Authors: Steven Gould
When Mom and I were touring New York, she wouldn't let us go farther into Central Park than the Metropolitan Museum on the park's east side. She'd heard too many stories of muggers and rapes, so we didn't get to see the boathouse. I'd never been there.
I stared at the picture until I could close my eyes and see it.
I jumped and opened my eyes.
I hadn't moved. I was still standing in the library.
Hmph.
I flipped the pages and tried the same thing with other places I hadn't been—Bloomingdale's, the Bronx Zoo, the interior of the base of the Statue of Liberty. None of them worked.
Then I hit a picture of the observation deck of the Empire State Building.
"Look, Mom, that's the Chrysler Building and you can see the World Trade Center and...
"Shhhh, Davy. Modulate your voice, please."
That was Mom's expression, "Modulate your voice." Much kinder than saying "Shut up" or "Pipe down" or my dad's "Shut your hole." We'd gone there the second day of that trip and stayed up there an hour. Before I hit the picture I hadn't realized what an impression it made on me. I thought I only had hazy memories of it at best. But now I could remember it clearly.
I jumped and my ears popped, like they do when you take off and land in an airliner. I was standing there, the cold wind off the East River blowing my hair and ruffling the pages of the guidebook I still held in my hands. It was deserted. I looked down into the book and saw that the hours were listed as 9:30 to midnight.
So, I could jump to places I'd been, which was a relief in a way.
If
Dad could teleport, he wouldn't be able to jump into my hotel room in Brooklyn. He'd never been there.
The view was confusing, all the buildings lit, their actual outlines nebulous and blurring together. I saw a distant green floodlit figure and things fell into place. Liberty Island was south of the Empire State and I looked down Fifth Avenue toward Greenwich Village and downtown. The twin towers of the World Trade Center should have clued me in.
I could remember Mom feeding quarters into the mounted telescope so I could see the Statue of Liberty. We didn't go out to the island because Mom was queasy on boats.
I felt a wave of sorrow. Where had Mom gone?
I jumped, then, back to the library and replaced the guidebook on the shelf.
So, was it just any place I'd been?
My granddad, my mother's father, retired to a small house in Florida. My mom and I visited only once, when I was eleven. We were going to go again the next summer, but Mom left in the spring. I had a vague memory of a brightly painted house with white tile on the roof, and a canal in the back with boats. I tried to picture the living room but all I could picture was Granddad in this indefinite, generic sort of room. I tried to jump anyway, and it didn't work.
Hmph.
Memory was important, apparently. I had to have a clear picture of the place, gained from actually being there.
I thought of another experiment to make.
I jumped.
On Forty-fifth Street there is store after store specializing in electronics. Stereo equipment, video equipment, computers, electronic instruments. Everybody was closed when I appeared at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-fifth, including the vendor of Italian ice that I'd patronized the day before.
I could see into the stores, though, their interiors lit for security or display purposes. There were steel bars lowered over most of the windows, secured with massive padlocks, but you could peer between them.
I stopped before one store with wider bars and better lighting than most. I studied the floor, the walls, the way the shelves were arranged, the merchandise closest to the window.
I had a very real sense of location. I was here on the sidewalk just six feet from the inside of the store. I could picture it clearly in my mind. I looked up the street both ways, closed my eyes, and jumped.
Two things happened. First, I appeared inside the store, inches from hundreds of bright, shiny electronic toys. Second, within an instant of my appearance, a siren, very loud and strident, went off both inside and outside the store, followed by the blinding flash of an electronic strobe which lit the interior like a bolt of lightning.
Jesus!
I flinched. Then, almost without thought, I jumped back to the Stanville Library.
My knees felt weak. I sat, quickly, on the floor and shook for over a minute.
What was the matter with me? It was just an alarm, some sort of motion detector. I didn't have this reaction when the two thugs in Washington Square accosted me.
I calmed down. That hadn't been so unexpected, so abrupt. I took several deep breaths. I could probably have stayed there, transferred several VCRs back to my hotel room, before the police showed up.
What would I do with them? I wouldn't know who to sell them to, not without getting ripped off or busted.
The very thought of dealing with the kind of people who bought stolen goods made my skin crawl. And what about the store owner? Wouldn't he be hurt? Or would insurance cover it? I started feeling guilty just picturing it.
Another thought set my heart to beating harder and faster.
Maybe that flash was for photos? Maybe they have closed-circuit TV cameras set up?
I stood up and started pacing across the library, breathing faster, almost gasping.
"Stop it!" I finally said to myself, my voice loud in the quiet building.
How the hell are they going to catch you, even if they had your fingerprints, which they don't? If they did catch you, what jail would hold you? Hell, no merchandise was stolen, no locks forced, no windows broken. Who's going to believe there was someone in the store, much less press charges?
Suddenly, like a weight descending on my shoulders, I was exhausted, weaving on my feet. My head began to ache again, and I wanted to sleep.
I jumped to the hotel room and kicked off my shoes. The room was chilly, the radiator barely warm. I looked at the thin sheets on the bed.
Inadequate.
I thought about the man in Washington Square Park.
Is he warm enough?
I jumped into the dark interior of my room in my father's house, scooped up the quilt from the bed, and jumped back to the hotel room.
Then I slept.
It was midday when noise from the street, a horn I think, woke me. I pulled the quilt higher and looked at the cheap hotel room.
It was Wednesday, so I thought my dad should be at the office. I stood up, stretched, and jumped to the bathroom in the house. I listened carefully, then peered around the corner. Nobody. I jumped to the kitchen and looked out at the driveway. His car wasn't there. I used the bathroom, then, and had breakfast.
I can't live off my father forever.
The thought made my stomach hurt. What was I going to do about money?
I jumped back to the hotel room and sorted through my clothes for something clean to wear. I was running out of underwear and all of my socks were dirty. I considered going to a store, picking out a selection of clothing, and then jumping without paying the bill. The ultimate shoplifter.
Real class, Davy.
I shook my head violently, gathered up all my dirty clothes, and jumped back to my father's house.
There—more and more, I was thinking of it as
his
house, not ours. I considered that a good step.
Well,
he
had left some of
his
clothes in the washing machine without moving them to the dryer. From the smell of the mildew, they'd been there a couple of days. I piled them on the dryer, then started a load of my clothes.
If it was
his
house, then why was I there?
He owes me at least the odd meal and load of laundry.
I refused to feel guilty for taking anything from him.
Of course, while the washer ran, I paced through the house and felt guilty.
It wasn't the food, or doing laundry. I felt guilty about the twenty-two hundred I took from his wallet. It was stupid. The man made good money but made me wear secondhand clothes. He drove a car that cost over twenty thousand dollars but kept me, so he wouldn't have to pay my mom child support.
And I still felt guilty. Angry, too.
I thought about trashing the place, tearing up all the furniture, and burning his clothes. I considered coming back tonight, opening his Cadillac's gas tank and lighting it off. Maybe the house would catch fire, too.
What am I doing?
Every minute I stood in that house made me feel angrier. And the angrier I got, the more guilty I felt.
This is not worth it.
I jumped to Manhattan and walked through Central Park, until I was calm again.
After forty minutes, I jumped back to Dad's house, took the clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer. Dad's mildewed clothes I put back in the washing machine.
There was something else I needed from the house. I went down the hall to Dad's den—his "office." I wasn't supposed to go in there, but I was a little past caring about his rules and regulations. I started in the three-drawer filing cabinet, then moved to his desk. By the time the clothes were finished drying, I was finished, too, but I hadn't found my birth certificate anywhere.
I slammed the last drawer shut, then gathered my dried clothes up and jumped back to the hotel room.
What am I going to do about money?
I put the clothes on the bed, then jumped to Washington Square, in front of the park bench. There was no sign of the sleeper from the night before. Two old women sat there, deep in conversation. They glanced up at me, but kept on talking; I walked down the sidewalk.
I'd tried to get honest work. They wouldn't take me without a social security number. Most of them also wanted proof of citizenship—either a birth certificate or a voter's registration. I had none of these. I thought about illegal aliens working in the U.S. How did they get around this problem?
They buy fake documents.
Ah. When I'd walked down Broadway in Time's Square, several guys had offered me everything from drugs to women to little boys. I bet they'd also know about fake IDs.
But I have no money.
I felt very third world, caught in a trap between needing money to make money and no superpower's loan in sight. If I didn't pay my hotel bill the next day, I was also back out on the street. I would need some form of debt relief.
The shriek from the Forty-second Street burglar alarm seemed less frightening in broad daylight. I thought about stealing VCRs or TVs and hocking them at pawn shops, then using the money to try and buy fake ID.
The thought of carrying a VCR into a pawnshop frightened me. I didn't care that I was uncatchable. If someone was itchy enough I might take a bullet. Perhaps I was being paranoid. If I stole something worth more? Jewelry? Go to the museum and rip off paintings? The more expensive the item, the more chance I had of not making any money from it, getting ripped off or killed.
Maybe the government would hire me?
I shuddered. I read
Firestarter
by Stephen King. I could imagine being dissected to find out how I did this thing. Or drugged so I wouldn't do it—that's how they controlled the father in that book. Kept him on drugs so he couldn't think straight. I wondered if they already had people who could teleport.
Stay away from the government. Don't let anyone know what I can do!
Well, then—I guessed I'd have to steal money itself.
The Chemical Bank of New York is on Fifth Avenue. I walked in and asked the guard if there was a bathroom in the bank. He shook his head.
"Up the street at the Trump Tower. They have a rest room in the lobby."
I looked distressed. "Look, I really don't mean to be a problem, but my dad's meeting me here in just a few moments, and if I'm not here he'll
kill
me, but I really got to pee. Isn't there an employees' rest room somewhere?"
I didn't think he'd buy it, but the lie, plus any mention of my father, was making my distress real. He looked doubtful and I winced, knowing he was going to send me away.
"Ah, what the hell. See that door there?" He pointed to a door past the long line of teller's windows. "Go through there and straight back. The bathroom is on the right at the end of the hall. If anyone gives you a problem, tell them Kelly sent you."
I let out a lungful of air. "Thanks, Mr. Kelly. You've saved my life."
I went through the door as if I knew what I was doing. My stomach was churning and I felt sure that everyone who passed me could read my intentions and knew I was a criminal.
The vault was two doors before the bathroom. Its huge steel door hung on hinges larger than myself, open, but a smaller door of bars within was shut and a guard sat before it, at a small table. I paused before him, looking past him to the interior of the vault. He looked up at me.
"Can I help you?" His voice was cold and he stared at me like a high school principal looks at a student without a hall pass.
I stammered, "I'm looking for the bathroom."
The guard said, "There are no
public
rest rooms in this bank."
"Mr. Kelly said I could use the employees' rest room. It's kind of an emergency."
He relaxed a little. "End of the hall then. It's certainly not
here."
I bobbed my head. "Right. Thank you." I walked on. I really hadn't gotten a good enough look. I went into the bathroom and washed my hands.
On the way back I stopped and said, "That sure is a huge door. Do you know how much it weighs?" I stepped a bit closer.
The guard looked annoyed. "A lot. If you're quite through using the bathroom, I would appreciate it if you returned to the lobby!"
I pivoted. "Oh, certainly." I stared at the door again from my new angle. I saw carts and a table up against one of vault's interior doors. The carts had canvas bags on them, as well as stacks of bundled money. Another step and I glimpsed gray steel shelves against another wall.
Got it!
The guard started to stand up. I looked away from the door and saw his face color.