxhall, and Jimi Show. The past three days have seen us doing just about everything together from eating to sleeping and I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was incredible. The parts I can remember, well, they were incredible for sure.
It began last Friday, after school, when Jimi ambushed me in the parking lot. He drove up beside me in his neighbor’s car, the way you see it happening in movies, me walking quickly, the wheels of his tires turning slowly, and he rolled his window down and waved me over. I went. Vauxhall was sitting in the backseat reading a paperback book. Jimi told me to get in. He told me to get in fast and not to think about it. He said, “Thinking about things kills them.”
I got in. He sped up and out of the lot and we were off.
Halfway to Boulder, on 36, I asked him where we were headed. I’m not sure why I waited so long to ask. He smiled and said, “We’ve got many things planned for you, grasshopper.”
We didn’t actually make it to Boulder but stopped in Louisville at a guy named Roger’s house. Really it was his parents’ house and it was massive. One of those McMansions that spring up outside of the city, the kind that look so new and sterile you can’t imagine anyone really living in them. They’re like big, empty waiting rooms. Waiting rooms in fields, in cul-de-sacs, below mountains. At Roger’s there was a party. Enough booze for a cruise ship full of people but less than a hundred of us there. We ate hot links and greasy chips. There was a keg. There was pot. I woke up on the couch in Roger’s basement to find the moon nearly down and stumbled upstairs to find the house empty. Everyone was on the lawn shooting off fireworks and I pulled myself over to a lawn chair, slumped down into it, and watched Vauxhall move, talk, laugh, drink, in the kaleidoscope carnival light. Someone walked over to me and punched me in the shoulder, said, “You dog, you. What’s her name?”
I said, “Vauxhall.”
This random guy, he said, “Yeah, right.”
Whole time Vaux and I didn’t really talk. Just a few words here and there. Really it was just me observing her, the way I had been for the past two years. Only this time up close. This time in person. At the party, she moved through the crowd the way a leaf moves down a stream. Caught up swirling in conversations here and there, spinning for a time, and then washing free and moving on. There were times she’d vanish for an hour or two. Sometimes with Jimi. Sometimes not. When she was gone the party would pretty much stop for me. It’d be like someone turned down the music or turned on the lights. The empty chatter would rush back in. I’d sit on the couch and pout. But then, Vauxhall would return, sweep me up, and introduce me to someone, laughing and nodding and splashing white wine on all the carpets.
Today, with the hallway empty, and me falling asleep between footsteps, Paige sweeps me up and walks me into the bathroom.
She sits me down on a toilet and says, “That’s all I’m helping. This is gross.”
“Do happen to have an energy drink or—”
“No.”
“Coffee?”
“No, Ade.”
“Okay.” And I close the door to the stall but open it up again quickly. “Hey, Paige,” I say. “You should probably not be in the men’s room.”
After Roger’s place, things got weird fast. We didn’t go back to Denver until Sunday night. We were camped out in a field, some random, desolate place that was beautiful the way only empty sky and empty land can come together and be beautiful, and sitting on the hood of Jimi’s car. I was bumming about how Vauxhall and I still hadn’t found the time to talk. Mostly it was Jimi doing the talking and the two of us listening.
And whatever had developed between the two of them, it was obviously deep. Deep enough that often times they’d just give each other sideways glances and then nod knowingly. They had whole conversations, long detailed discussions, with just a few looks. A shake of the head. An eyebrow raised.
I felt like a ghost.
THREE